A Criminal Defense

by Steven Gore

  “You may want to put in a claim with the probate court.”

  Bohr paused, thinking, then blinked. “It may be better to write it off. I’m not sure I want to be the one who explains to the court why Mark wanted the money.”

  No, Donnally thought, you don’t want to explain to the court why Galen needed the money.

  Donnally felt his phone vibrate once in his pocket. He pulled it out. It was the text message from Navarro with Tink Fischer’s address.

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to kill Mark?” Donnally asked.

  “By anyone, you mean Galen?”

  “Not just Galen.”

  “A thousand people.”

  “I think you’ll need to narrow it down some.”

  “Mark was an aggressive lawyer. And aggressive lawyers make enemies.” Bohr spread his hands. “How’d you like to be the father of a kid who was murdered by one of Mark’s clients? Mark dummies up some reasonable doubt—which doesn’t take much around here—and the killer walks.”

  “The odds of that being the reason are pretty slim. A winning lawyer has never been murdered before, at least in San Francisco.”

  Bohr paused and inspected Donnally’s face. “What did you do before you started this special master business?”

  Bohr said the words “special master business” like Donnally was in the same class as the court-appointed lawyers in the building.

  “I was a homicide detective,” Donnally said. “And it’s not a business. It’s a onetime thing.”

  “How many unsolved homicides have there been in San Francisco. Hundreds? Thousands?”

  Donnally nodded. He knew where Bohr was going, but didn’t get in his way.

  “Then I guess you can’t say whether it hasn’t happened before.” Bohr gestured toward the window. “Lot of the people getting killed out there are old clients of Mark’s. Most of those murders don’t get solved. People assume it’s gang on gang. Maybe not.”

  The old man had gone off course. They hadn’t been talking about clients being murdered, but their lawyers. He should’ve been arguing that some lawyers had been murdered over the years and not all of those murders had been solved. Donnally wondered whether there was some thought or memory inside Bohr’s brain that was pushing him that way.

  “That just means killers get killed,” Donnally said. “It doesn’t mean their lawyers get killed for getting them off. I don’t recall any of those, even when there were serious criminal organizations involved.”

  Bohr leaned forward in his chair. “But if it was going to happen to one of them, my candidate would’ve been Mark.” He leaned back again and squinted up toward the ceiling. “Where did we start with this? Oh yes. Sheldon Galen.” He looked again at Donnally. “You’re thinking that Hamlin’s murder is a lawyer-on-lawyer crime. Galen kills Mark so he doesn’t have to pay back the money?”

  “I’m not thinking anything.”

  Bohr smiled. “But if you were about to think something, I’d make it that.”

  Chapter 17

  Loan? It wasn’t no loan. That asshole Galen stole my money. Stole … it. A hundred thousand dollars.”

  The man standing behind the chain-link fence next to a fight-scarred pit bull didn’t look to Donnally like a guy who’d ever seen a hundred thousand dollars in any form. Cash, check, or money order.

  Having emitted a rapid first blast, Tink Fischer fell silent and then looked Donnally up and down as if only now having the thought he’d should’ve had when Donnally first walked up and set the dog to barking. What’s a white guy doing out here without a badge and a backup?

  “Where’d you park your car?”

  “Truck.” Donnally pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the curb in front of the faded pink stucco bungalow across the street.

  “The Big Block Boys have been fighting a turf war with Bay Side. You’re in what you could call the line of fire. Lots of dope money to be made on the corner so there’s lots to fight over.”

  Fischer glanced over at the mostly primer gray 1980s Caprice Classic in his carport. Donnally followed his eyes. The only shiny spots on the skin were the bent-in edges of the bullet holes.

  “Maybe I should talk fast,” Donnally said.

  Fischer smiled. “I’ll try to keep up once I know where you’re headed.”

  Donnally smiled back. “I’m interested in Sheldon Galen.”

  “You a private investigator?”

  “Let’s just say I’m a dissatisfied customer.”

  Fischer snorted. “Been down that road myself.”

  Donnally looked down at the dog, guessing that it was the one that Fischer had tried to bring into the bank with him.

  “Because he lost your case?”

  Fischer waved the question away. “I wasn’t gonna win it. The DA was offering a bullet in the county jail and I figured I could get it cut down if the judge heard some kinda sob story from me.”

  It was called a long sentencing hearing. Using a trial not to prove innocence, but mitigation. And a bullet was courthouse slang for a year in the county jail.

  “I told them about how the dog was my son’s and how the dog got all despondent after he got killed and didn’t like being left alone.” Fischer tilted his head toward the corner, implying that was where the murder took place. “It was true. That’s what happened. Judge bought it and I got six months.”

  “But it really didn’t have anything to do with why you punched the security guard.”

  “I hit him because he was a racist asshole. He had what I call a black-guy-with-a-pit-bull complex.” Fischer spread his hands. “The dog is like a loaded gun. Like I was supposed to leave him tied up on the sidewalk so he could take chunks out of people’s legs walking by?”

  “Then what was your beef with Galen?”

  “He represented me in a civil suit. A false arrest case. Cops beat the shit out of me. I was walking by a sideshow—just … walking … by—”

  “A what?”

  “Aren’t you from around here?”

  “I’m from up north.”

  “A sideshow is where the kids spin donuts in their cars in intersections. Look at the pavement when you drive on out of here. You’ll see the skid marks. Big crowds show up. Sometimes the drivers lose control and jump the curb and people get killed. Cops always trying to stop them.”

  Donnally nodded his understanding.

  “I’m walking by one last year and the cops come squealing up and everybody scatters. Me and the dog are the last ones there. Next thing I know, I’m facedown on the sidewalk bleeding from out my broken nose and my neck all twisted up.”

  Something of Donnally’s incredulity must have shown on his face.

  “It’s true. I didn’t know what happened until I saw the cell phone video somebody took from their second story window. When the city attorney got a look at it, they couldn’t wait to get the case settled. Galen got me a hundred and forty grand. He was supposed to keep forty for his fees and expenses, like for the chiropractor treatments to help build up the damages, and give me the rest.”

  “But he was slow to give it to you.”

  “Damn slow. A month goes by, then two, then four.”

  Donnally figured out right then what Hamlin must have. The settlement check from the city would’ve been made out to the Sheldon Galen trust account, separate from Galen’s own money, where it would be held for the benefit of the client—and Galen had embezzled it. And to do that he would’ve had to falsify accounting records and launder the funds into a form in which he could use them himself. He might even have had to forge checks to make it appear that the payments were made to Fischer when they were actually made to himself. If caught, not only would he have lost his bar card, but he would’ve ended up as a real jailhouse lawyer, doing his own bullet in the county jail.

  “Finally, I go over to Galen’s office and he says he’ll have it in a week. A month goes by. I head over there again. I tell him to have it tomorrow or he’s gonna have a lon
g meeting with the dog.”

  “I heard you threatened to sue him.”

  Fischer laughed. “By then, I’d had enough of lawyers. He must’ve come up with that tale to go along with his Fischer-loaned-me-the-money story. I go back the next day and he’s got it. In cash. Two stacks.”

  “He tell you where he got the money to pay you back?”

  “Didn’t stay around long enough.” Fischer reached down and patted the pit bull’s head. “Me and the dog grabbed it and got out of there.”

  Chapter 18

  Donnally’s cell phone rang as his truck tires rolled over the circular sideshow skid marks in the intersection at the end of Tink Fischer’s block. The dope dealers playing dice on the corner glanced over as he passed. Through his rearview mirror, he watched them return to the game.

  It was Takiyah Jackson.

  “I need to know the rules.”

  “About what?”

  “Sheldon Galen called, said he wants to pick up some files so he can make Mark’s court appearances for the next couple of days.”

  “Has he filled in like that for Mark before?”

  “Yeah. He’s the guy Mark always called, but only when he was sick or had a calendar conflict and needed to have a case put over. Galen never needed the files for that. Just an e-mailed copy of Mark’s calendar so the judge could set a new hearing date.”

  Donnally turned onto Third Street, which ran through the industrial district toward downtown. It wasn’t worth the risk of getting caught in a backup on the Bayshore Freeway.

  “What do you think is going on?” Donnally asked.

  Jackson laughed. “The same thing you do. He’s trying to poach Mark’s cases.”

  “I take it he wants to study up fast and then convince the clients he’s up to speed and ready to go.”

  “Especially with the in-custodies. A lot of them were waiting for Mark’s calendar to clear so they could get their full day in court. And the ones Galen wants are all in-custody.”

  “How would the money work if Galen substituted in?”

  “If there’s a retainer balance in Mark’s trust account, it would get transferred to Galen. He’d make the client come up with the difference between what’s there and the amount of the original retainer.”

  “So he starts out fresh with the same upfront money Mark began the case with.”

  “The three files he wants are probably worth fifty grand altogether,” Jackson said. “I checked. There’s about twenty left in Mark’s trust account from these clients.”

  Donnally thought of Bohr pretending to spit upon hearing Sheldon Galen’s name.

  “I don’t get why the clients would go with Galen,” Donnally said. “For the same amount of money, they could get someone good.”

  “It’s because Galen is known as Mark’s go-to guy. Say Mark gets hired by the main defendant in a codefendant case. If there were just two defendants, Galen would get the call. If there were three or four or five, Mark would work down his list, usually drawn from the folks at the Frederickson Building. What these other defendants never realized was that Mark brought in attorneys not to advocate for them, but to control them, to keep them from rolling on his client.”

  “What happened to loyalty to one’s client … what do they call it?”

  “An attorney’s duty of zealous representation,” Jackson said. “Around here, it was what you might call situational. It was situated with whoever’s paying the bills. And that whoever was Mark’s client.”

  Donnally felt too many thoughts crisscrossing. Galen had motive. In one quick move he could both get himself out from under the embezzlement hammer and take over Hamlin’s practice.

  Beyond Galen, who knew how many defendants had realized too late that Hamlin had corrupted their lawyers and set them up to take falls, and which of them might’ve wanted to get even after they did their time, or reach out and touch him from prison.

  And finally, and maybe most important, why was Jackson telling him things she might not have even admitted to herself when Hamlin was alive? After all, she profited from those betrayals and ethical violations every month when she accepted her wages.

  Instinct told him not to press her any further.

  “Set up a time for Galen to come by,” Donnally said. “I’ll be there. And make copies of the files, except Mark’s notes or any defense investigation, that way he can’t learn enough about the cases to do anything more than just kick them over.”

  “But how you gonna keep him from looking at the files before he leaves and notice what’s missing?”

  “Don’t worry.” Donnally hit the accelerator. “I’ll take care of that.”

  Chapter 19

  Sitting behind Mark Hamlin’s desk, Donnally noticed Sheldon Galen’s face harden as he walked into the office and spotted Detective Ramon Navarro sitting on the couch. Galen flinched at the metallic click when Takiyah Jackson closed the door behind him, then came to a stop and glared at Donnally.

  Janie’s description had been dead-on. Galen looked like a greyhound, maybe a whippet. Narrow shoulders. Dark eyes. Prematurely gray at forty. So stiff and skinny Donnally felt like he was looking at a manikin.

  “Your appointment as a special master doesn’t authorize you to disclose attorney-client privileged matters to the police,” Galen said. He pointed a forefinger at Navarro. “He shouldn’t be here.”

  Donnally patted the three file folders he centered on the desk. “I haven’t talked to him about these.” He opened his hand toward one of the chairs facing the desk. “He’s here for another reason.”

  Donnally watched Galen glance back and forth between the chairs and files, as though evaluating the risks. He imagined Galen was asking himself whether it was worth subjecting himself to whatever Donnally had in mind in order to walk out later with the files and the money they represented.

  Galen rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, then took the four steps forward and sat down.

  Navarro stayed seated where he was, didn’t rise and take the chair next to Galen. The plan was for him to inflict a kind of side pressure to keep Galen off balance, with Donnally pushing from the front.

  Galen unbuttoned his suit jacket and tugged at each pant leg to preserve the creases, and did so with such flourish it seemed to Donnally to be a performance, for reasons he didn’t know, but for whose benefit he did.

  Contrary to what Galen might have had in mind, what the theatrical gesture engendered in Donnally was revulsion. He imagined Galen making the same moves in court, each time with a different meaning. One time to show annoyance at an adverse ruling, the next time as a way of providing the jury with a silent commentary on the testimony of a prosecution witness, and the time after that to impress a client with his confidence even though he was outnumbered in a hostile environment.

  It reminded Donnally of what he hated about the court system; it cherished theater over fact. He’d watched it turn testifying police officers into actors in order to compete with the professionals—the lawyers—and it too often got them into a kind of self-destructive verbal sparring they couldn’t win against people who did it for a living.

  Even worse, the courtroom as stage made jurors expect a show and left them bored and frustrated when they didn’t get one. It was bad enough that they expected television crime drama forensics, they also wanted to be entertained by popping dialogue and sudden plot twists.

  Donnally wished he was back in his café kitchen. His burgers and fries were either done right or done wrong, and they couldn’t pretend to be anything other than what they were. Meat, wheat, and potatoes.

  “I’m interested in the theories you have about what happened to Mark,” Donnally said.

  Galen crossed his right leg over his left. “At the moment I don’t have any.”

  Donnally leaned forward. “I’m not asking for conclusions, just theory, speculation.”

  Galen rocked his head side to side.

  Hamlin’s intercom buzzed. Donnally picked up t
he telephone receiver. It was Jackson.

  “I just realized something,” Jackson said. “Can you come out for a minute?”

  Donnally didn’t look up, but knew Galen was staring at him, suspecting the call was about him. It was like a ringing phone in those old black and white movies. There was never a wrong number. It always moved the story forward, and Galen’s licking lips and fidgeting fingers told Donnally he understood he was at the heart of today’s episode.

  “I’ll be right there.” Donnally hung up and walked out to Jackson’s desk.

  “Galen’s fingerprints shouldn’t have been on any of the money,” Jackson said. “I just realized that the cash from Galen was all paid out to The Crew. There shouldn’t have been anything left.”

  “You sure? Warren Bohr didn’t remember receiving his share back.”

  “I think that says more about Warren’s mental state than about the money.” Jackson tapped the side of her head. “He comes and goes. The Lawyers Guild had a dinner honoring him last month and he showed up at the hotel a day early.”

  “Then where did the money in the safe come from?”

  Jackson shrugged.

  Galen didn’t look behind him when Donnally came back into the office, but tracked him with a stare as Donnally walked past him on his way to the desk.

  Donnally watched Galen’s eyebrows rise and the skin on his forehead wrinkle in expectation, as though waiting for Donnally to explain the call.

  Instead, Donnally asked, “Where were we?” He paused. He knew exactly what the topic had been. “We were talking about any theories you might have.”

  Galen’s face relaxed as though the call had been a wrong number, not one that might lead to the exposure of one of his secrets.

  “Mark was an aggressive lawyer,” Galen said. “Aggressive lawyers make lots of enemies.”

  It sounded to Donnally like Galen and Warren Bohr had been reading from the same book of evasive descriptions.

  “Like who?”