After he walked back downstairs, he found Navarro talking on his cell phone in the laundry room beyond the kitchen, reporting their address.
Navarro pointed at a frayed length of rope lying on the floor, visible in the inch-wide gap between the washer and dryer, and then said to the person on the other end of the call, “I think we may have found the crime scene. Let’s get some people over here.”
Chapter 7
Donnally didn’t know whether Hamlin’s apartment was the crime scene or not, but needing the techs to go through it freed him to return to Hamlin’s office.
A uniformed officer was waiting for him at the building entrance on McAllister Street with a printout of Hamlin’s cell phone calls for the last two weeks.
“What did Mark use to keep track of contacts?” Donnally asked Takiyah Jackson as he walked into the reception area.
Another officer sat along the wall opposite her desk with views both into the conference room where files were stored and into Hamlin’s private office. Donnally wanted all the cabinets guarded until he could install locks to keep Jackson out of them.
Jackson pointed at her monitor. “His e-mail program and his cell phone.”
“Were they synced?”
She nodded.
“How about getting me into it?”
Jackson leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t you need a search warrant for that?”
“What do you think?”
She chewed at her lip. Donnally could see that she was torn between what Hamlin would’ve said to protect a client-whether it was well-founded in the law or not-and what Hamlin would’ve said in order to help catch his own killer.
Donnally then remembered what Navarro had said about a folie a deux and what Janie had once told him about how it operated. When the dominant person is gone, the submissive one tends to break free from the grandiose or persecutory delusion they had shared and that had bound them together.
“I guess you don’t need a warrant,” Jackson said, then rose and led him into Hamlin’s office, where she turned on his monitor and activated his e-mail program. She returned to her desk as he sat down in Hamlin’s chair.
It took Donnally half an hour to compare the telephone numbers from Hamlin’s call log with his contacts. He found matches for only about a third. He wondered whether any of those whose names he’d identified so far would turn out to be the source-or sources-for the hairs he found in Hamlin’s shower.
Now he was ready to question Jackson about who Hamlin might have been talking to or meeting with during the last days. He hadn’t wanted to start that line of questioning until he had something to compare her answers with. Her knowing he’d looked at both Hamlin’s contact list and his calls would make it harder for her to lie. She’d assume that he knew more than he actually did, a mistake witnesses with something to fear or hide nearly always made.
Donnally noticed the icon for Hamlin’s appointment calendar and then drew another fine line. He didn’t have any basis yet for invading privileged attorney-client material, for engaging in the fishing expedition that the judge had warned them all against. At the same time, the fact that Hamlin had met with someone couldn’t be considered privileged, only the content of the consultation, the he-said, she-said of the case. Based on that distinction, Donnally accessed Hamlin’s list of recent appointments and printed it out.
Donnally saw that Hamlin used his calendar to track not only client meetings, court appearances, and motion due dates, but also personal lunches and dinners and political meetings.
While looking through the names of the people Hamlin had met with, Donnally realized that his having moved north so many years ago was a disadvantage. A local might’ve recognized many of the names he had in front of him now and others that he would come across.
On the legitimate side, he didn’t know who was now on the board of supervisors, who had the confidence of the mayor, who were the power brokers in the city.
On the underworld side, from where Hamlin drew most of his clients, Donnally didn’t know who were the gang leaders out in Bayview-Hunters Point or who ran the Big Block gang in the housing projects, or even if it still existed, or which tongs were running the protection rackets in Chinatown, or which Russians had moved in to take over organized crime in the Richmond District.
To him, the names were inert, mere labels on imaginary stick figures. And instead of seeing live conflicts and connections, he was just seeing dead letters on a page-and he recognized Jackson would have an advantage on him. She knew the players and understood how the game was played in the city, at least those players and games that related to Hamlin. He now realized he’d have to rely on Navarro more than he wanted to, and share more with him than he had intended to, for the detective would see relationships Donnally couldn’t and understand their meaning.
Jackson appeared at the office door. “Can I go to lunch?”
“You coming back afterwards?”
“What?” She smirked. “You think I’m starting my job hunting already?”
Donnally didn’t like the sarcasm. “That’s not what I meant.” He rose from the desk and walked over to her. “We need to figure out some way to work together. I don’t see me finding out who killed Mark without your help.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then lowered her head and picked at her thumbnail.
“Shit. . shit, shit, shit. I didn’t sign up for this.”
“What did you sign up for?”
“I don’t know anymore.” She looked up again, shaking her head. “All I know is that this place seems more and more like Jonestown on the night before they served the Kool-Aid.”
Chapter 8
I know who killed Mark Hamlin.” A recorded voice overrode the next words spoken by the man. “This is a call from a California state prison.”
It had come in on Hamlin’s main firm number. The caller had asked for Donnally by name, and Jackson had routed it to him in Hamlin’s office. Donnally was relieved that he had enough of her cooperation for her at least to do that.
Unless the murder was a gang-related execution, which the condition of Hamlin’s body suggested it wasn’t, Donnally wasn’t sure how someone in prison could have any credible information.
“Who did it?”
“Pay me a visit and I’ll tell you the story.”
The man’s voice sounded as though he was in his fifties or sixties, maybe older.
“How do I know you’re not a lunatic?”
The line beeped, indicating that the call was being recorded.
“Look at my file. It’s somewhere in the office. Five years ago. My name’s Bennie Madison. A murder case. There’s no psych report in there and no trips to the loony bin. I’m as sane as anybody ever is in here.”
“Hold on.”
Donnally wrote out the name, then walked to the outer office and asked Jackson to retrieve the file. He kept watch on her as she pulled it from a cabinet in the conference room and brought it to him. He sat down and flipped it open.
“There’s almost nothing in here,” Donnally told the caller. “A police report, a detective’s investigative log, a transcript of your plea, and a court sentencing form. Twenty-five to life.”
“There should be a letter in there I sent last month saying I’m filing a motion to withdraw my plea.”
“I don’t see it. Did you want Hamlin to represent you?”
The man laughed. “Not a chance. It’s the last thing that asshole would’ve done.”
“Because. .”
“Take a drive up here and you’ll find out.”
“Where’s here?”
“The California Medical Facility in Vacaville. And I’ll also tell you why someone wanted him dead.”
“You’re being a little too cryptic for me to spend the hours it would take to get up there and back at this point in the investigation.”