Supreme Justice

by Phillip Margolin

  "Will you need me to testify?" Oswald asked.

  "I'll try to keep you out of this, but give me your number so I can get in touch with you if I conclude that your evidence is important."

  Oswald thanked Dietz. He looked relieved that the incident on the China Sea was now someone else's problem.

  Dietz was not aware that his door had closed behind Oswald. He was too busy fantasizing scenarios in which a fully conscious Monte Pike was dismembered by chain saws and his body parts scattered over the Willamette River from the back of Dietz's boat. The fantasies were cathartic and helped him relax.

  He had no intention whatsoever of following up on Oswald's story. In Brady v. Maryland, the United States Supreme Court had made up a terrible rule that forced district attorneys to turn over to the defense any evidence that might possibly clear a defendant. Dietz hated the case, and he was a master at rationalizing the withholding of evidence that was arguably discoverable under Brady.

  By the time Dietz left for the day, he had arrived at several conclusions. First, he hadn't seen a fingerprint or its supposed match, and no one knew when these alleged prints had been left on the ship or in Woodruff's condo. How did he know the prints even matched? Errors were made in the comparison of fingerprints all the time. Why, close to home there was the Brandon Mayfield case, in which an Oregon attorney had been accused of being part of a terrorist group that had blown up those trains in Madrid because the FBI mistakenly identified a print of a known terrorist as Mayfield's.

  And the hashish--was it really hashish? Oswald hadn't tested it. Who knew what was in the hold of that ship?

  No, Dietz didn't see a Brady issue here, and he certainly wasn't going to go out of his way to help the defense create an absurd alternative theory of the crime involving drug dealers and intelligence agents. Let Garrett do her job. He wasn't paid to do the work of the defense.

  That left Monte Pike. If Dietz called him on the carpet for disobeying orders, he would have to tell him about Oswald's visit. The traitorous little prick might go behind his back and leak the information about the ship to Garrett. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, even if it deprived Dietz of the opportunity to ream out the little punk. The way Pike was acting, Dietz was certain other opportunities would present themselves.

  Chapter Thirty

  Of all the cases Mary Garrett would handle, Sarah Woodruff's had the strangest ending. When she entered the courthouse on the third day of trial, Mary was unsure how the case was going. She wasn't crazy about the jury, and Judge Alan Nesbit was someone she rubbed the wrong way for reasons Mary could never determine.

  The Multnomah County Courthouse was a blunt, functional concrete building that had been completed in 1914 and took up the entire block between Main and Salmon and Fourth and Fifth in downtown Portland. Most of the building's center was hollow, creating four marble corridors. When Mary and Sarah got out of the elevator on the fifth floor, a herd of reporters surged toward them. Mary looked insubstantial but her personality was Shaq-size, and she bulled through the reporters like a middle linebacker, repeating "No comment" until the courtroom door closed behind them.

  Max Dietz was in a hushed conversation with Claire Bonner at the prosecution's counsel table. When they saw Mary and Sarah, they stopped talking. Mary opened the swinging gate in the low fence that separated the spectator section from the bar of the court and stood aside to let Sarah in. She had just arranged her papers and law books on the defense counsel table when the bailiff walked over.

  "The judge wants the parties in chambers right away," the bailiff said.

  "What's up?" Mary asked the DA.

  Dietz shrugged. "You know as much as I do."

  Mary followed Dietz, Bonner, and Woodruff into chambers. The first thing she noticed was the television and DVD player standing next to the judge's desk and the presence of a court reporter. The judge looked upset. As soon as everyone was seated, Nesbit sat up straight.

  "I've just received some disturbing information that will require me to dismiss the government's case."

  "What are you talking about?" Dietz blurted out. "Garrett hasn't given me any--"

  Nesbit held up his hand.

  "Please, Max. This has nothing to do with Ms. Garrett. When I came to work today, I found a DVD on my desk. I have no idea how it got there, but you need to see it."

  Nesbit swiveled his chair and hit PLAY. Sarah's hand flew to her chest and she gasped. John Finley was staring at her, holding a copy of that day's New York Times.

  "My name is John Finley, and I'm sorry for the confusion my disappearance has caused. Sarah, if you're in the room when they play this, I can't tell you how awful I feel about everything that's happened to you. Unfortunately, I could not reveal the fact that I am alive and well until today. I hope this proof that I am alive will end your ordeal."

  The DVD ended. Mary looked at Sarah. All the color had drained from her face. Judge Nesbit addressed the DA.

  "You introduced a photograph of Finley that was seized from Miss Woodruff's condo," the judge said. "The man on the DVD looks exactly like him."

  "This is ridiculous," Dietz said as he envisioned the disappearance of his career and his public humiliation.

  "Please, Max. I know how unsettling this is, but you can see that I have no choice here. The man is alive. He was never murdered."

  Dietz couldn't think of anything to say. Mary had plenty of questions, but she wasn't going to do anything to jeopardize the dismissal of the charges against her client. She turned toward Sarah and saw that anger was replacing shock. She started to say something, but Mary gripped her wrist and shook her head.

  "Shall I prepare a motion to dismiss with prejudice?" Mary asked.

  "No, I'd think that would be the district attorney's job, given the circumstances," the judge said.

  Dietz stood. "I'll have it here before lunch," he said, not even trying to hide his anger.

  Mary couldn't blame Dietz for being upset. Everyone in the room was reeling.

  "I'll dismiss the jury," Judge Nesbit said. "There's no need for you to wait."

  Dietz stormed out with Claire Bonner in tow. Mary went into the courtroom and gathered up her books and papers from counsel table before leading Sarah out of court.

  "That son of a bitch," Woodruff said as soon as they'd fought their way through the reporters and were out of earshot of anyone. "I'm sorry I didn't kill him."

  "Calm down," Mary said. "The important thing is that you're free and you're not facing a death sentence."

  Woodruff stopped dead and glared at her attorney. "No, Mary, the important thing is that I'm broke from financing the defense of a case that should never have been filed, and my career and reputation have been ruined."

  "Under the circumstances, I'll be refunding the greater part of your retainer, and the bureau should lift your suspension immediately."

  "I appreciate your generosity, but any hope I ever had of making detective is gone. The bureau will stick me in a desk job. After all this publicity, I'll be a liability on the street."

  "The furor will die down. People forget."

  "But the bureaucracy doesn't. Take my word for it: My days as a cop are over."

  It took most of the day to organize the files in the Woodruff case because everyone in the office wanted to know what had happened in court and everyone had a theory about John Finley's disappearance. Around four, Mary wandered down to the lunchroom and poured a cup of coffee. Back in her office, she told the receptionist to hold her calls and closed her door.

  It was nice to have peace and quiet. Mary closed her eyes. She felt good about the outcome of the case, even if she had no idea what was really going on. The big thing was that death row was no longer a possibility for Sarah Woodruff. Or so she thought.

  Part IV Deja Vu

  June 2007

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The nature trails of Tryon Creek State Park run through a lush ravine inside the city limits of Portland. Homicide Detective Arnold L
asswell could appreciate the natural beauty of the place even with a team of forensic experts rooting around in the shrubbery and a dead man sprawled facedown on one of the trails.

  "Hey, Arnie," Dick Frazier said when he spotted Lasswell.

  "What have we got?" the detective asked the forensic expert.

  "Male, Caucasian, I'm guessing in his mid- to late thirties. Shot in the head and chest, but killed somewhere else and transported here. We've got almost no blood around or under the vic."

  "How long has he been out here?" the detective asked.

  "I'm guessing a day or so. The ME will be able to give you a more accurate read."

  Frazier pointed at a blood/stained duffel bag that lay a few feet from the corpse. "We haven't opened it yet, but there's one thing I picked up on."

  Frazier led the detective over to the duffel. "See the bloodstains?"

  Lasswell nodded.

  "Notice anything about them?"

  Lasswell studied the stains and was about to shake his head when he brightened.

  "Some look darker than others."

  Frazier clapped the detective on the back with a hand sheathed in latex.

  "Bravo. We'll make a forensic expert out of you yet. There's no chemical test that can determine the relative age of blood, but fresh blood is redder in color than older blood. Then you get brown and finally old dried-up blood that's black. Now this isn't super scientific, but just eyeballing the stains, I'd guess that some of them were put on the duffel bag at different times."

  Frazier signaled to a man with a video camera and the uniformed officer who had been assigned to collect evidence. When they were next to him, the lab tech squatted, unzipped the duffel bag, and pulled out some pants, underwear, socks, and shirts. The uniform put them in a large black plastic garbage bag.

  "This is more interesting," Frazier said as he held up a handgun. He checked it to see if it was loaded before handing it to the uniform. Then he dipped his hand back into the duffel bag.

  "What have we got here?" he asked as he pulled out four passports and laid them on a section of the duffel that was not stained with blood. He picked up the top one and opened it. Lasswell bent down and looked over Frazier's shoulder. The passport was in the name of John Finley. Lasswell stared at the picture and frowned.

  Frazier thumbed through the passport, taking in the stamps from various nations in Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

  "This guy was well traveled," Frazier said as he handed the passport to the uniform, who put it in a plastic bag.

  "Whoa," Frazier said when he opened the next passport. It was identical to the first one except it was in the name of Orrin Hadley. The third and fourth passports were for Dennis Lang and Larry Kester but also had the same photograph.

  "We've either got a spy or a drug dealer, but he's definitely not your average citizen," Frazier said as Lasswell wandered over to the corpse.

  "Is there anything else?" the detective asked as he did a deep knee bend to get a better look at the dead man's face.

  Frazier ran his hand over the interior of the bag and came out with several pieces of ID in different names but with the dead man's picture.

  "Only this," he said, turning to talk to Lasswell, who had pulled out his cell phone. The forensic expert did not catch the name of the person on the other end but he distinctly heard Lasswell say, "You remember that DVD of John Finley from Sarah Woodruff's case? Yeah, it was about six months ago. Woodruff was indicted for murder, but the guy turned out to be alive. That's the one. I want the DVD on my desk ASAP."

  Chapter Thirty-two

  "It's definitely him," Arnie Lasswell told Max Dietz.

  Dietz's eyes moved back and forth between a crime-scene photo of the dead man and a still from the DVD. When he was satisfied that he'd seen enough, his lips curled into a malevolent smile.

  "The bitch killed him," Dietz said. He needed Sarah Woodruff to be guilty almost as much as he needed air. After the Woodruff fiasco, Jack Stamm had humiliated him by taking him out of Homicide and putting him back in the drug unit.

  "Max, please don't jump to conclusions again," Lasswell warned. "I brought this to you because you were lead counsel on the first case. Don't make me sorry."

  "She probably figures that we wouldn't charge her again after what happened in her first case," Dietz said, more to himself than Lasswell, "but she's not going to get away with this."

  "We don't have any evidence pointing to Sarah Woodruff as our killer," Lasswell warned.

  "Of course, we've got to do a thorough investigation," Dietz said to placate the detective, who would have been a pretty poor detective if he didn't see that Dietz's answer was completely lacking in sincerity. Before Lasswell could respond, his cell phone rang.

  "Remember Ann Paulus, the neighbor who called 911 the first time Woodruff was arrested?" Lasswell said when the call ended.

  "Yeah."

  "She wants to talk to me about something she saw at Woodruff's condo about a week ago."

  Ann Paulus, a trim blonde in her midthirties, worked as a nurse at Oregon Health & Science University, the large hospital that sprawled across the southwest hills just above downtown Portland. Paulus met Lasswell and Dietz in the lobby of OHSU's main medical building and led them to a sitting area near the counter where patients checked in.

  "This is very strange, isn't it?" Paulus said.

  "Strange how?" Lasswell asked.

  "Well, it's deja vu, like the first time all over again. There's a fight at Sarah Woodruff's house. I call. The police come. It's like time rewound. The first time Finley wasn't dead, but now he is."

  "I see what you mean. How similar are we talking about?"

  "Very. They were arguing . . ."

  "You saw Mr. Finley and Ms. Woodruff arguing?" the detective asked.

  "No, but I heard the argument."

  "But you saw Finley go into Woodruff's place?"

  "Yes. It was around eleven. I was getting ready to go to bed and I went into my kitchen to get a glass of milk. The curtains were open. He was going inside."

  "And you're certain it was Finley?"

  "It was only a brief glimpse, but I'm pretty certain."

  "OK, so what did you hear?"

  "Yelling and a loud bang, maybe two bangs."

  "Gunshots?"

  "That I can't say. But it was a bang."

  "Could it have been something slamming into a wall or something breaking?" Lasswell asked.

  "It was more like a crack than something slamming into a wall, but I want to be fair. I don't want to guess."

  "Which is good. But I have a question. The first time, when we were mistaken about Mr. Finley being murdered, you called the police right away. This time you waited several days. Why?"

  "To tell you the truth, I felt very guilty after it turned out that Mr. Finley was alive. If I hadn't called, Miss Woodruff wouldn't have been in trouble. It must have been awful for her--the publicity, the trial, everyone thinking she was a murderer when she wasn't. And I felt responsible for all of it. So I decided to keep out of it this time."

  "But you did call."

  She nodded. "When I heard that he'd been murdered, I knew I had to."

  "Mr. Finley's body was found on Wednesday morning," Lasswell said. "When did you hear the argument?"

  "Well, that's the thing. Today is Tuesday, and I didn't call until today because I didn't know that Mr. Finley was dead. I didn't read the paper that had the story. This morning, Joan Pang, another nurse, asked me what I thought about Finley being killed. She was off last week, and I didn't see her yesterday, so we didn't talk. So I didn't know about this until this morning. Then I tried to think back to when I heard the fight, and I think it was last Tuesday, but I'm not one hundred percent sure."

  "But you did see Finley?"

  Paulus nodded.

  "What about Miss Woodruff?" Dietz asked. "Did you see her when Finley went inside?"

  "No."

  "So you can't say Finle
y was in the house with Woodruff?" Lasswell said.

  "No, it could have been someone else in her house. But who would it be?"

  Lasswell and Dietz talked to Paulus for twenty more minutes before thanking her for her help and walking back to their car.

  "What do you think?" Lasswell asked the deputy DA.

  "I think we've got enough for a search warrant, and this time I'm going to get her, Arnie. I can smell it."

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Jack Stamm was a bachelor whose passions were law and distance running. He had thinning wavy brown hair, kind blue eyes, and a ready smile that made voters forget that he was north of forty.

  "Sit down," Stamm said, motioning Monte Pike, Max Dietz, and Arnie Lasswell toward three chairs that had been set up on the other side of his desk.

  "Monte," the DA said, "we've had an interesting development in an old case. Fill him in, Arnie."

  Lasswell turned toward Pike. "A hiker discovered a dead man on a trail in Tryon Creek State Park."

  "I heard about that," Pike said.

  "The man had been shot somewhere else and dumped in the park along with a duffel bag that contained clothing and a handgun. Also in the duffel were four passports and other ID. They were all for the dead man but in different names. One of the names was John Finley."

  "John Finley, like the guy who rose from the grave?" Pike asked.

  "The same," the detective said.

  "Holy shit!" Pike's eyes were bright and a huge grin spread across his face.

  "Yesterday, Ann Paulus, Sarah Woodruff's neighbor, told me that she saw Finley going into Woodruff's condo. She's not a hundred percent certain of the day, but she's pretty sure it was the evening he was killed. She also heard an argument and a loud bang--maybe two--from the apartment.

  "This morning, Dick Frazier called me from the crime lab with some very interesting news. During Finley's autopsy, the medical examiner found two hollow-nose, Smith & Wesson 140-gram bullets. She sent them over to the crime lab. Dick made a digital image of the bullets by putting them on a microscope and rotating it. Then he scanned the images into a computer and ran them through IBIS, the Integrated Ballistics Identification System.