Missing Justice sk-2 Page 12

  followed whatever young stud crossed our field of vision. I plowed

  through the entire Jack Reacher series during our poolside time; Grace

  was still working on the same novel on our flight back to Oregon.

  "As tempting as that sounds, there's a little too much Oedipal

  potential there. Better stay put in the city for now. Check out men

  my own age." She gave me that cute little wink she somehow manages to

  pull off when she's being cheeky. "Now can we please knock off the

  chitchat and get down to business? What have you been working on? I

  want every last detail."

  Because of my job, Grace's skin has thickened to violence through

  osmosis. When I first started handling compelling prostitution cases

  in DVD, she saw me through more than a few long nights.

  My ex-husband once told me I shouldn't talk about my cases while people

  were eating; it wasn't polite dinner conversation, whatever the hell

  that is. Down the road, I returned the favor by telling him it wasn't

  exactly polite dinner behavior to use our dining room table to screw

  the professional volleyball player he picked up at his new job at Nike.

  Now, Shoe Boy was a distant memory, and Grace listened to my stories

  whether we were eating or not.

  I brought her up to speed on the Easterbrook case, then told her about

  my unproductive morning reviewing files. She wanted to know how the

  police could begin to tackle a case with no weapon, no witnesses, and

  no physical evidence. I explained MCT's strategy of following up on

  facts that make the case unique.

  She was bothered. "I understand what you're saying about the

  statistical odds that the murder has something to do with whatever the

  victim might have been involved in, but there's still something about

  it that rubs me the wrong way. It's like you're investigating the

  victim, blaming her for getting killed."

  "Right, but would you feel that way if it wasn't someone like Clarissa

  Easterbrook? Someone who looks like us and has a good job and does the

  kinds of things we do? When the victim's a doped-out street person,

  wouldn't you automatically assume that the lifestyle had something to

  do with the fact that she happened to show up dead?"

  "But then you're talking about someone who you know was involved in

  activities that can be dangerous. There's no reason to believe that

  this woman was a drug addict or a prostitute or sleeping with someone

  else's husband."

  "So the police snoop around to find out whether she was. Despite what

  people think, the odds of getting swiped off the street by a total

  stranger are so slim it would be irresponsible for the police to assume

  that scenario without at least looking into the possibility that

  something about the victim got her killed."

  "Well, do me a favor. If I show up dead, don't let anyone snoop

  through my life."

  "How about you do me a favor and don't show up dead?"

  "OK, but if I do, I'll try to make it somewhere interesting. Then you

  could bypass the personal stuff and follow up on the location as the

  angle. Maybe some abandoned castle in the Swiss Alps."

  "A little outside my jurisdiction," I said. "And stop being so

  morbid."

  "Said the proverbial kettle."

  "We can't both be dark. I need my Grace to balance me out a little."

  "Fine, but I want to go back to your case. What's so interesting about

  the location?"

  I did my best to describe the place where Clarissa had been found and

  told her Johnson's theory that it may have been someone familiar with

  the construction site. She was conspicuously quiet. "What?" I

  asked.

  "Nothing. I'm just trying to catch up with you. Your food's nearly

  gone and I still have my entire lunch to eat."

  "Thanks for pointing that out, skinny girl."

  "Don't mention it."

  "Seriously, what were you thinking about?"

  "I think there are probably a lot more people who know about that

  location than you might assume."

  "Grace, it's all the way out on the edge of Glenville."

  "Right, where lots and lots of people live and work. Sam, you've only

  lived in northeast Portland and never ventured beyond the city center.

  Where do your cops live?"

  "Johnson lives up by the University of Portland. I think Walker lives

  in Gresham." That put Ray in north Portland, not far from my own

  Alameda neighborhood, and Jack out in the county's east suburbs.

  "And Glenville's all the way on the southwest edge of the county, which

  is why the three of you think the fastest growing city in the State of

  Oregon is the boonies. You guys might see it as Timbuktu, but a

  hundred thousand people know the land out there as well as you know

  Alameda."

  "When did you become such a Glenvillean? Grace Hannigan, are you

  shopping at Burlington Coat Factory without telling me? Or maybe a new

  man one with a minivan and a cul-de-sac?"

  "Perish the thought," she said. "If you must know, I was looking into

  opening another Lockworks out there. There's a boom right now, and

  most of it from people with money who need haircuts."

  "So are you doing it?"

  "Nah. Too big a risk. When I bought the warehouse, I knew in my gut

  that the Pearl was going up. I didn't know just how far up I hit the

  lottery in that sense but I knew I was ahead of the market. With

  Glenville, the market's already full of people gambling that the

  growth's going to continue. It didn't make sense to get in this late

  in the game."

  "So no Lockworks for Glenville."

  "Right. Anyway, getting a second shop off the ground would have been a

  major pain in the ass. Who needs it?"

  "All that work might get in the way of hanging out with me," I said.

  "Couldn't let that happen."

  The waitress stopped to clear our plates. I left a token morsel on the

  plate, so I could tell myself I didn't eat the whole platter. Grace

  took great pleasure in telling the waitress she was still working on

  it.

  "And how's the rest of the new job? Are you going to share your toys

  with the other kids this time around?"

  "My problems, Grace, are never with the other kids. They're with the

  supposed grown-ups watching over us."

  Grace knew about some of the run-ins I'd had with coworkers in the

  office, all of whom happened to be my superiors. She says I have a

  problem with authority. I say my only problem is that the assholes are

  the ones who get promoted.

  "And what lucky soul gets to put up with you now?" she asked.

  "It's hard to believe, but he seems pretty decent so far. Supposedly

  he makes people cry, but I've never actually heard that from anyone

  firsthand."

  "Does the new boss have a name?" she asked.

  "That would be one Senior Deputy District Attorney Russell Frist," I

  said, deepening my voice into the best Frist boom I could muster.

  "Resident weight-lifting crew-cut-wearing stud muffin."

  Grace was smirking.

  "What?"

  "I can't decide whether to tell you," she said.

  "Well, you have to now. You can
't announce that there's something to

  be said and then hold out on me."

  After the requisite symbolic pause, she said, "Fine," as if I'd dragged

  it out of her. "I don't repeat the things clients tell me, but I

  suppose there's no harm in telling you that someone's a client. I know

  Russell Frist from the salon."

  "Big bad butch Russ Frist goes to Lockworks? For a crew-cut?"

  "Nope, not the hair. No point paying sixty bucks for that."

  "Oh, please tell me that you wax his back," I pleaded.

  "Not that good. But he does get a monthly no-polish manicure and pays

  extra for the paraffin wrap."

  When I got back to the office, I was still in a good mood from my big

  food and small secret. The rest of the office might think of Frist as

  a mister scary, but I knew he had soft hands. I like people who are

  hard to sum up. They make life interesting.

  My first stop was to see Jessica Walters.

  She was leaning back in her chair with her stocking feet on the desk,

  one hand holding the phone to her ear, the other tapping her trademark

  pencil on her armrest. The person on the other end of the line was

  having a bad day that was getting worse as the conversation

  continued.

  "You're smoking crack if you think I'll agree to probation.... I don't

  care if your guy's in denial, Conaughton. As far as I'm concerned, the

  most important part of your job is to smack him out of it. I'm not the

  one who needs a talking to, but you'd rather waste my time from the

  comfort of your office than haul yourself to county for a much-needed

  sit-down.. .. I'm hanging up now, because it's not going to happen.

  Either take the forty months or confirm the trial date. Call me back

  with anything else and I'll stop talking to you."

  She set the handpiece in its cradle as gently as if she'd been checking

  the weather.

  "Close case?" I asked.

  "Typical plea-bargaining bullshit. They're never as close as the

  defense wants you to think."

  "I got your message earlier. What's up?"

  "You believe in coincidences, Kincaid?"

  One of my favorite crime writers says there's no such thing, but I'd

  never thought much about it. "Sure," I said, "when I need to."

  "Honest answer. Well, I do too. They happen all the time, or at least

  that's what I'm telling myself on this one. Your vie called me

  Friday."

  "On what case?"

  "The city judge, Clarissa Easterbrook. She called me Friday and left a

  message."

  "About what?"

  "I have no idea. I was in trial all last week. I took the message

  down with the rest of them and have been working my way through the

  list. The name meant nothing at the time I wrote it down, but when I

  got to it this morning it gave me the heebie-jeebies."

  "What exactly did she say?"

  "All I wrote in my call book was her name and number. If she had said

  what she was calling about, I would have noted it."

  "You didn't realize this until today?"

  "Watch it, Kincaid. That sanctimony's better spent on the rest of the

  fuckups around here. All I had was a name and number. I don't think

  she even said she was calling from the city hearings department."

  I could see how that could happen. "Can you think of any reason she

  might have been calling? Are you in any groups together? The Women's

  Bar Association, maybe?"

  "Sure, along with forty-three percent of all the other attorneys in

  this town. Did she call you?"

  "Good point. Whatever it means, thanks for telling me. I'll pass it

  on to MCT and see if it connects up with anything else. Do you have

  the number she left?"

  On the way back to my office, Alice Gerstein stopped me in the hall and

  announced that Clarissa Easterbrook s sister was waiting for me in the

  corner we call the reception area.

  "When did she get here?"

  "Right before noon."

  I had checked my voice mail around then, but no one had left a message

  about the pop-in.

  "Did she say what she wanted?" I whispered.

  "Just to talk to you about the case. I offered to have you call her to

  set an appointment, but she insisted on waiting."

  Tara Carney had finished the crossword during her wait and moved on to

  the jumble. I apologized for making her wait and explained that I was

  out of the office and didn't know she was planning to come in.

  "I really didn't mind. I've been running out of things that make me

  feel useful, so waiting here to talk to you .. . well, at least it was

  something."

  Apparently Susan Kerr wasn't the only one who was trying to stay busy.

  I offered Tara the best we had around here, a Dixie cup of water. Don't

  knock it. Until a few of us pooled our own funds for a cooler, the

  only water we had was brown.

  Once we were in my office with the door closed, I asked her why she'd

  come in.

  "There's something I haven't told the police yet, and it's been

  weighing on me. If I tell you, can it remain confidential?"

  People hear about the sacred attorney-client privilege on TV and assume

  it's going to apply to me. It doesn't. I did my best to explain to

  Tara that I represented the State, not her. I'd do my best to be

  discreet, but if she told me something that related to the case, I'd

  almost certainly tell the police, and I might have to disclose it

  eventually to a defendant.

  "That's the thing," she said. "I don't know if it relates to the

  case."

  "If you have any reason to think it might, you really do need to tell

  me, Tara. I can't promise to keep it confidential, but I will treat

  the information with respect. We'll use it for the investigation, but

  it's not like I'm going to issue a press release or gossip about your

  sister."

  She looked into my face and must have decided to trust me. "I think

  Clarissa was cheating on Townsend."

  I couldn't hide my frustration. How could she not have mentioned this

  before? I'd let Grace make me feel bad about the police poking around

  in Clarissa's life, and it turns out there was something to discover

  after all.

  "I didn't know what to say earlier. That first night, he was standing

  right there and was so upset; I couldn't mention it. Then when the

  police told us they found Clarissa's body, I was with my parents. I

  know the police were asking about her marriage, but I didn't want to

  say anything in front of them."

  "So whom was she seeing?" I asked.

  "That's the thing. I don't even know. She never told me. But she

  told me a few weeks ago and she made me swear up and down I would never

  tell anyone that she had fallen in love with someone else. She said

  she wanted to leave Townsend. I was shocked."

  "Do you know if she actually started the process of leaving him? Did

  she tell Townsend or go to a lawyer?"

  "I don't know. I think I made her angry. She wanted me to support her

  and be happy for her, and I was crummy."

  "How so?" I asked.

  ""What about your marriage? How could you cheat on Townsend? Why

  don't you
try counseling?" That kind of stuff. I felt really bad when

  she said she only told me because she thought she could depend on me. I

  tried to stop being judgmental after that, but I think the damage was

  already done."

  "She didn't tell you anything more?"

  "No. I tried to get her to tell me who he was, but she refused. She

  wouldn't even tell me where she met him. We mostly talked about how

  she was afraid to be alone. She wanted to leave Townsend to be with

  this other person, but she wasn't sure he was prepared to be with her.

  I got the impression he might have been married too, like he wasn't

  necessarily in a position to live happily ever after with her. But she

  didn't want to keep living with Townsend when she was in love with

  someone else, so we talked about how she felt about being on her

  own."

  "And did she come to any decision?"

  "I think her mind was already made up; it was just a matter of when. We

  talked about how I adjusted after my husband left me. That was

  different, though. I have two kids, so my hands were too full to

  permit a meltdown. She was picturing herself alone at night with