react. Maybe he was naive enough back then to believe he'd come clean
and return the money. But, instead, Brigg denied any wrongdoing. He
gave Dad a choice. He could let the matter slide, in which case Brigg
and his cronies would make sure he worked his way straight up the OSP
ladder. Or he could repeat the story, in which case Brigg's
legislative aide was prepared to file a complaint that my father had
groped her.
My father's face tightened at the memory, his palms working the edge of
the kitchen table where we sat. "You should have seen his girlfriend
when she told me later the things she was willing to say if it came
down to it. These were truly ugly people, Sam." Herbert Kerr would
back up Brigg's denial, and my father's career would be ruined.
The arguments he had with my mother were not, as I had inferred, about
his hours or the physical dangers of police work. The truth was that
they didn't see eye to eye about Clifford Brigg and his threats.
To my father, the choice he'd been given was no choice at all. He
wanted to blow the whistle, career be damned. He'd work as a janitor
if he had to.
"And Mom?" I asked.
One look at his face, and it all became clear to me. Mom was a good
woman, about as good as they're made. But she and Dad didn't always
approach the world from the same perspective. She loved my father, but
part of her probably wished he'd earned more money or recognition. She
was ecstatic when I announced my engagement to Roger, while my father
feigned acceptance. And, although she never said as much, she no doubt
wondered how different her life would have been if she could have quit
teaching and pursued her passion for painting.
Dad didn't need to fill in the blanks. My mother must have wanted him
to play the game and accept Brigg s deal.
But instead, my father hung up the state system and found a quiet,
humble job with the federal forest service. He told my mother about
his decision only after he had given notice at OSP. He hoped Brigg and
Kerr were smart enough to see the move as a sign that he planned on
going silently, and he had been right. He never heard another word
about it.
"Not from him, at least," I had said.
He did his best to explain that my mother's concerns were for me. She
didn't believe Dad could run away from the problem. And since he
wouldn't be able to convince anyone that he'd seen something
suspicious, he might as well get what he could out of Brigg and Kerr.
But for my father, the decision wasn't about pragmatism. Brigg was
forcing a choice between the two most important components of his
character dedication to his family, and an unwavering commitment to
good over evil.
My father had found a third way. He should have been proud. He had
avoided accepting the favors of corrupt men like Brigg and Kerr, and he
had refused to let martyrdom destroy his reputation and family. But to
him, his departure from OSP felt cowardly an easy way to tell himself
that he'd rejected a deal with the devil, without actually confronting
Brigg. It was the kind of moral equivocation he despised.
When he saw Susan Kerr on television that Monday morning, the
unfairness of the choice Brigg had given him and the shame of his
response came flooding back. His instinct was to save me. If someone
was going to stumble onto the secrets of someone like Clarissa and her
friends, Dad reasoned, let it be someone other than his daughter. His
family had paid their dues.
I felt a wave of anger. I had suspected all along that someone was
blackmailing Clarissa; if he'd shared his story about Brigg and Kerr
earlier, I might have made the connection to Susan instead of spinning
my wheels all week. Maybe I hadn't been particularly forthcoming with
details of my own about the case, but it would have been easy enough
for him to bring me into the loop.
I understood why he'd been struggling, though. From his perspective,
the pit in his stomach had seemed irrational, a sour remnant of his own
mistakes. Why, after all, should he have assumed that a woman who
married Herbert Kerr years after his own encounter with the man was
herself corrupt? Nevertheless, his instincts were what they were and
he'd been right.
My plan was to call information to find the closest Pasta Company, but
then I had a better idea. I pulled the garbage can from beneath the
kitchen sink. On top of the heap lay a take-out bag with the receipt
still inside. Tuna nicoise salad, just as she'd said.
I used Susan's phone to call a sergeant I knew at central precinct. He
agreed to send a patrol officer to meet me at the restaurant with the
pictures I needed.
Pulling out of the driveway, I waved to Dad in my rearview mirror. He
followed me to the bottom of the west hills, letting loose a final honk
before going his own way.
At the light at Fourteenth and Salmon, I paged the medical examiner,
Dr. Jeffrey Sandier. We'd never worked together before, so I had to
explain who I was and what I was calling about before we got down to
business. But then the business was quick.
"Just how sure are you on the time of death?" I asked.
"Time of death's never as certain as they make it sound on TV shows.
You draw inferences from the forensic evidence, but in the end, it's
exactly that an inference. I often tell people that in my thirty-eight
years of experience I've only seen one case where I could pinpoint the
exact moment of death. And that was because the defendant unplugged a
clock from the wall and used it to bash in the victim's skull."
For a disgusting story, it was actually pretty cute.
"So what about Easterbrook? You calculated time of death based upon
her stomach contents?"
"Exactly. By the time she was found, her body temperature was already
down to the ambient temperature at the crime scene, so her liver
temperature was of no use. Rigor mortis had already come and gone,
which would normally signal at least thirty hours postmortem, usually
more like thirty-six."
"But she was found Monday afternoon, putting her death at Sunday
morning, not Sunday afternoon."
"You're still assuming more precision than exists. I said it would
normally be thirty-six hours or so, but change the facts and it could
be entirely different. Say, for example, there was significant
physical exertion immediately before death. Through the exertion, the
victim's already depleting her body of the chemical that keeps her
muscles relaxed. So the stiffness sets in sooner, quickening the
entire process."
I could see why the DAs all said that Sandier was a pro on the witness
stand. No jargon or scary science stuff.
"Here," he explained, "we got lucky. Once Johnson told me he knew what
time the victim ate lunch, I went by that instead. Death stops
digestion. Based on the state of her stomach contents, she died an
hour or two after she ate."
"What if Johnson was wrong about the time?"
"It's just lik
e any other system of inferences. Garbage in, garbage
out."
"Is it possible she died Saturday night?" I asked.
"Sure. Like I said, this isn't down-to-the-minute stuff, especially
once you're past the first twenty-four hours. To reconcile the
physical state of the corpse with what Johnson told me about the
victim's lunch on Sunday, I had to make certain assumptions, like the
physical exertion before death that I mentioned early. I also assumed
she was kept somewhere warm, which was consistent with what we knew
about the body being moved. With the very same state of deterioration,
sure, the death could have occurred on Saturday, especially if the body
were kept in a relatively cool atmosphere."
I had a feeling I knew exactly where that cool spot was.
When I pulled into the Pasta Company parking lot, a young patrol
officer was already waiting for me. I still had a quick call to make,
though. I dialed into my voice mail box at work and jotted down Russ
Frist's home telephone number.
I got lucky. Unlike most of the lawyers on the office homicide
call-out list, Frist apparently didn't screen his evening calls.
"Russ, it's Samantha Kincaid."
"You better not be calling me to give notice."
"That depends on how you react to what I'm about to tell you." I
spelled everything out for him. "Johnson and Forbes are on their way
to the airport, but I need you to get together with Calabrese and
Walker for a search warrant for Susan's house. Make sure the judge
approves destruction if necessary. I've got a feeling the crime lab
will find blood evidence beneath a wine cellar she's got going over
there."
"And where are you off to?" he asked.
"To get you the rest of the evidence you're going to need for that
warrant."
The dinner rush was over by now, so I was able to walk right up to the
hostess desk. Unfortunately, when I got there, the two girls at the
counter felt free to ignore me while they finished discussing the
pressing issue of the day whether the new waiter had been checking out
Stacy, another hostess who was supposedly a "skank." Given that these
two appeared to have all skank bases covered, that was saying a lot.
I waited patiently until the one with the hoop through her navel made
eye contact with me, but they immediately resumed chatting. I resisted
the temptation to grab the edge of the other girl's purposefully
exposed thong underwear and deliver the mother of all wedgies. Instead,
I got their attention by using my District Attorney badge.
"Hey. Girls. I need the two of you to plug back into the world that
doesn't revolve around you and pay attention. Were either of you
working a week ago Saturday night?"
They rolled their eyes at each other to be cute, but they at least
seemed to be listening. "We both were," said Thong.
"Yeah, Saturday's like totally crazy around here." Belly
Button obviously thought I was like totally clueless for so not knowing
that.
I showed them the DMV photographs of Clarissa and Susan that the
officer from central precinct had run for me. "Do you remember seeing
them in here together?"
The idea of doing something that might get someone else in trouble
seemed to appeal to them and they actually took a close look at the
photographs. Unfortunately, their facial expressions remained
completely vapid. Nope, not the slightest bit of recognition. On the
other hand, these girls probably paid little attention to women outside
of their age range of competition.
I was reaching for the photographs when one of the waiters stopped by
to complain that the hostesses had put too many screaming kids in his
section. When he noticed the badge I was still holding, he leaned in
to take a look at the pictures.
"Cool, man. You got some Matlock action going on here or what?" He
pushed his long highlighted bangs from his forehead to get a closer
peek.
"Are you even old enough to remember that show?" I asked.
"Syndication, senorita."
"And I apparently remind you of Andy Griffith?"
"Sure, if he was a little younger with a knockout fern bod."
I know, I'm a total hypocrite. You take all those characteristics that
infuriate me in a teenage girl and bundle them together in a
nice-looking boy package, and I'm done.
"I was hoping someone here might recognize these women from last
weekend," I said, pointing to the pictures.
"Yeah, I remember those birds. That one was pretty well preserved for
her age, if you know what I mean," he said, gesturing toward
Clarissa.
This one definitely had a thing for mature women. God bless him.
"Do you remember what day that was?"
"Not exactly. But if it was last weekend, it was Saturday. Sundays
for wind surfing. Yeah, that definitely could have been Saturday. I
remember it was the lunch menu, and I don't work days except
Saturday."
"Do you remember what time?"
"Weekend lunch menu's good till four, and I don't come in until two.
You do the math."
"Do you remember what they ordered?"
He laughed and pushed the hair back again. "I don't have nearly that
many brain cells left."
When you looked like this guy, you probably didn't need them. "Is it
possible the well-preserved one had linguine with browned butter?"
"Yeah, might have been something like that. "Cause I remember the
other one saying something bitchy about the pasta. She was one of
those salad-with-the-dressing-on-the-side types. You chicks can be
terrible to each other, you know?"
He had no idea.
It wasn't the perfect ID, but it was enough for probable cause. I
called Russ as soon as I left the restaurant.
Before I even made it to the precinct, I got a call from Chuck. "We
found her on a flight roster for American Airlines, outbound to JFK.
She had a one-way ticket to Portugal."
"Otherwise known as one of the last few lovely retirement areas that
puts up a fuss about extraditions. So you've got her?"
"It took a fight, but we finally convinced the airline to hold the
flight. We're bringing her in now."
"Is she talking?"
"Not yet. Ray's putting her in the car. We figured we'd wait until we
got her in the box downtown."
Once they had her in a holding room, Russ and I watched the questioning
through a one-way mirror. Susan played it cool. According to her, she
"might" have gotten tied up in a scheme Townsend had with Gunderson,
but Chuck and Ray were nuts if they thought she'd do anything to hurt
Clarissa.
Then Walker called my cell with some preliminary feedback from the
search at her house.
"I don't know how you figured it out, Kincaid, but it's just like you
said. We found a copy of the video of Clarissa and Caffrey. It was
right there in the entertainment center with a bunch of yoga tapes. And
the lab guys are saying there's some seepage in the concrete beneath
that wine room. It could definitely be blood, but it's going
to take
awhile to confirm it."
"No sign of those documents I saw piled next to the file cabinet in the
basement?"
"Nothing." Johnson didn't find them in Susan's car either. She must
have dumped them somewhere on her way to the airport.
"Sorry you can't be here for the questioning," I said. "You might've
gotten a second chance at catching the look."
"Yeah, right. That's OK, as long as I get to see a different kind of
look the look on Jackson's face when we release him. I feel like shit
we had the wrong guy; every cop's worst nightmare, right?"
"Should be. But you didn't know, Jack. Susan Kerr sent us off track
from the very beginning."
"Well, you did real good, Kincaid."
"Thanks," I said, flipping my phone shut so I could pass the word on to
the rest of the team.
Russ and I watched Johnson and Chuck break the news to Susan. She'd
already met the nice Ray at her house, so Chuck was playing the bad
cop. If I hadn't been so nervous, it might have been fun to watch his
performance.
The MCT guys were pros. They told her about the videotape first,
reeling her in with questions about the bribery scheme before
confronting her with the murder.
"It's not what you think," she said, changing to a resigned tone. "This
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