by Brian Thiem
“Why is she worried Eastman Security might win the city contract?” Sinclair asked.
“In a perfect world, it would be because they’re the best and least expensive company for the job. But this is Oakland, so you need to look at the people who make up the company and find out who’s connected to someone in the contracting and purchasing department or the city councilmembers who will control the voting bloc next year.”
Chapter 20
After researching SFBay Security and Hattie Armstrong, Sinclair and Braddock walked two blocks to SFBay Security’s office, located in one of the restored Victorian buildings between the PAB and City Hall. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls separated Armstrong’s private office from the outer room that contained six workstations, half of which were occupied.
Her driver’s license information showed her to be fifty-eight, five foot six, and one hundred sixty pounds. Stuffed into a black knee-length skirt and white blouse with ruffles, she looked like two pounds of sausage in a one-pound casing. “I never imagined Chief Brown would send two of his detectives so quickly,” she said.
She offered them chairs at a round conference table in the corner of her office and slowly lowered herself into one of the chairs. Sinclair recognized the play of showing your visitors they were equals by leaving your desk and sitting with them. He felt the need to make it clear she didn’t have the power to pick up the phone and have two detectives summoned to her office. “We work homicide, Ms. Armstrong. If you have information about a murder, we’re interested.”
“No Ms. for me, sergeants. I’m proud to be a married woman, so call me Mrs. Armstrong, or better yet, Hattie.”
“Very well, Mrs. Armstrong,” Sinclair said. “What can you tell us?”
“The gentleman who killed the young man in the bar, Reginald Clement, is a member of the Savage Simbas gang, and he not only works as a security guard for Eastman security but also is one of the owners.”
“The state private patrol license says Silas Eastman is the owner.”
“Do you think the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services would approve a licensee who was in their organized crime files as a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang?” she asked.
“I’m just a homicide investigator,” Sinclair said. “You probably know more about that than I do. How do you know Mr. Clement is an owner?”
“Just like police officers, good security officers are trained observers and listeners. They need to be to prevent crime at places like City Hall. They also pick up other tidbits of information. If you were to go to City Hall and look at the city business permits, you might find Mr. Clement’s name on the business permit for Eastman Security, along with a young lady named Tina Freeman.”
“Who is Tina Freeman?” Sinclair asked.
“I’m surprised that name doesn’t mean anything to you.” She sat up straight in her chair and pulled her shoulders back. “She’s what bikers call an old lady. She’s the old lady of Pops, the president of the Savage Simbas.”
Sinclair let it sink in for a moment. It was interesting, but his first thought was, So what? Although Mrs. Armstrong was trying to paint all members of the SSMC with a broad criminal brush for being a member of the club, the truth was most of the members, according to Fletcher, had regular jobs, and few had criminal records. That didn’t mean they weren’t involved in illegal activity. Law enforcement agencies suspected most motorcycle gangs were involved in drugs, guns, or other criminal activity in one way or another. But unless they could show club members had committed crimes, they couldn’t prevent them from working as security guards or even owning the company.
“Interesting piece of information,” Sinclair said, “but how’s that connected to the murder?”
“I don’t want to spread gossip. It would be very unprofessional, but you must assume my people hear a great deal of the goings-on at City Hall. Suffice it to say, Eastman Security is up to no good.”
“I appreciate your assessment, but we need to make conclusions based on facts,” Sinclair said. “I can’t rely on rumors and hearsay. I need to talk directly to people who know something firsthand.”
“You know that’s not possible,” she said. “I can’t say where this information came from. Even though he’s employed by my company, he works for the mayor, and anything he sees or hears is privileged information, just like the Secret Service with the president.”
*
“Did you know that the Oakland mayor was once assigned a police officer as his driver?” Charley James asked Sinclair and Braddock as they once again sat in the guest chairs across from his desk.
Sinclair didn’t want another Oakland politics 101 lesson. He already felt like an errand boy who’d been sent out to pick up a message, only to return and sit before his master and await his next task. James could’ve given him all the information he’d uncovered and the necessary background, especially the key fact that the mayor’s driver worked for Armstrong’s security company as a bodyguard with one of the very few concealed weapon permits the police chief handed out.
Sinclair shrugged, and James continued. “As long as anyone can recall, the department has assigned a police officer to drive the mayor. In the old days, he wore a uniform and drove the mayor in a marked car. I think the title might’ve even been chauffer. About the time of President Kennedy’s assassination, the department realized those duties needed to include more than just driving. The officer was trained in protective service and began dressing in plain clothes. It was a very coveted job for an officer even when I came on in the mideighties. The officer had a brand-new unmarked car, his own desk right outside the mayor’s office, and unlimited overtime. Even the police chief knew not to screw with the officer who had the mayor’s ear. The officer usually picked the mayor up at his house in the morning, brought him to City Hall, and sat outside his office all day. If he went to a meeting, the driver took him. After city council meetings or social affairs, which the driver accompanied him to, he took him home. Fourteen-hour days were common.”
“Sounds more like being an aide than personal security,” Sinclair said.
“I’m sure that was part of the job. The last officer we had in that assignment was when Mayor Lionel Wilson was in office. I believe the officer’s title was City Hall security, but he was the mayor’s personal security officer and driver. When Elihu Harris was elected mayor in the early nineties, he wasn’t comfortable with the cozy relationship Wilson had with a member of the police department. Harris had been a member of the state assembly for years and wasn’t known for being pro–law enforcement to say the least.”
“So he didn’t want a cop with him who might report back to the police chief about what he said and did,” Sinclair said.
“It was a reasonable fear. Although the officers assigned to the mayor were expected to maintain confidence, they still worked for OPD, so I wouldn’t be surprised if information useful to the chief got back to him a time or two. Mayor Harris had such bad eyesight, he was legally blind. Since he couldn’t drive, he’d had a driver of his own for years. In addition, there were rumors—rumors only, mind you—that Harris had a number of female acquaintances he liked to visit at night, some of whom had a fondness for certain illegal substances.”
“That would’ve put an officer in an awkward position,” Braddock said.
“Damn straight. Knowing of his reputation, the chief didn’t object when the city manager suggested the city authorize a civilian position of driver to the mayor’s office and allowed the mayor to appoint whoever he wanted without regard to civil service hiring rules.”
“When did these clowns start toting a gun?” Sinclair asked.
“At some point, the chief at the time issued Harris’s driver a concealed carry permit. That was like twenty-five years ago. When Jerry Brown was elected mayor eight years later, everything changed.”
Jerry Brown was the mayor when Sinclair came on OPD. While previous mayors were mostly ceremonial and had little more authority than other ci
ty councilmembers, Brown was the first strong mayor. The city charter changed from a council/city manager form of government to one where the mayor was the chief executive instead of the city manager. Brown was a very hands-on mayor and a frequent sight around the PAB and local watering holes that were popular with cops. “I hear he didn’t take no for an answer very well,” Sinclair said.
“Right, so when he wanted Jacques, whatever the hell his last name was, to get a concealed weapon permit, the chief said, ‘Yes, sir.’ No one even knew what Jacques’s position was in City Hall, but everyone knew the crazy Frenchman had been Brown’s confidant and sort of aide-de-camp since the seventies, so no one messed with him. After Brown, the mayors’ drivers were either city employees, part of the mayor’s personal staff, or paid by the city as part of the City Hall security contract. Whoever it was got a concealed weapon permit, signed by the chief.”
“And the current driver?” Sinclair asked.
“He’s on SFBay Security’s payroll. Rumor has it, he’s a personal friend of Armstrong and totally loyal to both her and the mayor.”
“It sounds as if Hattie is a lot more than merely one of many company owners doing business with the city,” Braddock said.
“It’s been said that whoever controls the palace guards knows the secrets of the kingdom,” James said. “I doubt Hattie was expecting the mayor to end up with medical problems and leave after one term. The mayor, like anyone in a position of power, made enemies, and some of those will see his supporters as a threat. I’m sure Hattie’s feeling vulnerable.”
“And whoever becomes the next mayor might be able to influence the process and bring in his own security company,” Sinclair said.
“Ahh, you now see the big picture,” James said. “By the way, I asked the chief about D-eighty-four, without mentioning you, of course. He said it was nothing I needed to be concerned with.”
“In other words, he wasn’t about to tell you shit,” Sinclair said.
James grinned and dropped his eyes to the stack of papers on his desk, signaling their meeting was over. They left through James’s administrative assistant’s office, and Sinclair was about to step into the hallway that led to the elevators when Braddock stopped dead in her tracks and raised her arm to stop him. Standing in front of the desk of Chief Brown’s executive assistant were FBI Supervisory Special Agent Linda Archard and US Attorney Jack Campbell. A moment later, Chief Brown met them at his office door and escorted them inside.
Chapter 21
The sight of San Francisco’s skyline on the approach from the Bay Bridge never failed to amaze Sinclair no matter how many hundreds of times he had driven into the city. To his left, the Transamerica Pyramid jutted 853 feet into the sky. To his right, a cluster of more traditional buildings, topped by 555 California Street with its fifty-two floors of prime office space, looked as if they rose from the waters of the San Francisco Bay.
They’d been traveling in silence for most of the drive. Braddock had voiced her objections to his plan, but eventually, she acquiesced. It was the next logical step. All the evidence pointed in this direction. The person who absolutely knew who killed Phil, Shane Gibbs, was dead. Sinclair suspected Animal killed him over something having to do with Phil’s murder, but Animal lawyered up and wouldn’t be talking. If Tiny hadn’t gotten away after the crazy motorcycle chase, he might’ve been able to shed some light on the murder, but Sinclair couldn’t sit on his ass waiting for him to be caught. Pops, the SSMC president, had already told Jankowski to shove it when they tried to interview him, and it was futile to try to talk to him again unless they had a hammer over him to induce him to talk. Even then, Pops might not know anything about Phil’s murder.
If Animal was supposed to have been working security for Maureen Yates the night Phil was killed, she could tell Sinclair what kind of work he was doing for her and why he didn’t show up. It might have some connection to Phil. Assistant Chief James was nudging Sinclair in this direction. The fact that SFBay Security was worried about Eastman Security grabbing their lucrative city contract and Animal was working an Eastman security job for Maureen Yates, the wife of the likely new mayor, wasn’t lost on him. Although Sinclair didn’t believe Phil was murdered over something as minor as a security contract with the city, he’d seen his share of senseless killings in Oakland over much less.
The sight of Archard and Campbell entering the chief’s office had caused his stomach to twist in his gut. The last he saw them was when he’d been lying in a hospital bed after nearly being blown to bits at the Caldecott Academy last December. Archard was a mystery to him. She first appeared when Sinclair had done the escort service sting. It had been obvious that she and Phil had been working together for a while, but she didn’t work gangs for the FBI as Phil claimed. Sinclair had talked to the gang units at every Bay Area police department, and none had heard of her. The US attorney for Northern California was an important man—a presidential appointee with enormous power. If he wanted to talk to Oakland’s police chief, he could summon him to his palatial office in San Francisco’s federal courthouse. Him going to the police chief’s office made no sense. Although Campbell had congratulated him as he lay in the hospital bed last year, Sinclair remembered vividly Campbell’s warning a few days earlier to back off from his pursuit of the escort service angle. Warning? No, it was without question a threat.
Braddock understood as well as he did that they were headed into the same career-ending rabbit hole as before, only deeper. They both wondered if James would rescue them if they went too far or if he would merely kick dirt over their graves. Although Braddock had suggested they bring Maloney in on what they were doing, they both knew this had gone well above the lieutenant’s level. All Maloney could do was stop them himself or pass it up the chain of command for permission, which would never be granted. It was best to keep him out of it, if for no other reason than him maybe surviving the shitstorm they were about to start if Maureen Yates decided to call the chief.
Sinclair parked their Crown Vic in a yellow zone on the side of the glass-and-steel office building, hung the radio mic from the mirror, and placed his business card on the dash. Posters of ad campaigns for Wells Fargo Bank, Bechtel Construction, Del Monte Foods, Gap, and Pottery Barn adorned the walls of the lobby of Yates Associates. When the receptionist told them Mrs. Yates never sees people without an appointment, Sinclair insisted she tell her Sergeants Sinclair and Braddock needed to talk to her about a series of murders. Five minutes later, a tall, thin woman dressed in khaki pants and a cotton sweater guided them past open workstations interspersed with conference tables to a glass-walled corner office.
Maureen Yates came around her desk, a huge plate-glass table with two oversized computer monitors on one side and piles of papers, photos, and posters covering the rest. Although Sinclair’s research showed she was ten years older than Preston’s forty years, she looked even older. She had a small chest, wide hips, and a long face with shallow cheeks. Her hair hung limply to her shoulders, looking as if someone had tried to either add body to her straight hair or straighten her curly hair.
“What a pleasant surprise,” she said in a flat voice. “Every time I think of your heroic actions at that school in Oakland, I get goose bumps.”
“Thanks for seeing us,” Sinclair said.
“I wish you would’ve called first.”
Sure she did, so she could be unavailable or have time to prepare herself for their questions. “Homicide cases move so fast, it’s easier for us to just pop in on people and hope they can make time for us.” Sinclair smiled.
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Water?”
The offer was an indication she didn’t intend to rush them off in a minute or two. “Coffee would be great,” he replied.
She waved to someone outside her office and then shuffled them to a circle of teal upholstered chairs in one corner. She grabbed a chair by the window. Sinclair and Braddock sat on either side of her. “Preston talks of you freq
uently. He’s quite enamored by you, Sergeant Sinclair. He also speaks quite highly of you, Sergeant Braddock.”
Sinclair wanted to laugh aloud. Her husband hated his guts because he wanted to unveil all of Yates’s secrets for the voting public to see. “We got very lucky during that situation,” Sinclair said.
“I think more than luck was involved. You saved numerous lives, and Preston and the rest of the city are forever in your debt.”
A slender thirtysomething man dressed in dark slacks and polo shirt brought in two mugs of coffee and an assortment of sweeteners and creamers. Braddock began picking through the packets while Sinclair took a sip of his coffee. “How goes your husband’s campaign?” Sinclair prompted.
“I’m happy to say there isn’t much campaigning left to do. Our latest poll shows he has over fifty percent of the votes and the next closest rival is under twenty.”
“Wow, his campaign contributors must be happy.”
“Preston has many supporters in Oakland and on this side of the bay. They’d all be glad to donate more money if it was necessary, but yes, I’m sure they’re pleased to not have to.”
Maureen glanced toward Braddock, who had finally doctored her coffee to her liking. “I doubt you came here to discuss my husband’s mayoral campaign.”
“We’re investigating the murder of a motorcycle club member by the name of Shane Gibbs,” Sinclair said. “He was killed Monday night by another member, named Reggie Clement.”
Maureen twisted the cap off a water bottle and took a gulp. “I’ve heard.”
“Clement also worked security for Eastman Security Company,” he said.
She took another gulp of water.
Sinclair continued, “He worked a security account that was in your name.”