Missing Justice sk-2

by Alafair Burke

  weekend for some news, wondering if I needed to sit down with my own

  family. But then I woke up Monday to the news she was missing. I

  still can't believe I'll never see her again."

  "I can't believe you didn't come forward." The words must have leaped

  from the most spiteful part of my brain, straight out the mouth, no

  filter. I regretted saying them aloud immediately, but I didn't want

  to feel sorry for this man. Whatever he said, he had betrayed not only

  his wife and children but also Clarissa.

  Instead of throwing me out of his house, Caffrey made me feel even

  worse. "I suppose it's understandable that you judge me. Certainly

  it's nothing I haven't done myself."

  I got into the car trying to find some satisfaction in the facts I'd

  confirmed: Clarissa was on the take, the nonoxynol was Caffrey s, and

  it looked like Clarissa had gotten Melvin the job with Gunderson.

  But then I realized that Caffrey had raised as many questions as he'd

  answered. If the spermicide was from Friday, why was Clarissa's

  sweater off when she was attacked? And if Clarissa was tired of being

  tangled up with Gunderson, what was she planning to do on Saturday to

  sever the ties?

  Clarissa had gotten home from shopping around seven, but we'd been so

  focused on Clarissa's whereabouts on Sunday, we'd never pressed

  Townsend about whether anything had happened Saturday night. And I

  couldn't talk to Townsend without going through Roger.

  But I wasn't totally out of the game yet. Roger may have told me to

  stay away from his client, but there might still be a way to find out

  what he had to say.

  Raymond Johnson picked up on the first ring.

  "Hey, Raymond. Samantha Kincaid."

  "Your ears burning?"

  "No. What's up?"

  "You've been quite the topic of conversation around here today. The

  lieutenant's at City Hall now for the big powwow. I assume you know

  about it."

  Johnson must not have heard I was off the case yet. There was no point

  telling him now, since it would only put him in a difficult situation.

  "I think everything's under control."

  "News to me," he said. "Last I heard, you were floating conspiracy

  theories about Jackson being innocent."

  "No, the defense did that. I helped convince Prescott to hold Jackson

  over for trial. We need to make sure we can counter everything the

  defense is saying, that's all. Duncan will work it out with your

  lieutenant."

  "I hope that's it, Kincaid, because we believe in this case, you

  know."

  "I realize that. We're on the same side here, Johnson. It's just a

  matter of cleaning up some details."

  "Just making sure. Now, you were actually calling me about something,

  weren't you?"

  "Yeah. The defense attorney was making noise this morning about

  Townsend, but while everything's up in the air, his lawyer's not

  letting us talk to him. Do you have a copy of his polygraph

  examination?"

  "Sure. We always get those if they're willing to turn it over. The

  guy he used is top-notch. Retired FBI."

  "I want to see what he asked. See if there's anything there about what

  Clarissa did on Saturday, maybe in the background questions."

  "Not that I remember," he said. "She went to Nordstrom with her

  girlfriend."

  "I know that. I just want to see the questions and answers, OK? I'll

  be there in about fifteen minutes."

  The polygrapher had included eleven items: eight dummies and the three

  money questions. Just as Roger said, the three critical questions put

  Townsend in the clear: Were you at OHSU on Sunday? Did you kill your

  wife, Clarissa Easterbrook? Did you hire, solicit, order, or ask

  anyone to kill your wife, Clarissa Easterbrook? Yes, no, no. Truthful

  on all three.

  For current purposes, I was interested in the dummies, hoping to find

  something about whether Clarissa had left the house Saturday night or

  whether they'd had visitors. Unfortunately, the questions weren't

  helpful: name, birthday, address, the basics. Nothing detailed a

  timeline.

  If Townsend knew what Clarissa was up to with Gunderson, I wasn't

  finding that out with this polygraph. If he weren't represented, I

  could probably shake him up with the little I already knew, but I

  wasn't anywhere close to having the goods it would take to rattle

  Roger. I suppose that's why people hire lawyers.

  I was going to have to live with the fact that I might not be able to

  wrap this one up by myself. There were other people who could handle

  the wrapping just fine. Russ Frist was at least as capable as I was,

  and he'd make sure that my stunts with Szlipkowsky wouldn't ruin the

  Jackson prosecution. I didn't have complete confidence that the bureau

  would make the Gunderson investigation a priority, but Russ knew some

  questions needed to be answered before the Jackson trial. Once those

  answers started rolling in, I had to believe that someone would pay

  attention Jessica Walters, or maybe the Attorney General's Office.

  Maybe Duncan would even let me get involved again.

  But for now, I thought as I pulled out of the Justice Center parking

  lot, I was tired of beating my head against the wall. I had lingering

  issues in my personal life to deal with, too.

  Tension with my father was foreign to me, and I still hadn't figured

  out a way to move past it. But he had extended the olive branch by

  calling me this morning, and I owed it to him to return the gesture.

  I don't know why I did it, but, perhaps for the first time in my life,

  I knocked on the front door of the house I grew up in.

  "Hey, look at you. What a surprise. Come on in. Did you lose your

  key?"

  "I couldn't find ... I just wasn't sure .. . well, you know."

  He gave me a sad smile, and my eyes welled up looking into his. Then

  he got teary-eyed too, and that did it. I burst out crying in front of

  my father for the first time since I had walked in on Roger and then

  driven straight to my parents' house.

  Just as he had then, he sat me on his couch, put his arm around me, and

  rocked me, telling me everything would be OK before I'd even told him

  what was wrong. When I finally quieted down to the point of quiet

  sniffles and deep breaths, he asked me what happened and why I wasn't

  at work.

  "Nothing," I said, wiping my cheeks with my sleeves, "it'll be fine. I

  just want to be here right now if that's OK."

  "It's more than OK. It's a treat. You hungry? I could make

  something."

  I still hadn't eaten lunch, but it wasn't even four o'clock. If I ate

  dinner now, I'd be hungry again before bed, then I'd be up all night.

  "That's all right," I said. "Can you stomach a couple hands of

  cribbage?"

  My mother had been the cribbage player, passing the habit down to me so

  she'd have someone to play with other than my father, who never hid the

  fact that he played only to make her happy.

  After I soundly trounced him, he insisted that I begin to shuffle more

  thoroughly. I was on my sixth water
fall when I finally brought up my

  reason for being out of the office in the middle of the afternoon. I

  didn't bog him down in the legal details, but I gave him the gist: I'd

  persuaded the defense attorney to raise a stink about a bribe the

  victim was taking, and now I'd been tossed off the case.

  To his surprise, though, when he started in on Duncan, I

  actually defended the decision. "I don't know, Dad. It might've been

  for the best. For a first homicide case, it was probably a little too

  much for me to handle on my own."

  "You were doing the right thing, but it happened to lead you to the

  doorstep of some people who don't want a hard-working prosecutor

  looking into their business deals. Who knows? Duncan may have pulled

  you off because he's in the pocket of this guy what did you say his

  name was?"

  "Gunderson, Dad. And Duncan can be political, but he's not on the

  take."

  "You'd be surprised, Samantha. The people who get into a position like

  Duncan's most of them would sell their own mothers to get an advantage.

  This is exactly what I was worried about. You challenged the wrong

  people, and now they won't be happy until your credibility is run into

  the ground."

  Just then, my pager buzzed. I didn't recognize the number, so I

  ignored it.

  "No one's trying to ruin my credibility, Dad," I said, shutting off the

  signal. "I got removed from one case, and it was because I blew it. I

  got so wrapped up in the Gunderson angle that I forgot who the bad guy

  was. I used Jackson's defense attorney to prove my hunch was right,

  but in the process I handed him a defense theory that might get his

  client acquitted."

  Dad nodded to appease me, but I could see that he disagreed.

  "I can tell something's on your mind, Dad. Go ahead and say it."

  He chose his words carefully. "You said you forgot who the bad guy

  was, but I don't see what's good about this Gunderson fellow. Even if

  you're right and he didn't set up Jackson, that doesn't make him a good

  guy."

  Now it was my turn to sigh with exasperation. "All I meant was that he

  wasn't as bad as Jackson." He looked at me skeptically.

  "Oh, come on, Dad. Gunderson slipped a low-level city judge a few

  bucks so he could develop some old building. Jackson killed a woman.

  There's no comparison."

  "But that's how these people get away with things, Sammy. There's

  always someone out there who's scarier, who's more threatening. And

  every time someone whose heart is in the right place someone like you

  finally starts to go after the white-collar types, out comes a bogeyman

  to prey on the public's darkest fears. As long as the world's afraid

  to walk in their neighborhood at night because of Melvin Jackson, guys

  like Gunderson can always say, "Hey, I'm not so bad. The police should

  be going after that guy over there.""

  "But Jackson is worse. If my probing around Gunderson means Jackson

  gets off, it wasn't worth it."

  Dad shook his head.

  "What?"

  "I just don't buy into the assumption that there has to be a trade-off.

  That sounds like something Griffith came up with so he could sweep his

  pal Gunderson out of the mess you were about to create for him."

  "It doesn't have to be a trade-off, Dad. He said he'd make sure the

  bureau looked into it."

  "But who in the bureau's going to do that? I mean, you're always

  talking about how good Chuck is at his job. Will he be the one to work

  on it?"

  "No," I conceded, "because it's not under MCT's jurisdiction."

  "Right," he said. "It'll go to some overburdened detective who's got

  his hands full of burgs and car thefts and whatever other property

  crimes have been thrown at him. You won't stand a chance of making a

  case stick against Gunderson."

  This conversation was echoing some of the broader debates we'd had

  about the allocation of law enforcement resources.

  I knew how frustrated Dad was, for example, that some of the

  highest-profile white-collar perps remained unindicted years after

  their scandals erupted. And I knew he saw a link between corporate

  practices that thwart the American dreams of everyday workers and the

  desperation that causes people to rob, sell drugs, or even kill, like

  Melvin Jackson. To Dad, economic crimes and street crimes were

  inseparable, each feeding the continuation of the other.

  "I don't get it, Dad. You originally begged me to stay away from this

  case because I might wind up stepping on the toes of someone with

  influence. But now it sounds like you want me to go after

  Gunderson."

  "The only reason I was worried was that I knew something like this

  would happen if you started scrutinizing the wrong people. And, sure

  enough "

  "You told me so?" I said, with a small laugh.

  "No," he said, also laughing. "I was worried that if something like

  that were to happen, your office wouldn't back you. That's what I

  meant when I said 'sure enough." So, yeah, someone needs to go after

  Gunderson, but it should be someone who's not going to get hung out to

  dry."

  My pager buzzed again, the same number as before. Someone was being

  terribly pushy, considering I didn't know them well enough to recognize

  their phone number.

  "Duncan said he'll get the bureau to look into it," I said. For an

  attorney who makes her living persuading people I'm right, it was lame.

  Even I didn't sound convinced, and, from Dad's expression, he clearly

  wasn't either. "OK, so maybe it's going to fall through the cracks," I

  conceded. "At this point, I can live with that."

  For only the second time in my life, my father looked disappointed in

  me. The expression had been there for just a moment,

  but it was enough to bring me back to that day in second grade, when

  the principal called him after I teased the poorest girl in school for

  wearing the same jeans three days in a row.

  "What, Dad? What do you expect me to do?"

  "I want you to take care of yourself, Samantha. But, in the process,

  don't tell yourself something you know isn't true."

  "So you want me to be self-interested but mad about it? That's totally

  messed up," I said, laughing.

  He smiled, but his eyes were still serious. "You've always had a way

  of putting things."

  And he had always had a way of forcing me to acknowledge the truth. I

  knew in my heart that Gunderson wouldn't be indicted, and I had tried

  to comfort myself that an ending with Gunderson walking away would

  still be just. It wouldn't.

  I rose from the couch, kissing the top of his head.

  "You're heading out?" he asked, surprised. "I thought you'd stay for

  dinner."

  "Not tonight. But don't worry. I'm good."

  Before I could even take out my cell phone to call the impatient pager,

  the device hummed again, this time to the number we used to dial into

  the office voice mail system, followed by my extension. Apparently

  someone wanted me to check my messages.

  It was Russ Frist. "Don't ignore your pager
again, Kincaid. Next time

  it might be a murder call-out. I know you're officially off the case,

  but I wanted to let you know that Duncan called me. He met with the

  bigwigs all afternoon and laid out where we stand. The agreement is to

  ask the defense to stipulate to a continuance while the Attorney

  General's corporate affairs department investigates Gunderson. I'll

  let you know if I hear anything else."

  He left his home number in case I needed anything. "Oh .. . and I'm

  assuming you're coming back to work tomorrow. I noticed you took the

  pictures from your cork board, but maybe you're out buying new frames

  for them with your time off."

  I would indeed be in tomorrow, but I wasn't going to wait for the AG's

  office to do something. I may have gotten kicked off of the Jackson

  case, but I wasn't going to stand by while Duncan and the bureau found

  a way to ignore whatever Gunderson and Clarissa had been up to. I hit

  the 9 button on my keypad to save Russ's message, just in case I needed

  him later.

  Fifteen.

  If I was going to get any answers, I needed more information so I could

  ask the right questions. I drove straight to City Hall.

  I had just missed closing time, and security wouldn't let me in. But I

  got lucky. Clarence Loutrell actually answered when I called his