strange,' she said.
'There's nothing strange about it, Grace. Lisa Lopez is completely
scummy slime and has absolutely no ethics. She'll do anything to win,
even for a dirtbag like Derringer.'
'But you said yourself that she sat there passively through your entire
case.'
I tried not to reveal my impatience. 'Right,' I said slowly, 'but now
it turns out she was doing that so she could hide her ridiculous theory
until the last minute, when I'd be caught off guard.'
'But, Sam, look at the big picture. When did she think of this? The
anonymous letter to the Oregonian wasn't printed until the middle of
your case. If she got the idea from the letter, what was her plan
before then? It seems too coincidental that she just happened to be
putting on a lame defense and then decided in the middle of the trial
to capitalize on this anonymous letter thing.'
I could see where she was headed. 'Right,' I said. 'I've thought
about that too. It explains why she seemed up to no good ever since
the start of the trial: she was planning to tie the case to the
Zimmerman murder all along, and the anonymous letter happened to come
up right before her opening.'
'Which is also a major coincidence,' she said.
'It's really not, Grace. Think about it: the Supreme Court announced
it was upholding Taylor's sentence right before my trial started. Lisa
heard about it and saw a convenient defense. The anonymous letter was
also a reaction to the court's decision, probably by some death penalty
opponent or someone just looking for attention. Two totally unrelated
decisions, but both pretty predictable in hindsight. Taylor's the
first real test of Oregon's death penalty; it was bound to attract some
nut jobs
Grace nodded in agreement, and I moved on to bad-mouthing Lisa Lopez as
we finished the bottle of wine. As usual when I visited Grace, I left
feeling better than when I arrived.
On the way home, my cell phone rang. The caller ID read private. Real
helpful. Maybe if I hadn't answered, I would have at least had a
recorded message to give the police.
'Long dinner, Kincaid. Were you and that hot little friend of yours
doing a little eating out up there? If I'd known, I might've followed
you up.'
The voice was vaguely familiar, but too muffled to place. 'Who is
this?'
He was already gone.
I spent the weekend reviewing the Zimmerman file behind locked doors.
Between checking out every sound, double-checking my alarm, and
periodically turning off the lights to look out my windows, I didn't
feel even half prepared when I headed back to court on Monday
morning.
One thing had become clear to me, though: There was no doubt that the
entire case against Margaret Landry and Jesse Taylor turned on Landry's
apparent inside knowledge. Either she had something to do with the
murder or someone had told her these details. No wonder the defense
had turned the focus to Chuck.
As furious as I was about Lopez's dirty tricks, the fact remained that
there was no evidence tying the assault on Ken-dra to the Zimmerman
murder. I also had what is known in the legal world as a butt load of
evidence against Derringer Kendra's ID, the shaved pubic hair, the
detailing of his car a day after the assault, and the fingerprint. It
would be harder work than it first appeared, but I still had a solid
case.
Also, the weekend media coverage was better than it might have been
under the circumstances. Manning's piece appeared as a sidebar to a
follow-up story on the Zimmerman case and anonymous letter. The
feature story didn't contain any new information, just a summary of the
case against Landry and Taylor and an update on their status in prison.
She was a model prisoner who counseled young women; he was a head case
who spent most of his time in solitary.
Manning's sidebar couldn't add much. Just that a defendant was
claiming during his trial that whoever killed Jamie Zimmerman had
committed the crime of which he stood accused. Seeing the assertion in
black and white, without any evidence to support it, made me see how
truly lame it was.
At 9:30 a.m. on Monday, when Lesh took us back on the record, I settled
into my chair for what promised to be a long morning.
Jake Fenninger was Lisa's next witness. Fenninger was the patrol
officer who popped Kendra last Christmas when she was working up in Old
Town. Kendra had already talked about the arrest on direct during my
case-in-chief, but Lisa's hands were tied. She couldn't get into the
Zimmerman case until she plowed through the witnesses she had included
on her defense witness list, most of whom had nothing to say other than
that Andrea Martin might be a trespasser. Compared to them, Fenninger
was riveting.
