Close Case (13 page)

“Fine.”

I could picture him smiling on the other end of the line. “So, a box of strudel, huh?”

“Works every time,” I said. “You want me to call about a delivery?” I realized I didn’t know enough about Russ’s personal life to know if there was a strudel-delivering type of person in his picture. I guess my ignorance was one of the costs—or benefits—of staying mum at the office about my own off-the-clock time.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll stop by the store on the way home from the doctor.”

“Don’t forget the OJ. And don’t scrimp. Get the real stuff.”

“Got it. Watch the shop for me?”

“No, that’s why we’ve got Alice.”

I noticed my message light when I hung up. It was the sheriff’s deputy I’d recruited as an eavesdropper. “It’s Jake Meltzer from the Sheriff’s Office. Hey, I think you missed your calling; I liked your little doodle. Anyway, I got a report for you if you want to page me.” I wrote down the numbers he left me.

A few minutes later, Jake answered the page.

“So, are they best buddies again yet?”

“Yeah, right. I thought the mean one was going to jump the dumb one in the transport.” I didn’t even need to ask: Hanks looks mean; Corbett looks dumb. “I can’t remember it all word for word, but the gist of it’s that the mean one’s pissed as hell. I take it the dumb one confessed?”

“Yeah. Gave up the other one too.”

“I figured as much. Anyway, Mean One tells Dumb One something like ‘Why didn’t you tell them what
really
happened?’ and ‘Why the f did you open your mouth at all?’ Then he said, ‘Watch your back, mf,’—but, you know, he actually said the cussing parts. That’s about it. I wanted to keep them going to see if they’d say something more, but, like I said, it was getting a little intense.”

It was typical. Hanks was pissed, not only that Corbett ratted on him but that he’d undoubtedly managed to understate his own participation along the way. “Did the Dumb One say anything back?”

“Nope. In fact, he kept shushing the other one. He was, like, ‘Didn’t you hear the lawyers, man? Don’t talk to anyone but them, not even each other.’”

I logged an entry into the attorney’s notes portion of my file. Maybe the Dumb One wasn’t so dumb after all.

At five o’clock, Heidi Hatmaker sat in her cubicle, mesmerized by the Portland Police Bureau press release in her hands. These two kids in orange jumpsuits didn’t look much older—or meaner, really—than her little brother. The single-page statement offered little: the arrest of two people for a murder. It was no different from the routine press releases that circulated through the office every day.

But this particular piece of news took on a significance that was missing from all the other crime stories the paper covered. This one was personal. It wasn’t just a “press release” or “news” now that she knew the person who had been killed. She looked at the faces of Todd Corbett and Trevor Hanks. How could anyone find it in themselves to become so violent—to bludgeon another human being, again and again—just to ride in his car?

She placed the press release beneath a stack of old clippings in her cubicle and turned to Percy’s notes. She wished she could work on them full time. Instead, she had spent the entire day on Tom Runyon’s latest directive.

Her job had been to hang out at Reed College, a small liberal arts college nestled within an upscale residential area of southeast Portland. For decades, the place had been a bastion of hippie culture, largely isolated from the political changes that had hit the real world since the 1960s. Tom had instructed Heidi to blend in and see whether students really did use marijuana openly on campus, as her editor had heard.

She knew exactly what Tom had in mind. The news departments were under orders from the top to make sure that a “liberal bias” wasn’t infecting the paper’s coverage. What better way to prove the paper’s evenhandedness than to do a cheap exposé targeting pot-smoking by the liberal academic elite?

She wanted to tell Tom Runyon to stuff it. That kids smoking some doob on campus wasn’t news. That she was working on something far more important, the recreation of Percy Crenshaw’s pending stories. But, as always, she did as she was told. Fitting in as another student wasn’t particularly difficult, given her age and everyday attire. But in her spiral notebook, instead of jotting down notes for a term paper, she documented any activity that could be sexed up into the rich-kids-are-spoiled piece that Tom undoubtedly had in mind: bong hits on the student union porch, kids tripping on acid in the canyon behind Eliot Hall, condoms openly available by the handful in coed dorm bathrooms. Heidi knew it was all stupid non-news but tried to console herself that at least she was being given a chance to write a piece that just might warrant the front page.

When she returned to the office and briefed her editor, Heidi’s mood only worsened. “Good job, kid. I’ll get Manning on it right away.” Dan Manning was the up-and-comer in the newsroom. Heidi was apparently only good for scouting the story, not nailing it down and writing it.

She was finally finished, though. Now she could use her time as she pleased. She grabbed her backpack full of notes and a calculator and walked to the nearest Coffee People.

As Heidi added, divided, and multiplied the various number combinations, she lamented her stunted math skills. When she applied to colleges, it had been a problem. With a 780 verbal and a 500 math on her SATs, her high school academic adviser had warned her that her skills were “skewed.” She managed to get into Yale—her status as a legacy undoubtedly helped—but she had avoided even the most basic math classes.

Now it was biting her in the ass. She had taken the figures from Percy’s tables for January through August and had calculated grand totals for the eight months. That part was easy; it was simple addition. The numbers in the
S
rows were always larger than those in the
A
rows. And the numbers in the
B
column were larger than the numbers in the
L, W,
and
A
columns on the NEP chart. But on the EP chart, the numbers in the
L
column were largest.

Heidi continued staring at the charts she had made:

Percy had been keeping track of the total number of
S
’s and
A
’s, and then breaking that down further by whatever the other letters stood for. There must be some sort of interaction between the factors Percy was monitoring, but Heidi was fumbling with the different functions of her calculator to no avail. She took a long sip from the straw of her grande frozen Mocha Mindfreezer and turned back to her notebook, determined to put her finger on a pattern.

If she could change each number in the chart to reflect a percentage of the total, she’d be able to compare the boxes against one another in relative terms. Maybe then she could single out whatever Percy found interesting about these stats.

She probed the limited portion of her memory reserved for algebra. Divide the number in the box by the total, and you get the percentage. She drew new boxes and started punching the keys on her calculator. Filling in each blank square in the new charts with a percentage, she told herself it had better pay off. This was going to exhaust her daily tolerance for math. Maybe even her weekly allotment.

When she was done, she picked up her Mindfreezer again and examined the results of her labor:

The cold creamy caffeine must have done the trick, because she finally saw what had been bothering her when she was studying the raw numbers. On the EP chart, the percentages beneath each column letter—
B, L, W,
and
A
—were pretty much the same in each row. But something weird was going on with the NEP numbers. Whatever
B
stood for,
B
’s made up more than half of the
S
’s, but only about 40 percent of the
A
’s. The
L
’s, on the other hand, were only about a third of the
S
’s, but were more than 42 percent of the
A
’s.

Great. All this work to know that when NEP was in effect,
B
’s were less likely than
L
’s to be
A
. That would make a terrific story. She knew she was on to something, though. Percy had gone to the trouble of compiling these numbers for a reason. He had done it carefully and methodically, for eight months, and his notes rarely showed this kind of cautious data gathering. She just needed to figure out what the hell those letters stood for, and she could find the story that Percy had been hunting.

She tossed her empty cup into a nearby trash can, stuffed her notes into her backpack, and returned to the office. Tracking down Percy’s last steps was going to require more than just his notes. Fortunately, Heidi had a plan.

It was five o’clock and no pending emergencies: my cue to pack up my stuff and head out. I was throwing a couple of files in my briefcase to review at home when Alice walked in.

“Not so fast,” she said. “I’ve got one last thing for you. The public defender’s office just faxed this over.”

It was a motion to suppress in the case of
State v. Todd Corbett
. Lisa Lopez hadn’t wasted any time. I flipped through the pages. Sure enough, it was the same template motion to suppress they filed in every case involving a confession. No facts about this specific defendant, interrogation, or detective. Just a cut-and-paste beneath a new case caption. There was one tricky wrinkle, though: She was asking for a copy of Detective Mike Calabrese’s Internal Affairs file, a fishing expedition for anything that might support her claim that Mike had used the psychological equivalent of the rubber hose to get his confession. Cops see a request for their files as the lowest move a defense attorney can make. Given where things stood between Mike and me on this particular subject, I wasn’t looking forward to delivering the news.

Lisa had also thrown in a motion to suppress Peter Anderson’s identification of the defendants as the men he’d seen in the parking lot before the murder. According to her, the identification process the police had used was so unreliable it violated due process. That was a shock to me, given that the six-photo lineup they’d used was standard procedure.

I had expected Lisa to try to get the confession tossed, but I was suspicious about the timing. I stood at my desk, motion in one hand, open briefcase in the other. I looked out my office door. People were leaving. I could be one of them. Then I looked at my desk and felt the draw of the phone. One quick call to Lisa Lopez, and I’d know why she filed this motion so quickly. I’d still be home early, I told myself, and I wouldn’t have to worry all evening about what might be waiting for me in the morning.

I set my briefcase on a chair and dialed Lisa’s number.

“This is Lisa Lopez, Esquire.”

Even the way the woman answered the telephone made me shudder. “Lisa, it’s Samantha Kincaid at the DA’s office.”

“Did you get my little delivery? I was afraid you might have left with the other government workers.”

So much for a stress-free evening. I should have known that a quick call to Lisa was a surefire way to ruin my night. She always managed to be more unpleasant than even I remembered.

I tightened my grip on the handset and imagined smashing it against the desk. I kept my tone even. “Nope. I’ve still got a couple hours of work to do, but I wanted to make sure I caught you before
you
left. Is there anything I need to know about this motion? Given that it’s your standard fill-in-the-caption thing, I really couldn’t tell what you had in mind.” I couldn’t resist the not-so-subtle dig.

“You were the one saying you wanted to move things along. The way I see it, my client’s got no incentive to cooperate with you once your only evidence is kicked. So let’s get the arguments over the confession and your so-called witness ID out of the way as soon as possible. If I win the motion, the case goes away. If not, then we can talk about what my client wants in exchange for his testimony.”

“Lisa, does your guy know the gamble he’s taking? Even if you win the motion—which you won’t—I still have enough evidence to go forward. And if you lose the motion, what makes you think he can still get a deal?” Telephonic bluster is as vital a skill to litigation as courtroom argument.

“You’ll still need Corbett to get to Hanks.”

“I won’t need him if Hanks takes a deal first,” I said. “Maybe I should have talked to Lucas Braun today instead of you.”

“Nice try, Sam, but Hanks is way less credible than Corbett, and I think you know who deserves a deal here.” I thought again about the visit from the woman who called herself Annie, the Rape Crisis counselor who was asking questions at Hanks’s arraignment. “Let’s get the motion to suppress out of the way; then we can talk. I plan on calling the presiding judge tomorrow to see when we can get sent out for motions. How much time do you need?”

“I’m ready whenever you are.”

I knew better than to trust Lisa, but I also knew that I had little say in the matter. A judge would allow the motion to be scheduled if the defense wanted it done quickly. It would look terrible to suggest that I wasn’t ready to defend the admissibility of my own evidence.

“Well, I need to see Calabrese’s IA file first.” She said it as casually as if she were asking for a copy of the day’s paper.

“You know I’m not handing that over to you.”

“You always have to make everything difficult, don’t you, Sam? And here I thought I’d been nice by not asking for Matt York’s too.”

So much for hoping that the defense attorneys might leave Chuck’s friend out of the matter. “You think you deserve a gold star for being less of a jerk than you could have been?”

“Fine. We’ll meet at the call docket tomorrow for a ruling.”

I left a message at IA to send Mike’s file over first thing in the morning.

By the time I turned onto my block, I had worked myself into a piss-poor mood. I was still uncomfortable with the way Calabrese had gotten Corbett’s confession, and now Lisa Lopez was pushing the issue straight into court. If the confession got suppressed, I was in big trouble. Insufficient evidence against both defendants meant no leverage to flip either one of them. If both planted their feet and insisted on trials, I’d lose and they’d walk.

I had learned that there was only so much I could do as a prosecutor. Even a maximum sentence for the most serious charge does not bring back a murder victim or undo the indescribable damage of a sex offense, and many times I had to settle for far less. Sometimes it was because a jury convicted a defendant on a lesser charge. Other times, it was a result of plea negotiations brought on by doubts about the case. Lord knows I had to hold my nose during some of the deals I had brokered in MCU.

But I hadn’t had anyone walk out of the courthouse yet. Not since my time in the drug unit had I heard a judge tell a defendant, “You’re free to go.” My pride had always made the idea of an acquittal hard to stomach, even back then. But now, with rape cases and murders on the line, I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to watch anyone in my caseload rise from the defense table, shake his lawyer’s hand, and simply walk out the door while I sat there wondering what I could have done differently.

I knew it would happen eventually, but it wasn’t going to happen with Corbett and Hanks. I had to get that confession in.

When I pulled into my driveway, I saw Chuck on the porch, holding a leash. At the bottom of the porch steps, on the other end of the leash, was a very noncompliant French bulldog named Vinnie.

“What’s going on here?” I asked, stepping out of my Jetta.

“We went for a little walk,” Chuck explained, “but someone won’t come back inside now.”

Vinnie was absolutely beside himself to see me. Maybe I should modify that. To describe a dog as beside himself might bring to mind one of those big dumb shaggy animals who jumps, runs, barks, or licks when he’s happy. My stout little Vinnie’s not one of those. It’s more like he waddles a little more briskly. Snorts at a slightly higher pitch. Trust me. He was excited to see me.

He headed straight toward me, and Chuck dropped his end of the leash.
“You don’t like your leash, do you, little man?”
I cooed, scratching behind his stiff bat-shaped ears.
“No, you don’t. Oh, no, you don’t.”
Vinnie definitely brings out my sickening side.

“I didn’t want to risk him running off,” Chuck said. “You’d kick my ass if something happened to him on my watch.”

“Yeah, pretty much. Why’d you take him out at all?”

“I was being nice,” Chuck protested.

I shook my head and grabbed the straps of my purse and briefcase from the car with my free hand. “You’ve got to stop trying so hard,” I said, heading into the house. “Think of it like being a stepfather.”

“And what exactly would I know about being a stepfather?”

“You know, just use some common sense.”

“I try to give your fat dog some exercise, and that somehow means I don’t have common sense?”

So I could have been more tactful. “I just mean don’t try so hard. Give him some time to get used to you being around here. As long as you’re not a jerk in the meantime, I think that’ll be enough.”

“You spoil that thing.”

“See? You call him a thing, you call him fat? If you talked about me that way, I’d pee on your stuff too.”

“He doesn’t know English, Sam. He’s a dog. Hell, he’s a French dog, for Christ’s sake.
I do not parlez ze English. Non. I parlez ze language of ze dog.
” Usually, when Chuck conjures up a voice for Vinnie, he sounds like Buddy Hackett. Now he threw in a touch of Pepe Le Pew. The result was—well, the result was frightening.

As for Vinnie’s language abilities, I wasn’t so sure. “Keep it up, funny guy,” I warned. “I picture puddles of drool forthcoming on your leather jacket.
Isn’t that right, little man? You don’t let anyone pick on you, do you?
”

“You’re encouraging him,” Chuck objected.

“Only if he can understand me,” I teased, setting Vinnie down next to his self-operated feeder.

He plopped his head over the lip of the bowl and began cherry-picking the moist morsels. Before long, the happy snorts recommenced.

“So how was the rest of your lazy day?”

“Lazy.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed my neck. “I was in bed all day, but I could probably make another trip there if you want.”

I tried to get into the zone. For a second, I thought I was. It normally doesn’t require much effort, especially when Chuck’s in full sloppy-kisses-and-roaming-hands mode. But the few minutes of dog talk and foreplay hadn’t squelched the bad mood triggered by Lisa Lopez.

Chuck could tell I was distracted. He pulled his head back to look at my face. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

He shook his head. “No, something’s wrong,” he said, releasing his hold on me.

“Come on, let’s go upstairs,” I said, pulling him by the arm.

“Oh, man,” he said, running his hands through his hair and plopping into one of the dining room chairs. “Listen to us. You want to have sex, and I keep asking you if something’s wrong because you seem emotionally distant. Lord,” he said, looking up at the ceiling, “I am unworthy of the penis you so kindly granted me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought if we went upstairs, I’d be able to get my mind off things.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t want you to sleep with me as a distraction. So,” he said, placing both hands firmly on the table in front of him, “I am officially holding out on you until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“You’re amazing,” I said, kissing the top of his head before taking a seat at the table across from him. It didn’t take long to fill him in on the last-minute motion from Lisa and the subsequent phone call.

“You should have waited until tomorrow to call her,” he said. “We’d be having sex right now.”

That got a chuckle out of me, but I was still feeling stressed.

“I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about,” he said, standing up to squeeze my chronically sore deltoids. Chuck’s back rubs are the best. “You’re just tired. What did you get, three hours of sleep last night?”

“Not even. And I probably won’t sleep tonight either. I’m worried about this motion.”

“What’s the problem? You put Mike on the stand and ask him, ‘What happened?’ He tells the judge, and every once in a while you say, ‘And then what? And then what?’ Defense attorney asks bullshit questions; you get everyone back on track; judge lets the confession in. End of story.”

“I don’t think this one’s going to be that easy, Chuck. I mean, you were there. You saw what happened.”

The massaging stopped. I wriggled my shoulders to ask for more. Nothing.

“Yeah, I did see what happened. And if you need someone to back Mike up, call me to the stand. We’ll get the confession in.”

I turned in my chair to look at him. “Are you suggesting that you and Mike are going to say something other than what we all know actually occurred in the interrogation room?”

He shook his head. “Jesus, Sam. You make it sound like Mike hit the guy across the head with a phone book or something. And, no, I don’t
testi-lie,
as your attorney buds call it.”

“So what were you talking about when you said I should call you to the stand?”

“Just how things always work. You put two cops up there. We tell it like it is: why each step was called for, cut and dry. It looks a lot better if Mike’s not on his own, is all. Just to be safe, since you’re having doubts.”

“I’m having doubts, Chuck, because I think your partner screwed up. That crap with the lights? I can’t withhold that from the defense. Not that I could, in any event, since I’m pretty sure Corbett recognized me today at arraignment. Lisa’s going to have a heyday with that in court.”

“Oh, so what? So she’ll whine a little bit, and maybe the judge will say something to you off the record about reining Mike in. But you’ll get to keep the confession. What elected judge wants to be on the front page for suppressing a confession in the Percy Crenshaw case?”

He did have a point. I had noticed that the rules of constitutional criminal procedure seemed to have changed since my promotion from the drug unit into MCU. Judges who routinely suppressed confessions and overruled searches without batting an eye were suddenly siding with the government when a murder trial was at stake.

Still, the possibility that I might squeak past Lisa’s motion by drawing a judge who cared more about his low-paying local judicial position than the Constitution he’d been sworn to uphold didn’t feel like cause for celebration.

“You really don’t have a problem with what Mike did in there with Corbett?”

He paused before answering. “No, Sam. I don’t. Look, you’ll get used to it. You’re still at the point where you feel sorry for these guys. It’s because you’re looking at him like some kid who—what did you say about him?—he looked like he’d work at the Quickie Mart. Fuck, the guy
killed
someone. He took a bat to Percy Crenshaw so he and his loser friend could joyride in a Benz for a couple of hours. Mike’s the good guy here.”