“Why didn’t Mark just call in sick?”
“That would’ve only bought him a day or two, not enough time to read fifty thousand pages of discovery and get all the forensic accounting work done. And there was a lot of bad blood between him and the judge that had built up over the years. That’s why the judge was forcing the case. He could see by the lack of defense motions that Mark wasn’t ready. Mark was hoping he could get even once and for all and get the judge drop-kicked off the bench.”
“Didn’t work.”
“Didn’t work. The Bay Area is a very forgiving place.”
“Mark do that kind of thing a lot?”
Galen’s eyes widened, then his brow furrowed. “Which kind of thing? Not prepare for trial or-”
“Get dirt on people.”
“That’s what defense attorneys do.” Galen forced a smile. “It’s not like we’re going to win on the facts very often.”
Donnally realized Galen could spend the rest of the day telling stories about Hamlin, all of which would make him look bad but get Donnally no closer to a suspect, other than the one who was sitting across from him.
“What about you?” Donnally asked. “Were you one of those people?”
“What have you heard?”
It wasn’t true, but Donnally said, “Just some rumors about why you came out to California from New York.”
In fact, they hadn’t even risen to the level of rumors, but were only questions that arose in his mind after he first heard about Galen’s move West.
“Anybody could’ve found out about that just by looking at the New York state court Web site. So I got suspended, so what? Happens all the time and it was only for six months. I’m the one who told Mark about it and he suggested I come out to California and start over.”
Galen straightened up in his chair.
“I don’t see what this has to do with what happened to Mark. I didn’t even know Mark then. I met him at a criminal defense conference afterwards.” Galen pointed at the files. “How about just letting me have those and I’ll be on my way.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to be in court at 2 P.M.”
Donnally ignored him. “But that’s not the only thing he found out about you.”
“Is that a statement or a question?”
“Call it a question. The statement would be that he figured out you embezzled Tink Fischer’s settlement money out of your trust account.”
Galen pushed himself to his feet. “I’m out of here.”
“No you’re not.” Donnally pointed at Navarro. “He knows enough right now to get a subpoena for your bank account records and a search warrant for your office, and to get a criminal complaint filed by tomorrow morning. It’s better not to provoke him.”
“I. . didn’t. . kill. . Mark. He’s the one that gave me the money to pay it back.”
“Only so he could control you by having a hammer he could drop on you at any time.”
Galen locked his hands on his hips. “You don’t think I had my hammers, too? After almost ten years of working together. I knew everything. Everything.”
Donnally thought of Galen’s fingerprints SFPD found on the money in the safe-and guessed how they’d gotten there.
He rose from his chair and faced Galen straight on.
“Or maybe it was just so he could keep bleeding you.”
Galen’s mouth opened. He swallowed. “How. .” He licked his lips. “How did you find out?”
Chapter 20
The 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
Galen was right,” Navarro said as they sat in the office of the A amp;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.