Shallow Grave

by Brian Thiem

  Braddock showed him a six-pack, a photo lineup of six white males.

  “That’s him. Number four.”

  Sinclair looked down at his notebook so Tiny couldn’t read his face. He wrote in his notes that Tiny just identified Preston Yates. Braddock had him sign the back of the photo and calmly placed another six-pack in front of him.

  “The lady is number three,” Tiny said.

  Braddock asked him to sign the back of Rosina Lopez’s photograph. “Anyone else?” she asked.

  “There were other people in the house looking out the window and two on the back deck watching us.”

  “What race were they?”

  “It was too far away to be sure, but white, I think. Most people who live up there are white.”

  “What happened next?”

  “The man starts giving orders. Tells me to back my van into the driveway and load up the body. I start thinking this should be worth something, so I ask what’s in it for me. The man looks at me funny, like I should just be taking out the garbage for him or something. I get back in my van, make like I’m leaving.”

  “Nice negotiation strategy,” Braddock said. “What did they do?”

  “Shane begs me to come back. Then the Mexican lady says she’ll give us a thousand dollars.”

  “What’s Shane doing now?”

  “He’s just standing there all nervous and shit. I tell the lady a thousand each. She starts to say something, but the man says one thousand each is fine. He wants us to get a boat, wrap the dead dude in chains, and throw him out in the bay. Me and Shane look at him like he’s crazy. Like he’s been watching too many gangster movies.”

  “What happened next?”

  “He said we could bury the body someplace that nobody could ever find it. Said he tried to work the officer’s phone, but it had a password. He took the card from the officer’s camera already but was afraid there might be stuff still on it, so he wanted us to throw the phone and camera in the bay, then take the body and bury it with his gun, badge, and everything.”

  “But you kept the gun and badge,” Braddock said.

  “Insurance, in case the man didn’t pay Shane the two Gs.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Shane picks up the feet, I grab under his arms, and we carry him to the van. I see hella blood coming from his head. Said I ain’t getting blood all over my van. The lady goes in the house, comes back with garbage bags. The white man said to put him in the bags. But a man won’t fit in a garbage bag. Me and Shane say all we gotta do is cover up where he’s bleeding. Shane sits him up. Me and the man pull a garbage bag over his head, tie it around his waist. Then we put him in the van.”

  “If he was still alive, that would’ve suffocated him, huh?” Braddock said.

  Tiny looked at Braddock, puzzled. “Yeah, but he was already dead.”

  Braddock wisely didn’t pursue that line of questioning further. “What did you do then?”

  “We drive to Lake Merritt, me in the van, Shane driving the officers’ car. We throw the phone and camera in the water.”

  “Where at Lake Merritt?”

  “Over by Grand where the big columns are.”

  “What did you do next?”

  Tiny described how they drove into the Oakland Hills looking for a place to bury the body. They saw the road off Skyline Drive leading to the PAL camp. Not knowing what it was other than it being deserted, they carried and dragged the body off the road and dug a hole. After about two or three feet, the soil became too rocky, so they quit, put the body in the shallow grave, and covered it over.

  From there, they went to the bar where the Simbas were celebrating Animal’s birthday. Animal was drunk and angry about what’d happened, not only because Shane killed a cop, which could draw heat on the club, but because it likely ruined the plans for his security company. Animal continued to berate Shane, saying he was stupid and put the club at risk. After a few minutes of being insulted, Shane punched Animal in the face. Animal shot him. Afraid that he’d be next, Tiny left. Two days later, he picked up Phil’s car from where they left it by the lake, drove it to West Oakland, and torched it.

  When he finished, Braddock nodded to Sinclair. He asked, “Have you seen or had any contact with that white man or the Hispanic woman after that night?”

  “I wanted my money, but that shit was too crazy. Shane was dead. I didn’t want to be next, so I let it go.”

  “Where’s your van?”

  “I parked it on the next street over, Olive.”

  “We need to examine it for evidence to verify what you told us,” Sinclair said.

  “You got my keys.”

  “Who have you talked to about all this?”

  “No one. I couldn’t talk to Animal; the police arrested him for killing Shane. I was gonna talk to Pops. Figure the prez would know what to do, but then I figured if he wanted to talk to me, he’d let me know. So I just forgot it all. Like it never happened.”

  “I have no further questions,” Sinclair said for the recording and Braddock.

  “I told you the truth,” Tiny said. “Can I go home now?”

  “Not yet, Tiny,” Braddock said. “We’ll let you know once we check a few things out.”

  Sinclair and Braddock calmly left the room and closed the door. Once outside, they gave each other a high five.

  Chapter 55

  Sinclair drained his second cup of coffee as the recording ended. He looked across the conference room table at Archard, Uppy, and the AUSA who was brought in to evaluate it. “What do you think?” Archard asked.

  The AUSA said, “It’s not the kind of case I like, but we could charge Tiny federally with murdering an agent. By putting the bag over Roberts’s head, he killed him. The fact that he thought he was already dead is irrelevant. We have his confession, and there’s plenty of evidence to corroborate it.” He looked at Sinclair and Braddock and said, “I’m sure your DA would charge him with murder too, if that’s the route we want to take.”

  “What about Yates?” Archard asked the attorney.

  “We have one coconspirator naming another. We could possibly make this work in federal court if we gave Tiny a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony. We have plenty of corroborating evidence—all circumstantial by itself—but combined with Tiny’s testimony, it might be enough. Depends on the jury. However, we didn’t do all this work to prosecute Yates for something best handled in state courts. Sergeant Sinclair probably knows better than I whether his DA would file on Yates.”

  “Not with what we have,” Sinclair said. “I wouldn’t even take it to a DA. One witness, who can only testify to what Yates said, isn’t enough, especially when he’s also a defendant in the murder. If we hit Kozlov’s house with a warrant and find blood, a shell casing, and other evidence, it might help. Maybe we’ll find someone who saw or heard something if we canvass the neighborhood.”

  “I’m not usually the pessimist,” Braddock said. “But I agree with Matt. An Alameda County DA won’t charge Yates with what we have.”

  “You have enough to arrest him on probable cause,” the AUSA said. “You could also arrest Ms. Lopez and try to get a confession or play one against the other.”

  “I interviewed Lopez already, and she lawyered up,” Sinclair said. “I’ve also dealt with Yates. There’s no way he’ll confess.”

  “Has there been any discussion about the murder over the wire?” the AUSA asked.

  Archard shook her head. “There’s been no reason for Yates or Kozlov to talk about it. They probably believe they cleaned it up. I’ll bet Yates will be shocked to find out he helped kill a man by putting a bag over his head.”

  “Does anyone know where Kozlov and Yates are right now?” Sinclair asked.

  Archard set her phone to speaker. “Location and status of your target?” she asked.

  “Still in his office,” a male voice replied. “He normally leaves around seven.”

  She called another number and asked the s
ame question. A female voice said, “Just left the mayor’s office and entered the council chambers for the rules and legislation committee meeting. By the way, Yates was invited to use the mayor’s office while he’s out for minor surgery this week.”

  “Copy that,” Archard said. “We’ll get up on the landline in the mayor’s office. Any idea how long the committee meeting lasts?”

  “Between an hour or two normally.”

  Archard hung up and looked at Sinclair.

  “I have an idea,” Sinclair said. “It’ll sound crazy, but it just might work.”

  *

  Sinclair pushed open the massive door to the city council chambers. Behind the semicircular dais at the front of the ornate room sat the five council members who composed the rules and legislature committee. About thirty people sat in the audience, a tiny crowd compared to a regular city council meeting. A woman dressed in a colorful flowing dress stood behind a podium at the front of the public area of the room addressing the committee about proposed legislature for a public housing project in the San Antonio district. As the committee chairperson, Preston Yates sat in the center of the dais, paying more attention to a computer screen in front of him than to the speaker.

  Sinclair stood against the back wall for a moment. When the speaker finished and thanked the committee for hearing her statement, Sinclair staggered up the center aisle toward the podium. “I have a statement to make,” he yelled as he approached the polished wood table.

  A woman sitting at the side of the dais behind a sign that read City Clerk pulled her microphone to her lips and said, “Sir, you need to submit a speaker card and be recognized.”

  Sinclair grabbed the podium with both hands and spoke into the microphone. “I’ll just be a minute,” he slurred. “I came here to talk to Preston Yates.”

  “Sir,” Yates said into his microphone, “you are out of order and must immediately vacate the council chambers.”

  “It’s you who’s out of order!” Sinclair shouted. “And I’m going to take you down for murdering Sergeant Roberts if it’s the last thing I do. You tried to kill his source in Hilton Head. But I was there, and she’s alive.”

  “If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll order you escorted out!” Yates shouted.

  “Roberts was shot at your buddy Kozlov’s house. Instead of calling paramedics, you ordered your goons to dispose of his body. But he wasn’t dead. Until you pulled a garbage bag over his head.” Sinclair swayed back and forth. “That’s right. The cause of death was suffocation. You murdered him.”

  Mouths of the other councilmembers gaped open. They stared at Yates wide-eyed.

  Yates screamed, “This man is drunk and a liar. Remove him immediately.”

  Sinclair glanced over his shoulder as Braddock and a uniformed OPD officer approached him. The officer grabbed him by one arm, and Braddock grabbed the other. They spun him around and escorted him from the podium.

  “You won’t get away with it,” Sinclair shouted on his way out the door.

  Chapter 56

  Once they were outside, Braddock said to the officer escorting Sinclair, “Thanks, Bill.”

  Sinclair winked at the young officer and hustled down the stairs alongside Braddock.

  Ten minutes later, they rushed into the task force headquarters. About forty men and women wearing nylon raid jackets emblazoned with FBI and other federal agencies’ three-letter designations mingled around the front of the main room. They pointed toward the wire room’s door. Sinclair and Braddock stepped inside.

  Archard, Uppy, Campbell, and four other members of the task force stood behind the two agents wearing headphones. “I heard it was an award-winning performance,” Campbell said.

  “Has it stirred up anything?” Sinclair asked.

  “Our agent in the audience reported the committee took a recess, and when they came back a minute ago, Yates announced he was postponing the remainder of the meeting until next week,” Archard said. “Yates just entered the mayor’s office with Lopez. Our team on Kozlov says he hasn’t left his office.”

  “I have an outgoing call from Yates’s cell,” one of the agents wearing earphones said.

  “I have an incoming call,” said the other agent. “Into Kozlov’s private business line.”

  “Put it on speaker,” Archard ordered.

  YATES: Sergio, I think we have a problem.

  KOZLOV: What now?

  YATES: Sinclair just came into a public meeting intoxicated, mentioning your name and saying I killed Sergeant Roberts.

  KOZLOV: The ramblings of a drunk. So what?

  YATES: He knows Roberts was shot at your house. He knows we put the body in a garbage bag.

  KOZLOV: We? I recall you were the one who pulled the bag over him.

  YATES: That damn fat biker trash didn’t want blood in his old van.

  KOZLOV: Maybe Sinclair was just guessing about this.

  YATES: He said Roberts was still alive after the shot to his head.

  KOZLOV: You said he was dead.

  YATES: My driver told me he was.

  KOZLOV: You didn’t check? Now you’re telling me you ordered a man buried alive?

  YATES: It was your idea to move the body. You’re so paranoid about the police knowing your business. This isn’t Russia, Sergio. There’s no KGB here.

  KOZLOV: And you assured me your police chief could contain anything Sergeant Roberts discovered.

  YATES: The chief told me Roberts had nothing in his office files about us. I’ll have him get the autopsy report. Sinclair might be lying about Roberts surviving the gunshot.

  KOZLOV: But Sinclair knew about my house.

  YATES: Maybe he found the missing biker.

  KOZLOV: I thought you had that handled.

  YATES: The lawyer you hired for Mr. Clement is having the motorcycle club locate the biker so he can be reminded to keep his mouth shut.

  KOZLOV: If he talks to the police, he needs to be handled.

  YATES: Like you handled that girl who used to work for you?

  KOZLOV: You should watch your tone, mister city councilman. I will take care of my house, but you need to get yours in order. What will you do about that homicide detective?

  YATES: I had the chief suspend him, but Sinclair doesn’t know how to obey orders. I can have the chief arrest him for that outburst tonight—drunk and disorderly, or something like that.

  KOZLOV: You do that. And have your police chief announce publicly that the detective was drunk and everything he ranted about was a pack of lies.

  YATES: Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow.

  KOZLOV: With good news. No more problems.

  They both hung up, and the computer speakers emitted a low buzz.

  Everyone in the room was smiling. Even Sinclair.

  “Should we call your DA and see if this is enough to arrest Yates for murder?” Campbell asked.

  “That’s an advantage of being a local cop,” Sinclair said. “Unlike my federal friends who need permission from lawyers to tie their shoes, we can make those decisions ourselves.”

  “Touché, Sergeant,” Campbell said. “You earned this. My office will talk with your DA tomorrow and work out the prosecution details.” He turned to Archard. “Are you ready to go?”

  Archard stepped into the main office and cleared her throat. “You’ve all been briefed as to your assignments. We’ll execute at nineteen hundred hours. I will accompany the team at Kozlov’s office. Those hitting his house, make sure you call OPD to process the murder scene once you secure it. Sergeant Braddock from OPD will take custody of Yates. Transport everyone else to the Oakland office for interviews and processing. Questions?”

  A man Sinclair recognized as a special agent with the criminal division of the IRS raised his hand. “We have all the court orders to freeze the designated accounts at all financial institutions ready to go out electronically. Who’ll give the order to transmit?”

  “Send at seven o’clock unless you hear from me otherwise,”
Archard said, then turned back to the others. “We have about thirty minutes, so let’s get to our staging locations.”

  Chapter 57

  Sinclair led the team up a side staircase to the rotunda. Braddock and Uppy were behind him, followed by five FBI agents. US Attorney Campbell and an AUSA brought up the rear. Everyone was in raid jackets except for the lawyers—Braddock’s was marked OPD, the others FBI. They bypassed the grand entrance to the council chambers at the top of the marble staircase, turned left, and pushed through doors to the mayor’s outside office. An unarmed security guard got up from his chair.

  “Is Councilman Yates in the office?” Sinclair asked.

  The guard nodded but made no effort to stop them. Sinclair pushed the double doors open with Braddock at his side, followed by the rest of the team.

  Yates was sitting behind the mayor’s massive mahogany desk. Lopez stood behind him. The wire room had warned Sinclair that Yates’s second phone call was to Chief Brown, ordering him to report immediately to the mayor’s office, so he wasn’t surprised to see him sitting in one of the chairs across from the desk.

  “FBI—search warrant,” Uppy yelled. “Don’t anyone move.”

  Sinclair and Braddock stepped behind the mayor’s desk. “Mr. Yates,” Sinclair said, “as a special deputy US marshal assigned to a federal corruption task force, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Phil Roberts, an Oakland police sergeant assigned to a federal task force.”

  Sinclair grabbed Yates by the shirt, pulled him from the chair, and spun him around. “Hands behind your back,” he ordered.

  As Sinclair handcuffed him, Braddock added, “And I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Sergeant Roberts, a violation of section one-eighty-seven of the California penal code.”

  Sinclair dragged Yates away from the desk.

  Braddock said to Lopez, “Stand and put your hands behind your back.” Braddock handcuffed her and said, “Same charges—murder under both state and federal statutes.”

  Sinclair looked at Brown’s face for the first time since entering. His lips were turned up in a slight smile, as if he knew he’d gotten away with it.