Judgement Calls

witness's testimony.

I hadn't discussed these questions with Dr. Malone, but I sensed that

he had a nonobjective investment in the case. I chose my words

cautiously to get the answer I wanted.

"During your medical residency, have you ever seen a patient as

seriously injured as Kendra Martin was from the hands of another

person?"

"No, I have not. Of course, I've had patients die, but it's always

been from either natural causes or from some sort of weapon." Then he

looked at the jury as if he'd been trained to do this. "But, as little

sleep as I sometimes catch during my work in the ER, I had trouble

sleeping after I treated Kendra Martin. Without a gun, without a

knife, someone had physically ruined this child with his bare hands."

Several years from now, after tending to and losing scores of other

patients to the hands of sadists, Dr. Malone might be able to offer

unbiased, affect less testimony in a case like this. But, for now, he

had crossed over from a detached observer into our side of things, and

he wanted Frank Derringer to go away. I felt confident enough to

wander into un ventured territory with him as my witness.

"In your experience as an ER physician, do you develop a sense of a

patient's chances for survival when they come to you for treatment?"

"Sure. The hardest part of being a doctor in the emergency room is

that we often get patients for whom it's too late to do anything. We

lose a lot of people whose chances have passed before they even come to

us."

"And, in your opinion, in light of your review of Kendra Martin's

condition when she arrived for treatment, what would have happened to

her if she had not been found in the Gorge and brought to you at

Emanuel?"

He paused before responding. "I remind myself daily that I'm not God,

that I don't know this world's truths any more than anyone else. But

in my medical opinion, Kendra Martin's lucky those kids happened across

her. Another couple of hours out there would have killed her. She was

crazy high on heroin, but that, in and of itself, would not have killed

her. It did, however, decrease her chances of surviving. She was

losing a lot of blood from her anal injuries. Her blood pressure and

pulse were low, which further reduced the rate of oxygen distribution

through her body. And it was cold outside. I'm confident that if she

were left overnight, she would have died."

I needed to write myself a reminder to keep this guy's name and number

for future testimony.

When we were done talking about Kendra's physical injuries, I directed

his attention to the effects of drug use. He started out by explaining

that, although Kendra may have used heroin frequently enough to develop

a physical addiction, she did not have the track marks that give away

any hard-core addict.

"We've heard testimony earlier, Doctor, that Kendra Martin was

'popping' heroin when she used it voluntarily. Are you familiar with

that term?"

He indicated that he was and explained that popping was the street name

for shooting up with a subcutaneous injection. Relative newcomers to

heroin could inject the dope just beneath the skin and still get a good

high from it. Once they were hooked and needed a bigger high, they'd

need to inject straight into a vein.

He explained that, on the night she was attacked, Kendra was under the

influence of heroin that had been injected directly into a vein. To

prevent her from overdosing, he had injected her with Narcan, a

narcotic antagonist. Within a few minutes of injection, Narcan

completely reversed the narcotic effects of heroin. Used on someone

dependent on the narcotic, an antagonist could trigger extreme symptoms

similar to withdrawal. It helped explain the severe mood swings and

general nastiness that Kendra displayed toward the police that night.

Finally, Lisa had a cross-examination ready. It wasn't unexpected.

Malone had to concede that heroin had adverse effects upon a user's

memory. It was an obvious point, but jurors always listened more

carefully when it came from a doctor. Fortunately, I had plenty of

evidence to back up Ken-dra's ID, so I wrote the day off as a win for

our team.

To reward myself for my great day in trial, I picked up some Pad Thai

at Orchid Garden on my way home. Two hours later, I was lacing up my

New Balances. The peanuts weighed me down for the first mile or so,

but after ten minutes I started to work out my stride and could feel

the endorphins kicking in. Seventeen minutes after I started, I

finally reached my two-mile turnaround point at the Rose Quarter, home

of the Trailblazers. I know a lot of runners who claim to reach a

meditative state when they run. I'm not one of them. I get bored, and

my mind wanders. As I finished my lap around the stadium and began

heading back up Broadway toward my neighborhood, I was laughing to

myself about the joke at work that the DA's office needed a separate

sports celebrity unit. A better name for Portland's NBA team would be

the Jail Blazers.

And it wasn't just the basketball team. After the local ice skating

princess gained infamy for having had her rival slugged in the thigh

with a stick by a very fat bodyguard, she supposedly settled back into

her hometown for a quiet and humble retirement, disturbed only by the

occasional bout of celebrity boxing. The reality is that she partied

like hell and had restraining orders against her ex-husband and the

four ex-boyfriends she'd gone through since him. Apparently all these

people hung out at the same handful of cowboy clubs and trailer-park

bars, and the princess called the police to enforce the restraining

orders every time she happened to run into one of her exes. Throw in

the state's mandatory arrest law for restraining-order violations, and

you've pretty much got yourself a case to be reviewed every Monday

morning, all involving a woman whose name always invites some kind of

media attention.

This line of thought got me through another half a mile or so. I was

passing the Fred Meyer parking lot, about a mile from my house, when I

noticed the car: a brown Toyota Tercel at the back of the lot, close to

Broadway, far beyond where a shopper needed to park at this time of

night. It was too dark to make out the face of the person inside, but

I could see the ember of a cigarette burning near the steering wheel.

It could be anyone. Maybe Fred Meyer made employees park at the back

of the lot. Or maybe the guy was waiting for his wife to get off work.

Or he could be sneaking out of the house to get a few drags of nicotine

in his car. Then there was the possibility that the guy I saw at the

zoo was out to finish me off, having already trashed my house, kicked

my dog, and knocked me out.

I couldn't make out the license plate. I thought about running through

the lot to get a closer look, but I couldn't think of any way for just

my eyes to cross the street while my body stayed a safe distance

away.

So I kept running and tried not to be obvious as I looked up and down

Broadway to make sure I wasn't being followed. When I was a couple

hundred yards past the lot, I saw the car pull out onto Broadway in my

direction. When it stopped for a red light, I ducked into a

convenience store on the corner and pretended to peruse the tabloid

headlines until I saw the car go through the green light and disappear

into the other traffic down Broadway.

I eventually got up the nerve to run home. Well, not that much nerve.

I took a route that involved running an extra couple of miles and

jumping over my back fence.

After locking myself inside my house and setting the alarm, I went

straight to my handbag to find the license plate number I'd scribbled

down at the zoo. I looked on both sides of all the bills, but I

couldn't find it. I must have spent it.

Given the turnaround of cash in a register, the likelihood of it still

being wherever I'd spent it was next to nil. Orchid Garden was most

recent, so I gave it a try.

The employees were closing the place down for the night. They looked

alarmed when I started banging on the door to get their attention, but

after I flashed my DA badge, a pimply bespectacled girl let me in. I

pled my case to an eighteen-year-old kid who wore a tie with his

striped shirt to denote his authority as the night-shift manager, and

he finally let me fish through their singles.

After all that work it wasn't there.

"I told you so," the tie guy reminded me. "I told you, when we take

your money, it goes in the top of the drawer, so it's the first one

paid out."

Like I needed him to explain that to me. I thanked him anyway and went

home angry at myself. Now I had no idea if the brown Tercel had

anything to do with any of this.

I managed to fall asleep, but my pager woke me up shortly after the wee

hours had kicked in. I recognized the number as Garcia's cell, so I

returned the call. He could tell from my voice that he'd woken me and

apologized.

"I wasn't sure whether to call you, but I'm down here at juvie with

Haley Jameson. She got popped for loitering to solicit."

Portland's loitering-to-solicit ordinance was enacted just last year

after the city ran into problems proving prostitution cases under the

state statute. In practice, the only way to prove an agreement to

exchange sex for money was to conduct sting missions using undercover

officers posing as either prostitutes or Johns. It was an expensive

and time-consuming process, and the sting missions had gotten out of

hand. To avoid the stings, the regulars all started insisting on free

samples before they'd negotiate the date: "Let me touch your cock so I

know you're not a cop." What real John's going to turn that down? For

obvious reasons, though, the bureau prohibited officers from engaging

in sexual contact with suspects.

The beginning of the end for sting missions was when an officer decided

to get clever, put a nine-inch rubber replica in his pants, and whipped

it out on an unwitting prostitution suspect. Actually logged it into

evidence after the bust. PPB didn't like it, so they started hiring

non-police informants to conduct the stings. When the weekly scandal

rag disclosed that Portland's finest were paying losers to get hand

jobs, the entire vice unit almost got shut down. The result,

fortunately, was the adoption of a loitering-to-solicit ordinance.

Everyone wins: Police get to stop the street-level prostitution that no

one wants in their neighborhoods without having to conduct stings, and

the Johns and prostitutes take a lesser punishment from a city

ordinance instead of a state statute.

As Tommy described it, Haley's loitering pop was pretty typical. Time

of day, red-light neighborhood, flagging down cars with men in them. It

was usually enough.

"She saying anything?" I asked.

"Nope. She's making it real clear that it's nothing new and she knows

the only thing that's going to happen to her is mandatory counseling

that she'll never attend and assignment to a foster home that she'll

immediately run away from."

"I don't see a lot we can do then, Tommy."

"Agreed. I only called you because she brought up your name. As tough

as she's playing, I think she'd like to get out of it if she could do

it without any work on her part. She told me Kendra said the female DA

on her case was alright, and that if we had told her that day in

February that you were a friend of Kendra, she might not have been such

a bitch."

"Did she say when she talked to Kendra?" I asked.

"Not exactly, but it sounded recent." I knew I shouldn't have believed

Kendra when she said she hadn't been staying in touch with Haley.

"Anyway, since she brought up your name and is apparently hanging with

your vie again, I thought I should call you. You want me to cut her

loose?"

I thought about it. It would do Kendra some good to see the

consequences of the life she'd left behind. "Screw her. Unless she's

willing to give us something useful for vice, put the case through."

"I figured as much but thought it was your call. I'll give her my card

and tell her to call me if she wants to share any info?"

"Go ahead, but I don't see it happening."

I had a hard time falling back asleep.

Nine.

The next day of trial continued uneventfully. Things move along

surprisingly smoothly when the defense never objects or cross-examines

your witnesses. Lisa's silence initially made me nervous, because I

suspected she was reserving the hardball for Kendra. I was wrong,

though.

After Jack Walker's testimony, Kendra took the stand and walked the

jury through her life story. Two female jurors wiped away tears when

Kendra talked about what Derringer had done to her.

To my surprise, Lisa took the high road on cross. She didn't roll

over, but she didn't rip Kendra apart, either.

The entirety of Lisa's cross focused on Kendra's heroin use; she did

not discuss prostitution activity at all. And even her questions about

the drugs did not seem like a character attack. Instead, she zeroed in

on the effects that heroin may have had upon Kendra's perceptions that

night. Even I had to admit that her questions were fair.

After Kendra testified, I called Andrea Martin to the stand, primarily

to humanize Kendra by showing the jury that she had a mother. Her

testimony, which was limited to Kendra's recovery, was uncontroversial,

and Lisa didn't cross-examine her. Andrea had to leave for work once

she left the stand, but Kendra stayed for the rest of the day.

Pleased that Kendra had testified with relatively minor trauma, Chuck,

Grace, and I took her to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner right after

court got out. Nothing tops a hard day's work like a big plate of

carbs followed by spumoni ice cream.

Most of the dinner conversation focused on the trial. Kendra wanted to

know how I thought it was going and what it meant that Lopez hadn't

been tougher on her. I tried not to get her hopes up, explaining that

the defense attorney appeared to be going through the motions so that

Derringer got a fair trial. I didn't voice my growing anxiety that

Lopez was hiding something up her sleeve.

"Well, I don't think there's anything fair about it. He gets to sit

there and glare at me while I have to talk to a bunch of old people I

don't know about what he did. It was really embarrassing for me, and

then he doesn't have to get up there at all. He just gets his fair

trial? What about mine?"

I wasn't going to try to defend the system on this one. "You're right,

kiddo. The rules aren't always fair. But you're playing by them, and

I think things are going well. You did a great job today. I think

those old people who don't know you did know that you were telling the

truth."

Kendra held my eye for a moment, but then turned her attention to

playing with her water glass. I was grateful when the waiter broke the

awkward silence to top off our coffees.

When he left, the silence returned, and Grace invited Kendra out to the

dock behind the Spaghetti Factory to look at boats. I considered

proposing that I take Kendra instead; I'd been wavering about whether

to broach the subject of her renewed contact with Haley Jameson,

despite my warning.

I thought better of it, remembering the summer that our fathers forbade

Grace and me from hanging around the school who recake Left to our own

devices, we would have tired of her in a couple of weeks. But parental

pressure backed us into a corner and we were stuck with helium heels

for months. Plus, right now Kendra saw me as part of a system that was

treating her unfairly. A walk with Grace could be just what she

needed.

So I let my opportunity to talk to Kendra alone slip by and volunteered

to wait around for the bill. Chuck offered to keep me company.

Once Grace and Kendra were out of earshot, he spoke up. "Hey,

something came up at work today, and I wanted you to hear it from me

and not from the news. It's probably nothing, but I know what the

media are going to do with it. And that's going to bring up some stuff

that's been bothering me already."

"Just tell me. What is it?"

"I guess the Oregonian received an anonymous letter today from someone

trying to exonerate Landry and Taylor. Whoever wrote it claimed to

have killed Jamie Zimmerman."

"Jesus. Where the hell's that coming from?"

"Some crackpot. Who knows? Could just be someone who wants attention,

like those people who turn up and claim to be serial killers. Given

the politics around here, it could be some nut job against the death

penalty. Someone trying to make a point, now that it looks like the

state might actually move on some of these death sentences. All I know

is it's bullshit."

"And I think people will see it the same way. It's going to take a lot

more than some anonymous letter to a newspaper to reverse those

convictions."

"Honestly? I'm not even worried about the conviction. I went through

this crap already a few years ago. Landry's attorney tried to make me

out to be some rough rider, framing an innocent old lady to help my own

career. It made me sick to my stomach when the best way to make the

case was for that prick O'Donnell to argue to the jury that I didn't

need to frame people, I could just milk my daddy's name to the top of

the department."

I had never considered how rough the publicity from the Zimmerman case

must have been on Chuck. And now it looked as if he was going to have

to go through it all over again.

"I assume the department's investigating the letter?"

"Yeah, at the highest levels. The Chief met with your boss today, and

they decided to assign Walker and Johnson, since they know the details

of the original Zimmerman case. But Mike and I are off."

"I'm afraid to ask why."

"Like you need to ask why, Sam? Shit!" A family next to us turned

their heads at the noise of Chuck's raised voice and his slap against

the tabletop. He nodded at them and tried to whisper. "They obviously

think that if anything went wrong in that investigation, it had to do

with me. And Mike's my partner. So we're off, and I'm going to be the

center of everybody's fucking conspiracy theory again."

There were actually good reasons for segregating Chuck from the

investigation, even if the DA and the Chief were convinced as I was

sure they were of the truth. But, for the second time tonight, I

thought better of trying to defend the way things sometimes work.

"Chuck, I'm so sorry. Look, you know Ray and Jack are on your side

here. They are not going to set you up. You know how much they

believe in that case. Remember? I thought Walker was going to climax

talking about Taylor's lethal injection."

I smiled, and Chuck shared it with me. "No, you're right. If they

were trying to fuck me, they'd assign IA to it or bring in the Justice

Department. Yeah, Walker and Johnson will handle it right."

It was quiet for a while. "Man, Sam, I've been stewing about this for

hours, and you manage to calm me down. How do you do that?"

"You give me too much credit. You're not taking into account all those

times when I'm the one who can rile you up like no one else."

I paid the bill, and we went out to meet Grace and Kendra. "OK, guys,

it's probably time we called it a night." I put my arm around Kendra.

"This chi ca got school mafiana."

She didn't look too happy about that one. But we finally managed to

get her into Grace's car. Once again, Grace was a lifesaver. The last

thing I needed was an hour-long car ride.

Chuck and I made small talk about Kendra while he walked me to my car.

I could tell he wasn't ready to be alone,

so it didn't surprise me when he asked if I wanted to catch a movie.

I looked at my watch. "Can't. Vinnie awaits, you know. Piss him off,

and he seems to forget about his doggy door. Never know what I might

find on my rugs."

I think he actually tried to hide his disappointment, but he looked

worse than Vinnie does when I take away his Gumby baby. I caved.

"Why don't we rent something? Vinnie'd probably like to see you. But

I get to pick."

He countered with his own conditions. "No subtitles. No cartoons."

Hard bargain, but it was a deal.

A warning to the wise. Don't rent one of those

friends-who-fall-in-love movies with an old lover you've sworn off as

just a friend. Around the time Harry asked Sally if she wanted to

partake of a piece of pecan pie, I made the mistake of pointing out

that the film's only flaw was how implausible it was that they didn't

figure out earlier that they belonged together.

"Yeah?" Chuck said. "Well, take a look at us. Some people might say

that we should've figured out a few things ourselves by now."

It was the first time either of us had ever acknowledged out loud the

potential to be more than friends again. I might like directness in

every other aspect of my life, but I didn't think I liked it in this

context.

"No mistakes here. We were made to have a beautiful friendship," I

said with my best Bogart impersonation.

"Nope, not this time, Sam. Whenever I move a little closer to you, you

pull out something goofy to help you scoot away. Cut it out with the

Casablanca. I'm serious about this."

"Well, maybe you missed your chance to be serious. If you were

serious, and you thought we were meant to be together, you wouldn't

have dumped me."

He laughed out of exasperation. "Sam, we were kids back then. And I

didn't want to dump you, as you put it. But I also didn't want to move

down to California to learn how to be some corporate drone."

"Then you could've come with me and done something else," I said. I

stood up and started heading toward the kitchen, but he took my arm and

pulled me back down.

"You wouldn't have been happy, Sam. You had this idea in your head

about what your life should look like, and back then I just didn't fit

into it."

"Well, what makes you think you'd fit into it now? Maybe you'd start

to feel like I was trying to change you again, and we wouldn't want

that, now, would we?"

"I'd fit in, Sam, because you don't want to change me. We like each

other just the way we are. The problem has been that you won't admit

it. You won't accept that you like everything about me."

"Including your modesty?" I said, trying to laugh.

"Be serious for just a moment, OK, Sam? You know I match every part of

that conflicted personality of yours. You like that I have this crazy

job. You like that part of me is still a big kid. And you'll never

admit it, but you love that I do what I want, even when it meant

letting you down."

This time, when I stood, he let me. I went into the kitchen, poured a

glass of water, and sat down at the table.

He came in after a few minutes. "When you found out your mother had

breast cancer, you came to me, not Roger. And, today, when I heard

about the letter to the paper, you were the one I wanted to talk to. We

don't have to work out everything in our history and our future right

now. But don't pretend you haven't thought about this, Sam. I'll go if

that's what you want, but I really do need you tonight."

It wasn't until the door closed that I realized I didn't want him to

leave yet. And that it was important enough that I was willing to

figure out the rest of it later.

He was still on my front steps when I opened the door. He came back

in, and we didn't talk again for the rest of the night.

Given my long-standing commitment to keeping things with Chuck

platonic, I would have expected larger repercussions from the night's

activities. But the sky didn't fall, lightning didn't strike, and I

didn't even regret it in the morning.

The truth was, I hadn't felt that good for months. Whether it was just

the aftereflects of the great sex remained to be seen.

And it had apparently taken Chuck's mind off the Taylor investigation.

He hadn't even watched the local news before we went to sleep.

Unfortunately, reality set back in quickly. While I scurried around

the house picking up the various items of clothing strewn on the path

between the front door and my bed, Chuck grabbed the Oregonian from the

porch.

The story about the anonymous letter was a long one and had made the

front page of the Metro section. Putting aside my outrage that the

press had gone forward on the basis on a single anonymous unconfirmed

letter, I could acknowledge that the story was actually fair. It

raised the possibility that

Taylor and Landry were innocent, but it also quoted experienced

criminal investigators who were familiar with the common phenomenon of

false confessions in high-profile cases. Some even suggested it might

be a publicity stunt by a death-penalty opponent.

Although the paper did not reprint the letter itself, I was surprised

by the amount of detail revealed about the letter's contents. The

typewritten letter was mailed from Roseburg, a logging town a couple of

hours south of Portland. According to the report, the letter described

with dispassion the grizzly details of the final hours of Jamie

Zimmerman's life and her horrible death. Its anonymous author claimed

to have been playing pool at Tommy Z's when he saw Jamie Zimmerman

running her tongue across her parted lips, watching him while she did a

nasty dance in front of the jukebox. She made it clear what she wanted

when she graphically simulated fellatio on the last of many bottles of

Rolling Rock he bought her.

I looked up from the paper. "Tommy Z's? Did that come up in the

investigation?"

Chuck nodded. "Truck stop slash biker bar in southeast Portland. It

was reported during the trial, though, so anyone could know about it.

Margaret Landry said Taylor picked up Jamie there. We found witnesses

who placed Taylor at the bar around the time Jamie disappeared, and

Jamie was known to hang out there sometimes."

I went back to the article. The author claimed that Jamie danced for a

couple of songs and then walked over to him and said she noticed him

because he looked dangerous. After some token small talk, he drove her

back to his apartment. In the privacy of the apartment, the dance she

began at

Tommy Z's evolved into a strip tease and a lap dance. After the two

began to engage in what the article paraphrased as "consensual

intercourse," what might have been merely a desperate exchange of

bodily fluids between two pathetic lives took a violent turn. According

to the author, a drunk Jamie started laughing during the act itself,

mocking her anonymous lover about the size of his manhood. The man hit

her repeatedly, telling her to shut up. The author wrote that he

initially wrapped his hands around Jamie Zimmerman's throat to silence

her taunts. But when her eyes started to bulge and she began tensing

her entire body in an effort to free her throat from his grasp, he

realized he wouldn't stop; that he had never felt such power and

gratification as through her suffering.

When I'd finished reading, I looked up at Chuck. He read my thoughts.

"You're going to tell me it could be worse, right?"

I nodded.

"I know this kind of stuff happens in death cases and it's something

I've got to deal with, but I'm telling you, Sam, I just don't have it

in me. At Landry's trial, the entire defense was based on an attack

against me as a cop and a person. That guilty verdict, and the verdict

against Taylor: I saw those as vindication. I haven't even been able

to deal with my feelings about Taylor's execution, because I can't

separate my feelings about the execution itself from the stress I was

feeling about the publicity that would go along with it. I knew that

somehow this would come back around to me."

I stood up and took him in my arms. He held me tightly, and I could

feel his body begin to shake. "Dammit, Sam, I didn't do anything

wrong." I stroked his hair and ran my hand along his back, whispering

shushing sounds in his ear.

Then I led him back to bed to comfort him the only way I could think

to.

Chuck was scheduled to testify at the trial that morning, but we went

to the courthouse separately to make sure we weren't seen arriving

together. I hoped that concentrating on his testimony would take his

mind off the letter.

Chuck was a great witness. The description of the search of the car

could have been one of the moments when I lost the jurors, but Chuck's

personable style helped keep their attention. He explained that he had

not located any blood or other physical evidence of an assault in the

car, but that the car looked like it had new paint, carpet, and

upholstery. Transitioning into the work order from the auto detail

shop, I asked, "Were you able to determine, Detective Forbes, whether

your initial impression was correct?"

"Yes, I was."

"And how were able to verify that, Detective?" It felt good when we

made eye contact, but I looked away so as not to get distracted.

"During the search of the car, I located an invoice from the Collision

Clinic, an automobile detailing shop at Southeast Eighty-second and

Division."

I showed him the invoice and he verified that it was the paper he had

found during the search. I said to Judge Lesh, "Your honor, the

parties have stipulated that the contents of the invoice are in fact

accurate."

Judge Lesh turned to the jury and delivered the standard instruction

for stipulations like these. "Members of the jury, the parties have

agreed that it's unnecessary to call someone with firsthand knowledge

about the contents of this exhibit to testify. Essentially, they have

agreed that the document is exactly what it appears to be and that

what's written on it is true."

When the judge was finished, I turned back to Chuck. "What does the

invoice indicate?"

"It shows that Frank Derringer paid eight hundred dollars for new

paint, upholstery, and carpet for the vehicle."

"And does it indicate when the work was completed?"

"Yes, it does. The work was done the day after Kendra Martin was

abducted."

I paused to make sure that the jury understood the implication. Then,

for the truly dense, I followed up. "So, one day after the assault on

Kendra Martin, and before you were able to search it, Frank Derringer

paid someone to replace the carpet and upholstery on the interior of

his car?" Chuck agreed. "And one day after the assault on Kendra

Martin, Frank Derringer paid someone to change the appearance of his

vehicle by painting its exterior?" Yes, again. "And he paid eight

hundred dollars for this work?" Yes.

"Detective, are you familiar with the Blue Book for automobile prices?"

Yes. I pulled out the photocopy of the relevant page from the Blue

Book and asked Chuck to refer to it. "Based on that, Detective, what

is your estimate of the maximum fair market value of Frank Derringer's

vehicle, prior to the work he had completed at the Collision Clinic?"

"Twelve hundred dollars."

"And what is your estimate of the fair market value after he paid eight

hundred dollars for the work at the Collision Clinic?"

"Fourteen hundred dollars."

Lisa was predictably gentle on cross. Yes, Chuck admitted, some people

spend money to improve houses and cars, even if they might not get the

money returned. And, yes, he conceded, it may have been worth eight

hundred dollars to Mr. Derringer to have a new feel to his car. When

Lisa finished her questioning, reserving the right to recall the

witness later, I didn't see any need to redirect. Instead, I caught

Chuck's eye as he left the witness stand. I was right. Testifying in

a solid case with an easy cross had taken his mind off the Zimmerman

debacle.

The trial was trucking along smoothly. I began to suspect that my

paranoia about Lisa's strategy was exactly that paranoia. Perhaps she

had simply concluded there was no reason to knock herself out trying to

save Derringer. She didn't even try to attack the accuracy of the

fingerprint evidence when the criminologist, Heidi Chung, called a

match based only on six points. Her only questions concerned the

timing of the latent print found on Kendra's purse. Chung conceded the

point that must always be given up on fingerprint evidence: Although

she could state with confidence that the defendant had left his

fingerprint on the victim's purse, there was no way to determine when

the print had been left behind.

On redirect, Chung explained to the jury that it was never possible to

determine from physical evidence alone when a fingerprint was left

behind. All the physical evidence could do was confirm that the

suspect had touched that item at some point prior to the print's

discovery.

Through the end of my case-in-chief, the only witness Lisa

cross-examined in any detail was Dave Renshaw, Derringer's probation

officer. She didn't get far.

The sole purpose of Renshaw's testimony was to show that when Renshaw

saw Derringer's private parts a few weeks before Kendra was assaulted,

they were still covered with hair like most other people's privates.

Lisa tried to rattle Renshaw's testimony by pointing out that he didn't

actually examine Derringer physically and was not looking specifically

at that physical feature. In the end, though, there was no way to get

around the obvious: A shorn scrotum stands out.

The only other line of questioning she had for Renshaw concerned

Derringer's probation record. Renshaw admitted on cross that Derringer

had kept all their appointments, stayed in regular contact with him,

and maintained regular employment. Lopez even went through a list of

the various temp jobs Derringer had worked since he got parole: day

labor, grill cooking, stockrooms, inventories.

I could've objected on the basis that Lisa's questions called for

inadmissible character evidence. She was, after all, trying to

establish that Derringer had been keeping his nose clean, which had

nothing to do with the issues in the trial. But any objection would

invite a bullshit attempt to justify the evidence in front of the jury.

Lisa would probably argue something to the effect that the evidence

contradicted the State's theory that Derringer planned the abduction

ahead of time or was associating with a possible accomplice. I figured

any minimal benefit she got out of the questioning was a reasonable

price to pay to avoid giving her an opportunity to make a speech for

the jury.

As it turned out, Renshaw was a pro who could diffuse Lisa's points on

cross without my assistance on redirect. After Lisa had established

that Derringer had reported all address changes, met all appointments,

spoken regularly with Renshaw, and worked full-time on parole, she

asked one question too many: "Isn't it true, Mr. Renshaw, that Mr.

Derringer complied fully with the conditions of his parole?" "Sure,

counselor. I guess you could say he was a model parolee except for the

fact that he kidnapped, raped,

sodomized, and tried to murder a thirteen-year-old girl." I think I

saw Lesh smile as Lisa leapt to her feet to object.

Her objection was sustained, but the exchange kept Lisa quiet for the

rest of my case-in-chief.

Ten.

I had spent the week presenting my case to the jury, witness by

witness. Building a prison for Frank Derringer with evidence, each

piece stacking upon the last like bricks. Now I was ready to sit back

and watch Lisa Lopez struggle to save face. I wanted it. I wanted it

bad. I tried not to look smug and amused, which I was, when she stood

on Thursday afternoon for her mid-trial opening.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my point is a simple one." She put

her hands on Derringer's shoulders. "This man, Frank Derringer, is

innocent." A simple statement, but it caught the jury's attention.

Lopez walked to the front of the jury box and continued. "Ms. Kincaid

has done a fine job of presenting evidence the way she wants you to

hear it. But what I want you to hear, and what you will conclude to be

true, is that Frank Derringer finds himself on trial for a crime he

didn't commit because a troubled and confused young girl who has led a

very sad life mistakenly identified him as she was coming out of a

heroin-induced haze."

Although Lopez conceded that Kendra "may have been subjected to

horrendous acts," she went on to remind the jurors of the presumption

of Derringer's innocence and the oath they had taken to evaluate the

evidence dispassionately. But she wasn't just arguing that there would

be a reasonable doubt about Derringer's guilt. She was using the word

innocent repeatedly. The defense's position wasn't just that Derringer

was not guilty in the legal sense because the State couldn't make its

case, but that he was factually innocent. Jurors feel better about

acquitting someone they believe is innocent, but Lisa's strategy was

risky. It's harder to prove innocence than to establish reasonable

doubt.

Lisa's quiet, contemplative tone became more urgent as she talked to

the jurors about Derringer's alibi. Then she shifted her theme. "By

the end of this trial, you will realize that Kendra Martin is a victim,

but my client is as well. In fact, I believe that we will prove to you

that both Mr. Derringer and Miss Martin are victims of the same

wrongdoing."

I tried to maintain my typical trial composure, looking as bored as

possible while the defense presents its case. But for the life of me,

I couldn't figure out where Lisa was going with her statement.

"The wrongdoing that has brought Kendra Martin, Frank Derringer, and

all of us together began about four years ago. Four years ago,

Portland police officers found the body of another troubled young girl

named Jamie Zimmerman in the Columbia Gorge. Jamie wasn't as lucky as

Kendra. She was murdered strangled after being raped and beaten. Like

Miss Martin, Jamie was a drug addict who supported her habit through

occasional prostitution. Like Ms. Martin, she was raped and

sodomized. Police found Jamie's badly decomposed body less than a mile

from where Kendra Martin was located. Ms. Kincaid mentioned that

whoever committed this crime took Kendra's purse. Well, guess what,

ladies and gentlemen? Whoever killed Jamie Zimmerman took her purse

too, and it was never recovered.

"Those are enough similarities that you're probably thinking to

yourself right now that the two crimes might be connected. You'd

certainly think our police would at least look into it, especially when

you learn that the same detectives who testified in this case

investigated Jamie Zimmerman's murder."

I was seething. How the hell did Lopez think she was going to get away

with blind siding me this way? I didn't know every detail of the Jamie

Zimmerman investigation, but I knew enough to recognize that Lopez was

trying to take advantage of that case's recent revival in the media to

confuse the jury. I also knew that she had never bothered to mention

to me that her defense had anything to do with the Zimmerman case.

There was nothing I could do, though, without playing into Lisa's hand.

Any outburst from me would only add dramatic emphasis to her opening

statement. So I sat there quietly while Lisa told the jurors about

Margaret Landry and Jesse Taylor and their protestations of innocence,

the recent letter to the Oregonian confessing to Jamie Zimmerman's

murder, and a supposed conspiracy among Portland police to conceal the

truth.

"Because a jury didn't hear the truth about that case three years ago,

innocent people were convicted. I don't want you to make the same

mistake. I don't want you to convict an innocent person. So I'm going

to make sure you get all the evidence. You're going to hear not only

how the police messed up the Zimmerman case, but also how those same

detectives have bungled this investigation. They don't want to admit

that they missed a killer four years ago, and they don't want to admit

that they've got the wrong person again now.

"Let me make something clear to you. I'm not required to prove who

killed Jamie Zimmerman. That's supposed to be up to the police and the

district attorney. But I think it's important that you at least know

about that case, because it sure looks a lot like this one, and it's

sure starting to look like whoever did it is still out there.

"In the end, the evidence in this case may present more questions than

answers. We may never know who killed Jamie Zimmerman, but I have a

feeling you're going to suspect that it's not Margaret Landry or Jesse

Taylor. I also have a feeling that you're going to suspect that

whoever killed Jamie Zimmerman assaulted Kendra Martin. But one answer

you will have for certain: Kendra Martin identified the wrong man, and

Frank Derringer is innocent."

So my paranoia had been warranted. Lopez had a trick up her sleeve

after all. But what Landry and Taylor had to do with Derringer's

defense was beyond me.

Judge Lesh apparently agreed. When Lisa finished her statement, he

turned to the jury and calmly excused them to their waiting room for a

break. Then he sat back, crossed his arms, looked at me, and said,

"Before I flip my lid up here, let me confirm, Ms. Kincaid, that Ms.

Lopez never informed you that she would be introducing anything having

to do with the murder of Jamie Zimmerman. Is that right?"

"That's correct, your honor. I'm forwarding to the court a copy of the

witness list I received from the defense before trial. I received no

notice from Ms. Lopez that she would be springing the possibility of a

serial rapist at trial, and she obviously reserved her opening

statement so she could drop this bombshell as late in the day as

possible."

Lesh looked at the witness list and shook his head. "Alright. That's

pretty much what I figured. Ms. Lopez, give me a good reason why I

shouldn't declare a mistrial right now and then send a letter down to

the Bar suggesting that they look into this little stunt you've pulled

here."

Oh, petty vengeance can feel so good. If I could've stuck my tongue

out at her without anyone noticing, I would have. In fact, this was

good enough to warrant a big wet raspberry, but I settled for my best

poker face.

Lisa feigned ignorance as she rose from her seat. For someone like me

who roots for Sylvester to eat that damn baby-talking yellow bird it

was hard to take. "I apologize if I've done something inappropriate,

Judge Lesh, but I believe I have complied with my obligations toward

the State. I'm not required to do the State's work, your honor. All I

have to do is disclose my witnesses, which I did, and I'm entitled to

reserve my opening."

Lesh wasn't buying it. "You mean to tell me that the people on this

list are going to raise the specter of a serial rapist who attacked the

victim in this case and also killed Jamie Zimmerman three years ago?"

"No, your honor. Those witnesses serve a legitimate purpose "

Lesh cut her off. "You mean the legitimate purpose of throwing the

prosecutor off track?"

Lisa was on the edge. She was getting defensive. "Your honor, if Ms.

Kincaid was thrown off track, that's not my fault. I do intend to

question those witnesses. They don't know about the Jamie Zimmerman

case, but the State's witnesses do. And Oregon's discovery rules are

clear: I can call any witness named by the State without having to

declare my intention to do so ahead of time. It just so happens that

the same investigative team in this case handled the Zimmerman

investigation."

I cut in. "I find Ms. Lopez's choice of words interesting. It seems

to me that if these two cases didn't just so happen' to involve the

same detectives, we might be hearing about some other old case that the

MCT handled. This entire tactic seems manufactured to spring something

at trial and catch the State off guard."

"I'm inclined to agree," Lesh said. "Ms. Lopez, you may be in

technical compliance with the discovery statute, but you have certainly

violated its spirit. It would've been nice of you to tell Ms. Kincaid

what was going on here."

Lisa worked her jaw and looked for words. "With all due respect to

your honor and to Ms. Kincaid, my job isn't to be nice. My job is to

defend my client. I sincerely believe that Mr. Derringer is innocent.

If I had trusted Ms. Kincaid to believe my sincerity, I would have

gone to her in the hopes that she would dismiss this case and reopen

the Zimmerman investigation. But from the minute she walked over to

the Justice Center to handle the arraignment on this case personally,

your honor, Ms. Kincaid has made it clear that she wants to hammer my

client. So I weighed my options and decided on this one."

I started to defend myself, but Lesh didn't see a need for it. "Ms.

Lopez, I'm letting you know right now that both you and Ms. Kincaid

have appeared before me several times since I've been a judge, and up

until today I've never had reason to question either of your ethics.

Your attempt to impugn Ms. Kincaid's integrity has failed with me. I

hope you understand that. Now, here's what we're going to do. I have

deep suspicions about your intent, Ms. Lopez, in holding your cards so

close to your chest. But it looks like you have stayed within the

letter of the law. So for now you're not in lawyer jail. Consider

yourself lucky."

When a slight smile registered at the edges of Lisa's mouth, Lesh

leaned forward. "Not so fast, Ms. Lopez. Your strategy will have its

consequences. You can't have it both ways. You're going to have to

make your case with the State's witnesses and the ones disclosed on

this sorry witness list. I won't let you parade a couple of convicted

murderers in front of this jury, and I won't let you bring in anything

you can't get through those witnesses. With that in mind, I suspect

that much of what you said in your opening statement is hearsay. At

the end of the trial, I will instruct the jurors that they should

disregard anything you said in opening that wasn't actually proven

through evidence during the case. With that said, it's time we brought

these jurors back in, so we can get on with this trial."

I rose to address him. "Your honor, the State requests a continuance.

I need time to research this defense. I'd like two weeks to

investigate any possible connection between this case and the Zimmerman

murder. I assure the Court and Ms. Lopez that if we determine a

connection, we'll proceed as necessary from there."

I could tell from the way that he tilted his head and smiled that he

sympathized, but he wasn't going to give me any time. "I understand

that you've been put in a jam, but you don't really think you're going

to find a connection between these cases. What you want is time to

disprove a connection so you can nip this defense in the bud. Trust

me, I understand that desire.

"But Ms. Lopez is right. The defense is not obligated to disclose its

theory ahead of time, only its witnesses and any alibi defense.

Basically, she's allowed to drop these little bombshells. I suspect

it's one of the things that make being a defense attorney entertaining.

If she really wanted to screw you over, she could've waived opening

altogether and hid her cards until testimony."

He told me he'd give me some leeway during rebuttal to recall

witnesses, but it was little consolation.

As an alternative, I moved to exclude any evidence relating to

Zimmerman's murder, at least until I had a chance to file a written

motion to exclude Lopez's defense. In my urgency to point out that

Lisa had been a complete bitch in failing to disclose the defense's

theory, I had almost forgotten to question whether the evidence

supporting Lopez's theory was even admissible. Any connection between

this case and the Zimmerman murder was tenuous at best, so I had a good

argument that, even if the Zimmerman case was minimally relevant, any

relevance was substantially outweighed by its potential to distract and

confuse the jury.

I think Lesh skipped that part of the analysis as well and now saw the

opportunity to get this mess out of his courtroom. The problem was, we

were venturing into a risky area of the law. Trial courts routinely

get reversed on appeal if they completely prohibit a defendant from

presenting his theory. On the other hand, as long as the trial judge

lets the defendant present his theory, the court has tremendous

latitude in excluding evidence that might support it. The fact that I

understood the nebulous distinction between the defendant's theory and

the evidence used to support it made me think I'd become a complete

asshole.

Luckily, Lesh understood the relevant distinction too, so I wouldn't

have to try to explain it.

"I can tell you right now, Ms. Kincaid, that I'm not about to keep the

defense from arguing that someone else might have committed this crime.

But, I'm no Judge Ito either, and you're correct to point out that the

defense doesn't necessarily get to put on whatever evidence it wants.

So, here's what we're doing. Ms. Lopez, either you agree to a

continuance or you call the witnesses you named on your discovery list

before you start calling cops to the stand to talk about the Zimmerman

case."

Lisa objected. Big surprise. "Your honor, it's highly unusual for the

Court to dictate the order in which evidence is presented."

"Well, it's also highly unusual for an attorney to pull the kind of

stunt you've pulled this morning. Think of this as another

repercussion of your strategy." He had noted Lisa's objection but then

forced her to make her choice.

"I have no interest in a continuance, your honor. Mr. Derringer is

eager to go home."

"Very well then, Ms. Lopez. No mention of Jamie Zimmerman, Margaret

Landry, or Jesse Taylor again until I've ruled on these issues. Now

we're taking a twenty-minute recess so we can collect our thoughts."

Forcing Lopez to work her way through the boring stuff first helped me

in a couple of different ways. Obviously, the detectives and I could

use some time poring over the police reports for the Zimmerman murder

to get up to speed, and I could prepare a motion to exclude evidence

about the case. But even if the evidence wound up coming in, Lesh had

provided a more subtle kind of assistance. In the time it would take

Lisa to get through these other witnesses, the jury might forget the

drama of her opening statement, and the defense might lose its

momentum. Along the same lines, it would be hard for Dan Manning to

write a great story when he had no trial testimony to back up the

opening statement yet.

For those reasons, I decided I wouldn't object to testimony relating to

Andrea Martin's arrest for criminal trespass at the Lloyd Center Mall,

although it was blatantly inadmissible. It was better to let Lisa

present that kind of innocuous evidence and hope the impact of her

opening statement wore off before the sexy stuff started. Plus, I

might have a better chance of getting Lesh to exclude the damaging

evidence if I didn't throw a fit over this chippy stuff.

A twenty-minute recess wasn't much, but at least I could update my

investigators so they could start working on it while I was in trial.

I almost knocked Dan Manning on his ass as I was rushing out of the

courtroom. He looked like a high school kid who just won a swimming

pool full of beer and a squadron of cheerleaders to share it with. I

could see his willingness to be sucked into Lopez's defense. It was,

after all, a great story. But I didn't have time to set him straight

and I suspected it wouldn't work anyway. So instead I almost knocked

him on his ass.

To save valuable time, I pulled out my cell phone rather than fight the

courthouse elevators to get back to my office.

My first call was to Alice Gernstein, the paralegal in our major crimes

unit. I gave her a quick rundown of what was going on and asked her to

pull the files from the Landry trial from archives and put them on my

chair and to order the trial transcripts. As it turned out, she had

already pulled the stuff for O'Donnell. He had prosecuted Landry and

Taylor and was now part of the investigation into the new letter to the

Oregonian. Alice said she'd make copies for me. I also asked her to

tell O'Donnell that I was going to need to talk to him soon, since he'd

handled the Zimmerman case.

Next, I called MCT. I was lucky. Chuck was out interviewing a

witness, but Ray and Jack were both in. They put me on speaker and I

told them what Lisa had unloaded in her opening.

It was a great opportunity for catty chat about my nemesis, but I told

them I had to make it quick. They had already refreshed themselves on

the Zimmerman case, since they were working on the investigation into

the anonymous letter. I warned them that Lisa might call them back to

the stand to testify about the case.

"Do you have anything yet on the letter?" I asked.

They were silent. I could picture them looking at each other over the

speakerphone, wondering how to tell me that I was outside the official

circle of knowledge. Walker handled it. "This thing's really hot,

Sam. O'Donnell and the lieutenant are going nuts over it, this being

the first execution and all. If anything leaks "

"Hey, forget it. I only asked because it would obviously be a lot

easier to defuse this Lopez stunt if we could show that the letter was

a hoax. If you don't want to tell me "

I heard the line get picked up off the speaker. Walker spoke quietly

into the handset. "Look, don't count on getting anything on the

letter. No prints. No DNA on the envelope or stamp. Typewritten on

plain paper and dropped in a mailbox by the side of a road." Great. No

help for me, and no help to Chuck. "And Sam," he said. "No one knows,

not even Chuck. I just didn't want you getting your hopes up."

I hung up feeling let down. It would be easiest if I could tie up any

loose ends that Lopez pulled free about the Zimmerman case, but

apparently I couldn't count on that. I would need to convince the jury

that Derringer was guilty, even if they developed doubts about the

guilt of Landry and Taylor.

When court resumed, Lisa called her first witness, the star with the

alibi convicted felon Derrick Derringer.

His testimony was predictable. Lopez did her best to make him sound

respectable. He owned a home in southeast Portland and worked night

shifts at one of those quickie oil-change places. As expected, he

swore under oath that his loser brother had been at his house on the

night Kendra was attacked. According to Derrick, his brother Frank a

few months on parole and ready to set off on a new law-abiding

lifestyle had walked the mile and a half to his house to hang out. They

wound up watching a Saturday Night Live repeat. He remembered that

John Goodman was the host because he did a brutally accurate

impersonation of the woman who had sold out the former president's

mistress to the independent counsel. I wasn't impressed. Last time I

checked, John Goodman hosted that show a couple times a month. And it

still wasn't funny.

Fortunately, I was ready with a tough cross for Derringer's brother,

and Lisa did little on direct exam to blunt the effect in advance.

With permission from Judge Lesh, I rose and approached Derrick

Derringer for questioning. The fact that the witness was the

defendant's brother was enough to give him a motive to lie, but

fortunately that line of questioning was only the beginning of my

cross.

"Isn't it true, Mr. Derringer, that you've had some run-ins with the

law yourself?"

"Yes, ma'am, I have."

"Now, do I have this right? You have three felony convictions in the

last ten years?"

"I believe that's correct, ma'am."

Lisa had done a good job of warning Derrick not to get defensive about

his criminal history. When a witness with a problematic background

owns up to his problems, some jurors will actually give him points for

it. I hoped Derringer's brother's record was bad enough to speak for

itself whether he admitted the convictions or not.

I asked him about his felony record, and he conceded that he'd been

convicted of armed robbery and then of two separate incidents of

forgery in the first degree. In a perfect world, the guy would still

be in the pen for the robbery alone. He walked into a Subway sandwich

shop just before closing and left with just $67 from the cash register.

The cashier was a sixteen-year-old kid who'd started working at the

shop a few days earlier. After Derringer discovered that there were

only small bills in the register and that the cashier had no access to

the safe, he made the kid get on his hands and knees on the floor in

front of the safe. He stuck a gun in the kid's mouth, forced him to

make three tries at opening the safe despite his protestations that he

didn't know the combination, and then dry fired the gun when the safe

didn't open.

After the kid pissed his pants, Derringer got down on his knees in

front of him, grabbed him by the hair, and mocked him while he cried.

As he grabbed the small bills from the register, Derringer told the

kid, "Hey, just be glad you're not a chick, man, or you'd really be

having a bad day."

Unfortunately, the Rules of Evidence being what they are, all the jury

got to hear was that Derrick Derringer had been convicted of armed

robbery. Just doesn't have the same effect.

When I finished asking about his felony convictions, I got to the good

stuff.

I pulled out a thick case file from my leather legal briefcase, opened

it, and asked him, "You've offered in the past to testify on your

brother's behalf, haven't you?"

He took the bait and tried to avoid what he knew to be the issue. "I'm

not sure what you're referring to specifically, ma'am, but I have been

saying since this unfortunate event occurred that I'm willing to tell

the truth about what happened to establish my brother's innocence."

What a fucking idiot.

"I'm aware that you've been what you call 'willing' to testify for your

brother in this trial, but I was referring to a trial two years ago in

Clackamas County where your brother also was the defendant. Do you

recall that, Mr. Derringer?"

Of course he recalled it, he said.

"And in that trial, Mr. Derringer, didn't you offer to testify that

your brother had been with you when the crime of which he was accused

occurred?"

He had to admit that one, too.

"Did you eventually testify in that trial?"

"No, I did not," he said.

"Were you in the courtroom when your brother testified in that

trial?"

Derringer looked surprised. I think Lisa expected me to get this

evidence in through a DA or a cop instead of through her own witness. I

guess she and Derrick Derringer didn't know that the DA who tried that

case must've gotten bored during Frank Derringer's testimony. The

prosecuting attorney had made a note in the file that Derrick Derringer

was in the courtroom during his brother's testimony and looked

irritated when his brother admitted having sex with the victim but said

that it was consensual. Clackamas County had happily made the file

available for me to use.

"I'm not sure whether I was there for the entirety of his testimony,

ma'am."

"Well, let me ask you this. You were there when your brother admitted

under oath that he was present at the scene of the incident that was

the subject of that trial, right?"

He finally gave up what I was looking for and conceded that he'd heard

his brother admit to being at the scene of the crime.

"And, let me get this right, before your brother testified under oath

that he had been at the scene of the crime, you had been willing to

testify also under oath that your brother had been with you on the same

day and at the same time as the crime occurred?" This was the stuff

that made being a trial lawyer fun. Yes, ma am.

"And in this trial, you're saying that your brother was with you at the

same time and on the same day as this crime occurred, is that right?"

"Yes, ma'am, but "

I cut him off. "No further questions, your honor."

Lisa tried to rehabilitate him as a witness, but what could he say? He

claimed he was confused in the previous trial about the night in

question, which might be better than admitting to an offer to perjure.

I was pretty sure the jurors saw him for what he was, though.

Considering the crap Lisa had pulled, I got through the afternoon

pretty well.

By the time we were done with Derrick Derringer, it was a little past

five, so Lesh was more than ready to call it a day. Lesh is one of the

hardest working judges in the courtroom, so you can usually count on

him to have trial every day, even Fridays, which most judges view as

golf day. But this evening he announced that he had a funeral to

attend the next day and that we would not reconvene until Monday. The

delay would give me some extra time to file whatever papers I planned

to submit in support of my motion to exclude the evidence of the

Zimmerman case.

When I reached the eighth floor, I went straight to O'Donnell's office.

Luckily he was still in.

"Thank God you're here. Did Alice tell you what's happening in Lesh's

courtroom?"

"Yeah. I figured you'd want to talk as soon as possible, so I told the

guys to go running without me."

I was glad enough not to hear him say I told you so. But missing an

opportunity to run on a sunny day in Portland is huge around the DA's

office, where running is essentially our religion. I suspect I got my

job more for my mile times than my educational pedigree. "Thanks. I

need the help. I know close to nothing about the Zimmerman case, and

Lopez is dumping it with no notice right in the middle of the Derringer

trial."

He looked at his watch. "Unfortunately, the Zimmerman case was pretty

fucked up, and this anonymous letter just makes it look worse. It'll

take awhile for you to get up to speed, and I don't have long."

A date, no doubt. Good to know the head of the major crimes unit had

his priorities straight. "Well, start by giving me what my detectives

can say and where they might be weak. The only good thing about Lopez

springing this thing on me is that she boxed herself in on witnesses.

She's basically got to get the defense in through my witnesses. I've

got Walker, Johnson, and Forbes. They were all involved in Zimmerman,

right?"

"Yeah. I can tell you right now that, if you've got a problem, it'll

be Forbes. Let me give you some background." He explained what I

already knew, that Forbes got involved in the case by happenstance when

Taylor's probation officer, Bernie Edwards, called him in to follow up

on Landry's reported suspicions.

He then filled in the details leading up to Landry's confession. "You

got to understand that when Edwards and Forbes went out to Landry's,

they were already pretty sure she was full of shit. It was basically a

CYA house visit in the event Landry actually knew something. It was

about a month after Zimmerman's body was found, and the Oregonian

printed a short Crime Watchers column with a picture of the vie and a

bare-bones description of the crime, asking people to call in if they

knew anything. Landry told Edwards and Forbes that she read it and

started thinking that maybe Taylor had something to do with the

murder.

"She said she remembered Taylor coming home drunk unusually late around

the time of the crime and taking a shower, which was not typical for

him at night. When she woke up in the morning, he was doing a load of

laundry already, which was also strange. She said that about a week

later she overheard Taylor talking on the phone, saying something about

how someone named Jamie had flipped out on him. She assumed Jamie was

a guy at the time, so didn't think too much of it. But, according to

her, she put all this together when she read the article and then

called Edwards."

I took a second to process the information. "Huh? Even if she was

telling the truth at that point, why would she connect Taylor to a

murder based on that?"

"I know. It didn't make sense to Edwards or Forbes either. They

shined her on a little bit and then left. But then Margaret figures

out that they're blowing her off, so she calls Edwards the next day and

tells him she was poking around in Taylor's stuff and found a matchbook

from Tommy Z's that said Jamie Z with a telephone number on it. Edwards

runs a reverse trace on the number and it comes back to Jamie

Zimmerman's mother's house."

"Did Jamie live with her mother?" I asked.

"As much as she lived anywhere for any substantial period of time, I

guess. Before she was killed, she'd been out of her mom's house for

about six months. Hey, I know what you're thinking, and, trust me,

Edwards and Forbes thought it too. They figured she looked the number

up in the book or something. But Jamie's mom had a different last name

I can't remember what it is now and the paper never printed it. That

phone number was a big piece of evidence for us down the road, when

Margaret was backing out of her confession. We looked at the case up

and down, and we just couldn't figure out how she could've come up with

that number other than through direct contact with Jamie."

"So what happened after Landry came forward with this name and phone

number?" I asked.

"Like I said, Edwards does the reverse trace and figures out it's

Jamie's mother's number. My recollection is that Forbes contacted MCT

at that point to let them know what he and Edwards had and to see

whether Margaret could've gotten the number from the paper somehow. The

case was getting cold, so MCT had cut the investigation down to one

team Johnson and Walker and they weren't working it very actively. In

any event, they decided the Landry lead was worth following up on, so

they went out and interviewed Taylor and confronted him with the Jamie

Z matchbook.

"Now, you got to understand, Jesse Taylor is an absolute freak. Tell

you the truth, I don't know how a guy like that even lives to be

thirty-five. Unless his whole presence is an act, the guy doesn't know

which end is up. Never knows what's going on. Talks in circles, non

sequiturs. Drinks himself into a blackout about every day. Basically

a gigantic human id."

"But a court found him competent for trial?"

"Don't they always?" O'Donnell's smirk was irritating, but I tolerated

it for the sake of the briefing. "So, when Walker and Johnson do the

interview, they assume Taylor's playing dumb, because they can't

imagine that someone's actually as stupid as this guy really is. Taylor

denies anything having to do with the murder. But then Walker and

Johnson confront him with the matchbook. He says that for all he

knows, he might've met Jamie Zimmerman and gotten her number. He can't

really say because he can't remember anything that happens from one day

to the next."

"Sounds like a real winner."

"Hey, who the hell else would be shacked up with some

sixty-five-year-old cow? Old Margaret's not exactly a looker." He

could tell from my stare that I didn't have time for this right now, so

he resumed his summary. "Based on Margaret's info and Taylor's

wishy-washy statement, we got a warrant for his house and his car."

"I thought you said he shared a house with Landry. She wouldn't just

consent to the search?"

I should've known not to let my guard down and ask a question of

O'Donnell. Predictably, he used it as a chance to belittle me and make

himself look knowledgeable. "You know how it goes," he said, even

though I obviously didn't. "Court says a roommate can only consent to

a search of the parts of the house they actually share. You and I know

that a couple living together and banging each other shares every part

of the house. But come trial, wives and girlfriends who consent to

searches have a tendency to say, "Oh, by the way, Judge, that cupboard

where they found the murder weapon? That's his cupboard; I'm not

allowed to go in there." Result? Weapon is gone. Maybe in the dope

unit, you guys don't give a shit about that stuff, but we don't risk it

on major cases. We go for the warrant."

I ignored the comment. As long as O'Donnell was giving me helpful

information, I didn't care about the insults. "Did they find anything

useful?"

"Depends on what you call useful. For a second, they thought they'd

hit the jackpot. See, as far as the police could tell, Jamie was

wearing these gold hoop earrings that her friends said she always wore.

Dead girl turns up without her earrings, you don't really know what

that means. Could've fallen out; she might've taken them out, who

knows? But it was definitely something the police were keeping their

eyes out for during the search. So what do they find in Jesse Taylor's

toolbox but a pair of gold hoop earrings, about two and a half inches

in diameter, just like the ones Jamie was always wearing.

"Problem was, Jamie's mom sees them and says there's no way they're the

same ones. Seems Jamie got the earrings from her dirtbag father a

couple years earlier one of his only visits to her, according to the

mom. Anyway, he told Jamie the earrings were fourteen-karat gold,

trying to push himself off as a big spender. So Mom, to prove a point

and bust any hope Jamie had that her dad was a mensch, dragged her into

one of the jewelry stores at the mall one day to prove the earrings

were fake. Turned out they actually were solid gold. The mom figured

Jamie's dad must've ripped 'em off from somewhere. The earrings the

cops pulled out of Taylor's toolbox were fake."

I was thinking out loud. "So Landry read about the earrings in the

paper, bought some like them, and planted them in Taylor's toolbox?"

"No way. We never released the information on the earrings, just in

case the perp took them as a souvenir. Johnson went back and read

every article and watched every newsreel on the case, and there was

nothing about the earrings. So, yeah, the theory was that Landry was

planting evidence, but she was planting it on a guilty person. Happens,

you know look at Mark Fuhrman and O.J."s bloody glove. We figured

Taylor had to be involved at that point, because how else could Landry

know about the earrings?"

"What did Landry say about the earrings?" I asked.

"That was one thing about Margaret. All the way up until she was