Judgment Calls (12 page)

I made my way through the staff entrance, took the elevator up to the eighth floor, tapped the security code into the electronic keypad next to the back entrance, and snuck into my office without the receptionist noticing I was a little late.

My morning and what was supposed to be my lunch hour were consumed by drug unit custodies the police reports detailing the cases against people arrested the previous night. The Constitution affords arrestees the right to a prompt determination of probable cause. The Supreme Court seems to think forty-eight hours is prompt enough, meaning an innocent person might have to sit in jail for a couple of days until a judge gets around to checking whether there’s any evidence against him. In Oregon, we only get a day, so we have to review the custodies and prepare probable cause showings before the 2 p.m. JC-2 docket. If we don’t get them arraigned by the afternoon docket, they get cut loose.

Around two o’clock, just as I was getting antsy about not having heard anything about the warrant, my pager buzzed at my waist. It was the MCT number.

Chuck picked up on the first ring.

“How much do you love me?” he asked.

“Only men I love right now are Vinnie and my daddy. But you can tell me what you’ve got anyway if you want.”

“I’m not sure I believe you, but I guess it’ll have to wait for another day. Lesh signed off on the warrant last night, but like I thought, we couldn’t get the lab folks out here until this morning. You’re not gonna believe it. Not only did Derringer put a new coat of paint on that P.O.S.” looks like he had it completely overhauled. New carpet, new upholstery, the works.”

“How do we know it’s new?”

“Stupid bastard must’ve forgotten to check his car when the work was finished. We found the shop work order under the front passenger floor mat. Got it done Sunday morning at some shop over on Eighty-second and Division. Paid eight hundred dollars cash.”

“So we don’t have any blood evidence,” I said.

“Nope. The tech guys had a lot of fun ripping out all of this asshole’s new stuff, but it doesn’t look like any blood soaked through to the cushions. But come on, Sam. What’s a loser like Derringer doing pouring that kind of cash into a thousand-dollar car? Didn’t you say the guy does temp work?”

“That’s what his PO says. I didn’t say it wasn’t good. I just thought the news would be better since you seemed so excited.”

“I’m not done yet. I was giving you the bad news first. The lab called me this morning.” He paused to make me wait for it.

“DNA?”

“Damn, Sam. You’re shooting a little high there.”

“So no DNA,” I said.

“No. What’d you expect? Kendra said the guy did it in her mouth. Hardly ever get anything from that.”

“Unless it happens to fall on some intern’s navy blue dress, right?”

“Yeah. Bill definitely caught a bad break on that one. Anyway, we don’t have any DNA, but there is good news. They found a latent print on the strap of Kendra’s purse. They matched six points to Derringer.”

“Is the tech willing to call it on that?” I asked.

“Yes. I called her back to be sure. It’s Heidi Chung. You know her?”

“Yeah. She comes in on drug cases sometimes. Seems pretty good.”

“She’s a ten. Anyway, Heidi says Derringer’s got some kind of broken ridge on his right index finger that’s pretty unusual.”

Experts quantify the similarity between an identifiable latent print left at the scene with a suspect’s print based on the number of points that match. When I was back at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI usually wouldn’t call a match until they had seven points. But a match can be called with fewer points when the ones that are there are especially rare. Luckily, Derringer’s prints were as screwy as he was.

“OK, now that rocks. You just made my day.”

“I knew you’d be happy. Not quite love, but I feel appreciated.”

“It’s huge,” I said. “Good job finding that purse in the first place. We’ve got that little shit.”

We went over everything we had. Kendra’s ID of Derringer, the proximity of Derringer’s apartment to the crime scene, the shaving of his body hair, the car work, and now his fingerprint on Kendra’s purse. It felt like someone had pulled a sack full of rocks off my shoulders.

The talk about Kendra’s purse reminded me of my conversation with Mrs. Martin. “Oh, speaking of Kendra’s purse, we should probably get her keys back to her. Her mom was going to get a new set made, but there may be other things she needs.”

“What keys?”

“Her house keys were in her purse. Remember? We had to leave the door unlocked for her last night?”

“No, Sam, I don’t remember. She said she didn’t have keys and her mom was getting a set made. I just assumed she didn’t have any because she hadn’t been living there. Shit!”

“What’s the difference? Just get the keys back.”

“The difference is that there weren’t any keys in the purse, Sam. Fuck!”

Why hadn’t I checked with him? I had just assumed. I replayed last night in my head. When I drove Kendra home, I made sure that the back door hadn’t been tampered with, but I hadn’t gone in with her. “Did you call her? Have you talked to her today?” I said.

“No,” he said. “I was going to as soon as I got off the phone with you.”

“Oh my God. What have I done?”

“Calm down, Sam. She’s probably fine.” He was talking fast now. “Think. Is there any way Derringer or his buddies could get Kendra’s address from the court case?”

“No. No, the judge ordered the defense attorney to withhold the address from Derringer, and Lisa wouldn’t violate that. They know her name, though.”

“What about the mom’s name? Do they have that?” he asked.

I thought through all of the filings in the case. “No. It’s not in there. Just Kendra’s.” Luckily, Martin was a common surname, so the phone book wouldn’t do them any good.

“OK. It’s OK. Ray and Jack checked with her after we found the purse to make sure she didn’t have anything in there with her mom’s address on it. I was out there this morning for my car, and everything looked normal. You stay calm. I’ll call you right back.”

I tried to calm down. She should be OK. If something had been wrong when Andrea got home from work, we’d know by now.

Despite all the logical reasons not to worry, it was hard to concentrate, so I distracted myself by checking my bottomless voice mailbox. Along with the usual stuff, there was a message from O’Donnell. “Hey, Sam, O’Donnell here. I waited around in your office awhile, but I guess I missed you. Hope you’re not still riled up about the other day. The guys and I were just having some fun. Anyway, I hear you did a number on the Derringer indictment. Since it was my dog to start with, I thought I’d call in and see if you have anything new. I assume you’re going to have to plead it out at some point, right? Those Measure Eleven charges aren’t gonna stick. Give me a call when you’ve got a chance and let me know where things stand.”

For the same reason I always eat the vegetables on my plate first, I went ahead and called him. Better to get it over with.

I gave him a quick rundown on where we stood.

“Shit, Kincaid. With only a six-point latent on the print, you’re toast without DNA. It’s your case, but I’d plead it out quick if I were you. Case like this, you might be able to squeak out a decent deal before the guy realizes you’re shooting blanks.”

“I’ll take it into consideration. Thanks. Anything else?”

“How’s that vice angle going? Didn’t Garcia say something about trying to use the vie to get some intel on pimps?”

“Yeah, Tommy thought it might pan out. Turns out the girl hadn’t been working long. And what she did, she did on her own. I’ve got some pictures she took of some other girls, but it doesn’t look that promising.”

“Yeah, I saw those on your desk when I was in there earlier. Didn’t realize the connection. It’s not too late to pull out, you know. You could still dump the mandatory minimums and send it down to general trial,” he said.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I got off the phone before I said something I’d regret and turned back to my computer. Nothing could take my mind off Kendra. I checked the time so I’d know when I’d waited long enough to check in with Chuck.

After a long 78 seconds, Tommy Garcia popped his head into my office.

“Hey, Sammie. Quepasa?”

I sighed. “The Derringer investigation’s on hyper speed It’s coming together, though. How about you?”

“I’m just over here for a grand jury. Got here a little early, so I thought I’d check in on you. See how’s your vic’s doing.”

“Kendra. Yeah, seems like a pretty decent kid, actually.” I didn’t see any reason to alarm Tommy with the problem of the keys. “Speak of the devil, though, I’ve got something for you.” I found the photographs Kendra had given me and handed them to him. “You might be interested in these. Ken-dra’s clique from the Hamilton.”

He flipped through once and then went through them more methodically. “A couple of these girls look real familiar.” He leaned toward me and pointed at one of the girls rubbing against the faceless man with the Tasmanian Devil tattoo. I recognized her as Kendra’s friend, Haley. “This one’s a real piece of work. Holly or Halle or Haley or something.”

“I think it’s Haley.”

He rolled his eyes, clearly tired of the indistinguishable trendy names found among today’s kids. “Anyway, she’s one of the hard-core street kids. She’s about sixteen. Been on the streets at least four years and lives the life in every aspect. Hates the police, caseworkers, anything that’s legitimate.”

“Sounds like she’d have good information for vice.”

“Man, are you kidding? She’s like a matriarch out there. She knows the kids, but she also knows who’s plucking them off the buses and streets to get them into it. Problem is, a girl like that ain’t easy to flip. She’s convinced herself that her life is the one she wants, not just what she got stuck with. She wouldn’t take the road out even if it were open to her.”

“Well, she and my vie were pretty tight. I got the impression that this girl sort of watched Kendra’s back.”

“I don’t know, Sam. From what I can tell, this girl’s all about survival, so unless your vie had something for her…” He faded out. “Hell, I guess it can’t hurt to take a shot. Use your case as the in with her?”

“It’s up to you. I thought the pictures might help you out, but don’t take it as an indication that you need to do anything with them.” Most detectives would be offended if a DA tried to tell them to initiate an investigation, but Tommy was worried about letting me down.

“Yeah, I might give it a shot. I’ll let you know. You need these back?” he asked, holding up the photographs.

“Nope. Hold on to ‘em as long as you want.”

As Garcia left the office, I snuck a look at the clock. Thirteen minutes now. Why hadn’t Chuck called?

Just as my self-imposed fifteen minute deadline was about to expire, the phone rang.

Chuck knew to get to the important stuff first. “She’s at home, and she’s fine.” He could hear my relief. “I shouldn’t have even mentioned it to her. I think it scared her mom. She’s saying some things are out of place. I’m sure she’s just getting used to having Kendra around all day again. But she’s still spooked.”

“But there’s nothing else suggesting anyone was in the house?”

“No. Look, it’s fine, Sam. Even if they took the keys, I don’t see how they’d know where Kendra lives, and it doesn’t make any sense for them to go there just to poke around. I called one of the community safety liaisons out in Gresham, to be safe. He’s leaving the department as we speak to relock the house on the city’s dime. I’m just pissed that I didn’t put it together sooner.”

“It’s my fault. I’m the one who Andrea talked to about getting the keys out of the purse. I should’ve made sure they were in there.”

“No use blaming anyone now. Luckily it turned out OK.” With our temporary panic out of the way, he moved the conversation back to the new evidence. “So, you happy about the case now?”

“Happy doesn’t begin to describe it. I’m ecstatic.”

“You want to grab a bite tonight? Celebrate the good news?”

“I was going to stop by Dad’s tonight.”

“Alright, some other time.” He sounded disappointed, and I was surprised to find myself feeling the same way. When we didn’t want to kill each other, I truly felt at home with Chuck. We’d known each other so long that we were comfortable together in a way we didn’t feel with anyone else. At least, I didn’t. From what I’d heard, Chuck was never lonely for company in the evenings, but given how often his name passed through the rumor mill, it didn’t seem like he’d kept anyone around long enough to get serious.

“You want to come with me? Dad always likes seeing you,

you know.” The words were out of my mouth before I reminded myself that, when it came to me and Chuck, there was a cloud for every silver lining.

“Sure. Sounds great. Pick you up at seven?”

“Only if I get to drive the Jag,” I said. If I was going to play with fire, I may as well get some warmth out of it.

Just as I hung up the phone, it rang again. Maybe it was Chuck, having second thoughts too.

“Kincaid,” I said.

It was Judge Leeson’s clerk. Maria Leeson had the unfortunate privilege of being the presiding judge for the Multnomah County Circuit Court, meaning she had to deal with all the miscellaneous shit that none of the other judges had time for.

“The judge wants to know why you’re not down here,” she said.

“Because I’m here. And not there.”

“You better get down here.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You’ve got a case on the docket. State v. Derringer.”

“For what?”

“Call,” she said. Cases were on the call docket when they were about to go to trial. Before a judge and courtroom were set aside, the parties were supposed to show up and report the status of plea negotiation and whether they were ready to go to trial. We usually sent one DA to the call docket to report information for the entire office. Poor Alan Ritpers was the current call DA.

“I gave all my trial information to Ritpers. The Derringer case just got arraigned the other day,” I said.

“Yep, and that’s why you need to get down here,” she said. “Lopez called yesterday to have the case added to the docket, and Ritpers is clueless. The judge wants you down here. Now.”