Fugitive: A Novel

by Phillip Margolin

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. I want you to stay with me.”

  All of the confidence Frank had demonstrated in court deserted him.

  “I can’t, Sally.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t want to.”

  “You’re a client. The rules of ethics…”

  “Don’t mean a damn thing if two people care about each other. I’ve seen the way you look at me. You didn’t work as hard as you did to free me just because I paid you.”

  Frank knew there were a million reasons he should stand up and leave, but he didn’t.

  PART III

  State of Oregon v. Charlie Marsh 2009

  CHAPTER 22

  The long table that filled the center of the Jaffe, Katz conference room was covered with banker’s boxes, transcripts, three-ring binders, and case files. Amanda had cleared a space on one end for her sandwich and coffee mug, and she had finished eating well before Frank finished his recap of the Pope case.

  “I forgot that Tony Rose was a key witness against Mrs. Pope,” Amanda said. “Life sure takes interesting turns.”

  “That it does,” Frank said as he considered the way fortune had favored the former country club tennis pro.

  “And I always wondered about what went on in chambers that morning.”

  “I couldn’t tell you or anyone else. Burdett agreed to drop the case if the reason for the dismissal was sealed.”

  “Did Senior go after Mrs. Pope after the trial?”

  Frank nodded. “He’s a vindictive prick. He threatened a civil suit for wrongful death, he threatened to contest Junior’s will, and he threatened to get custody of his grandson. I put a stop to that at a sit-down with him and his attorney. Once his lawyer saw that there was a good chance I could prove he’d hired Rodriguez to take the pictures and bribed Otto Jarvis to perjure himself, he convinced Senior to back off.”

  “What happened to Mrs. Pope?” Amanda asked.

  “The money Junior left her and the proceeds of the insurance policy made her a wealthy woman. As soon as everything was settled, she moved to Europe with her son to protect him from the publicity. She lived in Italy until recently, when she returned to Oregon so Kevin could finish his education in America.”

  “Have you seen her since she came back?”

  “No. She’s a bit of a recluse, and I haven’t had a reason to renew our acquaintance,” Frank said.

  Amanda thought her father sounded a little stiff. She thought she knew why, but decided to ignore his reaction.

  “Are you certain Mrs. Pope had nothing to do with her husband’s death?” she asked instead.

  Frank thought about Amanda’s question. “Judge Hansen told me Karl Burdett argued that Charlie Marsh could have faked a British accent to frame Senior in case anyone figured out that Rodriguez took the pictures. It did seem odd to me that Senior would let someone who’d be so easy to identify negotiate with Rodriguez. But I’m fairly certain that Sally Pope is innocent. I even wondered if the bullet that hit Junior was meant for her. Sally was almost next to him when the shot was fired.”

  Amanda stood up and tossed her trash in the wastebasket. “Will you try to get the waiver for me?”

  “I’ll call Sally today.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Frank’s shoulders sagged as soon as the door closed behind his daughter. He had told Amanda what she needed to know about the Pope case to represent her client, but he hadn’t told her anything about his relationship with Sally Pope. There were some things that a father didn’t discuss with his children, like the torrid affair that had started the evening Frank had won Sally’s case and the way he’d felt when she went to Europe. Frank had been confused, frustrated, and, though he hated to admit it, lovesick. Just thinking about Sally today had resurrected those emotions.

  Before she’d left him, Frank had convinced himself that Sally was drawn to him as much as he was attracted to her. There was the way she looked at him, the way she moved so close whenever the occasion permitted intimacy. There was the timbre of her voice when it was late in the evening and he was driving her back to her house. Later, he rationalized making love to her that first time by telling himself that he’d had too much to drink, but he knew he would never pass a polygraph on that one. Plain and simple, except for Samantha, he had never wanted a woman the way he wanted Sally Pope.

  The affair had lasted several months. If it had been made public, it could have cost Frank his license to practice law but he was willing to risk it. Then all of Sally’s legal affairs were settled. When she told him that she was going away, Frank had felt the bottom drop out of his world. Sally had said all of the right things—she loved him, she would always think of him—but she’d asked him to understand that she had to put Kevin’s happiness before her own.

  Enough time had gone by for his obsession with Sally to have ended. But he did think about her occasionally, and Amanda’s excited revelation about the Marsh case had ripped the scab from a wound he thought had healed. Frank would call Sally Pope as promised, but he was not looking forward to seeing her again.

  CHAPTER 23

  Every morning, Amanda performed a routine of rigorous calisthenics, a remnant of her days as a competitive swimmer. The morning after her father briefed her on the Pope case, she was in the middle of a set of pushups when her phone rang. She powered through three more and grabbed the receiver on the fourth ring.

  “Thanks for waiting until six-thirty to call,” she said as soon as Martha Brice identified herself.

  “I assumed you were an early riser,” Brice answered, oblivious to Amanda’s sarcasm.

  “Mr. Marsh is in town,” Brice continued.

  “Good. I want to meet with him as soon as possible.”

  “The corporate jet will be in Portland tomorrow morning. Jennifer will call your office with the time.”

  “Okay. Please keep him incommunicado until I tell you otherwise. No press conferences, no leaks. I’ll try to talk the district attorney into letting Mr. Marsh surrender at the bail hearing. But I know Karl Burdett pretty well. If he learns Marsh is in New York, he’ll do an end run and have the police arrest him.”

  “Mr. Marsh will be sequestered until you say otherwise.”

  “Great. See you tomorrow.”

  AMANDA SHOWERED, ATE breakfast, and dressed in her most serious business suit before driving to Hillsboro. Karl Burdett’s office was in a modern addition to the courthouse that had been built after the Pope case was tried. Amanda had called ahead and Burdett’s secretary ushered her into his office as soon as she arrived.

  The decorations on the DA’s walls were clichés. There were the obligatory college and law school diplomas, the plaques from the Elks and the county bar, plus photo ops of Burdett with every politician he’d ever met above the rank of state legislator and any celebrity, regardless of rank. Amanda had seen the photographs before, but today her eye was drawn to one that pictured Burdett and Tony Rose in hunting gear, leaning on their rifles on either side of a six-point buck. Normally, she wouldn’t have given a thought to the picture. Tony Rose was a celebrity and a big contributor to Burdett’s party. But Rose was also a key witness against Sally Pope.

  Amanda certainly wasn’t surprised that Burdett was a hunter. The clues were the mounted animal heads that glared down at her from the office walls. The trophies didn’t bother her. Many Oregonians, including her father, were hunters. Frank had taken her with him when she was old enough to shoot a rifle. Amanda had never enjoyed killing deer, and had used the excuse of swim practice to beg off as soon as her distaste for hunting outweighed the joy she received from spending time with her father in Oregon’s spectacular forests.

  Karl Burdett was behind his desk, leaning back casually in his chair. He greeted Amanda and she turned from the wall decorations. At Sally Pope’s trial, the DA had been young, cocky, and recently elected to a post he saw as a launching pad to higher office. Had he
sent Sally Pope to death row, Senior would have used all of his influence to make Burdett’s dreams come true. But Senior had conveniently ignored his own role in the Pope fiasco and blamed Burdett for Sally’s acquittal. Since the trial, Senior had kept Burdett in place so he could torment him, dangling a run for attorney general or Congress just out of reach.

  Burdett had not aged well. The thirty-two-year-old Karl Burdett had been trim and athletic, with a healthy complexion and a full head of sandy blond hair. The forty-four-year-old version was loose and sallow, with a thinning mane flecked with gray. If Senior unfairly blamed Burdett for losing Pope, Burdett saw Frank Jaffe as the root of all the setbacks that had followed his defeat. Frank’s daughter was a reminder of his humiliation, and his welcoming smile was as phony as his hearty greeting.

  “To what do I owe this visit, Amanda? You were very mysterious on the phone.”

  “I have an early Christmas present for you, Karl.”

  “Oh?”

  “Charlie Marsh wants to return to Oregon to face the charges against him.”

  Amanda could see it was taking all of the DA’s self-control to keep from bolting upright. Instead he eased forward.

  “How do you know that?” Burdett asked, unable to keep a slight tremor from his voice.

  “I’m his lawyer.”

  “Where is he?” Burdett demanded.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “He’s a fugitive. You have to tell me where he is.”

  “Actually I don’t if I learned his whereabouts in an attorney-client confidence, but we don’t have to get into a pissing contest. Charlie wants to return to Oregon and you want him back. If you promise to let him surrender at a bail hearing, he’ll be in Oregon in no time flat.”

  Burdett hated letting a Jaffe call the shots but he knew that he could get back in Senior’s good graces and salvage his career if he convicted Charlie Marsh.

  “What do you have to lose?” Amanda pushed. “If I tell Mr. Marsh you’re going to throw him in jail as soon as he sets foot in Oregon he may change his mind about turning himself in. And he’ll be in custody if the judge denies bail.”

  “You’re right. I’ll agree to a voluntary surrender. When are we talking about?”

  “I don’t know yet, but it will be soon. I’ll call you this week to set a date for the hearing.”

  “Good, good,” Burdett said. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

  I bet you will, Amanda thought as she shook hands and headed out the door.

  CHAPTER 24

  Karl Burdett had gotten used to the power and prestige that the office of district attorney bestowed. While he would never admit it, subconsciously he knew that he was not talented enough to succeed in private practice and he dreaded the thought of scrambling to make a living at his age. That was why he needed Senior’s approval and support almost as much as he needed air.

  Minutes after Amanda left his office, Burdett was in his car, headed for the Pope estate to deliver the news of Charlie’s return. He was almost there when Tony Rose sped by in a silver-gray Ferrari F43. Burdett was not surprised that Rose was visiting Senior. The tennis pro had been fired by the Westmont soon after Sally Pope’s trial. Less than a year later, he’d founded Mercury Enterprises, which had started small, manufacturing tennis equipment, and had grown rapidly when American wunderkind Gary Posner won the U.S. Open playing with a Mercury racket. The sports world was shocked when Posner signed an exclusive contract with Mercury instead of Nike or another monster sporting-goods firm. The terms were never made public but the rumors put Posner’s endorsement fee in the neighborhood of Tiger Woods’s. The source of Mercury’s funding was a tightly held secret but speculation ran wild that Arnold Pope Sr. was Rose’s secret backer and the money was Rose’s payoff for perjuring himself at Sally Pope’s trial. If so, the money was well spent, because Mercury’s stock and profits had risen as swiftly as Posner served. The firm now successfully sold hunting, fishing, golf, and basketball equipment and it had a line of clothing and foot gear. The face of Mercury was the handsome Tony Rose, but Burdett was certain that the brains and the money behind the company was Arnold Pope.

  “WHAT’S THIS ABOUT Marsh?” Arnold Pope asked as soon as Burdett walked into his home office.

  “He’s coming back to stand trial. He’ll probably be here within the week.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Senior’s excitement increased as Burdett recounted Amanda Jaffe’s visit.

  “Bring me a copy of the case file,” Senior said as soon as Burdett was through.

  “It’s big. It might…”

  “I know it’s big. Copy it and have it here by tomorrow. And keep me up to date on every single development, no matter how small.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Karl.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In life it is rare to get a second chance. Now you have one.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “No, Karl, you will not simply do your best.” Senior locked eyes with Burdett. “Either you or Marsh will be totally destroyed by the end of this case. You decide who will be buried.”

  Before Burdett was out of the room, Senior had swiveled his chair so he was staring through his window at Mount Hood, but it was not the majestic, snow-covered giant he was seeing. In his imagination, he saw Charlie Marsh sweating out his time on death row as each second brought him closer to a lethal injection. Then he thought about Amanda Jaffe. She was very good. Could she achieve what her father had accomplished? Funny things happened to rock-solid cases when a clever lawyer got in front of a jury. Look at the O. J. Simpson case. An idiot should have been able to convict him but he walked.

  Senior had attempted to have Marsh killed shortly after he was granted asylum in Batanga, but the mercenary he’d hired had backed out of the contract. President Baptiste made a lot of money portraying Batanga as a safe haven for the most wanted. It only took a little research for the would-be assassin to learn the fate of those who attempted to end the lives of the fugitives whose safety the president guaranteed. The killers who were caught in-country met a fate too grisly to describe. A Dutchman who had murdered one of Baptiste’s guests had been pursued relentlessly by agents of the National Education Bureau. When they caught him, he earned a PhD in torture before his body parts were scattered around the tourist attractions of Amsterdam, guaranteeing that Baptiste’s message would be communicated worldwide. Try as he might, Senior could find no one who would risk Baptiste’s wrath. Now it appeared that his quarry was coming to him.

  Senior pushed himself to his feet. At seventy, his joints were stiffening and his back had tightened up. Walking was a chore but he didn’t let anyone see his discomfort, because he never showed weakness. After completing the laborious climb to the second floor, he worked his way slowly and painfully to the room at the far end of the corridor, where Junior had spent his boyhood. Now it was a shrine. The shades were always down in this room and the ceiling fixture was coated with dust. When he flipped the switch, muted light cast a yellowish glow over the pictures on the walls and the trophies, medals, and mementos that filled the shelves. Across the room was a bed whose sheets never needed to be changed.

  Senior sat on the bed and stared at a picture of Junior with the first President Bush. Senior was a good friend of the ex-president, who had spoken on Junior’s behalf at a fund-raiser during his son’s first congressional campaign. Other notable politicians had helped his boy get to Congress. They knew he was the future and they flocked to embrace him. Senior, who almost never cried, felt tears well up as he thought about what might have been had Junior not been cut down in the prime of his life by that…He took deep breaths until he was back in control of his emotions.

  Pope shifted his attention to another photograph, Junior in his dress uniform shortly before his discharge from the Marines. If ever there was a man who looked like he should be president of this great country, it was Arnold Pope Jr.

  Nex
t to the picture of his son in his dress uniform was a picture of Junior holding a child in his hand as he would a football. It had been taken when Arnold Pope III was two weeks old. That bitch had named Junior’s boy Kevin out of spite, but his grandson would always be Arnold III to Senior. Just thinking of his only grandchild made Senior’s fists clench. Junior’s whore had kept Senior away from his grandson with restraining orders and by putting the Atlantic Ocean between them, but he had photographs and videos taken surreptitiously through telescopic lenses. What he did not have was his grandson, the future of the Pope clan and the last of his bloodline.

  Junior was dead. Senior faced that fact every day. His boy had been a candle whose light would have guided America to a radiant new day of decency and honor. Charlie Marsh and the whore had snuffed out that candle and they would pay. Senior knew that he could never get his son back, but he could get revenge.

  CHAPTER 25

  Herb Cross’s wife was a CPA in the Portland branch of a national accounting firm. When she was promoted to a position in the firm’s national headquarters in Atlanta, Herb regretfully resigned. The regret went both ways. After Herb left, Frank used several investigators but none of them had been satisfactory. Then Amanda told Frank about Kate Ross.

  Kate had a degree in computer science from Caltech and had been recruited by the Portland Police Bureau to investigate computer crime. After a few years of pounding a keyboard for a living, Kate had asked for a transfer. While working in Vice and Narcotics, she was involved in a shoot-out at a shopping mall that had left civilians and an informant dead. The Bureau had made Kate the department’s scapegoat and she’d been driven off the force.

  Kate’s computer skills and police background helped her secure a job as an investigator at Oregon’s largest law firm. When Daniel Ames, a first-year associate at the firm, was charged with murder, Kate asked Amanda to represent him. After the two women cleared Daniel’s name, Jaffe, Katz hired Kate as the firm’s investigator and Daniel as an associate, and Kate and Daniel started living together.