“No. I asked the lab to look into that, and they concluded that the chocolate that Gentry and Randall ate were different brands.”
The Justice Center was a sixteen-story building in downtown Portland that housed the Multnomah County jail, some circuit and district courts, state parole and probation, the state crime lab, and the central precinct of the Portland Police Bureau. The Detective Division was a wide-open space that stretched along one side of the thirteenth floor. Each detective had their own cubicle separated from the other cubicles by a chest-high divider. Morris Quinlan had just returned from talking to Dr. Rothstein when Roger Dillon walked into his cubicle.
Quinlan swiveled his chair and looked up at his partner’s smiling face. “What’s got you all excited?” Quinlan asked.
“I just got off the phone with Scott Bentley, my contact at Scotland Yard, and he had some interesting things to tell me.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Robert Chesterfield is British. He called himself Lord Chesterfield when he performed in London as a stage magician, but he’s no lord. He was born in a slum in Manchester to abusive, alcoholic parents and was in trouble from an early age. Chesterfield ran away from home on several occasions and earned money by gambling in high-stakes, back-alley poker games. Scott says that Chesterfield is a whiz at card manipulation. He was arrested for assault when he stabbed a man who accused him of cheating, but witnesses said that the other player attacked Chesterfield. No charges were brought, because the police concluded that Chesterfield acted in self-defense.
“Chesterfield developed his persona as an English gentleman when he began performing. Scott told me that Lord Robert is quite the ladies’ man and his favorite prey is wealthy older women like Lily Dowd. He used these women to get him into several private clubs, where he made a living at cards. Scott tells me that he stayed under the radar by winning but not winning so much that he called attention to himself.”
A magician might be able to pick the lock on Arthur Gentry’s back door, Quinlan thought. Out loud, he asked Dillon if he knew why Chesterfield had left London and come to Oregon.
“Scott wasn’t certain. There were rumors of a scandal but he didn’t have time to follow up. We know he met Lily Dowd in London, so he may have moved to Oregon with the idea of marrying her.”
“Nice work.”
“Thanks.”
“I did a little detecting myself,” Quinlan said, and he proceededto tell Dillon what he’d found out at the medical examiner’s office and during his meeting with Eileen Paulson.
“Before I visited Max, I spoke to Jan Crawford, the judge’s wife,” Quinlan continued. “She had some interesting things to tell me.”
“Such as?”
“When her husband told her that Chesterfield was going to resign from the Westmont and take Lily with him, she tried to talk Lily out of it, but Dowd wouldn’t listen. A few weeks after she resigned, Lily called Mrs. Crawford. Mrs. Crawford said that Dowd sounded drunk or drugged. She told Mrs. Crawford that she regretted resigning and had found out that many of the accusations about cheating at cards and with women were true. She said that she was at their home on the coast, which is isolated, and that Robert watched her all the time.
“Mrs. Crawford asked if she was afraid and if she needed help, but Mrs. Dowd suddenly said that she didn’t mean what she’d said, and she hung up. Mrs. Crawford called back but her calls went to voice mail. Then Dowd called again and asked Mrs. Crawford not to call anymore.”
“Should we go out there?” Dillon asked. “This sounds serious.”
“Dowd’s home is out of our jurisdiction. Even if she lived in Portland, we wouldn’t have any grounds to believe that a crime is being committed.”
Dillon sighed. “You’re right. But what about the murders? Do you think we have enough evidence to show that Chesterfield murdered Randall or Gentry?”
“No. He’s our chief suspect but I don’t see enough here to go for an indictment.”
Dillon started to say something, when Quinlan’s phone rang. Quinlan answered it, and Dillon could tell that he wasn’t pleased.
“Grab your coat,” Morris Quinlan said when he hung up.
“Where are we going?”
“Ragland wants to brainstorm the Randall case.”
CHAPTER NINE
An icy wind raced inland from the river, and threatening black clouds hovered over the detectives, who hunched their shoulders as they walked to the Multnomah County Courthouse. The district attorney’s office was on the sixth floor. Peter Ragland had one of the exterior offices with a view of downtown Portland and the West Hills that were assigned to higher-ranking deputies.
Photographs of Ragland with politicians and celebrities took up part of one wall, giving visitors the impression that Peter hobnobbed with the rich and famous. Ragland’s father appeared in most of the photographs, and Quinlan thought that Peter was probably just along for the ride.
Next to the photographs was a diploma from Georgetown, an elite law school. Rumor had it that Peter had been admitted as a legacy because Jasper Ragland was one of the school’s famous alumni. Another rumor held that he had barely scraped through.
“Sit, sit,” Ragland said, pointing at the two client chairs on the other side of his desk. “What have you got for me?”
Quinlan laid out what they had discovered.