Night Is the Hunter

by Steven Gore

  “I just got off work and looked at my messages. There’s one from Chen, crying, saying you were gonna break him. I tried to call him, but he’s not answering.”

  “I’m not trying to do anything to him. I’m trying to stop him from doing something to himself.”

  “Is this about Oscar Benaga?”

  Now Donnally was certain that it had been Grassner’s muffled voice on the telephone that had set him on this path by pointing him toward Benaga’s DEA informant number.

  There was no point in confronting Grassner about it.

  “Yeah. It’s about Benaga and the Heredia murder. Benaga did it and Chen knew he did it, but let him walk to protect all the other investigations where he’d used Benaga as an informant.”

  Donnally switched his phone to speaker so Navarro could hear.

  “I knew it would come to this,” Grassner said. “I told him back then that Benaga was a snake. That guy was a scumbag since he was a teenager and took over the block Rojo lived on. Anyway it wasn’t . . . it wasn’t . . . Never mind, it’s too late now.”

  “Anyway it wasn’t what?” Donnally said. “It’s not too late to talk Chen out of what he plans to do.”

  “It wasn’t just Chen. It was Harvey Madding, too. The DEA started thinking Benaga was double-dealing. He’d tell them something was going to happen and then it would happen and he’d rush in to collect his reward for the information. It finally banged against their heads that he might be orchestrating everything himself. The DEA wanted to put him on a polygraph. Madding had been assigned to the feds and blocked it. I’ve been thinking all these years that Benaga had something on both of them.”

  Donnally saw they were approaching Twin Peaks Boulevard. He pointed at the intersection and signaled Navarro to turn onto it.

  “Wind around to Fairview Court,” Donnally told Navarro. “It’s quicker.”

  “Fairview Court?” Grassner said. “That mean Chen is up by Sutro Tower?”

  “His truck is up here. I think he’s headed to Manny’s memorial.”

  Grassner blew out a breath. “I should’ve guessed. He’s been fixated on Manny since you showed up at his house.”

  Donnally heard Grassner’s car accelerate.

  “I’m on my way,” Grassner said. “It’s probably too late, but I’m on my way. Be there in a few minutes.”

  “Wait,” Donnally said. “How do we know you showing up won’t make it worse? How do we know you’re not in the same situation as Chen and Benaga’s got something on you too?”

  “You do know. You know I never cared about body counts the way those two did. Never cared about cleaning the streets. It wasn’t about that. It was just—”

  “I know,” Donnally said, cutting him off. “It was just a hoot.”

  CHAPTER 46

  A patrol officer was waiting for them in the cul-de-sac at the end of Fairview Court, outside of the bright circle cast by the streetlight down the block. They could see Sutro Tower rising up, the thousand-foot steel trusses flaming and flashing in some places and steadily burning with red and white beacons in others, all backlit from above by low clouds illuminated by city lights.

  Donnally recognized her. Kristi Bradford. They’d come out of different academies, but were of the same generation in the department.

  “Does he know you’re here?” Navarro asked Bradford as they walked over.

  Bradford’s eyes widened in surprise when she recognized Donnally, then nodded to him.

  “Probably. We drove up with our overheads on.” She pointed first at the hillside houses to their right and the reservoir to their left. “We pretty much lit up the place.”

  “Any sounds?”

  “My partner snuck in there and heard Chen walking around, pacing, but he backed off.” Bradford tilted her head toward a second row of houses. “He’s set up by Chen’s truck in case Chen changes his mind.”

  “Changes his mind?” Navarro asked. “Is Chen saying something?”

  “No, but nobody comes up here at this time of night to pay his respects.”

  “Let’s stay together going in,” Donnally said. “If something goes sour, I don’t want us shooting each other.”

  Bradford looked back and forth between Donnally and Navarro. “You guys wearing vests?” They shook their heads. “Then I better go first.”

  “That won’t help,” Donnally said, “he’s too good of a shot. He’ll get you. Anyway, I’m the one who he thinks has ruined his life, so he’ll be aiming at me if he decides not to aim at himself. Let’s go together, but spread out as we get close.”

  Bradford retrieved her shotgun from her car and then raised her chin toward a break in the trees.

  CHAPTER 47

  Donnally led them up the dark incline toward the base of the tower. Despite the dry oak leaves crackling under their soles, they heard Chen before he heard them. It sounded to Donnally as though Chen was talking to himself. His footfalls were hard, less like he was pacing, and more like he was stomping in anger.

  “It’s too late,” Chen was saying. “It’s too late.”

  Donnally pulled out his cell phone, shielded the screen, and then navigated to the voice recorder and activated it.

  Chen’s voice rose in frustration and anger. “You’re not listening to me, Harvey. They know everything about Heredia . . . So what if Chico’s dead? Benaga’ll cut a deal to cooperate against us. Why? You know why. Because that’s . . . what . . . he does. That’s how he came to us in the first place. And I ain’t spending the rest my life in prison . . . What do you mean exaggerating? Chico is dead because of us . . . Bullshit . . . I know what a conspiracy is. You can lie to yourself, but don’t lie to me . . . No, asshole. All they got you on is obstruction. What they got on me is conspiracy all the way back, all the way . . . Yeah, we put a lot of guys away. But nobody’s gonna care about that now.”

  Listening to Chen’s desperation, Donnally grasped the conclusion Harvey Madding would soon arrive at. It would be better for Madding if Chen killed himself. Chen was the link between Benaga and Madding—

  That is, if Donnally understood everything, but he wasn’t sure he did.

  “Yeah, they got the file . . . I don’t want a lawyer. What’s a lawyer gonna do for me?”

  Donnally heard soft footsteps coming up behind him. He looked over his shoulder, made out Grassner’s figure, then raised his finger to his lips.

  “Chico’s dead,” Chen said into his phone. “And I’m an accessory.”

  “Chico’s not dead.”

  Grassner’s words punched through the silence. He shouldered his way between Donnally and Navarro, then turned back and raised his palm, holding them in place, then continued forward and disappeared into the shadow enveloping Chen.

  Donnally heard a snap. He hoped it was Chen closing a flip phone and not him releasing a holster strap.

  “Chuck?”

  “Yeah, it’s me and Chico isn’t dead.”

  Donnally heard a few more steps, then Grassner’s voice. “Show me your hands.”

  Another snap. This time Donnally was sure it was the holster.

  “Stay where you are.”

  “I’m staying, but listen to me. Chico is alive. I spotted him in San Jose four years ago.”

  “What? How?”

  Grassner ignored the questions. “I need to keep you from messing up your life any worse than you already have.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because Benaga owns you, that’s why.”

  “I just wanted to scare Rojo. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Just make him panic and think he needed his own enforcer and make Benaga that guy.”

  Now it made sense. Chen wanted Benaga, or someone he recruited, to shoot through the window to terrify Rojo Senior, make him feel like he and his family were under attack. All the better that the person Benaga recruited to do it was a Sureño. It would push Rojo into bringing in Benaga and raise him up from his place as a street tough guy and put him into the heart of the
Norteño organization. From there Benaga could give Chen everything, all the way to the cocaine source in Mexico.

  Donnally finally had most of what Judge McMullin needed. If what Chen was saying was true, it wasn’t a lying-in-wait, premeditated capital murder. At worst it really was second degree. There was no premeditation, no intent to kill, just a reckless shooting into Rojo’s apartment.

  Israel Dominguez’s attorney had made the right argument for the wrong reason. He argued implied malice not because he thought it was true, but because he was afraid what he believed was the truth would get his client a death sentence.

  It was time for Grassner to back off, not push Chen into putting the gun to his head. There were gaps they needed Chen to fill.

  He heard Chen pacing again.

  And now Donnally understood how things happened that night.

  Chen had called Senior and told him something that would bring him to the window, maybe to look down toward the gate. That’s why Senior’s mother said they made a space between the couch and the wall, so they could see who was ringing.

  Benaga had manipulated Chen into becoming a coconspirator in a second-degree murder, and that’s what he had on Chen over all the years. And that’s why Chen had to let Benaga walk on the Heredia killing.

  But it was too late for Dominguez. The Supreme Court wouldn’t consider new evidence. As far as it was concerned, Dominguez had his day in court. Only the governor could consider it, and no governor would block an execution over what would seem to voters to be the most trivial kind of difference between first- and second-degree murder, one that voters wouldn’t understand or care about. For the public, the facts were simple. Dominguez had been lying in wait and he’d pulled the trigger.

  “Jeez, man,” Grassner said to Chen, “those plaques and awards really mean that much to you? Being known as the baddest cowboy on the street?”

  It did and because it did, Benaga owned Chen. Chen couldn’t turn in Benaga without turning in himself at the same time.

  A cell phone rang.

  Chen answered, then laughed, a bitter, almost hysterical laugh.

  “It’s our friend Harvey Madding again,” Chen said to Grassner.

  “Say hello for me. I’m sure he’ll want to know I’m here.”

  Donnally cringed. Grassner’s sarcasm was like a knife digging into an open wound. He felt around on the ground until he found a fist-sized rock, the only nonlethal weapon he could think of to take down Chen. And he had no doubt he was close to having to use it, for he knew the question Madding was about to ask: How did Grassner find out Chen was up here?

  The silence lasted five seconds, then Chen said, “Donnally, come on out. I want to see your face.”

  Donnally gestured for Navarro to circle around to the left, but not far enough to get into a cross fire, then handed Navarro his cell phone, still recording. Donnally made a climbing motion with his hands to indicate that they should try to match their footfalls so Chen wouldn’t figure out that Navarro was there.

  Navarro nodded.

  Chen had his handgun pointed at Grassner when Donnally stepped into the shadowed clearing. Chen stood fifteen feet away. He shifted the barrel toward Donnally’s head.

  “Toss your gun and show me your hands,” Chen said. “Slowly.”

  Donnally ripped open the Velcro holster strap, then flipped the rock ten feet to his right and raised his arms.

  “Shooting me won’t stop anything,” Donnally said. “Navarro is already at his desk printing out a warrant for Benaga and officers are on their way to pick up Chico. It’s all going to come out.”

  “You hear that Harvey?” Chen said into his phone. “It’s all going to come out.”

  Chen laughed again.

  “You remember that old radio news show, Donnally? Paul Harvey.” Chen giggled, almost childlike. “Helluva coincidence. Harvey and Harvey. At the end, the guy would always say, ‘Now for the rest of the story,’ then throw in a twist.”

  Chen listened for a few seconds, then put the phone on speaker and pointed it toward Donnally, who could hear Madding yelling, “Shut up. Shut up.”

  Chen lowered the phone to his side. “The twist is that Chico went in to see Harvey the day before he testified against Dominguez. He told Harvey he didn’t see anything, that Benaga had threatened him into saying Dominguez did it. But Harvey needed Chico bad, real bad, claimed he didn’t believe him. He didn’t want to believe him because, he didn’t just want a conviction, he needed it. His career depended on it. Back then nobody was moving to the top without proving they were tough, and there was no better proof than putting somebody on death row and Madding figured this could be his only shot.

  “The truth was that Benaga lied on the stand. He was already a member of the Norteños and Harvey was afraid the defense would find out and get that into evidence. Harvey was positive the jury wouldn’t convict a Sureño of a capital murder solely on the testimony of a Norteño. But Chico wasn’t in the gang yet. I was there. In the D.A.’s office. Harvey leaning over Chico, screaming at him, ‘Stick to the script, stick to the script or you’re going back to the joint. Everybody knows what happens to snitches in the joint.’”

  Chen held the phone up to his ear again. “I get it right, Harvey? I get it right? You tell Chico he’d be dead meat if he didn’t testify the way you wanted?”

  Chen snapped his phone closed and again pointed his gun at Grassner.

  “Why’d you do it?” The hysterical giddiness was gone from Chen’s voice. “Why’d you sell me out?”

  “I didn’t sell you out.”

  “He didn’t,” Donnally said. “I put it together.”

  “I don’t believe you. Somebody put you on this trail and it had to have been Chuck.”

  Chen’s gun barrel flashed. So stunned was Donnally he barely heard the bang.

  Grassner grunted and wrapped his hands over his stomach. Donnally dropped and rolled, reaching for his gun.

  Bang—bang—bang.

  Dirt exploded from the earth next to Donnally’s face. His back thudded against a tree. A slug punched into the bark above his shoulder. He reached out with his gun and fired at the dark shape of Chen.

  More shots came from Donnally’s left. Navarro.

  Shotgun blasts from his right. Bradford.

  Chen dropped to his knees and onto his face.

  Donnally pushed himself to his feet.

  A beam from Bradford’s flashlight raced across the forest floor. Donnally ran over and kicked away Chen’s gun, then knelt and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one.

  The light moved. He turned to see Navarro bending over Grassner. Bradford ran back toward her car for her first aid kit, yelling into her radio, “Officer down,” and giving their location.

  Donnally walked over and kneeled down next to Grassner, the man’s gasping breath the only sound in the forest. Donnally punched a number on his cell phone to light up the screen and pointed it down toward Grassner’s stomach. He pulled Grassner’s hands away. The bullet had entered toward the bottom of his left lung. Donnally held his palm against it to try to limit the bleeding and ease his breathing.

  Grassner groaned, then looked up at Donnally, a frozen wince on his face.

  “I guess . . . it . . . wasn’t . . . such . . . a hoot . . . after all.”

  And closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 48

  Chen is dead,” Donnally told Judge McMullin in his study at 5:30 A.M. “Grassner is in surgery, but he’ll make it.”

  Donnally and Navarro were seated across from the judge, still dressed in his pajamas and robe. Donnally had just played the recording to him.

  “And the media?” McMullin asked.

  “We put out a story it was suicide by cop,” Navarro said. “We gave them some speculation that Chen was distraught about his ex-wife marrying an officer from the department and he forced other officers to shoot him.”

  “I ripped out the little marble memorial to Manny Washington,” Donnally said, “but eve
ntually they’ll make the connection. Except the symbolism doesn’t really work the way Chen wanted. Manny was a victim of trial by media and Hollywood ignorance and Chen was a coconspirator in a murder.”

  The judge’s housekeeper entered carrying a tray bearing a coffee carafe and three cups and saucers. She set it down, poured for Donnally and Navarro, then walked around the desk. Donnally noticed her slipping the judge a small plastic pill box as she poured. He wondered whether the judge had visited his doctor to obtain medication either for memory problems or for depression, or for both, to get him through these days.

  They waited until she’d left the room to continue.

  “There are no credible witnesses left in the Dominguez case,” Donnally said. “Benaga set it up, and Chico didn’t see who did it.”

  McMullin squinted at him. “You really think the governor would intervene based on the rantings of a suicidal ex-cop? And over a distinction between first- and second-degree murder the public won’t understand?” The judge’s voice ratcheted up. “And implied malice? Implied malice? Other than lawyers, there aren’t a dozen people in California who could tell you what it is. Lying in wait is lying in wait. Murder is murder. Dead is dead.”

  “And I’ll bet Madding was on the phone to the governor ten minutes after Chen hit the ground,” Navarro said, “trying to discredit him.”

  “He may not need to discredit him,” McMullin said. “All we have is hearsay from a deranged and now dead officer and no proof that Dominguez wasn’t the shooter. And even if you could get over those hurdles, the only other witness is hiding in Mexico.”

  “San Jose,” Navarro said.

  “Which one? There have got to be dozens of San Jose’s down there.”

  “No,” Donnally said. “Chico is in San Jose, California. In Little Saigon. That’s why we’re here. If there is any new evidence to be had, it’s going to come from him.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Authorization to take him into custody.”

  “Chico was afraid to show up for his court appearances in some minor cases he had going after he was questioned in the Heredia murder,” Navarro said. “And bench warrants were issued for his arrest.”