Rover looked up and licked his sugar-caked lips. He held a half-eaten donut in his left hand, with crumbs sticking to his spongy beard.
“Rover?” Donnally asked.
Rover squinted at Donnally and then nodded.
“I’d like to talk to you about Anna Keenan.”
Rover’s head jerked side to side. “My cathe is clothed.” The lisp that changed “case” to “cathe” and “closed” to “clothed” sounded authentic. “They clothed it. I wath in jail thirty-theven yearths.”
“Who told you they closed the case?” Donnally asked.
“My lawyer. My lawyer told me that.”
“You mean the public defender?”
“Yeah, my public defender came and told me.”
Donnally sat down next to him. “Since the case is closed, maybe you can tell me what happened.”
Rover threw down the donut, then wrapped his arms around his knees. Donnally could see mangled knuckles and scarred skin, and recent lacerations and scabs. Rover’s head twitched side to side, eyes darting. His breathing became heavy, verging on hyperventilating.
“Take it easy,” Donnally said, touching Rover’s left arm. “Nobody’s trying to hurt you.”
“They told me I killed her.” Rover lowered his head and rocked back and forth. “They told me I killed her.” He looked at Donnally. “Do you know if I killed her?”
Donnally nodded. “That’s what they say.”
“They said I strangled her. And that I was crazy.” Rover lowered his head again. “I didn’t understand what was going on. They put me in Atascadero. I began to remember…”
“Remember what?”
Donnally caught sight of a stroller slowing to a stop on the sidewalk next to them. He looked up at a thin, young mother smiling at Rover and him, as if he were a city mental health worker checking on a client. She reached out with a dollar and let it fall into Rover’s lap. Donnally gave her an acknowledging nod, then she moved on.
Donnally turned back to Rover. “Remember what?”
“Looking down at Anna in her bed. Reaching at her.”
“And then?”
Rover didn’t answer. His head was still lowered.
“Did Anna like you?”
Rover looked up, grinning. “Anna liked me. She wanted me to touch her.”
“Touch her how?”
Rover’s grin turned sly, mischievous, embarrassed. “You know.”
“Did you touch her?”
“Yes.” Rover frowned. “But she got angry.”
“Then what happened?”
Donnally watched Rover’s body tense, his eyes hardening.
“Why are you asking me this? My cathe is clothed.” Rover’s voice rose. “I did thirty-theven years. My cathe is clothed.”
Rover pushed himself to his feet, then spun and smashed his fist into the bakery window. Donnally grabbed Rover’s collar and yanked him backward as the glass shattered and ragged fragments fell and exploded on the sidewalk. Donnally lost his balance and the two of them crashed down onto the concrete. Rover thrashed, throwing elbows at Donnally’s side and face and kicking at his legs. Donnally slid his right arm under Rover’s neck and locked his hand behind his head. He then felt the thud of Navarro diving in, rocking their bodies. Navarro yanked Rover’s left arm behind his back, snapped on a handcuff, then pushed himself up and kneeled on Rover’s shoulder. Rover’s body stiffened with pain and his legs stopped kicking. Donnally rotated Rover’s right arm down and back and Navarro snapped on the second handcuff.
When Donnally rolled off, he found himself nose-to-rubber wheel of the same stroller. He looked up at the women, now glaring down as if Rover was somehow a victim and as if she’d been betrayed by a pretender to goodness. Donnally reached over and picked up her dollar from the sidewalk and held it out toward her. She stared at it for a few seconds, then turned away and used the stroller as a battering ram to break through the gathering crowd.
Donnally looked over at Navarro as they stood up. “Apparently one woman’s murderer is another woman’s mascot.”
Navarro grabbed Rover by his left upper arm, Donnally took his right, and they hauled him to his feet.
D onnally rubbed his left elbow as they drove away from the North County Jail in Oakland where they had dropped off Rover.
Navarro glanced over. “Seems like your old bones can’t take this anymore. You ought to get yourself some better padding like me.”
Donnally smiled. “When you dove in, I thought you were going to croquet both him and me into the street.”
Navarro’s face flushed. “I wasn’t exactly diving.”
“You tripped? So it was really my padding that protected you?”
“I guess you could say that.”
Donnally reached for his cell phone and called Katrisha. Her voice mail picked up. He left a message about Brown’s arrest and assured her that he wouldn’t let the DA know that she’d helped out.
They then rode in silence until Navarro had merged into freeway traffic heading toward the Bay Bridge.
“Man,” Navarro said, “that guy sure didn’t want to go to jail.”
“Maybe he realized that once we got him locked up, he’d never get out again.”
“You think he’s sane enough to go to trial?”
Donnally had thought through that question during the time he’d spent searching for Rover.
“I think there are three issues,” Donnally said. “Does he remember what happened? I think he does. Does he know he’ll go to trial for murder? That’s why he fought us so hard. Can he help his attorney formulate a defense? Probably. He’s even got his defense ready: She got angry and they had a fight.”
“Except he’ll only be putting on a defense if the court finds him competent.” Navarro looked over at Donnally. “What do you think the shrinks are going to say?”
Donnally had also thought that one through.
“That depends on who’s paying them.”
Chapter 13
T he assistant public defender reached down and rested her hand on Charles Brown’s shoulder at the defense table in the arraignment department of the Superior Court in Oakland. It was as if to say to the judge about Brown, Poor, tormented man.
The pretense reminded Donnally why so many court proceedings had repelled him as a cop. They too often devolved into theater in which every person and every thing-every fact and everything done and suffered-was reduced to an image to be manipulated.
And he suspected Brown’s competency hearing two decades earlier had begun the same way: with a wordless attempt by his attorney to cast him in the role of the victim.
What the public defender said aloud was “I’d like the defendant sent under Penal Code 1368 to determine whether he’s competent to stand trial.”
Judge Julia Nanston looked down toward Chief Assistant District Attorney Thomas Blaine.
“Do the People have any objection?”
Her raised left eyebrow told everyone in the courtroom the People had better not.
“No, Your Honor,” Blaine said. “We’ve already discussed the selection of psychiatrists with the defense.”
“So the People are contesting the issue?”
Blaine glanced back at Donnally sitting in the front row of the gallery, then back at the judge.
“You bet the People are.”
Despite his annoyance, Donnally let his eyes go dead as the judge looked down at him. Like the public defender’s gesture, Blaine’s had been a performance: a pretend solidarity that falsely included Donnally in a process over which he had no control.
The courtroom door opened, followed by a rush of footsteps. Donnally turned to see a pack of reporters hurry to take seats in the second row. A longtime San Francisco Chronicle crime reporter recognized Donnally, then pointed at his open notebook.
Donnally shook his head, then shrugged and mouthed the words, I’m just a spectator, then rose and walked out.
His cell phone rang as he was driving back across the Bay Bridge to Janie’s.
“How did the fucking press find out about this so soon?” Blaine said, his voice rising.
Donnally pictured the flush-faced prosecutor stomping around his office.