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."
Twelve.
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 m
urder of Zimmerman, and that Derringer claimed
that whoever killed Zimmerman must have committed the crime he was
accused of.
I had to read the article quickly, since Griffith was obviously growing
impatient:
Like the letter first disclosed by the Oregonian last week, the one
received yesterday arrived in an unremarkable white envelope bearing a
Roseburg postmark. The writer again claims that he and not Jesse
Taylor and Margaret Landry strangled Jamie Zimmerman. In this new
letter, however, the writer maintains that Zimmerman's murder was just
the beginning in what has become a string of grisly murders, scattered
throughout the Pacific Northwest and previously believed to be
unconnected. He also claims responsibility for a brutal rape that is
the basis of the trial of Frank Derringer currently being held in the
Multnomah County Courthouse. Calling himself the Long Hauler, the
writer identifies himself as a long-haul truck driver from Oregon whose
travels across the country have made it easy for him to kill five women
undetected.
I was surprised by the graphic detail reprinted verbatim in the paper.
At one point, the author explained that killing Zimmerman had ignited
an insatiable desire in him to kill. Six months after he strangled
Jamie Zimmerman, he couldn't withstand the temptation anymore, so he
picked up a prostitute at a truck stop in Ellensburg, Washington, and
strangled her with a leather belt while he orally sodomized her. I
kept reading.
Explaining his self-declared pseudonym, the writer says, "All the good
ones had a name. Son of Sam, Boston Strangler, Green River Killer.
Unless you think of something better, you can just call me the Long
Hauler."
In addition to detailed descriptions of the murders of Jamie Zimmerman
and four other women, the writer also describes his involvement in a
violent sexual assault upon a victim he refers to as "the girl who was
dumped in the Gorge last Feb[ruary]." He claims that, as he had done
prior to and since Zimmerman's murder, he went with a friend to look
for a prostitute to share.
He says, "I knew we were going to kill the girl when my friend couldn't
[achieve an erection]. He started working her over and it brought out
the urge in me. Maybe the Gorge is my lucky spot. That couple took
the fall for me after I did Jamie, and now the cops think some other
guy did the other girl. I guess the bad luck is that this time she
lived. (Ha-ha.)"
The writer's description of the incident closely matches the crime for
which Frank Derringer is currently on trial. Derringer is accused of
raping a thirteen-year-old girl and leaving her for dead in the
Columbia Gorge with an unidentified accomplice. During his trial,
Derringer has claimed to be the victim of a mistaken eyewitness
identification. Because of similarities between the offense and
Zimmerman's murder, Derringer has suggested that the crimes were
committed by the same person or persons.
I reached the end of the front page text of the feature story and
opened the paper to jump to the continuation. Apparently, the writer
gave detailed descriptions of the five murders, but the Oregonian was
declining to publish any potentially identifying information until law
enforcement officials verified its authenticity.
An exasperated sigh from Griffith reminded me that I was supposed to be
rushing. I closed the paper back to the front page and looked up at
him.
"I'm sorry, Sam. Was I disrupting your reading?"
"I was getting through it as quickly as I could," I said. "So the
paper agreed to keep the details quiet until we figure out if this
guy's for real?"
Griffith didn't hide his annoyance. "Yeah, IA's trying to find any
cases matching up to what this guy says. But I wouldn't concern
yourself with that right now."
I wanted to ask him why the bureau's Internal Affairs Division would be
investigating a potential serial killer, but I could tell Duncan wasn't
in the mood to answer any more of my questions.
"What are you willing to tell me about this thing with Forbes?" Duncan
snatched the paper from my hand and gave it a couple of hard creases,
exposing a smaller sidebar on the front page, then handed it back to
me. "That," he said for emphasis.
Dan Manning was a little shit. That was all I could think when I found
myself staring at the headline:
DA-DETECTIVE RELATIONSHIP CLOUDS DERRINGER CASE
The deputy district attorney prosecuting Frank Derringer is involved in
a romantic relationship with a lead detective in the investigation of
the murder of Jamie Zimmerman and the rape of which Derringer is
Samantha Kincaid of the Drug and Vice Division of the Multnomah County
District Attorney's Office is handling the current trial against
Derringer, who is accused of raping and attempting to murder a teenage
girl last February. The defense has raised the possibility that the
crime was committed by the person or persons who murdered Jamie
Zimmerman three years ago.
The Oregonian has learned that Detective Charles Forbes,
Jr." of the Major Crimes Team of the Portland Police Bureau, has spent
multiple nights with Kincaid at her home since the beginning of the
Derringer trial.
Forbes is a member of the team that investigated the case against
Derringer. He was also a central figure in the prosecutions of Jesse
Taylor and Margaret Landry, who have been convicted of Zimmerman's
murder. Forbes, the son of former Governor Charles Forbes, was the
only witness to statements by Landry that incriminated her and Taylor
in the murder.
When contacted for comment, Lisa Lopez, Derringer's lawyer, raised
concerns about the objectivity of the District Attorney's Office. "Mr.
Derringer has been trying to tell the police and the District
Attorney's Office that there is something seriously wrong here. One
girl is dead and another one brutally assaulted," Lopez said. "While
the real assailant runs free to write taunting letters to the media,
the Portland Police Bureau's Major Crime Team is so eager to close
cases that they're going after innocent people like Mr. Derringer. If
the prosecuting DDA is having a romantic relationship with this
particular detective, I have real questions about the fairness of the
process."
Ms. Kincaid did not return calls requesting her comments.
Little shit didn't begin to describe the enormousness of Manning's
shiftiness. He had clearly called late in the day and left an
innocuous message, betting I wouldn't call back. It always sounds
better when the media can say that someone didn't return calls.
"Duncan, if I had known, I would've returned his call. He didn't say
anything about this angle. You can listen to the message if you want
to. I saved it."
"Oh, that's great, Sam. That's really going to save my neck here.
"Hey, Oregonian, I want a retraction. Yes, my deputy's banging this
; rogue detective, and yes, your reporter tried to call her about it
ahead of time, but it's really unfair that he wasn't clearer about his
angle." "
I guess it did sound a little whiny.
"Is there any way to deny the story, Sam?" he asked. He had calmed
down considerably and asked the question in a way that suggested he'd
already come to accept the answer.
"No, it's accurate," I said, still failing to comprehend how my
personal life had wound up on the front page of the paper and inside
Duncan Griffith's office.
Duncan walked around his desk and took a seat behind it. Maybe he
thought I'd blame the desk and not him for what he was about to do.
Maybe he just wanted a shield in front of him in case I became
hysterical.
"I'm taking you off the Derringer case. O'Donnell already notified the
defense and Judge Lesh this morning that the office was looking into
the information published in this morning's paper and that some changes
might be forthcoming. I'm going to put O'Donnell on the case. I
expect he'll be able to get an adjournment while we figure out what the
hell's going on. O'Donnell may need to consult with you on the file,
but you are officially off any case involving MCT. Do you have any
others?"
I wanted to walk out. No, I wanted to throw stuff at him, break a few
valuables in his impeccable office, and then walk out. Unfortunately,
I also wanted to keep my job. The reality was that I could still do