Steven Gore - A Criminal Defense

Donnally watched the sides of her mouth turn up as a thought came to her.

“I guess you could say virtue is easy when there’s money to be made, then it somehow transforms into the virtue of easy money.”

Donnally smiled. “You should write that down and use it in a book.”

“I did.” Lemmie smiled back. “That’s what you get for not reading my novels all the way through. It’s a continuing theme.”

“And you got on that road because of people like Reggie?”

Lemmie’s smile faded. “No, my father. None of the people he persecuted were guilty of anything, they simply refused to snitch on people like themselves who did nothing but exercise their constitutional rights. For my father, the law was merely an instrument, sometimes a scalpel, sometimes a hammer, sometimes an ax.”

“And you think Reggie had a role in leading your brother down that same path.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it was Mark running to catch up. I’m not saying Mark wasn’t ambitious all on his own, didn’t want the money and the notoriety. He did. It’s just that how he chose to do it changed. And that was his own responsibility. He couldn’t blame that on our father or Reggie.”

Lemmie gazed toward the window as though the view would provide some kind of mental escape, but night had fallen and the glass mirrored the inside of the kitchen. Donnally watched her eyes settle on a spot, his reflection, but he wasn’t sure she was actually seeing him.

Finally, she looked over and asked, “How did Reggie’s name happen to come up now?”

“He and Mark were trading lots of calls during the last month. I checked previous years and it seems to be part of a pattern. One month a year. Lots of calls.”

“Maybe they went on vacations together.”

The words came out of her mouth fast, then she reddened as though she’d opened a door to something obscene, or set him up to open it. And he did.

“Like little jaunts to Southeast Asia to look at muscled kids?”

Lemmie clenched her fists on the table. “I don’t know what they did over there. Anyway, it was something Reggie got him involved with.”

Donnally reached down to the floor and picked up a manila envelope containing printouts about Hamlin and his alleged charity that Jackson had left for him at the office. He opened it and slid the contents onto the table.

Lemmie reached for a photo showing her brother receiving an award from the Southeast Asia Youth Gymnastics Association. Hamlin looked awkward, uncomfortable, standing in a row of middle-aged Asian and Australian men under the stage lights.

“You ever work the prostitution detail?” Lemmie asked, as she stared at the pages. “Especially ones that targeted child predators.”

“Only as part of the arrest team.”

She pointed at the man standing to the right of her brother. A heavy-set Thai, with his belt drawn tight across his stomach, just below his rib cage, Humpty Dumpty-like, sweat glistening on his forehead and darkening his dress shirt collar.

“Look at the eyes on this guy,” Lemmie said. “Look at the eyes on all of them. I’ve gone down to the Tenderloin, watched men cruising, looking for teenage boys and girls. They’re the same eyes these guys have. Somehow both dead and calculating.”

“But not on your brother.”

“He just looks embarrassed.”

Donnally spread the papers on the table. Some of them showed other photos from the same association meeting.

“I don’t see Reggie in any of these,” Donnally said.

“As I said, I don’t know what they did over there.”

Other photographs showed teenagers posing in tiny outfits. The thin girls encased in spandex and the boys with arms and leg muscles like bodybuilders, so lean and defined they looked like they’d been skinned.

Donnally looked again at Hamlin standing with the certificate in his hands.

“You think this was a pretext to travel over there to buy opium?” Donnally asked.

“It would be a weird one and wouldn’t make a very good cover story. Everybody who knows he made regular trips over there would think-or at least entertain the idea-he was a child molester.” She glanced up at Donnally. “Just like you do.”

Lemmie slid the photos back, saying, “Another weird thing. Reggie and Mark used to smoke pot together and drink Black Label and sing along with that old Creedence Clearwater song ‘Proud Mary.’ ” Crank it up and pound the table. And we’re rollin’ ”-she tapped the tabletop in time with the tune- “rollin’ on the ri-ver.”

Donnally was just a child when the song came out. When he was growing up all the kids assumed that “Proud Mary” was code for marijuana and “rolling” meant rolling joints. Grown men like Hancock and Hamlin getting high and singing it just seemed childish.

But sitting there listening to Lemmie he realized there was something sophomoric about everything Hamlin did, absolutely everything, maybe even fatally so.

Sheldon Galen didn’t show up on time for his 8 A.M. debriefing with Donnally. He didn’t answer his cell phone and he hadn’t gone to his office.

Donnally wasn’t surprised Galen had chosen to arrive late, like a six-year-old testing his parents’ limits, so he figured he wouldn’t lean on him too hard, yet.

Donnally spent an hour searching Hamlin’s computer for Web sites he’d visited, expecting that if Hamlin had a sexual interest in children, it would show up on his hard drive. Navarro had referred him to a child exploitation specialist in SFPD who’d walked him through the steps to check Hamlin’s Internet search history, Web sites visited, temporary files, and other trails. He didn’t find anything. This either meant it wasn’t there or that Hamlin was good at concealment.

Other than saying hello when she arrived at the office, Jackson had avoided him. She’d arrived buttoned up. Overcoat belted tight around her waist, lapels overlapping, all three suit buttons snug, blouse closed up to the neck. She had tied her hair back like a 1950s librarian, and her usual array of gold rings and bracelets was missing.

Donnally was relieved not to have to deal again with yesterday’s erotic assault, but was troubled he didn’t understand Jackson’s latest incarnation. It was starting to feel like a game of tag, except that every time Jackson popped up from behind a bush, she was someone else.

The clock on Hamlin’s computer told Donnally that it was 9:15. Time to go on the hunt for Galen.

He wasn’t angry because he’d expected it, and while Galen might be feeling unique and might be telling himself what he thought were unique excuses for not showing up, Donnally knew that every informant had the same feelings and made the same excuses.

Hamlin’s contact list gave Donnally Galen’s home address in Berkeley. He called Navarro as he drove across the Bay Bridge, but Navarro didn’t answer. Donnally left a message asking whether he’d identified the woman who had argued with private investigator Frank Lange on the evening before he died, and whether he knew how to find Hector Camacho, whose number had shown up in the middle of Hamlin and Hancock’s telephone traffic.

Navarro still hadn’t called back by the time Donnally arrived on Galen’s block. It was off a tree-divided, commercial avenue in the north end of town in an area known as Gourmet Gulch.

Donnally had driven by Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse Restaurant on his way up from University Avenue. Passing it, he remembered when Janie had taken him there for his birthday. It was at a time when the place was just getting focused on slow food. He hadn’t realized going in that four courses over three hours was what they’d had in mind.