by Steven Gore
“I’ll cross the street and come up from behind,” Donnally said, opening the passenger door.
“You sure you don’t want me to call some uniforms?”
“I’m sure.” Donnally climbed out. “I don’t want to spook him and I don’t want anybody reading him his rights until I have a chance to talk to him.”
Navarro leaned over and looked up at Donnally. “I don’t know, man. It’s sort of a gray area.”
“Not the way we’re doing it.”
By the time Donnally had made the circuit down the block and across the street, Rover was sitting with his back against the low, black-tile façade of the bakery.
Rover paid no attention as Donnally walked up since his jeans and windbreaker made him unremarkable among the men standing around chatting and drinking their coffee with copies of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal tucked under their arms.
Donnally pretended to read the takeout menu taped inside the bakery window until Navarro positioned himself near the news racks on the opposite side to block Rover’s escape. He then lowered himself to one knee and bent down close to Rover. The aromas of blueberry muffins and cinnamon rolls swirling around them couldn’t mask the stench enveloping Rover’s body.
“Are you Charles Brown?” Donnally asked, adopting a sympathetic expression.
Rover looked up and licked his sugar-caked lips. He held a half-eaten donut in his left hand, with crumbs sticking to his spongy beard.
“Rover?” Donnally asked.
Rover squinted at Donnally and then nodded.
“I’d like to talk to you about Anna Keenan.”
Rover’s head jerked side to side. “My cathe is clothed.” The lisp that changed “case” to “cathe” and “closed” to “clothed” sounded authentic. “They clothed it. I wath in jail thirty-theven yearths.”
“Who told you they closed the case?” Donnally asked.
“My lawyer. My lawyer told me that.”
“You mean the public defender?”
“Yeah, my public defender came and told me.”
Donnally sat down next to him. “Since the case is closed, maybe you can tell me what happened.”
Rover threw down the donut, then wrapped his arms around his knees. Donnally could see mangled knuckles and scarred skin, and recent lacerations and scabs. Rover’s head twitched side to side, eyes darting. His breathing became heavy, verging on hyperventilating.
“Take it easy,” Donnally said, touching Rover’s left arm. “Nobody’s trying to hurt you.”
“They told me I killed her.” Rover lowered his head and rocked back and forth. “They told me I killed her.” He looked at Donnally. “Do you know if I killed her?”
Donnally nodded. “That’s what they say.”
“They said I strangled her. And that I was crazy.” Rover lowered his head again. “I didn’t understand what was going on. They put me in Atascadero. I began to remember …”
“Remember what?”
Donnally caught sight of a stroller slowing to a stop on the sidewalk next to them. He looked up at a thin, young mother smiling at Rover and him, as if he were a city mental health worker checking on a client. She reached out with a dollar and let it fall into Rover’s lap. Donnally gave her an acknowledging nod, then she moved on.
Donnally turned back to Rover. “Remember what?”
“Looking down at Anna in her bed. Reaching at her.”
“And then?”
Rover didn’t answer. His head was still lowered.
“Did Anna like you?”
Rover looked up, grinning. “Anna liked me. She wanted me to touch her.”
“Touch her how?”
Rover’s grin turned sly, mischievous, embarrassed. “You know.”
“Did you touch her?”
“Yes.” Rover frowned. “But she got angry.”
“Then what happened?”
Donnally watched Rover’s body tense, his eyes hardening.
“Why are you asking me this? My cathe is clothed.” Rover’s voice rose. “I did thirty-theven years. My cathe is clothed.”
Rover pushed himself to his feet, then spun and smashed his fist into the bakery window. Donnally grabbed Rover’s collar and yanked him backward as the glass shattered and ragged fragments fell and exploded on the sidewalk. Donnally lost his balance and the two of them crashed down onto the concrete. Rover thrashed, throwing elbows at Donnally’s side and face and kicking at his legs. Donnally slid his right arm under Rover’s neck and locked his hand behind his head. He then felt the thud of Navarro diving in, rocking their bodies. Navarro yanked Rover’s left arm behind his back, snapped on a handcuff, then pushed himself up and kneeled on Rover’s shoulder. Rover’s body stiffened with pain and his legs stopped kicking. Donnally rotated Rover’s right arm down and back and Navarro snapped on the second handcuff.
When Donnally rolled off, he found himself nose-to-rubber wheel of the same stroller. He looked up at the women, now glaring down as if Rover was somehow a victim and as if she’d been betrayed by a pretender to goodness. Donnally reached over and picked up her dollar from the sidewalk and held it out toward her. She stared at it for a few seconds, then turned away and used the stroller as a battering ram to break through the gathering crowd.
Donnally looked over at Navarro as they stood up. “Apparently one woman’s murderer is another woman’s mascot.”
Navarro grabbed Rover by his left upper arm, Donnally took his right, and they hauled him to his feet.
Donnally rubbed his left elbow as they drove away from the North County Jail in Oakland where they had dropped off Rover.
Navarro glanced over. “Seems like your old bones can’t take this anymore. You ought to get yourself some better padding like me.”
Donnally smiled. “When you dove in, I thought you were going to croquet both him and me into the street.”
Navarro’s face flushed. “I wasn’t exactly diving.”
“You tripped? So it was really my padding that protected you?”
“I guess you could say that.”
Donnally reached for his cell phone and called Katrisha. Her voice mail picked up. He left a message about Brown’s arrest and assured her that he wouldn’t let the DA know that she’d helped out.
They then rode in silence until Navarro had merged into freeway traffic heading toward the Bay Bridge.
“Man,” Navarro said, “that guy sure didn’t want to go to jail.”
“Maybe he realized that once we got him locked up, he’d never get out again.”
“You think he’s sane enough to go to trial?”
Donnally had thought through that question during the time he’d spent searching for Rover.
“I think there are three issues,” Donnally said. “Does he remember what happened? I think he does. Does he know he’ll go to trial for murder? That’s why he fought us so hard. Can he help his attorney formulate a defense? Probably. He’s even got his defense ready: She got angry and they had a fight.”
“Except he’ll only be putting on a defense if the court finds him competent.” Navarro looked over at Donnally. “What do you think the shrinks are going to say?”
Donnally had also thought that one through.
“That depends on who’s paying them.”
Chapter 13
The assistant public defender reached down and rested her hand on Charles Brown’s shoulder at the defense table in the arraignment department of the Superior Court in Oakland. It was as if to say to the judge about Brown, Poor, tormented man.
The pretense reminded Donnally why so many court proceedings had repelled him as a cop. They too often devolved into theater in which every person and every thing—every fact and everything done and suffered—was reduced to an image to be manipulated.
And he suspected Brown’s competency hearing two decades earlier had begun the same way: with a wordless attempt by his attorney to cast him in the role of the victim.
What the public defend
er said aloud was “I’d like the defendant sent under Penal Code 1368 to determine whether he’s competent to stand trial.”
Judge Julia Nanston looked down toward Chief Assistant District Attorney Thomas Blaine.
“Do the People have any objection?”
Her raised left eyebrow told everyone in the courtroom the People had better not.
“No, Your Honor,” Blaine said. “We’ve already discussed the selection of psychiatrists with the defense.”
“So the People are contesting the issue?”
Blaine glanced back at Donnally sitting in the front row of the gallery, then back at the judge.
“You bet the People are.”
Despite his annoyance, Donnally let his eyes go dead as the judge looked down at him. Like the public defender’s gesture, Blaine’s had been a performance: a pretend solidarity that falsely included Donnally in a process over which he had no control.
The courtroom door opened, followed by a rush of footsteps. Donnally turned to see a pack of reporters hurry to take seats in the second row. A longtime San Francisco Chronicle crime reporter recognized Donnally, then pointed at his open notebook.
Donnally shook his head, then shrugged and mouthed the words, I’m just a spectator, then rose and walked out.
His cell phone rang as he was driving back across the Bay Bridge to Janie’s.
“How did the fucking press find out about this so soon?” Blaine said, his voice rising.
Donnally pictured the flush-faced prosecutor stomping around his office.
“It wasn’t me,” Donnally said. “What’s the storyline?”
“What do you think it is? How the fucking DA’s office fucked up and let a fucking maniac get away with a fucking murder for over twenty fucking years.”
Donnally heard the beep of an incoming call. “Hold on.” He connected the call. “Harlan Donnally.”
“It’s me.” It was his waitress at the café. “I got a couple of calls from the press. Apparently you’re the hero.”
“What did they want?”
“A picture of your handsome face and to find out how you got involved in this.”
“What did you tell them?”
“What could I tell them? I don’t have a clue.”
Donnally imagined camera crews camping out in front of Mauricio’s junkyard and ex-prosecutors and marginal defense lawyers standing by in a cable news studio, all made giddy by a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction elixir of murder, attempted rape, a maniac on the loose, incest, and patricide.
“Tell them I was doing research for a book and happened to run across the case.”
“Really? What’s it about?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She laughed. “I get it.”
“Try to sound sincere.”
Donnally reconnected to Blaine. “You seem a little deficient in the adjective department today.”
“Asshole.”
“And the noun department.”
Donnally heard Blaine drop into his chair.
“You know what else is going on?” Blaine said.
“All I know is what you’re telling me.”
“The Crime Victims for Justice group held a press conference on the courthouse steps. They want the state attorney general to take over the prosecution, claiming that we’re incompetent. And get this. The Albert Hale Foundation jumped in.”
“The what?”
“Albert Hale Foundation. Some kind of do-gooder organization put together by some rich guy who’s never been robbed.”
“What’s their angle?”
“That Brown has been abused by the courts and failed by the mental health system.”
Donnally’s anger shifted from Brown to his equally misguided defenders. “Sounds like they’ve forgotten who the victim is.”
“Hey, man, this is California.”
Chapter 14
Brown was already seated at the defense table, handcuffed to his chair, when Donnally and Blaine had walked into the courtroom. He was bracketed by two attorneys that neither of them recognized.
One bailiff sat five feet behind Brown and another next to the low swinging doors leading to the gallery.
“People versus Charles Brown.”
Donnally sat down behind the barrier as Blaine walked up to the prosecution table and faced Judge Julia Nanston.
“Thomas Blaine for the People.”
The thickset woman sitting next to Brown rose to her feet.
“Margaret Perkins substituting in for the public defender.”
Blaine glanced at Perkins, then said to Judge Nanston. “Your Honor—”
Judge Nanston raised her palm toward Blaine, then glared down at the new attorney.
“Ms. Perkins, two weeks ago I gave the public defender a date certain. And that date is today. The people of this state have waited over twenty years for a resolution in this case.” Nanston removed her half-height reading glasses, then pointed a thin finger at Perkins. “If this is some kind of stunt to get a continuance …”
Perkins smoothed the front of her gray suit. She looked to Donnally like an army captain adjusting her dress uniform.
“No, Your Honor. We’re ready to proceed.”
“And your colleague, for the record?”
“Doris Tevenian of my firm, Schubert, Smith, and Barton.”
Blaine’s head swung toward Tevenian, then toward Donnally, his eyes asking, Who’s paying for this? Then he mouthed the question, Albert Hale?
Donnally knew SSB’s reputation as one of the most expensive firms in the nation. Because of their ages, Donnally guessed that Perkins and Tevenian were partners, which meant that between them and their two assistants, the case was costing more than two thousand dollars an hour.
“Just to make sure we understand each other,” Judge Nanston said. “I hope you don’t think you’re making a special appearance to give yourself some time to see whether you want to take the case. You’re in for the duration.” Nanston nodded twice, expecting Perkins to nod along. She did. “Even if that means a forest of motions and a three-month trial.”
Tevenian rose. “Yes, Your Honor.”
Judge Nanston looked at Blaine. “Any objection?”
“No, Your Honor, but the People want some assurance that the defendant consents to the substitution. There are appeal issues to be considered.”
The judge looked down at Brown. “Mr. Brown, would you like Ms. Perkins and Ms. Tevenian to represent you?”
“I don’t want no public defender. I want a real lawyer.”
Judge Nanston smiled, then looked at Blaine. “May I take that as a yes?”
“What the hell is SSB doing in this case?” Blaine asked Donnally as they walked down the ninth floor hallway toward his office.
“Does it make a difference?”
“No. But I’ll tell you something that will.” Blaine stopped and turned toward Donnally. “The jailhouse informant that we were going to use in Brown’s original trial died of a heroin overdose ten years ago. He was the only one who heard Brown confess.”
“Did he testify in any pretrial hearings?”
“Nope. So we’ve got no testimony that would be admissible now.”
They walked a few more steps, then Donnally realized that Blaine’s complaint was a setup.
Donnally stopped. “What are you saying?”
“Maybe we should …” Blaine let his voice trail off.
Donnally’s fists clenched. “Let him be found incompetent again?”
“But we’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Like you did for the last two decades?”
“At least we’re sure to keep him locked up for another ten years—”
“And then he falls through the cracks again and walks out the door?”
Blaine folded his arms across his chest. “The risk of going to trial is that he walks out sooner, either on a not guilty by reason of insanity or on a lesser offense.”
“You mean a manslaughter?”<
br />
“Exactly. Say Brown gets up there and says it wasn’t premeditated. It was just an accident or heat of passion or some kind of sex play that went bad. Nobody remembers what a gem Anna Keenan was. Most jurors will think she was just a Berkeley weirdo and will be prepared to believe anything.”
Donnally pointed a finger at Blaine’s chest. “It’s your job to make sure they don’t.”
“Not mine alone, pal. If you want to bury Brown, then you’ll have to be my first witness at the competency hearing.”
“And testify to what? I’m not a shrink.”
“You’ll testify that even with you catching him by surprise, he was able to articulate that he’d been accused of murder and that he was thinking clearly and quickly enough to come up with a fake manslaughter defense that would cut his jail time in half.”
Blaine spread his arms to encompass the courthouse.
“That alone makes him more competent than ninety percent of the crooks that come through here.”
Blaine chuckled, but Donnally didn’t laugh with him.
“Most of them don’t figure out how they’re going to fight their cases until halfway through trial.”
Chapter 15
Donnally watched Thomas Blaine jump to his feet and shoot his hand out toward Margaret Perkins.
“That’s not the issue, Your Honor. The question isn’t whether the defendant is mentally ill or even developmentally disabled. It’s whether he’s competent to stand trial. Now. Right now. Not twenty years ago.”
Judge Julia Nanston glared down at the prosecutor.
“For the third time I’m telling you. No … speaking … objections. The only words I want to hear out of you are ‘objection’ and ‘relevance.’ If the basis of your objection isn’t obvious, I’ll ask for an explanation.”
Nanston made a note on the yellow legal pad before her. The flourish of her pen stroke gave Donnally an edgy feeling, as though she viewed the evidentiary battle as just a game and she was keeping score.
The judge looked back at Blaine and said, “Please don’t try to tell the court something it already knows. Denied.”
Blaine sat down and glanced at Donnally sitting behind him, who acknowledged the prosecutor’s frustration with a shrug.
