“How do you know all this?” Frost asked.
“I stumbled onto one person who was part of the network, and she told me how it worked. She said every operative has a unique identification code based on the names of San Francisco streets. This woman’s ID was Folsom. They also use a numeric password and a separate code to indicate whether they’re safe or under pressure when they make a report.”
“What happened to this woman?”
“I tried to use her as a mole to penetrate the network. Lombard found out and killed her.”
“So if I’d said a street name like Market or Stockton when you asked for my identification?”
“You’d be dead down there in the bay right now,” Gorham replied.
Frost stared into the water. “You better tell me what this is all about. How did it start? How did you get involved?”
“You know how,” Gorham said. “Coyle.”
“He told you about the snakes after Alan Detlowe was murdered?”
“That’s right. Alan’s wife, Marjorie, told me about hiring Coyle, and I wanted to see his surveillance notes. That was when he sprang the snake thing on me. I didn’t believe him at first, but when I looked into it, I felt like you did. It was too strange to be just a coincidence. Not that I was going to tell him that. Coyle was a loose cannon, and the safest thing was for him to chase his crackpot theories by himself. But I began looking into the backgrounds of the victims to see if I could figure out why they were targeted.”
“Did you find anything about Detlowe?” Frost asked.
“No, I never figured out why Alan was killed. He was a cop. Too many people had beefs with him.”
“What about Fawn? Did you talk to her?”
“Sure I did. She said her conversation with Alan was routine. He was trolling for contacts in the escort world, who the big players were, how the technology works. She didn’t say anything about him looking into the death of her friend Naomi.”
“So how did you find out about Lombard?” Frost asked.
“I got lucky. I was digging into the murder of a plumber in Mission Terrace. It was a stabbing death, looked like a home invasion, but there was a snake painted nearby. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want this guy dead. I was actually starting to think Coyle might be right about a serial killer picking victims at random. Then I found out the guy had been on a jury in a political corruption trial a few months earlier. Remember the guy on the city council accused of taking bribes? The jury hung, and the councilman walked. That was the only thing in this guy’s life that didn’t revolve around toilets and leaky faucets, so I decided to talk to one of the staff attorneys in the prosecutor’s office. I didn’t really suspect anything. I just wanted to see if this plumber could have been influenced.”
“What did you find?”
“Like I said, I got lucky. The staff attorney cracked like an egg. I talked to her at home, and she thought I was there to kill her. She asked if Lombard had sent me, and she was crying and said she’d done everything they’d asked. By the time she realized she’d screwed up, she’d already dug a hole for herself. I got her to spill everything she knew.”
Frost waited. Gorham checked the pier again to make sure they were still alone.
“She was an operative. She’d been recruited by someone she called Lombard to provide information from the prosecutor’s office on certain cases. Strategies, witnesses, juror personal data. It had been going on for two years. She claimed she had no choice but to do what he asked. Lombard had leverage over her.”
“What kind of leverage?” Frost asked.
“Her son. He’d been the driver in a hit-and-run a couple of years earlier and never went to the cops to confess. Somehow, Lombard knew about it. If she didn’t cooperate, her son was headed to prison for a long time.”
“This sounds like the way the mafia operates,” Frost said. “Or the Russians.”
“That was my thought, too, but if it’s organized crime, it’s not any of the usual suspects. This lawyer only knew the name Lombard. She didn’t think it was a group; she said it seemed to be one person who made all the decisions. All she knew was her protocol. Burner phones, coded identifications, reports and instructions. I could have brought her in, but I decided to use her as a double agent to see if she could unearth more details about Lombard. Instead, a week later, she washed up out of the bay in San Mateo.”
“How did Lombard know she’d been turned?” Frost asked.
“That’s the problem. I only told one person what I was doing.”
“Who?”
“Captain Hayden. I told him I was looking at a staff attorney in the prosecutor’s office who might be able to lead us to a crime ring involving corruption and murder.”
“You think Hayden’s connected to Lombard?” Frost asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m not taking any chances. If he’s not, then he passed along the information to someone who is. Nobody else knew. From that point forward, I didn’t trust anybody, and I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. My investigation was completely off the books. I figured if Lombard saw me as a threat, I’d be the next one with a snake painted on the wall. So publicly, I treated the whole thing as a dead-end conspiracy.”
“And what have you found out behind the scenes?” Frost asked.
“Not much. That’s the frustrating thing. I can’t find anybody in the network to lead the way in and help me find out who Lombard really is and what he’s doing. The only thing that makes sense to me is that Lombard is some kind of fixer. In one way or another, all of the victims have been problems for prominent people in the city. Lombard solved them. Mostly with murder.”
Frost frowned. “What about Denny Clark? How does he fit in?”
“You said it yourself. Something happened on his boat on Tuesday night. Denny became a problem to be solved. So did the others who were there. Lombard has been tying up the loose ends ever since.”
Frost studied Gorham’s face in the evening lights. “That’s not what I mean, Trent. You called Denny. Why? That wasn’t a follow-up on a drug homicide. You were looking for something else.”
Gorham walked into the middle of the alley and shoved his hands in his pockets. Frost called to the man’s back. “If you expect me to trust you, then you need to tell me what’s really going on.”
“All right,” Gorham replied impatiently. “All right, yeah, I called Denny. I asked him to be on the lookout for Lombard. I wanted him to call me if he heard anyone using Lombard’s name. I knew Denny’s business. I knew a lot of movers and shakers in the city used his boat. I wanted him to work as my spy. I gave him a burner phone so we could communicate securely. And yeah, I put pressure on him. He was vulnerable on drug charges, and he knew I could get him busted whenever I wanted. I didn’t give him a choice.”
“Is that all? What happened next?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did Denny reach out to you after the cruise on Tuesday? He knew people were after him. He went to find Mr. Jin, and he called Chester Bagley. I’m sure he knew Carla was dead, too. Are you saying he never talked to you about any of this?”
Gorham turned around. “Okay, you’re right. He called me.”
“When?”
“Friday evening. He was in Chinatown. He was terrified. He said they were killing everyone.”
Frost shook his head. “Why keep that back? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I already told you that I didn’t trust anyone. That includes you. And what the hell difference does it make? I was too late.”