Incriminating Evidence (30 page)

“Even for an extra fee?” she asks.

“Not a chance,” Molinari says. “Nick doesn’t care about money. He’s in it for the love of the chase. And the publicity. And to sell books. I don’t think he can be bought.”

“Neither do I,” I say. A moment later, the three of us are staring at the TV in the martial arts studio. Nick’s tape is less than a minute long. It’s grainy black-and-white footage of the door to Skipper’s room. I can see the peephole and the room number on the door. At precisely one minute after one, a man walks up to the door and knocks. We can see only his back. The door opens, but we can’t see who opened it. The man walks inside. The door closes. The tape ends.

Rosie scowls. “You can’t tell it was Garcia,” she says.

“You can’t tell who opened the door, either,” I say.

Molinari says what I’m thinking. “There’s no way Nick Hanson would phony up a videotape, is there?”

“Nope. But that won’t keep me from suggesting to the jury that he did.”

Skipper is incredulous. “Well, now the setup is complete,” he insists.

Molinari and I are sitting in the consultation room at the Hall later that afternoon. Ann’s here, too. She insisted on being present when we told her father about my meeting with Nick the Dick. She remains stoic as I give Skipper the details of Nick’s escapades in the room across the hall.

Skipper says, “So they’re paying off Nick Hanson, too?” There is a tone of desperation to his voice.

“How do you explain the tape?” Molinari asks.

“It’s a fraud.”

“And you think the cops are in on this?” Molinari snaps.

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

He’s losing it. He’s seeing conspiracies everywhere. “Why would Johnson and McBride pay somebody off?” I ask. “Why would they set you up? What’s their motive?”

“The cops hate me.”

“Where would they get the money to pay off Nick Hanson? And why would Hanson take it?”

I get an icy stare. “
You’re
supposed to figure that out,” he says. “You’re my lawyers. You have to come up with a reason why they want to get me.”

I toss my pen onto the table. “Give me something,” I say. “Dan Morris hired Nick the Dick. Do you think Morris is paying him off?”

“Maybe,” Skipper says.

“But
why?
” I ask again. “Once they placed Garcia in
your room, they had you. Why would Morris go to all the trouble to set you up for murder?”

“Maybe Garcia was prepared to admit it was a setup. Maybe he wasn’t cooperating.”

“You think Morris killed him?”

He throws up his hands. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

For the first time since this case started, he’s acting panic-stricken. He’s just accused his daughter’s boyfriend and campaign manager of murder. Skipper looks at her. She’s standing in the corner, her face impassive. Then he turns back to me. “He was mad at me,” he explains. “And he was thinking of running for governor in two years.”

This doesn’t qualify as a convincing explanation. “So?” I ask.

“So was I.”

I dart a glance at Molinari. “And you think he set you up for murder to get you out of the way so he could run for governor two years from now?” I ask.

“That’s one scenario I’ve considered.”

That’s one scenario I hope we won’t have to try to sell to the jury.

Molinari scowls. “You’ve got to come up with something better than that,” he says. “It’s preposterous.”

“Look at it this way,” Skipper says. “If he can pin Garcia’s murder on me, he wins twice. His candidate wins the AG race and he has a clear shot at the governor’s seat in two years.”

It’s still preposterous.

Molinari turns to Ann. “He’s your campaign manager,” he says. “Was he planning to run for governor?”

She glares at her father. “Maybe. And for the record, if you’re suggesting that Dan had anything to do with the death of Johnny Garcia, you’re wrong.”

We sit in silence for a moment, avoiding eye contact. Then I say, “Skipper, do you know anything about a man named Donald Martinez?”

“I know a lot about Donald Martinez. We’ve been trying to nail him as long as I’ve been in office. The feds have been after him for tax evasion and racketeering. They think he’s been taking payoffs on construction projects for years. We’ve never been able to prove anything.”

Ann rolls her eyes. “Come on, Father,” she says, “they’ve been making those charges for as long as I can remember. There’s nothing to them. Besides, what makes you think Donald Martinez has anything to do with this case?”

“We have reason to believe that Martinez may have been approached by Andy Holton,” I say.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Skipper says. “If somebody is involved in drugs, prostitution or gambling, Donald Martinez has a hand in it. Anything for money.” He pauses and adds, “You might check with Turner.”

“Why is that?”

“He’s Martinez’s lawyer.”

I get the expected indignant response when I call Turner from my cell phone on my way back to the office. “Donald Martinez is a respected businessman in the Mission District,” he says. “All of his business activities are legal and aboveboard. I will not comment further because of client confidentiality.”

This doesn’t stop me. “Was he involved with Andy Holton?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Something stinks. I don’t believe him. I don’t trust him about this or anything else now. And it stinks even more when the guy’s your client’s old buddy. Whose side is Turner on, anyway?

29
THE DONALD

“We are very pleased to present this citation for community service to Donald Martinez.”

—T
HE
M
AYOR OF
S
AN
F
RANCISCO
.

Donald Martinez has given us a nine o’clock appointment the next morning. Rosie and I are sitting in the leather chairs in his office in an old department store at Twentieth and Mission. The building houses his produce distribution business as well as the offices of the Mission Redevelopment Fund and the Donald Martinez Charitable Foundation. Martinez could run his empire out of a high-rise downtown, but he’s chosen to stay in the neighborhood. He’s a tanned, charismatic man in his late fifties who looks and talks a little bit like Ricardo Montalban. He’s only about five ten, but his erect bearing gives the impression that he is taller. His presence leaves no doubt that he is a man who gets what he wants.

The office is full of pictures. He’s got his life on display. There’s one of his wife, adult children and four grandchildren on his credenza. On one wall there is an enlarged photo of an old delivery truck bearing the logo of Martinez Wholesale Produce. Martinez tells us proudly that he started his
business thirty years ago with that single truck. There are pictures of several low-income housing developments on the opposite wall. I can see citations from the mayor, the Mission Youth Center, St. Peter’s and various other community agencies. We exchange polite, labored conversation for a few minutes. Then we get down to business.

We’ve agreed that Rosie will start. “Mr. Martinez,” she says, “we understand that you provide start-up financing for local businesses.” Her tone is mild.

“That’s true, Ms. Fernandez. I have personally funded several new businesses in the area.” He names two restaurants and three dot-coms. “I think it is important to provide economic opportunities to members of our community. Traditional sources of funding such as bank loans often are unavailable.” He gives us a half-smile and adds, “In the current vernacular, I’m called an ‘angel’ investor.”

Perhaps, but he is no angel. Rosie pushes on and asks if he ever met Andy Holton.

His response is businesslike. “I believe I met him once, Ms. Fernandez,” he says. “He lived in the neighborhood. For a while, he lived at the youth center.” Smooth as silk.

I sense Martinez is already trying to distance himself from Holton. I ask, “Did Mr. Holton ever approach you regarding a potential business deal?”

“Mr. Daley, people approach us all the time. As you may know, in addition to my other interests, I am the founder and the president of the Mission Redevelopment Fund, which provides subsidies to local businesses to encourage them to hire young people from the neighborhood. The fund is also involved in the development of low-income housing in the community.”

All very tidy, but he hasn’t quite answered my question, so I try again. “Mr. Martinez, did he ask you for money?”

His tone remains forthright. “Yes, he did. I remember
receiving an inquiry from him about a year ago. I don’t recall the details, although I believe it involved a new Internet software venture.”

He isn’t being openly evasive, but he isn’t particularly forthcoming, either. Rosie asks if Holton ever demonstrated the software for him.

“No. We never saw a prototype.”

There probably never was a prototype. “Did you meet with Mr. Holton about the project?”

“I believe so. The fund has very specific procedures. We asked him to provide a written proposal and a business plan, which he did.” He adds, “We did not provide funding.”

“Why not?”

“As I recall, his business plan was inadequate and we did not believe he had the experience or expertise to operate a start-up company.”

“Mr. Martinez,” I say, “did you do any checking into his background?”

“Yes. Our procedures require it. He was very young and had no experience running a business.”

He judiciously leaves out the fact that Holton was a drug dealer and a pimp. “Mr. Martinez,” I say, “we understand that Mr. Holton may have been involved in prostitution and drug dealing. We also have reason to believe that he was involved in the creation of a pornographic Web site. We’ve seen the pictures, and they are quite graphic and disturbing. We’re trying to determine who may have provided the funding. Do you have any idea?”

He becomes self-righteous. “The fund does not invest in businesses that engage in pornography. There will always be people like Mr. Holton who try to make a fast buck off the weaknesses of others. I find it appalling. I can assure you that we had nothing to do with it.”

He’s a little too sanctimonious for my taste. “I wasn’t
suggesting that you were involved. Do you know who might have been?”

“I have no idea. We would never condone any such activities. It’s against my principles.” He pauses and adds, “We would never associate with a hoodlum like Mr. Holton.”

He certainly wants to put as much space as he can between himself and Andy Holton. I’m sure he’s left no tracks.

The clock continues to tick. Jury selection begins on Monday. When we get back from Martinez’s office, I spend a couple of hours with our jury consultant. She gives me the conventional wisdom that we should try to load up the jury with idiots. I have worked with dozens of jury consultants over the years, with mixed results. She’s fairly typical in that I find her advice useful and her attitude condescending.

After she leaves, Carolyn and I go over our witness list. You can get in trouble if you try to call somebody who isn’t listed. California law doesn’t like surprise witnesses. As a result, we have loaded up ours with everybody under the sun who might conceivably be called at trial, and many who won’t. We lawyers tend to be pretty underhanded about the whole thing. By law, we have provided ours to the prosecution, and they’ve provided theirs to us. Ours includes the names of everybody who attended Skipper’s rally and the entire security force at the Fairmont. We’ve even included McNasty and Payne; they were there that night. We’re tweaking them—they know it. Judge Kelly will never let them testify. I ask Carolyn whether anybody was especially upset at receiving our subpoenas.

“Sure. Morris, Parnelli and Anderson weren’t real excited about it. Donald Martinez was furious.”

Interesting. He certainly gave us no indication of it earlier today. “And Ann and Natalie, too?”

“They weren’t happy about it, either,” she says, “but they’re ready if we need them.”

I hope we won’t. I ask her about the prosecution’s list.

“They’ve included most of the people you’d expect.” She reads off the names of Tom Murphy, the first officer at the scene, Elaine McBride and Roosevelt Johnson, Rod Beckert and Sandra Wilson. “They’ve included a few of the evidence technicians and the lab guys,” she says.

“And Dan Morris and Turner Stanford?”

“Yup. Along with Jason Parnelli and Kevin Anderson.” She notes that everybody from the meeting in Skipper’s room also appears on the prosecution’s list.

“What about Nick the Dick?” I ask.

“Are you kidding? Absolutely. If they didn’t put him on their list, he’d be down there begging.”

At three o’clock, I gather the troops in the martial arts studio, which is beginning to look like the backstage area of a theater. We’re laying out our props. We’ve set up easels around the room. We’re trying to anticipate the prosecution’s case. This is necessary, but by and large, it’s an exercise in pure speculation. You never get used to the uncertainty of it.

Pete is the master of ceremonies when we talk about the physical evidence. He’s been through this drill many times. He stands at the first easel and reads off the list of everything that was found at the Fairmont. “Handcuffs and the roll of duct tape with Skipper’s fingerprints,” he recites. “The key in the toilet. Skipper said it didn’t work.”

“But when the police tested it,” I interject, “it did, in fact, open the handcuffs found on Johnny Garcia.” When I asked Skipper about it, he had no answer.

Pete ticks off the other items found at the scene. Garcia’s naked body. The champagne flutes and the duct tape that covered Garcia’s eyes, nose and mouth. Then he goes
through the other items relating to the events at the hotel. Garcia’s fingerprints on the phone and the doorknob. The phone records. Nick Hanson’s videotape. The traces of GHB found in the champagne flutes.