by Steven Gore
“If I understand you,” McMullin said, “you suspect Camacho went after Mark Hamlin after he figured out the rolling scheme.”
Donnally nodded. “I don’t believe Camacho is as stupid as he wanted to sound today. The only reason he talked to me was because he thought he’d look guilty of the homicide if he didn’t. He’s a tough guy. He’d never want to be taken advantage of, and Hamlin’s stunt cost him everything he owns except his restaurant, and may cost him his life when Rafa figures out that Camacho set him up.”
The judge leaned forward in his wing chair and rested his forearms on his thighs. “How many bodies has Camacho left behind him in his life?”
“Before he went to the pen? Four, maybe five.”
“And now two more?”
“He puts a rope around Hamlin’s neck, gets him to confirm what he suspects about how the dominoes fell, then he goes after Lange. Camacho had a lookout on the corner and was armed when I went into his restaurant, as though he was waiting for Rafa to reach out from jail and send someone to blow his brains out.”
The judge sat back with kind of a body sigh, like he’d struggled over a crossword puzzle and had given up. “The problem is I don’t see enough probable cause for an arrest, or even a search warrant for Camacho’s house and business.”
“We also need biological evidence. We found two hairs in Hamlin’s bathroom that the forensic people say weren’t his.”
Judge McMullin paused and his brows furrowed. He repeated the word “dominoes,” and then asked, “How long do you think Hamlin was doing this, setting up one client to roll on another?”
“I don’t know.” Donnally looked the judge straight in the eye. He recognized the impact his next words would have. “But I know who does. The Assistant U.S. Attorney who handled these cases and negotiated the deals with Hamlin.”
The judge looked down shaking his head, and then exhaled. “Jeez.” He looked up. “Bet you wish you were up in Mount Shasta flipping burgers.” He didn’t wait for a response. “I know I wish I was. You think the cable news channels made a big deal about Hamlin’s death? Wait until they get ahold of this one. I’m not sure there’s any worse kind of violation of a defense attorney’s oath than to betray a client or any more outrageous governmental misconduct than a prosecutor conspiring with the defense attorney doing it.”
Donnally knew the judge’s choice of the words “outrageous governmental misconduct” wasn’t just chance. The phrase was etched into the law. And it was a sign that marked one of those gaps between the ideal of justice from its practice that the judge had viewed as his duty to mend from the moment he was appointed to the bench.
Dismissals and reversals were the prescribed remedies for this kind of wrongdoing, and there was no flourish of legal language in which to disguise it.
Just the opposite. In the idiom of the law trade, it was a bell that couldn’t be un-rung.
Donnally knew both he and the judge were wondering the same things. How many clients had been set up by Hamlin and Hancock with the complicity of the U.S. Attorney’s office and how many dismissals and reversals there would be.
“The longer I delay acting on this,” the judge said, “the greater the risk it will look like I’m a coconspirator, getting the last ounce of flesh from the defendants before their cases get tossed. Even worse, defendants are deciding right now whether to cooperate and to risk getting their brains blown out or to plead guilty and do their time, and some are already serving prison sentences.”
Donnally thought of Little Bud hanging in his cell. Even if he could prove Hamlin had used another client to roll on him, it was way too late for a reversal to do Little Bud any good.
There’s no coming back from dead.
“You need to wrap this up,” Judge McMullin said. “I’m not sure how long I can sit on this kind of thing.”
Ryvver. That flake. That’s what Camacho had called her. But without her, Donnally couldn’t reach probable cause to go after him.
She’d gone running to Camacho after she figured out the rolling scheme, having put together stories she’d heard from Lange and things she’d seen in his files about how Little Bud and Camacho and all the others had been set up.
That flaky throwback hippie chick.
Donnally imagined Ryvver had hid out in an apartment in the avenues, pacing the floor, twisting her hands and biting her nails, imagining Camacho and his guys tying Hamlin to a chair, slapping him around—it never crossed her don’t-pick-a-flower-for-fear-of-hurting-a-plant mind they’d actually kill him.
And now she was hiding out again, pacing and twisting and biting, an unwitting coconspirator in a murder, facing a choice of going down on a homicide conspiracy or rolling on Camacho and running for the rest of her life.
Donnally thought of Mother Number Two sitting outside, parked along the tree-lined street, watching the judge’s door and Donnally’s truck. So far, he didn’t think there was any harm in her following him. The newspapers had said he’d be reporting to the judge. His visit wouldn’t mean anything special to her now. But eventually it would and he’d be facing a mama bear again.
“I need to bring Navarro in on this,” Donnally said. “It’s no longer a one-man job. We need to figure out where Ryvver is. We need to lean on some of Camacho’s people to get them to roll on him, at least enough so we can get a search warrant. We need to go to LA and talk to Reggie Hancock. For all we know there are other crooks out there besides Camacho who figured out what happened and wanted to put a noose around Hamlin’s neck.” He took a breath. “And there are other leads we need to follow. Some Vietnamese guy stuck a gun in my back wanting money he said Hamlin had, and a biker was threatening Hamlin because of cash he took out of a crime scene, and the family of a homicide victim and the victims of a walkway collapse also wanted a piece of him.”
McMullin looked down, shaking his head. “Hamlin had enough enemies to make up a firing squad.” He looked up again and nodded. “I’ll clue in Goldhagen that the investigation is both moving deeply into attorney-client matters and that law enforcement involvement in every area is unavoidable.” He tapped his chest. “Have Navarro call me. We need to make sure everyone involved in the investigation understands there will be no leaks to the press. None.”
Chapter 49
Donnally checked his watch as he left the judge’s house. He had an hour before Janie was supposed to meet him at Hamlin’s office to go for dinner and talk about what he should do about Jackson. He decided to use the time to examine the accounting records, to see if he could figure out the scope of the rolling scheme from deposits into Hamlin’s trust account and payments made out of it. He was certain Camacho wasn’t the only gangster with a motive and found himself worrying about how many potential suspects might turn up in his search.
Leading Mother Number Two through San Francisco seemed to him like an inverted child’s game. He wondered what was the opposite of hide-and-seek.
Night had made it hard to keep sight of the headlights of her truck in his mirrors, and the fog seemed to round her square headlights. He had to make a couple of early stops on yellow lights so she could stay with him, and she seemed to figure out what he was doing. He decided to make it clear to her that he was going downtown and then let her roll the dice that he was heading for Hamlin’s building and catch up on her own.
The door to the conference room was closed when he walked in. He could make out women’s voices inside. He wondered whether Ryvver had decided to come to him, better to seek him out than to wait for him to knock on her door.
Donnally eased the latch closed so that if his opening of the door hadn’t already given him away, the closing of it wouldn’t. He crept over and listened. The voice now speaking was Jackson’s. There were pauses and sniffling. She was talking about the night Bumper was murdered in his bed and about feeling later that Hamlin had rescued her. Then Hamlin going wrong. And her anger and her feeling trapped by him and her past. The tale coming in a rush. It sounded like she was cl
imbing a mountain of hurt and shame, ready to roll down the other side, maybe all the way to a confession to having killed Hamlin in a rage.
Finally, Jackson, now full-on weeping, saying, “He didn’t deserve to die.”
The other voice, even, professional. Janie’s. “You sound like you feel guilty about it.”
Fists pounding the table, like a little kid kicking at something in frustration.
Donnally wondered why Janie was in there, or even at the office. It was still a half hour until their dinner date. Had she come early hoping Jackson would tell her what she had wanted to say before she ran away last time? Knowing Janie, her gentleness and sincerity, it wasn’t hard to imagine a conversation flowing into a therapy session.
It had happened enough to him.
“Ryvver wouldn’t have known about Camacho if I hadn’t told her,” Jackson said, “and if he hadn’t found out what happened to him, he wouldn’t have killed Mark.”
“Why did you tell her?”
“I was angry. Angry as she was over Little Bud killing himself. He was such a sweet, harmless man. And so kind to Ryvver even at her worst, when she was the most lost and out of control, when there was nothing I could do for her. It just slipped out. And she …”
“She what?”
“She knew from when she worked for her father what Frank and Mark and Reggie Hancock were up to. Or least guessed at it.”
“And you gave her confirmation.”
“I had just figured it out myself. Harlan thinks I knew everything that Mark was doing all along, but I didn’t.”
“Did you confront Mark about it?”
Jackson didn’t respond, at least aloud. Maybe she shook her head. Maybe she nodded. Donnally had no way of knowing.
Janie changed the subject, so the answer must have been no. “Were you going to tell Harlan?”
“I told him about Little Bud.”
“Everything?”
Silence. A long silence.
Donnally heard wood scraping wood, maybe chair legs on the floor. He crept toward Hamlin’s inner office, wincing at the faint squeaks of the old parquet flooring. Then the click of heels, but not getting closer like she was walking toward the door. Pacing. Had to be Jackson. Janie always wore flats. He decided he didn’t want to take the chance of getting caught eavesdropping, so he continued into Hamlin’s office and sat down behind his desk.
A tap on the keyboard revealed the desktop under the screensaver. He clicked on the accounting program icon and entered the “showmethemoney” password.
Looking past the monitor as the program loaded, at the chairs in front of the desk and the couch under the window, he felt the history of the last few days.
Lemmie and her parents playing out the family drama against the background of a real tragedy.
Jackson imagining herself a Jonestown victim, first guilt-ridden for having survived and now for having broken free.
Galen cutting a deal, with Navarro watching him like a visible conscience.
Galen.
Donnally still didn’t know whether the man had intended to kill himself or whether his collapse into a coma was an accident of misunderstood medication. He would’ve heard from Edwards by now if the Berkeley detective had found anything suggesting it had been an attempted murder.
Donnally pushed the mouse up to the top of the screen, and clicked on the “Reports” tab. He ran the same one as last time, “Current Year–Combined,” and looked for categories that might cover informant payments, checks coming in from the government, and then cash or checks going out to Hancock and the informing clients. He was certain it wouldn’t be called by a recognizable name. And it wasn’t. He tried “Fees,” “Retainers,” “Services,” “Consulting,” “Salaries,” “Bonuses,” “Royalties,” even “Other” on the income side and “Commissions,” “Professional Services,” and “Wages” on the outgoing side. Nothing. Not a hint.
He stilled the keys, listening for sounds from the conference room. After waiting a full thirty seconds, but hearing none, he reached for the accounting program manual and checked the table of contents and the index, looking for a gimmick that would guide him to where he needed to go.
But then a thought interjected itself between his eyes and the page.
Soon as they come out, they’ll guess I heard them in there.
His mind drifted from the book on the desk in front of him to an image of the two women talking together in the conference room. But there was nothing he could do but try to catch a cue from Janie about how he should act when they came out, if there was a way. He suspected that for Jackson exiting the conference room would feel like leaving a shadowed confessional in which one admits, one repents, and one is forgiven, and then steps back out into the glare of an unforgiving world that judges anew and penalizes, and in which the past is never past.
Another picture replaced that one. Jackson standing in the office in her low-cut sweater, reaching for his arm. He wondered whether Janie had found a way to confront Jackson about her attempt at sexualized manipulation and find an explanation in her childhood. But maybe she didn’t need to. Guilt and shame for inadvertently setting up Mark Hamlin would have been impetus enough.
The conference room door opened. Donnally watched Jackson walk out of his view and toward her desk, heels clicking on the floor like a metronome, her neck rigid, face forward, knowing he was watching her. He heard her desk drawer open and close, then the office door open and close.
Janie appeared in the doorway and came toward him.
“How much did you hear?” Janie asked.
“Did she know I was listening?”
“I don’t know. She knew you were in the office, but over her crying I’m not sure she could tell when you arrived.”
“So it all could’ve been a performance?”
“I don’t think so. What you heard was the second time through, a more chronological account. She’d already done a scattershot of bits and pieces.”
She dropped onto the couch.
“I didn’t expect it. At least not this way. Not after she ran away last time. It was like she couldn’t help herself. Needed just to let it out. It blew me away.” She released a breath. “She felt all this pressure building up from you being here all the time. I think I was partly a proxy for you. She won’t ever admit it, but I think she wanted you to hear what she was saying.”
Janie leaned back and closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them and said, “She’d come to hate Hamlin. Really hate him. I got the feeling that what her father had done to her sexually, Hamlin had done to her intellectually and emotionally, and she didn’t recognize it as abuse until way, way, way too late.”
Chapter 50
I just got a heads-up the feds have a wiretap on Camacho and all his people,” Navarro told Donnally in a late night call. “Our narcotics task force is staffing the wire room and doing some of the surveillances.”
Donnally covered the speaker and whispered, “Navarro” to Janie across the kitchen table. She set her spoon and chopsticks down alongside her takeout beef noodle soup.
“You mean the DEA thinks Camacho is double dealing?”
“No. The cooperation deal requires that he roll down on everybody in his own organization. He handed over the names, cell numbers, drop spots, and where they lay their heads. The intercepts and surveillances are to develop enough other evidence so the government doesn’t need to use him as a witness—that’s the good news.”
“And I take it the bad news is that if he thinks his calls with these guys are being intercepted, there won’t be anything on the tapes about doing Hamlin in.”
Donnally heard brakes squeal in the background and then Navarro mumbling.
“It’s pretty late,” Donnally said. “Must be ten o’clock. You driving home?”
“No. Your place. There’s other good news. A deal is going down late tonight and they hope to snag both Camacho’s guy—Chino—and the buyer.”
“Will they give
us the first shot at him?”
Navarro laughed. “I told them if they did, they might be able to take down some criminal defense lawyers. Chino’s all ours.”
Donnally thought about Ryvver’s mother and whether she was still parked on the street in front watching the house.
“How about circle the block before you land here,” Donnally said. “Check to see if Leslie Scoville is out there or whether she’s given up for the night.”
“Hold on, I’m just turning off Geary. If she’s there, do you want me to have a patrol officer chase her off? People out here are always worried about their kids being kidnapped. We can tell her we got a call about somebody loitering.”
Donnally thought for a moment. Mother Two would know she didn’t fit the profile, so she’d figure it was a pretext to ID her or to allow Donnally to break free.
“No,” Donnally said. “If she’s there, I’ll go over the back fence and meet you on the other side of the block.”
As it turned out, Donnally didn’t need to. She was gone. But then he realized he’d missed an opportunity. He should’ve had her followed. Maybe she’d find Ryvver on her own and lead him to her.
As he slid into Navarro’s car, Donnally heard a voice announce over the two-way radio, “He’s on Mission, turning right on Ninth Street, toward Market.”
Navarro flicked on his overheads and shot through intersections until he reached Balboa, then hung a left toward downtown. Donnally knew why he picked the street. There were few stop signs and fewer lights.
“What’s Chino driving?” Donnally asked.
“A silver Escalade.”
The voice again. “He’s crossed Market Street.”
Navarro slowed at the next intersection, backed off a driver who tried to shoot across in front of him, and punched the accelerator.
“Left on Hayes.”
Another intersection. Navarro blew past the stop sign.
“He’s pulled over, checking for surveillance. We’ll pass him by. Chuck and Freddie take over. We’ll drop down and parallel him on Fell Street.”