Red Line (12 page)

Twenty minutes later, Sinclair and Braddock pulled up to a gray apartment building in the Adams Point district of Oakland, a few blocks from Lake Merritt. The patrol squad working that district had weekends off, so to draw that squad on day shift required at least twenty years of seniority. The tall, lean uniformed officer who stood in front of the building was at least ten years older than Sinclair.

“I talked to the apartment manager,” the officer said. “Shaw lives in two-twelve, a two-bedroom unit with three other men. We ran them out. They’ve got a bunch of arrests for property crimes, drugs, and misdemeanors, but no violence or weapons. Sometimes they get loud, but otherwise, the manager says they’re not bad tenants. He gave me a key so we don’t kick down the door.”

The officer radioed another officer who was watching the back in case someone jumped out the window and then led the way inside and up the stairs.

They stacked alongside the door and Sinclair rapped loudly. “Police. Arrest warrant. Open the door.”

In most departments, an arrest for a possession-for-sales warrant would require a tactical entry. Crack sales
and guns go hand-in-hand, and since most crack dealers are also users, they can be unpredictable. But in Oakland, such arrests were routine, and the average patrol officer had more experience making felony arrests than SWAT cops in other departments. Besides, Shaw didn’t fit the profile of an armed crack dealer, and the apartment wasn’t a fortified crack house. Nevertheless, each officer’s hand rested on the butt of his pistol.

Sinclair was leaning across the door to knock again, when the door squeaked open. “Show me your hands,” he ordered.

Two hands protruded into the hallway. Sinclair grabbed a wrist and pulled a young blond man dressed in baggy jeans and T-shirt out of the apartment and shoved him toward Braddock, who cuffed him. Sinclair continued watching the open door.

“What’s your name?” asked Braddock.

“Brandon Shaw.”

“Anyone else in the apartment?”

“No.”

While Braddock handcuffed Shaw, Sinclair drew his gun and entered. The uniformed officer followed. Sinclair and the officer walked through the front room, a combination living room and kitchen, and started down the hallway. They swept through the bedrooms and bathrooms, checking closets, shower stalls, and under beds. Once satisfied there was no one else in the apartment, the officer radioed his partner to come around the front.

Braddock was waiting with Shaw in the living room. She patted him down and removed a wallet and cell phone from his pockets. Then she reached deep into a front pocket and pulled out a small glassine zip-lock baggie containing four small white rocks.

“Looks like you’ve got a new charge on top of the warrant,” Braddock said to Shaw.

“That’s not mine,” Shaw said.

“I guess someone must’ve put those drugs in your pocket,” said Braddock.

“Or maybe you’re wearing someone else’s pants,” said Sinclair.

Shaw shrugged.

Sinclair pulled a sheet of paper from his coat pocket and unfolded it. “Brandon, this is a consent to search form. If you don’t sign it, we’ll get a search warrant. That’ll piss these officers off, because they’ll have to sit around for hours while we type it up and find a judge to sign it, and then when they search your place, they’ll probably make a terrible mess. But if you give us your voluntary consent, we’ll be real neat and out of here in a few minutes.”

Shaw nodded. Braddock removed his right handcuff so Shaw could sign the form.

“Which bedroom’s yours?”

“First one on the left.”

Sinclair told one officer to transport Shaw downtown. Once Shaw was gone, Sinclair gave the other officer instructions on what to look for in the front room while he and Braddock went to the bedroom. Two mattresses, heaped with a tangle of sheets and blankets, lay on the floor, and a dresser with a broken leg leaned against a wall under the window. Piles of dirty clothes lay around the room, which smelled like the inside of a gym bag. Braddock took the closet and went through the pockets of all the clothes. Sinclair did the same with the clothes on the floor and then went through each drawer of the dresser. There were papers and photos in the top drawer. Although
nothing appeared related to the murders, Sinclair stuck it all in a bag.

When they were finished, the officer was sitting at the kitchen table. “Found a few pipes in a box by the TV, but the kitchen and bathroom turned up nothing.”

Sinclair pulled off his gloves and washed his hands in the kitchen sink. “Nothing in the bedroom but dirty clothes and cockroaches and some papers we’ll look through downtown.”

“Did you include his phone on the consent to search form?” asked Braddock.

“Electronic devices,” he said. “Cell phones fall under that.”

Braddock scrolled through the phone. “Looks like over a hundred contacts, his recent call history, and a bunch of texts. Maybe we should have Sanchez do a dump on the phone so he can sort it on the computer.”

“Makes sense. There’s too much data for us to sort through unless we know what we’re looking for.”

“The call history only goes back six months,” said Braddock. “So there wouldn’t be anything from when Samantha and Jenny were raped.”

“What about photos?”

Braddock handed Sinclair the phone. He swiped through scores of photographs and then stopped. “Cathy,” he said, holding up the phone so that she could see. Sprawled out on a large bed with burgundy sheets, her long, blonde hair splayed across a pillow, was Samantha Arquette. Her eyes were closed. Between her breasts rested a silver peace medallion on a shiny chain.

Back at the office, Sinclair and Braddock gathered around Sanchez’s computer after he had plugged the phone into his computer with a USB cord and, using a special program, dumped all the phone’s data onto his hard drive.

Sinclair felt Braddock’s fingers digging into his forearm. He turned to face her, expecting to see tears in her eyes. Instead, he saw rage. He placed his hand over hers, and she relaxed her grip.

“There’s more,” said Sanchez as he clicked to the next photo.

Bare-chested and grinning, Shaw sat in a bed next to a naked Jenny Fitzgerald. She was obviously older than Samantha, her body more developed. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. The next photo showed a dark-haired boy in a similar pose, sitting in bed next to Samantha, who had a zombie-like stare fixed on her face.

“Looks like we have the lineup.” said Sinclair. “Jenny with Shaw and Samantha with this boy, who might be Adrian, if Madison is right.”

“That would be Adrian Nadeiri,” said Sanchez. “He’s the only Adrian I saw in Shaw’s contact list.”

Sinclair entered the name into CORPUS. No matches. He tried DMV. The computer spit out an Adrian Nadeiri, nineteen years old, with a Berkeley address. Sinclair brought up the record and looked at the photograph. A definite match with the picture in Shaw’s phone.

“What’s his address?” asked Jankowski. “I’ll go snatch the little fucker out of his house.”

“Let’s do this right,” said Sinclair. “I don’t want some judge to throw out a confession because we acted without a warrant.”

“I’ll ask him to come voluntarily,” said Jankowski. “They never refuse.”

“And no judge would ever consider he was coerced,” added Braddock.

Jankowski gave them a sly smile.

Sinclair called UC, Berkeley, and gave them Nadeiri’s info. The UCPD detective said, “Junior, engineer major, same address as his DMV record. His class schedule puts him in calculus right now.”

“We’ve got enough to arrest him on probable cause for rape, and as long as he’s in a public place, we don’t need a warrant,” said Sinclair.

“I’ll send a unit there pronto and head over myself.”

“Call me if you get him,” said Sinclair. “I’ll send an OPD car to bring him back.”

“Hell, we’ll bring him to you. It’s not like we get to work a murder every day.”

“Don’t tell him what he’s wanted for. And take his phone. I don’t want him tipping off someone at his house.”

Sinclair asked Jankowski to type up an affidavit and search warrant for the house and told him how to interrupt the interview with Shaw and what to say. Sinclair pulled
a DNA sample collection kit from the locker, opened the interview room door, and stepped inside. Braddock followed.

Room 201 was six feet by eight with a stained linoleum floor and blue painted wood panels four feet up the walls. Above that, acoustical tiles covered the walls and ceiling. A metal table sat against one wall surrounded by three chairs. Shaw stood in the back corner, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, apparently full of nervous energy.

“I thought I was arrested over drugs,” said Shaw. “The sign on the door says homicide.”

“We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but first, we need to do this,” said Sinclair as he ripped open the package and donned a pair of plastic gloves. He grasped the first cotton swab, which looked like a Q-tip with a long handle.

“Open your mouth,” Sinclair ordered.

Sinclair rubbed the cotton tip against the inside of Shaw’s cheek, rotating it as he moved it in and out several times. He placed the swab on the packaging to air dry.

“What’s this for?”

“DNA sample.”

“What for?”

“We’ll talk about it in a little bit. Open again.”

Sinclair took the second swab from its sterile package and swabbed the other cheek. Braddock stood by the door with her notebook in hand.

“Time of test?” asked Braddock.

Sinclair glanced at his watch. “Fourteen-thirty-eight.”

“Shaw, Brandon,” Braddock said as she filled out the form. “Date of birth?”

Shaw started to speak, but Sinclair interrupted. “I have all that in his file.”

“You have a file on me?” asked Shaw.

Sinclair smiled as Jankowski rapped on the door and stuck his head inside. “The crime lab’s on the phone. They pulled the DNA evidence on the two girls and are waiting on you.”

“Tell ’em I’ll be right up with the samples,” said Sinclair.

“What girls? What’s this all about?”

“We’ll talk about it.” Sinclair and Braddock gathered up the DNA kit and left the room.

Once outside, Sinclair grinned at Jankowski and Braddock. “You both should get academy awards for your acting.”

“Did he buy it?” asked Jankowski.

“I’ll bet Shaw’s having visions of rows of test tubes and swirling lab machines getting ready to spit out a DNA match,” said Braddock.

“I just hope he doesn’t know that the lab has a backlog of over a thousand DNA cases, and even if they dropped everything, we couldn’t see test results before Monday,” said Sinclair.

“What now?” asked Braddock.

“We let him stew and grab a sandwich.”

Ten minutes later, they were back at their desks, a turkey sandwich on whole wheat in front of Braddock and roast beef on a hard roll with chips and a diet coke in front of Sinclair. Connie told them the UC police called and were en route with Adrian Nadeiri.

Sinclair was three bites into his sandwich when Lieutenant Maloney stopped in front of his desk, his arms folded across this chest. “I feel like something’s going on and everyone’s in on it but me.”

Sinclair brought Maloney up to date and added, “We need an admission from both to make a chargeable case
on the rapes. If they don’t talk, no DA will file on them without a DNA match.”

“You think they’re good for the murders too?” asked Maloney.

Sinclair had been asking himself that question ever since they learned Brandon Shaw’s name at the fraternity house. The murders of Zachary and Susan felt bigger than Shaw and Nadeiri, but Sinclair had learned never to underestimate even the most normal person’s capacity to kill.

“I’ll know better once we talk with them,” said Sinclair.

“I need to inform the chief.”

“Can you hold off? We don’t know where this’ll lead, and if it leaks, evidence and other suspects might disappear.”

“I’ll mention the importance of confidentiality,” said Maloney.

Sinclair and Braddock discussed their interview strategy as they finished their sandwiches. Then they entered the interview room for the next round. Shaw sat slumped in the chair farthest from the door.

“I’ll trade you,” said Sinclair, pulling out the chair in the middle of the table for him. “Can I get you some coffee, water, or a soda?”

“I’m good.”

Sinclair took the chair Shaw had been sitting in. Braddock sat across the table from him. He opened his portfolio and slid out a yellow pad. He wrote the date, time, and room number in the upper corner.

“My name is Sergeant Sinclair and this is my partner Sergeant Braddock. We work homicide. Let’s start by confirming some information. Your last name is Shaw?”

“Yeah.”

“First name Brandon?”

“Yeah.”

“Middle name?”

“James.”

Sinclair continued asking him for information that would be required on a booking sheet, slowly writing his answers on his legal pad. Although he already knew most of Shaw’s personal information, going through the process got Shaw used to answering whatever Sinclair asked. When finished, he placed his pen on the pad and locked his eyes onto Shaw.

“Brandon, I’m sure you’re curious about why you’re here. I’d like to tell you why, but under the law, before we talk, I’m required to read you your rights. Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, I guess. I got nothing to hide.”

Sinclair slid a form out of his notebook, and even though he knew it by heart, he read it verbatim. He kept his eyes on the form, avoiding eye contact, trying to make the Miranda waiver process seem like nothing more than a routine bureaucratic process.

“Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sinclair could see Shaw nodding his head.

“I need an oral response,” Sinclair said, pen poised above the paper.

“Yes.”

“Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”

Another reason Sinclair kept his eyes on the form was so that Shaw couldn’t see the anticipation in his face. Everything hinged on Shaw waiving his rights. The longer Shaw thought about it, the more likely he’d realize how dumb it was to talk. Sinclair had to make it appear as if it were no big deal.

“Well?” he asked, still looking at the form.

“Okay.”

Sinclair turned the form around and handed his pen to Shaw.

“I need your initials here, next to where I wrote
Yes
to you understanding your rights. And your initials here next to the
Okay
that you’re willing to talk with us. And then your signature here.”

After he initialed and signed, Sinclair slipped the form into his portfolio—out of sight, out of mind—wrote the time and
Waived/Signed
on his yellow pad, and then looked up at Shaw. “When I earlier asked your occupation and work address, you told me you’re a student at UC Berkeley. What’s your major?”

“Civil engineering.”

“That’s impressive. How are you doing?”

“It’s tough, but I’ve got a three-five GPA.”

“I guess you’re just beginning your junior year, huh?”

“That’s right.”

Sinclair took notes of his answers to get him used to the process, even though Sinclair knew they were lies. “Why do you live way down by Lake Merritt? Isn’t it easier if you live near campus?”

“I used to live there, but the rent is outrageous.”

“Did you live on campus or at a fraternity?”

“I lived in the dorms freshman year and tried a fraternity, but it didn’t work out.”

“What happened?”

“Too many rules. Worse than the dorms.”

“What fraternity was that?”

“Alpha Kappa Lambda.”

“So was that last year, your sophomore year, when you rushed the fraternity?”

Shaw’s eyes focused on Sinclair and then darted above and past him, finally settling on an imaginary spot on the wall. Sinclair could tell the gears were turning in his brain.

“That’s right,” Shaw finally said.

“So I guess you went to the party there during pledge week, like all new pledges.”

“I guess.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I was there, but I didn’t stay long.”

“How come?”

“It was sort of boring, so we left to check out other parties.”

“We? You and Adrian?”

“Who?”

“Adrian. Weren’t you with him that night?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. That was a year ago. I don’t remember who I was with.”

“Were you with any girls?”

“No, not really.”

“How about these two?” Sinclair slid two photos in front of him.

Shaw stared at them for at least ten seconds before he looked up and said, “I don’t know them.”

“Never saw them before?”

“Nope.”

“Their names are Samantha and Jenny. Does that ring a bell?”

“I said I never saw them before.”

“Okay. We’ll be right back.” Sinclair and Braddock gathered up their paperwork and notebooks and left the room.

“Is he stupid or what?” said Braddock as she settled into her desk.

“He’s very bright. He thinks you and I are stupid.”

“Adrian Nadeiri’s in two-oh-two,” said Jankowski.

Sinclair and Braddock entered the interview room next to Shaw’s room and went through the same DNA collection process as they did earlier. After Jankowski said his line, Sinclair and Braddock began to leave. Sinclair stopped at the door. “We’ll be a few minutes. You want the paper or something to read?”

“That would be nice,” Nadeiri said.

“News? Sports?”

“Sports.”

Sinclair tossed the sports section of the
San Francisco Chronicle
on the table and shut the door.

“In five minutes, take the paper from him,” Sinclair said to Jankowski. “Tell him it’s yours and he can have it when you’re finished with it.”

Braddock raised her eyebrows.

“To show him he’s not in control here.”

Sinclair and Braddock returned to Shaw’s room. “We’re gonna take your statement and then get you out of here.”

He turned on the recorder, reread the Miranda warning, and had Shaw acknowledge that he was read his rights earlier and waived them. Oftentimes, a denial statement—a series of lies about a suspect’s involvement in a crime—when combined with evidence to the contrary, can be even more damaging to the suspect at trial than a confession. It shows a callousness and lack of remorse that a jury and sentencing judge will remember. Sinclair repeated his earlier questions and Shaw repeated his lies. When finished, Sinclair switched off the recorder.

He pulled Shaw’s chair toward him until their knees touched. He leaned in, his face inches from Shaw’s. “Brandon, you lied to us.”

Shaw looked away.

“Look at me,” Sinclair said.

Shaw looked up. After a few beats, Sinclair released his stare and leaned back in his chair. “We spoke to Cameron at the fraternity. He told us that you and Adrian . . .” Sinclair pulled a photocopy of Adrian’s driver’s license photo from his notebook and set it on the table. “Adrian Nadeiri and you brought those two girls to the party. They were underage and drugged, so Cameron asked you to leave. You and Adrian had sex with them.”

“No, we didn’t—”

“You’re still lying.” Sinclair set photocopies of the naked girls from Shaw’s cell phone on the table.

“Where’d you get those?”

“From your phone.”

“I know my rights. You can’t search my phone—”

“You signed the consent form back at your apartment. We have Adrian in the next room. He’s talking already.”

Shaw covered his face with his hands and rocked back and forth in his chair.

Sinclair peeled Shaw’s hands from his tear-streaked face.

“I don’t believe you’re a rapist.”

“I would never rape a girl.”

“But that’s how it looks.”

Shaw wiped his eyes and nose and slowly nodded his head.

“I’ll bet there’s an explanation for what happened,” said Sinclair. “But it can only come from you.”

“Adrian’s father said he took care of it.” Shaw sat up straight in his chair. “That if we never said a word, we’d be okay.”

“Adrian’s father can’t help you. Only you can do that.”

Shaw looked at the floor for a couple of minutes. Sinclair said nothing. Shaw finally looked up.

“Are you ready to tell the truth?” asked Sinclair.