Steven Gore - A Criminal Defense

“What about the money?”

“You mean Hamlin’s fee?”

Donnally nodded.

“He was gonna take it out of the reward, from my cut of whatever the government forfeited from Rafa. They found almost half a million in his house. I got fifty thousand out of that. The DEA said I could get up to two hundred and fifty altogether, depending on how much they find.”

Donnally thought of the Vietnamese gunman who kidnapped him off the street and took him into the garage. He wondered whether the quarter-million-dollar figure was a coincidence.

“I take it the DEA would send a check to Hamlin,” Donnally said, “and he’d deduct his cut and forward you the rest.”

Camacho nodded. “In cash. I didn’t want no kind of trail between the government and me.”

Listening to Camacho, it was clear to Donnally he was no genius. But he didn’t have to be to succeed in the drug trade. He just needed to be able to count the money and protect his link in the distribution chain.

Was it possible Camacho hadn’t yet figured out that if Guillermo got a cut of his property, and he got a cut of Rafa’s, and Hancock and Hamlin got a cut of everybody’s, the whole thing must have been a setup from the start?

I’m in pretty deep in the attorney-client end of the pool and can’t feel the bottom,” Donnally said to Judge McMullin in his oak-paneled study a couple of hours later.

The furniture had that old-money feel, not museumlike, but used in a respectful way. Donnally imagined somewhere in the mansion, which the judge had referred to as “my place” when he had asked Donnally to meet him there, were stacked four or five sets of antique translucent china and silver service for dozens and enough glassware for an opera gala. Not that the judge used any of it anymore. He was too modest a man and the last of his line.

“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.”