some people walking around who might see me if I tried to get out, but
it was really dark."
"So if you had passed an open store, do you think you would've
remembered it?"
"Um, yeah, I guess. Because I was looking for a place with a bunch of
people."
"When they stopped, were you near houses? Or was it more industrial?"
The police report said that Kendra had described being in a parking
lot, but I hadn't formed an impression of what type of lot.
"It was a big parking lot, but there weren't, like, any other cars or
anything. And there was, like, one real big building but then nothing
else, just like a park or something. But it wasn't a park I'd ever
seen or anything."
I was at a loss. I headed toward Reed College until I could think of a
better plan.
"Oh, wait, I remember something. After they stopped, before I tried to
run away, I remember I couldn't hear what they were saying to each
other. They were, like, having to yell to talk because a train was
going by."
Now we were getting somewhere. Portland doesn't have much in the way
of train tracks. There's the Max, a light rail that's part of the
city's public transportation. It runs east to west across the entire
county on a single track. Then there are the rail car tracks. The
east-west tracks are close to the Max rails along Interstate 84. The
north-south tracks are roughly adjacent to Highway 99. "Like a Max
train or a big train?"
"Louder than the Max. A big train."
The east-west train tracks didn't seem likely. They were on the north
side of the city. I didn't think Kendra would confuse any neighborhood
along the tracks with southeast Portland. But the north-south tracks
ran right through close-in southeast Portland, just a half a mile or so
west of Reed. There were a few neighborhood parks within earshot of
the tracks.
I drove past Reed College and headed to the Rhododendron Gardens. The
front parking lot and small information booth fit Kendra's description
at least roughly. When I pulled into the lot, she said, "No, this
isn't it. It was a bigger lot, and there wasn't a fence like this. It
just went right into the park area and then there was a bigger
building."
Westmoreland Park had a larger parking lot without a fence, but I
didn't recall any kind of building, and sure enough there wasn't one.
"Does this even look like the same neighborhood?" I asked.
"Yeah, it does. I don't think I've ever been here or anything. But,
yeah, it was like this. Like with a lot of trees and stuff. And when
we passed houses, they were big like these."
We were in the middle of a pocket of upscale houses in southeast
Portland. The Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood, like my own in Alameda,
was made up of turn-of-the-century homes. It was the most recent
central neighborhood to have been taken over and colonized by yuppies.
Considered a hippie enclave when I was a kid, the place was now overrun
by coffee shops, chichi bakeries, and antiques stores. Area residents
now actually golfed at Eastmoreland, a municipal course that rivals
many private country clubs.
Sometimes my disjointed pattern of thought actually pays off. It
suddenly dawned on me that the last time I went to Eastmoreland to use
its covered driving range, I sliced the hell out of a ball because a
train had come barreling by at the top of my backswing. The parking
lot is enormous and surrounded by thick hedges on two sides and the
golf course on the others.
I felt a rush, but I tried to hide my excitement. I didn't want to
coach Kendra into a specific answer. I took a few side streets through
Westmoreland and then turned into the Eastmoreland lot.
Kendra knew immediately. If her ID of Derringer had been this solid, I
could see why she'd earned Walker's and Johnson's confidence.
"Samantha, this is it. I remember, I remember! That's the big
building, and over there's the park. Are we near train tracks? This
is totally it. They drove me right over there, around the side of the
building."
I knew that around the corner from the clubhouse, a strip of asphalt
led to the driving range. I parked there whenever I came to hit balls,
but it had never dawned on me how dangerously isolated the area would
be when the course was closed. Acres of greens surrounded the lot on
the north, east, and south. To the west, thick hedges, train tracks,
and a six-lane freeway separated the parking lot from the nearest
house.
From the backseat, Chuck patted Kendra on the shoulder.
"Good memory, kiddo. Good job, Kincaid, for thinking of this place.
You two didn't even need me here."
I knew he was attempting to hide his disappointment. The odds of
finding a witness were slim. He would check with the golf course in
the morning, but he wouldn't find anything.
I tried to look on the bright side. At least I could prove that the
crime had taken place in Multnomah County, so Derringer couldn't weasel
out on a technical argument over jurisdiction. Also, the golf course
was only a few minutes from Derringer's house, which at least added a
piece of circumstantial evidence. At this point, anything helped.
I decided to drive by Derringer's apartment before heading back to
Rockwood. It would be nice to know the exact distance for trial, and I
might as well get it while I was down here.
I took a right onto Milwaukee Avenue and made a note of my odometer
reading. Milwaukee is the primary commercial road running through
Sellwood. It was also one of the only places where you'd find
low-rent, high-crime apartments in this pocket of southeast Portland.
Frank Derringer's apartment building was on Milwaukee and Powell, which
I learned was exactly 1.7 miles from the Eastmoreland Golf Club. I
pulled into the small parking lot in front of the building, turned on
my overhead light, and jotted down the odometer reading on a legal pad
I pulled from my briefcase.
"Sorry for the stop, guys, but I wanted to make sure I made a note in
the file about our find at the golf club while it was still fresh in my
mind."
Chuck realized where we were but didn't say anything. He apparently
agreed there was no need to inform Kendra that we were sitting just a
few feet from her assailant's home. She didn't seem like the
pipe-bomb-building type, but you never can tell.
I added a short note for the file, summarizing Kendra's statement at
the golf course. As I was returning the pad to my briefcase, Kendra
opened her car door, got out, and began walking across the street.
"Where the hell's she "
Before I could finish the question, Chuck was out of the car too. It