piece of ass.' Back at their house, Taylor got rough with both women
and then began strangling Jamie with his belt. Landry helped him by
holding Jamie down while she was fighting. After Jamie was dead,
Landry performed oral sex upon her while Taylor masturbated. Then they
wrapped her body in their shower curtain and dumped her near the
Gorge.
And, despite Margaret's subsequent statement that she fabricated the
entire story to get her abusive boyfriend in trouble, I had no doubt
that she and Taylor were guilty. Her confession contained accurate
details that she couldn't have known unless she was involved somehow.
She had tried to explain the details away by saying that Chuck had
coerced her confession and had fed her the details she was missing. But
the jury had seen that the son of a former governor didn't need to set
up innocent grandmothers to get a good job in the bureau.
Although Landry never repented for Zimmerman's murder, she had avoided
the death penalty by agreeing to testify against Taylor after the jury
convicted her. She depicted herself as a do-gooder who volunteered
teaching ceramics at hospitals and treatment centers. She claimed that
she would've remained a law-abiding grandmother if it weren't for her
abusive younger boyfriend.
Jesse Taylor, on the other hand, had little to say in his defense. A
chronic alcoholic who suffered frequent blackouts, Taylor said he
couldn't remember anything he'd done that night, but didn't think he
ever met Jamie Zimmerman and didn't think he would ever kill anyone.
But he didn't think he'd pass up a chance at a three-way either. Great
defense.
That said, the certainty of Taylor's guilt and the pure viciousness of
the crime apparently were of little comfort to Chuck. When I arrived
at the Justice Center, he was waiting with Jack Walker, Ray Johnson,
and Mike Calabrese. The celebration over the Supreme Court's Taylor
ruling had died down, but Chuck still looked unnerved. I wanted to say
something about the news but had to settle for an empathetic glance
that I hoped he caught before I launched into new business.
'Hi, guys. Thanks for making time to go over the case. It helps me if
we're all on the same page before we start the trial.'
Mike Calabrese shook his head and told me with a wave of his hand that
he wasn't bothered. He was a New York transplant, and eleven years in
Portland hadn't changed the accent a bit. 'Listen, Sammie, I can't
speak for these guys, but me? I say there's no one better than you.
I'm tired of these DAs who stick us up there on the stand and assume we
know how it's gonna go. Most of them don't want to take time away from
their weekend, so me? I appreciate it, is what I'm sayin'.'
I pulled out my trial notebook. 'I thought we could start by running
through the evidence that each of you will be covering. Then we'll go
over the likely defense theories. You can help me out by making sure I
know who these defense witnesses are. Any questions before we
start?'
Jack Walker held up a hand. 'Yeah. I don't mind or anything, but our
LT was a little peeved about all four of us being out to testify.
Usually they just have one from each pairing go to court.'
The bureau has to pay cops time and a half for all off-duty work, so
this meeting wasn't cheap. 'I want all of you to testify for a couple
of reasons. One advantage to this approach is that, subconsciously,
we'll defeat any kind of Who Cares attitude the jurors might have in
the back of their mind. Remember, they're not going to hear about
Derringer's prior unless he testifies, so they'll be seeing him on his
best behavior, in a suit, leaning over and writing notes to his
attorney. And, as much as we all like Kendra, some jurors might see
her as getting what a girl should expect when she's turning tricks for
dope. By having all of you testify, we'll be telling the jury that the
bureau cared about this case and put a lot of resources into it to get
a thorough investigation.
'By having each of you testify about a separate aspect of the case,
we're also distributing the credibility of the police investigation
among all four of you. If no single detective is seen as the lead,
Lopez can't get any mileage out of ripping one of you guys a new one.
If she tries doing it to all of you, the jury will see that it's
dirty.'
Walker nodded. 'Got it. I'll tell the lieutenant so he gets off our
backs.'
'As far as the order of your testimony goes, I'll be spreading your
statements out around Kendra's, so she will be the highlight of the
show. But I don't want to end with her testimony just in case she
winds up taking a beating on cross.
'The first witnesses will be the two kids who found Kendra in the
Gorge. That'll set the scene for the jury. Then I'm going to call
Mike.' Calabrese would cover Kendra's condition when they got to the
scene and the processing of the crime scene.
The fingerprint on Kendra's purse would be a critical piece of
evidence. To get it before the jury, I'd need to show that the purse
examined by the crime lab was the same one Mike found near the crime
scene. We went through the purse's chain of custody. Mike placed it
