the north, east, and south. To the west, thick hedges, train tracks,
and a six-lane freeway separated the parking lot from the nearest
house.
From the backseat, Chuck patted Kendra on the shoulder.
'Good memory, kiddo. Good job, Kincaid, for thinking of this place.
You two didn't even need me here.'
I knew he was attempting to hide his disappointment. The odds of
finding a witness were slim. He would check with the golf course in
the morning, but he wouldn't find anything.
I tried to look on the bright side. At least I could prove that the
crime had taken place in Multnomah County, so Derringer couldn't weasel
out on a technical argument over jurisdiction. Also, the golf course
was only a few minutes from Derringer's house, which at least added a
piece of circumstantial evidence. At this point, anything helped.
I decided to drive by Derringer's apartment before heading back to
Rockwood. It would be nice to know the exact distance for trial, and I
might as well get it while I was down here.
I took a right onto Milwaukee Avenue and made a note of my odometer
reading. Milwaukee is the primary commercial road running through
Sellwood. It was also one of the only places where you'd find
low-rent, high-crime apartments in this pocket of southeast Portland.
Frank Derringer's apartment building was on Milwaukee and Powell, which
I learned was exactly 1.7 miles from the Eastmoreland Golf Club. I
pulled into the small parking lot in front of the building, turned on
my overhead light, and jotted down the odometer reading on a legal pad
I pulled from my briefcase.
'Sorry for the stop, guys, but I wanted to make sure I made a note in
the file about our find at the golf club while it was still fresh in my
mind.'
Chuck realized where we were but didn't say anything. He apparently
agreed there was no need to inform Kendra that we were sitting just a
few feet from her assailant's home. She didn't seem like the
pipe-bomb-building type, but you never can tell.
I added a short note for the file, summarizing Kendra's statement at
the golf course. As I was returning the pad to my briefcase, Kendra
opened her car door, got out, and began walking across the street.
'Where the hell's she '
Before I could finish the question, Chuck was out of the car too. It
wasn't hard for him to catch up. Kendra stopped by an old tan Buick on
the corner across the street from the complex. When I got to where she
and Chuck stood, Chuck was saying, 'What? What is it? Kendra?'
Kendra was ignoring him, entranced by this remarkably unexceptional
car. Then she said, 'He must've painted it.'
'Who? Who painted what?'
Kendra spoke as if thinking aloud. 'The car. He must've painted it.
It was dark before. Now it's tan.'
'Kendra, what are you saying?'
'I'm saying that this is the car. This is the car they pulled me into.
I remember it. But it was dark before.'
Chuck and I traded skeptical looks. This wasn't good. Witnesses were
notoriously bad at identifying cars, especially when, like Kendra, they
knew nothing about them. And this particular identification seemed
especially suspect, given that the car was an entirely different color
from what Kendra had described after the attack.
The viability of the case against Derringer rose or fell on Kendra
Martin's credibility. Not just her honesty but also her memory would
be the key to convincing a jury to believe her testimony. If Kendra
made an assertion of fact that we later determined to be incorrect, I
would have an ethical obligation to tell Lisa Lopez about the mistake.
The case would be over.
A couple of years ago, I had a robbery case where the clerk described
the robber with as much detail as if he had been looking right at him.
The cops picked up the defendant just a few blocks away, sitting at a
bus stop where someone happened to have stuffed a sack full of marked
bills behind a nearby bush. The man matched the teller's description
in every way, except his tie was blue and not green.
A lazy cop could have written a report saying the teller gave a verbal
description, the defendant fit that description, and the teller then
ID'd the guy in a line-up. Open and shut. But the rookie on the
robbery had been fastidious, submitting a detailed fifteen-page report.
The defense lawyer cross-examined the teller for four hours, and three
jurors eventually voted not guilty, leaving me with a hung jury. My
guess is that the eager officer now has a habit of glossing over
certain facts in his reports.
How much Chuck Forbes lets slide in his reports I didn't know, but the
point was moot. I was standing right here, falling into the hole that
Kendra Martin was digging deeper with her every word. The line between
