Bud Jackson was a Portland liberal who managed to win a statewide race
only by sending his wife, the daughter of a prominent local ranching
family, on the campaign trail throughout conservative rural Oregon.
"If he can say Taylor might be innocent, he could do the pardon and
save face." Duncan stopped, seeming to register my presence for the
first time since I sat down. "This OK with you, Tim?" he asked,
tilting his head toward me.
"Yeah, I'm going to need some help with the Martin family. I was just
giving Sam what we got out of the letters."
"Well, it's nice to see you two sharing the sandbox again. So where
are we this morning?" he asked, folding his arms in front of him. "I
see we weren't able to keep the Gorge search quiet."
"No, sir, we weren't," O'Donnell said, laughing at the obvious
understatement.
"They find anything?" Griffith asked.
"Yes, miraculously." Tim turned toward me. "To get you up to speed,
Kincaid, the Long Hauler said he threw Zimmerman's purse from his car
past a bend in the road up the Gorge, about a quarter mile from the
freeway, so we sent the Explorers out there yesterday to dig around
along the road out there." He turned back toward Griffith. "They
spent all day searching yesterday, but no luck. The bureau was about
to call everybody in, but they wanted to make sure they didn't screw it
up. Don't want to pull a Washington, DC have some old guy's dog dig it
up next year from right under their noses. Anyway, the detective
supervising the search pulls out a park map and talks to every Explorer
to make sure he marks off where they've searched. Turns out there's a
monster patch of blackberry bushes no one wanted to touch. About a
quarter of a football field, four feet high. Now most people would've
let it slide, thinking no way a purse can get in there."
I nodded. Blackberry bushes are dense and woody. You can't get
through them without a hatchet. I knew from the countless golf balls
I'd lost to them that a purse thrown on a blackberry bush would bounce
off.
"But this guy is ex-military, total sphincter boy. He checked with the
parks department and found out they started letting those bushes grow
two years ago, meaning they weren't there when Zimmerman was killed. So
he gets everybody clearing out blackberry bushes all night. They found
it early this morning," he said, sounding more excited. "They actually
found Jamie Zimmerman's purse, and it's pretty much where the guy said
it would be. Still has a bunch of stuff in it. Cigarettes, makeup,
and, most critically, a fake ID issued to one Jamie Zimmerman. A
detective told me he got chills when he found it. Her real ID was in
the pocket of her jeans along with a condom and a lipstick, and we
figured that was all she carried. We never even knew to look for a
purse."
"So we've got him tied to everything now," Duncan said. "Jesus, five
dead women, Sam's vie, God knows how many others. Do the police have
any leads on this guy?"
"No. Whoever he is, his luck is unbelievable. Crime lab says there's
no DNA on either letter. The Cold Case Databank entries for all four
of the other cases indicated there was too much deterioration for
testable DNA samples, just like with Zimmerman. I had IA call the
hometown police agencies to verify the computer information, and I
heard from them right before I came down. Nothing."
"Were there any other strangling cases in the database without DNA
evidence?" I asked.
O'Donnell paused. "No, just the ones from the letter."
"What's the FBI doing?" Duncan asked.
"They're interested but haven't taken over yet. They've got a profiler
studying the cases. Can't give me a time line on when they might have
something."
Duncan gave a dismissive wave. "Useless anyway. Let me take a wild
guess. Guy in his mid-twenties to forties, loner, no meaningful
relationships with women, with a job or lifestyle that takes him
through the Pacific Northwest. Likes to type letters and call himself
the Long Hauler. Yeah, real science."
He looked down at his desk and picked up a file.
"Alright, folks, here's what we're going to do. We're dumping the case
against Derringer." Duncan put up a hand to silence me before any
words came out of my open mouth. "No, Sam, we're dumping it. Your
evidence has gone to shit. You've got nothing but the vic's ID. Now,
I know you've got a personal interest in the girl, and it's admirable.
It really is. But the girl was coming out of a heroin OD. Plus you've
got a nearly identical crime committed by a different person same type
of victim, same location, both with missing purses. Oh, and don't
forget that the different person is confessing to both crimes. You
don't have enough to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt. Hell,
Sam, you don't even have probable cause."
"Duncan, the man's a convicted sex offender with shaved pubic hair.
That, combined with the confession "
He interrupted me. "You know damn well the jury can't hear about the
sex offense. Plus we had that defense attorney in here a couple days
ago about that, because the shaving was bothering me too. I can see
why you butt heads with her," he said, smiling. "What's her name
again?"
"Lisa Lopez," I said.
"Right, Lopez. Real firecracker, that one. But she made a good point.
She says Derringer shaved his privates because he was due for a second
pethismograph the Monday after the assault. I guess the wires pulled
at him on the first one." Duncan and Tim both made faces like even the
thought was painful. Wusses. They should try a bikini wax. "We
confirmed it with the PO what's his name "
"Renshaw," O'Donnell reminded him.
Griffith nodded. "Renshaw checked his calendar. Derringer was due in
on Monday, just like Lopez said. She couldn't find a way to bring it
out at trial without letting the jury know her guy was a pervert, so
she had to leave it out. Anyway, all you've got left is the ID, Sam,
and it's not enough."
But I had more than that. I had solid reliable Jan. I told them about
my visit to Meier & Frank. Surely it would be enough. It meant that
the fingerprint was back. The print had always been the best evidence.
So why weren't they excited?
"No dice, Sam," O'Donnell said, shaking his head. "I saw your note in
the file that the mom thought she got it from Meier & Frank. Just to
be safe, I called Staffpower, the temp agency that Derringer worked
for?"
I nodded.
"They faxed this over," O'Donnell said, handing me a piece of paper
from his file. "Turns out most stores do inventory before the holiday
shopping frenzy, and a lot of them use Staffpower. Derringer did