A Criminal Defense

Chapter 31

Donnally looked up Frank Lange’s address on the Internet, located his photo in the San Francisco Chronicle archives, and then headed out. A half hour later he slowed his truck near a three-story Victorian where Castro, Divisadero, and Waller came together, just three blocks east of Buena Vista Park. Mark Hamlin’s apartment was on its opposite side. He verified the address, then drove on until he located a parking spot a couple of streets away, and walked back.

Any thought of confronting Lange with the tape got drowned out by party noises emanating from the house. From the recessed doorway of an apartment building across Divisadero, Donnally watched too many people in a dining room under a too bright chandelier jostle for places near the buffet table.

He didn’t recognize anyone and didn’t see Lange.

Donnally took a couple of photos with his cell phone, then worked his way around the perimeter of the Y intersection until he obtained a view of the Waller side of the house. He spotted Lange standing in the living room looking like a politician surrounded by reporters. The head shot Donnally had found on the Internet disguised Lange’s girth. That, combined with his red sports jacket, made him look like a child’s party balloon. It seemed to Donnally to be the perfect match of ego and physique.

Lange wasn’t an investigator who relied on stealth. And if Jackson was right about the kind of work he did for Hamlin and for other attorneys like him, he didn’t need to be furtive. It didn’t make any difference whether witnesses or victims could see him coming, for he’d either just make up what he wanted victims or witnesses to have said, or try to intimidate them into saying it or into silence.

Lights were off on the upper floors. Donnally imagined Lange’s bedroom and office were on the second story and that he used the angle-roofed third floor as storage. The ceiling seemed too low for regular use.

Donnally watched Lange and a skinny woman at least twenty-five years younger than Lange’s early fifties turn together and walk toward the interior of the house. A minute later a light burst on in a second floor room. The angle of view was such that he couldn’t tell what it was used for.

They faced each other.

She was glaring at him, her thin arms folded across her chest.

He stood with his hands extended.

Soon they were both jabbing fingers and waving hands.

From the violence of her gestures, Donnally guessed she could be angry enough at Lange to disclose some of his secrets, if she was in a position to know any.

Donnally snapped a photo, thinking that Jackson or Navarro might be able to identify her.

Lange reached for her shoulders. She stepped back. He reached again. She slapped him, then spun away. He stood there for a few seconds rubbing his cheek, then followed her out of Donnally’s sight and the light went off.

Donnally took more photos of the people in the living room, then slipped his phone into his pocket and surveyed the third floor windows.

Assuming Judge McMullin would accept the argument that Lange kept his own copy of the Gordon interview recording in storage, Donnally didn’t think it would be long before push did come to shove, and Navarro would be kicking in Lange’s door to serve a search warrant.

Donnally leaned against the brick wall behind him. He’d expected his discovery of the perjury would give him a feeling of solidity, of having found a foothold; instead it was one of vertigo, of losing focus on what he’d been asked to do: figure out who killed Mark Hamlin-and not go on what McMullin had called a fishing expedition, even though Donnally guessed that he could pull some monsters from the deep-for who knew how many similar tapes might be discovered in Lange’s storage room.

Forget the search warrant fantasy, he told himself. It wasn’t going to happen, or it would come too late. He needed the recording as leverage to find out whether Lange knew, or even suspected, who the killer was-even at the risk of incriminating himself in other crimes.

But the danger of confronting Lange was-no, the consequence would be-that he would move anything incriminating out of his house.

Donnally pushed off from the wall. The chess game in his head continued while he walked back to his truck. He leans on Lange, then has Navarro spot on the investigator’s house to see if he tries to sneak any boxes of records out, then follows Lange to where he stashes them.

Nope. Not worth the risk. What if Navarro gets caught? The defense bar goes haywire, the department gets embarrassed, and both Donnally and Judge McMullin get ripped in the press, Donnally for playing cop when he was supposed to be acting as a special master and McMullin for appointing him.

A guy like Lange, who does what he does and has so much to hide, always has to be looking over his shoulder.

Always.

Nobody will be sneaking up on Frank Lange.