why he loved the peculiar formatting that the firm insisted on for each
and every document: "It's just the Dunn Simon way." Yuck.
"I don't know, Russ. Might have to pull a Little Red Hen on your
ass."
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your literary reference. I tend to
read material for adults."
"Yeah, right. The kind with pictures that fold out in the middle. I
mean that you don't eat the bread unless you help plant the grain. I'm
picturing myself in the first and only chair in State v. Yet to Be
Determined for the murder of Clarissa Easterbrook."
"You keep dreaming, Kincaid, because it's not gonna happen. Besides,
I've got a good excuse, not that I need to give you one. Judge Maurer
sent a case out for trial this afternoon that I was sure would settle,
so I need to get ready. Have fun with those administrative law files,
though. Sounds like a blast."
I welcomed my chair back into its new home and scooted old blue crusty
into the hallway with a piece of paper pinned to its back that read
hazardous waste. Given the state of the budget around here, it still
might be a step up for someone.
Nelly Giacoma remembered me from the day before. She tried to sound
chipper when she welcomed me into the office, but I could tell from her
puffy eyes and congested voice that she'd been crying. I asked if I
could see Clarissa's files.
"Dennis Coakley told me you'd be coming by. I needed to keep busy, so
I helped make sure we had all the pending cases. He's got everything
in piles for you in the conference room at the end of the hall."
The conference room turned out to be little more than a storage space
that held the water cooler and a bulletin board posting the required
equal employment disclosures. There were four boxes of files stacked
in the corner and a small table I could use for work space.
"Do you need anything?" Nelly asked.
"No, I should be fine. Thanks."
"You sure? Because I think I'm going to head out. Judge Olick told me
to take the rest of the day off. I was going to try to finish some
things up, but I'm pretty useless right now."
"You should definitely go. I'll be fine."
"Thanks. Just let yourself out."
I thanked her again and turned to the files. I began by spreading the
boxes side by side on the floor, quickly scanning the file headings to
see if anything jumped out. Nope. No in the
EVENT SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS Or LITIGANTS WHO HATE ME files, just case
names.
I started at the beginning, dictating the names of the parties and the
nature of the dispute for each file into the hand-sized recorder I
still owned from my days at the U.S. Attorneys Office. The machine
served more as a paperweight in my current position, since the District
Attorney staff refuses to type for the deputies. But considering I
didn't even know what I was looking for, taped notes would be good
enough for now.
Case after case, nothing seemed relevant. One thing was for certain:
There would be no problems finding things of interest in my files. In
fact, the problem would be too many defendants who were angry, mean, or
outright psycho enough to go after me. On a weekly basis in the drug
unit, some dealer who blamed me for the sentencing guidelines would
throw me a devil eye, his thrusted chest, or the very worst the
blood-boiling c-word. Hell, I could fill one side of a tape with the
spitters alone. Experienced prosecutors know always to sit at the end
of the table farthest from the defendant.
Clarissa Easterbrook's caseload, on the other hand, was a major snooze.
How disgruntled can a person be about a citation for un mowed grass, an
unkempt vacant house, or a toilet left on the front porch? Although a
few of them huffed and puffed in their appeal papers, the tough talk
was generally reserved for the nosy neighbors who had sicced the city
on them or the unfeeling civil servants who responded, and even those
were rare. More typically, the appellants tried hard embarrassingly so
to be lawyerlike in their prose. Lots of henceforths, herewiths, and
thereto fores
When I got to the Js, I came across the Melvin Jackson file. Now this
one stood out. At least two letters a week for the past six weeks,
filed in reverse chronological order under correspondence. They began
as pleas for compassion about his recent past, which I learned went
like this:
Melvin Jackson was the father of three children, ages two to six. He
and his wife, Sharon, had always struggled with their shared
addictions, but when their youngest son, Jared, was born addicted to
crack cocaine, Melvin entered the rehabilitation program offered by the
office for Services to Children and Families as an alternative to
losing Jared. Through the program, Melvin had gotten clean. Sharon
hadn't. One afternoon, Melvin came home from his part-time job as a
Portland State janitor to find another man leaving his apartment and
Sharon inside naked, smoking up with Jared in her arms, the other two
children curled together on the sofa. He told her to choose between
the drugs and her children. The next morning, Sharon went to SCF and
signed a voluntary termination of parental rights.
Melvin had been taking care of the kids ever since. He saved enough
money for a used van and was getting by through public housing, public
assistance, and occasional work as a landscaper and handyman.
Melvin was about to lose his public housing because of his unemployed
cousin, who moved in with him a year ago in exchange for watching
Melvin's kids when he worked. One night four months ago, a community
policing officer assigned to the Housing Authority of Portland caught
the cousin and her friends smoking pot on the apartment complex swing
set. The officer found less than an ounce, decriminalized in Oregon,
so the only repercussion for the cousin was a ticket for possession, no
more than a traffic matter. But federal regulations authorize public
housing agencies to evict tenants who have drugs on the property. The
problem for Melvin was that public housing evictions aren't by the
tenant; they're by the unit. Two days after the swing set smoke out
HAP served Melvin with a notice of eviction. Then an SCF caseworker
told him his kids would be placed in foster care if he became
homeless.
I knew a little bit about these kinds of evictions. A few years ago,
the United States Supreme Court upheld the federal housing policy
nine-zip, permitting the eviction of a law-abiding grandmother whose
grandson smoked pot on public housing property. Never mind that she'd
taken in her grandson to save him from a drug-addicted mother. The
only option for someone in Melvin s place was to hope for leniency, but
it would have to come from the housing authority; a court could do
nothing about it.
Clarissas notes in the file suggested that, at least initially, Melvin
had earned her sympathy. One entry during the second week she'd had
the case noted:
Called Cathy W
exler @ HAP: zero tolerance policy won budge. Called SCF
info line: No knowledge can discuss and'l case, but 'very possible'
take kids if lose housing.
She had even run some computerized searches on Westlaw looking for
authority to support the argument that HAP was prohibited from adopting
a zero-tolerance policy on eviction.
Unfortunately for Melvin, however, he chose a course of conduct that
had probably obliterated that sympathy before
Clarissa had found any law to back up the creative argument she was
trying to craft on his behalf. By the fifth letter, his tone had
changed. All caps and exclamation points don't go over well with
judges. More recently, Melvin s letters became aggressive:
Do you have children of your OWN, Judge Easterbrook? What kind of
person would allow this to happen? Maybe someday you will know just
how UNFAIR life can be. Are you trying to BREAK me?
I could see why Clarissa wrote them off as the desperate words of a
desperate man. But the benefit of hindsight made me wonder if Clarissa
might still be alive if someone had been able to help Melvin Jackson or
at least deflect his anger from a judge who was on his side but
powerless to do anything about it.
As I was starting in on the Ns, Dennis Coakley walked in with another
box of files. If I was counting right, that made me a hell of a lot
faster than he was.
"Not very exciting, is it?" he said.
"Not particularly."
"So was it worth that little scene you scripted this morning?"
"Won't know until I finish the files," I said. If I had boy parts, he
never would have called my power move a little scene. It would be a
fast ball, a line drive, an outside shot, or some other ridiculous
sports analogy that I don't understand.
"Just like I couldn't know if I had something important to deal with
until I took a look," he said, stomping off.
By the time noon came around, I had finished reviewing the very last
file. Nothing. Two hours of work and all I had to show for it was my
monotone summary of Clarissa Easterbrook's pending caseload. The drone
of my own voice, combined with the steady hum of the water cooler, had
been enough to make me nod off a few times.
My legal pad was hardly used, but to keep myself from sleeping I had
made three lists. One was a list of cases where Clarissa said
something at the hearing to indicate she'd be ruling for the city, but
where she hadn't yet issued a formal ruling. Maybe someone decided to
ensure a rehearing with a different judge. Possible, but not
probable.
The second list was even shorter. I jotted down a few names to run in
PPDS when I got back to the office, but each seemed an unlikely
suspect. Sheldon Smithers found a lock on his front tire, courtesy of
the city, after one too many unpaid parking tickets. He made my list
for sending a rant about the hypocrisy of reserving parking spaces for
the administrative law judges in the city lot. That, and the
serial-killerish name.
Then there was Ronald Nathan Wilson. A month ago, Ronald punched the
glass out on the hearing room door after Clarissa denied his challenge
to the city's seizure of his car. It's a long way from vandalism to
murder, I know, but the seizure was for picking up a decoy in a
prostitution sting, sinking Ronald deeper into the creep pile. And,
again, the name didn't help. Six letters each: first, middle, and
last. Everyone knows 6-6-6 is the sign of the devil.
I wasn't sure what to do with my third list. These were cases from
which Clarissa had recused herself. A restaurant manager whose
application for a sidewalk cafe license had been rejected. A homeowner
whose third-floor addition was enjoined under the nuisance code. A
contractor complaining that his requests to rehabilitate buildings in
the Pearl District had been declined unfairly.
Maybe one of them had complained that Clarissa had a grudge against him
but hadn't gotten word yet that she was recusing herself. I knew it
was a stretch, but I had to leave that room with something.
I used my cell phone to check my work voice mail. As long as there
were no new fires to put out, I was actually going to make my lunch
date with Grace. Only three new messages: one from Dad reminding me
about dinner, one from Frist about a grand jury hearing at the end of
the week that I had already calendared, and one from Jessica Walters
asking me to try her later. Still nothing from Johnson.
I considered returning Dad's call but wasn't up for another
conversation like we'd had the night before. Instead, I flipped my
phone shut and considered myself on a well-deserved lunch break.
Grace and I have a handful of regular lunchtime meeting places located
roughly halfway between the courthouse and her salon, Lockworks.
Today's pick was the Greek Cusina on Fourth, which I always spot by the
gigantic purple octopus protruding above the door. Don't ask me what
the connection is.
Grace was waiting for me in our favorite corner booth, great for
people-watching. We could peek out, but a potted rubber tree plant
made it unlikely we'd be seen from the street.
She looked terrific, as always. Physically, Grace and I are yin and
yang. I've got dark-brown straight hair; her color changes by the day,
but I know those cute little curls are naturally blond. She's trendy;
my clothes (unless bought by Grace) come in black, gray, charcoal,
slate, and ebony. I'm five-feet-eight, she's five-three. She eats all
she wants, never works out, and can wear stuff from the kids'
department. I eat half of what I want and run at least twenty-five
miles a week, just to maintain a size in the single digits. She's put
together; I'm a mess. Set aside those differences, and we're twins.
"Hey, woman," she said, standing up to kiss my cheek. "I've missed
you. I sort of liked being roommates. Maybe we should try it here at
home."
"Might not be the same without the beach."
"Or the rum," she added.
"Don't sell the condo just yet; we could wind up killing each other.
Did you order already?"
"Yeah, I figured it was safe."
Grace knows I always get the Greek platter: a gyro, a side of
spanikopita, and a little Greek salad. That converts into roughly six
miles.
Once I'd settled in across from her, Grace asked me to tell her all
about my new life in the Major Crimes Unit.
"I promise I will get to it, but, please, not just yet. I need a break
from thinking about the horrible things people do to each other. Tell
me a little bit about your homecoming. Anything good at the salon?"
Grace opened Lockworks, a two-story full-service salon-slash-spa, in
the haute Pearl District a few years ago. Never mind that back then
she was a marketing executive without a beautician's license. What
Grace had was business sense. She managed to swing a loan for an
entire warehouse, which she converted into the first of what are now
many upscale salons targeting the hordes of trendy young professionals
flocking to Portland. Today the building alone is worth millions, and
clients wait weeks to pay Grace a small fortune for a haircut or
highlight.
"I've been swamped. The first vacation I've taken since I opened that
place, but it doesn't keep people from getting pissed off. I've been
on my feet for the last forty-eight hours, com ping cuts for clients
who refused appointments with the girls who were subbing for me."
"I guess they know you're the best."
"One way to look at it," she said.
"Or they're just pricks."
She clinked her water glass against mine.
QQ
For the next fifteen minutes, I sat back and listened to Grace's
stories about beautiful people who aren't as beautiful as they want to
be. The whining, the temper tantrums, the unrepentant displays of
vanity. I had packed away half of my chicken gyro by the time she
finished telling me her latest Hollywood story. Grace has become the
preferred stylist for the film productions that increasingly choose to
go on location in Portland. Apparently, someone with too much money
offered Grace a big wad of dough to do body waxing for an eye-candy
movie being shot in the Columbia Gorge about windsurfers. Fortunately,
Grace had enough money to take a pass.
"In addition to the obvious yuck factor, most of the half-naked
unknowns are teenagers," she explained.
"I would've thought that was right up your alley, Grace. You're
ripening pretty well into a dirty old woman." I had teased Grace
endlessly in Hawaii each time her gaze predictably and shamelessly
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