The Undertaker's Widow (26 page)

“All the evidence?” Anthony repeated as if he could not believe his ears.

“Everything he could suppress, he threw out.”

“Jesus. Where does that leave us?”

“In outer fucking space without a ship. Quinn gutted our case.”

“Can't you appeal?”

“Sure, but it would be useless. The court of appeals can reverse a judge who misinterprets the law, but Quinn based his decision to suppress the blood spatter evidence on his personal evaluation of your credibility. The court can't review that.”

“What do you mean, my credibility?”

“He said you were a liar, Lou. That's as plain as I can say it.”

“He what?”

“He said you lied under oath when you testified that you did not intentionally pressure James Allen to let you into the bedroom.”

“But I didn't. I mean, I persuaded the guy, but I never leaned on him. We just talked.”

“That may be what really happened, but Quinn put it on the record that you are a liar. The court of appeals cannot reverse a decision that rests on a judge's evaluation of the credibility of a witness, unless there is no evidence in the record to support the finding.”

“I wouldn't lie under oath. You know that.”

“I know it, Lou, but everyone who reads Quinn's opinion is going to think otherwise.”

While she was driving home, Karen Fargo caught the end of a news story about Ellen Crease's case, but she did not hear enough to let her figure out what had happened. Fargo turned on the television as soon as she walked into her house. The case was the lead story. A reporter was talking about Richard Quinn's dramatic decision while the screen showed a triumphant Ellen Crease waving to supporters from the courthouse steps.

“I want to thank all of the people who had faith in me during these dark days,” Crease told the reporters who were massed around her. “I loved my husband. Losing him to senseless violence was a great blow, but being accused unjustly of murdering someone you love is the cruelest blow. I thank God for Judge Richard Quinn's courage.”

“Will you continue to campaign, Senator?” a reporter shouted.

Crease stared directly into the camera. Her mouth
was set in a grim line. When she spoke, there was no doubting her determination.

“I have never stopped campaigning. The Republican Party should not be represented by a man who is soft on crime, for gun control and sympathetic to the liberal forces in our society that would pervert the values that have made America the greatest country on earth. I represent the true values of our party, and the voters will validate that statement in the May primary.”

The screen was suddenly filled with a picture of Benjamin Gage dressed in a tuxedo with his beautiful wife on his arm entering the Benson Hotel to attend a fund-raiser.

“Senator,” asked a reporter from Channel 6, “what is your reaction to Judge Quinn's ruling in Ellen Crease's case?”

Gage halted. He looked serious and thoughtful.

“Ken, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on Ellen Crease's criminal case. However, I do feel that it would be ironic if Ms. Crease was to have her case dismissed on one of the technicalities that she so frequently derides in her speeches. It would also be unfortunate for the voters if the public was deprived of a clear resolution of the murder charges against Ms. Crease because of the suppression of the evidence that the State believes will prove its allegations.”

“So you do not feel that justice is being done in Senator Crease's case?”

“Now, Ken,” Gage answered with a patient smile, “you know better than to put words in my mouth. I will leave the business of solving Lamar Hoyt's murder to the police. My job is to represent the people of Oregon in the United States Senate.”

Gage turned from the reporter and entered the hotel. The reporter made a closing comment, but Karen Fargo did not hear him. She was concentrating on the
man who followed Senator Gage into the Benson. He was tall, good-looking, dressed in a tuxedo, and he had a jagged scar on his right cheek. Fargo only had a moment to study him, but he definitely looked like the man who had offered her money and a job if she would tell the police about her involvement with Lamar Hoyt. Did the man work for Senator Gage? She wondered if the film footage showing the man with the scar would be aired again at eleven. She decided to watch the late news so she could be certain about what she had seen.

The phone rang. Fargo switched off the set and picked up the receiver.

“Ms. Fargo?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Anthony.”

“Yes?” Fargo answered tentatively.

“I wanted to tell you what happened in court.”

“I … It was on the news. That the judge suppressed the evidence. What does that mean?”

“It means that Mr. Riker cannot use the evidence we found in the second search of the crime scene to convict Ellen Crease. Mr. Riker will appeal the judge's ruling, but that could take a while. Maybe years.”

“So I won't have to go to court?”

“It's possible you might, but not in the near future.”

Fargo sagged with relief. She would never forget Lamar, but she was terrified of having to appear in court.

“Thank you for calling,” Fargo said.

“I wanted to be certain that you understood what happened,” Anthony answered kindly. “Feel free to call me anytime if you have questions.”

Fargo thought about the man with the scar. Should she tell Detective Anthony about him?

“Detective,” she started. Then it occurred to her that she might lose her job and the money if she said
anything. And it might involve her further in a matter that she wanted to put behind her.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Just thank you.”

Quinn told Fran Stuart to hold all of his calls. Then he asked her to stay late so that she could type up the drafts and final version of the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order in the
Crease
case. Quinn shut his door and collapsed in the chair behind his desk. He felt sick to his stomach from what he had done and sick with fear of the consequences.

Quinn gathered the materials that he would need to write the order. It took him an hour to write and polish a draft. Quinn gave it to his secretary. Fran typed it quickly and Quinn sent her to dinner while he worked on the final draft. It was already after six and night had fallen.

Fran returned around seven and typed the final draft. Quinn read it through.

“This is fine, Fran. You can go home now. I'll sign it and leave it on your desk. File the original with the clerk's office and send a copy to Cedric Riker and Mary Garrett. And thanks for staying late.”

Fran closed the door. Quinn rubbed his eyes. Then he read through his order a final time, checking the facts, rereading sections of cases he had cited and statutes he had quoted. When Quinn was convinced that he had constructed the document in a way that would make reversal in an appellate court impossible, he signed the order.

Quinn closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of his chair. He had put off thinking about the
future until he had made his ruling out of fear that he would be too afraid to act. He could put off thinking about his career no longer. Quinn's life was the law, but he had violated his oath by ruling for Crease. If he had ruled honestly, he would have held that Allen's consent was not coerced. By ruling as he had, he had betrayed the trust that had been put in him by the people of his state.

Quinn looked around his chambers at the bound volumes that contained the Law. His father had written some of the opinions in those books. As a boy, he revered them and dreamed of following his father's example and career. Now Quinn saw that the cases in the reporters were nothing. You could write the most beautiful words, but they were meaningless without the will and the desire to follow them. Quinn had betrayed his trust. He had turned the words to dust.

The next morning Quinn overslept. By the time he arrived at the courthouse Fran Stuart had filed the order in
Crease
and sent copies to the parties. Quinn told Stuart that he did not want to be disturbed. He shut the door to his chambers and began work on a draft of the letter of resignation that he planned to submit to Stanley Sax. Writing the letter was more difficult than he imagined. It was almost like writing a suicide note. There were many false starts and a lot of time spent staring into space. When Fran buzzed him at eleven forty-five, she startled Quinn out of one of his reveries.

“What is it, Fran?”

“There are two Portland Police detectives to see you. I told them that you didn't want to be disturbed, but they insist on speaking to you.”

“What do they want?”

“They wouldn't say.”

“Okay. Send them in. I'll talk to them.”

The door to Quinn's chambers opened and a slender black man Quinn did not recognize followed Lou Anthony into the room. Anthony looked like a man who was controlling his anger. Quinn colored as it dawned on him how much the detective must dislike him.

“Good morning, Judge,” Anthony said with strained civility. “This is my partner, Leroy Dennis.”

Quinn nodded at Dennis and asked, “What brings you here?”

“Police business. I'd like you to come with us.”

“Come where?”

“There's been a murder and I want you to accompany Detective Dennis and me to the crime scene.”

“If you need to have a search warrant authorized, I can do the work here.”

“If I needed a search warrant, you'd be the last judge I'd contact,” Anthony snapped. Dennis put his hand on his partner's arm and Anthony looked down, embarrassed by his outburst.

“There are some things that we need to talk over with you and we can't do it here,” Dennis said.

“This is getting a little too mysterious, Detectives.”

“Sorry, but this is all we can tell you before we get to the scene,” Dennis said. “Everything will become clear to you there.”

The Heathman Hotel was only a few blocks from the courthouse. The detectives were silent during the short walk and Quinn's imagination ran wild. When they arrived at the hotel the judge noticed several police cars parked near the entrance. Dennis and Anthony led Quinn through the lobby to the reception desk, where an officer and a harried-looking man in his forties were examining hotel records.

“Mr. Abrams,” Anthony interrupted. The man who was talking to the officer looked up. “Did you see this man in here yesterday evening?”

Abrams studied Quinn for a few moments, then shook his head.

“It's impossible to say. We were extremely busy. The lobby was very crowded.”

Suddenly, Quinn guessed why the detectives had
brought him to the hotel. Claire Reston, Andrea Chapman's sister, was staying at the Heathman. Anthony had said that there had been a murder. Was Reston the victim? If she was, why did the police think that Quinn would know anything about her death?

“What's going on here?” Quinn demanded.

“You'll see in a moment,” Dennis answered as the detectives led Quinn to the elevators. Once inside the car, Anthony pressed the button for the third floor. Reston had told Quinn that she was staying in room 325. Now Quinn was certain that he was being taken to view Reston's dead body. He remembered that Fran Stuart was standing inches away when Reston had told him her hotel and room number.

The door to 325 was open. A large Portland Police officer was guarding the entrance. The room was a corner suite. Criminalists from the Oregon State Crime Lab were moving around inside the sitting room, photographing, dusting and measuring. Everything in the room looked orderly, except for a room service tray with a half-eaten dinner on it that sat on a coffee table across from the television.

Anthony led Quinn through the crowd to the door to the bedroom. The door was partially closed, but Quinn could see the edge of the bed and a bare foot. He knew he did not want to go into the room, but he had no choice.

“Do you recognize this woman, Judge?” Anthony asked as he thrust the door open. The bedroom looked and smelled like a slaughterhouse. Objects had been knocked onto the floor from a dresser, a chair had been overturned and the bed had been stripped of its blankets, which lay in a bundle on the bloodstained carpet. The blood on the carpet was nothing compared to the quantity of blood that saturated the bare undersheet upon which Claire Reston lay spread-eagled. Her hands
had been bound to the headboard and her feet were secured to the foot of the bed. Blood had spattered on the wall behind her. She was naked. A crude gag had been stuffed inside her mouth.

Quinn's knees buckled and he leaned against the wall.

“Are you okay, Judge?” Dennis asked when he noticed Quinn's ashen pallor.

Quinn wanted to turn away from the bed, but he was mesmerized by the tableau of wanton violence.