by Lynch, Sean
Farrell and Conley’s paths crossed regularly over the years. Since each detective worked for one of the largest law enforcement agencies in Northern California, it wasn’t uncommon for them to interact professionally. A significant portion of a police detective’s ability to get things done, especially in a metro-plex like the San Francisco Bay Area, was dependent on the relationships he or she built while networking with detectives working for other cities in the region. When a detective forged a relationship with a colleague from another agency they cultivated it, and most experienced investigators knew a well-stocked Rolodex was one of the most valuable investigative weapons in a cop’s arsenal.
“It was good seeing you today,” Conley said. “I’d heard you hung a shingle after you’d retired. How do you like the private eye game?”
“Keeps me out of trouble,” Farrell said.
“Not from what I heard.”
“What did you hear?” Farrell asked.
“That a couple of years back you were public enemy number one.”
“The F.B.I. had a hard-on for me for a while,” Farrell conceded. “No doubt about that.”
“I also heard,” Conley said, “about your escapade with Judge Callen’s family last year. Like the Beach Boys said, you get around.”
“I stay busy,” Farrell said.
“I’ll say. You not only bagged Vernon Slocum, which was no easy feat, but you bagged that homicidal nutcracker Raymond Cowell. Saved Judge Callen’s life, I hear tell. His daughter’s, too. You do more than stay busy,” he said. “You get the job done.”
“That’s what men like us do,” Farrell said, touching his bottle to Conley’s cup.
“Amen, brother.” Both drank.
“I had help nailing those monsters,” Farrell said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “If it wasn’t for Kevin Kearns I’d be fertilizing a lawn.”
“He seems like a good kid,” Conley said.
“He’s more than a good kid,” Farrell said. “He’s a man to ride the river with.” He looked steadily into his friend’s eyes. “I owe him, Denny. I ain’t gonna let him go down.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Conley said. “You know that.”
“I do. I won’t forget it.”
“This shooting today is big,” Conley continued, “and it’s political. I’m not sure what good I can do. Two dead cops gets a lot of attention. Sheriff Strummer’s re-election campaign is in full swing, and this is the kind of incident that spooks voters. You better believe he knows it.”
“I know Charlie Strummer,” Farrell said. “He’s a stand-up guy. A two-fisted, hard-charging, no-bullshit lawman.”
“Charlie is definitely all that,” Conley said. “And he backs his troops to the wall when they’re in the right. He’s also the first guy to hang you when you step out of line. He made his reputation during his first term as a ‘clean up Dodge City’ reformer. He scrubbed up the department, imposed strict standards of conduct, and elevated the training and professionalism for everyone, sworn and civilian employees alike. To do that, he had to get rid of a lot of crooked, deadbeat deputies. That made him some enemies.”
“I heard Strummer’s ‘cardinal sins’ speech once,” Farrell said, “at a training conference I attended in Sacramento on police misconduct.”
“Were you there to get trained,” Conley said, “or as an exhibit?”
“Hilarious,” Farrell said. “Anyway, I know Strummer’s a sheriff who’s not afraid to toss you overboard if you screw up or aren’t pulling your weight. But Kearns’ shooting was righteous. It was self-defense.”
“It’s not whether Kearns was justified in using lethal force or not. It looks, at least for now, like he was. It’s the incident itself, Bob. Even if Deputy Kearns’ role was on the up-and-up, Strummer may feel it’s better to dispense with the controversy entirely by getting rid of him. He’s on probation, you know. The sheriff doesn’t have to have a reason.”
“I’ll talk to Judge Callen,” Farrell said, rubbing his chin. “He might have some pull in this matter.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“I know you’re in a hurry to get back to the office,” Farrell said. “Can you let me in on what your O.I.S. investigation has turned up so far?”
“I just left the coroner’s office. They won’t have the full report for a couple of days. They’re going to expedite the autopsies, because it’s an officer-involved shoot, but it’ll be a while before I have the whole story from the forensics end. Coroner’s deputy was able to give me a basic rundown, though.”
Sergeant Conley sipped some more Irish coffee before going on.
“Your buddy Kearns’ field training officer, Senior Deputy Bernard Trask, was hit twice, at point-blank range, with a twelve-gauge loaded with what was likely double-aught buckshot. First shot looks like it hit him in the chest while he was standing in the interior of the apartment, in the main room.”
“Was he wearing body armor?”
“Yep. Second Chance ballistic vest under his uniform shirt.”
“That’ll stop the buckshot,” Farrell said, “but not the impact. Wouldn’t a shotgun blast at close range cause massive chest trauma even to someone wearing a bullet-proof vest?”
“Right you are. Coroner said Trask had massive chest bruising, and undoubtedly some broken ribs. He won’t know for sure until he opens him up tomorrow. The blast to the chest must have dropped him, and at some point thereafter he fought his way to his knees, drew his revolver, and then took an execution-style shot from the same gun to the face. His revolver was lying unfired next to him.”
“That’s exactly the way Kevin described it in his statement,” Farrell said. “He said he watched his F.T.O. get executed while down on his knees.”
“Evidence supports him,” Conley said.
“What about the other cop?”
“Different story, same end,” Conley said. “Detective Mendenour took a total of five gunshot wounds. Four from a large-caliber handgun, and one to the back of the head from the twelve-gauge. He caught two pistol rounds, probably from a nine-millimeter, in the hip, and two in the torso. None of those were likely fatal, according to the medical examiner. The scattergun blast to back of the cranium was what did him in. His body was found in the hallway leading to the door. He almost made it out.”
“His gun?”
“Mendenour’s revolver was in his hand. Four rounds had been fired.”
“That’s consistent with Kevin’s claim he heard the sounds of several different types of weapons being fired as he entered the apartment,” Farrell said. “A shotgun, at least one nine-millimeter semi-auto, maybe two, and a three-fifty-seven.”
Farrell offered Conley a cigarette, which he declined with a wave of his hand. “What about the bad guys?” he asked, after lighting one for himself.
“We still haven’t positively identified the first suspect Deputy Kearns engaged; the one wielding the shotgun. Big Hispanic guy in his thirties. He had no I.D. on him. He’s got prison ink, and based on the identity of the other dead perp in the room it’s safe to assume he’s going to be known to the system. He might be out-of-town talent, but I doubt it. We’ve rolled his prints, and C.I.D. will give us a match within a few hours. We also put his picture out on the wire. I’m confident he’ll be in somebody’s gang files, which will hopefully give us his known associates, and the one who got away.”
“He sure as hell ain’t going anywhere,” Farrell said,
“That’s a fact. Your pal Kearns finished him dead-bang.”
“Who’s the other perp?”
Conley opened one of the folders while Farrell switched on the Oldsmobile’s map light. After sifting through it a moment, Conley handed Farrell a booking photograph. The photo showed a skinny Hispanic man with a goatee and several tattoos on his neck and face. The facial ink was in the shape of teardrops, and three of them ran vertically from the corner of his left eye. There was also a jagged white scar running from above his upper lip to his chin, which th
e goatee did a poor job of concealing.
“Handsome fellow,” Farrell said.
“Thought you’d like him,” Conley said. “Name is Gabriel Juan Cervantes, Hispanic male, date-of-birth twelve, four, fifty-five. He’s been known to the system since a kid, when he first got arrested by the Oakland police department for auto theft, residential burglary, and possession of narcotics for sales. Did his first hard fall in seventy-three, when he came of age, and has been a Norteno and Nuestra Familia soldier ever since.”
“Where’d he do his time?”
“Cervantes’s been down for everything you can imagine. He spent most of his adult life locked down in Quentin. His last stretch was for assault with a deadly weapon, plead down from attempted murder with multiple priors. He’s been out on parole for only the past eight months.”
“The kind of suitor you’d want your daughter to bring home,” Farrell said.
“If my daughter ever brought home a human pile of feces like Gabriel Cervantes I’d murder them both on the doorstep,” Conley said.
“That’s not the way Ward Cleaver would handle it,” Farrell said, “but as the father of a daughter I concur with your response.”
“We’re operating on the assumption that the big guy is one of Cervantes’ known associates. Our Gang Unit is looking into that angle as we speak, and I got guys working with the Department of Corrections to check out who Cervantes ran with while inside. We assume they’re both Nortenos, but until we confirm the I.D. on the other dead shooter we can’t be sure.”
“Cervantes the one who put the holes into Mendenour?”
“Can’t be sure of that, either. He was found with a nearly-empty high-capacity nine-millimeter pistol, which he was apparently trying to kill Kearns with, before Kearns did him in. Had a full mag containing fifteen rounds in one pocket, and an empty mag discarded on the floor at his feet. But the other perpetrator, the one Kearns chased out, was also apparently using a nine-millimeter, because that was the caliber of the brass we found outside in the alley. As a result, we aren’t sure yet which one of the two nines actually did Mendenour in. Could be rounds from either gun, or both.”
“You should be able to do a comparison of the bullets test-fired from Cervantes’ gun and the ones in Detective Mendenour’s body,” Farrell said.
“There are certainly enough of them in Mendenour to test,” Conley said. “But that won’t happen overnight. It’ll be a while for the boys in the Crime Lab to get the comparisons worked out.”
“Tell me about the apartment.”
Conley switched folders. “Not much to tell. It’s the corner unit of a government housing project a couple of blocks off Hesperian Boulevard. The apartment where the shooting went down hasn’t been occupied in over four months, according to the Housing Authority, on account of it being rendered unfit for habitation. It’s supposed to be refurbished and re-occupied, but there’s a year-long backlog of similarly-damaged units throughout the county and the Housing Authority isn’t exactly swimming in money. Housing Authority people we talked to confirmed what every beat-cop already knows; that it’s not unusual for vacant apartments to be used as cribs for homeless people, shooting galleries for needle users and crackheads, dope dealer dens, and as party locations for the wayward youth who reside in the housing projects.”
“Scumbag community centers,” Farrell said. “One of the many amenities of life in the housing projects.”
“This particular unit would seem to fit that profile,” Conley said. “Place was full of empty liquor bottles, graffiti, trash, needles, and other types of drug paraphernalia.”
“That’s how Kevin described it.”
“The front of the apartment faces the street,” Conley went on, “and the rear faces an alley which leads out to Grant Avenue, which is a main artery.”
“Strategic,” Farrell said. “Easy to get in, easy to get out. Neighbors see anything?”
“You ought to know better than that,” Conley said. “Of course we interviewed twenty or thirty nearby residents. It must have sounded like Iwo Jima in there, but not one single neighbor was willing to go on record and admit they heard, or saw, anything. You know the drill. ‘I didn’t see nuthin’ is all we got.”
“Can’t blame them,” Farrell said, exhaling smoke. “Doesn’t matter if it’s the projects in Hunter’s Point, the Acorn housing projects in Oakland, or the projects in unincorporated Alameda County in San Lorenzo. You live in government housing projects and you want to stay alive, you keep your mouth shut. You sure as hell don’t get caught talking to cops.”
“A lot of decent folks live in those public housing units,” Conley said. “Good people, trying to raise families under a daily cloud of mortal fear. You can bet some of those residents know who met with those two deputies in that vacant apartment, but they aren’t going to say a word.”
“Would you?” Farrell said. “Those perps didn’t hesitate to kill two cops, in broad daylight, and tried their best to gun down a third. You think they would balk at snuffing out a witness or a nosy neighbor?”
“No,” Conley said, shaking his head. “I don’t.”
Farrell looked over at Conley. “What was a detective, and a uniformed patrol deputy with a rookie, doing there?”
“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it?”
Conley looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get going,” he said, closing his folders. “Being late to a meeting with the undersheriff isn’t going to make my day any better. Give me your number and I’ll give you a call tomorrow night. We can finish this conversation.”
“Scoot,” Farrell told him, switching off the map light. He gave Sergeant Conley his business card, with his pager number written on it, and they shook hands.
“You have a pager?” Conley said, examining the card. “How chic. I thought those things were only for doctors and drug dealers?”
“The eighties are over,” Farrell said. “It’s a new decade, Denny. You’ve got to get with the times.”
“I saw how you got with the times in that Halloween costume you were wearing earlier,” Conley said. “I’m going to need a lot more than bourbon to erase that image from my memory.”
“You want a breath mint?” Farrell asked, opening the glove compartment.
“Nah,” Conley said.
“Aren’t you worried the undersheriff will smell the booze on your breath?”
“Are you kidding? He keeps a fifth of Johnny Walker Red in his desk drawer.”
“My kind of cop,” Farrell said.
Chapter 9
Avery strode from the Eden Township Station’s administration building into the fenced-in Official Vehicles Only parking lot. He got into his Ford Granada and fired it up, steering the unmarked sheriff’s sedan onto the MacArthur Freeway on-ramp only a few hundred feet away. Once on the freeway he pushed the accelerator hard, and was soon trading the San Leandro Hills for those of Oakland.
It was well after dark, and Avery, like every deputy assigned to the Eden Station, had been required to put in extra duty on account of the officer-involved shooting earlier. He was no happier about working late than anybody else, but didn’t complain. He figured his day had gone a lot better than Deputy Trask’s and Sergeant Mendenour’s.
He exited the freeway at 98th Avenue and drove down into the Oakland flatlands. When he reached East 14th Street he turned west, and a few blocks later pulled into the gravel parking lot of bar whose dirty, unpainted stucco front was adorned with a sign reading HIGH TIMES above its battered door. The neighborhood the bar was situated in was one of the most crime-ridden business districts in the continental United States, and a glance around the vicinity left no doubt as to why.
Pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and their enforcers walked the sidewalks with impunity on East 14th, and the countless grifters, vagrants, junkies, and johns who hovered around them like dutiful serfs in a medieval fiefdom constituted the main populace of that part of Oak-Town. Cops were rare, and too busy to do
much more than mop up afterwards when dispatched to the endless stream of in-progress felonies the corridor generated. On Oakland’s East 14th Street, the criminals ruled both the day and the night.
The HIGH TIMES saloon’s only window was barred, and between the iron slats was a neon light flashing an advertisement for KING COBRA malt liquor. The ‘O’ in COBRA was burned out.
Avery killed the engine, got out, and lit a cigarette with a book of matches. He inhaled deeply and scanned the street with the wary eye of one who has spent most of his life wearing a gun.
Alameda County Sheriff’s Sergeant Vincent Mendoza Avery was born and raised in Daly City, one of several sons born to an American sailor and the woman he brought back from the Philippines in the wake of World War II. Vincent’s father abandoned his mother not long after his birth, leaving her to raise three sons in poverty alone.
Vincent spent his youth dodging school, the juvenile authorities, and his mother’s backhand. He lived with his two older brothers and mother in a one-room basement apartment beneath a combination appliance repair shop and thrift store, owned by people who were distant relatives of his mother’s family in the Philippines. He grew to adolescence wearing the worn hand-me-downs of his older siblings, and was soon running the streets with a Mexican gang in San Francisco.
Vincent’s father was a tall American of Greek origin, and Vincent also grew tall. He was too dark-skinned to be considered white, but too light of complexion to be fully accepted by any of the Asian or Pacific Island crews which dominated his heavily-Filipino neighborhood. As a result, he gravitated towards affiliation with the rapidly-emerging Hispanic gangs taking root in the community, who gladly took him in as one of their own. His dark hair, olive skin, and only vaguely Asian eyes allowed him to blend in well with the Mexican crews.
Like most gang-affiliated teens, he got into a lot of fights and brushes with the law. Unlike most of the other gangsters however, he was smart enough to evade arrest. But Vincent had always been a smart kid; much smarter than his brothers. Before he knew it, and to the surprise of his mother, Vincent Avery graduated from high school; something his two older brothers hadn’t done. By the time Vincent was drafted, one of his brothers was already in Vietnam and the other was serving time in San Quentin for a string of low-yield liquor store robberies.