Ties That Bind

Chapter Thirty-five.

The weekend had been hell for Tim Kerrigan. Every moment that he was home he worried about getting a call from Ally Bennett. When he wasn't worrying about Ally's call he was tortured by the choice he would soon have to make.

On Sunday, Tim and Cindy took Megan to the zoo. Tim was grateful for the outing. His absorption in Megan's antics helped him to forget his problems. As soon as Megan was in bed, Tim went into his study on the pretext of doing work. By the time he went to bed, he had decided what he would do. That night, he made love to Cindy with incredible passion.

When Kerrigan arrived at his office on Monday, he was exhausted from lack of sleep. One of the few tasks he could handle was reviewing his mail. There was a report from the crime lab on the old blood that had been discovered in Harold Travis's A-frame. The blood was the same type as Lori Andrews's blood. DNA testing would show conclusively whether or not the dead call girl had bled in the senator's cabin. If it turned out that Senator Travis had murdered the escort during rough sex, it would be unethical for Tim to use evidence of Andrews's murder to convince a jury that Dupre had killed her. It also made no sense from the standpoint of strategy to argue that Dupre had killed Travis to avenge Andrews. That would only create sympathy for Dupre and make the jurors hate Travis. Kerrigan was still trying to decide what to do with the evidence of the senator's perversion, when his intercom buzzed.

"Amanda Jaffe is here to see you," the receptionist said. Tim was in no mood to talk to Jon Dupre's attorney but it would look odd if he refused to see her, and it was essential that he act naturally now that he had made his decision.

"Amanda," Kerrigan said as soon as she was shown in, "to what do I owe this pleasure?"

Tim was usually neat and well dressed. Today, his eyes were glassy and there were dark circles under them. His hair looked like he'd run a comb through it without concern for the results, and the top of his white shirt showed because the knot in his tie had not been pulled tight. Amanda also noticed an uncharacteristic quaver in his voice.

"I heard that you weren't busy enough," she joked to conceal her surprise, "and I don't want you to get laid off, so I brought you something to do."

Kerrigan forced a laugh. "Gee, thanks."

Amanda handed him a motion for discovery that she'd worked on as soon as she'd finished talking to Sean McCarthy. Kerrigan thumbed through it. There was a general request for discovery of all evidence uncovered in the investigation that would tend to prove that Jon Dupre was innocent. Kerrigan wondered if he had a statutory or constitutional duty to disclose the lab report to Amanda. Did it exculpate? Finding Lori Andrews's blood in Travis's cabin would be evidence Amanda Jaffe could use to argue that Dupre did not murder Lori Andrews, but did it have any tendency to disprove the cases against Dupre for the Travis and Hayes murders?

Under the general request was a series of specific requests, which he skimmed because he was anxious to be by himself. His eye passed down the list and was almost to the bottom when something in the middle of the demands made him go back. Amanda was requesting production of a set of police reports from the 1970s. Kerrigan was tempted to ask Amanda how they could possibly be relevant to Dupre's case, but he held his tongue.

"I'll review your motions and get back to you if there's a problem."

"Great." Amanda looked closely at Kerrigan. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I think I might be coming down with something," he answered, faking a smile.

As soon as Amanda left, Kerrigan buzzed Maria Lopez and asked her to come to his office. When she walked in, he handed her Amanda's motions.

"Amanda Jaffe filed these. I have two assignments for you. One is going to upset you a little."

Maria looked puzzled.

"Jon Dupre may not be responsible for the murder of Lori Andrews," Kerrigan said.

"Then who . . .?"

"Senator Travis had a penchant for rough sex and he'd been with Lori Andrews. We also found Lori Andrews's blood in Travis's cabin."

Kerrigan briefed Maria on the lab report. "And there's more," he continued. "Carl Rittenhouse was Senator Travis's administrative assistant. He told me that he brought Lori Andrews to the cabin where Travis was murdered, a few months ago. Then he told me about an incident in D.C. where it appeared that Travis had beaten up a woman."

"Travis might have beaten up Lori, but that doesn't clear Dupre," Maria insisted. "Dupre could have murdered her to keep her from testifying after Travis beat her at the cabin."

"That's a theory," Kerrigan agreed. "What I need to know is whether we have a legal obligation to disclose to Jaffe the information we have about Andrews's death."

"I'll look into it."

"There's something else. Amanda wants all the police reports of a 1970 shootout at a drug house in North Portland and a drug killing from 1972."

"Why does she want that?"

"That's what I need you to tell me. Get the reports and tell me why they bear on this case. If Amanda wants them, there's got to be something in them that will cause us trouble."