direction, but I realized I had seen him earlier at one of the other
exhibits and, come to think of it, he'd been alone then too.
I gave Kendra some money to buy us all red-white-and-blue ice pops
shaped like rockets. As I watched her walk over to the concession
stand, I lowered my voice. "Don't make it obvious that you're looking,
Grace, but you see that guy by the rain forest? On the phone?"
She snuck a little peek. "Sweetie, you do need to get yourself a man
if you're stooping that low."
I looked at the guy again. "Grace, no. Yuck. It's just isn't it a
little weird for a man to be at a zoo by himself?"
"Maybe his family's inside, and he left to make a call."
"I saw him earlier, though, and I think he was alone then too. It
didn't stand out at the time, but now I think he was looking at us over
by the lions."
"What lions?" She laughed.
"I'm not kidding, Grace. Maybe he's a little pervert who's at the zoo
to watch all the kids."
"Or maybe he's just some suburban dad who's trying to keep up with the
office while he's on daddy duty at the zoo, and he was looking at us
because we aren't so hard on the eyes." She slipped into a Mae West
routine.
"Hey, knock it off. I'm serious."
"No, Sam, you're paranoid. You've got crime on the mind, and you're
especially uneasy about Kendra today. If you're really worried, we can
go say something to security. Tell them to keep an eye on him."
I thought about it. "Nah, you're right." I looked back at the guy. He
was putting his phone away and walking into the rain forest. "I'm sure
he's harmless."
We polished off the rocket pops and headed toward the polar bears.
Grace and I were entranced, as usual, by Portland's swimming polar
bears, but I noticed that Kendra seemed a little distracted.
"You holding up OK, kiddo?" I asked.
She looked at me like I'd offered her broccoli, and then spoke
extremely slowly in the event I'd suddenly become extremely stupid.
"Um, yeah. Unless I'm missing something, the zoo's not exactly a high
stress kind of thing, Samantha."
She was playing tough, but I knew the trial was weighing on her mind at
least as much as on mine. "Very funny, wiseacre. Last time I checked,
I was going to be picking a jury tomorrow, and you were scheduled to
testify in a couple days. Do we need to talk about that?"
"No. I understand how everything will go. I'll be OK."
I was worried. I'd prepped her, but the trial would be her first
face-to-face with Derringer since the assault, and I suspected that she
had no idea of what was coming. I'd advised her that Lisa Lopez would
cross-examine her. She knew that Lopez undoubtedly would ask her about
her drug use and prostitution. We ran through a mock cross together,
but I couldn't bring myself to get rough with her on the issues of drug
use and promiscuity. I was hoping Lisa would pull her punches on these
issues. If she did hit Kendra hard, the jury might hold it against the
defense.
I gave Kendra's arm a little squeeze and said goodbye. "You take it
easy this week, OK? You're going to be fine." Grace was going to give
Kendra a ride home, but first they were going to make a stop at
Lockworks, Grace's salon.
It would be good for Kendra to see other women in careers more
satisfying than her mother's, and Grace has all the stuff good role
models are made of. She graduated magna cum laude with a business
degree from the University of Oregon. About two years into a marketing
job with a big company in town, she foresaw that Portland was
attracting a more cosmopolitan population than the city was capable of
servicing. She had been cutting her friends' hair since high school,
she had a great mind for business, her taste had always been
impeccable, and people had always been drawn to her. She took out a
loan, bought part of an old warehouse, and opened Lockworks in the
Pearl District. She lured the best stylists in the city by offering
them good benefits and a piece of the profits, and used her contacts to
recruit customers while she went to cosmetology school at night.
Lockworks is now the swankiest salon in town, and customers wait weeks
to get an appointment with Grace. Luckily, she still cuts my hair like
she did in high school, in her kitchen while we eat raw cookie dough.
As I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed the cell phone dad
leaving, too. Except he still didn't have anyone with him. And he was
driving a brown Toyota Tercel. Did they let dads drive those things?
As he left the lot, I dug through my purse for a piece of paper.
Normally my bag's full of old receipts, but I'd just cleaned it out. I
pulled out the edge of a dollar from my wallet and scribbled down the
guy's plate number before I lost sight of him. Maybe I'd run it later
to make sure he wasn't a fugitive pedophile.
I had just enough time to drive back downtown to make the meeting I'd
scheduled with MCT. Immediately before a trial, I like to get the
principal investigators together to run through all the evidence and
review what we can expect from the defense. It was a practice I'd
followed in the federal system, where the agents support the case all
the way through the trial. Unfortunately, the local police are so busy
that it's hard to get investigative time on a case once it's been
indicted by the grand jury.
Lisa had given me a copy of her witness list just a few days ago. In
an ideal world, I would have asked the police to interview each of the
potential defense witnesses so we could lock in what they might say at
trial. All I was hoping for in the real world was an idea of who each
person was. From there, I would have to guess what the purpose of
their testimony would be.
I had finally broken down and bought a cell phone, and I
was still in that phase every new cell phone owner goes through,
finding reasons to use my fancy new gadget. On my way to central
precinct, I called MCT to make sure everyone was assembled as
planned.
It took awhile for an answer. "Walker."
I had to raise my voice to be sure he heard me over all of the whooping
and hollering in the background. "Detective Walker, it's Samantha
Kincaid. I just wanted to make sure we're still on for today. Any
news?"
"Hell, yeah, we've got news. Haven't you heard?"
I obviously hadn't, so he continued. "Oregon Supreme Court ruled in a
special session this morning that the State can stick the big needle to
Jesse Taylor. I wouldn't have thought those libs had it in them, but
we're finally gonna have an execution around here."
I said something about the state court being just the beginning. Even