that.
'No confession, if that's what you're looking for. Damn it, Garcia, I
thought you said this girl was willing to try a close case. We're not
even done giving her the facts, and she's already shutting us down.'
Jack Walker was clearly pissed off.
I chalked up the 'girl' comment to generational differences and
swallowed my pride. No use alienating these guys over a careless
comment, even one that irritated the hell out of me.
'Detective, I'm sorry if my tone suggested that I was criticizing your
investigation, but to be honest I'm a little frustrated by what I am
beginning to perceive as an attempt to portray the evidence as stronger
than it really is. Look, if the case is a real dog, I'll figure that
out, whether or not you lead it to me barking. If it's a gimme, I'll
notice that too. But I want to decide on my own. With that said, I
apologize for my smart-ass comment. I should have said exactly what I
was thinking, and now I have. I hope you haven't made up your mind
about me, just as I haven't formed a final decision about your case.'
The table was quiet as Garcia and Johnson waited to see if I had
managed to make things worse. Then Jack Walker shook his head and
smiled. 'Well, that was definitely direct. And you're right. I guess
we were kind of hyping the case up a little.' He glanced over at
Johnson, not so much with a look of blame as like a child who peeks
over at his partner-in-mischief when he realizes the teacher has
figured them out but good.
Walker then looked directly at me, and I could tell we'd entered a
spin-free zone. 'Look, the truth is, the biggest thing we've got right
now is the girl's ID of Derringer. Derringer denied everything. He
says he was over at his brother's watching a basketball game and then
stayed for Saturday Night Live and some beers. The brother's name is
Derrick Derringer, if you can believe it. Anyway, so far Derrick's
corroborating his brother, but he's got three felony convictions, so
there you go.'
'So did you arrest Derringer at his house?' I asked.
Walker shook his head. 'Not us. Renshaw hooked Derringer up on a
parole violation based on Kendra's ID and took him down to the Justice
Center for booking. We figured the parole detainer would at least hold
him overnight, when O'Donnell could decide what charges to file.' 'And
what did O'Donnell make of all this?' Detective Walker slumped back in
his chair, the excitement draining from his face. 'That's where this
whole thing fell apart on us. After we had Derringer hooked up, we
went back to central to meet Chuck and Mike. They had finished
processing the scene and were working on the warrant. Just as we're
finishing up, O'Donnell shows up in a fucking suit to review the
warrant. He's reading it, just nodding the whole time, not saying
squat. Then he says, 'What about this girl?' So Ray and I explain how
she started out like a pill but then was a complete ten on the ID.
O'Donnell didn't like it; said the case rested entirely on the girl.
Then he asks whether we've run her.'
'You'd finished the warrant and still hadn't run her?' Walker pursed
his lips and shook his head. 'I know, we fucked up. We'd been up all
night, running around. We assumed she was straight up when she picked
a sick fuck like Derringer. We forgot about running her. It was a
rookie mistake.'
Johnson continued with the bad news. When they ran the victim, they
found a few runaway reports and an arrest for loitering to solicit.
Worse, the cop who made the loitering pop found a syringe in the girl's
purse with heroin residue on it. Furious that the detectives had
miscalculated their victim, O'Donnell had tried to bully her into
coming clean, but his tough approach only made her dig her heels in
deeper.
Walker had to smooth things over with her, and she eventually admitted
to a nine-month heroin habit that she worked the streets to support.
'So it's basically a trick gone bad?' I asked.
'No,' Walker said. 'At least we don't think so. She admits she was
walking Old Town, looking for a trick. She'd just finished one up and
had scored some horse on the street. She figured she'd keep working
while she was high. Anyway, these two guys pull up and offer her fifty
bucks if they can high-five her.'
'OK, I've been working vice a few years now, but I still don't know
what a high five is.'
I knew it had to be bad when Walker and Johnson looked to Garcia for
help and raised their eyebrows. Garcia averted his eyes while he told
me. 'It's when a girl gets on all fours and one guy does her from
behind while she blows the other one.' I was about to ask why the hell
it was called a high five until I got a mental image of two naked guys
on their knees giving each other a high five.
I rolled my eyes in disgust. 'So they ask her to work for both of
them, basically, and she goes with them?'
Walker eagerly accepted the invitation to change the subject. 'Not
according to her. She says she told them to meet her in the parking
lot of the motel at Third and Alder. She rents a room there when she
works. She assumes they've got a deal and starts walking to the hotel.
That's when Derringer pulls her into the backseat.
