MD03 - Criminal Intent

by Sheldon Siegel

  It’s seven-fifteen. Rosie stayed at the Hall to have a heart-to-heart talk with Angel about the Oscar. Then she was going to try to find a judge who might be willing to discuss bail. I followed Jack O’Brien out here to get a closer look at the scene of Dick MacArthur’s demise. He’s inside the house. I got as far as the foot of the driveway, where I found Pat Quinn.

  The MacArthur/Chavez mansion is at the end of a short cul-de-sac known as North Twenty-fifth Avenue. There is an access gate next to the driveway that leads to a path through the adjoining open space down to the beach. Quinn and his colleagues have cordoned off the house, North Twenty-fifth and a stretch of the beach. They have the thankless job of supervising the scene until the photographers, video cameramen and field evidence technicians, or FETs, complete their respective tasks. My dad used to say you get only one chance to investigate a crime scene. You have to get it right the first time.

  Pat is doing me a favor. He took me on a roundabout trek just outside the restricted area so I could see where they found the body. Most defense attorneys wouldn’t receive similar cooperation. Most defense attorneys weren’t in the starting backfield with Pat at St. Ignatius.

  The moist air smells of salt water. From where we’re standing, it would take about twenty minutes to walk along the beach and through the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge. At the moment, the orange towers are shrouded in fog. I can barely make out the lamp at the Point Bonita lighthouse in the Marin Headlands across the bay. If we’re lucky, the fog may lift by noon. Then again, maybe not. Summer in San Francisco.

  The house is on the toniest street in one of San Francisco’s most affluent neighborhoods. Sea Cliff is a far cry from the bungalow in the flatlands where I grew up. It’s an enclave of elegant white mansions tucked on the bluffs in the northwest corner of the city that was considered suburban when it was built at the turn of the century. To the west lies the Lincoln Park golf course and the Pacific coast, known as Land’s End. Big Dick’s neighbors serve on the boards of the opera and the symphony and play dominoes at the Olympic Club, where I tended bar when I was in college. They include two movie stars, the CEO of a large database developer, the former chairman of Wells Fargo, the orthopedic surgeon for the Niners and the managing partner of the city’s largest law firm. A fixer-upper in this part of town will run you more than two million bucks. A place like MacArthur’s would set you back at least triple that.

  Not to be outdone, Big Dick’s son lives in his own ostentatious, turreted castle two blocks inland at El Camino Del Mar and McLaren. His piece of the American Dream was hopelessly out-of-place among the stucco mansions when he bought it two years ago. He hasn’t endeared himself to his neighbors by adding a third story to his eyesore and covering every inch of his lot with an unsightly pool that looks as if it was transported straight from one of those big resorts on Maui. Little Richard’s concept of style is a little different from that of his neighbors.

  Officer Quinn points toward a spot near the gate. “That’s where he landed,” he says. “Just outside the retaining wall.” A team from the coroner’s office is huddled around the body, which is covered by a black tarp.

  We don’t say anything for a moment. I hear the foghorn from Alcatraz. Then I look into the round face of my old high school buddy. “Could you tell what happened?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I just secured the scene, Mike.”

  I try again. “Come on, Pat,” I say. “Just between us.”

  “Off the record?”

  “Off the record.”

  “He fell off the balcony like a load of bricks. It’s a straight shot from the deck to the spot where he landed face down. Very messy. There’s no way he could have survived the fall.”

  The crime-scene photos are going to be gruesome. “Any chance he jumped?”

  “No. Somebody hit him.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “There was blood on the balcony. You don’t have to be Rod Beckert to figure out that somebody cracked open his head.”

  Beckert is the chief medical examiner. He’s standing next to the body and talking into a miniature tape recorder.

  “Got it,” I say. “Was there blood inside the house?”

  “I didn’t see any.”

  “What about footprints?”

  “I couldn’t tell.”

  I won’t get much from Pat, which doesn’t stop me from trying. I ask him about weapons.

  “None.” He reflects and says, “I hear they arrested the wife. She’s pretty.”

  I nod.

  He doesn’t look at me when he asks, “So, did she do it?”

  He’s a good cop. Just because he’s showing me the scene doesn’t mean he won’t troll for information. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

  “No,” I say.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jack O’Brien is sure she did.”

  “He’s wrong.”

  “He’s good.”

  “I know.”

  Quinn casts another glance at the body. Then he turns back to me and says, “Sounds like the old story, Mike. Pretty young woman. Mean old man. Betcha there’s a big insurance policy. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman did her husband.”

  This isn’t a made-for-TV movie. Angel is Rosie’s niece. She stayed at our house when her mother was working late. “She’s a kid,” I say.

  “Sometimes kids do stupid things.”

  Angel doesn’t. “Her movie is coming out next week.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Maybe not.”

  He continues to probe. “What was she doing at the bridge?”

  “I don’t know, Pat.”

  “Sounds to me like she was trying to run.”

  I respond with a shrug and try to change the subject. “Any witnesses?” I ask.

  “Just the guy who found the body. His name is Neils.” He points to the house next door to the MacArthur’s and says, “He lives there.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No.” He gestures toward the cove at the far end of the beach where a man is standing next to one of those sleek hunting greyhounds with long legs and a painfully narrow head that are all the rage. “That’s him,” he says.

  “Have you talked to anybody else?”

  “We’re still trying to figure out who was here last night.”

  I give him a list of the names Angel mentioned. It can’t hurt to give them some options. “What about MacArthur’s son?” I ask.

  “What about him?”

  “Has anybody talked to him?”

  “We can’t find him,” he says. “Nobody was home when we knocked on his door.”

  Where the hell is he? “What time was that?”

  “Around four. We tried the phone. We tried his cell. No answer. We have somebody waiting for him at his house.”

  Very curious. “Anybody else?”

  He responds with a shrug. “We’re interviewing the neighbors. Except for the guy who found the body, no witnesses so far.” He tells me he has to go back up to the house. “Stay outside the tape, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” I say. “Pat?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  # # #

  “I’ve given my statement to the police, Mr. Daley,” Robert Neils tells me. “I don’t want to talk about it again.” He emphasizes the word don’t.

  We’re standing at the edge of the cove at the west end of Baker Beach, about the length of a football field from the MacArthur house. He looks like an investment banker: tall, tan and fit. His athletic dog tugs at a long leash. The wind beats against his nylon jacket, but his silver hair doesn’t move.

  “We’re trying to help your neighbor,” I say.

  He heaves an impatient sigh. “I was walking my dog. He was off the leash. He found the body by the wall and started barking. I had my cell with me. I called the police.”

  “Do you always walk along the beach at that
hour?”

  “Every day. The markets open at six-thirty. I try to get to the office by five.” He looks at the greyhound and gives me a half-smile. “He’s bred to run,” he says. “He needs exercise. I like to turn him loose when nobody’s around.”

  A sensitive gesture. “Do you get up at that hour on weekends, too?”

  “I’ve been doing it for thirty years.”

  “Was anybody else around?”

  “No.”

  I ask him how well he knew his neighbors.

  “Not very well. Dick kept to himself. Angelina moved in after they got married.”

  “What were they like?”

  He scowls. “Noisy. There were always people around.” He adds with palpable contempt, “We’ve lived here for twenty-five years. This usedto be a quiet area.”

  I ignore the dig. “Did you see anything last night?”

  “We live next door,” he says. “Everybody in the neighborhood knew when they threw a party.” His dog tugs at the leash. “My wife and I have quiet habits. They don’t.”

  I seem to have touched a nerve. I try again. “Anything out of the ordinary last night?”

  “Just the dead body by their gate.”

  “Other than that?”

  “No. Cars were coming and going. People were talking loudly on the deck.”

  “Did you hear anything unusual?”

  He looks at the house and says, “I heard shouting around a quarter to three this morning. I told the police.”

  “Did you recognize the voices?”

  “No.”

  “Could you tell if they were male or female?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I ask him if he heard anything else.

  “A car pulled out of their driveway.”

  “Did you get up to check it out?”

  “Mr. Daley, I don’t get up every time I hear loud noises next door.” He throws a rock into the bay and then turns back to me. “They were difficult neighbors,” he says. “Most of us on this street won’t be heartbroken if Ms. Chavez decides to sell the house to somebody with quieter habits.”

  # # #

  “Did you have any luck finding a judge?” I ask Rosie. My cell phone is plastered against my right ear. I’m still at Baker Beach, and she’s in her car.

  “The duty judge said no. I called the clerks for Judge Mandel and Judge Vanden Heuvel. They said they’d get back to us.” She thinks for a moment and adds, “I’m not optimistic.”

  Neither am I. “You could talk to Leslie,” I suggest.

  “I thought about it. That would have put her in a tough spot.”

  Indeed. Me, too.

  “And I didn’t think she’d grant bail,” she adds.

  “Probably not.”

  She leaves the bottom line unsaid. Angel is going to be staying at the Hall until Monday.

  I ask, “What did she have to say about the Oscar?”

  There’s a pause. “She has no idea how it got into the trunk of the car.”

  “Just like she had no idea how she got to the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “Right.”

  “Just like she had no idea how the cocaine got into her car.”

  “You aren’t helping, Mike.”

  Duly noted. I shift gears and tell her about my conversations with Quinn and Neils.

  She asks if there’s a chance Big Dick committed suicide.

  “Doubtful. Pat said there was blood on the deck. He was sure somebody hit him.”

  “How reliable is he?”

  “Very.”

  “And the neighbor?”

  “Seemed like a straight arrow.” I tell her about Neils’s description of shouting on the deck and the car pulling out of the driveway.

  I hear her sigh. “Well,” she says, “we’ve gone from a serious problem to a multi-dimensional disaster. Angel is falling apart. My sister is going to be a basket case.”

  “We’ll get through it.”

  “We have no choice.”

  I look out toward the bridge. I can make out the roadway, but the towers are still blanketed in fog. “How are you holding up?” I ask.

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “You sound tired.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  She never stops pushing ahead. I hear a blast from the Alcatraz foghorn. Then I say, “So, what do you think? Do you believe Angel?”

  The phone goes silent for a moment. Then she says, “She’s my niece.” She hesitates for an instant and throws it back at me. “Do you?”

  I answer honestly. “I’m not sure. You know her better than I do.”

  Her tone turns adamant. “She isn’t a killer.”

  I take a deep breath of the cool air. “Look,” I say, “I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, too. But we’re going to have to try to remain objective. She isn’t just your baby niece any more. She’s twenty-five. She’s been out on her own for a long time. She’s a college grad and an actress.” I pause and add, “And her story has a lot of holes.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You can’t let your personal feelings cloud your judgment. There’s too much at stake.”

  “This case is already personal.”

  “Then let’s consider bringing in somebody else—someone who will be more objective.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then let me take the lead. You’re too close to her.”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “She’s my niece.”

  I know this tone. I’m going to lose this argument. “Does that mean you believe her?”

  Now it’s her turn to parry. “We don’t know her story, Mike. We’ve barely scratched the surface. What’s the first thing I taught you when you came to work at the PD’s office?”

  “Not to sleep with your colleagues.”

  “Very funny. What’s the second thing?”

  “The facts are your friends. Get as many of them as you can before you make any judgments about your client’s case.”

  “Right. Think about it. What do we really know?”

  I reflect for a moment and reply, “There was a party and a screening at the house.” I rattle off the names of everybody who was there. “The neighbor says he heard shouting and a car pull out. MacArthur’s body was found at three-thirty. It looks like somebody nailed him on the head. Angel drove to the bridge.”

  “She was foundat the bridge. We don’t know how she got there.”

  Come on. “Do you really think somebody put her into the car and drove her there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Fine,” I say. “For now, we’ll just say she got to the bridge somehow. She was drunk. She had an expired driver’s license. She did coke. They found a baggie of it in her car.”

  “Which she says she knew nothing about. We don’t know who put it there.”

  “Do you really think it was planted?”

  “I don’t know that, either. Let’s see if they find any fingerprints.”

  I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince me or herself. “Come on, Rosie,” I say. “There was a bloody Oscar in the trunk. What do you make of that?”

  She hesitates for a moment and says, “It could be a set up.”

  “It’s a damn good one. Do you really believe that?”

  “I don’t know. We shouldn’t rule out the possibility. The pieces fit together perfectly—maybe too perfectly. They found her at the bridge—a public place where she was easy to find. If she was trying to flee, she wouldn’t have stopped there.”

  “Maybe she stopped because she was drunk and high. Maybe she couldn’t drive.”

  “Maybe. The coke in the front seat ensured she’d be taken in and the car searched. Lo and behold, they found the Oscar—the supposed murder weapon—in her trunk. It’s too perfect.”