was scheduled to testify that Frank was with him when the girl said she
was attacked. Then our Mr. Derringer turned around and changed his
defense. Instead of saying it wasn't him, he argued the whole thing
was consensual rough sex, trying to get the case bumped down to
statutory rape. In the end, Derringer pled guilty as part of a plea
bargain, but that doesn't stop him from telling me at every opportunity
that the girl consented. Everyone I supervise is innocent, don't you
know.'
I thanked him profusely for all the information and assured him I'd be
calling him as a witness. For now, I had other work to do.
Renshaw had lodged a detainer against Derringer based on probable cause
that he'd had unsupervised contact with a minor, a violation of his
parole conditions. Derringer was booked over the weekend, so his case
would be called in the Justice Center arraignment court this afternoon
for a release hearing. Technically, a parole detainer is enough to
hold a parolee for up to sixty days pending a hearing. I would have
liked to keep Derringer in custody on the violation and wait for MCT to
finish the investigation before I decided what charges to file.
The problem was that the allegation underlying Derringer's violation
was essentially an allegation of new criminal conduct. In these
circumstances, most local judges won't hold the parolee in custody
unless the State actually files new charges. So I needed to have a
charging instrument ready in a few hours or the court might cut
Derringer loose.
One alternative was to issue the lowest-level charges, like assault,
kidnapping, and rape. That would be enough to hold Derringer until MCT
was finished. Once the grand jury heard the complete evidence, I could
come back with an indictment for Attempted Aggravated Murder. I'd been
burned by this method before, though. A smart defense attorney can
convince a defense-oriented judge that upping the charges on a
defendant after he has been arraigned on the initial complaint is
prosecutorial misconduct. Under the law, it's not, but that doesn't
stop a court from doing what it wants.
This case would turn on Kendra Martin. Before I made up my mind about
charges, I wanted more than Walker and Johnson's opinion about her.
During my stint in DVD, I'd dealt with a few street girls. Most of
what Walker and Johnson said about Kendra sounded right. I wasn't
surprised that she would lie about the work and about her habit. And,
if she was street smart, I believed she didn't get into that car on her
own. What bothered me was her initial response to Walker and Johnson.
Detectives with their experience are used to the typical rape victim
response. It's normal for rape victims to be defensive and to direct
their anger at police. But this girl, a thirteen-year-old, sounded
like a nightmare. If I was going to go all out and guarantee myself a
tough trial, I didn't want to spend the next few months fighting with a
teenage sociopath.
I went to the law library and pulled a copy of the Physicians' Desk
Reference. The emergency room had injected Kendra Martin with Narcan
to prevent her from overdosing. According to the PDR, the active
ingredient in Narcan was naloxone, which reverses the effects of
opiates and induces immediate withdrawal. Even for a relatively new
user like Kendra Martin, the shock to her system would be enough to
create a very unhappy camper.
The effects of heroin last longer than the effects of naloxone. As a
result, once the naloxone wears off, the person might have a short
period where they're still under the influence of the opiates. Those
effects gradually wear off, and the person returns to their normal
state.
If Walker and Johnson were right about Kendra Martin essentially being
a nice girl, the mix of Narcan and heroin would explain her initial
crankiness, followed by a period of indifference.
Having satisfied my main point of doubt, I decided to go with my gut.
Walker was right. Derringer and his buddy got a thirteen-year-old girl
to shoot up a boatload of heroin, then beat her, choked her, sexually
assaulted her, and left her to die in the woods. The case would be
tough to prove, but it was looking better now with the information from
the jail and Renshaw. There was enough for an attempted aggravated
murder indictment and enough to get it to the jury. And even if a jury
didn't go for the attempted agg, it could still convict on the kidnap,
assault, and sex charges.
I spent the next couple of hours reviewing the reports that had been
written on the case so far. I was impressed. Most of the time, if you
read a cop's reports after the case has been described to you, the
reports and the verbal summary don't quite match up. Either something
was omitted from the conversation or, more commonly, left out of the
written reports. MCT's good reputation appeared to be well deserved. I
was pleased to see that everything I already knew, and nothing else,
was in the reports. And I was irritated that I couldn't stop myself
from paying special attention to the quality of Chuck Forbes's work.
Chuck had joined the bureau after college and had wound up on the fast
track into MCT after he obtained a murder confession that eventually
led to one of Oregon's first capital sentences. I took a special
interest in Chuck Forbes for more personal reasons: He had taken my
virginity from me in high school (OK, I kind of gave it to him), and we
had continued our bad behavior on and off throughout our youth. We
bickered constantly back then, and we still argue today. However, I'd
made a vow to stop mixing wild sex with the fighting almost a decade
ago, the summer after my college graduation. Once I make a vow, I
