'Ms. Fargo?'
'Yes?'
'This is Detective Anthony.'
'Yes?' Fargo answered tentatively.
'I wanted to tell you what happened in court.'
'I ... It was on the news. That the judge suppressed the evidence. What does that mean?'
'It means that Mr. Riker cannot use the evidence we found in the second search of the crime scene to convict Ellen Crease. Mr. Riker will appeal the judge's ruling, but that could take a while. Maybe years.'
'So I won't have to go to court?'
'It's possible you might, but not in the near future.'
Fargo sagged with relief. She would never forget Lamar, but she was terrified of having to appear in court.
'Thank you for calling,' Fargo said.
'I wanted to be certain that you understood what happened,' Anthony answered kindly. 'Feel free to call me anytime if you have questions.'
Fargo thought about the man with the scar. Should she tell Detective Anthony about him?
'Detective,' she started. Then it occurred to her that she might lose her job and the money if she said anything. And it might involve her further in a matter that she wanted to put behind her.
'Yes?'
'Nothing. Just thank you.'
[5]
Quinn told Fran Stuart to hold all of his calls. Then he asked her to stay late so that she could type up the drafts and final version of the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order in the Crease case. Quinn shut his door and collapsed in the chair behind his desk. He felt sick to his stomach from what he had done and sick with fear of the consequences.
Quinn gathered the materials that he would need to write the order. It took him an hour to write and polish a draft. Quinn gave it to his secretary. Fran typed it quickly and Quinn sent her to dinner while he worked on the final draft. It was already after six and night had fallen.
Fran returned around seven and typed the final draft. Quinn read it through.
'This is fine, Fran. You can go home now. I'll sign it and leave it on your desk. File the original with the clerk's office and send a copy to Cedric Riker and Mary Garrett. And thanks for staying late.'
Fran closed the door. Quinn rubbed his eyes. Then he read through his order a final time, checking the facts, rereading sections of cases he had cited and statutes he had quoted. When Quinn was convinced that he had constructed the document in a way that would make reversal in an appellate court impossible, he signed the order.
Quinn closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of his chair. He had put off thinking about the future until he had made his ruling out of fear that he would be too afraid to act. He could put off thinking about his career no longer. Quinn's life was the law, but he had violated his oath by ruling for Crease. If he had ruled honestly, he would have held that Allen's consent was not coerced. By ruling as he had, he had betrayed the trust that had been put in him by the people of his state.
Quinn looked around his chambers at the bound volumes that contained the Law. His father had written some of the opinions in those books. As a boy, he revered them and dreamed of following his father's example and career. Now Quinn saw that the cases in the reporters were nothing. You could write the most beautiful words, but they were meaningless without the will and the desire to follow them. Quinn had betrayed his trust. He had turned the words to dust.
Chapter 20.
[1]
The next morning Quinn overslept. By the time he arrived at the courthouse Fran Stuart had filed the order in Crease and sent copies to the parties. Quinn told Stuart that he did not want to be disturbed. He shut the door to his chambers and began work on a draft of the letter of resignation that he planned to submit to Stanley Sax. Writing the letter was more difficult than he imagined. It was almost like writing a suicide note. There were many false starts and a lot of time spent staring into space. When Fran buzzed him at eleven forty-five, she startled Quinn out of one of his reveries.
'What is it, Fran?'
'There are two Portland Police detectives to see you. I told them that you didn't want to be disturbed, but they insist on speaking to you.'
'What do they want?'
'They wouldn't say.'
'Okay. Send them in. I'll talk to them.'
The door to Quinn's chambers opened and a slender black man Quinn did not recognize followed Lou Anthony into the room. Anthony looked like a man who was controlling his anger. Quinn colored as it dawned on him how much the detective must dislike him.
'Good morning, Judge,' Anthony said with strained civility. 'This is my partner, Leroy Dennis.'
Quinn nodded at Dennis and asked, 'What brings you here?'
'Police business. I'd like you to come with us.'
'Come where?'
'There's been a murder and I want you to accompany Detective Dennis and me to the crime scene.'
'If you need to have a search warrant authorized, I can do the work here.'
'If I needed a search warrant, you'd be the last judge I'd contact,' Anthony snapped. Dennis put his hand on his partner's arm and Anthony looked down, embarrassed by his outburst.
'There are some things that we need to talk over with you and we can't do it here,' Dennis said.
'This is getting a little too mysterious, Detectives.'
'Sorry, but this is all we can tell you before we get to the scene,' Dennis said. 'Everything will become clear to you there.'
The Heathman Hotel was only a few blocks from the courthouse. The detectives were silent during the short walk and Quinn's imagination ran wild. When they arrived at the hotel the judge noticed several police cars parked near the entrance. Dennis and Anthony led Quinn through the lobby to the reception desk, where an officer and a harried-looking man in his forties were examining hotel records.
'Mr. Abrams,' Anthony interrupted. The man who was talking to the officer looked up. 'Did you see this man in here yesterday evening?'
Abrams studied Quinn for a few moments, then shook his head.
'It's impossible to say. We were extremely busy. The lobby was very crowded.'
Suddenly, Quinn guessed why the detectives had brought him to the hotel. Claire Reston, Andrea Chapman's sister, was staying at the Heathman. Anthony had said that there had been a murder. Was Reston the victim? If she was, why did the police think that Quinn would know anything about her death?
'What's going on here?' Quinn demanded.
'You'll see in a moment,' Dennis answered as the detectives led Quinn to the elevators. Once inside the car, Anthony pressed the button for the third floor. Reston had told Quinn that she was staying in room 325. Now Quinn was certain that he was being taken to view Reston's dead body. He remembered that Fran Stuart was standing inches away when Reston had told him her hotel and room number.
The door to 325 was open. A large Portland Police officer was guarding the entrance. The room was a corner suite. Criminalists from the Oregon State Crime Lab were moving around inside the sitting room, photographing, dusting and measuring. Everything in the room looked orderly, except for a room service tray with a half-eaten dinner on it that sat on a coffee table across from the television.
Anthony led Quinn through the crowd to the door to the bedroom. The door was partially closed, but Quinn could see the edge of the bed and a bare foot. He knew he did not want to go into the room, but he had no choice.
'Do you recognize this woman, Judge?' Anthony asked as he thrust the door open. The bedroom looked and
