by Kirk Russell
In the car Brooks wanted to hear about yesterday. ‘What did you think when you slid the piece of plywood off and saw them?’
‘I thought about San Francisco and how small it is and how powerful they looked. I figured no one would ship something like those casings without planning to assemble and use them here.’
‘Welcome to my world.’
‘Is that your world, Nate? Have you seen a lot of bombs go off?’
‘They are what I worry about most and look at all the people who hate us. I grew up in Baltimore. I learned to watch everything and everybody. That’s how I ended up in the Secret Service. But you’ve been in homicide a long time and I want your opinion. Why kill the employees and bring the TV vans and everything that comes with it? Did they know too much?’
‘Someone saw it as a lesser risk to take them out.’
‘That’s how you see it?’
‘It’s one possibility.’
‘Was it Khan’s decision?’
‘I don’t know but the plywood delivery was to him and the window of time he was gone and the employees murdered was so narrow it’s hard to believe it was coincidence.’
‘That he just happened to be gone?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, Raveneau, you think Khan is in on it.’
‘That’s not quite what I said.’
‘But you’re just dancing around it, and if he’s involved, he’s just one of others. Conspiracy, an organization that knows what it’s doing is my nightmare. Weapons like these can take out a motorcade without having to be perfectly placed, and they don’t have to get the President to change the country. Kill enough others and a motorcade will never be the same again. You hear that, right?’
‘If you’re about to start selling me on how you’re saving the country then drop me off at the next corner.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Why did you want to talk this morning?’
‘I want to talk because I’m scared of the kind of violence those weapons represent. I’m afraid we’re on the edge of this being the new normal. I want to talk because these cabinet shop murders are ground zero right now and you’re a homicide inspector and I want to know what you think.’
Brooks pointed in the distance at the Golden Gate Bridge.
‘We can close a bridge as the President’s motorcade crosses, but we can’t clear every corridor, particularly in a smaller city like this one. The Presidential limo is a battering ram but there’s a nightmare scenario where the motorcade enters a street without many side escape routes. Let’s say a vehicle rigged with an IED like these detonates ahead and pieces of motorcycle cops and fragments of vehicles go flying. At that point we’re just trying to get the President out any way we can with as much speed as possible.
‘Of course, the other side has thought about side streets too. They have a secondary plan. They’ve designed for overkill. I’m talking about something planned like a military operation.’
‘But you vary your routes. You take precautions.’
‘There’s only so much you can do in a smaller city.’
‘Where are you going with this?’
‘Once we have coffee I’m going to take you on one of the routes that could get used when the President is out on this next trip. He’s going to give a speech about the subway system San Francisco has started work on. I read they’re going to work eight years, twelve hours a day, seven days a week. But you’re from here so how many years will it really take?’
‘Twelve.’
They picked up coffee and drove toward Union Square, Brooks at the wheel of a new government car.
‘Presidents are fatalists. They know the risks can be overwhelming, but it’s the tradeoff for an open society. The President is going to give a speech here in Union Square and then go down to Embarcadero and ride the light rail with the mayor and at least one senator.’
He pointed out tall buildings, alleys, bottlenecks the construction was going to cause, the places that worried him most. He doubled back and picked up Grant Street and started through Chinatown where the streets were narrow.
‘Bad street but many voters and it’ll make people feel good.’ He pointed at a car. ‘Say there is a bomb in that car but it doesn’t go off until the last car in the motorcade is through. It detonates simultaneously with one ahead of the motorcade.’
‘How many times are you going to blow us up out here today?’
‘As it goes off, we’re going to get him the hell away from here, right? What are we going to do? We turn down one of these steep narrow streets and now we’re really vulnerable.’
They followed it to the end, to where the President, the mayor, and the senator got on the light rail system built after the Embarcadero Freeway came down. Brooks pulled over and they watched the rail cars slowly go by and Raveneau knew in Brooks’ head the President was riding on it. He waited for what he guessed would come next.
But Brooks surprised him, pointing toward the Ferry Building and saying, ‘That’s where Krueger was shot, a little bit back from the near corner of the Ferry Building.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m going to tell you more about him. I’m going to tell you some things you don’t know that I’m now authorized to tell you.’
‘Why are you going to do that?’
‘Because your friend Coe at the FBI has convinced me that the problem is even worse than we thought.’
TWENTY-THREE
‘ First off, we don’t know who killed Alan Krueger, and when he was killed he was working with us, but not for us. I know you probably still don’t believe that, but it’s the truth.’
‘Why wouldn’t I believe that?’
‘I don’t know why, but you seem to want to believe the Secret Service hid information from Inspectors Goya and Govich. Look, Krueger left us in 1985. He’d been outside for four years. In those four years he worked for other agencies as well. He had a pipeline in Hong Kong. He spoke Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Korean. He had an ear for language and a talent for making connections.’
‘What’s a pipeline in what he was doing?’
‘Good sources for the flow of people, money, and information about counterfeiting, what’s out there in the way of bills for sale, he was in that, he was a buyer.’
‘Were you bullshitting me when you said the supernotes he was carrying are now the first known?’
Brooks tugged on the cuffs of his shirt, a habit he seemed to have, that and pursing his lips.
‘You are the worst cynic I’ve ever met.’
‘No, I know you guys would never lie to me.’
‘We worked with Inspectors Govich and Goya. We tried hard to find who killed Krueger, in part because he was one of us for a dozen years, but also because he was chasing rumors for us and believed he was on to something. He had heard rumors of printing presses sold to North Korea and another of presses set up in a warehouse in Hong Kong. He was working on that.’
‘Do you have names, people I can talk to?’
‘Time’s gone by on those, but there’s someone here in San Francisco you should talk to. He still won’t talk to us but he might talk to you. I’m going to give you his phone number.’
‘Why won’t he talk to you?’
‘I can tell you but he’ll do a better job of it.’
‘Did the Secret Service know about him in 1989?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they give Goya and Govich his name?’
‘No, and I’m passing it on, but I’m not taking responsibility for what happened before me. I was in college. I wasn’t working for the Secret Service. They don’t hire kids who are in school.’
It took Raveneau a moment to get it.
‘So you’ve talked to this individual recently about Krueger.’
‘I have.’
‘Was that because of the supernotes and the current investigation with the Cayman and Mexican banks?’
‘Yes. I met with him and as soon as I sat down with him
I knew he was going to fuck with me. He was completely uncooperative.’
‘I’m ready for a name.’
‘Well, try this one. Marlin Thames, Marlin like the fish, and Thames like the river. Before that he was Howard Wright. He reinvented himself out here. He’s how Krueger got caught in a lie and outed. The lie involved his residence and where he was staying at night. Mr Thames also had a criminal record that included fraud. That weighed in. If Krueger had stayed on he would have been transferred to someplace very cold and faraway. Someplace where you drive fifty miles to get to the dentist. Krueger chose to resign. Here’s the phone number.’
‘Are you saying Thames and Krueger were a couple?’
‘That is what I’m saying.’
Raveneau called Thames from his car after Brooks dropped him off, and Thames was willing but wanted to meet somewhere neutral. He named a cafe on Market Street. Raveneau met him in the early afternoon, sat across from him and ate a sandwich as he listened to Thames’ story.
‘My hair was gold-colored in those days.’
‘You’ve still got some gold.’
‘I’m sixty-seven and 1989 was a long time ago. He was killed three years after we broke up and we were still friends, but both of us had moved on. I didn’t see him much.’
‘But you were together when he quit the Secret Service?’
‘Oh, yes, and I was thrilled, but for Alan it was very hard to leave them. I didn’t realize how important it was to him. He was never the same after that.’
Marlin Thames wore jeans and a black leather jacket over a T-shirt. He gave off an aura of spry good-nature. Raveneau tried to picture what he looked like in 1985. He watched Thames stir sugar into a double cappuccino and lay the small spoon down.
‘How close were you to Alan?’
‘We were very close for several years. But those times were very different and our life was even more complicated because Alan had to hide everything from the Secret Service. There was an agent he worked with that suspected Alan was gay. That agent was jealous and suspicious and trailed Alan to my house several times. Then they trapped him in a lie about where he lived and where he’d been the night before, but it was very obvious he lost his job because he was gay. He was outed by Agent Gary Stone. I hated Stone for what he did.’
‘Where were you when he was killed?’
‘I was at a friend’s house near the Russian River when a friend called me and read the newspaper article to me. “Former Secret Service Agent Slain.” That was the headline.’ He stared at Raveneau and added, ‘He was gorgeous. I still think about his smile.’ He took a sip of his cappuccino. ‘You said you have new evidence. How does that happen after so many years?’
‘We have a videotape of the shooting.’
Thames frowned. He put his cup down awkwardly.
‘What?’
‘It was sent to us last week.’
‘Is it real?’
‘A film expert thinks so.’
‘Does it show him getting shot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, my God.’
Raveneau went through the details of the cold case with this genial and seemingly gentle man sitting across from him. He studied Thames as he talked. Thames’ build was similar to that of the shooter and he looked at Thames knowing he was going to get a photo of him to the FBI. The anger of a former lover could explain the counterfeit bills left behind.
‘After he was murdered did you contact the homicide inspectors working the case?’
‘No, I was too scared. I wondered if Agent Stone had killed him. It was all so mysterious.’
‘Do you know where he stayed in San Francisco?’
‘Hotels.’
‘The inspectors couldn’t figure out where he was staying when he was killed.’
‘Well, it was usually hotels. He had more money for whatever he was doing in Asia, but maybe he had met somebody new that I didn’t know about.’
‘Do you have any photos of Alan?’
‘I do.’
‘Can I borrow them and get them back to you?’
‘If you promise I’ll get them back.’
‘I promise. Now I’d like to run some names by you. Did he ever mention a Captain Frank?’
‘Oh, yes, the airline pilot. He lived in Hawaii. They were good friends and there were other friends he had there. I don’t remember any names though.’
‘Did you ever meet Frank?’
‘Yes, I met him and he was here often, and we went to Hawaii once. We were there a week and it was terrible.’ Thames smiled but there was some bitterness in it. ‘His other friends didn’t like me much.’
‘Can you try to remember their names and then call me?’
‘I’ll try but I wouldn’t wait for me to call.’
‘You wouldn’t?’
‘No, I really wouldn’t.’
His smile was warm again but the message was clear. Thames owned a well-maintained two-story Victorian. He found the photos quickly and Raveneau didn’t ask the next question here. He was afraid Thames might see where it was going and ask for the photo back. In the Homicide office he scanned the photo of Thames and Krueger and sent a copy of the file to Mark Coe. He followed with an email.
Then he called Thames’ cell. ‘Hey, it’s Inspector Raveneau again, and I’m calling to ask if you’re willing to watch the videotape and see if you recognize the man who killed Alan. In the videotape you can tell they knew each other.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘The way the man walks and moves, you might see something we would never otherwise know, but I appreciate how emotionally hard it might be.’
Thames didn’t answer.
‘Can I give you my cell phone number and will you think about it?’
After a pause Thames said, ‘Let me get a pen.’
Raveneau heard him put the phone down. It took a long time and when Thames fumbled with the phone and picked it up again, Raveneau thought he’d say sorry it took so long. Instead, he hung up.
TWENTY-FOUR
Yesterday, Raveneau submitted to Lieutenant Becker a ‘scratch,’ the memorandum required outlining the travel Raveneau saw necessary as part of the case investigation. Becker read and passed it on to the captain who moved it to the commander’s desk this morning. Commander Saguaro rarely rubber-stamped his approvals, so it was no surprise to Raveneau to get called into his office this afternoon.
Saguaro was on the phone and pointed at a chair. So Raveneau sat listening to Saguaro talk and soon realized the conversation was about the bomb casings. The story was leaking its way through the department.
Saguaro put the phone down and asked, ‘Inspector Raveneau, are you a golfer?’
‘Not a very good one.’
‘Are you planning to take clubs on this trip?’
‘No, sir.’
The commander let a beat pass. He stared before asking, ‘Are you certain this trip is worthwhile?’
‘Well, it was either Hawaii or Rome and I thought this time of year Rome would be too cold, or the sky that endless white. You know how it gets in the winter.’
Raveneau wasn’t even sure Commander Saguaro registered the joke. He was studying what Raveneau wrote, reading bits of it aloud, ‘memorabilia, swizzle sticks with hula girls, handwritten love notes, photos connecting to one link with victim, Captain Frank’s son interviewed.
‘Who is Captain Frank?’
‘He was an airline captain for United at the time of the murder. I received a lot more information on him today from a third-party storage company holding records for United Airlines. Frank lived in Hawaii. I need to talk to people who knew him. I may even find him.’
‘Is he a suspect?’
‘He could become one.’
‘Is that right? He could become one. I love talking to you inspectors, especially when you’re ready to travel. You’ve got an answer for everything and no information.’
He smiled to show he was joking. Raveneau had printed off wh
at the storage company emailed him today on Jim Frank. He lifted it to show Commander Saguaro, though he knew Saguaro didn’t have the slightest interest in seeing it.
‘How many days?’
‘I’m hoping for two but if I find enough it could turn into three. With everything else going on here I’d like it to be two. Flying first class will make the travel easier. I’ll be able to rest on the plane and get right to work.’
The absurdity of that idea got a real smile from Saguaro and his eyes lit briefly. But they changed just as quickly as he moved on.
‘When you say with what’s going on here, are you talking about the cabinet shop?’
‘Yes and no, I’m not on Ortega’s team and the Feds are taking the lead on the bomb casings. As you probably know, it’s become a terrorism investigation. Inspector Ortega’s team is working the murders, but I know Special Agent Mark Coe who’s heading the Fed end and Inspector Ortega wants me to keep talking with him. There may be other overlaps we don’t understand yet, and I’m part of looking for those.’
‘What overlaps?’
‘The Secret Service is also involved. There’s a cross with counterfeit money the cold case victim Alan Krueger was carrying. It’s in the same series as money passed at two banks last summer to buy explosives from a black market weapons dealer. That may tie to a threat to the President.’
Raveneau didn’t have to answer any of these questions, but he was comfortable with the commander. Saguaro wasn’t going to get on the phone and gossip. He might collect gossip, but he wouldn’t trade. Saguaro was a black hole.
‘And you’re sure this trip to Hawaii won’t get in the way?’
‘I’ve got to-’
‘I know, I know, you’ve got to follow the investigation. What you inspectors need is a pack of cards that you carry and that have all your answers on them, so when you come in here you can just hand me the card with the answer you want to give. It would save everybody time.’
‘Like the brass at a press conference.’
Saguaro smiled. ‘Yeah, like that.’ He signed his last signature with a flourish. ‘OK, you’re approved. Take your clubs, Ben. You’ve earned a couple of swings.’