"But the fact that she's a city employee makes Clarissa my client. I
just need enough time to make sure there's no privileged information in
her office. If there is, I'll let you know I've withheld something,
and we can go over to the courthouse and figure it out from there."
"Look, this isn't tobacco litigation. What kind of privileged
information are you worried about? We're just trying to find out where
she is."
"I know, and that's why I'm probably going to stay here all night doing
document review in her office, so you can get in as soon as possible.
But our hearings officers call for legal advice and might keep memos of
those conversations. If something like that exists, and I turn it over
to you, it waives privilege. I can't do that."
"I'm sorry, Dennis, but that makes absolutely no sense. How can the
judges call you for advice when the city's a party to the disputes
they're handling?"
"Well, obviously we don't give advice on how to resolve individual
cases as hearings officers, but we are their attorneys in their status
as city employees. It's a complicated relationship. All the more
reason for me to make sure we dot our is and cross our t's, which I
assure you I will do by tomorrow."
"I'll do the search myself, if that helps. I'm an attorney too, and I
won't disclose anything that shouldn't be disclosed."
Unfortunately, Coakley knew that's not how attorney-client privilege
works. "But you don't represent the city, so I can't let you fish
around in the files without reviewing them first. If you knew
specifically what you wanted, I could look for it right now and give it
to you, assuming nothing needed to be red acted I got the impression,
though, that you won't know what you're looking for until you find
it."
"I think that's probably right. I know she was having a problem with
one of the appellants in a public housing eviction case. Both her
clerk and her friend mentioned that he'd written letters to Clarissa
that she found threatening, but they didn't know his name. Is there
some way you could track that down, short of doing an entire review of
her office?"
"Should be."
I told him everything I knew so far about the case.
"Let me see what I can find out. You want to wait here, or should I
call you?"
"I'll wait. Thanks." He seemed to find my choice insulting.
Five minutes later, I felt my pager go off. The MCT number again.
I took the liberty of using the phone on Coakley's desk to return the
call. This time, I was expecting Johnson to pick up, but the voice
that answered "MCT" belonged to someone I'd known for fifteen years:
Chuck Forbes.
The first time I saw Chuck screech his yellow Karmann Ghia into the lot
at Grant High and then step out in his washed-out 501s, I was hooked.
As much as I didn't want to be, I had to admit I still was.
I hesitated a moment too long. "Hi, it's Samantha Kincaid. I think
Detective Johnson might have paged me?"
"You need to shake the salt water out of your ears, Kincaid. It's
Chuck."
"Oh, hey. What's going on?"
"Two weeks in Hawaii, and that's all I get? What's going on? Bad news
is going on, but Raymond's standing over my shoulder waiting to break
it to you. Everything all right?"
"Sure," I said. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Ray's glaring at me," he said, "so I'm going to hand you off. But
call me later, OK? I want to hear about your trip."
I had tried to play it cool, but Chuck and I were way past
new-relationship head games. "And I want to tell you all about it. I
missed you, Chuck."
"Yeah. Me too," he said sweetly, before handing the phone to
Johnson.
"They found a body in Glenville. I'm heading out there now."
"Is it Clarissa?" I asked.
"We don't have an official ID yet, but, yeah, looks like it's going to
be her."
What I felt at the moment couldn't have been about any meaningful
personal attachment to Clarissa Easterbrook. But I nevertheless felt
myself go empty at the confirmation of what I'd already been
suspecting, and I wondered how I was going to handle a job that would
make this feeling routine.
"Kincaid, you still there? I got to bounce."
"Sorry, yeah, I'm here. Tell me where it is, and I'll meet you there,"
I said, fishing a legal pad from my bag. The lead detectives needed to
arrive at the crime scene as soon as possible, so it was mutually
understood that I'd have to fend for myself. I scribbled down a street
address that Johnson told me corresponded to a construction site at the
outer edge of the suburb of Glenville.
"I need to take care of a couple things and pick up a county car, but
I'll meet you guys out there as soon as I can. Call me if you need
anything."
I walked out of Coakley's office, telling his assistant that something
had come up and I needed to leave.
"He went down to Judge Easterbrook's office, if you want to try to
catch him," she offered.
Dennis Coakley was leaving Clarissa Easterbrook's chambers as I was
walking down the hall. He carried a legal-sized manila file folder and
a small stack of documents.
"You really crack the whip, don't you? Here I thought I'd worked
pretty fast."
I tried to muster a smile. "I'm sorry. Something came up at the
office and I need to head back. I thought I'd try to catch you on my
way out."
"Good timing, because I think I found what you were looking for. Looks
like this is it," he said, holding up a file labeled Housing Authority
of Portland v. Melvin Jackson. "No privileged information there, so I
had Clarissa's assistant make copies if you want to just take them with
you."
He handed me about twenty pages of paper that had been clipped
together.
"I'm sorry I can't do more for you right now, but, like I said, I'll do
the review as fast as I can."
I let him think I was satisfied leaving it at that. For now.
I started to head directly to the county lot by the Morrison Bridge to
pick up a car, then remembered Russell Frist's admonition not to run
the case solo if it turned into a murder.
I stopped in the office, hoping Frist would be in an afternoon court
appearance. My plan was to leave him an e-mail so he'd know how hard I
tried to follow his advice. Unfortunately, he was at his desk shooting
the shit with Jessica Walters. I rapped on the door to interrupt.
"Good to see you, Kincaid. I was beginning to wonder whether this
morning's screening duty was enough to chase you out of here," he
said.
"I'm not so easily chased."
"There you go. Don't let this guy push you around." Jessica was
getting up from her chair. "I'm out of here. VQ after work?"
The Veritable Quandary was a veritable institution of downtown drinking
and a longtime hangout for the big boys at the DA's office. Russ told
Jessica he'd stop by for a quick beer, then asked me if I wanted to
join them.
"I
doubt I can make it. Something's come up and I'm actually on my way
out to Glenville."
"Anything having to do with Glenville is my cue to leave," Jessica
said. "Russ, I'll catch you later. Sam, if I can't get you a beer
tonight, we'll do it next time."
"So," Russ asked, "what in suburbia could possibly be more important
than a Monday-night drink?"
"Ray Johnson just called. I don't have the details, but someone found
a body near a construction site out there. The unofficial ID suggests
it's Easterbrook."
To my surprise, Russ made the sign of the cross. "Damn it. Just once,
I'd like to see a happy ending on one of these cases."
I was tempted to ask whether he was sure what ending was happier:
closure for the living left behind or the hope that remained in a
missing person's absence? I kept the thought to myself.
"I told the MCT guys I'd meet them out there," I said. "Are you coming
with me?"
"You think you're ready for this, Kincaid?"
"Look, Russ, I appreciate the concern, but if I didn't think I was
ready, I wouldn't have accepted the rotation. You told me this morning
you thought I was in over my head, so I'm asking if you want to go.
Make up your mind, because I'm leaving."
"You've been on a call-out before?"
I flashed my best sarcastic smile. "You know I have, Dad." All new
DDAs tag along on a homicide call-out when they first start in the
office. If you counted the scene at my house a few weeks ago, I guess
I'd been to two.
"Fine, then. I'm switching into good-boss mode. If you don't think
you need me, go on your own. But page me if you need me, promise?"
I gave him my most earnest assurances while he wrote down his pager
number.
"I'm sure I'll be fine," I said.
"I'll limit myself to two beers at VQ just in case. Call me later,
just to let me know what's up?"
It was fair enough, so I told him I would.
I made a brief computer stop to check out Melvin Jackson and get
directions to the address Johnson had given me.
I ran Jackson for both local and out-of-jurisdiction convictions.
Nothing but a two-year-old DUI and a pop for cocaine residue a year
before that. Maybe the second one sounds major, but a stop with some
burnt rock in your crack pipe translates into a violation and a fine in
Portland, Oregon. What did I expect to find on his record? Repeated
offenses for stalking and kidnapping? Despite common perceptions, a
remarkable number of murder defendants have no prior involvement with
law enforcement.
Next stop: Mapquest. Glenville's one of those new suburbs. You know
the kind: stores in big boxes, houses with four-car garages on
quarter-acre lots, plenty of Olive Gardens for family dining. I'd
watched it grow over the past five years, passing it on the freeway
each time I drove to the coast. But I'd never be able to find my way
around it without a little virtual help.
I clicked on the option for driving directions and then entered the
addresses for the courthouse and the construction site. Two seconds
later, voila turn-by-turn directions with accompanying map. Whenever I
try to figure out how a computer can provide driving directions between
any two points in this enormous country of ours, it starts to hurt my
head. I choose to chalk it up to magic.
I hoofed it to the county lot, checked out a blue Taurus from the
fleet, and did my best to follow the painfully detailed directions.
Around mile four on Highway 26, my cell rang. MCT again. They should
have been using my DA pager to reach me. I was careful not to give my
cell number out for work.
The call turned out to straddle the line between the personal and
professional, a differentiation I'd successfully maintained until a
couple of months ago. It was Chuck.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"Just past the zoo. I'm on my way to Glenville."
"Good, I was hoping to catch you in the car. Sorry to bug you on a
call-out, but I wanted to make sure you knew that Mike and I are
working on this thing too. It didn't sound like Johnson got a chance
to tell you."
No, he hadn't. This was great. A relationship with Chuck broke not
only my no-cop rule but also the completely independent,
profession-neutral rule against dating Chuck. He makes me, in a word,
crazy. He is stubborn, headstrong, mule-minded, and every other
synonym for a particular characteristic that does not blend well with
what I like to call, in contrast, my well-established personality.
Dating him would be hard enough; working with him would only make
matters worse.
"Russ Frist is running MCU now, and we haven't talked yet about how to
handle this. Hell, Chuck, you and I haven't even talked about it.
Given that we haven't spoken to each other in two weeks, maybe this is
a non issue But right now my mind is on this case, not our
relationship. Your working on this investigation is going to force the
issue."
Chuck, of course, had no problem talking about "us" just minutes after
learning about a murder. He had been in MCT for nearly two years now,
which translates into roughly forty homicide cases. Work in this
business long enough, and you see death as a detached professional, the
way a plumber must view a burst pipe.
"Whoa, back it up, Kincaid. I haven't talked to you for two weeks
because you said you needed time away with Grace."
"And I did. All I was saying, Chuck, is that things were all hot and
lusty for a while there, and now you haven't talked to me in two weeks.
More importantly, I'm in the middle of my first murder case and just
can't deal with this right now."
"Hot and lusty, huh?"
Damn him. "Shut up and answer the question."
"I didn't hear a question, counselor."
Crazy. That's what he makes me. Two minutes on the phone with him,
and I already had visions of running my Jetta off the road. I hung up
instead.
The phone rang immediately.
"I think we got disconnected," he said.
"You know these pesky west hills," I replied.
"Cut you off every time. Look, I'm sorry I pissed you off. All I was
trying to say was that you went to Maui because you needed some space.
The funny thing about space is that you only get it if the people close
to you step back and give it to you."
"I needed to get away from work and from my house, where really bad
things happened, Chuck. I didn't need distance from you."
"OK, I understand that. I was there for the aftermath, remember?"
I passed a sign announcing the approaching exit for Glen-ville and
realized I needed to wrap this up. "Look, I'm sorry we didn't talk
earlier," I said. "It doesn't matter whose fault it is."
"Sure it does. Let's say it's my fault."
That's my boy. "The point is, we still don't know if it's a good idea
to work together. I'll tell Frist to call your lieutenant and take
care of it."
"What, like your father called Griffith? You know what kind of shit
I'd take down here for that?"
Yes, that had been a bit embarrassing. Dad's a retired forest ranger
and former Oregon State Police officer. He can be a little protective.
After the recent festivities at my house, Martin Kincaid had called the
District Attorney to make sure that no further coworkers would be
getting shot in my living room or otherwise endangering his little
girl.
"All right," I conceded, "no calls to the lieutenant."
"It'll be fine. The LT knows about the situation so he's got Mike and
me doing the grunt work. No confessions, no searches, strictly backup.
The priority right now is to hurry up those phone records Johnson's
been waiting on. As other things come up that need to be run down,
we'll take care of it while Johnson and Walker work lead. Glamorous,
huh?"
"When you say it that way."
"Can you live with it, Kincaid, or do I need to turn in my badge and
gun? Your choice."
"You'd do that for me, Chuck Forbes?"
"You bet. But then I wouldn't have a job. Might hang out at your
house all day and night, unshaved and overfed. What do you think?"
"I think you better get off the damn phone and find me some phone
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