Supreme Justice

Chapter Thirty-five

A rap on her doorjamb brought Mary’s eyes up from the memo she was writing. Mark Gilbert, her investigator, dropped into a chair.

“I thought you might be interested in this,” he said as he handed Mary a rolled police report written by Tom Oswald of the Shelby, Oregon, police department.

“You told me Miss Woodruff said Finley’s ship was the China Sea and it was docked in Shelby, so I decided to see if I could find out anything about it, and sure enough this cop wrote a report. It’s pretty interesting. I think you should give him a call.”

As soon as Mary finished Oswald’s report, she swiveled toward her phone and dialed Shelby PD. Ten minutes later, she turned to face her investigator again.

“We’re meeting after his shift tonight.”

“Do you want me to come along?”

“No, I think he’ll talk more freely if it’s just me. You know, he said something interesting as soon as we were connected.”

“What’s that?”

“He said he’d been expecting my call.”

“I wonder why.”

“I didn’t want to push him. I’ll ask tonight.”

“One more thing,” Gilbert said. “I still have informants from my days as a cop. I’ve been trolling for information, and I came up with some interesting stuff. A few days after Finley was kidnapped, two men were found on a logging road. They’d been murdered. The men worked for a Mexican drug cartel. One of them was wearing a leather jacket.”

“Like the kidnapper Sarah described.”

“There’s a rumor on the street that Finley had a quarter million dollars with him when he left the ship and that’s why the kidnappers were following him.”

“Finley told Sarah that he was rescued by government agents. They must have taken the money when they killed the drug dealers.”

“Makes sense. Tell me what happens tonight,” Gilbert said.

“Will do.”

If Mary hadn’t run a MapQuest search, she might have missed the bar, which stood on an empty lot away from a run-down gas station on an otherwise unpopulated stretch of highway. There were no streetlights on this part of the road. A quarter moon and the neon beer signs in the tavern window provided a little light. A pickup and a beat-up Chevy were parked in the gravel lot that fronted the tavern. The isolation made Mary uneasy, but her hand gripped the handle of a.38 Special she carried in the deep pocket of her belted Burberry trench coat.

When Mary opened the door to the bar, she was hit by the smell of stale beer and sweat. The inside of the tavern was almost as dark as the outside, and it took a moment before her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Two men were perched on stools, nursing drinks at opposite ends of a scarred, liquor-soaked bar. The bartender and the two men turned and stared when the door opened. Mary didn’t waste any time on them. She scanned the tables and found the only other customer nursing a beer in a booth in the back.

“Officer Oswald?” Mary asked as she sat on the bench opposite the policeman. Oswald nodded, and he didn’t stare. Garrett was well known to people in law enforcement. Mary pointed at his beer.

“Can I get you a refill?’

“Sure.”

When Mary returned from the bar, she placed a cold beer in front of the officer and took a swig from her bottle.

“Thanks for meeting me. As I said on the phone, I’m representing Sarah Woodruff.”

“The cop who’s charged with murder.”

“Right. A ship called the China Sea came up in our investigation, and my investigator found your report. I’d appreciate it if you can tell me what happened the night you answered the 911.”

“The ship was docked near a warehouse, and the night watchman reported shots,” Oswald said. “We found five dead men on the ship and a lot of hashish in the hold.”

Mary nodded. “That’s in the report. What I don’t understand is why there aren’t any other reports. I mean, there were five dead men. I assume that’s not run-of-the-mill in Shelby.”

“Yeah, well this whole deal wasn’t run-of-the-mill. We don’t usually get invaded by Homeland Security, either.”

“And they told you to back off, that they were taking over?”

Oswald shrugged. “And my boss agreed. He was right. We would have ended up turning it over to the state police, so why not the feds?”

“And that’s everything that happened?”

“Didn’t the DA tell you the rest of it?”

“What DA?”

“I talked to two of them.”

“Look, Tom, all this information about the China Sea is new to me. So why don’t you tell me what isn’t in the report.”

Oswald took a swig from his bottle. Mary got the impression that he was making a decision. After a he thought for a few moments, Oswald wiped some moisture from his mouth and started talking.

“Jerry and I couldn’t let go, so we drove back to the dock. This was a day later. The ship was gone, and Dave Fletcher, the night watchman who’d called in the 911, wasn’t there either. I drove out to his place. It was deserted. One of his neighbors told me she hadn’t seen Fletcher or his car since the night I was called to the dock. I talked to Fletcher’s boss at the company that provides the security guards. He told me Fletcher didn’t work there anymore and they didn’t know where he’d gone.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” Mary asked.

“I have no idea. He has family in town, and they filed a missing-person report. I’ve followed up from time to time, but he vanished off the face of the earth.

“If I had to bet, I’d put my money on the men who disappeared the ship. You read about the CIA kidnapping terrorists all the time and taking them to secret prisons.”

Oswald paused. He looked ill. “Dave was a good guy, a veteran. I hope to God he’s still alive.”

“Did Mr. Fletcher tell you anything you didn’t write in the report?” Mary asked.

“Yeah, the chief told me to make the report bare bones, so I didn’t put in a lot of stuff. For instance, Fletcher told me he’d seen a man run from the ship and drive away. The man was staggering, and Fletcher thought he might be wounded. He also thought another car followed the man when he drove off.”

Mary started to get a funny feeling in her gut. “When I called you and told you I represented Sarah Woodruff, you said you’d been expecting my call. Why do you think what happened on the China Sea has something to do with Sarah Woodruff’s case?”

“Shortly before your client’s first case came to trial, a Multnomah County DA named Monte Pike called me. You know that several prints were found in your client’s house that couldn’t be identified when they were run through AFIS.”

Mary nodded.

“Pike ran them again and came up with a match to a print I put into AFIS a few days after I lifted it.”

“You didn’t turn over all the evidence to the Homeland Security guys.”

Oswald leaned forward. “I do not appreciate being treated like a hick, and I especially do not appreciate being treated like a hick by some asshole whose salary is paid by my taxes.”

Mary smiled. “Where did the print come from?”

“The hatch covering the hashish.”

Mary let out a low whistle. “Did Pike know about the hash and the wounded man who ran from the ship?”

“That I don’t know, but I assume the other prosecutor told him.”

“What other prosecutor?”

“The one I saw in Portland -Dietz. My chief told me to keep my mouth shut about the China Sea, and I didn’t want Homeland Security pissed at me, so I told Pike I didn’t know anything about the print, and I never got back to him. But I started to feel guilty. You know, Woodruff’s a cop, and this stuff with the ship didn’t feel right. My conscience was really bothering me, and I was in Portland on business. When I finished what I had to do, I went to the DA’s office to talk to Pike, but he was in trial and they told me that Dietz was lead counsel. So I told him everything. Didn’t he tell you about the ship?”

“No, Tom, he didn’t, and I’m going to find out why. Will you get in trouble with your chief for talking to me?”

“If he brings it up, I’ll handle it. Woodruff is a cop. If she killed the guy, I’ve got no sympathy for her. But I’m not going to sit on information that can prove she didn’t do it. What kind of person would I be if I did that?”