Judgement Calls

by Alafair Burke

  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 m
urder 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