Missing Justice (17 page)

“Nice to see you haven’t changed.”

“Nope, but apparently you have,” I shot back. I just couldn’t help myself. “I wasn’t aware that Dunn Simon was in the criminal law business.”

“It’s not, but Townsend Easterbrook’s not a criminal. He’s the attending surgeon at OHSU, another one of our clients. He doesn’t need a defense attorney. He needs someone to dig for evidence, and no one does that better than a civil litigator.”

Johnson saved us from what was about to turn into a Dunn Simon marketing speech. “Well, alright-y, then. Glad the two of you could catch up. I was just telling Samantha that you preferred to wait until the DA had signed off on the warrant.”

“I’m sure you understand, Detective, that given the course of the investigation, my client would feel better knowing for certain that the warrant has been approved. I’ll wait until it’s finished.”

I knew from experience that there was no point arguing with Roger. What he lacks in personality he makes up for in tenacity. I was surprised he didn’t insist on reading the document over my shoulder. Instead, he retreated back to the interview room.

Johnson’s affidavit was nothing pretty, but it was a rush job and contained what it needed: Melvin Jackson’s pending appeal, his letters to Clarissa Easterbrook, and this was the biggie the documents confirming his recent employment as a part-time landscaper at the Glenville office park.

“Jesus, Johnson,” I said, signing the cover form on the DA review line.

“I know. It’s bad.”

I didn’t care if he knew. This was unbelievable. “How in the world could we have possibly missed this? You have the employee lists; you have Jackson’s file. You’re tracking down a crotch grabber, but you need the husband to hire a fucking lawyer to find Melvin Jackson’s name sitting right there?”

“We were stupid, but we weren’t that stupid. Remember I told you that we got the list of workers from the unions?” I nodded. “Well, we did it through the unions because when we asked the site’s foreman for a list, he told us which unions were doing the work. Apparently, though, the contractor for the build is allowed to use some nonunion labor, which he didn’t exactly advertise at the site. Melvin Jackson was one of the nonunion guys. Landscaping.”

“So how did a bunch of Dunn Simon pencil-necks figure it out?”

“Luck.” Johnson didn’t know me well enough yet to know that I think luck is for whiners. He did know me well enough not to leave it at that. “When I talked to Townsend last night,

I told him we’d look into people who worked at the site as part of the investigation. He probably mentioned that to his lawyer, but the lawyer didn’t start with the foreman to get a list of employees; he started with the company that owns the property. Turns out Dunn Simon represents them too. One big happy family.”

“Well, it’s signed now, so you can send them all home for the night. I hope you’ll understand if I don’t stick around for the goodbyes. What judges are on call duty tonight?”

“Maurer and Lesh.”

“You should be all right with either one of them. Maurer’s got kids, but Lesh is probably still up. Loves the Daily Show. Call me if you have any problems.”

“Sure thing.”

He stopped me as I was walking out. “Hey, Kincaid. Thanks for understanding. We’ll make up for it tonight.”

“Sounds like it could’ve happened to anyone.” In truth, I wasn’t convinced there hadn’t been some sloppiness, but he was beating himself up enough as it stood. Laying off felt like the right thing to do, given our afternoon confrontation. “I’m just glad someone caught it.”

“Well, between me and you, considering the someone? That shows real class. And, just to prove I know I got some time out in the doghouse, that’s all I’m gonna say about your old law school friend back there. That could’ve been hours of material.”

More like days, but he didn’t know the half of it. “Much appreciated, Ray. You be careful on that search. Jackson’s desperate.”

When I finally got home, it was too late to call my father. I checked the machine; no messages.

Vinnie was waiting for me in bed with a note tied to his collar.

I recognized Chuck’s scribble. “I couldn’t fit through Vinnie’s doggy door so I guess it’s another night alone. Sweet dreams.”

The best I could do was no dreams, which was as good as it was getting these days. Unfortunately, the slumber didn’t last long. Five hours in, Jack Walker called to fill me in on the search.

“You guys find anything?” I asked, groping for the lamp.

“You could say that. This thing’s ready to go.”

I asked him to walk me through it from the start.

“Lesh agreed to sign the warrant as a no-knock,” he explained, meaning they could enter the house without knocking first. “So we call out the emergency response team just in case the entry goes bad. Never know with the kids and all.

“We kicked the door. Jackson’s asleep on the couch. His three kids are sacked out in the bedrooms. We took them out into the hallway to secure the apartment and get the scene under control.”

“Handcuffs?” I asked.

“Just for Jackson. He was one unhappy camper about us waking the kids, and we didn’t want him going mental on us.” Under the circumstances, a court would go with that.

“Then what?”

“Once we secured the apartment, our first priority was placing the kids. We had SCF on-site with a foster placement ready, but Jackson wigged when he saw them coming. He was a complete wreck, pretty much offered to confess if we’d call his mom.”

“He admitted it?”

“Hold on. I wrote it down verbatim.” I heard him flip some pages. “Here it is. “You’re here for me. This don’t involve my kids. I’ll show you what you came for; now just let them stay with their nana. These kids been through enough.””

“Holy shit.”

“It gets better. SCF calls the mom did it right there in front of Jackson so he’d know we weren’t jamming him. We tell him she’s on the way and even let the kids lay down in the apartment next door while they’re waiting. So then Raymond goes, “All right, Melvin. We’re all stand-up here. Now what were you saying about showing us what we came for?” Melvin says, “It’s in the van. Keys are on the table.”

“We leave backup watching Melvin and the apartment while we head out to the parking lot with the keys. We slide open the door, step in, and find six gallons of mocha cream paint.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Not in the van. So we go back up to the apartment and say to Jackson, “I guess you’ve been watching the news, Melvin.” He must’ve lost his desperation by then, knowing that his mom’s on the way for the kids. He tries to play it cool and is all, “The news? Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about, the news.” And I said, “You must’ve known we were looking for the paint, Melvin. You just told us where to find it.” And so then he admits that he knew we’d been looking for the paint.”

“Anything in the apartment?”

“Oh, yeah. Melvin keeps a great big fat file on his eviction case, including copies of all the letters he sent the vie. We also found some drafts of letters he must not have sent, and those were even worse. We bagged ‘em up already, but I wrote down here that one of them said, Maybe someone should show you what it’s like to lose everything, bitch. Guess he decided that wasn’t likely to get him anywhere.”

Neither would her death, but murder is rarely rational.

“Then Melvin’s mom shows up. And let me tell you, Mama Jackson is a major piece of work. Came damn close to waking up the entire floor. Kept screaming at us to get her boy out of those handcuffs. We were trying to calm her down. Then

Raymond walks out of the back of the apartment with a hammer looped over his pen.”

“What hammer?”

“I’m getting there. I thought I was supposed to give you the facts in the order they happened.”

Cops love to fuck with lawyers, even when they’re prosecutors, and, as much as Walker loves me, I am still a prosecutor.

“Ray found a hammer stashed on the top shelf of the bedroom closet. Looked like it had been wiped down, but you could still see a little blood. The crime lab’s checking for sure. We should have an answer by morning.”

“So what happened when Jackson saw that you found the hammer?”

“That’s what was fucked up. It wasn’t so much what Jackson did; it was what the mother did. She went absolutely nuts. Hands on the hips, doing the sassy head thing: “I knew this wasn’t no routine search. This here’s about that white judge. I been trying to tell this fool the police gonna be knockin’ on his do’, but, no, Melvin, you got yo’self too busy to listen.” Then she starts homing in on Johnson, going off about how he planted the weapon and how could he turn his back on his own people, that kind of shit.”

“Can’t be the first time you guys had to deal with a pissed-off mother.”

“Sure, you get used to it, but she took our attention away from Jackson. No one got a chance to see his reaction when he realized Johnson found the hammer. There’s something about that first look, that expression on their face when they realize you’ve got ‘em. It’s too bad you can’t get that look into evidence, right there for the jury. Because the minute you see it, you know. You know it in your gut, This is the guy. And we missed it.”

“Oh, come on, you know it’s your guy anyway. You got the weapon, the paint, the letters. You said yourself that Jackson practically confessed.”

“I didn’t say he was getting off. Shit, the guy’s toast. But it’s the look, Kincaid, and the mom kept us from seeing it. You’ve got no clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

I did, actually. There’s a thrill no, it’s nothing short of a high when you’ve got the defendant on the stand, you’re building a rhythm with him on cross, and then you ask the karate chop question, the one you’ve been headed for from the very start. But you sneak up to it through the back roads, taking every possible detour, so no one knows it’s coming, least of all the defendant. And when he realizes there’s no good way to answer it, he gets that look. He flashes back to his attorney warning him to stay off the stand. Then to him telling the attorney, “That bitch ain’t got nothing on me.” And then he pictures what you both know is coming, the jury reading that verdict. It’s a look of panic and utter hatred.

An arrest without the look was like hitting it out of the park without the crack of the bat. Or a perfect drive off the tee without feeling the ping of the ball against the sweet spot of your club. For Walker, this case clearance was purely utilitarian.

“Maybe it’s not too late for you to get the look,” I told him. “Is Jackson talking?”

“Doesn’t look like it. He’s the type who would have, but once the mom was done giving Johnson the black-pride trip, she started in on Melvin about a lawyer.” Walker slipped back into his Mama Jackson routine. ‘“Don’t you be talkin’ to that Uncle Tom and his cracker-ass police buddies. You get yo’self a public defender.” Before you know it, Melvin’s lawyering up.”

“How clear was it?” I asked. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the police are allowed to ignore a suspects reference to an attorney if it’s ambiguous.

“Couldn’t get any fucking clearer: “I want a lawyer.” “

The four magic words. We couldn’t touch him. If we were going to get anything else out of him, it would have to be through his court-appointed lawyer.

“It’s all right,” I said. “We don’t need it. The statements he made before he invoked will come in, and they look bad, especially with the threats. Assuming the crime lab finds the vies blood on the hammer, he’s done.”

“I got to say, given our fuckup earlier, it felt good to nail the bastard. Johnson’s down there now booking him at MCDC, and I’m writing up the reports.” Jackson would spend the night in the Multnomah County Detention Center so he could be arraigned tomorrow morning. “We’re both running on empty right now and have a back load of comp time. Call us tomorrow if you need follow-up, but I don’t think either of us will be at the precinct. My wife’s gonna leave me if I don’t eat a meal with her and the girls soon.”

“She’d rather have you at the house than the OT? Must be true love, Walker.” And it was, too. Take a look around a detective squad, and the cubicles are filled with comically enhanced mug shots, doctored rap sheets, and the occasional pinup. Walker’s is filled with photographs of his wife, Sandy, and their houseful of daughters. I’d never met them, but I’d followed their lives through pictures from the wedding day to their Six Flags vacation last August.

“Still don’t know how I got so lucky.” I was touched that Walker would express that kind of sentiment to me. Then came the follow-up. “From what I hear, I could’ve wound up with a prick like Roger Kirkpatrick.”

“Just for that, Walker, I’m starting a list of tomorrow’s follow-up work. Some for you for saying that, and some for Johnson for telling you about it.”

We both got a laugh out of it. “See?” he said. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

“Sure you would.” These guys think I don’t know what they put some of my coworkers through. “Now get some sleep and enjoy your day off. We’ve got more than enough for arraignment tomorrow. Just tell the crime lab to call Chuck or Mike with the lab results, OK?”

“Done. You’re going Agg Murder, right?”

With what we had, proving Jackson killed Clarissa wouldn’t be hard. But to get an aggravated murder conviction, I’d need to prove that the murder occurred under one or more special circumstances.

I knew what Walker was really asking, but answered the question narrowly to avoid the discussion. “I’ll plead it tomorrow as an agg, probably based on the vic’s status as a judge.”

Walker wasn’t interested in legal theories. He knew you could file aggravated murder charges without seeking the ultimate sanction. “But will your office go for the death penalty?”

“I’m sure that will be discussed. Whatever happens, it won’t be my decision.”

It was the same cop-out I used whenever I wondered what would happen if I ever got a death penalty case, and I tried to find comfort in it as I hung up the phone. As opinionated as I am, this issue is one of the few that leaves me scurrying up the nearest fence.

When I finally fell back asleep, it was only because I convinced myself that Jackson’s sad circumstances and lack of a prior criminal record would limit the stakes of the case to a life sentence.