Phillip Margolin - Fugitive

“I would have been over earlier but I had to wait until everyone left, so no one would see me smuggling this stuff out,” he told Amanda as he hauled his bag to the couch and opened it.

“I’ll go through these files and you go through yours,” Amanda said as she sat on the floor. “Then let’s switch.”

“I assume you made coffee,” Mike said as he started pulling folders out of his bag, “because we have to get through this tonight so I can get the files back to the office in the morning before anyone gets in.”

“Fresh coffee and doughnuts are on the counter. I even bought some maple bars,” she added, naming Mike’s favorite guilty pleasure.

“It’s going to take more than a maple bar to get back in my good graces,” he grumbled.

“I’ll see what I can do, if we’re not too tired,” Amanda promised as she stacked manila folders in front of her.

IT WAS TEN o’clock and several cups of coffee later when Amanda and Mike got ready to swap.

“Did you find anything in your files or Burdett’s notes that was helpful?” Mike asked.

“No,” she said, disappointed, “though I did find something that I don’t understand.”

Amanda carried a folder to the couch and sat next to Mike. He opened it.

“This looks like a master file,” Mike said. “It has copies of the pleadings, correspondence.”

“That’s what I figured, but what’s this?” she said, pointing to a line on a log sheet that was stapled to the left inside cover. “A lot of the entries were made twelve years ago, but look at this entry.” Amanda pointed at the numbers and letter: 1253X. “It was made yesterday. Do you know what it means?”

“Sure. Washington County wanted to have a copy of the file to work on while we were looking at Karl’s original file. That’s a record of the number of pages that were copied. The file is a little more than twelve hundred pages long.”

“Okay, that’s what I figured. But look at this entry,” Amanda said, pointing to an earlier, recent entry that read 1209X.

“That probably refers to another copy of the file,” Mike said.

“Yeah, but see the date and time the copies were made? That’s the afternoon of the day I visited Hillsboro and told Burdett that Charlie was returning to Oregon to face the charges against him.”

“I don’t see where you’re going. I usually make a copy of my file so I can break it up when I make files for individual witnesses.”

“If the office had a duplicate file when you asked them to make a copy, why did they need another one?”

Mike’s brow furrowed.

“On the day I told him Charlie was returning to face trial, I think Karl made a copy of his complete file for someone who is not in the DA’s office.”

“Who would want something like that?”

“Remember I told you how upset Burdett was when the sniper took his shot at Charlie?”

“Yeah.”

“I think Burdett might have been killed because he put two and two together and came up with Arnold Pope as the man behind the assassination attempt on Charlie and the murders at Sally Pope’s house.”

“That’s some stretch, Amanda.”

“With Gary Hass out of the picture, who other than Senior would want Charlie dead? Revenge is an obvious motive for the attack at the courthouse. Arnold Pope Sr. could order Burdett to make a copy of the case file and expect to be obeyed. He could order Burdett to set free the man he held responsible for his son’s murder so he would be out of jail, where an assassin could take a shot at him.”

Mike frowned.

“I’m certain Sally Pope was used to lure Charlie out of his hotel so he could be killed after the first attempt at the courthouse failed,” Amanda went on. “If Charlie’s mysterious savior hadn’t appeared on the scene, Sally and Charlie would have died. Pope is the only person I can think of who would want both of them dead.”

As she spoke, an image of Nathan Tuazama flashed through her brain, but she decided to keep that information confidential. Besides, Tuazama wouldn’t kill Charlie before he had the diamonds.

“It’s a stretch, Amanda, and you haven’t given me any hard evidence to work with.”

“You’re right about the proof part but you have to admit my idea makes sense. When Agent Cordova told Burdett that Gary Hass couldn’t have been the sniper, I think Burdett realized that Pope was behind the attempt on Charlie at the courthouse. What if he confronted Pope? What if Pope became worried that Burdett would tell someone his theory? Pope could have had the same person who murdered Sally take care of Burdett.”

“That’s a lot of what ifs.”

“What about Kevin?”

“Sally’s son?”

“Why isn’t he dead, Mike? Arnold Pope Sr. is obsessed with getting custody of his grandson. The person who killed Sally also killed her personal assistant and her dog but he never hurt Kevin. I think Kevin is alive because Arnold Pope ordered the killer to make certain that he survived unharmed.”

“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” Mike said.

Amanda thought of something else, the photograph of Karl Burdett and Tony Rose carrying hunting rifles that she’d seen in the DA’s office.

“Are you ready to switch files?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, still distracted by her epiphany. She decided that she would keep this idea to herself until she talked it over with Kate.

“Why don’t we just trade places?” Mike said.

“Good idea.”

Mike sat on the floor and Amanda went to the couch. At 11:25, she was going through a stack of photographs when she came across the original of the photograph of Charlie Marsh and his entourage at the Dunthorpe mansion, which Kate had told her was missing. She picked it up and studied it. She had met Mickey Keys and Charlie but it was interesting to see what Delmar Epps looked like. As she studied Epps, her eyes strayed to his waist. The bodyguard was wearing a loose jacket. He was in mid-stride and the movement of his body had brought the fabric out and back. Amanda brought the photo to eye level. Yes, she could make out the butt of a revolver. Then she saw something else in the photograph. Her breath caught in her chest and she knew why the photograph was missing and who had taken it. When Mike wasn’t looking, Amanda slipped the photograph under the cushion on the couch.

Mike and Amanda got to bed a little before one, too exhausted for the second night in a row to do anything but sleep. The couple kept changes of clothes at each other’s condos and Mike was showered and shaved at five in the morning so he could get into his office with the files without being seen.

Amanda tried to go back to sleep after Mike left but questions raised by last night’s revelations bombarded her. Was Arnold Pope the mastermind behind these murders? Was Tony Rose the sniper? And there was the photograph from the Dunthorpe seminar. Charlie could help her there, so Amanda showered, dressed, and headed for the hospital.

When she arrived, Charlie was sitting up in bed.

“Have you heard about Karl Burdett?”

“It was on the news but they didn’t say anything except that he’d been shot and you found him. How did that happen?”

Amanda told Charlie about the phone call.

“Do you have any idea why Burdett wanted to see you?” Charlie asked when Amanda finished her recap of the night’s events.

“He didn’t say.”

“But he said it was about me, about the case?”

Amanda nodded.

“What’s going to happen now that Burdett is dead?”

“You’re still under indictment. An interim DA will be appointed-probably Wanda Simmons, the chief criminal deputy-and someone will be assigned to prosecute the case.”