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Oregonian that the most dangerous place to stand in Portland was between Russell Frist and a TV camera. Apparently, his fascination with the media began early. According to the rumor mill, when Russ was still on misdemeanor row, he grew impatient waiting for the spotlight that often singles out career prosecutors. Halfway into a trial against a medical school professor accused of picking up a prostitute on Sandy Boulevard, he recognized a crime-beat reporter at Veritable Quandary, a favorite downtown drinking institution. Russ forwent his regular VQ booth, planted himself at a table behind the reporter, and gabbed away to a coworker about every last detail of his pending trial, down to the good doctor’s impounded Porsche 911 with the DR LOVE personalized plate. The morning after Russ got his guilty verdict, that same reporter ran the story on the front page of the Metro section, “exposing” the blur between Portland’s elite and the city’s seedy side.
    Ever since, Russ’s trials have had a way of grabbing headlines. If he was ducking a case as big as Percy Crenshaw’s murder, there had to be a reason.
    “Is there a problem I should know about?” My question was blunt, but I can be blunter—and I was. “If you’ve set me up to eat a plateful of shit you’re trying to avoid, the least you can do is tell me it’s coming.”
    The straight tack—coupled with the requisite prosecutorial profanity—always did the trick with Frist. “It’s not quite that bad, but there is something. That’s why I came in, actually.” He leaned back in his chair and shut the door behind him. “I talked to the boss about the assignment this morning. We’re taking heat on this Tompkins shooting, big time. Duncan’s just being cautious, but he figured it would look better if we had separate DAs working on the two cases.”
    I was still suspicious. “You’ve had two big cases going at once before. What gives?”
    “This is not two garden-variety big cases.”
    I gave him a blank look.
    “You know,” he said.
    “I really don’t, Russ.”
    “The African-American thing,” he said, whispering the hyphenated adjective the way you might say cancer under your breath during proper dinner conversation. At least he hadn’t used air quotes.
    Still, I laughed at him. He deserved it.
    “I’m trying, OK?” he said.
    “Fine, but the logic’s still just plain stupid. So what? We’ve got two black victims. Since when is that enough to warrant calling in the big boss himself to separate the two investigations?” As District Attorney, Duncan Griffith was the public and political face of this office and supervised all hundred-and-some-odd deputy prosecutors. He rarely involved himself in individual cases, let alone the micromanagement of doling them out.
    “It’s not just their race. Jesus, Sam, haven’t you picked up a paper in the last week? Hamilton stuck three bullets into that woman’s head through a fucking windshield. People are seriously pissed. Those same people love Percy Crenshaw. Duncan’s being cautious, is all. Having two bodies on the cases might keep them from getting clumped together out there in the public mind.” He tilted his head toward the window, as if the glass were all that separated us from the ignorant and manipulable masses.
    “Your call,” I said, sounding unintentionally dismissive. “I’m happy to have the case.”
    The ring of the phone saved me from any further paranoid political overanalysis. According to the digital readout, the call originated from Lockworks, a hair salon owned by my very best friend, Grace Hannigan. Grace and I say we’re like the sisters we never had, even though she in fact has a screwed-up half sister who turns up occasionally for money. The day I pass up a call from Grace for run-of-the-mill work talk will be the day I officially deserve a smack upside my Lockworks-coiffed head. Fortunately, Frist took this as his cue to leave, mouthing I’ll talk to you later as