by Steven Gore
The smile remained fixed on the captain’s face. “Of course you would.” He then removed a printout of a San Francisco Chronicle article from his desk, spun it around, and slid it toward Donnally and Janie. It was the account of Donnally’s shooting of an unidentified Hispanic male on Janie’s doorstep. “What do you suppose we’ll discover when we send the fingerprints of Jago’s brother to San Francisco?”
“When you send them?”
Felix laughed. “Very shrewd. You’re right. If we decide it’s in our interest to send them.”
Donnally fixed his eyes on the captain’s. “My experience is that people usually find what they expect to find.”
“You’re just full of homilies, aren’t you?”
“It’s the wisdom of the ages. I’m merely its vehicle.” Donnally glanced at the news article. “There’s no way you’ll send the prints to the U.S. The last thing you want to see in the media is a report that one of your officers was moonlighting as a hit man.” He pointed upward. “You’ll have enough trouble explaining to CNN what happened at White Sands this morning.”
Felix rose from his chair and walked to the window, his narrowed eyes telling Donnally that he was imagining how the fiction of the rescue attempt would play in the Mexican and U.S. press.
Donnally became conscious of the traffic passing by on the street two floors below and thought of the U.S. president arriving in a few days. Perhaps what would’ve been a sex-trafficking exposé could be transformed into a victory of the police against the traffickers.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Donnally said.
Felix turned back toward him. “You’re not in a position to bargain.”
“That depends on what I have to offer.”
“Tell me what you want, and I’ll decide whether there’s anything you can do to pay for it.”
Donnally pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the door that led to the waiting room where Corazon and Lalo waited under guard.
“You drop the defamation charges against Corazon and I’ll give a press conference describing Cruz as a hero who died rescuing Janie and me from Sherwyn.”
Janie gripped his arm. “Don’t do it.”
Donnally laid his hand over hers, then looked from her to Felix and said, “We’ve got no choice. It’s the only way.”
“What did you mean it was the only way?” Janie said to Donnally as she walked into the Cancun airport terminal where he was waiting for her. It was less a question than an accusation, and it was the first time they had spoken since Donnally had gone with Captain Felix to the press conference and she had returned to the hotel to pack for the flight.
And the accusation tore at him.
Janie stopped and gazed through the windows at Corazon pulling away from the curb. She seemed lost amid the streams of passengers flowing past her toward the ticket counters, as though she was feeling submerged in the tide of events.
“She wanted the case dropped,” Janie said, “but not by misleading the Mexican people about what’s really happening here and who’s responsible.”
Donnally wanted to say, No one was misled. Mexicans aren’t stupid. They may not have understood why I told the lie, but they’ll know that’s what it was.
But he didn’t because he knew she was right, and in that moment understood where he’d gone wrong: He’d been swept away, caught in the updraft of his father’s brilliant deception, and it had seduced him into committing another.
Corazon had deserved better. Just as Mauricio and Anna had deserved better—
And he cringed at his arrogance.
It wasn’t up to him to take Corazon’s life out of her hands. It was hers to decide what sacrifices to make and what risks to take.
“You’re right. It wasn’t my place.”
Donnally paused as a fragment of an idea came to him to set things right, but it dissolved under the pressure of the countdown toward their flight’s takeoff. He turned to her and said, “We’ll find a way to fix it.”
Janie looked up at him and nodded, then she smiled and said, “And maybe we can fix something else at the same time.”
Donnally stared at her for a moment, until his mind caught up with her, and he smiled back. “That, too.”
Then his smile died and he looked toward the checkin counter. “There’s just one thing we need to do along the way.”
“What’s that?”
“Go after the man behind White Sands before he makes a run for it.”
Chapter 65
But Albert Hale wasn’t running.
Donnally found him wrapped in a wool blanket, sitting on the veranda of his Hillsborough mansion. He was gazing out at the cloistered garden, the high walls on either side covered by avalanches of vines and the far end cushioned by a private forest of oaks and eucalyptus. The Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions on the old man’s face and neck made it seem that AIDS was pummeling him to death, not draining the life out of him.
“How’d you get in?” Hale asked, after turning toward the sound of Donnally’s footsteps behind him.
“Over the river and through the woods,” Donnally said, using a children’s rhyme to take a first jab at Hale. “How else?”
“Ah, yes.” Hale half smiled and then added a line, “Spring over the ground like a hunting hound.”
Donnally settled into a wrought-iron chair next to Hale’s, then studied his withered hands holding a china teacup in his lap, and his eyes that had sunk into their gray sockets. From those alone Donnally understood that there would be no justice for Anna Keenan or Charles Brown, or even Deputy Pipkins, whose body had yet to be found. Hale had chosen a slow suicide years earlier by making his life an experiment in pathology.
Hale gazed at Donnally as if into a mirror.
“As you can see,” Hale said, “you’re too late. The cosmos has exacted its punishment. My HIV finally mutated into forms far outside what the drugs were designed to control.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, then Hale set his cup on the table and reached for a silver bell.
Donnally grabbed his arm. “Don’t even think it.”
Hale laughed. “You need to relax. I merely thought you’d like some tea.”
Donnally released his grip, then pulled aside his jacket, exposing his semiautomatic in a shoulder holster.
“You think I have goons lounging in my billiard room,” Hale said, “waiting for the call to charge out here, guns blazing?”
“Your guns were blazing last week.”
“Sherwyn was behind that. He still had something to fear.”
“What about you?”
“Dead men don’t have that problem.”
Hale reached again for the bell.
This time, Donnally didn’t stop him.
“How did you figure out it was me?” Hale asked after the butler had delivered Donnally’s tea.
“The law firm representing Sherwyn inadvertently let on that there was someone behind him. It was in their phrasing. They said that they’d been hired on behalf of Sherwyn, not by Sherwyn himself.”
“And you sensed an invisible hand.”
“It dipped in, just like it did in the Brown case. But I couldn’t figure out why it never seemed to form itself into a fist.”
Hale extended his manicured fingers and examined them like they were instruments that had an additional use he hadn’t considered.
Donnally swung past the unconvincing gesture. “Until Sherwyn told me.”
Hale smirked at Donnally. “That’s something that Sherwyn certainly would not do.”
“The kids at White Sands referred to El Mandamas,” Donnally said, “The Man with the Last Word, and a woman in Cancun talked about a wealthy man behind Sherwyn, and he confirmed it was you.”
“That kind of confirmation is useless. A dead witness is no witness at all.”
“There are witnesses. Some older Mexican boys who’d seen you down there years ago identified your photo, and Melvin Watson recognized this house as the one
Sherwyn took him to.”
Hale took a sip of tea. Donnally left his untouched.
“Having parties in my own home was a mistake,” Hale said, “but I realized that too late.”
Hale’s eyes blurred as he gazed out at the garden as if he wasn’t seeing the reality in front of him, but was reliving a distant memory, populated by beautiful boys on summer evenings.
“The men who came here. You would be surprised.” Hale again looked at Donnally. “Maybe not you. I knew even then that it was a risk. Maybe that was part of the thrill. Eventually the balance shifted, and it seemed too dangerous.”
“What changed?”
“One of our members was nominated to a high government position.” Hale smiled as if enjoying a private joke, then said, “One might say that he became one of the knights at the round table. Fortunately the FBI was too busy chasing terrorists to delve too deeply into his past.”
“And that’s why you set up White Sands in Mexico.”
“Of course. The problem is that sometimes the past is like a seeping wound that won’t heal. Like Charles Brown.”
“Why didn’t you cauterize it and get rid of him?” Donnally asked. “Put an end to this when he was released from the Fresno Developmental Center?”
“You seem to think we are cold-blooded murderers. We’re not.”
“What could be more cold-blooded than the murder of Anna Keenan?”
“That was an act of desperation.” Hale smiled. “I think Sherwyn surprised himself.” He took another sip of tea. “You showing up threw a monkey wrench into things, but then we figured that we couldn’t lose whether he got convicted or the case got thrown out on a technicality. Either way, the world would be convinced he killed her. The important thing was to make sure that the case never went to trial.”
“And that’s why the Albert Hale Foundation interceded and bought him the best defense money could buy.”
“Exactly.” Hale then dismissed the entire issue with a wave of his hand. “Anyway, that’s all behind us now. The statute of limitations has run on everything I did and there’s no way to connect me to the murder.”
“What about public exposure?”
Hale snorted. “How terribly provincial. The hundred-million-dollar endowment of the Albert Hale Foundation will mitigate the minor inconvenience of some temporary bad press.”
He turned toward Donnally. “Did you see The Pianist? I’m sure it must have played even in your little Mount Shasta.”
Donnally pulled back. “You’re not deluded enough to compare yourself to a Holocaust victim?”
“Not to the Jew, but to the director. Roman Polanski. He plea-bargained away charges that he drugged and raped a thirteen-year-old girl, and then escaped to France before sentencing. A few years later he received a standing ovation from the Hollywood crowd, probably including your father, when he was awarded the Oscar for Best Director. You see, the world is forgiving of those with enormous amounts of talent or money, and I neither drugged nor raped anyone. At worst I will be viewed as flawed, perhaps even weak, but not evil. And I can live with that.”
“You mean die with that.”
“That’s implied, but until that happens I have time to spread my largesse around.”
Donnally thought of the criminals who’d redeemed themselves in the public mind through power or artistic brilliance or payoffs to charity.
Hale paused in thought for a few moments, then asked, “Do you know the Goya etchings from the eighteenth century? I’m thinking of the one in which a woman averts her eyes in shame as she reaches to yank out the teeth of a hanged man because of their supposed magical power.”
Donnally nodded.
“Expose me, if you will,” Hale said, “but charities will soon become the alchemists of my rehabilitation. My penance will be their profit, and they’ll find some way to justify it.”
Hale gazed toward the rear of the property, his eyes pausing in the direction of his Labrador lying under a tree, now illuminated by the setting sun. The dog opened its eyes for a moment, blinked into the light, and then closed them again.
“And remember,” Hale finally said. “Exposure goes two ways. You think little Melvin and the boys want to have their secrets displayed to the world? Can you imagine the looks he’ll get from the parents of the kids at the college? They’ll all wonder why the church assigned Brother Fox to the student chicken coop. I’m not sure he wants to live with that kind of humiliation. And even if he was willing, the church wouldn’t let him.”
Hale rested his cup and saucer on his lap.
“In the end, it’s all about money, of which I have an enormous amount.” Hale spread his arms to encompass the gardens and mansion behind him. “The only heaven is on earth, at least for those that can afford it. And my money is untouchable, should the boys sue me. Not only is it all under the control of the foundation, but the foundation itself is housed offshore. That way I can still control it. In this castle I’m immune, and from my throne I can distribute alms to those I choose, for the purposes I choose.”
“But you won’t be finishing out your days here, but in a hell on earth. A prison cell.”
“Are you intellectually deaf or just not listening?”
“There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
Hale snorted again. “Anyone who could tie me to any of the murders is dead. At most you have a circumstantial case. I may be the man with the last word, but there’s no one alive who heard me speak it. The dead, my friend, are both deaf and mute. The most you could possibly have is hearsay.”
Donnally extracted his tape recorder from his jacket pocket and set it on the table between them. He left his gun exposed.
“A confession?” Hale smiled. “You expect me to confess? You’re insane.” Hale reached for the bell. “I think I’ve had enough of this.”
Donnally didn’t interfere. Instead he turned on the recorder. The voice was a whisper:
This is the dying declaration of William Sherwyn.
Hale’s eyes widened for just a second, then he looked at Donnally. “It doesn’t make any difference what he said. It’s all hearsay.”
“You should’ve studied up for a day like this,” Donnally said. “A dying declaration is the exception to the hearsay rule.”
El Mandamas is Albert Hale. He established White Sands.
Hale glanced over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening behind him. He grabbed the recorder and fumbled with it, jabbing at buttons.
I was present in Hale’s house when he gave Gregorio Cruz ten thousand dollars in cash and ordered him to kill Harlan Donnally.
Hale wrapped his hands around the device, muffling the sound, then thrust it toward Donnally.
“Turn this damn thing off.”
Donnally took it from him.
When Anna Keenan threatened to expose us, I had no choice but to—
Donnally pressed the “off” button.
The butler came to a stop next to Hale, who looked up and waved him away.
Hale waited until the butler was out of hearing range. His face was flushed and sweating.
“What do you want? A payoff? Is that what this is, extortion?”
“It would more properly be called blackmail,” Donnally said, smiling. “Extortion relies on a threat of violence. Blackmail on a threat of exposure or, in this case, of dying an excruciating death in a prison hospital.” Donnally paused for a moment. “It’s interesting. Sherwyn didn’t make that mistake. He called it by its correct name when I offered him what he thought was a chance to buy his way out.”
“So this was about money all along.” Hale forced a smirk, attempting to conceal his vulnerability behind a wall of sarcasm. “So that maybe you can buy a new stove for your little café? Perhaps add some outdoor seating? Maybe a mosquito zapper?”
“Actually, I’ve decided on a new career.”
Donnally extended his hands before him, mimicking Hale’s earlier examination of his manicured nails.
/> “I think I’ve flipped enough burgers for a while,” Donnally said. “I’m looking for something that would be more satisfying, something that will allow me to make a more substantial contribution to the world.”
Hale swallowed and licked his dry lips. “And that would be?”
Donnally reached into his jacket and pulled out a power of attorney and held it up so Hale could read the title.
“I’ve decided to become the head of what used to be called the Albert Hale Foundation.”
Hale shuddered as the implication of Donnally’s demand blasted through the brick and mortar of his psychological defenses.
“Don’t worry,” Donnally said, handing him the two-page document and a pen. “I won’t let you starve. I may even let you stay here.”
Hale accepted it. His body hunched as though he thought the mansion was about to collapse over him. His hands vibrated too hard for him to focus on the words.
“I’ll … I’ll need to have my lawyer look at this.”
“There are two problems with that,” Donnally said. “First, your lawyer is the one that drafted it. And second, if you hire another one, you better make it a specialist in criminal defense.”
Donnally pulled out his cell phone. He punched in a number, waited a few moments, then said, “This is Harlan Donnally, let me speak to Lieutenant Navarro.”
“Give me a minute,” Hale said, his face reddening around the crimson splotches of his disease. “You can’t expect …”
Donnally reached for the recorder and held it up to the phone.
Hale threw up his palm. “Stop.” He signed on the last page.
Donnally disconnected and took the pages back.
“You’ll never get away with this,” Hale said, intending the words to sound like a threat, but they came out like a whimper.
Donnally rose to his feet without answering, but before he could take a step, Hale reached out into the emptiness around him and asked, “What did you mean, ‘used to be called the Albert Hale Foundation’?”
Donnally displayed the power of attorney toward Hale.
“Read the fine print.”
Hale grabbed for it, but Donnally pulled it away. Hale bit on his knuckle as he skimmed down the text, then squinted at the last paragraph.