'A few weeks ago, she told me she rigged an appeal for someone. I
don't know the details of the case, but I know she ruled in his favor
when she shouldn't have. I was shocked when she told me. It was
totally unlike her.'
'Did she tell you why she did it?'
'No. I think she only told me because she was worried about something
else, some newer problem. She said the arrangement was supposed to be
the one case, but it hadn't ended at that. They wanted something else,
but she wouldn't say what. I begged her to talk to me about what was
going on, but she wouldn't. She said she was going to handle it
herself.'
'How was she handling it?'
'I'm not sure. I know she went to Dennis Coakley so she could clear
herself from any other cases where she might be pressured, but I don't
know if she told him the full extent of what she did. The next thing I
knew, she said she had figured out a way to get out of the position she
was in, but that there was a risk that people would learn about well,
about our friendship.'
'Did she talk to anyone else about it?' I asked.
'Not that I know of. I doubt it. She was incredibly embarrassed.
Ashamed. She was trying to find a way to get herself back on the right
track without losing everything. God, in retrospect, it explained why
she'd been so damn .. . good those last couple of weeks. You know she
actually felt sorry for that monster?'
'For Gunderson?'
'No, for Melvin Jackson. Well, she never told me his name, but she did
tell me his whole sad story. She called HAP to see if zero tolerance
really meant zero tolerance. She called SCF to see if he was really
going to lose his kids. Hell, she was even talking about finding the
man a job to make sure he'd be on his feet when he was evicted. At the
time, I asked her why she didn't just rule in his favor. But that was
before I knew she'd already gone down that road before. I guess she
wasn't willing to bend the law again, even for what she thought was a
good cause.'
Despite what Clarissa had done for Gunderson, I respected her even more
now that I knew what she'd gone through. She died doing everything she
could to turn her life around, looking for redemption by helping a man
like Melvin Jackson, a man who showed his gratitude by bashing her head
in with a hammer.
'How long had you been .. . close?' I asked.
'Almost seven months.' It was clearly painful for him to talk about
this, and I had allowed the conversation to get off track. Just then,
my pager vibrated. Chuck again. I turned the thing off.
'When she said people might find out about your friendship, I imagine
that must have alarmed you a great deal.'
'Perhaps not as much as you might think. I had very real feelings for
Clarissa. Think what you want about me, but she was truly a decent
person. She was under so much stress the guilt over what we were
doing, combined with whatever she was involved in I could tell it was
tearing her apart. Obviously,
I pressed her to tell me what our relationship had to do with her
problem, but she refused. In the end, I told her to do what she had to
do.'
'When was that?'
'The Friday night before she disappeared.'
I tried to think of any other information I needed from him while he
was being so cooperative. I had a newfound respect for cops. This
off-the-cuff stuff was much harder than the questioning I was used to
with a legal pad and the artificial setting of a courthouse on my
side.
'I know I gave you my assurances that I wasn't going to push on certain
topics, but there's one other thing I need to know.' I explained the
ME's report of nonoxynol-9 in Clarissa's vaginal canal. 'It's very
intrusive, I know, but is it possible that was due to her relationship
with you?'
He bumbled around awkwardly trying to find the right words, but he
finally got the point across. He and Clarissa had used a condom on
Friday night.
'We met well, let's be frank we met at the hotel you mentioned on the
videotape you found. Her husband was at the hospital late.' I noticed
he didn't use Townsend's name. 'She was in good spirits, although a
little nervous. She said that on Saturday she was finally going to
clear herself from this problem she was having. I braced myself all
weekend for some news, wondering if I needed to sit down with my own
family. But then I woke up Monday to the news she was missing. I
still can't believe I'll never see her again.'
'I can't believe you didn't come forward.' The words must have leaped
from the most spiteful part of my brain, straight out the mouth, no
