don't know what he'd do."
"I'll be as discreet as possible," I promised, "but I can't ignore what
you've told me."
By the time Tara left the office, she understood that she could no
longer control what became of the secret her sister had confided in
her.
I needed to tell Johnson about Clarissa's phone call to Jessica Walters
and what I'd learned from Tara. And I still needed to follow up on
what Duncan had told me this morning: Had Johnson really asked Townsend
for a polygraph?
No one picked up at MCT, so I paged him again. He returned the call
fifteen minutes later from a crime scene. I could barely hear him over
a chorus of angry voices in the background.
"Sorry about the delay, but today's been a bitch. I got a home
invasion gone bad here right now. Two guys dead and a front yard full
of gang bangers taking sides. We're meeting back at Central at four to
go over where we are on Easterbrook. Can it wait till then? We can
patch you in on speaker."
"It can wait, but I'll meet you over there." I knew from experience
that attending a meeting by conference call is a guaranteed way to be
confused and ignored, two areas where I didn't need help.
"Sounds good. We should have the bad guys separated from the less bad
guys by then."
I turned my attention back to the task of reviewing the files I had
inherited from Frist. With only a partial caseload, I had thirty-two
pending cases and thirteen waiting to be reviewed for prosecution
decisions. Far fewer files than in DVD, where I'd celebrate if I fell
into the double digits, but homicides, sex offenses, and felony
assaults would require more of me than the drug cases I had learned to
prosecute on autopilot.
By midafternoon, I had finished compiling a calendar of all scheduled
appearances and a list of motions, responses, phone calls, and other
follow-up projects that needed to be done. If only I could learn to
get the actual work completed as efficiently and neatly as I could list
it.
MCT was housed in the downtown Justice Center, just a quick diagonal
across the Plaza Blocks from the courthouse. I took the stairs to the
fourth floor. When I got to MCT's large suite of cubicles, Chuck threw
me a Diet Coke from the mini fridge and a look from deep down in a
naughty place. I missed the soda by a mile, but I definitely caught
the look. As usual, Chuck Forbes didn't miss a thing.
"Nice catch, Kincaid. Something distract you?"
"Just your piss-poor aim. Mike, don't ever rely on your partner in a
gunfight."
Chuck's partner, Mike Calabrese, was finishing off the second and, for
him, final bite of a Krispy Kreme glazed. Licking his fingers, he
said, "That boy there doesn't need his gun. He disarms the world with
his rapier wit."
He disguised the New York accent, giving the impression he was
mimicking something Chuck said recently, most likely after their annual
shooting re-quals. Seven times out of ten, I could outshoot Chuck at
the range.
Johnson took control of the meeting once everyone was settled around
the table. "Thanks for coming back in. As it turns out, the LT OK'd
us for overtime on this, but I appreciate that everyone was willing to
show anyway. I know it was a bad day out there today. Before I let
you in on what Walker and I have been working, where are you guys on
the paperwork?"
Chuck and Mike knew the question was aimed at them. Chuck took
charge.
"We got everything we were asking for. Nothing on the credit cards
other than corroboration for what the wits have been telling us. We
got charges at Nordstrom on Saturday for the clothes she was wearing
and the stuff the sister found in the shopping bag. Then Sunday we've
got the lunch at the Pasta Company. We checked the bills for the last
twelve months, and nothing's jumping out. Same with the bank
records.
"The vies cell phone gets a little more interesting. The general
pattern is slow: a few calls to the house, office voice mail, that sort
of thing. Very few incoming calls. The last two calls were one Sunday
afternoon to the Pasta Company and one Saturday afternoon to her house.
I figured I'd let one of you guys check that one out with the family,
since you're the contacts."
I saw Johnson jot it down in his notebook. "That it?" he asked.
Chuck and Mike exchanged glances. "My partner here has been saving the
best for last," Mike said. "We get a break in the pattern about three
months ago. Suddenly our victim starts using all those minutes she's
prepaid for, and it's almost all calls back and forth between her phone
and one belonging to Metro Council member Terrence James Caffrey."
T. J. Caffrey was a well-known liberal lawmaker. He had previously
been a member of the county legislature but recently ran for and won a
seat on the Metro Council, whose sole purpose was to enforce Oregon's
unique restrictions against urban sprawl. In the 1970s, the
legislature essentially drew a big circle around the Portland area's
existing development and established that line as a boundary between
urban and rural land. Since then, as the region's population had
grown, the urban center had exploded with new development. The result
was a much denser metropolitan area, but the open space beyond it had
remained just that. Only the Metro Council had the authority to redraw
the line that separated urban from rural.
Johnson reached his hands toward Calabrese like he wanted to squeeze
his cheeks and kiss the top of his head. "Now that is what I'm talking
about. Feels like we're swimming through maple syrup and suddenly
something breaks. Too many phone calls to a married man; it might boil
down to old-fashioned lust after all."
"That fits in with something I got this afternoon," I said. I told
them about my visit from Tara. T. J. Caffrey s own marriage would
explain why Clarissa thought that leaving Townsend wouldn't be enough
to make her happy.
The guys were predictably ticked.
"Happens in every case, don't it?" Calabrese spoke for them all.
"These people don't tell us what they know; then they bitch and moan
when we can't find the bad guy fast enough."
Before I had a chance to voice Tara's reservations, Johnson was back on
track. "It's all right. Now we got some pieces coming together. I've
got something that might fit in with the Caffrey angle too, but let's
hold off on that for now. You got anything else?"
"Only a one-minute phone call on Friday to the Multnomah County
District Attorney's Office. We figured Kincaid could track down the
details."
"I've already got them. Jessica Walters paid me a visit this morning."
I explained to them that Jessica had been in trial last week, only made