A Criminal Defense (4 page)

Chapter 6

T
he uniformed officer standing on Mark Hamlin's porch raised his hands as though in a protestation of innocence as Donnally and Navarro climbed the stairs of the three-story Victorian duplex facing Buena Vista Park and overlooking the distant downtown.

They'd just pushed their way through four reporters from local television and radio stations, two from national cable channels, and five from newspapers, all jabbing video cameras and microphones toward their faces and asking nonsensical who, where, how, and why questions that if they already had the answers to, they wouldn't be bothering to search Hamlin's residence.

“I didn't do it,” the officer said, “I didn't touch a thing.” He turned and opened the front door of the multimillion-dollar property and gestured toward the interior. “It's just the way we found it.”

Donnally and Navarro drew on latex gloves and slipped on polyethylene shoe covers and crossed the threshold into the foyer. Straight ahead was the hallway leading to the kitchen. They turned left and examined the living room. The plaster walls were eggshell white and pristine, looking as though they'd never felt the impact of a child's ball or a bicycle tire, seeming as though never touched by life at all. The couch, chairs, and tables, on the other hand, were as strewn with trash as the passenger seat of Hamlin's Porsche. Books, pleadings, and files were also piled on the Oriental rugs covering the parquet floors. The only unlittered furniture were the bookcases standing along the wall opposite the fireplace and framing the television and DVD player. These bore dozens of Asian artifacts, from pottery bowls to brass statues to a collection of long-stemmed clay pipes, all spaced and positioned as if part of a museum exhibit.

“Try not to focus too long on paper you're not supposed to be looking at,” Donnally said to Navarro as they walked through the living room.

“Unless there's blood spatter on it or it's a signed confession from the killer, I won't be paying much attention.”

Navarro stopped and glanced at the chaos of half-used legal pads and scattered folders lying on the dining room table. Interleaved were misfolded newspaper sections, legal journals, and flyers announcing political events.

“I know Goldhagen was playing like she wants to leverage this investigation into a way to reopen a bunch of Hamlin's old cases,” Navarro said, “but I don't see her doing it. I suspect that his closet has got a few bones from her skeleton in it, too.”

Donnally looked over at Navarro. “What do you mean?”

“A lot has happened since you moved north. Hamlin and a bunch of his pals did some fund-raisers for her reelection campaign.”

“You've got to be—” Donnally remembered Goldhagen's aggression—apparent aggression—toward Hamlin and his practice, and realized it was an act for his benefit, or maybe for the judge's or Navarro's as a way of demonstrating her independence.

“It's true,” Navarro said. “He'd done enough posturing over the years about civil rights and lesbian and gay rights and transgender rights and immigrant rights and dog and cat rights that he could deliver up to any politician any group that devoted itself to playing the victim. It's like a . . .” Navarro flicked his fingers next to his head like he was flipping through note cards in his mind. “What do you call it where two people share the same delusion?”

Donnally guessed that Navarro assumed he'd know the word because the nature of Janie's work—and he did.

“A folie à deux,” Donnally said.

“That's it. That's what he has with the LGBT groups. They act like we live in a Jim Crow world, but they control who gets elected in this town, who gets appointed police chief, and who gets the big city contracts. Whenever something bad happened, Hamlin would undergo some kind of mind meld with them in their fake victimization. Some transgender idiot would get his ass kicked, and Hamlin was on TV declaring a hate crime. Never considered the possibility that the asshole might've deserved it. Lot of rough stuff happens in the Castro and most of it people bring on themselves.”

“Sounds like you've joined the Log Cabin Republicans,” Donnally said. “I wouldn't have expected it.”

“Being gay doesn't mean I have to follow the party line and wiggle my ass in a conga line at the pride parade. I moved out here in order to fit in and live a normal life, not to keep drawing attention to myself.” Navarro tapped his chest. “I'm a cop. Not a gay cop, or a fag cop, or a ho-mo-sex-u-al cop. A cop. If I hear somebody yell one more time, ‘We're here. We're queer. Get used to it,' I'll rip out his vocal cords. Everybody in San Francisco is already used to it.”

“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.”

Chapter 7

D
onnally 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 à 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.”

Chapter 8

I
know who killed Mark Hamlin.” A recorded voice overrode the next words spoken by the man. “This is a call from a California state prison.”

It had come in on Hamlin's main firm number. The caller had asked for Donnally by name, and Jackson had routed it to him in Hamlin's office. Donnally was relieved that he had enough of her cooperation for her at least to do that.

Unless the murder was a gang-related execution, which the condition of Hamlin's body suggested it wasn't, Donnally wasn't sure how someone in prison could have any credible information.

“Who did it?”

“Pay me a visit and I'll tell you the story.”

The man's voice sounded as though he was in his fifties or sixties, maybe older.

“How do I know you're not a lunatic?”

The line beeped, indicating that the call was being recorded.

“Look at my file. It's somewhere in the office. Five years ago. My name's Bennie Madison. A murder case. There's no psych report in there and no trips to the loony bin. I'm as sane as anybody ever is in here.”

“Hold on.”

Donnally wrote out the name, then walked to the outer office and asked Jackson to retrieve the file. He kept watch on her as she pulled it from a cabinet in the conference room and brought it to him. He sat down and flipped it open.

“There's almost nothing in here,” Donnally told the caller. “A police report, a detective's investigative log, a transcript of your plea, and a court sentencing form. Twenty-five to life.”

“There should be a letter in there I sent last month saying I'm filing a motion to withdraw my plea.”

“I don't see it. Did you want Hamlin to represent you?”

The man laughed. “Not a chance. It's the last thing that asshole would've done.”

“Because . . .”

“Take a drive up here and you'll find out.”

“Where's here?”

“The California Medical Facility in Vacaville. And I'll also tell you why someone wanted him dead.”

“You're being a little too cryptic for me to spend the hours it would take to get up there and back at this point in the investigation.”

“You're gonna have to see me eventually, might as well make it now.”

“I'll think about it.”

Donnally disconnected and called the SFPD homicide detective whose name appeared on the log. She told him that Bennie Madison had pled guilty to a robbery murder. He'd dragged the victim into an alley near her downtown office as she walked from an ATM to her car. He stabbed her, robbed her, and then flopped her body into a Dumpster.

Madison had been homeless at the time, living under an overpass. He was arrested for trespassing a couple of days later, and the arresting officer found the victim's wallet and credit cards in his backpack. Madison claimed he found it all in an alley. A city worker in the area of the bank around the time of the murder wasn't able to ID Madison, but gave a description of the killer's clothes that matched his.

The clincher in the case was a statement from a jailhouse informant that Madison had confessed to the crime and tried to get the informant to send someone to dispose of the knife, which was hidden inside his sleeping bag. Detectives went to the overpass, located it, and the lab later found traces of the victim's blood lodged between the blade and the hilt.

“The unusual thing,” the detective said, “was that Hamlin volunteered to represent the guy pro bono and took the case over from the court-appointed lawyer.”

“Why was that?”

“My guess? Grandstanding and money. A public defender proved that an informant in another case was making up stories in exchange for get-out-of-jail-free cards. I suspect Hamlin figured if he had a horse in the race he could ride the scandal to the bank a few times. I think the plan was that he'd prove that the informant in the Madison case was a liar, then get other convicts sending him retainers to reopen their cases.”

“But Madison ended up pleading guilty anyway.”

“Two weeks later, before he even had a preliminary hearing—and I still don't have a clue why. What kind of idiot pleads to a life sentence? The smarter move would've been to roll the dice. You never know what a San Francisco jury will do.”