Russ was shaking his head. 'No, there is a way. You told me early on,
Sam, that you thought Clarissa felt sorry for Jackson, at least
initially, right?'
'Right. She had notes in her file showing she'd done some legal
research trying to find a theory she could use to rule for him.'
'OK,' Frist continued. 'So what if you're right, and she's on the take
with Gunderson? Maybe she calls in a marker of her own and gets
Jackson the job.'
Minkins did, after all, say that Gunderson had told him he was hiring
Jackson as a favor to a friend. I followed Frist's theory. 'But
Jackson didn't know that, of course, and is still pissed off about his
eviction.'
'He kills her, dumps her at the site, and everything else falls into
place.'
'Except the part where Gunderson tells Minkins to keep his mouth shut
when Clarissa's body turned up,' I said.
'But think about it. Gunderson knows he's crooked on the bribery
scheme, and all of the sudden the other half of the equation winds up
dead on his property. Maybe he used it to scare Minkins into staying
quiet about the Jackson hire, which might have shown a connection
between the victim and the company.'
5B1
I completed the thought. 'Which might've revealed whatever quid pro
quo they had.'
'Or maybe Minkins made that part up,' he added. 'It wouldn't be the
first time an informant threw in a little extra to help the case.'
Man. First Russ defends me, then he outsmarts me. It's a crazy world,
this one we live in. A world where Clarissa Easter-brook might have
used her position with Gunderson to help out Jackson, only to have him
kidnap and murder her.
I was frustrated that I hadn't seen it earlier. I had been so focused
on figuring out the connection between Gunderson and Clarissa that I
had just assumed that it was related to Clarissa's death. But I had
never been able to figure out how Gunderson knew about Jackson in order
to frame him.
Russ's scenario gave our office a reason to send the cops back out to
work: We still think Jackson did it, we could say, but we need to find
out what Gunderson was up to so the defense doesn't blindside the
jury.
The truth was, my gut was telling me that I'd been wrong about Jackson.
He did it. I'd never forgive myself if Slip actually got Jackson off
using information I'd hand-delivered.
'The way things stand now,' I said, 'I think we need to get MCT back on
this right away.' I told Duncan about Prescott's comments in the
courtroom and the near certainty that the news would be breaking
imminently.
'That's just great. She had to make sure that my day was fully fucked.
All right, here's the deal. Thorpe's got everyone's attention on this
thing. I'm supposed to meet at City Hall this afternoon with the MCT
lieutenant, the mayor, and the city attorney to determine how to
proceed.'
Noting our looks of disbelief, he said, 'I know, it's overkill. But
the bureau already took an embarrassing hit on this case and doesn't
want it going down the drain, the city attorney's worried about getting
sued, and the mayor well, the mayor's probably going to make sure we
don't all kill each other. If I had to guess, with so many offices
involved, it could take a couple days before anything happens, but
Jackson's not going anywhere, right?'
I shook my head.
'The defense attorney's not going to make any noise?'
I shook my head again. 'But are you going to make MCT follow up on the
Gunderson angle?' I asked.
'Like I said, Kincaid, I doubt anything's going to happen for a couple
of days.'
'But, in a couple of days, that's what you're expecting, right?'
'Not that I owe you an explanation, Samantha, but no, I wasn't planning
on asking MCT to look at a possible corruption case, because that's not
MCT's jurisdiction. We'll get the bureau on it, and we'll get some
answers by the time of trial, but that's good enough for now.'
Now I saw Duncan's take on the situation. If the corruption involving
Gunderson wasn't related to the Jackson murder case, there was no
reason to start a beef with MCT about opening a closed case. The
problem was, the bureau wouldn't be under the gun to see the Gunderson
investigation through.
