Bupkes.
I cross-referenced Grice's list of development companies with
Townsend's list of donors but didn't find any additional overlap.
More than ever, I missed the resources of the U.S. Attorney's
Office. What I needed was access to LEXIS/NEXIS. From what I could
remember, NEXIS's public records database included corporate filing
information from all fifty states. Unfortunately, Duncan never saw fit
to include the service in the office's budget. If we needed legal
research, we did it the old-fashioned way.
Out of desperation, I pulled up the LEXIS/NEXIS Web site on my computer
and tried my old federal password. Part of me was relieved when it
didn't work. Getting busted by the feds wouldn't exactly help my
current professional standing.
Then I remembered that the computer research sites all give free
passwords to law students and judicial clerks. It's the legal
profession's equivalent to a dealer handing out drugs on the
playground. Once the kids are hooked on an easy fix, they'll pay
anything for more.
I found Nelly Giacoma's home number where I'd jotted it in the file.
"Nelly, hi, it's Samantha Kincaid from the District Attorney's
Office."
"Oh, hey there. Congratulations on your PC determination. I heard
about it on the news."
"Thanks. It was pretty much what we expected, though."
"Right," she said. "So did you ever figure out what the key was that I
gave you?"
"We did, actually, and that's sort of why I'm calling. Clarissa had
some documents in a safe deposit box. I'm trying to make sense of
them, but I need to do some NEXIS research."
"Urn, sure, I don't see why not. I'm not doing anything tonight
anyway."
What a trooper. "No," I said, laughing. "I don't expect you to do it
for me. I just need to get onto the system. Believe it or not, you
lose all that fancy stuff if you join a prosecutor's office."
"You're kidding. How do you get anything done?"
"I usually manage, but I need to look at some public records that are
hard to get after business hours. Do you think it would be OK if I
used your password?"
She didn't need to think about it long. "What the hell? It's not like
it costs the city anything, and I hardly use it anyway."
I jotted down the series of letters and numbers she gave me, thanking
her profusely before I hung up.
First, I perused the Public Records library. This was perfect. I had
access not only to the corporate registry information of all fifty
states but to records of all civil court judgments and property liens
filed.
I looked up the information that MTK had filed with the Oregon
Secretary of State. According to the filings, the president of the
corporation was Carl Matthews. The name didn't ring a bell. I
searched next for Gunderson Development. Larry Gunderson was listed as
both the president and secretary of the corporation, which usually
signaled a one-man operation. The Gunderson listing also included an
entry for a former corporate name of Gunderson Construction, Inc." as
well as for Gunderson Construction's bankruptcy dissolution years
earlier.
I switched to the database of recorded judgments. That's when my
search got more interesting. Typing in gunderson development had
yielded nothing, but my search for the former gunderson construction
turned up twenty-seven civil judgments, each one representing a
judgment against the company. No wonder the guy had filed for
bankruptcy. On the fourteenth hit I had a connection, a judgment of
$126,000 against Gunderson Construction in favor of the MTK Group.
So ten years ago, Gunderson and MTK had enough business together that
it led to a judgment against Gunderson. Now they were both doing
business in the Railroad District. MTK had obtained Railroad District
development licenses from Wessler and had given money to the hospital
wing. Clarissa had helped
Gunderson get a license to build in the Railroad District and had kept
a copy of his appeal in the same safe deposit box as the hospital wing
records. But if there was a connection between donations to the
hospital wing and licenses to develop the Railroad District, how did
Gunderson manage to win his appeal without donating to the cause?
I turned back to the screen and accessed the news files. Then,
starting at the top of the list of Townsend's donors, I ran search
after search for any Oregonian articles containing the word gunderson
and the name of each donor. Somewhere there had to be a link.
The work was tedious, but it finally paid off. A couple named Thomas
and Diane Curtin had made a generous donation of $50,000 to the
hospital wing. According to the announcement of the Curtins' marriage
two years ago, the generous wife was the daughter of Portland developer
Larry Gunderson.
Having grown up in Portland, I know the place can be incestuous. People
joke that it's more like a big room than a small city. But my head was
beginning to hurt from the points of connection among Gunderson, MTK,
the Railroad District project, the urban growth boundary, and
Townsend's new hospital wing. I did my best to keep track of them,
drawing lines and making notes until I finally gave up and threw my pen
at the wall of my office.
After I apologized to Vinnie for the disturbance, I took another look
at my list of players and the various lines between and among them. If
Clarissa had sold her ruling on Gunderson's appeal in exchange for the
donation, what, if anything, did she have to do with the MTK Group?
I jumped back to the corporate registrations to see if either Larry
Gunderson or Carl Matthews, the president of MTK, was registered as an
agent or officer for any other corporations. It wouldn't be unusual
for a small businessman to be associated with more than one company
over his lifetime.
My search for Gunderson's name turned up only the listings for
Gunderson Development and Gunderson Construction, but Carl Matthews s
name also yielded two results: one for the the MTK Group and one for a
company called Columbia Holding Company. I clicked on the hypertext of
the company name.
The first few lines of the entry showed that Columbia Holding Company
was an inactive Oregon corporation, with a corporate filing date nearly
twenty-five years ago. When I scrolled down farther, I had to reread
the text twice to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. The
secretary of the now defunct company was Carl Matthews, current
president of the MTK Group. The president was none other than Herbert
Kerr.
I had found my connection.
Susan Kerr's Mercedes was parked in her driveway. I had risked a