A Criminal Defense

Chapter 10

Takiyah Jackson was sitting at her desk when Donnally arrived at Hamlin’s office.

Donnally had called Navarro while he was driving back from Vacaville and got confirmation his earlier theory had been right. Navarro knew the players in town. He’d recognized the name of the victim’s husband, not because he’d worked on the Bennie Madison case, but because the husband owned a well-known biker bar in the mostly Hispanic Mission District. It now made sense that the husband could’ve sicced an imprisoned gang member on Madison.

Navarro walked in a few minutes after Donnally had taken Jackson into the conference room.

Donnally glanced over at Navarro, pointed at the two-foot-square safe in the corner, and said to Jackson, “I have reason to believe there is evidence related to Mark’s death in that thing and I wanted a witness when we opened it up.”

Jackson swallowed and twisted her hands together on top of the conference table. Her daunted gaze shifted between Navarro and Donnally.

“Why do you need a witness?”

“There may be money in there and I don’t want anybody accusing me of stealing any.”

She tilted her head toward the row of filing cabinets. “You tell him about the file?”

Donnally shook his head, hoping Navarro wouldn’t react and give him away.

“It wasn’t relevant to any of the leads we’re working on.”

“You have the combination,” Navarro said. The sentence came out as a statement, not a question.

“Mark gave it to me only for emergencies.”

Donnally understood her to be saying she wasn’t responsible for what they would find inside.

“I’d say this was an emergency.”

Donnally followed her over to the safe, where she kneeled and spun the combination right, left, right, and then pushed the handle down and pulled the door open. She then raised her hands and backed away as though trying to break her connection with whatever they would find inside.

“You got some latex gloves?” Donnally asked Navarro.

Navarro reached into his inside suit jacket pocket and gave him a pair and slipped ones on his own hands. He lowered himself to one knee, pulled out a digital camera, and took a couple of photos of the inside of the safe.

Donnally began moving the safe’s contents onto the conference table. Financial records, checkbooks, file folders, and notes. On the third reach, he pulled out a rubber-banded stack of hundred-dollar bills, almost five inches high. He looked over at Jackson.

She shrugged.

“Does that mean you know where this money came from?” Donnally asked.

“There’s always cash in there. Usually about a hundred thousand. Sometimes less. Sometimes more.”

“And. .”

“No, I don’t know where that particular money came from.”

Donnally reached in again and removed another stack and laid it next to the other. He estimated that each held between forty and fifty thousand dollars.

After emptying all the paper out of the safe, he felt around and discovered a small metal box against the back wall. He held it by the edges, pulled it out, and set it on the table. He used the end of a pen to open the latch. Inside he found diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and old gold coins.

Donnally suspected it might be stolen property Hamlin had taken in legal fees.

He glanced over at Jackson. Her teeth were clenched. He wondered about her psychological makeup since her only ways of expressing emotion seemed to be tapping her finger or clenching her teeth.

He took this clench to be anger.

“He told me he’d never do that,” Jackson said, speaking through an unmoving jaw.

“You sure he didn’t get this stuff from a relative’s estate?” Navarro asked.

“He would’ve made me look at it. He was a showoff about money and shit.”

“At least he had the good sense to keep this a secret from you,” Donnally said. “It shows he was at least embarrassed.”

She stared at the box for a few moments. “I don’t think so. I don’t think it was that at all,” and then she turned away and left the room.