Broadway to make sure I wasn't being followed. When I was a couple
hundred yards past the lot, I saw the car pull out onto Broadway in my
direction. When it stopped for a red light, I ducked into a
convenience store on the corner and pretended to peruse the tabloid
headlines until I saw the car go through the green light and disappear
into the other traffic down Broadway.
I eventually got up the nerve to run home. Well, not that much nerve.
I took a route that involved running an extra couple of miles and
jumping over my back fence.
After locking myself inside my house and setting the alarm, I went
straight to my handbag to find the license plate number I'd scribbled
down at the zoo. I looked on both sides of all the bills, but I
couldn't find it. I must have spent it.
Given the turnaround of cash in a register, the likelihood of it still
being wherever I'd spent it was next to nil. Orchid Garden was most
recent, so I gave it a try.
The employees were closing the place down for the night. They looked
alarmed when I started banging on the door to get their attention, but
after I flashed my DA badge, a pimply bespectacled girl let me in. I
pled my case to an eighteen-year-old kid who wore a tie with his
striped shirt to denote his authority as the night-shift manager, and
he finally let me fish through their singles.
After all that work it wasn't there.
"I told you so," the tie guy reminded me. "I told you, when we take
your money, it goes in the top of the drawer, so it's the first one
paid out."
Like I needed him to explain that to me. I thanked him anyway and went
home angry at myself. Now I had no idea if the brown Tercel had
anything to do with any of this.
I managed to fall asleep, but my pager woke me up shortly after the wee
hours had kicked in. I recognized the number as Garcia's cell, so I
returned the call. He could tell from my voice that he'd woken me and
apologized.
"I wasn't sure whether to call you, but I'm down here at juvie with
Haley Jameson. She got popped for loitering to solicit."
Portland's loitering-to-solicit ordinance was enacted just last year
after the city ran into problems proving prostitution cases under the
state statute. In practice, the only way to prove an agreement to
exchange sex for money was to conduct sting missions using undercover
officers posing as either prostitutes or Johns. It was an expensive
and time-consuming process, and the sting missions had gotten out of
hand. To avoid the stings, the regulars all started insisting on free
samples before they'd negotiate the date: "Let me touch your cock so I
know you're not a cop." What real John's going to turn that down? For
obvious reasons, though, the bureau prohibited officers from engaging
in sexual contact with suspects.
The beginning of the end for sting missions was when an officer decided
to get clever, put a nine-inch rubber replica in his pants, and whipped
it out on an unwitting prostitution suspect. Actually logged it into
evidence after the bust. PPB didn't like it, so they started hiring
non-police informants to conduct the stings. When the weekly scandal
rag disclosed that Portland's finest were paying losers to get hand
jobs, the entire vice unit almost got shut down. The result,
fortunately, was the adoption of a loitering-to-solicit ordinance.
Everyone wins: Police get to stop the street-level prostitution that no
one wants in their neighborhoods without having to conduct stings, and
the Johns and prostitutes take a lesser punishment from a city
ordinance instead of a state statute.
As Tommy described it, Haley's loitering pop was pretty typical. Time
of day, red-light neighborhood, flagging down cars with men in them. It
was usually enough.
"She saying anything?" I asked.
"Nope. She's making it real clear that it's nothing new and she knows
the only thing that's going to happen to her is mandatory counseling
that she'll never attend and assignment to a foster home that she'll
immediately run away from."
"I don't see a lot we can do then, Tommy."
"Agreed. I only called you because she brought up your name. As tough
as she's playing, I think she'd like to get out of it if she could do
it without any work on her part. She told me Kendra said the female DA
on her case was alright, and that if we had told her that day in
February that you were a friend of Kendra, she might not have been such
a bitch."
"Did she say when she talked to Kendra?" I asked.
"Not exactly, but it sounded recent." I knew I shouldn't have believed
Kendra when she said she hadn't been staying in touch with Haley.
"Anyway, since she brought up your name and is apparently hanging with
your vie again, I thought I should call you. You want me to cut her
loose?"
I thought about it. It would do Kendra some good to see the
consequences of the life she'd left behind. "Screw her. Unless she's
willing to give us something useful for vice, put the case through."
"I figured as much but thought it was your call. I'll give her my card
and tell her to call me if she wants to share any info?"
"Go ahead, but I don't see it happening."
I had a hard time falling back asleep.
Nine.
The next day of trial continued uneventfully. Things move along
surprisingly smoothly when the defense never objects or cross-examines
your witnesses. Lisa's silence initially made me nervous, because I
suspected she was reserving the hardball for Kendra. I was wrong,
though.
After Jack Walker's testimony, Kendra took the stand and walked the
jury through her life story. Two female jurors wiped away tears when
Kendra talked about what Derringer had done to her.
To my surprise, Lisa took the high road on cross. She didn't roll
over, but she didn't rip Kendra apart, either.
The entirety of Lisa's cross focused on Kendra's heroin use; she did
not discuss prostitution activity at all. And even her questions about
the drugs did not seem like a character attack. Instead, she zeroed in
on the effects that heroin may have had upon Kendra's perceptions that
night. Even I had to admit that her questions were fair.
After Kendra testified, I called Andrea Martin to the stand, primarily
to humanize Kendra by showing the jury that she had a mother. Her
testimony, which was limited to Kendra's recovery, was uncontroversial,
and Lisa didn't cross-examine her. Andrea had to leave for work once
she left the stand, but Kendra stayed for the rest of the day.
Pleased that Kendra had testified with relatively minor trauma, Chuck,
Grace, and I took her to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner right after
court got out. Nothing tops a hard day's work like a big plate of