Incriminating Evidence (25 page)

The mystery man pushes me toward the door under the dilapidated marquee. “Room 201,” he says.

I think about trying to go back and find Rosie and Tony. Not a chance.

“He wants to see you right now,” the voice says. He shoves me through the steel mesh door. I have no choice.

The Royan is even worse at night than it is in the daytime. It’s dark. It stinks of urine and vomit. I hear muffled screaming from above. A crack addict is shooting up just inside the door. A man is passed out on the lobby floor.

I want to turn back but the barrel of the gun presses against my back again. If I make a break for it, I’m dead. If I go upstairs and look for Holton, I may be dead anyway. There is a rickety stairway at the end of the hall. The gun nudges me forward. We head up the stairs.

The hallway on the second floor is dark. The door to the bathroom is open. A man is sitting on the toilet, injecting something into his left arm. The only illumination is from the streetlights on Valencia that shine through an open window at the end of the hall.

I find Room 201 and knock on the door. There is no answer. The man standing behind me tells me to try the handle. I do. It’s unlocked. I open the door. “Andy Holton?” I ask.

I hear screams from the room next door. I jump. Inside the dark room, I can make out a sagging bed. I can see a dresser and a sink in the corner. The tile floor is sticky underfoot. There’s a naked man lying on the bed. “Andy?” I ask again.

No response.

I feel the pressure of the gun against my back. I walk into the room toward the figure on the bed. I can smell the breath of the man with the gun. I hear him utter the word “Shit.” As
I’m about to reach for the man in the bed, I hear a loud crack. Something cold and heavy has hit the back of my head. I think I see a flash of light. Time slows down. I see Grace’s face. I see my mom’s face. An instant later, everything goes black. I don’t feel it when I hit the floor.

23
“YOU FOUND HIM”

“Police continue the search for Johnny Garcia’s roommate.”

—N
EWS
C
ENTER
4 D
AYBREAK
. T
UESDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
28.

My head hurts. A lot. My body aches. My throat is dry. It’s dark. My right cheek is sticking to something hard. A second later I realize it’s the floor. I make out a black shoe in front of me.

“Mick?” A familiar voice. My brain begins to engage. I can’t talk. “Mick? You okay?”

I try to lift my head, but I can’t. I think my eyes are open. I begin to focus. I feel a hand patting my left cheek.

“Mick, it’s Pete.”

I finally regain some sense of place. My relief is overwhelmed by the pain in the back of my head. Pete gets right in front of my face. “You’re okay, Mick,” he says. “Somebody whacked you on the head.”

I move my head slowly. The pain is excruciating. I try to rub the back of my head, but my hand isn’t working yet. “Where the hell am I?” I ask.

Another familiar voice answers. “The Royan.” It’s Rosie. Her face comes into sight next to Pete. Tony is standing behind her.

“What time is it?”

“A few minutes after midnight,” Rosie says. “You’ve been out for about half an hour.”

My head starts to clear through the throbbing pain. I realize the room is full of people. I see two uniformed police officers. I recognize Roosevelt Johnson, who is talking to Elaine McBride. I wonder what the homicide team is doing here. Two paramedics examine my head, neck and back. They’re concerned about concussions and possible neck and spinal injuries. I’m glad they’re being cautious. I tell them that my head hurts but insist I’m otherwise okay. They check my eyes, test my reflexes and put an ice pack against the bump on the back of my head. Then they carefully help me up to a sitting position. The room whirls around me for a moment, then settles down.

I look at Rosie. “I’m glad you came.”

“It’s a good thing we were there,” she says. “We followed you here.”

“Did you get a look at the guy?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Rosie replies. “I’ll be able to identify him if we can find him.”

Great.

“Mike,” Pete says, “next time I want you to stick with the plan.”

There won’t be a next time. “Sure, Pete.” I look around the crowded room. I wave a shaky hand to Roosevelt. “Glad you guys could make it,” I say.

Roosevelt is annoyed. “Next time you decide to play Dirty Harry, I want you to call me first.”

“No problem. I was trying to find Andy Holton.”

He nods toward the bed. “Congratulations,” he says. “You found him.”

Holton’s naked body rests faceup with his eyes and mouth open. He had fair skin and light hair. I see a syringe on the floor next to the bed, about a foot from where I’m
sitting. A team from the coroner’s office is setting up just outside the door. I hear one of them murmur, “Looks like he OD’d.”

Roosevelt surveys the room. “Who else knew you were coming?” he asks.

“Just Pete, Rosie and Tony.”

He asks if I caught a glimpse of the guy who hit me.

“Nope.”

Roosevelt asks whether Holton was already dead when I arrived.

“I’m not sure. I think so. I only saw him for an instant.”

“Can you think of any reason why somebody might want to scare you?”

“I don’t know.” I’m glad he said “scare” instead of “kill.”

“Are you missing anything?”

I take inventory. My watch and my wallet are gone. He says he’ll get my statement after they check me in at San Francisco General.

The paramedics lift me onto a gurney. I turn to Rosie and Pete and say, “Thanks.”

Pete says, “You’re the only brother I’ve got left. I’m coming with you in the ambulance.”

San Francisco General Hospital is a huge brick complex on Potrero Avenue next to the 101 Freeway, just west of Hospital Curve on the eastern boundary of the Mission. I was born here. The facility is a small city that somehow manages to handle everything from gunshot wounds to drug addiction to insect bites. It has one of the largest AIDS wards in the country. The doctors live on the front lines of the urban medical war. They win most of the battles.

The emergency room is like a giant assembly line. Even at this hour, it’s busy. A young resident named Dr. Chu takes a close look at the golf-ball-sized bump on the back of my
head right away. She says it looks like a concussion, but orders an X ray and a CAT scan to check for fractures or brain injury. In an abundance of caution, she decides to admit me for twenty-four hours of observation. She tells me that I should try to stay awake for a few hours to reduce the possibility that I will slip into a coma. She lacks a certain degree of bedside manner, but she seems to know what she’s talking about.

I’m escorted back to the waiting area until the CAT scan equipment becomes available. It is depressing to watch shooting victims and unconscious drug overdoses being wheeled past me. I take a seat between Pete and Rosie. Tony’s across from me. I recall sitting in almost the same spot over thirty years ago, when my dad got shot in the leg. Cops get the royal treatment. My mom was stoic. I’ll never forget the look on her face.

Pete scans an ancient copy of
Cosmo
. Tony leans his head back and tries to sleep. Rosie is talking to her mom on her cell phone. She’s staying at Rosie’s house with Grace. “Mike is okay,” she says. “Don’t wake up Grace. I don’t know when I’ll be home.” After she switches off the phone, she turns to me and says, “So we found Andy Holton.”

“Yep. Too late—he’s terminally dead.”

Pete interjects, “You’d be dead, too, if Rosie and Tony hadn’t been there.”

I glance at Tony, who is dozing in his chair. “I’ll have to thank him when he wakes up,” I say.

Rosie asks me, “How’s your head now?”

“I’m okay.”

“You damn well better be.” She leans over and whispers in my ear, “This isn’t going to interfere with your performance in bed, is it?”

I can’t help myself and I start to laugh. It makes my head hurt even more. “No, Rosie. The guy hit me in the head. I should function fine elsewhere.”

“That’s good,” she says. She considers for a moment and asks, “Doesn’t that depend on which head he hit?”

I’m caked in dirt. My clothes stink. I’m sitting in the emergency room of one of the biggest public hospitals in the country. I won’t be able to get an X ray or a CAT scan for at least another hour because they have too many other patients with more serious injuries. And I’m laughing so hard, my head throbs.

I’m resting in my double room on the third floor of the south wing of San Francisco General later that day. I’m doing better than the man in the next bed, who had a bullet removed from his right leg earlier. I’ve taken a shower and I’m wearing my Cal sweats. Rosie brought them over. I’m watching TV with the sound turned off. Things could be worse. My head is still throbbing, but the aches in the other parts of my body are starting to subside. I’ve been given enough Advil to dull the pain a little. I took a nap, but they want me to stay awake most of the time. A nurse comes in every twenty minutes to poke me or take some blood. Dr. Chu assured me that I’ll get to go home tomorrow.

Rosie hasn’t left. She’s on the phone with Grace at the moment. “Yes, sweetie,” she’s saying. “I’ll be home later tonight. Daddy gets to come home tomorrow. You’ll have to be good and do what Grandma says, okay?” She says “Uh-huh” a couple of times and smiles. Then she turns to me and says, “I just promised her that we’d buy her that fancy new bike for being such a good girl while Daddy was in the hospital.”

Sounds fine to me. Give Grace credit. She knows when to hit us up. In my current condition, I would have agreed to buy her a new Ferrari.

A little later, we watch the early evening news. The jovial anchorman reports that a young man named Andrew Holton
was found dead of an apparent overdose at the Hotel Royan. “In what may be a related matter,” he says, “Attorney Michael Daley was attacked at the same hotel.” My smiling face pops up just behind him. I look a lot better on TV than I feel in person. He tosses the ball to a reporter who is standing under the marquee of the Royan.

I turn off the tube. My head is starting to ache again. I look at Rosie. “Did you talk to Roosevelt again?” I ask.

She tugs at her hair, which is hanging down to her shoulders. She’s had a long eighteen hours, too. I may be doped up, but I recognize her for what she is—the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. “Yes,” she says. “He called while you were asleep. Rod Beckert did the autopsy on Holton. He died of a heroin overdose.”

“Any signs of a struggle?”

“Nope. They haven’t ruled out foul play entirely, but he definitely died of an overdose.”

“And the guy who hit me?”

“Nothing. They talked to everybody at the Royan. Nobody saw anything.”

This doesn’t surprise me. Most of the residents of the Royan are involved in drugs in one way or another. It is unlikely that any of them would want to become involved in a police investigation. We’re back to square one.

24
“MOTHER IS VERY UPSET”

“Police continue investigation of attack on attorney at Mission hotel.”

—N
EWS
C
ENTER
4. W
EDNESDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
29.

We regroup first thing Wednesday morning in the martial arts studio. It’s September twenty-ninth—less than two weeks until we begin jury selection. I’ve asked Ann and Turner to come in for a debriefing on the events at the Royan. Molinari is pacing. Rosie is sitting with her arms folded. After I describe the events that led up to my discovery of Andy Holton’s body, Ann and Turner waste no time berating us. They tell us that Skipper and Natalie are both upset at not having been told about our hearing from Holton. Then they get to the real point—our competence. Turner says Skipper is thinking about making a change. He doesn’t think we’re being aggressive enough.

Support comes from an unexpected source. “It’s not as if Mike killed Holton,” Molinari says. “He was just trying to do something that might have helped.”

Especially if Holton hadn’t been dead and I hadn’t been knocked unconscious.

Ann is unimpressed. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us he had called you?”

“He asked me to keep it confidential,” I reply. “I simply wanted to try to talk to him.”

Turner picks up on Ann’s statement. It’s obvious they’ve discussed this and rehearsed their lines. “Skipper wants Ed to play a bigger role in the defense,” he says. “He doesn’t like the direction the case is taking.”

Rosie lights up. “And what, pray tell, would
you
have done differently?” she snaps.

They exchange uncomfortable glances. Turner says, “Skipper wants Ed to take the lead.”

I don’t respond. I have already taken a physical beating. I will not give them the satisfaction of seeing me take an emotional one as well.

Turner says that I will sit first chair at the trial and Molinari will act as Keenan counsel as before. However, all decisions on strategy will run through Ed. In other words, I’ll get to try the case, but Molinari gets to pull the strings.

“And if that’s not acceptable to us?” I ask.

Ann doesn’t hesitate. “Father will terminate your services immediately.”

Rosie looks straight at Ann and sets her jaw. “If that’s the way our client wants it, that’s the way we’ll play it.”

I begin to interrupt, and she holds up her hand. “If that’s the way our client wants it,” she repeats, “that’s the way it will be.”