yesterday about the case as it relates to the Zimmerman issue. I
didn't realize that you wanted an update about the general status of
the trial.'
'Sam, that kind of answer does squat for me right now.'
I blinked and felt my lips separate but nothing came out. 'Excuse me?'
I finally said.
'Jesus, Kincaid.' Griffith shook his head at me. 'Tunnel vision. A
real tunnel vision problem. You didn't get my point at all yesterday,
did you?'
'Yes, sir. Keep the eye on the ball. The big picture. The greater
good.' Usually, I can manage to sound earnest even though I know I'm
being snide. This time, I just sounded snide.
'Damn it. Yes, the strength of your case matters when your bad guy's
telling everyone who will listen that he's the innocent victim of the
Keystone Kops and that some serial rapist is on the loose. It matters
even more when there's another guy on death row saying the same thing,
and a little old lady serving a life term backing him up. Jesus. You
made it sound yesterday like your guy was just taking advantage of the
publicity with Taylor. Now I've got to find out from the papers that
there's something to it.'
Shit. I hadn't read the papers this morning, and I'd blown off
Manning's call last night. I decided it was better not to interrupt
Griffith's diatribe with information that made me look even more inept
and uninformed.
'Jesus, I started with the Softball, Kincaid, when I asked you about
your case. The bigger question is why the hell you didn't bother to
mention your little tryst with Chuck Forbes. You sat here in my office
and acted like this was a routine case with some incidental mention of
the Zimmerman matter. Now I've got this.' He picked up a folded
Oregonian from his desk and slammed it down for emphasis.
When in doubt, bluff. It usually works. 'Sir, I'm not sure how it
would have been relevant during our meeting yesterday for me to start
discussing my personal life, whatever that may be.'
'And you still think that today?' he asked. Again with that damn
newspaper.
My only choice was to 'fess up. 'I'm afraid I didn't get a chance to
see the paper this morning yet, sir. Like I said, I'm in trial, and I
was running late.'
Griffith stared at me for a second. Then he started laughing.
'Oh. Well then, let me have the pleasure of being the first to
introduce you to the story that may very well end your career and mine.
Please, be my guest. Go over to the sofa if you'd like. It's quite
comfortable, and, I guarantee, that's quite an article. It might take
awhile.'
I thought about rewarding the sarcasm by lying on the sofa as he
suggested, but I wanted to keep my job.
I unfolded the paper to a banner headline that read, Does Portland Have
a Serial Killer? A smaller line beneath it explained, Letter from 'The
Long Hauler' Supports Theory Linking Current Sex Trial to Murder of
Jamie Zimmerman. There was a large photograph of a smiling Jamie
Zimmerman, with smaller booking photographs of Taylor, Landry, and
Derringer. The text below the pictures explained that, despite claims
of innocence, Taylor was on death row and Landry was serving a life
sentence for the rape murder of Zimmerman, and that Derringer claimed
that whoever killed Zimmerman must have committed the crime he was
accused of.
I had to read the article quickly, since Griffith was obviously growing
impatient:
Like the letter first disclosed by the Oregonian last week, the one
received yesterday arrived in an unremarkable white envelope bearing a
Roseburg postmark. The writer again claims that he and not Jesse
Taylor and Margaret Landry strangled Jamie Zimmerman. In this new
letter, however, the writer maintains that Zimmerman's murder was just
the beginning in what has become a string of grisly murders, scattered
throughout the Pacific Northwest and previously believed to be
unconnected. He also claims responsibility for a brutal rape that is
the basis of the trial of Frank Derringer currently being held in the
Multnomah County Courthouse. Calling himself the Long Hauler, the
writer identifies himself as a long-haul truck driver from Oregon whose
travels across the country have made it easy for him to kill five women
undetected.
I was surprised by the graphic detail reprinted verbatim in the paper.
At one point, the author explained that killing Zimmerman had ignited
an insatiable desire in him to kill. Six months after he strangled
Jamie Zimmerman, he couldn't withstand the temptation anymore, so he
picked up a prostitute at a truck stop in Ellensburg, Washington, and
strangled her with a leather belt while he orally sodomized her. I
kept reading.
Explaining his self-declared pseudonym, the writer says, 'All the good
ones had a name. Son of Sam, Boston Strangler, Green River Killer.
Unless you think of something better, you can just call me the Long
