After Dark (6 page)

Pope looked startled and dropped his hand from Laura's shoulder.

"Laura and I have to discuss a case. I hope you don't mind, Judge,"

Tracy said, in a tone that let Pope know she had seen everything. Pope flushed. His eyes darted to Laura, then back to Tracy.

"That's the," he said, stepping around Tracy.

"Are you okay?" Tracy asked, as soon as Pope was out of sight.

"What did you hear.>" Laura asked anxiously.

"I didn't hear anything," Tracy answered, confused by the question. "It looked like Pope was coming on to you. Is he giving you a hard time?"

"No," Laura said nervously. "He was just trying to find out how Bob . .

. Justice Griffen was going to vote on a case."

"Are you being straight with me.> Because you look pretty upset."

"I'm okay, Tracy, really. Let's drop it."

"Come on, Laura. I can help you, if you'll tell me what's bothering you."

"How could you possibly help me.>" Laura exploded. "You have no idea what I'm going through."

"Laura, I . . ."

"Please, I'm sorry, but you'd never understand," Laura said.

Then she edged away from Tracy and bolted out of the stacks.

Tracy watched Laura go, stunned by her friend's reaction.

"Laura wants to see you, Judge," Justice Griffen's secretary announced over the intercom. "Send her in."

The judge was preparing for the noon conference and hoped that Laura had finished her research in a tax case the justices would be discussing.

The door opened as Griffen finished signing a letter. He looked up when the door closed and started to smile.

But the smile disappeared when he saw his law clerk's face. She appeared to be on the verge of tears.

"We have to talk," Laura said with a trembling voice.

Griffen stood up and walked around the desk. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," Laura answered. "Everything."

Then she started to cry.

The conference room of the Oregon Supreme Court was spacious, with few furnishings aside from a large conference table and some ancient glass-front bookshelves. Four former justices glowered down on their modern counterparts from portraits on the walls. Chief Justice Forbes sat at the head Of the conference table with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up and his tie loosened. Alice Sherzer put down her coffee cup and briefs at her place on Forbes's right. Vincent Lefcourt, snowy-haired and dignified, sat on Forbes's left.

Robert Griffen pushed through the door and almost ran into Mary Kelly, who was working on her first cigarette of the conference.

"Sorry," Griffen apologized.

Kelly was wearing a loose, sleeveless, forest-green dress. She brushed her honey-colored hair off her forehead and gave Griffen a casual smile.

"No damage done," Kelly said. Then she noticed Griffen's face and her smile faded. Kelly touched Griffen lightly on his forearm. He stopped.

"What's wrong?" Kelly asked in a low voice.

Griffen shook his head. "It's nothing."

Kelly shifted so her back screened their conversation from the other justices.

"Tell me what happened," she demanded.

Griffen looked away. Kelly's grip tightened. When Griffen looked at her, his face reflected his confusion. He was about to reply when Arnold Pope entered the room.

"Your wife looked terrific, Bob," he said maliciously. "Too bad you had to miss her argument."

Griffen paled, and Kelly looked at Pope as if he was an insect she'd found in her salad. At that moment, Frank Arriaga rushed in. He held up a sack from the deli across the street.

"Sorry, guys. My clerk was late with my fuel. Did I miss anything?"

"Relax, Frank." Forbes smiled. Arriaga sat next to Vincent Lefcourt, who looked on with amusement as Arriaga pulled a huge glazed jelly doughnut out of his brown paper bag.

"We're all here, so let's get started," Justice Forbes said.

"We can talk later," Mary Kelly assured Griffen.

Forbes squared the stack of briefs in front of him.

"I was going to begin with you, Frank, but you've got that monstrosity stuffed in your mouth, so how about it, Vincent?

What's your take on the State ex rel. Franklin?"

Justice Sherzer needed a memo in the morning on a probate issue, but Tracy was so upset by what had happened in the library that she had trouble concentrating. At five o'clock, she decided to take a break and finish the memo after dinner.

Tracy's garden apartment was on the second floor of a two story complex half a mile from the court. She had been a top student in college and law school, but she would have failed housekeeping. The front door opened into a living room that had not been cleaned in a week.

Newspapers and mail were strewn across the sofa. Tracy rarely watched television, and her small black-and-white set was gathering dust in a corner. Tracy's rockclimbing equipment was well cared for, but it was piled high next to the television.

The apartment came furnished. The only marks Tracy had made on the personality of the place were several photographs detailing her athletic feats. One photo in the living room showed Tracy standing on a track in front of a grandstand with her hand gently touching the shoulder of a girl who was bent over from the waist. The two women were wearing Yale track uniforms. They had finished one-two in the 1,500 meters to clinch the Ivy League title and looked exhausted but triumphant.

Another photo showed Tracy climbing a snowcapped mountain. She was wearing a parka with the hood thrown back and was brandishing an ice ax over her head. A photo in the bedroom showed Tracy hanging upside down from a rockface on one of the more difficult ascents at Smith Rocks in eastern Oregon.

As soon as she arrived at her apartment, Tracy dumped her clothes on the bedroom floor and changed into her running gear.

Then she set off along a seven-mile loop she had mapped out when she moved to Salem.

As Tracy ran, she thought about the incident in the library.

She could not understand Laura's reaction. Laura disliked Justice Pope, so why would she protect him if he had made a pass at her?

Maybe there was some other explanation for what she had seen, but Tracy could not think of one that made sense. Something was definitely going on in Laura's life. Tracy remembered how drawn and pale Laura looked when she surprised Laura reading the Deems transcript. Laura's angry outburst in the library was in keeping with the agitated state in which Tracy had observed her during the past few days, but what was causing Laura's anxiety?

After her run, Tracy showered, then ate a Caesar salad with baby shrimp and two slices of a thick-crusted sourdough bread.

She threw the dirty dishes in the sink, then walked back to the courthouse across the Willamette University campus. In the daytime, the rolling lawns and old shade trees made Willamette a pleasant place to stroll. But at dusk, during summer break, the university was deserted.

Streetlights illuminated the walking paths, and Tracy stayed on them when she could. The temperature had dropped and a cool breeze chilled her. Halfway across campus, Tracy thought she saw someone move in the shadow of a building. She froze and stared into the dying light. The wind rustled the leaves. Tracy waited a moment, then walked on, feeling silly for being so skittish.

The Supreme Court was deserted when Tracy let herself in at seven-thirty. It was eerie being alone in the empty building, but Tracy had worked at night before. The clerks' offices ran along the side of the Supreme Court building that faced the Capitol. An open area dominated by a conference table stood between their offices and the mail room. The top of the conference table was littered with staplers, plastic cups, paper plates and law books.

No two chairs around the table were of the same type and none were in good repair. Behind the table was an alcove with a computer and the only printer. Scattered around the area were bookshelves, filing cabinets and a sagging couch. Tracy walked past the open area and down a short hall to her office. She found the notes she needed for the memo on the probate issue, turned off the lights in the clerks' area, and walked upstairs to the library.

A footnote in a law review article mentioned some interesting cases.

Tracy wandered around the stacks and found them. They led her to other cases and she became so absorbed in her work that she was surprised to discover it was almost ten o'clock when she was ready to write the memo.

Tracy gathered up her notes and turned off the library lights. Her footsteps echoed on the marble staircase, creating the illusion that someone else was in the building. Tracy laughed at herself. She remembered how jittery she'd been earlier in the evening when she walked across the Willamette campus. What had gotten into her?

Tracy opened the door to the clerks' area and stopped. She was certain all the lights had been off when she went up to the library, but there was a light on in Laura Rizzatti's office. Someone must have come into the building while she was upstairs.

"Laura?" Tracy called out. There was no answer. Tracy strained to hear any sound that would tell her she was not alone.

When she heard nothing, she looked in Laura's office. The drawers of Laura's filing cabinet were open and files were all over the floor.

Transcripts were scattered around. Someone had ransacked the office while Tracy was upstairs in the library.

Tracy reached for the phone to call Laura. The door to the clerks' area closed. Tracy froze for a moment, then darted to the door and pulled it open. There was no one in the hallway. She ran to the back door and looked through the glass. No one was in the parking lot. Tracy tried to calm down. She thought about reporting what had happened to the police. But what had happened?

Laura might have caused the mess in her office. That was not unreasonable, given the state Laura had been in recently. And she might have imagined hearing the door close. After all, she had not seen anyone in the building or the parking lot.

Tracy was too nervous to stay in the deserted courthouse. She decided to leave her notes and write the memo early in the morning. Tracy turned on the lights in the clerks' area and headed for her office. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something under the conference table.

Tracy stopped. A woman's leg stretched out into the light. The rest of the body was hidden in shadow. Tracy knelt down. The body was twisted as if the woman had tried to crawl away from her attacker. Blood ran through the curly black hair. The head was turned so that the dead eyes stared at Tracy.

Tracy choked back a sob and lurched to her feet. She knew she should feel for a pulse, but she could not bring herself to touch Laura Rizzatti's slender wrist. She also knew instinctively that it would make no difference.

The first officers on the scene told Tracy to wait in her office. It was so narrow she could almost touch both walls if she stood sideways.

Above her desk was a bulletin board with a chart of her cases. Next to the desk, on the window side, an old fan perched on top of a metal filing cabinet. Several briefs and some transcripts were stacked neatly on the desk next to a computer.

A slim woman in a powder-blue shirt, tan slacks and a light blue windbreaker walked into the office and held up a badge. She looked like she had been awakened from a deep sleep. Her blue eyes were bloodshot and her shaggy blond hair had an uncombed look.

"I'm Heidi Bricker, a detective with Salem PD."

In Bricker's other hand was a container of hot coffee with a McDonald's logo. She offered it to Tracy. "Can you use this?"

"Thanks," Tracy answered wearily.

Bricker sat down beside Tracy. "Was she a friend."

Tracy nodded.

"It must have been some shock finding the body."

Tracy sipped from the cardboard cup. The coffee was hot and burned the roof of her mouth, but she didn't care. The physical pain was a welcome distraction.

"What were you doing here so late?"

"I clerk for Justice Sherzer. She's working on a case with a complex probate issue and she needed a memo from me on a point of law, first thing in the morning."

"What time did you start working?"

"Around seven-thirty."

"Where were you working?"

"Upstairs in the library."

"Did you hear or see anything out of the ordinary?"

"No. You can't hear anything that's said in the clerks' offices when you're upstairs in the library."

Detective Bricker made some notes in a small spiral notebook, then asked, "Was Laura a clerk?"

Tracy nodded. "For Justice Griffen."

"What did Laura do for Justice Griffen?"

"She researched legal issues being argued before the court, drafted opinions and read Petitions for Review filed by parties who've lost in the Court of Appeals."

"Could she have been murdered because of something she was working on?"

"I can't imagine what. There isn't anything we know that isn't public record."

"Why don't you explain that to me."

"Okay. Let's say you were convicted of a crime or you lost a lawsuit and you didn't think you received a fair trial. Maybe you thought the judge let in evidence she shouldn't have or gave a jury instruction that didn't accurately explain the law. You can appeal. In an appeal, you ask the appellate court to decide if the trial judge screwed up. If the trial judge did make a mistake and it was serious enough to affect the verdict, the appellate court sends the case back for a new trial.

"A court reporter takes down everything that's said in the trial. If you appeal, the court reporter prepares a transcript of the trial that is a word-for-word record of everything that was said. An appeal must be from the record. If someone confesses to a crime after the trial, the confession can't be considered on appeal, because it's not in the record."

"So there's nothing an appellate judge considers that's secret?" Bricker said., "Well, sometimes there are sealed portions of the record, but that's rare. And no one is allowed to tell the public which justice is assigned to write the opinion in a case or what views the justices express in conference. But that wouldn't have anything to do with Laura."