Judgment Calls Page 21

  Lopez started by showing Culver the Collision Clinic invoice. Culver confirmed that he owned the business, had filled out the invoice, and had given it to one of his employees, who then cleaned, painted, and reupholstered Derringer’s car. The work was done the day after Kendra was attacked, and Derringer paid Culver eight hundred dollars cash.

  “Mr. Culver, we’ve heard testimony suggesting that the work on Mr. Derringer’s car only enhanced the market value of the vehicle by a couple of hundred dollars. Do you agree with that?” Lopez asked.

  “Yeah,” Culver said, “that’s about right. On a car like that, guy might get a quarter, maybe half, of his money back on resale, so what’s that? About two to four hundred dollars, I guess.”

  “Is it unusual for a customer to spend that kind of money in your shop? Money that won’t be reflected in the market value of the car?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Auto body and detail work hardly ever pays off. Some guy bumps you in traffic and dents the back of your car. Might cost twelve hundred dollars to fix, even though the dent doesn’t lower the market value by that much. Fact is, I stay in business because people want their cars to look nice. This car here was in good shape mechanically, but it looked like—” He avoided the expletive. “Well, it looked bad. Now it looks a lot better. Real clean inside and out. Lots of people willing to pay eight hundred dollars for that.”

  “Another thing I notice about this invoice,” Lisa said, “is that the work was completed on a Sunday. Do you normally work on cars on Sundays?”

  “No, we’re usually closed,” Culver said. Now, that was interesting.

  “Why was the work done on my client’s car on that Sunday?” Lopez asked.

  “Well,” he said, “he had come in earlier that week to talk about getting the work done. We were actually supposed to do it the Friday before, but I had to call and cancel on him. A couple of my guys were out, so we were behind on the cars in the shop that week. So I told him we’d do it on Sunday. I do that sometimes to keep us from getting backed up.”

  “So, if I understand you correctly, Mr. Derringer arranged to have his car overhauled several days before you actually completed it. In other words, he didn’t call you that Sunday morning to get the work done in a rush. Is that right?”

  “Right,” he said.

  “And, in fact, he had originally planned to have the work done two days earlier, on that Friday, correct?”

  “Correct,” he said.

  There went my theory that Derringer had gotten the work done to cover up physical evidence.

  Lesh must have felt sorry for me, because he saved me from having to cross-examine Culver empty-handed at the end of an already humiliating day. Even though we were only halfway through the afternoon session, he called it quits. Apologizing to counsel, the jurors, and the witness, he explained he had an afternoon obligation and that we’d have to resume the questioning of Mr. Culver the following morning.

  The problem, of course, was that nothing was going to change overnight. As hard as I’d tried over the years, I still hadn’t found a way to alter reality. Someday I was going to figure it out. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do so before returning to my office.

  O’Donnell had left a note on my chair. Don’t forget. Get me before you talk to Duncan. TOD.

  When the two of us arrived at Duncan’s office, I could tell that O’Donnell must have called ahead, because Duncan didn’t seem surprised to see us. I wondered if the two of them had already agreed on how this would end.

  Duncan Griffith is one of those men who manages to look young even though his hair is full-on white. He somehow maintains a year-round tan in Portland, Oregon, and I’d wager a bet that the teeth in what seemed like a permanent smile are capped. He was as pleasant on this day as he always appeared to be.

  “Ah, my two favorite deputies. Come on in, you two. Make yourselves comfortable.” Griffith gestured to a setting of inviting leather furniture.

  The law offices depicted on television are for the most part outlandishly unrealistic. Instead of the mahogany shelves and fully stocked bars enjoyed by fictional prosecutors, I, for example, work off a yellow metal desk with a corkboard hutch, and when I’m lucky I can scrounge a Diet Coke off one of the secretaries who has a mini-fridge. Duncan Griffith’s office was an exception, however. The walls were lined top to bottom with volumes of the state and federal case reporters, and dark leather sofas welcomed whatever guests were fortunate enough to gain entrance into the inner fortress.

  I’d only been invited here twice before, once for my job interview and once during my second week with the office. I had quickly learned that calling a sandbagging defense attorney a scum sandwich on shit toast wasn’t within the range of what Duncan Griffith defined as acceptable deputy DA behavior.

  He was being much nicer to me now than during that last visit. After Tim and I were seated, Griffith leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms in front of him. “So, Sammie,” he said, “the Oregonian tells me that the Zimmerman matter has come up in this rape case of yours. Where’s that stand right now?”

  I gave him a quick overview and told him I thought that Judge Lesh was receptive to a motion to exclude any evidence relating to Zimmerman’s murder.

  Before Tim could open his mouth, Duncan said, “You’re a good lawyer and an aggressive prosecutor, Sam, and I appreciate you going after this guy a hundred and ten percent. But we all need to keep our eye on the ball here. The greater good. As an office, we need to get to the bottom of this Zimmerman thing and make sure we’ve got the right people. We’re talking about the death penalty here. A man’s life is at stake.”

  “I realize that, sir, and I understand that our office is involved in the investigation into the anonymous Oregonian letter. But that case doesn’t have anything to do with mine. The defense is trying to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the Zimmerman case to confuse the jury.”

  Duncan still hadn’t stopped smiling. “I understand that, Sam, but remember what I said. It’s about the greater good. If you file that motion, the front page of the newspaper’s going to say that you’re trying to squelch a man’s attempt to get to the truth. And I won’t have you dragging us into a cover-up.”

  O’Donnell had clearly primed the pump. Griffith was regurgitating the spiel that O’Donnell had given me earlier in my office.

  “What exactly are you telling me to do, sir?” I asked.

  “Don’t make this adversarial, Sam. All I’m telling you to do is allow this defense attorney to have her say. You might need to do some rebuttal, let the jury see that the two cases are unrelated. Tim, you can get her up to speed on the Taylor file, right?”

  Tim nodded. “We’ve already gone over it, sir.”

  “Good,” Griffith said. When I didn’t stand up at his sign that we were dismissed, he continued. “No one’s telling you to play dead here, Sam. You know my rule of thumb in trials is to always stay above the fray. If the defense attacks the police, let ’em do it. Never helps your case if you look like you’ve got a personal stake in the outcome. Trust me, your jury’s going to have more faith in you this way. And, in the long run, this office benefits.”

  “The greater good,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  * * *

  I felt neither great nor good after I called Lopez and Lesh to tell them I wouldn’t be filing a motion to exclude Derringer’s defense. I felt depressed.

  Lesh’s response had been simple. “Hey, it’s your case. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Lopez, on the other hand, couldn’t just accept the gift for what it was. She was convinced I was somehow tricking her. As a result, what should have been a thirty-second courtesy call turned into a fifteen-minute inquisition about my intentions. Hell, if I was lucky, maybe she’d at least lose a little sleep that night wondering what I had in store for her in the morning. Truth was, I was seriously considering cutting whatever plea I could get if things didn’t turn around.

  I ca
lled MCT to see if they’d had any luck tracking down Kendra’s purse, but no one answered. I tried Chuck’s pager and entered my cell phone number in case he didn’t call right away.

  I was burnt out and dying to leave, but I checked my voice mail before heading out. Among the usual junk was a message from Dan Manning. “Samantha, it’s Dan Manning from the Oregonian. I was calling to see if you had any response to today’s events at trial and the alleged connection between your case and Jamie Zimmerman. Also, I’d like to talk to you about whatever role you might have in the Zimmerman investigation. Give me a call.”

  I wrote down the numbers that he rattled off and hit the button to save the message as a reminder, but I couldn’t summon the energy to call him back. Besides, what was I going to say? I’m getting my ass handed to me in trial and am going to have to cut a deal, but I think he’s guilty anyway? Not exactly spectacular spin.

  The Jetta and I were crossing the Willamette River over the Morrison Bridge when my cell phone rang. I recognized the number as Kendra’s and answered.

  “You rang?” It was Chuck.

  “You’re at Kendra’s?” I asked.

  “Just pulled up. I guess you called Ray, trying to track down where Kendra’s purse came from?” he said.

  “Yeah. Did he tell you why?”

  “Not really,” he said.

  I struggled to think of the quickest way to describe what had been a draining day in court. It’s not easy to explain how the momentum of a case can shift with just a few hours in trial. I had to jerk the steering wheel back into line as I realized I’d been zoning out on the lights reflecting off the river. I waited until I was over the bridge and had merged onto the I-5 to launch into it.

  “The case fell apart today,” I said. “Lopez brought in a guy from the Collision Clinic. Turns out Derringer arranged to have the car work done before the attack and the shop couldn’t get it done until that Sunday, so our theory about doing it to get rid of the physical evidence is gone.”

  Chuck tried to assuage my concerns. “I don’t think that part of the evidence was that important, Sam. It made a nice icing to the cake, but you should be alright without it.”

  “You’re right that it wasn’t the heart of the case. The problem is that putting a theory out there and having it torn apart by the defense is a lot worse than if we’d never floated it in the first place. It gives the defense the momentum. And losing that piece of circumstantial evidence makes the fingerprint even more important,” I said.

  “I still don’t know what the problem is there,” he said.

  I filled him in on Derringer’s temp job doing inventory at Dress You Up. “Without the print, all we’ve got is Kendra’s ID and Renshaw’s testimony about the pethismograph.” I had a tough time holding back tears as I heard myself admit how bad things had turned in just one day. “That’s why I really need to know where Andrea got that purse. How’s it looking so far?”

  “It’s a long shot. I finally got hold of Andrea at work. She’s not supposed to get calls at the restaurant, so she was distracted and I was having trouble explaining to her why it was important. Add the fact that she freaked at the mention of Dress You Up, going off about how they falsely arrested her—well, you get the picture. Anyway, she thinks she bought the purse at Meier & Frank. If not there, one of the other big department stores, not Dress You Up. Problem is, she doesn’t have any credit cards and usually just pays cash.”

  “Any chance she’s still got a receipt?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m doing now. She says she usually just throws them out, but sometimes she tosses them into a couple different drawers around the house. I’m going to go through them. If I don’t find anything, I’ll swing by the restaurant on the way home so she can sign a consent form for me to get her old checks from the bank, just in case she happened to pay by check. Other than that, I can’t think of anything else.”

  Neither could I. “OK, let me know if you find anything.”

  “You going to be OK tonight, Sam?” he asked.

  Darn blasted tears were back again. “I don’t know. It’s just too much, you know?”

  “Then let me help you. If you need follow-up, I’m free.”

  What I really wanted was company. “Will you stay with me tonight when you finish up?”

  “Definitely. Easiest request I ever got from a DA. I’ll call you on my way out.”

  “And can you bring some pancakes?” I added. “The Hot-cake House makes them to go.”

  12

  It was almost midnight by the time Chuck got to my house, and we were both exhausted. Not too exhausted to talk about the case while I devoured my pancakes, or to have as good a round of hot and steamy sex as a post-pancake lull will allow, but we were pretty exhausted all the same.

  Chuck had looked through the junk drawers at the Martin house, but, as Andrea had thought, there was no receipt for the purse. Andrea signed a release for her account information, and Chuck was going to check with the bank in the morning for any checks that might match with the purchase. He was also going to contact Meier & Frank to make sure they stocked that purse before Christmas. That would at least verify Andrea’s recollection, and I could recall her to the stand along with a Meier & Frank rep in rebuttal.

  I must’ve killed the alarm the next morning, because I overslept. Even though I let my hair dry in the car and parked at the expensive garage across from the courthouse, I didn’t have time for Starbucks. Now I’d be having my ass handed me in trial with bad hair and office coffee. Terrific.

  When I ran into my office to grab my trial notebooks, I was greeted by a nice big Post-it note on my chair: Sam—Where are you? Don’t bother calling Lesh—he knows you’ll be late. Get down to Duncan’s office ASAP. TOD.

  Now what? I grabbed my notebooks and took the stairs down two flights to Duncan’s office. I’d doubled my total number of visits there in just two days. Not good.

  When I arrived, Duncan’s secretary waved me in and hollered, “Samantha Kincaid’s finally here.”

  Duncan sat alone at his desk. “Tim took off. Have a seat,” he said.

  “Sir, I’m sure this is important, but I’m still in trial,” I said, gesturing down with my head at the stack of books I was carrying for court.

  “Please, Sam, just have a seat. We called Lesh earlier.”

  I did as he said.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen Duncan Griffith without a smile. He looked worried. And mean. “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday you had a rotten case?” he asked.

  My heart started to race as I struggled to collect my thoughts. Why was he asking about my case again when we’d resolved everything yesterday?

  “First of all, I don’t think it’s a rotten case. The defense has had some surprises, so it’s no slam dunk, but I’ve still got a good enough case to fight. Second, I was under the impression that we met yesterday about the case as it relates to the Zimmerman issue. I didn’t realize that you wanted an update about the general status of the trial.”

  “Sam, that kind of answer does squat for me right now.”

  I blinked and felt my lips separate but nothing came out. “Excuse me?” I finally said.

  “Jesus, Kincaid.” Griffith shook his head at me. “Tunnel vision. A real tunnel vision problem. You didn’t get my point at all yesterday, did you?”

  “Yes, sir. Keep the eye on the ball. The big picture. The greater good.” Usually, I can manage to sound earnest even though I know I’m being snide. This time, I just sounded snide.

  “Damn it. Yes, the strength of your case matters when your bad guy’s telling everyone who will listen that he’s the innocent victim of the Keystone Kops and that some serial rapist is on the loose. It matters even more when there’s another guy on death row saying the same thing, and a little old lady serving a life term backing him up. Jesus. You made it sound yesterday like your guy was just taking advantage of the publicity with Taylor. Now I’ve got to find out from the papers that there�
��s something to it.”

  Shit. I hadn’t read the papers this morning, and I’d blown off Manning’s call last night. I decided it was better not to interrupt Griffith’s diatribe with information that made me look even more inept and uninformed.

  “Jesus, I started with the softball, Kincaid, when I asked you about your case. The bigger question is why the hell you didn’t bother to mention your little tryst with Chuck Forbes. You sat here in my office and acted like this was a routine case with some incidental mention of the Zimmerman matter. Now I’ve got this.” He picked up a folded Oregonian from his desk and slammed it down for emphasis.

  When in doubt, bluff. It usually works. “Sir, I’m not sure how it would have been relevant during our meeting yesterday for me to start discussing my personal life, whatever that may be.”

  “And you still think that today?” he asked. Again with that damn newspaper.

  My only choice was to ’fess up. “I’m afraid I didn’t get a chance to see the paper this morning yet, sir. Like I said, I’m in trial, and I was running late.”

  Griffith stared at me for a second. Then he started laughing.

  “Oh. Well then, let me have the pleasure of being the first to introduce you to the story that may very well end your career and mine. Please, be my guest. Go over to the sofa if you’d like. It’s quite comfortable, and, I guarantee, that’s quite an article. It might take awhile.”

  I thought about rewarding the sarcasm by lying on the sofa as he suggested, but I wanted to keep my job.

  I unfolded the paper to a banner headline that read, DOES PORTLAND HAVE A SERIAL KILLER? A smaller line beneath it explained, Letter from “The Long Hauler” Supports Theory Linking Current Sex Trial to Murder of Jamie Zimmerman. There was a large photograph of a smiling Jamie Zimmerman, with smaller booking photographs of Taylor, Landry, and Derringer. The text below the pictures explained that, despite claims of innocence, Taylor was on death row and Landry was serving a life sentence for the rape/murder of Zimmerman, and that Derringer claimed that whoever killed Zimmerman must have committed the crime he was accused of.