Missing Justice sk-2

by Alafair Burke

  we weren't dillydallying.

  "I think that's for us, kid," Russ said. "Let's do this."

  My pulse started to accelerate the minute I sat on Duncan Griffith's

  leather sofa. If what they say about state-dependent learning is true,

  his office would eventually begin to trigger an automatic gag reflex in

  me.

  He wasn't helping to calm my nerves. "Sounds like you've had a busy

  morning, Samantha."

  "Yes, although not nearly as chaotic as Roger Kirkpatrick apparently

  led you to believe. Russ told me that Roger called you."

  97 R

  "Well, he called me, but the bigger problem is Jim Thorpe, who called

  the chief of police, the mayor, and everyone else who was willing to

  listen. The way I understand it, Kirkpatrick's pissed on behalf of

  Townsend, because he doesn't want to see the prosecution of his wife's

  murderer derailed. And Thorpe's pissed because his client's being

  dragged through a three-ring circus. Do you want to explain to me why

  you're sabotaging your own case?"

  "I did nothing of the sort. The defense threw us some curve balls

  today, and I still managed to swing the probable cause finding." It

  was hard to keep a straight face with the sports metaphor.

  "According to Kirkpatrick, you called him Sunday afternoon asking to

  talk to this Gunderson fellow. Then, when he said no, lo and behold,

  the defense attorney ups and subpoenas the guy. You want to explain

  that to me?"

  I gave him the same version I gave Frist the one where Slip and I are

  equally savvy and wind up on the same track. I also gave him a rundown

  on what Minkins had confirmed about Gunderson and what I still

  suspected.

  By the time I was finished, Duncan's eyes were pressed shut, his right

  palm pressed against his temple. "That's one a hell of mess, all

  right," he said, his eyes still shut. Then, opening them to look at

  me, he said, "We'll talk about your role in this in a second, but first

  things first. Russ, the last time I checked, you were working this

  case too. What do you think?"

  "I don't like it," Russ said. "But I think the defense has dug up

  enough that we have to look into it. If we ignore it, Szlip-kowsky

  will haul it all out in front of a jury, and we'll look like we're

  steamrolling a poor black guy to cover up some white-collar dirty

  laundry."

  For a second, I thought I'd stroked out and was having delusions. I

  looked down. Nope, I was still wearing panty hose and my calves were

  still puffy. This was definitely not heaven. But my supervisor was

  actually defending me to our boss.

  "You guys can't possibly be telling me that you buy this conspiracy

  theory shit," Duncan said. "Planted evidence, for Christ's sake?"

  "I don't know what to think," I said, "but I agree with Russ. We can't

  ignore it. How many times have I heard in this office that only the

  guilty lawyer up? You should have seen Gunderson in there. He invoked

  to every question. He's definitely hiding something, and if he takes

  the Fifth in front of a jury, we're toast. Jackson will walk, and so

  will any hope we have of trying someone else for the same crime."

  Duncan thought about it, his prosecutorial instincts kicking in.

  Prosecutors share a belief system resembling a kind of secular faith,

  and a central tenet of that system is that a witness who invokes is

  hiding something. Maybe not the thing you're looking for, but

  something. In our church of prosecutors, it's the equivalent of the

  truth shall set you free.

  "Help me think this thing through," he said. "If it's all connected,

  the victim and Gunderson had some kind of arrangement, and Gunderson

  killed her because she was planning to talk?"

  "Right," I said. "I think it went beyond that one appeal Clarissa

  heard. I think her affair with Caffrey fits in somehow. He's a swing

  vote on whether to expand suburban development, an issue Gunderson

  stands to profit from. A lot. It would explain the videotape Clarissa

  had of her and Caffrey coming out of the motel. Maybe she was

  blackmailing him but couldn't go through with it."

  "And they set up Melvin Jackson as the bad guy?" Russ asked.

  "It certainly wouldn't be the first time a white criminal took

  advantage of stereotypes." We'd all seen the stories before. When

  that woman sunk her kids in the river, the first thing she said was

  that some black guy took them and everyone immediately believed her.

  Duncan did not look happy. "Well, I guess we're going to need to look

  into this guy's business dealings, but the police aren't going to like

  it if it means trashing the case against Jackson. Any possibility the

  guy had a deal with the victim but didn 't set up Jackson?"

  "I don't see it," I said. "If Gunderson was bribing Clarissa, it's too

  much of a coincidence that Jackson winds up working for Gunderson and

  putting Clarissa's body there."

  Russ was shaking his head. "No, there is a way. You told me early on,

  Sam, that you thought Clarissa felt sorry for Jackson, at least

  initially, right?"

  "Right. She had notes in her file showing she'd done some legal

  research trying to find a theory she could use to rule for him."

  "OK," Frist continued. "So what if you're right, and she's on the take

  with Gunderson? Maybe she calls in a marker of her own and gets

  Jackson the job."

  Minkins did, after all, say that Gunderson had told him he was hiring

  Jackson as a favor to a friend. I followed Frist's theory. "But

  Jackson didn't know that, of course, and is still pissed off about his

  eviction."

  "He kills her, dumps her at the site, and everything else falls into

  place."

  "Except the part where Gunderson tells Minkins to keep his mouth shut

  when Clarissa's body turned up," I said.

  "But think about it. Gunderson knows he's crooked on the bribery

  scheme, and all of the sudden the other half of the equation winds up

  dead on his property. Maybe he used it to scare Minkins into staying

  quiet about the Jackson hire, which might have shown a connection

  between the victim and the company."

  5B1

  I completed the thought. "Which might've revealed whatever quid pro

  quo they had."

  "Or maybe Minkins made that part up," he added. "It wouldn't be the

  first time an informant threw in a little extra to help the case."

  Man. First Russ defends me, then he outsmarts me. It's a crazy world,

  this one we live in. A world where Clarissa Easter-brook might have

  used her position with Gunderson to help out Jackson, only to have him

  kidnap and murder her.

  I was frustrated that I hadn't seen it earlier. I had been so focused

  on figuring out the connection between Gunderson and Clarissa that I

  had just assumed that it was related to Clarissa's death. But I had

  never been able to figure out how Gunderson knew about Jackson in order

  to frame him.

  Russ's scenario gave our office a reason to send the cops back out to

  work: We still think Jackson did it, we could say, but we need to find

  out what Gunder
son was up to so the defense doesn't blindside the

  jury.

  The truth was, my gut was telling me that I'd been wrong about Jackson.

  He did it. I'd never forgive myself if Slip actually got Jackson off

  using information I'd hand-delivered.

  "The way things stand now," I said, "I think we need to get MCT back on

  this right away." I told Duncan about Prescott's comments in the

  courtroom and the near certainty that the news would be breaking

  imminently.

  "That's just great. She had to make sure that my day was fully fucked.

  All right, here's the deal. Thorpe's got everyone's attention on this

  thing. I'm supposed to meet at City Hall this afternoon with the MCT

  lieutenant, the mayor, and the city attorney to determine how to

  proceed."

  Noting our looks of disbelief, he said, "I know, it's overkill. But

  the bureau already took an embarrassing hit on this case and doesn't

  want it going down the drain, the city attorney's worried about getting

  sued, and the mayor well, the mayor's probably going to make sure we

  don't all kill each other. If I had to guess, with so many offices

  involved, it could take a couple days before anything happens, but

  Jackson's not going anywhere, right?"

  I shook my head.

  "The defense attorney's not going to make any noise?"

  I shook my head again. "But are you going to make MCT follow up on the

  Gunderson angle?" I asked.

  "Like I said, Kincaid, I doubt anything's going to happen for a couple

  of days."

  "But, in a couple of days, that's what you're expecting, right?"

  "Not that I owe you an explanation, Samantha, but no, I wasn't planning

  on asking MCT to look at a possible corruption case, because that's not

  MCT's jurisdiction. We'll get the bureau on it, and we'll get some

  answers by the time of trial, but that's good enough for now."

  Now I saw Duncan's take on the situation. If the corruption involving

  Gunderson wasn't related to the Jackson murder case, there was no

  reason to start a beef with MCT about opening a closed case. The

  problem was, the bureau wouldn't be under the gun to see the Gunderson

  investigation through.

  "Duncan, I think it is appropriate to ask MCT to do the work. It's

  Jackson's defense attorney who's trying to set up Gunderson as the

  killer, so it's the detectives on that case who are going to be

  motivated to get to the bottom of it. If they find out that Gunderson

  was bribing Clarissa and blackmailing Caffrey but didn't set up

  Jackson, everyone will be happy."

  "You don't get it, Samantha," he said. "MCT's not going to be happy

  about anything that makes this case any more complicated than it needs

  to be. And if we ask them to look into Gunderson Development, it looks

  like we believe there's actually a connection between Gunderson and the

  murder. And we don't." His point was a good one, but I wanted the

  work done well, and I wanted it done soon. "And, for the record, Sam:

  slight problem claiming Szlipkowsky came up with these witnesses on his

  own. How'd he know to serve the subpoenas on Jim Thorpe?"

  Crap. I thought Slip had served Gunderson and Minkins directly.

  Apparently, he was willing to flirt with unconventional-ity, but wasn't

  about to bypass retained counsel. The problem, of course, was that it

  looked like his knowledge of the representation came from me.

  I couldn't remember saying anything to Slip last night about Thorpe.

  But I did remember something else.

  "Probably because Jim Thorpe represented Gunderson Development on the

  appeal in front of Clarissa. His name was in the file Slip found in

  her safe deposit box."

  Duncan didn't like it, but he knew he couldn't prove I had done

  anything wrong.

  "Anything else?" he asked.

  The last thing I wanted to do was set him off. But I couldn't let him

  go into that meeting without telling him about Min-kins's immunity deal

  and the OHSU financial records in the safe deposit box. If those facts

  eventually came out later, he'd look foolish in front of the bureau and

  the mayor, and whoever put him in that position namely, moi would pay

  the price.

  "Well, there's a few other details you should probably know about," I

  said.

  "Details? Why do I have a feeling that, coming from you, Samantha,

  those details are going to be something like a pin that fell out of the

  grenade?"

  I told him about my secret immunity deal with Minkins.

  "Did you know about this, Frist?"

  "No, sir, I didn't."

  I couldn't bear to look at him.

  "Big surprise," Duncan said, shaking his head. "Before I lose it, let

  me get this straight: You let a witness invoke on the stand, knowing

  you had given him immunity, without telling the defense attorney? No,

  forget about the defense attorney, without telling the judge?"

  I never thought about it that way. I knew I was keeping something from

  Gunderson, but I didn't owe him any information unless and until he was

  a criminal defendant. I had thought about Slip at the time, but

  figured I'd explain it all to him later, and he wouldn't mind under the

  circumstances.

  But, from a technical perspective, I had misled the court. Once a

  witness has immunity, he's got no Fifth Amendment rights, so

  technically Minkins should have answered all of Slip's questions. Even

  if Slip didn't mind the lost opportunity, Judge Prescott wouldn't be

  pleased that I used her courtroom to dupe Gunderson.

  "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

  "See, that proves we've got a problem, Samantha. You're better than

  that. I know you've got a tendency to go your own way, but this is

  something different. I don't know if it's the new caseload, the

  ex-husband, the mess that went down last month but for whatever reason,

  you've lost your judgment on this one."

  I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. "No, I haven't, and this is no

  different from what goes on around here every day. We can do whatever

  we want on our cases as long as no one's paying attention, but the

  minute someone raises an eyebrow, we're second-guessed at every turn.

  And if you're not part of the club, you're third- and fourth-guessed.

  And now it's even worse, Duncan, because you've personalized it. Maybe

  I've made some mistakes, but don't suggest there's something wrong with

  my motives."

  "You're the one choosing to make it personal, Samantha. You need to

  take emotion out of this."

  If I had a dollar for every time a pissed-off man told me I

  was being emotional, I wouldn't have to deal with angry men any more.

  Apparently rage is only an emotion when combined with estrogen.

  "I'll call Judge Prescott and take my licks, but I don't hear anyone

  suggesting what I should have done as an alternative. If Gunderson was

  involved in Clarissa's death, telling him that Minkins flipped wouldn't

  just jeopardize our investigation, it would've put our informant at

  risk."

  Duncan was no longer in the mood to argue. He didn't need to; he was

  the boss. "I'll give some thought t
o all this, Samantha but right now

  we both need to cool our heels. Until you hear further: Russ, you

  handle anything having to do with Clarissa Easterbrook. And call

  Prescott. It's better she hear about this from you as the MCU

  supervisor."

  I had expected Duncan to kick me off the case. Maybe it was even the

  right thing to do, given some of the calls I'd made. But having Frist

  apologize to a judge for something I'd done? I started to interrupt,

  but Duncan signalled for me to keep quiet.

  "No, Samantha, I'm not risking it. If you're not apologetic enough,

  she's just going to pick up the phone and complain to me. If you're

  lucky, she'll figure you're in enough trouble at home not to report you

  to the bar."

  I shook my head.

  "I know what you're thinking. If you want to resign, that's up to you.

  Alternatively, you could turn your attention and your talent to the

  many other cases assigned to you. Your decision."

  All the earlier huffing and puffing aside, it had come down to this the

  ultimate trump card. Unfortunately, Duncan had seen me in action

  enough these past weeks to know that, when push came to shove, I'd

  rather put up with the crap I take here than fight over corporate money

  with attorneys like Roger and Jim Thorpe. Maybe Grace would give me a

  job sweeping up hair at Lockworks.

  "I'll let you know." Then I walked out of his office, leaving him