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
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