declared was a state-of-the-art office park, coming soon. A young
officer stood at the foot of a gravel road leading to the construction
area. I flashed my District Attorney ID, and he described the several
turns I'd need to make around the various office buildings.
The day was beginning to lose its light, and the bureau's crime scene
technicians were erecting floods at the edge of a wooded area that
surrounded the new development. I could see Johnson and Walker were
already here, talking to some of the techs. I parked behind one of the
bureau's vans and prepared myself for Clarissa Easterbrook's corpse.
I'd seen four dead bodies in my life. One was my mother's, two were in
my living room last month, and one was on my first and only homicide
call-out. On that one, I'd been lucky enough to draw a fresh OD.
Depending on how the events leading to her death unfolded, Clarissa
Easterbrook could have been dead up to 35 hours.
Johnson met me at the car and we walked toward the woods. I could tell
from the surrounding area that the developer had clear-cut the old
growth that must have previously covered these hundred acres or so.
When we reached the end of the clearing, Johnson turned sideways and
stepped carefully through the trees. I followed and, just a few feet
later, saw what used to be
Clarissa Easterbrook, still in her pink turtleneck and gray pants. A
lot of good that piece of investigative work had done.
In novels, there's often something beautiful or at least touching about
the dead. A victim's arms extended like the wings of an angel, her
face at peace, her hand reaching for justice. This was nothing like
that. Clarissa Easterbrook's body was laid on the dirt, face up. The
right side of her head was gone, and I could find nothing poetic about
it.
The only worthwhile observations to be made about the corpse were
scientific. I initially focused on the disfigurement of her head, but
Johnson pointed out the discoloration on what remained of her face.
Purple streaks stained the left edge of her face and neck, like
bruising against skin that otherwise looked like silly putty. "Looks
like someone moved her."
When blood is no longer pumped by a beating heart, it settles with
gravity to the parts of the body closest to the ground. Clarissa
Easterbrook was on her back now, but immediately after her death she
had almost certainly been lying on her left side.
I watched as crime scene technicians methodically photographed and
bagged every item that might potentially become relevant to our
investigation. A candy wrapper, several cigarette butts, a rock that
looked like it might have blood on it. These items meant nothing now,
but any one of them could prove critical down the road. I looked at
Clarissa's body again, surrounded now by all this construction and
police work, and swore I'd find whoever did this to her.
I gave Johnson and Walker the file on Melvin Jackson's case that Dennis
Coakley had copied for me at City Hall. I also gave them approval to
file the standard search warrant application used after a homicide to
search the victim's house. We agreed, though, that they'd continue to
take it easy on Townsend unless the evidence started to point to him.
The police would be working the crime scene for the rest of the night,
but I signed out after a couple of hours, when Johnson and Walker left
to deliver the news to Clarissa's family. I don't envy the work of a
cop.
It's not as if prosecutors don't have bad days. Our files are filled
with desperation and degradation. Even the so-called victimless cases
involve acts that could be committed only by pathetic, miserable people
who've lost all hope. Compare that to fighting over money for a
banking client, and it looks like we're doing the heavy lifting.
But, in the end, I'm still just a lawyer. I issue indictments, plead
out cases, and go to trial. When it comes to the investigation, I
might make some calls on procedure, but it's the police who do the real
work. They're the ones who kick in a door when a search needs to be
executed. They're the ones who climb through the dumpster when a gun
gets tossed.
And Johnson and Walker would be the ones to visit Clarissa
Easterbrook's family members tonight to tell them that their lives
would never be the same again. These days, that concept is overused,
as we all say that the crumbling of two towers changed the world
forever. The kind of change I'm talking about can be claimed only by
the families of the three thousand people trapped inside. It's the
kind of change that causes every other second of life the birth of a
child, a broken leg, the car breaking down at the side of the road to
be cataloged in the memory in one of two ways: before or after that
defining moment in time.
From what I knew of it, everyone deals with the grief of a murder in
his own way. There is shock, then rage, then depression, and
ultimately some level of acceptance. But then the differences emerge.
What kind of survivors would Townsend, Tara, and Mr. and Mrs. Carney
become? The ones who die inside themselves and walk around each day
wondering when their body will catch up to their soul? The ones
seeking numbness in a bottle, the neighbors whispering about how things
used to be different? The ones who run the Web sites and help lines
and victims' rights groups? Clarissa's family still had options for
the future, just not the ones they thought they had when they woke up
yesterday.
Four.
By the time I returned the county's car and caught the bus home, it was
after nine o'clock and there were three messages from my father on the
machine. The gist of each, respectively? How was the first day of
work? I hope you're not working late already. And, finally, You're
not working on that case with the missing judge, are you?
I promised myself I'd call my father back before bed, but not just yet.
A normal person might want to veg out, watch a little TV, and hit the
hay. I wanted to run.
Running is my therapy. My ex-husband called it my escape. No matter
what the problem, a run always helps me see life in perspective. Plus,
I still felt like I needed to sweat out the rum and mint from the
sixty-seven mojitos I must have ingested poolside in Maui.
Even tonight's short three-miler did the trick. After one mile, images
of Clarissa Easterbrook's misshapen head and discolored flesh began to
slip away. After two, I stopped thinking about work entirely. By the
time I got home, I was ready to call my father.
"Sammy?" he said immediately. Dad had recently discovered the wonders
of caller ID as part of his constant effort to stay busy. After
thirty-plus years of marriage, two years as a widower hadn't been
enough for my father to feel relaxed at home alone.