MD02 - Incriminating Evidence

by Sheldon Siegel

  Parnelli is late thirties but appears younger. He looks like he sprang to life from a Dockers ad. He’s sort of a political toady-in-training. His grandfather was a United States senator and his aunt is on the Board of Supervisors. Dan hired him because of his family connections. Parnelli can’t hold back a grin. “Looks like your client is in some trouble,” he says.

  “I understand both of you were there that night,” I reply.

  Dan answers. “We had a meeting with Skipper and his people about the debates.”

  Parnelli interrupts him. “Of course, in light of the events of the last few days, it’s unclear whether the debates will ever happen.” He’s pleased with himself.

  Morris reddens and he glares at Parnelli, whose smile disappears. He slinks down in his chair. He won’t have another speaking part in this little drama.

  “What time did you leave?” I ask.

  They glance at each other. “The meeting broke up around twelve-thirty,” Morris says.

  Not quite the answer to my question. “Did you go home?”

  Another look at Parnelli. “Yes,” Morris says.

  Parnelli starts to squirm. “Dan,” he begins.

  Morris stares daggers at him. “We went home around twelve-thirty.”

  This will need pursuing. I study Parnelli. He’s uncomfortable. “Yeah,” he says. “I got home around one. My wife can confirm it if you’d like.”

  Morris is triumphant. “As I said, we’d like to thank your client for his great contributions to Leslie’s campaign.”

  I’m glad to leave.

  I have a visitor when I return to the office. “I apologize for not making an appointment,” Natalie says. “I didn’t want Ann to know I was coming down to see you.”

  “You can see me whenever you want,” I say. “You’re always welcome.”

  She fingers the reading glasses. “Do you have to tell Ann that I was here?”

  “Of course not.”

  She looks relieved.

  I ask her how she is holding up.

  She swallows. “All things considered, not bad.” She leans back in her chair and adds, “I’m hopeful that things will be resolved before too long.”

  “Natalie,” I say, “I know the situation is very difficult—”

  “We are going to get through it, Michael,” she says. “We’ve been through difficult situations in the past. We will get through this one, too.”

  I ask, “Is there something between you and Ann that I should know about?”

  She says a touch hesitantly, “I expect you’ve noticed that Ann and I don’t always communicate very effectively. I love her more than she’ll ever know, but I haven’t always agreed with some of her choices.”

  “What sorts of choices?”

  “Career choices. Choices about the company she keeps, how she lives her life. She’s very ambitious and talented, but she exercises bad judgment from time to time. She seems so—so angry. She’s never been the same since her divorce. She blamed her husband and she blamed Prentice and me. She said we manipulated her into marrying Richard and then she said we weren’t supportive when they had difficulties.” There are tears in her eyes. “It wasn’t true, Michael,” she protests. “It was terribly unfair. We did everything we could to help them.”

  “You never want your children to hurt, Natalie.”

  She doesn’t respond, but I can see the pain in her eyes.

  I search for my calming priest-voice. “I don’t mean to pry, and I realize this is very painful for you. Then again, it may help me to know a little more. Did the situation with Ann affect your relationship with Skipper?”

  “Prentice and I began to drift apart many years ago,” she says, “but Ann’s divorce exacerbated the situation. Prentice immersed himself in his work.” Her voice breaks as she says, “I feel as though I’ve lost my daughter and my husband.”

  I thank her for explaining. “It helps me to understand,” I tell her.

  “I don’t mean to burden you, and it does help me to talk about it,” she says. “But I really came down here to see if I could help. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “We’ll take care of the legal maneuvering. It will help if you provide whatever support you can for your husband. I need you to be strong for your daughter, too. The entire situation has been very difficult for her.”

  “I’m glad you realize that, Michael,” she says. “I know Ann has been hard on you.”

  “She cares,” I reply. In spite of the vitriol, I mean this.

  “Yes, she does. She has always admired Prentice.”

  “We’ll do our best for him. You have to take care of yourself, too. This can be a painful process—the justice system doesn’t work very quickly.”

  “My family is falling apart, Michael,” she says, her composure beginning to break. “Prentice is not a murderer. If the charges aren’t dropped, I won’t have a family.”

  “Natalie,” I say, “if there’s anything I can do to make things easier for you…”

  She stops me. “You’ve done enough. Thank you for listening.”

  I’m studying police photos when Rosie walks in and takes her favorite spot on the corner of my desk, her usual Diet Coke in her hand. “I understand Natalie stopped by,” she says.

  “Yep.” I summarize the highlights of our conversation.

  Rosie nods. “Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you get a free pass from the issues we all have to deal with,” she says, looking thoughtful. “She and her husband grew apart. It happens. So did we. She has issues with her daughter. You can bet we will, too. And it’s going to get even more complicated when she’s a teenager.”

  Tell me about it. “Wait until Grace brings home her first boyfriend.”

  “Wait until Grace announces she’s getting married. The guy better be pretty impressive.”

  I don’t say it out loud, but I cringe when I think that maybe Grace, too, will come home someday and announce she’s getting divorced.

  The phone rings and I punch the button on the speaker. “I’m out at Public Storage on Geary,” Pete says. “The police just opened Skipper’s locker.”

  “And?”

  I can hear voices behind him. “There were some files in it, but there was also some disturbing stuff, too. More copies of Hustler. And some—well—photos.”

  “Of what?” Pete has this irritating propensity for playing cat and mouse.

  “Women,” he says. “Naked women.”

  My head starts to throb. “How many?”

  “Three. They were each handcuffed, spread-eagle to a bed. Eyes and mouths covered with tape.”

  “Did you recognize any of them?”

  “Just one. The woman who was on the news the other night.”

  Terrific.

  “Not good,” Rosie says when I hang up.

  “Not good at all.” I pick up the phone and punch Carolyn’s extension. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask. “Something’s come up.”

  Carolyn sits down and eyes me warily. Rosie is still perched on the corner of my desk. “Look,” I say, “I know this is none of my business—”

  Carolyn stops me. “You’re damn right it’s none of your business.”

  Rosie interjects. “We have a problem,” she says. “We need your help.”

  “It’s still none of your business.”

  Rosie tries again. “What we talk about here today will never be repeated outside this room.” She leans forward. “The police found pictures of naked women at Skipper’s house. They found more pictures in his storage locker.”

  Carolyn closes her eyes.

  Rosie continues. “The women were handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded in a manner that is similar to the way Johnny Garcia was found.”

  Carolyn opens her eyes and looks at Rosie, then at me. “Are you asking me if he ever did anything kinky with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “This isn’t in my job description, you know.”

  “I know,” I say
.

  “And I’ll never testify about this in court.”

  “Understood.”

  She takes a deep breath. “The second time we did it, he asked me if I would try something exotic. I asked him what he meant and he asked me whether I would mind if he tied me up.” She takes off her glasses. “I told him I wasn’t into that stuff,” she says in a voice that is barely a whisper.

  We sit in silence for a moment. Then Rosie puts her hand on her shoulder. “What happened?”

  “We did it the … uh … conventional way. That was the last time we slept together. Anything else you need to know?”

  “No,” Rosie says.

  Carolyn heads for the door.

  “Thanks,” I say to her back.

  “Well,” Rosie says, “that didn’t go very well, did it?”

  “Nope. I don’t suppose it could have. Maybe it was a mistake to ask her about it.”

  “Maybe. She’s been through a lot, you know.”

  I’m kind of surprised to hear this. Rosie was dead set against bringing Carolyn into the firm when she approached us. Carolyn was a career prosecutor. Rosie was skeptical about her ability to work on the other side of the street. She was also aware of my past relationship with Carolyn, but she finally agreed we should hire her and acknowledges that Carolyn pulls her weight. “Sounds like you know her better than I do,” I reply.

  “Maybe. Women do,” she says. “She’s had a lot of bad luck with men.”

  That much I knew. Her first ex-husband is a tax attorney. He is also a condescending jerk. I have no idea why she married him. Her second ex-husband is an investment banker. He’s an egomaniac and an ass. He walked out a couple of years after their son was born. “You would have made a better priest than I did,” I say. “You have a knack for getting people to tell you things.”

  “You know,” Rosie says, “what Carolyn needs is to find herself a good, stable guy like my brother.”

  “Do you think they’d be interested in each other?”

  “Oh, no,” Rosie says. “I didn’t mean to suggest that Tony would be right for her. Their interests are too different. But I wish she could find a solid guy like him.” She pauses and then adds, “And I’d like to see Tony find somebody, too.”

  “Tony’s still reluctant to test the waters,” I say. I tell her about his attempt to fix me up.

  “Perlita was the only woman he ever dated,” she says. “It takes some people a very long time to heal.” She reflects for a moment and adds, “Some people never do.”

  “Natalie should be home by now,” I say. “I guess I’d better call her and tell her about the storage locker.”

  “And Ann and Turner,” Rosie says. “Ann will be beside herself. Turner is going to throw a fit.”

  And Natalie will feel more pain.

  14

  “A BLANKET DENIAL IS THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE”

  “This case will not be tried in the media.”

  —MICHAEL DALEY. NEWS CENTER 4. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17.

  Natalie and Ann react as we expected when I call each of them. Natalie greets the news with silence, and I can barely hear her response when I ask her who else had access to the locker. “Just Prentice,” she says, clearly shaken. “He had the key.”

  When I call Ann and describe the contents of the locker, her first reaction is that her father is going to be furious. I’ll bet. But she agrees to tell him about the findings, so when I meet with him first thing the next morning in the consultation room at the Hall, I’m able to focus on my worry about Natalie. “This is becoming more difficult for her,” I say to him.

  “This is becoming very difficult for both of us,” he says. His eyes turn to steel. “I don’t engage the services of prostitutes. I’m not into kinky sex. I have no idea how a bunch of pornographic pictures found their way into my storage locker.”

  I say firmly, “We’re going to have to provide an explanation for it.”

  He folds his arms. “I just gave you the explanation.”

  “Can you give me anything more than a blanket denial?”

  “In the circumstances, a blanket denial is the appropriate response.”

  Christ. “Okay,” I say, “let’s take this one step at a time. Maybe we can discredit the prostitute. She’s an addict. But how do you expect us to explain the stuff in your locker?”

  “Somebody must have planted it.”

  “Who? How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nobody is going to believe that, Skipper.”

  “It’s the truth, dammit.”

  He’s back to the setup defense, so I switch gears. “Natalie came to see me yesterday.”

  His eyebrows go up. “Why?”

  “Because she’s concerned about you.” I tell him about her comments about Ann.

  “Ann’s a complicated soul,” he says. He thinks about it and adds, “In many respects, she’s a great deal like me.” He’s more perceptive than I thought. “What else did she say?” he asks.

  “She mentioned that you have grown apart over the years.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Just that she’s worried.”

  “I know. So am I.” He remains silent for a moment and asks, “Is that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  He reflects and adds, “We’re not the only couple in the world with an imperfect marriage.”

  That’s for damn sure.

  “But we still care for each other. We both care for Ann. I would never do anything to hurt either of them.”

  His concern seems genuine, yet I know he’s cheated on Natalie. I decide to push just a little more. “We have reason to believe that there may be others who might come out of the woodwork who will say that you slept with them.”

  He tenses. “Who?”

  I won’t betray Carolyn’s confidence—not even to Skipper. “Just rumors. I don’t want anything else to come out of left field.” I look straight into his eyes. “Are we going to hear from anyone else who will accuse you of engaging in kinky sex?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Ernie, Rosie, Pete, Tony and I are in the industrial-strength kitchen at the Mission Youth Center that afternoon. We’ve been joined by Ramon Aguirre and Sergeant Ron Morales of Mission Station, who used to be Pete’s partner. He and Pete help each other out from time to time, and his appearance today is off the record. The place smells of soap and disinfectant. We are sitting amid the stainless steel tables and the restaurant-sized ovens while a few stragglers finish their lunches. The large dishwashers roar behind us. The topic of our discussion is the whereabouts of Andy Holton. Clemente is filling us in.

  “We’ve been trying to find him for the last couple of days,” he tells us. “Nobody in the neighborhood has seen him. He had a lot of big ideas. He was always hustling.”

  Morales interjects, “Hustling is the right word. He was working the street.” He hands out a list of the residential hotels around the BART station. There are red check marks next to most of them. “For the last four days, I’ve had six officers talking to people in the flophouses. Nobody’s seen him, but we’re going to get to the rest of the hotels in the next day or two.” In addition to prostitution, Morales says Holton was also known as a small-time drug dealer. “He wasn’t particularly successful,” he says.

  Pete says to Morales, “I’ll go door-to-door around the BART station.”

  “I’ll take the businesses on Valencia Street,” I say.

  “I’ve already put up some flyers at St. Peter’s,” Ramon says. “I’ll mention it at mass.”

  Rosie and Tony volunteer to knock on doors around St. Peter’s.

  I realize the search for Andy Holton rests squarely on our shoulders. The DA won’t help us—they have already concluded that Skipper killed Garcia and they think Holton is irrelevant to this matter. It will only complicate their case if we locate him. “We have to find him,” I say, “or we have to find out what happened to him.” Andy Holton may have been the last pers
on who saw Johnny Garcia alive.

  Monday, September twentieth, two days before the preliminary hearing. We’ve been pounding the pavements of Mission and Valencia from Sixteenth to Twenty-fourth since Saturday in search of Andy Holton. Nothing. A couple of people recognized his picture. One guy told me he thought he saw him on Valencia a few days ago. When I probed, the man walked away. When I started to follow him, he flashed a knife. I found the guy’s photo in a mug book at Mission Station and Ron Morales picked him up for questioning an hour later. It turns out he’s a well-known small-time thief. He clammed up as soon as they hauled him in. They kept him overnight and let him go.

  Ernie hasn’t gotten anything from the kids at the center. The police report from the search of Johnny Garcia and Andy Holton’s room at the Jerry provided very little new information. The phone had been disconnected two weeks before Garcia died. The phone records revealed almost no calls had been made from it. There were no cell phones registered in either name. If Andy Holton was dealing drugs, he was conducting business from a pay phone or a cell phone under another name. Johnny Garcia’s personal effects included a couple of changes of clothes, a backpack and a Bible. Roosevelt told me it looked as though Holton had cleaned out all of his belongings except for his clothes. There was no indication that either had a bank account.

  At ten o’clock in the morning, Rosie, Molinari and I sit in Judge Louise Vanden Heuvel’s stuffy chambers on the fourth floor of the Hall. The walls are lined with tan legal volumes. McNulty and Payne have joined us for the morning’s festivities.

  The first item on our agenda is to try to get the judge to slow down the flow of information to the media. The contents of the storage locker were described in prurient detail on the news last night. Somebody gave them the skinny—and it wasn’t us. “Your Honor,” I begin, “we have a very serious problem.”

  Judge Vanden Heuvel studies our standard motion requesting a gag order. She’s in her mid-fifties, a former prosecutor with a pale complexion, a willowy frame and a stoic air, and she’s been listening to motions like ours for the last twenty years. “What’s the problem, Mr. Daley?” she asks. Although I have never heard her raise her voice, her tone is nonetheless commanding.