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 you
r 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 placi
ng 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
Judgement Calls Page 12
