Missing Justice (7 page)

“Just a couple of letters, I think. Ranting and raving the way a lot of people do, but something about how she should have to know his pain someday. I know I agreed with her at the time that it sounded a little threatening.”

“And you don’t know whether she did anything in response?”

“No. It alarmed her at first, which was why I suggested she call the police. I asked her about it a few times after that, but she seemed to have gotten over it.”

I’d had similar experiences. A defendant gets in your face,

and it feels like a conflict that could rip your guts out. By the end of the week, it’s just another story to share at a cocktail party to distinguish yourself from all the other boring lawyers.

“Is that enough for you to be able to find the file?” she asked.

“Should be,” Johnson said. “We’ll be sure to follow up on it. What about Clarissa’s personal life? She seem happy in her marriage?”

Susan Kerr leaned back in her chair, took in a deep breath, and smiled politely. “I was wondering when you’d get to that. Classic, right? Whenever something goes wrong, it’s got to be the spouse. Hell, poor Herbie died of a heart attack, but don’t think I didn’t know what some of his friends were whispering behind my back.”

Johnson had clearly dealt with this kind of response before, because he handled it like a pro. “I know this is upsetting for you, but, as Clarissa’s best friend, you’re the one who can be most helpful in pointing us in the right direction.”

“Well, thank you for that, but whatever the right direction is, that ain’t it. If I thought for a second that Townsend had anything to do with this, I’d be leading the charge. Shit, I love the man, but I’d probably kill him myself.”

“This early in the case, we have to consider every scenario.”

“Well, you’re on the wrong track. Townsend and Clarissa are a great team. To the extent she ever complains, it’s the stuff every couple deals with finding enough time for each other, who does the dishes, boring shit like that. I doubt Townsend’s ever raised his voice to her, let alone what you’re thinking. It’s just not in him.”

Johnson and Walker were polite enough not to roll their eyes. They’d been around long enough to know what ordinary citizens don’t want to believe you can never tell who has it in them to kill.

It was almost two by the time Johnson and Walker dropped me off downtown, and I was starving. The rain had finally stopped, so I walked the two blocks to Pioneer Courthouse Square, got a small radiatore with pesto from the pasta cart on Sixth and Yamhill, and headed back to eat at my desk. When I went to erase my sign-out on the white board I found that anonymous coworkers had written, Shoe shopping, Back to Hawaii, and Does Kincaid still work here? next to my original out. The graffiti made me laugh, but I went ahead and erased it while I was at it.

I hit the speakerphone to check my voice mail but was interrupted by the rap of fingers against my open door. I swung my chair around to find Jessica Walters, the only female supervisor in the office and someone who I was pretty sure had never spoken a word to me during my tenure as a DDA. As usual, she wore a tailored pantsuit and oxford-cloth shirt, her trademark pencil tucked neatly behind her ear.

“Jessica. Hi.” My surprise to see her, combined with the more than mild intimidation she inspired in me, ruined any chance I might have had at witty repartee. Walters had been a prosecutor for nearly two decades, put more men on death row than any other DA in the state, and, as far as I could tell, never had cause to doubt that she was smarter and quicker than anyone else in a room. She was currently in charge of the gang unit.

“Welcome to the club, Kincaid. You’re the first of your kind up here. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, but I thought you were the first. Weren’t you in MCU before you got your own unit?”

“Yep, was up here for almost ten years. So was Sally Herring ton before she jumped ship to join the dark side. But you’re the first hetero a role model for all the straight women in the office who said it couldn’t be done.”

There was a crowd of paranoid younger women in the office who were convinced that the boss created the appearance of gender fairness in the office by promoting lesbians who were perceived to be less likely to rock the cultural boat captained by his buddies. The truth was sadder. The atmosphere here was so rough, both for women and for dedicated parents, that the lawyers who were (or intended someday to be) both of those things requested other “opportunities” in the office. So-called voluntary transfers to nontrial units like appeals, child support, and parental terminations became their own kind of self-imposed mommy track.

If anything was going to kill the conspiracy theory and the office culture, it was the increasingly rampant rumor that Jessica and her drop-dead gorgeous partner of nine years were trying to get pregnant. I couldn’t wait to watch a tough guy like Frist wiggle in his seat while “Nail Them to the Wall” Walters breast-fed her kid during a homicide call-out. Payback for every time I’ve had to listen to colleagues bemoan uniquely masculine complaints like jock itch and beer-goggle bangs.

“To tell you the truth, I was beginning to wonder what was going on with you in that department. Now all the support staff can talk about is you and Forbes. After all the ninnies in this office that guy has bagged, he’s stepping up in the world.”

Given my general anxiety about dating a cop, the last thing I needed was a reminder of the many brief relationships this particular one has had over the years. If ours turned out to be as fleeting, I might be known as yet another Forbes conquest.

Jessica must have realized that I didn’t take the comment as she intended it. “I was saying you’re a good catch, Kincaid, but I should probably keep my mouth shut and stick to work. It’s a well-deserved shot you’ve got here. You’re gonna be great.”

“Thanks, Jessica. That’s really nice of you to say.”

“No problem. Just remember, don’t let these fuckers give you too much shit. You’ll need to pay your dues at first, but then it’s about carrying your fair share of the load. Don’t be afraid to get in their faces if you need to.”

I thanked her for her advice before she left, mentally crossing my fingers that there wouldn’t be a need for me to demonstrate that I already knew how to push at least as hard as she did.

Among my many waiting voice mails was one from the City Attorney, Dennis Coakley. He’d chosen to leave me a message at my desk even though I’d given the receptionist my cell phone number. I’d intentionally phone-tagged people before and knew there was only one way to win this game.

I called the number he’d left for me, which, of course, led to his assistant. She told me he was in a meeting but assured me she’d tell him I called.

“He is back in the office?” I asked. “I just want to make sure he’s going to get the message.”

“Yes, he’s back. I’ll let him know you called just as soon as he’s out of his meeting.”

With that, I threw my running shoes back on, signed out, and trekked over to City Hall. I gave the receptionist at the City Attorney’s Office my name and explained that I wanted to see Dennis Coakley.

She seemed confused. “Didn’t we just speak on the phone?”

“Yep, that was me.”

“Um did he call you back or something? I haven’t given him the message, because he’s still occupied.”

“That’s OK, I’ll wait,” I said, as I settled into a chair near the front door. Nonresponsive answers might be objectionable in court, but they work wonders in the real world. Ten minutes later, Dennis Coakley himself came to the front desk and called my name. Faster than a doctor’s office.

Coakley’s office was conservative but well furnished, and I took a seat at the small conference table he led me to. I’d seen him around town before, and he looked no different now than he always did: wheat-colored bowl cut, glasses thick as microwave doors, bad suit.

Before I had a chance to say anything, he took the lead. “Given your presence here, Ms. Kincaid, I feel I need to say something that I shouldn’t have to. I know your line of work requires you to deal with some people who well, let’s just call them uncooperative. But I hope you didn’t feel you needed to come over here personally to exert pressure on me. Frankly, I find it a little insulting. I happen to know Clarissa Easterbrook and would like to do whatever I can to help find her.”

“It’s nothing like that. In fact, I appreciate your calling me back so quickly. It’s just that this is my first day back in the office for a while, and I needed the air. Your assistant mentioned you were in, so …” A lie, to be sure, but much better than admitting my tendencies to be an untrusting freak.

If Coakley sensed the fib, he was kind enough to gloss over it. “Good. No misunderstandings, then. Tell me what you need from us to help.”

“At this point, we don’t know. Officially, it’s still a missing person case, but so far nothing suggests that Clarissa took off on her own, and the police don’t have any leads. You probably heard that they found her dog and her shoe by Taylor’s Ferry Road.” He nodded sadly. “You can imagine the scenario that brings to mind. But we haven’t ruled out the chance that this could have something to do with her work. We just want to go through her office to see if anything there leaps out at us.”

He scratched his chin as if I had just asked him to calculate the circumference of his coffee cup using only the diameter. “This has never come up before. I’m not sure I can let you do that. Let me look into it, and I’ll get back to you tomorrow. As long as there are no legal hurdles, it shouldn’t be a problem.” He started to get up to walk me out.

I stayed in my seat. “I assumed we’d be able to get in today. The sooner the better.”

“I’d like to be able to do that, but I don’t see how I can.”

“Unlock the door, and I can have an officer here within the hour.”

“I can’t just let the police roam through a judge’s files, Ms. Kincaid.”

“Call me Samantha. And of course you can. She’s not an actual judge; she’s a hearings officer. I assume if any other city employee was missing, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

“But the fact that she’s a city employee makes Clarissa my client. I just need enough time to make sure there’s no privileged information in her office. If there is, I’ll let you know I’ve withheld something, and we can go over to the courthouse and figure it out from there.”

“Look, this isn’t tobacco litigation. What kind of privileged information are you worried about? We’re just trying to find out where she is.”

“I know, and that’s why I’m probably going to stay here all night doing document review in her office, so you can get in as soon as possible. But our hearings officers call for legal advice and might keep memos of those conversations. If something like that exists, and I turn it over to you, it waives privilege. I can’t do that.”

“I’m sorry, Dennis, but that makes absolutely no sense. How can the judges call you for advice when the city’s a party to the disputes they’re handling?”

“Well, obviously we don’t give advice on how to resolve individual cases as hearings officers, but we are their attorneys in their status as city employees. It’s a complicated relationship. All the more reason for me to make sure we dot our is and cross our t’s, which I assure you I will do by tomorrow.”

“I’ll do the search myself, if that helps. I’m an attorney too, and I won’t disclose anything that shouldn’t be disclosed.”

Unfortunately, Coakley knew that’s not how attorney-client privilege works. “But you don’t represent the city, so I can’t let you fish around in the files without reviewing them first. If you knew specifically what you wanted, I could look for it right now and give it to you, assuming nothing needed to be red acted I got the impression, though, that you won’t know what you’re looking for until you find it.”

“I think that’s probably right. I know she was having a problem with one of the appellants in a public housing eviction case. Both her clerk and her friend mentioned that he’d written letters to Clarissa that she found threatening, but they didn’t know his name. Is there some way you could track that down, short of doing an entire review of her office?”

“Should be.”

I told him everything I knew so far about the case.

“Let me see what I can find out. You want to wait here, or should I call you?”

“I’ll wait. Thanks.” He seemed to find my choice insulting.

Five minutes later, I felt my pager go off. The MCT number again.

I took the liberty of using the phone on Coakley’s desk to return the call. This time, I was expecting Johnson to pick up, but the voice that answered “MCT” belonged to someone I’d known for fifteen years: Chuck Forbes.

The first time I saw Chuck screech his yellow Karmann Ghia into the lot at Grant High and then step out in his washed-out 501s, I was hooked. As much as I didn’t want to be, I had to admit I still was.

I hesitated a moment too long. “Hi, it’s Samantha Kincaid. I think Detective Johnson might have paged me?”

“You need to shake the salt water out of your ears, Kincaid. It’s Chuck.”

“Oh, hey. What’s going on?”

“Two weeks in Hawaii, and that’s all I get? What’s going on? Bad news is going on, but Raymond’s standing over my shoulder waiting to break it to you. Everything all right?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Ray’s glaring at me,” he said, “so I’m going to hand you off. But call me later, OK? I want to hear about your trip.”

I had tried to play it cool, but Chuck and I were way past new-relationship head games. “And I want to tell you all about it. I missed you, Chuck.”

“Yeah. Me too,” he said sweetly, before handing the phone to Johnson.

“They found a body in Glenville. I’m heading out there now.”

“Is it Clarissa?” I asked.

“We don’t have an official ID yet, but, yeah, looks like it’s going to be her.”

What I felt at the moment couldn’t have been about any meaningful personal attachment to Clarissa Easterbrook. But I nevertheless felt myself go empty at the confirmation of what I’d already been suspecting, and I wondered how I was going to handle a job that would make this feeling routine.