inventory at Meier & Frank last October also."
The paper he'd handed me was a list of all of the jobs Derringer took
through Staffpower last year. In the two months before Thanksgiving,
he must've worked inventory for half the stores in the mall.
"You could've saved yourself some time if you'd talked to me before you
went running around Meier & Frank on your own after you got taken off
the case," Tim said.
"I didn't 'run around," " I said, making air quotes with my hands. I
was seething. And I hate air quotes. "It's on my way home and "
Griffith put a hand up to silence us. "Sandbox. Remember, kids?" Tim
and I stopped. Duncan was right. It didn't matter anymore.
"Sam, you'll explain the situation to the family?" Griffith asked.
I nodded. Yes, I would have to. I couldn't pretend any longer that
the case was winnable. It rested entirely on Ken-dra's ID. Eyewitness
ID is always questionable, but I had a child victim who had suffered a
horrific assault and was under the influence of heroin. And if I
couldn't maintain that the case was winnable, I couldn't argue with the
decision to dismiss it. I hated the thought of breaking the news to
Ken-dra, but I couldn't stomach the idea of anyone else doing it
either.
"What do you want to do with Taylor and Landry?" O'Donnell asked.
"That one's trickier," Duncan said, pressing the pads of his fingertips
together to make something resembling a filleted crab, an annoying male
gesture that seemed popular in the power corridor. "Juries heard the
evidence and found Taylor and Landry guilty. Even now, the evidence
we've got on them isn't so bad, a lot better than we've got on
Derringer. There's no way around the phone number and earrings that
Landry planted on Taylor. But now we've also got ironclad proof that
the Long Hauler is involved."
"We've basically got proof beyond a reasonable doubt of two separate
theories," I said.
"Right," Griffith said, "unless we buy Landry's explanation for how she
knew so much. So if we say she didn't do it, we're basically admitting
that a cop helped her with the set-up on Taylor and then lied about it
on the stand. I want to be careful here."
He turned to Tim. "Call the FBI. See if they'll make a polygrapher
available to us. Then see if Landry and Taylor will agree to polys.
You'll have to discuss the questions with the FBI examiner, but what I
really want to know is whether they did the Zimmerman girl, and whether
they know the Long Hauler."
The results of a polygraph examination aren't admissible in court, but
the examinations are used by law enforcement all the time. Sometimes
you hook a suspect up to one so he'll confess after he fails it. The
failed poly doesn't come into evidence, but the confession does.
Polygraphs also help clear someone you already want to cut loose, based
on your instincts: the missing kid's parents, the dead woman's husband,
the suspects who become suspects merely because of their status. If
you don't have any other reason to suspect them, a passed poly lets you
stop looking at them and move on to less obvious theories. Griffith
would feel more confident about exonerating Landry and Taylor if they
passed polygraphs first.
"Isn't there also the possibility that someone connected to Landry or
Taylor wrote the Long Hauler letters?" I asked. It couldn't be Landry
or Taylor themselves. As O'Donnell had pointed out, outgoing prisoner
mail is strictly monitored.
"I thought that was a possibility with the first letter," Tim said,
"but I can't see it with this new one. First of all, I don't think
Landry knew about Zimmerman's purse, or she would have mentioned it
when she was trying to set Taylor up for the fall. More importantly,
whoever wrote the Long Hauler letter had to know not just about the
Zimmerman murder but the four other murders, plus your case. No way
some friend of theirs could cook this up. But, like Duncan said, we
should make sure with the poly that Taylor and Landry aren't somehow
wrapped up with the Long Hauler."
"So there's the plan, team," Duncan said. The filleted crab fingers
were gone and the capped smile was back. "Sam, you take care of the
dismissal on Derringer. Any calls from the press, you give 'em some
bullshit about new evidence produced by the defense. Don't tie it to
the Long Hauler, or we'll get even more pressure to cut Landry and
Taylor loose. And talk to the victim today. The family needs to be on
board for this. Let them know we're going after this guy and her case
won't be forgotten. Tim, get me those polys. I need to get back to
Governor Jackson."
So that was it. The case was gone, and I was the one who had to
dismiss it and deliver the news to Kendra.
Part of me wanted to call her immediately. Get it over with. Rip the
bandage off. But she was in school, so I worked my hardest to keep my
mind occupied, trying not to think about how much the case's dismissal
would hurt her.
I used the morning's custodies as an excuse not to complete the
dismissal order for Derringer. And not to call Chuck. He'd already
left me two messages asking why I'd been so cold the night before. As
much as I knew that I'd eventually have to answer that question, it was
the last thing I wanted to think about right now. So, I stayed cold
and worked on custodies.
Today's custodies were typical. Thirty-two new cases,
almost all of them identical. Knock and talk, traffic stop, jaywalking
ticket. Something small usually a ruse starts the encounter between
police and someone who looks like they're up to no good. Sometimes the
no-goodnik consents to the search. Sometimes it's a pat-down for
officer safety reasons, or maybe the officer claims exigent
circumstances. Whatever the basis, the search always occurs, and the
police find either heroin, coke, or meth. I timed it out once and
figured I spend an average of seven minutes to review and issue the
typical drug case. Nothing to be proud of, but, like I said, they're
all the same.
When I finished up, I changed into my running gear and headed out into
the drizzle. The loop around the downtown and east side waterfronts of
the Willamette is almost exactly three miles. I ran hard, trying to
chase visions of Kendra and Chuck from my head, and I finished in
twenty-two minutes. Not quite as fast as our current president, but I
work a lot harder at my day job.
Back at the office, I bought myself some more time, drafting a
procrastinated response to a motion to suppress. But I couldn't ignore
the clock's reminder that my time to write the dismissal order for
Derringer was running out.
It's surprisingly easy to make a criminal case go away. I prepared a
one-sentence motion and order stating that the case was dismissed in