Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
The Multnomah County Courthouse occupied the entire block opposite Lownsdale Park. When it was completed in 1914, it had been the largest courthouse on the West Coast, as well as Portland, Oregon’s largest building. There were no Art Deco frills or spectacular walls of glass decorating its exterior. Those who were summoned to face their fate here entered a solemn, brutish building of riveted structural steel and forbidding gray concrete.
Tracy Cavanaugh was too excited to be intimidated by the somber exterior of the courthouse. Her job interview at the public defender’s office had ended at two-thirty, leaving her with a free afternoon. It would have been tempting to wander around Portland enjoying the balmy May weather, but Abigail Griffen was prosecuting a murder case and Tracy simply could not pass up an opportunity to watch one of the best trial lawyers in the state in action.
Potential employers had trouble taking Tracy seriously when they saw her for the first time. Today, for instance, she was wearing a lightweight navy-blue business suit that should have made her look like a young executive, but the suit highlighted a deep tan that conspired with Tracy’s lean, athletic figure, bright blue eyes and straight blond hair to make her look much more like a college cheerleader than a law clerk to an Oregon Supreme Court justice.
Tracy did not worry about those first impressions. It never took the interviewers long to conclude that they were dealing with a very smart cheerleader. Degrees with honors from Yale and Stanford Law, and the clerkship, made Tracy a prime candidate for any legal position and, at the conclusion of today’s interview, she had been offered a job. Now Tracy faced the pleasant predicament of deciding which of several excellent offers to accept. When Tracy got out of the elevator on the fifth floor, the spectators were drifting back into the courtroom, where a young woman named Marie Harwood was being tried for murder. The courtroom was majestic with a high ceiling, marble Corinthian columns and ornate molding. Tracy found a seat seconds before the bailiff smacked down his gavel. A door opened at the side of the dais. Everyone in the courtroom stood. Judge Francine Dial, a slender woman with thick tortoiseshell glasses, took bench. Most of the court watchers focused on her, but Tracy studied the deputy district attorney.
Abigail Griffen’s long legs, full figure and classic Mediterranean features made her stand out in the most elegant surroundings. In Judge Dial’s drab courtroom, her beauty was almost startling. The prosecutor was dressed in a black linen designer suit with a long, softly draped jacket and a straight skirt that stopped just below her knees. When Griffen turned toward the judge, her long black hair swept across olive-colored skin and her high cheekbones. “Any more witnesses, Mr. Knapp?” Judge Dial asked Marie Harwood’s lawyer. Carl Knapp uncoiled dramatically from his chair and cast a disdainful look at Griffen. Then he said, “We call the defendant, Miss Marie Harwood.”
The slender waif seated beside Knapp at the defense table was barely over five feet tall. Her pale, freckled face and loose blond hair made her look childlike, and the ill-fitting dress made her look pathetic. She struck Tracy as being the type of person a jury would have a hard time convicting of murder. Harwood trembled when she took the witness stand, and Tracy could barely hear her name when Harwood stated it for the record. The judge urged the witness to use the microphone.
“Miss Harwood,” Knapp asked, “how old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“How much do you weigh?”
“Ninety-eight pounds, Mr. Knapp.”
“Now, the deceased, Vince Phillips, how much did he weigh?”
“Vince was big. Real big. I think around two-seventy.”
“Did he wrestle professionally at one time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how old was he?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Was Mr. Phillips a cocaine dealer?”
“When I was living with him, he always had a lot around.”
Harwood paused and looked down at her lap.
“Would you like some water, Miss Harwood?” Knapp asked with fawning concern.
“No, sir. I’m okay now. It’s just … Well, it’s hard for me to talk about cocaine.”
“Were you addicted to cocaine when you met Mr. Phillips?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you become addicted while you lived with Mr. Phillips?”
“Yeah. He hooked me.”
“How bad?”
“Real bad. Cocaine was all I thought about.”
“Did you enjoy being an addict?” Harwood looked up at Knapp wide-eyed.
“Oh no, sir. I hated it. What it made me become and … and the things I had to do for Vince to get it.”
“What things?”
Harwood shivered. “Sex things,” she said quietly.
“Did you ever try to resist Mr. Phillips’s sexual demands?”
“Yes, sir, I did. I didn’t want to do those things.”
“What happened when you protested?”
“He …” She stopped, looked down again, then dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. This time, Harwood accepted a glass of water.
“Go ahead, Miss Harwood,” Knapp said.
“He beat me up.”
Harwood’s head hung down, her shoulders hunched and she folded her hands in her lap.
“How badly?”
“He broke my ribs once, and he closed … closed my eye. Sometimes he beat me so hard I passed out.”
Harwood’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“Did you go to the hospital after one of these beatings?” Knapp asked.
“Yes, sir. That’s where I escaped.”
“You ran away from the hospital?”
“They wouldn’t let him take me home. So I knew it was my only chance, ’cause he kept me a prisoner when I was with him.”
“Where did you go from the hospital?”
“Back to John John’s.”
“Who is John John?”
“John LeVeque.”
“Now, Mr. LeVeque is also a drug dealer, is he not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why did you run to him?”
“Protection. He was who I was stayin’ with before I took up with Vince. He don’t … didn’t like Vince, and Vince was scared of John John.”
“Did John John take you in?”
“Yes, sir.”
