MD07 - Perfect Alibi Page 3

  Rosie cuts in using her best maternal tone—though she would readily admit it isn’t nearly as effective as it used to be. “Where did you and Bobby go last night?” she asks Grace.

  “I already told you.”

  “Tell me again. Please, Grace.”

  Our daughter responds with a sigh that would make Putty Chandler proud. “We went out for dinner at Zazie.”

  It’s a homey neighborhood bistro on Cole Street, around the corner from Judge Fairchild’s house. “Where did you park?” I ask.

  “On Grattan Street next to Bobby’s father’s house.”

  “Was the judge at home?”

  “No.”

  “Did you go inside?”

  “No. There wasn’t enough time.”

  “Where did you go after dinner?”

  “To see Waiting for Guffman at the Red Vic.”

  The Red Vic Movie House is San Francisco’s Anti-Multiplex. It was opened by a group of film buffs in 1980 in a funky red Victorian at the corner of Belvedere and Haight. A few years later, it moved down the street to its current location between Cole and Shrader. The new auditorium is larger and equipped with Dolby sound. It’s still furnished with comfy old couches. Instead of serving stale popcorn with fake butter, they offer organic treats.

  “What time did the movie start?” Rosie asks.

  “Nine o’clock. It ended at eleven. We went for a walk down Haight Street.”

  The Haight has gentrifed substantially since the days when my high school buddies and I used to go there to see real live hippies during the Summer of Love—much to the chagrin of my parents and my teachers at St. Ignatius. There are still a few head shops and incense stores interspersed among the upscale boutiques, but the neighborhood is largely unrecognizable from the flower-child days. The corner of Haight and Ashbury is now home to a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream store. There is still a modest drug and counter-culture presence as well as a significant homeless population that spills over from nearby Golden Gate Park. It’s perfectly safe in the daylight, but things get dicier after dark. It isn’t a place where an eighteen-year-old boy should be hanging out with his sixteen-year-old girlfriend late at night—especially when she’s my daughter.

  “Did you stop anywhere?” I ask.

  “We looked at CDs at Amoeba Music.”

  I’m tempted to ask her if she knows a clerk named Requiem who plays with a band called Death March, but I let it go. “Did you buy anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “What time did you go back and pick up the car?” Rosie asks.

  “Around twelve fifteen.”

  “Was Judge Fairchild at home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you go inside the house?”

  “No.”

  Rosie pushes a little harder. “Not even for a minute?”

  “No, Mother. Bobby and his father weren’t getting along. Things get tense when people are getting divorced.”

  Grace’s pronounced sigh indicates that this discussion is coming to an end. At the moment, Rosie and I are more interested in our daughter’s welfare than in recriminations. After things calm down, I will have a fatherly chat with Grace and Bobby about the advisability of hanging out in the Haight after the sun goes down.

  # # #

  The fresh-faced young cop looks like he’s fourteen years old. “I’m sorry, sir,” he says to me. “You’ll have to remain outside the restricted area.”

  “We’re friends of the Fairchild family,” I tell him.

  “This is a crime scene, sir.”

  No kidding. “I’m aware of that, Officer.”

  Police lights flash off the trees in front of Judge Fairchild’s remodeled blue Victorian on the southwest corner of Belvedere and Grattan. It’s three a.m. The neighbors are huddled in small groups outside the yellow tape. Despite its proximity to the Haight, Cole Valley has a lowkey character of its own. The closely knit community of refurbished houses and low-rise apartment buildings is bisected by the N-Judah street car line. The businesses along the three-block shopping district on Cole Street are of the mom-and-pop variety. The neighborhood’s southern boundary is Tank Hill, named for a 500,000-gallon water tower that survived the 1906 earthquake. A ring of eucalyptus trees was planted around it after Pearl Harbor in an ill-conceived effort to camouflage it from enemy bombers. The tank was removed in the fifties, but the trees and the cement base remain. The rarely used public space has some of the best views in the City.

  “Officer,” I say, “Bobby Fairchild has asked to see us.”

  “I’m not authorized to let anybody in, sir. It isn’t my decision.”

  “It is now.” I pull out my trump card. “My name is Michael Daley. This is my law partner, Ms. Fernandez. We’re Bobby Fairchild’s attorneys.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to. We need to see our client immediately.”

  “I’m not authorized.”

  “Then I need to talk to your sergeant.”

  “He can’t help you, either. Mr. Fairchild isn’t here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At the Hall of Justice.”

  What? “They didn’t need to take him downtown to get his statement.”

  “They took him downtown because he’s been arrested for murdering his father.”

  3/ THAT ISN’T WHAT HE TOLD ME

  Saturday, June 18, 3:10 a.m.

  “When did they leave?” I ask the cop.

  “Ten minutes ago.”

  A difficult situation has transformed into a full-blown disaster. Rosie struggles to keep Grace calm while I start pumping the cop for information. “Who made the arrest?” I ask.

  “Roosevelt Johnson.”

  The dean of San Francisco homicide inspectors has handled every high-profile murder investigation in the City for forty years. A half-century ago, he and my father formed the SFPD’s first integrated team. The good news is he’ll proceed with competence and professionalism. The bad news is he doesn’t arrest anybody unless he has the goods.

  “Is Inspector Johnson still here?” I ask.

  “No, sir. He accompanied Mr. Fairchild downtown.”

  “Was he able to reach my client’s mother?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Damn it.

  Grace breaks free of Rosie’s grasp. “We have to do something, Dad!” she shouts.

  “Stay calm,” I hiss, immediately regretting the harshness in my tone. Rosie and I quickly escort her out of the young cop’s earshot. “I know this is hard,” I say to her, “but you have to keep your composure.”

  Tears are welling up in her eyes. “I’m trying, Dad.”

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you.” TV news vans are beginning to assemble down the street. I turn to Rosie. “We need to start damage control.”

  She hands me her car keys. “Go down to the Hall of Justice and tell Bobby to keep his mouth shut. Grace and I will find his mother and his brother. We’ll meet you as soon as we can.”

  “I want to come with you,” Grace says to me.

  “They won’t let you inside,” I tell her.

  “Then I’ll wait outside.”

  “No, you won’t,” Rosie says. She invokes the unequivocal Don’t-Even-Think-About-Arguing-With-Me tone I’ve heard countless times in court, at the office, and in bed. “You’ll end up sitting by yourself in the corridor for hours. I need your help.”

  In addition to Rosie’s independent streak, Grace is also imbued with her mother’s sense of cold, hard reality. She surrenders without another word.

  # # #

  “What do you need, Mick?” the raspy voice asks. My younger brother, Pete, became a cop to prove he was just as tough as our father. He spent ten years walking a beat out of Mission Station before he was forced to resign after he and his partner allegedly broke up a gang fight with a little too much enthusiasm. He’s still legitimately angry the City hung him out to dry when the so-called vic
tims threatened litigation. Nowadays, he earns his keep by tailing unfaithful husbands.

  Driving Rosie’s car down Oak Street through a heavy fog at three-thirty on Saturday morning, I wedge the cell phone between my right shoulder and ear. “Are you working?”

  “Margaret has to eat.”

  My five-year-old niece is a charmer. I’m convinced she and Tommy compare notes about new ways to drive their respective parents insane. “Where are you?”

  “St. Francis Wood.”

  He’s working upscale tonight. “Cheating husband?”

  “Cheating wife.”

  “Can you break away for a few minutes?”

  “Anything for my big brother. Does this have anything to do with Judge Fairchild?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I just heard it on the police band. What the hell happened?”

  “That’s what I need you to find out.”

  “Is Grace okay?”

  “She’s fine. Her boyfriend isn’t.”

  “Bobby’s a nice kid.”

  “He’s been arrested for killing his father.”

  “Jesus. Is Roosevelt handling the investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  His silence confirms what I already know—Bobby is in serious trouble.

  “How soon can you get to Cole Valley to start asking questions?” I ask.

  “Ten minutes.”

  # # #

  “I need to see my client,” I say.

  Inspector Roosevelt Johnson eyes me through wire-rimmed, aviator-style bifocals. The former college tight end has dropped some weight since he underwent radiation treatments for throat cancer last year. Nevertheless, the seventy-five-year-old legend still carries over two hundred pounds on his imposing six-foot-four-inch frame. The warhorse has fought the cancer to a standstill, but his lyrical baritone has developed a gravelly edge. He’s tried to retire three times, but he keeps getting drawn back to work.

  “Since when did you become Bobby Fairchild’s lawyer?” he asks.

  “Since now.”

  Four o’clock on Saturday morning is not the Hall of Justice’s busy hour. We’re standing in the new jail wing’s high-tech intake center. Known to the cops as the "Glamour Slammer,” the Plexiglas edifice was unceremoniously shoe-horned between the Stalinesque old Hall and the I-80 Freeway in a heavy-handed response to a court order to relieve overcrowding in the San Francisco jails. It isn’t much to look at, but the utilitarian facility is cleaner and more user-friendly than the original Hall, a maze-like structure combining the architectural elements of a medieval dungeon with a third-world street bazaar.

  “How’s Rosie?” he asks.

  He’s genuinely interested in my law partner’s well-being. He also never asks a question without a purpose. He wants to see if he can get me to let my guard down.

  “She’s fine,” I say. “I need to talk to Bobby.”

  “He’s still in processing. I’ll bring him up as soon as he’s done.”

  “You have a legal obligation to let me see my client.”

  “As soon as he’s done,” he repeats.

  I up the ante. “If you try to introduce anything he’s said to you, I’ll get it excluded.”

  “Dial it down, Mike. For the record, I conducted all of my conversations with your client within the letter of the law.”

  It’s undoubtedly true. He’s also holding the face cards, so I soften my tone. "As a matter of professional courtesy, I would appreciate it if you would expedite booking.”

  “He’s been arrested for a serious crime. He’ll be processed like everybody else.”

  Which means Bobby is being subjected to an unpleasant search, showered with cold disinfectant, given a perfunctory medical exam, and issued a freshly pressed orange jumpsuit.

  I try again. “As a personal favor, I would be grateful if you would arrange for Bobby to be housed in his own cell until we can straighten out this misunderstanding.”

  “There’s no misunderstanding. We take the killing of a judge very seriously.”

  “Come on, Roosevelt. He just graduated with honors from University High.”

  “He told me his father got precisely what he deserved.”

  “Teenagers say a lot of things. That doesn’t mean he killed him.”

  “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point. The investigation is ongoing. I can’t talk about it, Mike.”

  “You mean you won’t talk about it.” I lower my voice. “Please, Roosevelt. He’s Grace’s boyfriend.”

  He looks around the cold intake area as he ponders how much he’s willing to tell me. “Judge Fairchild was bludgeoned to death in the laundry room adjacent to the garage of his house. Your client was holding a bloody hammer when the first officer arrived.”

  “That proves he picked up a hammer,” I say. “It doesn’t mean he used it.”

  “There was blood on his hands.”

  “Obviously, he tried to help his father. Or the hammer was bloody when he picked it up.”

  “He was angry. His behavior was erratic. He showed no signs of remorse.”

  “He had just found his father’s body. He was in shock.”

  “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point, too.”

  “Did you consider the possibility this is related to the Savage case?”

  “There’s no evidence.”

  “Savage made no secret of his disdain for the judge.”

  “I have no more love for Savage than you do. On the other hand, he’s smart enough not to pop a sitting judge.”

  “Maybe he paid somebody to do it.”

  “We will conduct a full investigation.”

  “I understand the house was vandalized. It could have been a botched robbery.”

  “A couple of pieces of furniture were knocked over. There were no signs of forced entry.”

  “Maybe the killer had a key. Maybe somebody left a door open.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you suggesting Bobby trashed his father’s house to make it look like a break-in?”

  “There were no signs of a struggle or defensive wounds. That suggests Judge Fairchild was killed by somebody he knew.”

  “Maybe the killer sneaked up on him.”

  “It’s a tight laundry room, Mike.”

  “Maybe the killer hit the judge as he was coming in the door.”

  “I’ll let you make that argument when the time comes.”

  “Have you come up with a motive?”

  “Too soon to tell. Maybe your client was angry about his parents’ divorce. Maybe they got into a fight because he came home so late. Maybe the judge wasn’t happy his son was going out with your daughter. Any way you cut it, Judge Fairchild is dead—and your client was holding the murder weapon when we arrived.”

  “Alleged murder weapon,” I say.

  “Have it your way.”

  “Bobby called 911,” I say. “He would have tried to get away if he was guilty.”

  “Not necessarily. He’s a smart kid. He knew it would have looked suspicious if he ran. It sounded more plausible to say he found the body.”

  I probe for additional details, but he isn’t forthcoming. Finally, I look into the eyes of the man my father always described as the best cop he ever knew. "Did he mention he was with Grace last night?”

  “Yes. That’s something else we need to discuss. I expect her full cooperation—immediately.”

  “You’ll get it. They didn’t get back to Rosie’s house until one o’clock.”

  “That’s consistent with his story. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t be thrilled my sixteen-year-old daughter was out so late.”

  “I’m not. We’ve already talked to her about it. It also means Bobby didn’t get back to his father’s house until sometime after two.”

  “That information will help me establish a timeline.”

  “Bobby couldn’t have killed his father if the autopsy puts the time of death before two.”
>
  His mouth turns down. He knows I’m trying to back him into a corner while eliminating any suspicion of Grace. “I am not in a position to rule out the possibility he killed his father sometime earlier in the evening.”

  “That’s impossible,” I tell him. “Bobby wasn’t there earlier in the evening.”

  “That isn’t what he told me.”

  4/ I DIDN’T KILL ANYBODY

  Saturday, June 18, 4:12 a.m.

  “What exactly did Bobby tell you?” I ask Roosevelt.

  “He parked on Grattan Street, on the side of his father’s house, before he and Grace went out for dinner. They came back to get the car after they went to a movie at the Red Vic.”

  This is consistent with Grace’s story. “So what?”

  “It places him at his father’s house.”

  Along with my daughter. “It doesn’t place him inside.”

  “Not yet.” He invokes the fatherly tone I heard countless times in our back yard when I was a kid. “Let me give you some advice—off the record—friend to friend.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “First, you should find somebody else to represent this kid. You’re too close to him and your daughter was with him last night.”

  It’s good advice. “Anything else?”

  “You’d better get the full story from Grace—and convey it to me ASAP. I love her like she’s my own daughter, but if she lies or withholds information, her boyfriend isn’t the only one who is going to be in serious trouble.”

  # # #

  Bobby’s desperation manifests itself in the form of a plaintive wail. “I didn’t kill anybody,” he pleads. “You have to believe me, Mike.”

  “I do.” For now.

  It’s jarring to see Grace’s boyfriend so far outside the usual context. Three hours ago, he was just another good-looking, athletic high school graduate with trendy clothes and a future with limitless potential. Now, clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, he’s sitting with his arms at his sides in a claustrophobic consultation room in the bowels of the Glamour Slammer, where the heavy air smells of cleaning solvent. He looks as if he’s aged ten years under the harsh glare of the unforgiving fluorescent light. His puffy red eyes stare blankly at the dull green wall—almost as if the life has been sucked out of him.