Vanessa had inherited Paul’s secretary. She told Vanessa that Robin Lockwood and Rex had met with Paul on Kellerman’s last day, but she had no idea what was said in her boss’s inner sanctum. She did say that Rex had looked like a death row inmate who was walking the last mile when he left the meeting.
Vanessa had a ton of things to do, but thoughts of Rex Kellerman kept distracting her. She worked through lunch. When the page she was reading began to blur, she told her secretary to hold her calls. Then she put her head back and closed her eyes, but visions of Rex Kellerman danced in her head like demented sugar plum fairies.
Paul Getty was convalescing at his home in Portland Heights. After work, Vanessa drove there for a one-on-one seminar on how to be the Multnomah County district attorney. Paul’s wife, Sheila, greeted Vanessa with a warm hug and congratulated her on her new job. Then she led Vanessa to the sunroom, where Paul was reading in an overstuffed armchair.
“I see you survived your first day on the job,” Getty said.
“Just barely. How are you feeling?”
“Much better. I went for a mile walk this afternoon, and I’m still here.”
“Good. You had us all worried.”
“The doctor says that stress was partly to blame for the stroke. Let that be a warning to you. If the job starts getting to you, back off. I wish I had.”
“Well, now you can be a bum and forget about protecting an entire county.”
“Yeah. I’m resigned to spending the rest of my days eating bonbons and watching daytime TV.”
Vanessa smiled. “Somehow I don’t think I see that in your future.”
Paul grinned back. “Shall we get down to business? Sheila’s preparing a gastronomic feast for you. I’m going to get the healthy, tasteless crap my doctor has prescribed.”
Vanessa waited to talk about Rex Kellerman until Sheila told them that dinner would be ready in twenty minutes.
“Thanks for the crash course,” she said.
“My pleasure.”
“Can I ask you about something that happened in the office recently?”
“Sure.”
“Why did Rex quit?”
Getty stopped smiling. “That’s not something I want to discuss.”
“Did he do something unethical in Doug Armstrong’s case?”
Getty looked conflicted. Then he nodded.
“I’m DA now, Paul. If he did something that reflects badly on my office, I should know about it.”
Getty sighed. “You guessed right. It was Armstrong.”
“What did he do?”
“Before I tell you, you’ve got to promise me you’ll let the matter stand the way it is now.”
“I don’t know if I can do that without knowing what happened.”
Getty’s lips formed a grim line. “Rex had an affair with Doug Armstrong’s wife, and she broke it off.”
Vanessa’s jaw dropped. “He prosecuted an innocent man for revenge?”
“I think he’s convinced that Armstrong is guilty.”
“Based on what evidence?”
Getty told Vanessa about the blood under Frank Nylander’s fingernail and what happened with the DNA tests.
“That’s horrible, Paul. What if Armstrong had been executed? What if Robin hadn’t figured out what Rex was doing?”
“Well, she did, and Doug is a free man.”
“I have to think about this, Paul.”
“Doug doesn’t know that Marsha cheated on him. Think of the damage you’ll do to their relationship if he learns what happened between her and Rex.”
“Think of the damage Rex could have done. He’s a criminal, Paul, and I don’t know if I can sweep what he’s done under the rug.”
The next morning, Vanessa was the first person to arrive at the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. There were two reasons for her early appearance. First, she wanted to know if there was a history of prosecuting district attorneys who intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence or offered evidence they knew to be false or questionable to a grand jury or trial jury. Second, she just couldn’t sleep, knowing that Rex Kellerman had tried to put Doug Armstrong on death row to avenge being jilted by Doug’s wife.
Vanessa found only a few cases where a prosecutor had been disbarred or jailed for withholding exculpatory evidence. In one case, a Texas prosecutor had intentionally withheld evidence in a murder case that could have cleared the defendant. The defendant was convicted and spent twenty-four years in prison before being exonerated. The ex-DA, who was a judge when his crime was discovered, was prosecuted and pled no contest. He left the bench and was disbarred, but he spent only ten days in jail.
Vanessa was furious when she finished reading about that case. In Brady v. Maryland, the United States Supreme Court had made it crystal clear that prosecutors had an absolute duty to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense. Every district attorney knew that. The Texas DA’s dereliction of duty had robbed a man of twenty-four years of his life and forced him to spend those years in the company of hardened criminals. Ten days in jail was a woefully inadequate punishment for such a hideous crime. To Vanessa’s mind, the DA was guilty of kidnapping, and Rex Kellerman was guilty of attempted murder.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Blaine Hastings was still on the run, but Robin figured that he’d be behind bars soon. Fugitives were usually caught. Someone would recognize him and phone the police or he’d get desperate and use a credit card or he’d just get tired of being hunted and turn himself in. So, she began preparing Randi Stark’s lawsuit. During a brainstorming session, Robin and Jeff drafted a witness list. Many of the witnesses in the civil suit would be the same witnesses who testified at Hastings’s criminal trial, but there were some loose ends that Robin wanted tied up.
Jeff found the names of Hastings’s high school teammates in Hastings’s high school yearbook. Then he cross-checked the names with the Portland State roster. There were three boys at PSU who had played football in high school with Blaine.
Two days after his meeting with Robin, Jeff parked in front of Alpha Phi Sigma’s fraternity house, a converted Victorian near the Portland State University campus. When Jeff started up the steps to the frat house, he spotted a young man with a blond crew cut, a thick neck, massive thighs, and ripped biceps sitting on a dilapidated sofa on the front porch. The young man stood up when he saw Jeff and walked toward him.
“Dino Portis?” Jeff asked.
“That’s me,” Portis said with a smile. “And you must be the PI.”
“I am.” The investigator handed Portis his card.
Portis pretended to look Jeff over. “Where’s your trench coat?”
“I left it at home with my magnifying glass.”
“That’s cool,” Portis answered with a laugh.
“Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”
“Yeah, well, Randi and I lived in the projects and went to school together. So why do you want to talk to me?”
“I was hoping to get some background on Blaine and Randi from someone who knew them. Can you tell me a little about Blaine? Have you had much contact with him since high school?”
“No. I didn’t have much contact with him in high school either, except during football practice, and even then, not so much.”
“Why is that?”
“We were on opposite sides of the ball. I was a running back and he was a linebacker, so there wasn’t much interaction during practice. And I told you I lived in the projects. Blaine was partial to rich kids who were members of the Westmont Country Club.”