Текст книги "A Criminal Defense: A Harlan Donnally Novel"

Автор книги: Steven Gore

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Chapter 47

Donnally spotted a parking place in front of Hector Camacho’s Taqueria Michoacan at Twenty-fourth and Mission. He also spotted a lookout leaning against the wall of the liquor store at the end of the block. He took the next corner, drove down the street until he found a space just beyond a machine shop driveway, and slid in. He figured he’d only be gone from the office for an hour, so he’d slipped out and left the parking garage by the rear exit, leaving Mother Number Two in her surveillance position. He also instructed Jackson to leave the lights on after she left for the day to suggest he was still working inside.

His cell phone rang. It was Janie. “I was near Hamlin’s building so I stopped in. Looks like I just missed you.”

“I’m out trying to get ahold of a guy.” Donnally didn’t want to tell her it was in the Mission. His worries were her worries, and hers were his. No reason to put her through it again.

“Takiyah was just closing up when I got there. It was interesting.”

“Personally or clinically?”

“Both. You have a run-in with her today?”

“She started the sexualized little girl thing again and I had to shut her down.”

“Whatever you said left her teary-eyed and bewildered. I had the feeling she’s starting to see what she’s been doing and she didn’t like what she saw. I think she wanted to apologize to me for trying to move in on you or wanted to explain herself to me or maybe wanted me to explain her to herself. She called me Dr. Nguyen, so I think she knows I’m a psychiatrist. Did you mention it to her?”

“No. But she could’ve asked around, checking me out. How’d it end?”

“She stammered and then froze up and ran out of the office. She was in the elevator and going down before I could catch up.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I see her tomorrow. Maybe it means she’s getting close to opening up to me.”

Donnally looked up. Fog was crawling over the western hills and darkening the city, graying the pastel apartment buildings in the next block and chilling the air. His gaze lowered to street level. A couple of mid-twenties Norteños wearing red plaid shirts stared at him from where they leaned against a bus bench in front of a body shop. His hand went to his holster and he checked the strap.

“Mind locking up for me? Just make sure the desk lamp in Hamlin’s office is still on. I’ll see you at home.”

Reaching for the door handle after he disconnected, thinking of Jackson and of himself, a phrase came to him.

Being of two minds.

He’d heard people use the expression over the years, even used it himself, but he hadn’t really thought about what it meant for a long time. But he did now as he got out of his truck and felt the stab of pain in his hip as his foot hit the pavement. And, on second thought, he wasn’t sure he understood it right even then. He just knew that in walking back around the corner, he’d have to push through the resistance of the past, force his way into the present—and not blow the brains out of the lookout, thereby making him the victim of a memory not fully understood or overcome.

A minute later, heading down the shadowed Mission Street sidewalk, watching the lookout’s head swivel toward him, he knew all he really grasped of the shooting was the mechanics of it, not the meaning.

How did it happen that the Norteño and the Sureño had been stationed on opposite ends of the block?

Who had been the target?

Him?

Or the informant waiting in the booth inside?

The only thing the detectives in the gang task force would say was that dead men tell no tales. And by the time Donnally had gotten through rehabbing his hip, whatever trail there might have been had been overgrown by a jungle of other crimes.

Little girls in Catholic school plaid skirts stepped out of a pandaria, giggling and biting into sugar-covered empanaditas. Donnally felt his legs tense and his knee bend for a run toward them, his mind racing ahead to thoughts of a crossfire. He forced himself to stop and turned toward a clothing store window and took a breath, listening to the girls’ laughter as they walked behind him.

When his eyes refocused, he realized he was staring at rows of women’s spike-heeled pumps like he was a fetishist from South of Market. He imagined the lookout watching him, laughing to himself, dismissing him as a threat. The crook coming to the right conclusion for the wrong reason.

Hector Camacho was sitting in a rear booth, his fingers working an electric adding machine, the gears grinding out the paper against the background of banda music drifting down from dusty loudspeakers wedged into the upper corners of the dining room.

Donnally wondered whether he was counting up the money he’d have left after the government was done seizing his house and cars.

As Donnally zigzagged through the three rows of empty Formica tables, through the smells of roasted chilies and grilled meats and fresh tortillas, he heard a whistle from behind the counter and saw Camacho’s right hand slide from the table down to his lap.

Donnally raised his hands, slowed, but kept walking. Only now did he wish it was still the old days when he had his we’re-the-good-guys detective’s shield clipped two inches to the right of his belt buckle.

Ten feet away, Donnally said, “Quedate tranquilo.” Stay cool. “Yo tengo identificación.” I have ID.

Camacho raised his left palm.

“Muestrame de donde es usted.” Show me from where you are.

Donnally stopped, reached into his back pocket and pulled out his retirement badge, and turned it toward Camacho.

“My name is Harlan Donnally.”

Camacho pointed at Donnally’s left side, then slid his finger over until it pointed at his right.

Donnally pulled back his jacket and showed the gun on his hip.

Camacho nodded and covered his paperwork. He signaled Donnally to come forward and said in English, “Sit down and keep your hands on the table.”

Donnally slid in across from Camacho and laid his palms flat in front of him. Close up, the man looked weary, wearing a face like those of the World War II and Korean War vets his father employed as extras in his first combat movies. The sort who lived in the ghosts of dead comrades and revisited the battlefield each night in their dreams. Donnally had the feeling that while Camacho had the will to fight, he preferred to be done with fighting.

“I want to talk to you about Mark Hamlin,” Donnally said. “I was appointed by the court to look into his death.”

“I saw something about that on the news.” Camacho smiled. “Special master made it sound like you’d be some old white-haired guy.” His smile left his face. “You talking to all his clients, or just me?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“And you’re darkening my door because . . .”

Donnally caught motion of a cook walking from the kitchen toward the counter with a takeout order.

“Is it safe to talk in here?”

Camacho waited until the cook finished his return trip and disappeared from view, then said, “Good as anywhere.”

Donnally leaned forward and lowered his voice. “My understanding is that you cut a deal.”

Camacho didn’t respond.

“Somebody rolled on you and you rolled on someone else, and Frank Lange was with you during the debriefing.”

Camacho’s face hardened. His hand came up from under the table. Donnally tensed, ready to dive and roll and come up shooting. Camacho’s hand was empty.

“You been talking to that flaky throwback hippie chick?”

“Which?”

“Moon River or River Moon or some bullshit name like that. A couple of months ago she was poking around about who snitched on who. A hundred pounds of crazy, and pathetic as hell.”

“I can’t tell you whether I talked to her or not, but I can tell you I saw some paperwork in Hamlin’s files. All of his records are still privileged, but the judge is letting me look at anything I need to.”

Camacho spread his hands in a kind of defeat. “What happened, happened. Somebody was gonna snitch me off someday. I shouldn’t have gone back into the trade. Sure I was pissed it was one of Hamlin’s other clients, but—”

“What?”

“Just what I said. One of his other clients rolled on me. Since Hamlin could see it coming, he was able to work something out for me before they kicked in my door.” Camacho flashed a grin. “Gave me time to clean things up a little.”

Donnally thought of the line in Hamlin’s notes.

Split 40/60 from Guillermo, 60/40 from Nacho, and 40/60 from Rafa.

“Who rolled on you?”

“Didn’t she tell you that already?”

“Was it Guillermo?”

Camacho nodded. “Guillermo Gutierrez.” His lips pressed together as though he was a disappointed parent thinking about an ungrateful child. “And I gave the motherfucker his start, gave him my connection when I went to the federal pen.”

“And you gave up Rafa.”

“Is that a question?”

“No. I saw his name in Hamlin’s file. Was he one of Hamlin’s clients?”

“No. Reggie Hancock’s. In LA. Rafa was big down there”—Camacho grinned again—“until last month.”

Donnally now understood the splits. Hamlin and Hancock split sixty-forty or forty-sixty depending on whose client was rolling. And he wondered how far back the scheme went, since, according to Navarro, Hancock had been Camacho’s attorney in the case he was convicted on decades earlier.

“And how would you know the details of his operation, or at least enough to roll on him?”

Camacho smiled. “The flake didn’t go running to you, did she?”

And Donnally had the answer. It was Lange. Lange fed Camacho the information he needed to set up Hancock’s client, which meant that Hancock fed the information to Lange first. And Ryvver must have figured it all out and was looking for a way to use it to help Little Bud.

“I told you,” Donnally said. “I can’t say who I’ve talked to.”

“Have it your way.”

“What about the money?”

“You mean Hamlin’s fee?”

Donnally nodded.

“He was gonna take it out of the reward, from my cut of whatever the government forfeited from Rafa. They found almost half a million in his house. I got fifty thousand out of that. The DEA said I could get up to two hundred and fifty altogether, depending on how much they find.”

Donnally thought of the Vietnamese gunman who kidnapped him off the street and took him into the garage. He wondered whether the quarter-million-dollar figure was a coincidence.

“I take it the DEA would send a check to Hamlin,” Donnally said, “and he’d deduct his cut and forward you the rest.”

Camacho nodded. “In cash. I didn’t want no kind of trail between the government and me.”

Listening to Camacho, it was clear to Donnally he was no genius. But he didn’t have to be to succeed in the drug trade. He just needed to be able to count the money and protect his link in the distribution chain.

Was it possible Camacho hadn’t yet figured out that if Guillermo got a cut of his property, and he got a cut of Rafa’s, and Hancock and Hamlin got a cut of everybody’s, the whole thing must have been a setup from the start?

Chapter 48

I’m in pretty deep in the attorney-client end of the pool and can’t feel the bottom,” Donnally said to Judge McMullin in his oak-paneled study a couple of hours later.

The furniture had that old-money feel, not museumlike, but used in a respectful way. Donnally imagined somewhere in the mansion, which the judge had referred to as “my place” when he had asked Donnally to meet him there, were stacked four or five sets of antique translucent china and silver service for dozens and enough glassware for an opera gala. Not that the judge used any of it anymore. He was too modest a man and the last of his line.

“If I understand you,” McMullin said, “you suspect Camacho went after Mark Hamlin after he figured out the rolling scheme.”

Donnally nodded. “I don’t believe Camacho is as stupid as he wanted to sound today. The only reason he talked to me was because he thought he’d look guilty of the homicide if he didn’t. He’s a tough guy. He’d never want to be taken advantage of, and Hamlin’s stunt cost him everything he owns except his restaurant, and may cost him his life when Rafa figures out that Camacho set him up.”

The judge leaned forward in his wing chair and rested his forearms on his thighs. “How many bodies has Camacho left behind him in his life?”

“Before he went to the pen? Four, maybe five.”

“And now two more?”

“He puts a rope around Hamlin’s neck, gets him to confirm what he suspects about how the dominoes fell, then he goes after Lange. Camacho had a lookout on the corner and was armed when I went into his restaurant, as though he was waiting for Rafa to reach out from jail and send someone to blow his brains out.”

The judge sat back with kind of a body sigh, like he’d struggled over a crossword puzzle and had given up. “The problem is I don’t see enough probable cause for an arrest, or even a search warrant for Camacho’s house and business.”

“We also need biological evidence. We found two hairs in Hamlin’s bathroom that the forensic people say weren’t his.”

Judge McMullin paused and his brows furrowed. He repeated the word “dominoes,” and then asked, “How long do you think Hamlin was doing this, setting up one client to roll on another?”

“I don’t know.” Donnally looked the judge straight in the eye. He recognized the impact his next words would have. “But I know who does. The Assistant U.S. Attorney who handled these cases and negotiated the deals with Hamlin.”

The judge looked down shaking his head, and then exhaled. “Jeez.” He looked up. “Bet you wish you were up in Mount Shasta flipping burgers.” He didn’t wait for a response. “I know I wish I was. You think the cable news channels made a big deal about Hamlin’s death? Wait until they get ahold of this one. I’m not sure there’s any worse kind of violation of a defense attorney’s oath than to betray a client or any more outrageous governmental misconduct than a prosecutor conspiring with the defense attorney doing it.”

Donnally knew the judge’s choice of the words “outrageous governmental misconduct” wasn’t just chance. The phrase was etched into the law. And it was a sign that marked one of those gaps between the ideal of justice from its practice that the judge had viewed as his duty to mend from the moment he was appointed to the bench.

Dismissals and reversals were the prescribed remedies for this kind of wrongdoing, and there was no flourish of legal language in which to disguise it.

Just the opposite. In the idiom of the law trade, it was a bell that couldn’t be un-rung.

Donnally knew both he and the judge were wondering the same things. How many clients had been set up by Hamlin and Hancock with the complicity of the U.S. Attorney’s office and how many dismissals and reversals there would be.

“The longer I delay acting on this,” the judge said, “the greater the risk it will look like I’m a coconspirator, getting the last ounce of flesh from the defendants before their cases get tossed. Even worse, defendants are deciding right now whether to cooperate and to risk getting their brains blown out or to plead guilty and do their time, and some are already serving prison sentences.”

Donnally thought of Little Bud hanging in his cell. Even if he could prove Hamlin had used another client to roll on him, it was way too late for a reversal to do Little Bud any good.

There’s no coming back from dead.

“You need to wrap this up,” Judge McMullin said. “I’m not sure how long I can sit on this kind of thing.”

Ryvver. That flake. That’s what Camacho had called her. But without her, Donnally couldn’t reach probable cause to go after him.

She’d gone running to Camacho after she figured out the rolling scheme, having put together stories she’d heard from Lange and things she’d seen in his files about how Little Bud and Camacho and all the others had been set up.

That flaky throwback hippie chick.

Donnally imagined Ryvver had hid out in an apartment in the avenues, pacing the floor, twisting her hands and biting her nails, imagining Camacho and his guys tying Hamlin to a chair, slapping him around—it never crossed her don’t-pick-a-flower-for-fear-of-hurting-a-plant mind they’d actually kill him.

And now she was hiding out again, pacing and twisting and biting, an unwitting coconspirator in a murder, facing a choice of going down on a homicide conspiracy or rolling on Camacho and running for the rest of her life.

Donnally thought of Mother Number Two sitting outside, parked along the tree-lined street, watching the judge’s door and Donnally’s truck. So far, he didn’t think there was any harm in her following him. The newspapers had said he’d be reporting to the judge. His visit wouldn’t mean anything special to her now. But eventually it would and he’d be facing a mama bear again.

“I need to bring Navarro in on this,” Donnally said. “It’s no longer a one-man job. We need to figure out where Ryvver is. We need to lean on some of Camacho’s people to get them to roll on him, at least enough so we can get a search warrant. We need to go to LA and talk to Reggie Hancock. For all we know there are other crooks out there besides Camacho who figured out what happened and wanted to put a noose around Hamlin’s neck.” He took a breath. “And there are other leads we need to follow. Some Vietnamese guy stuck a gun in my back wanting money he said Hamlin had, and a biker was threatening Hamlin because of cash he took out of a crime scene, and the family of a homicide victim and the victims of a walkway collapse also wanted a piece of him.”

McMullin looked down, shaking his head. “Hamlin had enough enemies to make up a firing squad.” He looked up again and nodded. “I’ll clue in Goldhagen that the investigation is both moving deeply into attorney-client matters and that law enforcement involvement in every area is unavoidable.” He tapped his chest. “Have Navarro call me. We need to make sure everyone involved in the investigation understands there will be no leaks to the press. None.”

Chapter 49

Donnally checked his watch as he left the judge’s house. He had an hour before Janie was supposed to meet him at Hamlin’s office to go for dinner and talk about what he should do about Jackson. He decided to use the time to examine the accounting records, to see if he could figure out the scope of the rolling scheme from deposits into Hamlin’s trust account and payments made out of it. He was certain Camacho wasn’t the only gangster with a motive and found himself worrying about how many potential suspects might turn up in his search.

Leading Mother Number Two through San Francisco seemed to him like an inverted child’s game. He wondered what was the opposite of hide-and-seek.

Night had made it hard to keep sight of the headlights of her truck in his mirrors, and the fog seemed to round her square headlights. He had to make a couple of early stops on yellow lights so she could stay with him, and she seemed to figure out what he was doing. He decided to make it clear to her that he was going downtown and then let her roll the dice that he was heading for Hamlin’s building and catch up on her own.

The door to the conference room was closed when he walked in. He could make out women’s voices inside. He wondered whether Ryvver had decided to come to him, better to seek him out than to wait for him to knock on her door.

Donnally eased the latch closed so that if his opening of the door hadn’t already given him away, the closing of it wouldn’t. He crept over and listened. The voice now speaking was Jackson’s. There were pauses and sniffling. She was talking about the night Bumper was murdered in his bed and about feeling later that Hamlin had rescued her. Then Hamlin going wrong. And her anger and her feeling trapped by him and her past. The tale coming in a rush. It sounded like she was climbing a mountain of hurt and shame, ready to roll down the other side, maybe all the way to a confession to having killed Hamlin in a rage.

Finally, Jackson, now full-on weeping, saying, “He didn’t deserve to die.”

The other voice, even, professional. Janie’s. “You sound like you feel guilty about it.”

Fists pounding the table, like a little kid kicking at something in frustration.

Donnally wondered why Janie was in there, or even at the office. It was still a half hour until their dinner date. Had she come early hoping Jackson would tell her what she had wanted to say before she ran away last time? Knowing Janie, her gentleness and sincerity, it wasn’t hard to imagine a conversation flowing into a therapy session.

It had happened enough to him.

“Ryvver wouldn’t have known about Camacho if I hadn’t told her,” Jackson said, “and if he hadn’t found out what happened to him, he wouldn’t have killed Mark.”

“Why did you tell her?”

“I was angry. Angry as she was over Little Bud killing himself. He was such a sweet, harmless man. And so kind to Ryvver even at her worst, when she was the most lost and out of control, when there was nothing I could do for her. It just slipped out. And she . . .”

“She what?”

“She knew from when she worked for her father what Frank and Mark and Reggie Hancock were up to. Or least guessed at it.”

“And you gave her confirmation.”

“I had just figured it out myself. Harlan thinks I knew everything that Mark was doing all along, but I didn’t.”

“Did you confront Mark about it?”

Jackson didn’t respond, at least aloud. Maybe she shook her head. Maybe she nodded. Donnally had no way of knowing.

Janie changed the subject, so the answer must have been no. “Were you going to tell Harlan?”

“I told him about Little Bud.”

“Everything?”

Silence. A long silence.

Donnally heard wood scraping wood, maybe chair legs on the floor. He crept toward Hamlin’s inner office, wincing at the faint squeaks of the old parquet flooring. Then the click of heels, but not getting closer like she was walking toward the door. Pacing. Had to be Jackson. Janie always wore flats. He decided he didn’t want to take the chance of getting caught eavesdropping, so he continued into Hamlin’s office and sat down behind his desk.

A tap on the keyboard revealed the desktop under the screensaver. He clicked on the accounting program icon and entered the “showmethemoney” password.

Looking past the monitor as the program loaded, at the chairs in front of the desk and the couch under the window, he felt the history of the last few days.

Lemmie and her parents playing out the family drama against the background of a real tragedy.

Jackson imagining herself a Jonestown victim, first guilt-ridden for having survived and now for having broken free.

Galen cutting a deal, with Navarro watching him like a visible conscience.

Galen.

Donnally still didn’t know whether the man had intended to kill himself or whether his collapse into a coma was an accident of misunderstood medication. He would’ve heard from Edwards by now if the Berkeley detective had found anything suggesting it had been an attempted murder.

Donnally pushed the mouse up to the top of the screen, and clicked on the “Reports” tab. He ran the same one as last time, “Current Year–Combined,” and looked for categories that might cover informant payments, checks coming in from the government, and then cash or checks going out to Hancock and the informing clients. He was certain it wouldn’t be called by a recognizable name. And it wasn’t. He tried “Fees,” “Retainers,” “Services,” “Consulting,” “Salaries,” “Bonuses,” “Royalties,” even “Other” on the income side and “Commissions,” “Professional Services,” and “Wages” on the outgoing side. Nothing. Not a hint.

He stilled the keys, listening for sounds from the conference room. After waiting a full thirty seconds, but hearing none, he reached for the accounting program manual and checked the table of contents and the index, looking for a gimmick that would guide him to where he needed to go.

But then a thought interjected itself between his eyes and the page.

Soon as they come out, they’ll guess I heard them in there.

His mind drifted from the book on the desk in front of him to an image of the two women talking together in the conference room. But there was nothing he could do but try to catch a cue from Janie about how he should act when they came out, if there was a way. He suspected that for Jackson exiting the conference room would feel like leaving a shadowed confessional in which one admits, one repents, and one is forgiven, and then steps back out into the glare of an unforgiving world that judges anew and penalizes, and in which the past is never past.

Another picture replaced that one. Jackson standing in the office in her low-cut sweater, reaching for his arm. He wondered whether Janie had found a way to confront Jackson about her attempt at sexualized manipulation and find an explanation in her childhood. But maybe she didn’t need to. Guilt and shame for inadvertently setting up Mark Hamlin would have been impetus enough.

The conference room door opened. Donnally watched Jackson walk out of his view and toward her desk, heels clicking on the floor like a metronome, her neck rigid, face forward, knowing he was watching her. He heard her desk drawer open and close, then the office door open and close.

Janie appeared in the doorway and came toward him.

“How much did you hear?” Janie asked.

“Did she know I was listening?”

“I don’t know. She knew you were in the office, but over her crying I’m not sure she could tell when you arrived.”

“So it all could’ve been a performance?”

“I don’t think so. What you heard was the second time through, a more chronological account. She’d already done a scattershot of bits and pieces.”

She dropped onto the couch.

“I didn’t expect it. At least not this way. Not after she ran away last time. It was like she couldn’t help herself. Needed just to let it out. It blew me away.” She released a breath. “She felt all this pressure building up from you being here all the time. I think I was partly a proxy for you. She won’t ever admit it, but I think she wanted you to hear what she was saying.”

Janie leaned back and closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them and said, “She’d come to hate Hamlin. Really hate him. I got the feeling that what her father had done to her sexually, Hamlin had done to her intellectually and emotionally, and she didn’t recognize it as abuse until way, way, way too late.”