After that, Jeffries emphasized that Colleen's fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon, and followed up by repeating the opinions of Inspector John Naftulin. Then they recessed.
Jeffries would probably finish his summation during the afternoon session. No good prosecutor likes to lose a day between his evidence and his impassioned plea for conviction if he doesn't have to.
I called first Martha and then Arnie on their beepers, had them call me on my portable. They'd gotten nothing, not a nibble. We agreed that they should expand the search: hit every bar, liquor store and shop in their areas, make their pitch quickly, leave their cards.
By day's end, I'd knocked on 134 doors and talked to over two hundred people, in several languages.
Nothing.
At six, I called my answering machine at the office for the fifth time that day and got a message from Colleen, in Italian. I could hear the sounds of people talking and feet scuffling around her and was certain she had called from the holding area of the courthouse.
She pretended to be an irate housewife whose plumbing hadn't been fixed properly. She wanted me to come by at "mezza notte" and "ricostruire correto." I smiled. Right about then, fixing her plumbing at midnight was about the only thing I felt I was good at.
I kept up the search, hit another seventy-five doors, shops, stores, and found nothing.
At ten thirty I gave up and crawled home. Martha, Henry, and Arnie had just come dragging in with food from Molinari's Deli. They looked worse than I did.
On my desk was a blank manila envelope that someone had dropped through the mail slot. Inside was a typed note and information from Lloyd Dinkman.
Two of the twenty-seven women who'd lived in the same buildings as Candira and had once been on Tommy's welfare docket had records for burglary and possession of stolen property.
I hadn't been able to locate either of them, but both had rap sheets or had been suspects in burglaries outside of the Bay Area, which is why their records hadn't popped up earlier. Lloyd had done yeoman's work, finding information on one of them as far away as the Clark County Sheriff's Department in Las Vegas.
The first was Sharon Dean, Caucasian female, thirty-three years old and living on Waller Street in the Haight-Ashbury. According to the reports, she'd been arrested three times for residential burglaries in San Jose, San Diego, and Las Vegas. Never convicted.
She was a former prom queen from Mendocino County who'd wound up pregnant and strung out on drugs in San Francisco by the age of twenty. She'd also appeared in a few dozen porno loops and had once been a nude dancer at the Mitchell Brother's O'Farrell Theater.
The second was Magdallena Mason, black, thirty-nine years old, a career junkie and burglar who'd also been arrested twice for selling stolen property at flea markets. One conviction in Monterey County, ninety days in jail.
In an early mug shot taken just about the time Magdallena first received ADC, she bore a striking resemblance to the pop singer Whitney Houston. Her case worker had been Tommy Rivera. The years and the drugs had not been kind, however, and in recent photos she didn't even look like the same person.
Two prime targets.
I bolted down some cold pasta, grabbed the folder, and, Martha and I went out to find Sharon Dean and Magdallena Mason. We found both at home.
Both had been friends of Candira Anne Chandler.
Both denied any knowledge of anything even related to the Farragut burglary or murder. They both looked ill, strung out; the offer of fifty thousand should have been enough to make both of them want to confess to Kennedy's murder. But each shook her head and glumly admitted she knew nothing.
I was stuck, dead in the water, and the clock was not just ticking, it was pounding.
We went back to the office. After phoning in an order for sandwiches and drinks to a restaurant on Union Street that stayed open late I called Terry Brown, a boyhood friend who worked the late shift for City Cab.
Then I called Colleen on her private line. When Consuela answered, I told her in Spanish that "Frank from Firenze's Restaurant" would be there with their order at "media noche." She understood.
Forty-five minutes later, Terry's cab pulled up to the back gate of the Farragut mansion, where he rang the buzzer. While waiting for someone to answer, he was besieged by three dozen hysterical news hacks wanting to know what he was doing there.
"Delivering food," Terry told them. They wanted to know what kind, where it came from, who had called in the order: newsworthy stuff. Several offered him money to give them information on the way out about what she was wearing, who she was with, what her state of mind was like. Terry told them to go fuck themselves just as Consuela buzzed him in.
When the cab was near the garage area, out of sight of anyone on the street, Terry opened the trunk and I climbed out. I gave him a hundred dollars and arranged for him to pick me up on Lombard Street, half a mile away, before he ended his shift.
Consuela was waiting for me at the door.
She took me up in the elevator to where Colleen was waiting.
Chapter 31
Colleen was a vision in a white teddy trimmed with ivory lace and a short satin robe that bared her strong, smooth legs. A fire filled the room with warmth and the red glow back-lit her as I went toward her.
She faked her best nothing-is-wrong smile, put her arms around my neck and squeezed. I felt like she was comforting me, encouraging me, instead of the other way around. I hugged her back.
She poured me a cup of tea, stirring in some honey, and asked how it was going. I was afraid to tell her that we'd interviewed several hundred people and gotten nowhere. I pulled out the file Lloyd Dinkman had sent over on the two women, Sharon Dean and Magdallena Mason, spread their photos and rap sheets out on the table, and asked if Colleen knew either one of them.
She looked at them long and hard, looked at my notes, scrutinizing them carefully.
"I've never seen or heard of these women. Tommy never mentioned their names. Why? Do you think one of them is the other burglar?"
"They both lived in the same building as Candira at the time your house was burglarized, and both had priors. Only Magdallena has ever been convicted, in Monterey, which is why their rap sheets didn't pop up right away. They're both junkies: I think Magdallena has AIDS. And they were both real lookers when Tommy was their case worker."
She studied the photos again. "I feel bad, Frank, I'm no help. For the life of me, I can't remember ever hearing these names or seeing these women before."
I asked her if Ian Jeffries had finished his closing arguments that day in court.
"Yes. The afternoon session went until almost five. He was pretty effective." She was silent a moment. "He was very effective. I don't see how a jury could vote anyone innocent after listening to the things he said today."
I couldn't think of anything to say. I pulled her into my lap and kissed her. I felt the pain an eighteen-year-old feels, kissing his first great love for the last time, before she moves a long way away, knowing that despite the phone calls and the letters and the I-love-you's they'll never see each other again.
At 4:45 A.M., with the media still entrenched out front, Colleen called City Cab and asked them to radio Terry and tell him he'd left his cap behind. That was his signal to meet me at the gas station on Lombard Street.
I got dressed and kissed a half naked, warm Colleen, good-bye. "Remember what I told you Frank," she said. "Whatever happens, I love you."
Leaving by the back door, I went across the yard quickly and climbed the stone wall. Just before I dropped over, I looked up at Colleen's window and saw her watching, smiling at me in the moonlight. She stood there for a moment and let me look at her. Then she shivered, waved, and closed the shutters.
Once over the wall, I walked through the Presidio, smelling the eucalyptus, listening to the waves crashing near Fort Point in the distance. When Terry pulled up I climbed into the cab and rode home in silence.
The first cobalt patch of dawn
appeared behind the Bay Bridge as we reached the top of Telegraph Hill. I stumbled upstairs, crawled between the cold sheets, and was asleep in seconds.
At 7:45 I awoke, groggy, sandy-eyed, and with a mouth like possum sweat. I forced myself to clean up and stumble downstairs, where Arnie had breakfast waiting for Henry, Martha, and myself.
We were down to the last day of the trial.
Chapter 32
After the morning's efforts we were no better off than we'd been the day before. While Martha, Henry and Arnie worked our list of so-called leads, I concentrated on finding a hole in the stories of Sharon Dean and Magdallena Mason.
I checked with old landlords, neighbors, liquor store owners. I called three of the investigating officers on their previous arrests and told them I was investigating a new series of burglaries. None of them was able to tell me anything that wasn't in the old reports.
At noon I found another bar and waited for the midday report. The news came on and the female commentator said that Calvin had delivered an eloquent but fairly low-key summation. Calvin argued that the prosecution had failed to prove Colleen had been the murderer, referring often to Colleen's substantial humanitarian efforts. It sounded like it had been more a plea for mercy than an assertion of her innocence.
After lunch, Judge Marilyn Walters would give the jury their instructions, then send them in to deliberate.
I was just about out of time.
For the next several hours, I knocked frantically on doors, hoping to find Candira's partner, praying that I wouldn't have to derail the process with a mistrial and force the court to retry Colleen a few weeks later.
I tried to ignore the thought of the agony Colleen was going through. I couldn't.
At five that evening, I sat in the El Nido Bar in the Mission District with my head in my hands, dead tired and defeated. I'd had dogs jump on me, a dozen people try to sell me dope, a few others threatened to kill me if I ever knocked on their doors again.
That's when I felt the tap on my shoulder.
"You look like a dude who could use some luck."
Even without turning around, I knew who it was.
Patsy Chandler. When I did turn around, she looked exactly as she had the day I met her; she was wearing the same things. Martha was standing next to her.
"I was just about to call you from a pay phone on the corner when I saw the Norton parked in front," Martha said. "You better come outside, Frank. Patsy has something to tell you."
A block away stood Mission Dolores. The door was open, the church nearly vacant. I said a brief hello to Father Joseph Gutiérrez, an old friend, as we entered.
We sat in a pew near the north side of the church. Several worshippers lit candles near the entrance or prayed at the altar. Patsy twisted the top of the plastic shopping bag she carried and looked about one boo! short of a coronary.
"You have something to tell me?" I asked her.
"I need that fifty thousand, Mr. Fagen. I want my kids back. I know I done wrong, but I need my kids again."
"No offense, Patsy, but I don't give a damn about your personal problems. I'm tired and pissed off and you got fifteen seconds to put up or get out of my face."
"I know who dunnit."
"How do you know?"
"After you left the other night, I started goin' through papers. I'm one of those people never throws nothin' away."
"Ten seconds, Patsy."
"All right, all right. Remember how I told you mom used to call and ask to borrow money sometimes? Well, one time she called and said she had this friend in jail, and if she didn't get her out, she was going to rat mom out for some stuff they stole."
I squirmed, got up, ready to leave. Martha put a hand on my arm. She nodded.
"I had a bitch of a time findin' her, but I did. About an hour ago. Her name's Magdallena Mason. She was mom's partner, she was in the house when that dude got killed."
Now she owned me.
"She said you come by a couple of times, said she knew you used to be a cop. She don't trust you."
"And I don't trust you. How do you know? Prove it to me."
"You give me fifty thousand if I prove to you she done it?"
"I give half to the person who gets up on that witness stand and says they were there that night." You get the other half. Twenty-five thousand each, that's the deal. You got five seconds left."
She reached in the plastic bag and pulled out one of Ghiberti's silver plates.
I slumped back down and just stared. I was so exhausted I wanted to weep. I took the photos out of my pocket, compared them to the plate. It looked like the real item.
"I give Magdallena five hundred just to let me show somebody that plate. I told her I had somebody who wants to buy it, but I didn't tell her it was you. She's expectin' him to come by tonight and give her the rest of the money. Mr. Fagen, I got to have some money." Patsy looked desperate, ready to cry.
I reached into my pocket and gave her a thousand. That helped her disposition immensely.
"Where's the other plate?"
"Magdallena said mom sold it to some pawnbroker in Oakland. She said she thinks the guy still has it, on account of a few days after the burglary the cops went by the pawnbroker's store looking for the plates and sayin' somebody got killed. The pawnbroker was too afraid to sell it, so he hung on to it. Magdallena wants to buy it back because she found out now it's worth a lot of money. She says the pawnbroker wants two thousand. I told her I could get it."
"Who did the shooting?"
"Magdallena says mom done it. She said when the dude showed up she ran, but mom didn't want to go away empty-handed."
"Did Magdallena see the shooting?"
"I don't know, she says she was outside but she could be lying."
"What else can you tell me about Magdallena?"
"She's a junkie. She's got AIDS. She's gonna die soon. She just didn't believe you were going to give her any money if she talked, and she was afraid of goin' cold turkey in jail. So I told her I could sell the plates for her, that I seen one of mom's old fences and he wanted to buy the plates."
My heart was pounding against my ribs. "Here's the deal," I said. "I'm gonna play a game on Magdallena, see if I can draw her out first, then offer her the reward money when it's over. But Magdallena has to take the witness stand, we have to have the other silver plate and the testimony of the pawnbroker, and Colleen Farragut has to be acquitted. Those are the rules. You in?"
"I'll do it, but I want my five hundred back that I give Magdallena for this plate."
I gave her another five hundred dollars. Then Martha escorted Patsy to return the silver plate to Magdallena. Without her testimony, the plate was meaningless. I followed a safe distance behind. By eight o'clock that night, I had the last step of the plan ready to go.
Chapter 33
Arnie Nuckles knocked on Magdallena Mason's door at nine fifty that night. Across town, the jury was turning in for the night, sequestered after their first evening of deliberations.
In the Firenze Plumbing van across the street from Magdallena's apartment were Martha, Zane Neidlinger, Vincent Halloran, and myself. Vince was one of San Francisco's most feared and venerated attorneys, a long-time family consigliere who'd supported the Fagens throughout the war with the Farraguts.
Arnie was wearing a wire. Over the van's speakers, we heard his footsteps as he trudged up the wooden hallway, his knuckles rapping on the door.
After a few seconds of listening to Arnie's breathing, a door was unbolted.
"You Magdallena Mason?"
"Yeah who you?"
"A friend of yours asked me to stop by. We got some business to discuss."
"Yeah? You bring the money?"
There was a short silence and then the sound of Arnie walking in, sitting on something squeaky, like a vinyl couch.
"I hear you got somethin' for sale?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Let me see it."
"Let me see the money."
<
br /> Through the wire we could hear Arnie reaching in his coat, pulling out the leather pouch that held the money.
"Now let me see the silver plate."
Footsteps walked away, returned a few seconds later.
"You like that? Some famous Eye-talian done it, Michelangelo or one of them dudes."
"Where's the other one? Patsy said you had two of 'em."
"I ain't got it, but I can get it."
"How fast can you get it?"
"Tomorrow. But the dude wants two grand, and I got to have the money up front."
"We're talking about another silver plate here, the other one that you stole from that Farragut house."
"That's right. Just like that one, only different. Different pitcher carved in it, that's all."
"How do I know these are the real items, that they came from the Farragut house and you're not trying to palm some piece of junk off on me?"
"Cause I was there when they got took. There was two plates. Candira sold hers to the pawnbroker, and I hid mine on accounta the dude got murdered."
"You shot him?"
"I didn't shoot nobody," Magdallena snapped, getting a little riled.
"I can't use this shit," Arnie said. "I can't be buyin' shit with blood on it. I ain't doin' no time for no dumb bitches."
"I didn't kill him!" Magdallena practically screamed. "My partner Candira done it. I was outside. I heered two shots and Candira come runnin', laughin' like she was crazy or somethin'. She said the dude made a move toward her, she shot him with his own gun. It don' mean nothin'. They think the dude's old lady killed him, the bitch is on trial right now. I seen the papers, they're gonna fry the bitch, then it'll be okay. You can sell these plates, won't nobody say nothin'. I'm in a bad way, mister, I got AIDS and I gotta habit and gotta have some money."
"There's five hundred down payment for this one. I'll give you two grand apiece . . . four thousand dollars, but I want 'em both, you understand? They're a set and they ain't worth shit unless I get both of 'em. You call the pawnbroker right now and set up a meeting for tomorrow at eight in the morning, tell him you'll have the cash in your hand."
Bohemian Heart Page 20
