Judgement Calls

by Alafair Burke

Chuck was lingering by the door. As I went to kiss his cheek, he

  grabbed me around the shoulders and pulled me close. I couldn't tell

  if he noticed that my response was awkward. I let myself be held; it

  felt good to rest my head against his chest and feel his arms around

  me. But I couldn't quite bring myself to return the embrace.

  Maybe he picked up on my reticence. As he finally let go of me, he

  settled for a kiss on the top of the head. "Hey, you. I brought your

  favorite."

  It was an Australian shiraz-cab blend, perfect for someone like me who

  can't handle a full-blown cabernet. I forced a smile as we headed back

  into the kitchen. "Thanks. That was sweet."

  Dad gave Chuck one of those half handshake, half shoulder-grab things

  that guys give each other instead of hugs. "Hey, big man, how you

  holding up?" he asked. I was glad Dad had kicked off the

  conversation. I was still resisting the urge to pull Chuck outside and

  grill him until I was absolutely positive, beyond any doubt, that he

  had fully disclosed everything he knew about Landry's confession.

  "You know, patrol's not so bad. It's kind of a nice break from the

  heavy stuff." From some guys, this might've sounded like saving face,

  or maybe just making the best of a bad situation. From Chuck, it

  sounded sincere.

  Me? I was just trying to make the most of a bad situation.

  "Same here. Too many of those MCT cases and I would've started to lose

  my faith in humanity. I'd hate to wind up like O'Donnell one of these

  days," I said with a shudder.

  "Yeah, I know what you mean," Dad said. "Back with the Forest

  Department, you know, we never really had to do anything like what you

  were doing at MCT. Just some trespassing, drunks, a few fights. Enough

  to make life exciting, but the most you ever brought home at night was

  a funny story."

  When Dad talked about his career, he tended to leave out his years as

  an Oregon State Police detective. He joined the Forest Department when

  I was a toddler. He and Mom decided the hours were more regular, the

  pension was better, and he was less likely to get shot in the forest

  than in OSP. Dad liked to say he was grateful for the switch, but I

  always sensed he missed the excitement of his early career.

  "So, Lucky Chucky, what kind of stories you got for us tonight?" I

  asked, grateful that Dad had never asked for the etymology of the

  nickname.

  Chuck shook his head as he poured three glasses of wine. "Nothing,

  really. Been pretty slow."

  I could tell there were a few possibilities, though. Maybe not

  full-out, pee-your-pants knee slappers, but enough to make him smile.

  "Oh, c'mon," I cajoled. "There's no way you've been on patrol all week

  without something happening. You have a civic responsibility to share

  your telltale stories with bored retirees and drug deputies."

  "OK, there was this one guy. He was weaving his BMW all over the place

  through a school zone, right when kids were starting to come in.

  Windows tinted nearly black. When I pulled him over and he rolled down

  his window, I could see he was yapping into his cell phone. Must've

  been what distracted him. I was planning to give him a warning and

  send him on his way, but he refused to get off the phone. Kept telling

  me that he billed his time at four hundred dollars an hour and I was

  keeping him from his work."

  "So you wrote him a ticket?" Dad asked.

  Chuck smiled. "Better than that. I impounded the BMW."

  "You did what?" I said.

  "I towed it. Oregon Motor Vehicle Code section 815.222: illegal window

  tinting, a tow able violation. Includes applying any tint that limits

  light transmittance to less than fifty percent. My best guess is he

  should be getting it out of the impound lot right around now," he said,

  glancing at his watch.

  Dad was laughing, but I wasn't. "I can't believe you did that. It's a

  total abuse of your authority. That's why people hate cops, Chuck."

  Dad and Chuck exchanged a glance before Chuck spoke up. "It wasn't

  just an attitude problem, Sam. He nearly hit a kid and didn't even

  care. I was trying to show him some perspective."

  "Sounds kind of like something you'd do, Sam," Dad said, laughing.

  Maybe, but it still bothered me that Chuck thought it was funny.

  He insisted on making sure I got home OK. I had half a bottle of Pinot

  Gris in my fridge, so I poured a glass for each of us to finish it

  off.

  He finally raised the subject we'd been avoiding. "One of the guys

  called me a couple of hours ago. Word is, IA's got something on the

  Long Hauler."

  I looked at him with surprise. "Guy seemed like a pro. First letter

  had no prints, not even DNA on the stamp or envelope."

  "I assume the second letter's the same," he said. "I didn't mean they

  figured out who he is. But the stuff in the letter, it's for real.

  They found four unsolved homicide cases that match the other girls this

  guy says he did."

  "But is it stuff he could've gotten from papers?" I asked.

  "I don't know. He also said he left something of Jamie's in the Gorge.

  IA's got a bunch of Explorers out there combing through the forest

  looking for it."

  Explorers are high school students who want to become police officers.

  They make for a handy resource during fishing expeditions. They don't

  mind hiking around in the mud as long as they get to wear a uniform,

  they're a hell of a lot cheaper than police officers on overtime, and

  they aren't fat yet, so they can do helpful things like climb hills and

  fit through small spaces. On the other hand, if you want an idea of

  how reliable they are in their searches, the DC police used them to

  search Rock Creek Park for the body of that poor missing intern a few

  summers ago.

  "Do you know what they're looking for?" I asked.

  "No. I'm surprised I heard anything. IA's being quiet about this, and

  I of all people am not supposed to hear a word. But, you know, the

  guys look out for each other."

  It bothered me that he didn't say who shared the information. Was he

  actually worried I'd be angry at one of the MCT detectives for leaking

  information to him? If the gap between cops and DAs seemed that wide

  to him, maybe he was in a place I would never truly understand. As it

  stood, I realized I knew little about Chuck Forbes the detective.

  Perhaps I had been too quick to assume that his hands were squeaky

  clean.

  I turned on the TV to catch my favorite talking-head show, Hardball. I

  still don't know how a guy who looks like a fifty year-old surfer dude

  had the balls to think he'd get away with a motto like "Let's play

  hardball," but Chris Matthews seems to have pulled it off. Maybe if

  Griffith fired me, I could get Matthews to hire me as a talking head.

  It would be an easy job, and it seemed like an inevitable stop on the

  road for anyone at the middle of a media frenzy. Yes, the congressmen

  did it. So did the missing kids' parents. So did that guy who used to

  play a detective with a bird on TV. They pretty much always d
id it.

  Chuck and I didn't say much during the show. The silence was

  interrupted occasionally as we vented about the new terrorism warnings

  that were issued every time the president's ratings were slipping. But

  we said that all the time.

  I don't know when I decided not to tell him about solid reliable Jan,

  but I took the fact that I didn't want to as a bad sign, one he

  apparently picked up on. Once Chris Matthews got through telling us

  what he really thought, Chuck announced that it was time for him to

  head home. I didn't try to stop him, and he kissed me on the top of my

  head again when I walked him to the door.

  thirteen.

  Things started moving forward the next morning.

  The media had gotten wind of the search in the Gorge and were clamoring

  for more information. That meant I could probe O'Donnell for

  information about the search without tipping him off that someone on

  MCT was talking to Chuck about the investigation. I stuck my head into

  his office door and asked him for an update.

  "I'm beginning to think you suffer from selective deafness, Kincaid.

  You .. . are .. . off.. . the .. . case!" O'Donnell pantomimed the

  words with his hands to mimic sign language. I would definitely not be

  inviting him to my next Charades party. He sucked.

  I reminded him that I was still supposed to be coordinating

  communications with Kendra and her mom. I had prepared a white lie:

  Andrea Martin was clamoring for answers and he either had to fork over

  some information or explain it all to her himself before Channel 2 did.

  A pissed-off victim is every prosecutor's worst nightmare. A weepy

  interview on the local news saying they've been left out of the loop

  and victimized again by the system rings true to every viewer who's

  ever been ignored by a bureaucrat.

  As it turned out, I didn't need to resort to my bluff, because

  O'Donnell actually caught himself being an asshole and apologized.

  "Sorry, you're right. I snapped because this case is getting to me.

  Have a seat," he said, clearing some notebooks from a chair for me.

  He picked up the phone, indicating with his thumb and forefinger that

  it would be a short call. "Hey, Carl. It's O'Donnell. Did you

  double-check with all the crime labs yet?" He gave the frequent

  "yeahs" and "unh-huhs" that aren't very helpful when you're

  eavesdropping on one side of a conversation. "Well, we gave it a shot.

  This guy's one lucky son of a bitch."

  "Bad news?" I asked as he hung up.

  "Understatement of the century," he said, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, I

  gotta go over all this stuff with Duncan. You might as well come."

  "I thought I was off the case," I said, imitating his mock sign

  language. He laughed, and I had to as well.

  "Damn, you can be a pain in the ass. Just come on, OK?" he said,

  walking out of his office. If O'Donnell kept this up, I might actually

  start to like him.

  Duncan was on the phone when we walked in. He gestured for us to have

  a seat. I was doing a lot of this today.

  O'Donnell leaned forward so the two of us could talk quietly while we

  waited for Duncan to finish his call. "None of this goes to Forbes,

  right?"

  The request was reasonable under the circumstances. I nodded.

  "OK. We found four unsolved homicides through the Northwest Regional

  Cold Case Database. One in Idaho, one in Montana, and two in

  Washington. All of them women, all either prostitutes or promiscuous.

  So far, the details match the Long Hauler letter to a T. We're dealing

  with a grade-A psycho."

  "What kind of details, public information or concealed?" I asked. In

  any murder investigation, law enforcement always held back certain

  details. It kept the bad guy from knowing what investigators had, and

  it could help down the road if a wanna-be confessor tried to jump into

  the mix.

  "Stuff no one else could know. Position of the bodies, personal items

  that were taken, whether specific items of clothes were on or off. I

  told you, the guy's for real."

  "Just on the four new cases? What about Zimmerman and Martin?" I

  asked. It sounded funny to label Kendra by her last name, but

  O'Donnell was sharing information. It was better not to remind him of

  my personal attachment to the victim.

  "Them too. On your case, he gave us the exact intersection they pulled

  Martin from, everything they did to her, that they threw the purse in

  the trash. The paper didn't have those details."

  "No, but it all came out in trial," I said. I was playing it cool,

  removing the lid from my latte and blowing in the cup, like we were

  talking about running times or stock performances.

  "Are you saying you saw a suspicious serial-killer type sitting in on

  your trial?"

  He was right. I would have noticed if someone had been watching. "Any

  possibility that Derringer did it all and then wrote to the paper as

  the Long Hauler when he got caught on the Martin rape?" Clearly

  Derringer was benefiting from these letters, and given what he did to

  Kendra, he certainly had it in him to rape and kill other women.

  But O'Donnell was already shaking his head. "Doesn't look like it. No

  way he could've sent them himself. The jail reads all outgoing

  prisoner mail. There's always the possibility that he could sneak a

  letter to a visitor or something, but it doesn't look like he could be

  the guy. We've already got him solid in Oregon during two of the

  out-of-state murders. He had a parole meeting with Renshaw during one

  of them and was doing time on the Clackamas County attempted sod for

  another."

  It looked like we had a serial killer on our hands. "Any other cases

  in the Cold Case Database that match?" I asked. The computerized data

  bank was a partnership among law enforcement agencies in the Pacific

  Northwest and included details of all unsolved homicides.

  "Nope, nothing obvious," he said. "Our guy's MO seems to be street

  girls, strangled and dumped outside so it takes awhile to find them.

  Looks like he copped to all of them in his letter."

  Duncan hung up the phone. "Governor's office," he said, by way of

  explanation. "They're all over me. Jackson's under pressure to pardon

  Taylor and is looking for something to hang his hat on. Fucking pussy.

  He won't admit it's because of the death penalty. Doesn't want to lose

  eastern Oregon."

  Bud Jackson was a Portland liberal who managed to win a statewide race

  only by sending his wife, the daughter of a prominent local ranching

  family, on the campaign trail throughout conservative rural Oregon.

  "If he can say Taylor might be innocent, he could do the pardon and

  save face." Duncan stopped, seeming to register my presence for the

  first time since I sat down. "This OK with you, Tim?" he asked,

  tilting his head toward me.

  "Yeah, I'm going to need some help with the Martin family. I was just

  giving Sam what we got out of the letters."

  "Well, it's nice to see you two sharing the sandbox again. So where

  are we this morning?" he asked, folding his arms
in front of him. "I

  see we weren't able to keep the Gorge search quiet."

  "No, sir, we weren't," O'Donnell said, laughing at the obvious

  understatement.

  "They find anything?" Griffith asked.

  "Yes, miraculously." Tim turned toward me. "To get you up to speed,

  Kincaid, the Long Hauler said he threw Zimmerman's purse from his car

  past a bend in the road up the Gorge, about a quarter mile from the

  freeway, so we sent the Explorers out there yesterday to dig around

  along the road out there." He turned back toward Griffith. "They

  spent all day searching yesterday, but no luck. The bureau was about

  to call everybody in, but they wanted to make sure they didn't screw it

  up. Don't want to pull a Washington, DC have some old guy's dog dig it

  up next year from right under their noses. Anyway, the detective

  supervising the search pulls out a park map and talks to every Explorer

  to make sure he marks off where they've searched. Turns out there's a

  monster patch of blackberry bushes no one wanted to touch. About a

  quarter of a football field, four feet high. Now most people would've

  let it slide, thinking no way a purse can get in there."

  I nodded. Blackberry bushes are dense and woody. You can't get

  through them without a hatchet. I knew from the countless golf balls

  I'd lost to them that a purse thrown on a blackberry bush would bounce

  off.

  "But this guy is ex-military, total sphincter boy. He checked with the

  parks department and found out they started letting those bushes grow