Judgment Calls By Alafair Burke

Synopsis:

An apparently simple assault case spirals into a complex web of
violence and deception in this bold debut thriller.

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid walks into her office in
Portland's Drug and Vice Division one Monday morning to find three
police officers waiting for her.  A thirteen-year-old girl has been
brutally attacked and left for dead on the city's outskirts.  Given the
lack of evidence, most lawyers would settle for an assault charge;
Samantha, unnerved by the viciousness of the crime, decides to go for
attempted murder.  But as she prepares for the trial, she uncovers a
dangerous trail leading to an earlier high-profile death penalty case,
a prostitution ring of underage girls, and a possible serial killer.
And she finds her judgment not only in matters of the law but in her
personal life called into question.

In Samantha Kincaid, Alafair Burke has created a complex, appealing
character a woman consumed by a sense of justice, who is tough enough
to take on a man's world.  Seamlessly moving between courtroom and
criminal investigation.  Judgment Calls reveals not only an insider's
knowledge of the justice system but a fresh new voice in the world of
crime writing, and the start of a great new series.

JUDGMENT CALLS

Alafair Burke

ORION

First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Orion, an imprint of the
Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

Copyright 2003 by Alafair Burke

The moral right of Alafair Burke to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.

ISBN 0 75285 714 2 0 75285 715 0 Set in New Aster

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St.  Ives plc

All the characters in this book are fictitious,

and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely
coincidental.

The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Orion House

5 Upper Saint Martin's Lane London, we2H 9EA

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
with all day."

"Maybe we should both hang it up and become account-ants.

"Nah, too boring," she said.  "We'll just have to keep trying to
balance each other out."

"Seriously, it's not just that it's hard, Grace.  I've gotten used to
dealing with unpleasant subjects at work.  I'm scared I'm going to
lose.  These are the most serious charges I've ever filed against
anyone, and part of me's excited about it.  But if it falls apart, I
won't just look bad at work, I'll feel like shit for letting this
dirtbag go free."

"Sam, you've got to put it in perspective.  If it weren't for you, this
guy would already have won.  Tim O'Donnell would've issued that chippy
assault charge against him.  What could he get for that?"

"With his record, maybe two years at most after conviction.  He'd be
out in eighteen months, maybe even nine if he pled guilty," I said.

"See?  And, even in a worst-case scenario, you'll still get that,
right?"

"I think so.  Even if the case falls apart, I think Lopez would plead
Derringer out to assault to avoid going to verdict on the attempted
murder."

"So what are you worrying about?  Sounds to me like you saved the day
just by getting involved, no matter what happens.  This way, the police
are still working on the case, so they might even catch the second guy.
You need to look at it from that perspective.  You may win.  But even
if you don't, you haven't really lost anything."

She was right.  I should feel good about what I did today.  It was time
to put aside the serious stuff and talk to her about the personal side
of this case.

"Oh, and I may have neglected to fill you in on the identity of one of
the main investigators."

"Why would I care?  Is he a cutey?"  She feigned enthusiastic curiosity
and gave me a wink.

"Um .. . No!  Well, I mean, yeah.  I don't really know.  Look, what I
mean is that for once this man actually has something to do with me and
not you."

"Excuse me for assuming.  I've gotten used to you never being
interested.  It's been two years since your divorce, and you still act
like men don't get to you anymore, except..  . oh, lord, Sam, you're
not actually going to try working with Lucky Chucky, are you?"

It's been more than fifteen years since Chuck Forbes's football buddies
had come up with that nickname.  Two of them had barged into Chuck's
house carrying a keg one weekend when his parents were out of town.  I
guess we didn't hear them over "Avalon."  For the rest of high school,
Chuck was Lucky Chucky.  They finally stopped calling me Been-laid
Kincaid at the end of senior year.

"Can't we move a little bit past that, Grace?"

"It's not that there's anything wrong with Chuck.  It's what's wrong
with the two of you.  When are you going to realize that he makes you
crazy?  You either need to write each other off or lock yourselves in a
room together until you get it out of your systems.  You have this
twisted love-hate, only-happy-when-you're-not-getting-together kind of
relationship.  And every time you see him, you dwell on it for the next
two weeks but won't let yourself follow through.  I am driven crazy by
osmosis.  Please don't do this to me.  Is that why you took this
case?"

"Oh, please.  No, I swear, Grace.  I would've taken it anyway, for all
the reasons we talked about.  But I don't know how I'm going to handle
this.  Just reading the police reports, I find myself poring over every
word of his, admiring what a good cop he's become.  I guess I'm just
going to have to deal with it."

"Deal with it?  You've only ever had one way of dealing with Chuck
Forbes.  You decide you can keep the relationship platonic.  You start
hanging out, kidding around, watching games on the weekends, all the
things that friends do.  But then the chemistry kicks in and the next
thing you know you get scared and back off, he gets mad, and you both
go off into your separate corners and pout until you once again trick
yourselves into believing that you can make the friendship thing work
and the whole damn cycle begins again.  Did it ever dawn on you that
Roger might have felt a little left out?"

I stared at her.  Roger's my ex-husband.  We met at Stan ford Law
School.  Dad thought Roger was too much of a blue blood but Mom and I
thought he was perfect: a grownup who knew what he wanted and how he
was going to get it.  Smart, good-looking, and ambitious, Roger had
wanted to marry me right out of law school so we could start our
perfect life together back in New York.  We moved into the Upper East
Side apartment his family bought us as a wedding present, him working
toward partnership at one of the country's biggest firms, me working as
an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

The perfect life didn't last long.  Roger landed a job as in-house
counsel with Nike, so we wound up moving to Portland after only a
couple of years in New York.  A few months later, I discovered that my
husband had taken literally his new employer's ad slogan encouraging
decisive, spontaneous, self-satisfying action.  We both thought I would
be working late preparing for a trial set to start the following day,
but the case had settled with a last-minute guilty plea.  My intention
was to surprise Roger by coming home early with dinner and a movie in
hand.

Instead, I found him doing it with a professional volleyball player on
top of our dining room table.  I got the house and everything in it,
but I made sure he got the table.

Now Grace and I rarely referred to my former husband as anything other
than Shoe Boy or for any reason other than comic.  We definitely never
insinuated that I was somehow responsible for his infidelities.

"That's totally unfair, Grace.  You know that Chuck and I have been
nothing more than friends since I came back to town.  Unlike some
people, I took my marriage vows seriously."

"Come on, Sam.  I'm not saying Roger was justified to whore around. I'm
just saying he might have been bothered when you and Chuck started
spending time together again.  Roger thought leaving New York was going
to change things, but you were still putting in the same kind of hours
and running thirty miles a week.  Then you started making time for
Chuck.  Say what you want about only being friends, but to Roger it was
more than that, even if you weren't technically cheating.  He had to
have seen the chemistry; everyone does.  You drop that hard-ass force
field of yours with me and with Chuck, but you never dropped it with
Roger.  And if he was bothered by it, the next guy will be too.  So,
unless you want to be alone for good, you need to decide where Chuck
Forbes fits into your life.  You're not in high school anymore,
honey."

I didn't know what to say.

"You pissed?"  she asked.

"No, just surprised."

"I know.  I get sucked in by you two also, but I worry about you, is
all.  This isn't college, when you could sleep with Chuck on breaks and
then run back to Cambridge.  Make sure you know what you're doing." She
smiled.  "Don't get me wrong.  I have noticed how good he looks in that
uniform of his."

I returned the smile and said, "At least I'm not writing Mrs.  Charles
Landon Forbes, Jr."  in my notebook anymore."

We quickly changed the subject, but the conversation nagged at me
throughout the rest of the meal.  Roger used to accuse me of being
ambivalent about our relationship; now Grace was suggesting the same
thing about my feelings for Chuck.  The way I'd always seen it, my job
was hard enough; the personal stuff should take care of itself.

Three.

Work returned to a normal pace the next day.

I had left several messages on Andrea Martin's machine the day before
but hadn't heard back from her.  This morning, she picked up.

"Ms.  Martin, my name is Samantha Kincaid.  I'm a deputy district
attorney for Multnomah County.  How are you?"

"Could be better, under the circumstances and all."

"I left a few messages for you yesterday," I said.

"Yeah, I didn't get 'em till late.  I wait tables at the Hot-cake House
at night.  I was planning on trying to call you back later."

"My understanding is that the police have talked to you about what
happened over the weekend.  Is that right?"

"Yeah.  One of 'em, Mike somebody, called me in the middle of the night
Saturday.  Told me Kendra was in the hospital.  I'd just gotten off
work, but I would've come down anyway.  I guess Kendra didn't want me
there, though."

"Where is Kendra now?"

"I think she's in her room.  I'm just heading out for my day job at
Safeway."

"Did you know where Kendra was on Saturday night when this happened?"

"No.  She runs away so much I've stopped calling the cops on her.  She
just gets mad at me when they pick her up.  I'm to the point I just
want her to come home every night.  I figure I got a better chance if I
give her her freedom.  The other way sure wasn't working."

"So she came home on Sunday afternoon then?"

"Yeah.  She didn't want to.  I don't know what's so bad around here
that she'd rather be out on the street.  But the hospital wouldn't let
her go unless she came here or agreed to foster care.  At least she
picked here."

"She's been through a lot.  She might want your help right now."

She laughed.  "Miss .. . what'd you say your name was again?"

"Samantha Kincaid.  Call me Samantha."

"Well, you obviously don't know my daughter.  She don't want help from
no one.  Always been that way, too.  It's like she decided when she
turned ten or something that she was grown."

"Did Detective Calabrese explain what Kendra's lifestyle has been while
she was on the street?"

"I wouldn't call it much of a lifestyle.  But, yeah.  That guy and his
partner a blond guy, real young came by the Safeway on Sunday to break
the news to me.  They told me Saturday night she was assaulted.  Guess
they wanted to say the other stuff in person."

They probably wanted to watch her response.  Kids who run away are
often the victims of abuse by their parents.  If anything would set a
parent off, it would be learning that their kid has been shooting up
and turning tricks.  They wanted to make sure she didn't seem the type
to take her anger out on Kendra physically.

"How has Kendra been doing since she's been home?"

"Alright, I guess.  Like I said, she don't really talk to me."

"Well, I was calling mainly to introduce myself and to let you know I'm
handling the case.  The police have arrested one of the suspects.  His
name is Frank Derringer.  He's in jail for now, but we have to take the
case to a grand jury within a week, and Kendra's going to need to
testify for that.  I've got it scheduled for Friday.  Assuming the
grand jury indicts Derringer, the court will schedule the case for
trial.  Most cases don't actually go to trial, but if this one does, it
will probably be in a couple of months and Kendra will need to testify.
Do you have any questions for me?"

"Do you know when the cops are going to give Kendra her stuff back? Her
keys were in her purse, and I don't know whether to get a new set
cut."

"I'm not really sure, Ms.  Martin.  It can take the crime lab a few
weeks sometimes to finish working on evidence.  Depending on what they
find, we may need to keep the evidence sealed for trial.  I can find
out about her keys for you, if you'd like."

"Whatever.  I can get a new set cut at the store tomorrow.  Am I going
to have to come to any of these things?  I can't afford to take time
off work."

"You're certainly welcome to come with Kendra as support, but I don't
think you'll need to testify until the trial.  I'll make sure Kendra
has transportation to the courthouse when she needs to come down
here."

"Alright, then.  I better be going.  You need anything else?"

"Would it be OK if I dropped by your home tonight to meet Kendra?"  I
asked.

"You'll have to talk to her about that.  You want me to get her?"

"No, that's OK, I'll try talking to her later."  If Mom didn't care,
I'd rather just drop in on Kendra unannounced.  Wouldn't want her
running off anywhere.  "Feel free to call me if you have any questions.
Let me give you my direct line."

"Um, I can't find a pen right now.  If I need anything, I can look it
up, right?"

I told her that she could, even though I knew she wouldn't.

I devoted the rest of my day to the routine drudgeries of the drug
section of the Drug and Vice Division.  The DA assigned me to DVD
because I used to prosecute drug cases when I was in New York.  I
accepted the assignment because I wanted to keep working as a
prosecutor when Roger and I moved, and the Portland U.S. Attorney's
Office wasn't hiring.  In most people's eyes it was a step down: I went
from handling cases involving nationwide distribution conspiracies and
literally tons of dope to prosecuting sad-sack hustlers for dealing
eight-balls of methamphetamine and as little as a single rock of crack
cocaine.

But while I may have lost the prestige of a federal prosecutor's
office, I had developed a niche as part of the vice section of DVD,
prosecuting the monsters who lure, coerce, and force women into
prostitution.  The less-experienced DVD attorneys shied away from those
cases because they were hard to prove, hard to win, and hard to take.
The career prosecutors who handled the major felony person crimes
didn't want them because they were viewed as less important than
murders and other violent offenses.  But I felt more rewarded by those
cases than I'd ever felt prosecuting even complex federal drug
conspiracies.

Today, however, my plate was full of drug charges.  No surprise, the
grand jury returned indictments on all four of the cases I presented.
Most drug-related cases are pretty much the same.  The only variation
tends to be in the type and degree of stupidity involved.

Usually it was a matter of poor strategy.  My daily caseload is full of
tweekers who agree to let the police search them, even though they're
carrying enough dope to land them in the state pen for a couple of
years.  Apparently, an undocumented side effect of dope is a gross
overestimation of one's own intelligence.  Dopers become convinced
they've hidden their stash so well a cop won't find it.  They're always
wrong.

But sometimes it goes beyond poor strategy to straight-out stupidity.
In one of today's cases, two men did a hand-to-hand drug deal standing
two feet from a Portland police officer.  What stealth tactic had this
shrewd officer used to avoid detection?  He was part of the city's
mounted patrol unit, which covered a downtown beat on horseback.  When
the men were arrested, one of them said to the officer, "Dude, I didn't
even see you up there, man.  I just thought it was cool that a horse
had found its way to the park."  It hadn't dawned on them to look up
and see whether someone might have accompanied the savvy equine.

Despite all the talk about the modern "war on drugs," the truth is that
most police don't go out of their way to investigate minor drug
offenses.  They don't have to.  There is so much dope out there, and
the people taking it are so dense, that the cases literally fall into
the cops' laps, whether they want them or not.  The upside is that it
makes my job easier.

When I was done getting my cases indicted, I called MCT to see if a
detective could drive out to Rockwood with me to interview Kendra.  I
wanted to talk to her tonight, before she got antsy and ran away again.
Grand jury was Friday, and I needed to know what to expect from my star
witness.

I try to have a police officer or DA investigator with me whenever I
talk to someone who will be testifying in one of my cases.  If the
witness ever went south on me, I'd want a person present who could
testify about the witness's statement, since lawyers are not allowed to
testify in their own cases.

Someone picked up after four rings.  "Walker."

"Detective Walker, it's Samantha Kincaid at the DA's office.  I'm
calling about the Derringer case."

"Sure.  What can I do you for?"

I told him what I'd found out the day before from Deputy Lamborn and
Dave Renshaw.

"Oh, hang on a sec.  The rest of the guys have got to hear this."  I
heard him put me on speaker.  "You want to tell 'em or should I?"

Figuring I was more likely than Walker to keep the conversation on
track, I repeated the information about Derrick Derringer's previous
offer to serve as an alibi witness for his brother and then got to the
part about Derringer's body hair.

Walker couldn't help himself.  "Can you believe what a fucking waste of
time and money that is?  Everyone knows these guys never change.  They
just get off having someone watch them watch that smut.  But the system
manages to find the money to pay some doctor to handle these guys'
Johnsons, when it could use the money to keep them in the pen where
they belong."

I heard Ray Johnson nearby.  "How many times I gotta tell you that you
make my workplace hostile when you call something like that ajohnson,
man?  So, Kincaid, what's the doctor say about Derringer's broken
pecker?"

I certainly didn't know what it meant.  "Look, five different shrinks
could probably come up with five interpretations.  What's important is
that we know Derringer shaved within a few days of the attack.  That's
big.  Any news on that end?"

"No," Walker replied.  "The lab's still working the rape kit and the
other evidence.  No leads on who this second guy is.  Ray's looking at
Derringer's known associates from before he went to the pen, but
nothing yet.  So far, Derringer's only calls from the jail have been to
his brother.  He's playing it cool."

"Alright, let me know if you get anything new.  Also, I need one of you
to come out to Kendra Martin's with me tonight.  Grand jury's on
Friday, and I want to prep this girl while she's still on board."

"Geez.  I really want to help you out on this one, since you're going
out of your way for us.  But my anniversary's tonight.  The wife's got
the whole night planned: dinner, some dance thing.  She'll kill me if I
cancel on her."

"Don't let me mess up your marriage.  It doesn't really matter who
goes.  I just need a witness."

"Hold on.  Hey, Ray.  Can you run out to Rockwood with Kincaid tonight
to interview the Martin girl?  She wants to get her ready for grand
jury on Friday, and she needs a witness."

"Depends what you mean, can I go?  I can go, if it needs to be done.
But Jack, you know my mama flew up from Call today.  She's probably at
my house waitin' on me as we speak.  What kind of boy am I to go on OT
while my mama's in town?  Can I go out with her tomorrow, or does it
have to be tonight?"

I heard another voice farther in the background.  "Go home to your
mama, Ray.  I'll go."

Uh-oh.  I knew that voice.  "That's alright, Jack," I said hastily.
"It's probably better to go out there with someone who's already met
Kendra.  It can wait until tomorrow."

"It's up to you, but Chuck can go.  He's met the Martin girl too.  He
and Mike went to talk to the mom on Sunday and stopped by the house to
check on Kendra."  He yelled into the background, "Hey, Chuck.  You get
a pretty good rapport with the girl?"

I heard something; then Ray came back on the line.  "Yeah, he says
things went real good.  He took over some CDs that were donated by the
rape victims' advocates."

There was no easy way out of this one.  I wanted to talk to Kendra
tonight, and Chuck made as much sense to take along as anyone.  "If
he's willing to go, that works for me.  Can you ask him to meet me in
front of the Martin house at seven?"

He was waiting for me with a Happy Meal in one hand.  He held the box
up as I got out of my car in front of Kendra Martin's house.  "Mommy
Martin didn't strike me as the type to make sure there was a pot roast
on the table by supper-time.  I figured Kendra might want something to
eat.  I would've picked up something for you, but then I pictured you
trying to run it off at midnight."

"Very funny."  Call me an extremist; I have a tendency to couple large
meals with monster runs.  It had been two months since we'd seen each
other, and he was already trying to pull me into our flirtatious
rhythm.  I was determined to make this quick, but as I started walking
to the front door, I realized he wasn't following.

I turned around and walked back to where he still stood with a grin on
his face.  "What the hell's so funny, Forbes?"

"Oh, so it's Forbes now?"

"Hey, you've always called me Kincaid."

"Yeah, well, you've always called me Chuck.  Am I supposed to call you
something different now too?"

"You can call me whatever you want, as long as you keep your smart-ass
comments to yourself while I interview Ken-dra Martin."

"They teach you those manners at Hah-vud?"

"Give me a break.  Last time I checked, that little park we call the
waterfront was still named after your daddy."

"Yeah, and look at all the good that being the governor's son has done
me.  Driving fifteen miles out of my way on my night off for your
interview, standing here with a McMeal for your witness.  The last time
I checked, Kincaid, you and I were still friends.  Would it kill you to
at least say hi to me before we head in for work?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  "No, it wouldn't.  You're
right.  Hi.  Hi, Chuck.  It's nice to see you.  Now can we go do my
interview?"

"Yes.  And it's nice to see you too."

I rang the doorbell.  I could hear obnoxious music, the kind that
started to sound like noise when I turned thirty, blaring from inside.
I rang the doorbell again and then banged on the door.  I felt him
standing behind me while we waited on the porch in silence.  When I
heard the music get lower and footsteps approach the door, I looked at
him over my shoulder.  "That was nice of you.  To bring her some
dinner, I mean."

"Thanks."

I couldn't tell what Kendra Martin looked like when she answered the
door, because her face was obscured by a big pink gum bubble.  It
popped to reveal a thin pale girl with doe eyes and full lips.  Her
wavy, dark hair stopped right below her shoulders.  She wore an Eminem
sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that looked like they'd fit my father.
So far, she seemed like a typical thirteen-year-old.

She looked past me at Chuck.  "What're you doing here?"

"I came by to see whether you listened to anything I told you on
Sunday.  What did I tell you about looking out the window to see who's
here before you open the door to anyone?"

She shifted her weight all the way to one leg and swung her hip one
direction and tilted her head in the other.  "I guess I forgot this
time.  Anyway, it was you, so it's OK, right?"  She twisted a lock of
hair with her fingers.  Obviously Chuck Forbes's magnetism was not lost
on this new generation of teenage girls.

"OK, we'll treat that as a test run.  But I mean it: From now on, you
have to look before you open that door.  If it's someone you don't
know, you don't answer.  Got it?"

"Yeah, I got it.  Whaddaya doin' here?"

"I brought someone over who I want you to meet.  This is Samantha
Kincaid."

Kendra looked at me without saying a word.  Then she smiled at Chuck
and popped her gum.  "She your girlfriend?"

Chuck looked at me and raised his eyebrows.  "No, she's not my
girlfriend.  But she is a really good friend of mine, and she's a DA.
She's going to be handling your case."

I held out my hand to her.  She shook it but looked down at the floor
while she did it.

"It's nice to meet you, Kendra.  I've heard a lot about you. Detectives
Walker and Johnson tell me you did a real good job helping them at the
hospital last weekend."

"That's funny.  They told Chuck and Mike I acted like demon spawn."

"They might've mentioned something like that to me too.  But they also
said you were very helpful.  Do you mind if we come in?"

She looked at the box in Chuck's hand.  He said, "I thought you might
be hungry.  The fries are still hot."

"Come on in."  She took the box from Chuck.  "Thank you."

"Don't mention it.  It was Sam's idea, anyway."

"Thank you," she said to me.

I looked at Chuck.  "It wasn't a problem.  Really."

The Martin house wasn't what I expected.  I had braced myself for the
worst.  Unfortunately, I'd gotten used to the fact that an entire
segment of the population raises its children in filthy homes that
don't look like they could possibly exist in the United States.  Last
year, police went to an apartment on a noise complaint and found nine
children alone in a one-bedroom apartment.  They all slept on the same
bare, stained mattress on the bedroom floor.  The carpets were soaked
with cat urine and feces.  The kids had been alone for a week and were
living off of dry cat food and some candy bars that the oldest child,
an eight-year-old boy, had been given to sell for the school choir.

Their mothers, two sisters in their early twenties, had left on a meth
hinge.  As they later told police, they lost track of time and never
meant to leave their kids alone.  It turned out that maternal neglect
was the least of the kids' problems.  By the time the investigation was
over, police learned that all of the children had been sexually
assaulted.  Their mothers had accepted drugs and money in exchange for
permitting various men to take the children of their choice into the
apartment's bedroom alone.

From what I'd heard about Kendra Martin's troubles and her mother's
parenting style, I had expected their house to be a hellhole.  I had
jumped to the wrong conclusion.  The house was cleaner than my own and
reflected the efforts of someone trying to do her best without much to
work with.  A crisp clean swath of blue cotton was draped over what I
suspected was an old and tattered sofa.  In the corner, a thirteen-inch
television sat on a wooden tray table.  In a move that Martha Stewart
would envy, someone had made a lamp base out of an old milk jug.

"Kendra, I don't want to tell you things you already know, so let me
start by asking you whether you have any questions about what a DA
does."

"Not really."

"What do you think my job is?"

"You're kind of my lawyer, right?"

"Well, technically my client is the State.  But in this case, my goal
is to help prove who did this to you and then convince the court to put
them in prison for a long time.  When we do go to court, I'll be the
one who asks you most of the questions.  So in some ways it will be
like I'm your lawyer.  Have you ever testified before?"

"No.  I got in some trouble after Christmas."  She looked at Chuck.
"She knows about that, right?"

"Yes, I know you were arrested on Christmas."

"Well, I went to juvie on that, but no charges were filed so I didn't
have to talk or anything."

"You're going to need to testify this Friday, but you don't need to
worry about that.  Friday's going to be in front of a grand jury: it'll
just be me, you, and seven jurors.  The man the police arrested won't
be there, and there's no defense attorney or judge.  I'll ask you
questions, and the grand jurors will listen to your answers.  Then
they'll decide whether to charge him.  Assuming he's charged, there
might be a trial later on, and that's more like what you see on TV.
Does that sound OK?"

"I guess."

"How are you feeling?"  I asked.

"Not so good."

"You staying clean?"

"Yeah, so far.  I didn't really think it would be this hard, though."

I could tell she was having problems.  She wasn't as bad off as older
addicts I've seen withdrawing in custody, but it wasn't going to be
easy for her.  I suspected the only reason she wasn't out using again
was that she didn't have any money and was scared shitless to hit the
street again.

"Is it alright if we talk about what happened?"

"I guess so.  Is it OK if I go ahead and eat?"

I hadn't noticed she'd been holding off.  "Go for it."

She opened the box tentatively and ate the fries one by one, taking
small bites and chewing slowly.

"Had you ever seen either of these men before?"

"Unh-unh."

"So you don't think they were ever customers of yours or knew you from
somewhere before?"

"I don't know where they'd know me from.  They didn't look familiar or
anything like that."

I couldn't tell if she was avoiding my question about prior customers
or if she believed she'd already answered it.

"So, you're sure they weren't customers?"

"Yeah.  I'm pretty sure I would've recognized 'em if they were.  I
haven't done it that many times."

Poor girl.  She probably justified what she did by telling herself that
she wasn't really a prostitute if she didn't do it often and stopped
before she was older.

"Was there anyone else around when they were talking to you or when you
got pulled into the car?"

"No.  When they stopped the car, I looked around to make sure no one
was watching before I started talking to them.  I didn't want to get
caught again after what happened on Christmas.  I think there might've
been one homeless guy sitting on the corner, but he looked really out
of it."

I looked over at Chuck.  "We canvassed the area and didn't find any
witnesses," he said.  "We found a guy who usually sleeps on that
corner, but he didn't see anything."

"Kendra, the police have already told me what they know about what
happened.  But, if it's alright with you, I'd like you to tell me in
your own words.  I need you to be completely honest with me, even
though parts of it might be embarrassing.  No one here is going to be
mad at you or get you in trouble for anything you say."

She started from the beginning and told me everything.  I never needed
to prompt her, and she continued talking even when she was clearly very
upset about what happened.  Her statement was consistent with what she
told Walker and Johnson the night of the assault.  She would make a
great

GO

witness, but unfortunately she did not reveal anything I didn't already
know.  I'd been hoping for some new avenue of investigation.

I told her I understood why she initially kept some information from
Detectives Walker and Johnson at the hospital, but that I'd be asking
her to explain it to the grand jurors.

"I don't even remember much about when they first came into the room.
Whatever that doctor gave me had me feeling really sick.  I just
remember being mad."

"What do you remember telling them?"

"Well, I said I was on Burnside to go to Powell's.  You know the real
reason I was there.  I just didn't want to tell them, is all.  It's
embarrassing, and I could get in trouble for it."

"Do you remember telling them you didn't know how heroin got in your
system?"

"Not really, but then later on, when they came back with that lawyer
guy, he told me he knew I'd lied about it.  So I figured I must've said
it.  I didn't want to get in trouble, is all."

"Is that the only reason you lied?"

"I don't know.  It's hard to explain.  It's like, I guess I was pretty
sure they wouldn't arrest me or anything since I was in the hospital
and all.  But I thought if they knew what I'd been doing, they wouldn't
believe me about what happened.  Or maybe they'd believe me but not
really care, since I, like, you know, kind of got myself in that
situation.  And I wanted them to believe me and go out and find who did
it.  So I told the truth about what they did to me, but I didn't tell
them the parts I figured didn't matter as much.  Does that make any
sense?"

"It makes a lot of sense.  Are you still doing that?  Are you still
leaving things out that you think aren't important?"

"No.  Detective Walker said he'd work on my case even if it turned out
that I had been doing something bad before it happened."

"Good, because he meant it.  I think you're a very smart young woman
and you've been brave to tell the truth."

She stuck her chin out, rolled her eyes, and tried hard to hide a
smile.  "Thanks."  She probably wasn't used to compliments.

"I know you don't know us very well, but can you tell us why you don't
like living here?"  I asked.

"It's actually OK right now."

I'd forgotten how frustrating it is to try to talk to a kid.  "Why do
you run away?"

"Last time I left was because I was going crazy here.  I felt really
sick and wanted to get some horse.  The doctor says I've gotten to
where my body wants it, even if I don't think I do."

"Is that why you started in prostitution?"

"I wouldn't really call it prostitution.  I mean, I guess it's gotten
to that, but that's not how it started.  It was just like I'd hear
about somebody who was, like, holding and then I'd find them and try to
get some.  But most of the time I didn't have any money.  At first, I'd
offer to go to the Kmart and, like, shoplift something in return.  That
was working OK, but then all the stores around here started telling me
not to come in anymore.

"So then, last summer, some guy told me he'd give me the stuff if I'd
you know, if I'd, like, let him put it in my mouth.  And that seemed
like a way for me to get what I wanted without getting caught stealing
or anything.  Once I started getting it that way, I started to, like,
use even more of it."

"When did you start using heroin?"

"The middle of seventh grade, so like maybe a year ago?"

"Do kids at your school do that already?"

"No.  Some of the kids smoke pot and stuff."

This was like pulling teeth.  "So how did you wind up using heroin in
the seventh grade?"

"If I say, are you gonna tell my mom?"

"Not if we don't have to."

For a second, I thought that wasn't going to be good enough for her.
Kendra looked down at Eminem on her sweatshirt and started rubbing out
a blob of ketchup that had fallen out of her hamburger onto his pecs.
It was like she forgot we were there.  Without raising her head, she
said, "Mom already feels real bad that I'm, like, the way I am.  She
thinks it's her fault or something for not being with me more.  If she
knew how it started, she'd, like, really freak out and blame herself
and stuff."

"You're very considerate to be concerned about your mom.  I know she
works hard to keep everything going around here, and I won't tell her
things that you tell me unless the law requires me to."

She thought about that for a moment.  "It started a while ago.  My dad
doesn't live with us.  I don't know him, actually.  Mom works all the
time, so I'm usually here alone.  I don't really mind.  But every once
in a while, she has a boyfriend start living here.  I don't know why
she dates these loser guys who don't even have jobs and stuff when she
works so hard.

"Anyway, last year this guy named Joe was staying here with us.  He
said he was a contractor, but he like never left the house or anything.
I guess one day while I was at school, he went nosing through my stuff
in my room.  I had a little bag of pot hidden in my dresser.  I'd only
smoked it once.  Me and my friend got it from this guy at school, just
to try it.

"So anyway, when I got home, he's sitting on the couch holding this
bag.  He said he was gonna tell Mom unless I could keep a secret about
him.  And then he goes into Mom's room and brings out his gym bag.  He
had a bunch of pot in there, but he had heroin too.  He told me he
didn't tell my mom or anything 'cause of how she feels about drugs, but
he'd let me use some.  I didn't want to, 'cause that seemed like way
more major than pot.  But Joe said popping wasn't really like shooting
up or anything and wasn't as big of a deal.  And he said if I didn't
try it, then I wouldn't be in on his secret, and he'd tell Mom mine. So
I tried it."

"Is that the only time you used heroin with him?"

"Yeah, right.  He wanted me to do it with him again like a week later,
then it was more and more, until he was waiting for me almost every day
after school."

"Kendra, did Joe ever touch you or do anything sexual to you?"

"Not really.  He'd like touch my hair and stuff when we were high. Gave
me the heebie-jeebies.  He was totally gross.  After a couple months, I
guess Mom found his stash and kicked him out.  I was happy he was gone,
but then I didn't have any way to get the heroin."

I didn't know what to say.  This poor girl had destroyed herself out of
fear that she would create one more source of stress in her overworked
mother's life.  Now, even after all she'd been through, she still
worried more for her mother's well-being than her own.  I hoped Andrea
Martin deserved the concern.

"Before you started being with men in order to get the heroin, had you
ever engaged in any other sexual activity?"

She blushed and looked down at the floor.  "Just kissing and stuff with
a couple boys at school."

"No older boys?"

"Unh-unh."

"Not Joe?"

"I said no."

"None of your mother's other boyfriends ever tried to touch you in a
bad way?"

"No.  I'd tell you.  How come you're so sure someone tried to get over
on me?"

I knew I had strayed from the open-ended style of questioning used with
child sex abuse victims, but it seemed unlikely that Kendra hadn't been
victimized before she began selling herself for drugs.  It was
possible, but the vast majority of women who become prostitutes were
molested as children.

If she wasn't molested, my guess is that watching her mother's own
relationships with men had left her vulnerable to abuse before this Joe
person ever came into the house and began grooming her.  Pedophiles
often take their time developing a relationship of trust with the
child, sharing secrets and breaking barriers.  Once the abuse begins,
the child chooses to permit its continuance rather than lose the
abuser's affection.  After spending two months using heroin with her
mother's boyfriend, Kendra's next step was almost guaranteed.

"I'm not sure about anything, Kendra.  I just wanted to make sure you
weren't keeping anything from me, to protect them or maybe your
mother."

"Well, I'm not.  If it's like you're thinking someone must've done
something to me for me to be this way, you're wrong.  I guess I'm just
screwed up."

"You're not screwed up, and it's not your fault.  Do you know that?
What happened to you is not your fault."

"That's what the advocate person said, too.  Mom thinks it's my
fault."

"I bet she doesn't."  I wasn't so sure about what Andrea Martin
thought, but I knew what Kendra needed to hear.

"She keeps saying I shouldn't have been out there."

"Well, she's right.  It's good that you're acknowledging that you made
a mistake to put yourself in a risky situation.  But that doesn't make
this thing your fault.  You see the difference?"

"I guess so."

"Say it's not your fault."

She looked at Chuck, then me, then down at her feet.  "That's kind of
dumb."

"It's not dumb," Chuck said.  I was glad he jumped in.  I was used to
working with women who couldn't listen to anyone but a man, and
thirteen wasn't too young for it to start.  I needed some help.

She sighed.  "It's not my fault," she said quietly.

"Now, look me in the eye," I said, "and say it louder."

She looked at me this time, only at me.  "It's not my fault."

This time, she sounded like maybe she meant it.

"Good girl.  You're going to think this is silly, but whenever you
start to doubt that, I want you to look in the mirror and see how
pretty and smart you are.  Then I want you to say that out loud to
yourself and see how confident and strong you look, OK?"

She rolled her eyes, but she smiled.  "Man, every time one of you guys
comes over, I get some new thing I'm supposed to remember to do.  Look
out the window, talk to myself in the mirror.  Next time, you're gonna
have me standing on my head and singing the Backstreet Boys."

I smiled back at her and then asked why she worked out of the Hamilton,
the motel at Third and Alder.  She explained that she met a group of
teenage girls at Harry's Place, a shelter for street kids.  When it
became clear that Kendra was picking up spare money the same way the
others were, they told her she should work out of the Hamilton.
Apparently, the management there didn't care about what went on, and
enough girls were turning tricks out of the motel that it provided
something of a support network.  The girls would watch out for each
other and pass along tips they'd pick up on the street.

Kendra explained that she worked sporadically enough that she'd managed
to avoid hooking up with a pimp.  "They're definitely out there,
though.  Haley, this girl I know the best out of that group she's older
than me anyway, Haley said she did what I did for about a year before
she couldn't get away with it anymore.  The other girls were telling
her she wasn't safe out there by herself, and she got beat up a couple
times pretty bad.  So she was giving half of her money to some man, but
he was supposed to watch her back and make sure she stayed safe."

I'm sure this guardian was a real gentleman.

Kendra's face lit up as she told me about the girls she'd met on the
street, at Harry's Place, and at the Hamilton.  I could tell she missed
them, even if she wasn't missing the lifestyle yet.

"Do you want to see pictures of them?"  She hopped up from the sofa and
disappeared into the back of the house.  She returned with a miniature
backpack in the shape of a panda bear and fished out two envelopes.

"I love taking pictures.  I don't have a camera, but we used to, like,
pitch in our money to get a disposable one sometimes.  We'd take turns
carrying it around until the film was gone.  It would take awhile for
them to actually get developed, since no one ever had enough money. But
I took these in last week."

She handed the pictures to me one by one, flipping through most of them
quickly, explaining that she hadn't taken them and didn't know most of
the people in them.  I tried not to reveal my shock.  One group of
pictures showed girls in their bras and panties frolicking on the lap
of a hard-bodied shirtless man with a tattoo of the Tasmanian Devil on
his right pec.  The photographs didn't reveal his face, but he was
obviously an adult, and, from the looks of things, he was about as
carnivorous as the notoriously frenzied cartoon character emblazoned on
his chest.

"Those were taken when someone else had the camera," Kendra said, by
way of explanation.

Kendra seemed to have an eye for photography.  When she finally got to
the three pictures she had taken, I could see that she'd managed to
capture a youthful, playful side of these girls that was nowhere to be
seen in the other photos.  Three of them were sitting outside in
Pioneer Square, making funny faces and forming peace signs with their
fingers over each other's heads.

"That's my friend Haley," Kendra said, pointing to an attractive
teenage girl who was crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue at
the camera.  Of Kendra's friends, she looked the most like a
prostitute.  I recognized her from the Tasmanian Devil pictures.

"Kendra, would you mind if I borrowed these pictures?"  I sensed that
she wanted an explanation.  "Chuck and I work with a man named Tommy
Garcia.  He's been trying to figure out who's been making girls like
Haley and your other friends give them a portion of their money."

After some negotiation, we decided that she'd hang on to the three
pictures of her friends and I'd take the rest to Garcia.

When Kendra went to the kitchen to throw out the empty Happy Meal box,
Chuck pulled me aside.

"I was thinking about the investigation while you two were talking.
Kendra told Ray and Jack she'd know the place those guys drove her to
if she saw it, but they never took her out.  Probably thought it was
too much of a long shot.  But I want to drive her around a little over
there and see if she recognizes anything.  We can canvass for
witnesses.  Maybe someone called in a suspicious car or something.  You
never know."

"Sure, sounds good."  I was surprised that he wanted my input.  "You
don't need my permission to do stuff like that."

He squinted in mock disbelief.  "Don't flatter yourself, Kincaid.  I
need you to drive us."

It was my turn to feign misgivings.  "Something wrong with that ride of
yours?  Since when do you need me to schlep you around?"

"Why do you always have to bag on my car?  You have to admit, it's
pretty sweet."

Chuck loved cars.  As long as I'd known him, he had always driven some
old car that he had poured his heart, soul, and wallet into to fix. For
the last few years, it had been a magnificent ruby-red 1967 Jaguar
convertible.

"You know I love that car.  I just think it would look a lot better
around someone else.  Me, for example."

"In your dreams, Kincaid."

"So if I can't have your car, what do you need me and my little Jetta
for?"

"Department GO says we don't put civilians in our personal vehicles
while we're on the job.  I don't want to go all the way downtown for a
duty car.  Let's just take yours."

I looked at my watch.  It was a quarter after eight.  "And what makes
you think the DA's office doesn't have a general order saying the same
thing?"

"Because you guys don't need GO's.  Only reason cops have them is to
cover our asses now that police are getting sued left and right after
Rodney King and Abner Louima.  You lawyers are so fucking political,
you can CYA without any stupid policies."

"Nice language.  You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"No, but I don't remember you having any problems with it."

"Knock it off, or you and that little smirk can drive to Texas alone
for all I care."

"Leave the tough act for the courthouse.  You forget how well I know
you.  We both know you care, so fish out the keys to that tin can of
yours so we can go to work."

Once again, I was left yearning for the perfect zinger.  I settled for
my keys.

Four.

It took some doing to convince Kendra to come with us, but when I
explained how helpful she could be, she relented.  She paused on the
porch as she was pulling the front door shut behind her.  "Oh, hold on
a sec.  I don't have any house keys.  Mom's supposed to get a new set
made at the store tomorrow."

I'd forgotten about that.  "Can we go by your mom's work and pick up
her keys on the way home?"

"Um, her boss gets real mad if she does personal stuff at work.  I'm
not supposed to bug her or anything when she's there.  The store's a
lot nicer."

Chuck did a quick overview of the house and came up with a solution. We
placed a full cup of water on the floor a few inches in front of the
back door, and stuck several pieces of masking tape from the door to
the doorframe.  We left the door unlocked and walked out of the front
door, locking it and pulling it shut behind us on the way out.

Kendra looked puzzled until Chuck explained that any unusual event at
the beginning of a break-in usually spooks the burglar enough that he
leaves.  In a worst-case scenario, we'd at least know someone had been
there when we got back if the water was spilled and the tape
unsealed.

As responsible adults, we should have consulted Kendra's mother before
taking her daughter and leaving her home unlocked.  But by now Chuck
and I had surmised that this was no typical mother-daughter
relationship.  If it was OK by Kendra, Andrea Martin would assume it
was for the best.

When she saw the cars parked in front of her house, Kendra had a clear
preference.  "Cool car!  Are we taking it?"

Her eager look up at me spoke volumes.  I turned my head to smile back
at Chuck.  "I told you it was a chick car."

"It's not a chick car.  You know how much power that thing has?  She
was complimenting you.  Probably figured a highbrow lawyer like you
would drive something with a little more style."

Kendra tried to hide her disappointment.  "Your car's nice too, Miss
Kincaid."

"Thanks.  And you call me Samantha, or I'm going to start calling you
Miss Martin."

She laughed.  "OK, Samantha."

Chuck hopped in the backseat so Kendra could ride up front.  I headed
south and then west on Division, toward southeast Portland.  Rockwood
was on the outskirts of Portland, straddling the east border of the
city and the west border of suburban Gresham.  It marked the end of
approximately 140 consecutive blocks of east Portland, inhabited by
white welfare families who were seldom acknowledged by either the
liberal elite who occupy the central core of the city or the more
conservative soccer-mom families who make up the suburbs.

The only landmark Kendra could give me was Reed College.  She
remembered seeing it while they were driving.  The school was located
just a few miles southeast of downtown, on Woodstock Boulevard.  It was
a fitting name for the location.  The college was a bastion of leftist
politics and had proudly carried the motto atheism, communism, and free
love since the 1950s.  Some student in the eighties had made a mint
selling parody T-shirts saying new reed: the moral

MAJORITY, CAPITALISM, AND SAFE SEX.

Students arrived on campus looking like regular kids who just got out
of high school, but by Thanksgiving they'd all stopped bathing and had
torn holes in the L. L. Bean and J. Crew clothing their parents had
shipped them off to Oregon with.  When I was in high school, the slur
"You smell like a Reedie" was used whenever someone got a little ripe
in gym class.

Although the school was recognized nationally for its stringent
academic requirements, Kendra, like most Oregonians had described it to
me as "that hippie school."

Chuck was trying to help her narrow our search.  "Would you say you
stopped pretty soon after you saw the college, or did you see the
college closer to the beginning of the drive?"

"It was maybe a little bit after halfway."

"Did they get on a freeway after you saw the college, or did they drive
on residential streets?"

"Well, after, they took the freeway out to where they left me, I guess.
But I think they were just driving on regular streets before that."

Old Town to Reed College was about a ten-minute drive.

If they didn't get on a freeway or a major arterial, then they hadn't
driven all the way out to the far end of the city.  Still, what seemed
like a long shot when Chuck thought of it in Rockwood seemed even more
ridiculous now that we were in the car.

We needed more.  "Do you remember anything else?  Any stores?  Gas
stations?  Strip malls?"

"I'm sorry.  I wasn't looking at stuff like that.  I just remember
driving in front of the college.  I looked to see if maybe there were
some people walking around who might see me if I tried to get out, but
it was really dark."

"So if you had passed an open store, do you think you would've
remembered it?"

"Um, yeah, I guess.  Because I was looking for a place with a bunch of
people."

"When they stopped, were you near houses?  Or was it more industrial?"
The police report said that Kendra had described being in a parking
lot, but I hadn't formed an impression of what type of lot.

"It was a big parking lot, but there weren't, like, any other cars or
anything.  And there was, like, one real big building but then nothing
else, just like a park or something.  But it wasn't a park I'd ever
seen or anything."

I was at a loss.  I headed toward Reed College until I could think of a
better plan.

"Oh, wait, I remember something.  After they stopped, before I tried to
run away, I remember I couldn't hear what they were saying to each
other.  They were, like, having to yell to talk because a train was
going by."

Now we were getting somewhere.  Portland doesn't have much in the way
of train tracks.  There's the Max, a light rail that's part of the
city's public transportation.  It runs east to west across the entire
county on a single track.  Then there are the rail car tracks.  The
east-west tracks are close to the Max rails along Interstate 84.  The
north-south tracks are roughly adjacent to Highway 99.  "Like a Max
train or a big train?"

"Louder than the Max.  A big train."

The east-west train tracks didn't seem likely.  They were on the north
side of the city.  I didn't think Kendra would confuse any neighborhood
along the tracks with southeast Portland.  But the north-south tracks
ran right through close-in southeast Portland, just a half a mile or so
west of Reed.  There were a few neighborhood parks within earshot of
the tracks.

I drove past Reed College and headed to the Rhododendron Gardens.  The
front parking lot and small information booth fit Kendra's description
at least roughly.  When I pulled into the lot, she said, "No, this
isn't it.  It was a bigger lot, and there wasn't a fence like this.  It
just went right into the park area and then there was a bigger
building."

Westmoreland Park had a larger parking lot without a fence, but I
didn't recall any kind of building, and sure enough there wasn't one.

"Does this even look like the same neighborhood?"  I asked.

"Yeah, it does.  I don't think I've ever been here or anything.  But,
yeah, it was like this.  Like with a lot of trees and stuff.  And when
we passed houses, they were big like these."

We were in the middle of a pocket of upscale houses in southeast
Portland.  The Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood, like my own in Alameda,
was made up of turn-of-the-century homes.  It was the most recent
central neighborhood to have been taken over and colonized by yuppies.
Considered a hippie enclave when I was a kid, the place was now overrun
by coffee shops, chichi bakeries, and antiques stores.  Area residents
now actually golfed at Eastmoreland, a municipal course that rivals
many private country clubs.

Sometimes my disjointed pattern of thought actually pays off.  It
suddenly dawned on me that the last time I went to Eastmoreland to use
its covered driving range, I sliced the hell out of a ball because a
train had come barreling by at the top of my backswing.  The parking
lot is enormous and surrounded by thick hedges on two sides and the
golf course on the others.

I felt a rush, but I tried to hide my excitement.  I didn't want to
coach Kendra into a specific answer.  I took a few side streets through
Westmoreland and then turned into the Eastmoreland lot.

Kendra knew immediately.  If her ID of Derringer had been this solid, I
could see why she'd earned Walker's and Johnson's confidence.

"Samantha, this is it.  I remember, I remember!  That's the big
building, and over there's the park.  Are we near train tracks?  This
is totally it.  They drove me right over there, around the side of the
building."

I knew that around the corner from the clubhouse, a strip of asphalt
led to the driving range.  I parked there whenever I came to hit balls,
but it had never dawned on me how dangerously isolated the area would
be when the course was closed.  Acres of greens surrounded the lot on
the north, east, and south.  To the west, thick hedges, train tracks,
and a six-lane freeway separated the parking lot from the nearest
house.

From the backseat, Chuck patted Kendra on the shoulder.

"Good memory, kiddo.  Good job, Kincaid, for thinking of this place.
You two didn't even need me here."

I knew he was attempting to hide his disappointment.  The odds of
finding a witness were slim.  He would check with the golf course in
the morning, but he wouldn't find anything.

I tried to look on the bright side.  At least I could prove that the
crime had taken place in Multnomah County, so Derringer couldn't weasel
out on a technical argument over jurisdiction.  Also, the golf course
was only a few minutes from Derringer's house, which at least added a
piece of circumstantial evidence.  At this point, anything helped.

I decided to drive by Derringer's apartment before heading back to
Rockwood.  It would be nice to know the exact distance for trial, and I
might as well get it while I was down here.

I took a right onto Milwaukee Avenue and made a note of my odometer
reading.  Milwaukee is the primary commercial road running through
Sellwood.  It was also one of the only places where you'd find
low-rent, high-crime apartments in this pocket of southeast Portland.

Frank Derringer's apartment building was on Milwaukee and Powell, which
I learned was exactly 1.7 miles from the Eastmoreland Golf Club.  I
pulled into the small parking lot in front of the building, turned on
my overhead light, and jotted down the odometer reading on a legal pad
I pulled from my briefcase.

"Sorry for the stop, guys, but I wanted to make sure I made a note in
the file about our find at the golf club while it was still fresh in my
mind."

Chuck realized where we were but didn't say anything.  He apparently
agreed there was no need to inform Kendra that we were sitting just a
few feet from her assailant's home.  She didn't seem like the
pipe-bomb-building type, but you never can tell.

I added a short note for the file, summarizing Kendra's statement at
the golf course.  As I was returning the pad to my briefcase, Kendra
opened her car door, got out, and began walking across the street.

"Where the hell's she "

Before I could finish the question, Chuck was out of the car too.  It
wasn't hard for him to catch up.  Kendra stopped by an old tan Buick on
the corner across the street from the complex.  When I got to where she
and Chuck stood, Chuck was saying, "What?  What is it?  Kendra?"

Kendra was ignoring him, entranced by this remarkably unexceptional
car.  Then she said, "He must've painted it."

"Who?  Who painted what?"

Kendra spoke as if thinking aloud.  "The car.  He must've painted it.
It was dark before.  Now it's tan."

"Kendra, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that this is the car.  This is the car they pulled me into.
I remember it.  But it was dark before."

Chuck and I traded skeptical looks.  This wasn't good.  Witnesses were
notoriously bad at identifying cars, especially when, like Kendra, they
knew nothing about them.  And this particular identification seemed
especially suspect, given that the car was an entirely different color
from what Kendra had described after the attack.

The viability of the case against Derringer rose or fell on Kendra
Martin's credibility.  Not just her honesty but also her memory would
be the key to convincing a jury to believe her testimony.  If Kendra
made an assertion of fact that we later determined to be incorrect, I
would have an ethical obligation to tell Lisa Lopez about the mistake.
The case would be over.

A couple of years ago, I had a robbery case where the clerk described
the robber with as much detail as if he had been looking right at him.
The cops picked up the defendant just a few blocks away, sitting at a
bus stop where someone happened to have stuffed a sack full of marked
bills behind a nearby bush.  The man matched the teller's description
in every way, except his tie was blue and not green.

A lazy cop could have written a report saying the teller gave a verbal
description, the defendant fit that description, and the teller then
ID'd the guy in a line-up.  Open and shut.  But the rookie on the
robbery had been fastidious, submitting a detailed fifteen-page report.
The defense lawyer cross-examined the teller for four hours, and three
jurors eventually voted not guilty, leaving me with a hung jury.  My
guess is that the eager officer now has a habit of glossing over
certain facts in his reports.

How much Chuck Forbes lets slide in his reports I didn't know, but the
point was moot.  I was standing right here, falling into the hole that
Kendra Martin was digging deeper with her every word.  The line between
changing her statement and leading the investigation would be thin.
Chuck and I needed to be sure to stay on the right side of it.

He spoke first.  "Kendra, if you're not sure, why don't we come back in
the morning when it's light out and you've had the chance to sleep on
things."  We both looked at her, hoping the message might translate.

But thirteen-year-old ears are deaf to subtlety.  "I don't need to come
back.  This is the car.  It's just not the right color."

It was my turn to try.  "So, are you saying that this is a similar kind
of car to the one they had, but that the one they were driving was a
different color?"

"No.  I mean, this is the car they had.  Someone must have painted
it."

Struggling to hide my frustration, I said, "Kendra, a lot of cars look
like this one.  You're too young to remember, but when Chuck and I were
your age, almost every car made in America looked just like this.  Sad,
isn't it?"  She wasn't laughing.  "Maybe it's better if we take Chuck's
advice and come back and look at it when it's light out before you make
up your mind for sure."

"I don't want to come back tomorrow.  What if it's gone?  I don't need
to see it again anyway.  I'm sure this is the one.  I couldn't remember
it enough to, like, describe it out loud at the hospital, but now that
I see it, I recognize everything about it.  See, it's got a ding in the
door over here where the driver sits.  And the front hubcap is
different than the back hubcap.  Then I ran over here to look at it
better.  When I looked inside, I remembered it too.  The dash is all
freaky, like a spaceship.  I don't know how to say it.  It's just the
same.  But it looks like they did stuff to it.  It's like way cleaner
inside and it's a different color."

It was possible.  The car was, after all, parked outside of Derringer's
building, and people have been known to paint their cars.

Chuck was busy taking a closer look at the Buick.  "She might be on to
something, Kincaid.  For such a piece of ... um, junk, this baby's
paint's looking real good.  So's the interior."

It made sense.  We knew already that Derringer was willing to go the
extra mile to hide physical evidence.  If he'd shave his body to avoid
leaving hair samples, he might rework his car to dispose of any
incriminating evidence.

"I don't think we can get a warrant with what we've got.  Kendra says
it's the same car, but the fact that it's a different color's going to
kill us.  Is there some way to tell for sure if the paint is new?"

"Sure.  I'll just chip a little bit off."  He reached in his pocket for
his keys.

"No!  Stop.  Don't touch the car."

Chuck held his hands up by his face.  "I wasn't going to open it or
anything."

"It doesn't matter that you weren't going to open it.  Looking beneath
the paint still constitutes a search.  If you chip that paint off,
whatever you see underneath will be inadmissible.  And if we get a
warrant based on what you see, anything we find as a result of the
warrant will also be thrown out.  Is there some way to tell if the
paint's new without touching the car?"

"Depends how good a job they did.  If it was a quickie, they might not
have gotten beneath the bumper and the lights.  The cheap way to do it
is to tape those areas off and paint around them.  If he got it done
after Saturday night, I doubt they did a thorough job.  Problem is, I
can't tell anything in this light."

"I've got a flashlight in my trunk.  I'll go get it."

When I got back, Kendra said, "How come he can use a flashlight but
can't chip some of the paint off?"

"He's allowed to look at anything in open view.  Flashlights are fine.
Some courts even let you use stuff like night vision goggles without
getting a warrant."

"Hey, I've got something here."

Chuck waved us over.  He was crouched down by the back bumper,
supporting his weight with one hand and aiming the light with the
other.

"It looks like this light tan stops right here at the edge of the
bumper."  He was talking slowly, the way people always seem to do when
they're squinting.  "Hard to tell exactly what color's behind there.
Dark brown, maybe.  But it's definitely a lot darker than the new
stuff.  Look over at the edge over here.  It looks like they were kind
of sloppy taping the bumper here.  There's a thin line of paint on the
metal right at the lip there.  Can you see it?"

"Barely, but it's enough.  So the paint job must've been done
recently."

"Definitely.  Even if no one ever washes the thing, normal wear and
tear from the weather would at least break down that line a little bit.
That's real new paint, with a clear edge left from the tape."

That was enough for me.  "Alright, we need to run the plates and make
sure it doesn't belong to some priest down the street.  Assuming we
don't get something on the plate that changes our minds, let's order a
tow and get paper on it."  The law permits police to tow a vehicle and
secure it while they apply for a search warrant.  I asked Chuck,
"What's the best way to do this?"

"I don't have my phone with me.  It's back in my car."

He was looking at me like I could change that.  I'd proudly avoided
buying a cell phone for years.  "You know I don't have one of those
things."

"Let's drive up the street to the gas station, and I'll call Southeast
Precinct to have a patrol officer come out and sit with the car until a
tow comes.  What'll work best is if you drop me off at the Justice
Center.  I'll start the warrant application while you drive Kendra
home, then you can swing back by Central to review the warrant.  Up to
you whether you want to stick around for the search."

It must've been a slow night for crime.  It only took a few minutes for
a patrol officer to meet us at Derringer's.  Kendra and I dropped Chuck
off at the Justice Center, where Central Precinct is located.  Then I
hopped onto 1-84 and headed back out to Rockwood.

I walked Kendra to the front door, then remembered Chuck's contraption.
We went around back, and I pushed on the back door hard enough to pull
off the tape, holding the knob tightly so the door wouldn't swing open.
Reaching my hand in at the bottom of the crack, I pulled out the glass
of water.  It was still full.

"Are you going to be OK here by yourself, Kendra?"

She nodded.  "Uh-huh.  I'm used to it since Mom started working
nights."

"What time does she normally get home?"

"A little bit after eleven."

I looked at my watch.  Kendra would only be alone for about an hour.

"OK.  Make sure you tell her that's Chuck's car out front.  He'll
probably have a patrol car drop him off so he can pick it up, so don't
get scared if you hear him leaving in the middle of the night."

"Alright."

"It was really nice meeting you, Kendra.  You're a very strong girl to
be doing so well after what happened to you.  I want you to know that
all of the police and I are extremely impressed and very proud of
you."

She was smiling with her lips together, which I suspected was as close
to beaming as Kendra got.  "Thanks."

"One of the MCT detectives will come by Friday morning and pick you up
for grand jury, but I want you to know you can call me before that if
you want."  I wrote my direct line on the back of one of my business
cards for her and then waited at the back door until I heard her lock
it.

Once I saw lights coming on inside the house, I pulled out of the
driveway.  My car was racking up more miles tonight than it usually saw
in a month.  I got back onto 1-84 and drove into downtown.  Cones of
red and green rippled on the Willamette, reflecting the lights of the
Hawthorne Bridge.  I grabbed a parking spot on the street across from
the Justice Center and took the elevator to the MCT offices on the
fifth floor.

Chuck was sitting at his desk, his attention focused on his computer
screen.  He didn't hear me, and I paused a moment to take a good look
at him.  I suddenly realized that for years I hadn't been seeing him
clearly.  In my mind, he still looked like he had in 1978; he had
simply exchanged his football uniform for a badge and a shoulder
holster.  But the twenty extra pounds of bulk he'd carried as a kid
were gone.  His face was thinner, and lines had begun to mark his
forehead and the corners of his eyes, just as they had mine.

Working as a cop wasn't this year's sport.  Whether he entered law
enforcement initially for the thrill, to rebel against his family, or
out of sincere dedication, he was in it now for real.  With his
father's contacts, he could have taken any career path he wanted in
this city.  But here he sat fifteen hours into his workday, at a metal
and cork board cubicle, in front of an outdated monitor, waiting for
his first lover to review his warrant so he could prove that a dirtbag
like Frank

Derringer had brutalized a thirteen-year-old heroin addict and
prostitute in a Buick built while we were still making out under the
Grant High School bleachers.

For the first time, I was seeing Chuck Forbes as a man, not as an icon
of a glorious time in my life that was over.  I felt tears in my eyes,
blindsided by the sad realization that Chuck and I were no longer kids
and by the profound honor I felt upon finding myself walking a common
path with him as adults.

I hate that I get so sappy when I'm tired.

I must have made a noise, because Chuck stopped reading and looked over
his shoulder.  Swinging his chair around, he said, "Hey, you, what's
the matter?  Did something happen when you were with Kendra?"

I swallowed and got ahold of myself.  "No, everything's fine.  Just
zoning out."

"Good job with her tonight," he said.  "It was nice to see you act like
yourself with someone on the job.  Seemed to work, too."

"How's the warrant coming?"

I'd ignored his comment, and he had the good sense to pretend not to
notice.  "Good.  I'm done and just went over it again.  If it's alright
with you, I incorporated by reference all the affidavits from the
warrant for Derringer's place, then I drafted a quick affidavit
containing all the new info we got tonight."

"That should be fine.  Does the warrant authorize removal of the seats
and carpet if that's what the crime lab needs to do to look for
blood?"

"Yeah, it's got the works.  The car will be in pieces by the time the
lab's done with it."

"What did you find out about the registration?"

"Plate comes back to a guy named" he grabbed a computer printout from
his desktop "Carl Sommers.  Last time it was registered with DMV was a
couple of years ago.  The tags expire next month.  Anyway, Sommers
filed a statement of sale with DMV about seven months ago saying he
sold the car to a guy named Jimmy Huber."

"What's a statement of sale?"

"It's just a piece of paper from the registered owner saying he doesn't
own the car anymore.  It's a CYA thing in case the buyer doesn't
re-register the car.  Anyway, Sommers's sheet is clean, and it looks
like this Huber guy never did register the car."

"What do we know about Huber?"

"Hold your horses, now.  I'm getting there.  I ran Huber in PPDS.  He
looks like a shit.  Couple of drug pops and a bunch of shoplifting
arrests and domestic beefs.  He just checked into Inverness in December
to do a six-month stint for kicking his girlfriend in the head in front
of their baby."

"Nice guy.  What's his car doing on Milwaukee?"  The Portland Police
Data System is a fountain of data derived from police reports.

"That's the good part.  Looks like he knows Derringer's brother,
Derrick.  PPDS shows Derrick and Huber together as custody associates
on a disc on last summer at the Rose Festival."

Your average drunken delinquent has at least a few downtown arrests for
disorderly conduct.  For a certain type of man, the party hasn't begun
until you're screaming and puking your guts out in an overnight holding
cell.

As I looked over the PPDS printouts for Huber and Derrick Derringer,
something was bothering me, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  I
started thinking out loud.  "So, Huber knows Derringer through his
brother and sold him the car.  But Derringer was still in prison when
Huber got hauled off to Inverness."

"Right, but he could've given the car to the brother, who then gives it
to Frank when he gets out.  The exact mechanics don't really matter.
The point is we can tie the car to Derringer through his brother."

He was right.  In my exhaustion, I was losing sight of the big picture
and, as usual, convincing myself that I was missing something.  "No,
you're right.  It's good.  You put that in your affidavit?"

"Yeah.  I think I'm done with it.  You want to read it and get out of
here?  You look tired."

"I am.  I don't know how you guys pull these crazy shifts.  I'm about
to fall over."

"It's all about the adrenaline, baby."  Chuck does a mean Austin
Powers.  "You want me to rub your shoulders while you read?"

Grace's masseuse says I have a bad habit of storing stress in my
shoulders.  Funny, I think I store it in my ass along with all the food
I pack down when I'm freaking out.  But I do get big knots in my
deltoids after a long day, and Chuck's back rubs were heavenly. Turning
one down was painful.  "Um, I don't think that's a good idea. We're at
work and everything."

"Your call.  If it makes you feel any better, the bureau has a woman
come in once a month to do chair massages.  It's just a relaxation
thing, not foreplay."

"I know.  Thanks anyway."

I finished reviewing the warrant.  It was a quick read, since we were
reusing the affidavits MCT wrote to get the warrant to search
Derringer's house.  The only new material was the information Chuck had
added about the car.

"Looks good," I said, as I signed off on the DA review line of the
warrant.  "Who's on the call-out list tonight?"  The judges rotate
being on call to sign late-night warrants and put out any fires that
might arise.

"Lesh and Hitchcock."

Lawrence Hitchcock was a lazy old judge who smoked cigars in his
chambers and pressured defendants to plead out so he could listen to
Rush Limbaugh at eleven and then close up shop early to play golf.  I'd
rather swallow a bag full of tacks and wash them down with rubbing
alcohol than risk waking up Hitchcock at eleven at night.

David Lesh was the clear preference.  He'd been a prosecutor for a few
years after law school, then jumped ship to the City Attorney's office
to work as legal advisor for the police department.  He was a couple of
years older than I was and had been an easy pick for the governor to
put on the bench a few years back.  He had a good mix of civil and
criminal experience and was known throughout the county bar for being
as straight-up and honorable as they come.  Best of all, he hadn't
changed a bit since he took the bench.  He still worked like a fiend
and went out for beers with the courthouse crowd every Friday.  Lawyers
missed talking to him about their cases, but we were better off having
him as a judge.

"Call Lesh," I advised Chuck.

"No kidding.  I had that lazy fuck Hitchcock on the Taylor case,
remember?"

I always forget that cops know as much about the lives of judges as the
trial lawyers do.  I suspected they gossiped about the DAs as well.  In
this specific instance, Chuck had good reason to know about Hitchcock.
He'd presided over the very complicated trial of Jesse Taylor, a case
that had landed Forbes on the MCT.  Taylor's sixty-five-year-old
girlfriend, Margaret Landry, confessed to Forbes that she and Taylor
had killed a girl.

When I started at the DA's office, Landry was the big talk around the
courthouse.  The local news covered the case's every development.  Most
stories started with the phrase, "A Portland grandmother and her
lover...."  Headlines spoke of murderous Margaret.  If you asked them,
most people who followed the case would tell you they were fascinated
that a sixty-five-year-old grandmother and hospital volunteer
eventually confessed to helping her thirty-five-year-old alcoholic
boyfriend rape and then strangle a seventeen-year-old
borderline-intelligence girl named Jamie Zimmerman.

Forbes had stumbled into the case fortuitously.  Landry initially told
Jesse Taylor's probation officer that she read about Jamie Zimmerman's
disappearance in the Oregonian and suspected her boyfriend's
involvement.  At the time, Chuck was working a specialty rotation,
helping the Department of Community Corrections track people on parole
and probation.  If not for the cooperation agreement between the bureau
and DOCC, Taylor's PO might never have told the police about Landry's
suspicions, because Landry used to call him at least weekly to try to
get Taylor revoked.  Her claims were always either fabricated or
exaggerated.

Despite his hunch that Landry was at it again, the PO mentioned the tip
to Chuck because this was the first time Landry had accused Taylor of
something so serious as a murder.  Chuck and the PO had followed up
with several visits, and each time Landry changed her version of the
events leading up to her accusation.  The two men kept returning in an
attempt to get her to admit that she was lying.  But then she threw
them for a loop: The reason she was sure Taylor had killed Zimmerman,
she said, was that she helped him do it.

The continuing amendments to Landry's story after she was arrested only
served to whet the public's appetite.  She subsequently retracted her
confession and accused Forbes of coercing the statements from her.  But
after she was convicted by a jury, Landry confessed again and agreed to
testify against Taylor to avoid the death penalty.  When Taylor was
convicted and sentenced to die in one of Oregon's first death penalty
cases, she once again recanted.

By then, however, common sense had prevailed, the hype died down, and
people realized that Margaret Landry's confession spoke for itself. The
grandmother who looked like Marie Callender was as deviant and sadistic
as any man who comes to mind as the embodiment of evil.  Last I heard,
both Taylor and Landry were maintaining their innocence, and Taylor
still had appeals pending.

At the time, the public interest in the Jamie Zimmerman murder was
chalked up to tabloid curiosity.  I didn't see it that way; in my
opinion, people were riveted because Margaret Landry scared them.  When
they saw her interviewed, they saw their aunt, the woman down the
block, or the volunteer going door-to-door for the Red Cross.  If she
could abduct, rape, and murder a young woman, then locking our doors,
moving to the suburbs, and teaching our children to avoid strange men
would never be enough to protect us.

Chuck's mind clearly had wandered in a different direction.  "I had a
hard enough time swallowing a death sentence on a case I worked on, but
when it comes out of the court room of some ass like Hitchcock, I
almost hope it does get thrown out."

After decades without a death penalty, the Oregon legislature had
approved one in 1988.  The relatively gentle jurors of Oregon had
delivered capital sentences to only a handful of people, and most
people assumed that those defendants would die natural deaths in prison
before Oregon's courts would permit an execution to be carried out.

Despite the unlikelihood of an Oregon execution, handling murder cases
in what was now theoretically a death penalty state still bothered
Forbes and other people in law enforcement with mixed feelings about
the issue.  Like me, Chuck could not definitively align himself with
either side of the debate.  Unlike most knee-jerk opponents, he
recognized that an execution could bring a kind of closure to a
victim's family that a life sentence could not.  But he continued to be
troubled by the role of vengeance and the inherent discrimination that
too often lay at the heart of the death penalty's implementation.

"Where is that case anyway?"  I asked.

"Last I heard, Taylor hated prison so much he'd fired his attorneys and
waived his appeals, but the State Supreme Court was still sitting on
it.  I almost hope they throw the sentence out.  As long as the
conviction stands, it's still a win for us."

Maybe Chuck had finally taken a position on the issue after all.

"Hey, enough of this.  Why don't you head on home?"  Chuck suggested.

"No, I'll stay here.  I'm OK."

"You've got less sense than a thirteen-year-old.  Do I have to talk to
you like you talked to Kendra?"  He counted the multitude of reasons I
should go home on his fingers.  "I probably won't even do the search
tonight.  There was a shooting a couple hours ago up in north Portland,
so the night-shift crime lab team is probably tied up out there.  The
car's in the impound lot, so it's not going anywhere.  Go home.  Vinnie
misses you."

Vinnie is my French bulldog.  He moved in with me a couple of years
ago, the day my divorce was finalized.  He gets upset when I stay out
late.

Chuck wrinkled up his face and pulled out his ears, like a mean-looking
pug with bat ears.  In other words, he looked like my Vinnie.  "I can
picture him right now.  He's going, "Mmm, these curtains taste good.
This carpet looks a lot better soaked with a huge puddle of French
bulldog piss."  " For whatever reason, Chuck had decided that if Vinnie
could speak he'd sound like Buddy Hackett.

"You're right.  I'm going home.  And the search can wait until
tomorrow.  Don't you work too late either," I said.

"Aye-aye," he said, waving his hand in a quick salute.

I stopped as I was walking toward the door.  "Will you be able to get
your car OK?"

"Yeah.  I'll get a patrol officer to take me out there."

I turned around again at the door.  He was making copies of the
warrant.  "Hey, Chuck."

"Huh?"

"You're really good at what you do."

His face softened, and his eyes smiled at me.  "Thanks.  Back atcha,
babe.  Now go home.  You're only this sweet when you're tired."

I drove home smiling.

Five.

By the time I got home, it was almost midnight.  Vinnie was waiting for
me at the door, very disappointed.  In my head, I heard Chuck's Buddy
Hackett impersonation, scolding me for being out so late.

I threw off my coat, picked him up, made all sorts of embarrassing
cooing noises, and scratched him ferociously behind those big goofy
ears.  When the snorts began, I knew he'd forgiven me.

Vinnie's basic needs are met when I'm gone.  He has his own door in
back that goes out to the yard.  An automatic feeder keeps him portly.
He's even capable of entertaining himself.  I'm pretty sure he thinks
his rubber Gumby doll is his baby.  But at the end of the day, he's a
momma's boy and needs me to talk to him.

Between work, keeping in touch with the few friends who are willing to
put up with me, and trying to burn off all the crap I eat, I have just
enough time left for my chunky little pal.  I have no idea how other
people manage to be needed by whole other tiny little individual people
and still maintain their sanity.

I went into the kitchen and checked the level on Vinnie's feeder to be
sure he ate.  He had.  He takes after me that way.  Every little
meat-flavored morsel was gone.  I was sorry I missed it.  Vinnie's so
low to the ground that he has to reach his neck up over the bowl and
then plop his whole face inside to eat.  Then he picks out all the soft
and chewy nuggets from his Kibbles "N Bits.  When those are gone, he
eats the dry stuff.  When he really gets going, he breathes fast and
loud like an old fat man.

I must've been really hungry, because that mental image actually made
me think of food.  I was torn between the refrigerator and my bed.

I was leaning toward the latter when I noticed the message light
flashing on my machine.  I knew if I tried to sleep now, I'd be lying
in bed wondering who called.  I hit the Play button and unpeeled a
banana that was turning brown and spotty on the counter.

"Sammie, it's your old man.  Are you there?  I guess not.  Glad to see
you're out and not sitting at home alone reading a book with that
rodent you call a dog.  Hi, Vinnie.  You know I'm only kidding.  You
can't help being ugly, little man."

I love it that my father laughs louder at his own jokes than anyone
else.  I wonder if he knows the people doubling up around him when he
talks are enjoying Martin Kincaid's contagious delight with life and
not the substance of what he's saying.

"Anyway, baby, I hope you're doing OK.  You got a hot date or
something?  I was going to come by today and mow your lawn if it was
dry again, but old Mother Nature, she had other plans.  I went and saw
a movie instead.  I tell you, that Kevin Spacey is something else.  You
have to see this picture.  OK, I don't want to take up your whole
machine.  You've probably got all kinds of men trying to call you. Some
real winners from down at the courthouse.  I'm just giving you a hard
time, Sammie.  You know I'm proud of you.  You're a top-notch human
being.  Give me a call tomorrow if you've got some time. "Bye."

I'd finished my banana by the time he hung up.  The length of my
father's phone messages correlates directly with how lonely he is in
his empty house.  My mother died almost two years ago, just seven
months after doctors found a lump in her right breast.  As much as I
wish I had never married my ex-husband, the marriage had at least
brought me back to Portland, so I was here for my mother's last few
months.

In retrospect, it was quick as far as those things go, but at the time
it seemed like an eternity.  Mom was as tough a fighter as they make,
but in the end the cancer was too much even for her.  People like to
say that my father and I are lucky that she passed quickly, once it was
clear that treatment was futile.  Maybe I'm selfish, but I don't
agree.

Since Mom died, I'd spent more time with my father as he adjusted to
life as a widower.  He was doing as well as could be expected under the
circumstances.  He retired from federal employment as a forest ranger
last year, so he has a good pension and reliable benefits.  Without a
job to go to, he now finds comfort in his routine.  He goes to the gym,
takes care of the yard, watches his shows, goes target shooting, and
plays checkers with his ninety-year-old next-door neighbor.

I see my dad at least every weekend.  We usually catch a movie and then
wind up talking for a few hours afterward.  Grace comes with us
sometimes.  So does Chuck, when we're getting along.  I think it makes
Dad happy to see me with friends he's known and liked since I was a
kid.  He never did like Shoe Boy and thinks most of my lawyer friends
are snobs.  Too bad I didn't inherit his good judgment.

It was much too late to call him back, so I got ready for bed, snuggled
into the blankets, and picked up a mystery I'd started the week before.
Vinnie followed me into bed, lying by my feet on his stomach with all
four legs splayed out around him like a bear rug.  I only made it
through a few pages before I nodded off and dropped the book on my
face.  There's a reason I only read paperbacks.

The sun shining through my bedroom window woke me the next morning
before the alarm.  It was a nice change from a typical Portland
February, when the excitement of the holidays is over and the endless
monotony of dark, wet, gray days makes it hard to get out of bed.  It
was just after six o'clock, leaving me enough time for a quick run
before work.  I hopped out of bed, pulled on my sweats and running
shoes, and brushed my teeth before setting out on a four-mile course
through my neighborhood.

For the first time since October, I was able to look around clearly at
my neighborhood rather than squint through a steady fall of drizzle. As
I ran past the coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants along the
tree-lined streets of my historic neighborhood in northeast Portland
called Alameda the brisk dry air stung my cheeks and filled my lungs.
Running clears my head and helps me see the world in a better light.

I finished up my fourth mile about a half hour later, and hung on to my
good mood while I listened to a block of "Monday Morning Nonstop Retro
Boogie" in the shower.  One of the benefits of living alone is that you
can belt out the entire Saturday Night Fever sound track in the shower
if you feel like it, and no one complains, even if you sing like me.

Grace had recently convinced me to trade in my usual shoulder-length
bob for a wispy little do.  When she dried it at the salon, my hair
looked like it belonged on one of the more glamorous CNN anchors.  When
I tried it at home, I ended up looking like a brunette baby bird.  It
wasn't too bad today, so I spruced it up with gel and slapped on some
blush and eyebrow pencil.  I caught a quick look in the mirror.  At
five-eight and through with my twenties, I still have good skin and a
single-digit dress size.  Not bad.  By the time I was done, I had time
to catch my regular bus in to work.

Southwest Fifth and Sixth Avenues constitute Portland's bus mall,
carrying thousands of commuters from various communities within the
metropolitan area through downtown Portland.  I hopped out at Sixth and
Main and walked the two blocks to the Multnomah County Courthouse on
Fourth, stopping on the way to fill my commuter's mug at Starbucks with
my daily double-tall nonfat latte.

I was running a few minutes shy of the time the District Attorney liked
us to be here.  But I was well ahead of the county's newest jurors all
summoned to appear for orientation at 8:30 a.m. and the county's
various out-of-custody criminal defendants scheduled for morning court
appearances.

I'm not sure which way it cuts, but I have always found it odd that the
criminal justice system throws jurors and defendants side by side to
pass through the courthouse's metal detectors and to ride the
antiquated, stuffy elevators.  In either event, I beat the crowd and
didn't have to push through the rotating throng that would be huddled
outside the doors of the courthouse for the remainder of the day trying
to suck down a final precious gasp of nicotine before returning to the
halls of justice.

I made my way through the staff entrance, took the elevator up to the
eighth floor, tapped the security code into the electronic keypad next
to the back entrance, and snuck into my office without the receptionist
noticing I was a little late.

My morning and what was supposed to be my lunch hour were consumed by
drug unit custodies the police reports detailing the cases against
people arrested the previous night.  The Constitution affords arrestees
the right to a prompt determination of probable cause.  The Supreme
Court seems to think forty-eight hours is prompt enough, meaning an
innocent person might have to sit in jail for a couple of days until a
judge gets around to checking whether there's any evidence against him.
In Oregon, we only get a day, so we have to review the custodies and
prepare probable cause showings before the 2 p.m. JC-2 docket.  If we
don't get them arraigned by the afternoon docket, they get cut loose.

Around two o'clock, just as I was getting antsy about not having heard
anything about the warrant, my pager buzzed at my waist.  It was the
MCT number.

Chuck picked up on the first ring.

"How much do you love me?"  he asked.

"Only men I love right now are Vinnie and my daddy.  But you can tell
me what you've got anyway if you want."

"I'm not sure I believe you, but I guess it'll have to wait for another
day.  Lesh signed off on the warrant last night, but like I thought, we
couldn't get the lab folks out here until this morning.  You're not
gonna believe it.  Not only did Derringer put a new coat of paint on
that P.O.S."  looks like he had it completely overhauled.  New carpet,
new upholstery, the works."

"How do we know it's new?"

"Stupid bastard must've forgotten to check his car when the work was
finished.  We found the shop work order under the front passenger floor
mat.  Got it done Sunday morning at some shop over on Eighty-second and
Division.  Paid eight hundred dollars cash."

"So we don't have any blood evidence," I said.

"Nope.  The tech guys had a lot of fun ripping out all of this
asshole's new stuff, but it doesn't look like any blood soaked through
to the cushions.  But come on, Sam.  What's a loser like Derringer
doing pouring that kind of cash into a thousand-dollar car?  Didn't you
say the guy does temp work?"

"That's what his PO says.  I didn't say it wasn't good.  I just thought
the news would be better since you seemed so excited."

"I'm not done yet.  I was giving you the bad news first.  The lab
called me this morning."  He paused to make me wait for it.

"DNA?"

"Damn, Sam.  You're shooting a little high there."

"So no DNA," I said.

"No.  What'd you expect?  Kendra said the guy did it in her mouth.
Hardly ever get anything from that."

"Unless it happens to fall on some intern's navy blue dress, right?"

"Yeah.  Bill definitely caught a bad break on that one.  Anyway, we
don't have any DNA, but there is good news.  They found a latent print
on the strap of Kendra's purse.  They matched six points to
Derringer."

"Is the tech willing to call it on that?"  I asked.

"Yes.  I called her back to be sure.  It's Heidi Chung.  You know
her?"

"Yeah.  She comes in on drug cases sometimes.  Seems pretty good."

"She's a ten.  Anyway, Heidi says Derringer's got some kind of broken
ridge on his right index finger that's pretty unusual."

Experts quantify the similarity between an identifiable latent print
left at the scene with a suspect's print based on the number of points
that match.  When I was back at the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI
usually wouldn't call a match until they had seven points.  But a match
can be called with fewer points when the ones that are there are
especially rare.  Luckily, Derringer's prints were as screwy as he
was.

"OK, now that rocks.  You just made my day."

"I knew you'd be happy.  Not quite love, but I feel appreciated."

"It's huge," I said.  "Good job finding that purse in the first place.
We've got that little shit."

We went over everything we had.  Kendra's ID of Derringer, the
proximity of Derringer's apartment to the crime scene, the shaving of
his body hair, the car work, and now his fingerprint on Kendra's purse.
It felt like someone had pulled a sack full of rocks off my
shoulders.

The talk about Kendra's purse reminded me of my conversation with Mrs.
Martin.  "Oh, speaking of Kendra's purse, we should probably get her
keys back to her.  Her mom was going to get a new set made, but there
may be other things she needs."

"What keys?"

"Her house keys were in her purse.  Remember?  We had to leave the door
unlocked for her last night?"

"No, Sam, I don't remember.  She said she didn't have keys and her mom
was getting a set made.  I just assumed she didn't have any because she
hadn't been living there.  Shit!"

"What's the difference?  Just get the keys back."

"The difference is that there weren't any keys in the purse, Sam.
Fuck!"

Why hadn't I checked with him?  I had just assumed.  I replayed last
night in my head.  When I drove Kendra home, I made sure that the back
door hadn't been tampered with, but I hadn't gone in with her.  "Did
you call her?  Have you talked to her today?"  I said.

"No," he said.  "I was going to as soon as I got off the phone with
you."

"Oh my God.  What have I done?"

"Calm down, Sam.  She's probably fine."  He was talking fast now.
"Think.  Is there any way Derringer or his buddies could get Kendra's
address from the court case?"

"No.  No, the judge ordered the defense attorney to withhold the
address from Derringer, and Lisa wouldn't violate that.  They know her
name, though."

"What about the mom's name?  Do they have that?"  he asked.

I thought through all of the filings in the case.  "No.  It's not in
there.  Just Kendra's."  Luckily, Martin was a common surname, so the
phone book wouldn't do them any good.

"OK.  It's OK.  Ray and Jack checked with her after we found the purse
to make sure she didn't have anything in there with her mom's address
on it.  I was out there this morning for my car, and everything looked
normal.  You stay calm.  I'll call you right back."

I tried to calm down.  She should be OK.  If something had been wrong
when Andrea got home from work, we'd know by now.

Despite all the logical reasons not to worry, it was hard to
concentrate, so I distracted myself by checking my bottomless voice
mailbox.  Along with the usual stuff, there was a message from
O'Donnell.  "Hey, Sam, O'Donnell here.  I waited around in your office
awhile, but I guess I missed you.  Hope you're not still riled up about
the other day.  The guys and I were just having some fun.  Anyway, I
hear you did a number on the Derringer indictment.  Since it was my dog
to start with, I thought I'd call in and see if you have anything new.
I assume you're going to have to plead it out at some point, right?
Those Measure Eleven charges aren't gonna stick.  Give me a call when
you've got a chance and let me know where things stand."

For the same reason I always eat the vegetables on my plate first, I
went ahead and called him.  Better to get it over with.

I gave him a quick rundown on where we stood.

"Shit, Kincaid.  With only a six-point latent on the print, you're
toast without DNA.  It's your case, but I'd plead it out quick if I
were you.  Case like this, you might be able to squeak out a decent
deal before the guy realizes you're shooting blanks."

"I'll take it into consideration.  Thanks.  Anything else?"

"How's that vice angle going?  Didn't Garcia say something about trying
to use the vie to get some intel on pimps?"

"Yeah, Tommy thought it might pan out.  Turns out the girl hadn't been
working long.  And what she did, she did on her own.  I've got some
pictures she took of some other girls, but it doesn't look that
promising."

"Yeah, I saw those on your desk when I was in there earlier.  Didn't
realize the connection.  It's not too late to pull out, you know.  You
could still dump the mandatory minimums and send it down to general
trial," he said.

"I'll keep that in mind."  I got off the phone before I said something
I'd regret and turned back to my computer.  Nothing could take my mind
off Kendra.  I checked the time so I'd know when I'd waited long enough
to check in with Chuck.

After a long 78 seconds, Tommy Garcia popped his head into my office.

"Hey, Sammie.  Quepasa?"

I sighed.  "The Derringer investigation's on hyper speed  It's coming
together, though.  How about you?"

"I'm just over here for a grand jury.  Got here a little early, so I
thought I'd check in on you.  See how's your vic's doing."

"Kendra.  Yeah, seems like a pretty decent kid, actually."  I didn't
see any reason to alarm Tommy with the problem of the keys.  "Speak of
the devil, though, I've got something for you."  I found the
photographs Kendra had given me and handed them to him.  "You might be
interested in these.  Ken-dra's clique from the Hamilton."

He flipped through once and then went through them more methodically.
"A couple of these girls look real familiar."  He leaned toward me and
pointed at one of the girls rubbing against the faceless man with the
Tasmanian Devil tattoo.  I recognized her as Kendra's friend, Haley.
"This one's a real piece of work.  Holly or Halle or Haley or
something."

"I think it's Haley."

He rolled his eyes, clearly tired of the indistinguishable trendy names
found among today's kids.  "Anyway, she's one of the hard-core street
kids.  She's about sixteen.  Been on the streets at least four years
and lives the life in every aspect.  Hates the police, caseworkers,
anything that's legitimate."

"Sounds like she'd have good information for vice."

"Man, are you kidding?  She's like a matriarch out there.  She knows
the kids, but she also knows who's plucking them off the buses and
streets to get them into it.  Problem is, a girl like that ain't easy
to flip.  She's convinced herself that her life is the one she wants,
not just what she got stuck with.  She wouldn't take the road out even
if it were open to her."

"Well, she and my vie were pretty tight.  I got the impression that
this girl sort of watched Kendra's back."

"I don't know, Sam.  From what I can tell, this girl's all about
survival, so unless your vie had something for her .. ."  He faded out.
"Hell, I guess it can't hurt to take a shot.  Use your case as the in
with her?"

"It's up to you.  I thought the pictures might help you out, but don't
take it as an indication that you need to do anything with them."  Most
detectives would be offended if a DA tried to tell them to initiate an
investigation, but Tommy was worried about letting me down.

"Yeah, I might give it a shot.  I'll let you know.  You need these
back?"  he asked, holding up the photographs.

"Nope.  Hold on to 'em as long as you want."

As Garcia left the office, I snuck a look at the clock.  Thirteen
minutes now.  Why hadn't Chuck called?

Just as my self-imposed fifteen minute deadline was about to expire,
the phone rang.

Chuck knew to get to the important stuff first.  "She's at home, and
she's fine."  He could hear my relief.  "I shouldn't have even
mentioned it to her.  I think it scared her mom.  She's saying some
things are out of place.  I'm sure she's just getting used to having
Kendra around all day again.  But she's still spooked."

"But there's nothing else suggesting anyone was in the house?"

"No.  Look, it's fine, Sam.  Even if they took the keys, I don't see
how they'd know where Kendra lives, and it doesn't make any sense for
them to go there just to poke around.  I called one of the community
safety liaisons out in Gresham, to be safe.  He's leaving the
department as we speak to relock the house on the city's dime.  I'm
just pissed that I didn't put it together sooner."

"It's my fault.  I'm the one who Andrea talked to about getting the
keys out of the purse.  I should've made sure they were in there."

"No use blaming anyone now.  Luckily it turned out OK."  With our
temporary panic out of the way, he moved the conversation back to the
new evidence.  "So, you happy about the case now?"

"Happy doesn't begin to describe it.  I'm ecstatic."

"You want to grab a bite tonight?  Celebrate the good news?"

"I was going to stop by Dad's tonight."

"Alright, some other time."  He sounded disappointed, and I was
surprised to find myself feeling the same way.  When we didn't want to
kill each other, I truly felt at home with Chuck.  We'd known each
other so long that we were comfortable together in a way we didn't feel
with anyone else.  At least, I didn't.  From what I'd heard, Chuck was
never lonely for company in the evenings, but given how often his name
passed through the rumor mill, it didn't seem like he'd kept anyone
around long enough to get serious.

"You want to come with me?  Dad always likes seeing you,

you know."  The words were out of my mouth before I reminded myself
that, when it came to me and Chuck, there was a cloud for every silver
lining.

"Sure.  Sounds great.  Pick you up at seven?"

"Only if I get to drive the Jag," I said.  If I was going to play with
fire, I may as well get some warmth out of it.

Just as I hung up the phone, it rang again.  Maybe it was Chuck, having
second thoughts too.

"Kincaid," I said.

It was Judge Leeson's clerk.  Maria Leeson had the unfortunate
privilege of being the presiding judge for the Multnomah County Circuit
Court, meaning she had to deal with all the miscellaneous shit that
none of the other judges had time for.

"The judge wants to know why you're not down here," she said.

"Because I'm here.  And not there."

"You better get down here."

"What's going on?"  I asked.

"You've got a case on the docket.  State v. Derringer."

"For what?"

"Call," she said.  Cases were on the call docket when they were about
to go to trial.  Before a judge and courtroom were set aside, the
parties were supposed to show up and report the status of plea
negotiation and whether they were ready to go to trial.  We usually
sent one DA to the call docket to report information for the entire
office.  Poor Alan Ritpers was the current call DA.

"I gave all my trial information to Ritpers.  The Derringer case just
got arraigned the other day," I said.

"Yep, and that's why you need to get down here," she said.  "Lopez
called yesterday to have the case added to the docket, and Ritpers is
clueless.  The judge wants you down here.  Now."

I headed straight down, skipping the antiquated and over-stressed
elevators for the four flights down to Judge Leeson's courtroom.  Lisa
was waiting near the defense table and rose when I entered the room.

"My apologies, your honor," I said.  "I wasn't aware of the
appearance."

"Check your docket, Ms.  Kincaid."  Maria Leeson peered down at me over
the top of her half-moon glasses.  "Alright, Ms.  Lopez, now that we've
got a DA here who's heard of your client, tell me again what you're
asking for."

"Thank you, Judge Leeson.  My client is currently in custody, unable to
meet bail imposed by Judge Weidemann during the arraignment.  He wants
a speedy trial, and I'm requesting the earliest available trial
date."

Leeson pointed her glasses down at me again.  "Ms.  Kincaid?"

"The defendant waived his speedy trial rights at arraignment, your
honor.  In light of that waiver, the State requests a trial date in the
usual course."  Translation: let the defendant rot for a year while I
finish getting the goods against him.

"Did you waive at arraignment, Ms.  Lopez?"  Leeson asked.

"Only because of the limited ability to consult with my client, your
honor.  I was appointed to the case at arraignment and only had so much
time before the case was called.  Ms.  Kincaid was requesting a no bail
hold, so, as you can imagine, my initial discussion with my client
focused on the release issue.  Once that was decided, I didn't have
much choice other than to make the usual stipulations.  Since then,

I've spoken further to Mr.  Derringer.  He can't make bail, and he
wants a speedy trial."

I did my best to argue that Lopez should've preserved all rights at
arraignment if she had any doubts, but we all knew that's not how it
works.

"Alright," Leeson said.  "I'm allowing the defendant to withdraw his
waiver of speedy trial rights, meaning he gets his trial within thirty
days."  Leeson held a hand up to the court reporter, indicating her
wish to go off the record.  "You sure about this, Lisa?"

Invoking speedy trial rights was incredibly short-sighted.  The
requests usually only came from newbies who'd never been in custody
before.  I was surprised to hear that Derringer couldn't stick it out
while his attorney prepared for trial.

Lopez shrugged.  "I've advised Mr.  Derringer against it.  What can I
do?"

Leeson arched her eyebrows and signaled for the court reporter to go
back on record.  "Alright then, let's set a date.  I got a bunch of
judges out for spring break in late March, so ... that means Judge Lesh
two weeks from Monday."

No way.  "Your honor, this is an attempted murder case.  There is
physical evidence that still needs to be tested.  The state needs more
than two weeks."

"Too bad, Ms.  Kincaid.  I don't have anything else.  If you can't
proceed when the case comes up for call before trial, Mr.  Derringer
will be re cogged

I had to be ready for trial in two and a half weeks, or else Derringer
would be released on his own recognizance.  Lopez's strategy was a
risky one.  She was betting that we had only the evidence in the
initial police reports.  Too bad for her; she placed the bet without
the benefit of the new evidence Chuck gave me.  A quick trial date was
fine with me.

The change in schedule gave me a good excuse to revoke the dinner
invitation I had extended to Chuck.  I broke the bad news to Dad and
worked late instead.

My pager buzzed the next day around one as I was inhaling fish tacos at
my desk.  I could tell from the prefix that it was a bureau cell
phone.

"Garcia."

I recognized Tommy's voice.  "Tommy, it's Samantha Kincaid.  You page
me?"

"Yeah.  I was out riding with patrol checking on hot spots, when
whaddaya know; your vic's friend, Haley Jameson, is sitting with a
bunch of the other street urchins outside Pioneer Courthouse."

At any given time, you could find a pile of homeless kids hitting
people up for money by the Max tracks on the north side of the federal
appellate courthouse, next to fountain pools decorated with stone
beavers, Portland's unofficial mascot.

"If you've got the time to walk down here, I thought your connection
with the vie might help me get a rapport with this girl.  Otherwise,
I'm left saying that I know someone who knows someone."

I looked at the clock.  "I've got time.  Tell me where to meet you, and
I'll be right down."

Tommy met me at the southeast corner of the Pioneer Courthouse.

"So tell me about this girl," I said.  "She been through the system?"

Garcia shook his head.  "Nothing serious.  Couple RJVs, loitering pops.
Spent a few nights at juvie, went through LAP a couple times."

I'd seen plenty of them before.  Street kids rarely got picked up for
anything more severe than runaway juvenile violations, even though they
were often at the fringes of more serious crimes like robberies and
assaults.  If they had any experience in the system at all, it was
usually for curfew violations, public drunkenness, loitering, or
runaway juvenile pops.  Typical arrests for those kinds of offenses
resulted in a night at juvie, a trip back home or a foster placement,
and maybe a little court-ordered counseling.  LAP stood for Learning
Alternatives to Prostitution.  The probation department developed the
program a few years ago.  Participants were supposed to learn
legitimate job skills and enough self-worth to stop seeing the sale of
sex as a good deal.  It might be a good program for someone serious
about getting out of the life, but, like most court-ordered counseling,
it was treated as a joke by the people forced to go through it to avoid
jail.

"So what's the plan?"  I asked.

"OK, here's how we need to play it.  If we single her out of the group,
she's going to use us as a way to get props from her friends.  We've
got nothing on her, so once she calls our bluff, it's over.  I'll play
it nice and tell the group they need to stop blocking the sidewalks.
Get them to move on.  Maybe we'll have a shot then at talking to her
alone.  You act like you're my partner."

It was the last part I couldn't go for.  I was pretty sure my boss
wouldn't approve of one of his deputies impersonating a police officer.
When Tommy was through teasing me about always following the rules, we
agreed I'd fall back while he tried to break up the group.

He wasn't in uniform, so a couple of the less savvy kids didn't realize
Tommy was a cop as he approached them.  "Hey, man, spare some change?"
one of them asked.

"Not today, dude."  Tommy flashed his badge.  "But I do have a tip for
you.  Mounted patrol should be coming by in a few minutes.  Why don't
you guys hightail it out of here before they give you a hard time."

The one I was pretty sure was Haley piped up.  "What do you care?"

"Honestly?  I don't care whether you go to juvie or not.  But the
officers doing the rounds today are coming up on reporting time, and I
got a bet with a buddy at the precinct that their unit's not going to
meet their enforcement quotas this month.  Listen to me or not.  It's
up to you."

That did the trick.  The kids slowly started getting up, collecting
their blankets and bags, and walking in separate directions in smaller
groups.  Haley started to cross the street to Pioneer Square.  "Haley,
hold up," Tommy called after her.

She swung around toward us, throwing a large handbag over her shoulder
and placing her hands on her hips.  "I knew you guys were full of shit.
Give me a break.  Alright, man?"

Tommy held his hands up in mock surrender.  "We're not here to hook you
up on anything.  We wanted to see if you could give us some help with
something."

Hands still on her hips, she rolled her eyes and laughed to let us know
that the notion of cooperating with the police amused her.  She nodded
in my direction.  "Yeah, and what's she here for, fit me for my Girl
Scout uniform?"

I had some damn good tacos going soggy on my desk.  The last thing I
needed was for some twit to patronize me, but I did my best to keep the
anger out of my voice.  "I'm Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid.
Sergeant Garcia and I

were hoping you could talk to us about something that happened Saturday
night to a girl you might know, Kendra Martin.  Take a minute with us,
and we'll buy you some lunch.  You could probably use a bite to eat."

She raised her eyes toward Tommy with anticipation.  He picked up on
the cue.  "Twenty bucks to hear us out.  Up to you whether you stay
after that."

The cash worked.  We sat with her on one of the brick steps in Pioneer
Square and explained that we were investigating the assault on Kendra
Martin and thought she might have heard something on the street about
it.  We didn't tell her that Kendra had told me that they were friends
or that I had pictures of her getting it on with the Tasmanian Devil
guy.  She stared at us through hard eyes, lips pressed into a straight
line, as we described the violence inflicted upon Kendra.  I thought I
saw her take a quick downward glance and a small swallow when Tommy
told her that a man named Frank Derringer had been arrested and
charged.

Tommy made a soft play to get information from her.  "Anyway, I've
asked around the patrol officers and they tell me you know about as
much as anyone does about what goes on with the kids down here.  If you
can give us anything on this guy Derringer, or any other guys who might
be into doing this kind of thing to a girl, we'd keep your name out of
it."

"I don't believe you, but since I don't know nothing about it, it don't
make a difference, does it?"  Haley pulled the twenty bucks Tommy'd
given her from her front pocket and shook it in front of her as she
stood to face us.  "Thanks for the twenty bucks, though.  Losers."  She
made the shape of an L on her forehead with her thumb and forefinger,
just in case we missed her point.

We didn't try to stop her as she walked away.  It was clear that we
didn't have whatever it might take to get Haley Jameson to betray the
life she'd committed herself to.

"Lost cause" Tommy sighed "but, hey, at least we gave it a shot.  I'll
flag it in PPDS for someone to call me if she gets popped for anything
down the road."

"Tommy, I know we were only using the case to get a conversation going
with her about vice, but I got the impression she knew something."

He shrugged his shoulders.  "Possible.  Guy like Derringer might get
around.  But if there's something there, we're not getting it from that
girl."

Six.

I usually spend the day before a trial at my dining room table,
reviewing the entire file and practicing my open.  I broke from habit
for Derringer.  The case centered around Kendra Martin, and anything I
could do to boost her confidence on the stand would do far more for us
than a review of the file.

Everything had gone well in front of the grand jury.  I got the
indictment in less than an hour, and Kendra did a good job with her
testimony.  Afterward, to prepare her for the actual trial, I had shown
her a courtroom and even put her in the witness chair to run through
her testimony.  But to make her feel as comfortable as possible
tomorrow under the circumstances, I wanted her comfortable with me.

It was an unusually warm day for the beginning of March in Portland, so
I decided to take Kendra to the zoo.  I invited Grace, too.  Kendra
seemed a little skittish about leaving her house, but she and Grace
seemed to hit it off from the start, and it was hard not to enjoy the
warm sun after months of chilling rain.

The Portland zoo is a natural habitat zoo.  The advantage is obvious:
Instead of being confined in concrete bunkers surrounded by metal bars,
the animals get to roam freely on acres of land designed to replicate
their environments of origin.  The downside is that the animals use
their oasis just as any reasonable person would if given the option: to
avoid any unnecessary contact with meddlesome humans.

As a result, our visits to the giraffe and lion areas were
unproductive.  After staring at a boring mound of rocks for fifteen
minutes without a single indication of a lion's presence, I was ready
to pack it in to visit lizards, snakes, anything that was stuck in a
cage the old-fashioned way so that stupid humans could gawk at it,
whether it liked it or not.

Something passed through my field of vision, and I felt the hair on the
back of my neck rise.  Turning around, I saw a man on a cell phone
standing outside the rain forest building.  He wasn't looking in our
direction, but I realized I had seen him earlier at one of the other
exhibits and, come to think of it, he'd been alone then too.

I gave Kendra some money to buy us all red-white-and-blue ice pops
shaped like rockets.  As I watched her walk over to the concession
stand, I lowered my voice.  "Don't make it obvious that you're looking,
Grace, but you see that guy by the rain forest?  On the phone?"

She snuck a little peek.  "Sweetie, you do need to get yourself a man
if you're stooping that low."

I looked at the guy again.  "Grace, no.  Yuck.  It's just isn't it a
little weird for a man to be at a zoo by himself?"

"Maybe his family's inside, and he left to make a call."

"I saw him earlier, though, and I think he was alone then too.  It
didn't stand out at the time, but now I think he was looking at us over
by the lions."

"What lions?"  She laughed.

"I'm not kidding, Grace.  Maybe he's a little pervert who's at the zoo
to watch all the kids."

"Or maybe he's just some suburban dad who's trying to keep up with the
office while he's on daddy duty at the zoo, and he was looking at us
because we aren't so hard on the eyes."  She slipped into a Mae West
routine.

"Hey, knock it off.  I'm serious."

"No, Sam, you're paranoid.  You've got crime on the mind, and you're
especially uneasy about Kendra today.  If you're really worried, we can
go say something to security.  Tell them to keep an eye on him."

I thought about it.  "Nah, you're right."  I looked back at the guy. He
was putting his phone away and walking into the rain forest.  "I'm sure
he's harmless."

We polished off the rocket pops and headed toward the polar bears.
Grace and I were entranced, as usual, by Portland's swimming polar
bears, but I noticed that Kendra seemed a little distracted.

"You holding up OK, kiddo?"  I asked.

She looked at me like I'd offered her broccoli, and then spoke
extremely slowly in the event I'd suddenly become extremely stupid.
"Um, yeah.  Unless I'm missing something, the zoo's not exactly a high
stress kind of thing, Samantha."

She was playing tough, but I knew the trial was weighing on her mind at
least as much as on mine.  "Very funny, wiseacre.  Last time I checked,
I was going to be picking a jury tomorrow, and you were scheduled to
testify in a couple days.  Do we need to talk about that?"

"No.  I understand how everything will go.  I'll be OK."

I was worried.  I'd prepped her, but the trial would be her first
face-to-face with Derringer since the assault, and I suspected that she
had no idea of what was coming.  I'd advised her that Lisa Lopez would
cross-examine her.  She knew that Lopez undoubtedly would ask her about
her drug use and prostitution.  We ran through a mock cross together,
but I couldn't bring myself to get rough with her on the issues of drug
use and promiscuity.  I was hoping Lisa would pull her punches on these
issues.  If she did hit Kendra hard, the jury might hold it against the
defense.

I gave Kendra's arm a little squeeze and said goodbye.  "You take it
easy this week, OK?  You're going to be fine."  Grace was going to give
Kendra a ride home, but first they were going to make a stop at
Lockworks, Grace's salon.

It would be good for Kendra to see other women in careers more
satisfying than her mother's, and Grace has all the stuff good role
models are made of.  She graduated magna cum laude with a business
degree from the University of Oregon.  About two years into a marketing
job with a big company in town, she foresaw that Portland was
attracting a more cosmopolitan population than the city was capable of
servicing.  She had been cutting her friends' hair since high school,
she had a great mind for business, her taste had always been
impeccable, and people had always been drawn to her.  She took out a
loan, bought part of an old warehouse, and opened Lockworks in the
Pearl District.  She lured the best stylists in the city by offering
them good benefits and a piece of the profits, and used her contacts to
recruit customers while she went to cosmetology school at night.

Lockworks is now the swankiest salon in town, and customers wait weeks
to get an appointment with Grace.  Luckily, she still cuts my hair like
she did in high school, in her kitchen while we eat raw cookie dough.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed the cell phone dad
leaving, too.  Except he still didn't have anyone with him.  And he was
driving a brown Toyota Tercel.  Did they let dads drive those things?
As he left the lot, I dug through my purse for a piece of paper.
Normally my bag's full of old receipts, but I'd just cleaned it out.  I
pulled out the edge of a dollar from my wallet and scribbled down the
guy's plate number before I lost sight of him.  Maybe I'd run it later
to make sure he wasn't a fugitive pedophile.

I had just enough time to drive back downtown to make the meeting I'd
scheduled with MCT.  Immediately before a trial, I like to get the
principal investigators together to run through all the evidence and
review what we can expect from the defense.  It was a practice I'd
followed in the federal system, where the agents support the case all
the way through the trial.  Unfortunately, the local police are so busy
that it's hard to get investigative time on a case once it's been
indicted by the grand jury.

Lisa had given me a copy of her witness list just a few days ago.  In
an ideal world, I would have asked the police to interview each of the
potential defense witnesses so we could lock in what they might say at
trial.  All I was hoping for in the real world was an idea of who each
person was.  From there, I would have to guess what the purpose of
their testimony would be.

I had finally broken down and bought a cell phone, and I

was still in that phase every new cell phone owner goes through,
finding reasons to use my fancy new gadget.  On my way to central
precinct, I called MCT to make sure everyone was assembled as
planned.

It took awhile for an answer.  "Walker."

I had to raise my voice to be sure he heard me over all of the whooping
and hollering in the background.  "Detective Walker, it's Samantha
Kincaid.  I just wanted to make sure we're still on for today.  Any
news?"

"Hell, yeah, we've got news.  Haven't you heard?"

I obviously hadn't, so he continued.  "Oregon Supreme Court ruled in a
special session this morning that the State can stick the big needle to
Jesse Taylor.  I wouldn't have thought those libs had it in them, but
we're finally gonna have an execution around here."

I said something about the state court being just the beginning.  Even
though Taylor had waived appeals, his prior attorneys would still try
to go to federal court on their claim that Taylor was incompetent to
fire them and waive his rights.  But, as the words came out, I could
think only of Chuck, having to nod politely as the rest of the guys
celebrated the ruling that brought a man he had investigated one step
closer to state-sanctioned death.

It probably didn't help that this was the case that got Chuck onto MCT.
After Margaret Landry confessed to Forbes, the police brought in MCT,
but Chuck stayed involved in the investigation.  They must've liked
him, because they added him to the team about a year later.

At least he didn't need to worry about whether the police got the wrong
man.  And it wasn't as if the defendant was possibly a redeemable guy
who made a split-second mistake during some robbery-gone-bad.  Both
Taylor and Landry were unrepentant sadists.  When Landry finally
confessed to Forbes, she admitted that she and Taylor wanted to find a
woman for a three-way.  Taylor went to a biker bar and picked up Jamie
Zimmerman, whom Landry described as "a 'tard of some sort, but a hot
piece of ass."  Back at their house, Taylor got rough with both women
and then began strangling Jamie with his belt.  Landry helped him by
holding Jamie down while she was fighting.  After Jamie was dead,
Landry performed oral sex upon her while Taylor masturbated.  Then they
wrapped her body in their shower curtain and dumped her near the
Gorge.

And, despite Margaret's subsequent statement that she fabricated the
entire story to get her abusive boyfriend in trouble, I had no doubt
that she and Taylor were guilty.  Her confession contained accurate
details that she couldn't have known unless she was involved somehow.

She had tried to explain the details away by saying that Chuck had
coerced her confession and had fed her the details she was missing. But
the jury had seen that the son of a former governor didn't need to set
up innocent grandmothers to get a good job in the bureau.

Although Landry never repented for Zimmerman's murder, she had avoided
the death penalty by agreeing to testify against Taylor after the jury
convicted her.  She depicted herself as a do-gooder who volunteered
teaching ceramics at hospitals and treatment centers.  She claimed that
she would've remained a law-abiding grandmother if it weren't for her
abusive younger boyfriend.

Jesse Taylor, on the other hand, had little to say in his defense.  A
chronic alcoholic who suffered frequent blackouts, Taylor said he
couldn't remember anything he'd done that night, but didn't think he
ever met Jamie Zimmerman and didn't think he would ever kill anyone.
But he didn't think he'd pass up a chance at a three-way either.  Great
defense.

That said, the certainty of Taylor's guilt and the pure viciousness of
the crime apparently were of little comfort to Chuck.  When I arrived
at the Justice Center, he was waiting with Jack Walker, Ray Johnson,
and Mike Calabrese.  The celebration over the Supreme Court's Taylor
ruling had died down, but Chuck still looked unnerved.  I wanted to say
something about the news but had to settle for an empathetic glance
that I hoped he caught before I launched into new business.

"Hi, guys.  Thanks for making time to go over the case.  It helps me if
we're all on the same page before we start the trial."

Mike Calabrese shook his head and told me with a wave of his hand that
he wasn't bothered.  He was a New York transplant, and eleven years in
Portland hadn't changed the accent a bit.  "Listen, Sammie, I can't
speak for these guys, but me?  I say there's no one better than you.
I'm tired of these DAs who stick us up there on the stand and assume we
know how it's gonna go.  Most of them don't want to take time away from
their weekend, so me?  I appreciate it, is what I'm sayin'."

I pulled out my trial notebook.  "I thought we could start by running
through the evidence that each of you will be covering.  Then we'll go
over the likely defense theories.  You can help me out by making sure I
know who these defense witnesses are.  Any questions before we
start?"

Jack Walker held up a hand.  "Yeah.  I don't mind or anything, but our
LT was a little peeved about all four of us being out to testify.
Usually they just have one from each pairing go to court."

The bureau has to pay cops time and a half for all off-duty work, so
this meeting wasn't cheap.  "I want all of you to testify for a couple
of reasons.  One advantage to this approach is that, subconsciously,
we'll defeat any kind of Who Cares attitude the jurors might have in
the back of their mind.  Remember, they're not going to hear about
Derringer's prior unless he testifies, so they'll be seeing him on his
best behavior, in a suit, leaning over and writing notes to his
attorney.  And, as much as we all like Kendra, some jurors might see
her as getting what a girl should expect when she's turning tricks for
dope.  By having all of you testify, we'll be telling the jury that the
bureau cared about this case and put a lot of resources into it to get
a thorough investigation.

"By having each of you testify about a separate aspect of the case,
we're also distributing the credibility of the police investigation
among all four of you.  If no single detective is seen as the lead,
Lopez can't get any mileage out of ripping one of you guys a new one.
If she tries doing it to all of you, the jury will see that it's
dirty."

Walker nodded.  "Got it.  I'll tell the lieutenant so he gets off our
backs."

"As far as the order of your testimony goes, I'll be spreading your
statements out around Kendra's, so she will be the highlight of the
show.  But I don't want to end with her testimony just in case she
winds up taking a beating on cross.

"The first witnesses will be the two kids who found Kendra in the
Gorge.  That'll set the scene for the jury.  Then I'm going to call
Mike."  Calabrese would cover Kendra's condition when they got to the
scene and the processing of the crime scene.

The fingerprint on Kendra's purse would be a critical piece of
evidence.  To get it before the jury, I'd need to show that the purse
examined by the crime lab was the same one Mike found near the crime
scene.  We went through the purse's chain of custody.  Mike placed it
in a sealed and marked bag at the Justice Center and then brought it to
the crime lab without opening it.  Later, Heidi Chung would explain
that she removed the purse from the sealed bag that had been marked by
Officer Calabrese.  It's the kind of testimony that puts jurors to
sleep, but, unfortunately, lawyers have to jump about six evidentiary
hurdles to get to the good stuff.

After Mike, I'd call the EMTs who drove Kendra to the hospital.  They'd
help show how bad Kendra looked at first.  Then we'd get into what
actually happened to her.

I was especially concerned about Kendra's initial lies to the police
about why she was in Old Town and whether she used heroin.  I walked
them through how I was planning to deal with this.  First, Ray would
testify about the initial interview with her.  The bar against hearsay
would keep him from repeating most of Kendra's statements, since they
weren't made in court.  But I could ask him about statements that were
eventually determined to be false.  Out-of-court statements are only
hearsay if offered for their truth.  He could also testify about
Kendra's demeanor.

I'd follow Ray with the ER doctor.  If the jury didn't understand
Kendra's explanation for why she lied, they might hang their hats on
the Narcan if an MD explained the effects of the drug.

After the doctor, Jack Walker would testify about the second interview
with Kendra.  I wanted him to talk about the change in Kendra's
demeanor from the first interview to the second and what he said to
Kendra to get her to open up with him.  "Explain it to the jury just as
you did with me," I

told him.  "If they're going to understand why she was initially
dishonest, it's going to come from you, followed directly by Kendra."

After Kendra, I'd call Andrea Martin to describe Kendra's recovery
since she'd been home.  Then Deputy Lamborn and Dave Renshaw would
testify about Derringer's shaved body hair, followed by Chuck's
testimony about the car overhaul.

"Chuck, be ready to go over the contents of the work order from the
Collision Clinic."  The only bone Lopez threw me was on that order. The
document was admissible under a hearsay exception for business records,
but technically I should bring in an employee to establish the
foundation.  I'd included the shop's custodian of records on my witness
list just in case, but Lisa had agreed to stipulate to admissibility.
Stipulating for business records was the usual professional courtesy,
but with Lisa it could've gone either way.

After Chuck, I'd call Heidi Chung, closing on the strength of the
fingerprint evidence.

When I'd finished, the detectives were clearly impressed.

Ray Johnson nodded his head.  "Man, that's classy, Kincaid.  You've got
him smack down, girl."

"Hey, you guys did all the work.  I just put it together in a way that
gets it all in front of a jury."

"You think he's going down on all counts?"  Walker asked.

"To be honest, I'm not so sure.  If Derringer were smart, he'd abandon
this whole identity defense, especially since we got that fingerprint.
If he'd focus on the actual legal charges instead of denying identity,
he could beat the attempted murder and try to get out from
responsibility for the sex acts of Suspect Number Two.  But the jury's
likely to get so pissed off by his lame-ass alibi defense, they're not
going to split the legal hairs in his favor.  They'll convict him of
the whole damn thing once they decide he was the one who did it."

Mike Calabrese liked that possibility.  "Why shouldn't the loser get
smacked for lying his ass off?  Would be nice for a jury to call
something in our favor for once."

We turned to the defense witnesses next.  Lisa had given me the bare
minimum, names and addresses.  She had even listed the five witnesses
in alphabetical order so I wouldn't know who was most important.

Jack Walker started with the top.  "Well, you know who Derrick
Derringer is.  He's the scumbag's brother slash alibi."

"Last time we talked about him, we hadn't found anything to prove they
weren't together.  I'm assuming that hasn't changed."

Walker said, "All we got is that he's lied for his brother in the past
and is no stranger to the system himself."

"Yeah, but is the jury going to hear about that?"  Ray Johnson asked.

I nodded my head and popped open a can of Diet Coke that Calabrese
tossed me from the MCT mini-fridge.  "The priors for sure.  As soon as
a person takes the stand, all his felony priors come in to impeach. I'm
sure the jurors will be real impressed that big brother's got a robbery
and two forges.  As far as his statement backing Derringer on the last
beef, I filed a motion to get it in.  Have to wait and see. If the jury
hears about it, Derringer's toast.  They'll not only know that the
alibi's bullshit, but they'll also figure out that Derringer's done
this kind of thing before."

Mike's beefy hands looked awkward opening a tiny snack pack of
chocolate pudding that I imagined his wife packed in his lunch every
day.  I tried to ignore the fumbling and focus on what he was saying.
"I say they're taking a big risk putting the brother up there.  They
can't possibly think anyone's gonna buy this alibi deal.  I mean, what
about the fucking print on the purse, for Christ's sake?  I mean, don't
you think I'm right on this, Samantha?"

"All the way.  Like I said, Lisa'd be better off arguing reasonable
doubt on the legal elements of the most serious charges, instead of
going with this alibi defense.  I still can't figure out why she's
doing it.  It's got to be coming from Derringer.  Probably figures
that, with the prior attempted sod, the judge will tee up on him even
if he beats the attempted murder and the accomplice charges.  Figures
if he's going down for the count anyway, he may as well roll the dice
and try to beat the whole thing."

Chuck pushed his palms against the edge of his desk, rolled his chair
back a couple of feet, and crossed his arms.  "He must have some loaded
fucking dice, because I don't see him beating a damn thing with this
weak-ass witness list."

It's a fundamental truth that the number and density of cuss words
increases exponentially as the number of cops and DAs in a room goes
up.

"I'm glad you're so confident," I said.  "I recognized the big brother,
and I knew Lisa'd be calling Jake Fenninger.  He's the cop who popped
Kendra on Christmas.  But I don't have a clue on the other three.
Enlighten me?"

"Well, let's start with Geraldine Maher and Kerry Richardson.  Know
what they have in common?"  Chuck raised his eyebrows, daring me to
guess.  When I continued to stare at him, he said, "They work at Lloyd
Center."

I felt my eyes widen.  "The shopping center?  What does a fucking mall
have to do with my attempted murder case?"

"I wouldn't have put it together except for the last name on the list,
Timothy Monrad.  Rad was a new recruit for the bureau last summer.
Works northeast neighborhood patrol, including you guessed it Lloyd
Center."

"Nice of Lisa to let me know that one of her witnesses is a cop," I
said.

"Don't freak out.  It's not a big deal," Chuck said with confidence.
"See, Kerry Richardson comes up in PPDS as a complainant over and over
up at Lloyd Center.  Turns out he's what they call a 'loss prevention
officer' at Dress You Up, that discount department store down at the
end by the movie theater?"

I nodded to let him know I recognized the name.

Chuck continued.  "OK, so when I saw Rad's name on the list too, I was
psyched.  I figured there might be some connection through Lloyd
Center.  So I ran all of Rad's arrests at Lloyd Center and
cross-referenced them with Richardson's PPDS records.  I found a report
from January where Rad was the arresting officer on a trespass that
Richardson called in.  The trespasser was Andrea Martin."

"That's right.  I remember.  I ran Andrea's record in February as
background.  She had no convictions, but I did see a real recent arrest
for trespass somewhere."  I didn't pursue it, because even if I called
Andrea to the stand, misdemeanor trespass is not the kind of crime that
can be admitted into evidence against a witness.  And her case hadn't
even been issued; it was just an arrest.

Chuck continued.  "The somewhere was Lloyd Center.  I pulled the arrest
report.  Back in November, Kerry Richardson thought he saw Andrea
shoplifting in the store.  He went and got the manager, Geraldine
Maher, and the two of them stopped Andrea outside in the mall.  She had
receipts for the things in her bags, but Richardson insisted he'd seen
her sneak something.  They figured she must have stashed whatever she
stole somewhere right outside of the store.  They didn't call police,
but they did eighty-six her from the store.  Richardson must have some
memory, because when Andrea came back into the store in January, he
recognized her and called police.  Rad made the arrest.  Andrea told
Rad she just assumed that the eighty-six from the store had ended by
then."

"I'm not surprised we didn't issue that.  Sounds like she never
should've been excluded in the first place."

Ray Johnson was laughing.  "So that's it?  The whole defense is that
the vica whore, her mom's a trespasser, and Derringer's scum brother
says they were watching TV?"

I was just as bewildered.  "I don't know what the hell Lisa's thinking.
The jury's going to hear about Kendra's background from me.  I'll go
over it during voir dire, opening, and Kendra's direct, so Lisa doesn't
get any mileage by calling Fenninger.  She can't get in those Lloyd
Center witnesses to impeach Andrea.  And even if she did, who would
care?"

Mike Calabrese gave me a thumbs-up.  "Lock and load, baby.  That's what
I say."

I love it when a plan comes together.

I left the detectives at the Justice Center and walked over to the
courthouse to review my trial notebook one last time.  I had already
outlined the topics I wanted to discuss during jury selection and had
written my opening statement, the direct examinations of the state's
witnesses, and the cross-examination of Derrick Derringer.

I no longer carried the anxiety I'd been shouldering all week about
Lisa Lopez's list of defense witnesses.  She was desperate if she was
trying to get Kendra and Andrea's prior arrests into the record.  No
wonder she'd been pretty quiet about the case when I'd seen her around
the courthouse lately.  I had to admit a certain level of smug
satisfaction.  If it hadn't been for her initial bravado, I'd feel
sorry for Lisa.  She was going to spend her next two weeks stuck with a
major barker at trial, all for a scumbag sex offender who wanted his
free lawyer to present a preposterous defense that he and his dimwit
brother cooked up.  But after Lisa's attempts to get under my skin at
arraignment, I was going to enjoy handing her a solid trouncing at
trial.

I called Chuck around seven to see if he was ready to go.  We had
finally gotten around to rescheduling dinner with my dad.  He agreed to
meet me at my car; I was uncomfortable letting the other MCT detectives
know that we were spending time together outside of work.

Dad opened the door before we could knock.  "You sure the city can make
it through the night without you guys?  I tell you, with the two of you
working together, the bad guys had better watch their backs."  Dad
always found creative and not so subtle ways of letting me know that in
his view Chuck and I belonged together.

Dad was making his specialty, steak on the grill.  Dad's like a lot of
men of his generation.  Wouldn't think of putting together a full meal
in the kitchen, but sees cooking an entire dinner outside as one of the
great manly traditions, like hunting, fishing, or teaching a kid to
bat.

Dad took Chuck out to the deck to show him his new Weber while I poured
us some wine.  Watching them crouched by the grill reminded me of the
summer the two of them built the deck.  It was right after our college
graduation,

mine from Harvard, Chuck's from the University of Oregon.  Chuck had
decided not to leave the state for college, a decision his parents had
harangued him for until they realized it would be bad form for the
governor and his wife to suggest their son was too good for the state's
best public university.  By the time Chuck graduated, the former
Governor Forbes spoke at commencement of the pride he felt when his son
turned down the Ivy Leagues for U of O. That summer was also the summer
I told Chuck he had to fish or cut bait.  I had vowed not to bifurcate
my life anymore between him and everything else.  At Harvard, I missed
out on things that other kids experience when they go away to school,
because my heart had stayed with Chuck back in Oregon.  When other kids
took summer internships on the Hill or in Manhattan, I had faithfully
returned to Portland, four years in a row.  I decided law school would
be different.

So I'd begged Chuck during our senior year to live up to his potential
and apply to graduate programs around the country.  He was accepted
into Stanford Business School and put down his deposit over Christmas
break when I sent my acceptance to the law school.  By spring break, he
was saying that he hadn't gotten used to the idea of himself in
business school, and, by summer, he was thinking of pulling out.

So I told him to choose.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that.  I cried for two hours and told
him that I loved him and wanted to be with him and couldn't picture my
life without him in it.  I said that moving to Stanford with him would
make me happier than I'd ever been, and then I told him to choose.

He chose to cut bait.  He didn't know what he wanted to do, but he knew
he didn't want to go to California, and he knew he didn't want to go to
business school.  He was thinking of becoming a cop.

I didn't handle it well.  I laughed at him and asked what it would be
next: astronaut or firefighter.  I told him he'd never grow up and
would never amount to anything.  I pointed out that he'd been given
every advantage in life privileges other people actually had to work
for and took it all for granted.  When my tirade finally ended, he went
outside, finished up the last coat of stain on the deck, and walked
out.  I didn't see him again for six years.

I'd heard he'd joined the bureau, of course.  I'd actually considered
turning down the job at the DA's office because of it.  But I had no
interest in the alternatives I'd been given at the city's big firms,
and Roger knew it.  There's no good way to tell your husband that
you're making employment decisions based on an old boyfriend, even if
it is to avoid him.  So, instead, I'd played the odds that I could
avoid one of the county's two thousand cops, at least for a while.

When I saw his name on the police reports for my first trial, I tried
to ready myself.  I prepared the speech in my head and went over it
again and again in the shower that morning, the way I should have been
rehearsing my opening statement.  I was going to apologize for all the
venom that came out of me that day.  Then I would laugh as I said it
all worked out for the best in the end, since he'd accomplished what he
wanted, and I was so happy with Roger.

None of it was ever said.  He walked into my office with his patrol
partner, handed me a cup of coffee, and said, "Jason Hillard, meet
Samantha Kincaid.  Kincaid and I went to Grant High together.  So
what's the game plan?"

I'd prepped them for the trial, but the case turned into a bench
warrant when the defendant no-showed.  Two years later, looking at
Chuck with my father, I realized I'd still never apologized to him for
how I behaved that summer, nor had I thanked him for saving me from
having to do it when I wasn't ready that day in my office two years
ago.

They came back into the kitchen with the steaks, and Dad started
heaping mass quantities of food onto three plates.  I set the table,
blinking away tears before any could roll down.

"I was just telling Chuck about the damage you did last weekend at the
target range," Dad said.

My entire life, my father has enjoyed gun collecting and target
shooting.  Cursed with having a daughter as his only child, he had
tried repeatedly to spark some interest from me, but to no avail.

To his initial chagrin, I eventually learned to use a gun only when my
ex-husband insisted on keeping one in our New York apartment.  If he
was going to keep a loaded handgun in an unlocked nightstand, I figured
I sure as hell better know how to use it.  So some of the agents took
me to the aTF.  firing range and taught me how to load, aim, fire, and
reload just about every weapon available, legally and otherwise, in the
United States.  As irrational as gun ownership is as practiced by the
most hard-core of American gun lovers, I'm a good enough shot and get
sufficient shooting practice that I find a sense of security in the .25
caliber automatic that I keep taped to the underside of my nightstand
drawer.

Chuck took his attention away from his steak long enough to say, "I
never would've believed it if someone had told me back in high school
that Sam would grow up to be a beef-eating gun toter who likes to put
bad guys in prison."

"Remember when she decided to be a vegetarian her junior year?"  Dad
was laughing so hard I thought he was going to choke.  "God, she tried.
Decided eating meat was so barbaric."

Chuck was nodding his head in agreement.  "Right.  But, in the end, she
hated the idea of being hypocritical even more, and, try as she could,
she couldn't live a one-hundred-percent animal-friendly lifestyle."

That's why I've always felt so at home with Chuck.  He got me.  He
could take the traits that other people see as so inconsistent and
understand that they make me who I am.  I eat like a pig, but I run
thirty miles a week.  I despise criminals, but I call myself a liberal.
I'm smart as hell, but I love TV.  And I hate the beauty myth, but I
also want good hair.

To Chuck, it somehow all made sense, so I never felt like I was faking
anything.  Dad has never quite figured me out, but he sure enjoys
making fun of me.  "Poor girl drove me and her mother crazy trying to
avoid leather, animal fat, anything that might make her seem like a
hypocrite for telling everyone else how mean we were for eating
meat."

I had to laugh too, remembering my mother's face when she opened her
Christmas gift one year to find the hideous macrame purse I'd
triumphantly presented as an alternative to her tried-and-true tasteful
brown leather handbag.

"Does rubbing my face in my youthful attempts to be a good person make
you guys feel good?"  I said.  "OK, you win.  I love the smell of
leather.  I like being at the top of the food chain.  I eat thick slabs
of beef, still pink in the middle.  Vegetables are what my food eats.
Are you happy now?  Maybe we should talk about the time Chuck joined
the feminist center in college so he could scam on women.  Or how
about, Dad, when you got a CB radio and grew a mustache after you saw
Smokey and the Bandit?  What was your handle again, the Rocking
Ranger?"

We continued like that, recalling our most embarrassing moments at
least the ones clean enough to tell in front of my dad until the
high-pitched beeping of a pager broke through our laughter.  By
instinct, Chuck and I both immediately hit the "stop making that
wretched noise" button on the right side of our waists and looked down
at the digital display.  "It's me," I said.  "Grace.  I better get
it."

Grace was calling to let me know that she'd dropped off Kendra and to
wish me luck with trial the next day.  She also told me that when she
went inside with Kendra, Kendra had played the answering machine in
front of her.  Apparently, her old friend Haley was looking to get back
in touch with her, had heard that she was living at home again, was
wondering what she was up to, that sort of thing.  It was hard not to
be furious as I remembered my only encounter with the girl.

I tried to keep cool as I dialed Kendra's number.

"Hey there.  How you holding up?"

"Alright, I guess.  I just want the trial to be over with."

I said what I could to relieve the anxiety.  In the end, there's
nothing you can say to comfort a victim who senses the system's
potential to fail.

I raised the phone message from Haley with caution.  "Grace mentioned
that Haley is trying to get in touch with you.  I didn't realize you
had stayed in contact with her."

"I haven't.  She called, that's all."

"She give you any idea what she wanted?"  I said.

The distinctively teenage sulk came through loud and clear over the
phone.  "Will you please, like, not freak out?  She was just wondering
how I was doing."

I didn't like the idea that Haley might be working her way back into
Kendra's life, so I said what I could to discourage her from returning
the call.  I knew in the end she'd do what she wanted.

I'd been looking forward to curling up with a book and going to bed
early when I got home.  That's not what happened.

I should've known something was wrong as soon as I put my key in the
lock.  Vinnie usually runs to the front door to welcome me home.  OK,
so it's more of a waddle.  The point is that he comes to the door when
he hears my keys.  This time, I could hear Vinnie barking, but he
wasn't at the door.

I remember the noise behind me in the dark as I bolted the front door.
And I think I remember feeling the crack against my head that quickly
followed, but maybe I fabricated that memory later with the help of
blinding head pain and a lump the size of a golf ball.

When I came to, the clock told me I'd been out for an hour.  My house
was a wreck.  Cupboards were open, cushions were thrown, drawers were
emptied.  And I could still hear Vinnie's muffled barks from somewhere
in the back of the house.

As much as I wanted to run to him, I'd watched enough scary movies to
know what to do if someone might be in your house.  What you don't do
is creep around in the dark silence.  That's how you wind up skewered
by some guy in a bad mask.

Instead, I went to my car, started the engine, and used my cell phone
to call 911.  And my dad.  And then Chuck.  And then I realized I could
call everyone I knew, and it wouldn't get the first of them here any
faster.

So I waited and watched.  Even when I could hear the sirens, still no
sign of life.  Whoever tore the place apart must have left after
knocking me out.

Two patrol officers swept through the house while the EMTs finished
checking me out in the ambulance.  No concussion, just assurances that
I'd have a brutal headache for the next forty-eight hours.

The police cleared me to enter after I showed them my ID and assured
them I knew how to handle a crime scene.  A pane in the back door had
been smashed to gain entry.

Chuck and Dad showed up around the time I was freeing Vinnie from the
kitchen pantry.  Knowing Vinnie, he'd made a valiant effort, but it
doesn't take much to kick a French bulldog into the nearest closet.  He
put up a brave front when I picked him up, but I could feel him
shaking.

Dad kept on eye on me, while Chuck pulled rank to make the patrol
officers page out a technician to search for prints.  PPB doesn't dust
every home burg, so I was getting special treatment.  Must have been
the nasty knock to the head.

When he was done with immediate business, Chuck came into the kitchen
where my dad was fixing me a drink and monitoring the ice pack on my
head.  "You doing OK?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"How's the mutt?"  he said, smiling as he flipped one of Vinnie's ears
over.

"Seems to be getting over it.  Dad's going to take him to the vet for
me tomorrow just to make sure he's alright."

One of the young patrol officers walked in and gave the kitchen a
cursory look over  "Man, they really did a number, didn't they?"

I looked around and took in just how bad the place looked.  And then I
took it out on the patrol officer.  "Better call off the crime scene
team.  McGruff the Crime Dog here has got the whole thing figured out.
Yep, they really did a number on the place.  I hadn't picked up on
that, Mr.  Sensitivity.  Jesus Christ, get yourself a copy of Policing
for Idiots before you go out on any more calls."  I put my hands
against the kitchen table, pushed my chair back, and stormed over to
the sink to look out the window.

Dad came to my side and patted my shoulder while I fought back tears
and tried to regain my composure.  When I'd gotten myself under control
again, Chuck suggested that I look around when I was ready to see if
anything was missing.  As I started to leave the kitchen, the patrol
officer said, "Just make sure you don't touch anything, ma'am."

I didn't turn around, but I heard Chuck say, "You got a death wish or
something, Williams?  Use your fucking head."

The only valuables I own are some jewelry I inherited from my mother,
and I'd be surprised if anyone ever found those.  If every old house
has some irregularity that invites fantastic stories, mine is an old
wall safe that someone had built into the baseboard of my bedroom.  The
day I was entrusted with my mother's jewelry, I locked it inside that
safe and moved my solid maple headboard directly in front of it.

The bed was right where I'd left it.  In fact, nothing seemed to be
missing, making me wonder why someone had bothered.

We were throwing around theories in the kitchen, with me desperately
searching for one that didn't involve any further mortal danger.  First
I floated the typical teenage thrill burg.  Wannabes get a high off
being in another person's house, going through their stuff, and
trashing the place.  But they probably wouldn't have slugged me in the
noggin.

My next front-runner was a small-time junkie thief who broke in and
then went nuts and trashed the place when he realized I didn't own the
kinds of things that smalltime junkie thieves steal, like CDs, DVDs,
and other small items that are easily resalable to those who live in
the modern world.

That theory just might have stuck, at least for the night, if I hadn't
decided I needed a beer.

I opened the fridge to find my twelve-inch chopping knife prominently
displayed on the top shelf.  It secured a note that said, Next time we
slice up you and your dog.  It's that easy.

So much for a theory that didn't scare the shit out of me.

Seven.

Like any other crime victim, I could do nothing about the intrusion
into my home and assault upon my person except wake up in a messy house
with a pounding headache.

PPB had assured me that they'd do what they could to find prints, but I
knew there wouldn't be any.  And I assured PPB that I'd go over my
files to identify anyone who might want to scare me, but I felt in my
gut that it had something to do with Derringer.  Unfortunately,
Derringer currently enjoyed the greatest protections a defendant can
enjoy.  Lopez had served me and the police department with written
notice that he was invoking his rights to counsel and to silence, which
meant that, while his trial was pending, the police couldn't question
him about anything, even suspected new crimes.

The truth is that prosecutors are rarely threatened.  Some speculate
that it's because they are feared, but the real reason prosecutors are
generally safe from the scum they prosecute

U1

is that they're replaceable.  You take out your prosecutor and nothing
changes.  The same witnesses bring the same evidence to the same
jurors, only with a different mouthpiece coordinating the show.

Unfortunately, an occasional defendant is too stupid to see that
reality, and I suspected Derringer was one of them.  Now I had to go
into trial with yet another reason to feel sick whenever I looked at
him.

The first day of trial was mercifully quick.  Judge Lesh had reviewed
all the written motions in advance and was ready to rule on them
without holding an evidentiary hearing.  Even though the appearance
took only a few hours, I still found Derringer's presence
disconcerting.  I'd almost hoped he'd throw me a look to confirm my
suspicion that he was behind the ransacking.  His seeming indifference
only served to foster the combination of rage and fear that I'd been
nursing since the previous night.  I tried to use it to fuel my
concentration on the pending motions.

I was nervous about Lopez's motion to exclude the false alibi Derrick
Derringer had volunteered for his brother the last time around.  It was
my position that this was relevant in determining whether Derrick was
telling the truth now.

Lisa argued that the evidence was too prejudicial to provide to the
jury.  Or, as she put it, "Your honor, Ms.  Kincaid knows full well
that, under the Rules of Evidence, my client's prior conviction is
inadmissible.  By framing this evidence as impeachment of Derrick
Derringer, she's trying to find a way to get my client's prior
conviction through the back door."

Lesh went off the record.  "Ms.  Lopez, you're doing a good job for
your client, but if I were you I would avoid using the term 'back door'
when referring to his prior conviction, which I see is for attempted
sodomy."

David Lesh was one of those people who could say the most inappropriate
things and yet somehow never offend anyone.  A legendary story holds
that when Lesh was still a prosecutor, one of the female judges and her
law clerks saw him leaving the building wearing shorts.  The judge
jokingly commented that the DAs were letting their dress standards
lapse a bit.  Lesh's response?  "I don't mind telling you, judge, that
these legs are under a court order from the National Organization for
Women.  I cover these beauties, and those fanatical broads at NOW will
have me arrested."  The clerks held their breath, sure that their judge
was about to unleash.  Instead, the story goes, she laughed and said,
"Well, in that case, counselor, you should at least get out in the sun
periodically.  You could blind someone with those things."  My guess
was that Lesh had so much going for him on the stuff that mattered that
people were almost reassured by his irreverence.

Proving once again that he was a complete professional where it
counted, Lesh went back on the record and made what I believed to be
the right ruling.  The jury should be allowed to consider Derrick's
previous lie for the limited purpose of judging his credibility as an
alibi witness in this trial.  The problem was that if the jury knew the
whole story, including the nature of Derringer's previous conviction,
the unfair prejudice to the defendant would be overwhelming.  So Lesh
carved out a fair compromise.

"Here's what we're going to do, folks.  First of all, the State can't
get into any of this until after the defendant's brother has taken the
stand and offered testimony to exonerate the defendant.  Until he does
that, Ms.  Kincaid, the evidence you want to use is irrelevant.

"Even after the evidence becomes relevant, I am concerned about the
potential for unfair prejudice.  Ms.  Kincaid, the only facts you
really need to get to the jury are that Derringer Derrick Derringer, I
mean provided an alibi for the defendant in the past and that the
defendant, contrary to the proffered alibi evidence, eventually
admitted that he was, in fact, at the scene.  I assume you can find a
way to put those facts into evidence without revealing the underlying
charge to the jury or whether the defendant was ever actually
convicted."

I nodded in agreement, but then said yes aloud so the court reporter
could transcribe my answer.

"Alright, then, that's the plan.  And, Ms.  Kincaid, I cannot emphasize
this enough.  The facts that I just mentioned are all I want to hear
from your witnesses on this matter: Brother supplied alibi for
defendant, but then defendant later admitted he was there."  He counted
off the points on his fingers.  "If I hear one other word one mention
of sodomy, or kidnapping, or a teenage girl victim, or the fact that a
jury found the defendant guilty of something I will declare a mistrial.
And I may even declare a mistrial with prejudice.  So I warn you to
proceed with caution and make sure your witnesses understand the rules
we're playing by.  Do we understand each other?"

I assured him that we did, and he moved to the rest of Lisa's
motions.

Lisa had filed a motion to suppress the evidence regarding Derringer's
pubic hair.  She tried to argue that the pethismo-graphic examination
and the jail booking process consti

U4

tuted unlawful searches in violation of Derringer's Fourth Amendment
rights.  But once she agreed that both processes were part of the
normal corrections process and not intended to produce evidence of a
crime, Lesh quickly denied the motions.

In the alternative, Lisa asked the court to prohibit Derringer's parole
officer from testifying that he had seen Derringer without his pants at
the pethismographic examination.  She argued that the evidence was
overly prejudicial because it revealed the fact that Derringer was on
parole for a sex offense.

In the end, Lesh decided to permit Renshaw to testify that he was
Derringer's parole officer and had occasion to see him without his
clothes.  The jury would not hear about the setting or circumstances. I
didn't like it, because I thought the jurors might come up with their
own oddball explanations as to why a parole officer would see a client
naked.  But I decided there was no other way to get Renshaw's
observations in without letting the jury know about the prior sex
offense, which surely would lead to a reversal on appeal.

"Alright," Lesh said.  "Now, before I call a jury panel up here, let's
see if my rulings on these motions change anything about whether we
need to have a trial.  I assume from the fact that we're here that the
two of you have had plea negotiations on this case by now."

Lisa and I sat silently.

"Nothing?"  the judge asked.  He told the court reporter to go off the
record.  "What the hell are you two doing?  Now, before I say what I'm
about to say, Mr.  Derringer, I want you to understand that my comments
have nothing to do with my opinion about your guilt.  I haven't heard
the evidence, so I don't have an opinion at this point.  And, in any
event,

U5

that's going to be a decision for the jury, not me.  But I've been
involved in a lot of trials, both as a lawyer and a judge.  And I've
read the papers filed in this case, and I have some idea of what's
coming around the corner."

He turned his attention back to me and Lisa.  "I'll be frank with both
of you.  From what I've read in the motions and the warrants, Ms.
Kincaid, you've charged the hell out of this case.  Frankly, I'm
surprised you chose to present this to the grand jury as an attempted
murder."

Lisa was never one to pass up an opportunity to ingratiate herself with
the court.  She jumped in to thank Lesh for telling me what she'd been
saying all along.

He stopped her cold.  "Not so fast, there, Ms.  Lopez.  I've got even
more for you.  You may not have noticed, but your client's alibi rests
on the word of his convicted felon brother who by all appearances has
lied for the defendant before.  Your client also is on parole for an
offense that is strikingly similar to the one for which he now stands
trial.  I hope you have advised him that he is gambling in a very big
way.  I can tell you right now, if he loses, he won't be looking at a
year in the pen this time.  He's looking at a very long sentence, with
a parole board that will remember that he burned them the last time."

Having reminded both of us of our weaknesses, Judge Lesh wanted to hear
our offers.  I offered to dismiss the attempted murder and other
charges if Derringer would plead to the kidnapping and sodomy, with a
ten-year minimum sentence.  I offered to reduce that to seven if he'd
flip on Suspect Number Two.  Lisa wouldn't hear it.  She wanted Assault
Three with eighteen months no cooperation.  Lesh gave up when it became
clear we'd never agree, and the clerk called up a jury panel.

U6

Picking a jury can be the most difficult part of a trial.  Most people
can be convinced of just about anything, and one dud can sway enough of
these sheep to yield very bad results.

One of my first trials in Oregon was a slam-dunk controlled buy.  An
undercover used marked money for the drug buy; then the surveillance
officers who watched the deal followed the suspect, keeping track of
him by his distinctive two-tone spectator loafers.  When the defendant
was popped in the men's room of a nearby restaurant, the marked drug
money was in his pocket.  The dummy blew any theoretical chance at an
acquittal when he showed up on the second day of the trial wearing the
same two-tone spectator loafers that every police witness mentioned the
previous day when describing the suspect.

After three days of deliberations, the jury hung, 7 to 5, in favor of
guilt.  The judge was so incredulous that he broke from the usual
procedure and permitted the lawyers to question the jurors before they
were dismissed.  Turns out that one particularly headstrong guy
convinced four of the others that the defendant must be innocent,
because no one would be stupid enough to wear those shoes to court
under the circumstances.  The four sheep found it difficult to defend
the decision, saying repeatedly, "We just don't think he did it."  When
I asked the leader about the marked drug money, all he could say was,
"Now, that was a problem for him.  I'll admit that."  The seven sane
jurors looked like their heads were going to explode after spending
three days trying to argue with that kind of logic.

My case against Derringer was strong, but I needed to weed out any
jurors who might cut him loose on the most

H7

serious charges, thinking that the victim deserved what she got.  In
the end, Lisa bumped two retired women who looked at Derringer like
they were already afraid of him.  I bumped two men with previous
assault arrests and two who said they were surprised that a person
could be charged with raping a prostitute.  The worse of the two said
it sounded more like theft, then suppressed a chuckle.  I was glad he
said it, not only because I knew to bump him but also because I saw one
woman flinch in revulsion.  Lisa apparently didn't see it, because she
left her on the panel.  A definite keeper for me.  By the end of the
day, we had picked our jury.

Deciding that personal safety required me to navigate even further into
the twenty-first century, I bit the bullet and had a top-of-the-line
home security system installed that night.  I could tell by the way the
installation guy eyed my trashed house that he didn't think I'd be
needing it.  I didn't bother explaining.

Just knowing that the system was there helped.  I fell asleep the
minute I hit the bed and didn't wake until the alarm clock advised me
it was time to go to work.  At least I'd be rested for the second day
of trial.

I walked into Lesh's courtroom prepared for my opening statement.  On
the way in, I checked to make sure that my witnesses were there: Mike,
the EMTs, and the kids who found Kendra were subpoenaed for the
morning.  I figured there was no way we'd get through opening
statements and all those witnesses before lunch.

I had decided not to ask Kendra to attend the entire trial.  Her mother
could not miss enough work to accompany her, and I thought that the
sight of Kendra sitting without a parent would feed the impression that
she was something other than a victimized child.

Fortunately, Derringer wasn't going to be getting an upper hand in the
sympathy arena by packing the halls with loving supporters.  The only
people in the spectator seats were a few curious court-watchers and Dan
Manning, a young reporter for the Oregonian who was always trying to
branch out beyond his normal neighborhood beat by picking up crime
stories that otherwise wouldn't get covered.

I liked Dan.  He tried to give potential future sources people like me
good press as long as he could do it and still give the straight story.
He stopped me as I was walking in.  "Do you have a few seconds for a
quote?  I'm thinking about using this trial as a centerpiece for a
larger special-interest article about the dangers faced by teen
prostitutes.  You know, hoping to ride the coattails of the renewed
interest about the Jamie Zimmerman murder, now that Taylor's back in
the news."

I prefaced my answer by explaining that the Rules of Professional
Responsibility prohibit prosecutors from going very far in their
statements to the media.  I was relieved when he nodded; he knew the
drill.  For a prosecutor, media interviews are like navigating a
minefield.  Stay too safe within the lines, and your typical nitwit
reporter looking for a story will make it sound like you don't believe
in your case.  Go too far, and you're looking at sanctions from the
court and the bar.

I told Dan I'd be happy to talk to him if he would assure me that he
wasn't going to print Kendra's name.  He agreed, reminding me that the
Oregonian was one of the few papers that had not abandoned its policy
of withholding information about the victims of sexual offenses after
the William

Kennedy Smith rape allegation triggered sensationalist paper-selling
headlines.

I gave Dan a few canned quotes about the trial and also plugged DVD as
an aggressive, proactive unit working to prevent girls from entering
the world of prostitution and to arrest and prosecute the adults who
lure them into it.

When it was time for opening statements, I delivered mine from memory,
without notes.

"Good morning.  In case you don't remember, my name is Samantha
Kincaid, and I'm a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County.  I
represent the State of Oregon.

"I want to start this morning by thanking you for your candor when we
spoke yesterday during the jury selection process.  It is because of
your honesty during that process that the twelve of you have been
chosen to hear this case.  And I am thanking you ahead of time, because
I think you will find the next week or so to be a difficult one.  It
will be difficult because the process changes now.  We don't get to
talk to each other like normal people, the way we did yesterday.  You
are now jurors, and the rules of our trial system require a formality
unlike any other setting in our society.  You are entrusted with a
profoundly important decision, but the rules require you to sit here
passively, listening, without asking questions or even talking to one
another about the case until all the evidence is closed and you begin
your deliberations.  I do not envy your task, but I promise to do my
best to anticipate the issues you might find most important and to
focus on them.

"But I think you will find this week to be difficult for reasons other
than those faced by any person fulfilling a citizen's responsibilities
as a juror.  You face an especially daunting task because this
particular trial will force you to focus on the sadistic acts of the
man sitting over here, Frank Derringer."

I had their attention now.  A few of them shifted in their chairs to
move forward.

"You are going to hear facts about what Frank Derringer did to a
thirteen-year-old girl named Kendra Martin the kind of facts that most
people go a lifetime without ever having to contemplate.  This man" I
pointed to Derringer "pulled Kendra Martin from the street, dragged her
into a car driven by an accomplice, and drove her to an isolated
parking lot with every intention of beating and raping her.  And as he
brutalized her face and body with his fists and forced her legs apart
to take him, something happened that made Frank Derringer's already
horrific violence escalate and turned this crime into something I wish
I didn't have to tell you about.

"At the pivotal moment when Kendra Martin thought the defendant was
going to force himself inside of her, the defendant found himself
flaccid, unable to fulfill his intentions.  So Frank Derringer found a
different way to take out his rage against the scared thirteen-year-old
girl who was pinned beneath him in the backseat of his car.  He took a
stick and rammed it repeatedly between Kendra Martin's buttocks.  From
the degree of tearing, doctors estimate that the stick was at least an
inch and a half in diameter.  They know it was made out of wood,
because they found splinters inside Kendra Martin's anus.  And when
Kendra lay bleeding from the defendant's torture, Frank Derringer still
didn't stop.

"The defendant told his accomplice to do what he couldn't do himself
and then watched while this second man raped and then sodomized Kendra
Martin, now barely conscious.  And when the whole thing was over, these
two men drove

Kendra to the Columbia Gorge and dumped her like a bag of garbage to
die.

"You're going to learn that Kendra Martin hasn't lived the kind of life
that most thirteen-year-old girls get to live.  She's going to get on
the witness stand and tell you very personal facts about her home life
and her background.  And she'll tell you that she's not proud to admit
that when the defendant kidnaped, raped, and sodomized her and then
left her to die, she was a runaway girl engaging in prostitution to
support a growing heroin addiction.  She'll also tell you that she
initially tried to tell the police what Frank Derringer did to her
without admitting her own troubles.

"But I believe that when she explains to you why she initially withheld
some information from police, you will understand.  You will also
understand, and you'll determine from the rest of the evidence and from
your own common sense, that Kendra Martin did not deserve what Frank
Derringer did to her.  She never consented to be tortured and left to
die near Multnomah Falls.

"You will hear evidence that Frank Derringer plotted this crime in
advance and then took extraordinary steps to avoid detection."  I gave
them a detailed preview of the evidence that Derringer had shaved his
pubic hair during the days before the attack and then painted his car
and replaced its interior the next day.

"You'll also hear from Detective Mike Calabrese.  He'll tell you that
he found Kendra Martin's purse in a trash can about a mile away from
where the defendant and his accomplice dumped Kendra to die.  An expert
in fingerprint technology with years of training in this type of
evidence will testify that a fingerprint left on the strap of the purse
belongs to Frank Derringer."

I paused and looked across at the face of each juror to make sure that
the jury realized the impact of the fingerprint evidence.

"After you've heard from all these witnesses and experts, I'll have a
chance to talk to you once again.  At that time, I think you'll find
that the State's evidence is going to measure up to the strong case
I've outlined for you here.  And based on that evidence, I'm going to
ask you to return verdicts of guilty on all counts.  I'm confident that
once you hear the horrendous facts of this case, and the overwhelming
evidence establishing Frank Derringer's culpability, returning that
verdict will be the easiest part of this entire trial for you."

Legal strategists say that jurors make up their minds about a case by
the end of opening statements.  At the end of mine, I felt like I had
them.  I took my seat at the state's counsel table, closest to the jury
box.

When Lesh nodded to Lopez to indicate she should proceed, she rose from
her chair, put her hands on Derringer's shoulders, and said, "Members
of the jury, Frank Derringer would like nothing more than for you to
hear the truth about what happened in this case right now, because he
is an innocent man who wants to go home.  But, your honor, as his
attorney, I have decided to withhold my opening statement until the
State has put on its case."

Lisa apparently had even less confidence in her case than I thought.  I
wondered if she had reserved opening to delay locking in her defense
until she knew for certain what we had.

But Lisa had gone a little further than that, insisting that Derringer
was innocent.  Most attorneys go out of their way not to use that word;
all they really want to hear is "not guilty," and in a courtroom "not
guilty" is a far cry from innocence.  If I wanted to be a stickler, I
could argue that she made an opening statement by referring to the
merits of the case.  But what did I care?  Better for me to put on a
one sided show.

I'd be putting on my witnesses earlier than I thought.  So far, so
good.

My first witnesses were Brittany Holmes and Parker Gibson, the high
school students who found Kendra in the park and called the paramedics.
With their preppy good looks, they could have been a couple of
teenagers you see sailing and splashing water on each other wearing
hundred-dollar khakis in those mail-order catalogs.  But they were
polite and articulate, so they were good witnesses.

The kids described their terror when they realized that they had
tripped not over a log but over the bloodied and unconscious body of a
young girl.  What came across unmistakably was that when they saw
Kendra, they saw a girl just like one of their friends or little
sisters.  They showed no judgment.

The EMT's testimony went just as well.  Whether it was seen from the
fresh outlook of a shocked teenager or through the lens of a skilled
professional experienced in dealing with violence, this crime was a
serious one.  The people who were there to witness her condition
firsthand all agreed that Kendra had been treated horrifically.

Mike Calabrese was up next, to explain how he and Chuck supervised the
crime scene.  He summarized the basic mechanics: marking off a
perimeter, keeping a log of everyone who entered and exited, collecting
and maintaining anything that looked like it might be physical
evidence.  That kind of stuff impresses juries.

Around the time they finished processing the crime scene, they got word
from the hospital that the suspects had sodomized Kendra with some type
of stick.  "We didn't find anything in the immediate crime scene that
could've been the weapon, and we couldn't search the entire park for a
stick.  But my partner, Chuck Forbes, noticed that the park put garbage
cans along the side of the road.  We decided to look in the cans along
the road on the way out of the park on the long shot that the suspects
threw the weapon in one of them."

"Did you locate anything in any of the garbage cans that might have
been used to sodomize Kendra Martin?"

"No, ma'am, we did not."  Mike's rough edges were barely detectable
when he testified, I noticed.

"Did you find anything that you deemed to be relevant to your
investigation?"  I asked.

"We did," he answered.

"And what was that?"

Calabrese turned his head toward the jury box and answered.
"Approximately a mile from the crime scene, I found a black leather
purse on top of the garbage in one of the containers."

I cut in.  "At this point in your investigation, Detective, were you
aware that the suspects had taken Kendra Martin's purse from her?"

"No, ma'am, I was not."

"OK.  So what did you do when you found the purse?"  I asked.

"I wasn't sure whether it was related to our case or not, but it was
suspicious in any event.  I've been trained that discarded property is
considered abandoned under the Constitution, so I'm permitted to search
it without a warrant.  I removed the purse from the garbage and opened
it."

As long as he actually gets it right, I like it when an officer tells
the jury the basis for conducting a search.  It's not actually the
jury's job to decide whether evidence was obtained lawfully.  That's
for the judge to determine.  But you never know when you're going to
get some wise-ass wanna-be ACLU'er on the jury who decides to convince
the rest of them that some constitutional violation has occurred.  "OK.
And did you use your bare hands to remove the purse from the garbage
and open it?"

"No, ma'am.  I was wearing police-issue latex gloves during my search."
He looked at the jury.  "It wasn't much fun poring through that stuff
even with the gloves."  Some of the jurors laughed quietly, and he
continued speaking to me.  "Once I saw the purse, I removed the gloves
I had been wearing and replaced them with a new pair.  I was wearing
those when I picked up the purse and opened it."

"And what did you find in the purse when you opened it?"

"Things that looked to me just on first appearance like they might
belong to the victim, given her age.  She had some gum in there, a tube
of lip gloss, a change purse with a Hello Kitty sticker on it.  Turned
out to be empty.  There was no official identification in the purse.
The victim's just a kid, so there wasn't going to be a driver's license
or the standard type of ID.  I did find one of those wallet inserts
that have the see-through plastic pockets to put pictures and credit
cards in.  It had a few pictures in there that looked like school
photographs of some little kids.  Some of the kids had written messages
on the back of their pictures.  They were addressed to

Kendra.  I figured at the time that must've been the victim's name, but
I subsequently confirmed that information with other detectives."

"Once you determined that the purse belonged to Kendra Martin and was
involved in your investigation, what did you do?"

"My intention was to preserve the purse as I found it, so a crime
technician could process it for fingerprints or anything else of
evidentiary value.  I took a plastic evidence bag from my car and,
still wearing my gloves, I placed the purse in the bag, sealed it, and
marked it with the date and my initials."

"And, detective, why did you mark the bag like that?"

"Whenever we seize physical evidence, we seal it in an evidence bag to
protect it from tampering, then mark the bag with our initials and the
date and time.  The bag isn't opened until it gets to the crime lab.
It's a way for us to make sure that what the crime lab gets is what we
actually seized in the field."

In the same tedious question-and-answer format, we made our way through
Mike's link in the chain of custody.  He brought the bag with the purse
inside of it back to the precinct and put it in the evidence locker.
Luckily, he was the person who had "lab run" duty the next day, so I
didn't have to bring in an extra witness to vouch for the walk from the
Justice Center to the crime lab.  Mike delivered it to Heidi Chung
personally.

I spent the rest of the morning continuing to work step by mechanical
step through my trial outline.  I was running the show in the
courtroom, since Lisa appeared to be doing little in the way of
cross-examination.  Of Brittany Holmes, Parker

Gibson, and the EMTs, she asked one question: "Do you have any personal
knowledge to suggest that my client was one of the people who assaulted
Kendra Martin?"  Of course, they all said no.  She didn't ask Calabrese
a single question.

My guess was that she was saving the heavy stuff for Kendra.

Eight.

Ray Johnson and Jack Walker were waiting on a bench outside of Lesh's
courtroom when I got down to the fifth floor after the lunch break.  I
started having my witnesses meet me outside the courtroom soon after I
became a DDA.  That way, when the judges invariably start late, I can
make use of the time by preparing my witnesses in the hallway.  An
added bonus of the practice is that it keeps the dirtbag informants in
my drug cases out of my office and away from my stuff.

I assumed that the man sitting alone on a separate bench farther down
the hall was Dr.  Preston Malone, the emergency room resident who
treated Kendra at the hospital.  Anyone who's had a shower and hasn't
ingested illegal narcotics within a couple of days stands out on a
bench in the courthouse.  Unless, of course, you can tell the guy's a
cop, either from the uniform or the other sure signs beer gut, bad
tie,

big gun, those kinds of things.  In Preston Malone's case, the medical
journal he was reading gave him away.

When Ray and Jack spotted me, they both opened their mouths to speak,
but I rushed past them with one finger up to let them know I'd be right
back.  I wanted to touch base with Dr.  Malone first.  Typical of most
physicians, he hadn't found time in his schedule to prepare his
testimony with me.  And, although I had Kendra's medical records for
the grand jury, Dr.  Malone hadn't appeared personally to testify.  In
other words, I had no idea what I was getting.

When he realized I was approaching him, he stood and offered his hand.
From a distance, the guy looked really good.  But standing close to him
now, I could see that his profession was taking its toll.  He hadn't
shaved, his eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was a mess.  Tell you the
truth, I'm not sure that his eyes were completely focused.  Coming out
of ER like that?  Scary.

He apologized for not being able to meet with me before trial.

"With the schedules we get at the hospital, it's pretty much impossible
to keep an outside appointment.  I have to admit, I was happy to get a
subpoena.  Thought maybe I could catch a nap while I was waiting.  But
when I was walking out, the attending physician gave me this medical
journal and asked me to summarize the articles for him when I got
back."

"You have to go back when you're done here?  You'll probably be here
until the end of the day."

He smiled.  "Not the way a hospital defines the end of a day.  I went
in yesterday at six in the morning.  I'll get home around ten
tonight."

I vowed inwardly never to complain again about my workload.

I ran through the trial outline in my head.  "Actually, I could put you
on first so you don't have to wait around here."

"Um, thanks, but if it's the same to you, I'll wait as long as
possible.  I'm almost done with this journal, then I'm gonna crash
right here on this luxurious wooden bench."

"I guess with your residency, you don't really need a suite at the Four
Seasons to sleep," I said.

"No, but the thought is pure ecstasy."

I could tell he was about to nod off at the idea, so I got my trial
prep in quickly.  Malone's job would be to describe Kendra's demeanor
and injuries.  I hoped the nap would refresh him before his
testimony.

I left him there, lying on the wood bench, and walked back to where
Walker and Johnson waited.

"Pretty good kid, isn't he?"  Walker said, nodding his head toward
Preston Malone.

"Seems like a hard worker.  You guys ready?"

"Let's roll, girl."  I could tell Johnson was getting into witness
mode.

After Lesh took the bench and brought the jurors back in, I rose and
said, "The State calls Detective Raymond Johnson."

When he stood to walk to the witness seat, I noticed Claudia Gates, the
heavyset middle-aged black woman on the jury, sit a little straighter
in her chair and let her eyes follow Ray to the front of the
courtroom.

For her sake, after I asked Ray to state his name, age, profession, and
some other general background information, I added, "Are you married,
Detective Johnson?"  I'm not above playing to a juror's weaknesses.

Whether he knew why I was asking or whether he just has a natural
charm, Ray Johnson gave the perfect answer: "Not yet, Ms.  Kincaid.  So
far, the only woman in my life's my momma, but I'm still trying."

I thought I actually heard Claudia Gates's blood rush, but it was more
likely the courtroom's crappy radiator.

I know.  I'm a hypocrite.  As much as I hate it that a good portion of
my half of the species loses all rational thought when a good-looking
man's in the room, I happily accept these boy-crazed women as jurors
when my cops are hot.

Ray covered some of the same ground as the initial witnesses,
describing the mood of the crime scene and Ken-dra's appearance when
MCT first arrived.  Then we talked about what happened after he and
Jack separated from Chuck and Mike.

"When you saw Kendra Martin at the hospital, did you reevaluate your
assessment of her injuries?"

"In some respects."  He explained that Kendra's appearance
substantially improved once the hospital staff cleaned the blood from
her, but she was still in obvious pain, evidenced by severe bruising on
her face and body, a large laceration across her nose and left cheek,
and noticeable discoloration around her neck.

"After you initially spoke with Kendra Martin, did you have an idea in
your mind about what had happened to her that night?"

"Yes, based on what she told me and my partner, Jack Walker."

"After the initial interview, did you speak to Kendra again about what
happened to her that night?"  I asked.

"Yes.  After some additional investigation, Detective Walker and I
spoke to the victim again when she was still in the hospital."

"Were her statements consistent with respect to certain sexual acts
committed against her that night?"

"Yes."

"Was she consistent in describing the physical abuse that occurred that
night?"

"Yes."

I could sense Lisa contemplating whether to object.  Ray's answers were
technically hearsay, even though they didn't reveal what it was that
Kendra actually said to him.  The answers were enough to reveal that
Kendra had been sexually and physically assaulted.  But Lisa stayed in
her seat, and she was right to.  If she objected in front of the jury,
they might think she was trying to keep information away from them, and
it was information they were going to hear anyway once Kendra
testified.

I continued the pattern of questioning, establishing that Kendra's
statements were consistent with respect to the most material facts.

"Were there some inconsistencies between the two statements?"  Yes.

"Did Kendra have an explanation for these inconsistencies?"

"Yes.  She admitted that she had omitted certain truthful information
and had included some untruthful information in her initial statement
to us."

Now, that one was definitely hearsay, since he was repeating something
Kendra had said outside the courtroom and asserting it as truth.  But
the information helped the defense, so Lisa wasn't about to object.

Ray then walked through the portions of Kendra's initial statement that
were not true, being careful as we had discussed never to call them
lies.  He explained that Kendra initially said she was in Old Town to
go to Powell's Books and did not know how heroin ended up in her
system.

"And Kendra admitted later that those statements were not true?"

"That's correct."

"Now, Detective, do you know what the defendant has been charged
with?"

"Yes, I do.  Attempted Aggravated Murder, Kidnapping in the First
Degree, Unlawful Sexual Penetration in the First Degree, Rape in the
First Degree, Sodomy in the First Degree, and Assault in the Third
Degree."

"From an investigative standpoint, did the facts as Kendra Martin
stated them in her initial interview indicate that those charges would
apply in this case?"

"Yes."

"So, in other words, if someone had asked you right after you initially
interviewed Kendra Martin what the suspect might be charged with, those
are the charges you would have anticipated?"

"That's right."

"Would your answer to that question have changed after you learned
Kendra Martin's actual reasons for being in Old Town and how the heroin
ended up in her system?"  No.

"Why is that?"  I asked.  "After all, the victim in the case changed
her statement."

"She did change some details in her statement, but her statements with
respect to what the suspects actually did to her did not change.  The
charges would still be the same."

Ray wrapped up his testimony by describing the change in Kendra's
demeanor from the first interview to the second.  He was well-suited
for this role.  He actually managed to make Kendra's mood swings weigh
in her credibility's favor.  As he explained it, Kendra was initially
very agitated.  But once they made it clear that they were there to
find out what happened to her and who did it, she was cooperative and
focused.  When they interviewed her again and indicated their concerns
about her initial statement, she seemed embarrassed and worried that
her honesty would hurt the case.  Once she amended her statement, she
seemed relieved.

After Ray was excused, I called Dr.  Malone to the stand.  I was
worried that the bailiff might actually have to wake the poor guy up in
the hallway, but apparently not.  Moments later, Preston Malone strode
confidently to the witness stand.  I guess it's true that residency
trains doctors to perform well regardless of the sleep deprivation.

Dr.  Malone took the oath and explained his credentials to the jury.
Pretty impressive.  Undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Pomona,
MD from Johns Hopkins.  Played the viola in the Portland symphony in
what he generously termed his "spare time."  Damn.  If I thought he had
room in his schedule, I might've called him for a date.

We walked through Kendra's medical records together, with Dr.  Malone
explaining the cryptic notes that detailed the physical trauma that
Kendra experienced.  Knowing Kendra like I did, it was hard to listen
to.  But it was critical that the jury hear it.

"Dr.  Malone, you have described what you have called tears to the wall
of Kendra Martin's anus.  After your physical examination of Kendra
Martin, did you form an opinion as to what caused those tears?"

"Yes, I did."

"And what is your opinion?"

"You must understand that the anal wall is extremely sensitive to
pressure.  Most people experience detectable trauma simply from a
standard bowel movement, so it's not unusual to detect some
irregularity in what we call the 'anal wink."  In fact, I have seen
patients report to the emergency room with voluntarily inflicted
injuries in that particular area that are, as you might imagine,
extremely abnormal."

A couple of the jurors shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"And how would you describe Kendra Martin's injuries?"

"Severe.  Even compared to very young sexual abuse victims, the trauma
was incredible.  There were no signs of lubrication, either chemical or
natural.  The only thing I can compare it to is an episiotomy, in which
we enlarge the vaginal opening for childbirth.  Of course, the patient
is anesthetized for that procedure.  Given the degree of injury this
patient sustained, I would have expected her to need at least two
weeks' healing time.  It was only because of this particular patient's
emotional resiliency that she was able to go home the following day."

"And were you able to form an opinion about what type of object created
Kendra Marin's internal injuries?"

"Yes.  With voluntary pressure, for comparison, it's not unusual to see
perforations in the anal wall, but they tend to be superficial, and the
use of lubrication minimizes the damage.  In Kendra's case, the
injuries were abrupt.  Someone had subjected her to quick and intense
pressure in specific areas.  Moreover, I found several wooden splinters
in her skin.  This,

as well as the degree of tearing, led me to conclude that she was
penetrated abruptly and repeatedly with an unfinished wooden stick at
least an inch and a half wide and seven inches long."

I pushed my hair behind my right ear as I looked down at my notes for a
reminder of where I was and what I was trying to get out of this
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
indicted, she was quick to admit her lies.  She'd say, real
matter-of-fact, "Oh, that.  Well, yes, you're right, I wasn't exactly
honest with you on that one."  She always replaced it with some other
lie, but each time she dug herself a little deeper, giving us a little
more of the truth."  O'Donnell smiled and shook his head, recalling the
case, then suddenly seemed to remember he'd been talking about the
earrings.  "Same thing applied with the earrings.  She admitted
planting them right away once she was confronted."

"Did she say how she knew Jamie wore earrings like that?"

"Not until someone asked her.  That's how everything worked with her.
She said she saw the earrings listed on her copy of the warrant when
the police went to the house to execute it, and she happened to have a
pair of earrings that fit the description, so she snuck into Taylor's
toolbox and put them there.  We knew it was bullshit right off the bat.
First of all, the list of potential evidence in that case was long,
like it is in any homicide.  The earrings were mentioned on one line
six pages back.

"Second, the only description in the warrant was for gold hoop
earrings.  If Landry had planted real ones, we never would've known
they weren't Jamie's.  The mom says they were identical same diameter,
same width of the metal.

"And finally, I was there when the police executed the warrant.  Don't
get me wrong, here.  Those MCT guys are as dim-witted as any other
Keystone Kop, but I was there and they at least know how to execute a
fucking warrant.  Margaret Landry was not wandering around the house
planting evidence while we were there."

I'll never understand why some people have to temper any comment that
could possibly be construed as a compliment with an insult.  I suspect
they think it makes them look knowledgeable.  I think it makes them
look mean.  If I was lucky, O'Donnell would never feel compelled to
rise to my defense.

"So the only way she could've known to plant those particular earrings
would be if she had seen them," I said.

"Exactly.  In fact, of all the details Margaret provided that
corroborated her confession, it was the earrings that most convinced me
of her guilt.  On a lot of the other facts, she tried to say at trial
that Forbes had coached her.  But the earrings were such a perfect
match, she couldn't explain how Forbes could've coached her about a
pair of earrings in that kind of detail.  And she admitted planting
them.  I hammered on that in my closing argument, and I'm convinced
that the jury agreed there was no way for Landry to get around those
earrings."

"So what happened when you found out the earrings weren't Jamie's?"  I
asked.

"That's when this whole thing changed.  I made the call to send Forbes
back in to talk to her.  He was a rookie, but he'd developed a good
rapport with her, and we needed to know what the hell was going on.
Forbes told her that was it we were going to stop working with her. She
started crying, saying that he had to believe her and she knew Taylor
did the girl.  Forbes did a good job, actually.  Stayed tough, told her
he didn't want to hear any more from her, you get the drift. So then
Margaret blurts out that she knows Taylor did it, because she saw him.
Gives the whole confession right there, so no one but Forbes was there
to hear it."

"How big of a problem was that for the case?"  I asked.

O'Donnell shrugged his shoulders.  "Hell, in retrospect, it was a
problem.  He seemed like a kid, didn't have a lot of experience, and
held too many pieces of the investigation together.  The defense made
it sound like Forbes was a climber using this case to become a star in
the bureau.  Fortunately, the defense didn't realize that Officer
Forbes was none other than Charles Landon Forbes, Jr.  I think the jury
figured out that a governor's son doesn't need to manipulate an
investigation to get where he wants to go in city government."

"What about physical evidence?  Anything to corroborate the
confession?"  I asked.

O'Donnell shook his head.  "Zilch.  Zimmerman was missing for months
before the body was found.  No DNA, no hair, no fibers.  We were lucky
to have a firm ID and cause of death.  Her license was in her pocket,
and we used dental records to confirm it.  ME called the strangulation
based on damage to the small bones in her neck."  O'Donnell looked at
his watch.  "Hey, I hope this has been helpful, but I really gotta
run."

"Shit, I was hoping you could tell me more about that confession.  You
around tomorrow?"

"Nope."

Asshole didn't even pretend to explain.  The big boys around here take
off on dry days for golf, and the DA pretends he doesn't know about it.
I guess I'd gotten the maximum amount of help a person can get out of
Tim O'Donnell in a day.  Actually, this might be it for the month.

"Alright, I can probably get the rest from Forbes.  Thanks for the
help."

As I was walking out of his office, I heard O'Donnell mutter behind me,
"Hey, you should thank me for not finishing the rest of the story.  Now
you've got an excuse to be alone with Chuck Forbes after hours."

I spun around and glared at him.  "What the hell is that supposed to
mean?"

"Hey, fire down, Kincaid.  I thought you had a better sense of humor.
The staff up here goes nuts over the guy every time he's in here.  I
was just having some fun with you thought it wouldn't hurt you to spend
some time with the guy."

I decided he was telling the truth.  He didn't know anything.  "That's
something I don't joke around about.  I don't date people at work,
especially cops."

"Alas, Kincaid.  It's our loss."

As I started to walk out of his office, I stepped back and asked, "Oh,
by the way, do they have anything yet on that letter?  It would help
shut Lopez down if I could show that we got the right bad guys in the
Zimmerman case."

Looking down at his desk, he studied an open magazine.  "Letter's still
at the crime lab.  If we find out who sent it, I'll let you know."

I imagined myself saying, At the lab, my ass.  I hear the lab got
diddly.  Instead, I nodded.  "I'd appreciate it."

"Now get back to your trial," he said.  "Let me know how it turns out.
Bad enough that you took it to begin with.  You better not crash and
burn."

I tried not to let his gloating piss me off, since he did stay past his
normal five o'clock punch-out to help me.  But his help was something
of a mixed blessing.  Now if my case went down in flames, he could say
he filled me in on what I needed to know about the Zimmerman case and
had warned me from the start.  No pressure.

Eleven.

Lisa was giving a statement to Dan Manning outside the courthouse when
I walked out of the building.  I wished I'd gotten to him first.  No
doubt he was already envisioning this case as his first Pulitzer, or at
least a true-crime paperback and a made-for-TV Sunday-night movie.

While Lisa spun a story involving sex, double crosses, and justice
delayed, I was left to make a lame and predictable statement that the
defense was reaching for tall tales out of desperation and that I
trusted the jury to weigh the evidence impartially and ascertain the
truth.  Not exactly headline material.

Grace met me at the door of her loft apartment in the Pearl District
with a big hug and an even bigger glass of cabernet.  I had called
ahead from the office, so she knew I was in a bad way.

When she was quiet after I finished relating the events of the past few
days, I looked at her with exaggerated disappointment.  "Grace, as my
lifelong best friend, you are under a standing obligation to feed my
outrage.  Right now, for example, you should be stringing together a
litany of insulting names for my archenemy, Lisa Lopez."  Nothing.
"Here, I'll get you started: Snake.  Slime.  Skunk.  Skank.  I'm only
on 5. You want to start with the t's?"  Still nothing.  "Grace?"

She woke up from her daze and looked me in the eye.  "Before I say
anything about your case, I just want to clarify something.  You're
back with Chuck?"

I rolled my eyes and did my best to voice exasperation.  I sounded like
Kendra.  "You don't have to say it in that tone, Grace."

"Well, Sam, it's pretty much the tone you seem to reserve for him."

"And that's usually after a couple of martinis when I'm angry at him
for breaking my heart.  This time feels different, Grace.  We've both
grown up a little, and he's doing more than just trying to flirt his
way into bed with me.  He's really opened up to me about this trial and
the Zimmerman case, and he's great with Kendra "

She interrupted me.  "What?  You think because he brings CDs and Happy
Meals to your witness that you're going to have little babies together
and live happily ever after?  Jesus, Sam, Chuck's a nice guy, but look
at the twits he goes for.  Not to mention the fact that he makes your
life chaotic, and you hate chaos."

"Maybe some chaos would be good for me."

That made her laugh.  "You're kidding, right?"

When I didn't smile at that, she rubbed my forearm, which was resting
on the table.  "Oh, Sam, I'm sorry.  You do what's right for you, and
I'll support whatever that is.  Just be careful.  I'm worried about
you."

"Yeah, me too, but I want to do this."  I changed the subject.  "So,
can we move on to the trashing of my nemesis now?

She smiled, but I could tell she was feeling serious.  "It just seems
strange," she said.

"There's nothing strange about it, Grace.  Lisa Lopez is completely
scummy slime and has absolutely no ethics.  She'll do anything to win,
even for a dirtbag like Derringer."

"But you said yourself that she sat there passively through your entire
case."

I tried not to reveal my impatience.  "Right," I said slowly, "but now
it turns out she was doing that so she could hide her ridiculous theory
until the last minute, when I'd be caught off guard."

"But, Sam, look at the big picture.  When did she think of this?  The
anonymous letter to the Oregonian wasn't printed until the middle of
your case.  If she got the idea from the letter, what was her plan
before then?  It seems too coincidental that she just happened to be
putting on a lame defense and then decided in the middle of the trial
to capitalize on this anonymous letter thing."

I could see where she was headed.  "Right," I said.  "I've thought
about that too.  It explains why she seemed up to no good ever since
the start of the trial: she was planning to tie the case to the
Zimmerman murder all along, and the anonymous letter happened to come
up right before her opening."

"Which is also a major coincidence," she said.

"It's really not, Grace.  Think about it: the Supreme Court announced
it was upholding Taylor's sentence right before my trial started.  Lisa
heard about it and saw a convenient defense.  The anonymous letter was
also a reaction to the court's decision, probably by some death penalty
opponent or someone just looking for attention.  Two totally unrelated
decisions, but both pretty predictable in hindsight.  Taylor's the
first real test of Oregon's death penalty; it was bound to attract some
nut jobs

Grace nodded in agreement, and I moved on to bad-mouthing Lisa Lopez as
we finished the bottle of wine.  As usual when I visited Grace, I left
feeling better than when I arrived.

On the way home, my cell phone rang.  The caller ID read private.  Real
helpful.  Maybe if I hadn't answered, I would have at least had a
recorded message to give the police.

"Long dinner, Kincaid.  Were you and that hot little friend of yours
doing a little eating out up there?  If I'd known, I might've followed
you up."

The voice was vaguely familiar, but too muffled to place.  "Who is
this?"

He was already gone.

I spent the weekend reviewing the Zimmerman file behind locked doors.
Between checking out every sound, double-checking my alarm, and
periodically turning off the lights to look out my windows, I didn't
feel even half prepared when I headed back to court on Monday
morning.

One thing had become clear to me, though: There was no doubt that the
entire case against Margaret Landry and Jesse Taylor turned on Landry's
apparent inside knowledge.  Either she had something to do with the
murder or someone had told her these details.  No wonder the defense
had turned the focus to Chuck.

As furious as I was about Lopez's dirty tricks, the fact remained that
there was no evidence tying the assault on Ken-dra to the Zimmerman
murder.  I also had what is known in the legal world as a butt load of
evidence against Derringer Kendra's ID, the shaved pubic hair, the
detailing of his car a day after the assault, and the fingerprint.  It
would be harder work than it first appeared, but I still had a solid
case.

Also, the weekend media coverage was better than it might have been
under the circumstances.  Manning's piece appeared as a sidebar to a
follow-up story on the Zimmerman case and anonymous letter.  The
feature story didn't contain any new information, just a summary of the
case against Landry and Taylor and an update on their status in prison.
She was a model prisoner who counseled young women; he was a head case
who spent most of his time in solitary.

Manning's sidebar couldn't add much.  Just that a defendant was
claiming during his trial that whoever killed Jamie Zimmerman had
committed the crime of which he stood accused.  Seeing the assertion in
black and white, without any evidence to support it, made me see how
truly lame it was.

At 9:30 a.m. on Monday, when Lesh took us back on the record, I settled
into my chair for what promised to be a long morning.

Jake Fenninger was Lisa's next witness.  Fenninger was the patrol
officer who popped Kendra last Christmas when she was working up in Old
Town.  Kendra had already talked about the arrest on direct during my
case-in-chief, but Lisa's hands were tied.  She couldn't get into the
Zimmerman case until she plowed through the witnesses she had included
on her defense witness list, most of whom had nothing to say other than
that Andrea Martin might be a trespasser.  Compared to them, Fenninger
was riveting.

Lopez walked Fenninger through his background before he started to get
hostile.  Fenninger was another New York transplant.  He'd worked in
NYPD's infamous street crimes unit before joining PPB a few years ago.
Considering where he got his training and the fact that his dad was
reportedly a hard-line Irish detective from the throw-down school of
the NYPD, Fenninger was a pretty good cop.

I suspected he'd moved west to escape the pressures of being an old
school cop and sincerely wanted to do the right thing on his beat.
Unfortunately, I think he still bought into Giuliani's propaganda that
a "zero tolerance" approach to street crime was for the good not only
of the community but also of the suspect.  It can be true in some
instances, but Fenninger had gone too far with Kendra.

Once Lopez had gone through Fenninger's background and current duties
with PPB, she turned to Kendra's Christmas arrest.

"In your role as a patrol officer in Old Town, did you have the
opportunity to encounter Kendra Martin on Christmas of last year,
Officer Fenninger?"  Lisa asked.

"Yes, ma'am, I did."

Like most cops, Fenninger probably figured that using "ma'am" and "sir"
in his testimony might counter the stereotypes some people have of
police.  They forget that anyone who's been stopped for speeding has
heard the same polite tone and still wound up with a whopper of a
ticket.

"And how did she come to your attention that day?"

"I was patrolling in my vehicle and noticed a girl on the corner of
Fourth and Burnside.  She came to my attention because, quite honestly,
just about anyone walking around close to midnight in Old Town on
Christmas is probably up to no good, but she looked like she was only
fourteen years old or so.  I figured she was probably a street kid out
working."

"And what do you mean by 'working," Officer Fenninger?"  "Prostituting
herself.  Exchanging sex for money."  "So what did you do about your
suspicions?"  Lisa asked.  "I first saw her when I was headed west on
Burnside, so when I got to Fifth, I took a right turn, headed north to
Couch, turned right again, then headed south on Fourth so I could watch
her from my patrol vehicle."  "What did you observe?"

"I saw the girl wave to a few cars that drove by on Burnside.  A couple
of cars stopped, and she talked to them through the passenger window.
All the cars that she had any interaction with were driven by what
appeared to be men who were alone."

"Did you draw any conclusions from that?"  "Yes.  Given the time of
day, the fact that it was Christmas, the neighborhood, and the activity
that I observed, I believed that the girl was loitering to solicit
prostitution."  Fenninger testified that he arrested Kendra for the
ordinance offense and then searched her and her purse, in what's called
a "search incident to an arrest."

Lisa held up a plastic bag with Kendra's purse in it, which I had
marked as evidence during my case.  After looking at his police report
to refresh his memory, Fenninger confirmed that it appeared to be the
same type of purse Kendra had been carrying last Christmas.  He found
heroin residue in the purse and added a charge for drug possession.

Instead of booking Kendra as a prisoner, he wrote the charges on a
ticket and took her to juvenile hall to have her processed as a
runaway.  It was a nice thing for him to have done for her.

Lisa asked him whether he seized the purse as evidence.  Fenninger said
he should have, but that Kendra started crying, saying it was a
Christmas gift from her mother.  So he shook the residue into a baggie
instead and let her keep her purse.  Jesus, no wonder the juvie DA had
dumped the case.  Even the arresting officer seemed to think it was
chippy.

I didn't have much for Fenninger on cross.  "Officer, do you know who
assaulted Kendra Martin last February, two months after the arrest
you've testified about?  .. . Do you know anything about where Frank
Derringer was when Kendra was attacked?  ... In fact, have you ever
even seen the defendant before today?"  No, no, and no.  I thought the
jury would see that Lopez had no legitimate reason for calling
Fenninger.

Next was Kerry Richardson, the so-called loss prevention officer at
Dress You Up, who was called to testify about Andrea Martin's trespass
arrest at the mall.  The testimony was completely irrelevant and
inadmissible, but I didn't mind letting Lopez waste time with evidence
that wasn't going to hurt me.  Andrea hadn't been an important part of
my case anyway.  She only testified about the extent and duration of
Kendra's injuries, facts that were established by other evidence too.

Richardson testified that he was sure he saw Andrea conceal something
inside of a shopping bag back in November before she left the store. He
told the store manager, Geral-dine Maher, and the two of them
confronted Andrea in the mall.  However, they didn't find any stolen
goods on Andrea,

and Richardson hadn't actually seen Andrea steal anything.  So instead
of trying to prosecute Andrea for shoplifting, he had asked Maher to
issue a trespass warning, telling Andrea she'd be arrested if she came
back into the store.  When he saw her again in January, he called the
police.

My cross was quick.

"Was Ms.  Martin convicted for shoplifting merchandise in November from
Dress You Up?"  No.  "Was Ms.  Martin even arrested for shoplifting
merchandise in November from Dress You Up?"  No.  "Do you have any
information to provide to the jury regarding whether Frank Derringer
raped and attempted to murder Andrea Martin's daughter, Kendra, last
February?"  No.

I couldn't help but give a look to the jury after I finished my cross
of Richardson, just to make sure they got the point.  I'd never seen
such a desperate defense.

My confidence began to feel misplaced when Lopez rose for redirect.  "A
point of clarification, Mr.  Richardson.  You testified that you
couldn't actually see what Ms.  Martin stole in November, but that you
were left with the impression that she was concealing something, is
that correct?"

"Yes.  Like I said, she was carrying a large shopping bag and it looked
like her hand passed over it and she stuffed something in there, but I
couldn't actually see what it would have been."

Lopez used the old trick of looking at Richardson curiously, like she'd
just realized something for the first time.  "Interesting.  You say
that it looked like she 'stuffed' something in the bag, not that she
merely 'dropped' something.  Why is that?"

Richardson thought a moment.  "Well, just the way her arms moved.  It
was like she was struggling with the bag."

"As if the object she were placing in the bag were relatively large?"
she asked.

This was getting ridiculous, so I piped up.  "Objection, your honor.
Leading and vague."

"Sustained."

This shows why I rarely object at trial.  Once the leading question has
been asked, the damage has been done if there's a rapport between the
questioning attorney and the witness.  Even though my objection was
sustained, Lopez followed up by asking Richardson, "What size would you
estimate the object to be that you thought you saw Ms.  Martin conceal
in the bag?"

Richardson's response was predictable.  "Relatively large.  Bigger than
a pair of earrings or something.  Maybe a shirt or something bulkier
like that."

Lopez then moved to the table at the front of the courtroom where the
physical evidence that had been introduced lay.  She picked up the
plastic bag containing Kendra's purse.  "I'm showing you a purse that
has been marked as State's Evidence Three, which prior witnesses have
identified as Kendra Martin's purse, a gift from her mother Andrea.  Is
it possible that you saw Andrea Martin hide this purse in her bag last
November in Dress You Up?"

"Sure, it's possible."

After Richardson left the stand, Lopez called Geraldine Maher, the
store manager who barred Andrea from Dress You Up.  I had expected
Lopez to continue her questioning about the supposed theft incident,
although I couldn't see why it would matter if Andrea stole the purse
she gave Kendra from Dress You Up.  But Lopez had something else in
mind.

"Ms.  Maher, as the manager of Dress You Up, are you generally
knowledgeable about the merchandise that you stock in the store?"

"Of course.  We're a fairly small store, so I take pride in knowing our
inventory well."  Never put it past a retailer to take advantage of any
opportunity to get in a free plug.

Lopez picked up the purse again.  "I'm showing you a purse that's been
marked State's Evidence Three.  Has Dress You Up ever stocked a purse
like this one?"

"Yes.  We've carried that purse.  I believe it's an Esprit."

Lopez pretended to check the small cloth label sewed on the side of the
purse.  "Correct indeed, Ms.  Maher.  You do know your inventory."  The
Home Shopping Network banter was killing me.  What was going on here?
Lopez continued.  "Could this purse have been on your shelves last
November, when Kerry Richardson thought he saw Andrea Martin steal
something from the store?"

"Yes.  We would have gotten that in around June.  I think we may still
have a couple in the store.  It's a relatively popular style."

"So you had this style in stock last October, is that correct?"

"That's right.  June of last year until at least the after-Christmas
sales, and we may have one or two left still on clearance."

"Ms.  Maher, do you recall contacting Staffpower Temporary Agency to
count Dress You Up's inventory last October?"

"Yes, I do.  We do inventory twice a year, in April and October.  I've
been using Staffpower for a few years now."

At that point, Lopez handed me a piece of paper I'd never seen before
and then approached Geraldine Maher with a copy of the same document.
Defense attorneys are not required to show their documentary evidence
prior to trial.  As I scanned the paper to make sense of it, panic set
in.  But there was nothing I could do, and I was left watching Lopez go
to work.

"Ms.  Maher, I'm showing you a document I've marked Defense Exhibit
One.  What is it?"

Maher responded, seemingly as oblivious as I was about where this was
going.  "It's a letter from Staffpower notifying me of the individuals
they hired to conduct our inventory last October, with the amounts to
be paid to each of them for their work.  We pay the lump total to
Staffpower to distribute and do wage withholding, but this acts as a
sort of itemization of the amount."

Lopez continued.  "Please read for the jury the sixth name on the
list."

There it was.  Even Geraldine Maher was surprised.  "Oh, it's Frank
Derringer, or at least according to this."

"And do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of that list?"

"No, I do not.  If it says that a Frank Derringer worked on our
inventory, then I suppose he did."

"And, to be clear, an inventory requires the person doing the counting
to handle the merchandise, is that right?"

"Yes, generally.  They'd need to move stock around to count it
properly."

That was enough for Lisa.  "No further questions."

Lopez had just managed to defuse my most compelling piece of evidence,
Derringer's fingerprint on Kendra's purse.  Renshaw had already
testified that Derringer had worked various jobs, including
inventories, through temp agencies.  And now Geraldine Maher's
testimony gave a plausible explanation for how Derringer's fingerprint
ended up on

Kendra's purse, if the jury believed that Andrea either bought or stole
the purse from Dress You Up.

Judge Lesh denied my request for a recess, so I tried my best to
control the damage.  "You testified, Ms.  Maher, that the handbag
marked as State's Exhibit Three is a popular style of handbag, is that
right?"

"That's correct."

"Where would I go if I wanted to buy a handbag just like that one?"  I
asked.

"Oh, any number of stores.  Like I said, we've got a few left, but so
would most of the major department stores and other women's boutiques
that carry that brand of purse.  It wouldn't be hard to find one."

"So Dress You Up is the not the exclusive seller of that purse in the
Portland area, is that right?"  I asked.

"Far from it."  Good.

"Can you tell from looking at State's Exhibit Three whether it
originated in your store or in any one of the many other retailers who
stock it?"

"No, I cannot."

"And you never actually saw Andrea Martin steal anything from your
store, let alone this purse, did you?"

"No, I did not."

"So the purse marked as State's Exhibit Three could have come from any
number of stores other than Dress You Up?"  She agreed.  There wasn't
much more I could do for now.

During the break, I called MCT from my office.  Ray Johnson picked up.
It took me awhile to explain the connection that Lopez was trying to
draw between Derringer and Kendra's purse.

Ray wanted to make sure he got it right.  "So one of Derringer's temp
jobs was doing inventory at Dress You Up?"

"Right."

"And Lopez was able to show at least a possibility that Kendra's purse
came from there?"  he asked.

"Right," I said.  "A possibility.  We know that the store carried the
purse and that Andrea gave it to Kendra.  Lopez was able to show that
Andrea was in the store a month before Christmas, and there's at least
a possibility that she stole something the size of a purse when she was
there."

"So what you need," he said, "is something showing that the purse came
from another shop."

"That's the idea," I said.

He clicked his tongue while he thought.  "Alright.  Walker and I are
still tied up on this Zimmerman letter, so I'll check with Forbes and
Calabrese.  Someone will do it, though, and we'll let you know what we
find out."

When I got off the phone, I noticed Tim O'Donnell waiting for me in my
doorway.  He looked annoyed that I hadn't noticed him during my phone
call.

"Hey, Kincaid, how's that trial going?"

I didn't see any point in lying.  "Pretty crappy, actually.  My best
evidence was this guy's print on the vic's purse.  Turns out he had a
temp job doing inventory, so he's claiming an alternative explanation
for the evidence."

"Bummer," he said.  "Anything new about the Zimmerman connection?"

I couldn't tell whether O'Donnell actually gave a rip about my case or
if he was faking it to find out if there was anything he needed to know
for his investigation into the anonymous letter.

"I've got until tomorrow morning to file papers to exclude any evidence
relating to the Zimmerman case."

O'Donnell looked concerned.  "Have you talked to the boss about making
that motion?"

"No," I said.  It hadn't dawned on me to consult the District Attorney
himself about my trial.  In our large office, it was rare that we had
any direct contact with the boss, let alone on individual cases.

"Well," he said, "this is something Duncan would want to know about.
He's feeling the heat on this Zimmerman thing.  The last thing he needs
is for one of his deputies out there trying to prevent a court from
hearing evidence supposedly exonerating Landry and Taylor."

"But, Tim," I said, "Lopez isn't trying to exonerate Landry and Taylor.
She's trying to get Derringer off by confusing the jury and trashing
MCT.  That evidence has nothing to do with my case."

"Sam, I'm trying to help you out.  How about joining the rest of us in
the real world?  I don't get it.  You're so fucking smart, but you're
acting like some rube on misdemeanor row who can't see the politics
here."

I knew the politics, but I hadn't connected them to my case.  Duncan
Griffith ran for DA as an opponent of the death penalty who'd make sure
that the law was at least enforced even handedly against the truly
reprehensible.  In short, he got it both ways.  The libs liked him
because he talked the talk against the death penalty, but no one came
after him on it, because he said he'd enforce the law.

O'Donnell had more advice.  "Jesse Taylor is the first scheduled
execution this state has seen in decades.  And we put him on death row,
Sam.  This is the center of the storm.

If he turns out to be innocent, Duncan's got well, he's got a major
problem.  The only way he's going to make it through is if he's one of
the good guys making sure we know who killed Zimmerman.  If one of his
deputies looks like she's part of a cover-up, he's toast.  If you don't
go to him with this, I will.  The Zimmerman case was mine, and this
shit that's going down now is a hell of a lot more important than some
loser like Derringer."

"Yeah?  Well, that loser basically tortured a thirteen-year-old girl
and then left her to die.  I don't see much of a difference between him
and Jesse Taylor."

He looked frustrated, but at least his response seemed earnest.  "Sam,
I wasn't saying Derringer was a good guy.  Hell, maybe I was too quick
to write it off as an Assault Three.  But be pragmatic.  The boss's
political exposure on this Zimmerman thing is huge.  You at least need
to tell him before you try to keep Derringer from getting into it in
your trial."

He was right.  "I'll talk to Duncan when I get out of trial today."  He
started to walk away, but I couldn't leave it at that.  "You know, Tim,
you could be a little more careful about how you handle things, too.  I
don't think it would help the boss's political image if the newspapers
heard that the head of his major crimes unit short-shrifts
thirteen-year-old sex-crime victims and tells jokes about incest."

O'Donnell rolled his eyes at me.  "You want to make it around here,
you're going to have to tame those emotions.  This isn't personal,
Sam."

The truth was that I didn't know why I'd snapped at him.  He was being
helpful, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him I appreciated it.  "We
done here?"  I asked.

"Yeah.  Come get me when you're out of trial.  I want to be there when
you talk to Duncan."

I couldn't see any reason for him to baby-sit me when I talked to
Duncan, other than to show his authority, but it wasn't worth fighting
about.  He was the supervisor of major crimes, had prosecuted the
Zimmerman case, and was heading the investigation into the anonymous
letter.  With all those legitimate reasons for him to be part of the
conversation with Duncan, I wouldn't be able to convince him or anyone
else that he was only stroking his ego.

I couldn't concentrate after O'Donnell left my office.  So instead of
staring at the Derringer file with my last remaining minutes of the
break, I ran out to the burrito cart in front of the courthouse.  The
combination of fat and spice was just what I needed before going back
to court.

Unfortunately, the bliss was short-lived.  Lopez called her next
witness, a guy named Travis Culver.

I stood up to speak.  "Sidebar, your honor?"  Lesh nodded, and Lisa and
I approached the bench.  It was my sidebar, so my turn to speak first.
"Your honor, it was my understanding that Ms.  Lopez would be
prohibited from calling witnesses other than those included on the
defense or prosecution witness lists.  Mr.  Culver was not listed as a
potential state witness, and the defense did not include him on its
witness list, either.  I don't even know who he is."

Lesh sounded concerned.  "I thought I'd made myself clear, Ms.
Lopez."

"You were quite clear, your honor," Lopez said.  "I assure you that the
defense is complying with your order.  Mr.  Culver is the custodian of
records for the Collision Clinic, and the person holding that position
was in fact included in the state's list of potential witnesses."

"Right," he said.  "That's the auto detail shop.  The parties
stipulated to the admissibility of the invoice, which is" Lesh fished
around for his list of exhibits "State's Exhibit Five.  So if we've got
the stip, why is Mr.  Culver here?"

"Because," Lisa said, "he has relevant testimony that goes beyond the
stipulation of the parties."

There was nothing I could do.  Anticipating the need to lay the
foundation for the Collision Clinic, I had indicated on my witness list
that I planned to call the business's custodian of records.  As a
result, Lopez was allowed to call that person without notifying me in
advance.  If his testimony was irrelevant, I could object after the
questions were asked, but there was no way to find out in advance what
he intended to say.

We retook our seats, and the bailiff called Travis Culver to the stand.
Culver's coiffure was the classic white-trash mullet.  If you're not
familiar with the name, you're familiar with the look: a short regular
cut in the front, but with length in the back reminiscent of the great
eighties hair bands.  Also known as the shlong, since it is both short
and long.  Truly versatile.  Culver finished off the look with jeans
that had a brown undertone from wear and dirt, and a nascar T-shirt
commemorating a race-car driver killed a few years back.

Lopez started by showing Culver the Collision Clinic invoice.  Culver
confirmed that he owned the business, had filled out the invoice, and
had given it to one of his employees, who then cleaned, painted, and
reupholstered Derringer's car.  The work was done the day after Kendra
was attacked, and Derringer paid Culver eight hundred dollars cash.

"Mr.  Culver, we've heard testimony suggesting that the work on Mr.
Derringer's car only enhanced the market value of the vehicle by a
couple of hundred dollars.  Do you agree with that?"  Lopez asked.

"Yeah," Culver said, "that's about right.  On a car like that, guy
might get a quarter, maybe half, of his money back on resale, so what's
that?  About two to four hundred dollars, I guess."

"Is it unusual for a customer to spend that kind of money in your shop?
Money that won't be reflected in the market value of the car?"

"Nope," he said.  "Auto body and detail work hardly ever pays off. Some
guy bumps you in traffic and dents the back of your car.  Might cost
twelve hundred dollars to fix, even though the dent doesn't lower the
market value by that much.  Fact is, I stay in business because people
want their cars to look nice.  This car here was in good shape
mechanically, but it looked like " He avoided the expletive.  "Well, it
looked bad.  Now it looks a lot better.  Real clean inside and out.
Lots of people willing to pay eight hundred dollars for that."

"Another thing I notice about this invoice," Lisa said, "is that the
work was completed on a Sunday.  Do you normally work on cars on
Sundays?"

"No, we're usually closed," Culver said.  Now, that was interesting.

"Why was the work done on my client's car on that Sunday?"  Lopez
asked.

"Well," he said, "he had come in earlier that week to talk about
getting the work done.  We were actually supposed to do it the Friday
before, but I had to call and cancel on him.  A couple of my guys were
out, so we were behind on the cars in the shop that week.  So I told
him we'd do it on Sunday.  I do that sometimes to keep us from getting
backed up."

"So, if I understand you correctly, Mr.  Derringer arranged to have his
car overhauled several days before you actually completed it.  In other
words, he didn't call you that Sunday morning to get the work done in a
rush.  Is that right?"

"Right," he said.

"And, in fact, he had originally planned to have the work done two days
earlier, on that Friday, correct?"

"Correct," he said.

There went my theory that Derringer had gotten the work done to cover
up physical evidence.

Lesh must have felt sorry for me, because he saved me from having to
cross-examine Culver empty-handed at the end of an already humiliating
day.  Even though we were only halfway through the afternoon session,
he called it quits.  Apologizing to counsel, the jurors, and the
witness, he explained he had an afternoon obligation and that we'd have
to resume the questioning of Mr.  Culver the following morning.

The problem, of course, was that nothing was going to change overnight.
As hard as I'd tried over the years, I still hadn't found a way to
alter reality.  Someday I was going to figure it out.  Unfortunately, I
wasn't able to do so before returning to my office.

O'Donnell had left a note on my chair.  Don't forget.  Get me before
you talk to Duncan.  TOD.

When the two of us arrived at Duncan's office, I could tell that
O'Donnell must have called ahead, because Duncan didn't seem surprised
to see us.  I wondered if the two of them had already agreed on how
this would end.

Duncan Griffith is one of those men who manages to look young even
though his hair is full-on white.  He somehow maintains a year-round
tan in Portland, Oregon, and I'd wager a bet that the teeth in what
seemed like a permanent smile are capped.  He was as pleasant on this
day as he always appeared to be.

"Ah, my two favorite deputies.  Come on in, you two.  Make yourselves
comfortable."  Griffith gestured to a setting of inviting leather
furniture.

The law offices depicted on television are for the most part
outlandishly unrealistic.  Instead of the mahogany shelves and fully
stocked bars enjoyed by fictional prosecutors, I, for example, work off
a yellow metal desk with a cork board hutch, and when I'm lucky I can
scrounge a Diet Coke off one of the secretaries who has a mini-fridge.
Duncan Griffith's office was an exception, however.  The walls were
lined top to bottom with volumes of the state and federal case
reporters, and dark leather sofas welcomed whatever guests were
fortunate enough to gain entrance into the inner fortress.

I'd only been invited here twice before, once for my job interview and
once during my second week with the office.  I had quickly learned that
calling a sandbagging defense attorney a scum sandwich on shit toast
wasn't within the range of what Duncan Griffith defined as acceptable
deputy DA behavior.

He was being much nicer to me now than during that last visit.  After
Tim and I were seated, Griffith leaned back against his desk and
crossed his arms in front of him.  "So, Sammie," he said, "the
Oregonian tells me that the Zimmerman matter has come up in this rape
case of yours.  Where's that stand right now?"

I gave him a quick overview and told him I thought that Judge Lesh was
receptive to a motion to exclude any evidence relating to Zimmerman's
murder.

Before Tim could open his mouth, Duncan said, "You're a good lawyer and
an aggressive prosecutor, Sam, and I appreciate you going after this
guy a hundred and ten percent.  But we all need to keep our eye on the
ball here.  The greater good.  As an office, we need to get to the
bottom of this Zimmerman thing and make sure we've got the right
people.  We're talking about the death penalty here.  A man's life is
at stake."

"I realize that, sir, and I understand that our office is involved in
the investigation into the anonymous Oregonian letter.  But that case
doesn't have anything to do with mine.  The defense is trying to take
advantage of the publicity surrounding the Zimmerman case to confuse
the jury."

Duncan still hadn't stopped smiling.  "I understand that, Sam, but
remember what I said.  It's about the greater good.  If you file that
motion, the front page of the newspaper's going to say that you're
trying to squelch a man's attempt to get to the truth.  And I won't
have you dragging us into a cover-up."

O'Donnell had clearly primed the pump.  Griffith was regurgitating the
spiel that O'Donnell had given me earlier in my office.

"What exactly are you telling me to do, sir?"  I asked.

"Don't make this adversarial, Sam.  All I'm telling you to do is allow
this defense attorney to have her say.  You might need to do some
rebuttal, let the jury see that the two cases are unrelated.  Tim, you
can get her up to speed on the Taylor file, right?"

Tim nodded.  "We've already gone over it, sir."

"Good," Griffith said.  When I didn't stand up at his sign that we were
dismissed, he continued.  "No one's telling you to play dead here, Sam.
You know my rule of thumb in trials is to always stay above the fray.
If the defense attacks the police, let 'em do it.  Never helps your
case if you look like you've got a personal stake in the outcome. Trust
me, your jury's going to have more faith in you this way.  And, in the
long run, this office benefits."

"The greater good," I said.

"Exactly."

I felt neither great nor good after I called Lopez and Lesh to tell
them I wouldn't be filing a motion to exclude Derringer's defense.  I
felt depressed.

Lesh's response had been simple.  "Hey, it's your case.  Thanks for
letting me know."

Lopez, on the other hand, couldn't just accept the gift for what it
was.  She was convinced I was somehow tricking her.  As a result, what
should have been a thirty-second courtesy call turned into a
fifteen-minute inquisition about my intentions.  Hell, if I was lucky,
maybe she'd at least lose a little sleep that night wondering what I
had in store for her in the morning.  Truth was, I was seriously
considering cutting whatever plea I could get if things didn't turn
around.

I called MCT to see if they'd had any luck tracking down Kendra's
purse, but no one answered.  I tried Chuck's pager and entered my cell
phone number in case he didn't call right away.

I was burnt out and dying to leave, but I checked my voice mail before
heading out.  Among the usual junk was a message from Dan Manning.
"Samantha, it's Dan Manning from the Oregonian.  I was calling to see
if you had any response to today's events at trial and the alleged
connection between your case and Jamie Zimmerman.  Also, I'd like to
talk to you about whatever role you might have in the Zimmerman
investigation.  Give me a call."

I wrote down the numbers that he rattled off and hit the button to save
the message as a reminder, but I couldn't summon the energy to call him
back.  Besides, what was I going to say?  I'm getting my ass handed to
me in trial and am going to have to cut a deal, but I think he's guilty
anyway?  Not exactly spectacular spin.

The Jetta and I were crossing the Willamette River over the Morrison
Bridge when my cell phone rang.  I recognized the number as Kendra's
and answered.

"You rang?"  It was Chuck.

"You're at Kendra's?"  I asked.

"Just pulled up.  I guess you called Ray, trying to track down where
Kendra's purse came from?"  he said.

"Yeah.  Did he tell you why?"

"Not really," he said.

I struggled to think of the quickest way to describe what had been a
draining day in court.  It's not easy to explain how the momentum of a
case can shift with just a few hours in trial.  I had to jerk the
steering wheel back into line as I realized I'd been zoning out on the
lights reflecting off the river.  I waited until I was over the bridge
and had merged onto the 1-5 to launch into it.

"The case fell apart today," I said.  "Lopez brought in a guy from the
Collision Clinic.  Turns out Derringer arranged to have the car work
done before the attack and the shop couldn't get it done until that
Sunday, so our theory about doing it to get rid of the physical
evidence is gone."

Chuck tried to assuage my concerns.  "I don't think that part of the
evidence was that important, Sam.  It made a nice icing to the cake,
but you should be alright without it."

"You're right that it wasn't the heart of the case.  The problem is
that putting a theory out there and having it torn apart by the defense
is a lot worse than if we'd never floated it in the first place.  It
gives the defense the momentum.  And losing that piece of
circumstantial evidence makes the fingerprint even more important," I
said.

"I still don't know what the problem is there," he said.

I filled him in on Derringer's temp job doing inventory at Dress You
Up.  "Without the print, all we've got is Kendra's ID and Renshaw's
testimony about the pethismograph."  I had a tough time holding back
tears as I heard myself admit how bad things had turned in just one
day.  "That's why I really need to know where Andrea got that purse.
How's it looking so far?"

"It's a long shot.  I finally got hold of Andrea at work.  She's not
supposed to get calls at the restaurant, so she was distracted and I
was having trouble explaining to her why it was important.  Add the
fact that she freaked at the mention of Dress You Up, going off about
how they falsely arrested her well, you get the picture.  Anyway, she
thinks she bought the purse at Meier & Frank.  If not there, one of the
other big department stores, not Dress You Up.  Problem is, she doesn't
have any credit cards and usually just pays cash."

"Any chance she's still got a receipt?"  I asked.

"That's what I'm doing now.  She says she usually just throws them out,
but sometimes she tosses them into a couple different drawers around
the house.  I'm going to go through them.  If I don't find anything,
I'll swing by the restaurant on the way home so she can sign a consent
form for me to get her old checks from the bank, just in case she
happened to pay by check.  Other than that, I can't think of anything
else."

Neither could I. "OK, let me know if you find anything."

"You going to be OK tonight, Sam?"  he asked.

Darn blasted tears were back again.  "I don't know.  It's just too
much, you know?"

"Then let me help you.  If you need follow-up, I'm free."

What I really wanted was company.  "Will you stay with me tonight when
you finish up?"

"Definitely.  Easiest request I ever got from a DA.  I'll call you on
my way out."

"And can you bring some pancakes?"  I added.  "The Hot-cake House makes
them to go."

Twelve.

It was almost midnight by the time Chuck got to my house, and we were
both exhausted.  Not too exhausted to talk about the case while I
devoured my pancakes, or to have as good a round of hot and steamy sex
as a post-pancake lull will allow, but we were pretty exhausted all the
same.

Chuck had looked through the junk drawers at the Martin house, but, as
Andrea had thought, there was no receipt for the purse.  Andrea signed
a release for her account information, and Chuck was going to check
with the bank in the morning for any checks that might match with the
purchase.  He was also going to contact Meier & Frank to make sure they
stocked that purse before Christmas.  That would at least verify
Andrea's recollection, and I could recall her to the stand along with a
Meier & Frank rep in rebuttal.

I must've killed the alarm the next morning, because I overslept.  Even
though I let my hair dry in the car and parked at the expensive garage
across from the courthouse, I didn't have time for Starbucks.  Now I'd
be having my ass handed me in trial with bad hair and office coffee.
Terrific.

When I ran into my office to grab my trial notebooks, I was greeted by
a nice big Post-it note on my chair: Sam Where are you?  Don't bother
calling Lesh he knows you'll be late.  Get down to Duncan's office

ASAP.  TOD.

Now what?  I grabbed my notebooks and took the stairs down two flights
to Duncan's office.  I'd doubled my total number of visits there in
just two days.  Not good.

When I arrived, Duncan's secretary waved me in and hollered, "Samantha
Kincaid's finally here."

Duncan sat alone at his desk.  "Tim took off.  Have a seat," he said.

"Sir, I'm sure this is important, but I'm still in trial," I said,
gesturing down with my head at the stack of books I was carrying for
court.

"Please, Sam, just have a seat.  We called Lesh earlier."

I did as he said.

It was the first time I'd ever seen Duncan Griffith without a smile. He
looked worried.  And mean.  "Why didn't you tell me yesterday you had a
rotten case?"  he asked.

My heart started to race as I struggled to collect my thoughts.  Why
was he asking about my case again when we'd resolved everything
yesterday?

"First of all, I don't think it's a rotten case.  The defense has had
some surprises, so it's no slam dunk, but I've still got a good enough
case to fight.  Second, I was under the impression that we met
yesterday about the case as it relates to the Zimmerman issue.  I
didn't realize that you wanted an update about the general status of
the trial."

"Sam, that kind of answer does squat for me right now."

I blinked and felt my lips separate but nothing came out.  "Excuse me?"
I finally said.

"Jesus, Kincaid."  Griffith shook his head at me.  "Tunnel vision.  A
real tunnel vision problem.  You didn't get my point at all yesterday,
did you?"

"Yes, sir.  Keep the eye on the ball.  The big picture.  The greater
good."  Usually, I can manage to sound earnest even though I know I'm
being snide.  This time, I just sounded snide.

"Damn it.  Yes, the strength of your case matters when your bad guy's
telling everyone who will listen that he's the innocent victim of the
Keystone Kops and that some serial rapist is on the loose.  It matters
even more when there's another guy on death row saying the same thing,
and a little old lady serving a life term backing him up.  Jesus.  You
made it sound yesterday like your guy was just taking advantage of the
publicity with Taylor.  Now I've got to find out from the papers that
there's something to it."

Shit.  I hadn't read the papers this morning, and I'd blown off
Manning's call last night.  I decided it was better not to interrupt
Griffith's diatribe with information that made me look even more inept
and uninformed.

"Jesus, I started with the Softball, Kincaid, when I asked you about
your case.  The bigger question is why the hell you didn't bother to
mention your little tryst with Chuck Forbes.  You sat here in my office
and acted like this was a routine case with some incidental mention of
the Zimmerman matter.  Now I've got this."  He picked up a folded
Oregonian from his desk and slammed it down for emphasis.

When in doubt, bluff.  It usually works.  "Sir, I'm not sure how it
would have been relevant during our meeting yesterday for me to start
discussing my personal life, whatever that may be."

"And you still think that today?"  he asked.  Again with that damn
newspaper.

My only choice was to 'fess up.  "I'm afraid I didn't get a chance to
see the paper this morning yet, sir.  Like I said, I'm in trial, and I
was running late."

Griffith stared at me for a second.  Then he started laughing.

"Oh.  Well then, let me have the pleasure of being the first to
introduce you to the story that may very well end your career and mine.
Please, be my guest.  Go over to the sofa if you'd like.  It's quite
comfortable, and, I guarantee, that's quite an article.  It might take
awhile."

I thought about rewarding the sarcasm by lying on the sofa as he
suggested, but I wanted to keep my job.

I unfolded the paper to a banner headline that read, Does Portland Have
a Serial Killer?  A smaller line beneath it explained, Letter from "The
Long Hauler" Supports Theory Linking Current Sex Trial to Murder of
Jamie Zimmerman.  There was a large photograph of a smiling Jamie
Zimmerman, with smaller booking photographs of Taylor, Landry, and
Derringer.  The text below the pictures explained that, despite claims
of innocence, Taylor was on death row and Landry was serving a life
sentence for the rape murder of Zimmerman, and that Derringer claimed
that whoever killed Zimmerman must have committed the crime he was
accused of.

I had to read the article quickly, since Griffith was obviously growing
impatient:

Like the letter first disclosed by the Oregonian last week, the one
received yesterday arrived in an unremarkable white envelope bearing a
Roseburg postmark.  The writer again claims that he and not Jesse
Taylor and Margaret Landry strangled Jamie Zimmerman.  In this new
letter, however, the writer maintains that Zimmerman's murder was just
the beginning in what has become a string of grisly murders, scattered
throughout the Pacific Northwest and previously believed to be
unconnected.  He also claims responsibility for a brutal rape that is
the basis of the trial of Frank Derringer currently being held in the
Multnomah County Courthouse.  Calling himself the Long Hauler, the
writer identifies himself as a long-haul truck driver from Oregon whose
travels across the country have made it easy for him to kill five women
undetected.

I was surprised by the graphic detail reprinted verbatim in the paper.
At one point, the author explained that killing Zimmerman had ignited
an insatiable desire in him to kill.  Six months after he strangled
Jamie Zimmerman, he couldn't withstand the temptation anymore, so he
picked up a prostitute at a truck stop in Ellensburg, Washington, and
strangled her with a leather belt while he orally sodomized her.  I
kept reading.

Explaining his self-declared pseudonym, the writer says, "All the good
ones had a name.  Son of Sam, Boston Strangler, Green River Killer.
Unless you think of something better, you can just call me the Long
Hauler."

In addition to detailed descriptions of the murders of Jamie Zimmerman
and four other women, the writer also describes his involvement in a
violent sexual assault upon a victim he refers to as "the girl who was
dumped in the Gorge last Feb[ruary]."  He claims that, as he had done
prior to and since Zimmerman's murder, he went with a friend to look
for a prostitute to share.

He says, "I knew we were going to kill the girl when my friend couldn't
[achieve an erection].  He started working her over and it brought out
the urge in me.  Maybe the Gorge is my lucky spot.  That couple took
the fall for me after I did Jamie, and now the cops think some other
guy did the other girl.  I guess the bad luck is that this time she
lived.  (Ha-ha.)"

The writer's description of the incident closely matches the crime for
which Frank Derringer is currently on trial.  Derringer is accused of
raping a thirteen-year-old girl and leaving her for dead in the
Columbia Gorge with an unidentified accomplice.  During his trial,
Derringer has claimed to be the victim of a mistaken eyewitness
identification.  Because of similarities between the offense and
Zimmerman's murder, Derringer has suggested that the crimes were
committed by the same person or persons.

I reached the end of the front page text of the feature story and
opened the paper to jump to the continuation.  Apparently, the writer
gave detailed descriptions of the five murders, but the Oregonian was
declining to publish any potentially identifying information until law
enforcement officials verified its authenticity.

An exasperated sigh from Griffith reminded me that I was supposed to be
rushing.  I closed the paper back to the front page and looked up at
him.

"I'm sorry, Sam.  Was I disrupting your reading?"

"I was getting through it as quickly as I could," I said.  "So the
paper agreed to keep the details quiet until we figure out if this
guy's for real?"

Griffith didn't hide his annoyance.  "Yeah, IA's trying to find any
cases matching up to what this guy says.  But I wouldn't concern
yourself with that right now."

I wanted to ask him why the bureau's Internal Affairs Division would be
investigating a potential serial killer, but I could tell Duncan wasn't
in the mood to answer any more of my questions.

"What are you willing to tell me about this thing with Forbes?"  Duncan
snatched the paper from my hand and gave it a couple of hard creases,
exposing a smaller sidebar on the front page, then handed it back to
me.  "That," he said for emphasis.

Dan Manning was a little shit.  That was all I could think when I found
myself staring at the headline:

DA-DETECTIVE RELATIONSHIP CLOUDS DERRINGER CASE

The deputy district attorney prosecuting Frank Derringer is involved in
a romantic relationship with a lead detective in the investigation of
the murder of Jamie Zimmerman and the rape of which Derringer is
accused, the Oregonian has learned.

Samantha Kincaid of the Drug and Vice Division of the Multnomah County
District Attorney's Office is handling the current trial against
Derringer, who is accused of raping and attempting to murder a teenage
girl last February.  The defense has raised the possibility that the
crime was committed by the person or persons who murdered Jamie
Zimmerman three years ago.

The Oregonian has learned that Detective Charles Forbes,

Jr."  of the Major Crimes Team of the Portland Police Bureau, has spent
multiple nights with Kincaid at her home since the beginning of the
Derringer trial.

Forbes is a member of the team that investigated the case against
Derringer.  He was also a central figure in the prosecutions of Jesse
Taylor and Margaret Landry, who have been convicted of Zimmerman's
murder.  Forbes, the son of former Governor Charles Forbes, was the
only witness to statements by Landry that incriminated her and Taylor
in the murder.

When contacted for comment, Lisa Lopez, Derringer's lawyer, raised
concerns about the objectivity of the District Attorney's Office.  "Mr.
Derringer has been trying to tell the police and the District
Attorney's Office that there is something seriously wrong here.  One
girl is dead and another one brutally assaulted," Lopez said.  "While
the real assailant runs free to write taunting letters to the media,
the Portland Police Bureau's Major Crime Team is so eager to close
cases that they're going after innocent people like Mr.  Derringer.  If
the prosecuting DDA is having a romantic relationship with this
particular detective, I have real questions about the fairness of the
process."

Ms.  Kincaid did not return calls requesting her comments.

Little shit didn't begin to describe the enormousness of Manning's
shiftiness.  He had clearly called late in the day and left an
innocuous message, betting I wouldn't call back.  It always sounds
better when the media can say that someone didn't return calls.

"Duncan, if I had known, I would've returned his call.  He didn't say
anything about this angle.  You can listen to the message if you want
to.  I saved it."

"Oh, that's great, Sam.  That's really going to save my neck here.
"Hey, Oregonian, I want a retraction.  Yes, my deputy's banging this
rogue detective, and yes, your reporter tried to call her about it
ahead of time, but it's really unfair that he wasn't clearer about his
angle."  "

I guess it did sound a little whiny.

"Is there any way to deny the story, Sam?"  he asked.  He had calmed
down considerably and asked the question in a way that suggested he'd
already come to accept the answer.

"No, it's accurate," I said, still failing to comprehend how my
personal life had wound up on the front page of the paper and inside
Duncan Griffith's office.

Duncan walked around his desk and took a seat behind it.  Maybe he
thought I'd blame the desk and not him for what he was about to do.
Maybe he just wanted a shield in front of him in case I became
hysterical.

"I'm taking you off the Derringer case.  O'Donnell already notified the
defense and Judge Lesh this morning that the office was looking into
the information published in this morning's paper and that some changes
might be forthcoming.  I'm going to put O'Donnell on the case.  I
expect he'll be able to get an adjournment while we figure out what the
hell's going on.  O'Donnell may need to consult with you on the file,
but you are officially off any case involving MCT.  Do you have any
others?"

I wanted to walk out.  No, I wanted to throw stuff at him, break a few
valuables in his impeccable office, and then walk out.  Unfortunately,
I also wanted to keep my job.  The reality was that I could still do
more good in this rotten office without the Derringer case than I'd do
at some private law firm fighting over money for energy and tobacco
companies.

"The Derringer case is my only MCT file," I said.

If someone had asked me the night before, I would've said I'd do just
about anything to rid myself of the case: I was going down in flames
and about to grovel for a plea.  Now I wanted nothing more than to keep
my hand in the mix, at least in some small way.

"Duncan, I think it would be a good idea if O'Donnell and I met with
defense counsel together to cut a plea.  If the defense thinks I'm
totally out of the picture, they'll think they've won.  They won't want
to deal."

"Can't do it, Sam.  You're out.  And I'm going to make it damn clear to
O'Donnell not even to attempt to pressure a plea until IA tells us
where we are with this guy's letter.  We got lucky that the Oregonian
withheld the specifics.  That letter includes extremely detailed
descriptions of those murders.  If IA verifies it, we've got a major
wing nut on our hands.  "The Long Hauler."  Jesus Christ, what a
fucking nightmare."

It's frustrating when people don't listen to you, but it's downright
infuriating when you know you're right.

"Why's IA involved?"  I asked.  "I thought Walker and Johnson were
leads on this."

Griffith shook his head.  "No.  Too much at stake now.  The first
letter, anyone who read up on the Zimmerman case could've written it.
Looked like it wouldn't lead to anything, so the bureau thought it was
good enough to keep Forbes off it.  If it turns out Landry and Taylor
are actually innocent, your boyfriend's in deep doo doo.  Starts to
look like Landry was finally telling the truth when she said Forbes was
feeding her the details."

"But go back to what O'Donnell told the jury.  Why would Chuck do that?
The governor's son can get through the ranks without framing people."

"See what I meant about bias, Kincaid?  You're smart enough to see that
the whole governor's son angle cuts both ways.  You could also say it
puts pressure on him to be a star, to stand out as his own man, make it
big in a way that no one could say it was because of the old man.  And
hey, he probably thought she really did do it.  He wouldn't be the
first cop to bend some rules to make a case stronger to get the bad
guys."

It did look different from that angle.  Given what I'd seen good cops
do to help convict the guilty, why couldn't I believe that Chuck might
occasionally do the same?  Even in high school, Chuck had resented the
inherent unspoken separation from his peers that came with being the
governor's son.  If that pressure had been bad as a teenager surrounded
by the offspring of lawyers and doctors, what had it been like with
rookie patrol officers?  If Chuck felt in his gut that Lan-dry had been
guilty and wanted to bring down a freak like Taylor, might he help her
along with a few details to shore up her story?

As I walked out of Duncan's office, I could barely stomach what I was
thinking.  He was right.  I couldn't be objective.

Since my regular caseload hadn't included MCT cases before the
Derringer file came along, you'd think life with my run-of-the-mill
drug and prostitution cases would have felt like a return to normalcy.
Instead, it just felt anxiety-ridden.  I didn't think anything would
feel normal to me again until the bureau finished its investigation and
I could finally find out what others decided about the future of Frank
Derringer and Chuck, not to mention me.

Chuck had been suspended from all MCT investigations and put on
temporary assignment to patrol.  Since detectives don't work patrol,
the police union was filing a grievance, claiming that Chuck had
essentially been demoted without a hearing.  The union's interest was
to make the bureau's staffing as inflexible as possible, so the bureau
has to hire new bodies whenever it has a shortage in any single area.
The bureau was fighting the beef, claiming that the change was a simple
reassignment, since Chuck's salary hadn't been docked.  Chuck, of
course, wasn't given a say in any of it and was back on patrol, angry
but cognizant of the fact that he could have been suspended.

Personally, I'd rather be suspended.  Maybe if I'd boinked the entire
Major Crimes Team, I'd be one of those lucky public employees who got
suspended for a couple of years with pay until a lengthy investigation
resulted in my return to full employment with no discipline other than
an extended paid vacation.  But sex with just one detective left me
where I was, back with my drug and vice cases.

Lopez had agreed to an adjournment.  True believer that she was, she
wouldn't have acquiesced unless she thought the delay would help
Derringer.  Based on that, I tried telling O'Donnell that the time was
ripe to approach the defense with a decent plea agreement.  But he
refused, reminding me that the boss had ordered him not to pressure a
plea until the police determined whether the Long Hauler was for
real.

O'Donnell had continued to surprise me with relatively decent behavior.
He agreed that I'd handle communications with Kendra and Andrea about
the case.  Even though I suspected he did it to save himself the work
of victim handhold-ing, I was grateful that Kendra wasn't going to have
to hear about the turn of events from someone other than me.

The night after I'd been kicked off the case, I had taken Kendra out to
dinner and did my best to explain why the case was being set over.  I
wanted desperately to answer all her questions about what was going to
happen, whether Derringer was still going to go to jail, why some
"stupid" letter had to affect her case, and everything else she asked
me as she played with her food.  All I could do was tell her not to
give up hope.  We'd have to wait and see.

We both kept up a good front, but the signs of demoralization were
clear in her untouched plate.

Now that the case was over, there wasn't much of an official role for
me to play in Kendra's life.  I talked to her about enrolling in the
LAP teen program.  Learning Alternatives to Prostitution was intended
for court-mandated treatment of criminal defendants, but anyone could
enroll.  I'd already contacted them, and a counselor had told me she
could get Kendra a volunteer tutor to help her with school and Kendra
could participate in weekly group therapy sessions.  Sometimes the
"therapy" took the form of activities like painting and gardening, but
those might be just the things Kendra needed to reenter life as a
somewhat regular thirteen-year-old.

Now, Monday morning.  I reminded myself that I was supposed to be
acting like a lawyer.  I spent the afternoon returning phone calls and
covering grand jury hearings.  One guy I indicted definitely earned the
dope-of-the-day award, if not the year.  The defendant marched into the
lobby of Southeast Precinct to report a fraud and pulled fifteen ounces
of heroin and a scale from his gym bag.  Turns out the seller charged
him for a pound.  Outraged by the one-ounce shortage, the defendant
thought the police would help him get what he called "reparations."

Ordinarily, this would have carried me through the day.  But even the
reprieve from crank calls, break-ins, head cracks, and brown Toyota
Tercels wasn't enough to make me appreciate my return to the mundane. I
couldn't keep my mind off the so-called Long Hauler and his claim of
responsibility for the attack on Kendra.  Something just didn't feel
right about it.  I needed to get more evidence against Derringer, so I
could trash him no matter what the Long Hauler's story turned out to
be.

I decided to take a little detour on the way home from work.  I
wouldn't even say that I decided to do it; it was more like my body
willed me.  Right after my usual merge onto the 1-5 from the Morrison
Bridge, I noticed the exit sign for the Lloyd Center mall.  I reminded
myself of how good I'd been about following Duncan's orders.  I thought
of the trouble I'd be in for snooping around, the way O'Donnell's
nostrils would flare in anger if he found out, and the possibility that
it was all a waste of time anyway.  The next thing I knew, I was
parking my Jetta outside of Meier & Frank in the Lloyd Center parking
lot and walking into the handbags department.

Now, if this had been a premeditated case of meddling into affairs that
were no longer mine, I would have checked Kendra's purse out of the
evidence locker and taken it with me to the counter.  But since this
was impromptu meddling, I was left describing the purse to the nitwit
at the counter.

Nitwit was about seventeen years old.  Her blond hair tumbled out of
the knot at the back of her head like a fountain designed by someone on
a heavy acid trip.  From the bottom up, everything she wore was
irritating: platform sandals that made my feet wince, jeans slung low
enough to reveal a navel ring and bony hips, and a tight belly shirt
that evidently operated like a tube of toothpaste, pushing all her
bodily fluids into her head and retarding the firing of her synapses.

My badge, ID, and lengthy explanation of what I was looking for and why
were apparently lost on her, because she seemed to think I was browsing
around for a new handbag.

And, of course, everything she said ended with a question mark.  "We
don't really have any bags by Esprit right now?  But we have, like, a
ton of black leather purses, OK?  We have some really cute Nine West
purses over here?  And there's some on sale over there?  But I really
like these Kate Spade ones?"  I was beginning to think she was an evil
robot, programmed to prattle on about purses until her frosty-pink lip
gloss dried up.

I explained it to her a few more times.  I wasn't interested in buying
a new purse.  I was from the District Attorney's Office working on a
criminal investigation and needed to know whether they carried a
certain black leather purse by Esprit last autumn.

After the fourth try, Nitwit clued in and the frosty lips started
moving again.  "OK, like, I totally didn't understand that before?  You
want to ask about something we had, like, way back in November?  I so
didn't work here yet?"

I finally uttered the magic words that should have been my first.  "Is
there, like, a manager or something?"

Sweet lord, a woman in her thirties was never such a relief!  Her name
tag identified her as Jan, senior sales associate.  All that mattered
to me was that she'd worked there for two years and spoke that
increasingly endangered language known as grown-up.

"OK, let's see .. . black leather handbag by Esprit.  Around November."
I was nodding as she thought out loud.  "Yeah, we had a line of leather
bags by them last year.  They normally do more canvas and novelty bags.
What kind of strap did it have?  There was one that was more like a
backpack, one that had a shorty little handbag strap, and then a couple
with shoulder straps."

I told her it had a regular shoulder strap and then did my best
sketching it on a piece of scrap paper she gave me.

"Yeah, that looks like one of the shoulder strap ones we had."  She
walked around the counter and pulled a bag out that was on display.
"Does it look kind of like this one, but with seams on the side and
without this little buckle here?"

"That's just what it looks like," I said, surprise in my tone.  I
couldn't believe anyone could distinguish among purses in such detail,
but I guess others would marvel at my ability to distinguish Grey Goose
from Smirnoff.

"Do most of the people who were here last fall still work with the
company?"  I asked.

She looked up in the air like she was thinking and counting.  "Yeah,
not everyone, but mostly."

"And what are the chances one of them might remember selling that
particular purse to someone if I get you a picture of the person?"  I
asked, my smile revealing that I knew it was a long shot.

"Boy, pretty slim.  That was six months ago."  She could see my
disappointment register.  "Hey, it's worth a shot,

though.  Tell you what, you give me the picture and I'll make sure
everyone takes a look at it."

"Great."  I thought about the easiest way to get a picture of Andrea to
Jan and slipped into thinking aloud myself.  "OK, I can get a booking
photo of her from January, which should be pretty much how she looked
last November."

Solid, reliable Jan looked alarmed at the mention of a booking photo,
and I laughed.  "Oh, don't worry.  She's not a hardened criminal or
anything."  Of course, the truth is that hardened criminals come to the
mall and buy regular, boring things from stable, reliable people like
Jan every day, but I didn't see the need to tell her that.  "It's
actually kind of a long story.  A security guard at Dress You Up
excluded her from the store.  It was really more of a misunderstanding,
but they had her arrested a few months later when she came back."

Jan tilted her head.  "God, that rings a bell.  I sold a purse to a
woman, and I remember she was red hot about some security guard at
Dress You Up.  The guy had accused her of shoplifting, and even though
she told them to look through her stuff and they didn't find anything,
he kicked her out of the store.  Didn't apologize or anything.  You
know, that would've been around November."

I had to refrain from throwing my arms around solid, reliable Jan.  It
had to have been Andrea.  She must've bought the purse the same day she
had the run-in with Kerry Richardson at Dress You Up.

"And this woman bought the Esprit purse we've been talking about?"  I
asked.

"I have no idea.  I just remember the thing about the security
guard."

"What about the woman who bought the purse?  Was she about thirty-five?
Brown shoulder-length hair?  About my height?"  I was doing my best to
describe Andrea, whose appearance was most notable for being
nondescript.

Jan shook her head.  "I don't know.  Like I said, I just remember that
conversation.  Maybe if I saw her picture "

I dashed back to my car and drove over to Northeast Precinct.  It was
only a couple of miles, but pesky things like lights, cats, and
frolicking children kept getting in the way of my car.  The forty
minutes it took me to print Andrea's booking photo from X-imaging and
take it back to Jan felt like an eternity.

Jan looked carefully at Andrea's picture and said, "Yeah, I think
that's the woman.  I remember her now."  It wasn't the best ID in the
world, but it was a hell of lot more than I had a few days ago.

I was too excited to go home to my usual routine, so I picked up Vinnie
for a visit to Dad's.  In the car, I checked my cell for messages.
There were two from Chuck.  I'd been avoiding him since the shit hit
the fan in Duncan's office.  Hell, I had to face him eventually.  I
left a message to meet me at Dad's if he felt like it.

Dad was so happy to see me he didn't even complain about Vinnie tagging
along.

Going to Dad's is a major treat for Vinnie.  Dad's yard is large enough
that there were still some bushes that Vinnie hadn't managed to pee on
yet.  Vinnie would sniff around back, seeking out unsoiled ones to
violate.  Add the Milk Bones that Dad keeps around to control Vinnie's
breath, and Dad's house was the Vinnie equivalent of a Yankees-Mets
game.

By the time Chuck showed up, Dad and I had fed Vinnie, gone to the
market for the "grocks" as Dad called them, and put a dish of baked pen
ne in the oven.

Dad took great pleasure announcing Chuck's arrival before he headed
back to the kitchen.  "Sam, your man's here and he's got wine."

Chuck was lingering by the door.  As I went to kiss his cheek, he
grabbed me around the shoulders and pulled me close.  I couldn't tell
if he noticed that my response was awkward.  I let myself be held; it
felt good to rest my head against his chest and feel his arms around
me.  But I couldn't quite bring myself to return the embrace.

Maybe he picked up on my reticence.  As he finally let go of me, he
settled for a kiss on the top of the head.  "Hey, you.  I brought your
favorite."

It was an Australian shiraz-cab blend, perfect for someone like me who
can't handle a full-blown cabernet.  I forced a smile as we headed back
into the kitchen.  "Thanks.  That was sweet."

Dad gave Chuck one of those half handshake, half shoulder-grab things
that guys give each other instead of hugs.  "Hey, big man, how you
holding up?"  he asked.  I was glad Dad had kicked off the
conversation.  I was still resisting the urge to pull Chuck outside and
grill him until I was absolutely positive, beyond any doubt, that he
had fully disclosed everything he knew about Landry's confession.

"You know, patrol's not so bad.  It's kind of a nice break from the
heavy stuff."  From some guys, this might've sounded like saving face,
or maybe just making the best of a bad situation.  From Chuck, it
sounded sincere.

Me?  I was just trying to make the most of a bad situation.

"Same here.  Too many of those MCT cases and I would've started to lose
my faith in humanity.  I'd hate to wind up like O'Donnell one of these
days," I said with a shudder.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Dad said.  "Back with the Forest
Department, you know, we never really had to do anything like what you
were doing at MCT.  Just some trespassing, drunks, a few fights. Enough
to make life exciting, but the most you ever brought home at night was
a funny story."

When Dad talked about his career, he tended to leave out his years as
an Oregon State Police detective.  He joined the Forest Department when
I was a toddler.  He and Mom decided the hours were more regular, the
pension was better, and he was less likely to get shot in the forest
than in OSP.  Dad liked to say he was grateful for the switch, but I
always sensed he missed the excitement of his early career.

"So, Lucky Chucky, what kind of stories you got for us tonight?"  I
asked, grateful that Dad had never asked for the etymology of the
nickname.

Chuck shook his head as he poured three glasses of wine.  "Nothing,
really.  Been pretty slow."

I could tell there were a few possibilities, though.  Maybe not
full-out, pee-your-pants knee slappers, but enough to make him smile.
"Oh, c'mon," I cajoled.  "There's no way you've been on patrol all week
without something happening.  You have a civic responsibility to share
your telltale stories with bored retirees and drug deputies."

"OK, there was this one guy.  He was weaving his BMW all over the place
through a school zone, right when kids were starting to come in.
Windows tinted nearly black.  When I pulled him over and he rolled down
his window, I could see he was yapping into his cell phone.  Must've
been what distracted him.  I was planning to give him a warning and
send him on his way, but he refused to get off the phone.  Kept telling
me that he billed his time at four hundred dollars an hour and I was
keeping him from his work."

"So you wrote him a ticket?"  Dad asked.

Chuck smiled.  "Better than that.  I impounded the BMW."

"You did what?"  I said.

"I towed it.  Oregon Motor Vehicle Code section 815.222: illegal window
tinting, a tow able violation.  Includes applying any tint that limits
light transmittance to less than fifty percent.  My best guess is he
should be getting it out of the impound lot right around now," he said,
glancing at his watch.

Dad was laughing, but I wasn't.  "I can't believe you did that.  It's a
total abuse of your authority.  That's why people hate cops, Chuck."

Dad and Chuck exchanged a glance before Chuck spoke up.  "It wasn't
just an attitude problem, Sam.  He nearly hit a kid and didn't even
care.  I was trying to show him some perspective."

"Sounds kind of like something you'd do, Sam," Dad said, laughing.

Maybe, but it still bothered me that Chuck thought it was funny.

He insisted on making sure I got home OK.  I had half a bottle of Pinot
Gris in my fridge, so I poured a glass for each of us to finish it
off.

He finally raised the subject we'd been avoiding.  "One of the guys
called me a couple of hours ago.  Word is, IA's got something on the
Long Hauler."

I looked at him with surprise.  "Guy seemed like a pro.  First letter
had no prints, not even DNA on the stamp or envelope."

"I assume the second letter's the same," he said.  "I didn't mean they
figured out who he is.  But the stuff in the letter, it's for real.
They found four unsolved homicide cases that match the other girls this
guy says he did."

"But is it stuff he could've gotten from papers?"  I asked.

"I don't know.  He also said he left something of Jamie's in the Gorge.
IA's got a bunch of Explorers out there combing through the forest
looking for it."

Explorers are high school students who want to become police officers.
They make for a handy resource during fishing expeditions.  They don't
mind hiking around in the mud as long as they get to wear a uniform,
they're a hell of a lot cheaper than police officers on overtime, and
they aren't fat yet, so they can do helpful things like climb hills and
fit through small spaces.  On the other hand, if you want an idea of
how reliable they are in their searches, the DC police used them to
search Rock Creek Park for the body of that poor missing intern a few
summers ago.

"Do you know what they're looking for?"  I asked.

"No.  I'm surprised I heard anything.  IA's being quiet about this, and
I of all people am not supposed to hear a word.  But, you know, the
guys look out for each other."

It bothered me that he didn't say who shared the information.  Was he
actually worried I'd be angry at one of the MCT detectives for leaking
information to him?  If the gap between cops and DAs seemed that wide
to him, maybe he was in a place I would never truly understand.  As it
stood, I realized I knew little about Chuck Forbes the detective.
Perhaps I had been too quick to assume that his hands were squeaky
clean.

I turned on the TV to catch my favorite talking-head show, Hardball.  I
still don't know how a guy who looks like a fifty year-old surfer dude
had the balls to think he'd get away with a motto like "Let's play
hardball," but Chris Matthews seems to have pulled it off.  Maybe if
Griffith fired me, I could get Matthews to hire me as a talking head.
It would be an easy job, and it seemed like an inevitable stop on the
road for anyone at the middle of a media frenzy.  Yes, the congressmen
did it.  So did the missing kids' parents.  So did that guy who used to
play a detective with a bird on TV.  They pretty much always did it.

Chuck and I didn't say much during the show.  The silence was
interrupted occasionally as we vented about the new terrorism warnings
that were issued every time the president's ratings were slipping.  But
we said that all the time.

I don't know when I decided not to tell him about solid reliable Jan,
but I took the fact that I didn't want to as a bad sign, one he
apparently picked up on.  Once Chris Matthews got through telling us
what he really thought, Chuck announced that it was time for him to
head home.  I didn't try to stop him, and he kissed me on the top of my
head again when I walked him to the door.

thirteen.

Things started moving forward the next morning.

The media had gotten wind of the search in the Gorge and were clamoring
for more information.  That meant I could probe O'Donnell for
information about the search without tipping him off that someone on
MCT was talking to Chuck about the investigation.  I stuck my head into
his office door and asked him for an update.

"I'm beginning to think you suffer from selective deafness, Kincaid.
You .. . are .. . off..  . the .. . case!"  O'Donnell pantomimed the
words with his hands to mimic sign language.  I would definitely not be
inviting him to my next Charades party.  He sucked.

I reminded him that I was still supposed to be coordinating
communications with Kendra and her mom.  I had prepared a white lie:
Andrea Martin was clamoring for answers and he either had to fork over
some information or explain it all to her himself before Channel 2 did.
A pissed-off victim is every prosecutor's worst nightmare.  A weepy
interview on the local news saying they've been left out of the loop
and victimized again by the system rings true to every viewer who's
ever been ignored by a bureaucrat.

As it turned out, I didn't need to resort to my bluff, because
O'Donnell actually caught himself being an asshole and apologized.
"Sorry, you're right.  I snapped because this case is getting to me.
Have a seat," he said, clearing some notebooks from a chair for me.

He picked up the phone, indicating with his thumb and forefinger that
it would be a short call.  "Hey, Carl.  It's O'Donnell.  Did you
double-check with all the crime labs yet?"  He gave the frequent
"yeahs" and "unh-huhs" that aren't very helpful when you're
eavesdropping on one side of a conversation.  "Well, we gave it a shot.
This guy's one lucky son of a bitch."

"Bad news?"  I asked as he hung up.

"Understatement of the century," he said, rolling his eyes.  "C'mon, I
gotta go over all this stuff with Duncan.  You might as well come."

"I thought I was off the case," I said, imitating his mock sign
language.  He laughed, and I had to as well.

"Damn, you can be a pain in the ass.  Just come on, OK?"  he said,
walking out of his office.  If O'Donnell kept this up, I might actually
start to like him.

Duncan was on the phone when we walked in.  He gestured for us to have
a seat.  I was doing a lot of this today.

O'Donnell leaned forward so the two of us could talk quietly while we
waited for Duncan to finish his call.  "None of this goes to Forbes,
right?"

The request was reasonable under the circumstances.  I nodded.

"OK.  We found four unsolved homicides through the Northwest Regional
Cold Case Database.  One in Idaho, one in Montana, and two in
Washington.  All of them women, all either prostitutes or promiscuous.
So far, the details match the Long Hauler letter to a T. We're dealing
with a grade-A psycho."

"What kind of details, public information or concealed?"  I asked.  In
any murder investigation, law enforcement always held back certain
details.  It kept the bad guy from knowing what investigators had, and
it could help down the road if a wanna-be confessor tried to jump into
the mix.

"Stuff no one else could know.  Position of the bodies, personal items
that were taken, whether specific items of clothes were on or off.  I
told you, the guy's for real."

"Just on the four new cases?  What about Zimmerman and Martin?"  I
asked.  It sounded funny to label Kendra by her last name, but
O'Donnell was sharing information.  It was better not to remind him of
my personal attachment to the victim.

"Them too.  On your case, he gave us the exact intersection they pulled
Martin from, everything they did to her, that they threw the purse in
the trash.  The paper didn't have those details."

"No, but it all came out in trial," I said.  I was playing it cool,
removing the lid from my latte and blowing in the cup, like we were
talking about running times or stock performances.

"Are you saying you saw a suspicious serial-killer type sitting in on
your trial?"

He was right.  I would have noticed if someone had been watching.  "Any
possibility that Derringer did it all and then wrote to the paper as
the Long Hauler when he got caught on the Martin rape?"  Clearly
Derringer was benefiting from these letters, and given what he did to
Kendra, he certainly had it in him to rape and kill other women.

But O'Donnell was already shaking his head.  "Doesn't look like it.  No
way he could've sent them himself.  The jail reads all outgoing
prisoner mail.  There's always the possibility that he could sneak a
letter to a visitor or something, but it doesn't look like he could be
the guy.  We've already got him solid in Oregon during two of the
out-of-state murders.  He had a parole meeting with Renshaw during one
of them and was doing time on the Clackamas County attempted sod for
another."

It looked like we had a serial killer on our hands.  "Any other cases
in the Cold Case Database that match?"  I asked.  The computerized data
bank was a partnership among law enforcement agencies in the Pacific
Northwest and included details of all unsolved homicides.

"Nope, nothing obvious," he said.  "Our guy's MO seems to be street
girls, strangled and dumped outside so it takes awhile to find them.
Looks like he copped to all of them in his letter."

Duncan hung up the phone.  "Governor's office," he said, by way of
explanation.  "They're all over me.  Jackson's under pressure to pardon
Taylor and is looking for something to hang his hat on.  Fucking pussy.
He won't admit it's because of the death penalty.  Doesn't want to lose
eastern Oregon."

Bud Jackson was a Portland liberal who managed to win a statewide race
only by sending his wife, the daughter of a prominent local ranching
family, on the campaign trail throughout conservative rural Oregon.

"If he can say Taylor might be innocent, he could do the pardon and
save face."  Duncan stopped, seeming to register my presence for the
first time since I sat down.  "This OK with you, Tim?"  he asked,
tilting his head toward me.

"Yeah, I'm going to need some help with the Martin family.  I was just
giving Sam what we got out of the letters."

"Well, it's nice to see you two sharing the sandbox again.  So where
are we this morning?"  he asked, folding his arms in front of him.  "I
see we weren't able to keep the Gorge search quiet."

"No, sir, we weren't," O'Donnell said, laughing at the obvious
understatement.

"They find anything?"  Griffith asked.

"Yes, miraculously."  Tim turned toward me.  "To get you up to speed,
Kincaid, the Long Hauler said he threw Zimmerman's purse from his car
past a bend in the road up the Gorge, about a quarter mile from the
freeway, so we sent the Explorers out there yesterday to dig around
along the road out there."  He turned back toward Griffith.  "They
spent all day searching yesterday, but no luck.  The bureau was about
to call everybody in, but they wanted to make sure they didn't screw it
up.  Don't want to pull a Washington, DC have some old guy's dog dig it
up next year from right under their noses.  Anyway, the detective
supervising the search pulls out a park map and talks to every Explorer
to make sure he marks off where they've searched.  Turns out there's a
monster patch of blackberry bushes no one wanted to touch.  About a
quarter of a football field, four feet high.  Now most people would've
let it slide, thinking no way a purse can get in there."

I nodded.  Blackberry bushes are dense and woody.  You can't get
through them without a hatchet.  I knew from the countless golf balls
I'd lost to them that a purse thrown on a blackberry bush would bounce
off.

"But this guy is ex-military, total sphincter boy.  He checked with the
parks department and found out they started letting those bushes grow
two years ago, meaning they weren't there when Zimmerman was killed. So
he gets everybody clearing out blackberry bushes all night.  They found
it early this morning," he said, sounding more excited.  "They actually
found Jamie Zimmerman's purse, and it's pretty much where the guy said
it would be.  Still has a bunch of stuff in it.  Cigarettes, makeup,
and, most critically, a fake ID issued to one Jamie Zimmerman. A
detective told me he got chills when he found it.  Her real ID was in
the pocket of her jeans along with a condom and a lipstick, and we
figured that was all she carried.  We never even knew to look for a
purse."

"So we've got him tied to everything now," Duncan said.  "Jesus, five
dead women, Sam's vie, God knows how many others.  Do the police have
any leads on this guy?"

"No.  Whoever he is, his luck is unbelievable.  Crime lab says there's
no DNA on either letter.  The Cold Case Databank entries for all four
of the other cases indicated there was too much deterioration for
testable DNA samples, just like with Zimmerman.  I had IA call the
hometown police agencies to verify the computer information, and I
heard from them right before I came down.  Nothing."

"Were there any other strangling cases in the database without DNA
evidence?"  I asked.

O'Donnell paused.  "No, just the ones from the letter."

"What's the FBI doing?"  Duncan asked.

"They're interested but haven't taken over yet.  They've got a profiler
studying the cases.  Can't give me a time line on when they might have
something."

Duncan gave a dismissive wave.  "Useless anyway.  Let me take a wild
guess.  Guy in his mid-twenties to forties, loner, no meaningful
relationships with women, with a job or lifestyle that takes him
through the Pacific Northwest.  Likes to type letters and call himself
the Long Hauler.  Yeah, real science."

He looked down at his desk and picked up a file.

"Alright, folks, here's what we're going to do.  We're dumping the case
against Derringer."  Duncan put up a hand to silence me before any
words came out of my open mouth.  "No, Sam, we're dumping it.  Your
evidence has gone to shit.  You've got nothing but the vic's ID.  Now,
I know you've got a personal interest in the girl, and it's admirable.
It really is.  But the girl was coming out of a heroin OD.  Plus you've
got a nearly identical crime committed by a different person same type
of victim, same location, both with missing purses.  Oh, and don't
forget that the different person is confessing to both crimes.  You
don't have enough to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.  Hell,
Sam, you don't even have probable cause."

"Duncan, the man's a convicted sex offender with shaved pubic hair.
That, combined with the confession "

He interrupted me.  "You know damn well the jury can't hear about the
sex offense.  Plus we had that defense attorney in here a couple days
ago about that, because the shaving was bothering me too.  I can see
why you butt heads with her," he said, smiling.  "What's her name
again?"

"Lisa Lopez," I said.

"Right, Lopez.  Real firecracker, that one.  But she made a good point.
She says Derringer shaved his privates because he was due for a second
pethismograph the Monday after the assault.  I guess the wires pulled
at him on the first one."  Duncan and Tim both made faces like even the
thought was painful.  Wusses.  They should try a bikini wax.  "We
confirmed it with the PO what's his name "

"Renshaw," O'Donnell reminded him.

Griffith nodded.  "Renshaw checked his calendar.  Derringer was due in
on Monday, just like Lopez said.  She couldn't find a way to bring it
out at trial without letting the jury know her guy was a pervert, so
she had to leave it out.  Anyway, all you've got left is the ID, Sam,
and it's not enough."

But I had more than that.  I had solid reliable Jan.  I told them about
my visit to Meier & Frank.  Surely it would be enough.  It meant that
the fingerprint was back.  The print had always been the best evidence.
So why weren't they excited?

"No dice, Sam," O'Donnell said, shaking his head.  "I saw your note in
the file that the mom thought she got it from Meier & Frank.  Just to
be safe, I called Staffpower, the temp agency that Derringer worked
for?"

I nodded.

"They faxed this over," O'Donnell said, handing me a piece of paper
from his file.  "Turns out most stores do inventory before the holiday
shopping frenzy, and a lot of them use Staffpower.  Derringer did
inventory at Meier & Frank last October also."

The paper he'd handed me was a list of all of the jobs Derringer took
through Staffpower last year.  In the two months before Thanksgiving,
he must've worked inventory for half the stores in the mall.

"You could've saved yourself some time if you'd talked to me before you
went running around Meier & Frank on your own after you got taken off
the case," Tim said.

"I didn't 'run around," " I said, making air quotes with my hands.  I
was seething.  And I hate air quotes.  "It's on my way home and "

Griffith put a hand up to silence us.  "Sandbox.  Remember, kids?"  Tim
and I stopped.  Duncan was right.  It didn't matter anymore.

"Sam, you'll explain the situation to the family?"  Griffith asked.

I nodded.  Yes, I would have to.  I couldn't pretend any longer that
the case was winnable.  It rested entirely on Ken-dra's ID.  Eyewitness
ID is always questionable, but I had a child victim who had suffered a
horrific assault and was under the influence of heroin.  And if I
couldn't maintain that the case was winnable, I couldn't argue with the
decision to dismiss it.  I hated the thought of breaking the news to
Ken-dra, but I couldn't stomach the idea of anyone else doing it
either.

"What do you want to do with Taylor and Landry?"  O'Donnell asked.

"That one's trickier," Duncan said, pressing the pads of his fingertips
together to make something resembling a filleted crab, an annoying male
gesture that seemed popular in the power corridor.  "Juries heard the
evidence and found Taylor and Landry guilty.  Even now, the evidence
we've got on them isn't so bad, a lot better than we've got on
Derringer.  There's no way around the phone number and earrings that
Landry planted on Taylor.  But now we've also got ironclad proof that
the Long Hauler is involved."

"We've basically got proof beyond a reasonable doubt of two separate
theories," I said.

"Right," Griffith said, "unless we buy Landry's explanation for how she
knew so much.  So if we say she didn't do it, we're basically admitting
that a cop helped her with the set-up on Taylor and then lied about it
on the stand.  I want to be careful here."

He turned to Tim.  "Call the FBI.  See if they'll make a polygrapher
available to us.  Then see if Landry and Taylor will agree to polys.
You'll have to discuss the questions with the FBI examiner, but what I
really want to know is whether they did the Zimmerman girl, and whether
they know the Long Hauler."

The results of a polygraph examination aren't admissible in court, but
the examinations are used by law enforcement all the time.  Sometimes
you hook a suspect up to one so he'll confess after he fails it.  The
failed poly doesn't come into evidence, but the confession does.
Polygraphs also help clear someone you already want to cut loose, based
on your instincts: the missing kid's parents, the dead woman's husband,
the suspects who become suspects merely because of their status.  If
you don't have any other reason to suspect them, a passed poly lets you
stop looking at them and move on to less obvious theories.  Griffith
would feel more confident about exonerating Landry and Taylor if they
passed polygraphs first.

"Isn't there also the possibility that someone connected to Landry or
Taylor wrote the Long Hauler letters?"  I asked.  It couldn't be Landry
or Taylor themselves.  As O'Donnell had pointed out, outgoing prisoner
mail is strictly monitored.

"I thought that was a possibility with the first letter," Tim said,
"but I can't see it with this new one.  First of all, I don't think
Landry knew about Zimmerman's purse, or she would have mentioned it
when she was trying to set Taylor up for the fall.  More importantly,
whoever wrote the Long Hauler letter had to know not just about the
Zimmerman murder but the four other murders, plus your case.  No way
some friend of theirs could cook this up.  But, like Duncan said, we
should make sure with the poly that Taylor and Landry aren't somehow
wrapped up with the Long Hauler."

"So there's the plan, team," Duncan said.  The filleted crab fingers
were gone and the capped smile was back.  "Sam, you take care of the
dismissal on Derringer.  Any calls from the press, you give 'em some
bullshit about new evidence produced by the defense.  Don't tie it to
the Long Hauler, or we'll get even more pressure to cut Landry and
Taylor loose.  And talk to the victim today.  The family needs to be on
board for this.  Let them know we're going after this guy and her case
won't be forgotten.  Tim, get me those polys.  I need to get back to
Governor Jackson."

So that was it.  The case was gone, and I was the one who had to
dismiss it and deliver the news to Kendra.

Part of me wanted to call her immediately.  Get it over with.  Rip the
bandage off.  But she was in school, so I worked my hardest to keep my
mind occupied, trying not to think about how much the case's dismissal
would hurt her.

I used the morning's custodies as an excuse not to complete the
dismissal order for Derringer.  And not to call Chuck.  He'd already
left me two messages asking why I'd been so cold the night before.  As
much as I knew that I'd eventually have to answer that question, it was
the last thing I wanted to think about right now.  So, I stayed cold
and worked on custodies.

Today's custodies were typical.  Thirty-two new cases,

almost all of them identical.  Knock and talk, traffic stop, jaywalking
ticket.  Something small usually a ruse starts the encounter between
police and someone who looks like they're up to no good.  Sometimes the
no-goodnik consents to the search.  Sometimes it's a pat-down for
officer safety reasons, or maybe the officer claims exigent
circumstances.  Whatever the basis, the search always occurs, and the
police find either heroin, coke, or meth.  I timed it out once and
figured I spend an average of seven minutes to review and issue the
typical drug case.  Nothing to be proud of, but, like I said, they're
all the same.

When I finished up, I changed into my running gear and headed out into
the drizzle.  The loop around the downtown and east side waterfronts of
the Willamette is almost exactly three miles.  I ran hard, trying to
chase visions of Kendra and Chuck from my head, and I finished in
twenty-two minutes.  Not quite as fast as our current president, but I
work a lot harder at my day job.

Back at the office, I bought myself some more time, drafting a
procrastinated response to a motion to suppress.  But I couldn't ignore
the clock's reminder that my time to write the dismissal order for
Derringer was running out.

It's surprisingly easy to make a criminal case go away.  I prepared a
one-sentence motion and order stating that the case was dismissed in
the interests of justice in light of exculpatory evidence produced by
the defense at trial.  Lesh signed and filed it, and I faxed copies to
Lisa Lopez and the jail.  Derringer would be out in a couple of
hours.

By the time I finished, I was pretty sure that Kendra would be home
from school.

After a couple of minutes of small talk, I told her I wanted to come
out to talk about the case.  The tone of my voice must have given her
an idea of what was coming.  "Go ahead and tell me," she said.  "God or
Edison or whoever invented the phone for a reason, you know."

This wasn't going well.  When I insisted on driving out, I got a
"whatever" in response.  I signed myself out on the DVD board, grabbed
the file, and made it to Rockwood in record time.  When I knocked on
the door, I heard what I recognized as Puddle of Mudd blasting from
Kendra's CD player.  In my neighborhood, that kind of volume would
trigger a call to police.  In Rockwood, it was background music.

She apparently didn't have any plans on answering the door for me.  I
banged on it and pressed the bell for a full two minutes before walking
around the back of the house to knock on her bedroom window.  "I know
you're in there, Kendra.  I'm not leaving until you open the door."  I
rapped the bottom of my fist against her window with the beat of her
music for a couple of songs until she finally turned it off.

A few seconds later, I heard her holler from the front door in a
singsong voice, "I don't know how you expect to get into the house if
you're not here when I open the door."  I sprinted around the house
like a famished cat responding to a can opener, before Kendra could
change her mind.  When she didn't say anything about making me wait, I
pretended like she hadn't.

"You really didn't have to drive all the way out here, you know," she
said, sitting on her bed and going through her CDs, probably searching
for the one most likely to give me a headache.

"I know," I said, even though it wasn't true.  "But I wanted to see
you.  You hungry?"

"You trying to give me an eating disorder or something?

French fries and a milkshake don't make everything OK, Sam."

Since when?  "Fine," I said.  "I want to talk to you about the case,
though."

I started by showing her the Oregonian articles about the Long Hauler.
Andrea didn't subscribe to the paper, and I suspected Kendra had never
seen the articles themselves.  "What are these?"  she asked.

"Please, just read them, and then we'll talk."

She took them from me and spread them out in front of her on the bed,
but I could tell she wasn't really reading them.

"Do you mind if I get a glass of water from the kitchen?  I'm kind of
thirsty," I said, backing out of the room.  I got another "whatever" in
response, but it gave me a way to leave her alone in her room with the
articles for a few minutes.  When I returned, she was clutching a
pillow on her lap and staring at the photographs on the front page.

"I could've sworn it was him," she said.

"You're not sure anymore?"  I asked.

She held the paper up to her face, staring at the photograph of
Derringer.  "I still think it looks like him, but it can't be him, can
it?"

I should've given Kendra more credit.  I had been clinging to our
theory of the case because I was too stubborn to admit we were
mistaken.  Here she was, five minutes after reading the article,
accepting the unavoidable conclusion.  We had the wrong man.

"No, Kendra, I don't see any way it can be him.  I know that the
newspaper only says the Long Hauler letter had details about your case,
but it actually had a lot of information that no one could have had
without being one of the men who did this to you."

"So does everyone think I'm a liar now?"  she said.

"No one thinks you lied about anything."  Looking at her, knowing she
was doubting my faith in her, made me want to cry.  "We know you told
the truth about what happened to you, but you might have made a mistake
about who did it.  You shouldn't feel bad.  You had just been through a
horribly traumatic experience.  Plus, there was a lot of other evidence
pointing to Derringer.  Even if you hadn't identified him, we would
have wound up focusing on him anyway after his fingerprint came up on
your purse."

"My mother did not steal that purse," she said.

"I know that.  It looks like it came from Meier & Frank.  The problem
is that Derringer worked there too."

Kendra gave what I thought was a growl of exasperation into the pillow.
But when she didn't lift her head, I realized she was crying.  I held
her and patted her on the back.  There was nothing to say.

Once the tears had stopped and she was breathing regularly again, she
wanted details on where the Long Hauler investigation stood.

"Well, you already knew that a girl named Jamie Zimmerman was killed a
few years ago.  Her body was found in the Gorge, not too far from
where" I didn't know how to refer to what happened to her with her: Not
too far from where you were dumped?  were found?  "from where the
ambulance picked you up.  Like the paper says, a couple named Margaret
Landry and Jesse Taylor were convicted of killing Jamie, but they claim
they're innocent.  You knew that Derringer's attorney was suggesting in
your trial that whoever did the bad things to you had also killed
Jamie.  With these letters, it's starting to look like one person,
someone other than Margaret Landry and Jesse Taylor, killed not only

Jamie but four other women.  And he's claiming he was one of the people
involved in what happened to you."

"Will the police be able to find out who the Long Hauler is?"  she
asked.  I wanted so much to assure her that they would, that we'd nail
him and justice would be served.  But I learned a long time ago that
you should never make promises to victims unless you don't mind
breaking them.

"I know they're trying.  They've got the FBI involved.  The police
chief and the DA are making this a top priority.  The feeling is that
if the guy's writing letters to the newspaper and naming himself, he's
escalating."

I could tell from the way she looked at me that she didn't know what I
meant.

"The suspicion is that he'll start to kill even faster," I explained.
"That he'll come up with a signature or something now that he's
interested in notoriety."

"Oh, so that's why they want to catch him, to keep him from getting to
anyone else.  They don't actually care about the people he already
hurt," she said.

"Hey, you know that's not what I meant.  Kendra, the man has killed
five women.  Of course they want to catch him.  I was just trying to
tell you how much this matters to the police."

She was quiet while it all sank in.  "I guess I wasn't really thinking
of it like that.  That guy killed other people.  And he meant to kill
me."  She looked dazed.  "I knew you'd charged him with attempted
murder and all, but I never thought of it as someone trying to kill me.
That I'm lucky I lived through it."

"Shows you're a survivor, kiddo.  You're tougher than him; you beat
him."

"Do the police know anything yet?"  she asked.

"Well, enough to think that this guy did the things he said he did. The
paper didn't mention all the details, but the letter included pretty
specific descriptions of all the attacks.  The information he provided
about what happened to you and Jamie was accurate, and it's stuff he
couldn't have taken from a newspaper or something.  Also, the police
have found unsolved homicides that match the other murders."

"Did they find anything when they searched the Gorge?"  she asked.

"Yes, I was going to get to that.  Again, the paper didn't publish this
detail, so it's important that you keep this between us for now.  But
the Long Hauler told police he'd taken Jamie Zimmerman's purse and
thrown it off the side of the road in the Gorge.  Using that
information, the police were able to find the purse, and it's
absolutely Jamie Zimmerman's.  It even had her fake ID in it."

"I guess that's another thing that makes her case like mine, huh?  That
he left us in the Gorge and took our purses?"

I hadn't thought about that before.  Lisa Lopez had had the prescience
to argue that Kendra's case was just like the murder of Jamie
Zimmerman, but what exactly had she said about it?

I went out to the Jetta to grab what had grown into several volumes of
files on the Derringer case.  I knew I'd seen the trial transcripts in
a binder somewhere.  After Duncan turned the case over to O'Donnell,
O'Donnell must have ordered them so that he and Duncan could get up to
speed.  Something was nagging at the forefront of my brain, something
someone had said during the trial.  I flipped through the transcript
pages frantically.  It was going to be lost if I didn't find a trigger
to pull it forward.

Then I spotted it.

"What's going on?"  Kendra asked.

"Wait a second, Kendra."  What else had I missed?  I started from the
beginning of the file and reread everything.  When I was finished, I
knew exactly where I had gone off track.  It wasn't just what someone
had said at trial.  I'd also missed the Tasmanian Devil.

I looked up at Kendra.  "Tell me more about Haley."

I looked for her first outside of the Pioneer Place Courthouse, the
waterfront, the Hamilton motel, all the places I could think of.  I
finally found her at midnight, standing on the corner of Burnside and
Fourth Avenue.  She had her thumb out and looked like she'd just shot
up.

I stopped the Jetta in front of her, and she walked over to the
passenger side and opened the door.  Guess she couldn't see through the
tinted windows at night.

"Hey, Haley.  Want a date?"  I said.

"What the fuck are you doing out here?"  She looked around.  Not seeing
any police, she said, "Nothing you can do to me without a cop
around."

All those Law & Order shows had done some serious damage to my image
out there.  Now that everyone understood that whole "separate but
equally important parts of the criminal justice system" thing, no one
is afraid of being arrested by prosecutors anymore.  Sometimes it's
just a matter of reeducation.

"Not today, maybe.  But I can go drive my little Volkswagen back to the
courthouse, type out an affidavit, and have an arrest warrant for you
in the system by tomorrow morning.  It's not like it takes the cavalry
to find you or anything."

She thought about that for a while.  "Yeah, well, I can handle another
loitering pop.  Nothing but a thing at juvie."  Her eyes were barely
open.  It's probably hard to care about being arrested when you're
pumped full of heroin.

"I'm not talking about juvie this time, Haley.  I'm talking Measure
Eleven time."

She might not know the details, but anyone on the street as long as
Haley knew the gist of Measure 11.  It meant being charged as an adult
and getting real time.  The threat was enough to fire her up as much as
could be expected in her current state.

She pretended to laugh.  "You ain't got shit on me.  Now you better
move along, bitch.  I got work to do."

I suppressed the impulse to mow her down with the Jetta.  I would've
opened a six-pack of Fahrfegnugen on her ass over the c-word, but under
the circumstances I could handle the b-word.

"I'd be careful about how you choose to work, Haley," I said.  "From
where I sit it's called promoting prostitution, not loitering.  And
promoting prostitution for a thirteen-year-old lands you under Measure
Eleven."

"Pimping?  Lady, you got me confused with some Cadillac-driving,
purple-velour-wearing, platform-shoe-stomping dude."  She was laughing
uncontrollably now, rattling off some more descriptors I couldn't
understand.

"Haley, listen to me.  You're in major trouble here, and I'm not
fucking around."  My tone got her attention.  "You arranged dates for
Kendra in exchange for a cut of the fee.  You set her up at the
Hamilton, knowing she was using the room to work.  You sold her condoms
when she ran out, again at a profit and knowing she was using them for
prostitution.  Plus, you knew she was only thirteen years old.  All I
have to do is go down to the Hamilton, and I suspect I'll find several
other girls who'll say you do the same things for them.  Guess what,
Haley?  That's promoting prostitution, even if you don't wear purple
velour."

"That's bullshit.  I was helping her out, is all.  Safer to work at the
Hamilton than out of cars.  And, big deal, I hooked her up with a few
guys who liked younger girls and who I knew were all right."

"Too bad, Haley.  I'd heard you were smart.  At this point, I'd advise
you to shut up until you've talked to a lawyer, because what you just
said amounts to a confession to a Measure Eleven charge."

I rolled up the window and hit my turn signal like I was going to pull
out into traffic on Burnside.  I was beginning to think she was going
to let me leave when I heard the tap on the window.  I rolled it down
again.

"So what do you want?"  she asked.

"Now that's more like it.  Get in."

Fourteen.

When I finally got home it was nearly two in the morning.

Chuck's Jag was in my driveway, and Chuck was asleep in the backseat. I
tapped on the window, and he reached over his head and unlocked the
front door.

"This piece of crap chose my driveway to break down in?"  I said.

"Cute.  Where have you been?"  he asked, sitting up and pushing his
hair down from sleep.

"Another late one," I said.

"A late one where?  I've been leaving you messages all night."

"Sorry.  I got busy.  I would've called you tomorrow."

"So, again, where have you been?"

Shoot.  He'd learned something about interrogations over the years.
"Working.  Griffith told me I had to dismiss the case against
Derringer, so I went out to Rockwood to break the news to Kendra."

"You were at Kendra's until two in the morning?"  He sounded
appropriately skeptical.

"I had some follow-up.  I'll tell you about it later.  Right now I'm
exhausted."  I headed toward the front door.

He grabbed my arm as I was walking up the steps to the porch.  "Dammit,
Sam.  What kind of follow-up?  Where the hell have you been?"

I pulled my arm from his grip.  "Jesus, Chuck.  The stalking routine
really isn't becoming.  Is this jealousy?  Do you actually think I was
with someone else?"

He shook his head.

"What?"  I asked.

"You scared the shit out of me.  I thought something happened to
you."

"Well, nothing happened to me.  With Derringer's charges dismissed, he
doesn't have any reason to try to scare me off anymore, so stop
worrying.  I told you, I'll talk to you tomorrow.  Please respect
that."

"Don't do this, Sam.  You were distant last night, you blew off my
calls all day, and now you're out till whenever and won't tell me where
you were.  I know you.  The only thing I have to compete with is your
job, so something must be happening on the case.  What's going on?  My
guys tell me the governor's cutting Landry and Taylor loose.  You tell
me you've dismissed the case against Derringer.  So why were you out so
late?"

I looked at him but didn't say anything.

"You don't trust me, do you, Sam?"

I knew I should say something, but I didn't.  I couldn't get my mouth
to work.

I finally spoke up when he started walking toward his car.  "Explain it
to me, Chuck.  How did Landry know so much about Jamie's murder if she
wasn't a part of it?  And if she was a part of it, how come she passed
a polygraph while some guy tells the Oregonian where the police can
find Jamie's purse?  Explain it to me.  Come inside and talk to me
about it."

He turned his head just long enough to say, "You're really
unbelievable, Kincaid.  You don't know me at all."

I stopped myself from pulling out my cell phone as I watched him drive
away.  Part of me wanted to apologize; another part wanted to scream at
him.

Instead, I decided to get to sleep so I could wake up and work on what
I'd learned from Haley.

Two days later, my ducks were finally in a row.

Sneaking around hadn't been easy.  Once the charges against Derringer
had been dropped and the news had been broken to Kendra, my role in the
matter was officially over.  I was taking a big risk by jumping back
into it again without notifying Duncan and O'Donnell.

I had reserved a block of time in front of the grand jury without
indicating a specific case name.  Anyone looking at the schedule would
just assume I was presenting several drug cases together.  Actually, I
was trying to indict Derrick Derringer.

Getting an indictment's much easier than getting a conviction.  The
grand jury's only role is to decide if there's enough evidence against
the defendant to warrant a trial, and in practice grand jurors "true
bill" almost every case presented to them.  Because the grand jury
doesn't actually determine the defendant's guilt, the proceedings are
considerably less formal than at trial.  No judge, no defense attorney.
Just the prosecutor and seven trusting grand jurors.  We rarely even
kept a record of grand jury testimony in state court, but I'd gotten a
court reporter for this particular session.  At least if I got fired,
I'd have a transcript to show for my hard work.  It wouldn't be a great
trade, but it was better than nothing.

"Members of the grand jury, today's proceedings will not be typical of
the hearings you have experienced so far as grand jurors.  By now, you
have figured out that most criminal cases are cut-and-dry.  The
prosecutor says hello, calls in a police officer or two, and asks for
an indictment.  No one gives you the other side of the story, the
evidence that complicates the picture, what the defense will say at
trial.

"Today, I will ask you to indict Derrick Derringer on charges of
obstruction of justice, perjury, statutory rape, and conspiring with
his brother to rape and murder a thirteen-year-old girl named Kendra
Martin.  This will not be a straightforward story.  You will learn, if
you do not already know from the news, that the State has already
dismissed charges against Derrick Derringer's brother, Frank Derringer,
for raping and attempting to murder Kendra Martin.  To complicate
things further, someone has written anonymous letters to the Oregonian,
claiming that he and an unnamed accomplice, and not Frank Derringer,
are responsible for the attack on Miss Martin.

"I'll be honest with you.  I am currently unable to offer a single
theory that explains both the evidence against Mr.  Derringer and his
brother, and the anonymous letter that would appear to exonerate the
Derringers.  I suspect that you will also find it difficult to
reconcile the evidence against

Mr.  Derringer with some of the State's other evidence.  That's why
your role today is so important.  At the end of the presentation of the
evidence, I will ask you to decide for yourselves whether the evidence
against Mr.  Derringer warrants an indictment, regardless of the
exculpatory evidence."

I started with a thorough overview of Frank Derringer's trial, the
Jamie Zimmerman case, and the Long Hauler letters.  The rules of
evidence do not apply during grand jury proceedings, so I didn't have
to use live testimony to establish this background.  Instead, I offered
it in summary form, using the white board to make a list of the central
characters in the case and the important points for them to remember. I
ended with the discovery of Jamie Zimmerman's purse.

The jurors looked exhausted by the time I was done.  An elderly woman
across the table raised her hand.  She gestured to her notes with her
pen while she spoke.  "Um, maybe I'm confused or something," she said,
"but it sounds like whoever wrote these letters killed Jamie and the
other women and also raped that poor little girl.  And you're saying
that you don't see how these other people Margaret Landry, Jesse
Taylor, and Frank Derringer could have written the letters, so it
sounds like they're all innocent.  Have you told us anything about
Derrick Derringer yet?"

"Not yet.  The evidence I have just summarized for you is the
background of a larger investigation that relates to the case against
Mr.  Derringer.  What you've heard so far suggests exactly what you've
stated.  Like I said, you may find it difficult to reconcile all that
information with the evidence you will hear today.  So I want you to
consider the remaining evidence in light of the background I've given
you and then decide whether to issue the indictment."

There were no more questions, so I called my first witness, Haley
Jameson.

Haley walked in with an attitude.  I would've been disappointed in her
if she hadn't.  She slumped down into the witness chair at the center
of the room and looked up at the ceiling as I had her spell her name
and take her witness oath.

"Where do you live, Haley?"  I asked.

"Varies day to day.  I been in a bunch of foster homes, but mostly I
just crash with friends.  Stay at a place in Old Town called the
Hamilton."

"And how do you pay for things like your hotel room at the Hamilton,
food, things like that?"

"I got immunity, right?"

"Right.  As we've discussed, you're testifying today with my promise
that nothing you say will be used against you."

"Mostly I date," she said.  "Sometimes I'll sell some pot to friends or
something to pick up a few extra bucks."

"When you say that you date for money, are you referring to
prostitution?"

She rolled her eyes and sank into her chair a little deeper.  I was
starting to worry she might slide right off.

"You need to reply to my questions with a verbal answer, Haley.  The
court reporter is transcribing everything."

"Yeah.  I meant prostitution," she said.

"How long have you been working in prostitution?"  I asked.

" "Bout three years," she answered.

"And how old are you now?"

"Sixteen."

A couple of the grand jurors shifted uncomfortably in their seats as
they worked out the math.

"Do you know Frank and Derrick Derringer?"  I asked.

"Unfortunately," she said.  "Can't be on the street as long as I have
without running into them."

I had made the connection when I reviewed the file at Kendra's.  I had
printed out Derrick Derringer's PPDS record so I could cross-examine
him about his prior convictions, but I'd never seen the need to pay any
attention to the basic identifying information, like hair and eye
color, height, and, most importantly, tattoos.

I pulled out one of the photographs that Kendra had given me the first
time I met her, the one showing Haley and a couple of girls with a man
whose face wasn't shown but whose tattoo was.  I'd retrieved the
photographs from Tommy Garcia before I'd gone looking for Haley.

"Haley, I'm handing you a photograph that appears to show you with a
man and two other girls.  Will you please tell the grand jurors what's
going on in that picture?"

"Uh, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

"Humor us," I said.

"Well," she said, looking at the picture, "a few of us were partying
with a guy, and someone saw a disposable camera lying around and
started taking pictures."

"Whose camera was it?"

"Kendra's," she said.

"Kendra Martin?"  I clarified.

"Yeah.  Kendra wasn't actually there.  She'd been in my room earlier,
hanging out, and left it behind."

"Are the other girls in the picture also from the Hamilton?"

"Yeah, on and off, like me," she said.

"Who's the man in the picture, the one with the tattoo of the Tasmanian
Devil?"

"That's Derrick Derringer."

"How do you know him?"  I asked.

"Like I said, hard not to know him," she said.  "Him and his brother
cut in on a lot of the girls' business out there.  They take a share
from you, or all of a sudden bad things start happening to you."

"Do you give any money to Frank and Derrick Derringer?"

"Yeah, I got to give 'em half of what I make.  For a long time, they
were leaving us younger girls alone as long as we'd do other stuff for
'em.  Now they want both.  Like that night we took the picture, we did
the group thing for him, but then I had to keep giving him money on top
of it."

"So you have had sexual intercourse with Derrick Derringer?"

"Duh," she said.

"The court reporter, Haley," I reminded her.

"Yes.  I've had sexual intercourse with him."

"To your knowledge, did Kendra Martin pay any of the money that she
earned to Frank and Derrick Derringer?"  I asked.

"Nope.  She hadn't been working long enough to really know who they
were yet.  She seemed to think she was too good for a lot of it and was
real careful to stay on her own."

"What did the Derringers think of that?"  I asked.

Haley and I had gone over her testimony carefully before I'd given her
the immunity deal.  I was still worried, though, that she'd back out on
me.

"They were pissed.  All the girls knew Kendra was out on her own.  A
couple times, we told her to come around when we knew Frank or Derrick
were coming by.  You know, we'd say we knew these guys and we wouldn't
be getting paid but needed to do it anyway.  I figured she knew the
score, but she kept blowing us off while we were still getting stuck
with them.  It was pissing a bunch of the girls off too, and they
started telling Frank and Derrick that they weren't going to go along
if Kendra wasn't."

"How did the Derringers react to that?"

Haley looked at me and then the door.  For a second, it seemed like she
considered bailing, but she stayed put.  She was going to need some
prodding.

"Haley, I asked you how the Derringers reacted to that."

"All I know is, I saw Derrick the day after Kendra got messed up.  He
said that me and the other girls should take a lesson from her, that
that's what happened to girls who didn't have someone watching out for
them."

"Did he ever tell you directly that he or his brother was involved in
the attack on Kendra?"  I asked.

"No, just that we should take a lesson from it."

"Did you say anything in response to that?"  I asked.  I could tell she
was considering clamming up again, but then she gave up.

"Yeah.  I was pretty messed up at the time and mouthed off to him.  I
told him he'd better be careful because Kendra had a picture of him."

"Are you referring to the photograph that we just discussed?"

"Yeah.  I saw the pictures after Kendra got them developed.  Derrick
freaked when I told him and started shaking me to find out what I was
talking about.  I told him I was just fucking with him, that the
picture didn't show his face or anything.  But then he made me tell him
where Kendra's mom lived at so he could try to get the picture back."

I paused to tell the grand jurors about the key missing from Kendra's
purse and Andrea Martin's suspicion that some items were out of place
in the Martin home.  I also showed them reports documenting the
break-in at my house, explaining that the photographs had been in Tommy
Garcia's possession until a few days ago.

"After you gave him Kendra Martin's address, did you ever talk to
Derrick Derringer again about the photograph?"

"Yeah.  He told me I better get that picture back from Kendra.  I've
been calling Kendra trying to do it, but Kendra will only talk on the
phone with me.  She won't meet me anywhere, so I've been trying to
avoid Derrick."  I mentally apologized to Kendra for doubting her.

"Haley, I want to show you another photograph now."  I handed her the
DMV photo I had pulled of Travis Culver and reminded the grand jurors
that Culver was the owner of the Collision Clinic who had testified at
Frank Derringer's trial.  "Do you recognize this man?"

"Sure, that's Travis," she replied.

"Do you know his last name?"

"Not before you told me.  Street don't really care about last names,"
she said.

"How do you know Travis?"  I asked.

"Regular out there on the street.  Dates.  You know."

"You mean he picks up prostitutes?"

"Yeah.  The younger the better, it seems.  I used to see him a lot more
about a year and a half ago.  Guess I got too old for him and he moved
on."

"Have you seen him at all since Kendra Martin was attacked?"  I
asked.

"Nope," she said.  "Seems like he stopped coming around about that
time."

The grand jurors didn't have any questions, so I thanked Haley for her
testimony and excused her.

Next up was Travis Culver.  I'd slapped the subpoena on him the day
before and received a call from an attorney within the hour.  Lucky for
me, Culver had called the attorney he uses for the auto shop, a guy
named Henry Lee Babbitt who hung a shingle outside of his house and
called it a law office.

Since Henry Lee's usual fare was wills and uncontested divorces, he was
useless as a criminal defense lawyer.  To begin with, I had to walk him
through the way grand jury subpoenas work.  Culver'd be subject to
arrest if he failed to appear.  Although he had the right to refuse to
respond to questions if he believed that the answers might incriminate
him, he had to show up, and he did not have the right to an attorney
during the grand jury proceedings.  At most, Henry Lee could wait in
the hall outside the hearing room; Culver could ask for breaks if he
wanted to consult with his attorney at any time.  You can see why the
defense bar says that grand jury proceedings are a prosecutor's best
weapon.

Henry Lee's request for an immunity deal was further proof of his
abject ignorance of criminal procedure.  A good defense lawyer will
find out what the prosecution knows before even considering the
possibility of a deal.  To do otherwise tips your hand.  Henry Lee had
tipped his for good.  I had told him only that I wanted to talk to
Culver about his testimony in the Derringer trial.  In return, Henry
Lee had given up his client in the form of a hypothetical.

"Let's say hypothetically that I had a client who got wrapped up by
some bad guys into an ugly sexual incident, thinking the whole thing
was consensual?"  he said.  "And then what if, hypothetically, when it
turned out that the young woman hadn't in fact consented to this little
encounter, the client got blackmailed by the bad guys into a
cover-up?"

Henry Lee had watched way too many bad TV shows, and now I had even
better questions for Travis Culver.

Culver looked terrified as he took the chair in the middle of the grand
jury room.  He was sleep-deprived and disheveled, and I could smell the
fear in his sweat as he passed.

At least Henry Lee had given him one piece of good advice; Culver
invoked his rights as soon as we got past his name and address.

"Do you know Frank or Derrick Derringer?  Isn't it true that you
overhauled Frank Derringer's car on a Sunday, on short notice, to get
rid of physical evidence?  Do you use the services of teenage
prostitutes?  Did you and Frank Derringer rape and beat Kendra Martin
and then leave her to die in the Gorge?"  That last one was what you
call a compound question, but no one was there to object to it, and
Culver wasn't going to answer anyway, so what the hell?

I kept going.  "Isn't it true that you paid Derrick and Frank Derringer
to stage a sexual assault upon a young girl for your pleasure?  And
that when, unbeknownst to you, the violence turned out to be real, they
threatened to reveal your identity unless you cleaned out the car and
offered false testimony in Frank Derringer's defense?"  Another
horrendously compound question, but it worked.  Culver was clearly
thrown off.  I wish there was a way for the court reporter to
transcribe the look on a witness's face.  This one said, How the hell
do you know all that?  I wanted to respond, Your stupid attorney pretty
much told me, but I didn't.

Culver looked like he was thinking about answering the question but
then gave me the standard response.  "On the advice of counsel, I
refuse to answer on the ground that it might incriminate me."

When I thought the grand jury had the gist, I excused Culver and
brought in my final witness, Lisa Lopez.

"On behalf of the grand jurors and myself, thank you for coming, Ms.
Lopez.  I know how busy you are.  You were the public defender assigned
to represent Frank Derringer, is that correct?"

"Yes.  As you and I have discussed, it is highly unusual and extremely
questionable that you have brought me here by subpoena, and I have
appeared only on your assurances that you are seeking an indictment
against Derrick Derringer, and that my testimony will not be used to
secure new charges against my client, Frank Derringer."

Securing Lisa's presence here at all had required substantial
maneuvering.  When I had explained the situation to her at her office,
after hours, she had immediately balked, citing attorney-client
privilege, work-product privilege, the duty of loyalty, and the duty of
zealous representation.  She seemed offended when I responded, "Ethics,
schmethics," so ultimately I'd had to convince her that helping me out
was both ethically permissible and morally required.  After lengthy
negotiations, she finally accepted service of the subpoena and promised
not to rat me out to my boss.  The deal was that I'd ask only a few
questions, which we agreed upon beforehand.  In response, she would
provide the exact answers we'd rehearsed in advance, including the
long-winded caveat she'd just provided as an introduction to her
testimony.

I continued the questioning as planned.  "In your defense of Frank
Derringer, one theory you presented at trial was that the crimes
against Kendra Martin were committed by whoever killed Jamie Zimmerman,
is that right?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Ms.  Lopez, I'm handing you a transcript of your opening statement in
the Derringer trial.  Please read for the grand jurors the highlighted
passage."

She read from the transcript:

"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 Miss 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."

I saw some of the grand jurors flip back into their notes, asking
themselves the same question I'd asked myself three days ago.  "Ms.
Lopez, how did you know that Jamie Zimmerman's purse was taken and
never recovered?  The police were unaware of that fact until just days
ago."

"I refuse to answer on the ground that the information is protected by
the attorney-client privilege and the work-product privilege," she
responded.

"Ms.  Lopez, you understand that the attorney-client privilege protects
only information obtained in the course of communications between you
and a client, is that correct?"

"That's correct, counselor."

"The work-product privilege, on the other hand, applies to any
information you obtain during the course of working as an attorney on
behalf of your client.  In other words, it covers not only
communications between you and your client but also information you
derive from research or interviews of third parties.  Is that a fair
summary of the privilege?"

"Yes, counselor."

"It would be a violation of your professional ethics, wouldn't it, Ms.
Lopez, to assert a privilege that you did not actually believe covered
the information requested from you?"  I asked.

"That's correct.  I would not assert a privilege unless I had a
good-faith belief that the privilege applied to the requested
information."

"I want to be very clear here, Ms.  Lopez."  I paused for emphasis.  "I
have asked you how you knew that Jamie Zimmerman's purse was taken from
her when she was killed.  And you are refusing to respond not just on
the basis of work-product privilege, but also on the basis of
attorney-client privilege.  Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is," she responded.

"I understand and respect your position, Ms.  Lopez.  Thank you for
your time," I said, excusing her.

When I announced that I had no further witnesses, the grand jurors'
questions began to fly.  Was I arguing that Frank Derringer had killed
Jamie Zimmerman?  How could that be, when we knew for certain that he
didn't kill at least two of the other women described in the Long
Hauler letter?  Did I think Derrick Derringer was in on it?  What
should they do about Travis Culver?  Did this mean that Detective
Forbes coached Margaret Landry's confessions?

"I am asking you to indict Derrick Derringer on the following charges.
First, statutory rape based on Haley Jameson's testimony that Derrick
Derringer has had sexual intercourse with her.  She is only sixteen
years old, and the photograph you saw corroborates her testimony.
Second, obstruction of justice and perjury for offering false testimony
on behalf of his brother, Frank Derringer.  Third, conspiracy to rape
and murder.  He may not have been present at the time that Kendra
Martin was attacked, but you have heard evidence suggesting that the
Derringer brothers conspired to rape and kill Kendra Martin to send a
message to other girls on the street that they'd better make their
payments, one way or the other.

"I am not presenting any charges relating to any of the murders
described in the Long Hauler letter, including the murder of Jamie
Zimmerman.  Nor am I requesting charges against Frank Derringer or
Travis Culver."  Double jeopardy protected Frank Derringer from being
charged again with the attack on Kendra, and Culver couldn't be
indicted by this grand jury, since he'd been brought here under the
compulsion of a subpoena.  "I understand that it is difficult to
reconcile my theory of the charges against Derrick Derringer with some
of the extraneous evidence.  The question for you to resolve is
whether, despite those complications, you believe a jury could find
Derrick Derringer guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

I had blocked off the rest of the grand jury's afternoon so they would
not feel pressured in their deliberations.  I gave them my pager number
and asked the foreperson to beep me when they'd reached a decision.

I passed Tim O'Donnell in the hallway on the way back to my office.

"Hey, Kincaid, I was just looking for you.  Where you been all
morning?"

"Went over to JC-2 for a couple of arraignments.  Crazy over there," I
said, looking down to make sure that everything was tucked away neatly
in my file.

So I wasn't sharing the sandbox anymore.  Big deal.  Playing well with
others isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Besides, technically speaking,
I had done everything I was told to do.  Frank Derringer was free, and
my actions had in no way jeopardized the exoneration of Margaret Landry
and Jesse Taylor.

As it turned out, O'Donnell still thought we were sharing.

"Just got back from OSP," he said, taking a bite of the bagel he was
carrying around.  The Oregon State Prison was nastiness incarnate, but
O'Donnell was probably well past letting it affect his appetite.
"Landry and Taylor passed their polys.  FBI guy says no signs of
deception to the three key questions."

The polygrapher had asked Taylor and Landry whether they abducted or
killed Jamie, wrote the Long Hauler letters, or knew the Long Hauler.
Passing the polys helped clear the way for their release.

For a second, I thought I felt a pang of guilt for not telling
O'Donnell what I'd done, but I decided it was hunger brought on by
watching him eat his bagel.  The moment passed when he started chewing
with his mouth open.

"So what happens next?"  I asked.  As far as I was concerned, what
happened next was a big fat indictment against Derrick Derringer, but I
kept that to myself.

"Duncan's on a call to the governor now," O'Donnell said.  "The only
question is whether to get Landry and Taylor out through the courts or
have the governor pardon them.  Looks like a pardon, though.  The
courts will take too long, and there's no guarantee we could even get
them out that way without an error at trial."

Believe it or not, what's known as a "mere" showing of innocence is not
a legal basis for setting aside a lawfully obtained conviction.
Instead, the defendant has to point to an error during trial that
affected the result of the case.  Illegally seized evidence introduced?
Public defender fell asleep?  Then you might have a chance at reversal.
But if the procedures were lawful, it's pretty much impossible to set
aside a jury's guilty verdict, even if you subsequently demonstrate
your innocence.  Respecting the finality of the guilty verdict is the
only way to keep the courts from being flooded by convicts' endless
claims of innocence.  Without a procedural error, Taylor and Landry had
a better chance of release through the governor's intervention than in
a court of law.

"Is Jackson willing to issue the pardon?"  I asked.

"Looks like it.  We've talked about a stipulation of police misconduct
as the trial error, but Duncan and Jackson are worried about a beef
from the police union," he said.

"Was Landry poly graphed about that?  What did she say about Chuck?"

"Nada.  The polygraph only covered the ultimate issue of factual
innocence.  The examiner was worried about adding too many
questions."

The greater the number of material questions you put in a poly, the
higher the risk of either false signs of deception or inconclusive
results.  So much for using modern technology to find out if the man
I'd been sleeping with was lying his ass off.

"Oh, and the FBI finished its profile.  Pretty much what we expected,"
he said.

"Any theory as to why the guy wrote the letters now, after all these
years?"  I asked.

"Probably because of the media attention.  He might not have come out
on the Taylor stories alone, or maybe he would've waited until after
the execution.  But the theory is that the combo of the Taylor and
Derringer stories was too much for this guy to resist.  The profiler
compared it to the Unabomber sending out his manifesto after Tim
McVeigh stole his thunder."

"So how come we haven't heard anything from him since?"  I asked.

"FBI says that's the kicker," he said.  "Usually, a communication like
that is followed up with a body or at least more taunts.  It's possible
there's another one out there, and he's waiting to see if we'll find it
on our own.  Another possibility, of course, is that this guy's got his
own way of operating.  Wait and see, I guess.  Anything else on your
end?"  he asked.

Oops.  Now I was going to have to be a hypocrite on that whole lying
thing.  "Nope," I said, mentally crossing my fingers.  "The victim
understands what's going on.  The family won't be making any statements
to the media.  They just want to be kept in the loop."  The truth was
that Kendra and her mom were so grateful for Kendra's continued
anonymity that they'd never contemplate making a statement to the
media.

But seeing as how I was already lying to Tim's face, there was no real
harm in letting him think the Martins might embarrass him publicly if
he dropped the ball.

I might not play well with others, but I was getting pretty good at
faking it.

My pager finally buzzed as I was taking a plea in Judge Weidemann's
courtroom.

"A problem, Ms.  Kincaid?"  Weidemann inquired, peering down over his
half-moon glasses.  I was surprised that he was paying enough attention
to the proceedings to notice that I'd glimpsed down at the device
clipped to my waistband.

"No, sir," I responded.  "Just waiting for a grand jury decision, your
honor."

"Not too much suspense to be found there.  Who's today's ham sandwich?"
he responded.  The defendant and his attorney, Frankie LoTempio, got a
laugh out of that one.  A running joke among criminal defense lawyers
is that grand jury proceedings are so one-sided that grand jurors would
indict a ham sandwich if asked to by the prosecutor.  The way I saw it,
if prosecutors were doing their jobs and only asking for indictments
that were warranted, grand jurors should be indicting all the cases
given to them.  I doubted that Weidemann and LoTempio wanted to hear my
view, though.

"Well, seeing as how they're the grand jurors and I'm a judge, let's
finish up here before you head on up to them, if that's acceptable to
you, Ms.  Kincaid?"  Weidemann asked.

"Of course, your honor," I said, reminding myself once again that
displays of ingratiating deference come with the territory when you're
a trial lawyer.  The rest of the sentencing was predictable, given
Weidemann's Solomon-like approach.  I recommended an upward departure
from the sentencing guidelines, mentioning a few facts I'd noted in the
file that were mildly aggravating some packaging materials, a tattoo
hinting at a gang affiliation, the defendant's choice words for the
arresting officer.  Then LoTempio cited a few lame reasons for
requesting a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines.  In the
end, Weidemann applied the guideline sentence.  The sentencing
guidelines provided 99 percent of all drug sentences and left little
discretion for the judge.  Weidemann, though, had to feel like he was
doing something important, so everyone who appeared before him played
along.

When we finished, I ran up to the grand jury room on the seventh floor
and knocked on the cracked door before pushing it open.  "You all
done?"  I asked.

The foreperson, a seventy-year-old man in a T-shirt that said I still
love my harley handed me the slip of paper.  A single check mark told
me they had true-billed the requested indictment by a unanimous vote.

"Some of us wanted to know if we'd be able to find out what happens in
the paper," he said.

"Oh, I think you can count on that," I said.

"Go get 'em, Tiger," he said.  "And watch out for yourself."

Maybe grand jurors are a prosecutor's conspirators after all.

I had wasted no time getting the paperwork for the indictment to Alice
Gernstein.  I thought I'd have to sneak it through while O'Donnell was
in court, but I got lucky.  His legal assistant mentioned that
O'Donnell had left early to head down to his fishing cabin.  The
superstar of office paralegals,

Alice had Derrick's warrant in the system by the following morning.

As it turned out, the rush hadn't done me a damn bit of good, because
three days later, Derringer still hadn't been picked up.

The plan was to find Derrick without tipping him off to the warrant.
Once he was in custody, I'd arraign him, confess my sins to Duncan, and
let the chips fall where they may.  The arrest might force my boss and
the bureau to come up with a theory that explained all the evidence,
not just the evidence they liked.

I didn't say it was a great plan, just a plan.

The plan was looking even lamer now that I couldn't get even the first
step off the ground.  I'd called in my markers with four different pals
in the Southeast district, but they hadn't seen Derringer at his house
or work all weekend.

At one point, I picked up the phone to call Chuck, but I quickly
replaced the handset.  Since the showdown at my house, I must have done
this at least a dozen times.

Grace was always good at strengthening my resolve, so I asked her to
meet for lunch at a bistro that was halfway between the salon and the
courthouse.  Once we'd placed our orders, I filled her in on my plan.

She wasn't pleased.  "You realize, don't you, that you may very well
get fired over this."

It didn't sound like a question, but I answered anyway.  "I sort of
figured that if Duncan tried to fire me, I'd use the grand jury
transcripts as leverage."

"And how, exactly, will the transcripts give you any leverage?"  she
asked.

"The press looks at the JC-2 calendar every day to see who gets
arrested.  When Derrick finally gets arrested, the media will start
asking questions, so Duncan will at least have to keep investigating
the Derringers and find out how they're involved with the Long Hauler.
If he tries to bury it and get rid of me, I could hint that I might
release the information presented to the grand jury."

We were momentarily distracted by the arrival of our food.  Or, to be
more accurate, by the arrival of our extremely attractive waiter.
Apparently having sex on a semiregular basis over the last month had
altered my cognitive priorities.

"I thought grand jury proceedings were secret," Grace said, as we both
admired our waiter's extremely attractive departure.

"They are.  Doesn't mean Duncan won't worry about the threat.
Prosecutors have been known to leak grand jury information when it
helps them.  Look at Ken Starr," I said.

"So your big plan is a bluff?"

"I'm not sure about that, Grace," I said.  "I think I'd actually do it
at this point.  I mean, they convicted Landry and Taylor based mostly
on the fact that Landry knew things no one but the killer could know.
Now those same defendants are being released, and Frank got his case
dismissed, because the Long Hauler knows things no one else could know.
But it turns out that Frank had information too.  How could he have
known Jamie Zimmerman's purse was stolen unless he was involved
somehow?  And the Derringers' involvement in teen prostitution is just
too coincidental.  I think Duncan will have to pursue it once I force
the issue with Derrick's arrest.  If he tries to ignore it, I don't
have a problem with making sure that the press doesn't let him."

"And what does Chuck think about your plan?"  she asked.

"He doesn't.  I haven't told him."

She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at me.

"Look, I realize that I might've had more pull with Griffith if I
hadn't been fooling around with Chuck."  I paused.  "To be honest,
Grace, I don't know what to think.  I mean, I seriously doubt that
Chuck coerced a confession out of Margaret Landry, but what if he did?
That cocky independence of his could translate into some questionable
police tactics."

"Or he could be a perfectly honest cop, Sam.  I thought it was that
cocky independence that appealed to you in the first place.

"No, I know.  I just want to make sure that my judgment's clear on this
one."

"That's so unlike you, Sam.  You're always so quick to say you're a
good judge of character.  That every egg's good or bad, and you can
tell right off the bat."

"That is what I always say," I confirmed.  "But what did Roger turn out
to be?"

"Well, blow me over.  You're beginning to sound like someone who's
willing to accept some gray areas in her life."

I half smiled.

"And how's Lucky Chucky taking it?"  she asked.

"He's not I mean, I haven't exactly explained it to him.  In fact,
we're not actually speaking at the moment, I don't think.  Which is a
bit inconvenient, because I want him to go pick up Derrick
Derringer."

There went that eyebrow again.

"And I miss him," I added.

Fifteen.

Before I left for the day, I checked in with my Southeast Precinct pals
to see if they'd had any luck, but there was still no sign of Derrick
Derringer.  It's hard to arrest someone when you've asked the few
uniformed patrol officers working on it not to do anything that might
tip the suspect off, like knock on his door or ask for him at work.

I thought again about calling Chuck on my way home, but I held myself
back.  I'd thought the evidence through backwards and forwards, but it
kept coming back to him.  Either he'd coerced a confession out of
Margaret Landry, or somehow she'd managed to squeak through the
polygraph while someone else wrote letters to the Oregonian in an
attempt to exonerate her someone who had access to details about
unsolved crimes.

But something was bothering me about the letters too.  It seemed
peculiar that the Long Hauler had confessed to every strangling case in
the Northwest Regional Cold Case Database that didn't involve DNA
evidence.  Why did all the killings happen to occur in the handful of
states that cooperated in the database?  And what were the odds that
every strangling without DNA in those states had been committed by the
Long Hauler?  The perfect correlation struck me as odd.  But every time
I felt like I was close to putting my finger on the missing piece, I'd
come back to the obvious: maybe Chuck just wasn't the person I thought
he was.

So I hadn't called him.  I decided that if Derrick didn't get picked up
tonight, I'd call in sick tomorrow and sit outside his house until he
came home.

Maybe if I hadn't gotten so caught up in fantasizing about Derrick's
impending arrest scene, I would've noticed when I opened the door that
Vinnie hadn't waddled up to meet me.  It wasn't until I was locking it
behind me and realized I didn't hear the alarm beeping that I
registered the deja vu.  Bracing myself for another crack on the head,
I heard a familiar voice, the one that had called my cell phone the
night I left Grace's.  "Welcome home, Samantha."

The good news was I'd managed to find Derrick Derringer.  The bad news
was he was standing behind me with a very large gun.

"Why don't you join us in the living room?"  He waved his gun to
indicate that I should walk in front of him.

The bad news got worse.  Tim O'Donnell was tied to my Mission-style
chair, Frank Derringer sat on my sofa with the remote control, and
Vinnie was whimpering, presumably relegated to the pantry again.

I noticed, though, that Derrick was pacing behind the sofa, and Frank
was chewing the cuticle of his right thumb.

They were nervous, and I tried to take advantage of it by faking
confidence.

"Nice to see you were enjoying a little TV.  Anything good on?  I try
to stay away from the reality shows myself," I said.

Derrick wasn't amused.  "Maybe that explains why she didn't listen to
you, Tim," he said, glancing at O'Donnell, who looked truly terrified.
"Has trouble with reality.  Now, if I were you, sweetheart, I'd shut
the fuck up and have a seat."

"Stop it, Sam."  A puddle under my Mission-style chair and spots on
O'Donnell's pants suggested that things had already gotten ugly before
my arrival.  "This is some serious shit."

Derrick laughed at him.  "Figure it out, ass-wipe.  This bitch don't
listen, not to you, not to anyone.  But you had to tell us you'd handle
everything, you'd get it all taken care of.  But what the fuck happens?
Nimrod here," he said, gesturing to his little brother, "gets his case
dismissed, and I wind up under indictment.  Well, I'm through letting
you and Frankie fuck this shit up.  This shit ends tonight.  My way."

"Look, I got you in just like you wanted," O'Donnell whined.  "You said
you'd let me go if I was telling the truth about knowing her alarm
code.  Let me out of here, and I won't say a word."

All that money for my super deluxe alarm, down the drain.  If I got out
of this mess, I'd be smart enough not to use the security code from
work as my home password.

Derrick laughed again.  "What are you gonna do, Tim, call a judge and
say I broke my word?  This ain't some plea bargain, counselor.  You
don't get to walk just 'cause you flipped on someone."

"Jesus, Derrick, I've done everything you wanted!"  O'Donnell was
practically whimpering.

"No, you did everything you wanted!"  Derrick was pointing the gun at
him now.  "I thought the Zimmerman girl was behind us, and now dumb
fuck here goes and does it to some other girl, and you say you'll take
care of it again, but I'm the one who winds up getting fucked in the
ass."

O'Donnell was blowing it.  The Derringers had been showing signs of
doubts about their plans, but now Tim was getting Derrick wound up, and
Derrick was reverting to his aggressive mode.  I had to find a way to
make Derrick anxious again.

"Look, Derrick," I said, speaking very slowly.  "I don't know what's
going on between you and Tim here, but killing us will only make things
worse.  There's no murder beef on you right now.  You kill us, and
you're going to feel heat like you never knew before on what do you
have, a few forgeries or something?  Don't do this."

It didn't work.  Now the gun was pointed at me.  And Derrick was still
ranting.  "Don't you pull that shit with me.  You know exactly what's
going on here, and that's the whole problem now, isn't it?  You
couldn't let it alone.  You got a major hard-on for this case and
couldn't let it drop.  Now this dumb-fuck DA's calling me, telling me
you got a fucking indictment against me."

I couldn't stop to figure out how O'Donnell knew about the indictment
or why he would tell the Derringers.

"Derrick, listen to me.  The indictment was a bluff.  Grand jurors will
indict anyone the prosecutor tells them to indict.  I just wanted you
picked up so the police would talk to you about the case.  I don't have
any evidence against you or your brother."  I could tell he was
beginning to tune in, so I talked a little faster.

"Here's what we're going to do.  Tim, as a supervisor at the

District Attorney's Office, you are on official notice that I am hereby
resigning from my position as a deputy district attorney.  Derrick,
give me some money.  A dollar, whatever, and tell me you want to talk
about your legal problems.  Attorney-client privilege will protect
everything you say to me, OK?  Let me talk to you about this."

Derrick was looking at me, not saying anything.

Frank couldn't keep quiet any longer.  "Derrick, give it to her," he
said.

"Shut up, Frank," Derrick said.  "She's full of shit, and she's gonna
die, so I don't give a shit about privilege."

"Think about it, Derrick."  Frank was beginning to sound desperate.
"Just in case something goes wrong, the judge won't let her rat on
us."

"Yeah, well, nothing's going wrong," Derrick retorted, clicking the
safety off his gun and pointing it at me.  "You're the one who leaves
people alive who are supposed to be dead, not me."

"Stop!  It's not supposed to happen till after eight!"  Frank yelled.

Hearing they'd apparently penciled in my death for a specific time made
me dizzy.  Luckily, I seemed to have found an ally in Frank.  He fished
a dollar out of the front pocket of his jeans and asked if that would
work for both of them.

"Derrick, do you accept my representation?"  I asked.

"Sure, what the fuck?  Three times I went down, I wanted to kill my
lawyers.  Guess I can fulfill my wish."

I always wondered what it would be like to go into private practice.
This wasn't what I pictured, but I offered my advice anyway.

"Frank's got a free ride on anything that happened with Kendra Martin.
The trial started, so double jeopardy protects him.  And there's no
physical evidence to link you to anything, Derrick.  Not that I'm
saying you did anything, because I don't know that you did, of course.
And, on Zimmerman, two people have already been convicted, so that
pretty much creates reasonable doubt for anyone else the State tries to
charge down the line."

He was thinking about it, I could tell.  What I couldn't tell was
whether his brain was big enough to comprehend it all.

"Nice try," he said, "but you left out my fucking eyewitness over
here."

"Your brother?"  I asked.  "Frank's not going to turn you in, are you,
Frank?"

This pissed Derrick off for some reason.  He said, "I told you she was
full of shit, Frank.  Don't pretend like you don't know what's going
on, bitch.  My first mistake was letting Master Crime Fighter here live
when it turned out he was a DA and not some salesman from Idaho like he
said.  Dumb and Dumber here meet each other in a chat room.  So one day
Frankie tells me he knows a furniture salesman from Idaho who's willing
to pay big for a gang bang on a young' un  We set him up with Jamie,
and next thing you know the girl's dead and, lo and behold, the
salesman's a DA.  Should have killed you then, O'Donnell."

"Frank's the one who killed her, Derrick, not me," O'Donnell said.
"He's the one who got out of control.  Luckiest thing that ever
happened to you was me being on call when her body was found.  I got
you guys out of that jam, and I've been getting you out of this one."

O'Donnell was getting Derrick riled up again.  "That's bullshit, man!
You helped yourself out on that first one, but now you've been screwing
us."

"Tim, you were involved in this and then told Landry what to say?"  I
asked, trying to follow the conversation between the two of them.
"That's how she knew everything about Jamie?"

"I don't know how she knew, Sam, I always assumed it was Forbes.  But I
ran with it and got the convictions, didn't I, Derrick?  And, even
though we were supposed to be even after that, I've been trying to help
Frank out ever since.  When he got popped in Clackamas County, it was
me who told him to argue consent instead of that stupid alibi.  And it
got him a damn good plea deal, didn't it?  I've been trying to get him
out of this one, too.  I used information from confidential police
databases to write those Long Hauler letters.  Even tonight, I've done
everything you asked.  You wanted me to leave a message for Sam, I did
it.  I got you the alarm code.  I've helped you."

Tim obviously didn't care anymore about lying to me; he was doing
whatever he could to save himself before the Derringers killed me.  His
pleas hadn't seemed to work.

"And now I'm under fucking indictment," Derrick said.  "So it's time to
put this thing to rest."

"What message?  I didn't get any message."  I was frantically stalling
for time before they could implement whatever plan they had in mind.

"Yes, you did, and the police will find it with your bodies," Derrick
said.

Frank went into the kitchen and pushed a button on my answering machine
with his knuckle.  I heard Tim's voice say, "Sam, it's Tim O'Donnell. I
just wanted to make sure we're still on for tonight to talk about the
case.  If I don't hear from you, I'll be at your house around eight.
See ya."

Frank came back in, looking very proud of himself.  "See,

Tim tells us that the FBI's waiting for the Long Hauler to make a big
splash.  So he's going to come here tonight to kill you both."

Derrick laughed.  "Yeah, Tim.  Thanks for the imaginary friend.  It was
brilliant.  He'll take care of the two of you, and down the road we'll
take care of Haley and the Martin girl after we've turned them out for
a few more months.  They'll just be a couple of dead prostitutes."

"Yeah, maybe the Long Hauler can write a letter about it," Frank added,
laughing with his brother.

They were psychopaths, but I had to give them credit.  They were smart
psychopaths.  My head was reeling.  There was no Long Hauler. O'Donnell
had access to the Northwest Regional Cold Case Database. He'd written
the letters, carefully selecting details only from cases that lacked
DNA evidence.  He'd probably mailed them when he was out of town at his
fishing cabin.

"Frank, Derrick," I said.  "It doesn't matter that Tim was there when
Jamie died.  There's a rule that says a co-conspirator's testimony
alone isn't enough to convict.  Even if Tim testified against you, the
State would need other evidence to corroborate the testimony.  There
isn't any.  Anyway, he's the last one who's going to turn you in.  It
implicates him too."

O'Donnell finally clued in.  "She's right, Derrick," he said.  "I'd
never testify against you, but even if I did, the rule she's talking
about would keep there from being any case."

The tag team approach seemed to be working.  "You're better off blowing
town than killing us," I said.  "You commit a double murder, and you're
looking at the death penalty.  They won't just assume the Long Hauler
did it.  They'll check for copycats, scour the files we were working
on.  They'll find the pictures I have of you with Haley.  They'll find
Travis Culver.

Once the police are done fishing around, you'll wind up on death row.
As it is, you can bail."

Derrick thought about it for a few seconds, then shook his head.  "Nice
effort, but our previous counsel here already gave us some advice.  I
tried like hell to get those pictures back to be safe, but O'Donnell
here tells me they don't show much.  Hell, my face ain't even in 'em.
As for Culver, he'll be shot during a robbery gone bad at the Collision
Clinic."

"Derrick," O'Donnell said, "don't you think the police are going to put
it together?  A witness, the DA, and the victim in Frank's trial all
turn up dead?  Don't do this, man."

They needed to see that their plan was starting to fall apart.  "The
police will find the transcript of the grand jury testimony against
you," I said.  "They'll draw the same conclusions I did.  Right now,
there's not enough proof, but with two dead DAs they'll put it
together.  And the grand jury testimony will be admissible in court if
any of the witnesses are dead."

"What grand jury testimony?"  Derrick asked.  "Tim, you said there was
no record of a grand jury testimony.  Is there or isn't there?  Don't
you fucking lie to me!"  he yelled, back-handing O'Donnell with the
gun.

Tim's head jerked to one side with the blow.  When he sat back up,
blood was running from a cut beneath his right eye.  "We don't have
court reporters for normal grand jury sessions, but you can request one
if you want to keep a record."

Derrick smacked him again in the same place, bursting the cut open even
wider.  "Now you fucking tell me, man!"  He pursed his lips, trying to
figure out his next move.  "OK, bitch."

I assumed he was talking to me.

"You think you're so smart, but now I know you got a transcript, you're
gonna tell me where it is."

"It's at the office," I said.

"That's bullshit," Derrick said.  "Tim tells me you been holding out on
him.  He couldn't find the files in your office and tells me you've
been hiding them at home.  Only way he knew you indicted me was a
secretary.  Ain't that right, Tim?"

I looked over at O'Donnell.  The right side of his face was swollen and
bloodied.

"Alice mentioned it to me," he said by way of explanation.  "She
recognized the name and thought I should know about it."

In an office where I could never find anyone to help me, I'd managed to
find someone who was too competent.  I should've known Alice Gernstein
wouldn't miss a beat.

It was clear that O'Donnell was losing his resolve to fight.  It was
also clear that I wasn't digesting the new information quickly enough.
My first impulse was to be pissed at him for snooping through my
office, but then I remembered that this was a man who had helped kill
Jamie Zimmerman, sent an innocent man to death row, and led the
Derringers to me to save his own ass.

Derrick was behind me now, running the head of his gun along my
collarbone, pushing aside my hair to graze the back of my neck.  "Tell
us where the transcript is, Sam, or I'm gonna have one hell of a time
on your buddy Kendra before she dies."

I resisted the urge to tell him I wasn't as stupid as O'Donnell.  I
knew they were going to kill us and do horrible things to Kendra before
they killed her, whether I was helpful or not.  I also knew that the
promise of those transcripts was the only leverage I had at this
point.

Luckily, I'd left my case file in the trunk of my car.  "I've got them
locked in a safe," I said.

"Good girl," Derrick said.  "Now where's the safe?"

"Upstairs," I said, "in the master bedroom."

"Aangh," he responded, like a buzzer on a game show, "wrong answer.  I
personally tossed this place looking for your little friend's peepshow
pictures, and there ain't no safe."

"It's an old wall safe.  It's hidden in the baseboard.  There's no way
you'd see it."

I could picture Derrick searching his memory for the ransacking of my
bedroom, doubting whether he would have noticed an irregularity in the
oversized baseboards.  He threw a note pad and pen at me from the
dining room table.  "The combination," he said.  "Where is it in the
baseboards?"

"Directly behind the bed," I said, as I scrawled down three numbers
that were all slightly off.  If my guess about what was going to happen
was wrong, I could always tell them that the safe stuck sometimes.

Derrick snatched the paper from my outstretched hand and gave it to his
brother, gesturing with his head toward the stairs.  "Here, take
these," he said, throwing him a pair of gloves from his jacket pocket.
Frank took the stairs two at a time.  I heard a few thumps from
upstairs, followed by silence and a few more thumps.  I tried not to
think about Frank Derringer being in my bedroom.

After a few more rounds of thumps, Frank scrambled back down the stairs
to the landing.  "That bed is fucking heavy, man.  I can't budge it."

I had sworn at myself many times for buying a solid maple bed that I
couldn't move without the help of a strong friend.  But it had just
been added to the very short list of things I'd never get rid of.  That
is, if I lived past eight o'clock.

Derrick was less happy with the news.  "Jesus Christ, man.

Can't you do a fucking thing by yourself?"  Then he looked around the
room, in search of Plan B. C'mon, pea brain, I thought, watching him
ponder the possible combinations.  There's only one right answer
here.

His eyes eventually fell on me.  He gestured toward the stairs with his
head and said, "You, go up and help."  Yes!  Good answer, Derrick, good
answer!  "Try anything, and Ken-dra will pay the price," he yelled as I
went up the stairs, Frank behind me.

Frank was a lightweight.  The bed was approximately four centimeters
from where I'd last left it.  I walked around to the far side, saying,
"If we each take one leg of the.  headboard and pull back, it's usually
the best way to move it."

I watched Frank take his position on the other side of the bed, and
then I crouched to my knees to reach beneath the bed ruffle and grab
the headboard.  As Frank pulled against his side of the bed, I pulled
on my side with my right hand.  With my left, I reached inside the top
shelf of my nightstand and pulled my .25-caliber automatic loose from
the tape that held it to the bottom of my drawer.  I slid it onto the
floor next to me and then pulled on the bed hard with all my weight.

The bed jerked a few feet away from the wall.  Frank rose from his side
of the bed and saw my gun aimed on him before I'd fired off the shot.
If he could've just stood still, the bullet would have hit him dead
center in the chest.  Instead, he ran for the door quickly enough that
it caught him in the right shoulder.

I fired off a second shot but missed and hit the doorframe.  Damn.  Too
much time on the firing range, not enough chasing down wily targets.

Two quick shots rang from downstairs as I followed Frank to the door.
By the time I got there, he was almost to the end of the hallway
leading to the stairs.  I fired another shot.  I must've hit him,
because I heard a low grunt.  I must not have gotten him good, though,
because he turned down the stairs, and my next shot ripped through the
shameless Warhol knockoff on my wall.

Assuming that Derrick would be waiting for me at the bottom, I took the
stairs with my back pressed against the inner wall.  I stopped at the
last step before the landing, steeling myself to make the turn.  The
pressure of my heart pounding against my chest was fierce, and I fought
to catch my breath.

I poked my head around the corner and then retreated to the safety of
the wall again.  Keeping my back against the wall, I began moving down
the second half of the stairs.  Tim O'Donnell was still in my Mission
chair, but now blood was oozing from a dark hole in his forehead.  From
the looks of things, a second bullet had been fired into his groin.

As much as I'd practiced shooting, I'd never made a sweep through a
house before, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do next. Without
any other basis of information, I instinctively relied upon that most
reliable of sources, television.

From the landing, I could see that the front entrance and living room
were clear.  I swung off the stairs in a half circle to face the back
of the house, my gun outstretched in front of me.  Still clear.

The living room and Tim's dead body were to my left now as I faced my
dining room and kitchen.  I reached down slowly, keeping my gun pointed
in front of me, and grabbed my purse.  If I could just make it out the
front door and to the safety of my car, I'd be home free.

As I reached to unbolt the front door, I saw Derrick spring around the
corner of the dining room with his gun in front of him.  He must've
watched TV as a kid, too.  What he should've been doing was practicing
at the firing range, because he was a piss-poor shot.  I heard the
mirror behind me crash as a bullet ripped into it.

I fired off two shots as I jumped across the hallway, over the top of
my sofa, and into the coffee table.  I muffled a cry as pain shot
through my left side where I landed against the oak edge.  I scurried
backward to get myself out of the pool of blood that was quickly
forming beneath O'Donnell and my Mission chair.  The noise was blocked
out by the sound of the back door sliding open, followed by tires
squealing down the street.

I don't know how long I lay there, listening to myself breathe, trying
to convince myself that I couldn't hear anything else.  Even Vinnie was
quiet now.

I finally mustered up the courage to crawl around the back of the sofa
and sneak a quick peek into the dining room.  I'd done right by the
firing range.  Derrick Derringer was on his back, two bullet holes
squarely in the middle of his chest.  Apparently, it was OK for me to
move while I was firing, as long as my target stood still.

Based on the trail of blood through the dining room, into the kitchen,
and out the back door, I guessed that Frank had fled when he saw his
brother go down.  More blood outside suggested that Frank was long
gone.

I freed Vinnie from the pantry as I dialed 911.  Then I sat in a ball
on the kitchen floor holding him and my gun close to my chest until I
heard sirens pulling up to the house and fists pounding on the front
door.

Sixteen.

When I finally woke up the next morning, my whole body was on fire.  I
was also sleepy and had a sore throat.  By the time the police finally
left around two in the morning I'd related my entire story three
different times.  First, I had to tell the patrol officers who
responded to the 911 call, so they wouldn't shoot me when I answered
the front door with a gun in my hand, two dead bodies behind me, and
bullet holes all over the place.

Then I had to give it to Walker and Johnson, who drew the MCT call-out.
They offered to page Chuck for me.  I guess once your sex life's on the
front page of the newspaper, it's considered public knowledge. They
apparently didn't know the whole story, because they seemed caught off
guard when I asked them to call my dad instead.

Then I had to explain it all a third time to Griffith, who showed up
just as the medical examiner was zipping the body bag closed around Tim
O'Donnell's corpse.

"The Chief called me," he said.  "He thought I should know that two of
my deputies were involved in a shoot-out."

By then, my narrative skills had gotten pretty proficient.  The
Derringers' involvement in street-level prostitution.  O'Donnell's
extracurricular interests, which led him from what he thought was a
staged fantasy with an underage prostitute to the murder of Jamie
Zimmerman.  How Kendra's assault arose from the same scenario, but this
time with Travis Culver as the not-so-innocent dupe.  Culver's lies
about Frank's car.  O'Donnell's fabrication of the Long Hauler letters.
My night of shoot-'em-up action.  I dumped it all on him.  Except the
part where I'd given O'Donnell my resignation.

"You should've come to me with this, Samantha," he said.  He looked
tired, and, in the light of my kitchen, the wrinkles that usually
seemed distinguished just looked old.

"I thought I did the right thing at the time.  I knew O'Donnell was set
on killing the case, and I assumed you'd listen to him unless I had
some leverage."

He stood to leave.  "You should give me more credit, Sam.  I'm an
independent thinker, and now I'm going to go home to think."  As he
headed out the door, he gave me a wave over his shoulder.  "Nice house
you got here.  See you in the morning."

I had assumed from his comment that I was supposed to go to the office
this morning, regardless of my sleep deprivation, sore throat, and
aches.  It definitely beat being dead, though.

And at least I was safe from the Derringers.  At my insistence, Walker
had dispatched patrol officers to watch Haley and Kendra while police
began their search for Frank Der ringer.  I thought about doing the
same for Travis Culver, but as far as I was concerned, he could fend
for himself.  The warning call I placed to Henry Lee Babbitt seemed
courtesy enough.

Around the time Griffith left, Johnson snapped his cell phone shut and
announced they'd found Frank.

"Was he dumb enough to go home?"  I asked.

"Wherever he was headed, he never got there.  Traffic responded to a
major one-car accident on I-Eighty-four.  The car burst through the
railing at an overpass and flipped head first onto the concrete below.
Driver was dead by the time they cut the car open.  They were searching
the car for holes, trying like hell to figure out where the bullets in
the driver's shoulder and ass came from, when they heard the APB for
Derringer on the radio."

"His butt?"  Walker said.

"Yeah.  Looks like that second bullet of yours went straight into the
man's left cheek, Kincaid.  Must have hurt like a mother fucker when he
was driving on the freeway.  He was probably squirming around trying to
take the weight off his bony ass when he lost control."

I hadn't been able to laugh with them about it then, but in the morning
shower, as I rubbed a bar of Dove on my own left bum, I could see the
humor, and I laughed until I started crying again.

A strange bubble of silence followed me through the courthouse as I
walked to my office.  I guess no one knew what to say to me.  This
morning's news had featured vague reports of a fatal shoot-out at my
house involving the Derringer brothers and O'Donnell.  The reports
didn't explain that they were all trying to kill me, only that "police
were investigating."

When I got into my office, I checked my voice mail, hoping for a
message from Chuck.  No luck.  He hadn't called my home or cell,
either.  I did, however, get a message from Griffith, summoning me to
his office.

When I got there, he handed me a piece of paper and asked me what I
thought.

It was a letter from Griffith to Governor Jackson, supporting the
pardon requests of Margaret Landry and Jesse Taylor.  It explained that
all currently available evidence indicated that Frank Derringer and Tim
O'Donnell had killed Jamie Zimmerman during a rape arranged through a
teenage prostitution ring managed by the Derringer brothers.  O'Donnell
had pursued the case against Landry and Taylor based upon the
circumstantial evidence that existed, possibly providing the
confidential information to Landry that eventually helped secure the
convictions.  Then, when Frank and an unnamed suspect assaulted Kendra,
he'd done what he could to get rid of the case.  When I thwarted his
efforts to issue it as a general felony, he fabricated the Long Hauler
by using confidential information he found about unsolved murders in
the cold case database and then ordered me to dismiss the case.

The memo went on to explain my discovery of the Derringers' connection
to the sex industry.  After briefing Griffith, I'd obtained an
indictment against Derrick Derringer as the first step in an envisioned
investigation into the Zimmerman and Martin cases.  Unfortunately,
O'Donnell had discovered the investigation and tipped off the
Derringers.  They broke into my house, I heroically saved the day, and
Griffith would be pursuing any remaining culprits to the full extent of
the law.

It was accurate in the ways that counted, and at this point I really
didn't care if Duncan wanted to cover his ass.  He was covering mine
too, and the end result was the right one.  "Looks good," I said. "Will
Jackson issue the pardon?"

"It's a done deal," he said.  "The governor's office will announce it
tomorrow, and Landry and Taylor should be out by that afternoon.  We
need to talk about tying up the loose ends.  We'll have problems going
after Culver.  You know that, don't you?"

I told him I did, but he still seemed to think he needed to convince
me.

"Even if your victim can ID him, we're gonna have the same problems you
had with Derringer.  No physical evidence.  No corroborating testimony,
because everything you heard between the Derringers is hearsay.  No
direct evidence of intent to kill.  Not to mention the time that's
passed since the offense."

"I know," I said.

"You think this guy's attorney will go for a pre indictment deal?"  he
asked.

"Depends on the terms," I said, "but, yeah.  Culver's scared.  Now that
he knows the Derringers aren't going to kill him, I think he'd like to
take his lumps and get it over with."

"Alright.  I was thinking of something like Rape Three.  Have him do a
few years but no Measure Eleven charges.  Part of the deal could be a
scholarship account for the girl, since this guy's got a business.
How's that sound?"

We both knew Culver deserved to go away for good.  The Derringers may
have pretended that the violence was staged, but it took people like
Culver and O'Donnell to choose to believe it.  The reality was that
Griffith had come up with a deal that was the most we could hope for
under the circumstances.  Sometimes that's as close to fair as we get
around here.

"I'll call Henry Lee with it.  He'll be happy to hear he doesn't have
to try an actual case."

"Then why don't you take the rest of the day off?  I'd say you've
earned it."

I turned back before leaving the office.  "Tim said he didn't give
anything to Landry, that he assumed Forbes did," I said.

"She gets out either way, Sam.  Unless you think Forbes is a long-term
problem, it's cleaner this way."

"I can't make that call right now."

"I know.  That's why I made it."

I started to leave again but stopped at the door.

"Now what?"  he said.

"Thanks, Duncan."

"Anytime, Deputy Kincaid."

I ignored the stares again on the way back out of the courthouse.  Let
'em think I was in trouble.  Tomorrow, I'd be a hero.

I wanted to go home and sleep for the next twenty hours, but there was
someone I needed to see.

Like most prisons, the Oregon Women's Correctional Institute had been
dumped in the middle of nowhere to avoid public outrage and plummeting
property values.  The only other buildings within a three-mile radius
were two similarly ostracized yet essential enterprises, a casino and
an outlet mall.  Needless to say, the combination made for an
interesting mix of soccer moms, prison families, and senior citizens in
RVs.

The guard brought Margaret Landry to meet me in one of the sterile
rooms used for attorney-client conferences.  As I had requested, he
moved her in leg shackles and handcuffs.

When he brought her into the room, I said, "I don't really think those
are necessary, Deputy.  Would you mind removing them and leaving us
alone?  I'm sure Ms.  Landry and I will be just fine here without all
of this."

If the guard ever got tired of corrections, he should try Hollywood.
His best attempt to look worried about my request was pretty realistic.
He removed the cuffs and shackles and left us alone.

I'd seen pictures of Margaret Landry, of course, but she'd aged
considerably during her two years in prison.  Assisted by too many
cigarettes and too little sleep, she'd gone from looking well fed and
nurturing to haggard and crotchety.

After I introduced myself, she said, "I been dealing with someone in
your office named O'Donnell."

I dropped the bomb on her and announced that O'Donnell was dead.  To
simplify things, I told her that Jamie Zimmerman's murderers had been
identified and killed, but not before they had shot Tim O'Donnell.  I
figured it might be hard to earn her trust if I revealed that a member
of my office was a homicidal rapist.  She'd get the details from
someone else down the road, anyway.

"Because of everything that's happened, you'll be getting out of here
tomorrow," I said.

"Where are they moving me to?"

"You can stay wherever you want.  Maybe with your daughters until you
adjust to things.  You're being pardoned, Margaret.  You'll be free,
with no criminal record."

Her lower lip began to shake, and pretty soon she was crying.

When she'd finally stopped trembling, she lifted her head to the
ceiling.  I couldn't tell if she was looking for answers or trying to
thank someone, but I could tell she hadn't felt however she was feeling
for a long, long time.

"I never meant this to happen," she said.  "I kept calling the police
on Jesse, but wouldn't no one help me.  When Jamie's body turned up and
I saw her in the paper, I thought I'd finally get that son of a bitch
out from under my roof, but they didn't believe me.  They told me I
didn't have no corroboration."  I kept digging myself in deeper and
deeper, and next thing I know I'm under arrest myself and can't take
any of it back."

"I feel bad for you, Margaret, but you put an innocent man in prison
and kept the police from looking for the men who actually killed Jamie
Zimmerman."

"Jesse Taylor ain't no innocent, but you're right about that last part.
As sorry as I feel for myself, I can't help thinking that them other
girls would be alive if I hadn'ta done all this."

I thought about letting her in on the truth about the Long Hauler, but
the fact of the matter was, her actions had cleared the way for the
Derringers to hurt Kendra and countless other girls.  The rest of the
story was minutiae.

"The pardon will make it clear that you're innocent, Margaret.  When
you get out tomorrow, you'll not only be free, you'll have your good
name back.  It must have been awful for you these past years, having
people think you did something so horrible, knowing you were
innocent."

Her eyes started to well up again.

"And when you get out tomorrow, everyone's going to hear that you were
telling the truth at your trial.  They'll know that that detective,
Chuck Forbes, helped you come up with corroboration to set up Jesse."

Mid-sob, she went silent, and I heard her breath catch in her throat.
It was time to ask the question that had brought me here.

"You knew her, didn't you, Margaret?  You knew Jamie Zimmerman.  That's
how you knew what kind of earrings to buy, how you knew her mother's
phone number?"

I'd seen the look on her face countless times.  It's the look witnesses
get when they want to talk but they're scared, even though they know
you already know what they have to say.

"After what you've been through, no one's going to prosecute you for
trying to help yourself out a little on the stand.  The only thing that
changes here is what people are going to make of Chuck Forbes, whether
they're going to assume he did something that maybe he didn't do.  The
choice is yours, Margaret.  You're getting out tomorrow either way."

She was tough, but one more push should do it.

"How'd you know her?"

"She'd come into Harry's Place sometimes when she was trying to go
straight."  She started to explain that Harry's was the teen homeless
shelter, but I let her know with a nod that I was familiar with it.

"I went to Harry's for a while when I was volunteering for Art
Therapy," she said.  "They sent us out to different nursing homes and
shelters to paint ceramics, arts and crafts, that kind of thing.  Jamie
was such a sweet girl.  She stopped coming in for such a long time, and
then I saw her in the paper.  They found her body and they were looking
for information.  I started wondering who could do something like that
to her.  Then I started thinking that I lived with someone who could do
that.  A few days went by, and they still hadn't found her.  I thought
I could mess Jesse up with his parole officer, but then it just
snowballed.  I thought it would look even worse if they knew I knew
Jamie, so I said I got it from that young cop.  I'm so sorry.  I'm just
so sorry."

I left her there crying.  I needed the emotional energy for myself.

When I got to my car, I found a message from Ray Johnson on my cell
phone.  He had run all the names of Frank and Derrick's known
associates.  Turned out that one of Derrick's old bunkmates was on
probation for driving a brown Toyota Tercel with a suspended license.
He spilled his guts the minute he heard Derrick and Frank were dead. He
owed Derrick money and was repaying the debt by following me around and
reporting back to Derrick.  Derrick used the information about my
whereabouts to break into my house, crank-call me, and feed the
Oregonian anonymous tips about my sex life.  Funniest thing was, a
search of the guy's belongings turned up a dollar bill with his license
plate number scrawled on it.  He must've followed me on one of my many
food stops.

I thought the guy deserved a life sentence for helping the Derringers
scare the shit out of me and publicly exposing my sex life, but in the
end I wasn't sure he'd done anything illegal.  Maybe I'd think about it
later when my brain started to work again.

For now, all I wanted was to go home and go to sleep.  But I had one
more thing to do.  I sat in my car in the prison parking lot, staring
at my cell phone, before mustering the courage to dial.

The sound of his recorded voice was anticlimactic.  I did my best at
the beep, but I knew it was going to take more than a phone call.

When I pulled into the driveway, he was waiting on the front porch.  I
had a lot to make up to him, if he'd give me the chance.  It would
start with a kiss on the forehead and, I hoped, a very long nap.

Acknowledgments

Judgment Calls is the product of the tremendous support I've been
fortunate enough to enjoy throughout my legal career and during my work
on this first novel.

I am especially grateful to my colleagues at Hofstra Law School;
Multnomah County Senior Deputy District Attorney John Bradley; Michael
Connelly, Jonathon King, and Maggie Griffin for convincing me my
manuscript would be finished; Jennifer Barth, editor-in-chief at Henry
Holt, for her incredible work, intelligence, and creativity; Philip
Spitzer, the most loyal and supportive agent on the planet; Scott
Sroka; and, above all, my phenomenal family.

Samantha's dedication and humanitarianism are modeled on the hard work
I observed among former coworkers at the Multnomah County DA's Office.
You know who you are.

About the Author

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair Burke
now teaches criminal law at Hofstra School of Law and lives on Long
Island and in western New York.  She is the daughter of acclaimed crime
writer James Lee Burke.  Judgment Calls is the first in a series
featuring Samantha Kincaid.

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Alafair Burke now
teaches criminal law at Hofstra School of Law and lives in Long Island,
New York.  She is the daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee
Burke.