“Officer Oswald?” Mary asked as she sat on the bench opposite the policeman. Oswald nodded, and he didn’t stare. Garrett was well known to people in law enforcement. Mary pointed at his beer.

“Can I get you a refill?’

“Sure.”

When Mary returned from the bar, she placed a cold beer in front of the officer and took a swig from her bottle.

“Thanks for meeting me. As I said on the phone, I’m representing Sarah Woodruff.”

“The cop who’s charged with murder.”

“Right. A ship called the China Sea came up in our investigation, and my investigator found your report. I’d appreciate it if you can tell me what happened the night you answered the 911.”

“The ship was docked near a warehouse, and the night watchman reported shots,” Oswald said. “We found five dead men on the ship and a lot of hashish in the hold.”

Mary nodded. “That’s in the report. What I don’t understand is why there aren’t any other reports. I mean, there were five dead men. I assume that’s not run-of-the-mill in Shelby.”

“Yeah, well this whole deal wasn’t run-of-the-mill. We don’t usually get invaded by Homeland Security, either.”

“And they told you to back off, that they were taking over?”

Oswald shrugged. “And my boss agreed. He was right. We would have ended up turning it over to the state police, so why not the feds?”

“And that’s everything that happened?”

“Didn’t the DA tell you the rest of it?”

“What DA?”

“I talked to two of them.”

“Look, Tom, all this information about the China Sea is new to me. So why don’t you tell me what isn’t in the report.”

Oswald took a swig from his bottle. Mary got the impression that he was making a decision. After a he thought for a few moments, Oswald wiped some moisture from his mouth and started talking.

“Jerry and I couldn’t let go, so we drove back to the dock. This was a day later. The ship was gone, and Dave Fletcher, the night watchman who’d called in the 911, wasn’t there either. I drove out to his place. It was deserted. One of his neighbors told me she hadn’t seen Fletcher or his car since the night I was called to the dock. I talked to Fletcher’s boss at the company that provides the security guards. He told me Fletcher didn’t work there anymore and they didn’t know where he’d gone.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” Mary asked.

“I have no idea. He has family in town, and they filed a missing-person report. I’ve followed up from time to time, but he vanished off the face of the earth.

“If I had to bet, I’d put my money on the men who disappeared the ship. You read about the CIA kidnapping terrorists all the time and taking them to secret prisons.”

Oswald paused. He looked ill. “Dave was a good guy, a veteran. I hope to God he’s still alive.”

“Did Mr. Fletcher tell you anything you didn’t write in the report?” Mary asked.

“Yeah, the chief told me to make the report bare bones, so I didn’t put in a lot of stuff. For instance, Fletcher told me he’d seen a man run from the ship and drive away. The man was staggering, and Fletcher thought he might be wounded. He also thought another car followed the man when he drove off.”

Mary started to get a funny feeling in her gut. “When I called you and told you I represented Sarah Woodruff, you said you’d been expecting my call. Why do you think what happened on the China Sea has something to do with Sarah Woodruff’s case?”

“Shortly before your client’s first case came to trial, a Multnomah County DA named Monte Pike called me. You know that several prints were found in your client’s house that couldn’t be identified when they were run through AFIS.”

Mary nodded.

“Pike ran them again and came up with a match to a print I put into AFIS a few days after I lifted it.”

“You didn’t turn over all the evidence to the Homeland Security guys.”

Oswald leaned forward. “I do not appreciate being treated like a hick, and I especially do not appreciate being treated like a hick by some asshole whose salary is paid by my taxes.”

Mary smiled. “Where did the print come from?”

“The hatch covering the hashish.”

Mary let out a low whistle. “Did Pike know about the hash and the wounded man who ran from the ship?”

“That I don’t know, but I assume the other prosecutor told him.”

“What other prosecutor?”

“The one I saw in Portland -Dietz. My chief told me to keep my mouth shut about the China Sea, and I didn’t want Homeland Security pissed at me, so I told Pike I didn’t know anything about the print, and I never got back to him. But I started to feel guilty. You know, Woodruff’s a cop, and this stuff with the ship didn’t feel right. My conscience was really bothering me, and I was in Portland on business. When I finished what I had to do, I went to the DA’s office to talk to Pike, but he was in trial and they told me that Dietz was lead counsel. So I told him everything. Didn’t he tell you about the ship?”

“No, Tom, he didn’t, and I’m going to find out why. Will you get in trouble with your chief for talking to me?”

“If he brings it up, I’ll handle it. Woodruff is a cop. If she killed the guy, I’ve got no sympathy for her. But I’m not going to sit on information that can prove she didn’t do it. What kind of person would I be if I did that?”

Chapter Thirty-six

The next morning, Mary called Monte Pike as soon as she got to work. A half hour later, she and Pike were seated in a conference room in the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office.

“So Mary, what’s up?” Monte asked when they’d concluded their small talk.

“Does a freighter named the China Sea mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Max Dietz can tell you all about it.”

Pike’s brow furrowed. The young DA seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Why does Max know about this ship, and what does it have to do with the Woodruff case?”

“Remember the fingerprint you found in Sarah Woodruff’s house that you ran through AFIS?”

“Yeah. It matched a print from a case in Shelby. I talked to a cop there, but he never got back to me.”

“The cop’s name is Tom Oswald. My investigator tracked down his report about the China Sea. Oswald found the print on the ship. He came to Portland looking for you after you called Shelby about the latent. You were in trial, so he met with Dietz instead.” Mary handed Pike a copy of Oswald’s police report. “I talked to Oswald last night. He verified everything he wrote and added a few items that aren’t in the report. Max knew everything Oswald told me.”

When Pike finished reading the report, Mary told him about the disappearance of the ship and the night watchman.

“And there’s more. Shortly after Finley was kidnapped, two dead men were found on a logging road. They’d been shot to death, and they were working for a Mexican drug cartel. I think they were the men who kidnapped Finley from Sarah’s condo.”

“What do you want, Mary?”

“I want you to dismiss the indictment. This is a clear case of prosecutorial misconduct. Max had a duty to tell me about this exculpatory evidence.”

“Max may have violated the ethics rules, but any effect his misconduct had on Woodruff’s first case was cured by the dismissal.”

“Would you have gotten this new indictment if the grand jury knew everything I’ve just told you?” Mary asked.

Pike considered the question, and Mary waited anxiously for his answer. When she got it, she had trouble hiding her disappointment.

“Yeah,” Pike said. “I would still have presented the case even with this new information. Everything you’ve told me applies to the first case, not this one.”

“How can you say that? If Finley was involved with black ops and drug cartels, it presents several alternatives to the theory that Sarah killed him.”

“This stuff about drug dealers and CIA assassins is total speculation. Do we even know that there was hashish in the hold of the China Sea? Was the substance tested in a lab?”