records."
"Ooh, baby, that's very hot and lusty."
"No more of that," I said. "Call me later, OK?"
"Ball's back in my court?"
"For now," I said, and hung up.
When I finally got to the point where I was supposed to go . 18 miles
and then turn right for .07 miles, I nearly ran into the yellow crime
scene tape.
PPB had used the tape to close off the entirety of what the sign
declared was a state-of-the-art office park, coming soon. A young
officer stood at the foot of a gravel road leading to the construction
area. I flashed my District Attorney ID, and he described the several
turns I'd need to make around the various office buildings.
The day was beginning to lose its light, and the bureau's crime scene
technicians were erecting floods at the edge of a wooded area that
surrounded the new development. I could see Johnson and Walker were
already here, talking to some of the techs. I parked behind one of the
bureau's vans and prepared myself for Clarissa Easterbrook's corpse.
I'd seen four dead bodies in my life. One was my mother's, two were in
my living room last month, and one was on my first and only homicide
call-out. On that one, I'd been lucky enough to draw a fresh OD.
Depending on how the events leading to her death unfolded, Clarissa
Easterbrook could have been dead up to 35 hours.
Johnson met me at the car and we walked toward the woods. I could tell
from the surrounding area that the developer had clear-cut the old
growth that must have previously covered these hundred acres or so.
When we reached the end of the clearing, Johnson turned sideways and
stepped carefully through the trees. I followed and, just a few feet
later, saw what used to be
Clarissa Easterbrook, still in her pink turtleneck and gray pants. A
lot of good that piece of investigative work had done.
In novels, there's often something beautiful or at least touching about
the dead. A victim's arms extended like the wings of an angel, her
face at peace, her hand reaching for justice. This was nothing like
that. Clarissa Easterbrook's body was laid on the dirt, face up. The
right side of her head was gone, and I could find nothing poetic about
it.
The only worthwhile observations to be made about the corpse were
scientific. I initially focused on the disfigurement of her head, but
Johnson pointed out the discoloration on what remained of her face.
Purple streaks stained the left edge of her face and neck, like
bruising against skin that otherwise looked like silly putty. "Looks
like someone moved her."
When blood is no longer pumped by a beating heart, it settles with
gravity to the parts of the body closest to the ground. Clarissa
Easterbrook was on her back now, but immediately after her death she
had almost certainly been lying on her left side.
I watched as crime scene technicians methodically photographed and
bagged every item that might potentially become relevant to our
investigation. A candy wrapper, several cigarette butts, a rock that
looked like it might have blood on it. These items meant nothing now,
but any one of them could prove critical down the road. I looked at
Clarissa's body again, surrounded now by all this construction and
police work, and swore I'd find whoever did this to her.
I gave Johnson and Walker the file on Melvin Jackson's case that Dennis
Coakley had copied for me at City Hall. I also gave them approval to
file the standard search warrant application used after a homicide to
search the victim's house. We agreed, though, that they'd continue to
take it easy on Townsend unless the evidence started to point to him.
The police would be working the crime scene for the rest of the night,
but I signed out after a couple of hours, when Johnson and Walker left
to deliver the news to Clarissa's family. I don't envy the work of a
cop.
It's not as if prosecutors don't have bad days. Our files are filled
involve acts that could be committed only by pathetic, miserable people
who've lost all hope. Compare that to fighting over money for a
banking client, and it looks like we're doing the heavy lifting.
But, in the end, I'm still just a lawyer. I issue indictments, plead
out cases, and go to trial. When it comes to the investigation, I
might make some calls on procedure, but it's the police who do the real
work. They're the ones who kick in a door when a search needs to be
executed. They're the ones who climb through the dumpster when a gun
gets tossed.
And Johnson and Walker would be the ones to visit Clarissa
Easterbrook's family members tonight to tell them that their lives
would never be the same again. These days, that concept is overused,
as we all say that the crumbling of two towers changed the world
forever. The kind of change I'm talking about can be claimed only by
the families of the three thousand people trapped inside. It's the
kind of change that causes every other second of life the birth of a
child, a broken leg, the car breaking down at the side of the road to
be cataloged in the memory in one of two ways: before or after that
defining moment in time.
From what I knew of it, everyone deals with the grief of a murder in
his own way. There is shock, then rage, then depression, and
ultimately some level of acceptance. But then the differences emerge.
What kind of survivors would Townsend, Tara, and Mr. and Mrs. Carney
become? The ones who die inside themselves and walk around each day
wondering when their body will catch up to their soul? The ones
seeking numbness in a bottle, the neighbors whispering about how things
used to be different? The ones who run the Web sites and help lines
and victims' rights groups? Clarissa's family still had options for
the future, just not the ones they thought they had when they woke up
yesterday.
Four.
By the time I returned the county's car and caught the bus home, it was
after nine o'clock and there were three messages from my father on the
machine. The gist of each, respectively? How was the first day of
work? I hope you're not working late already. And, finally, You're
not working on that case with the missing judge, are you?
I promised myself I'd call my father back before bed, but not just yet.
A normal person might want to veg out, watch a little TV, and hit the
hay. I wanted to run.
Running is my therapy. My ex-husband called it my escape. No matter
what the problem, a run always helps me see life in perspective. Plus,
I still felt like I needed to sweat out the rum and mint from the
sixty-seven mojitos I must have ingested poolside in Maui.
Even tonight's short three-miler did the trick. After one mile, images
of Clarissa Easterbrook's misshapen head and discolored flesh began to
slip away. After two, I stopped thinking about work entirely. By the
time I got home, I was ready to call my father.
"Sammy?" he sa
id immediately. Dad had recently discovered the wonders
of caller ID as part of his constant effort to stay busy. After
thirty-plus years of marriage, two years as a widower hadn't been
enough for my father to feel relaxed at home alone.
"Yeah, Dad. It's me."
"Late night at work. I was wondering if you were OK."
"Everything's fine. Just a lot to catch up on since I've been out and
with the new unit assignment."
"I bet. So how are the people at the new gig? A step up from the
bozos in the drug unit?"
As pleased as my father is that I've used my law degree to follow him
into law enforcement, he gets frustrated by the personalities I've had
to deal with over the years. The colorful language he uses to discuss
my office is his way of showing he's on my side.
"I guess so. The new supervisor's this guy named Russ Frist. Seems
pretty decent so far."
"Any cases look interesting yet?"
"You know, they're interesting, but a little depressing. I'd rather
hear about what you've been up to. We've hardly talked since I got
back."
"You know me. Typical retiree stuff: a couple of movies, some
gardening, a trip to the shooting range. Exciting, I know."
"I noticed that my lawn was mowed while I was gone. Thanks."
"No problem. It's not like anyone else needs me. So what kept you so
late at the office?"
He was trying to be subtle, but he obviously wanted to know if I was
involved in what he was still following as a missing persons case.
"You probably saw the coverage on the administrative law judge. I was
wrapped up in that most of the day. Actually, I started working on it
last night."
"Jeez, Sam. The minute I saw the news this morning, I knew it. Do you
really need to be on a case like this one right off the bat?"
"Those are the kinds of cases I'm working on now, Dad. Major crimes
tend to come with the territory in the Major Crimes Unit."
"Very clever, wiseacre. But you know this isn't the usual territory.
You're going to be right in the middle of the firestorm, cameras all
over you. Nothing will bring out the crazies faster. Did you ask your
office to put you on something else until you get used to the new
rotation?"
"No, Dad, and I don't plan to. This is my job; you should be proud of
me for getting promoted. I didn't become a prosecutor to handle drug
cases the rest of my life."
My first excursion from my standard drug and vice caseload had finally
come last month when I had prosecuted a psychopath for the rape and
attempted murder of a teenage prostitute. By the time the case was
closed, a couple of nut jobs had broken into my house, bashed me on the
head, and killed the former supervisor of the Major Crimes Unit. I'd
avoided a similar fate only because I'd forced myself to become a good
shot years ago when my ex-husband insisted on keeping a gun in our
apartment. My father may have been a lawman himself, but he hadn't
gotten used to the idea of his little girl shooting her way out of
trouble.
"I am proud of you, Sam," he said, "but maybe you should hold off on
something so big. You're finally out of the spotlight after the
Derringer case. This one's going to put you right back out there. For
all you know, this judge has run off on a lark. She'll be home safe
and sound, and you'll end up the target of some obsessed freak who saw
your picture one too many times in the paper."
"Well, this is what I want, OK? And, anyway, she didn't run off, as
you say. They found her body today. She's dead. It's a murder case.
Does that make you feel better about me handling it?"
I should've stopped then. I'd already gone too far. But I was tired,
stressed out, and angry for reasons I couldn't even understand.
"There's no way I'm walking away from a case like this," I said. "Maybe
you hung up OSP and ran off to the forest service, but I'm sticking it
out."
I apologized immediately, but the words were still out there. I was
too young to remember the switch, but I knew Dad had quit the Oregon
State Police to become a forest ranger when I was still a kid. My
mother had never been particularly comfortable as a cop's wife. You
never knew when that expired tag you pulled over on highway patrol was
going to belong to a guy running from a warrant, thinking to himself,
I'm never going back.
I had vague recollections of my parents' hushed arguments behind their
bedroom door about Dad's job. At the time, I had no idea what they
were all about, but in retrospect, and in light of the timing, I
gathered that Mom had put the screws to him.
And so Dad had let go of his law enforcement dreams to patrol Oregon's
national forests until his retirement just last year. He enjoyed the
steady outdoor hours and his federal pension, but I knew he sometimes
wondered what he'd missed out on in the career he left behind for his
family.
"I just want you to be proud of me, Dad. When you treat me like a
little girl, I feel like I'm not in control of anything in my life."
"You know I'm proud of you, Sammy. Of course I'm proud of you, not
just for your work but for everything you've accomplished. I'm sorry I
even brought this up. This isn't about you,
it's about me; I forget sometimes how strong you are. But you're my
only family left, kid. I don't want anything bad to happen to you."
Why hadn't I seen it that way before? "Nothing's going to happen. Hey,
a couple psychopaths came after me, and I still turned out OK." We both
laughed. "Seriously, Dad, I am so sorry for what I said. I snapped at
you because, honestly, I've got some doubts myself about how I'm going
to learn to get through days like this one. I went out to the crime
scene this afternoon, and seeing her body I can't stop thinking about
it. But I really want this assignment. I'll probably do more than my
fair share of whining about it," I added, "but I want to feel like it's
OK to do that around you without you telling me to take myself off the
case, all right?"
"In other words, the old man needs to lay off."
"Dad "
"I'm kidding," he said, cutting me off. "Get some sleep now, OK? You
must need it after the day you've had."
I was still feeling guilty about my little tirade. "Can I come over
for dinner tomorrow night?"
"You know you don't need to ask. You can even bring the it runt.
He was referring, of course, to Vinnie. Dad had taken him in while I
was gone, saving me from a choice between the kennel and sneaking
Vinnie into the hotel.
When I hung up, Vinnie turned away from me, still pissed off about the
temporary abandonment. He caved when I headed up the stairs, though.
By the time I hit the sheets, he had grabbed his Gumby doll and jumped
in with me.
No matter how important the missing person, an investigation moves more
quickly once the body is found.
Dennis Coakley, who had been dragging his heels yesterday, had hurried
to a slow crawl. I got his message first thing
Tuesday morning: "I
heard the terrible news about Clarissa and wanted you to know I'm still
working away here, the highest possible priority. I'll call you when
I'm done."
We'd see about that.
I also had a message from Susan Kerr, who clearly moved at a much
faster clip. "Hi, this is Susan Kerr. Obviously, I've heard the news,
and I won't even bother trying to tell you how horrible the night was
for everyone. I think the reality is still setting in for all of us.
Anyway, I wanted you to know that I'll be helping Clarissa's family
with arrangements they're obviously not in the best state right now to
pay attention to all the details. Tara's doing OK, definitely a help
to her parents. Townsend, on the other hand well, quite frankly, I'm
worried about him. In any event, I'm doing what I can, so, if you need
anything from anyone, please feel free to call me. Anything at all."
Before she hung up, she left every possible number where she might be
located.
Susan was dealing with death by taking charge. My mother had been the
same way. The few times she'd lost anyone and I mean anyone: a
neighbor, a cousin, her father she went straight to work. Call the
funeral director, the insurance companies, the creditors. Prepare
frozen casseroles and lasagnas to store for the family. It was like
she had a death checklist, full of tasks to keep her busy until the
body was in the ground.
Watching my mother in action, I had never understood her motivation.