was all Townsend and Gunderson. Townsend found out about Clarissa's
affair and used it to guilt-trip Clarissa into ruling for Gunderson in
exchange for the hospital donation."
Like all coconspirators, she was spinning a version that undoubtedly
shifted the blame from herself but which nevertheless contained some
undercurrent of truth.
"So what was the videotape for?" Chuck asked. "And what were you
doing with it?"
"Clarissa brought it over here a couple of weeks ago to show me. She
must have left it. Townsend initially had it made to get an upper hand
in the divorce, but then he told her he'd mail it to Caffrey s wife
unless she convinced Caffrey to vote in favor of development in
Glenville. I guess Gunderson stood to make a lot of money, and
Townsend would be rewarded in kind."
"Could that be it?" Russ asked me.
I shook my head. "If Gunderson and Townsend hooked up at a cocktail
party and reached this one-time deal to help Gunderson's Railroad
District project, how would Gunderson even know that Clarissa could get
to Caffrey? Or if Townsend's the one who thought of this, how would he
know that Gunderson had investments out in Glenville? It doesn't make
any sense."
"So what's your theory?"
"Susan's the link. She pretends she's a trophy widow, but she learned
everything she knows from Herbie. I think she, Gunderson, and MTK are
all still in bed together. They were bribing Jane Wessler at the city
for the Railroad District licenses. When
Wessler went on maternity leave without giving Gunderson his permit,
Susan turned to Clarissa. I always thought it was weird that Clarissa
hadn't told Susan about her relationship with Caffrey. I think she
did, and that her best friend turned around and used it to convince her
that she owed this to Townsend. Then even that wasn't enough. She got
that videotape and told Clarissa she'd mail it to Caffrey's wife if
Clarissa didn't deliver Caffrey's vote."
Back in the holding room, Susan's explanations continued to contain
just enough truth to confirm at least part of what I suspected. Chuck
and Ray had broken the news to her about the blood in the basement.
Her demeanor changed again, and this time she feigned sadness for the
loss of her friend. She even managed to shed some tears. "It wasn't
me. It was Townsend. Clarissa called me Saturday, completely
hysterical. I guess she told him that morning that she wasn't going to
go along with Gunderson anymore. If they were going to mail the
videotape, she was willing to go to the police. She was over here
telling me about it when Townsend showed up. They went down to the
basement to have a private conversation, and the next thing I knew
there was yelling. It sounded like a terrible struggle. I ran
downstairs." Her voice cracked for effect. "Oh, my God, I couldn't
believe it. Townsend told me I had to help him, or he'd tell everyone
I'd been in on it. I realized how it would look. My house, my
husband's old business partner I panicked."
"You didn't panic." Chuck spoke quietly, but was convincingly
disgusted. "You went shopping, Susan. You went and picked out an
outfit to dress your dead friend in, so it would look like she died
Sunday. You hired carpenters for a fucking remodel. Don't lay this
all on Townsend."
I made a mental note to have a handwriting analyst check the charge
receipt for Clarissa's purchases last Saturday at
Nordstrom. My guess is that the signature would be close, but not
quite right. I was also pretty sure that, as much as Susan had joked
about Clarissa being the reluctant shopper, we'd find out that Susan
hadn't bought anything for herself that day.
"But it was his idea," Susan was insisting. "He's the doctor. He's
the one who cooked up this whole thing about using the food in her
stomach. You tell me, how could I come up with that myself? I still
don't even understand it."
Russ poked me in the side with his elbow. "She's got a point there."
I nodded. "Sure. Townsend came up with the idea of throwing us off
met Townsend. It had to have been the other way around. Clarissa
confronts Susan; Susan kills Clarissa and then tells Townsend he'd
better help or she'll pin it all on him."
"It would certainly explain why the guy's been a walking corpse. But
what about the poly?"
"He passed it because of the questions." I told him about the
transcript of Townsend's interview. He was asked if he'd been at the
hospital Sunday, if he killed Clarissa, and if he hired, solicited,
ordered, or asked anyone to kill her. But they neglected to ask the
money question: "Do you know who killed your wife?"
Chuck was asking Susan to walk them through the rest of the plan.
"Townsend called Gunderson to come over for Clarissa's .. . to get
Clarissa," said Susan. "He came over and took Clarissa to the
Glenville property, then stashed the hammer at Jackson's."
"And how would Gunderson know that Jackson had a grudge against
Clarissa? Your story's not adding up." Chuck did a better bad cop
routine than most. His tone struck the perfect balance between anger
and dismissiveness.
"She's cooperating, OK?" Johnson said.
Susan looked at Johnson. She probably recognized the routine, but she
played along anyway. "Townsend told him about Jackson."
"And Jackson just happened to work for Gunderson? Wrong again,
Susan."
"Clarissa got Gunderson to give Jackson a job. I told you she felt
sorry for the guy. I think she was probably trying to turn what she'd
done into some kind of good deed. Karma and all."
"God, she's good," I said.
"Maybe," Russ said, "but I still can't believe she hasn't law-ye red
up."
I shook my head and smiled. "That's because you don't know Susan Kerr.
She thinks she's way too smart for all of this. She's been
manipulating people her whole life, getting away with it every time.
And she probably figures, Hey, she's a woman, she's in here first;
she'll be the one to get the deal. She's convinced Gunderson and
Townsend will go down, and she'll waltz out with a few months of local
jail."
"That's not going to happen, is it." It wasn't a question.
"No way," I said.
"Ready to call Duncan?"
"Let's do it."
It took a good forty-five minutes, but we finally laid it all out for
the boss.
"And you think we've got PC for Townsend and Gunderson?" "I do," Russ
said. "We've got a coconspirator implicating Townsend directly in the
murder, and at the very least she's implicating Gunderson in the
cover-up. Add the circumstantial evidence of the various connections
between everyone, and we've got enough for warrants."
"Start working on search warrants," Duncan said, "but call their
lawyers and give them an hour to turn themselves in."
"What?" I screeched into the speakerphone. "You've got to be kidding.
This is a murder case, Duncan
."
"No shit, Samantha. But we're not dealing with a bunch of gang bangers
here. You don't need a perp walk on this one. They'll turn themselves
in."
"Right," I said. "Just like Susan Kerr did. In case you forgot, we
pulled her off a plane after she tried to kill me."
"Don't be dramatic. She locked you in a room," Duncan argued.
I looked at Russ and shook my head. "Yeah, Duncan, without any air."
"Look, Samantha. You're new to this. We let guys TSI all the time,
even in murder cases. Russ, if you're worried about it, call the
airlines and make sure they know not to let these guys fly out. But
giving them an hour's not going to kill anyone."
If only he'd been right.
When the deadline came, Gunderson was there with Thorpe, but Roger had
Townsend Easterbrook was dead.
Seventeen.
A week later, I attended the funeral with Chuck and my father.
I don't know why I went or why I made anyone come with me. Maybe
because death was still new to me. Or maybe part of me actually felt
sorry for him.
Susan Kerr may have tried to put all the blame on Townsend, but in the
end he had the last laugh. He had found one decent concluding act to
his life. He left a note. He'd probably written it as the final dose
of painkillers settled in, but I was confident it was reliable. Unlike
most coconspirators, Townsend no longer had a reason to point the
finger at others. He just wanted, finally, to tell the truth.
These are my words, not his, but the truth went something like this:
Townsend Easterbrook had believed that building the pediatric wing was
the most important accomplishment of his life. He knew he'd earned his
position more for his administrative skills than his healing ones, and
the new wing was his way of securing a legacy at the hospital. Several
months earlier,
Susan Kerr had offered to help, and Townsend had happily accepted. The
money came rolling in.
But then, on the Friday before Clarissa's death, he discovered the
deal's strings. Clarissa sat him down and told him that, in exchange
for Susan's generosity, she had rigged a decision in favor of a company
in which Susan had an interest. She said she'd done it to help the
hospital wing and out of loyalty to Susan, but now things had gone too
far. Susan was asking her to do even more, and Clarissa planned to say
no. The money would dry up.
Townsend told her to put her foot down. Screw Susan. They'd build the
wing without her.
But that's not what happened. Clarissa left the house to meet Susan on
Saturday for lunch. A couple of hours later, Townsend got a call.
Something was wrong with Clarissa, Susan said. He needed to come
over.
When he got there, Clarissa was dead, lying in a pool of blood in the
basement. Susan claimed that Clarissa had tried to destroy some
documents and attacked her when Susan put up a fight. According to
Susan, it was self-defense.
While Townsend was still reeling, Susan said she'd blame it all on him
if he told anyone Clarissa had been with her that day. The documents
detailed the connection between Clarissa's thrown case and the
donations to the hospital project. Townsend would lose everything.
Then she told him something he'd never even suspected Clarissa had been
cheating on him. Guilt over the affair was the reason she'd been
willing to fix Gunderson's case in the first place. Susan even had a
videotape to back the story up.
Because Clarissa had died shortly after lunch, all they needed to do
was make sure her body wasn't found for a day or so, and make it look
as if she'd eaten her Saturday meal on Sunday. As a doctor, Townsend
knew some of the rules about determining time of death "garbage in,
garbage out," as Dr. Sandier had put it.
Townsend ensured that the police found a fresh take-out container in
the house by using a short break between surgeries to dash to the
nearby Pasta Company. He'd also set up the initial call-out by leaving
Clarissa's loafer to be found in the gutter, and dropping Griffey, on
his leash, along Taylor's Ferry Drive. Susan had taken care of the
rest. She'd shown up at the house Saturday night with an empty
Nordstrom shopping bag to put in Clarissa's dressing room. She told
Townsend she'd make sure the body wasn't found until Monday. He
realized that the medical examiner would figure out her clothes had
been switched, but it didn't seem to bother investigators. And when
the evidence against Melvin Jackson came out, he assumed that Susan
must have set up the plan ahead of time. By then, he was too out of
his mind on OxyContin to figure a way out.
He'd been considering suicide for days, but Roger's call on Monday
night had sealed the deal. He took the pills, wrote his letter, placed
a plastic bag over his head, and let go of the situation. Whether we'd
get the note in at trial remained to be seen, but I knew in my heart it
held all the answers.
The services were modest, arranged as a courtesy by Dr. and Mrs.
Jonathon Fletcher. Townsend's death had made headlines, as had Susan's
arrest and Jackson's release, but so far the official explanation for
his suicide and its relationship to those other events was under
wraps.
Clarissas family chose not to attend. From what Tara had told me, she
and her parents were still coming to terms with the idea that Clarissa
had been killed by people they'd treated as family. The only eulogists
were Townsend's professional acquaintances. They remembered his
commitment to patients and his love for Clarissa, careful to keep their
comments general enough that they reflected a relationship that once
was.
Roger found me in the lobby of the funeral home. I told Chuck and Dad
I'd meet them in a second.
"I'm surprised you came," he said.
I shrugged.
"I hope you realize that I didn't know," he said. "If I had "
"Don't worry about it. I know. I was fooled too, remember?"
"I should have sensed it, though. I could have talked him into coming
forward."
"Really, Roger, you don't need to say anything. It's fine."
We stood there awkwardly while he searched for something else to say.
"So Jackson's out, huh?"
"Released last Wednesday," I said. "Took a couple days, but he
couldn't be happier." He hadn't been the only one. Mrs. Jackson was
waiting in the lobby with Melvin's kids. She burst into tears with the
first look at her freed son, and before long we all lost it. Walker
insisted the sniffle I overheard was from allergies, but I knew
better.
"Is the poor guy still getting evicted?"
"Some people are working on it." Dennis Coakley of all people was
intervening with HAP to hammer out an agreement for Melvin and the kids
to stay in public housing.
"So how does your case look?" How strange that after our years
together, this conversation would be like any typical one between
lawyers.
"Not too bad," I said.
"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you lay the
foundation for Townsend's letter. I was the last one to talk to him, I
guess."
"All right, thanks."
"You've probably got enough evidence without it. Jim Thorpe's been
keeping me up to date," he said by way of explanation.
Gunderson had already cut a deal for three years on bribery and abuse
of corpse for helping Susan move the body. It was a gift, but, in the
end, we were never able to prove he'd been in on the murder. In
exchange, he had delivered the goods. Gunderson had come to suspect
that Susan wasn't quite as loyal as his old pal Herbie and recently
began taping their conversations. The recordings of Susan telling
Gunderson to hire Jackson a week before the murder and to come to her
house the night Clarissa died would be gold at trial. Add the
documents he had confirming Susan's investment in Gunderson
Development, and we had motive to go with opportunity. As for means,
we'd ask the jury to infer from the blood in the house that she had hit
Clarissa in the head and then planted the hammer at Jackson's.
"We'll see, right?" Roger knew me too well not to sense the impatience
in my voice.
"I'm holding you up. Just humor me on one more question: Was it
premeditated?"
Gunderson had confirmed that Susan was the one who asked him to hire