MD02 - Incriminating Evidence

by Sheldon Siegel

  “Or someone who is a terrific liar,” I say.

  Rosie’s lips turn up slightly. “Well, do you think he’s innocent?”

  “Something certainly happened at the Fairmont that night, but I’m not convinced he killed Johnny Garcia. What about you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not letting you off easy. I told you what I thought—now it’s your turn. Turn your cards up. What do you think? Did he do it?”

  Rosie gets a faraway look in her eyes. “Fair enough,” she says. “Something very bad happened at the Fairmont and I think Skipper was involved somehow. But no, I don’t think he killed Johnny Garcia, either—at least not on purpose.”

  “You won’t change your mind, will you?”

  She breaks into a wide grin. “I might.” She looks at the stack of phone messages in my hand and asks, “So, what are you up to tonight?”

  “I thought I would treat myself to a nice dinner.”

  “Got a hot date?”

  “Not exactly. I’m having dinner with Kevin Anderson.”

  17

  “WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT JOHNNY GARCIA?”

  “Police are still searching for the mysterious roommate in the Garcia slaying.”

  —SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22.

  Kevin Anderson and I are sitting in the back of Mike’s Chinese Cuisine, an inconspicuous two-story restaurant in the middle of the block on Geary, between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Avenues. Many people believe the muckity-mucks who run San Francisco dine only in places like Postrio, Boulevard and Aqua. Not true. On a given day, our resident United States senator, our congresswoman and half the Board of Supervisors will stop by Mike’s. I’m amazed the paparazzi haven’t figured this out yet. Then again, maybe they have. I’ll bet they eat here, too.

  “What can you tell me about Johnny Garcia?” I ask Kevin as he takes a bite out of a pot sticker. No sense beating around the bush. He has made it clear he has only half an hour to talk to me. Then he and Turner Stanford are off to work their magic at a planning commission meeting; his dad wants to convert some old industrial space down by the ballpark into lofts. He is wearing a business suit for the occasion. He’s an unpretentious lad for a millionaire.

  “Not much,” he replies. “He was from the Mission. Raised in the projects. No father. Mother was an addict. We found him in the BART station plaza a couple of years ago.”

  This squares with the accounts of Ernie Clemente and Ramon Aguirre.

  He glances around the crowded restaurant. He says he was able to convince Garcia to come to the Mission Youth Center. They cleaned him up and gave him a place to live. They got him into rehab. They found him a room and a job.

  I ask about his drug problems.

  “Heroin. He was in bad shape when we found him. He would have been dead within a month or two. He was selling his body to pay for drugs. He was the poster child for everything that could have gone wrong. I thought we had him straightened out.” He wipes his hands on the white cloth napkin. “I guess not. I hear they found heroin in his system when he died. I should have watched him more closely. I have only so much time to work with the kids.”

  I pick up a spring roll and dip it into the sweet sauce. Then I add a touch of hot mustard. It’s easy to see why the bigwigs eat here. “Kevin, you seem to have a pretty full plate. What brought you to social work?”

  “It comes from my father, Mr. Daley. He came from a poor family. He caught a few breaks when he was growing up—some people helped him out when he was short on money, and one of the guys at the YMCA gave him a job so he could work his way through State. He’s never forgotten it. He donates a lot of money to charity. He insists that everybody in the company give something back to the community. I like to work with kids.”

  He seems like a solid citizen, yet there is something in his tone that sounds a bit too slick for me. I change the subject. “Can you tell me anything about Andy Holton?”

  “Not much.”

  It’s a circumspect answer. I’m not surprised, given the word of mouth about Holton. He has political ambitions. The mayor has taught him to be cautious. He motions to the waiter to bring us more tea. “I met him a couple of times,” he says. “Andy was a street kid, too. He went through the Mission center about five years ago. He was on amphetamines. Ernie got him off drugs and found him a place to live and a job. We used to bring him back to the center to talk to the kids. He was one of our success stories.”

  Now he’s a missing person.

  “He took Johnny under his wing,” he says. “He showed him the ropes and helped him get the job at the Pancho Villa.”

  “Do you have any idea where he may have gone?”

  “Nope.” It seems to me the answer comes a little too quickly. “I expect he’s scared. I’m sure he figures the cops will want to talk to him.”

  No doubt. “Does he have anything to hide?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” he says. He looks across the room and nods to the mayor, who has just entered the restaurant. Then he leans forward. “You know,” he says, “Johnny and Andy weren’t getting along very well.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “Johnny said they had an argument at the restaurant a couple of weeks before he died.”

  “About what?” I’m getting annoyed. He mentioned this once before but didn’t provide any details. He’s too damned coy.

  “The usual. The room. The rent.”

  “That’s it?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “We heard they may have been lovers.”

  He takes a fortune cookie. “I don’t know.”

  “We heard Holton was a drug dealer.”

  This time he’s emphatic. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “We’ve also heard he was trying to start a new business.”

  I seem to have his attention now. “What kind of business?” he asks.

  It’s my turn to say, “I don’t know.”

  He shrugs. “Sorry, Mr. Daley. I wasn’t Andy’s social worker. I don’t know anything about that, either.”

  Let’s try something else. “I understand Johnny called you the night he died.”

  “Twice,” he answers, feigning nonchalance. “I reported it to the police.” His expression changes to one of concern. “If I had been home when he called, I might have been able to do something. I didn’t get the messages until morning.” He’s being very sincere, but it doesn’t ring true.

  I ask if he saved them.

  He hesitates. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know—no special reason. I just hit the delete button.”

  “You may have destroyed some valuable evidence.”

  He holds his hands up. “Hey, calm down. I didn’t mean to do anything.”

  I’m not giving in yet. “What did he say in the messages?”

  “He was at the Fairmont. He said he’d made a terrible mistake. He asked me to come pick him up.”

  “Did you do anything about it?”

  “There was nothing I could do. It was the next morning when I got the messages. It was too late. I’d already heard about it on the news by then.”

  “I’d like to talk to Holton. Any idea how to find him?”

  “Not really. Before he went to work at the Pancho Villa, he used to work at another restaurant around the corner. I suppose you might ask around down there.”

  “You happen to know the name of the place?”

  “LaCumbre Taqueria.”

  It’s a start. “Thanks for your help.” The boy millionaire with the trust fund graciously lets me pick up the check.

  Pete and I survey Sixteenth Street from the BART station plaza the next morning. The activities around the Green Monster have already started. Heroin addicts wake up early and try to get their daily fix. The plaza has a busy ambiance, almost festive if you didn’t know what was going on. A homeless man with a shopping cart asks us for money. Pete
obliges with a quarter.

  We head up Sixteenth past the residential hotels and the Pancho Villa toward Valencia, where we turn left. We see a dangling sign over the entrance to LaCumbre. It’s early for lunch, so the modest taco stand is quiet. The sweet aroma of burritos and beans fills the small room. There’s a young Hispanic man behind the counter. We order two cups of coffee.

  “Busy day?” Pete asks him.

  The young man nods but doesn’t say anything.

  Pete tries again. “You from the neighborhood?”

  Still no response. I notice an economics book sticking out of a beat-up backpack on the end of the counter. “You in school?” I ask.

  “You guys cops?” He says it without expression.

  Pete smiles. “I used to be.” The kid shows the hint of a grin. “My brother here is even worse. He’s a lawyer.”

  That gets a full grin. “I was thinking maybe I could be a lawyer,” he says. “I’m at State.”

  “Stick with it,” I say.

  He studies me. “You’re the guy on TV You’re representing the DA.”

  So much for anonymity. “Yeah.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “No.”

  “He looks pretty guilty to me.”

  “A lot of people think so. They’re wrong.”

  “Whatever you say. Why are you guys here in the low-rent district? I thought you fancy lawyers worked downtown.”

  I’m not a fancy lawyer, but I don’t want to burst his bubble. “We’re looking for information,” I say.

  “Really? I didn’t know the DA spent any time down here.”

  “He didn’t, but the victim had a friend who used to work here.”

  Pete shows him pictures of Andy Holton and Johnny Garcia. “Recognize these guys?” he asks.

  He studies the photos. “Yeah. They used to live at the Jerry. That’s Andy Holton. He worked here for a short time. Then he got a job at the Pancho Villa.”

  “We’ve already been there,” I say. “Did you know him?”

  “Not really. He kept to himself.” He points toward Valencia. “You might ask over at the Royan. He used to live there before he moved to the Jerry. Ask for Mario.”

  I leave my business card and a twenty on the counter. “Thanks,” I say.

  Pete and I walk past the small markets until we reach the corner of Fifteenth and Valencia, where a faded sign on the marquee of a dilapidated five-story building says “Hotel Royan, daily, weekly and monthly.” A burnt-out cheese steak shop sits behind metal bars on one side of the entrance. A boarded-up currency exchange is on the other side. Next door is an empty lot. It’s been a long time since the Royan has seen better days. It’s a pit. The entrance has a heavy steel mesh door. It’s open, and there’s a hand-lettered sign on it saying “No visitors between 7 P.M and 7 A.M.” The lobby, if you can call it that, consists of a folding chair on a black tile floor. It’s acrid with the smell of urine.

  A wiry Hispanic man with a gold earring and a neatly trimmed goatee is sitting inside the old cheese steak shop. I presume he lives here. He’s reading the paper. He ignores a small black-and-white TV that’s tuned to a talk show. A cigarette smolders on a broken plate next to him. He doesn’t look up when we walk in.

  Pete doesn’t wait for him to acknowledge us. “Are you the manager?” he asks.

  “We’re full,” he replies without lifting his eyes from the sports section.

  This doesn’t deter Pete. “Are you Mario?”

  “Maybe. Who’s asking?”

  “Pete.”

  “Pete who?”

  “Just Pete.”

  Mario looks up. “You a cop?”

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Whatever you’re asking, I don’t know anything. I don’t talk to guys named Pete.”

  Pete looks at me. “This is my brother, Mike.”

  This brings an eye roll. “So?”

  “He isn’t named Pete. So you can talk to him. We’re trying to find somebody. If you don’t know him, you don’t know him. We’ll leave you alone.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “I haven’t even shown you his picture.”

  “I still don’t know him.”

  Pete lowers his voice. “Humor me, Mario. I have a few friends over at Mission Station. They’ll pay you a visit if I ask them.”

  I cringe. Somewhere behind the sports section and the TV, Mario undoubtedly has a gun that could blow my head clear out to Valencia Street. For that matter, I’m certain Pete is carrying a gun, too. I don’t want to start my day with a shoot-out at the Royan. I begin to question my brother’s judgment and my sanity.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” Mario says.

  “Neither do we,” I reply. “We’re just looking for information.” I show him the pictures of Johnny Garcia and Andy Holton.

  He points to the picture of Garcia. “I’ve seen his picture on the news.”

  “He’s dead,” I say. “The DA is accused of killing him.”

  “I saw him around here a few times,” Mario says. “I think he was a hooker.”

  I point to the picture of Holton. “Ever seen him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Pete leans on the counter. “He used to live here. You know him, don’t you?”

  “No,” he says.

  Pete glares right into his eyes. “If your memory clears up,” he says, “give me a call.” He hands him a business card. “You might save his life.”

  The Mission police station is a modern low-rise building that takes up half a block on Valencia, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth. Pete and I are sitting at the desk of Sergeant Ron Morales. His face looks younger than forty-two, but his hair is almost completely white. The day-to-day life of a cop tends to age you. “Still no luck on Holton,” he tells us. “We’ve been going door-to-door looking for the last week. Nobody has seen him since the night Garcia was killed. We want to find him as much as you do.”

  We keep hitting dead ends. I ask him whether he thinks Holton is still in the area.

  “He could be. It would be pretty easy for him to blend in, but no one’s talking.”

  “It’s still worth looking,” Pete says. “If he needs money, he may be back to look up some of his old customers.”

  We spend the afternoon and the early evening going up and down Mission and Valencia, still hoping to find somebody who might have seen Andy Holton. One guy thought he had seen him delivering pizzas. A woman says he may have been near the BART station. No IDs. No real leads.

  Eventually, we head back to Twenty-fourth and meet Rosie and Tony at the produce market. Rosie’s mother is staying with Grace. I take an apple and Pete sips a beer. Tony is counting today’s receipts. The evening rush is over. Rosie is sitting on the counter and drinking a Diet Coke. She asks, “Any luck?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “We’re striking out so far.”

  She has news for us. “To make your day complete,” she says, “we have another problem. They found another prostitute.”

  Hell. “Male or female?”

  “Female. She says she’s prepared to testify that Skipper paid her for sex.”

  “I understand that’s the usual procedure.”

  “And she’s prepared to testify that he liked to handcuff her to a bed in a room in the Fairmont.”

  “Where did you hear about this?” I ask.

  “The producer of the Jade Warner show called. They wanted me to comment. I didn’t.”

  Jade Warner is a former housewife who was married to a heavy hitter in one of the high-tech companies in Palo Alto. Her husband left her for a younger woman. She found the nastiest divorce lawyer in Silicon Valley and took the guy to the cleaners. After the dust settled, she had time on her hands and she started giving advice on a local cable access station. She developed a cu
lt following when the president of a dot-com said she thought Jade’s tough-love approach was the wave of the future. That was two years ago. Now she’s considered a marriage guru and has her own show on Channel 4. She’s running head to head against Oprah in the Bay Area.

  “When is she going to be on?” I ask.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Great. What else?”

  “We got more phone records.”

  “I thought we had them all. The police already gave us the records for the phone in Skipper’s room.”

  “They did. Now they have provided the records for Skipper’s cell phone. At one-twenty, there was a call placed to Turner’s house. It lasted about five minutes.”

  Turner never mentioned it. For that matter, neither did Skipper. More unanswered questions. I ask, “Any other good news?”

  “Nope. We’ve got enough. But it might be a good idea for one of us to go down and watch the taping of the Jade Warner show.”

  An excellent thought. “I’ll go,” I say.

  “That might not be such a good idea,” Rosie says. “They’ll recognize you. For that matter, they’ll probably recognize me.”

  That’s true. I pick up my cell phone and punch in Carolyn’s number. When she answers, I ask, “What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”

  18

  “HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING AT THE FAIRMONT?”

  “The evidence against District Attorney Gates continues to mount.”

  —CNN’s BURDEN OF PROOF. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23.

  Later that night, I’m with Joseph Wong, who is sitting in an armchair in his modest apartment. A small, dignified man in his late fifties with tired eyes, he tells me with pride that one of his two daughters went to Cal, the other to UCLA. His wife is sitting in the rocking chair in the corner. A picture of their daughters sits on the top of the TV, which is tuned to the Chinese newscast on Channel 26. The sound is off.

  “How long have you been working at the Fairmont?” I ask.