Anthony could smell liquor on his breath.
'Do you want to spend an evening in the drunk tank?'
'It wouldn't be the first time,' Crease snapped. Junior lunged for her again but could not break Anthony's iron grip.
'Please wait for me in the library, Senator,' Anthony commanded angrily. Crease hesitated, then strode away from the melee.
Anthony pointed toward the staircase. 'That's your father's body, for Christ's sake. Let these men take care of him.'
Junior stared at the body bag as if seeing it for the first time.
'Take him in there,' Anthony told the officers, indicating a small sitting room just off the foyer. When the officers did as they were told, Anthony motioned them away. Junior dropped to a small sofa. Anthony sat beside him. Hoyt's son was a little over six feet tall and husky. His large head was topped by curly black hair, his eyes were brown and his nose was thick and stubby, like his father's.
'Do I have to keep these cuffs on?'
'I'm okay,' Junior mumbled.
'I have these taken off and you act up, it's a night in jail.'
Anthony motioned and the officer with the key unlocked the cuffs. Junior rubbed his wrists. He looked properly chagrined.
'What was that all about? That screaming?'
Junior s features hardened. 'Why isn't she in custody?'
'Senator Crease?'
'I know she killed him.'
'Mr. Hoyt, your father was murdered by a burglar. He broke into the bedroom and shot your father. Senator Crease shot him. Ellen Crease didn't kill your father, she tried to save him.'
'I'll never believe that. I know that bitch is behind this. She wanted him dead and she got her wish.'
Chapter 2.
The honorable Richard Quinn, judge of the Multnomah County Circuit Court, was almost six foot three, but he walked slightly stooped as if he were shy about his height. Despite his size and position, the thirty-nine-year-old judge was not intimidating. He smiled easily and seemed a bit distracted at times. His blue eyes were friendly and his thick black hair tended to fall across his forehead, giving him a boyish look.
Quinn's workday usually ended between five and six, but he had stayed in his chambers until seven working on the Gideon case. Then his normal twenty-minute commute stretched to fifty minutes because of an accident on the Sunset Highway that had been caused by the rain. When Quinn arrived at Hereford Farms, he was famished and exhausted.
Homes in the Farms started at half a million. Quinn and Laura could easily afford the place when they moved in five years ago. Quinn was making a six-figure salary at Price, Winward, Lexington, Rice and Quinn, and Laura, an associate at the firm on the fast track to a partnership, was pulling down high five figures with the promise of more to come. Still, Quinn loved the old colonial in Portland Heights where he was living when he proposed to Laura, and he had fought the move to the suburbs.
Quinn could trace the strains in the marriage to the arguments over the house in Portland Heights. Laura felt it was too small for the parties she wanted to throw and too far from the country club she wanted to join. In the blush of new love it had been easy for Quinn to give in, but he had never felt comfortable in this house that seemed more like a display model than a real home. There was a vaulted ceiling in the dining room and living room and no walls to separate the areas. A chandelier hung high above the stone floor in the entryway. Walls of glass let light flood in everywhere during the day. A circular stairway led up to the second floor. Quinn had to admit the house was impressive, but Hereford Farms and all the houses inside its walled perimeter were sterile and Quinn doubted that he would ever feel at home in this suburban encampment.
Quinn opened his front door. He started to call out to Laura, then he remembered that she was competing in the club tennis tournament tonight. He hung up his saturated raincoat in the hall closet and fixed himself dinner in the kitchen. There were assorted salads from yesterday's meal and soup he could reheat. Meals for both of them were catch-as-catch-can and they usually ate out or grabbed prepared dinners from a local supermarket because of the hours Laura kept. None of the lawyers at Price; Winward worked a normal, eight-hour day. Many of them worked so hard that they developed health problems, burned out or drank excessively. Laura was one of the firm's hardest workers, but she was in excellent health and rarely touched liquor. The work exhilarated her.
Quinn was reading in bed when he heard the front door open. He checked the clock. It was a little before ten. Quinn listened to Laura as she rustled around in the kitchen. He heard the refrigerator door swing shut. There were small impacts as a glass or plate touched down on the counter where Laura liked to snack. Later, there were muffled footfalls as Quinn's wife climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor.
Laura entered the bedroom in her warm-ups. She was thirty-three, six years younger than the judge. Her skin was pale, her hair was caramel and her eyes deep blue. Even without makeup and with her hair in disarray, Laura was attractive. She was also one of the smartest women Quinn had ever met. Her rapid rise to partner was a testament to her intelligence and to the single-minded determination she brought to everything she did. But single-minded determination could also cause problems when there were conflicts in a marriage. Laura rarely gave in on something she wanted. She had prevailed on the house and she refused to consider children while her career was on the rise. The only issue of importance on which Quinn had not yielded to Laura's wishes was his judgeship.
'How did you do?' Quinn asked as Laura pulled off her sweats and unzipped her tennis whites.
'I beat Patsy Tang two sets to love,' Laura answered matter-of-factly. 'That puts me in the quarterfinals.'
'Great. Did you have any problem driving?'
'No. They cleared that mud slide on Quail Terrace.'
Laura stepped out of her clothes and took off her bra and panties. Quinn had seen his wife naked almost every day for seven years and she still aroused him.
'When did you get home?' Laura asked.
'About eight.'
'What kept you so late?'
'Gideon. He had two supreme court justices, four circuit court judges, a mayor and several clergymen testifying on his behalf. We ran over.'
Frederick Gideon was a Lane County Circuit Court judge who sat in Eugene, Oregon, a small city one hundred miles south of Portland that was best known for being the home of the University of Oregon. Gideon was a popular, conscientious jurist who had made several bad investments. The losses had left him unable to pay for his daughters' schooling. Gideon was severely depressed when the owner of a construction company, the defendant in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, approached him with the offer of a bribe. In a moment of weakness, Gideon accepted the money and granted the defense a directed verdict in its favor.
The attorneys for the plaintiffs had been stunned by the ruling, which had no logical basis. A private investigator working for the plaintiffs unearthed evidence of the bribe. Judge Gideon, the owner of the construction firm and two other men were arrested. Gideon struck a bargain with the prosecution. He resigned from the bench, testified against the other defendants and was allowed to plead to a single felony that carried a maximum of five years in prison. Quinn was hearing the case because all of the Lane County judges had disqualified themselves. He had spent the day listening to witness after witness extol Gideon's virtues and plead for leniency. Tomorrow morning the attorneys would sum up and he would be expected to impose a sentence.
'What are you going to do?' Laura asked.
'I'm still undecided.'
Laura bundled up her dirty clothes and sat beside Quinn on the bed.
'Did the D. A. bring up some new evidence against him?'
'No. Jane even let it drop that she wouldn't be upset if I gave him probation. Still ...'
Quinn stopped, frustrated by the conflicting emotions that had been battling inside him ever since he had been assigned the Gideon case.
