Judgment Calls (36 page)

Assuming that Derrick would be waiting for me at the bottom, I took the stairs with my back pressed against the inner wall. I stopped at the last step before the landing, steeling myself to make the turn. The pressure of my heart pounding against my chest was fierce, and I fought to catch my breath.

I poked my head around the corner and then retreated to the safety of the wall again. Keeping my back against the wall, I began moving down the second half of the stairs. Tim O’Donnell was still in my Mission chair, but now blood was oozing from a dark hole in his forehead. From the looks of things, a second bullet had been fired into his groin.

As much as I’d practiced shooting, I’d never made a sweep through a house before, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next. Without any other basis of information, I instinctively relied upon that most reliable of sources, television.

From the landing, I could see that the front entrance and living room were clear. I swung off the stairs in a half circle to face the back of the house, my gun outstretched in front of me. Still clear.

The living room and Tim’s dead body were to my left now as I faced my dining room and kitchen. I reached down slowly, keeping my gun pointed in front of me, and grabbed my purse. If I could just make it out the front door and to the safety of my car, I’d be home free.

As I reached to unbolt the front door, I saw Derrick spring around the corner of the dining room with his gun in front of him. He must’ve watched TV as a kid, too. What he should’ve been doing was practicing at the firing range, because he was a piss-poor shot. I heard the mirror behind me crash as a bullet ripped into it.

I fired off two shots as I jumped across the hallway, over the top of my sofa, and into the coffee table. I muffled a cry as pain shot through my left side where I landed against the oak edge. I scurried backward to get myself out of the pool of blood that was quickly forming beneath O’Donnell and my Mission chair. The noise was blocked out by the sound of the back door sliding open, followed by tires squealing down the street.

I don’t know how long I lay there, listening to myself breathe, trying to convince myself that I couldn’t hear anything else. Even Vinnie was quiet now.

I finally mustered up the courage to crawl around the back of the sofa and sneak a quick peek into the dining room. I’d done right by the firing range. Derrick Derringer was on his back, two bullet holes squarely in the middle of his chest. Apparently, it was OK for me to move while I was firing, as long as my target stood still.

Based on the trail of blood through the dining room, into the kitchen, and out the back door, I guessed that Frank had fled when he saw his brother go down. More blood outside suggested that Frank was long gone.

I freed Vinnie from the pantry as I dialed 911. Then I sat in a ball on the kitchen floor holding him and my gun close to my chest until I heard sirens pulling up to the house and fists pounding on the front door.

Sixteen.

When I finally woke up the next morning, my whole body was on fire. I was also sleepy and had a sore throat. By the time the police finally left around two in the morning I’d related my entire story three different times. First, I had to tell the patrol officers who responded to the 911 call, so they wouldn’t shoot me when I answered the front door with a gun in my hand, two dead bodies behind me, and bullet holes all over the place.

Then I had to give it to Walker and Johnson, who drew the MCT call-out. They offered to page Chuck for me. I guess once your sex life’s on the front page of the newspaper, it’s considered public knowledge. They apparently didn’t know the whole story, because they seemed caught off guard when I asked them to call my dad instead.

Then I had to explain it all a third time to Griffith, who showed up just as the medical examiner was zipping the body bag closed around Tim O’Donnell’s corpse.

“The Chief called me,” he said. “He thought I should know that two of my deputies were involved in a shoot-out.”

By then, my narrative skills had gotten pretty proficient. The Derringers’ involvement in street-level prostitution. O’Donnell’s extracurricular interests, which led him from what he thought was a staged fantasy with an underage prostitute to the murder of Jamie Zimmerman. How Kendra’s assault arose from the same scenario, but this time with Travis Culver as the not-so-innocent dupe. Culver’s lies about Frank’s car. O’Donnell’s fabrication of the Long Hauler letters. My night of shoot-‘em-up action. I dumped it all on him. Except the part where I’d given O’Donnell my resignation.

“You should’ve come to me with this, Samantha,” he said. He looked tired, and, in the light of my kitchen, the wrinkles that usually seemed distinguished just looked old.

“I thought I did the right thing at the time. I knew O’Donnell was set on killing the case, and I assumed you’d listen to him unless I had some leverage.”

He stood to leave. “You should give me more credit, Sam. I’m an independent thinker, and now I’m going to go home to think.” As he headed out the door, he gave me a wave over his shoulder. “Nice house you got here. See you in the morning.”

I had assumed from his comment that I was supposed to go to the office this morning, regardless of my sleep deprivation, sore throat, and aches. It definitely beat being dead, though.

And at least I was safe from the Derringers. At my insistence, Walker had dispatched patrol officers to watch Haley and Kendra while police began their search for Frank Der ringer. I thought about doing the same for Travis Culver, but as far as I was concerned, he could fend for himself. The warning call I placed to Henry Lee Babbitt seemed courtesy enough.

Around the time Griffith left, Johnson snapped his cell phone shut and announced they’d found Frank.

“Was he dumb enough to go home?” I asked.

“Wherever he was headed, he never got there. Traffic responded to a major one-car accident on I-Eighty-four. The car burst through the railing at an overpass and flipped head first onto the concrete below. Driver was dead by the time they cut the car open. They were searching the car for holes, trying like hell to figure out where the bullets in the driver’s shoulder and ass came from, when they heard the APB for Derringer on the radio.”

“His butt?” Walker said.

“Yeah. Looks like that second bullet of yours went straight into the man’s left cheek, Kincaid. Must have hurt like a mother fucker when he was driving on the freeway. He was probably squirming around trying to take the weight off his bony ass when he lost control.”

I hadn’t been able to laugh with them about it then, but in the morning shower, as I rubbed a bar of Dove on my own left bum, I could see the humor, and I laughed until I started crying again.

A strange bubble of silence followed me through the courthouse as I walked to my office. I guess no one knew what to say to me. This morning’s news had featured vague reports of a fatal shoot-out at my house involving the Derringer brothers and O’Donnell. The reports didn’t explain that they were all trying to kill me, only that “police were investigating.”

When I got into my office, I checked my voice mail, hoping for a message from Chuck. No luck. He hadn’t called my home or cell, either. I did, however, get a message from Griffith, summoning me to his office.

When I got there, he handed me a piece of paper and asked me what I thought.

It was a letter from Griffith to Governor Jackson, supporting the pardon requests of Margaret Landry and Jesse Taylor. It explained that all currently available evidence indicated that Frank Derringer and Tim O’Donnell had killed Jamie Zimmerman during a rape arranged through a teenage prostitution ring managed by the Derringer brothers. O’Donnell had pursued the case against Landry and Taylor based upon the circumstantial evidence that existed, possibly providing the confidential information to Landry that eventually helped secure the convictions. Then, when Frank and an unnamed suspect assaulted Kendra, he’d done what he could to get rid of the case. When I thwarted his efforts to issue it as a general felony, he fabricated the Long Hauler by using confidential information he found about unsolved murders in the cold case database and then ordered me to dismiss the case.

The memo went on to explain my discovery of the Derringers’ connection to the sex industry. After briefing Griffith, I’d obtained an indictment against Derrick Derringer as the first step in an envisioned investigation into the Zimmerman and Martin cases. Unfortunately, O’Donnell had discovered the investigation and tipped off the Derringers. They broke into my house, I heroically saved the day, and Griffith would be pursuing any remaining culprits to the full extent of the law.

It was accurate in the ways that counted, and at this point I really didn’t care if Duncan wanted to cover his ass. He was covering mine too, and the end result was the right one. “Looks good,” I said. “Will Jackson issue the pardon?”

“It’s a done deal,” he said. “The governor’s office will announce it tomorrow, and Landry and Taylor should be out by that afternoon. We need to talk about tying up the loose ends. We’ll have problems going after Culver. You know that, don’t you?”

I told him I did, but he still seemed to think he needed to convince me.

“Even if your victim can ID him, we’re gonna have the same problems you had with Derringer. No physical evidence. No corroborating testimony, because everything you heard between the Derringers is hearsay. No direct evidence of intent to kill. Not to mention the time that’s passed since the offense.”

“I know,” I said.

“You think this guy’s attorney will go for a pre indictment deal?” he asked.

“Depends on the terms,” I said, “but, yeah. Culver’s scared. Now that he knows the Derringers aren’t going to kill him, I think he’d like to take his lumps and get it over with.”

“Alright. I was thinking of something like Rape Three. Have him do a few years but no Measure Eleven charges. Part of the deal could be a scholarship account for the girl, since this guy’s got a business. How’s that sound?”

We both knew Culver deserved to go away for good. The Derringers may have pretended that the violence was staged, but it took people like Culver and O’Donnell to choose to believe it. The reality was that Griffith had come up with a deal that was the most we could hope for under the circumstances. Sometimes that’s as close to fair as we get around here.

“I’ll call Henry Lee with it. He’ll be happy to hear he doesn’t have to try an actual case.”

“Then why don’t you take the rest of the day off? I’d say you’ve earned it.”

I turned back before leaving the office. “Tim said he didn’t give anything to Landry, that he assumed Forbes did,” I said.

“She gets out either way, Sam. Unless you think Forbes is a long-term problem, it’s cleaner this way.”

“I can’t make that call right now.”

“I know. That’s why I made it.”

I started to leave again but stopped at the door.

“Now what?” he said.

“Thanks, Duncan.”

“Anytime, Deputy Kincaid.”

I ignored the stares again on the way back out of the courthouse. Let ‘em think I was in trouble. Tomorrow, I’d be a hero.

I wanted to go home and sleep for the next twenty hours, but there was someone I needed to see.

Like most prisons, the Oregon Women’s Correctional Institute had been dumped in the middle of nowhere to avoid public outrage and plummeting property values. The only other buildings within a three-mile radius were two similarly ostracized yet essential enterprises, a casino and an outlet mall. Needless to say, the combination made for an interesting mix of soccer moms, prison families, and senior citizens in RVs.

The guard brought Margaret Landry to meet me in one of the sterile rooms used for attorney-client conferences. As I had requested, he moved her in leg shackles and handcuffs.

When he brought her into the room, I said, “I don’t really think those are necessary, Deputy. Would you mind removing them and leaving us alone? I’m sure Ms. Landry and I will be just fine here without all of this.”

If the guard ever got tired of corrections, he should try Hollywood. His best attempt to look worried about my request was pretty realistic. He removed the cuffs and shackles and left us alone.

I’d seen pictures of Margaret Landry, of course, but she’d aged considerably during her two years in prison. Assisted by too many cigarettes and too little sleep, she’d gone from looking well fed and nurturing to haggard and crotchety.

After I introduced myself, she said, “I been dealing with someone in your office named O’Donnell.”

I dropped the bomb on her and announced that O’Donnell was dead. To simplify things, I told her that Jamie Zimmerman’s murderers had been identified and killed, but not before they had shot Tim O’Donnell. I figured it might be hard to earn her trust if I revealed that a member of my office was a homicidal rapist. She’d get the details from someone else down the road, anyway.

“Because of everything that’s happened, you’ll be getting out of here tomorrow,” I said.

“Where are they moving me to?”

“You can stay wherever you want. Maybe with your daughters until you adjust to things. You’re being pardoned, Margaret. You’ll be free, with no criminal record.”

Her lower lip began to shake, and pretty soon she was crying.

When she’d finally stopped trembling, she lifted her head to the ceiling. I couldn’t tell if she was looking for answers or trying to thank someone, but I could tell she hadn’t felt however she was feeling for a long, long time.

“I never meant this to happen,” she said. “I kept calling the police on Jesse, but wouldn’t no one help me. When Jamie’s body turned up and I saw her in the paper, I thought I’d finally get that son of a bitch out from under my roof, but they didn’t believe me. They told me I didn’t have no corroboration.” I kept digging myself in deeper and deeper, and next thing I know I’m under arrest myself and can’t take any of it back.”

“I feel bad for you, Margaret, but you put an innocent man in prison and kept the police from looking for the men who actually killed Jamie Zimmerman.”

“Jesse Taylor ain’t no innocent, but you’re right about that last part. As sorry as I feel for myself, I can’t help thinking that them other girls would be alive if I hadn’ta done all this.”