“Thanks for waiting until six-thirty to call,” she said as soon as Martha Brice identified herself.
“I assumed you were an early riser,” Brice answered, oblivious to Amanda’s sarcasm.
“Mr. Marsh is in town,” Brice continued.
“Good. I want to meet with him as soon as possible.”
“The corporate jet will be in Portland tomorrow morning. Jennifer will call your office with the time.”
“Okay. Please keep him incommunicado until I tell you otherwise. No press conferences, no leaks. I’ll try to talk the district attorney into letting Mr. Marsh surrender at the bail hearing. But I know Karl Burdett pretty well. If he learns Marsh is in New York, he’ll do an end run and have the police arrest him.”
“Mr. Marsh will be sequestered until you say otherwise.” “Great. See you tomorrow.” AMANDA SHOWERED, ATE breakfast, and dressed in her most serious business suit before driving to Hillsboro. Karl Burdett’s office was in a modern addition to the courthouse that had been built after the Pope case was tried. Amanda had called ahead and Burdett’s secretary ushered her into his office as soon as she arrived. The decorations on the DA’s walls were clichés. There were the obligatory college and law school diplomas, the plaques from the Elks and the county bar, plus photo ops of Burdett with every politician he’d ever met above the rank of state legislator and any celebrity, regardless of rank. Amanda had seen the photographs before, but today her eye was drawn to one that pictured Burdett and Tony Rose in hunting gear, leaning on their rifles on either side of a six-point buck. Normally, she wouldn’t have given a thought to the picture. Tony Rose was a celebrity and a big contributor to Burdett’s party. But Rose was also a key witness against Sally Pope. Amanda certainly wasn’t surprised that Burdett was a hunter. The clues were the mounted animal heads that glared down at her from the office walls. The trophies didn’t bother her. Many Oregonians, including her father, were hunters. Frank had taken her with him when she was old enough to shoot a rifle. Amanda had never enjoyed killing deer, and had used the excuse of swim practice to beg off as soon as her distaste for hunting outweighed the joy she received from spending time with her father in Oregon’s spectacular forests. Karl Burdett was behind his desk, leaning back casually in his chair. He greeted Amanda and she turned from the wall decorations. At Sally Pope’s trial, the DA had been young, cocky, and recently elected to a post he saw as a launching pad to higher office. Had he sent Sally Pope to death row, Senior would have used all of his influence to make Burdett’s dreams come true. But Senior had conveniently ignored his own role in the Pope fiasco and blamed Burdett for Sally’s acquittal. Since the trial, Senior had kept Burdett in place so he could torment him, dangling a run for attorney general or Congress just out of reach. Burdett had not aged well. The thirty-two-year-old Karl Burdett had been trim and athletic, with a healthy complexion and a full head of sandy blond hair. The forty-four-year-old version was loose and sallow, with a thinning mane flecked with gray. If Senior unfairly blamed Burdett for losing Pope, Burdett saw Frank Jaffe as the root of all the setbacks that had followed his defeat. Frank’s daughter was a reminder of his humiliation, and his welcoming smile was as phony as his hearty greeting. “To what do I owe this visit, Amanda? You were very mysterious on the phone.” “I have an early Christmas present for you, Karl.” “Oh?” “Charlie Marsh wants to return to Oregon to face the charges against him.” Amanda could see it was taking all of the DA’s self-control to keep from bolting upright. Instead he eased forward. “How do you know that?” Burdett asked, unable to keep a slight tremor from his voice. “I’m his lawyer.” “Where is he?” Burdett demanded. “I can’t tell you.” “He’s a fugitive. You have to tell me where he is.” “Actually I don’t if I learned his whereabouts in an attorney-client confidence, but we don’t have to get into a pissing contest. Charlie wants to return to Oregon and you want him back. If you promise to let him surrender at a bail hearing, he’ll be in Oregon in no time flat.” Burdett hated letting a Jaffe call the shots but he knew that he could get back in Senior’s good graces and salvage his career if he convicted Charlie Marsh. “What do you have to lose?” Amanda pushed. “If I tell Mr. Marsh you’re going to throw him in jail as soon as he sets foot in Oregon he may change his mind about turning himself in. And he’ll be in custody if the judge denies bail.” “You’re right. I’ll agree to a voluntary surrender. When are we talking about?” “I don’t know yet, but it will be soon. I’ll call you this week to set a date for the hearing.” “Good, good,” Burdett said. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.” I bet you will, Amanda thought as she shook hands and headed out the door.
CHAPTER 24
Karl Burdett had gotten used to the power and prestige that the office of district attorney bestowed. While he would never admit it, subconsciously he knew that he was not talented enough to succeed in private practice and he dreaded the thought of scrambling to make a living at his age. That was why he needed Senior’s approval and support almost as much as he needed air.
Minutes after Amanda left his office, Burdett was in his car, headed for the Pope estate to deliver the news of Charlie’s return. He was almost there when Tony Rose sped by in a silver-gray Ferrari F43. Burdett was not surprised that Rose was visiting Senior. The tennis pro had been fired by the Westmont soon after Sally Pope’s trial. Less than a year later, he’d founded Mercury Enterprises, which had started small, manufacturing tennis equipment, and had grown rapidly when American wunderkind Gary Posner won the U.S. Open playing with a Mercury racket. The sports world was shocked when Posner signed an exclusive contract with Mercury instead of Nike or another monster sporting-goods firm. The terms were never made public but the rumors put Posner’s endorsement fee in the neighborhood of Tiger Woods’s. The source of Mercury’s funding was a tightly held secret but speculation ran wild that Arnold Pope Sr. was Rose’s secret backer and the money was Rose’s payoff for perjuring himself at Sally Pope’s trial. If so, the money was well spent, because Mercury’s stock and profits had risen as swiftly as Posner served. The firm now successfully sold hunting, fishing, golf, and basketball equipment and it had a line of clothing and foot gear. The face of Mercury was the handsome Tony Rose, but Burdett was certain that the brains and the money behind the company was Arnold Pope.
“WHAT’S THIS ABOUT Marsh?” Arnold Pope asked as soon as Burdett walked into his home office.
“He’s coming back to stand trial. He’ll probably be here within the week.”
“How do you know that?”
Senior’s excitement increased as Burdett recounted Amanda Jaffe’s visit.
“Bring me a copy of the case file,” Senior said as soon as Burdett was through.
“It’s big. It might…”
“I know it’s big. Copy it and have it here by tomorrow. And keep me up to date on every single development, no matter how small.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Karl.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In life it is rare to get a second chance. Now you have one.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“No, Karl, you will not simply do your best.” Senior locked eyes with Burdett. “Either you or Marsh will be totally destroyed by the end of this case. You decide who will be buried.”
Before Burdett was out of the room, Senior had swiveled his chair so he was staring through his window at Mount Hood, but it was not the majestic, snow-covered giant he was seeing. In his imagination, he saw Charlie Marsh sweating out his time on death row as each second brought him closer to a lethal injection. Then he thought about Amanda Jaffe. She was very good. Could she achieve what her father had accomplished? Funny things happened to rock-solid cases when a clever lawyer got in front of a jury. Look at the O. J. Simpson case. An idiot should have been able to convict him but he walked.