Judgment Calls

by Alafair Burke

  “Will the police be able to find out who the Long Hauler is?” she asked. I wanted so much to assure her that they would, that we’d nail him and justice would be served. But I learned a long time ago that you should never make promises to victims unless you don’t mind breaking them.

  “I know they’re trying. They’ve got the FBI involved. The police chief and the DA are making this a top priority. The feeling is that if the guy’s writing letters to the newspaper and naming himself, he’s escalating.”

  I could tell from the way she looked at me that she didn’t know what I meant.

  “The suspicion is that he’ll start to kill even faster,” I explained. “That he’ll come up with a signature or something now that he’s interested in notoriety.”

  “Oh, so that’s why they want to catch him, to keep him from getting to anyone else. They don’t actually care about the people he already hurt,” she said.

  “Hey, you know that’s not what I meant. Kendra, the man has killed five women. Of course they want to catch him. I was just trying to tell you how much this matters to the police.”

  She was quiet while it all sank in. “I guess I wasn’t really thinking of it like that. That guy killed other people. And he meant to kill me.” She looked dazed. “I knew you’d charged him with attempted murder and all, but I never thought of it as someone trying to kill me. That I’m lucky I lived through it.”

  “Shows you’re a survivor, kiddo. You’re tougher than him; you beat him.”

  “Do the police know anything yet?” she asked.

  “Well, enough to think that this guy did the things he said he did. The paper didn’t mention all the details, but the letter included pretty specific descriptions of all the attacks. The information he provided about what happened to you and Jamie was accurate, and it’s stuff he couldn’t have taken from a newspaper or something. Also, the police have found unsolved homicides that match the other murders.”

  “Did they find anything when they searched the Gorge?” she asked.

  “Yes, I was going to get to that. Again, the paper didn’t publish this detail, so it’s important that you keep this between us for now. But the Long Hauler told police he’d taken Jamie Zimmerman’s purse and thrown it off the side of the road in the Gorge. Using that information, the police were able to find the purse, and it’s absolutely Jamie Zimmerman’s. It even had her fake ID in it.”

  “I guess that’s another thing that makes her case like mine, huh? That he left us in the Gorge and took our purses?”

  I hadn’t thought about that before. Lisa Lopez had had the prescience to argue that Kendra’s case was just like the murder of Jamie Zimmerman, but what exactly had she said about it?

  I went out to the Jetta to grab what had grown into several volumes of files on the Derringer case. I knew I’d seen the trial transcripts in a binder somewhere. After Duncan turned the case over to O’Donnell, O’Donnell must have ordered them so that he and Duncan could get up to speed. Something was nagging at the forefront of my brain, something someone had said during the trial. I flipped through the transcript pages frantically. It was going to be lost if I didn’t find a trigger to pull it forward.

  Then I spotted it.

  “What’s going on?” Kendra asked.

  “Wait a second, Kendra.” What else had I missed? I started from the beginning of the file and reread everything. When I was finished, I knew exactly where I had gone off track. It wasn’t just what someone had said at trial. I’d also missed the Tasmanian Devil.

  I looked up at Kendra. “Tell me more about Haley.”

  * * *

  I looked for her first outside of the Pioneer Place Courthouse, the waterfront, the Hamilton motel, all the places I could think of. I finally found her at midnight, standing on the corner of Burnside and Fourth Avenue. She had her thumb out and looked like she’d just shot up.

  I stopped the Jetta in front of her, and she walked over to the passenger side and opened the door. Guess she couldn’t see through the tinted windows at night.

  “Hey, Haley. Want a date?” I said.

  “What the fuck are you doing out here?” She looked around. Not seeing any police, she said, “Nothing you can do to me without a cop around.”

  All those Law & Order shows had done some serious damage to my image out there. Now that everyone understood that whole “separate but equally important parts of the criminal justice system” thing, no one is afraid of being arrested by prosecutors anymore. Sometimes it’s just a matter of reeducation.

  “Not today, maybe. But I can go drive my little Volkswagen back to the courthouse, type out an affidavit, and have an arrest warrant for you in the system by tomorrow morning. It’s not like it takes the cavalry to find you or anything.”

  She thought about that for a while. “Yeah, well, I can handle another loitering pop. Nothing but a thing at juvie.” Her eyes were barely open. It’s probably hard to care about being arrested when you’re pumped full of heroin.

  “I’m not talking about juvie this time, Haley. I’m talking Measure Eleven time.”

  She might not know the details, but anyone on the street as long as Haley knew the gist of Measure 11. It meant being charged as an adult and getting real time. The threat was enough to fire her up as much as could be expected in her current state.

  She pretended to laugh. “You ain’t got shit on me. Now you better move along, bitch. I got work to do.”

  I suppressed the impulse to mow her down with the Jetta. I would’ve opened a six-pack of Fahrfegnugen on her ass over the c-word, but under the circumstances I could handle the b-word.

  “I’d be careful about how you choose to work, Haley,” I said. “From where I sit it’s called promoting prostitution, not loitering. And promoting prostitution for a thirteen-year-old lands you under Measure Eleven.”

  “Pimping? Lady, you got me confused with some Cadillac-driving, purple-velour-wearing, platform-shoe-stomping dude.” She was laughing uncontrollably now, rattling off some more descriptors I couldn’t understand.

  “Haley, listen to me. You’re in major trouble here, and I’m not fucking around.” My tone got her attention. “You arranged dates for Kendra in exchange for a cut of the fee. You set her up at the Hamilton, knowing she was using the room to work. You sold her condoms when she ran out, again at a profit and knowing she was using them for prostitution. Plus, you knew she was only thirteen years old. All I have to do is go down to the Hamilton, and I suspect I’ll find several other girls who’ll say you do the same things for them. Guess what, Haley? That’s promoting prostitution, even if you don’t wear purple velour.”

  “That’s bullshit. I was helping her out, is all. Safer to work at the Hamilton than out of cars. And, big deal, I hooked her up with a few guys who liked younger girls and who I knew were all right.”

  “Too bad, Haley. I’d heard you were smart. At this point, I’d advise you to shut up until you’ve talked to a lawyer, because what you just said amounts to a confession to a Measure Eleven charge.”

  I rolled up the window and hit my turn signal like I was going to pull out into traffic on Burnside. I was beginning to think she was going to let me leave when I heard the tap on the window. I rolled it down again.

  “So what do you want?” she asked.

  “Now that’s more like it. Get in.”

  14

  When I finally got home it was nearly two in the morning.

  Chuck’s Jag was in my driveway, and Chuck was asleep in the backseat. I tapped on the window, and he reached over his head and unlocked the front door.

  “This piece of crap chose my driveway to break down in?” I said.

  “Cute. Where have you been?” he asked, sitting up and pushing his hair down from sleep.

  “Another late one,” I said.

  “A late one where? I’ve been leaving you messages all night.”

  “Sorry. I got busy. I would’ve called you tomorrow.”

  “So, again, where h
ave you been?”

  Shoot. He’d learned something about interrogations over the years. “Working. Griffith told me I had to dismiss the case against Derringer, so I went out to Rockwood to break the news to Kendra.”

  “You were at Kendra’s until two in the morning?” He sounded appropriately skeptical.

  “I had some follow-up. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now I’m exhausted.” I headed toward the front door.

  He grabbed my arm as I was walking up the steps to the porch. “Dammit, Sam. What kind of follow-up? Where the hell have you been?”

  I pulled my arm from his grip. “Jesus, Chuck. The stalking routine really isn’t becoming. Is this jealousy? Do you actually think I was with someone else?”

  He shook his head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You scared the shit out of me. I thought something happened to you.”

  “Well, nothing happened to me. With Derringer’s charges dismissed, he doesn’t have any reason to try to scare me off anymore, so stop worrying. I told you, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Please respect that.”

  “Don’t do this, Sam. You were distant last night, you blew off my calls all day, and now you’re out till whenever and won’t tell me where you were. I know you. The only thing I have to compete with is your job, so something must be happening on the case. What’s going on? My guys tell me the governor’s cutting Landry and Taylor loose. You tell me you’ve dismissed the case against Derringer. So why were you out so late?”

  I looked at him but didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t trust me, do you, Sam?”

  I knew I should say something, but I didn’t. I couldn’t get my mouth to work.

  I finally spoke up when he started walking toward his car. “Explain it to me, Chuck. How did Landry know so much about Jamie’s murder if she wasn’t a part of it? And if she was a part of it, how come she passed a polygraph while some guy tells the Oregonian where the police can find Jamie’s purse? Explain it to me. Come inside and talk to me about it.”

  He turned his head just long enough to say, “You’re really unbelievable, Kincaid. You don’t know me at all.”

  I stopped myself from pulling out my cell phone as I watched him drive away. Part of me wanted to apologize; another part wanted to scream at him.

  Instead, I decided to get to sleep so I could wake up and work on what I’d learned from Haley.

  * * *

  Two days later, my ducks were finally in a row.

  Sneaking around hadn’t been easy. Once the charges against Derringer had been dropped and the news had been broken to Kendra, my role in the matter was officially over. I was taking a big risk by jumping back into it again without notifying Duncan and O’Donnell.

  I had reserved a block of time in front of the grand jury without indicating a specific case name. Anyone looking at the schedule would just assume I was presenting several drug cases together. Actually, I was trying to indict Derrick Derringer.

  Getting an indictment’s much easier than getting a conviction. The grand jury’s only role is to decide if there’s enough evidence against the defendant to warrant a trial, and in practice grand jurors “true bill” almost every case presented to them. Because the grand jury doesn’t actually determine the defendant’s guilt, the proceedings are considerably less formal than at trial. No judge, no defense attorney. Just the prosecutor and seven trusting grand jurors. We rarely even kept a record of grand jury testimony in state court, but I’d gotten a court reporter for this particular session. At least if I got fired, I’d have a transcript to show for my hard work. It wouldn’t be a great trade, but it was better than nothing.

  “Members of the grand jury, today’s proceedings will not be typical of the hearings you have experienced so far as grand jurors. By now, you have figured out that most criminal cases are cut-and-dry. The prosecutor says hello, calls in a police officer or two, and asks for an indictment. No one gives you the other side of the story, the evidence that complicates the picture, what the defense will say at trial.

  “Today, I will ask you to indict Derrick Derringer on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, statutory rape, and conspiring with his brother to rape and murder a thirteen-year-old girl named Kendra Martin. This will not be a straightforward story. You will learn, if you do not already know from the news, that the State has already dismissed charges against Derrick Derringer’s brother, Frank Derringer, for raping and attempting to murder Kendra Martin. To complicate things further, someone has written anonymous letters to the Oregonian, claiming that he and an unnamed accomplice, and not Frank Derringer, are responsible for the attack on Miss Martin.

  “I’ll be honest with you. I am currently unable to offer a single theory that explains both the evidence against Mr. Derringer and his brother, and the anonymous letter that would appear to exonerate the Derringers. I suspect that you will also find it difficult to reconcile the evidence against Mr. Derringer with some of the State’s other evidence. That’s why your role today is so important. At the end of the presentation of the evidence, I will ask you to decide for yourselves whether the evidence against Mr. Derringer warrants an indictment, regardless of the exculpatory evidence.”

  I started with a thorough overview of Frank Derringer’s trial, the Jamie Zimmerman case, and the Long Hauler letters. The rules of evidence do not apply during grand jury proceedings, so I didn’t have to use live testimony to establish this background. Instead, I offered it in summary form, using the white board to make a list of the central characters in the case and the important points for them to remember. I ended with the discovery of Jamie Zimmerman’s purse.

  The jurors looked exhausted by the time I was done. An elderly woman across the table raised her hand. She gestured to her notes with her pen while she spoke. “Um, maybe I’m confused or something,” she said, “but it sounds like whoever wrote these letters killed Jamie and the other women and also raped that poor little girl. And you’re saying that you don’t see how these other people—Margaret Landry, Jesse Taylor, and Frank Derringer—could have written the letters, so it sounds like they’re all innocent. Have you told us anything about Derrick Derringer yet?”

  “Not yet. The evidence I have just summarized for you is the background of a larger investigation that relates to the case against Mr. Derringer. What you’ve heard so far suggests exactly what you’ve stated. Like I said, you may find it difficult to reconcile all that information with the evidence you will hear today. So I want you to consider the remaining evidence in light of the background I’ve given you and then decide whether to issue the indictment.”

  There were no more questions, so I called my first witness, Haley Jameson.

  Haley walked in with an attitude. I would’ve been disappointed in her if she hadn’t. She slumped down into the witness chair at the center of the room and looked up at the ceiling as I had her spell her name and take her witness oath.

  “Where do you live, Haley?” I asked.

  “Varies day to day. I been in a bunch of foster homes, but mostly I just crash with friends. Stay at a place in Old Town called the Hamilton.”

  “And how do you pay for things like your hotel room at the Hamilton, food, things like that?”

  “I got immunity, right?”

  “Right. As we’ve discussed, you’re testifying today with my promise that nothing you say will be used against you.”

  “Mostly I date,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll sell some pot to friends or something to pick up a few extra bucks.”

  “When you say that you date for money, are you referring to prostitution?”

  She rolled her eyes and sank into her chair a little deeper. I was starting to worry she might slide right off.

  “You need to reply to my questions with a verbal answer, Haley. The court reporter is transcribing everything.”

  “Yeah. I meant prostitution,” she said.

  “How long have you been working in prostitution?” I asked.

/>   “’Bout three years,” she answered.

  “And how old are you now?”

  “Sixteen.”

  A couple of the grand jurors shifted uncomfortably in their seats as they worked out the math.

  “Do you know Frank and Derrick Derringer?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately,” she said. “Can’t be on the street as long as I have without running into them.”

  I had made the connection when I reviewed the file at Kendra’s. I had printed out Derrick Derringer’s PPDS record so I could cross-examine him about his prior convictions, but I’d never seen the need to pay any attention to the basic identifying information, like hair and eye color, height, and, most importantly, tattoos.

  I pulled out one of the photographs that Kendra had given me the first time I met her, the one showing Haley and a couple of girls with a man whose face wasn’t shown but whose tattoo was. I’d retrieved the photographs from Tommy Garcia before I’d gone looking for Haley.

  “Haley, I’m handing you a photograph that appears to show you with a man and two other girls. Will you please tell the grand jurors what’s going on in that picture?”

  “Uh, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Humor us,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, looking at the picture, “a few of us were partying with a guy, and someone saw a disposable camera lying around and started taking pictures.”