turned out that the young woman hadn't in fact consented to this little
encounter, the client got blackmailed by the bad guys into a
cover-up?'
Henry Lee had watched way too many bad TV shows, and now I had even
better questions for Travis Culver.
Culver looked terrified as he took the chair in the middle of the grand
jury room. He was sleep-deprived and disheveled, and I could smell the
fear in his sweat as he passed.
At least Henry Lee had given him one piece of good advice; Culver
invoked his rights as soon as we got past his name and address.
'Do you know Frank or Derrick Derringer? Isn't it true that you
overhauled Frank Derringer's car on a Sunday, on short notice, to get
rid of physical evidence? Do you use the services of teenage
prostitutes? Did you and Frank Derringer rape and beat Kendra Martin
and then leave her to die in the Gorge?' That last one was what you
call a compound question, but no one was there to object to it, and
Culver wasn't going to answer anyway, so what the hell?
I kept going. 'Isn't it true that you paid Derrick and Frank Derringer
to stage a sexual assault upon a young girl for your pleasure? And
that when, unbeknownst to you, the violence turned out to be real, they
threatened to reveal your identity unless you cleaned out the car and
offered false testimony in Frank Derringer's defense?' Another
horrendously compound question, but it worked. Culver was clearly
thrown off. I wish there was a way for the court reporter to
transcribe the look on a witness's face. This one said, How the hell
do you know all that? I wanted to respond, Your stupid attorney pretty
much told me, but I didn't.
Culver looked like he was thinking about answering the question but
then gave me the standard response. 'On the advice of counsel, I
refuse to answer on the ground that it might incriminate me.'
When I thought the grand jury had the gist, I excused Culver and
brought in my final witness, Lisa Lopez.
'On behalf of the grand jurors and myself, thank you for coming, Ms.
Lopez. I know how busy you are. You were the public defender assigned
to represent Frank Derringer, is that correct?'
'Yes. As you and I have discussed, it is highly unusual and extremely
questionable that you have brought me here by subpoena, and I have
appeared only on your assurances that you are seeking an indictment
against Derrick Derringer, and that my testimony will not be used to
secure new charges against my client, Frank Derringer.'
Securing Lisa's presence here at all had required substantial
maneuvering. When I had explained the situation to her at her office,
after hours, she had immediately balked, citing attorney-client
privilege, work-product privilege, the duty of loyalty, and the duty of
zealous representation. She seemed offended when I responded, 'Ethics,
schmethics,' so ultimately I'd had to convince her that helping me out
was both ethically permissible and morally required. After lengthy
negotiations, she finally accepted service of the subpoena and promised
not to rat me out to my boss. The deal was that I'd ask only a few
questions, which we agreed upon beforehand. In response, she would
provide the exact answers we'd rehearsed in advance, including the
long-winded caveat she'd just provided as an introduction to her
testimony.
I continued the questioning as planned. 'In your defense of Frank
Derringer, one theory you presented at trial was that the crimes
against Kendra Martin were committed by whoever killed Jamie Zimmerman,
is that right?'
'Yes, that's correct.'
'Ms. Lopez, I'm handing you a transcript of your opening statement in
the Derringer trial. Please read for the grand jurors the highlighted
passage.'
She read from the transcript:
'The wrongdoing that has brought Kendra Martin, Frank Derringer, and
all of us together began about four years ago. Four years ago,
Portland police officers found the body of another troubled young girl
named Jamie Zimmerman in the Columbia Gorge. Jamie wasn't as lucky as
Kendra. She was murdered strangled after being raped and beaten. Like
Miss Martin, Jamie was a drug addict who supported her habit through
occasional prostitution. Like Miss Martin, she was raped and
sodomized. Police found Jamie's badly decomposed body less than a mile
from where Kendra Martin was located. Ms. Kincaid mentioned that
whoever committed this crime took Kendra's purse. Well, guess what,
ladies and gentlemen? Whoever killed Jamie Zimmerman took her purse
too, and it was never recovered.'
I saw some of the grand jurors flip back into their notes, asking
themselves the same question I'd asked myself three days ago. 'Ms.
Lopez, how did you know that Jamie Zimmerman's purse was taken and
never recovered? The police were unaware of that fact until just days
ago.'
'I refuse to answer on the ground that the information is protected by
the attorney-client privilege and the work-product privilege,' she
responded.
