it only took a few minutes."
"And why didn't you call me or Walker? We're the leads."
"I did call you, but you weren't in." He didn't respond. "Look, do we
have a problem here?"
"Just remember how you felt when I went around you for the polygraph.
You've got my pager number."
"I didn't go around you, Ray. It was a quick walk across the street,
and Chuck happened to be in." Again with the silence. "If you want to
say something, just say it."
"I just think it's funny how you say your old buddy just happened to be
in when you wanted something done on a cleared case. Maybe part of you
knew I wouldn't be too happy about doing work that's going to bite me
in the ass down the road."
"And how's that?"
"When you tell me three months from now that you're pleading the case
down because of something the defense attorney's twisting around. You
know, it's always those little extra details stupid things like a safe
deposit key or the occasional extramarital roll in the sheets. Stuff
that we both know or at least I know doesn't change the fact that
Melvin Jackson's guilty."
"I don't know what to say, Ray. I wasn't trying to hide anything from
you, or I wouldn't have called you just now. And I wouldn't ask you to
do something if I didn't think it was important."
"If you want to call the LT, that's fine with me," Ray said. "But for
now, we're not supposed to be working a cleared case. I don't want to
get stuck between my boss and your office."
Neither did I, I thought, as I hung up. One thing was for sure: I
wouldn't be getting any more help from the bureau.
The notes that Clarissa stashed in her safe deposit box mentioned a
case she referred to as Grice. It still felt familiar.
I found my own notes from the review of Clarissa's files. It didn't
take long to realize where I'd seen Grice's name before. It was in the
list of cases from which Clarissa had recused herself. According to my
notes, Grice Construction was the company that had complained that the
city had unfairly denied its request to rehabilitate some Pearl Street
buildings. The date of Clarissa's recusal was the same day she had
apparently talked to DC about both the Grice case and the case
involving Gunderson's own rehabilitation program. If DC was Coakley,
that might explain what Nelly overheard at City Hall.
I didn't know the details yet, but it was becoming clear that Gunderson
had some kind of connection to Clarissa.
Good thing I knew who his lawyer was. I even had his home number.
I was surprised when a woman answered. When I asked to speak to Roger,
she asked who was calling. I was tempted to tell her she was right to
be suspicious, but I gave her the boring answer instead.
"It's for you," she hollered. "Someone named Samantha Kincaid."
I wasn't sure which was worse, to be known as the evil ex-wife or not
to be known at all.
"Hello?"
"Is that company, Roger, or a roommate?"
"Something in between, actually, but I assume the point of the question
was more in the asking than the answering. If you're calling about
Townsend, yes, we plan on being there tomorrow."
"Nice to know, but that's not why I called. I want to talk to Larry
Gunderson."
It always feels good to show another attorney you know more than he
thought you did. But this time it was especially rewarding.
"Why would you be calling me about that?"
There were lots of bad things to be said about Roger, but lawyering
skills were not among them. His question was perfect in its ambiguity,
neither denying nor confirming knowledge of Gunderson.
"Because you said Dunn Simon represented him. Remember? That's how
you got Melvin Jackson's name? If you're saying you're not Gunderson's
lawyer, that's fine. I'll contact him directly." I read Gunderson's
street address from my PPDS printout.
"I'm not actually Gunderson's lawyer. One of my partners is, Jim
Thorpe."
I remembered seeing his name on Gunderson's appeal. "Fine. I'll call
him. What's his home number?"
"Jesus, Samantha. What's your problem? Can't this wait until
tomorrow?"
"XT
Nope.
Roger might have come into the firm as a partner, but he was still
junior to a corner office guy like Thorpe. Junior partners who hand
out home phone numbers to government lawyers stay in the middle of the
hallway.
"Fine. Tell me what you want to know, and I'll talk to Jim and get
back to you."
I could hear his house guest slash live-in beginning to whine in the
background. Apparently Roger had found what he never had in me someone
who needed his undivided attention to be happy.
I didn't show him all my cards, just enough to ensure I'd get
Gunderson's attention. "It turns out that in addition to being Melvin
Jackson's employer and the owner of the property where Clarissa's body
was found, Gunderson also had a case in front of Clarissa a few months
ago. In light of that, I think we should at least talk to him about
how Jackson happened to find himself on Gunderson's radar."
"I'll get back to you, but don't hold your breath. Given the
insinuation, he's more likely to be insulted."
It had to have been one of the fastest decisions ever made by a lawyer
who gets paid by the hour. Eleven minutes later, my phone rang.
"It's Jim's call, and he advised Gunderson to enjoy the rest of his
weekend. If you want to work something out for this week, get in touch
with Jim at the office tomorrow."
"Unbelievable, Roger. I've got the rest of the preliminary hearing
tomorrow, and you guys think it's a good idea to tell your client to be
uncooperative. Does Thorpe know enough about criminal practice to
understand how suspicious it makes Gunderson look?"
"To you, maybe. Quite frankly, I don't see the problem."
"Well, since I'm handling the case, I guess my opinion has to matter to
you on this one."
"Sam, if you're doing this because you're pissed off at me, I'm sorry I
said some harsh things about your office at the meeting, but they
weren't directed at you personally. I was only trying to get Duncan's
attention. Hell, you're the one who told me at one time all he cared
about was politics." He laughed, but I didn't see what was funny.
"Can't you just be happy that you finally got the promotion you wanted
and that your first big case came together? I realize I'm not the best
messenger for this, but you're not acting like yourself on this one."
"You're a piss-poor messenger, Roger. You don't even know me
anymore."
"Well, you're not acting like the person I used to know. Look at the
evidence: You've got a fingerprint, the weapon, motive, something
approaching a confession. Prescott all but told you on Friday she'd
hold Jackson over. And you're spending your Sunday night chasing down
figments of your imagination. Gunderson's just some guy who gave
Jackson a job."
"And who happened to have an appeal in front
of the victim."
"And how long ago was that, Samantha? And how many cases did
Easterbrook hear on a monthly basis? It's like you're trying to make
your job harder than it is I don't know maybe to recapture some of the
glory days back in New York."
It was a telephonic slap in the face. Before Roger took the job at
Nike, I had been an up-and-comer in the busiest federal prosecutors
office in the country, on my way to handling complex high-stakes
conspiracies. We both knew that in the world of lawyers who never stop
measuring themselves against one another, I had suffered a serious slip
down the ladder when we moved to Portland.
He was already trying to apologize, telling me he didn't mean it the
way it sounded. But, to me at that moment, there was only one possible
meaning.
"The only slumming I ever did, Roger, was when I married you."
I wanted the satisfaction of slamming the phone into a cradle, but all
I had was my thumb against the disconnect button of my cordless.
I tried not to let his comment get to me. Not that Rogers opinion
mattered, but I knew I wouldn't even be a prosecutor if it weren't for
him. I graduated from law school planning on selling out as necessary
to pay off my mountainous debt. But when I was offered a position as a
federal prosecutor in New York, Roger was the one who told me I had to
take it. And when he moved us to Portland for his Nike job and I
couldn't transfer into the U.S. Attorney's Office here, he was the one
who encouraged me to remain a prosecutor, even though the choice
required a 50-percent pay cut and a serious hit in the prestige
department. He paid off my loans in full, using the bundle we'd made
selling the New York apartment his parents had given us. Then, when I
kicked him out of the house and insisted on a quick divorce, he nearly
floored me when he told my attorney to forget about the money. He
wouldn't be able to live with himself if I had to represent corporate
clients because of him.
I knew I'd been a bigger jerk than I should have been, but I didn't
know what to think about his criticism. It was easy to imagine the
lawyer in Roger trying to psych me out so I wouldn't subpoena Gunderson
and disturb Jim Thorpe. On the other hand, Roger wasn't the only
person telling me I was wildly off the mark on this one.
The train was about to run right over Melvin Jackson, and I could do
nothing to stop it. I wasn't even sure I wanted to; I just wanted to
make sure that we were heading in the right direction. But the bureau
had essentially washed its hands of this case, and if I tried to haul
Gunderson into the prelim, a quick call from Dunn Simon to the boss
would get me overruled and probably fired. And, if Jackson really did
it which he most likely did it would all be for nothing.
Luckily, I'd been doing this long enough to know that one of the best
ways to wield power is to do it subtly.
I left a message for Graham Szlipkowsky to call me right away.
I had been home from a run for thirty minutes, my stomach was growling,
and I was getting ready to cave in to take-out cravings when the phone
rang.
"Hey, babe. At the risk of sounding pathetic, I'm beginning to miss
you. If you're willing to chance my cooking, how does a quiet dinner
at your place sound?"
There's something to be said about a man with good timing.
Unfortunately, in this man's case, that something was that he couldn't
cook. So we compromised. After a quick run to Fred Meyer, he was
washing and chopping, and I was doing the stuff that mattered.
When we finally sat down at the table, he could tell I was exhausted.
"What's up with you? Big party last night?"
"You bet. The orgy didn't end till four; then I had to deal with the
bikers. Between the meth and the Jack "
"Seriously, Sam, what's going on?"
"Nothing. I've been working my ass off, and I'm tired."
"Is this still on the Jackson case?" I nodded since I had a mouth full
of sea bass. "What have you been digging around in? I thought that
case was locked up."
Add another to the list of people reminding me the case was cleared.
"I'm just double-checking."
"Here's an idea. Why don't you tell me what you're unsure about. I
have some experience dealing with these kinds of things, you know."
It would be nice to have his take on the case, but I didn't want him to
be in a position where he was torn between me and the department. When
we eventually decided whether we could handle working on the same
cases, I'd have to add that to my reasons for believing it was a bad
idea.
For now, I was keeping it vague. "I've been looking into some things
Clarissa might have been involved in, making sure they're not related
to the murder."
"Does this have something to do with the conversation we had with Pink
and the fax I sent to the property room on Friday?"
"Maybe. I haven't quite figured it out yet."
"I see. Let me be more specific. What exactly did that key open, and
what was located inside?"
"Don't interrogate me, Chuck."
"You're not giving me any choice, Sam. Getting information out of a
perp is a cakewalk compared to a conversation with you these days."
"Here's an idea. You let me do my job, and I'll talk to you as much as
you want about anything else you choose."
"I'm not trying to be a jerk, Sam. There are two separate issues here.
One is the bureau being pissed off that you appear to have second
thoughts on the case. I don't give a shit about that. But the last
time you left me in the dark about the poking around you were doing,
you almost got killed. I'm worried about you. Please just tell me
enough so I know you're not playing cowboy again."
"If you're going to worry about me every time I'm dealing with bad
people, this is never going to work."
"Sam, this isn't about you going after bad guys. Don't you get it? I
love it that you do what you do. You could be making half a million
bucks a year by now as some corporate drone, but that's not who you
are, and that's great. But you have a tendency to want to go it alone,
no matter how wacky the plan. I don't want you to get hurt again."
"Look, it's fine. What happened before was different. I went in blind
knowing someone was out of custody and angry at me, to say the least.
Right now, the worst that's going to happen to me is that I ruffle a
few political feathers." I left out the part about the mystery man at
the library, since I wasn't actually sure that it was Billy Minkins or
that he had been watching me. "I'm taking enough crap from my father
about this. I don't need it from you too."
For the next few minutes, the only sounds were our forks against the
plates and Vinnie breathing under the table.
"Ever since I got this case, he's been on a trip about so-called
powerful people and the way they can take away everything from me if I
get in their way. He's always been suspicious of authority "
Chuck was laughing, and I looked at him to see if
he was going to
continue listening to me. "Sorry," he explained, "but that sounded
funny, coming from you."
"Well, I guess we know where I get it. Anyway, I assumed he was
worried that someone as influential as Townsend would be calling for my
head if I screwed things up. But then this morning I asked him about
some work he did when I was a kid, and he got all quiet and weird. I've
never seen him like this before."
"What did you ask him?"
"Nothing, really. When I was doing that research at the library, I
came across an old newspaper clipping of him when he was with OSP. I
asked him about this legislator he used to drive, and he clammed up."
"Who was the legislator?"
"A guy named Clifford Brigg."
"Never heard of him." Chuck was familiar with political circles
through his father, but Brigg's time was long ago. He didn't offer to
ask about him, and I didn't ask. Chuck and his father weren't exactly
close; the former governor, Charles London Forbes, Sr." made little
effort to conceal his disappointment with Chuck's career choice. "Did
you try to talk to him about it?"
"Of course."
He looked at me skeptically. "For more than a couple of minutes?"
"A few." Having been on the other side of my impatience before, Chuck
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