Rodriquez rested her hands on her hips and looked me in the eye. “That’s a lot of guesswork, counselor.” She paused and then added, “Did you go into his study?”
“Nope,” I lied, hoping I hadn’t left any prints.
Ballard shot me a skeptical look but didn’t pursue it. “Do you know where James Kavanaugh was today?”
I nodded. “He was working out in his vineyard with a half-dozen other workers from eight until five. You can check his ankle bracelet.”
Rodriquez looked at Ballard, then swung her eyes back to mine. Her face had tightened. “You talked to him already?”
“I called him while I was waiting for you. Thought you might ask that question.”
Ballard put a hand on his forehead and ran it back until it found his receding hairline. A two-day growth bristled on cheeks that were on a fast track to jowls. His eyes narrowed down. “Do you know any reason why Amis would call you?”
There it was—a broad question that could force my hand about the blackmail case. I needed to keep this about Jim and Lori. “About the Kavanaugh case?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I don’t know for sure. I think he had some information he wanted to pass on to me. He told me in an earlier conversation he didn’t believe Jim Kavanaugh killed his wife.”
“Why did he wait so long to contact you?”
I shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
At that point Rodriquez looked at her watch and frowned. “I need to go if I’m going to catch Mrs. Amis at the airport.” I guess she drew the short straw on that one.
Ballard took me through another round of questions before releasing me. “I’ll want you tomorrow in McMinnville for a formal statement and follow-up. We’ll let you know the timing.”
I told him I’d be there and left him wearing a troubled look, his shoulders slumped, his hands buried in his pockets. He knew this development could give me a toehold for an alternate theory of the case—that the killer wearing the waffle-soled jogging shoes was still out there while my client was wearing an ankle bracelet.
But I wasn’t kidding myself. I was walking a very thin line here between answering the questions and withholding evidence in a murder case. I could argue that we were only talking about the Kavanaugh murder, that I didn’t feel the blackmail case was germane, and that I was bound by confidentiality, in any case. It was a weak argument but bolstered by the fact that Sean McKnight, who stood six-foot four, could not fit into a size nine or ten jogging shoe. And Maura Conisson, who stood maybe five-five or five-six, would swim in them. And I couldn’t picture either one of them extracting revenge for their ordeal by committing such a violent act. That made no sense at all.
The pictures were gone, the blackmail case closed.
I stopped off at Le Petit Truc on my way back to The Aerie. Archie was grateful for a little freedom and wandered off into the darkness. “Behave yourself, Big Boy,” I told him.
I found Jim and Candice in the wine tasting room with half a bottle of wine between them. “Join us, Candice said, “we’re getting drunk for no reason whatsoever.”
Jim laughed and slid a chair in my direction with his foot. I filled them in on what I’d learned, leaving out the blackmail side of the story and stressing that this might be a path to creating reasonable doubt in some jurors’ minds. Candice poured me a generous portion of wine in a tulip glass. I swirled, sniffed, and took a long pull, probably more than was proper wine drinking etiquette. I let it rest there for a moment on my tongue and couldn’t think of when I’d tasted anything better. “Just what I needed,” I said, breaking into the first genuine smile of the day.
We kicked the Amis situation around for a while before I turned to Jim and changed the subject. “Sylvia apologized profusely for not inviting you to their party.”
Jim smiled. “Hell, they did me a favor. No way I was going to plunge into another goddamn social event with the jewelry I’m wearing around my ankle.”
I said, “You were right. That was some bash. They gave away a boatload of tech gear as part of the celebration, and after serving your pinot and some bubbly, Eddie bought the Sentinel bar for the evening, drinks on the house.”
“The Jackknife?” Candice said, her eyes registering surprise. I nodded. “It must have cost a fortune. That has to be the most expensive bar in Portland.”
I nodded. “I, uh, noticed that Eddie’s quite the ladies’ man.” Jim’s eyes swung to mine. “He was giving a couple of young saleswomen some intense training over in the corner of the bar after his speech. I think Sylvia got upset with him.”
Jim waved off my comment. “He’s a flirt, for Christ’s sake, always has been. So fucking what?”
“Have you heard from them this weekend?”
He caught my drift immediately, and his face went hard like ceramic. “Oh, so now Eddie needs an alibi for today?”
“Damn it, Jim. This isn’t personal. I’m trying to eliminate people here.”
“He and Sylvia flew to Phoenix Saturday morning. Some kind of business foray. They’ll be back Tuesday. Satisfied?”
“Sure. Thanks. Uh, one other thing—what about the relationship between Amis and Eddie? Did you know Amis is an investor at Tilikum?”
Jim tugged on his beard for a moment. “No, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Eddie asked me to introduce him to Amis at one of our tastings. They seemed to hit it off.”
I turned to Candice. “What about Blake Daniels? Do you know where he was today?”
She shook her head. “We had a date for tonight, but he cancelled yesterday. Said something came up. I’m seeing him Wednesday night. I’ll dig into it.” She hesitated a moment, glancing at Jim, then back to me. “Of course, we already know Blake’s hooked on benzos, which could connect him to Amis.” It was something we hadn’t shared with Jim, just to keep the lid on.
Jim’s eyebrows dipped, and the vertical folds of flesh appeared on his forehead, announcing his anger. “So, Daniels is a junkie, too, huh? Maybe that bastard got Lori hooked.” By this time, rising blood had reddened his neck.
I jumped in before Candice could say anything else. “He uses pills when he drinks. We don’t know if that’s significant or not. Keep your cool, Jim.”
I turned to Candice. “Keep an eye out for a pair of jogging shoes, too. Like I said, they have a typical waffle-pattern sole.” I showed her the pictures on my phone, then e-mailed them to her.
We polished off the bottle, opened another, and the conversation slipped away from murder and mayhem. Her thick blond hair down, her face unadorned with makeup, Candice sipped some wine and leaned back. “You know, a lot of people bitch about the rainy season in the Northwest, but I like it.”
Jim raised his glass to her. “Agreed.” And the vineyard likes it, too. The roots are growing like crazy out there right now.”
Candice sighed. “Then in March the vines wake up again, the buds break, and the cycle starts all over.” She placed her hand over Jim’s for a moment and squeezed. “No wonder I love this business so much.”
We talked about wine, the Dundee Hills, and the joys of living in the Northwest until the second bottle was gone. I collected Archie and left Jim and Candice there, basking in that mellow mood. In all honesty, I felt a little envious. Their work was so connected to the land, and the product they produced so tangible.
What was I doing with my life? I mused. What was my product? Application of the law, I supposed, or an outcome favorable to my client in the best of cases. Compared to making wine, sterile, you could say, and, aside from a bit of paper and ink, ephemeral. But my product could have profound and lasting consequences. There was something else, too. I didn’t always like the people who practiced my trade, but I loved the law and believed in the institution.
I looked back at Arch as I pulled out of Le Petit Truc. “I guess it takes all kinds, Big Boy.”
At 9:02 a.m. the next morning, I called Van Scoy Memorial and was told that the service for Irene Halstead was going to be a private affair, by invitation only. “Will there be a viewing?” I asked.
“No. I’m afraid not. Mrs. Halstead’s remains were cremated yesterday at the request of Mr. Abernathy.”
“Wow,” I said after I punched off. “Dead Friday night, cremated Sunday. It doesn’t go any faster than that.” If there was any evidence of foul play in her death, it had gone up in flames.
I tapped in Aaron Abernathy’s number next and he picked up. “What do you want, Claxton?” he greeted me.
“I, uh, just wanted to say that I’m sorry for your loss and apologize for that incident at the hospice. My fault for not checking with you first.”
The line went silent. “So you slap me with a subpoena? What the fuck. I just wanted Irene to die in peace.”
“I completely understand. But if I don’t do my job thoroughly, my ass is on the line, you know what I’m saying? I’m sure you can understand that.” More silence at his end. “I was wondering if there will be a viewing or a service. I’d like to send some flowers.”
“Spare us, please. It’s strictly private. She’s ashes now, and we’re going to scatter them in the Pacific. That’s what she wanted.”
“Oh, the cremation must have been yesterday. Did you attend?”
Another silence. “You got anything else, man?”
Keeping my obsequious tone, I signed off and then called the woman at Van Scoy back and asked if anyone from the family attended the cremation. “Why no,” she told me. “It was done with great dignity by our staff. People tend to shy away from the actual cremation, I’m afraid.”
Well, Abernathy could still have an alibi for yesterday, but at least I knew he wasn’t at Van Scoy Memorial, witnessing his stepmother’s cremation.
I got a call from Detective Ballard asking me to come by his office at eleven that morning. I didn’t know how long that interview would take, and I had some other matters at the courthouse to attend to, so I dropped Archie off at Gertie’s. I didn’t want him hanging around the property alone. I doubted he’d ever trust food from a stranger again, but I sure as hell didn’t want to chance it. “I’ll take him for a walk to the cemetery after I finish your billing,” she told me.
Ballard and Rodriquez hauled me back over everything, dotting a few i’s and crossing a few t’s. Very few. I did get them to admit Lori Kavanaugh’s file hadn’t turned up. I didn’t bother asking about Blake Daniels. Apparently, the upstairs bedrooms had been tossed, and some cash and jewelry were missing, according to Eleanor Amis. A preliminary examination of the footprints photographed at my place compared to those found in Amis’ house revealed similarities but not necessarily a match. This would be something for experts to argue about if and when Jim’s case came to court. “We’re not through with the crime scene yet,” Ballard told me, “but it’s looking more and more like a burglary gone very bad.”
That’s about what I expected from an overworked investigative unit. They already had an arrest in the Kavanaugh murder and clearly didn’t want any complications from this crime. “What about Lori Kavanaugh’s missing file and the computer records?” I asked. “Why would a burglar take those?”
Ballard shrugged. Rodriquez said, “Who knows? Things get lost in the shuffle.”
“Lost in the shuffle, my ass,” I let slip before I had a chance to corral the comment. I left without saying another word, and if it had been colder outside I’m sure steam would have been condensing around my ears. Mission accomplished by the killer, I decided.
I went back to my office and slogged my way through a couple of afternoon meetings and a call to my blood spatter expert witness. He was confident, he told me, that the high resolution photographic evidence submitted by the Sheriff’s Department, as well as the clothing, showed definitively that my client, James Kavanaugh, had no traces of high velocity blood spatter on his person.
That was a morale booster, although I knew that Helen Berkowitz was most assuredly lining up her bevy of experts, who would dispute my guy’s findings, point by point. Dueling experts are a way of life in the modern courtroom. Facts, it turns out, are not always robust, stand-alone entities but slippery little critters that are hard to pin down.
I was just closing the backdoor to my office that afternoon when my cell phone chirped. “Cal, it’s Sean McKnight. I’m at the Sheriffs’ Office in McMinnville. I’ve been hauled in for questioning regarding the Amis murder. I told them you were my attorney, that I wanted to talk to you before the interview. Do you know what’s going on?”
“No, I don’t know a thing. Listen, Sean, just stay quiet until I get there.” As I weaved my way down to the Pacific Highway I had a strong sense of déjà vu—another murder and another Dundee Hills neighbor in potential trouble. At the same time, I felt like a noose was tightening around my own neck.
Now what?
Chapter Forty-four
There wasn’t a fresh molecule of air in the Yamhill County Sheriff’s interview room, and the garish fluorescent lighting lent a kind of inquisition vibe to the space. Sean McKnight was calm and centered, as if there weren’t anything else that could rattle him after what Amis had put him through. I asked for some one-on-one time, but as expected Detective Ballad turned me down. “We’d like to interview him first, and since you’ve opted to join us, follow up with another chat with you.” That made sense, of course. We were both potential suspects in Amis’ murder, and Ballard wasn’t going to provide an opportunity for us to coordinate our stories.
I nodded and looked at McKnight. “I don’t know what this is all about, Sean, but I wouldn’t talk to them without an attorney present. I can help you find one.”
He looked puzzled. “You can’t sit in?”
“I could, but it’s not a good idea. I’m a witness in this thing, I’m afraid.”
McKnight paused, seeming to turn this over in his mind. “Well, I’m sure that’s the prudent thing to do, but, you know, I really have nothing to hide here. Maybe the best thing is to just get it over with.”
I shook my head. “I don’t advise that. You don’t know where this is going yet.”
“I know, Cal, and I respect your opinion, but I’m through holding things in.” He exhaled a breath and turned to Ballard. “Let’s get on with it, Detective.”
I exited the interview room as Detective Rodriquez passed me going in, nodding curtly. I took a seat in the empty, poorly lit hallway, my mind churning over the situation. Had I made the right call in shielding McKnight and Conisson? I went back over my initial exchange with Ballard, when he asked me if I knew any reason why Amis would have called me. Was that question open-ended enough that I was obligated to reveal the blackmail case? No, I decided once again. The question was asked within the narrower context of the Lori Kavanaugh case, and my answer was an honest one.
This provided little solace, however. I was on a legal knife edge, and I knew it.
My thoughts turned to why Ballard was suddenly interested in McKnight. I could only guess at this point, but I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and it wasn’t a good one for either him or me.
Ten minutes into McKnight’s interview, Rodriquez left the room and hurried down the hall toward the back of the building. I had a hunch where she was headed. An hour later, McKnight came out, looking none the worse for wear, and I was invited in to join Ballard.
“Coffee?” he said when I sat down.
“Yes. I thought you’d never ask. Black.”
He left the room and came back with two steaming cups—mine paper and his a chipped mug that had Sarcasm. It’s What I Do inscribed on it. His perpetual three-day growth looked like it could sand iron, and his pinkish pate showed through thinning hair in the overhead lights. He blew on his coffee, took a sip, and pulled a thum
b drive from his shirt pocket and held it up. “We found this digital storage device in a desk drawer in Richard Amis’ study. The killer missed it. It contains a series of photographs and video clips involving Sean McKnight and a woman. Someone in our department recognized McKnight, and now, thanks to him, we know the woman’s name is Maura Conisson, a Portland resident. The material on this drive is sexually explicit.” He laid the drive on the table in front of him and swung his eyes up to mine. “Care to comment, counselor?”
Yep, I said to myself. Should have known Amis would hold back a copy of the pictures. After all, he’d gone to great lengths to make them, and who knows, he might’ve been a voyeur as well. I had no choice but to lay out the blackmail scheme, which I assumed would match what McKnight had told them. Ballard peppered me with questions, and by way of summary I said, “So McKnight came to me and asked for help. He wanted to keep this under the radar for obvious reasons. I was able to locate Conisson and convinced her to cooperate with us in getting the materials back. In exchange, we offered not to press charges against either her or Amis. The terms were accepted, materials were transferred to McKnight, but apparently Amis saw fit to keep a copy. We had no knowledge of that.”
Ballard leaned back and steepled his fingers. “So, as a result of Amis’ actions, McKnight’s wife leaves him and he loses his church. Even a man of God would be pissed at that.”
“You’d think so, but that’s not the case. His anger’s directed at himself and nobody else, believe me. I’ve never seen a man take a hit like that with so much grace and forgiveness. He, uh, practices what he preaches. Literally.”
Blood for Wine Page 22