Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (67 page)

Shinn didn't really blame her.
 
It was going to be heavier and more

dangerous work than any legal assistant in her right mind would choose

to take on.
 
But he was now involved in what would be the biggest case

of his life, and he didn't have a legal assistant.
 
He had never needed

a good right arm more than he did at this moment, and he realized a

little ruefully that he was going to have to find a woman who was

something of a daredevilþas he was.

Shinn went to several attorney friends and asked if they knew of anyone

who might meet his rather unusual specifications.
 
He was looking for

someone who would work overtime and have an uncanny ability to talk to

people and get them to trust her enough to share secrets they had kept

for years.
 
She would have to have the soul of a detective, and she

would have to be utterly fearless.

One of Shinn's former partners, Mark Bocci, heard him out and then

said, "You should have asked me before.
 
I know who you need.
 
I know

the one who's the best in the State of Oregon, and she was looking for

a job tooþbut she just got hired.
 
She's working for a company that

defends civil cases."

"See if she's really happy there," Shinn urged.
 
"See if she'll leave

and come with me."

The best legal assistant in the state turned out to be Diane Bakker, a

slender and striking blond in her thirties.
 
Fortunately for Shinn, she

was already bored with her new job, and she was intrigued with the

Cunningham case, listening avidly as Shinn gave her an overview of what

lay ahead.
 
"There's a negative to this," he said finally.
 
"If you

come in on this, there's likely to be some danger."
 
He looked up

apprehensively, expecting that he was about to lose any chance he had

with Diane.
 
Instead, she was grinning.

"She lit up like a Christmas tree," Shinn recalled.
 
"It turns out

she's fascinated with true crime books.
 
Diane is into the Serial

Killer of the Week' and all that stuff that I knew nothing about.
 
I

didn't read those kinds of books.
 
Diane did.
 
Nothing scared her, it

only whetted her appetite for the job.
 
I was fortunate that she came

on this project.
 
I never could have done it without her."

Brad Cunningham, who had accepted his complaint papers with such

seeming equanimity, was not the sanguine "muffin man" at all, of

course, he had the capability of being a sinister and dangerous

presence.
 
And he resented some guy named Mike Shinn interfering with

his life.

"It must have been the fall of 1989, a few months later," Shinn

remembered.
 
"We were at Jake's, and I was having dinner with Dave

Jensen, who was president of the Oregon Trial Lawyers' Association two

years after I was.
 
We were still on the board together.
 
We were

standing in the bar waiting for a table, and Dave asked me if I had

anything interesting going on.
 
I said, Funny you should ask."
 
So I

was telling him about this Cunningham case.
 
Then we moved to the

tables near the bar to eat, and we were sitting there, still talking

about the case.
 
I'd noticed out of the corner of my eye that some guy

seemed to be looking at me.
 
All of a sudden, he looms up over me and

he's got this funny grin on his face.

"He leans over and he's kind of peering at me and he says, Are you Mike

Shinn?"
 
I was trying to figure out who he was, and I thought maybe he

was an old fraternity brother.
 
I was trying to buy time to remember

who he was, and I said, Yeah, I'm Mike Shinn.
 
How ya doin'?"

"He says, I just wanted to see what you looked like."
 
Then he turned

on his heel and walked away.
 
Dave says, Who in the hell was that?"

and suddenly I knew who it was.
 
I said, That was him."
 
I just made

the connection, and then I looked closer at the woman he was withþand

it was Sara."

Shinn's encounter with Brad was brief.
 
He would remember only that the

guy was big and dark.
 
He didn't expect to see Cunningham again until

they met in courtþif he showed up in court.
 
He sure wasn't showing up

to give depositions.

Brad had more problems than the legal action against him.
 
His fifth

marriage was turning sour.
 
Marital fidelity or even discretion had

never been part of his makeup, and his falls from grace were becoming

more transparent.

By February 6, 1990, Sara could no longer talk herself into believing

that her marriage was working.
 
Half the time she had no idea where

Brad was, most of the rest of the time she knew he was with Lynn

Minero.

She knew because she had hired a private investigator to follow him.

That day she told Brad she was thinking about divorce, and he barely

reacted.

Despite his flat reaction, Sara was worried because he had been very

ill the night before.
 
She tried to find Brad when she had a little

time away from the OR, or when she could get to a phone.
 
She called

him and got no answer or got the answering machine.
 
Brad always had a

reason why he couldn't answer her calls.
 
"I was on hold on another

call" or "The machine was turned off accidentally" or "The phone

stopped ringing just as I reached for it."

Brad was running both the Broadway Bakery and the Bistro now, as well

as delivering lunch orders.
 
But he had a cell phone and there was no

legitimate reason why Sara could never reach him.
 
Half angry and half

worried because of his history of heart problems, she kept trying to

locate him.

Sara jotted notes in her journal for February 6: "11:50þCalled

BistroþLynn answered.
 
Said Brad had been back.
 
She gave him

messageþHe left again to deliver sandwiches.
 
I asked her if he was

okay.
 
Yes," Lynn answered.
 
He seemed okay the little bit that I've

seen him."
 
I said, You picked him up this morning, didn't you?!
 
She

said yes."

Sara finally got a call back from Brad an hour later.
 
She had agreed

to pay a twelve-thousand-dollar retainer to a divorce attorney.
 
Brad

had no money.
 
He called to say things had gone fine with the

attorney.

"I said I was concerned about himþHe sort of grunted.
 
Then said he

didn't believe me.
 
I said he was scaring me.
 
He said he was

sorryþdidn't mean to.
 
I asked him if he loved me.
 
He said, Sara, we

have to talk, but I can't talk now."
 
.
 
. .

"13:40þI called Brad.
 
Asked him if he was able to talk now.
 
He said

he was too busy.
 
He said he didn't think he'd feel like talking

today.

Said he felt like going out and having a few drinks tonight.
 
I said,

With me?"
 
He said, No, maybe just by myself' He said he felt like I

wasn't being honest with him.
 
Would not be more specific.
 
Just in

general I was not being honest with him."

Brad was a master at projection, he could turn criticism away from

himself as if it were a boomerang that he could direct back the way it

came.
 
He told Sara that afternoon that he felt she didn't love him,

that she was dishonest, that he would not answer her questions

anymore.

"He feels I grill him, and that he might want me to move out.
 
I'm not

the person he thought I was."

Brad told Sara he was "upset" about everythingþthe civil lawsuit that

Mike Shinn had filed against him, the fact that she had been talking to

a divorce attorney too, the knowledge that he had been followed for the

past four or five days.
 
It was true.
 
She had grilled him and she had

had him followed, and his answers never matched the truth.

At that point, if Brad had made any effort.toward reconciliation or any

admission of his culpability, Sara might have stayed in the marriageþ

for the sake of Jess and Michael and Phillip.
 
She might even have

still loved Brad on some level, though she didn't trust him.
 
Perhaps

she wanted to trust him.

The next day Brad packed his pickup and left for a trip to Seattle.

Sara was certain that Lynn had gone with him, but she was surprised

later to see Lynn and her husband Gary together.
 
Sara and Gary had

talked, they were both worried that their marriages were crumbling

because of an affair between Brad and Lynn.
 
Sara got more response to

her concerns from Gary than she did from Brad.
 
In fact, she already

considered her marriage over, and she had made plans to move out of the

big gray house in Dunthorpe and find an apartment in the new Portland

complex at Riverplace.
 
Brad didn't seem to care one way or the other

if she left.

And Sara didn't tell Gary that she was leaving Brad.

Brad didn't get back from Seattle until Saturday afternoon, February

10, and he left the next day for Houston.
 
After she drove him to the

airport, Sara took Jess, Michael, and Phillip to look at the Riverplace

Athletic Club.
 
The boys hoped to join, and it would be a way for her

to see them often.

Brad called Sara the next day from Houston, but it wasn't a pleasant

conversation.
 
He was furious with her because she had talked to Gary

Minero.
 
"Lynn's going to quit the bakery now because you're trying to

ruin her marriage.
 
If she quits, I'll quit too," he fumed.

Enough.
 
How much more was Sara expected to take from Brad?
 
She had