Steven Gore - A Criminal Defense

“How about just give him a bus ticket out of town?”

Navarro half smiled in embarrassment, realizing that his rant was irrelevant to their task, then said, “That’ll do, too.”

Navarro turned and led the way into the kitchen.

“Doesn’t seem to be part of the same apartment,” Donnally said, as they stood looking at the clean granite counters, the bare butcher-block island, the slick Sub-Zero refrigerator, and the polished walnut table and chairs. “Either he’s got a cleaning service or somebody did a helluva job destroying evidence.” Donnally pointed through the doorway toward a bathroom across the hall. “Check that one for anything that smells like lavender. I’ll take a look upstairs.”

Donnally walked back to the foyer and climbed the stairs to the second floor. He glanced into two small bedrooms as he made his way down the carpeted hallway and then turned into what appeared to be Hamlin’s master suite, shadowed within closed curtains. The blanket and spread were draped off the side of the bed and both pillows showed depressions. He resisted the temptation to conclude that they had been used the previous night. That was a fact not yet in evidence, and might never be.

The only illumination in the room came from a shaft of sunlight spreading out from the bathroom. He followed it inside and sniffed the air.

Lavender.

He spotted a bar of soap on the shower floor, then opened the glass door and kneeled down to inspect it. A brown hair was stuck to it and partially wrapped around. A curled black one lay on the tile next to it. At least two people, or one with dyed hair, had used it. He suspected that the black one was from Hamlin, but only forensic testing would tell.

Donnally pushed himself to his feet and returned to the bedroom. He flicked on the overhead light and checked the visible portions of the pillows and sheets for hair or semen stains. He found none. He figured he’d leave it to the evidence technicians to do a more thorough search.

After he walked back downstairs, he found Navarro talking on his cell phone in the laundry room beyond the kitchen, reporting their address.

Navarro pointed at a frayed length of rope lying on the floor, visible in the inch-wide gap between the washer and dryer, and then said to the person on the other end of the call, “I think we may have found the crime scene. Let’s get some people over here.”

Donnally didn’t know whether Hamlin’s apartment was the crime scene or not, but needing the techs to go through it freed him to return to Hamlin’s office.

A uniformed officer was waiting for him at the building entrance on McAllister Street with a printout of Hamlin’s cell phone calls for the last two weeks.

“What did Mark use to keep track of contacts?” Donnally asked Takiyah Jackson as he walked into the reception area.

Another officer sat along the wall opposite her desk with views both into the conference room where files were stored and into Hamlin’s private office. Donnally wanted all the cabinets guarded until he could install locks to keep Jackson out of them.

Jackson pointed at her monitor. “His e-mail program and his cell phone.”

“Were they synced?”

She nodded.

“How about getting me into it?”

Jackson leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t you need a search warrant for that?”

“What do you think?”

She chewed at her lip. Donnally could see that she was torn between what Hamlin would’ve said to protect a client-whether it was well-founded in the law or not-and what Hamlin would’ve said in order to help catch his own killer.

Donnally then remembered what Navarro had said about a folie a deux and what Janie had once told him about how it operated. When the dominant person is gone, the submissive one tends to break free from the grandiose or persecutory delusion they had shared and that had bound them together.

“I guess you don’t need a warrant,” Jackson said, then rose and led him into Hamlin’s office, where she turned on his monitor and activated his e-mail program. She returned to her desk as he sat down in Hamlin’s chair.

It took Donnally half an hour to compare the telephone numbers from Hamlin’s call log with his contacts. He found matches for only about a third. He wondered whether any of those whose names he’d identified so far would turn out to be the source-or sources-for the hairs he found in Hamlin’s shower.

Now he was ready to question Jackson about who Hamlin might have been talking to or meeting with during the last days. He hadn’t wanted to start that line of questioning until he had something to compare her answers with. Her knowing he’d looked at both Hamlin’s contact list and his calls would make it harder for her to lie. She’d assume that he knew more than he actually did, a mistake witnesses with something to fear or hide nearly always made.

Donnally noticed the icon for Hamlin’s appointment calendar and then drew another fine line. He didn’t have any basis yet for invading privileged attorney-client material, for engaging in the fishing expedition that the judge had warned them all against. At the same time, the fact that Hamlin had met with someone couldn’t be considered privileged, only the content of the consultation, the he-said, she-said of the case. Based on that distinction, Donnally accessed Hamlin’s list of recent appointments and printed it out.

Donnally saw that Hamlin used his calendar to track not only client meetings, court appearances, and motion due dates, but also personal lunches and dinners and political meetings.

While looking through the names of the people Hamlin had met with, Donnally realized that his having moved north so many years ago was a disadvantage. A local might’ve recognized many of the names he had in front of him now and others that he would come across.

On the legitimate side, he didn’t know who was now on the board of supervisors, who had the confidence of the mayor, who were the power brokers in the city.

On the underworld side, from where Hamlin drew most of his clients, Donnally didn’t know who were the gang leaders out in Bayview-Hunters Point or who ran the Big Block gang in the housing projects, or even if it still existed, or which tongs were running the protection rackets in Chinatown, or which Russians had moved in to take over organized crime in the Richmond District.

To him, the names were inert, mere labels on imaginary stick figures. And instead of seeing live conflicts and connections, he was just seeing dead letters on a page-and he recognized Jackson would have an advantage on him. She knew the players and understood how the game was played in the city, at least those players and games that related to Hamlin. He now realized he’d have to rely on Navarro more than he wanted to, and share more with him than he had intended to, for the detective would see relationships Donnally couldn’t and understand their meaning.

Jackson appeared at the office door. “Can I go to lunch?”

“You coming back afterwards?”

“What?” She smirked. “You think I’m starting my job hunting already?”

Donnally didn’t like the sarcasm. “That’s not what I meant.” He rose from the desk and walked over to her. “We need to figure out some way to work together. I don’t see me finding out who killed Mark without your help.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then lowered her head and picked at her thumbnail.

“Shit. . shit, shit, shit. I didn’t sign up for this.”

“What did you sign up for?”

“I don’t know anymore.” She looked up again, shaking her head. “All I know is that this place seems more and more like Jonestown on the night before they served the Kool-Aid.”