Ties That Bind aj-2

by Phillip Margolin

  * * *

  Oscar Baron's receptionist buzzed to tell him that he had a collect call from Jon Dupre. Baron debated taking the call, but Dupre could still refer clients to him.

  "Hey, Jon. How are they treating you?" Baron asked in a hale-and-hearty tone as though he didn't know that Dupre had gutted a fellow attorney.

  "They're treating me like shit, Oscar. They've got me in fucking solitary and they stuck me with a cunt for a lawyer. Some bitch who's scared to be in the same room with me."

  "Amanda Jaffe, right?"

  "How did you know?"

  "She visited me."

  "What was she doing at your office?"

  Dupre sounded outraged. Baron smiled.

  "Calm down. She just wanted the police reports from the case I got dismissed."

  "Don't give her shit, Oscar. I'm getting rid of her as fast as I can."

  "Did you come up with the dough for my fee?"

  "No, I can't make that."

  "Then you might want to stick with Jaffe. She's okay."

  "I don't want 'okay,' Oscar. This is my goddamn life we're talking about."

  "She did that serial case and the case for the associate at Reed, Briggs. She knows her way around."

  "Look, I didn't call so you could give me a pep talk about Amanda Jaffe. I need you to do something for me."

  "What?"

  "I don't want to talk about it over the phone. Come over to the jail. And don't worry about getting paid. Ally is on the way over with enough money to cover the fee for what I want you to do."

  Chapter Twenty-Two.

  The offices of Oregon Forensic Investigations were located in an industrial park a few blocks from the Columbia River. Late in the afternoon of the day after her unsuccessful meeting with Jon Dupre, Amanda drove along narrow streets flanked by warehouses until she found the complex where Paul Baylor worked. A concrete ramp led up to a walkway that ran in front of the offices of an import-export business and a construction firm. The last door opened into a small anteroom. It was furnished with two chairs that stood on either side of an end table on which were stacked several scientific journals. She rang a button on the wall next to a door, for assistance. Moments later, Paul Baylor walked into the anteroom. Baylor was a slender, bookish African American with a degree from Michigan State in forensic science and criminal justice, who had worked at the Oregon State Crime Lab for ten years before leaving to set up his own shop. Amanda used him when she needed a forensic expert.

  Baylor ushered Amanda into a small office outfitted with inexpensive furniture. A small desk was covered with stacks of paperwork, and a bookcase was crammed with books on forensic science.

  "I've got a few questions I wanted to ask you about a new case I've got," Amanda said as she opened her briefcase and took out a manila envelope.

  "The Travis and Hayes murders?"

  Amanda smiled. "You got it on the first try."

  "It wasn't hard. I can't read a paper or turn on my TV without seeing you. I should probably get your autograph."

  "If I gave you my autograph you'd be able to sell it and retire. Who'd do my forensic work?"

  Baylor laughed as Amanda took a stack of photographs out of the envelope and handed them to him.

  "Jail personnel took these right after Wendell Hayes was stabbed to death. What do you make of these cuts?"

  Baylor shuffled through the pictures, stopping to study some of them longer than others.

  "They're defense wounds," Baylor said when he was ready. "When you have a homicidal attack with a knife, the victim's wounds will normally be deep or long and haphazardly spaced. You're going to find cuts like the ones in the photos on the victim's hands, fingers, palms, and forearms, because he's going to throw up his hands and forearms automatically to ward off the attack, or he'll try to grab the weapon. That's what we have here. A long deep cut on the forearm, a slice on the webbing of the hand, and cuts on the palms and fingers."

  "Is there any way that the person wielding the knife could have received those wounds?"

  "Sure, if this was a knife fight where both people were armed or one person lost the knife and the other person got it for a while. But those wounds were received by someone who was being attacked."

  "Very interesting."

  "Not to me. They're exactly what I'd expect to find on Wendell's arms and hands."

  "Oh, I agree there. Only these arms and hands belong to Jon Dupre."

  Frank Jaffe worked in a spacious corner office decorated with antiques, which was basically unchanged since the firm was founded shortly after his graduation from law school over thirty years ago. When Amanda rapped on Frank's doorjamb, he looked up from a brief.

  "Do you have a minute, Dad?"

  Frank put down his pen and leaned back. "For you, always."

  Amanda threw herself onto a chair that stood before Frank's immense desk and told her father about Dupre's violent reaction when she suggested that he might be guilty of the Hayes and Travis murders and about Ally Bennett's assertion that Senator Travis had attacked Lori Andrews. Finally she told her father about her meeting with Paul Baylor.

  "What's your take?" Frank asked when Amanda was through.

  "Those defense wounds bother me. Dupre was treated for them immediately after his arrest in the visiting room."

  "Any chance they're self-inflicted?" Frank asked.

  "Why would he cut himself?"

  "To fashion a self-defense argument in a case that's impossible to win any other way."

  "Who would believe Dupre, Dad?"

  "No one. Which is the problem you're going to have trying to sell this theory to a jury. The logical explanation for those cuts is that Dupre brought the shiv into the visiting room and Hayes somehow got the knife away from him and stabbed Dupre in self-defense. Before you can argue that Dupre acted in self-defense, you're going to have to prove that Hayes smuggled the shiv in, which presents another problem. What motive could Hayes possibly have to attack Dupre?"

  "What motive did Jon have to kill Hayes?" Amanda countered. "Don't forget the fix Dupre was in when Hayes came to the jail. If he's convicted of killing Senator Travis, he'll get life in prison or a lethal injection. Wendell Hayes was a terrific trial lawyer. Why kill someone who could have saved his life?"

  "Good point. Unfortunately the prosecutor doesn't have to prove motive."

  "Yeah, I know." Amanda looked dejected. "There is something else that's bothering me, though. If Dupre brought the shiv to the interview room because he wanted to kill Hayes, he'd have to know that Hayes was the lawyer who was coming to visit him. Grant didn't appoint Hayes until shortly before Hayes went to the jail."

  "So, we need to know when Dupre learned that Hayes was going to be his lawyer."

  "Right. If Jon didn't know that Hayes was going to be his lawyer until he met him in the visiting room, why would he bring a shiv with him?"

  "He may have had it for protection from other inmates."

  "Jon wouldn't have had it on him when he went to see Hayes. He'd never risk having it found during a frisk."

  "Maybe Dupre planned to kill any lawyer who showed up so he could plead insanity."

  "Then why isn't Jon acting crazy or suggesting that he is?"

  "And he's got those cuts," Frank muttered to himself.

  "What do you know about Wendell Hayes?"

  "Not a lot. We socialized at Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association meetings, Bar Association meetings, stuff like that. I've been on panels with him and we've had drinks together."

  "Did you ever hear anything that would suggest he was dirty?"

  "There are always rumors when a lawyer handles a lot of drug cases."

  "Such as?"

  "Money-laundering, that type of thing. But how would that explain Hayes attacking your client?"

  "I don't know, but it makes it more likely that he'd try to kill someone if he was bent."

  "Wendell's career did start with a bang. There was the Blanton case and that one wit
h the hit man--I can't remember the case name. Things really broke his way in those cases."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The DA had a slam dunk in Blanton until his eyewitness recanted, and the key evidence disappeared from the police property room in the other case. Most people thought he was lucky, but there were a few DAs I know who suggested that the breaks weren't just luck."

  "Hayes didn't do much criminal stuff anymore, did he?"

  "Wendell still took on a few high-profile criminal cases but, mostly, he was handling business problems for people with money."

  "What type of problems?"

  "He secured a very lucrative federal construction contract for Burton Rommel's firm and he's maneuvered a few land-use planning rulings for developers that were worth millions. That type of thing."

  "Deals that require political clout."

  Frank nodded. "Wendell had plenty of that. He was part of the Westmont crowd, old Portland money. He grew up on intimate terms with the people who make this state run."

  Amanda talked to her father a little longer. Since they were both working late, they decided to have a quick dinner downtown in an hour. Amanda went to her office and spent the time reviewing everything she knew about Dupre's case. One thing that she thought about was the picture Ally Bennett had painted of Harold Travis. It was far different from the picture the press was presenting. Unfortunately, the only evidence that Ally could offer about Travis's character was Lori Andrews's hearsay statements, which were inadmissible in court. And proving that Travis was a degenerate didn't disprove the state's allegation that Dupre had murdered the senator. Ally's information actually hurt Jon's case. If Travis beat up one of Dupre's escorts after Jon warned the senator about hurting her, it would provide Jon with a motive to kill Travis.

  On the other hand, if Tim Kerrigan tried to introduce evidence about Lori Andrews's murder at Jon's trial, evidence that the senator had beaten Andrews would be useful. Amanda was thinking about ways to get Ally's hearsay into evidence when she remembered that cocaine had been found in the senator's house. She wondered if the lab had recovered Travis's prints from the baggie, so she checked the police reports and found that the prints on the baggie were too smudged for comparison. Amanda was disappointed, but she thought of another way to prove that the senator had used cocaine. She found the autopsy report. The tox screen had not found cocaine, but it had picked up something else. According to the report, there were traces of alprazolam in the senator's blood. Amanda wondered what that was. She was about to do some research when her father buzzed her on the intercom to tell her that he was ready to go. Amanda was exhausted and starving. She made a note to find out about alprazolam, grabbed her coat, and left her office.

  Chapter Twenty-Three.

  Oscar Baron was ready to pack it in. Sitting in an abandoned gas station at two in the morning in the fucking cold was definitely not his idea of a good time. He was a lawyer, for God's sake. People waited for him, not the other way around. If Jon Dupre hadn't agreed to the outrageous fee Baron was charging him, he'd have been long gone. Even at the rates that he had gouged out of Dupre, Baron was starting to wonder if it was worth it.

  First he'd had to deal with that stuck-up bitch, Bennett. She'd brought his money and Jon's bargaining chip to Baron's office about an hour after Baron had taken Dupre's call. Baron had suggested a friendly blow job to celebrate his being back on the case, and she'd had the temerity to turn him down, like she was too good for him.

  Then, Oscar had had to put up with Dupre's ravings at the jail. Jesus, could he go on and on. But Baron was pretty good at tuning out clients, and he could put up with the most unmitigated bullshit for what Dupre was paying him.

  Finally, there was this ridiculous meeting in the middle of nowhere. Dupre had insisted that Baron deal with an FBI agent named Hunter. Baron had called the local office and left his number. Hunter had called him at home and told him they had to meet immediately behind this abandoned gas station on a deserted stretch of the highway to the coast. When Oscar pointed out that it was one in the morning and he was in bed, the agent had insisted that the clandestine rendezvous was necessary for security reasons. Oscar would have told the agent to go fuck himself if Dupre hadn't promised a sizeable bonus for a good deal.

  A car turned into the lot and Oscar stubbed out his cigarette. It was about time. The lawyer got out of his car and turned up the collar of his camel's-hair overcoat to protect his cheeks from the wind. Overnight, the weather had turned and it was close to freezing. The car pulled alongside Oscar, and the driver reached over and opened the door. He was Hispanic, with a flat, pock-marked face and a wisp of a mustache. That didn't seem right. Oscar was certain that Dupre had told him that Hunter was black. Well, this guy was dark. Baron didn't really care; as long as he was being paid, he'd deal with anyone.

  "Agent Hunter was called away on another case, Mr. Baron." He held out his credentials. "I'm Agent Castillo."

  "Hunter just called me."

  "He was as upset as you are, but something came up. I really can't discuss his other case. You understand."

  "All I know is that he got me out of bed in the middle of the night," Oscar complained as he slid onto the passenger seat.

  "If we weren't concerned for your safety I would be snug under the covers myself."

  "Yeah, well, let's get this over with. I'm freezing my nuts off."

  "What does Mr. Dupre want?"

  "To get out of jail."

  "That may be difficult. He killed a United States senator . . . ."

  "He denies that."

  "Yes, well, then there's the little matter of murdering Mr. Hayes, which is a state matter over which the Bureau has no jurisdiction. Besides, I'm not certain I should be talking to you. I've been told that Amanda Jaffe represents Mr. Dupre."

  "Do you see Jaffe sitting here? She's a court-appointed lawyer. Jon doesn't trust her. He doesn't trust anyone except me."

  "So, she doesn't know anything about these negotiations?"

  "Not a thing. Now, let's get down to business, so I can go home. You figure out a way to help Jon and Jon will help you fry some very big fish."

  "Such as?"

  "Pedro Aragon, for one."

  "Go on." Castillo said it as if he wasn't impressed, but his body language suggested otherwise.

  "My client has knowledge of Aragon's operation. He can show you how his people bring the stuff in, he can draw you an organizational chart . . . ."

  "We know a lot of this already, Mr. Baron."

  "But can you prove it? Jon's been secretly taping and filming conversations with Aragon's men; it's an insurance policy for situations like this. With Jon's evidence you can bag some of Aragon's lieutenants. Maybe they'll turn. And Jon says he's got other stuff that will make busting Aragon seem like small potatoes."

  "Oh. What would that be?"

  "He didn't tell me. He just said to tell you that what he has is dynamite."

  Baron pulled a tape recorder out of his coat pocket and laid it on the seat between them.

  "Let me play you a sample of the stuff he's got against Aragon."

  Baron hit the play button and a tape started to roll. Halfway through, Oscar zoned out. The stuff was good evidence, but pretty boring. A lot of drug jabber about quality and prices. It could have been two guys at a used-car lot. Oscar didn't snap out of his trance until Castillo flashed the car's headlights.

  "What's that for?" the lawyer asked just as his door was yanked open. A hand grabbed his coat collar, and a huge man started to pull him out of the car. Oscar hung on to the dashboard. A gun butt smashed his fingers, and he screamed. He was on the ground before it registered that it was Castillo who had crushed his fingers. Oscar opened his mouth to protest, but the muzzle of another gun ripped past his lips and smashed his teeth. Oscar tried to scream again, but he choked on the muzzle. The man who had pulled him from the car pushed the gun barrel deeper into his mouth. Castillo walked into Oscar's line of sight.

  "I
f you make a sound, the gun will be pushed down your throat and you will choke to death. Nod if you understand."

  Oscar jerked his head up and down. The metal barrel was tickling his throat and he had to fight his gag response. Castillo nodded. The gun slid out of Oscar's mouth and he gasped for air.