Supreme Justice

Chapter Thirty-two

“It’s definitely him,” Arnie Lasswell told Max Dietz.

Dietz’s eyes moved back and forth between a crime-scene photo of the dead man and a still from the DVD. When he was satisfied that he’d seen enough, his lips curled into a malevolent smile.

“The bitch killed him,” Dietz said. He needed Sarah Woodruff to be guilty almost as much as he needed air. After the Woodruff fiasco, Jack Stamm had humiliated him by taking him out of Homicide and putting him back in the drug unit.

“Max, please don’t jump to conclusions again,” Lasswell warned. “I brought this to you because you were lead counsel on the first case. Don’t make me sorry.”

“She probably figures that we wouldn’t charge her again after what happened in her first case,” Dietz said, more to himself than Lasswell, “but she’s not going to get away with this.”

“We don’t have any evidence pointing to Sarah Woodruff as our killer,” Lasswell warned.

“Of course, we’ve got to do a thorough investigation,” Dietz said to placate the detective, who would have been a pretty poor detective if he didn’t see that Dietz’s answer was completely lacking in sincerity. Before Lasswell could respond, his cell phone rang.

“Remember Ann Paulus, the neighbor who called 911 the first time Woodruff was arrested?” Lasswell said when the call ended.

“Yeah.”

“She wants to talk to me about something she saw at Woodruff’s condo about a week ago.”

Ann Paulus, a trim blonde in her midthirties, worked as a nurse at Oregon Health & Science University, the large hospital that sprawled across the southwest hills just above downtown Portland. Paulus met Lasswell and Dietz in the lobby of OHSU’s main medical building and led them to a sitting area near the counter where patients checked in.

“This is very strange, isn’t it?” Paulus said.

“Strange how?” Lasswell asked.

“Well, it’s déjà vu, like the first time all over again. There’s a fight at Sarah Woodruff’s house. I call. The police come. It’s like time rewound. The first time Finley wasn’t dead, but now he is.”

“I see what you mean. How similar are we talking about?”

“Very. They were arguing…”

“You saw Mr. Finley and Ms. Woodruff arguing?” the detective asked.

“No, but I heard the argument.”

“But you saw Finley go into Woodruff’s place?”

“Yes. It was around eleven. I was getting ready to go to bed and I went into my kitchen to get a glass of milk. The curtains were open. He was going inside.”

“And you’re certain it was Finley?”

“It was only a brief glimpse, but I’m pretty certain.”

“OK, so what did you hear?”

“Yelling and a loud bang, maybe two bangs.”

“Gunshots?”

“That I can’t say. But it was a bang.”

“Could it have been something slamming into a wall or something breaking?” Lasswell asked.

“It was more like a crack than something slamming into a wall, but I want to be fair. I don’t want to guess.”

“Which is good. But I have a question. The first time, when we were mistaken about Mr. Finley being murdered, you called the police right away. This time you waited several days. Why?”

“To tell you the truth, I felt very guilty after it turned out that Mr. Finley was alive. If I hadn’t called, Miss Woodruff wouldn’t have been in trouble. It must have been awful for her-the publicity, the trial, everyone thinking she was a murderer when she wasn’t. And I felt responsible for all of it. So I decided to keep out of it this time.”

“But you did call.”

She nodded. “When I heard that he’d been murdered, I knew I had to.”

“Mr. Finley’s body was found on Wednesday morning,” Lasswell said. “When did you hear the argument?”

“Well, that’s the thing. Today is Tuesday, and I didn’t call until today because I didn’t know that Mr. Finley was dead. I didn’t read the paper that had the story. This morning, Joan Pang, another nurse, asked me what I thought about Finley being killed. She was off last week, and I didn’t see her yesterday, so we didn’t talk. So I didn’t know about this until this morning. Then I tried to think back to when I heard the fight, and I think it was last Tuesday, but I’m not one hundred percent sure.”

“But you did see Finley?”

Paulus nodded.

“What about Miss Woodruff?” Dietz asked. “Did you see her when Finley went inside?”

“No.”

“So you can’t say Finley was in the house with Woodruff?” Lasswell said.

“No, it could have been someone else in her house. But who would it be?”

Lasswell and Dietz talked to Paulus for twenty more minutes before thanking her for her help and walking back to their car.

“What do you think?” Lasswell asked the deputy DA.

“I think we’ve got enough for a search warrant, and this time I’m going to get her, Arnie. I can smell it.”