A Criminal Defense (9 page)

Chapter 20

T
he sounds were disgusting. They reminded Donnally of the two weeks early in his career when he'd filled in driving the wagon picking up street drunks to deliver them to the SFPD tank.

Donnally and Navarro stood outside the open door to Hamlin's private bathroom as Galen hunched over the toilet, retching, gasping, sobbing. His body shuddering, his once creased pant knees rubbing themselves flat on the tile floor. Positioned just feet away, Donnally and Navarro weren't going to take a chance of him jumping out of the tenth floor window.

When it appeared that Galen was done, or at least empty, Donnally stepped inside and reached down with a couple of paper towels. Galen took them and wiped his mouth before straightening up. He washed his face and hands, then Donnally led him back into the office.

“I didn't kill Mark,” Galen said, looking back and forth between Navarro now sitting next to him and Donnally across the desk. “And I can prove it. I've got witnesses.”

“You throwing up sounded a lot like a confession,” Donnally said. “And lawyers like you are experts at fudging up witnesses to say what you want.”

“I had a court appearance in Monterey and stayed overnight. I hung out with the lawyer who brought me into the case until about 1
A.M.
, then went back to the hotel.” Galen glanced at Navarro. “The desk clerk will remember me calling at about three because the people in the next room were making too much noise.” He looked at Donnally. “The press said that you got the call at four and it's a two-hour drive.”

“Which hotel?” Navarro asked.

“The Intercontinental. I don't remember the clerk's name, but he was a chubby Hispanic wearing rimless glasses.”

Navarro rose and walked from the office.

Donnally tilted his head toward the bathroom. “Then why that?”

“Because . . .” Galen hesitated.

Donnally could tell Galen had just realized that it had been his mind racing toward a conclusion that had sickened him. If Donnally knew about Hamlin's extortion, he must've known where Galen got the money to pay it.

“Because you dipped into your trust account again?”

Even as he said the words, Donnally realized he'd made a mistake. He might have given Galen an explanation for the source of the money that couldn't hurt him any more than he was already going to get hurt.

Galen looked down and nodded. He looked up again and opened his mouth to speak—

Donnally cut him off. “Be careful what you say. We'll be checking your answer.”

And the answer as to whether the money came from his trust account would show up in his bank records.

Galen leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and interlaced his fingers on top of his head.

He looked to Donnally like a defendant who shows up in court all geared up for trial, who'd fantasized for months about how the case would go, even convincing himself that despite the fingerprints and the DNA and the eyewitnesses, the DA couldn't prove his case—then just before the jury is seated his attorney comes to him with a deal offered by the prosecutor to make the case go away, and tells him he'd better cut his losses and take it. He's got only minutes to make a decision. And even though there's only the two of them in the interview room, it's like the whole world is watching—

“I need to think,” Galen said.

“No,” Donnally said, “you need to talk.”

Galen lowered his hands and opened his eyes.

“I can handle a bar suspension, but not a felony,” Galen said. He pointed at the chair in which Navarro had been sitting. “Will he cut a deal?”

“It won't be up to him, but to Hannah Goldhagen.”

“Then I'm screwed. She hates me. Really, really hates me, almost as much as she hated Mark. She won't do it.”

“Maybe she won't have to know it's you until after she makes the decision.”

“Who'll pitch it to her?” He glanced toward Navarro returning to his seat. “You or him?”

“Me,” Donnally said. “But not yet. I need to know how many felonies you expect to walk on and what we get in return. We have a homicide to solve.”

Galen paused. “I'll tell you one thing now because I need the credit. The rest you'll have to wait for until I get a pass from Goldhagen.”

“Is this one worth much?” Donnally asked.

“It's huge. I mean really huge.”

Chapter 21

G
alen was right,” Navarro said as they sat in the office of the A&B Gas Mart on International Boulevard in East Oakland near the Sixty-fifth Avenue housing project.

Donnally remembered when the name of the wide commercial street had been changed from East Fourteenth Street. It had been done at the same time and for the same reason that garbage collection had been renamed waste management and budget cuts were called revenue recapture—and nobody had been fooled. There weren't fewer drug dealers on the side streets, hookers walking the sidewalks, or murderers hanging out on the corners and along the storefronts because the four lanes of litter-strewn blacktop had been relabeled based on some bureaucrat's melting pot fantasy.

It sometimes seemed to Donnally that more than the taquerias and Vietnamese noodle shops and Arab markets, what made the boulevard international was the same thing that made it territorial: the gangs that controlled it from Lake Merritt downtown all the way to the southern city limit. The Mexican Norteños, Sureños, and Border Brothers; the Asian Bui Doi, V-Boyz, and Sons of Death; and the Salvadoran M–13.

Despite the name change, the street remained not merely mean, but wounded, like a victim of Tink Fischer's fight-mangled pit bull.

Donnally and Navarro were peering at a monitor displaying a soundless month-old video showing the market's gas pump islands and the front of Burger's Motorcycle Repair across the street. They'd just watched Mark Hamlin pull to a stop under a streetlight in his Porsche and knock on the door an hour before a homicide had been reported to 911 by the admitted killer, David Burger.

On the drive over, Navarro had relayed to Donnally what he'd learned from Oakland homicide. Burger and the victim, Ed Sanders, operated both the garage on International Boulevard and a meth lab in the Central Valley, but they'd had a falling out. Burger had claimed in his statement to the police that Sanders had come at him with a lug wrench. Burger had punched Sanders and he'd fallen back, hitting his head on a metalworking lathe.

Donnally and Navarro were only able to recognize Hamlin in the grainy video because Sheldon Galen told them what to look for and when to look for it. Navarro hadn't asked the Oakland Police Department to review their copy of the recording for fear they'd study it more closely and figure out why he wanted it. Neither Navarro nor Donnally wanted to risk losing control of the investigation.

They watched the front door to the garage open from the inside. A white male stuck his head out and glanced up and down the sidewalk, then stepped back into the shadow to let Hamlin in.

“That's Burger,” Navarro said.

A homeless man pushing a grocery cart came into the frame a couple of minutes later. He peered into Hamlin's car and tried the passenger door handle. He then reached in among the cans and bottles in the cart, pulled out a brick, glanced around, and smashed the window. He yanked out what looked like a laptop case, hid it in the cart, and disappeared from view.

“Didn't the car alarm go off?” Navarro said.

The garage door opened. Hamlin came running out. He stared at the broken glass, then his head swiveled as he surveyed the street for someone running away. He started in the direction the homeless man had gone, then stopped and turned back and ran the other way.

“Something must have caught his attention,” Donnally said. “Maybe the guy had a crime partner, a decoy to lead Hamlin in the wrong direction.”

Donnally realized he hadn't seen a laptop or tablet in Hamlin's car, apartment, or office. This burglary must be the reason. He stopped the recorder, skimmed back to where the burglar was facing the camera, then walked to the front counter and returned with the owner.

“You recognize that guy?” Donnally asked.

The owner squinted at the figure, then said in a heavy Indian accent, “I am thinking he is coming by here often. A very smelly man.” He pointed north. “He is always going to the recycling center with cans and bottles.”

“You know his name?”

“No idea.” The owner then straightened up and returned to the front counter.

Donnally started the video again. A minute later Hamlin reappeared. He opened the passenger door and pulled out his briefcase, apparently to keep someone else from stealing it. He glanced over as two motorcycles passed by, the riders wearing black leather vests and Nazi-like helmets, then went back into the garage. He left again a half hour later.

Two patrol cars arrived thirty minutes after Hamlin drove away. Burger opened the door and spoke with the officers. The officers gestured him outside, patted him down and handcuffed him, and then one of the two officers walked inside.

“Galen was right so far,” Donnally said. He turned to Navarro. “Can you confirm real quick that Hamlin didn't report the car burglary?”

Navarro called the Oakland Police Department records section and asked whether a Mark Hamlin had ever reported his car burglarized in the city.

“Galen was right about that, too,” Navarro said, after he disconnected. “He didn't report the break-in.”

Donnally thought for a moment.

“The victim's family may have seen something in the condition of the garage that led them to believe Hamlin helped stage the scene to make it look like self-defense. Hamlin and Burger could've moved things around—chairs, tables, maybe even the lathe—to make sure all the blood spatter was in the right places. Who knows what else they could've done.”

“And when they couldn't get to Burger in the county jail,” Navarro said, “they went after Hamlin.”

Navarro's cell phone rang. He listened for a few seconds, then said to Donnally, “You were right about putting a tail on Galen. He just let himself into Hamlin's place through the back door.”

Chapter 22

G
alen was sitting on the living room couch handcuffed and guarded by uniformed officers when Donnally and Navarro walked into Hamlin's apartment forty minutes later. They passed by without speaking to him on their way to the stairs to the second floor bedroom, where he'd been captured by the surveillance team. One of the undercover officers stood next to the bed, now propped against the wall, and pointed down at a large screwdriver lying next to a pried-up floorboard.

“This is how it was when I walked in,” the officer said. “Good thing he didn't try to shoot his way out.”

Donnally kneeled down and peered into the opening in the floor. A .38 Special revolver lay on top of a stuffed lunch-sized paper bag. He looked up at the officer. “Was he putting these in or taking them out?”

“I don't know whether he was stealing or planting and I didn't know enough about where things stand legally with him to read him his rights and start asking him questions. I searched him. He didn't have anything on him he shouldn't have had. Keys and wallet and change.”

Donnally rose and said to Navarro, “Let's see what he has to say before we monkey with this stuff.”

They returned downstairs, and Navarro sent the uniformed officer to the front landing. Donnally and Navarro pulled chairs up to the couch and faced Galen, perched on the front edge of the cushion, hands still cuffed behind him.

“Aren't you supposed to be protesting the handcuffs?” Donnally said. “You had a key to this place. That alone suggests that Hamlin gave you permission to be here, so it's probably not trespassing or burglary.” He glanced at Navarro. “Malicious mischief for damaging the floor?”

Navarro made a show of considering the possibility by closing one eye and staring up at the ceiling, then he looked down, shaking his head. “That would probably require Hamlin's testimony saying that he didn't okay it, and Hamlin is remaining silent.”

Donnally snapped his fingers. “I've got it. Destroying evidence.”

Galen swallowed.

“But evidence of what?” Navarro asked Donnally, but his target was Galen. “Something this guy did or something Hamlin did?”

“I wasn't destroying evidence,” Galen said. “Or at least that wasn't the point of it.” He swallowed again. “I just wanted to get my money back before I lost my license to practice. I've got a mortgage and car payments.”

“How did you know it would be there?”

“Because I brought ten grand to Mark here three days ago. He took the money and walked upstairs and came back down without it. I knew about his hiding place. I guessed it was in there.”

“So basically,” Navarro said, “it's evidence of two crimes. You stealing from your trust account and Hamlin extorting from you.”

Galen stared down at his feet.

“What about the gun?” Donnally asked. “That evidence, too?”

“I've never seen that one before. He had a 9mm semiautomatic in a drawer next to his bed.”

Donnally looked over at Navarro, his raised eyebrows asking whether one had been discovered during the search of the apartment on the morning Hamlin's body was discovered.

“We didn't find it,” Navarro said.

Donnally rose. “Time to go look in the bag.”

He didn't want to put himself in the chain of evidence and risk complicating the case later, so he asked the surveillance officer to handle it.

The officer slipped on latex gloves and removed the revolver, then the paper bag, setting both on Hamlin's dresser. He separated the top of the bag, and gripping the edges, pulled out four stacks of twenty-dollar bills, and lined them up. It looked to Donnally like a total of about forty thousand dollars. He took a photo of the bills with his cell phone and checked the nightstand and confirmed the gun was missing. He returned downstairs.

“In what denominations was the money you gave Mark?” Donnally asked, remembering that Galen's fingerprints had been on a hundred-dollar bill.

“Hundreds. All hundreds.”

Donnally showed the photo to Navarro, and then to Galen. “What's wrong with this picture?”

Galen's eyes widened at the sight of the twenties, then he looked at Donnally, “Maybe he . . .”

“Went to the bank and traded them in?” Donnally gave him a stern, parental stare. “You don't believe that.”

Galen shrugged.

“Where do you think this money came from?”

“I don't have a clue.”

Donnally pointed toward Galen's back, and Navarro removed the handcuffs. There was nothing they could charge him with, yet.

Galen didn't make a move to rise, acknowledging they weren't done with him.

“You're back to zero,” Donnally said. “You got credit for giving us the lead to the Sanders homicide, but lost it by coming in here.”

“I'll try to do better,” Galen said. “Next time . . .” He ended the sentence with a sigh.

Donnally heard an echo in the trailing phrase, “Next time . . .”

He pointed down at Galen. “If you want to tell me something, just call. Don't slash my tire and leave a note on my windshield.”