Missing Justice sk-2 Page 11

  why he loved the peculiar formatting that the firm insisted on for each

  and every document: "It's just the Dunn Simon way." Yuck.

  "I don't know, Russ. Might have to pull a Little Red Hen on your

  ass."

  "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your literary reference. I tend to

  read material for adults."

  "Yeah, right. The kind with pictures that fold out in the middle. I

  mean that you don't eat the bread unless you help plant the grain. I'm

  picturing myself in the first and only chair in State v. Yet to Be

  Determined for the murder of Clarissa Easterbrook."

  "You keep dreaming, Kincaid, because it's not gonna happen. Besides,

  I've got a good excuse, not that I need to give you one. Judge Maurer

  sent a case out for trial this afternoon that I was sure would settle,

  so I need to get ready. Have fun with those administrative law files,

  though. Sounds like a blast."

  I welcomed my chair back into its new home and scooted old blue crusty

  into the hallway with a piece of paper pinned to its back that read

  hazardous waste. Given the state of the budget around here, it still

  might be a step up for someone.

  Nelly Giacoma remembered me from the day before. She tried to sound

  chipper when she welcomed me into the office, but I could tell from her

  puffy eyes and congested voice that she'd been crying. I asked if I

  could see Clarissa's files.

  "Dennis Coakley told me you'd be coming by. I needed to keep busy, so

  I helped make sure we had all the pending cases. He's got everything

  in piles for you in the conference room at the end of the hall."

  The conference room turned out to be little more than a storage space

  that held the water cooler and a bulletin board posting the required

  equal employment disclosures. There were four boxes of files stacked

  in the corner and a small table I could use for work space.

  "Do you need anything?" Nelly asked.

  "No, I should be fine. Thanks."

  "You sure? Because I think I'm going to head out. Judge Olick told me

  to take the rest of the day off. I was going to try to finish some

  things up, but I'm pretty useless right now."

  "You should definitely go. I'll be fine."

  "Thanks. Just let yourself out."

  I thanked her again and turned to the files. I began by spreading the

  boxes side by side on the floor, quickly scanning the file headings to

  see if anything jumped out. Nope. No in the

  EVENT SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS Or LITIGANTS WHO HATE ME files, just case

  names.

  I started at the beginning, dictating the names of the parties and the

  nature of the dispute for each file into the hand-sized recorder I

  still owned from my days at the U.S. Attorneys Office. The machine

  served more as a paperweight in my current position, since the District

  Attorney staff refuses to type for the deputies. But considering I

  didn't even know what I was looking for, taped notes would be good

  enough for now.

  Case after case, nothing seemed relevant. One thing was for certain:

  There would be no problems finding things of interest in my files. In

  fact, the problem would be too many defendants who were angry, mean, or

  outright psycho enough to go after me. On a weekly basis in the drug

  unit, some dealer who blamed me for the sentencing guidelines would

  throw me a devil eye, his thrusted chest, or the very worst the

  blood-boiling c-word. Hell, I could fill one side of a tape with the

  spitters alone. Experienced prosecutors know always to sit at the end

  of the table farthest from the defendant.

  Clarissa Easterbrook's caseload, on the other hand, was a major snooze.

  How disgruntled can a person be about a citation for un mowed grass, an

  unkempt vacant house, or a toilet left on the front porch? Although a

  few of them huffed and puffed in their appeal papers, the tough talk

  was generally reserved for the nosy neighbors who had sicced the city

  on them or the unfeeling civil servants who responded, and even those

  were rare. More typically, the appellants tried hard embarrassingly so

  to be lawyerlike in their prose. Lots of henceforths, herewiths, and

  thereto fores

  When I got to the Js, I came across the Melvin Jackson file. Now this

  one stood out. At least two letters a week for the past six weeks,

  filed in reverse chronological order under correspondence. They began

  as pleas for compassion about his recent past, which I learned went

  like this:

  Melvin Jackson was the father of three children, ages two to six. He

  and his wife, Sharon, had always struggled with their shared

  addictions, but when their youngest son, Jared, was born addicted to

  crack cocaine, Melvin entered the rehabilitation program offered by the

  office for Services to Children and Families as an alternative to

  losing Jared. Through the program, Melvin had gotten clean. Sharon

  hadn't. One afternoon, Melvin came home from his part-time job as a

  Portland State janitor to find another man leaving his apartment and

  Sharon inside naked, smoking up with Jared in her arms, the other two

  children curled together on the sofa. He told her to choose between

  the drugs and her children. The next morning, Sharon went to SCF and

  signed a voluntary termination of parental rights.

  Melvin had been taking care of the kids ever since. He saved enough

  money for a used van and was getting by through public housing, public

  assistance, and occasional work as a landscaper and handyman.

  Melvin was about to lose his public housing because of his unemployed

  cousin, who moved in with him a year ago in exchange for watching

  Melvin's kids when he worked. One night four months ago, a community

  policing officer assigned to the Housing Authority of Portland caught

  the cousin and her friends smoking pot on the apartment complex swing

  set. The officer found less than an ounce, decriminalized in Oregon,

  so the only repercussion for the cousin was a ticket for possession, no

  more than a traffic matter. But federal regulations authorize public

  housing agencies to evict tenants who have drugs on the property. The

  problem for Melvin was that public housing evictions aren't by the

  tenant; they're by the unit. Two days after the swing set smoke out

  HAP served Melvin with a notice of eviction. Then an SCF caseworker

  told him his kids would be placed in foster care if he became

  homeless.

  I knew a little bit about these kinds of evictions. A few years ago,

  the United States Supreme Court upheld the federal housing policy

  nine-zip, permitting the eviction of a law-abiding grandmother whose

  grandson smoked pot on public housing property. Never mind that she'd

  taken in her grandson to save him from a drug-addicted mother. The

  only option for someone in Melvin s place was to hope for leniency, but

  it would have to come from the housing authority; a court could do

  nothing about it.

  Clarissas notes in the file suggested that, at least initially, Melvin

  had earned her sympathy. One entry during the second week she'd had

  the case noted:

  Called Cathy W
exler @ HAP: zero tolerance policy won budge. Called SCF

  info line: No knowledge can discuss and'l case, but 'very possible'

  take kids if lose housing.

  She had even run some computerized searches on Westlaw looking for

  authority to support the argument that HAP was prohibited from adopting

  a zero-tolerance policy on eviction.

  Unfortunately for Melvin, however, he chose a course of conduct that

  had probably obliterated that sympathy before

  Clarissa had found any law to back up the creative argument she was

  trying to craft on his behalf. By the fifth letter, his tone had

  changed. All caps and exclamation points don't go over well with

  judges. More recently, Melvin s letters became aggressive:

  Do you have children of your OWN, Judge Easterbrook? What kind of

  person would allow this to happen? Maybe someday you will know just

  how UNFAIR life can be. Are you trying to BREAK me?

  I could see why Clarissa wrote them off as the desperate words of a

  desperate man. But the benefit of hindsight made me wonder if Clarissa

  might still be alive if someone had been able to help Melvin Jackson or

  at least deflect his anger from a judge who was on his side but

  powerless to do anything about it.

  As I was starting in on the Ns, Dennis Coakley walked in with another

  box of files. If I was counting right, that made me a hell of a lot

  faster than he was.

  "Not very exciting, is it?" he said.

  "Not particularly."

  "So was it worth that little scene you scripted this morning?"

  "Won't know until I finish the files," I said. If I had boy parts, he

  never would have called my power move a little scene. It would be a

  fast ball, a line drive, an outside shot, or some other ridiculous

  sports analogy that I don't understand.

  "Just like I couldn't know if I had something important to deal with

  until I took a look," he said, stomping off.

  By the time noon came around, I had finished reviewing the very last

  file. Nothing. Two hours of work and all I had to show for it was my

  monotone summary of Clarissa Easterbrook's pending caseload. The drone

  of my own voice, combined with the steady hum of the water cooler, had

  been enough to make me nod off a few times.

  My legal pad was hardly used, but to keep myself from sleeping I had

  made three lists. One was a list of cases where Clarissa said

  something at the hearing to indicate she'd be ruling for the city, but

  where she hadn't yet issued a formal ruling. Maybe someone decided to

  ensure a rehearing with a different judge. Possible, but not

  probable.

  The second list was even shorter. I jotted down a few names to run in

  PPDS when I got back to the office, but each seemed an unlikely

  suspect. Sheldon Smithers found a lock on his front tire, courtesy of

  the city, after one too many unpaid parking tickets. He made my list

  for sending a rant about the hypocrisy of reserving parking spaces for

  the administrative law judges in the city lot. That, and the

  serial-killerish name.

  Then there was Ronald Nathan Wilson. A month ago, Ronald punched the

  glass out on the hearing room door after Clarissa denied his challenge

  to the city's seizure of his car. It's a long way from vandalism to

  murder, I know, but the seizure was for picking up a decoy in a

  prostitution sting, sinking Ronald deeper into the creep pile. And,

  again, the name didn't help. Six letters each: first, middle, and

  last. Everyone knows 6-6-6 is the sign of the devil.

  I wasn't sure what to do with my third list. These were cases from

  which Clarissa had recused herself. A restaurant manager whose

  application for a sidewalk cafe license had been rejected. A homeowner

  whose third-floor addition was enjoined under the nuisance code. A

  contractor complaining that his requests to rehabilitate buildings in

  the Pearl District had been declined unfairly.

  Maybe one of them had complained that Clarissa had a grudge against him

  but hadn't gotten word yet that she was recusing herself. I knew it

  was a stretch, but I had to leave that room with something.

  I used my cell phone to check my work voice mail. As long as there

  were no new fires to put out, I was actually going to make my lunch

  date with Grace. Only three new messages: one from Dad reminding me

  about dinner, one from Frist about a grand jury hearing at the end of

  the week that I had already calendared, and one from Jessica Walters

  asking me to try her later. Still nothing from Johnson.

  I considered returning Dad's call but wasn't up for another

  conversation like we'd had the night before. Instead, I flipped my

  phone shut and considered myself on a well-deserved lunch break.

  Grace and I have a handful of regular lunchtime meeting places located

  roughly halfway between the courthouse and her salon, Lockworks.

  Today's pick was the Greek Cusina on Fourth, which I always spot by the

  gigantic purple octopus protruding above the door. Don't ask me what

  the connection is.

  Grace was waiting for me in our favorite corner booth, great for

  people-watching. We could peek out, but a potted rubber tree plant

  made it unlikely we'd be seen from the street.

  She looked terrific, as always. Physically, Grace and I are yin and

  yang. I've got dark-brown straight hair; her color changes by the day,

  but I know those cute little curls are naturally blond. She's trendy;

  my clothes (unless bought by Grace) come in black, gray, charcoal,

  slate, and ebony. I'm five-feet-eight, she's five-three. She eats all

  she wants, never works out, and can wear stuff from the kids'

  department. I eat half of what I want and run at least twenty-five

  miles a week, just to maintain a size in the single digits. She's put

  together; I'm a mess. Set aside those differences, and we're twins.

  "Hey, woman," she said, standing up to kiss my cheek. "I've missed

  you. I sort of liked being roommates. Maybe we should try it here at

  home."

  "Might not be the same without the beach."

  "Or the rum," she added.

  "Don't sell the condo just yet; we could wind up killing each other.

  Did you order already?"

  "Yeah, I figured it was safe."

  Grace knows I always get the Greek platter: a gyro, a side of

  spanikopita, and a little Greek salad. That converts into roughly six

  miles.

  Once I'd settled in across from her, Grace asked me to tell her all

  about my new life in the Major Crimes Unit.

  "I promise I will get to it, but, please, not just yet. I need a break

  from thinking about the horrible things people do to each other. Tell

  me a little bit about your homecoming. Anything good at the salon?"

  Grace opened Lockworks, a two-story full-service salon-slash-spa, in

  the haute Pearl District a few years ago. Never mind that back then

  she was a marketing executive without a beautician's license. What

  Grace had was business sense. She managed to swing a loan for an

  entire warehouse, which she converted into the first of what are now

  many upscale salons targeting the hordes of trendy young professionals


  flocking to Portland. Today the building alone is worth millions, and

  clients wait weeks to pay Grace a small fortune for a haircut or

  highlight.

  "I've been swamped. The first vacation I've taken since I opened that

  place, but it doesn't keep people from getting pissed off. I've been

  on my feet for the last forty-eight hours, com ping cuts for clients

  who refused appointments with the girls who were subbing for me."

  "I guess they know you're the best."

  "One way to look at it," she said.

  "Or they're just pricks."

  She clinked her water glass against mine.

  QQ

  For the next fifteen minutes, I sat back and listened to Grace's

  stories about beautiful people who aren't as beautiful as they want to

  be. The whining, the temper tantrums, the unrepentant displays of

  vanity. I had packed away half of my chicken gyro by the time she

  finished telling me her latest Hollywood story. Grace has become the

  preferred stylist for the film productions that increasingly choose to

  go on location in Portland. Apparently, someone with too much money

  offered Grace a big wad of dough to do body waxing for an eye-candy

  movie being shot in the Columbia Gorge about windsurfers. Fortunately,

  Grace had enough money to take a pass.

  "In addition to the obvious yuck factor, most of the half-naked

  unknowns are teenagers," she explained.

  "I would've thought that was right up your alley, Grace. You're

  ripening pretty well into a dirty old woman." I had teased Grace

  endlessly in Hawaii each time her gaze predictably and shamelessly