Judgement Calls

JUDGMENT CALLS

Alafair Burke

First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Orion, an imprint of the

Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

Copyright 2003 by Alafair Burke

For my loving parents, James Lee and Pearl Chu Pai Burke

One.

A February morning in Portland, Oregon, and it was still dark outside

when I walked into the courthouse, the air thick with the annoying

drops of humidity that pass for rain in the Pacific Northwest. No

surprises there. What did surprise me was finding a Police Bureau

sergeant waiting in my office.

I'm a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County, making me about

one percent of the office that prosecutes state crimes committed in the

Portland area. Since I took this job three years ago, I've gotten used

to having voice mail and e-mail messages waiting for me on Monday

mornings. People just don't seem to realize that government law

offices aren't open on weekends. It's unusual, though, and rarely a

good sign, to find a cop waiting for you first thing in the morning.

At least I knew this one.

"Hey, Garcia, who let you in?" I said. "I thought we had some

security around here."

Sergeant Tommy Garcia looked up from the Oregon State Bar magazine he

had lifted out of my in-box. He smiled at me with those bright white,

perfectly straight teeth that contrasted beautifully with his smooth

olive skin. That smile had led me to believe he was a nice guy when I

met him for the first time three years ago, and I had been right.

"Hey, Sammie, what can I say? I love reading the part at the back that

tells about all the bad lawyers and what they did to get disbarred or

suspended. Gives me a sense of justice. You should be careful about

giving me such a hard time, though. I might start to think you're like

the rest of the DAs around here, with a stick up your ass."

Tommy's in charge of the bureau's vice unit, so I know him well. As a

member of the eight-lawyer team known as the Drug and Vice Division, I

talk to Tommy almost weekly about pending cases and see him at least

once a month at team meetings.

"You must want something from me big and bad, Garcia, to be buttering

me up like that. What is it," I asked, "a warrant?" The local judges

won't even read an officer's application for a search warrant unless it

is reviewed and approved first by a deputy DA. In a close case, the

cops tend to "DA shop."

Garcia laughed. "You're too smart, Kincaid. Nope, no warrant. I do

need your help on something, but it's a little more complicated." He

reached behind him to shut the door, looking at me first to make sure I

didn't mind.

"MCT picked a case up over the weekend, thinking it would be an attempt

murder. The suspects are bad, bad guys,

Sammie. Two of them grabbed a girl out of Old Town. One of them

started to rape her, but couldn't get it up, so he beat her instead,

and then the second guy finished what the first couldn't. When they

were done, they left her for dead out in the Columbia Gorge.

"I don't know all the details, but apparently the initial investigation

was a bit of a cluster fuck. It sounds like everything's on track now,

but O'Donnell was the riding DA and got pissed off at some of the early

mistakes. So he's planning on kicking it into the general felony unit

for prosecution. You can pretty much figure out what's gonna happen to

it."

The general felony trial unit is a dumping ground for cases that aren't

seen as serious. The trial DDAs often have extremely limited time to

spend on them, and the overwhelming majority plead out to reduced

charges and stipulated sentences during a fast-paced court calendar

referred to as "morning call." It's the criminal justice system's ugly

side. Tim O'Donnell was a senior DDA in the major crimes unit. If he

bumped a Major Crimes Team case down to general, he knew it was gone.

"Sounds bad, but it also sounds like MCT's beef is with O'Donnell."

"Yeah, well, O'Donnell's mind's not an easy one to change, and I think

there's another way to go here because of a vice angle. The victim's a

thirteen-year-old prostitute named Ken-dra Martin. Unlike most of 'em,

she doesn't try to look any older. Wears schoolgirl outfits like that

one girl used to wear on MTV before she got implants and started

running around naked. What's her name? My daughter likes her. Anyway,

she looks her age, is my point.

"Turns out her injuries weren't as bad as they first looked,

so the MCT guys know it'll be hard to get attempted murder to stick.

But they kept working the case, even after they realized that they

could've handed it off to precinct detectives. This case is under

their skin."

Any reluctance on the part of the Major Crimes Team to hand over a case

to precinct detectives was understandable. In theory, regular shift

detectives are perfectly good investigators, but in reality,

disappointed precinct detectives who were passed over for the elite MCT

frequently drop the ball, deciding their cases must not be sufficiently

"major" to warrant good investigations.

"I don't doubt their earnestness, but I still don't see why they'd come

to DVD with this, let alone to me. I've never even handled an MCT

case."

"They figured because of the vice connection that someone in DVD might

take the case from O'Donnell and run with it on something more serious

than a general felony. And I've been watching you since you got here,

Kincaid. You're good, and this could be a case for you to show what

you can do when given the chance."

"Don't think you can play me like that, Garcia. I know an ego stroke

when I see it." Of course, recognizing the stroke for what it was

didn't prevent me from succumbing to it. The truth was, he was right.

I'd been eager to get my hands on a major trial. It's a no-win

situation: DVD cases aren't sexy enough to prove yourself to the guys

running this place, yet you're supposed to prove yourself before you

can try victim cases. Garcia was dangling a way for me to beat the

system.

I wasn't about to sign on for this, though, without knowing the

details.

"I don't think there's much I can do about it, but I'm willing to talk.

Have someone call me?" I asked.

"I can do better than that," he said. "I got two MCT detectives

waiting for you down the street."

Garcia must've known he'd be able to work me. He had told Detectives

Jack Walker and Raymond Johnson to wait for us at the cafeteria in the

basement of the federal building. Created to provide subsidized meals

to low-level government workers, the cafeteria had found a cultlike

following among the city's law enforcement crowd. A three-dollar tray

of grease dished out by lunch ladies in hair nets had a certain retro

appeal.

I exercised some moderation and got a bowl of oatmeal while Garcia

waited for his plate to be loaded up with bacon and home fries. After

he'd paid for our meals, he led me to a corner table.

"Jack Walker, Raymond Johnson, this is Samantha Kincaid."

I shook their hands. Jack Walker was a beefy man in his fifties,

starting to lose his hair, with a full mustache. His short-sleeved

dress shirt stretched tight across his belly, the buttons pulling in

front. His grip was almost painfully firm, and his palms were rough.

He looked like a cop, through and through.

Johnson was a different story altogether. A tall well-built African

American in his mid-thirties, Raymond Johnson looked and dressed like a

GQ model. He wore a collarless shirt with a three-button charcoal

suit. His hair was close-cropped, and he wore a diamond stud in his

left ear. He shook my hand and held it just a little longer than

necessary, which was fine with me.

"It's nice to meet you both," I said. "I've seen you around the

courthouse, but I don't think we've ever actually met."

Jack Walker spoke first. "Yeah, likewise. I've been hearing a lot of

good things about you from Tommy, here, and Chuck Forbes says you guys

go way back."

Suddenly, Johnson's handshake made a little more sense. To say that

Chuck Forbes and I go way back is to sanitize the situation

considerably. I didn't think Chuck would tell all to his cop buddies,

but I wouldn't be surprised if he had said something in a certain way

with that grin of his that would clue a guy like Raymond Johnson in to

the gist of his reminiscing.

I hoped I wasn't blushing. "Well, I don't want to disappoint you, but

it's a long shot that I'll be able to help." I asked them to tell me

about the case from the beginning, and Johnson took over.

"We got the call around three on Sunday morning. A group of high

school kids went out near Multnomah Falls to party. They were all

pretty drunk, and a couple of them hiked into the forest to get it on.

The girl tripped over what she thought was a log. Turns out the log

was Kendra Martin."

He explained the facts in detail; I could see why he enjoyed a

reputation among the DDAs as one of the bureau's best witnesses. "She

was wearing a bra and a skirt pulled up over her hips, nothing else. No

purse, no ID. Real beat up, finger marks on her neck, blood coming out

of her bottom." I looked down, trying to hide my discomfort. Johnson

continued. "The kids called police and medical. Looking at her,

everyone assumed the worst. Her pulse was slow, she wasn't moving or

talking, her face and body were covered with blood. The med techs took

her straight to Emanuel Legacy, and patrol cops called in MCT. We page

O'Donnell and tell him what we have, and he says we don't need a DA to

come out. We don't have a suspect in custody yet, and the scene where

we found the vie, even if it turns out to be the crime scene, is

already fucked up by the high school kids. He tells us to keep working

and to page him if we get a suspect or if anything big comes up over

the weekend."

This was promising to be a long meeting if Johnson didn't speed it up,

so I broke in. "How'd you guys split up the investigation?"

"Chuck and his partner, Mike Calabrese, supervised patrol in securing

the scene, and Jack and I went to Emanuel to follow up with the vie. By

the time we arrive, she's been there almost an hour and doing a lot

better. The ER doc told us that most of the blood was from the anal

tearing and a single large laceration on her face. She was out of it

and had a slow pulse because she was on heroin. To be on the safe

side, the doctor gave her Narcan to knock the heroin out of her system

and keep her from ODing. She was bruised up pretty bad, but she was

basically OK by the time we got to the hospital."

"So that's when you realized it wasn't a Major Crimes Team case after

all," I said, letting them know that Garcia had already filled me in on

the jurisdictional problems.

Jack Walker responded. As the senior detective he probably felt the

need to justify the decision to keep the case with MCT. "Depends on

how you look at it. Yeah, if patrol had known at the scene what the

vicactual injuries were, they probably wouldn't have called us out. But

once we got involved, we had a teenage vie saying that a couple guys

pulled her into their car and raped and beat her. She told the doc she

didn't know how heroin wound up in her system; that they must have

injected her during the assault without her realizing it. It looked

like a straight stranger-to-stranger kidnap, doping, rape, and sod of a

little girl. It didn't seem right to bump the case down to shift

detectives."

"What charge did you use to hang on to the case, attempted murder?" I

asked.

Walker nodded. "Yeah, we decided we had enough. Actually, it's an

attempted agg, since the girl's under fourteen."

Intentionally killing a person under fourteen is aggravated murder,

which can carry a death sentence. Luckily, Kendra Martin didn't die,

so the defendants would at most be charged with Attempted Aggravated

Murder.

"So what did you do after you decided to keep the case?" I asked.

Johnson answered. "We go in to talk to her, and I'm telling you the

girl was a real piece of work, cussing us out, calling us every name in

the book. Accusing us of keeping her there against her will when there

was nothing wrong with her so SCF would make her go home." Runaways

were notoriously distrustful of the state's Services for Children and

Families department.

"She wasn't making a lot of sense, so we had to explain to her that we

were there to investigate her statement to the doctor. That calmed her

down a little. Still pretty bitchy, though." Johnson caught himself

and looked over at Garcia for a read on his choice of words. I assured

him his candor was fine and asked him to continue as I pulled a legal

pad from my briefcase.

"Anyway, the vie initially said she was walking in Old Town around ten

on Saturday night, on her way to Powell's Books, when Suspect One comes

up from behind and pushes her into the backseat of what she called a"

he looked down at his notebook " 'some big, seventies, four-door, loser

shit box." Said it was a dark color. Suspect One gets in back with

her while Suspect Two drives to a parking lot somewhere in southeast

Portland.

"She says Suspect One acted like the one in charge. He starts getting

real rough with her in the backseat, saying a lot of dirty stuff and

pulling her clothes off. Thing is, right when she thinks he's about to

rape her, she realizes there's nothing there. The guy can't get it up.

So he just goes off and starts beating the shit out of her, then

penetrates her vaginally and an ally with a foreign object, she can't

tell what. The doctors say it was probably some kind of stick they

found splinters. Anyway, they left the parking lot and got onto 1-84

going east. She remembers passing signs to the airport. After they

stopped we're guessing they were out by Multnomah Falls at this point

Suspect One tells Suspect Two to take a turn at her. She thinks he

penetrated her vaginally and remembers Suspect One telling him to

finish off in her mouth. Her memory of what happened toward the end

was pretty hazy. She also thinks they must've taken her purse, because

she had it with her when they pulled her in the car."

I felt sick. It's bad enough that people like these men walk on the

same planet as the rest of us. The fact that they manage to find one

another and work together is utterly terrifying.

"Could she describe the suspects?"

Ray Johnson nodded. "Nothing helpful, just that she'd know them if she

saw them again. We figure it's a long shot but go ahead and pull some

mug shots off X-Imaging of guys on supervision for child sods and

stranger-to-stranger rapes."

One of PPB's newest toys, X-Imaging is a computerized data system that

stores all booking photos taken in the state.

By using the computer to select booking photos corresponding to certain

MOs, an officer is more likely to get a successful identification from

a witness than by dumping several hundred booking photos in front of

her. I could tell from Johnson's voice that in this case, the strategy

had hit pay dirt.

"She's flipping through the printouts and hones right in on one guy,

Frank Derringer. I swear, it was one of the best mug-shot IDs I've

ever seen. I mean, you've seen how it goes; with that many pictures,

most wits start to get confused. This girl is just flipping through

'em left and right and then barn! she nails it. One hundred percent

certain. "That's him," she said. Pointed right at Derringer's mug."

Johnson was getting excited now. "We get even more worked up when we

see that Derringer's the guy we pulled who was just paroled last summer

on an attempted sod of a fifteen-year-old girl. Unfortunately for

Derringer, this girl had just started a kick boxing class. As he was

pushing her down, she popped up and landed a roundhouse kick straight

to his Adam's apple and got away. He only served a year because it was

an attempt, but it shows the guy's got it in him.

"We called O'Donnell at that point and told him what we had. He gives

us the OK to pick up Derringer. We picked him up last night around

seven. His parole officer, Dave Renshaw, went out there with us. The

plan was to arrest Derringer on a parole violation for having

unsupervised contact with a minor child, then write paper to search the

apartment."

I interrupted. "Does Derringer have any cars registered to him?"

Johnson nodded. "That would've been too easy. We ran him. Only car

registered to him is an 'eighty-two Ford Escort.

It was his associated vehicle until a couple years ago, probably when

he went to the pen. Since then, it comes up as associated with one of

Derringer's pals. Guy's gotten three DUIs in two years in that same

car."

"You know how these guys are," Walker said. "They sell their pieces of

junk to each other and never bother notifying DMV."

"So, is that all you had when you went out to the house? The

victim's

ID?"

Walker appeared to share my frustration. "Yeah, that's about it, but I

don't know what more we could've gotten before we went out. They did a

rape kit at the hospital, but, according to the victim's version,

there's probably no semen to get a sample from. Derringer never did

her. Even if the other guy left behind some pre-ejaculatory liquid or

they get something from the oral swab, it can take about a week for a

PCR analysis."

"What about blood?" If the victim drew any blood fighting, the

hospital could identify the blood type in a matter of minutes.

Johnson shook his head. "Nah. The vie was too doped up to put up a

fight, so she didn't have any evidence under her fingernails or draw

any blood from them. We did have a couple things to corroborate her

story. As luck would have it, Calabrese found the victim's purse in a

trash can by the road about a half mile from where they dropped her. He

and Forbes were thinking the bad guys maybe dumped the stick on the way

out. Good thinking, but no luck. But finding the purse showed that

Martin was remembering at least some details accurately."

My face must have revealed my skepticism. "I don't want to sound like

I've made up my mind, but that's pretty weak corroboration, Detective.

It just shows Kendra was robbed; it doesn't say anything about who did

this to her. Were there any prints on the purse?"

"We don't know yet. We've got it down at the lab being looked at with

the rest of the girl's clothes."

"OK, so what you guys are telling me is that, at least so far, this

case turns entirely on Kendra Martin's identification of Derringer. Do

we all agree on that?"

They all nodded.

"So when you went out to Derringer's apartment with his PO, did this

case manage to get any better?"

The second the words came out, I regretted them. Seasoned cops like

Jack Walker and Raymond Johnson no doubt were well aware of the

differences between their approach and a district attorney's. Cops

just need to make the arrest. The DA is the one who has to prove the

case to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt afterward, who has to deal

with a defense attorney gnawing at every argument and challenging every

piece of evidence. Trying a weak case can feel like getting poked in

the eye for two weeks.

Cops learn to live with the difference in perspective. But they don't

like being talked down to. And I was pretty sure I had done just

that.

"No confession, if that's what you're looking for. Damn it, Garcia, I

thought you said this girl was willing to try a close case. We're not

even done giving her the facts, and she's already shutting us down."

Jack Walker was clearly pissed off.

I chalked up the "girl" comment to generational differences and

swallowed my pride. No use alienating these guys over a careless

comment, even one that irritated the hell out of me.

"Detective, I'm sorry if my tone suggested that I was criticizing your

investigation, but to be honest I'm a little frustrated by what I am

beginning to perceive as an attempt to portray the evidence as stronger

than it really is. Look, if the case is a real dog, I'll figure that

out, whether or not you lead it to me barking. If it's a gimme, I'll

notice that too. But I want to decide on my own. With that said, I

apologize for my smart-ass comment. I should have said exactly what I

was thinking, and now I have. I hope you haven't made up your mind

about me, just as I haven't formed a final decision about your case."

The table was quiet as Garcia and Johnson waited to see if I had

managed to make things worse. Then Jack Walker shook his head and

smiled. "Well, that was definitely direct. And you're right. I guess

we were kind of hyping the case up a little." He glanced over at

Johnson, not so much with a look of blame as like a child who peeks

over at his partner-in-mischief when he realizes the teacher has

figured them out but good.

Walker then looked directly at me, and I could tell we'd entered a

spin-free zone. "Look, the truth is, the biggest thing we've got right

now is the girl's ID of Derringer. Derringer denied everything. He

says he was over at his brother's watching a basketball game and then

stayed for Saturday Night Live and some beers. The brother's name is

Derrick Derringer, if you can believe it. Anyway, so far Derrick's

corroborating his brother, but he's got three felony convictions, so

there you go."

"So did you arrest Derringer at his house?" I asked.

Walker shook his head. "Not us. Renshaw hooked Derringer up on a

parole violation based on Kendra's ID and took him down to the Justice

Center for booking. We figured the parole detainer would at least hold

him overnight, when O'Donnell could decide what charges to file." "And

what did O'Donnell make of all this?" Detective Walker slumped back in

his chair, the excitement draining from his face. "That's where this

whole thing fell apart on us. After we had Derringer hooked up, we

went back to central to meet Chuck and Mike. They had finished

processing the scene and were working on the warrant. Just as we're

finishing up, O'Donnell shows up in a fucking suit to review the

warrant. He's reading it, just nodding the whole time, not saying

squat. Then he says, "What about this girl?" So Ray and I explain how

she started out like a pill but then was a complete ten on the ID.

O'Donnell didn't like it; said the case rested entirely on the girl.

Then he asks whether we've run her."

"You'd finished the warrant and still hadn't run her?" Walker pursed

his lips and shook his head. "I know, we fucked up. We'd been up all

night, running around. We assumed she was straight up when she picked

a sick fuck like Derringer. We forgot about running her. It was a

rookie mistake."

Johnson continued with the bad news. When they ran the victim, they

found a few runaway reports and an arrest for loitering to solicit.

Worse, the cop who made the loitering pop found a syringe in the girl's

purse with heroin residue on it. Furious that the detectives had

miscalculated their victim, O'Donnell had tried to bully her into

coming clean, but his tough approach only made her dig her heels in

deeper.

Walker had to smooth things over with her, and she eventually admitted

to a nine-month heroin habit that she worked the streets to support.

"So it's basically a trick gone bad?" I asked.

"No," Walker said. "At least we don't think so. She admits she was

walking Old Town, looking for a trick. She'd just finished one up and

had scored some horse on the street. She figured she'd keep working

while she was high. Anyway, these two guys pull up and offer her fifty

bucks if they can high-five her."

"OK, I've been working vice a few years now, but I still don't know

what a high five is."

I knew it had to be bad when Walker and Johnson looked to Garcia for

help and raised their eyebrows. Garcia averted his eyes while he told

me. "It's when a girl gets on all fours and one guy does her from

behind while she blows the other one." I was about to ask why the hell

it was called a high five until I got a mental image of two naked guys

on their knees giving each other a high five.

I rolled my eyes in disgust. "So they ask her to work for both of

them, basically, and she goes with them?"

Walker eagerly accepted the invitation to change the subject. "Not

according to her. She says she told them to meet her in the parking

lot of the motel at Third and Alder. She rents a room there when she

works. She assumes they've got a deal and starts walking to the hotel.

That's when Derringer pulls her into the backseat.

"The rest of it happened pretty much like she said originally. When

the car was stopped and Derringer was undoing his pants, she tried

getting out but the guy in front pushed her back in. They told her she

wasn't going anywhere and she may as well shoot up what was left in her

purse, so she did. Thing is, she says it never dawned on her they were

gonna kill her until Derringer started to choke her out. But, my

thinking is, she knew it at some level when they pulled her back into

the car. She was just trying to get it over with. She said she

injected so much horse, the assault didn't hurt that bad, and this guy

really worked her over."

Ray Johnson shook his head. "Man, you should've seen O'Donnell. I

don't know if you guys are tight, but he can be one tight-sphinctered

prick. He got all moralistic and lectured the entire team about our

obligation to be 'cautious wielding the stern hand of the law." "

Johnson's nerdy white guy impersonation pretty much nailed Tim

O'Donnell.

"Anyway, it was bullshit," he continued. "O'Donnell had us clean up

the warrant to include the new information and then signed off on it,

saying he was gonna kick it out of major crimes territory if we didn't

find anything that changed his mind. We found some porn, but nothing

damning. So, he's planning on filing it today as an Assault Three and

assigning it to precinct detectives for general follow-up before grand

jury."

I couldn't believe it. All you had to prove for assault in the third

degree was that two or more defendants acted together to injure another

person. It didn't begin to portray the savage acts that had been

committed against Kendra Martin.

"Assault Three? That's it?" I said.

Johnson nodded. "I know, ridiculous. He says the ID's weak, plus the

defense can say the whole thing was a consensual trick, that the girl

cried rape so her mom wouldn't find out she was turning tricks for

smack. Said he was only issuing the assault because of Derringer's

prior. He basically called the girl a piece of trash."

"And you guys don't think she is. You think she's telling the

truth?"

Walker looked at me and tilted his head slightly. "Ms. Kincaid, I

really do. It's almost in her favor that she lied to us at first.

Shows she still knows that working's shameful, not just a

matter-of-fact thing to her. Maybe that logic doesn't make any sense

to you, but I think she's basically still a pretty good kid. We pissed

O'Donnell off by not reading the case right, but he's taking it out on

the case, and this Derringer dirtbag is going to get the benefit."

"I agree that Derringer needs to be done, but I'm not sure how I can

help you."

I wasn't surprised that Sergeant Garcia had a suggestion. He had the

respect of his fellow officers because he was a smart cop and a good

guy. In a bureau where most black and Latino officers stall out at the

front line of street-level enforcement, administrative staff promoted

him because he had a political savvy so smooth that its targets never

even knew they'd been had.

"The way I see it, this girl could be a good link for Vice. She's

young and probably knows a circle of working girls we don't have access

to. If we can earn her trust, she might be able to lead us to some of

the pimps we haven't been able to latch on to, the guys who are turning

out the real young ones.

"I'll call O'Donnell like I don't know much about the case but think it

might have potential with Vice, then ask if he minds me getting MCT's

OK to approach the vie as a potential informant. At that point I can

sell him on letting a DVD attorney take the case, so they have a head

start if the vie winds up developing other contacts for us. And then

I'll seal the deal. "Unless," I'll say, 'you want to keep the case

yourself and help me flip any vice contacts I work." "

Johnson was impressed. "Tommy, my man, you oughta run for president.

That is slick. You in, Kincaid?"

"I don't mind taking the case, but here's the problem: it still needs

major help. The rape kit's not back, the victim's clothes are still at

the lab, Derringer's alibi needs work, and we still don't have the

driver. If this case is filed as an Assault Three, it's outside MCT

jurisdiction. You know the precinct detectives aren't going to do the

follow-up that's needed."

Garcia was a step ahead of me. "I'll make another call to O'Donnell,

telling him that you want to file the case as a major crime so MCT can

keep working on it, but that MCT understands it might get bumped back

down later on."

I hate this kind of crap. The four people at the table agree what

needs to happen and are willing to put in the work, but have to plot

how they can even start without bruising a fragile ego.

I was skeptical. Garcia was good, but I still thought O'Donnell might

see right through it and blame me when he wound up looking like a

chicken shit. It would have been so easy to blame O'Donnell for the

bad decision and say there was nothing I could do.

Apathy is grossly undervalued and never there for me when I need it. I

was already sucked in. I'd broken up some escort services and

prosecuted a few pimps, but I'd never had a chance to handle a case

like this one. And, to my mind, with scum like Derringer, it was

better to issue the case and lose than let him walk away up front.

"Alright, let's give it a try," I said.

Two.

Raymond Johnson was right. Tommy Garcia should run for office. Around

nine o'clock, Tim O'Donnell popped into my office to give me a heads up

that Tommy Garcia might be calling about an assault that happened over

the weekend. I feigned ignorance. According to O'Donnell, the victim

was a strung-out Old Town Lolita who acted surprised that a trick might

want rough sex.

By ten, O'Donnell told Garcia he didn't care what charges were filed if

someone from DVD agreed to pick it up. Once I got the word from

Garcia, I called O'Donnell to be sure he was aware I'd be filing

Measure 11 charges against Derringer. I didn't want him getting ticked

off later.

Oregon joined the growing ranks of "tough on crime" states a few years

ago when voters passed Ballot Measure 11 by a landslide. The law

requires mandatory minimum sentences for the most violent felonies. Not

surprisingly, once

Measure 11 defendants figured out they were facing long minimum

sentences upon conviction, whether they pled out or not, they stopped

pleading guilty and started rolling the dice at trial. As a result,

the DA's office stopped filing charges that fell under Measure 11

unless the bureau's investigation was flawless. In response, PPB

formed the Major Crimes Team. The precinct detectives weren't too

happy about what they understandably viewed as a demotion.

In theory, the DA's office chose carefully which cases to file under

Measure 11, because the consequences of a conviction are profound. But

when it became clear that pissed-off precinct detectives were slacking

on their general felony cases, the DAs started looking for creative

ways to justify filing cases under Measure 11 so MCT would be

responsible for the follow-up. Once the work was complete, they'd

threaten the defendant with the mandatory minimum sentence in order to

get him to plead guilty to whatever he should've been charged with in

the first place. And now I had to pretend I was doing exactly that so

a loser like Tim O'Donnell would give up a case he didn't even want.

I could hear laughing in the background when O'Donnell picked up the

phone. As usual, the rest of the boys in the major crimes unit were

huddled in his office for mid-morning coffee and a round of "No, I've

got the raunchiest big-tit joke."

"Hey, Tim. It's Samantha Kincaid. You were right. Garcia did call me

about that Derringer case. I agree it's a solid Assault Three, but MCT

won't do the follow-up unless we file it under Measure Eleven."

"Listen, Kincaid, if you want to do the work on it, that's fine with

me. I don't know why you'd want to. I talked to the vie at the

hospital she's a white trash junkie liar, no matter what those MCT guys

tell you. The case is a loser."

"Yeah, you're probably right, but Garcia seems to think she might be

able to get us some good vice cases."

"Tell me the truth, Kincaid. Do you actually give a shit about those

whores?" More laughter in the background. I tried to control my anger

as he put the phone on speaker.

"Alright, seriously, you guys. Who in this room really cares if some

sack teaches a drug addict from Rockwood how to sell it to support her

junkie habit?" When no one said anything and the guffawing started

again, he said, "See, Kincaid? That's why you get all those vice

cases. Ask me, we should give those guys a medal. Without them, those

girls would be breaking into houses and stealing to get the money."

When he realized I wasn't joining in the festivities, he tried to

cover. "We're just giving you a hard time, Sam. You know that, right?

Sure you do. Hey, here's a good one. What does a Rockwood girl say

right after she loses her virginity? "Get off me, Daddy, you're

crushing my smokes." "

I'd love to be one of those people who could throw off the perfect

zinger. The kind with the optimal amount of sting, but with enough of

the funny stuff to keep you from looking like a freak. But in my

experience, those perfect zingers never leap to mind at the right

time.

"Funny, O'Donnell. Hey, hold on a sec." I set the phone down on my

desk and rushed down the hall to his office. Standing in the doorway,

I could see their wee brains straining to figure out how I could be in

O'Donnell's office and on the phone at the same time. "There's nothing

funny about the Derringer case, and there's definitely nothing funny

about some guy getting over on his daughter. You say something like

that to me again, and it'll feel like someone stretched your sad little

ball sack up over that big empty head of yours."

I stormed back toward my office before I could make things worse.

Behind me, I heard O'Donnell yell out, "Real nice, Kincaid," over the

other guys' laughter. I hadn't meant it to be funny, but if they were

going to take it that way, so be it.

I had to hand it to O'Donnell. He could be a Grade A jerk, but at

least the guy could take it. As I slammed down the phone in my office,

I could hear his laugh above all the others.

I waited for my pulse to return to normal, then called over to the jail

to make sure Derringer was still in custody. The Multnomah County

holding center's under an order from a federal judge for overcrowding.

If the cells get full, the sheriff's office is required to start

releasing prisoners according to a court-created formula. In theory, a

sex offender in on a parole hold should be one of the last to be

released, but I'd stopped being surprised by MCSO's decisions a long

time ago.

I finally got connected to a Deputy Lamborn.

"You calling about Frank Derringer?" he asked. "Because I've been

trying all morning to figure out who to call, and I'm getting ready to

come off shift. Can't read the PO's signature for shit."

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Well, we noticed something I thought the PO should know about. When

we bring the prisoners in for booking, they've got to strip down out of

their street clothes and put on their jail blues. Anyway, when

Derringer was changing, one of the guys noticed that Derringer doesn't

have any pubic hair."

"Come again?" I said.

"Yep, all gone down there. So, anyway, we assumed he had crabs or

something and were joking around about what lucky prisoner was gonna

have to share a cell with him. But then I noticed Derringer had a

parole hold for an Attempted Sod One and figured a sex offender might

have a more sinister reason for getting rid of the short and cur lies

Thought someone should know about it."

That someone was me. I wrote down Lamborn's information so I could add

him to my witness list. Then I cut the call short so I could call

Derringer's parole officer to see if he knew anything else.

He picked up the phone on the first ring. "Renshaw."

I introduced myself to Dave Renshaw as the DA who was going to pick up

the Derringer case, then passed along Deputy Lamborn's observation.

"Well, I don't like what he had to say about my penmanship, but the boy

was certainly using his noggin, wasn't he?"

"I'd say so. Unless Derringer's got some explanation, it looks like he

knew he was going out for a victim and didn't want to leave any

physical evidence behind. I was calling to see if you had anything in

your file that might help. Derringer hasn't been out on parole for

long, so if we could show that no one ever noticed anything unusual

about Derringer's appearance when he was in prison "

Renshaw cut me off. "Oh, I can do better than that. One of Mr.

Derringer's parole conditions is that he submit to pethismographic

examination." My silence told him I didn't know what that was.

"Standard for most sex offenders. A counselor hooks the guy's private

parts up to an EKG and then shows slides of various sexual images. By

monitoring what gets someone like Mr. Derringer hot, the counselor can

see whether the parolee's preferred fantasy images are changing with

treatment or whether he's still perverted."

"Are you about to say what I hope?"

"Yes, ma'am. Derringer was in let's see, I've got his file right here

yep, just last week for his initial examination, and I was there for

it."

"And everything was normal down there?"

"I don't know about that, but, yes, I definitely would've noticed if he

had shaved that area, and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

"And what were the pethismograph results?" I asked.

"Oh, the doctor would tell you that Derringer was responding to

treatment. Derringer's pulse got pretty fast during some of the

violent porn and stayed flat and steady during what most of us would

consider straight porn, but his Johnson stayed limp the whole time. The

doctor thought Derringer's pulse raced out of nervousness that he might

get caught getting off on the violence. But with what I know so far

about this new case, I think Derringer was getting turned on but just

wasn't responding downstairs."

Definitely possible. We were wrapping up the call when Renshaw said,

"Now this is interesting. I was flipping through the file while we

were talking. I usually get the facts of my guys' cases straight from

the police report, but intake typed in something that must've come from

the prosecuting attorney's file. The notes say that Derringer's

brother, Derrick, had offered himself as Derringer's alibi witness."

"This is on Derringer's old case?"

"Right, the Attempted Sod," Renshaw clarified. "I didn't realize that

Derringer ever tried to go with an alibi, but it says here that Derrick

was scheduled to testify that Frank was with him when the girl said she

was attacked. Then our Mr. Derringer turned around and changed his

defense. Instead of saying it wasn't him, he argued the whole thing

was consensual rough sex, trying to get the case bumped down to

statutory rape. In the end, Derringer pled guilty as part of a plea

bargain, but that doesn't stop him from telling me at every opportunity

that the girl consented. Everyone I supervise is innocent, don't you

know."

I thanked him profusely for all the information and assured him I'd be

calling him as a witness. For now, I had other work to do.

Renshaw had lodged a detainer against Derringer based on probable cause

that he'd had unsupervised contact with a minor, a violation of his

parole conditions. Derringer was booked over the weekend, so his case

would be called in the Justice Center arraignment court this afternoon

for a release hearing. Technically, a parole detainer is enough to

hold a parolee for up to sixty days pending a hearing. I would have

liked to keep Derringer in custody on the violation and wait for MCT to

finish the investigation before I decided what charges to file.

The problem was that the allegation underlying Derringer's violation

was essentially an allegation of new criminal conduct. In these

circumstances, most local judges won't hold the parolee in custody

unless the State actually files new charges. So I needed to have a

charging instrument ready in a few hours or the court might cut

Derringer loose.

One alternative was to issue the lowest-level charges, like assault,

kidnapping, and rape. That would be enough to hold Derringer until MCT

was finished. Once the grand jury heard the complete evidence, I could

come back with an indictment for Attempted Aggravated Murder. I'd been

burned by this method before, though. A smart defense attorney can

convince a defense-oriented judge that upping the charges on a

defendant after he has been arraigned on the initial complaint is

prosecutorial misconduct. Under the law, it's not, but that doesn't

stop a court from doing what it wants.

This case would turn on Kendra Martin. Before I made up my mind about

charges, I wanted more than Walker and Johnson's opinion about her.

During my stint in DVD, I'd dealt with a few street girls. Most of

what Walker and Johnson said about Kendra sounded right. I wasn't

surprised that she would lie about the work and about her habit. And,

if she was street smart, I believed she didn't get into that car on her

own. What bothered me was her initial response to Walker and Johnson.

Detectives with their experience are used to the typical rape victim

response. It's normal for rape victims to be defensive and to direct

their anger at police. But this girl, a thirteen-year-old, sounded

like a nightmare. If I was going to go all out and guarantee myself a

tough trial, I didn't want to spend the next few months fighting with a

teenage sociopath.

I went to the law library and pulled a copy of the Physicians' Desk

Reference. The emergency room had injected Kendra Martin with Narcan

to prevent her from overdosing. According to the PDR, the active

ingredient in Narcan was naloxone, which reverses the effects of

opiates and induces immediate withdrawal. Even for a relatively new

user like Kendra Martin, the shock to her system would be enough to

create a very unhappy camper.

The effects of heroin last longer than the effects of naloxone. As a

result, once the naloxone wears off, the person might have a short

period where they're still under the influence of the opiates. Those

effects gradually wear off, and the person returns to their normal

state.

If Walker and Johnson were right about Kendra Martin essentially being

a nice girl, the mix of Narcan and heroin would explain her initial

crankiness, followed by a period of indifference.

Having satisfied my main point of doubt, I decided to go with my gut.

Walker was right. Derringer and his buddy got a thirteen-year-old girl

to shoot up a boatload of heroin, then beat her, choked her, sexually

assaulted her, and left her to die in the woods. The case would be

tough to prove, but it was looking better now with the information from

the jail and Renshaw. There was enough for an attempted aggravated

murder indictment and enough to get it to the jury. And even if a jury

didn't go for the attempted agg, it could still convict on the kidnap,

assault, and sex charges.

I spent the next couple of hours reviewing the reports that had been

written on the case so far. I was impressed. Most of the time, if you

read a cop's reports after the case has been described to you, the

reports and the verbal summary don't quite match up. Either something

was omitted from the conversation or, more commonly, left out of the

written reports. MCT's good reputation appeared to be well deserved. I

was pleased to see that everything I already knew, and nothing else,

was in the reports. And I was irritated that I couldn't stop myself

from paying special attention to the quality of Chuck Forbes's work.

Chuck had joined the bureau after college and had wound up on the fast

track into MCT after he obtained a murder confession that eventually

led to one of Oregon's first capital sentences. I took a special

interest in Chuck Forbes for more personal reasons: He had taken my

virginity from me in high school (OK, I kind of gave it to him), and we

had continued our bad behavior on and off throughout our youth. We

bickered constantly back then, and we still argue today. However, I'd

made a vow to stop mixing wild sex with the fighting almost a decade

ago, the summer after my college graduation. Once I make a vow, I

stick with it.

We lost touch when I started law school in California, and my visits to

Portland had dwindled and then stopped. But then the New Yorker I

called my husband at the time took a job here, so I moved back. My

friendship with Chuck and the accompanying spark had reignited when he

showed up to testify as the arresting police officer in my first trial

as a DDA. And now here I was, divorced and long past high school,

trying to read his police reports without reminiscing.

Deciding I needed to take a break, I put on my coat and walked over to

the Pit for lunch. Tourists might assume that the Pioneer Place mall's

food court owed its nickname to its basement location, but they'd be

wrong.

My usual Pit selection is Let's Talk Turkey, the only downtown deli

that uses turkey from the bird instead of the pressed stuff. The good

stuff you get on Thanksgiving beats slimy slabs of processed turkey

food, hands down. However, healthy just wasn't going to cut it today.

I decided a corn dog on a stick and a chocolate milkshake promised the

perfect balance of sugar and fat. It had been awhile since I'd

indulged my weakness for food on a stick, but I soon remembered why I

always felt guilty when I did. The poor girl working at Food on a

Stick wore the same uniform that the unfortunate employees had been

subjected to when I was in high school: short shorts, a scoop-necked

tank top, and a hat that can only be described as phallic. Like the

generations of Food on a Stick girls that preceded her, she had long

flowing hair, thin arms and hips, and breasts that didn't look like

they wanted to stay in that little top. How does such a big company

get away with never hiring a man?

The floor of the food booth was elevated and surrounded on three sides

by mirrors. She was bent over at the waist, bobbing up and down as she

pumped the juice from a bucket full of lemons for the nation's most

famous fresh-squeezed lemonade. She seemed grateful to have a break

from the thrusting to get my corn dog.

As I walked away, I saw a group of prepubescent boys sitting on a bench

by the escalator, enjoying the view of the resumed lemon-pumping. I

knew they weren't the first group of boys to cut class to hang out and

watch a Food on a Stick girl at work. Hell, it was practically a rite

of passage in America's suburbs. That said, I still couldn't help

myself when I heard one of them speculate what the girl could do on his

stick.

Introducing myself as a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County,

I flashed my badge to make sure they appreciated the enormity of my

clout. "You all better get back to school or I'm going to have to page

a police officer from the truancy unit to have you picked up." The

kids hightailed it up the escalator faster than you can say

there's-no-such-thing-as-a-truancy-officer-anymore.

Feeling good about my lunch and my good deed, I headed back to the

courthouse to draft the complaint about Derringer.

A criminal complaint is the initial document used to charge a defendant

with a felony in Oregon. It's simply a piece of paper, signed by the

prosecuting district attorney,

notifying the defendant of the charges that have been filed. Once the

defendant is arraigned on the complaint, the State has a week to

present evidence to a grand jury and return an indictment. Without an

indictment, the complaint will be dismissed and the defendant will be

released from the court's jurisdiction.

I drafted a complaint charging Derringer with Attempted Aggravated

Murder, Kidnapping in the First Degree, and Unlawful Sexual Penetration

in the First Degree. I also included charges of Rape in the First

Degree and Sodomy in the First Degree, since Derringer could be held

responsible as an accomplice for the sex acts of the other suspect,

even if the second suspect was never caught. Finally, just so

O'Donnell wouldn't think I had completely disregarded his opinion, I

added the Class C felony of Assault in the Third Degree.

I walked the complaint over to the Justice Center so I could get a look

at Derringer and argue bail myself. The Justice Center is a newer

building two blocks down from the county courthouse. It houses PPB's

central precinct, a booking facility, holding cells for prisoners with

upcoming court appearances, and four non-trial courtrooms, used for

routine preliminary matters like arraignments, pleas, and release

hearings.

I took the stairs to JC-2, the courtroom where Derringer's case would

be called on the two o'clock arraignment docket, and handed the court

clerk a copy of the complaint, a motion for continued detention of the

defendant, and a supporting affidavit summarizing the facts. The JC-2

DA looked relieved when I told her I'd handle the Derringer matter

myself. She was a new lawyer I'd met a few weeks ago at a happy hour.

I suspected she was just getting used to the monotony of calling the

misdemeanors and petty felonies that comprise most of the JC-2 docket.

God help her if she had picked up the Derringer file to find an

Attempted Agg Murder complaint.

Judge Arnie Weidemann was presiding over the docket today. It could

have been worse. Weidemann was a judge who truly stood for nothing. He

was neither a state's judge nor a liberal. He didn't write law review

articles expounding on either judicial activism or conservative

restraint. He was interested in neither outcome nor analytical

process.

If he felt strongly about anything, it was keeping his courtroom

moving. Quick from-the-hip decisions during the juggling of a crowded

docket were his forte. Weidemann, therefore, was a terrible judge to

draw if you had a complex legal issue that required sophisticated

analysis. He wasn't bad, though, for what I needed today. A

superficial take on Derringer's case would weigh in my favor on

pretrial issues like release and bail.

When it was time for Derringer's matter, I took a moment to look over

at him while the MCSO deputy accompanied him to the defense table. His

hair was shaved down to a shadow not much darker than the one left on

his face from the night in jail. A tattoo of a vine of thorns hugged

the base of his skull. Everything about him looked chiseled except for

the acne scars cratering his cheekbones. His strong jaw was clenched,

his lips a cold slit. His eyes appeared to register nothing as he

stared straight ahead, seemingly unfazed by his current

circumstances.

Then his head turned slightly as I approached, and I realized he was

watching me out of the corner of his eye. It was unnerving, but I went

ahead and called the case. "The next matter is State of Oregon v.

Franklin R. Derringer, case number 9902-37654. Samantha Kincaid

appearing for the State. The defendant is in custody on a parole

detainer for having unsupervised contact with a minor. Based on the

same incident underlying the parole violation, the State now charges

him with Attempted Aggravated Murder and other substantive crimes in a

six-count complaint that I have forwarded to the court. The State

requests that the defendant be held without bail."

An audible snort from Derringer revealed his disdain. He had already

filled out an affidavit of indigency, requesting the court to appoint a

state-paid attorney on his behalf. The court now made a finding that

Derringer qualified for court-appointed counsel. Then a hard case got

even tougher. The judge appointed Lisa Lopez to represent him.

Public defenders generally fall into one of three different camps.

There's no diplomatic way to describe the first bunch. They're bad

attorneys who wind up in the public defenders' office by default.

Whether they're devoted to a specific client or to the larger cause of

criminal defendants' rights is, in practical terms, irrelevant. Even

at the top of their game, the performance of these lawyers is dismal so

pathetic, in fact, that most prosecutors will admit it takes the fun

out of winning.

A second crop of public defenders consists of what I call the straight

shooters. These attorneys have been around long enough to understand

the realities of the system, and axiom number one is that the

overwhelming majority of criminal defendants are guilty. The straight

shooters review discovery materials early on and decide whether the

client even stands a chance. If he doesn't (and most don't) the

defendant will soon get a heart-to-heart from his attorney. The

straight shooter will explain the way things work to his client and

then negotiate the most favorable plea deal possible.

If the client has a serious defense, or if there is a real possibility

of having material evidence suppressed, the straight shooter will take

the issue to court and do a good job trying it. He or she will always

deal honestly with the prosecuting attorney.

The second camp of defense attorneys is my favorite. Lisa Lopez was

not, however, among them. She belonged to the third group, the true

believers. Card-carrying members of this crowd represent the most

naive demographic still in existence. It doesn't matter how long

they've been around trying cases, these attorneys are fundamentally

incapable of distrusting their clients. Don't misunderstand me:

There's plenty of distrust to go around for police, victims, witnesses,

and prosecutors. But they always believe their clients.

Lisa Lopez was the truest of the true believers. Everyone knows that

police sometimes make mistakes, overstep their bounds, and even engage

in grossly unethical and illegal acts of malice. Yet somehow these

relatively rare instances of misconduct happened to transpire in 95

percent of Lisa Lopez's cases. And, of course, all her mistreated

clients were also innocent.

Lopez stepped forward and obtained the court's permission to meet with

Derringer and review the complaint and affidavit before she argued the

release motion.

For the next fifteen minutes, I pretended to review the file while I

looked at Lopez and Derringer huddled together like teammates on a high

school debate team. I determined he was articulate, because Lisa was

scribbling frantically on her legal pad. In a crunch, most attorneys

will cut the client off when it's obvious the time would be better

spent reviewing documents.

Lisa was impressive. When the judge took us back on the record, you

would've thought she'd had the case for a week.

"Your honor, this case is grossly overcharged. Ms. Kincaid's

affidavit lacks any direct evidence that anyone attempted to kill the

alleged victim in this case. Moreover, Mr. Derringer shouldn't even

be here. They've got the wrong guy. My client cooperated with police.

He told them he was at his brother's house at the time of the incident.

His brother has corroborated that information. Finally, Mr. Derringer

is not a flight risk. He was born and raised in southeast Portland,

and his family still lives here. There simply is no basis to hold him

without bail. We ask that he be released on his own recognizance."

"Ms. Kincaid?"

The key is to establish a good reason to hold on to the defendant

without showing more cards than you need to. "The defendant poses a

risk to the public that cannot be overstated. He is a paroled sex

offender who is only four months out of prison. His prior offense was

an attempt to sodomize a fifteen-year-old girl. In this case, he is

charged with kidnapping a thirteen-year-old girl, violating her with a

foreign object, and then directing his unidentified accomplice to rape

and sodomize her. According to his parole officer, the defendant's

only employment since his release from prison has been through

temporary agencies. If released, he is not only a flight risk, he also

poses an enhanced safety risk to the community."

"Alright, I've heard enough. How 'bout I split the baby on this one.

I'll make him eligible for release on enhanced bail of four hundred

thousand dollars. If he posts bail, he will be released to Close

Street Supervision."

"Your honor, the State also requests that you grant our motion to

withhold the victim's name, telephone number, and address from the

defense." Oregon's discovery laws require the State to notify the

defense of every potential witness's name and location information,

unless the court finds good cause to withhold discovery. "She is a

child witness, and the nature of this offense makes her vulnerable to

intimidation. The risk of contact with the victim is aggravated in

this case, where an unknown and unindicted co-conspirator remains at

large."

Nothing was ever easy with Lisa. "I object to the State's motion,

Judge. The prosecution's entire case rests on this girl's

identification of my client. Obviously, I need to know who she is and

what her history is. I also have a right and an obligation to contact

her to see if she'll talk to my investigator."

The docket was crowded today, and Weidemann was taking a typically

Solomonic approach to keep it moving. The problem with this was that

it prompted sneaky lawyers like me and Lisa Lopez to argue for more

than what we actually wanted so we'd get a bigger chunk of the pie.

All I really wanted was to keep Kendra Martin's address from Derringer.

I've never seen a case where the court protected the victim's identity.

And Lisa had been around long enough to know that no judge was going

to hand over the victim's home address once a DA had argued that she

might be at risk. Yet here we were, arguing.

The result was predictable. "The State will disclose the victim's

identity to the defense. As for the victim's location information,

reasonable information will be provided to Ms. Lopez so she can

prepare for trial. She will not, however, be permitted to divulge the

location information to Mr. Derringer."

Once the contested issues were addressed, Lopez recited the usual

waivers and invocations of rights for the record. Derringer invoked

his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, meaning we couldn't question him

without Lopez's presence. And he waived his speedy trial rights.

Technically, there's a statute that gives defendants the right to be

tried within thirty days unless they're released on their own

recognizance. No one wants to go to trial that quickly, so defendants

routinely waive their speedy trial rights at arraignment once the

pretrial release decision has been made.

I made the appropriate notes in my file, picked up the paperwork from

the court clerk, and left, satisfied. With that high a bail, Derringer

would need to post $40,000 cash to get out. Even if his family was

willing to put up their own money for him, I doubted they had it. Worst

case was that he'd be out on Close Street Supervision. If I called in

a favor, they'd use electronic monitoring to put him on house arrest

pending trial. It would also be some consolation that we could watch

the house and get a phone tap to try to find the second guy.

Lisa caught up with me on the stairs outside the courtroom and gave me

a thumbs up. "Thanks for the case, Samantha. My alibi versus your

heroin-shooting prostitute? Looks like a winner."

"I'm sure your client will be happy to have served as trial practice

for you when he's serving twenty years with a reputation as a child

molester who can't even get it up. Just a tip, but you might want to

check out Derringer's brother before you hang your hat on him."

I was going to have to tell her about the problems with Derringer's

alibi witness eventually, so I might as well do it now to knock her

down a few pegs. As is the case with most bluster, I didn't know if it

would work, but it was worth a shot. Lopez was right. The case would

be tough without additional evidence. I walked back to the courthouse

praying that MCT would find me something more.

Spending the first seven hours of my day on a case I hadn't even known

about until this morning had taken its toll. By the time I got back to

my office, I had fourteen voice mail messages, a stack of police

reports to review, and a flashing message on my computer screen

announcing I had mail. If people would just behave themselves, my job

would be so much easier.

Still, I managed to leave the office in time to make my dinner

reservation in the Pearl District. Until a few years ago, no one

distinguished between the Pearl District and Old Town. Growing up, we

defined Old Town as the entire area north of downtown, between the

Willamette River and 1-405. Other than the train station and a few

restaurants Portlanders called China Town, there weren't many

legitimate reasons to go to Old Town back then. Those three square

miles harbored the majority of the city's homeless population, a

thriving drug trade, and cheap bars with underground behind-the-counter

needle-exchange programs. Most of the buildings in the area were

abandoned warehouses.

But life north of Burnside changed in the early 1990s,

when Portland's economy began to experience its current boom with the

help of Nike, its nationally recognized ad agency, and more high-tech

companies than you could shake a stick at. Portland became the

sought-after new address for thousands of upwardly mobile young

professionals.

To uprooted Californians and to Easterners like my ex-husband, a move

to Portland was supposed to represent a dedication to a new way of

living, a clean slate, a commitment to a simpler lifestyle that

balanced work, play, and family. Their office walls were lined with

photographs of them hiking in the Columbia Gorge and skiing Mount Hood,

and they bought life memberships in the Sierra Club. But they also

drove Range Rovers and Land Cruisers that got eleven miles to the

gallon and had never actually been muddied by off-road use.

One upside of the Yuppie Takeover, however, was the development of the

Pearl District. A group of savvy developers foresaw the desire of this

new crowd to live in upscale housing close to downtown. They purchased

entire blocks of warehouses on the west end of Old Town and refurbished

them as loft apartments and townhouses. Buildings you used to be

afraid to walk by now boasted million-dollar apartments. Along with

the housing had come a slew of chic restaurants, retail shops, hair

salons, interior decorators, and every other business that might make

the life of some thirty-year-old millionaire a little more

comfortable.

Some of the old-timers, artists who had used the warehouses as

inexpensive studio space, complained about the gentrification. But

most Portlanders, like me, were happy to have a neighborhood close to

downtown where they could go after work for dinner and a drink.

Tonight's dinner was at Oba, my favorite Pearl District spot. The bar

in the front of the restaurant was, at least for now, the beautiful

people's place to see and be seen. And, although I didn't have

first-hand knowledge, Oba enjoyed a reputation as a good place to find

a companion for the rest of the night. I came for the food.

Grace was already there when I arrived. Despite the throngs of people

packed into the bar, my best friend had managed to procure a seat at a

table of young and painfully attractive men. One of them was returning

from the bar with her favorite drink, a Cosmopolitan. And, of course,

all of them were laughing. Grace Hannigan is one of the funniest

people I know.

I worked my way over to the table and leaned over so Grace could hear

me. "You been here long?"

"Hey, woman. I didn't see you come in. I just got here a little bit

ago."

One of the men at the table got up and offered his chair.

I could barely hear Grace over the noise. She leaned in. "This one on

my right is a client. He saw me walk in and waved me over. He's a

computer programmer. The rest of them are with him." She leaned in

even closer and said in my ear, "The blond one's got potential. He's

coming in next week. I made room on my calendar."

Grace cuts hair. It's a good thing she's got the kind of job where a

guy can make an appointment to see her on a risk-free basis, or she

would probably never get a date. You know how actresses and models say

that guys never ask them out? You're supposed to infer that they're so

beautiful that men are too intimidated to risk rejection. I wouldn't

have believed it unless I had a best friend like Grace. She has

collagen-free pouty lips, bright white teeth, and flawless skin that's

alabaster in winter and bronzed in summer. Her hair looks different

every time I see her, but her natural curls always frame her face just

right. And she can eat all the junk she wants and never get fat. I'm

so glad I know her, or I'd probably hate her.

Despite Grace's looks, men who are obviously attracted to her rarely

ask her out. Instead, they make appointments for haircuts. Eventually,

they get around to asking her if she has time to grab a drink or dinner

afterward, but they always use the haircut as the way in. Grace says

she can never tell whether a man's appointment is a pre-date formality

or if he just wants his hair cut, but I keep telling her that any man

willing to pay $60 for a haircut is probably looking for a date. A

nice shag. A good bang. A first-rate bob.

I ordered a Bombay Sapphire martini, but we didn't last at the bar for

long. We were eager to talk about the week that had passed since we'd

last seen each other, and the noise was too much, so we moved to our

table.

I let her go first, because her news was always more fun. Most of her

week this time was spent working on the set of a movie being filmed in

the area. Grace's business had been thriving in town for years, but in

the last couple of years she had developed a strong reputation as an

on-set stylist for the increasing number of film productions that were

coming to Portland.

As much as Grace enjoyed the new field of work, what she really seemed

to love was the dish. Grace had always acted as part-time therapist to

clients who trusted her with their life's secrets, and she actually

refrained from passing these tidbits on to others. However, she felt

no such loyalty toward pretentious thespians and spoiled prima donnas.

Working regularly on production sets satisfied Grace's lust for good,

spreadable dirt.

Tonight's topic was the disagreeable side of America's most beloved

actress. Physically, she was as perfect as Grace had expected. But

after working with her for three days, Grace now believed her to be one

of the ugliest people she'd met.

"This girl was killing me, Sam. She likes to tell all those magazines

that her famous hair just looks that way on its own? Well, God let me

make it through the weekend so I could tell you otherwise. She must've

stopped shooting six times a day, yelling at me, It's drying out, it's

drying out. Can't you see I need a mist?" Then I'd have to stop what

I was doing and spray her head with a mixture of moisturizer and Evian

water. She says regular water leaves a 'residue." Then everyone had

to sit there and wait while I scrunched her hair with my fingers until

it dried, to lock in what she says are natural curls.

"So, during a break, when I was touching her up, I mentioned in passing

that shooting schedules can be hard on the hair. You know, all that

blow drying, crimping, curling, and whatnot really takes its toll.

Truth is, her hair's toast, beyond saving. I pulled her hair up around

her shoulders and told her she'd look just as beautiful with a short

cut if she wanted a change after this movie's done. The girl

wigged."

Grace lifted her head and affected a slight southern accent. " "I'm

not some house frau who needs a frumpy easy-to-manage hairdo. With all

due respect, you're not being paid to think. You're being paid to make

sure I look good. And this hair is what looks good, what has put me on

the cover of hundreds of magazines, and what makes me worth twenty

million dollars a film." It was all I could do not to cut that shit

right off her head. Add the fact that she picks her teeth and reeks of

garlic, and I don't see her as America's little sweetheart anymore."

People judge others by their professions, but the reality is that

Grace, in addition to being funny and extremely good at what she does,

is incredibly smart. She always has been. In high school, the two of

us were always neck and neck at the top of the class. Although we

started to lose touch a few years into college, she was the first

person I called when I moved back to Portland, and we picked up the

friendship right where we'd left off.

As much as I was enjoying Grace's comic relief, I couldn't get the

Derringer case out of my mind. I laid out everything I knew so far.

She shook her head. "I don't know how you handle a job where you have

to think about that kind of stuff. There must be some happy medium

between those sick subjects and the superficial junk I have to deal