'I know. Thanks anyway.'
I finished reviewing the warrant. It was a quick read, since we were
reusing the affidavits MCT wrote to get the warrant to search
Derringer's house. The only new material was the information Chuck had
added about the car.
'Looks good,' I said, as I signed off on the DA review line of the
warrant. 'Who's on the call-out list tonight?' The judges rotate
being on call to sign late-night warrants and put out any fires that
might arise.
'Lesh and Hitchcock.'
Lawrence Hitchcock was a lazy old judge who smoked cigars in his
chambers and pressured defendants to plead out so he could listen to
Rush Limbaugh at eleven and then close up shop early to play golf. I'd
rather swallow a bag full of tacks and wash them down with rubbing
alcohol than risk waking up Hitchcock at eleven at night.
David Lesh was the clear preference. He'd been a prosecutor for a few
years after law school, then jumped ship to the City Attorney's office
to work as legal advisor for the police department. He was a couple of
years older than I was and had been an easy pick for the governor to
put on the bench a few years back. He had a good mix of civil and
criminal experience and was known throughout the county bar for being
as straight-up and honorable as they come. Best of all, he hadn't
changed a bit since he took the bench. He still worked like a fiend
and went out for beers with the courthouse crowd every Friday. Lawyers
missed talking to him about their cases, but we were better off having
him as a judge.
'Call Lesh,' I advised Chuck.
'No kidding. I had that lazy fuck Hitchcock on the Taylor case,
remember?'
I always forget that cops know as much about the lives of judges as the
trial lawyers do. I suspected they gossiped about the DAs as well. In
this specific instance, Chuck had good reason to know about Hitchcock.
He'd presided over the very complicated trial of Jesse Taylor, a case
that had landed Forbes on the MCT. Taylor's sixty-five-year-old
girlfriend, Margaret Landry, confessed to Forbes that she and Taylor
had killed a girl.
When I started at the DA's office, Landry was the big talk around the
courthouse. The local news covered the case's every development. Most
stories started with the phrase, 'A Portland grandmother and her
lover....' Headlines spoke of murderous Margaret. If you asked them,
most people who followed the case would tell you they were fascinated
that a sixty-five-year-old grandmother and hospital volunteer
eventually confessed to helping her thirty-five-year-old alcoholic
boyfriend rape and then strangle a seventeen-year-old
borderline-intelligence girl named Jamie Zimmerman.
Forbes had stumbled into the case fortuitously. Landry initially told
Jesse Taylor's probation officer that she read about Jamie Zimmerman's
disappearance in the Oregonian and suspected her boyfriend's
involvement. At the time, Chuck was working a specialty rotation,
helping the Department of Community Corrections track people on parole
and probation. If not for the cooperation agreement between the bureau
and DOCC, Taylor's PO might never have told the police about Landry's
suspicions, because Landry used to call him at least weekly to try to
get Taylor revoked. Her claims were always either fabricated or
exaggerated.
Despite his hunch that Landry was at it again, the PO mentioned the tip
to Chuck because this was the first time Landry had accused Taylor of
something so serious as a murder. Chuck and the PO had followed up
with several visits, and each time Landry changed her version of the
events leading up to her accusation. The two men kept returning in an
attempt to get her to admit that she was lying. But then she threw
them for a loop: The reason she was sure Taylor had killed Zimmerman,
she said, was that she helped him do it.
The continuing amendments to Landry's story after she was arrested only
served to whet the public's appetite. She subsequently retracted her
confession and accused Forbes of coercing the statements from her. But
after she was convicted by a jury, Landry confessed again and agreed to
testify against Taylor to avoid the death penalty. When Taylor was
convicted and sentenced to die in one of Oregon's first death penalty
cases, she once again recanted.
By then, however, common sense had prevailed, the hype died down, and
people realized that Margaret Landry's confession spoke for itself. The
grandmother who looked like Marie Callender was as deviant and sadistic
as any man who comes to mind as the embodiment of evil. Last I heard,
both Taylor and Landry were maintaining their innocence, and Taylor
still had appeals pending.
At the time, the public interest in the Jamie Zimmerman murder was
chalked up to tabloid curiosity. I didn't see it that way; in my
opinion, people were riveted because Margaret Landry scared them. When
they saw her interviewed, they saw their aunt, the woman down the
block, or the volunteer going door-to-door for the Red Cross. If she
could abduct, rape, and murder a young woman, then locking our doors,
moving to the suburbs, and teaching our children to avoid strange men
would never be enough to protect us.
