Judgement Calls
Alafair Burke
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. As Sam 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 judgement - not only in matters of the law but in her personal life - called into question...
Review
'Debut novel by daughter of the great James Lee Burke and one that he can proudly applaud. Quite unlike JLB's own work, but exciting, individual and unreservedly excellent. ... An absorbing, enjoyable first outing. Safe to assume they'll be many more.' -- Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW
'Burke is a born storyteller and has created an attractive heroine whom I look forward to meeting again.' -- Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'A legal thriller with a twist that is stuffed with authentic detail.' YORK EVENING PRESS
'Burke's entry into the world of crime fiction was never going to be easy. The daughter of possibly the genre's greatest exponant - James Lee Burke - the dagers were bound to be drawn from the start. But to her credit, the former Assistant DA manages to hold her own. Judgment Calls is a smart and savvy legal thriller. ... A chip off the old block.' IRISH EXAMINER
'Burke...handles the various threads of the story with aplomb, her characters are believable, her plotting is right on the buton, and in Kincaid she has created a sympathetic protagonist that I'm sure we'll hear about again.' IRISH TIMES
About the Author
A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra School of Law and lives in New York City. She is the daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke.
JUDGMENT CALLS
Alafair Burke
First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Orion, an imprint of the
Orion Publishing Group Ltd.
Copyright 2003 by Alafair Burke
For my loving parents, James Lee and Pearl Chu Pai Burke
One.
A February morning in Portland, Oregon, and it was still dark outside
when I walked into the courthouse, the air thick with the annoying
drops of humidity that pass for rain in the Pacific Northwest. No
surprises there. What did surprise me was finding a Police Bureau
sergeant waiting in my office.
I'm a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County, making me about
one percent of the office that prosecutes state crimes committed in the
Portland area. Since I took this job three years ago, I've gotten used
to having voice mail and e-mail messages waiting for me on Monday
mornings. People just don't seem to realize that government law
offices aren't open on weekends. It's unusual, though, and rarely a
good sign, to find a cop waiting for you first thing in the morning.
At least I knew this one.
"Hey, Garcia, who let you in?" I said. "I thought we had some
security around here."
Sergeant Tommy Garcia looked up from the Oregon State Bar magazine he
had lifted out of my in-box. He smiled at me with those bright white,
perfectly straight teeth that contrasted beautifully with his smooth
olive skin. That smile had led me to believe he was a nice guy when I
met him for the first time three years ago, and I had been right.
"Hey, Sammie, what can I say? I love reading the part at the back that
tells about all the bad lawyers and what they did to get disbarred or
suspended. Gives me a sense of justice. You should be careful about
giving me such a hard time, though. I might start to think you're like
the rest of the DAs around here, with a stick up your ass."
Tommy's in charge of the bureau's vice unit, so I know him well. As a
member of the eight-lawyer team known as the Drug and Vice Division, I
talk to Tommy almost weekly about pending cases and see him at least
once a month at team meetings.
"You must want something from me big and bad, Garcia, to be buttering
me up like that. What is it," I asked, "a warrant?" The local judges
won't even read an officer's application for a search warrant unless it
is reviewed and approved first by a deputy DA. In a close case, the
cops tend to "DA shop."
Garcia laughed. "You're too smart, Kincaid. Nope, no warrant. I do
need your help on something, but it's a little more complicated." He
reached behind him to shut the door, looking at me first to make sure I
didn't mind.
"MCT picked a case up over the weekend, thinking it would be an attempt
murder. The suspects are bad, bad guys,
Sammie. Two of them grabbed a girl out of Old Town. One of them
started to rape her, but couldn't get it up, so he beat her instead,
and then the second guy finished what the first couldn't. When they
were done, they left her for dead out in the Columbia Gorge.
"I don't know all the details, but apparently the initial investigation
was a bit of a cluster fuck. It sounds like everything's on track now,
but O'Donnell was the riding DA and got pissed off at some of the early
mistakes. So he's planning on kicking it into the general felony unit
for prosecution. You can pretty much figure out what's gonna happen to
it."
The general felony trial unit is a dumping ground for cases that aren't
seen as serious. The trial DDAs often have extremely limited time to
spend on them, and the overwhelming majority plead out to reduced
charges and stipulated sentences during a fast-paced court calendar
referred to as "morning call." It's the criminal justice system's ugly
side. Tim O'Donnell was a senior DDA in the major crimes unit. If he
bumped a Major Crimes Team case down to general, he knew it was gone.
"Sounds bad, but it also sounds like MCT's beef is with O'Donnell."
"Yeah, well, O'Donnell's mind's not an easy one to change, and I think
there's another way to go here because of a vice angle. The victim's a
thirteen-year-old prostitute named Ken-dra Martin. Unlike most of 'em,
she doesn't try to look any older. Wears schoolgirl outfits like that
one girl used to wear on MTV before she got implants and started
running around naked. What's her name? My daughter likes her. Anyway,
she looks her age, is my point.
"Turns out her injuries weren't as bad as they first looked,
so the MCT guys know it'll be hard to get attempted murder to stick.
But they kept working the case, even after they realized that they
could've handed it off to precinct detectives. This case is under
their skin."
Any reluctance on the part of the Major Crimes Team to hand over a case
to precinct detectives was understandable. In theory, regular shift
detectives are perfectly good investigators, but in reality,
disappointed precinct detectives who were passed over for the elite MCT
frequently drop the b
all, 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 aske
d.
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
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