Missing Justice (41 page)

Wessler went on maternity leave without giving Gunderson his permit, Susan turned to Clarissa. I always thought it was weird that Clarissa hadn’t told Susan about her relationship with Caffrey. I think she did, and that her best friend turned around and used it to convince her that she owed this to Townsend. Then even that wasn’t enough. She got that videotape and told Clarissa she’d mail it to Caffrey’s wife if Clarissa didn’t deliver Caffrey’s vote.”

Back in the holding room, Susan’s explanations continued to contain just enough truth to confirm at least part of what I suspected. Chuck and Ray had broken the news to her about the blood in the basement.

Her demeanor changed again, and this time she feigned sadness for the loss of her friend. She even managed to shed some tears. “It wasn’t me. It was Townsend. Clarissa called me Saturday, completely hysterical. I guess she told him that morning that she wasn’t going to go along with Gunderson anymore. If they were going to mail the videotape, she was willing to go to the police. She was over here telling me about it when Townsend showed up. They went down to the basement to have a private conversation, and the next thing I knew there was yelling. It sounded like a terrible struggle. I ran downstairs.” Her voice cracked for effect. “Oh, my God, I couldn’t believe it. Townsend told me I had to help him, or he’d tell everyone I’d been in on it. I realized how it would look. My house, my husband’s old business partner I panicked.”

“You didn’t panic.” Chuck spoke quietly, but was convincingly disgusted. “You went shopping, Susan. You went and picked out an outfit to dress your dead friend in, so it would look like she died Sunday. You hired carpenters for a fucking remodel. Don’t lay this all on Townsend.”

I made a mental note to have a handwriting analyst check the charge receipt for Clarissa’s purchases last Saturday at

Nordstrom. My guess is that the signature would be close, but not quite right. I was also pretty sure that, as much as Susan had joked about Clarissa being the reluctant shopper, we’d find out that Susan hadn’t bought anything for herself that day.

“But it was his idea,” Susan was insisting. “He’s the doctor. He’s the one who cooked up this whole thing about using the food in her stomach. You tell me, how could I come up with that myself? I still don’t even understand it.”

Russ poked me in the side with his elbow. “She’s got a point there.”

I nodded. “Sure. Townsend came up with the idea of throwing us off with the takeout container from Sunday, but she’s still the doer. You met Townsend. It had to have been the other way around. Clarissa confronts Susan; Susan kills Clarissa and then tells Townsend he’d better help or she’ll pin it all on him.”

“It would certainly explain why the guy’s been a walking corpse. But what about the poly?”

“He passed it because of the questions.” I told him about the transcript of Townsend’s interview. He was asked if he’d been at the hospital Sunday, if he killed Clarissa, and if he hired, solicited, ordered, or asked anyone to kill her. But they neglected to ask the money question: “Do you know who killed your wife?”

Chuck was asking Susan to walk them through the rest of the plan.

“Townsend called Gunderson to come over for Clarissa’s… to get Clarissa,” said Susan. “He came over and took Clarissa to the Glenville property, then stashed the hammer at Jackson’s.”

“And how would Gunderson know that Jackson had a grudge against Clarissa? Your story’s not adding up.” Chuck did a better bad cop routine than most. His tone struck the perfect balance between anger and dismissiveness.

“She’s cooperating, OK?” Johnson said.

Susan looked at Johnson. She probably recognized the routine, but she played along anyway. “Townsend told him about Jackson.”

“And Jackson just happened to work for Gunderson? Wrong again, Susan.”

“Clarissa got Gunderson to give Jackson a job. I told you she felt sorry for the guy. I think she was probably trying to turn what she’d done into some kind of good deed. Karma and all.”

“God, she’s good,” I said.

“Maybe,” Russ said, “but I still can’t believe she hasn’t law-ye red up.”

I shook my head and smiled. “That’s because you don’t know Susan Kerr. She thinks she’s way too smart for all of this. She’s been manipulating people her whole life, getting away with it every time. And she probably figures, Hey, she’s a woman, she’s in here first; she’ll be the one to get the deal. She’s convinced Gunderson and Townsend will go down, and she’ll waltz out with a few months of local jail.”

“That’s not going to happen, is it.” It wasn’t a question.

“No way,” I said.

“Ready to call Duncan?”

“Let’s do it.”

It took a good forty-five minutes, but we finally laid it all out for the boss.

“And you think we’ve got PC for Townsend and Gunderson?” “I do,” Russ said. “We’ve got a coconspirator implicating Townsend directly in the murder, and at the very least she’s implicating Gunderson in the cover-up. Add the circumstantial evidence of the various connections between everyone, and we’ve got enough for warrants.”

“Start working on search warrants,” Duncan said, “but call their lawyers and give them an hour to turn themselves in.”

“What?” I screeched into the speakerphone. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is a murder case, Duncan.”

“No shit, Samantha. But we’re not dealing with a bunch of gang bangers here. You don’t need a perp walk on this one. They’ll turn themselves in.”

“Right,” I said. “Just like Susan Kerr did. In case you forgot, we pulled her off a plane after she tried to kill me.”

“Don’t be dramatic. She locked you in a room,” Duncan argued.

I looked at Russ and shook my head. “Yeah, Duncan, without any air.”

“Look, Samantha. You’re new to this. We let guys TSI all the time, even in murder cases. Russ, if you’re worried about it, call the airlines and make sure they know not to let these guys fly out. But giving them an hour’s not going to kill anyone.”

If only he’d been right.

When the deadline came, Gunderson was there with Thorpe, but Roger had been stood up. We dispatched cars immediately, but we were too late. Townsend Easterbrook was dead.

Seventeen.

A week later, I attended the funeral with Chuck and my father.

I don’t know why I went or why I made anyone come with me. Maybe because death was still new to me. Or maybe part of me actually felt sorry for him.

Susan Kerr may have tried to put all the blame on Townsend, but in the end he had the last laugh. He had found one decent concluding act to his life. He left a note. He’d probably written it as the final dose of painkillers settled in, but I was confident it was reliable. Unlike most coconspirators, Townsend no longer had a reason to point the finger at others. He just wanted, finally, to tell the truth.

These are my words, not his, but the truth went something like this: Townsend Easterbrook had believed that building the pediatric wing was the most important accomplishment of his life. He knew he’d earned his position more for his administrative skills than his healing ones, and the new wing was his way of securing a legacy at the hospital. Several months earlier,

Susan Kerr had offered to help, and Townsend had happily accepted. The money came rolling in.

But then, on the Friday before Clarissa’s death, he discovered the deal’s strings. Clarissa sat him down and told him that, in exchange for Susan’s generosity, she had rigged a decision in favor of a company in which Susan had an interest. She said she’d done it to help the hospital wing and out of loyalty to Susan, but now things had gone too far. Susan was asking her to do even more, and Clarissa planned to say no. The money would dry up.

Townsend told her to put her foot down. Screw Susan. They’d build the wing without her.

But that’s not what happened. Clarissa left the house to meet Susan on Saturday for lunch. A couple of hours later, Townsend got a call. Something was wrong with Clarissa, Susan said. He needed to come over.

When he got there, Clarissa was dead, lying in a pool of blood in the basement. Susan claimed that Clarissa had tried to destroy some documents and attacked her when Susan put up a fight. According to Susan, it was self-defense.

While Townsend was still reeling, Susan said she’d blame it all on him if he told anyone Clarissa had been with her that day. The documents detailed the connection between Clarissa’s thrown case and the donations to the hospital project. Townsend would lose everything. Then she told him something he’d never even suspected Clarissa had been cheating on him. Guilt over the affair was the reason she’d been willing to fix Gunderson’s case in the first place. Susan even had a videotape to back the story up.

Because Clarissa had died shortly after lunch, all they needed to do was make sure her body wasn’t found for a day or so, and make it look as if she’d eaten her Saturday meal on Sunday. As a doctor, Townsend knew some of the rules about determining time of death “garbage in, garbage out,” as Dr. Sandier had put it.

Townsend ensured that the police found a fresh takeout container in the house by using a short break between surgeries to dash to the nearby Pasta Company. He’d also set up the initial call-out by leaving Clarissa’s loafer to be found in the gutter, and dropping Griffey, on his leash, along Taylor’s Ferry Drive. Susan had taken care of the rest. She’d shown up at the house Saturday night with an empty Nordstrom shopping bag to put in Clarissa’s dressing room. She told Townsend she’d make sure the body wasn’t found until Monday. He realized that the medical examiner would figure out her clothes had been switched, but it didn’t seem to bother investigators. And when the evidence against Melvin Jackson came out, he assumed that Susan must have set up the plan ahead of time. By then, he was too out of his mind on OxyContin to figure a way out.

He’d been considering suicide for days, but Roger’s call on Monday night had sealed the deal. He took the pills, wrote his letter, placed a plastic bag over his head, and let go of the situation. Whether we’d get the note in at trial remained to be seen, but I knew in my heart it held all the answers.

The services were modest, arranged as a courtesy by Dr. and Mrs. Jonathon Fletcher. Townsend’s death had made headlines, as had Susan’s arrest and Jackson’s release, but so far the official explanation for his suicide and its relationship to those other events was under wraps.

Clarissas family chose not to attend. From what Tara had told me, she and her parents were still coming to terms with the idea that Clarissa had been killed by people they’d treated as family. The only eulogists were Townsend’s professional acquaintances. They remembered his commitment to patients and his love for Clarissa, careful to keep their comments general enough that they reflected a relationship that once was.

Roger found me in the lobby of the funeral home. I told Chuck and Dad I’d meet them in a second.

“I’m surprised you came,” he said.

I shrugged.

“I hope you realize that I didn’t know,” he said. “If I had “

“Don’t worry about it. I know. I was fooled too, remember?”

“I should have sensed it, though. I could have talked him into coming forward.”

“Really, Roger, you don’t need to say anything. It’s fine.”

We stood there awkwardly while he searched for something else to say.

“So Jackson’s out, huh?”

“Released last Wednesday,” I said. “Took a couple days, but he couldn’t be happier.” He hadn’t been the only one. Mrs. Jackson was waiting in the lobby with Melvin’s kids. She burst into tears with the first look at her freed son, and before long we all lost it. Walker insisted the sniffle I overheard was from allergies, but I knew better.

“Is the poor guy still getting evicted?”

“Some people are working on it.” Dennis Coakley of all people was intervening with HAP to hammer out an agreement for Melvin and the kids to stay in public housing.

“So how does your case look?” How strange that after our years together, this conversation would be like any typical one between lawyers.

“Not too bad,” I said.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you lay the foundation for Townsend’s letter. I was the last one to talk to him, I guess.”

“All right, thanks.”

“You’ve probably got enough evidence without it. Jim Thorpe’s been keeping me up to date,” he said by way of explanation.

Gunderson had already cut a deal for three years on bribery and abuse of corpse for helping Susan move the body. It was a gift, but, in the end, we were never able to prove he’d been in on the murder. In exchange, he had delivered the goods. Gunderson had come to suspect that Susan wasn’t quite as loyal as his old pal Herbie and recently began taping their conversations. The recordings of Susan telling Gunderson to hire Jackson a week before the murder and to come to her house the night Clarissa died would be gold at trial. Add the documents he had confirming Susan’s investment in Gunderson Development, and we had motive to go with opportunity. As for means, we’d ask the jury to infer from the blood in the house that she had hit Clarissa in the head and then planted the hammer at Jackson’s.

“We’ll see, right?” Roger knew me too well not to sense the impatience in my voice.

“I’m holding you up. Just humor me on one more question: Was it premeditated?”

Gunderson had confirmed that Susan was the one who asked him to hire Jackson, but we knew Clarissa was trying to find a job for Melvin. Susan may very well have made the request on her behalf. And from what our shrinks were telling us about Susan, she was far more likely to kill in a rage triggered by what she saw as Clarissa’s betrayal. The more closely we looked into her background, the more stories we were hearing like the one Grace had told me about Susan burning her husband’s favorite humidor. My best guess was that, in Susan’s screwed-up mind, she’d done Clarissa and Townsend a favor by hooking them up with Gunderson.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” I said, “but my gut tells me it wasn’t.”

“Well, you’ve always had good instincts.” More awkward silence. “So I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Yeah, maybe.”