MD06 - Judgment Day

by Sheldon Siegel

  “You’re welcome, Ben.” Mort grips his hand more tightly. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a fine human being and a superb lawyer.” The old warhorse never quite got around to burying the hatchet with Lou. This is the best that he can do.

  Cohen’s son is a noted attorney in his own right. He swallows hard. “Thanks, Mort. It would have meant a lot to him.”

  Rosie and I stand in silence as Mort and Ben exchange a quiet word. I can’t help glancing at my watch. It’s already three thirty-five. We still have a very full day ahead of us. A moment later, Ben turns and politely shakes Rosie’s hand, then mine. “Thank you for coming today,” he says. “I know you have a full plate.”

  “We’re so sorry,” I say.

  “Thanks for stepping in to handle the Fineman appeal. My father always spoke very highly of you.”

  “He was an excellent lawyer.” I mean it.

  He nods. “I was going to call you tonight.”

  “Not necessary,” I say.

  “It may be.” He pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket. “I found this phone number on a pad in my dad’s study on the night he died. It’s the number for the Shanghai Residential Hotel in Chinatown.”

  “And?”

  Mort’s eyes open wide. “Wendell Tsai used to live there,” he says.

  20/ SOMEBODY KNOWS WHERE WE LIVE

  Monday, July 13. 4:35 p.m.

  5 days, 7 hours, and 26 minutes until execution.

  An hour later, Pete and I are standing at the door to Wendell Tsai’s single-room apartment in a dilapidated tenement on Waverly Place, a lightless alley in the historical heart of Chinatown that runs parallel to Grant Avenue and extends two blocks from Sacramento to Washington. A century ago, Waverly was a commercial and residential hub. It was also the home of several bordellos, then known as parlor houses. The whorehouses are long gone, but the faded brick walk-ups with rusting ornamental grillwork are still crowded with low-income residents, most of whom speak only Chinese.

  The aroma of sweet spices wafts through the dim hallway as Pete raps on Tsai’s worn wooden door. “Mr. Tsai,” he says gently, “could we talk to you for a minute?”

  The door opens a crack. A slight man eyes us cautiously from behind large sunglasses. He’s dressed in a black polo shirt and gray polyester pants. “Sorry,” Tsai says in halting English. “I go to work.”

  Pete leans in front of the narrow opening. “This will just take a moment.”

  “Can’t help.”

  “We have some information about your brother. We just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  There is a hesitation before the door opens a little wider. Tsai quickly surmises that we’ll never make the list of America’s Most Intimidating People. “What you want?”

  “We’re sorry to trouble you,” Pete says. “We’re representing a man named Nathan Fineman. We’ve just taken over the case from Mr. Louis Cohen. I believe you may have spoken to Mr. Cohen.”

  Tsai freezes. “Eugene is dead,” he whispers.

  “We know. We’re very sorry.” Pete’s voice is soothing. “I hope Mr. Cohen explained to you that our client had nothing to do with your brother’s death.”

  Tsai nods.

  Pete lowers his voice to a whisper. “Mr. Cohen died on Friday. We’ve been asked to help with the final appeals for his client.”

  Tsai’s lips turn down, but he doesn’t reply.

  Pete tries again. “Would you mind telling us what you and Mr. Cohen talked about?”

  Silence.

  I invoke my priest voice. “Please, Mr. Tsai. This is a matter of life and death.”

  More silence.

  Pete steps closer to the door and plays a hunch. “Did someone threaten you, Mr. Tsai?”

  There’s a pause. “Someone break into my room,” he says.

  “When?”

  “Last Thursday.”

  Maybe it’s the same person who smashed the windows of our cars. “Did they take anything?” Pete asks.

  “Picture of Eugene.”

  My heart starts beating faster. “Mr. Tsai,” I say, “we want you to be safe. I’ve been a lawyer for more than twenty years. I have excellent contacts with the police. We can get you protection.”

  This elicits a cynical eye roll. “Police promise to protect Eugene.”

  “Things are different now.”

  “Not true.”

  Pete tries to reassure him. “A man named Carl Yee used to be a police officer in the neighborhood. He now owns a security firm. We’ll hire him to protect you.”

  “You pay?”

  “Absolutely,” I say.

  Again, no response.

  “Mr. Tsai,” I say, “it is very disturbing to me that somebody broke into your room. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Your brother was very brave. In his memory and in the interest of justice, I hope you’ll be willing to help us. We would like to find out who was responsible for killing your brother just as much as you would.”

  He hesitates for what feels like a full minute. Then he decides to open the door.

  # # #

  “Eugene was seventeen when we come here,” Tsai tells us. He’s sitting on a worn sofa in the dark room. The furnishings include a small Formica table, two card chairs, and a three-drawer dresser. The walls were painted off-white long ago. Now they’re dull gray. Across from the sofa are a noisy mini-refrigerator and a hot plate. The only hint of modern technology is a small TV with rabbit ears, which is tuned to a Chinese-language station. The bathroom is down the hall. The telephone is down the stairs. The laundry is down the street.

  Tsai tells us that he and his younger brother came to San Francisco from Taiwan with their father after their mother died. Two years later, their father was killed in an accident in the clothing factory where he worked as a janitor. His death left the brothers to fend for themselves. They shared the rent for this single room. Wendell found a job as a busboy at Brandy Ho’s restaurant. Eugene worked nights in the laundry at the Chinese Hospital.

  “Eugene very smart,” he says. He tells us that his brother took English classes during the day and worked at night. He used to walk home through the alley behind the Golden Dragon. He was only nineteen when he died.

  “Did Eugene talk to you about what happened in the alley on the night of the shootings at the Golden Dragon?” I ask.

  Tsai’s eyes dart over my left shoulder. “Yeah.”

  “Did he hear any shots?”

  “No.”

  “Did he see anyone?”

  Tsai looks down. “He see black man.”

  The mere presence of an African American man in an alley in Chinatown in the middle of the night is suspicious. “What was the man doing?”

  “Running.”

  “Where?”

  “Out of alley.”

  “When did your brother tell you about this?”

  “When he get home.”

  “Did he get a good look at the man?”

  “No. The man stop for just a second.”

  “I understand that Eugene talked to the police.”

  Tsai nods. “I tell him not to. Eugene do it anyway.”

  Which may have gotten him killed. “Did you go with your brother to the police station?”

  “No. Was working.”

  “Did the police show him any photos?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did he recognize anybody?”

  He shakes his head vigorously. “No.”

  Hell. “And he was killed two days later?”

  “Yeah.” His tone turns adamant. “Stabbed.”

  “And the police never found the man who killed him?”

  “No. Police said it was robbery. No witnesses.”

  “Do you think they were right?”

  “No. I think it was man from alley.”

  “How did he know that your brother had talked to the police?”

  His eyes narrow and his English becomes clearer. “No secrets in Chinatown.”

 
I would give anything to prove that Tsai saw Marshawn Bryant in the alley. “Did your brother walk home by himself on the night of the shootings at the Golden Dragon?”

  He’s becoming more engaged—as if he’s been waiting for the opportunity to tell his story. “No. He walk home with his friend. She live in apartment in the alley. She work at hospital, too.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “Jasmine Luk. Very pretty girl.”

  This could be huge. “Were they still together when Eugene saw the man in the alley?”

  He nods. “Yeah.”

  “Did Jasmine see him, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you ever talk to her about it?”

  “No.”

  Pete and I exchange a glance. “Did she talk to the police?”

  He scowls. “Don’t know.”

  Roosevelt never mentioned any of this. “Do you know where we can find her?”

  “No. She gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “Day after Eugene was killed. She got scared.”

  “Do you have any idea where she went?”

  “No. Maybe back to China. Hard to find her now.”

  We’re going to have to try.

  # # #

  “Did you get anything from Tsai?” Rosie asks.

  “His brother saw an African American man in the alley,” I tell her.

  I’m standing on the corner of Waverly and Washington at six o’clock on Monday night. Pete, Tsai, and I just finished a meeting with Carl Yee, who agreed to watch Tsai for the next week at a slight premium over his standard rates.

  “Any chance it might have been Bryant?” she asks.

  “He couldn’t make a positive ID.”

  “That isn’t going to get us to freestanding innocence.”

  “Tsai walked home with a young woman named Jasmine Luk, who also worked at the hospital. They were together when Tsai saw the man in the alley. She must have seen him, too.”

  “Did she talk to the cops?”

  “I don’t know. I put in a call to Roosevelt.”

  “Can you find her?”

  “Pete is already looking.”

  “So,” she says, “we just need to find a phantom woman who may or may not exist, and who may or may not be able to identify a man she may or may not have seen for a second or two in a dark alley on a rainy night ten years ago.”

  That covers it. “It may be our best chance,” I tell her.

  “At the moment, it may be our only chance,” she says.

  “I take it this means the news isn’t good on the appellate front?”

  “Correct. The California Supremes and the Ninth Circuit ruled against us on the papers we filed this morning. We’ll try the U.S. Supreme Court, but we aren’t going to win.”

  “How are you doing on the next round of petitions?”

  “They’ll be ready to file first thing in the morning.”

  “What are we going to talk about this time?”

  “I won’t know until I start writing our papers, Mike.”

  We’ll be having the same discussion every night for the next week. “When do we tell them about Jasmine Luk?” I ask.

  “Not yet. Let’s hold off until we see if we can find her.” She clears her throat. “There’s something else.”

  I can tell from her tone that something is wrong. I brace myself. “What now?”

  “My mother just called. A man in a UPS uniform rang our doorbell and Grace answered. She thought he was delivering handles for our kitchen cabinets. He wasn’t.”

  Uh-oh. “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But?”

  “Inside the package there was a photo of Grace and Jake that was taken in the last couple of days.”

  I can feel the back of my neck starting to burn. “Did she talk to him?”

  “No. He left the package and ran.”

  “Did she call the cops?”

  “Of course. They haven’t found anyone in the area.”

  “Was there a note?”

  “No, but the message is quite clear: somebody knows where we live.”

  21/ I’M GOING TO FIND OUT

  Monday, July 13. 6:45 p.m.

  5 days, 5 hours, and 16 minutes until execution.

  “Everything is going to be fine,” Roosevelt says to Grace. They’re sitting on the sofa in Rosie’s living room. The homicide inspector’s melodious voice is calming. He’s taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie. His arm rests on her shoulder. He’s the closest thing Grace has to a living grandfather.

  Our daughter is visibly glum. Her hands are shaking as she tugs nervously at the sleeves of a black Giants sweatshirt. “I should have called you sooner,” she tells him.

  Roosevelt hasn’t taken his eyes off her since he walked in the door. “You did everything you could, honey,” he says.

  “It wasn’t enough. I should have followed him.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have. There’s nothing you could have done, Grace. He may have been very dangerous. You did exactly the right thing.”

  “He’s still out there,” she says.

  “It’s my job to find him. In the meantime, I want you to be extra careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Can you describe him?” he asks.

  “I didn’t get a good look at him. He rang the bell and left the package outside the door. Grandma was in the bedroom with Tommy. I saw him for just an instant. African American. Wearing a UPS shirt and hat. Didn’t say anything. I’m sorry, Roosevelt.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, Grace.”

  It is unusual for a San Francisco homicide inspector to take a police report in Marin County. But Roosevelt isn’t a conventional cop. A Larkspur police officer is at his side. A sheriff’s car sits in the driveway. I expect a battalion of San Francisco cops in riot gear to show up at any moment.

  “How tall was he?” Roosevelt asks.

  “About six-two. Probably about two hundred pounds.”

  “What time was he here?”

  “A little over an hour ago.” She says she called Rosie first, her boyfriend second, the Larkspur police third, and Roosevelt last. I feel left out of the loop. The Larkspur cops arrived within minutes. Their search of the area turned up empty.

  “Do you think it was a real UPS driver?”

  “I doubt it. I didn’t see a truck and I didn’t hear one pull away.”

  The intruder undoubtedly had a car, which means he has a good head start. We have no idea what type of vehicle he was driving.

  Roosevelt strokes his chin and addresses all of us. “It is extremely important that each of you act with great caution,” he says. “I don’t have to tell you to be very careful. It’s obvious. Call me right away on my private cell phone if you see anything unusual––no matter what time it is. Understood?”

  We nod in unison.

  “The Larkspur police will have a squad car in your driveway. We are doing the same for Jake and his family. Furthermore, I am assigning a San Francisco police officer to watch this house. You will have twenty-four-hour protection until this matter is resolved.”

  Rosie is demonstrably agitated. “Do you have any idea who did this?”

  “I’m going to find out.” He turns and gives Grace a grandfatherly hug. “I need to talk to your parents for a few minutes, Gracie. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Is it okay if I call Jake?”

  “Sure,” Roosevelt says.

  She heads toward her bedroom. I turn to Roosevelt and struggle to keep my tone even. “We’re depending on you,” I say, feeling helpless and guilty that my family is now a target.

  “I’ve assigned my best people. They’ll take care of you.”

  I can feel my throat constrict. “Is it okay for Grace to talk to Jake?”

  “I’ve already talked to his parents. They understand the gravity of the situation. It’s
a bad idea not to let her talk to her boyfriend.”

  Probably true. “This isn’t just a coincidence,” I say.

  “It’s obvious that somebody is trying to distract you from the Fineman case.”

  “They’re trying to do more than that.”

  He turns to Rosie. “Call me right away if Grace says anything else about the man who delivered that package.”

  “I will. I don’t want our daughter to be caught in the middle of this exercise.”

  Roosevelt sighs. “I’m afraid she already is.”

  “Should we take her away until this case is over?” I ask.

  It’s Rosie who answers. “I’m not going to let somebody chase me out of my own house.”

  Roosevelt agrees. “We’ll have plenty of cops outside. You’ll be fine if you’re careful.”

  I hope so.

  He examines the grainy Polaroid taken of Grace and Jake as they were walking in front of Rosie’s house. It’s been carefully placed inside a clear plastic evidence baggie and tagged. “We won’t find any prints on this photo,” he says. “You may want to hire somebody for backup.”

  Pete is already on the phone with one of his best operatives.

  Roosevelt addresses Rosie. “I’m going to arrange for an escort for you, too. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks, Roosevelt.”

  # # #

  Roosevelt and I are standing outside on Rosie’s front porch a few minutes later. “I talked to Eugene Tsai’s brother,” I tell him. “I understand Eugene saw an African American man in the alley behind the Golden Dragon shortly after the shootings.”

  “He did, but he couldn’t identify him.”

  “I take it this means you couldn’t identify him, either?”

  “Correct.”

  “It could have been Marshawn Bryant,” I say.

  “Bryant had an alibi.”

  “From his girlfriend.”

  “There was no way to refute it.”

  “You didn’t try very hard.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why are you being so defensive?”

  “I did everything I could, Mike.”

  It wasn’t enough. “Did you ever talk to a young woman named Jasmine Luk?”