Capitol murder

Chapter Twelve

Transcripts from Clarence Little’s trial for the murder of Winona Benford were piled up on the coffee table in Millie’s living room. An empty mug was perched on top of the transparent plastic cover that protected one of them. Scattered across the living room floor were more transcripts and the police, forensic, and defense investigation reports in the Winona Benford and Carol Poole cases.

Millie put down the police report she had just finished and rubbed her eyes. Then she picked up the coffee mug and picked her way through the legal debris until she reached her kitchen. It was Monday morning, and Millie had risen with the sun to finish rereading all of the paperwork in the two murder cases, a task she had started on Saturday and was about to finish after two twelve-hour weekend days.

In Clarence’s postconviction cases, the issue before Judge Case was whether the state had violated Clarence’s legal rights, not whether Clarence had murdered someone. In preparing for the postconviction hearing, Millie had focused more on the legal issues than on the facts. At Clarence’s new trials, the issue the juries would decide was whether Clarence had killed the two girls, so Millie was rereading everything from a different angle. The more she read, the more uncomfortable she felt.

The state did not have overwhelming evidence that Clarence had murdered Benford or Poole, but the evidence against him was disturbing. Of course the evidence against Clarence in the Erickson case had been very persuasive, and he was totally innocent of that murder. Still…

Millie refilled her coffee mug and walked over to the kitchen window. The leaves on the trees that lined her street were starting to turn from green to gold, and the sun looked cold. Fall was visiting Oregon, and months of rainy, dark days would soon follow.

Millie took a sip of coffee and thought about the jar of severed pinkies that had been discovered while Clarence was on death row. The evidence was significant because the pinkies in the jar matched every one of Clarence’s alleged victims except Laurie Erickson. It was strong circumstantial evidence that the person who had placed the pinkies in the jar had not killed Erickson. The contents of the jar and other evidence pointing to the real murderer had led the state to concede that Clarence had not killed Christopher Farrington’s babysitter.

The discovery of the pinkies had cleared Clarence of one murder, but it raised a disturbing question in Millie’s mind.

An attorney could not be compelled to tell the authorities anything a client confided, but a lawyer had a duty to turn over physical evidence that came into his possession if it related to a crime. One police report mentioned that Brad Miller had given the jar with the pinkies to Paul Baylor, a private forensic expert, to make sure they were properly preserved, and a partner in Miller’s firm had told the authorities where to find the bodies. Everyone assumed that Brad Miller had unearthed the jar and the two decomposing bodies that had been buried in the Deschutes National Forest.

If it was Miller who had unearthed the bodies and the jar, who had told him where they were buried? Millie had looked through the file searching for the answer. It was nowhere to be found because there was no record of an interview with Brad Miller. What upset Millie was the possibility that Clarence had told Brad where to find the evidence. That would explain why no one had interviewed Miller, who would have been compelled by law to assert the attorney-client privilege to protect his client.

Had Clarence been lying to her all along when he claimed he was innocent? That was the only conclusion she could draw if Clarence knew where the bodies and fingers were buried. The impressions Millie had formed while representing Clarence convinced her that he was a victim. All of a sudden, she wasn’t so certain.

Millie considered other possible explanations. Brad Miller would have asserted the attorney-client privilege if another client revealed the location of the evidence. And he could have asserted his own Fifth Amendment right to be free from self-incrimination if he was afraid he’d committed obstruction of justice because he had moved the jar and uncovered the corpses. Neither of these explanations made a lot of sense.

The easiest way to find out who had told Brad where to find the fingers and the bodies would be to ask him. Millie had mailed Clarence’s letter to Miller care of United States Senator Jack Carson. It was seven o’clock in Portland, which made it ten o’clock in Washington, D.C. Millie went on her computer and found the phone number for the senator’s office. When the receptionist answered, Millie asked to be put through to Brad.

“Brad Miller.”

“Thanks for taking my call, Mr. Miller. I’m Millie Reston, a lawyer in Portland, and I’m representing Clarence Little. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I won Mr. Little’s postconviction cases. His convictions in the Benford and Poole cases have been set aside.”

“I assumed Clarence would get someone to attack the rest of his convictions once it was established that the jurors who convicted in Benford and Poole could have been influenced by evidence concerning a crime he didn’t commit.”

“That’s what the judge held. You made my job easy by proving Mr. Little didn’t kill Laurie Erickson.”

“You know it was another lawyer who won the appeal in the Ninth Circuit.”

“I know you weren’t the attorney of record when Little’s conviction in the Erickson case was thrown out,” Millie said. “But everyone knows that it was you and Dana Cutler who provided the real basis for the reversal.”

“That’s ancient history. When I moved to Washington, D.C., to clerk at the Court, I lost track of what was happening in Oregon. I haven’t been involved in the case for some time, so why have you called me?”

“I’ve been prepping for Mr. Little’s trials, and I had a question about something that happened while you were representing him.”

“Okay.”

“It’s about the jar with the pinkies and the two bodies you found. I’m confused about how you found them.”

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that.”

“All I want to know is who told you where to find the jar and the bodies.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Reston. I can’t help you.”

“Does that mean you’re protecting a confidence of Mr. Little’s?”

“I can’t comment on that,” he said.

“We both represent Mr. Little, so you won’t be violating a confidence if you answer my question.”

“Look, Miss Reston, I can’t even be sure you are who you claim to be. You could be a reporter looking for a story and pretending to be Mr. Little’s lawyer. But even if you are who you say you are, I can’t help you. I don’t even know why you’re asking me about this. Clarence is your client. Ask him.”

There was dead air for a moment, and Millie thought Brad was going to hang up. Instead, he asked her a question.

“When were you appointed to handle Clarence’s postconviction cases?”

“Shortly after the Ninth Circuit reversed in the Erickson case.”

“That was a month or two before the presidential election, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I just received a letter in the mail from your client. It’s similar to a letter from Mr. Little that was hand-delivered to me on the evening of the presidential election. Did you have anything to do with those letters?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Millie answered a little too quickly.

“Do you know who helped him send them to me? They weren’t mailed from the penitentiary.”

“No, I don’t. I’m sorry I bothered you,” Millie said, ending the conversation abruptly. She hadn’t expected Brad to ask her about the letters, and she was scared to death that he would talk to someone at the prison about them. She was sorry she’d called Brad. She might have put herself in harm’s way if he followed up. Even worse, although he had not come out and said it, Miller certainly acted like a man protecting a client’s confidences.

Millie went back to the files after she hung up on Brad Miller, but she had trouble concentrating, because she could not help thinking about their conversation. Miller was no longer involved with Clarence’s case. Why would he refuse to answer her question? The only reasonable explanation was that Clarence had revealed the locations as part of a confidential communication, which the law forbade Brad to reveal.

That evening, Millie tossed and turned for almost an hour after getting into bed and slept in fits and starts. She was exhausted when she woke up, and had no appetite. She dreaded confronting Clarence about the pinkies, but she had to know if everything she believed she and Clarence had together was built on a lie. She had to know if Clarence was the person who had revealed the location of the two murder victims and the jar full of horrific souvenirs.