MD04 - Final Verdict Page 3

  Hell. “Where are you?”

  He gives me an address at a residential hotel in an alley off Sixth Street.

  I tell him, “Let me talk to Inspector Banks.”

  “Hang on.”

  A moment later, Banks says, “You can meet us down at the Hall.”

  “I’m only a few blocks from you,” I say. “I’ll come right over.”

  He does a quick mental calculus. If he gives me a little access now, he may be able to cut off arguments about the securing of the crime scene and the admissibility of the evidence. He says, “We’ll be here for twenty minutes.”

  “Understood.” I ask to speak to Walker again. Banks hands him the phone and I tell him I’m on my way. I’ll figure out a way to explain it to Rosie. We talk for another minute, but he provides no additional details. Finally, I ask him, “Why did you call me?”

  “You’re the only person I trust. You were the only one who believed me last time.”

  # # #

  I’m about to walk out the door when our third partner, Carolyn O’Malley, stops me and says, “Rosie said you were on the phone with Leon Walker.”

  “I was.”

  At five-one and barely a hundred pounds, Carolyn is a tightly-wound bundle of nervous energy. She was a tenacious prosecutor for almost twenty years before an ill-advised affair with her former boss ended her career at the DA’s office. She joined our firm about two years ago and kept our office open while Rosie and I took our sabbatical in academia. She’s developed a reputation as a solid defense lawyer. I’ve known her since we were kids and we went out when we were in high school and college. I tried to persuade her to marry me, but she said no. Rosie says the only prerequisite for becoming a partner in our firm is that you must have had a failed relationship with me at one time or another.

  She tugs at her short red hair and asks, “Why the hell did he call you?”

  I’ve always been attracted to women who are not prone to pulling punches. “We represented him when we were PDs,” I tell her.

  “I remember the case,” she says. “Have they identified the victim?”

  “Not yet. The body was found behind a liquor store on Sixth Street.”

  “Do you know the cause of death?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re a fountain of information. Who made the arrest?”

  “Marcus Banks.”

  Her lips form a tiny ball. “He’s very good.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you going to represent Walker again?”

  “I don’t know. I promised that I’d go down there and talk to Banks.”

  “Rosie was very upset.”

  “I’ll bet.” Leon Walker was an all-city basketball player at Mission High and got a scholarship to play at USF. His older brother, Frank, was an enforcer for a loan shark. Late one night, Leon went into a 7-Eleven, bought a Coke and went back to the car. A masked man presumed to be Frankie walked in a moment later, pulled a gun and demanded money. When the clerk hesitated, the man shot him and fled. It was captured in loving detail on the store’s security camera. Leon and Frankie were stopped for running a red light a short time later. The police found a gun in the trunk and the brothers were charged with first degree murder.

  Our guys didn’t come up with a particularly original alibi. Frankie claimed he never went inside the store and Leon corroborated his brother’s story. Unfortunately, they hadn’t noticed a woman in the gas station across the street who said she saw Frankie remove his mask as he was leaving the store. The bullets that killed the clerk matched the gun in the trunk.

  The prosecution’s case went to hell before it got to trial. The security tapes were inconclusive for identification purposes because the gunman was wearing a mask that was never found. That made the testimony of the eyewitness crucial. She developed a case of selective amnesia and couldn’t–or wouldn’t–provide a positive ID. There were claims that Frankie’s associates had intimidated her. The DA’s nightmare became a full-blown disaster when a misguided judge ruled that the search of Leon’s car was illegal and that the gun was inadmissible at trial. The case fell apart without a videotaped ID, a solid witness or the murder weapon. It was a stunning and unexpected legal victory for Rosie and me, but it wasn’t a banner day for the criminal justice system.

  There was no happy ending. Frankie was killed in a deluge of police fire during another armed robbery two weeks after the charges were dropped. Some people think the cops set him up. The chancellor at USF pulled Leon’s scholarship and he never played basketball again. He dropped out of school and has been living on Sixth Street ever since.

  After the hoopla died down, a Stanford law professor published an analysis of the case in the State Bar Journal, in which he proclaimed that Rosie and I were the finest PDs in the State of California. Our fame was short-lived. An overzealous investigative reporter at the Chroniclewas considerably less effusive. He accused us of manipulating the system and encouraging our clients’ friends to intimidate witnesses. More people read the Chronicle than the State Bar Journal and the mayor strong-armed the PD’s office into opening an investigation. Rosie and I were put on administrative leave for three agonizing months. The matter was eventually dropped.

  Characteristically, Carolyn shows no visible reaction and provides the correct legal analysis. “You got a good result for your clients,” she says. She arches an eyebrow and asks the question that defense attorneys are never supposed to answer. “Were they guilty?”

  I give her the customary evasive response. “I don’t know.”

  Not good enough for a former prosecutor. “Come on, Mike.”

  I try to deflect in another direction. “Rosie thought so.”

  “So did everybody working at the Hall at the time, including me.”

  It doesn’t surprise me.

  Her green eyes light up and she flashes the engaging smile that I saw so many times when she wanted something from me. “So,” she says, “what did you think?”

  I try to disarm her by using her childhood nickname. “It doesn’t matter any more, Caro.”

  She isn’t giving up. “Yes, it does–especially if you’re thinking about representing him.”

  I’ll have to fess up sooner or later. “I believed Leon when he told me he didn’t know that his brother was going to rob the store.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “It was just a gut feeling. Unlike his brother, Leon wasn’t a garden-variety punk. He was a smart kid and a starting forward on the USF basketball team. He wouldn’t have sacrificed a shot at the NBA for a few extra bucks.”

  “Your conversation with Walker certainly pushed Rosie’s buttons.”

  No doubt. Grace was a baby and Rosie and I were at each other’s throats during the investigation. She worked tirelessly to get the DA to offer the Walker brothers a plea bargain for voluntary manslaughter. I didn’t think the prosecutors could have proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt and was dead set against any deals. So were the Walkers. We never had a chance to find out what a jury would have decided. From a professional standpoint, Rosie was pleased with the result, but personally, she thought two killers were set free. In the all the years we’ve worked together, it was the only time I’ve seen her question the system.

  I give my partner and ex-girlfriend a shrug. “There was more to it than you might think.”

  “You guys disagree about everything. Why was it such a big deal?”

  “The case ruined our marriage.”

  *****

  Chapter 3

  Where Old Criminals Go to Die

  “I am appointing a blue ribbon panel to oversee the clean up of Sixth Street.”

  — The Mayor of San Francisco. Friday, June 3.

  The fastest way from our office to Leon Walker’s room is on foot. The five-block walk down Mission Street takes me on a time capsule tour of some of San Francisco’s largest urban renewal projects and historical masterpieces. I start in the shadows of the high rises nea
r the bus terminal, then I go by the Museum of Modern Art and the Moscone Convention Center. I traverse the old Sony Metreon shopping and entertainment complex and hurry past the over-sized hotel with the gaudy, pointed top, that the late Herb Caen, the immortal Chronicle columnist, dubbed the “Jukebox Marriott.” The modern era comes to an abrupt halt at Fifth, where I reach the aging two-story building that houses Caen’s old newspaper. In the distance I can see the classical federal courthouse that’s been magnificently restored, and the crumbling old Mint that’s still in the process of being remodeled.

  Things get appreciably worse when I reach the corner of Sixth and Mission, where the bold new buildings and the remnants of San Francisco’s proud past give way to a half-mile stretch of dilapidated low-rise structures bordered by Market Street on the north and the 80 freeway on the south. Sixth Street is our South Bronx and has been a festering open wound for decades. Every mayor in my lifetime has vowed to clean up the mess, and every one of them has failed. The current occupant of the elegant office on the second floor of City Hall recently appointed yet another blue-ribbon task force to deal with what the Chronicle has dubbed the “Sixth Street Crisis.” An army of street sweepers and clean-up crews comes in every morning to hose down the sidewalks and paint over the graffiti. By nightfall, the walkways are filthy again and the gang slogans are back on the walls. It’s a never-ending, and some would say unwinnable, battle. The Board of Supervisors got into the act by passing an ordinance that prohibits urinating and defecating on the streets. Most of us figured it was illegal all along. Things got so bad that the DA opened a satellite office in one of the residential hotels to get closer to the action. It was an intriguing idea, but the results have been mixed. There are few places in San Francisco where I’m afraid to walk in broad daylight, but Sixth Street is one of them. My father was a beat cop in this crime- and drug-ridden hell forty years ago. He used to say it was a mean street where old criminals with no place else to go went to die. It still is.

  The first thing that hits me is the overpowering stench of urine. The troubled sidewalks pulse with weaving drunks, addicts scoring drugs and homeless men waiting outside the Jesus Cares Gospel Mission for free bologna sandwiches. A man is smoking crack in the entrance to a pawn shop. Liquor stores, porn shops, check cashing services, auto body shops and cheap restaurants compete for space with run down residential hotels. The ground level doors and windows of the functioning businesses are covered by heavy iron grating, and the rest are boarded up. The employees at the donut shop sell crullers from behind bullet-proof Plexiglas.

  I turn left onto Sixth and start walking south toward the freeway. I pause to look at a display of hunting knives in a store window. They’re standard equipment for those in this neighborhood who cannot afford more powerful weapons. I’m wearing a white oxford shirt and a pair of gray suit pants. I may as well have a sign on my back that says, “Rob me!” You never want to stop for long and I pick up my pace. I avoid making eye contact as I walk past the store where Terrence the Terminator and his neighbor fought over a chicken. It doesn’t seem so funny now. It’s unseasonably hot and my shirt is sticking to my back. I step over a homeless man who is lying on a bed of newspapers. An undernourished cat is stretched out at his side and a shopping cart holding his worldly belongings is parked next to him. Survival is a full time occupation here. He asks me for spare change and I slip him a dollar.

  Alcatraz Liquors is a small store where Sixth is intersected by MinnaStreet, a narrow alley that’s cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. A crowd has formed around a police wagon and four cops are standing in front of two squad cars. An officer with a bullhorn is issuing orders to disburse. He’s competing for attention with a disheveled man who is shouting incoherently and holding a bottle of Jack Daniels. A half dozen men are sitting on crates and passing a bottle. A cameraman from Channel 7 is shooting background footage and a reporter looks uncomfortable as she adjusts her makeup and studies her notes while trying to ignore a profanity-laced tirade from a woman in a wheelchair. Just another day on Sixth Street.

  I push my way to the front of the police line and start looking for familiar faces.

  The voice of Inspector Marcus Banks cuts through the noise. “Over here, Michael,” he shouts. He gestures toward me and I ignore the verbal taunts of the crowd as he escorts me inside the restricted area. The well-dressed Banks appears out of place in the foul-smelling alley. His gray hair perfectly matches his neatly-pressed suit, which hugs his ebony skin. His customary scowl becomes more pronounced when he says to me, “I can’t believe you’re going to represent Leon Walker again.”

  “I haven’t decided to take the case.”

  The combative Banks took a lot of heat when the case against Leon and his brother went sideways. Some think it cost him a shot at becoming chief. He’s closing in on retirement and now works alone. He jabs an emphatic finger at my chest and says, “Walker is trouble. If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll stay out of this.”

  It’s good advice. I try to stick to business. “I want to talk to him.”

  “You just said you hadn’t decided whether you’re going to represent him.”

  The battle begins. “You know the drill, Marcus. I don’t want him to say anything to you until we figure out what happened.” Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the best advice a defense attorney can give to his client is to shut the hell up.

  He says, “You can have a few minutes, then you’ll have to continue your conversation at the Hall after he’s been booked.”

  “Has he said anything to you?”

  “Not a word.”

  Good. “What’s the charge?”

  “First degree murder. I read him his Miranda rights.”

  I would have been surprised if he hadn’t. “Where is he?”

  He gestures toward a three story brick structure across the alley from the liquor store that will never make the guide to San Francisco’s trendiest bed and breakfasts. The ground-level windows are covered with graffiti-shrouded plywood, and filthy white drapes are hanging out the windows on the upper floors. A hand-lettered sign above the steel mesh door says, “Thunderbird Hotel.” A smaller one below it adds, “Daily, weekly and monthly rates. Absolutely no visitors.”

  Banks says, “We took him to his room, where he voluntarily let us look around.”

  He’s talking in police code. He’s correctly anticipating a challenge to the legality of any search and seizure. It’s a defense attorney’s first shot across the bow. “We’ll discuss the legality of the search later,” I say.

  His tone turns emphatic. “It was legal. For one, he took us up there himself. For two, he opened the door and let us in. For three, he said we could look around. We have witnesses.”

  All of whom are cops.

  “For four, I sent somebody down to the Hall to pull a warrant just in case.”

  “Of what?”

  “He hired a wise-guy defense attorney. I’m not about to let Walker get away again on a bad search.”

  Like every good cop, Banks has a long memory. He’s been waiting more than a decade for a chance to bust Leon’s chops. I ask him if they found anything in Walker’s room.

  “We’ll provide everything we’re required to give you in due course.”

  “Come on, Marcus.”

  “You aren’t the attorney of record yet and we’re still gathering evidence.”

  He isn’t going to budge. I shift gears and ask, “Have you ID’d the victim?”

  “White male. Late forties.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Officially, no.”

  “How about unofficially?”

  “The driver’s license in his wallet said his name was Tower Grayson. He lived in Atherton. Evidently, he was in venture capital.”

  Curious. “What was he doing down here?”

  “We don’t know.”

  We’ll need to find out. “Where did you find the wallet?”

  “In his pocket.�
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  “Was there any money in it?”

  “No.”

  This suggests that robbery could have been a motive. “What about credit cards?”

  “His Visa, MasterCard and American Express cards were still in the wallet.”

  It’s too soon to reach any conclusions.

  “I’ll show you where they found the body,” he says. He isn’t looking at me when he adds, “This is a crime scene. Stay with me and don’t touch anything.”

  I follow him down the urine-soaked alley that’s littered with spent needles. The walls are covered with spray painted profanity. He leads me to a paved area adjacent to the loading dock at the rear of the liquor store, where a rusted Dumpster is surrounded by empty boxes, broken glass and more needles. The stench is overwhelming. Crime scene field evidence technicians, or FETs, are wearing surgical masks and heavy gloves as they perform their meticulous tasks. Police photographers are taking video and still shots.