Missing Justice (8 page)

“Kincaid, you still there? I got to bounce.”

“Sorry, yeah, I’m here. Tell me where it is, and I’ll meet you there,” I said, fishing a legal pad from my bag. The lead detectives needed to arrive at the crime scene as soon as possible, so it was mutually understood that I’d have to fend for myself. I scribbled down a street address that Johnson told me corresponded to a construction site at the outer edge of the suburb of Glenville.

“I need to take care of a couple things and pick up a county car, but I’ll meet you guys out there as soon as I can. Call me if you need anything.”

I walked out of Coakley’s office, telling his assistant that something had come up and I needed to leave.

“He went down to Judge Easterbrook’s office, if you want to try to catch him,” she offered.

Dennis Coakley was leaving Clarissa Easterbrook’s chambers as I was walking down the hall. He carried a legal-sized manila file folder and a small stack of documents.

“You really crack the whip, don’t you? Here I thought I’d worked pretty fast.”

I tried to muster a smile. “I’m sorry. Something came up at the office and I need to head back. I thought I’d try to catch you on my way out.”

“Good timing, because I think I found what you were looking for. Looks like this is it,” he said, holding up a file labeled Housing Authority of Portland v. Melvin Jackson. “No privileged information there, so I had Clarissa’s assistant make copies if you want to just take them with you.”

He handed me about twenty pages of paper that had been clipped together.

“I’m sorry I can’t do more for you right now, but, like I said, I’ll do the review as fast as I can.”

I let him think I was satisfied leaving it at that. For now.

I started to head directly to the county lot by the Morrison Bridge to pick up a car, then remembered Russell Frist’s admonition not to run the case solo if it turned into a murder.

I stopped in the office, hoping Frist would be in an afternoon court appearance. My plan was to leave him an e-mail so he’d know how hard I tried to follow his advice. Unfortunately, he was at his desk shooting the shit with Jessica Walters. I rapped on the door to interrupt.

“Good to see you, Kincaid. I was beginning to wonder whether this morning’s screening duty was enough to chase you out of here,” he said.

“I’m not so easily chased.”

“There you go. Don’t let this guy push you around.” Jessica was getting up from her chair. “I’m out of here. VQ after work?”

The Veritable Quandary was a veritable institution of downtown drinking and a longtime hangout for the big boys at the DA’s office. Russ told Jessica he’d stop by for a quick beer, then asked me if I wanted to join them.

“I doubt I can make it. Something’s come up and I’m actually on my way out to Glenville.”

“Anything having to do with Glenville is my cue to leave,” Jessica said. “Russ, I’ll catch you later. Sam, if I can’t get you a beer tonight, we’ll do it next time.”

“So,” Russ asked, “what in suburbia could possibly be more important than a Monday-night drink?”

“Ray Johnson just called. I don’t have the details, but someone found a body near a construction site out there. The unofficial ID suggests it’s Easterbrook.”

To my surprise, Russ made the sign of the cross. “Damn it. Just once, I’d like to see a happy ending on one of these cases.”

I was tempted to ask whether he was sure what ending was happier: closure for the living left behind or the hope that remained in a missing person’s absence? I kept the thought to myself.

“I told the MCT guys I’d meet them out there,” I said. “Are you coming with me?”

“You think you’re ready for this, Kincaid?”

“Look, Russ, I appreciate the concern, but if I didn’t think I was ready, I wouldn’t have accepted the rotation. You told me this morning you thought I was in over my head, so I’m asking if you want to go. Make up your mind, because I’m leaving.”

“You’ve been on a call-out before?”

I flashed my best sarcastic smile. “You know I have, Dad.” All new DDAs tag along on a homicide call-out when they first start in the office. If you counted the scene at my house a few weeks ago, I guess I’d been to two.

“Fine, then. I’m switching into good-boss mode. If you don’t think you need me, go on your own. But page me if you need me, promise?”

I gave him my most earnest assurances while he wrote down his pager number.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said.

“I’ll limit myself to two beers at VQ just in case. Call me later, just to let me know what’s up?”

It was fair enough, so I told him I would.

I made a brief computer stop to check out Melvin Jackson and get directions to the address Johnson had given me.

I ran Jackson for both local and out-of-jurisdiction convictions. Nothing but a two-year-old DUI and a pop for cocaine residue a year before that. Maybe the second one sounds major, but a stop with some burnt rock in your crack pipe translates into a violation and a fine in Portland, Oregon. What did I expect to find on his record? Repeated offenses for stalking and kidnapping? Despite common perceptions, a remarkable number of murder defendants have no prior involvement with law enforcement.

Next stop: Mapquest. Glenville’s one of those new suburbs. You know the kind: stores in big boxes, houses with four-car garages on quarter-acre lots, plenty of Olive Gardens for family dining. I’d watched it grow over the past five years, passing it on the freeway each time I drove to the coast. But I’d never be able to find my way around it without a little virtual help.

I clicked on the option for driving directions and then entered the addresses for the courthouse and the construction site. Two seconds later, voila turn-by-turn directions with accompanying map. Whenever I try to figure out how a computer can provide driving directions between any two points in this enormous country of ours, it starts to hurt my head. I choose to chalk it up to magic.

I hoofed it to the county lot, checked out a blue Taurus from the fleet, and did my best to follow the painfully detailed directions.

Around mile four on Highway 26, my cell rang. MCT again. They should have been using my DA pager to reach me. I was careful not to give my cell number out for work.

The call turned out to straddle the line between the personal and professional, a differentiation I’d successfully maintained until a couple of months ago. It was Chuck.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Just past the zoo. I’m on my way to Glenville.”

“Good, I was hoping to catch you in the car. Sorry to bug you on a call-out, but I wanted to make sure you knew that Mike and I are working on this thing too. It didn’t sound like Johnson got a chance to tell you.”

No, he hadn’t. This was great. A relationship with Chuck broke not only my no-cop rule but also the completely independent, profession-neutral rule against dating Chuck. He makes me, in a word, crazy. He is stubborn, headstrong, mule-minded, and every other synonym for a particular characteristic that does not blend well with what I like to call, in contrast, my well-established personality. Dating him would be hard enough; working with him would only make matters worse.

“Russ Frist is running MCU now, and we haven’t talked yet about how to handle this. Hell, Chuck, you and I haven’t even talked about it. Given that we haven’t spoken to each other in two weeks, maybe this is a non issue But right now my mind is on this case, not our relationship. Your working on this investigation is going to force the issue.”

Chuck, of course, had no problem talking about “us” just minutes after learning about a murder. He had been in MCT for nearly two years now, which translates into roughly forty homicide cases. Work in this business long enough, and you see death as a detached professional, the way a plumber must view a burst pipe.

“Whoa, back it up, Kincaid. I haven’t talked to you for two weeks because you said you needed time away with Grace.”

“And I did. All I was saying, Chuck, is that things were all hot and lusty for a while there, and now you haven’t talked to me in two weeks. More importantly, I’m in the middle of my first murder case and just can’t deal with this right now.”

“Hot and lusty, huh?”

Damn him. “Shut up and answer the question.”

“I didn’t hear a question, counselor.”

Crazy. That’s what he makes me. Two minutes on the phone with him, and I already had visions of running my Jetta off the road. I hung up instead.

The phone rang immediately.

“I think we got disconnected,” he said.

“You know these pesky west hills,” I replied.

“Cut you off every time. Look, I’m sorry I pissed you off. All I was trying to say was that you went to Maui because you needed some space. The funny thing about space is that you only get it if the people close to you step back and give it to you.”

“I needed to get away from work and from my house, where really bad things happened, Chuck. I didn’t need distance from you.”

“OK, I understand that. I was there for the aftermath, remember?”

I passed a sign announcing the approaching exit for Glenville and realized I needed to wrap this up. “Look, I’m sorry we didn’t talk earlier,” I said. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.”

“Sure it does. Let’s say it’s my fault.”

That’s my boy. “The point is, we still don’t know if it’s a good idea to work together. I’ll tell Frist to call your lieutenant and take care of it.”

“What, like your father called Griffith? You know what kind of shit I’d take down here for that?”

Yes, that had been a bit embarrassing. Dad’s a retired forest ranger and former Oregon State Police officer. He can be a little protective. After the recent festivities at my house, Martin Kincaid had called the District Attorney to make sure that no further coworkers would be getting shot in my living room or otherwise endangering his little girl.

“All right,” I conceded, “no calls to the lieutenant.”

“It’ll be fine. The LT knows about the situation so he’s got Mike and me doing the grunt work. No confessions, no searches, strictly backup. The priority right now is to hurry up those phone records Johnson’s been waiting on. As other things come up that need to be run down, we’ll take care of it while Johnson and Walker work lead. Glamorous, huh?”

“When you say it that way.”

“Can you live with it, Kincaid, or do I need to turn in my badge and gun? Your choice.”

“You’d do that for me, Chuck Forbes?”

“You bet. But then I wouldn’t have a job. Might hang out at your house all day and night, unshaved and overfed. What do you think?”

“I think you better get off the damn phone and find me some phone records.”

“Ooh, baby, that’s very hot and lusty.”

“No more of that,” I said. “Call me later, OK?”

“Ball’s back in my court?”

“For now,” I said, and hung up.

When I finally got to the point where I was supposed to go . 18 miles and then turn right for .07 miles, I nearly ran into the yellow crime scene tape.

PPB had used the tape to close off the entirety of what the sign declared was a state-of-the-art office park, coming soon. A young officer stood at the foot of a gravel road leading to the construction area. I flashed my District Attorney ID, and he described the several turns I’d need to make around the various office buildings.

The day was beginning to lose its light, and the bureau’s crime scene technicians were erecting floods at the edge of a wooded area that surrounded the new development. I could see Johnson and Walker were already here, talking to some of the techs. I parked behind one of the bureau’s vans and prepared myself for Clarissa Easterbrook’s corpse.

I’d seen four dead bodies in my life. One was my mother’s, two were in my living room last month, and one was on my first and only homicide call-out. On that one, I’d been lucky enough to draw a fresh OD. Depending on how the events leading to her death unfolded, Clarissa Easterbrook could have been dead up to 35 hours.

Johnson met me at the car and we walked toward the woods. I could tell from the surrounding area that the developer had clear-cut the old growth that must have previously covered these hundred acres or so. When we reached the end of the clearing, Johnson turned sideways and stepped carefully through the trees. I followed and, just a few feet later, saw what used to be

Clarissa Easterbrook, still in her pink turtleneck and gray pants. A lot of good that piece of investigative work had done.

In novels, there’s often something beautiful or at least touching about the dead. A victim’s arms extended like the wings of an angel, her face at peace, her hand reaching for justice. This was nothing like that. Clarissa Easterbrook’s body was laid on the dirt, face up. The right side of her head was gone, and I could find nothing poetic about it.

The only worthwhile observations to be made about the corpse were scientific. I initially focused on the disfigurement of her head, but Johnson pointed out the discoloration on what remained of her face. Purple streaks stained the left edge of her face and neck, like bruising against skin that otherwise looked like silly putty. “Looks like someone moved her.”

When blood is no longer pumped by a beating heart, it settles with gravity to the parts of the body closest to the ground. Clarissa Easterbrook was on her back now, but immediately after her death she had almost certainly been lying on her left side.

I watched as crime scene technicians methodically photographed and bagged every item that might potentially become relevant to our investigation. A candy wrapper, several cigarette butts, a rock that looked like it might have blood on it. These items meant nothing now, but any one of them could prove critical down the road. I looked at Clarissa’s body again, surrounded now by all this construction and police work, and swore I’d find whoever did this to her.

I gave Johnson and Walker the file on Melvin Jackson’s case that Dennis Coakley had copied for me at City Hall. I also gave them approval to file the standard search warrant application used after a homicide to search the victim’s house. We agreed, though, that they’d continue to take it easy on Townsend unless the evidence started to point to him.