Creeping along, he wished he was still a cop and all he had to do was slide into a red or yellow zone and hang his mike over the rearview mirror to show he was official. But civilians got tickets and he was now a civilian and he didn’t want to pay the fine. It was costing him enough money paying his cooks and waitresses overtime up at the cafe to make up for his absence.
And all this was costing him time. He was supposed to be in town just long enough to replace Janie’s rain gutters, but he’d now spent days in a legal sewer.
After ten minutes, he found a spot three blocks from Galen’s bungalow, down the hill and near Chez Panisse. He walked past a homeless guy zipping his pants as he stepped out of the bushes along the side of a student apartment building and then by two Indian-looking Hispanic laborers who angled their faces away as he approached. He took a right onto Galen’s street and got a stomach-turning reminder of one thing he hated about detective work: the queasy feeling the guy you were trying to run down had walked away two minutes before you’d arrived.
Donnally’s stomach flipped back when he spotted Galen’s San Francisco Chronicle still on his porch and through the open front curtains saw a light on in the kitchen.
As he climbed the steps, he steeled himself for the “Yeah, I was just on my way” or the “I’m waiting for AAA to jump-start my car” or the “I thought you meant tomorrow.”
But he’d learned over the years that informants and cooperating defendants are like baby chicks and puppies; they needed to be cradled, not confronted, at least at first. He knocked on the door and listened for footfalls. He heard none. He stepped to the living room window and peered in. No movement.
“Can I help you?” It was a woman’s voice coming from a neighboring porch. Her tone announced she was the captain of the neighborhood watch, or aspired to be. She wore a pink robe, her hand clutching the lapels together under her chin.
Donnally pointed down the hill. “I was supposed to meet Sheldon at Peet’s Coffee an hour ago, but he didn’t show up.” He walked toward her, then bent over the railing and looked along the side of the house toward the backyard. “I’ll check back there. Maybe he’s working in his garden.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
Welcome to Berkeley.
Donnally’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen and recognized Navarro’s number. He then looked back at the woman and answered, “Detective Donnally.”
The woman’s face went hot red and her jaw clenched as though Donnally had ripped off her block captain’s insignia in front of all her neighbors.
“You’re starting to take this all too seriously,” Navarro said. “You signing up again to wear a badge?”
“I’ll explain later,” Donnally said, then continued on for the neighbor’s benefit. “Galen didn’t show up for our meeting this morning. I’m at his house.”
The woman turned and huffed her way back through her front door.
“I didn’t know he was supposed to.”
“I’ll explain that later, too.”
“You think he skipped out?” Navarro asked. “If they’re gonna run, this is about the time they start thinking about it, before they’ve done any real damage to anybody.”
“I don’t know. Hold on a sec.” Donnally walked down the steps and around to the side of the house, and then toward the back. He peeked into the living room and dining room windows as he went. Everything neat. Coffee table books fanned out. Asian-themed tables, credenzas, and hutches clean and slick. “What’s going on at your end?”
“Two things,” Navarro said. “The first is that Frank Lange had a massive dose of Rohypnol in his blood, and I don’t think it was because somebody intended to sexually assault him while he was out.”
“They just didn’t want him waking up as his house heated around him.”
“Exactly. And second is we’ve ID’d the woman who you photographed fighting with him. A former employee recognized her. She worked for him for a while, ending a few months ago. Her first name sounds like river-spelled with a Y and two V’s-R-Y-V–V-E-R. Middle name Moon, normal spelling. Last name Scoville, normal spelling.”
Donnally squinted through the kitchen window as he repeated the name to himself. The light he’d spotted when he’d walked up the front steps fell on a remodeled kitchen. Gray marble counters, matching stainless steel stovetop, oven, and refrigerator.
“Ryvver Moon sounds like the love child of some hippie kids,” Donnally said, “and she looked to be about the right age for it.”
Donnally knocked on the back door.
“Bingo. I found out she’s the daughter of a lesbian couple Lange was friends with in the late seventies. He called them his Lost Years because he was stoned all the time. Hamlin and Lange both. Or at least Lange told it that way.”
Hearing neither footsteps nor Galen’s voice, Donnally worked his way around toward a rear-facing window.
“The woman we talked to couldn’t figure out why Lange hired her. She was a little loony. Maybe even clinical, with ups and downs like she was on her meds only half the time. And not all that competent, even for shuffling papers in the office. Hiring her must’ve been a favor to her mothers.”
Through a slit between the curtains Donnally could see a made bed in what appeared to be the master bedroom. He imagined Galen really had gone down to Peet’s to get his morning latte or whatever was now the fad in Gourmet Gulch.
“Have you caught up with her?” Donnally asked.
“No. Her last real address, or at least the last one she paid rent on, was in Santa Monica. We had local officers go by. The person she sublet to says she hasn’t shown up there. She crashed with some friends a few blocks away from Lange’s place when she worked for him, but the apartment is empty now.”
“What about her mother and mother?”
“Running a bookstore in Guerneville along the Russian River. She’s had no contact with them for over two months.”
“Or that’s what they say when the cops come calling,” Donnally said. “They may be frozen in seventies paranoia like bugs in amber.”
“Very literary. Who you been hanging out with?”
Donnally decided to accede to Lemmie’s wishes not to disclose that Mark Hamlin was her brother.
“A writer.”
“You on your way back to this side?”
“This place is empty. I’ll be out of here in a couple of minutes, but I think I’ll head up to Guerneville to talk to Ryvver’s folks. Maybe they’ll have an idea what Lange and her were arguing about. I’ll call Goldhagen on the way and tell her Galen has skipped and ask her to get Judge McMullin to issue a warrant for embezzling from his trust account. No bail so we won’t lose track of him.”
“I can’t say I’m all that surprised. I just hope I’m the one who gets to slap the cuffs on him. It’s every cop’s dream to haul in a criminal defense attorney.”
Donnally stepped around a collection of rakes and shovels leaning against the side of the house, and headed toward the front gate. The double-hung bathroom window was raised an inch.
He peeked in.
He took in a quick breath.
“What’s going on?” Navarro asked.
Galen’s body lay sprawled on the floor in front of the toilet. Vomit splattered the seat and the surrounding tile. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before.
“I found him,” Donnally said, as he turned toward the rear of the house. “Call an ambulance and the Berkeley police. Let them know I’m kicking in Galen’s back door.”
Chapter 42
I’m not sure how long I can hold out on these guys,” Navarro whispered to Donnally in the hallway outside the intensive care unit of Berkeley’s Alta Bates Hospital. He motioned with his chin toward two BPD homicide detectives who had just gotten off the distant elevator and were walking toward them.