Judgment Calls

by Alafair Burke

  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 dimwitted 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.

  11

  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 s. 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 nutjobs.”

  Grace nodded in agreement, and I moved on to badmouthing 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 Kendra to the Zimmerman murder. I also had what is known in the legal world as a buttload 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 headcase 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 cr
imes 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.”