4

From the look on her face, I could tell that Judge Abigail Wilson was not a happy camper. Seeing David Bever’s tall thin frame standing before the bench with a stack of papers in hand, I had a pretty good guess as to the source of her discontent.

Judge Wilson was currently assigned to handle the ex parte docket. For judicial types, this gig was about as close as you get to winning an extra vacation day. The body might need to be there in its black robe, but the brain could check out.

Why? Because the only sure way for a judge to avoid the usual bickering between litigators is to leave one of them out of the room, and ex parte is a fancy way of saying that one party is talking to the judge outside of the other party’s presence. For simple things like uncontested extensions of deadlines and trial set-overs, head over to the ex parte docket, assure the judge your opponent has no complaints, get your order signed, and you’re out of there. Easy work for the lawyer, even easier for the judge.

But David Bever’s unusual request was anything but simple, and any hopes Judge Wilson may have carried for a day of mental coasting were quashed.

“Ah, Ms. Kincaid. You’re here.” Wilson’s long gray hair was pulled back loosely at the nape of her neck. Although she sat at her bench, she hadn’t bothered throwing the judicial robe over her cream-colored silk blouse. “David, why don’t you provide Ms. Kincaid with a copy of your papers so she can get up to speed.”

They were precisely what I expected after my conversation with Calabrese. The Oregonian was asking for a temporary restraining order to prevent the Portland Police Department or the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office from entering their building. The end goal was to permanently quash the search warrant authorizing a search of Percy Crenshaw’s office.

Wilson had the authority to issue the order ex parte but, like most judges, had chosen to hear at least a preview of what both parties had to offer. From the tone of Wilson’s voice, I was not off to a good start. Consciously or not, judges sometimes hold a grudge against the lawyer responsible for bringing them work. I thought of that lawyer as Bever; he, after all, was the one asking for the TRO. Unfortunately, Wilson seemed to hold me responsible for this intrusion, since the police had sought the vexing warrant in the first place.

Once my quick and casual flip through the papers made it clear that I didn’t place much stock in them, Judge Wilson asked for my position.

“What it would be in any other criminal case involving a lawfully obtained search warrant. The police are authorized to execute the warrant. If the search yields incriminatory evidence against a suspect, that suspect can challenge the search in his trial. I don’t understand why Mr. Bever feels entitled to commence such a highly unusual proceeding in response to what is truly a run-of-the-mill search.”

“There’s nothing run-of-the-mill about it,” Bever said, removing his wire-rimmed glasses to maximize the appearance of scholarly pontification. “The police are entering a building owned and operated by a newspaper for the express purpose of searching through a reporter’s office. They want to search—and seize, don’t forget—quote: ‘Any documents, notes, files, papers, or photographs, including but not limited to those in computerized, digitized, or electronic formats, that pertain to the murder of Percy Crenshaw.’ Apparently it is left to the officers’ discretion to determine what does or doesn’t pertain to their investigation.”

I had to hand it to Bever; he’d earned his reputation as a fierce protector of the Constitution. Coming from him, our standard warrant language sounded downright Big Brothery.

“With all due respect to Mr. Bever’s thespian talents, his dramatic reading failed to emphasize the fact that the reporter in question, Percy Crenshaw, is a homicide victim. Searching the victim’s home and office is a vital part of the beginning of an investigation, and the clock is ticking.”

“But here’s my problem, counselor.” Shoot. I was right. The judge had a problem. “This particular victim was a reporter, and that means you’re searching the offices of a newspaper. I find that very troubling.”

Fortunately, I had more to argue. “Your honor, Zurcherv. Stanford Daily is directly on point.” I recited the facts and controlling law as if I’d read the case minutes earlier: The police executed a warrant to seize photographs that a campus newspaper had taken of political demonstrators who assaulted a police officer. The paper balked at the search, but the Supreme Court didn’t. Evidence is evidence, even if it’s in the hands of a newspaper.

I couldn’t help but feel satisfied. I have never been able to memorize anything—strike that. I have involuntarily cemented thousands of failed Hollywood liaisons and sappy love-song lyrics into my brain matter, but much to my frustration I cannot memorize the names of cases. Meanwhile, scores of lawyers routinely dupe judges into thinking they’re smart by rattling off the case names, regardless of what they say or whether they’re relevant. Today, though, I caught a break. I knew this particular case because it had occurred on the very campus where I had first read it in law school.

Bever knew it also. “Stanford is distinguishable. In that case, the paper’s cameraman had actually been present at the scene of the crime, taking photographs while the crime was committed. Here, the police don’t even know whether the victim’s death had anything to do with his position at the newspaper, so how can they possibly know whether his office contains evidence?”

I knew in my gut the police should be allowed to get in there. How could they know if there was a link between the murder and the paper until they checked it out? I gave it another shot. “I find it hard to believe that Mr. Bever’s client would want to impede the investigation into the murder of one of its employees. More importantly, I find it even harder to believe that Mr. Crenshaw would agree with this maneuver if he were around to hear about it.”

“She does have a point, David.” Then why did I feel so lousy? Because apparently my opponent was on first-name terms with Judge Abigail Wilson, while I was the pronoun prosecutor, She. “We’re off the record. Why in the world would you want to stop the police, given the circumstances?”

Bever’s gaze alternated between me and the judge. “I’m not trying to be an obstructionist. I have absolutely no problem with the police looking at anything that might lead to whoever did this, but the warrant is so broad that it amounts to a fishing expedition. I’d be a heck of a lot more comfortable with this if the police had something—anything—tying this terrible crime to Percy’s reporting. My concern is that they’ll scour all his notes and files, many of which will undoubtedly reveal confidential sources and pending stories, and then find nothing relevant to their investigation. Maybe once the TRO is in place, Ms. Kincaid and I can hammer out a compromise.”

The only reason Bever wanted a TRO while we sought a compromise was to put me over a barrel in negotiations. And if all he was after was some middle ground, why hadn’t he just picked up the phone? Before I realized what I was doing, I spoke the latter objection aloud.

I knew it was a mistake the second the words left my mouth. Courthouse gossip gets around fast, even with the judges, and Wilson wasn’t going to let the moment pass.

“As I recall, Ms. Kincaid, you were accused of pulling a similar stunt not so long ago.” On my first case in the Major Crimes Unit, the one Percy Crenshaw had turned into a movie option, I had sprung a surprise confrontation on the City Attorney himself. He had refused to let me examine a missing judge’s files, and without any notice I had hauled him over to the courthouse to defend himself. I had won the battle, but Dennis Coakley hadn’t kept the incident to himself. In the longer war of professional reputations, I had suffered a hit.

Bever had an additional reason for heading straight to the courthouse. “To be frank, your honor, I’m not precisely certain what you’re referring to. But, since you’ve asked, Ms. Kincaid, I’ll tell you why I didn’t call you directly. In light of my firm’s past dealings with you, I had the perception that you might not be receptive to working something out between the lawyers.”

Various people had warned me over the years that my antics would eventually catch up to me, and today seemed to be the big day. Bever was referring to the same case, different conflict: My shitbag of an ex-husband, Roger, worked at Dunn Simon and had represented the missing judge’s husband. Let’s just say we butted heads a few times, and now the three hundred or so lawyers at prestigious Dunn Simon think I’m a snake.

I could see where this road was heading, and I wanted off.

“I’d be happy to try to work something out with David,” I said, trying to join the first-name club, “but it shouldn’t be with a groundless restraining order in place. Your honor, Judge Schwartz issued the search warrant this morning after a thorough review of the affidavits supporting the warrant request. Perhaps she would appreciate the chance to rule on the motion?”

Wilson had been a rainmaker at one of the big firms before coming to the bench, which meant she didn’t know a lick about real-life police work.

“Trust me, I’d love to dump this on her, but she just started a monthlong trial so I’m stuck with you. I see what the state is saying about the routine nature of searching a homicide victim’s property, but I don’t like the idea of the police having unfettered access to a journalist’s office. Crenshaw could very well have been working on something critical of the city or even of the police, and there would be nothing to preserve the confidentiality of that work once the search warrant was executed.” She paused, and I could tell that she truly was torn about what to do. “You don’t have anything suggesting a link to his work?”

She was looking for a way out. I suppose I could have told her that the police viewed a link to a recent story as the most likely scenario. But it wouldn’t have been true. And she and Bever would know it wasn’t true once they got wind of the interview I had just seen on the news moments ago. Six months from now, this moment too could come back to bite me.

Better to repair the damage. “No, we don’t. In fact, it may have been an attempted car theft that got out of control. One of the neighbors heard someone say something to the victim about his car last night, and another witness saw some kids in the parking lot. It’s too early to tell, though, and it’s vital that we explore all the possibilities.” After forty-eight hours, the odds of solving an unsolved homicide start slipping fast.

“And they say lawyers are never honest,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I am persuaded that there is a risk of irreparable damage to the Oregonian if I permit this warrant to be executed as written, so I am going to enter the TRO. But I don’t want to halt a valid step in an ongoing murder investigation. So, Mr. Bever, have your client choose an employee to work with Ms. Kincaid to search the victim’s office. Ms. Kincaid, you can choose one police officer to assist you, and I’m entering an order that requires confidentiality from all those involved for any information that isn’t relevant to your investigation. Any problems?”

 

On my way back to the office, Frist stopped me in the hallway. “Alice said some Dunn Simon fuck was trying to get a TRO on something?”

“Yeah, a search on the Crenshaw case. We worked it out, though.” He wanted the play-by-play, but I explained I had detectives in the field waiting for instructions.

Chuck was uncharacteristically glum when he answered the phone.

“What’s wrong with you? Worried I’d blow the restraining order?”

“No, I knew you’d handle it.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t even know how to put it,” he said lowering his voice. “It’s just so unbelievable. Johnson called. Matt York’s wife has been cheating on him.”

“Alison was cheating?” I asked in disbelief. Chuck and Matt had met the day they both sat for the bureau’s civil service exam. They stuck together through the police academy and had been friends ever since. Chuck had been a groomsman at Matt’s wedding to Alison, and just last week, Matt had been one of the few buddies willing to work for pizza and beer when Chuck loaded the U-Haul and moved to my place.

“Did Johnson tell you that Percy had a woman over a couple of nights ago? She parked in someone else’s spot?”

“Yeah. A pissed-off neighbor wrote down the license plate.”

“Right. Well, the plate came back to Matt, and the neighbor’s description of the driver matched Alison. Ray called her. She’d been seeing Percy for a few weeks.”

“Oh, my God.” I suppose I should know from my own experience with marriage that you can never tell who might be cheating, but it seemed hard to imagine with the Yorks. As I understood it, Matt had fallen so hard when he met Alison Madison working in the precinct records room that his sergeant made him choose between a transfer or a shift change to avoid the romantic distraction. Matt chose the transfer so he and Alison would still have the same schedule. I’d had dinner with them a couple of times since Chuck and I had become an item, and I could have sworn that same intensity was still there. Last I heard, they were trying to get pregnant. In retrospect, maybe it had been a last ditch effort at happiness.

“So now,” Chuck said, “just to make sure we’re squared away, we’ve got to nail down where Matt and Alison were on Sunday night. Alison was at a baby shower with ten other women, but no one has talked to Matt yet. I told Ray I’d do it.”

“I’m sorry, Chuck. I know that’ll be hard.”

“It’ll suck, basically. But, hey, what are you gonna do, right? Where are we on the warrant?”

I knew Chuck well enough to know he desperately wanted a change of subject and mood. “Have you been fretting over there?”

“When are you going to get it, babe? Worrying gets you nowhere. It’s all about the zen. We good to go?”

“Nope. Say bye-bye to that warrant.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, I’m serious. Judge Wilson granted the order; the warrant’s void until further notice.”

He waited for the expected “just kidding.” When he didn’t get it, the cussing commenced. “What the—”

I had to smile. “What about the zen, babe?”

“I apparently lost it with the contents of my bladder.”

I walked him through the compromise Judge Wilson had hammered out.

“So when are we supposed to do this thing?” he asked.

“Soon, I think. The attorney will call me once he knows who’s going to help us on the newspaper’s end.”

“And you can only have one person with you?”

I needed to pick between Mike and Chuck. I cringed at the thought of publicly opting for my beau, but I trusted Chuck’s discretion more than Mike’s. The son of a former Oregon governor, Detective Charles Landon Forbes, Jr., might choose to eschew political niceties, but he understood them enough to tolerate them when necessary. With Mike, what you saw was what you got.

“Why don’t you find something else for Mike to do? You and I will take care of the files.”

“Sounds hot.”

“You say that about everything.”

“With you? You know it.”

 

I was still smiling while I disconnected and dialed Johnson’s cell number.

“Hey, it’s Sam. You get my message from Mike about the neighbor?”

“We’re on it.”

It had been six months, but the MCT detectives were still getting used to my style. I kept a closer watch on investigations than a lot of the other DAs. “Did you talk to her?”

“Just walked out, in fact. Nice lady, but not real helpful. She didn’t bother turning around to look at whoever was talking to Crenshaw, so there’s no way we’re getting an ID from her. She can’t even remember anything about the voice, other than that he had an Or-uh-gahn accent.” He emphasized the last syllable of our state’s name, the way people from the rest of the country pronounced it. The wrong way.

“How’s the search of the vic’s apartment going?”

“Nothing obvious yet. Did Chuck tell you about Alison York?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you believe that shit? I guess you never know, huh?”

No, you never did. I thought back to the shock of finding my ex-husband Roger atop his extramarital conquest on our dining room table.

“Lucky for all of us, we can avoid what could have been an even worse scene,” he went on. “I just called Central. Matt put in OT on the swing shift Sunday, working the protest crowd. Chuck’s going to talk to Matt about the details, but it looks like he’s clear.”

“So we finally find Percy’s dirty little secret, and we’ve still got nothing.”

When victims’ messy entanglements are responsible for getting them killed, we usually get a whiff of it right away. Last year, we had a family mowed down in a home invasion in Sellwood. According to the family’s neighbors, coworkers, and fellow parishioners, they were plain old regular folks. A quick sweep of the house revealed otherwise. Plain folk don’t hide forty grand and nearly a kilo of heroin in the sofa cushions. Needless to say, the discovery helped MCT narrow the investigation considerably. In the odd case where the victim isn’t hinky, developing a theory to guide the investigation is a lot tougher.

“We’re still digging,” Johnson said. Of course they were. The truth was, until you knew who did it, everything about the victim’s life remained in question. After all, which was more likely: that the case truly was the statistically improbable random killing, or that the police just hadn’t stumbled across the right dirt yet?

“Anything helpful?”

“Well, we’ve got the super I told you about this morning.”

“The one with the generic description of two white guys in the lot.”

“You got it. Peter Anderson. The guy’s seriously stressed. The condo owners are paging him incessantly, wanting every light in the parking lot replaced in case it burns out. Meanwhile, we’ve got him downtown looking through the books.”

“Needle in a haystack,” I said, recognizing that it wasn’t anything Johnson didn’t already know.

“I’m trying to get someone in ATTF to work up a montage of some likely candidates, but I’m not holding my breath.” It was a good idea. Members of the specialized Auto Theft Task Force could help. With the bureau’s fancy state-of-the-art X-imaging software, officers could now search a database of mug shots electronically, pulling up photos of perps with similar crimes with a few keystrokes. The problem was that Ray had no idea which known car thieves were most likely to get violent with a victim.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“I just don’t know anyone over there anymore. You know how it goes.”

If interdepartmental cooperation at the bureau was anything like it was in the DA’s office, I wasn’t surprised that ATTF hadn’t dropped everything for a faceless member of the MCT. I offered to call Heidi Moawad, ATTF’s assigned prosecutor. I was pretty sure she’d help me; she had a reputation as a good egg, and I’d shared my friendlier side with her at a couple of tipsy happy hours. Most importantly, I had saved her two weeks ago from walking out of the courthouse elevator with a bra hanging out of her gym bag. We’re talking serious female bonding.

“If all else fails, what about bringing in a sketch artist?”

“Too early. We don’t usually get into something like that until everything else has dried up and all we’ve got left is an eyewitness and no suspect. We’re sort of in the reverse situation right now. Lots to look at still, and a witness who may not have seen anything helpful.”

“All right, keep me up-to-date. I need to go brief Frist.”

“Damn. Tell him to give you some breathing room already. It’s been six months.”

“Yeah. How about you tell him for me?”

Russ was still waiting for assurances that David Bever’s pop-in with Judge Wilson wasn’t going to derail the investigation. Jessica Walters was splayed generously in one of his office guest chairs, her Rockport loafers kicked off to expose obviously swollen feet, her suit jacket draped open around an enormous mass that was once a flat abdomen. I realized I was staring at the buttons that threatened to pop from the crisp white cotton stretched across her impressive girth.

My gawking didn’t go unnoticed by Jessica. “Christ, Kincaid. Get a good enough look there?”

“Sorry,” I said. I forced myself to lift my gaze from her belly to her eyes. “I guess I didn’t realize you were that far along.”

“The magic of a black jacket,” she explained, momentarily holding her blazer closed in front of her. She was right; the move took off a good trimester. “Yep, I’ve only got one more month, and I’m not going to lie. I’ve gained fifty-two pounds.”

Frist nearly spit up the water he was guzzling from a sports bottle. “Well, you better hope you’re giving birth to a four-year-old, because I’ve never heard of a fifty-pound newborn.”

“Tell me about it. Julia’s been accusing me of using the pregnancy as an excuse to eat all the shit she normally keeps away from me. I keep telling her I’ll take it off breast-feeding, but she’s threatening to withhold sex if all this fat sticks around.” She grabbed her stomach for emphasis.

“Uhh, I know you like fucking with my head, Walters,” Frist said, with his patented introductory gravel, “but that’s a little too much information.”

I wasn’t sure if Frist was referring to the mammary activities or to Walters’s intimate mention of her longtime partner. Either way, his discomfort was ironic, because I had heard Frist and his buddies fantasize about both. Apparently, a big pregnancy bosom was sexy only if it wasn’t going to be used as intended, and the idea of Walters with her beautiful girlfriend was hot only when discussed among her male coworkers.

“Deal with it,” Jessica retorted. “If your half of the species had to go through this shit, doctors would have invented an artificial womb fifty years ago. Anyway, Sam, this is what awaits if you too decide to enjoy the miracle that is human childbirth.”

I silently added the physical discomforts of pregnancy to my long list of reasons for being squeamish about motherhood. Nine months of sobriety. The mall-hopping required for a whole new wardrobe of maternity clothes. No way could I swing a club past a belly like Jessica’s, so bye-bye to golf. Apparently indescribable physical pain. Stretch marks. Diapers and upchuck. Not to mention the idea of a little independent person who can’t talk, understand, or reason; who at the slightest sensation of discontent, could afford to pour every last drop of oceanic baby energy into a penetrating scream that convinces you—rationally or not—that you are an incompetent parent who fails to anticipate and satisfy your child’s most basic needs. No, thank you.

“Not to change the subject, ladies, but what was the deal on that Dunn Simon thing?” Russ asked.

I told him about David Bever’s motion to halt the search of Crenshaw’s office and Judge Wilson’s order.

“You should’ve made Bever go through the City Attorney’s Office,” Russ suggested. “They’re the ones who represent the police, and the motion was aimed at the bureau, not us.”

True enough, but I couldn’t see any advantage in involving Dennis Coakley’s office. “We’re lucky the judge called anyone at all, since Bever waltzed in to the ex parte docket. Besides,” I added, “most of the city attorneys don’t know anything about search and seizure anyway.”

Jessica and Russ exchanged a knowing glance. Jessica was the one to speak the shared thought. “Not to mention the warm fuzzies between you and Dennis Coakley.”

“And there’s that,” I said, with a sigh. I wondered how long it would take to heal the damage inflicted by one rash decision. OK, make that two. Three, maximum.

“Well, don’t sweat it, Kincaid,” Russ said. “I’m not exactly Dennis Coakley’s favorite person right now either. Duncan and I had a meeting with him this morning about the Tompkins shooting.”

“Is he worried about the police union?” On the rare occasions that the city tried to discipline a bad apple in the police barrel, the PPA went into overdrive. Two years earlier, the city tried to fire a vice unit lieutenant for having sex on duty in the back of his bureau-issued Crown Vic with a self-described escort. He chalked it up to a “lapse of judgment,” even though the activity had occurred thrice weekly for an eight-month period. The Portland Police Association beefed the termination, and the state Employment Relations Board eventually ordered the bureau to reinstate the backseat lothario, albeit with a demotion and a transfer out of vice. Ever since, I’ve wondered what a cop needs to do to lose the protection of the powerful PPA. That, and I always checked the upholstery before accepting a ride in a bureau car.

“If my MCT guys are any indication, the union will balk if the city tries to go after Hamilton on the employment front.”

“Are you kidding?” Frist jeered. “The city would love to see this thing go away. Coakley’s pressuring us to call the shooting clean, so the heat will come to Griffith instead of the mayor and the bureau. And don’t forget the money. The city’s already looking at major liability. A criminal indictment will add a couple of zeroes to the civil demand.”

“So are you going along with it?”

“We’ll send the case to the grand jury like all police shootings. But we haven’t decided yet which way to steer things.”

Any prosecutor who tells you that the grand jury acts independent of the prosecutor’s office is relying on legalistic niceties. Sure, as a formal matter, the grand jury has its own powers to call witnesses, gather evidence, and decide whether, when, and which charges should be brought against a defendant. But there’s no judge or defense attorney in the grand jury room, only the prosecutor and the jurors. It doesn’t take a legal eagle to figure out the real dynamic.

The opposing theoretical and practical realities are what make the grand jury the perfect vehicle for police shootings—or any other sensitive case, for that matter. Behind the sealed confines of the grand jury proceedings, we nudge the decision, subtly or not. Then, in the public statement announcing the grand jury’s decision, we proudly declare that we presented the evidence to a pool of independent citizens and entrusted them with the final call. It’s the ultimate CYA.

Jessica had strong feelings about the Delores Tompkins shooting, and she wasn’t hiding them. “Fuck Geoff Hamilton. Some time in the pen would do that idiot good.”

Russ was obviously more torn. “Maybe you should have this case, then. My whole problem with an indictment is the mandatory minimums that would apply if he actually got convicted.”

“Listen to Mr. Lefty Lou over here.” Jessica hiked her thumb toward Frist. “It’s not like you’ve got a problem with those sentences when we’re doling them out against the rest of the docket.”

“Oh, come on,” I interjected. “You can’t seriously believe Hamilton’s like the rest of our docket. He’s got piss-poor judgment, but it’s not like he went out looking to shoot someone. He was just doing his job when a situation got out of control.”

I’m funny that way. Put me in a room with Mike Calabrese, hailing Officer Hamilton as the great American hero, and I’m ready to slam the cell door myself. Faced with Walter’s unsympathetic excoriation, I become Hamilton’s defender. When confronted with extreme positions, my tendency is to run to the center. Some might call it waffling. Chuck calls it contrarian. I choose to see it as fair-mindedness.

Jessica was unpersuaded. “Maybe I’d give the benefit of the doubt to another officer. But Geoff Hamilton’s a thumper. Something wrong with that boy upstairs.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” I conceded.

“Well, one thing about working in Gangs, you have witnesses and victims who are usually the defendants on our cases. I take most of it with a grain of salt, but, trust me, Hamilton’s name comes up so often there’s got to be something there. He came into Northeast Precinct a couple years ago, and it was, like, immediately the neighborhood knew his name. One story has him complaining when the precinct’s fleet manager cleaned blood off the hood of his patrol car after a resist arrest. He wanted to send a message to the rest of the neighborhood. If we let him off, we can forget about getting the people up there to work with us anytime in the near future.”

“And that,” Russ emphasized, “is exactly why Hamilton should probably start looking for a defense lawyer. The line officers will be pissed off for a while, but the alternative is pissing off the entire black community. We’ve sided with hothead cops in I don’t know how many police shootings, not to mention all the other use-of-force cases. But usually the victim was resisting arrest, or at least a wing nut. Tompkins seems pretty clean.”

“If Tompkins wasn’t doing anything wrong, how did a cop wind up shooting her in the head?” I asked.

“We’re still trying to figure out what happened,” Russ explained. “Hamilton’s union rep has him clammed up for now, and obviously the woman’s not around to tell us anything.”

In other words, he had none of the details that might help him decide what was the right, not just the expedient, thing to do.

“Well, I’m about to join the two of you in the hot seat because a bunch of kids can’t find anything better to do than run around making trouble.” Jessica’s change of subject was so abrupt, I wondered whether the thought of a single mother blown away, leaving a one-year-old and three-year-old orphaned, was too much even for her.

“The protest cases again?” I asked.

For Russ’s benefit, Jessica repeated what she had told me at the Justice Center about the property damage on Northwest 23rd. “I thought it was bad enough when a few of them looked like they might be felonies. But now it turns out that these losers did more than break a few windows. There were at least two random assaults: bad ones, too. A bystander took some home movies with his camcorder. Hopefully we’ll actually find the fuckers, but the media will have a heyday.”

“It’s always a bigger story when there’s video,” Russ added.

“Tell me about it. I’m getting calls from the press already, comparing it to the wilding in Central Park. Give me a break. The bureau’s telling me they’re still getting reports of other incidents up there, which are most likely connected, even though we’ll never be able to prove it. It’s a total nightmare. Duncan wants me to make sure we put a case together, and I can’t get the bureau to decide who’s going to do the work.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Typical bureaucratic bullshit. It’s not a major crime so they won’t do anything other than put the pictures out for the public. And the pictures aren’t worth a shit, so I know exactly what that’ll get us—a ton of calls saying maybe it’s this guy, maybe it’s not. I’ll be back to square one, begging the bureau to do the follow-up.”

“What time did all this go down last night?”

“It peaked around nine. Why?”

I thought about the information we had so far on the Crenshaw case. Kids in the parking lot. “Nice car, Snoop.” Then I thought about my drive to Percy Crenshaw’s condominium earlier that morning, past the Zupan’s market on Northwest 23rd. It was only a short jump up the hill to the condos perched above.

I also thought about the time Mike would have on his hands, since he couldn’t work on the Oregonian search warrant.

“You know Mike Calabrese?” I asked.

“Sure,” Jessica said. “Major Crimes Team.”

“Want him to help?”

It was a win-win situation for both of us. Or so it seemed.