A Criminal Defense

Chapter 41

Sheldon Galen didn’t show up on time for his 8 A.M. debriefing with Donnally. He didn’t answer his cell phone and he hadn’t gone to his office.

Donnally wasn’t surprised Galen had chosen to arrive late, like a six-year-old testing his parents’ limits, so he figured he wouldn’t lean on him too hard, yet.

Donnally spent an hour searching Hamlin’s computer for Web sites he’d visited, expecting that if Hamlin had a sexual interest in children, it would show up on his hard drive. Navarro had referred him to a child exploitation specialist in SFPD who’d walked him through the steps to check Hamlin’s Internet search history, Web sites visited, temporary files, and other trails. He didn’t find anything. This either meant it wasn’t there or that Hamlin was good at concealment.

Other than saying hello when she arrived at the office, Jackson had avoided him. She’d arrived buttoned up. Overcoat belted tight around her waist, lapels overlapping, all three suit buttons snug, blouse closed up to the neck. She had tied her hair back like a 1950s librarian, and her usual array of gold rings and bracelets was missing.

Donnally was relieved not to have to deal again with yesterday’s erotic assault, but was troubled he didn’t understand Jackson’s latest incarnation. It was starting to feel like a game of tag, except that every time Jackson popped up from behind a bush, she was someone else.

The clock on Hamlin’s computer told Donnally that it was 9:15. Time to go on the hunt for Galen.

He wasn’t angry because he’d expected it, and while Galen might be feeling unique and might be telling himself what he thought were unique excuses for not showing up, Donnally knew that every informant had the same feelings and made the same excuses.

Hamlin’s contact list gave Donnally Galen’s home address in Berkeley. He called Navarro as he drove across the Bay Bridge, but Navarro didn’t answer. Donnally left a message asking whether he’d identified the woman who had argued with private investigator Frank Lange on the evening before he died, and whether he knew how to find Hector Camacho, whose number had shown up in the middle of Hamlin and Hancock’s telephone traffic.

Navarro still hadn’t called back by the time Donnally arrived on Galen’s block. It was off a tree-divided, commercial avenue in the north end of town in an area known as Gourmet Gulch.

Donnally had driven by Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse Restaurant on his way up from University Avenue. Passing it, he remembered when Janie had taken him there for his birthday. It was at a time when the place was just getting focused on slow food. He hadn’t realized going in that four courses over three hours was what they’d had in mind.

That had annoyed him more than Galen not showing up.

Donnally glanced at Galen’s hedge-bordered house as he drove past looking for a parking place on the crowded street. He spotted an SUV that took up most of Galen’s driveway. There was no room for him to park behind it without blocking the sidewalk, but at least it suggested that Galen was home.

As he drove on, he noticed that some of the vehicles on the street hadn’t been moved in months. Dusty windshields, oak leaves and pine needles had collected on the pavement and surrounded the tires, rain-spotted handouts were stuck under wiper blades. With parking places so hard to find, he wondered whether the residents had decided they would walk or take the bus rather than give them up.

Creeping along, he wished he was still a cop and all he had to do was slide into a red or yellow zone and hang his mike over the rearview mirror to show he was official. But civilians got tickets and he was now a civilian and he didn’t want to pay the fine. It was costing him enough money paying his cooks and waitresses overtime up at the cafe to make up for his absence.

And all this was costing him time. He was supposed to be in town just long enough to replace Janie’s rain gutters, but he’d now spent days in a legal sewer.

After ten minutes, he found a spot three blocks from Galen’s bungalow, down the hill and near Chez Panisse. He walked past a homeless guy zipping his pants as he stepped out of the bushes along the side of a student apartment building and then by two Indian-looking Hispanic laborers who angled their faces away as he approached. He took a right onto Galen’s street and got a stomach-turning reminder of one thing he hated about detective work: the queasy feeling the guy you were trying to run down had walked away two minutes before you’d arrived.

Donnally’s stomach flipped back when he spotted Galen’s San Francisco Chronicle still on his porch and through the open front curtains saw a light on in the kitchen.

As he climbed the steps, he steeled himself for the “Yeah, I was just on my way” or the “I’m waiting for AAA to jump-start my car” or the “I thought you meant tomorrow.”

But he’d learned over the years that informants and cooperating defendants are like baby chicks and puppies; they needed to be cradled, not confronted, at least at first. He knocked on the door and listened for footfalls. He heard none. He stepped to the living room window and peered in. No movement.

“Can I help you?” It was a woman’s voice coming from a neighboring porch. Her tone announced she was the captain of the neighborhood watch, or aspired to be. She wore a pink robe, her hand clutching the lapels together under her chin.

Donnally pointed down the hill. “I was supposed to meet Sheldon at Peet’s Coffee an hour ago, but he didn’t show up.” He walked toward her, then bent over the railing and looked along the side of the house toward the backyard. “I’ll check back there. Maybe he’s working in his garden.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t.”

Welcome to Berkeley.

Donnally’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen and recognized Navarro’s number. He then looked back at the woman and answered, “Detective Donnally.”

The woman’s face went hot red and her jaw clenched as though Donnally had ripped off her block captain’s insignia in front of all her neighbors.

“You’re starting to take this all too seriously,” Navarro said. “You signing up again to wear a badge?”

“I’ll explain later,” Donnally said, then continued on for the neighbor’s benefit. “Galen didn’t show up for our meeting this morning. I’m at his house.”

The woman turned and huffed her way back through her front door.

“I didn’t know he was supposed to.”

“I’ll explain that later, too.”

“You think he skipped out?” Navarro asked. “If they’re gonna run, this is about the time they start thinking about it, before they’ve done any real damage to anybody.”

“I don’t know. Hold on a sec.” Donnally walked down the steps and around to the side of the house, and then toward the back. He peeked into the living room and dining room windows as he went. Everything neat. Coffee table books fanned out. Asian-themed tables, credenzas, and hutches clean and slick. “What’s going on at your end?”

“Two things,” Navarro said. “The first is that Frank Lange had a massive dose of Rohypnol in his blood, and I don’t think it was because somebody intended to sexually assault him while he was out.”

“They just didn’t want him waking up as his house heated around him.”

“Exactly. And second is we’ve ID’d the woman who you photographed fighting with him. A former employee recognized her. She worked for him for a while, ending a few months ago. Her first name sounds like river-spelled with a Y and two V’s-R-Y-V–V-E-R. Middle name Moon, normal spelling. Last name Scoville, normal spelling.”

Donnally squinted through the kitchen window as he repeated the name to himself. The light he’d spotted when he’d walked up the front steps fell on a remodeled kitchen. Gray marble counters, matching stainless steel stovetop, oven, and refrigerator.

“Ryvver Moon sounds like the love child of some hippie kids,” Donnally said, “and she looked to be about the right age for it.”

Donnally knocked on the back door.

“Bingo. I found out she’s the daughter of a lesbian couple Lange was friends with in the late seventies. He called them his Lost Years because he was stoned all the time. Hamlin and Lange both. Or at least Lange told it that way.”

Hearing neither footsteps nor Galen’s voice, Donnally worked his way around toward a rear-facing window.

“The woman we talked to couldn’t figure out why Lange hired her. She was a little loony. Maybe even clinical, with ups and downs like she was on her meds only half the time. And not all that competent, even for shuffling papers in the office. Hiring her must’ve been a favor to her mothers.”

Through a slit between the curtains Donnally could see a made bed in what appeared to be the master bedroom. He imagined Galen really had gone down to Peet’s to get his morning latte or whatever was now the fad in Gourmet Gulch.

“Have you caught up with her?” Donnally asked.

“No. Her last real address, or at least the last one she paid rent on, was in Santa Monica. We had local officers go by. The person she sublet to says she hasn’t shown up there. She crashed with some friends a few blocks away from Lange’s place when she worked for him, but the apartment is empty now.”

“What about her mother and mother?”

“Running a bookstore in Guerneville along the Russian River. She’s had no contact with them for over two months.”

“Or that’s what they say when the cops come calling,” Donnally said. “They may be frozen in seventies paranoia like bugs in amber.”

“Very literary. Who you been hanging out with?”

Donnally decided to accede to Lemmie’s wishes not to disclose that Mark Hamlin was her brother.

“A writer.”

“You on your way back to this side?”

“This place is empty. I’ll be out of here in a couple of minutes, but I think I’ll head up to Guerneville to talk to Ryvver’s folks. Maybe they’ll have an idea what Lange and her were arguing about. I’ll call Goldhagen on the way and tell her Galen has skipped and ask her to get Judge McMullin to issue a warrant for embezzling from his trust account. No bail so we won’t lose track of him.”

“I can’t say I’m all that surprised. I just hope I’m the one who gets to slap the cuffs on him. It’s every cop’s dream to haul in a criminal defense attorney.”

Donnally stepped around a collection of rakes and shovels leaning against the side of the house, and headed toward the front gate. The double-hung bathroom window was raised an inch.

He peeked in.

He took in a quick breath.

“What’s going on?” Navarro asked.

Galen’s body lay sprawled on the floor in front of the toilet. Vomit splattered the seat and the surrounding tile. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

“I found him,” Donnally said, as he turned toward the rear of the house. “Call an ambulance and the Berkeley police. Let them know I’m kicking in Galen’s back door.”