by Lynch, Sean
“It could always be worse,” Kearns said. “I try to keep that in mind.”
“Here’s hoping our summers improve,” she said.
“I’ll drink to that,” Kearns said, raising his own glass to meet Jennifer’s. Several long seconds of awkward silence ensued.
“You must think I’m a pretty big dope,” Jennifer finally said, staring into her wineglass.
“Why would you say something like that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“I think no such thing,” Kearns said.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“Well,” he said, “you don’t have to because I don’t.”
“I’m not like this, usually,” she said, almost inaudibly.
Kearns didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say.
“We met at the beginning of our first year in law school,” Jennifer began. “Stephan was in most of my classes. He was good looking, and charming, and he came from a prominent family with a lot of money. He didn’t act like a snooty rich kid. He was really down-to-earth. Half the girls on campus were chasing him.”
“But not you?”
“I was too busy keeping up my grades. Next thing you know, he’s asking me out. I turned him down at first. I couldn’t actually believe he was interested in me. As the semester progressed, so did our friendship. I guess one thing led to another. We’ve been together ever since; over a year now.”
“It sounds like your mom approves of him,” Kearns offered.
“Because he’s good-looking and from a wealthy family,” she said, finally looking up. “It’s like Dad said.”
“When did his temper first show?”
“At the end of the first semester. After our final grades were posted. He was pretty upset.”
“What happened?”
“He busted up all the stuff in his apartment,” she said. “He’s a pretty big guy. He played lacrosse at Northwestern. He wrecked the place and got evicted.”
“He attended Northwestern?”
“Yes, why?”
“I was wondering,” Kearns said, “if he did his undergraduate there, why didn’t he attend law school at Northwestern?”
“He did,” she said, “for a while, anyway. He flunked out.”
“How’d he get through his undergraduate studies?”
“He had tutors, and money to buy term papers and test answers.”
“Then how did he get accepted at the Creighton School of Law? Admission there isn’t exactly a cakewalk.”
“You already know the answer to that,” she said.
“Daddy’s influence again, right?”
“And daddy’s money,” she said.
“What’s his family think of you?”
“He says they like me,” she said, “but I can tell they think I’m beneath him. Me being the daughter of divorced parents and raised by a working-class single mom. They think Stephan can do better.”
“He can’t,” Kearns said.
Jennifer slowly looked up from her glass at Kearns.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“I presume Stephan isn’t doing any better at Creighton than he did at Northwestern?”
“You presume correctly.”
“What’s his problem?”
“It’s his lack of a work ethic,” she said. “He’s spoiled. Again, like Dad said.”
“Bob isn’t wrong about much,” Kearns said.
“I know,” Jennifer said. “I hate that about him sometimes.”
“His being on the mark all the time has bothered me,” Kearns admitted, “from time to time. But I’ve learned to trust Bob’s judgment. And I’ve learned to trust his character. I know he’s looking out for me, even when he’s doing something I disagree with, or that pisses me off.”
“I know my father cares about me,” Jennifer said. “I just don’t like the way he shows it sometimes, that’s all.”
“He’s doing the best he knows how,” Kearns said.
“You’re defending him,” she said.
“He’d do the same for me.”
“He didn’t like Stephan before,” she said. “Now he hates him. I can tell.”
“Put yourself in his shoes,” Kearns said. “If it was your only daughter who got thumped, how would you feel about the guy who did the thumping?”
“Thumped? You think that’s what happened to me? I got thumped?”
“What would you call it?”
“An accident,” she said, returning her gaze to the contents of her glass. “Stephan lost his temper for a second. Don’t tell me it’s never happened to you?”
“I’ve lost my temper before,” Kearns said, “but I’ve never hit a woman.”
“It was an accident,” she said again.
“You’re defending him,” Kearns said, repeating her words back to her.
“You think I’m making excuses for him?”
Kearns answered her with a question of his own. “Is Stephan right or left handed?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Tell me; is he a rightie or a leftie?”
“He’s right-handed,” she said.
“How tall is he?”
“Six-feet, two-inches.”
“And you’re about-”
“I’m five-feet, five-inches tall,” she said. “What are you getting at?”
“The bruising around your left eye socket couldn’t have come from a flat object; only a semi-flexible object, like a fist. If Stephan’s a right-hander, and the height you claim, you’d come up to about his shoulder. Which means if he was facing you, a right cross caused that injury. If you look up the word ‘accident’ in Webster’s Dictionary, you won’t find a six-foot, two-inch man throwing a haymaker into a woman’s face anywhere in the definition.”
“That’s not how it happened,” she said. Her still-averted eyes undermined her claim.
“I saw the bruises on your biceps,” Kearns said, “when you were in the tub. Corresponding bruises on both arms means he grabbed you and shook you before he hit you. That makes the eye injury even less of an accident.”
This time, when Jennifer looked up, her eyes were wet. “Dad’s taught you well,” she said. “You don’t miss much.”
Kearns reached across the table and took her hand.
“Why are you with him?” he said. “I know it’s none of my business-”
“You’re right,” she said, “it isn’t.”
He let go of her hand and leaned back. “I apologize,” he said. “I had no right to ask that.”
“Don’t be,” she said, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand and draining her glass in one gulp. “It’s a valid question.”
Chapter 33
When Denny Conley walked into Francesco’s he immediately spotted Farrell at the bar. Farrell raised his bourbon in acknowledgement and stood to greet him.
Francesco’s had been an East Oakland institution since 1968, and hosted many an Oakland, San Leandro, and Alameda police social function over the years. Despite its location in the crime-ridden industrial district near the airport, Francesco’s featured traditional Italian food at reasonable prices, and a family atmosphere not diminished by the fact that it was a longtime cop hangout situated in a combat zone.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Farrell said. He gestured to the bartender.
“Dewar’s and soda, as long as you’re buying,” Conley said.
“Let’s get a booth,” Farrell suggested, once Conley got his drink. “Too many ears at the bar.”
“Right behind you.”
Farrell nodded to a waiter, who led them to a remote booth with a window facing Pardee Drive.
“What do you have for me?” Farrell asked after the waiter left.
“The identity of the outstanding suspect, for starters.”
“Let me guess,” Farrell said. “A known associate of one of the guys Kevin killed in San Lorenzo?”
“There’s our motive for the second attempt on Kearns,” Farrell said. “That also makes it dead-certain somebody within your sheriff’s office gave Kevin up.”
“I hate to admit it,” Conley said, “but you’re right. It had to be somebody inside. Nobody else knew Kearns identity. We haven’t released his name to the press.”
“Tell me about the brother?”
“His name is Arturo Eduardo Cervantes. He’s the younger and only brother of Gabriel Cervantes, the smaller of the two men Deputy Kearns put down in San Lorenzo. He may be the little brother, but his rap sheet isn’t.”
“What’ve the Cervantes boys been had for?”
“They grew up in the projects in East Hayward. The older brother, Gabriel-”
“The dead one,” Farrell cut in,
“-has been down mostly for narcotic-related charges. He has a couple of assaults with great bodily injury, and an attempted murder arrest, as well as lot of gang-related stuff going back to the late seventies. Most of the stuff in his jacket is for theft, burglary, and small-time drug crime. His kid brother Arturo is a different story. His arrests have been almost exclusively for violent offenses. He’s done time for attempted murder, multiple arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, threatening a witness, kidnapping, and a three-year stretch for rape.”
“So the ambush in San Lorenzo was a family affair.”
“It looks that way. We also finally have confirmation on the identity of the big dead guy with the shotgun. His last name was Morales. Not surprisingly, he was a known associate of the Cervantes brothers, along with the dude Kearns shot in Alameda. He was a nasty little piece-of-shit named Israel Mendoza.”
“My keen investigative instincts are detecting a common thread.”
“That’s only because you’re a trained detective,” Conley said, “but you’re on the right track. The Cervantes brothers, Morales, and Mendoza, are all members of the Alvarado Nortenos.”
“Never heard of them.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to, being a former San Francisco cop. The Alvarado Nortenos are an East Bay crew. They’re a Nuestra Familia-affiliated street gang claiming Hayward south of Winton Avenue and all of Union City north of Alvarado Boulevard.”
“I assume you’ve got the Alameda County Gang Task Force working on them?”
“As we speak. The Alvarado Nortenos, and anyone remotely associated with them, are now the task force’s full-time job. There’s an inter-agency headhunt going on right now for every Hispanic gangster in the East Bay who may have so much as talked on the phone with a member of the Alvarado Nortenos. I think it’s safe to say this is not a good time to be on the streets if you’re a Latino banger and you value your freedom.”
“Standard operating procedure,” Farrell said. “Scoop up and fuck with every crook you can and hope somebody gives up Arturo Cervantes. Think it’ll work?”
“It has before. We could get lucky. Despite their constant boasting about loyalty, and all that blood-oath bullshit, these gangster turds are always ready to snitch each other off to get out from under their own arrests.”
“What about a connection between Mendenour, or Trask, and this Alvarado crew? I assume somebody is looking into a link between either of them and the Cervantes brothers? Or a tie to the Alvarado Nortenos? Past arrests? A registered snitch? A relative?”
“That’s Pickrell’s bailiwick,” Conley said. “His job is to look into the internal angle. I’ll let him and his I.A. goons sort that out.”
“The hell you say,” Farrell sat up sharply and gave Conley a hard look. “I can’t afford to let your Internal Affairs Division sort it out. I need to know who’s gunning for Kevin, and I need to know now. Somebody inside your department is acting as a forward observer for those gangsters, and my friend is on the wrong end of the artillery. He could be dead and buried by the time those paper-pushing bureaucrats come up with anything. That’s assuming if Pickrell did find a connection, he wouldn’t bury it to protect the department.”
“What do you want me to do?” Conley protested. “I’m assigned to the criminal investigation, not the internal one. My job is to find and apprehend the suspect; an armed-and-dangerous asshole named Arturo Cervantes. I go sniffing around the I.A. stuff it’ll set off alarms from here to Christmas. I already raised a red flag with Lieutenant Pickrell today when he caught me checking the Department of Motor Vehicle computer logs to see if anybody ran Kearns’ car registration in the past couple of days. You may be retired, Bob, but I still have a job and pension to protect.”
“Take it easy, Denny,” Farrell said. “I’m not trying to bust your chops.”
“Maybe not,” the sheriff’s sergeant said, “but they’re getting busted just the same. You read a newspaper lately? Seen the news?”
“I’ve been a little busy to stay up on current events,” Farrell admitted.
“If you didn’t already know it,” Conley said, “this debacle has become a full-blown scandal; biggest I’ve seen in years. Three deputies are dead, and the public is clamoring for something to be done about it. The press has a caravan of vehicles permanently stationed outside the sheriff’s headquarters, the Deputy Sheriff’s Association is up the sheriff’s ass, the D.O.J. has sent auditors down from Sacramento, and rumor has it the governor’s office has asked for the Feds to step in. Strummer’s fit to be tied.”
“I’m sure he is. The last thing Charlie wants on the eve of a re-election fight is a federal investigation launched against his department. The perception of impropriety alone would probably do in his chances of keeping his job.”
“You better believe he knows it, too,” Conley said, draining his drink and signaling the waiter. “And you can bet Strummer also knows Undersheriff Fresco is licking his chops and enjoying the show.”
“Fresco’s hoping to capitalize on the recent deputy deaths in his own campaign,” Farrell said, “isn’t he? He’s waiting to pounce on Strummer.”
“Is he ever,” Conley said. “Rumor has it Fresco’s campaign manager is already buying airtime on local radio stations to launch a smear attack. He’s going to try to convince the public the corruption within the department is a result of Strummer’s leadership.”
“Who’s his campaign manager?”
“Lieutenant Scott Pickrell.”
“I should have guessed,” Farrell said. “And his campaign’s finance director?”
“Myron Derlinger. He’s also providing legal support.”
“That’s convenient,” Farrell said, shaking his head, “but not a surprise. Is Fresco still pissed his efforts to get rid of Kevin were stymied?”
“You weren’t in the office when the undersheriff tore into Kearns. If you were, you wouldn’t ask.”
“I heard about it,” Farrell said. The waiter came and took their glasses. “I assume that’s why Fresco put the sham protection detail together. To track Kevin’s movements and harass him at the same time.”
“Actually, it wasn’t Fresco’s idea.”
“Whose idea was it? That prick Lieutenant Pickrell’s? It sounds like something that backstabbing son-of-a-bitch would dream up.”
“No,” Conley said. “It was Vince Avery’s idea.”
“The sergeant heading up the detail?”
“Yep,” Conley said. “All the supervisors were brainstorming about the case at an Operations meeting, and Avery suggested the tail on Deputy Kearns. He sold it to the command staff by reminding them that if the department lets Kearns get killed, with all that’s happened already, it would be a political disaster for everybody. Also, because Kearns is still under suspicion of being a part of whatever Mendenour and Trask may have been involved in, he said it would be a good idea to keep an eye on him. At least for the time being.”
“If the sheriff’s department was truly concerned for Kevin’s well-being and safety,” Farrell said, “why don’t they simply assign him to the jail? He’d be as safe there as in Fort
Knox.”
“I pointed that out,” Conley said. “So did other supervisors and commanders. We got overruled.”
“By Fresco?”
“Bingo.”
“It sounds like Sergeant Avery has a lot of pull?”
“More than me, apparently. He’s certainly got Fresco’s ear.”
“How’d he earn that?” Farrell asked.
“Avery’s somewhat of a legend. Been in Vice and Narcotics for almost twenty years. Turned down multiple opportunities to take the lieutenant’s exam and promote because he doesn’t want to leave the Narcotics Unit. Says dope is in his blood.”
“I can relate,” Farrell said. “I passed on promoting for the same reasons. I liked working the street as a Burglary inspector. Once you promote you have to go back to the Patrol Division. It could be years, if at all, before you might get the opportunity to return to the unit of your choice. Even if they let you return to your old unit, it’s usually in an administrative capacity. You’re not a street detective working cases anymore.”
“To each his own,” Conley said around his scotch.
“Speaking of promotion, why haven’t you moved up?” Farrell asked.
“I’ve tried,” Conley said. “Taken the lieutenant’s exam four times.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not politically connected like Avery or Pickrell.”
“Too stubborn to kiss ass and move up the ladder?”
“Too stupid,” Conley said.
“Tell me more about Sergeant Avery,” Farrell said. “I’d like to know something about the guy whose idea it was to shadow Kevin.”
“I don’t know him very well. All I know is that Avery is good at what he does,” Conley said. “He makes a lot of high-profile arrests. His crew of undercover jocks bring in a fortune in asset forfeiture money for the department. That makes him a fair-haired boy.”
“What do you mean?” Farrell said.
“Asset forfeiture is the real reason for the war on drugs,” Conley said. “It’s a cash cow. Under state and federal narcotics asset forfeiture laws, anything seized from a suspected drug dealer during a drug raid is subject to confiscation. That includes cars, motorcycles, bank accounts, boats, planes, and real estate, not to mention whatever cash money is recovered. The stuff confiscated from narcotics traffickers can be sold at market value and the money retained by the department, ostensibly to be spent on furthering the war on drugs. Lot of times it gets spent on other things.”