He hot-wired the engine. Then he got out of the Civic and changed the license plates to the Colorado ones from One. Passing his Camaro on the street, Donnie waved good-bye to his flashy car and drove the Honda east toward the Bay Bridge.
CHAPTER 43
AFTER CHARLIE CLAPPER had shooed us out of his crime scene, Conklin and I returned to our desks in Homicide, where we spent the morning reviewing Narcotics’ footage of the street in front of Wicker House.
At 2:34 a.m. precisely, before the shooting went down, two men had left Wicker House by the front door. They were wearing street clothes: jeans, a dark jacket on one, a light jacket on the other. One of the men was tall and wide, the other smallish and skinny.
The two men each had a quick smoke outside before bumping fists and getting into their cars.
The skinny one got into a red 2003 Camaro registered to Donald Francis Wolfe. The heavyset guy got into a brown 1997 Buick wagon belonging to Ralph Valdeen. Both men were in their twenties and Wolfe had an arrest record ranging from attempted home burglaries to possession to assault. He had also done time as a juvie for car theft.
As we’d been told, at 3:12 a.m., the surveillance crew had captured a split-second clip of a white panel van with three unidentifiable men inside—one of whom could be seen in the camera-side passenger seat and might have been wearing an SFPD jacket. The van was speeding past the front of Wicker House. Looked like mud had been smeared over the license plates.
We saw that clip for ourselves now, forward, backward, zoomed in, paused, and enhanced, and there was no way at all that we could ID any of the three men in the van, not in that light. SFPD Windbreakers? Maybe. I saw what looked like white letters on dark blue or gray or black.
Clapper had reported that the surveillance camera at the back of Wicker House had been shot out and that no hard drive had been found inside the store, not a computer, nothing.
At about nine thirty this morning, Donald Wolfe’s red Camaro was called in for blocking a driveway on a residential street a block and a half from an auto repair shop. Then the guy who worked in that repair shop reported that a blue Honda Civic had been stolen and that the plates had been left in the backyard, which wasn’t covered by a security camera.
That meant that Wolfe had abandoned the Camaro and was now likely driving a blue Honda Civic with stolen plates.
An APB for the Honda and the Buick had paid off when both cars were sighted on the 101 Freeway just after three.
Conklin and I, with the help of SFPD Traffic Control, located the two vehicles in AT&T Park’s parking lot at half past three. The Giants were playing the St. Louis Cards, and it was a beautiful, sunny-streamy day. The lot was completely filled.
Conklin and I showed our badges and IDs and entered the stadium through the Willie Mays Gate. Even the worst seats in the ballpark had a view of the Bay Bridge, and from where we descended the field box steps, directly behind home plate, we could see the entire ballpark.
At the plate stood St. Louis’s best hitter, Matt Holliday, with the score tied 1–1 in the bottom of the ninth. All eyes were on the pitcher, Tim Lincecum. All except mine and Conklin’s. We had still photos of both Wolfe and Valdeen in our breast pockets. All we had to do was pick those two out from the other forty thousand spectators.
Lincecum dealt Holliday an inside fastball that he lined over third and into the left-field corner. The fans erupted in unison as everyone sprang to their feet. But it was the last my partner and I saw of the game.
Conklin pointed off to our right and about six rows above us to a group of men standing in front of a Tres Mexican Kitchen.
“That’s Donald Wolfe. Dark jacket, Giants ball cap.”
“You’ve got a good eye, buster.”
I wasn’t sure, but by the time we had trotted up the aisle, I saw that it was Wolfe, beyond a doubt.
I approached Wolfe from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. When he spun around, I said, “Donald Wolfe. I’m Sergeant Boxer, SFPD. We need to have a word with you about your recent grand theft auto.”
I put Wolfe against the wall and frisked him. As I dealt with Wolfe, Valdeen threw a wild roundhouse punch at Conklin. Conklin blocked it and Valdeen threw another, putting his full weight into it. This time Conklin ducked, then landed an uppercut to Valdeen’s chin that made the big guy stagger backward into the Doggie Diner stand.
Tin panels rattled. The vendor squawked. Conklin twisted Valdeen’s arms around his back and clapped on the cuffs, saying, “Ralph Valdeen, you’re under arrest for assault on a police officer.”
No one thought either Wolfe or Valdeen was one of the Wicker House shooters, but there was every chance they knew who had executed the seven men inside. If the shooters were Windbreaker cops, we might have a clue that would help us solve the armed robberies of the check-cashing stores and the mercados, and the shakedowns and shootings of drug dealers all over the city.
I couldn’t wait to get these two into the box.
“Hands behind your back,” I said to Wolfe.
That was when he decided to make a break for it.
CHAPTER 44
RALPH VALDEEN WAS winded, cuffed, and newly docile.
But Donald Wolfe had taken a split second of opportunity, tucked his bag under his arm, and run for his life. He tore off past the Doggie Diner, the Port Walk Pizza stand, and the coffee cart, through a group of fans, knocking them over like bowling pins.
Wolfe was small and he was fast. While I stood with Valdeen and called for backup, Wolfe gave Conklin a workout, vaulting over seats, stiff-arming spectators as he wildly searched for an exit.
Wolfe had reached the lower rows of the stadium when Conklin tackled him. My partner got a cheer from all the fans in that entire section as he dragged Wolfe to his feet and shoved him back up the steps to where I stood with Valdeen at the hot dog concession.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Conklin said to Wolfe. “Anything you say can be used against you, jerk-off …”
Wolfe said, “I gotta call my girl. You gonna hold that against me in a court a law?”
Wolfe is what’s called a real smartass. There was no fear in his face at all. And there should have been. He was in trouble. I pulled his duffel bag away from him and unzipped it. There was an astonishing amount of money inside, maybe fifty thousand in neatly banded used bills.
“I’ll hold this for you,” I said to Wolfe, “until you can produce your pay stub.”
Meanwhile, we had attracted some attention at the Doggie Diner. The fans were pumped up and buzzed, and now some of them were turning on my partner and me. Oh, I really love the sound of drunken a-holes yelling, “Hey! They didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a free country, isn’t it? We’re all just watching a ball game. What’s the damn problem?”
The backup I’d called for was on the way and stadium security was trotting directly toward us.
I said to the hecklers, “Anyone feel like joining our party? Because we’ve got plenty of room at the jail.”
“Police brutality. That’s what this is,” said a beefy young bruiser showing off for his girlfriend. “I saw it,” he insisted. “I’m going to report you. What’s your badge number?”
The girlfriend and others were pointing their phones in my face and at my badge. And you know what? I finally got mad.
I shouted to the security guards, “Cuff these people. This one. These two. And her. I’m taking you all in for interference with the police. For obstruction. For being drunk and disorderly.”
Hecklers fell back, but not before we had four of them in Flex-Cuffs and were marching them out to the cruisers at the gates.