Missing Justice (3 page)
Before Johnson walked away, I added, “We should also get people searching up on Taylor’s Ferry. Hopefully, by the time the department has a search plan together, Walker can tell us what she might have been wearing.”
Griffey perked up when Tara came down the stairs, apparently satisfied that nothing helpful was going to come from foraging through her sister’s closet. I’d already been positively disposed toward her based on her obvious concern for her sister, and I warmed to her even more when she found the energy to get down on the floor with her sister’s dog and comfort him with a bear hug.
After a few minutes spent on introductions to the Fletchers and the inevitable words of comfort, Tara grew antsy again. “Griffey, up,” she commanded, pointing him toward the stairs. “Sorry, I can’t sit still. You mind if I throw him into the tub real quick, Town? He’s a little crunchy, and it’ll give me something to do.”
It was clear that Tara’s nervous energy was grating on her brother-in-law; he seemed more at ease once she’d followed Griffey to the second floor and he could turn his attention back to the Fletchers.
“I keep expecting the phone to ring, but I’m not sure exactly what kind of call it would be; maybe a ransom demand or something. Obviously, I want it to be Clarissa explaining that this is all a misunderstanding, that she went with a friend somewhere and forgot to leave a note, and Griffey just happened to get out…” He was just rambling. I didn’t point out that the leash suggested Griffey had not simply escaped from the yard, but that someone had been walking him. Townsend would come to the realization in his own time.
I was beginning to think that a ransom demand would be good news at this point. At least it might indicate that Clarissa was alive.
“This lifestyle of ours,” Townsend said, looking around. “Why does any of it really matter? Maybe it just invites problems.”
Johnson used the moment as his in to ask permission for the walk-through. Consistent with everything else about the man, his transition was smooth.
He started by asking Dr. Easterbrook if he’d ever noticed anything that might suggest that someone was scoping out the house or following them, perhaps planning a way to get to Clarissa by herself.
“No, nothing at all like that,” Easterbrook replied. “This neighborhood is so isolated up here. We hardly see anyone on our street who doesn’t live here.”
“Can you think of anyone who has a conflict with you of some kind? Someone who might be motivated to do something to scare you or retaliate against you?”
“Why would someone hurt Clarissa to get to me, detective?”
“Just exploring all possibilities, doctor. Maybe a disgruntled patient from the hospital? A former employee?”
“No,” Townsend said, slowly shaking his head. “Clarissa would occasionally get some threats about her cases, but she always assumed they were only blowing off steam. Never anything we considered seriously. No one would want to hurt her. She’s such a good person.”
“I was just exploring all the possibilities,” Johnson repeated. “Come to think of it, we should probably take a look around and make sure there’s no signs of a breakin, just in case. Do you mind?”
“Of course not, but I’m sure I would have noticed something earlier. Given the security system, I don’t see how anyone could have gotten in.”
“As long as you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and check it out. No harm, right?”
Johnson sidled off before anyone might want to stop him, and the Fletchers seized the opportunity to extricate themselves from a situation where they knew they couldn’t be of much help. As they launched into their goodbyes, feeding Townsend more premature assurances that everything would be okay, I caught up with Ray. Truth was, I didn’t want to be alone with Townsend, struggling like the Fletchers to avoid all those lame cliches this will all work out, only a silly misunderstanding, and other completely useless pronouncements suggesting the speaker had any clue as to how the night would end.
We hit the basement first. My basement is a dark, damp, dusty wreck of concrete and cinder block that my imagination has populated with thousands of spiders and their cobwebs. The Easterbrooks’ had been finished into a laundry room and a home gym that had better equipment than my health club. Not only did we not find any bodies, blood, or guts, there weren’t even any windows to check. In place of the flimsy things that are so often kicked in for basement breakins, the Easterbrooks had glass bricks.
Climbing back up the stairs, we could hear Townsend letting the Fletchers out the front door, so we headed up to the second floor, where Tara had Griffey in a bathroom off the main hallway. She was fighting to get a dog brush through the hair on his hind leg. Predictably, Griffey stood compliantly while Tara tried to avoid pulling his entire coat off by the roots.
She looked up at us from the tile floor, removing her hand from the brush to push her bangs from her forehead. The brush stayed entangled in poor Griffey’s coat. “I was just wondering whether I should show this to you. I thought he felt a little crusty downstairs when I was petting him, but it looks like he’s actually got something dried on his coat back here.”
Johnson knelt down and looked more closely at the side of Griffey’s hip. Then he reached into an interior pocket of his suit jacket, removed a latex glove, and slipped it over his right hand.
“Do you mind giving us a second, Ms. Carney?”
Tara seemed surprised by the request but left the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
“Looks like clay or something,” Johnson explained, “like he brushed up against it here on his side.”
“Shit. We should have gotten the crime lab over here immediately when the Fletchers called.”
I was beginning to panic. Why the hell hadn’t Johnson been on top of this? “Wasn’t obvious,” he said, responding to the unspoken question. “Until you’re certain what you’re dealing with, it’s hard to decide what kind of resources to put into it. Considering the small chance of any evidence off the dog, plus the likelihood that we’re dealing with a runaway wife, and it’s a tough call.”
It made sense, but it didn’t excuse the fact that we nearly allowed Tara Carney to take the source of what might be our best piece of evidence so far and soak him in a bathtub.
Johnson flaked some of the beige paste from Griffey’s coat into an evidence bag, then marked it with his name and the date using a Sharpie pen.
Shit. What else had we missed? “I think we should go ahead and get the crime lab out here and search around Taylor’s Ferry. Everything about this feels bad.”
“Your call,” he said, pulling out his cell phone.
This new gig was going to take some getting used to.
Two.
By 7 a.m. the next morning, I was watching my first Major Crimes Unit case unfold on television. Nothing like an attractive, professional, missing white woman to satisfy the hunger of the viewing masses.
I sat in the eighth-floor conference room of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, location of the office’s only TV set, flipping channels in a futile attempt to track the coverage. Out of principle, I boycotted the Fox affiliate for running the tagline case of a real-life Cinderella? in a graphic beneath the talking head. I finally gave up and settled on the local morning show, which seemed to be covering the story in the most detail.
Cut to some guy named Jake Spottiswoode, so-called field correspondent, also known as the kid right out of college who gets sent with his Columbia Gore-Tex jacket into the rain.
“Good morning, Gloria. Behind me in southwest Portland is the home of Dr. Townsend Easterbrook and his missing wife,
Administrative Law Judge Clarissa Easterbrook. Dr. Easterbrook reported the mysterious disappearance yesterday evening, shortly after returning from a day of surgery at OHSU.
“Residents of this quiet neighborhood are fearing the worst,” Gore-Tex continued, “since learning that one of Judge Easterbrook’s shoes was discovered in the street on Taylor’s Ferry Road last night. That discovery was particularly ominous given that the shoe was found only half a mile from where her dog was found earlier in the night, alone but still on his leash. The community is helping police in the search effort and say they still hold out hope that Judge Easterbrook will be found safe and unharmed. We’ve been told that the family will be coming outside any minute to make a statement.”
“Jake, what can you tell us about what Clarissa Easterbrook might have been doing before she disappeared? Was she walking the dog?” Watching Gloria Flick lean forward and dramatically furrow her brow, I remembered why I never watch this show. Gloria Flick was annoying as hell.
While Flick continued to feign concern, Gore-Tex explained that the police had refused to rule out any possibilities. Although this was formally a missing persons case, they were moving forward on the assumption that foul play might be involved. Trying to fill air time before the press conference, the rain-soaked rookie correspondent touched upon Clarissa’s position with the city. “We’re hearing, Gloria, that Clarissa Easterbrook, as an administrative law judge, is not the kind of judge that many of us would envision, in a courthouse, presiding over trials. Rather, she hears appeals from the administrative decisions of city agencies. Because many of those matters are considered routine and, in fact, somewhat bureaucratic, police are discouraging the media from speculating that Judge Easterbrook’s disappearance could be related to her official position.”
The viewing public was spared any further attempt to explain the boring work of an administrative law judge when Clarissa Easterbrook’s family assumed its place behind a podium that had been set up in the Easterbrook driveway.
Joining Tara and Townsend were an older couple I imagined were Clarissa’s parents, along with a woman I didn’t recognize. Townsend tentatively approached the mike. Make that about ten mikes. Unlike Tara, he had changed clothes, but the bags under his eyes were every bit as pronounced.
As the attending surgeon at the state’s teaching hospital, Townsend was probably used to speaking to a crowd. But today he seemed focused on merely making it through the notes he carried to the podium. His voice lacked affect, and he didn’t look up once from his reading:
“My wife, Clarissa Easterbrook, has not been seen since six o’clock yesterday morning. She disappeared somewhere between then and last night at approximately six-thirty p.m.” when I returned home. We believe she was wearing a pink silk turtleneck sweater, charcoal-gray pants, and black loafers, one of which was found on Taylor’s Ferry Drive early this morning. Our dog was discovered last night in the same area, near the Chart House restaurant. We are asking anyone who may have seen her, or seen anything in that vicinity that might be related to her disappearance, to please call the police immediately. Clarissa, we love you and we miss you, and we want you to come home to us safe.
“Behind me are Clarissa’s sister, Tara Carney; her parents, Mel and Alice Carney; and her dearest friend, Susan Kerr. On behalf of all of us, I’d like to thank everyone who is helping in this search effort. Members of the Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office were here late last night, and the media have been great about getting Clarissa’s picture out there and asking for information. We’re very grateful for all the support and concern that has been shown for Clarissa and our family. Thank you again.”
Whoever wrote the script was savvy enough to know how to play the game of political institutions. Appear supportive of the police department and the DA’s office early on, and you’ll have all the more leverage down the road if you threaten to turn. Reporters were shouting out questions now, but there wasn’t much for Townsend to add. Yes, it was certainly possible that something might have happened to her while she was walking the dog, but the police were not ruling out other possibilities. No, there hadn’t been any ransom demands or other communications about the disappearance.
Once the family retreated into the house, the station ran more pictures of Clarissa and repeated the description of her clothing. Nordstrom had come through. From the montage of photographs at a picnic with Townsend, at Cannon Beach with Griffey, on the lap of a shopping-mall Santa Claus with Tara I began to feel I knew this woman. She was aging gracefully, keeping her hair blond but neatly bobbed, allowing the wrinkles to show beneath a light dusting of makeup. And in every picture she had the same big, generous smile that had greeted me the one time I had met her at a women’s bar conference a couple of years ago. I couldn’t bear to watch.
As I was clicking the TV off, Russell Frist stuck his perfectly salt-and-peppered head into the conference room. “Welcome back, Kincaid, and welcome to the Unit. The boss tells me you’re in the thick of things already.”
The District Attorney must have called Frist first thing this morning. Recently appointed supervisor of the Major Crimes Unit, my new boss had a reputation for screaming at other lawyers and making them cry, but also for being a good prosecutor. I had vowed to keep an open mind about him, but sitting there beneath his gaze, I found myself intimidated. At six foot three and a good two-twenty, Frist put in enough time at the gym to test the seams of his well-cut suit.
It wasn’t surprising that Frist referred to the trial unit that prosecuted all person felonies as “the Unit.” He’d been handling major crimes for at least fifteen years, so other kinds of cases had no doubt stopped mattering to him long ago.
“Looks like it,” I said. “When he sent me out to the Easterbrooks’ last night for some hand-holding, I don’t think either one of us thought it was going to turn into something like this, literally overnight.”
“Well, we should talk. Give me about fifteen minutes, then meet in my office?”
Fifteen minutes wasn’t enough time to get any actual work done, so I continued making my way through the pile of mail that had accumulated over the past month. As un pampered county employees, we usually have to take care of our own office moves when we change rotations, but someone had been nice enough to relocate my things from my old office down the hall at the Drug and Vice Division to what used to be Frist’s office in major crimes.