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
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