But what if he had targeted me intentionally? What if it wasn’t just any reporter, but me that he was after? Is there any way he could have known that I’d been in the same room as Griff Bauer the night before his murder? Or that I’d been at his house the morning of his murder?
I thought back to that morning and one suspicious thing had happened. That car that stayed at the stop sign a few seconds too long before quickly driving off.
A pit rose in my stomach, but I continued brainstorming.
Even if that had been him, and this was a huge hypothetical, how would he know that I was a reporter? Or that I’d been twenty feet from Griff Bauer the night before?
I had no answers. The only thing I knew was that someone lied to the police and said I’d had an argument with Bauer at the hospital. But who? The anonymous secret admirer seemed as good a candidate as any.
Still, and I was now out in far left field, if all he wanted was for me to publish articles that would hurt Dennis McCarthy, why would he then make up a story about me fighting with Griff Bauer? Revenge for not publishing what he wanted? That sounded like a huge stretch.
My head hurt and I hadn’t come to any conclusions. In fact, I’d just brought more questions into the equation.
I googled “Dennis McCarthy rival”, “Dennis McCarthy fight”, and “Dennis McCarthy Shark.” Nothing of substance came up except the article by Vern Coughlin.
Could this all be something that Dennis McCarthy set up? That seemed highly unlikely as well. I didn’t think he was anything but a fringe player in whatever the hell was going on.
And what the hell was going on?
All I knew was that I wouldn’t figure it out lying on my bed.
My brain was officially on empty. The clock had barely ticked past noon, but I decided I needed a nap. Like everything else in my life, my sleeping patterns were fucked up too.
21.
“I’m talking to a dead man,” Paddy Roark said to me.
I’d gone into full on fuck-it mode that morning and taken BART into San Francisco and an Uber to Boyle’s Grocery Store. I found Roark and showed him the picture of the two men at Golden Gate Fields. He hadn’t recognized Doug Anderson, but he’d done an obvious double take when I asked about the other man.
“I just want his name,” I said. “And then you’ll never hear from me again. You owe me that after basically kidnapping me.”
“We did no such thing. If anything happened, someone just asked you to join him in a car. We have several witnesses.”
“I didn’t go to the police. I could have.”
“And we appreciate that.”
“Then tell me his name.”
“You’d be dead in a week.”
“If not, I might rot to death in prison. Believe me, I’ll take my chances.”
He took me by the arm and pulled me to the deep recesses of Boyle’s. We passed by two flapping doors and he led me into a small office.
If I was ever going to get whacked, this was the time. And yet, oddly, I knew I could trust Paddy Roark.
“Sit down,” he said.
It was an order, not an invitation. I sat.
He shut the door behind him and talked to someone on the phone just outside of the office. I couldn’t distinguish a word, which I’m sure was his intention. My guess was that he was getting confirmation from the boss to talk to me. He reappeared two minutes later.
“If you ever mention a word of this to anyone, I will deny it.”
“I’m not after you guys,” I said.
Roark looked me up and down. “He’s a former co-worker of ours. He was a complete and total maniac and we had to let him go. His name is Charles Zane.”
“And people call him the Shark?”
“A very select few. Would you like to know how he got the name?”
I shifted in my chair. “Sure.”
“One of his subordinates gave him the nickname and it got back to Zane. He asked his subordinate why and the man said it’s because Zane prefers not be seen and only surfaces when he comes up to kill.”
“Sharks kill below the surface all the time,” I said.
“Not humans,” Roark said.
“True,” I said.
“Zane wasn’t enamored with the nickname, so he and a few of his men took the subordinate far out in the ocean on one of Zane’s boats. They threw chum in the water and waited until some sharks appeared. They then slowly started cutting off pieces of the man’s body and throwing them in the water for the sharks to feast on. First, a toe. Then, an ear. Then a piece of flesh from his abdomen. All the time, throwing out fish too to keep the sharks interested. They did this for an hour, all while the subordinate remained alive, seeing his former body parts being eaten by sharks. When he’d been reduced to a man with four total toes, zero ears, no nose, and half a torso, they cut off his penis and fed that to the sharks. After they let him see that, they tossed him overboard and let the sharks do the rest. This is the type of man you are dealing with.”
What scared me most of all, out of several things, was that the tough man in front of me—and there’s no doubt that Paddy Roark was just that—was petrified of the man he described. You could see it in his eyes.
“You still have the chance to do nothing,” Roark said. “That’s what I’d advise. You’ve got a lot of balls, I’ll give you that, but you have no chance against Charles Zane.”
I walked out of the grocery store a few minutes later, trying not to imagine the scene Roark had described.
But there was no avoiding it. The imagery now rented space in my head forever.
Since I was already in San Francisco, I dropped by Gary Rodgers’s law firm unannounced. I wasn’t sure if he’d be there, but I chanced it anyway. And sure enough, he answered the door within seconds of me ringing it.
“Quint!” he exclaimed.
“Hi, Gary.”
“I hope you didn’t come all the way to San Francisco to see me. I’m not usually here on the weekends”
“I was out in the city and decided to pop in,” I said, leaving it at that.
“It’s good to see you, but there’s nothing new. We’re still a week away from our initial hearing and we’ll know more then. But until that day, we just sit tight.”
I nodded, but he seemed to be looking right through me.
“We are sitting tight, aren’t we, Quint?” he said.
“Of course,” I lied.
Would the lying ever end?
Of course I was tired of it, but I felt each little lie could be rationalized in its own way.
He eyed me suspiciously. “Because as I already I told you, bailing you out a second time is not an option.”
“I understand, Gary. You’ve gone above and beyond for me. I appreciate it more than you know.”
“Alright, if there’s something you want to tell me, now is the time.”
I pondered it. I really didn’t have any friends I could talk to. I certainly wasn’t going to tell my mother or Cara what I’d learned about Charles Zane. It would consume my mother and I didn’t want to involve Cara.
But should I tell my attorney? He saw me contemplating it, which already partly gave me away.
“Quint…” he said, basically leading the witness.
I decided not to bring up Charles Zane. Not yet. But there was one thing I could ask.
“If I think a car has been tailing me and I took a picture of the license plate, how would I find out who it belonged to?”
He eyed me suspiciously a second time.
“I’ve made myself a few connections over the years,” he said and his meaning was clear. “But obviously I can’t do anything that aids or abets a client. So I’d need to know exactly how and why you got the license plate.”
I needed to stall. “Let’s talk about that on our next visit. The information is on my laptop anyway.”
I’m not sure he believed me, but he was probably just fine dropping the subject as well.
“Again, our first court appear
ance is only a week away,” he said. “There’s really not a whole lot we can do before then.
“Alright. I’ll keep laying low in the meantime.”
And he eyed me suspiciously for a final time.
22.
I spent the next few days trying to investigate Charles Zane.
From behind my laptop.
Paddy Roark’s story of severed body parts had me thinking that researching Zane was better done in the safety of my apartment. I valued my penis. And my nose. And my ears.
After feeding one of his subordinates to the sharks, he’d have no problem doing the same to a man named Quint. Probably enjoy the irony.
So I resisted my usual urge to get in the mix and became an armchair quarterback instead.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to learn online. He truly did swim below the surface, I found nothing concrete. No bio. No address. No high school or college he attended. It’s like he had been permanently scrubbed from the internet.
After realizing my online search for Zane had reached a dead end, I decided to spend my time more fruitfully. Using my bedroom wall, I built my own little storyboard listing the four murders, the addresses, the dates, the victims, and how I thought they might be related. It was a good four feet wide and three feet long. I drew a makeshift map of Oakland and put tacks at the location of each murder. I got a little choked up when I inserted one for Tricia Knox.
If I wasn’t looking at life in prison, I probably would have enjoyed the work. It was my own little murder mystery. Sadly, the authorities thought I was involved. That made it just a tad less enjoyable. And by a tad, I meant a Grand Canyon-sized gap.
I started going through the evidence again.
I saw Doug Anderson talking to Charles Zane. Dennis McCarthy told me that Charles Zane was the one sending me the letters. A couple who lived two doors down from Anderson were killed. My father thought the Andersons’ son might have been abused. I didn’t know how it all fit, but there was something there. I felt more confident of that than ever.
I just hoped it was somehow all related to the murder of Griff Bauer. After all, I could have found out all I wanted on Anderson and Zane, but if it didn’t lead to evidence exonerating me of Bauer’s murder, it was all for naught.
As I looked at my wall for the tenth time that morning, I came to the realization that I couldn’t just sit researching through the internet. My life was on the line. I had to get back in the game.
Not that I’d been sitting on the sideline for long…
23.
“Give me ten dollars on the four horse to win,” I said.
At Golden Gate Fields, I was trying to blend in with the upper classes at the Turf Club. For the third day in a row. And the first one on which I’d seen Charles Zane. So I pretended I was actually there to bet the ponies, which led me to bet $10 on a horse named Promises Kept.
The many hours on the internet researching Charles Zane may not have amounted to much, but I did know one thing about him. He went to the horse track. And when I saw him talking to Doug Anderson, it was pretty obvious that Zane wasn’t just there for the day. His table was in a prime location and I assumed he owned it.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a man who cuts off parts of people’s bodies and feeds them to sharks. It was an odd reaction.
I got a better look at him this time. Although not as old, he had a similarly distinguished look to Dennis McCarthy. Only not as regal. His grittiness distinguished him. He looked like a tough guy. Someone you didn’t fuck with. Which, if all I’d heard about him was true, was certainly the case.
Zane wore a form-fitting light blue suit with a fancy yellow tie. He stood shorter than I’d remembered, probably not more than 5’9”. Somehow that made him more threatening. If a criminal rose high despite a diminutive stature, you could be sure he was tough as hell.
I didn’t know if he knew me from Adam, but I certainly didn’t want to find out. So I kept my distance and only looked in his direction a few seconds at a time. Like I’d done when Anderson was there, if a race was going on, I brought out my cell phone and took pictures of the horses on the track, being sure to get Zane and his friends in the foreground. On this day, two other men sat with him. Both were white, in their fifties or sixties, and rich. You could just tell. It oozed from them.
“I like Promises Kept also,” the ticket seller said. “And 6-1 odds is juicy.”
Her observation proved correct. Promises Kept won by two lengths at 6-1. Not that I saw the end of the race. I was too busy taking pictures of Charles Zane and his ultra-wealthy friends as the horses crossed the finish line.
But I’d take the win. The $60 paid for my entry into the Turf Club for the last few days with a little left over. For a man who was unemployed, every dollar counted. A job would have to wait until I was found innocent or the case was tossed out. I tried not to think about the third option.
Obviously, no company on earth would employ a man facing a murder charge and an impending trial. Not that I wanted to work anyway. Clearing my name was much higher on my list of things to do. I had enough money to last me while this whole terrible thing played out.
After Promises Kept won the seventh race, only two remained on the card. I decided to stay and see where the final races took Zane.
When they ended an hour later, Zane hugged his friends, all of them smiling. It appeared they had won. Probably a lot more than my measly $60. They started walking in my direction and I turned around so they wouldn’t see me. When they approached the betting window, though, I couldn’t stop myself. I walked closer.
“Nice win,” the ticket seller said. “Seven thousand three hundred and twelve dollars.”
Slightly more than my sixty bucks.
I heard her counting, “One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand.”
I decided what I had to do.
I went outside and got my car. I drove within thirty feet of where they valeted cars and waited for Charles Zane to show up. He didn’t strike me as someone who self-parked.
Less than ten minutes later, he appeared, flanked by his two wealthy cohorts. The head valet gave them a nod and three of the drivers set off running in the direction of wherever they parked the cars. It was fascinating to see. The rich didn’t even need a ticket to redeem their car. A look in the valet’s direction was enough to ensure your car would be there shortly.
Which they were. Three beautiful cars arrived in unison: a convertible Benz, a Rolls Royce, and a mere Tesla. Zane got in the silver Rolls Royce and I crept a little closer. He drove off last of the three and I pulled out, following him from a safe distance.
A lot of traffic surrounded Golden Gate Fields, especially after the last race, so I knew he wouldn’t spot me unless I did something obvious. And I wasn’t too worried if a car pulled in front of us. It’s not like there were that many Rolls Royces leaving the horse track. A lot more 1996 Honda Civics.
Zane made his way down the hill from the Turf Club. He entered Interstate 80, taking it toward downtown Oakland, then getting in the lane that took you to San Francisco. I continued following from a safe distance.
We made our way to the Bay Bridge, which was pretty backed up, making it easier to follow him without darting in and out of traffic. It took us thirty minutes to travel the eight miles of the bridge. I never got within two car lengths of Zane and I can’t imagine he knew he was being tailed.
I instinctively looked over at Alcatraz as we drove across the bridge, as I’d done since moving to the Bay Area. Old habits die hard. I wished they’d reopen it for Charles Zane. Maybe he’d try to escape and the sharks would get him. That would be fitting.
He took a right on Fremont, the first exit after crossing the Bay Bridge. We were now on city streets and I had to be careful. One car drove between us. I couldn’t let another car separate us further. On the freeway, you can just accelerate if necessary. If you’re stuck at a red light on city streets, you are screwed.
It turned out I didn’t
have to follow much longer. After taking a left off of Fremont Street, Zane pulled onto Mission Street and entered Millennium Tower. The floors near the top of this famous apartment complex had a panoramic view of the Bay Area. I had no doubt in my mind that Zane’s place was near the top. For all I knew, he owned an entire floor.
I couldn’t follow in behind him, so I stayed on Mission Street as Zane pulled up to the front entrance. Stuck in traffic, I had time to watch him. He got out of his car, gave a fist pump to the valet driver, and walked through the front door of Millennium Tower.
Part of me was jealous. A life of valets, a place with views of bridges and bays and oceans, a car that cost infinitely more than my life savings.
But the other part of me was excited. Because I now knew where Charles Zane lived. And the time had come to rock the boat even more than I already had been.
24.
All in all, I was happy with how the day went. I got some pictures with Zane and his associates along with finding out where he lived. And most importantly, I was 99% sure he hadn’t spotted me.
I spent the night writing. I felt more confident by the day that I was going to be acquitted. Or preferably, they’d drop the charges. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get my job back at the Walnut Creek Times, likely not, but I could write a fascinating essay on all that had happened. A lot more interesting than anything I’d written in the last nine years.
I reread the opening paragraph:
It all started with an innocent challenge. An old friend calling me out on my fortieth birthday. Wrestling in the middle of a bar. My head cracking into a glass case. Little did I know, these actions would land me in the same hospital room as a man who’d just killed two people. A man who’d be dead himself within hours. And I’d be thrown into a cat and mouse game with one of the worst criminals to ever call San Francisco home.
It wasn’t perfect, but I liked the general tone. It sounded like a mystery, which was what my life had become.
I plugged my iPhone into my printer and made pictures of the men hanging with Charles Zane at Golden Gate Fields. I took the three best pictures and hung them on my storyboard, right below Charles Zane’s name. I added a Post-it Note that read, Associates? Co-conspirators?
Revenge at Sea: (Quint Adler Book 1) Page 15