enough.
But I guess it was my senior year in high school that I started believing in myself I was near the top of my class, the braces were gone, my folks got me contacts and boys started noticing me. By the time I graduated Berkeley I was much more outgoing.'
'You met your husband in law school, didn't you?'
Betsy nodded. 'We're separated, now.'
'Oh. I'm sorry.'
Betsy shrugged. 'I really don't want to talk about my personal life.
Will that be necessary?'
'Not if you don't want to. I'm not writing this for the Enquirer.
'Okay, because I don't want to discuss Rick.'
'I understand you one hundred percent. I went through the same thing in Phoenix. I know bow difficult it can be. So, let's move on to something else.'
The waiter arrived with their food and Sloane asked Betsy some more questions about her childhood while they ate.
'You didn't go into private practice right out of law school, did you?'
Sloane asked after the waiter cleared their plates.
'No.'
'Why not? You've done so well at it.'
'That's been all luck,' Betsy answered, blushing slightly. 'I never thought of going out on my own, back then. My law school grades were all right, but not good enough for a big firm. I worked for the attorney general doing environmental law for four years. I liked the job, but I quit when I became pregnant with Kathy.'
'How old is she?'
'Six.
'How did you get back into law?'
'I was bored sitting home when Kathy started preschool. Rick and I talked it over and we decided I would practice out of our home, so I would be there for Kathy.
Margaret McKinnon, a friend of mine from law school, let me use her conference room to meet clients. I didn't have much of a caseload. A few court-appointed misdemeanors, some simple divorces. just enough to keep me busy.
'Then Margaret offered me a windowless office about the size of a broom closet, rent free, in exchange for twenty hours of free legal work each month. I agonized over that, but Rick said it was okay. He thought it would be good for me to get out of the house, as long as I kept my caseload low enough to pick up Kathy at day care and stay home with her if she got sick. You know, still be a mom. Anyway, it worked out fine and I started picking up some felonies and a few contested divorces that paid better.'
'The Peterson case was your big break, right?'
'Yeah. One day I was sitting around without much to do and the clerk who assigns court-appointed cases asked me if I'd represent Grace Peterson.
I didn't know much about the battered woman's syndrome, but I remembered seeing Dr. Lenore Walker on a TV talk show. She's the expert in this area. The court authorized the money and Lenore came out from Denver and evaluated Grace. It was pretty horrible, what her husband did. I'd led a sheltered life, I guess. No one where I grew up did things like that.'
'No one you knew about.'
Betsy nodded sadly. 'No one I knew about. Anyway, the case attracted a lot of publicity. We had the support of some women's groups and the press was behind us. After the acquittal, my business really picked up.
Then Andrea hired me because of the verdict in Grace's case.'
The waiter arrived with their coffee. Sloane looked at her watch. 'You said you had a one-thirty appointment, didn't you?'
Betsy glanced at her own watch. 'Is it one-ten already? I really got wrapped up in this.'
'Good. I was hoping you'd be as excited about the project as I am.'
'I am. Why don't you call me and we can talk again soon.
'Great. I'll do that. And thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.'
Randy Highsmith shook the rain off his umbrella and laid it on the floor under the dashboard as Alan Page drove out of the parking garage. The umbrella hadn't helped much in the gusting rain and Highsmith was cold and wet.
Highsmith was slightly overweight, studious-looking, a staunch conservative and the best prosecutor in the office, Page included. While earning a law degree from Georgetown he'd fallen in love with Patty Archer, a congressional aide. He then fell in love with Portland when he traveled there to meet Patty's family. When her congressman decided not to run for reelection, the newlyweds moved west, where Patty opened a political consulting firm and Randy was snapped up by the office of the Multnomah County district attorney.
'Tell me about Darius,' Page said as they got on the freeway.
'He moved to Portland eight years ago. He had money to start with and borrowed on his assets. Darius made his name, and increased his fortune, by gambling on the revitalization of downtown Portland. His first big success was the Couch Street Boutique. He bought a block of dilapidated buildings for a song, converted them to an indoor mall, then changed the area surrounding the boutique into the trendiest section in Portland by leasing renovated buildings to upscale shops and restaurants at low rents. As business increased, so did the rents. The upper floors of a lot of the buildings were converted to condos. That's been his pattern.
Buy up all the buildings in a slum area, set up a core attraction, then build around it. Recently he's branched out into suburban malls, apartment complexes, and so on.
'Two years ago, Darius married Lisa Ryder, the daughter of Oregon Supreme Court justice Victor Ryder.
Ryder's old firm, Parish, Marquette and Reeves, handles his legal work.
I talked to a few friends over there in confidence. Darius is brilliant and unscrupulous. Half the firm's energy is spent keeping him honest.
The other half is spent defending lawsuits when they fail.'
'What's 'unscrupulous' mean? Law violations, ethics, what?'
'Nothing illegal. But he has his own set of rules and a total disregard for the feelings of others. For instance, earlier this year he bought up a street of historically significant houses over in the Northwest, so he could tear them down and build town houses. There were several citizen groups up in arms. They got a temporary injunction and were trying to get the houses landmark status. A smart young lawyer at Parish, Marquette convinced the judge to drop the injunction. Darius moved bulldozers in at night and leveled the block before anyone knew what was going on.
'A guy like that must have done something illegal.'
'The closest I've got is a rumor that he's friendly with Manuel Ochoa, a Mexican businessman who the D.E.A. thinks is laundering money for a South American drug cartel. Ochoa may be lending Darius money for a big project downstate that was risky enough to scare off some of the banks.'
'What about his past?' Page asked as they drove the parking lot of the Lakeview Motel. into 'Doesn't have one, which makes sense if he's Lake.'
'Did you check newspaper stories, profiles?'
'I did better than that. I spoke to the Oregonian's top business reporter. Darius does not give interviews about his private life. For all anyone knows, he was born eight years ago.'
Page pulled into a parking spot in front of the motel office. The dashboard clock read five twenty-six.
'Stay here. I'll see if Gordon's back.'
'Okay. But there's one other thing you should know.' Page waited with the car door half-open. 'We've got a link between our missing women and Darius.'
Page closed the door. Highsmith smiled.
'I saved the best for last. Tom Reiser, the husband of Wendy Reiser, works for Parish, Marquette. He's the lawyer who convinced the judge to drop the injunction. Last Christmas, the Reisers attended a party at the Darius estate. This summer, they were invited to a bash to celebrate the opening of a mall, two weeks before the disappearances started. Reiser has had numerous business dealings with Darius.
