Missing Justice sk-2

by Alafair Burke

  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