He placed his hands on my shoulders and smiled, then pushed a strand of
hair behind my right ear. 'Consider me assuaged, Kincaid,' he said,
kissing my earlobe. 'Now call whoever the hell's been paging you. You
think I haven't notice you staring down at that thing?'
Johnson picked up on the first ring. 'I got a call from the husband's
lawyer. We fucked up big-time. I need you to sign a warrant on Melvin
Jackson.'
Portland's one of those towns that shuts down at 10 p.m. My Jetta was
one of the few cars on the Morrison Bridge, and I walked into MCT ten
minutes after I left my father's.
Johnson was standing at the printer, proofreading pages as they
spooled. 'This is just about done. The search is for his apartment,
and he's also got a Dodge Caravan registered to him.'
'Back up. What the hell's going on?'
'The husband's people dug up something we missed. They're back there,'
he said, gesturing to an interview room down the hall.
'They're here?'
Then, with his usual spot-on timing, my ex-husband walked into the
room. 'Detective, I oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You're
looking well, Samantha.'
'I know.' My worn-out Harvard T-shirt and jeans didn't make the best
ensemble for our first post-divorce face-to-face, but confidence is the
ultimate accessory.
He, on the other hand, hadn't changed out of the suit he'd worn for the
press conference. And, sure enough, close up, I was able to confirm
it: the red power tie was the one I'd placed in his stocking on our
last Christmas together.
'No introductions necessary, I see,' Johnson said.
'Samantha and I went to law school together '
'And were briefly in the same marriage,' I added.
Johnson looked amused, and Roger seemed uncomfortable. Score.
'I'm at Dunn Simon now, Samantha. I wasn't sure if you'd heard.'
'Saw it on the news, in fact, about half an hour ago.' I couldn't
stomach letting him know I'd read about his move from Nike to the
Portland powerhouse firm in the Oregon State Bar bulletin a year ago.
'The firm made me an offer I couldn't refuse,' he boasted.
'From what I remember, Roger, there weren't a lot of offers you could
refuse.'
'Nice to see you haven't changed.'
'Nope, but apparently you have,' I shot back. I just couldn't help
myself. 'I wasn't aware that Dunn Simon was in the criminal law
business.'
'It's not, but Townsend Easterbrook's not a criminal. He's the
attending surgeon at OHSU, another one of our clients. He doesn't need
a defense attorney. He needs someone to dig for evidence, and no one
does that better than a civil litigator.'
Johnson saved us from what was about to turn into a Dunn Simon
marketing speech. 'Well, alright-y, then. Glad the two of you could
catch up. I was just telling Samantha that you preferred to wait until
the DA had signed off on the warrant.'
'I'm sure you understand, Detective, that given the course of the
investigation, my client would feel better knowing for certain that the
warrant has been approved. I'll wait until it's finished.'
I knew from experience that there was no point arguing with Roger. What
he lacks in personality he makes up for in tenacity. I was surprised
he didn't insist on reading the document over my shoulder. Instead, he
retreated back to the interview room.
Johnson's affidavit was nothing pretty, but it was a rush job and
contained what it needed: Melvin Jackson's pending appeal, his letters
to Clarissa Easterbrook, and this was the biggie the documents
confirming his recent employment as a part-time landscaper at the
Glenville office park.
'Jesus, Johnson,' I said, signing the cover form on the DA review
line.
'I know. It's bad.'
I didn't care if he knew. This was unbelievable. 'How in the world
could we have possibly missed this? You have the employee lists; you
have Jackson's file. You're tracking down a crotch grabber, but you
need the husband to hire a fucking lawyer to find Melvin Jackson's name
sitting right there?'
