A Criminal Defense

Chapter 9

Donnally looked at his watch as he hung up the telephone. An hour-and-a-half drive out to Vacaville in the Central Valley, an hour with Madison, and the trip back. A decade earlier he could’ve badged his way into the facility; this time he’d have to rely on Navarro to make the appointment for him and get him inside.

After a drive that took him over the spot where Hamlin’s body was found under Golden Gate Bridge, up through the hills of Marin County, skirting the north end of the bay, and past suburbs and outlet malls spread out in a series of wide valleys, he pulled into a parking spot outside the California Medical Facility. He unclipped his holster and slipped his semiautomatic into the glove compartment.

Madison’s correctional counselor met Donnally in the small administration building, a one-story, wooden structure set into the razor wire-topped fence surrounding the prison.

“Five years nobody comes to see this guy,” Rich Taylor said after Donnally showed him the court order appointing him special master, “and now you’re third in the last month.”

“Who else?”

Taylor pointed at the order. “Hamlin was the first. Then a lawyer who specializes in getting convictions overturned. Not as sleazy as Hamlin, may he rest in peace, but close.”

“Why is Madison in here rather than in a regular prison?”

“You’ll have to ask him. That kind of medical information is covered by HIPAA.” Taylor paused, biting his lower lip, then said, “But I can tell you this. We’re moving him out of here in the next few weeks. He’s about to start doing some really hard time in supermax. Maybe up in Pelican Bay.”

Taylor pointed toward the security station. “Why don’t you go through and I’ll take you to him.”

Donnally emptied his pockets, took off his belt and shoes, and put everything in a plastic tray. He waited until it got moving toward the scanner tunnel, then stepped through the metal detector.

Taylor met him on the other side and walked with him into the main building and up to his second floor office. A middle-aged prisoner with scraggly white hair sat handcuffed to a chair, a soiled manila envelope lying on his lap, a cane leaning against the wall next to him. A guard wearing a protective vest and a shielded riot helmet stood across from him.

Taylor introduced Donnally to Madison, then uncuffed him and led them inside.

“You guys can talk in here,” Taylor said, then directed Donnally to his chair behind the desk and Madison to the one in the front. He pointed at the phone. “Call the operator and they’ll page me when you’re done. Just hit zero.” Taylor then nodded toward a red alarm button on the wall next to the desk. Donnally got the message and nodded back.

Donnally waited until Taylor closed the office door behind him, then said, “I know who you are and you know who I am, so let’s skip the preliminaries.”

Madison smiled. “You’re just as advertised.” He tilted his head toward the window overlooking the rows of cell blocks. “Some guys remembered you from your cop days.”

Donnally didn’t respond, just stared at him.

Madison nodded. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. No preliminaries.” He hunched forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, looking up from under his eyebrows. “I’ll start with the punch line. Hamlin hired me to ride the beef.”

Donnally didn’t know what to make of the claim. The problem with the truth and nothing but the truth is it sometimes sounded like a big lie.

And this sounded like a big lie.

“Why would you take the job?” Donnally asked. “Twenty-five to life would pretty much take you past retirement age, maybe even to an eternity in a pine box.”

Madison leaned back, turned the side of his head toward Donnally, then separated the hair above his ear.

Donnally could make out a four-inch scar.

“Brain tumor. The doctors at the county hospital took it out and I did radiation and chemo, but it came back again. They said I had no more than a year to live. I figured, why not? I’d get better medical treatment in here than on the outside and Hamlin said he’d keep me happy. Money every month. Nice TV in my cell. Any kind of drugs I want, prescription”-he flashed a grin-“or otherwise. Hamlin has a lot of old clients in here, guys with connections. They can smuggle in anything. Anything at all. It’s just like being on the outside.”

“But you’re still alive.”

Madison made a smacking sound with his lips, then said, “I hadn’t counted on that. The law changed and the government started letting prisoners be in clinical trials. I hit a home run doing one of them and went into remission.”

This was the only thing Madison had said so far that seemed credible. After accusations of reckless experimentation, the Department of Corrections had barred prisoners from participating in trials. The legislature had reversed the ban a few years earlier.

Madison slid the manila envelope across the desk.

“The report of my last PET-CT is in there. Clean as clean could be.”

Donnally read it and handed it back.

“If you didn’t do the crime, who did?”

Donnally guessed what Madison’s answer would be, true or not, assuming that Madison knew the homicide statistics as well as he did.

“The woman’s husband,” Madison said. “She was cheating on him. And he’s a hard guy. Real hard. Story was he grabbed her as she was getting cash out of the ATM to buy her boyfriend something. It was the boyfriend’s birthday and she didn’t want the payment for his present to show up on her credit card.”

“What about your confession to the jailhouse informant?”

“He’s the guy who recruited me and sold the deal to Hamlin. He got five grand out of it.”

“And the knife?”

Madison smiled again. “You studied up. Hamlin’s PI got it from her husband and hid it in my sleeping bag for the police to find.”

The fact that the story sounded like something Hamlin would do, didn’t mean to Donnally that he’d done it.

“How long have you been in remission?”

“A year and a half, but I didn’t want to make a move until I was sure it was gonna stick.” Madison’s face darkened and he slapped the edge of the desk. “But then that asshole Hamlin tried to fuck me. He stopped putting the money on my books like he was supposed to.”

“And so you sent him a letter threatening to file a motion to withdraw your plea.”

Madison nodded. “A little sooner than I’d planned. I was hoping to wait until after my next scan. But I’d gotten used to the finer things in prison life, and doing without was pissing me off, so I made my move.”

“How do you know it wasn’t the husband who stopped paying Hamlin, so he had to stop paying you?”

“Because the deal was there would always be a hundred grand on account, in cash. I could draw out as much as I needed every month. The husband would add to it if it went under. Even if the guy stopped paying, it would’ve taken a couple of more years for the money to run out.”

“I guess they didn’t expect you to live so long.”

“So what? That’s not my problem. A deal’s a deal.”

“And you figure the husband killed Hamlin.”

“Has to be. Only way for a surefire cover-up.”

“Wouldn’t it have been simpler just to take you out?”

“They tried.” Madison pointed out the window toward the prison blocks. “I’ve been in isolation for the last month, after an Aryan Brotherhood guy tried to shank me. Since then, if hubby was gonna break the chain, he was gonna have to do it at the Hamlin link. Ain’t no way they’re getting to me again.”

Madison pointed toward the door. “That guard outside? He ain’t standing there to protect you from me, but me from them.”