Judgment Calls (37 page)

I thought about letting her in on the truth about the Long Hauler, but the fact of the matter was, her actions had cleared the way for the Derringers to hurt Kendra and countless other girls. The rest of the story was minutiae.

“The pardon will make it clear that you’re innocent, Margaret. When you get out tomorrow, you’ll not only be free, you’ll have your good name back. It must have been awful for you these past years, having people think you did something so horrible, knowing you were innocent.”

Her eyes started to well up again.

“And when you get out tomorrow, everyone’s going to hear that you were telling the truth at your trial. They’ll know that that detective, Chuck Forbes, helped you come up with corroboration to set up Jesse.”

Mid-sob, she went silent, and I heard her breath catch in her throat. It was time to ask the question that had brought me here.

“You knew her, didn’t you, Margaret? You knew Jamie Zimmerman. That’s how you knew what kind of earrings to buy, how you knew her mother’s phone number?”

I’d seen the look on her face countless times. It’s the look witnesses get when they want to talk but they’re scared, even though they know you already know what they have to say.

“After what you’ve been through, no one’s going to prosecute you for trying to help yourself out a little on the stand. The only thing that changes here is what people are going to make of Chuck Forbes, whether they’re going to assume he did something that maybe he didn’t do. The choice is yours, Margaret. You’re getting out tomorrow either way.”

She was tough, but one more push should do it.

“How’d you know her?”

“She’d come into Harry’s Place sometimes when she was trying to go straight.” She started to explain that Harry’s was the teen homeless shelter, but I let her know with a nod that I was familiar with it.

“I went to Harry’s for a while when I was volunteering for Art Therapy,” she said. “They sent us out to different nursing homes and shelters to paint ceramics, arts and crafts, that kind of thing. Jamie was such a sweet girl. She stopped coming in for such a long time, and then I saw her in the paper. They found her body and they were looking for information. I started wondering who could do something like that to her. Then I started thinking that I lived with someone who could do that. A few days went by, and they still hadn’t found her. I thought I could mess Jesse up with his parole officer, but then it just snowballed. I thought it would look even worse if they knew I knew Jamie, so I said I got it from that young cop. I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.”

I left her there crying. I needed the emotional energy for myself.

When I got to my car, I found a message from Ray Johnson on my cell phone. He had run all the names of Frank and Derrick’s known associates. Turned out that one of Derrick’s old bunkmates was on probation for driving a brown Toyota Tercel with a suspended license. He spilled his guts the minute he heard Derrick and Frank were dead. He owed Derrick money and was repaying the debt by following me around and reporting back to Derrick. Derrick used the information about my whereabouts to break into my house, crank-call me, and feed the Oregonian anonymous tips about my sex life. Funniest thing was, a search of the guy’s belongings turned up a dollar bill with his license plate number scrawled on it. He must’ve followed me on one of my many food stops.

I thought the guy deserved a life sentence for helping the Derringers scare the shit out of me and publicly exposing my sex life, but in the end I wasn’t sure he’d done anything illegal. Maybe I’d think about it later when my brain started to work again.

For now, all I wanted was to go home and go to sleep. But I had one more thing to do. I sat in my car in the prison parking lot, staring at my cell phone, before mustering the courage to dial.

The sound of his recorded voice was anticlimactic. I did my best at the beep, but I knew it was going to take more than a phone call.

When I pulled into the driveway, he was waiting on the front porch. I had a lot to make up to him, if he’d give me the chance. It would start with a kiss on the forehead and, I hoped, a very long nap.

Acknowledgments

Judgment Calls is the product of the tremendous support I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy throughout my legal career and during my work on this first novel.

I am especially grateful to my colleagues at Hofstra Law School; Multnomah County Senior Deputy District Attorney John Bradley; Michael Connelly, Jonathon King, and Maggie Griffin for convincing me my manuscript would be finished; Jennifer Barth, editor-in-chief at Henry Holt, for her incredible work, intelligence, and creativity; Philip Spitzer, the most loyal and supportive agent on the planet; Scott Sroka; and, above all, my phenomenal family.

Samantha’s dedication and humanitarianism are modeled on the hard work I observed among former coworkers at the Multnomah County DA’s Office. You know who you are.

About the Author

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra School of Law and lives on Long Island and in western New York. She is the daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke. Judgment Calls is the first in a series featuring Samantha Kincaid.

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra School of Law and lives in Long Island, New York. She is the daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke.