by Steven Gore
“He’s just like all the shrewd crooks,” Gage said. “Build your defense around what you can’t deny and what’s sure to be found out anyway.”
“Well, I’ve got something else he won’t be able to deny.” Gage heard Spike shuffle papers on his desk. “I just received Porzolkiewski’s cell phone records. It has calls to the Mariner Hotel where Viz had followed Boots Marnin. Four calls during the week after Charlie got shot. We can’t trace them to his exact room, but the jury won’t care. If Marnin had worked a little smarter in India, there could’ve been a third body.”
The gears caught again. Porzolkiewski had claimed he sold the wallet for ten thousand dollars to two men claiming to represent Meyer. Maybe the calls to Boots were the negotiations, and maybe there was evidence to confirm it.
“Have you gone over everything seized from Porzolkiewski’s house?”
“Not yet. The prize was the sodium monofluoroacetate from the store. In fact-more shuffling-“the evidence sheet shows the officers only took flour containers from the house and cleaning powders from the garage.” Spike paused. More shuffling. “Beyond that, only some indicia to prove in court he had control of the house: telephone and electric bills, and his wallet.”
“Porzolkiewski’s wallet? That doesn’t sound right. He would’ve had it with him at the store.”
More shuffling. “There’s a wallet listed on his jail property sheet, too. Let me call you back.”
S pike called back fifteen minutes later.
“You may want to drop by. I’ve got two wallets sitting on my desk and one of them doesn’t belong to Porzolkiewski… and there’s some really strange stuff in it.”
Chapter 50
Lunge and parry. Lunge and parry.
Landon Meyer felt a yawn rising, and forced it down. To the millions of viewers watching the confirmation hearing of Judge Phillip Sanford, Landon knew he appeared serious and senatorial, even presidential.
In fact, he was bored.
“May I have another five minutes, Mr. Chairman?”
Landon looked down the curving dais at Democratic senator Andrea Quick and nodded.
“With no objection.”
The seventy-year-old Quick fixed her eyes on Judge Sanford. Her coiffed hair was as frozen in place as her belittling stare.
“Let me understand where your argument takes you, Judge.”
Sanford gazed up at Quick; his elegant features and earnest expression had been a form of armor no other Democrat had been able to penetrate.
Landon smiled to himself. Jimmy Stewart couldn’t have appeared more wholesome and invincible; then his internal smile faded as he wondered why there were no actors like that anymore, nor even an America like the one Stewart lived in. But then he felt a wave of uncertainty, wondering whether that old America could be restored by someone as young as Sanford, experienced in law, but not in life.
“Doesn’t your free speech argument lead us down a road toward the eventual overturn of entirety of McCain-Feingold and every other piece of legislation restricting corporate contributions directly to political candidates and-”
“Madam Senator-”
Quick wagged a finger at Sanford. “Don’t interrupt me, young man.”
Sanford’s face reddened, then he grinned like a schoolboy trying to deflect a teacher’s discipline.
“I was about to say…” Quick reddened, too, then stiffened.
Landon watched the slow recognition sweep across the room that Sanford had derailed her train of thought.
Quick scanned the notes her staff had prepared.
Lunge and parry, Landon said to himself. Lunge and parry.
“With all due respect, Madam Senator, I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to comment on a matter that may come before the Court.”
Sanford had rescued her from the embarrassing moment by suffocating the issue, and everyone in the audience and watching on television or online had recognized it also.
By Landon’s count, it had been the twenty-third time he’d executed that question-strangling ma-neuver.
Landon understood the confirmation hearing wasn’t about Sanford alone. It was also about how effectively the Democrats could take shots at President Duncan. For them, Sanford was both a nominee to be defeated and a surrogate to be whipped, but so far the rawhide had been missing its target and snapping back into the Democrats’ faces.
But, in a way, Landon felt as though the whip’s popper was just missing him or maybe just pricking him, for it reminded him of an internal tension that had vibrated within him since college. Was the conservatism he believed in composed of tradition or of ideology? Was he an Edmund Burke defending what the country had been and therefore what must be, or a Thomas Hobbes creating a Leviathan out of the chaos of competing wills and constraining everyone for their own safety? Was he a man who believed that the American was at heart a yeoman farmer who should be left to plow his fields as he pleased, or was he a man who believed Americans were merely impulse-driven juveniles whose lives-from their bedrooms to their doctors’ offices-must be monitored and managed?
Landon knew who Brandon wanted to be, but in the twinges of conscience he sometimes felt, he wondered about himself.
He thought of the summer intern who’d misunderstood his biblical reference to the Leviathan, and now wondered whether he’d somehow misunderstood it, too.
Quick looked up from her notes.
“Is there anything that might not come before the Court, anything you feel you are free to comment on?”
Sanford displayed a bland smile and shook his head.
“I’m sorry to say, Senator, we live in a litigious society.”
W here do we stand?” Brandon Meyer asked his brother as they sat in Landon’s office in the Dirksen Building.
The Senate Judiciary Committee had just completed a party-line vote to send Sanford and Heller’s nominations to the full Senate.
Brandon had flown to Washington to meet with members of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“About seven Democrats are only pretending to be undecided,” Landon said. “And we have two of ours who are truly sitting on the fence. They’re not sure whether they can buy their way back from an affirmative vote.”
“So they’ve got fifty against and we’ve got forty-eight in favor. If we can swing our two, then we’re at fifty-fifty and the vice president breaks the tie.”
“It won’t be pretty,” Landon said, “but it’ll be done.”
Brandon examined his tally sheet lying on the edge of Landon’s desk, then asked, “How much more will it take to bring over those last two?”
“There’s a prior question,” Landon said. “How do we get it to them?”
“You just tell me what they need. I’ll figure out the rest.”
Chapter 51
I just keep hearing this grating in the back of my mind,” Gage told Faith as they hiked up the hill from their house toward the pine- and oak-lined trails of the regional park early on Saturday morning.
Gage hoped the perspective of distance and high places would help him discern a pattern in what seemed contradictory and incongruous.
“Maybe it’s just Porzolkiewski lying all the time,” Faith said.
“That’s part of it, but not all. I’ve got this peculiar feeling I’m doing someone else’s work.”
“You mean helping someone frame Porzolkiewski?”
“You should’ve seen the way he broke down at the end of the recording of my interview of Wilbert Hawkins. I don’t think he was faking.”
“How do you know it wasn’t just relief he’d killed the right guy? Maybe he had a lingering doubt about what happened, then you proved the company was guilty and Charlie was part of the cover-up.”
The road jogged west just before the park entrance. They paused, surveying the bay from San Francisco north toward Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. Low fog still lay outside the Golden Gate, extending past the Farallon Islands twenty-seven miles out into the Pac
ific.
Gage’s eyes settled on the Richmond refineries in the distance, miles of jagged metal fragments jabbing upward.
“Imagine the men watching the flames shooting up the tower toward them,” Gage said, “trapped, helpless…”
Faith finished the thought. “Then imagine Porzolkiewski living it over and over in his mind for fourteen years. Like Sisyphus, condemned to pushing the boulder up the hill, then watching it roll back down time and again. Then you showed him he could pick it up and use it as a weapon.”
“Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d never learned the truth.” Gage closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “But…”
“Something doesn’t fit?”
Gage looked again toward San Francisco, first focusing on the Hall of Justice south of downtown, then making out Russian Hill rising above the incoming fog to the north.
“Why don’t we cut this short,” Gage said, “and go visit Socorro.”
V iz answered Socorro’s door, wearing a sweaty T-shirt, grimy with dirt.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Gage said. “We thought we’d check on your sister.”
“Come on in. We were just taking a break from cleaning up the backyard. It got a little overgrown in the last couple of months.”
They found Socorro in the kitchen, finally changed out of her saggy sweats into faded Levi’s and an oversized plaid shirt, dropping ice cubes into a pitcher of tea.
She turned at the sound of their footsteps, then smiled and said, “Reinforcements have arrived.”
Faith stepped forward and reached out to her hug her, but Socorro held up her hands.
“I don’t think you want to be wearing mud and lawn clippings on your sweater for the rest of the day.”
Socorro motioned toward the veranda.
“Sit down. I’ll bring you out something to drink.”
They walked out into air perfumed by the smell of cut grass and fresh earth, and then sat down in the heavy wicker chairs now arranged in a semicircle facing the lawn.
A minute later Socorro arrived and set down their drinks, and then smiled at them.
“So, what do you need to know?”
Faith blushed. “Can’t people just drop by?”
“Yes, but Graham has the look.” She settled into her chair and patted Viz’s arm. “I first noticed it on my brother’s face after he’d been in the DEA for a couple of years.”
Gage put up his hands. “I surrender.”
“So?”
“I’m interested in the last week before Charlie died.”
“Are you still putting the case together against John Porzolkiewski?”
“I wouldn’t call it that exactly, but basically that’s right.”
“He didn’t come by when I was home, and Charlie didn’t say he was here.”
Viz caught Gage’s eye. Of course he wouldn’t say anything, there’d be too much to explain.
Socorro shuddered. “The idea of Porzolkiewski sneaking into my house and poisoning Charlie. I haven’t been able to sleep. I just keep imagining it over and over.” She lowered her gaze and shook her head and said in a grim tone of self-reproach, “If I just hadn’t left him alone.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Gage said. “I’m not sure we even know when it happened or how the poison was given to him.”
Socorro shrugged. There was nothing Gage could say to defend her against her self-accusation. He knew it and she knew it. So he moved on.
“Let’s go back a little further,” Gage said. “You told me Brandon called about a week before Charlie died and they argued about something that was supposed to take place and about Charlie being unable to do some work.”
Socorro nodded.
“Anything else happen during that last week?” Gage asked.
She propped her elbows on the arms of the chair, then rested her chin on her interlaced hands.
“I’ll try to work backward. He woke up feeling weak and had difficulty breathing. Not suffocating, just really labored. I called the doctor, then went to pick up a prescription for Amantadine.” She glanced behind her toward the inside of the house. “I gave the bottle to Spike when he came by yesterday.”
She closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them.
“Viz told me you were coming back from Zurich. I passed it on to Charlie and he said wanted to call, but he had trouble dialing the phone because of numbness in his hands. So I did. Then he broke down when he heard Moki’s name. And about forty-five minutes later I heard a thump and I… and I went back upstairs… and…”
Faith reached over and took Socorro’s hand. “It must have been terrible.”
Socorro took in a breath, then shuddered again, tears now forming in her eyes.
“Maybe I gave it to him myself, in the Amantadine-”
Gage cut her off.
“That’s not possible. Sodium monofluoroacetate doesn’t act that fast. It takes at least two and a half hours and as long as twenty. If he woke up with respiratory problems, that means he probably got it the day before.”
“The day before?” Socorro shook her head. “I don’t remember anything special happening the day before. The physical therapist came by in the early afternoon, Jeffrey something, so I went shopping. I got back about three o’clock. Jeffrey told me he went to the store for a few minutes to buy some massage lotion he forgot to bring.” She looked over at Gage, “Is that when Porzolkiewski snuck in?”
“I don’t know,” Gage said. “How can I get ahold of Jeffrey? What agency is he with?”
“Physical Therapy Associates over on Mission below Cesar Chavez Street.”
Gage pulled out his cell phone, punched in directory assistance, then let the service connect the call. He handed her the telephone.
“Ask for his last name, tell them you want to send a thank-you note. Don’t pressure them for an address. I’ll find it.”
Socorro obtained the name, hung up, and then repeated it as she handed the phone back to Gage.
“I’m sure it wasn’t Jeffrey,” Socorro said. “He was wonderful, a sweetheart, much nicer than the previous one. I was glad when she quit.”
Gage slipped the phone into his shirt pocket.
“Let’s go back a little further,” Gage said.
“Nothing. Everything was routine. No one came to see him except the kids. They flew up on Friday night and went back on Sunday. I know they were upset seeing their father in the condition he was in, but they didn’t leave his side. They even slept in chairs in his room.” She paused, probing her memory, then said, “There was a plumbing problem the day before Charlie died, but I was with the plumber the whole time.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “At least I think I was.”
“You know his name?”
“I’ve got his business card.” She walked into the kitchen, then returned with a glossy blue card with gold lettering: Sang Ngoc Pham Plumbing and Rooting.
Gage took it from her hand, examined it, and then shook his head.
Chapter 52
Sang Pham’s first words as he crawled out from under the house in South San Francisco were, “Oh shit.”
Gage reached down and grabbed Sang’s arm before he could slither back under, then yanked him out onto the grass. Sang rose to his feet and glanced around. His eyes hesitated when they found his stepside van, but his dejected expression seemed to be saying there was no point in running because he’d have to come back for it and Gage would be waiting.
“It’s called the statue of limitations.” Sang’s Vietnamese accent had faded a bit since they last met. “My lawyer told me about it.”
“ Statute of limitations,” Gage said.
“Yeah. Statute.”
Two generations of police detectives in San Francisco knew Sang, his grandfather, his father, his five brothers, and their sister-and the Phams made sure they knew each of their enemies. The family was a form of organized crime: gambling, extortion, fraud, prostitution. Gage’s last contact with them was ten years earlier,
in connection with a year-long series of Silicon Valley high-tech burglaries in which Sang’s role was to deliver the stolen microprocessors to off-brand server manufacturers.
Sang was the youngest and the lightweight among the siblings, less a danger to society than a burden on it.
“What exactly did you do?” Gage asked.
Sang stared at Gage, then smiled the subservient grin Gage suspected he reserved for white people to whom he was giving plumbing estimates.
“Oops.”
Gage pulled the Sang Ngoc Pham Plumbing and Rooting business card out of his shirt pocket.
“How’d you get a plumbing license?” Gage asked.
“Felonies okay. Really.” He shrugged “Bonding, maybe not.”
“The card says licensed and bonded.”
“Good intentions.”
Gage pointed toward the concrete front steps of the lime green stucco house. They walked over and sat down.
Sang spread his hands, grinning. “What do you think? Really.”
“About what?”
“My rental house.”
“Who chose the color?”
“Nobody. It was on sale. It’s good in Vietnam.” Sang surveyed the earth-toned houses bracketing his. “Here, maybe not.” He lowered his hands and let his grin fade. “But you didn’t come to talk real estate investment.”
“I wanted to ask you about Charlie Palmer.”
“Who?”
Gage cast him a sour look.
“I don’t know a Charlie Palmer, really. He deal in computer chips? I’ve been out of that business a long time, since I got out of prison. Really.”
Sang seemed convincing. With or without all the “reallys.”
Sang cocked his head and squinted toward the sky.
“Palmer… Palmer. I did a Palmer.” He looked at Gage. “A woman with a Mexican name. Senora or something.”
“Socorro.”
“That’s it. She had a clogged drain in the kitchen. And I cleaned out some roots in the line near the street.”
Gage gave him another sour look.
“She needed it. Really. I didn’t cheat her.”
