A Criminal Defense Read online

  But opening this door further into his and his father’s lives wouldn’t get Donnally closer to understanding who might have wanted to kill Mark Hamlin, so he tried to slam it shut.

  “Is this a hobby of yours?” Donnally asked. “Or a form of self-defense?”

  Lemmie drew back. “Touché. I guess I was getting a little intrusive.” She paused, her face displaying the uncertainties and anxieties within, her hand now gripping her unmoving glass. “The truth is I do it to try to figure out whether I’m normal or not. To try to gain some perspective. Otherwise I’d just have my brother to compare myself to.”

  “And how twisted was he?”

  “I think he had no more respect for the truth than your father did. He fictionalized everything.” Lemmie’s upper teeth worked against her lower lip again, then stopped. “Is there such a word as ‘theatracized’? If so, that’s what he did. Truth wasn’t real. Victims’ suffering wasn’t real. Everything was an act in a play.”

  Lemmie’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open.

  Donnally could tell she was seeing something in her mind that wasn’t visible to him.

  Tears formed and squeezed out onto her cheeks as she blinked.

  “I’m afraid … I’m afraid even death didn’t seem real to him until the moment he faced it himself.” She swallowed hard. “Do you … do you think he knew he was dying?”

  Donnally knew the truth. There was no reason to think Hamlin was unconscious when he was strangled. But that wasn’t the answer he chose to give.

  “I don’t know,” Donnally said. “There’s no way of knowing.”

  He never viewed himself as a human polygraph, but Lemmie’s last sentences had taken her off the suspects list.

  Lemmie reached into her purse, withdrew a tissue, and wiped her eyes. Her voice hardened again as she asked, “Doesn’t the condition of his body mean …”

  Donnally understood she was referring to her brother’s erection and answered, “Not necessarily, that happens sometimes when a victim has been strangled. We still haven’t gotten the toxicology report, so we don’t know whether it was induced medically.”

  “And you don’t know about other drugs yet, either?”

  “You know something?”

  “Will my parents find out?”

  “That depends on where it leads. If it leads to the killer, then it will eventually come out in court. If it fades, it’ll stay with me.”

  Lemmie took in a long breath and exhaled. “Mark chased the dragon.”

  “Opium?”

  Lemmie nodded. “Didn’t you find a long clay pipe in his apartment?”

  Donnally thought for a moment. “There was a collection of them on a bookcase in his living room. Old ones, maybe even antiques.”

  “Hiding in plain sight can be the best camouflage.”

  “How long was he doing it?”

  “Off and on for about ten years.”

  “Where did he get it?”

  Lemmie shrugged. “Somebody in Chinatown, I guess. Or maybe Little Saigon down in San Jose.”

  Donnally pulled out his phone and called Navarro. “Did you get the tox report yet?”

  “Just came in. Looks like Hamlin may have had a heroin problem. The preliminary results showed opiate metabolites in his blood. I checked the autopsy report. No track marks, so he must’ve been smoking it.”

  “I think it may be opium.” He looked up at Lemmie, but said to Navarro, “Do me a favor. Hustle over to Judge McMullin and get a court order sealing the report.”

  “Will do. I already told the medical examiner to hold it close because some media people have been lying in wait for it.”

  “Anything else show up?”

  “Alcohol. It was at .04. The blood was otherwise clean—and there’s one more thing. Dr. Haddad says it was a heart attack that actually killed him. Strangling, panic, death.”

  Donnally disconnected. He decided to keep Lemmie on the drug path and not risk diverting her into speculations about the murder and to painful imaginings of her brother’s last moments.

  “Did he do it alone or with other people?”

  “Recently, I don’t know. When he started, it was with a private investigator he hung out with, Frank Lange. They tried it for the first time on a trip to Thailand on a case. Their client hooked them up.”

  “How’d you find out about it?”

  “The ICE beagle at SFO sniffed out a pipe they brought back and agents questioned them for a couple of hours. I know because I was in the arrivals hall waiting. The supervisor came out and told me what the holdup was. Their story was that they bought the pipe at a souvenir shop in Bangkok. It was a lie. My brother and Frank were laughing about the whole thing as I was driving them home. It could’ve cost both of them their licenses, but they thought it was a laugh.”

  “Do you know where he hid his opium?”

  “I’m not sure, but he hinted once that he had a secret compartment somewhere in his bedroom.”

  Chapter 29

  Except for the motion and whoosh of cars and trucks, there was little change from the shadow and neon of the Backroom Bar and the night and neon of the sidewalk onto which Donnally and Lemmie stepped. It reminded Donnally of what a deceased friend used to say. Walking from a dark bar into sunlight reflecting up off concrete was like descending into hell.

  The distress still showing on Lemmie’s face suggested she was stuck in purgatory, and Donnally knew he could do nothing for her. He wasn’t sure that even solving her brother’s murder would provide an escape. He thought he’d at least try to break the mood by asking her how she got her nickname.

  “When we were kids, I was the adventurous one. Whenever we went someplace new, like the circus, when there was a ride to try or a high dive at the pool, I would always scream, ‘Let me, let me, let me.’ Over time, that became Lemmie.”

  She paused and gazed at the oncoming traffic, seemingly oblivious to the headlights jittering on the uneven pavement and the rumble of tires. Finally, she said, “As it turned out, Mark was the aggressive one as an adult, and I’ve spent my life holed up in front of a computer monitor living the lives of imaginary people.” She half smiled. “My nickname now should be Leemee, as in leave … me … alone.”

  “Does that include me?” Donnally asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

  Donnally nodded. “Have any reporters made the connection between you and your brother?”

  “Not yet. My parents are refusing to talk to the press and I haven’t placed an obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle. After time passes and things have died down, maybe I’ll step out of the closet on that one.”

  Donnally hailed her a cab, watched it take her down toward Market Street, then turned and started back toward Hamlin’s office. He stopped with an after-work crowd at the crosswalk and waited for the switch from “Wait” to “Walk.” Most of those around him already wore their bovine BART faces, preparation for the see-nothing, hear-nothing, think-nothing, no-eye-contact commute from urban work to suburban home. Even the eyes of those texting on their cell phones seemed vacant.

  He sensed people crunching up behind him, followed by jostling, then someone crowding him from behind. He felt something hard dig into the middle of his back, then a male voice with a light Vietnamese accent whispered into his ear, “Don’t move.”

  A hand locked onto his left bicep.

  “And don’t look around.”

  Donnally pressed his right arm tight against his side so the man couldn’t too easily get to his gun, then looked down, trying to catch a glimpse of the man’s shoes and pants. Neither was what he expected. He spotted creased wool suit slacks and black alligator penny loafers, unblemished.

  “Let the people pass around you.”

  The signal changed.

  What Donnally understood to be a gun barrel jabbed hard against his spine. He also understood that even a small caliber slug would paralyze him from that spot down to h
is toes. And spinning and grabbing for the gun would likely cause it to discharge into one of the pedestrians, shocking them awake from their after-work slumber just in time to watch one of them die.

  He decided to do what the man said until they were in a spot that would be safer for him to make a move.

  Those to the front of him stepped off the curb and into the street. The ones behind him worked their way past.

  “You look at me and I might as well shoot,” the man said, once the area around them had almost cleared. “I may shoot anyway, but there’s no need to force the issue.”

  As the last of the pedestrians ran to beat the light, the man said, “Keep your eyes facing the direction you’re going and turn right and head down the sidewalk. There’s a parking garage a half block up. We’re going in there.”

  It was the same eighty-year-old structure where Donnally had parked his truck. He wished both that he’d paid more attention to the layout and that he’d chosen one to park in with better lighting. Walking toward it now, he imagined the third floor where he’d left the truck was more shadow than light. But, at the same time, it might not be too isolated since office workers would be coming to collect their cars for the ride home.

  After they made the turn onto the ramp rising to the first floor, the man prodded him toward the stairs. Now Donnally was certain that they were heading toward his truck.

  He was wrong.

  As they approached the second floor door, the man said, “This is where we get off. Step through and hang a left along the wall.”

  Donnally followed his orders and saw that the gunman had planned well. All of the spaces were taken up by vehicles used by a medical delivery service, their workday done, the engines cooling, ticking in the silence. The man had either cased the area searching for the perfect place for what he had in mind or worked in a nearby office building and already knew the layout.

  Fifty feet farther, Donnally found himself boxed in by the soot-caked corner of the building and a gray panel van. The shoulder-width space was too tight for him either to make a go for his gun or spin and take a swing.

  That was also smart planning on the crook’s part.

  “Don’t you think you should tell me what this is about?” Donnally said. “Maybe you’ve got the wrong guy.”

  The gun jabbed him in the back again.

  “Raise your arms.”

  Donnally followed the order and felt the tug and rip of Velcro and the yanking of his semiautomatic from its holster. He then felt two barrels against his back.

  “I know exactly who you are,” the man said, “and I’ll tell you exactly what this is about. First, I want to know where my money is, and second, what was the deal you had with Hamlin.”

  “What money?”

  “Don’t fuck with me.”

  “I found some money, but it’s been seized by SFPD. I couldn’t get it for you now even if I wanted to. And with that gun at my back, trust me, I want to.”

  “I don’t believe you. The only reason you’re involved in this is because you and Hamlin had to be partners and you’re protecting your interest. Last thing you’d do is let the police grab a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “I didn’t find two-fifty. I found about one-forty in cash, that’s it. There are witnesses who watched me count it and hand it over. A homicide detective and Hamlin’s assistant.”

  The man didn’t respond. Donnally felt the gun barrels move against his back, the man’s outward movement reflecting inward uncertainty.

  Finally, the man said, “What do you mean seized? Like forfeited?”

  Using the word “forfeited” sounded to Donnally like an inadvertent admission that the funds were the proceeds of crime.

  “No, just booked into evidence.”

  The man mumbled to himself. Donnally could only make out the words “none” and “cash” and “¯d·u má,” a Vietnamese swearword that Janie’s father had taught him: motherfucker.

  “I take it that it wasn’t supposed to be in cash,” Donnally said.

  “That son of a bitch.”

  “Maybe you should’ve checked into that before you killed him.”

  “If I killed him, we wouldn’t be standing here. I would’ve gotten what I wanted first.”

  “Sometimes accidents happen.”

  “Keep playing the fool and an accident may happen to you.”

  He’s wrong about that, Donnally thought. Nothing would happen to him as long as the slick-shoed gunslinger believed Donnally controlled Hamlin’s money.

  “You have to give me a hint,” Donnally said, “How will I go about finding it if I don’t know who it’s from, or what it’s from, or why you gave it to him, or how you gave it to him.”

  The man didn’t respond.

  “Or were you expecting me to write a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar check made out to To Whom It May Concern?”

  The man still didn’t respond.

  “There was no inside deal that brought me into this,” Donnally said. “And I didn’t want to do it. Other than when Hamlin cross-examined me in homicide trials, I only talked to him once. And that was a year ago and on the phone.”

  The man mumbled again. Donnally could only make out the swearwords, and they seemed directed at himself, rather than at Donnally or Hamlin. There must’ve been something the man had been good at, or at least good enough to afford the clothes he was wearing, but it wasn’t kidnapping. As if to confirm Donnally’s opinion, what the man said next just sounded stupid.

  “If he had the cash you found,” the man said, “maybe there’s more. In fact, I’m thinking that there has to be. Lots.” Another jab with a barrel. “And you’re going to find it and hand it over.”

  “You got a business card or something?” Donnally said. “We’ll need to keep in touch.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll hear from me.”

  “Maybe we can do lunch.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Donnally heard the shoe scrapes of the man backing away, and asked, “What about my gun?”

  “I’ll …” The man hesitated. He hadn’t thought this part through. Donnally guessed he had to decide whether he was a crooked businessman trying to recover money or a just a mugger. “I’ll leave it in the wheel well of the car nearest the stairs.” He forced a laugh. “I suspect you’ll need it. Mark Hamlin kept a lot tougher company than me and I need you alive.”

  “That’s something we can agree on,” Donnally said. “I need me alive, too.”

  Chapter 30

  As Donnally slid his semiautomatic back in its holster and descended the ramp to the sidewalk, he was less concerned about a second visit from the flustered Vietnamese gunman than about what Hamlin was doing with the quarter-million dollars. There was no question in Donnally’s mind that it was crime proceeds, but what crime and by what device had Hamlin received it, and what had the crook expected him to do with the money?

  The easy answer, maybe too easy, was that Hamlin was laundering it.

  The man expected the money to still be in cash, while the problem for drug traffickers was to find ways to convert it into untraceable assets. That suggested Hamlin would’ve received it just before his death and hadn’t had time to launder it.

  After again stepping into the flow of pedestrians and heading in the direction of Hamlin’s office, Donnally thought of his conversation with Lemmie. Maybe it wasn’t about money laundering, at least not directly. Maybe Hamlin had chased the dragon all the way into the drug trade and he was supposed to have used the money to purchase opium from his connection in Thailand.

  What better cut-out for a drug trafficking organization than a white lawyer with a confidential trust account to move money to Asia to purchase narcotics?

  But again, the man expected Hamlin still had the cash, which implied that the deal—if it really was a drug deal—hadn’t been done yet.

  In either case, where was the money?

  Donnally suspected the man felt a little foolish as he’d left
. He’d come with a gun only because he fantasized that Donnally and Hamlin were partners and that Donnally was a crook like him who could be intimidated because he couldn’t run to the police for protection. But there was no basis for that belief other than a wish that it be true.

  Now, standing in the same spot at the same intersection, Donnally felt an itch between his shoulder blades, wondering who would be next to press a gun barrel against his spine.

  By accepting the role as the special master to investigate Hamlin’s murder, Donnally realized that he had become a proxy for the man, the living dead, and he didn’t want to become the dead dead.

  Donnally took a few steps up around the corner to separate himself from the crowd, then called Navarro and asked him to find out whether the garage had a videotape surveillance system and to get a copy of the recording for the last two hours. That would be enough time to spot the gunman casing the garage, if he did, and him and Donnally walking inside, and then exiting.

  As he turned toward the corner, he noticed patrons lined up in front of Café La Maison across the street, queued up men and women dressed in suits and long coats, confined by woven stanchion ropes. Stepping forward, then pausing. Stepping forward, then pausing. Sure that when they arrived inside the wine would be exquisite, the dinners would be satisfying, and the desserts would be just.

  Maybe that’s what he needed, Donnally told himself. A series of lines, or perhaps chutes, to organize all those who had unresolved issues with Hamlin—and perhaps even for the one who had resolved his issue through murder.

  One for the tricked.

  One for the cheated.

  One for disappointed crime partners.

  One for those denied justice.

  And one line labeled “Other.”

  He suspected that the last would be the longest.

  “Wait” changed to “Walk” and he continued on, arriving at Hamlin’s office five minutes later.