by Janet Dawson
The glass of iced tea tipped and fell, ice and brown liquid splashing over the table’s white surface and onto Denise’s candy-striped dress. The yellow lemon wedge skittered across the floor. The waitress hurried over with extra napkins and a rag to mop up the spill. Denise mopped at her dress, her face flushed crimson, as the café patrons seated nearby looked at us curiously.
“No, I don’t want anything else,” she told the waitress. “Take the salad away, please.”
When we were alone again, she balled up a wet napkin, dropping it on the table as she leaned forward and covered her face with her hands. When she finally removed the protective screen and looked at me, her face had returned to a more normal color. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” I told her. “I’m sorry to make you relive it.”
“I thought I’d buried all of these feelings, over the years, when I made a new life for myself, and Scott. Then Sam showed up at the bank. I’ve felt like a hunted animal ever since.” Her fingers plucked at the wet paper napkin. “I suppose you want to know why I stayed with him as long as I did. That’s what my divorce lawyer kept asking.”
“You were just out of high school with a baby to take care of and you didn’t have anywhere to go.”
Denise nodded. “Except to my parents. Right after Scott was born, my dad was diagnosed with liver cancer. He was going through treatment. We were all worried about him and I didn’t want to burden my family with my problems. I kept thinking, well, it’ll get better. And it did, for a while, once we moved out of Alma’s house and got a place of our own. Looking back, I think it was because Sam was gone a lot, on his job. He had to make deliveries, he said, in San Jose. And I’m pretty sure he had a girlfriend there too. I played this game with myself. If I kept the apartment clean and had dinner on the table when he got home from work, then he wouldn’t hit me. If he did, somehow it was my fault for giving him a reason. I was pretty good at it. Even had myself fooled, until the night he broke my nose.”
“That was in October, wasn’t it?”
Denise nodded. “The week before Halloween. I’d carved a jack-o’-lantern for Scott. He was ten months old.”
“What led to the beating? Can you recall any change in his behavior, something he said or did?” I knew from my recent conversation with Norm Gerrity that in early October, the San Jose police caught Raynor driving a stolen car and used that as leverage to turn him into an informer. This incident must have triggered the violent attack on Denise.
“I don’t know,” Denise said. “I didn’t pay much attention to what Sam did, other than try to make sure he didn’t hit me. I was all wrapped up in my little boy, and worried about my dad having cancer. When he beat me up that night, it just seemed to come out of the blue. I knew I had to leave. When he went into the bathroom to take a shower, I grabbed the car keys and the baby and got the hell out of there. I didn’t file charges. My family and my lawyer said I should have, but I just wanted out. I used the beatings as leverage, though, so Sam wouldn’t contest the divorce or the custody arrangements. But at the time, he acted like he didn’t care, like he wanted out as much as I did.”
“And after the divorce, you moved up here to the Bay Area?”
Denise nodded. “My father died a month before the final decree. Dad left me some money in his will, so I decided to make a fresh start. I moved to Concord, got a job in a bank, and found a support group for battered wives. I went to church and I sang in the choir. I met Ruben there.” Denise smiled and touched the wedding ring on her left hand. “He was going to meetings at the church, the same night I had choir practice. One night he asked me if I wanted to go out for coffee. I told him I had a little boy in the church nursery. He said that was fine with him. We got married three years ago. We’re going to have a baby.”
“Congratulations. Things are going well for you.”
“They were.” Her smile vanished. “Until my past showed up.”
I pushed aside the sympathy I felt for her and posed one more question. “Where were you and your husband Saturday night?”
“Home,” she said, too quickly. Her eyes slewed away from me and she looked out the window, teeth catching her lower lip. “Just a typical Saturday night. I don’t even remember what we did after we had dinner.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, God, look at the time. I’ve got to get back to work.” She turned in her chair, looking for the waitress.
“I’ll take care of the check,” I said.
She turned back to look at me, without a word, then pushed her chair away from the table. She clutched her red purse and walked quickly out the front door of the café, heading up First Street toward the bank. I pulled several bills from my wallet.
Denise Padilla had a lot going for her. A second husband who evidently was the antithesis of her first, and a baby on the way. Would she risk it all by killing her ex-husband? He’d invaded her safe new life, tormenting her, threatening to take her child from her and bringing back memories of a horrific past she’d tried to bury.
It was a powerful motivation for murder. And I didn’t quite believe her when she said she and Ruben Padilla had been home Saturday night.
Thirty-three
MY ANSWERING MACHINE CONTAINED JOE FRANKLIN’S latest update of his efforts to find Rosie, the homeless woman. He said he’d come by my office later in the afternoon. I had hoped for a message from my contact at the Department of Motor Vehicles with information on the car that hit Tiffany Collins’s Subaru the night of the murder, but he hadn’t called. The phone rang as I rewound the message tape. I picked it up.
“I guess we need to talk.” Kevin Franklin sounded subdued. In the background I heard people talking and guessed he was in a phone booth somewhere.
“Yes, we do. Where are you?”
“Scott’s Seafood, at the foot of Broadway.”
“I’ll meet you in front of the restaurant, in ten minutes.”
I found a vacant parking spot near the corner of Broadway, where the railroad tracks ran down the middle of the Embarcadero, and walked the short block to Jack London Square. Over the past few years, the Port of Oakland has built up this section of the waterfront. The restaurants lure people, but many of the commercial buildings are as yet untenanted. At the foot of Broadway a series of shallow steps lead to the estuary. Next to the steps an observation pier juts out over the water, with benches along the side and at the end.
As I looked at the scene, I thought about a night back in March, punctuated by gunshots, when I pursued a killer onto the pier and both of us wound up in the cold dark water. Just thinking about it made me shiver, although the day was warm, here where the sun glinted off the estuary.
The patio tables at Scott’s Seafood were filled with people lingering over a Friday lunch. Kevin Franklin paced in front of the restaurant, hands stuck deep into the pockets of his gray slacks. When he saw me, he altered course. We met at the foot of the tall flagpole, where the stars and stripes hung motionless in the still air.
“I don’t know where to start,” he began, shaking his head.
“Let’s walk.” I set off in the direction of the marina, farther south. To my right was a commercial building with several empty storefronts, and on my left a landscaped plaza, trees and flowers brightening an elevated expanse of concrete and tile. We passed a young couple in business attire, seated on one of the benches facing the plaza. They sat close together, holding hands, their dark heads bowed. I glanced at them and realized they were saying grace before consuming their take-out sandwiches.
Kevin and I passed the marina, which was opposite a Mexican restaurant with umbrella-covered tables on a tiled patio. Farther along, a square log cabin had been plunked down on the concrete next to a large round planter holding the mast of the long-decommissioned USS Oakland. A large yellow plaque affixed to the outer wall of the cabin advised that a Yukon historical society had authenticated the cabin as one Jack London lived in while he was prospecting in the Klondike. As we approached
the cabin, three middle-aged women in straw hats and pastel dresses asked me if I’d take their picture. I nodded and took the camera they offered, snapping a couple of shots as they posed in front of the cabin. They thanked me and headed off in the direction of the Italian restaurant next to the marina, drawn by the scent of garlic.
“Suppose you tell me what’s going on,” I said as Kevin and I walked past the First and Last Chance Saloon, another log cabin, this one with a tilted floor and country music blaring from within. “You’re conveniently absent whenever I’m at the house. You say you went to Chuck Porter’s apartment after you left Ruth. That may be true. But I’ve talked with Porter and I don’t think he was there Saturday night. Who were you with?”
He didn’t answer until we were on the path that ran along the parking lot, headed for Jack London Village, another development of shops and restaurants, this one constructed of grayed, weathered lumber.
“I don’t think I’ve been operating on all cylinders.” He shook his head. “I just can’t fathom that my sister’s been arrested for murder. It’s like a bad movie, and I can’t get out of the theater. My little sister Ruth—when we were kids she couldn’t even kill a spider. She used to make me carry the damn things out to the backyard. Ruth murder her husband? I don’t even believe she could shoot him in anger. No, no, it’s ridiculous. I thought the cops were crazy. I thought the D.A. would laugh them out of his office. I guess it didn’t really hit home until Ruth was arraigned on Wednesday.”
“Did you know Sam was a wife beater?”
“Not until she left him,” Kevin said as we stepped onto the plank flooring of the village. His blue eyes grew cold. At that moment he looked a lot like his father.
“If you’d seen him attack your sister, what would you have done?”
“I’d have killed the son of a bitch.” He stopped and stared at me, face intense and incredulous. “You think I killed my brother-in-law? And let my sister take the rap?”
“It has a certain convoluted logic—if the D.A. had seen it as self-defense or involuntary manslaughter, instead of murder. Still might, if Ruth gets off.”
“You think I could kill someone?” he demanded.
“That’s an odd question, coming from a military man. You could kill someone in a war. Why not on the street, or in an apartment building? We’re all capable of murder, Kevin, if we get pushed past that point where reason acts as a deterrant.”
He stared at me in silence, digesting this, then looked away, at the houseboats on the Alameda side of the estuary. We walked through the village, then out onto the asphalt path that ran along the bank of the estuary. To our left was a flat expanse of dirt and gravel dotted here and there with clumps of scrubby weeds and the occasional resting sea gull. On the right were thick pilings and chunks of rock and concrete, placed there to keep the shoreline from eroding. The tide was out. Below us the rocks and gravel were wet and coated with algae, giving off a sour stink. The dark water had tossed up the detritus of an urban throwaway society, a bald tire, ripped plastic bags that once held garbage, plastic cups and bottles, aluminum cans and broken glass, a plastic-covered chair cushion, a discarded hat and one lone shoe, smeared torn paper and splintered wood.
I turned my gaze from the debris and gave Kevin a hard look. “The police have a witness, Ruth’s neighbor. She says she saw Ruth arguing with a man outside Ruth’s apartment. Then she heard a shot. Then saw Ruth come out of the apartment, headed for the trash chute. That sequence makes it look like Ruth argued with Sam, shot him, then ditched the gun. I think I can shake the witness’s timing on the shot. Ruth says she took the kitchen garbage to the trash chute after you left. But when it comes to Ruth outside her door with a man, we’ve got two choices. Sam, or you. You’d just brought Ruth and Wendy home from your parents’ house. Ruth claims the two of you had a discussion. But she won’t say what about. So you tell me. Because I think it has something to do with where you went after you left Ruth’s place.”
Kevin balled his hands into fists. “I’m involved with a married woman,” he said abruptly. “It’s been going on about a year. I’d fly up from San Diego on weekends to see her. Now I’m going to Japan. I’m not going to see her for three years. I should end it. It’s not something I want my parents to know.”
At the edge of the path something caught my eye. It was a discarded condom, pale yellow in color, heedlessly tossed onto the gravel. I looked up at the flat barren wasteland and couldn’t think of a bleaker spot for a sexual encounter. I moved my gaze to Kevin’s equally bleak face, reserving comment on his revelation, wondering at the irony of his wanting to keep this affair from his parents, in light of Joe Franklin’s long-term relationship with his neighbor’s wife.
“I told Ruth,” Kevin continued, “because she figured something was bothering me. On Saturday she urged me to break it off. But I can’t. That’s what we were talking about. Chuck Porter was out of town last weekend and he gave me the keys to his apartment. My friend and I spent the night there Saturday.”
“What time did you arrive at Ruth’s apartment, and what time did you leave? Sam may have approached or entered the building around the same time you left”
“I didn’t see him,” Kevin said. “If I had, I certainly wouldn’t have left Ruth.”
“You may have seen something you don’t realize you saw. When you left Ruth, did you take the elevator or the stairs? Who or what did you see on your way out of the building? Think about it before you answer. Play it back in your mind before you tell me.”
By now we had reached the rear of the three-story building that housed the offices and television studio of Channel 2. We turned and retraced our steps, headed back toward the village.
“We got there a little before eleven,” he said. “Wendy fell asleep in the car on the way back from Alameda. I carried her up to Ruth’s apartment. Ruth wanted me to stay and talk, and I said no, I had to be somewhere. That’s when I told her about my friend and we had our... discussion. I think it was maybe ten after eleven when I left.” He paused and ran a hand through his short blond hair. “I took the stairs down. That elevator in Ruth’s building is slow, and it was on the first floor. Didn’t see anyone on my way out of the building.”
“What about after you left the building? Where did you park your car?”
“On Howe Street between Fortieth and Forty-first, about half a block from Ruth’s place, pointing toward MacArthur. I’d driven in the opposite way, saw the parking space and did a quick U-turn in the middle of the intersection to grab the spot.” His eyes took on a distant look as he played the scene over in his mind. “I crossed the street heading for my car, walked down the sidewalk, took the keys out of my pocket to unlock it. Then I heard voices, loud voices. There were two people across the street, close to the intersection. I’d walked past them but they didn’t register until I reached my car. They were arguing.”
“How do you know it was an argument?”
“When I looked across the street, they were in each other’s faces. Just something about the way they were standing. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but they kept interrupting each other. Then one of them shouted and slapped his hand on the hood of the car.”
“Both men? Or a man and a woman?”
“Couldn’t tell,” Kevin said with a shrug, as we walked through the village toward the parking lot. “I think two men, but one was shorter than the other, so it could have been a man and a woman. They were between the cars, so I couldn’t tell what they were wearing. At that point I was at my car door, sticking the key into the lock, sort of looking at them over my right shoulder. Just a curious glance in the direction of the noise. I didn’t want to pry.”
“What about the cars? Can you describe them?”
Kevin wrinkled his forehead, then shook his head, saying again that details just hadn’t registered. When we reached Broadway, Kevin told me he’d had lunch today with his friend, who’d agreed to talk with me to confirm his whereabouts Saturday night.
“She works for the Port of Oakland.” He pointed toward the new port building, a block or so away on Water Street, and handed me a business card. “She’s waiting for you to call.”
After he left, I ducked inside Scott’s and found a phone. Then I went back outside and walked down Water Street, which was less a street than a narrow passageway between buildings. At the foot of Washington Street I passed a fountain cascading water and the entrance to the old Boatel, now remodeled into the Waterfront Plaza. Just beyond, the Port of Oakland’s new building spanned the block between Washington and Clay streets, its entrance facing the estuary.
Kevin’s lover met me just outside the double glass lobby doors to the lobby. Her name was Kamali and she looked as exotic as it sounded, a slender woman in an apricot silk dress that caressed her body and set off her smooth, flawless café au lait skin. Her oval face had an Asian cast and her voice a West Indian lilt.
Although she had told Kevin she would talk to me, Kamali looked nervous, as though afraid our conversation might be overheard. She moved away from the doors and I followed her to the edge of a grassy lawn that brightened the space between the street and a parking lot at the shore of the estuary. The Oakland-Alameda-San Francisco ferry terminus was at the foot of Clay Street. Beyond it I saw the enormous black hull of a container ship, tall white letters identifying it as the Chongyang Chance, out of Inchon. It was being loaded with containers, set in place by an enormous white motorized crane that loomed over the ship like some dreadful monster from a science fiction movie.
Kamali stared at the estuary as she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, brushing back a lock of her curly black hair with her left hand. I noticed the wide gold wedding ring, flashing in the afternoon sun. She confirmed that she and Kevin had arranged to spend the night together and that Kevin had met her outside Chuck Porter’s apartment building just past eleven. She had noted the time because he’d told her he would be there by eleven and he was a few minutes late. Finally she finished her story, but still she didn’t look at me. Instead she shifted her gaze from the water to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt pier, jutting out over the estuary at the foot of Clay Street, and the City of Oakland fire boat tied up at Fire Station No. 2.
