by Lis Wiehl
“It’s her stepbrother,” Nic corrected. Thinking of the distance in the girl’s gaze, she added, “And maybe she had her reasons. Maybe she really thought it was true. Maybe she knows her stepbrother is capable of doing bad things.”
She turned on her heel and went back up the stairs, leaving a startled Leif gaping after her. The girl was sitting on the porch now, her head in her hands. As Nic walked past, she squeezed her shoulder.
Later that day, the task force released a statement. “All indications are that Michael Cray received those injuries at a time well before Katie Converse’s disappearance.”
MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE
December 23
The two grand juries met for two days on alternate weeks in a large room located on the third floor of the federal courthouse. This particular group, twenty-three private citizens from all over Oregon who received a whopping forty dollars a day from Uncle Sam, had already worked through eleven of the eighteen months they would ultimately serve together. Over the past year Allison had watched them become friends and comrades, celebrating birthdays, handing around photos of pets and babies, swapping paperbacks. At breaks they gathered in the kitchen to share snacks and make tea and coffee.
As she hurried into the grand jury room, Allison’s nose was assailed with the smell of greasy leftover pizza. Swallowing her queasiness, she put her things on the prosecutor’s table and turned toward the grand jurors’ expectant faces. The group never knew what they might be asked to investigate—domestic terrorism by extreme environmentalists, hate crimes against a local synagogue, men using the Internet to meet teenagers for sex. By now they had heard over a hundred cases.
The grand jury was Allison’s—and any prosecutor’s—investigative arm. Even when they weren’t in session, in their name Allison could issue a search warrant or a subpoena compelling a witness to testify before them.
“Good morning,” Allison said. “Today I’m going to bring you a case about a missing girl. We want to find out if there was foul play. The girl’s name is Katie Converse.”
As she spoke, she held up the poster of Katie and saw several nods of recognition. Grand jurors weren’t banned from watching the media, which meant they often had a passing familiarity with any headline cases she brought them. But now that they knew they would be considering the case, they would have to stay away from any fresh news about it. And no matter how high-profile the case, they were sworn to keep secret what went on inside the grand jury room.
While a grand jury might consider dozens of cases over the course of a year, they never saw a single one through until the end. Instead, they served only to investigate various criminal cases and formally indict any suspects. In some cases, they voted not to indict. Because they weren’t asked to determine guilt or innocence, only decide whether charges should be officially filed, their standards were looser than those of a trial jury. And the grand jury didn’t even need to be unanimous: only eighteen of the twenty-three needed to agree.
“I’d like to call to the stand FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges.”
After being brought in from the anteroom and sworn in by the court reporter, Nicole explained to the grand jurors who Katie was, how the page program worked, and what steps authorities had already taken in their efforts to find the girl.
“We recovered a computer that belonged to Katie,” Nicole said, “and found that Katie had been keeping a blog, which is like an online diary. In the blog, Katie talked about a boy from either the House or Senate page program, but that relationship ended several months before her disappearance. She seemed to be having a tumultuous relationship with someone, but we don’t know who. As time went on, she talked more and more about someone she called Senator X. Senator Fairview was Katie’s sponsor in the page program. We believe that there is a good chance that he is actually Senator X.”
“Do you have any questions for Special Agent Hedges?” Allison asked the jurors. She liked to hear what regular people wanted to ask. If there had been foul play—and she prayed that there hadn’t—then the grand jurors’ questions could help shape Allison’s approach to any future trial. And sometimes the jurors even thought of angles she had missed.
The foreman, a retired hardware store owner, was the first to speak. Allison knew she could always count on Gus Leonard to ask questions. Lots and lots of questions.
“What’s this girl’s family like?” He tilted his head to the side, looking like a curious old bird regarding a hole that might or might not contain a worm. “Any chance one of them could be involved in this?”
“The dad is a well-known contractor,” Nicole told him. “The mom does volunteer work. There’s also a younger sister. They are beside them-selves with grief.”
Gus and a few of the other jurors asked a half dozen more questions. Once they had satisfied their curiosity, Allison excused Nicole and stood to address them again. “There is a chance that Katie may still be alive, but we have so few clues to go on. Given Katie’s blogs, I’m asking you to issue a trap and trace on Senator Fairview’s phones to see if there is any evidence of a relationship between them.”
Unlike a wiretap, which recorded the contents of a conversation, a trap and trace was merely a record of calls made and received. The trap and trace on Katie’s phone had turned up little that was suspicious. In fact, it had hardly turned up anything at all. And that in itself had raised Allison’s suspicions. A girl that age would be on the phone all the time. Maybe Fairview had called her in her dorm room.
“Are you saying Senator Fairview is a suspect?” a grand juror named Helen asked.
“No. He’s a person of interest.”
Ever since the Atlanta Olympics bombing debacle, when Richard Jewell had been declared a suspect and turned out to be a hero, law enforcement had shied away from calling anyone a suspect until they were certain.
Allison let her gaze sweep the room, taking a few seconds to look each juror in the eye. “But if the trap and trace comes back with a lot of activity that seems out of line when you consider that he’s a senator and Katie’s just a kid in high school, then yes. At that point, I will consider Senator Fairview a suspect.”
LAW OFFICES OF STONE, HUTCHENS, AND LANGFORD
December 23
Michael Stone always made it a practice to meet potential clients in his own office, where he was clearly the top dog. No matter who the clients were, no matter how rich or how powerful, he always made them wait at least twenty minutes in the reception area.
He made no exception for Senator Fairview. When his secretary ushered Fairview in, Stone apologized effusively for making him wait.
“I was on a conference call with a client. I can’t mention the name, but you might have seen him on the front page of the New York Times last week.”
In reality, Stone had spent the twenty minutes instant messaging his kids to remind them to do their homework, as well as making arrangements for a fourth for golf on Saturday morning.
“Let me just say, Senator, that I feel honored to be chosen as the attorney for someone I have always admired.”
As he spoke, he could see the tension ease from Fairview’s shoulders. Stone took a seat behind his desk while his client settled into one of the guest chairs. Stone’s chair was six inches higher than anyone else’s—a little ploy he had learned from Johnny Cochran.
He sat back in his chair, smiling congenially. “So, Senator, were you making it with this girl or what?”
“What?” Fairview looked too shocked to be angry.
Good. Stone wanted to keep him off-balance. His clients had to know who was boss—and it wasn’t the person who was paying the bills.
“I’ve seen her pictures. She’s a cutie. And you’re a big shot senator. I’ll bet you were like a rock star to her. So were you getting it on with her?”
“No!” Fairview was now light-years away from being relaxed. “I was mentoring her,” he said, sounding like he was reading from a tele-prompter. “I often take a spe
cial interest in one or two of the pages every year, because that’s an integral part of the internship program and—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, here’s the deal. It’s very simple. They’ve set up a grand jury to investigate her disappearance. Now they’re going after your phone records. If you had sex with her or killed her or even sent her that last crappy Paris Hilton YouTube clip, there is no way you should be talking to the feds or any other law enforcement people. Don’t worry, I’m not here to judge you. I am here to try and point out the Indians behind the trees. I just want to make sure you even see the trees!”
“But they’re dragging my name through the mud. My staff and I agree that this has got to stop. Every time I turn around, someone is asking me about this girl. Not only are they asking me, they’re asking my wife.” Fairview’s eyes teared up. “My kids.”
“You’re a smart guy,” Stone said soothingly. “Hell, you’re a senator. Who was that politico who said that the Senate is the most exclusive men’s club in the world? Whatever—I understand why you and your ‘people’ think it is important for you to get out there and say, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Just stay away from ‘I am not a crook,’” he added dryly. “It’s been done. But if you talk to the feds, you either tell the truth or you don’t talk at all.”
“I understand. What else should I know?”
Finally, Fairview was asking an intelligent question.
“Simple. Keep it short and sweet. No speeches, no big explanations. When they ask you a question, answer it in as few words as possible. If they say nothing after that—do not start adding to your answer. That’s the way you get hung out to dry.”
“Okay, okay.” Fairview nodded like a bobblehead.
“If you want to sit down with the feds, I will be there. Just don’t try to pull the wool over their eyes. My point can be made in two words: Martha Stewart. She went to the can after being convicted of lying about a crime she was never charged with in the first place.”
“Well, I haven’t been charged with any crime either.” Fairview seemed ready to get back on his high horse.
“You really think so?” Sarcasm colored Stone’s words. “How long has your cable been out? You might want to call them and get it back on. Because every night I listen to two blonde ex-prosecutors and my fellow defense lawyers debate your innocence. And let me tell you—it’s not looking too good for you. The feds may not have charged you, but in the court of public opinion you are already being found guilty.”
“Is there anything else?” Fairview sounded irritated.
Stone guessed he was used to being surrounded by yes-men, not someone who gave it to him straight.
“Yeah,” Stone said. “Got a check for me?”
SAN FELIPE TAQUERIA
December 23
When will you tell work?” Cassidy asked, biting into a chip loaded with salsa.
A drop splashed into the deep V of her turquoise blouse that exactly matched her eyes. Allison watched as she nonchalantly scooped it up with her index finger and licked it off.
Allison, Cassidy, and Nicole were grabbing a quick meal at San Felipe Taqueria, a little hole-in-the-wall in Southeast Portland that served the best fish tacos in the city. Cassidy had ordered a margarita, Nicole had gotten a beer, and Allison, despite the counterwoman’s puzzled look, had ordered a large milk. It arrived in a glass with a beer logo on the side.
Allison said, “I’m not going to tell anyone else until I’m sure everything’s going to be okay. When I was working at McGarrity and White, there was an associate who told everyone she was pregnant when she was only a few weeks along. Then she found out the baby had Down syndrome. She took a week off, and when she came back she wasn’t pregnant anymore. But everybody knew what had happened.” She sighed. “I keep wondering if everything is going okay. This must be how people feel when they find out they have cancer. Like something secret is happening deep inside them, dividing and growing, something you can’t see.”
“But this is a baby.” Cassidy looked startled. “Not a cancer.”
Nicole’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Sometimes it feels like that, though. The baby takes priority, and if there aren’t enough nutrients to go around, the mother gets shorted. That’s why women used to lose their teeth a hundred years ago.”
“Speaking of mothers, what do you think of Katie’s?” Cassidy raised her eyebrows.
“Heck, if I were that girl, I might run away just to get away from her.” Nicole shook her head. “She’s just a tad rigid. And according to her, Katie walked on water. Nobody is that perfect.”
“Not even Makayla?” Allison teased. Hidden by the table, she put her hand on her stomach. If this baby was a girl, could she do a better job with it than her own mother had done with her?
“That child can be willful. But she knows I won’t stand for any back-talk. She doesn’t like the hours I’m working now because of the task force, but I just tell her, ‘Honey, how do you expect me to pay for that private school and those ballet lessons?’”
“So how are things going with the Katie Converse case?” Cassidy looked at Nicole and Allison expectantly.
“We’re getting lots of tips—but 90 percent of them are from crazy people. The big cases bring out the big nuts. I think half the people in the county have had some kind of prophetic dream about her.” Nicole popped another chip into her mouth. “We’re under orders to treat everything seriously. So we’re going on a lot of wild-goose chases, but we haven’t found anything. It’s like Katie walked that dog out her front door and vanished.”
Allison sighed. “The results from the trap and trace on her phone show nothing unusual. Almost all of it is calls back and forth to her parents. A few calls to the senator when the program started, then nothing.” For now, she kept to herself the subpoena for Senator Fairview’s records.
Cassidy looked disappointed. “What about her blog?”
Behind her, a Mexican soap opera played silently on TV. Allison watched a young woman with flashing dark eyes slap a handsome man in the face. A second later, they were in each other’s arms.
“Clearly Katie was having some kind of stormy relationship with somebody,” Nicole said. “But whether it was the senator or a boy—or both, or someone else entirely—we don’t know. And we checked her e-mail, but there’s nothing to go on there.”
Cassidy said, “But look at Fairview. He knows the whispers are start-ing. He’s showing up with his wife in tow at any kind of event where there will be cameras. He’s always got his arm around her. I think he’s acting guilty. And so does Rick.” She sighed. “Rick. That man is amazing! I haven’t felt this hot for a guy since my first boyfriend!”
“If you say so,” Allison said.
Cassidy said defensively, “Well, what was your first time like?”
“The usual.” Allison looked away. She picked up a chip. “More his idea than mine.”
Nicole raised her head, as if scenting something interesting. “How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” Younger even than Katie, she realized. But she hadn’t felt young. Her father had just died, and she had felt as old as the world.
“So he went to school with us?” Cassidy asked, licking the salt off the rim of her margarita.
“Kind of.” Allison could barely hear her own words.
“What—did he drop out?” Cassidy arched an eyebrow. “You had your-self some kind of rebel boyfriend?” She and Nicole exchanged a grin.
They might not have run in the same circles, but they both knew Allison had been just as buttoned-down in high school as she was now. Part of her just wanted to see the surprise in their eyes.
“No. It was Mr. Engels.”
Cassidy set down her glass. “Wait—the AP English teacher? Wasn’t he like, fifty or something? And married?”
“He told me we were in love.”
“Love? Hello?” Nicole said flatly. “You were just a kid. That’s not love. That’s some adult
manipulating you by using the magic word.” She sat back and crossed her arms. “I see that kind of crap every day.”
It hadn’t seemed like that at the time, Allison thought. It hadn’t seemed like that at all.
Allison already felt like an adult when she met Mr. Engels. Not only had her father died, but Lindsay was cutting classes and smoking, her downhill slide already well under way. Most mornings when Allison got up, her mom was sprawled on the couch, asleep under the quilt Allison had spread over her the night before, a bottle of brandy on the coffee table.
Mr. Engels had talked to Allison about world and national events. He wanted to know her opinions. He listened respectfully. She began staying after school and helping in his classroom rather than go home and face her mother’s retreat, her sister’s absence. At least Mr. Engels noticed things about her. Little things, like if she bought new earrings or wore her hair up. He was old, forty-six, but after a while Allison was barely aware of that. He was just her friend. He told her about his wife, about how she was so busy with the bakery she was opening that she really didn’t have time to talk anymore. That’s what he liked about Allison. That he could talk to her, and she really listened.
And that was the exact same thing she liked about him. They were “kindred spirits,” that was how he had put it.
“I thought we were kindred souls,” she said. Said out loud, the words were ridiculous. And yet at the time they hadn’t been.
“The first time was in his office. I stayed after to help him. And I was in the storage room, and he came in and I had to squeeze by.” She shivered, remembering what it had been like. “And one thing led to another. For a long time I thought it wasn’t really his fault.”