"Right," Walker agreed. "And it would help to get a detailed
description out as fast as possible." It would also help us determine
if we were all wasting our time. Maybe Clarissa had packed a suitcase
and her dog to run off voluntarily with a new man or simply to a new
life without this one.
"You either overestimate my familiarity with clothing or underestimate
Clarissa's wardrobe. Tara, can you help? I doubt I can be of any
use."
I suggested that we all go upstairs together while Tara looked through
Clarissa's closet. Johnson offered to stay downstairs in case anyone
knocked, but Easterbrook assured him that the house's "smart system"
would alert us if anyone approached the door. Of course, Johnson
already knew that, so I gave him a warning look over my shoulder to
join me as I followed Townsend and Tara up the hammered-steel
staircase. No way was he sneaking around down here while the family
was upstairs, especially in a house with its own intelligence system.
The Easterbrook master suite was the size of my entire second floor, a
thousand square feet of spa-style opulence. Town-send led us through a
large sitting area, past the king-size bed, and around the back of a
partial wall that served as the bed's headboard. I couldn't help but
notice that the lip balm on the nightstand was the same brand as my
own, the paperback novel one I'd read last year.
The back of the suite contained a marble-rich bathroom adjoining a
dressing area roughly the size of Memphis. Town-send wasn't kidding
about his wife's wardrobe.
Tara started flipping through the piles of folded clothes stacked
neatly into maple cubes. The hanging items looked work-related.
After she'd gone through the top two rows, Tara blew her bangs out of
her face again. "She tends to wear the same few things when she's
around the house, but the ones I can remember are all here. I just
don't know."
Townsend stood in the corner of the closet, seemingly distracted by a
pair of Animal Cracker print pajamas that hung from a hook. Tara was
unfazed by the moment's poignancy, or at least she did not let it halt
her determination. She was examining rows of shoes stacked neatly on a
rack built into the side of the closet. "Well, it looks like her
favorite black loafers are gone. Cole Haans, I think. But I can't
tell what clothes are missing; she's just got too much stuff."
She walked over to a Nordstrom shopping bag on the floor next to the
dressing table. She pulled out a red sweater, set it on the table, and
then reached back in and removed some loose price tags and a receipt.
"These are from yesterday," she said, looking at the receipt. "Town,
these are Clarissas, right?"
She had to repeat the question before he responded. "Oh, right, she
did mention something about that last night, I think."
"Can you tell anything from the tags?" Walker asked.
"No," Tara said. "Well, the brand name, but then it's just those
meaningless style names and numbers."
"Did anyone go shopping with her? We could find out what she bought
from them," I suggested. I knew I told Johnson I'd leave the questions
to them, but I couldn't help myself.
Townsend seemed to wake up for a moment. "I believe she went with
Susan, but "
"I'm sorry." Walker interrupted, holding up his pen and pad. "What's
Susans last name?"
Tara looked disappointed. "Susan Kerr, a friend of my sister. I've
already tried calling her, and all I got was the machine."
A store clerk would be able to determine from the item numbers what
clothes Clarissa purchased Saturday. It wouldn't be easy to get that
information at eleven o'clock on a Sunday night, but it was worth
trying.
"We'll track someone down from the store," I suggested, looking toward
Ray and Jack. "Can't we pull a number for someone at Nordstrom out of
PPDS?" The Portland Police Data System compiled information from every
city police report and was the handiest source for accessing an
individual's contact information.
Within a few minutes, Walker had the home telephone number of a store
manager mentioned in a recent theft case. A manager would not be
involved in your average shoplifting case, but this one had been
unusual. An employee at one of the local thrift stores had bilked
Nordstrom out of thousands of dollars in cash by taking advantage of
its famously tolerant return policy. The bureau estimated that every
Nordstrom brand dress shirt donated to the thrift store during the last
two years had been returned to Nordstrom stores for cash by either the
employee or one of her friends.
Hopefully the manager would be sufficiently grateful to the bureau for
cracking the case that he'd forgive us for calling him after ten
o'clock at night. Walker made the call on his cell to leave the
Easterbrooks' line open, just in case.
As it turned out, the Easterbrook phone rang just a few minutes later.
I found myself watching Townsend to see how he responded. Did he
really expect the caller to be Clarissa? Or did he act like a man who
already knew we wouldn't be hearing from her? So far he seemed legit,
if dazed. He hadn't made any of the obvious slipups, the ones you see
on Court TV: using the past tense, buying diamonds for another woman,
selling the wife's stuff, things like that.
Whoever was calling, it wasn't Clarissa. Listening to one side of the
conversation was frustrating. "I see.... Where was he? ... No, in
fact, she's ... missing" Townsend's voice cracked on that one. "The
police are here now.. .. Yes, that's terribly kind of you, if you
don't mind." Some more earnest thank-yous and a goodbye, and Townsend
set the phone back on its base.
"That was a fellow who lives a few streets down. He works with me at
the hospital. He and his wife were leaving the Chart House and found a
dog running in the parking lot with its leash on. It's Griffey."
Walker had reached the Nordstrom manager, who generously offered to
meet him at the store to track down what Clarissa Easterbrook had
purchased yesterday and was we hoped still wearing.
About fifteen minutes after Walker left, a voice similar to the one
that announces my e-mails at home declared, "Good evening. You have a
visitor." Ray was right. Creepy George Jetson house.
I looked out the living room window to see a man in his fifties
struggling to keep up with an excited yellow Lab dashing up the slope
to the front door, straining against the leash. A woman of roughly the
same age followed.
When Easterbrook opened the door, the Lab finally pulled free from his
temporary handler, dragging his leash behind him. He leaped on
Easterbrook's chest, nearly knocking him over. He was a sticky mess
from the drizzle, but you could tell he was a well-cared-for dog.
Townsend absently convinced Griffey to lie down by the fountain, though
the panting and tail thumping revealed that he was still excited to be
home.
A dog like Griffey probably had an advanced degree from obedience
school, unlike my dropout, Vinnie. Vinnie was actually expelled. Or,
more accurately, I was. When it became clear to the teacher that,