Red Line

by Brian Thiem

  “Big time San Francisco defense attorney, right?”

  “Yeah, major scumbag. Before your time, he defended a few of our Oakland assholes, but these days, he only represents big money clients. He walks in with a video camera and demands to observe our search, giving that line of shit about being an officer of the court, like I’m supposed to be impressed. Also says our warrant for the main house is invalid because the kid, Adrian, doesn’t live there. He demands we postpone our search of the main house until he can litigate the warrant.”

  “I hope you told him to fuck off,” said Sinclair.

  “I did, but since he had his camera on, I didn’t say fuck.”

  “Good. If Zimmerman won’t stay where you tell him to, escort him off the property or arrest him for interfering. He has no right to be there.”

  “Except then, this Berkeley lieutenant arrives. She—I think she’s a she, but it’s Berkeley and their medical plan even pays for sex changes—anyway, this lieutenant says she doesn’t see a problem with Zimmerman being here, that we should have nothing to hide and it would avoid conflict if we cooperated.”

  “Tell her I love conflict. If Berkeley won’t control Zimmerman, tell her you’ll call a bunch of OPD units up there to do it.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. Oh yeah, Zimmerman knows you have the kid in custody.”

  “How’d he find out?”

  “No idea, but he said he was giving me official notice that he’s the kid’s lawyer and we have to cease any questioning until he’s present.”

  “Like that’s gonna happen. Any chance of you being able to interview the father and see what he knows?”

  “Not with Zimmerman here.”

  Sinclair hung up and thumbed through a pile of messages on his desk. One caught his eye. Daly from Children’s Hospital called at 1617. Connie’s neat handwriting read, Might mean nothing, but 6 min before girl hit by car, a Cadi Esc, blk, partial plate 312 or 812 entered ER lot, stopped, and backed out. Will copy onto CD tomorrow.

  “Do you believe these kids’ story about a mystery man who drove the girls away?” asked Braddock.

  “It fits,” said Sinclair. “A guy like Rashid Nadeiri would have someone on staff to fix problems like this. When we go back at these two, we’ll start there.”

  Sanchez said, “I’ll add Shaw and Nadeiri’s information to the database and search for a link with the victims.”

  “How long will that take?” asked Sinclair.

  “Gimme twenty minutes.”

  “While he’s doing that, I’ll find a clean photo of Zachary and Susan to show them,” said Braddock. “Why don’t you step outside and relax for a few?”

  “I’ll help you look for the photos.”

  Braddock reached into Sinclair’s desk drawer, grabbed a cigar, and set it in front of him. “Go.”

  Chapter 32

  Sinclair’s brain was fried. A dull headache was settling in. He puffed on his cigar and leaned against the railing overlooking Washington Street. The sun had just dropped below the horizon and the sky to the west glowed blood red. The heat from the day was beginning to dissipate, but with the absence of the normal bay breeze, the night wouldn’t cool much.

  Sinclair called Maloney at home and brought him up to speed.

  “Do you think these two will roll on the other murders?” asked Maloney.

  “We’ll go at them again, but I don’t think they did them.”

  “The chief will want to make an announcement tomorrow.”

  “Announce what, that we arrested two kids who roofied some girls and had sex with them?”

  “It’s just . . .”

  “I know, lieutenant, I want to find the killer, too.”

  “Call me if anything changes.”

  Sinclair hung up and listened to his voicemails while puffing on the cigar. Two from Liz. He erased them and called her.

  “You coming over tonight?” asked Liz.

  “Looks like a late night.”

  “Come over any time. If I’m asleep, wake me.”

  The thought of crawling into bed with a drowsy Liz was appealing. “I’ll let you know,” he said.

  “Did you get a break on the bus bench killings?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What about on the rape of the girls from last year? One turned into a homicide, right?”

  Sinclair felt a lump form in his throat. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m a reporter. Your department crime stats show a homicide at the same location last year. I did some research. I also remembered you talking about it when we first started dating.”

  Sinclair took a few puffs on the cigar, drew some smoke into his lungs, and blew it out.

  “You still there?” she asked.

  “You can’t report this.”

  “It’s my job. If you can’t give me something, I’ll have to start digging on my own. If I figured this out, others will too.”

  “Can we talk tomorrow?”

  “I’ll wait until tomorrow. If you do make it over tonight, I promise not to ask about it, at least not until . . .”

  Liz was right. Other reporters would figure it out, and he couldn’t lie to them. His reputation—the trust that the media gave out sparingly—was based on being straightforward with them. When he couldn’t tell them something during an active investigation, he told them so. However, if he stonewalled them on this, they’d begin snooping, which would create a shit storm as every paper and television station started speculating. Soon, every potential witness and suspect would go into hiding, and leads would disappear. It looked like keeping this quiet until tomorrow’s evening news was the best he could hope for.

  Sinclair walked up the sidewalk along the front of the PAB. Spotlights lit up the American flag flying from the flagpole in the center of the small plaza in front of the building. He needed to wrap up everyone involved in Samantha’s case before the media reported it and people talked to each other and got their lies straight. He pulled out his phone and called Jankowski. “Is there a Cadillac Escalade parked at Nadeiri’s house?”

  “No Cadi,” said Jankowski. “There’s a Lexus SUV in the garage. It’s registered to Rashid Nadeiri, and from the crap in the console and glove box, it looks like the wife drives it. There’s a new Lexus LS sedan, the big luxury model, that’s registered to Nadgold.”

  Sinclair thanked him and jogged up the back steps two at a time and into the office. He opened the DMV screen on his computer and ran vehicles registered to Rashid Nadeiri. Only the Lexus SUV showed up. He ran vehicles registered to Nadgold Corporation in Emeryville. There were two new Lexus LS sedans, a Ford van, and a 2013 Cadillac Escalade, license 6TRJ812.

  He called the communications section on his desk phone and a dispatcher answered. The beeps on the line reminded him he was being recorded. “Can you call Emeryville PD and have them send an officer by Nadgold to see if there’s a Cadi SUV parked there and if there’s anyone still working there?” He gave the dispatcher the address and vehicle license numbers of the four cars registered to the company.

  Sinclair turned back to his computer and did a Google search on Nadgold. Their company website didn’t mention the names of any company officers, not even the CEO. “Hey, Lou,” he yelled to Sanchez. “When you dug up the stuff on Nadeiri, did you find the names of anyone else who worked at Nadgold?”

  “Only Peter Goldman, the guy that left Oracle with Nadeiri to start the company. Goldman was a marketing and finance man. An article in the Chronicle two years ago said Nadeiri and Goldman were the owners, but no one else was mentioned.”

  “I’ll bet Goldman drives the other Lexus.”

  Sanchez looked at him, puzzled.

  “Never mind,” said Sinclair as his desk phone rang.

  “Homicide, Sinclair.”

  The patrol officer from Emeryville identified himself and launched right in, saying, “I was the one dispatched to go by Nadgold and check their parking lot for you.”

  “See
anything?”

  “The business is on my beat so I know it pretty well. The two Lexus sedans are driven by the two bosses. The van is the only vehicle that stays there overnight. They use it to shuttle people and run errands during the day. I sometimes see it crammed full of employees around lunch time.”

  “What about the Escalade?”

  “The security director drives that and gets to take it home.”

  “Is it parked there now?”

  “No, lot’s empty except for the van, and the place is locked up for the night.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Ted Griffin,” the officer said. “Nice guy. Met him a year or so ago when an employee’s car got broken into. Talked to him a couple of times since then for one thing or another.”

  “How would I find him after hours?”

  “ADT Alarm monitors Nadgold’s security system. Call them. I responded when the alarm went off one night. Broken window, so I needed the owner to arrange a board up. ADT called Griffin to respond.”

  “How long did it take him?”

  “Not long. He said he lives halfway between the two locations of his work: the corporate headquarters and his boss’s house in the Berkeley Hills.”

  Sinclair went back to his computer and found a Ted Griffin with a driver’s license address on Lawton Avenue in Oakland’s Rockridge District, ten minutes from Emeryville. A check of CORPUS and CII showed no arrest record at either the country or state level.

  Sinclair and Braddock left Sanchez to babysit Brandon Shaw and Adrian Nadeiri and drove through the evening traffic to the freeway. He radioed dispatch for a unit to meet them down the street from the Lawton address and then said to Braddock, “We don’t have enough PC to arrest him in his house, so we need to convince him to come downtown and talk to us.”

  “It’s nice to hear you considering the little things like probable cause,” she said. “What if he refuses?”

  “Then we’re screwed. If he is involved in more than just the girls, the last two murders must connect somehow to Nadgold or Nadeiri. We’ve got to get him in a room talking before Zimmerman or another lawyer tells him to shut up.”

  “Do you really think those two boys and Griffin are responsible for killing Zachary and Susan, too?”

  Sinclair turned and looked at her for a second and then back at the road.

  “I know.” She smiled. “You’ll have a better idea once we’re finished talking to them.”

  Sinclair merged onto the 24 Freeway and took the upper Broadway exit. He turned onto Lawton Avenue, a wide, tree-lined street of large, restored craftsman-style houses. He crept down the street, looking for house numbers. A black SUV backed out of a driveway a half block away and drove the same direction they were headed.

  Sinclair sped up to verify the license, and Braddock grabbed the radio handset. “Thirteen-Adam-Five, we’re following a vehicle wanted for questioning on a one-eighty-seven westbound Lawton approaching College.”

  “Description and plate when you can,” said the dispatcher.

  “Black Cadillac SUV, license Six-Tom-Robert-John-eight-one-two,” said Braddock.

  “Copy. Six-Tom-Robert-John-eight-one-two shows clear on a twenty-thirteen Cadillac, registered to Nadgold Corporation in Emeryville. Two units to respond.”

  “Two-L-Twelve,” said a male voice over the radio. “You dispatched me to meet the homicide unit. I’m a block away. Where do they want me?”

  Sinclair said to Braddock, “Have him get in front of us and make the stop”

  The Cadi slowed at the stop sign on College Avenue and made a right turn. Sinclair followed.

  Braddock relayed the instructions over the radio and added, “Let’s low-key this. He might just be a witness and we want him cooperative.”

  Sinclair knew the risk of failing to handle this as a felony car stop—racking a shell into shotguns, ordering the occupants out of the car at gunpoint and onto the ground prone. If Griffin was a serial killer and decided to fight to the end, handling the stop casually could get cops killed, but if they took him down at gunpoint, it would be hard to later convince a judge in a suppression hearing that Griffin came to their office and talked voluntarily.

  The Cadi proceeded north on the street lined with trendy shops and restaurants. Both sides of the street were filled with parked cars and people strolling along the sidewalk. A half mile north was the border with Berkeley, and College Avenue ended at the UC campus another mile beyond that.

  Sinclair saw headlights coming up behind him rapidly and then heard the roar of a V8 engine as a marked car shot around him, pulled behind the Cadi, and turned on its emergency lights. The SUV pulled to the right into a bus zone and stopped. Sinclair stopped behind the marked car and Braddock said into the handset, “The stop is at College and Keith.”

  The officer approached the driver’s window, and Sinclair moved to the passenger side, his hand on his gun. The passenger-side window was down.

  “Evening, sir,” said the officer. “May I see your license and registration?”

  The driver, a heavyset man wearing a dark suit and tie, turned to face the officer. Sinclair couldn’t hear what he said.

  The driver removed a wallet from his breast pocket, handed the officer his license, leaned across the console, and opened the glove box. Sinclair readied himself, knowing a gun could appear in a flash.

  The driver removed an envelope, shuffled through some papers, and handed the registration to the officer.

  “Wait here,” the officer said and backpedaled to the rear of the SUV. The officer handed Sinclair the driver’s license. It read Ted Griffin and showed him six feet tall, 230 pounds, with a date of birth that made him forty-five.

  “Have him step out,” Sinclair said to the officer.

  Griffin’s expensive suit coat stretched tight over his considerable middle as he ambled onto the sidewalk in front of a Mexican restaurant advertising half-price margaritas on its window. He pushed his silver-framed glasses back up his nose.

  “Where are you headed, Mr. Griffin?” asked Sinclair.

  He looked toward Braddock, now standing beside the marked unit’s passenger door, and then back at Sinclair. “What’s this about?”

  “We’d like you to come downtown with us so we can talk.”

  “You’re detectives, right?”

  Sinclair nodded.

  “Homicide?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s where I was headed,” Griffin said. “My boss asked me to find out where his son was and ascertain his situation.”

  “Would that be Adrian Nadeiri?”

  “Yes, is he in your custody?”

  “If you accompany us downtown, we can talk about it,” said Sinclair.

  “I can follow you in my car.”

  “We’d prefer you ride with us,” said Sinclair.

  Chapter 33

  Room 203 was what homicide called a soft interview room. The same size as the lieutenant’s office, the room contained a metal table and three chairs against one wall, just as in the other interview rooms. A green vinyl couch sat against the opposite wall, and a row of metal file cabinets took up the back wall. Nothing fancy, but it was the most comfortable and nonthreatening interview room on the floor and the preferred place to interview cooperative witnesses and family members. Sinclair decided to interview Griffin here so that he could later testify in court that Griffin was not under arrest, and he therefore didn’t have to read him his Miranda rights. Reading a possible suspect his rights was always the safest route to take legally, but if he did so, Griffin would figure out that Sinclair suspected his involvement and ask for a lawyer. Since Sinclair’s goal was to get the truth, telling someone they didn’t have to talk was counterproductive.

  Griffin was slouched in the center of the couch when they entered, his head craned upward so he could peer through the bottom of his glasses as he pecked away on his Blackberry.

  “This is Sergeant Braddock, my partner,” said
Sinclair. “And I suspect you already know my name’s Sinclair.”

  Griffin nodded and slipped his phone into his pants pocket. Sinclair and Braddock took their customary chairs at opposite sides of the table, leaving the middle one for Griffin.

  “Ted, I want to make it clear that you’re not under arrest. You’re free to leave at any time.”

  Once Sinclair asked the necessary questions to get Griffin’s personal information, he asked, “What do you do at Nadgold?”

  “I’m the director of security.” He pulled himself up straighter in the chair.

  Sinclair raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like we’re in the same business.”

  “To a degree, although private security is different in many ways.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Mr. Nadeiri and Goldman brought me over from Oracle when they decided to start their own company.”

  “What did you do at Oracle?”

  “I started as a uniformed security officer. I had always wanted to be a police officer—like you both—but security paid the bills while I sent out applications.”

  “What happened—you change your mind?”

  “I applied at over twenty departments. Even though I had a college degree, half never let me test. I failed the physical agility course at a few. I worked out like a maniac but still had trouble scaling the six-foot wall. I didn’t make it through the medical exam, the oral board, or the psychological at the others. I applied and tested for five years before giving up.”

  Griffin’s story was common for many who ended up as security guards. Out of a hundred applicants for OPD, two made it through the selection process, and only one of those made it through the six-month academy and the four-month field-training program. Observing Griffin, Sinclair could tell that Griffin didn’t have what it took to be a cop—even when he was fifteen years younger.

  “Too bad. I’ll bet you would have made a good cop,” said Sinclair.

  “I made the best of it. I worked hard at Oracle and they made me a supervisor in the main complex where enterprise software was developed. Mr. Nadeiri was a division chief there. He recruited—or maybe stole is a better word—everyone for his new company from that building.”