Capitol murder

Chapter Twenty-four

Dana Cutler’s exclusive interview with Dorothy Crispin ran in Exposed and created the anticipated uproar. Dana had spent the time before the issue hit the stands trying to interview students and professors at the law school, but the professors wouldn’t discuss a student, and the two students who admitted that they knew Crispin knew her only from class. After the story broke, no one would give her the time of day.

Pat Gorman told Dana that he had other plans for the corporate jet, so Dana was scheduled to fly out of Portland on an early-morning commercial flight three days after the story broke. While she was getting ready for bed, Dana watched the news. The picture on the screen showed TV crews standing around the area in front of Dorothy Crispin’s apartment complex. Then bright lights from a portable TV camera illuminated the breezeway in front of Crispin’s apartment while a bright-eyed reporter excitedly explained that she was standing at the front door of the young woman who had been seduced by United States Senator Jack Carson. Two establishing shots had given anyone who was interested in finding it a pretty good idea of the location of Crispin’s apartment. Dana felt a twinge of guilt about being responsible for the siege, but she didn’t worry enough to keep her from falling asleep.

D orothy Crispin was beginning to question whether putting up with the reporters was worth the money she was being paid. It was a lot of money, and she knew the scrutiny wouldn’t last long. Another juicy scandal would draw the hyenas away, and she would soon become a footnote in history. But she had been forced to drop her classes, and it would mean graduating a semester later than she’d planned. Of course, the cost of all of her subsequent semesters was covered, which meant no more student loans.

Dorothy peeked through her living room curtains just before she went into her bedroom. She could see a cigarette glowing near a van with a Channel 8 logo. She sighed. Didn’t these idiots ever give up? She’d politely declined all interviews at first. Now she just unplugged her phone and didn’t answer the door.

Dorothy washed up and changed for bed. She took a sleeping pill and was soon in such a deep sleep that she didn’t hear the latch on the patio door ease open. Twenty minutes later, a slap to her cheek roused her. She felt groggier than she normally did when she awoke after taking a pill. That was because of the mild anesthetic that she’d been given.

The first thing Crispin saw when her eyes opened was a man standing in front of the chair to which she was duct-taped. Adrenaline overcame most of the effects of the pill and the anesthetic, and she almost toppled over in her frenzy to escape. The man watched her but didn’t say anything.

Crispin tried to speak, but she had been outfitted with a ball gag. Her eyes darted away from the man and focused on her surroundings. She was in her bedroom, naked. Her arms had been pulled behind her, and her knees and lower legs had been secured to the chair legs, leaving her completely vulnerable. On the end of the bed were a hammer, pliers, pruning shears, and a lighter.

Dana Cutler sat up in bed. She looked at the clock. It was one thirty in the morning, and something she’d dreamed had shocked her out of a deep sleep. What was it? There was an image on the edge of her conscious mind, but it was as elusive as a ghost.

Dana squeezed her eyes shut. In the dream, she’d been talking to Jake, and they had both been sad. Jake had taken her hand and said that they had to have a heart-to-heart talk and then…

That was it! She had to talk to Crispin, but her plane left for D.C. at 6:45. Screw it! Dana ran to her closet and threw on some clothes. Crispin was not going to like being roused at two in the morning, but if Dana was right, that was going to be the least of the law student’s problems.

All of the TV trucks were gone when Dana drove into the apartment complex. In front of Crispin’s front door, she raised her hand to knock but stopped when she heard a noise to her left. It sounded like someone sliding down the steep hill that started at the end of the breezeway and dropped down to the street below. Dana walked to the top of the hill. A man was inching his way down.

“Hey!” Dana shouted as she started down the hill.

The man looked up, but his face was in shadow. Then he pulled something out of his pocket. Dana saw a muzzle flash and saw dirt fly up inches from her. She scrambled back up the hill and dived for cover. Dana drew her gun from the holster at the small of her back while the man slid the rest of the way to the street. When she looked over the side, he was streaking toward a car. She fired and the bullet ricocheted off the sidewalk. The man wrenched open the door and lunged into the driver’s seat. Dana’s next shot hit the trunk seconds before the engine roared to life and the car skidded down the street.

Dana was sitting in her rented Rover in front of Dorothy Crispin’s apartment complex, resting her head against the back of the seat, when someone rapped on the passenger window. She opened her eyes and saw Monte Pike holding up two cardboard cups with Starbucks logos.

The first time Dana met Pike, during her investigation in the case involving Supreme Court justice Felicia Moss, she’d had a hard time believing he was the chief criminal deputy in the Multnomah County district attorney’s office. As usual, Pike’s hair was disheveled, his clothes appeared to have been selected by a blind man, and he looked more like a junior high student than a brilliant graduate of Harvard Law.

It was cold. Dana reached across and opened the passenger door. Pike slid onto the passenger seat and gave her the coffee.

“Thanks,” Dana said as she pried off the lid and took a sip.

The first officers on the scene had taken Dana’s statement. Then they had asked her to wait while they checked on Dorothy Crispin. Dana had warned them about what they would see inside the apartment, but she got the impression the men hadn’t taken her seriously. Moments after the officers walked into the apartment, one of them staggered out and threw up over the side of the hill. Dana had taken no satisfaction in that. Now, forty-five minutes later, the Rover was blocked in by a morgue wagon, a van from the Oregon State Crime Lab, the car in which two homicide detectives had arrived, and vans from three television stations.

Pike cocked his head in the direction of the detectives who were conferring with a forensic expert near the front door of Crispin’s apartment.

“Detective Pierson says you came here to talk to Crispin at two in the morning. That’s an odd time for an interview.”

“I’ve got a flight back to D.C. at six forty-five, which I guess I won’t make. This was the only time I could talk to Crispin before I left.”

“What was so urgent?”

“When I was asking her about her meeting with Carson she said, ‘We had a heart-to-heart. He told me he loved his wife and regretted what he’d done.’ Those were the exact words Senator Carson used in his press conference. A lot of what she said sounded like she was reading from a script. I wanted to confront her.”

“But you didn’t get the chance.”

“No. I was about to knock when I heard someone scrambling down the hill. I called out to him, and he shot at me. I returned fire, but I didn’t hit him. I got his car, though.”

“Did you get a license, make?”

“No, it was dark, and I spent a lot of time ducking. When I was sure I was safe, I went in through the patio to see if Crispin was okay. She wasn’t.”

Monte Pike would have been suspicious of any other witness who was this calm after seeing how Dorothy Crispin had been defiled, but Pike knew a little about Dana’s history.

“Can you describe the man who shot at you?”

“No. It was dark. I dived for cover when he fired at me. When I fired back, he was down the hill and his back was all I saw.”

“If I tell you something, will you promise me I won’t read it in Exposed?”

Dana nodded.

“The killer took Crispin’s pinkie.”

Dana had not spent much time with Crispin’s corpse after determining that she was dead, so this revelation came as a complete surprise.

“Clarence Little?” she said.

“Do you think the man you saw was Little?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen him in person, and I was intent on staying alive, so I wasn’t trying to see who was shooting at me. Do you have any idea why Little would want to murder Crispin?”

“None whatsoever.”

“When can I go home, Monte?”

“Tomorrow, unless some concrete reason to keep you here pops up, but I can’t think what that might be.”

“I’ll tell the people at Exposed I’ll be delayed. They’ll want me to write this story anyway.”

“But nothing about Little unless I clear it,” Pike reminded Dana.

D ana got back to her hotel at five thirty in the morning and banged out her story. She was out on her feet, but she called Brad at his office before getting into bed. Thanks to the three-hour time difference, she caught him at his desk.

“Good morning, Brad. I’m calling from Portland, Oregon.”

“Are you still investigating the senator for Exposed?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought. Wait a minute, isn’t it early there?”

“Yeah, I’ve been up all night at a crime scene. Dorothy Crispin was murdered.”

“Why are you telling me?” Brad asked.

“The information I’m going to give you is not public knowledge. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone about a certain aspect of the case until I got permission. If I tell you, I’ll be breaking that promise, so you can’t tell anyone.”

“Sure. What gives?”

“Crispin was tortured, and the killer cut off her pinkie and took it with him.”

“What?”

“I got to Crispin’s apartment just as the killer was leaving.”

“You saw Little?”

“I was too far away to see the killer’s face, so I can’t say it was him, but I can say that the killer followed Little’s MO.”

“So let me get this straight. Little escapes in Oregon. Rather than head for some country without an extradition treaty, he flies to D.C. and kills Koshani. Then he flies back to Oregon, where everyone is looking for him, and murders Carson’s lover. Does any of what I just said make any sense to you?”

“Not one bit,” Dana answered.