Who Hamlin would be in the public mind and how he would live on in his family’s memories might be determined in the next few minutes.
Donnally thought of the reporters waiting in the medical examiner’s lobby, with voice recorders and video cameras ready, waiting to draw conclusions about Hamlin’s life and character from the manner in which he died. Donnally wasn’t a Buddhist, but, for the moment, an anonymous death leading toward eternal oblivion seemed a more preferable route to travel than the path someone had chosen for Hamlin.
Donnally felt Navarro’s eyes on him, as though the detective was saying, You do it. You release it to the press. Tell them about the condition of his body, his angel lust. Prove to the public you have no interest in protecting Hamlin, or at least that saving his reputation wasn’t the reason Hamlin chose you.
He stared back at Navarro, as though to say, You do it. You couldn’t expose Hamlin in life, so take a shot at him now, when he can’t answer, when you’ll have the last word. Prove to the public Hamlin was reckless beyond just the immorality and illegality of his law practice, and all the way beyond the limits of life itself.
Haddad cleared his throat.
Donnally and Navarro both blinked. Neither one was willing to play that game.
Chapter 3
We need some ground rules,” Presiding Judge Raymond McMullin said as he leaned forward in his high-backed leather chair and hunched over his desk.
Donnally and Navarro had observed the autopsy just long enough to confirm Hamlin had been strangled from behind rather than asphyxiated by the rope by which he was hanging, and then walked over to the Superior Court to meet District Attorney Hannah Goldhagen in chambers when the judge arrived at 8 A.M.
During his detective years, Donnally always liked bringing search and arrest warrants to McMullin, always learned something new about the law and about the gap that too often separated the form of justice from its substance in practice, and the ideal of justice from the institutions in which it was supposed to be accomplished. For McMullin, the tragedy of the law and the heartbreak of his life as a judge was his inability to close all those gaps and to prevent the free fall of victims, witnesses, and defendants into them, and he’d never been afraid to admit it, even to a cop half his age.
It had always seemed to Donnally that McMullin was a throwback, reincarnated from a world that existed early in the previous century. He was a judge because someone in his family always had to become a judge, like an old Irish family in which one son always had to become a priest. And since Donnally had been retired out of SFPD, McMullin had aged into the most senior, the monsignor to the Hall of Justice’s priestly class.
McMullin pointed at Goldhagen. “I don’t want you to use this investigation as a fishing expedition, a device to reexamine and reopen all of Mark Hamlin’s old cases.”
Goldhagen sat up, her back arched as though about to protest.
McMullin held up his palm toward her.
“It’s not that I wouldn’t want to do it if I were in your place. There are countless times when I wished I could’ve gotten him prosecuted for obstruction of justice. But he was too slick and always found ways to slip by.”
Goldhagen sat back.
The judge gestured toward the hallway. “The stunt he pulled last week was disgusting, but none of those gangsters would admit he put them up to it.”
“What if he”-Goldhagen glanced at Donnally-“comes across evidence of crimes that can still be prosecuted, like against some of the private investigators Hamlin used to do his dirty work?”
“That’s a hypothetical you won’t have to face. He”-now McMullin looked at Donnally-“won’t. Hamlin wasn’t stupid enough to leave that kind of trail.”
Donnally didn’t like being talked about in the third person, as though he was a dog or an Alzheimer’s patient incapable of exercising his own judgment.
“That gives us rule number one,” Donnally said. “Based on what I find, I’ll decide whether something should be referred for prosecution.”
Now all eyes turned toward him.
“And rule number two, I’ll take Detective Navarro along whenever I can.” Donnally glanced over at Goldhagen and pointed with his thumb toward Navarro. “He’ll work with you to get whatever search warrants we need.”
“So far, so good,” McMullin said, then smiled. “Don’t I get to. .”
Donnally nodded and spread his hands to take in the wood-paneled chambers. “You’re the one in charge.”
McMullin shifted his gaze toward Goldhagen. “I’m very concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest. The public might view your office as more interested in getting even than seeing justice done.”
Goldhagen reddened, and they all understood why. After a series of district attorneys that had been perceived by the press as defense attorneys in the guise of prosecutors-who never sought the death penalty in murder cases, who never moved to deport immigrant felons, who never prosecuted marijuana grow operations-she’d run as a prosecutor’s prosecutor in what had been, since the Barbary Coast days, a lawless and disordered town.
The police officers association supported her, but not with enthusiasm, as they weren’t ready to wean themselves from the political cover of always having someone else to blame for their low case-closure percentages and the court’s low conviction rates.
It wasn’t that San Francisco was the murder capital of California, just that it was the city in which murderers were most likely to get away with it.
And for those times when there was neither the district attorney nor the police department to blame, there was always Mark Hamlin and others like him in the defense bar.
“There’s nothing we can do to Hamlin that’s any worse than what was done to him this morning,” Goldhagen said. “But whether or not his death is connected to any of his clients, we’ll kick down any door to get to whoever did it.”
“That’s rule number three,” McMullin said. “You’ll refer any potential cases arising out of this investigation to the state attorney general for prosecution.”
Goldhagen folded her arms across her chest. “You can’t force-”
“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?” Donnally said. “For all we know, his death has nothing to do with his work and all to do with his private life. I don’t know all the things Hamlin was up to. The condition of his body suggests some possibilities, but no more than that. Maybe we can narrow them when we open up his apartment.”
Donnally saw Navarro look down. He noticed Goldhagen had also spotted the motion. They both turned toward him.
“Don’t tell me you’ve already gone inside?” Donnally said. “You led me to believe your people just checked for forced entry and looked in through the windows.”
“We had to make sure there weren’t other victims in there,” Navarro said, looking first at Donnally, then at the judge. “I promise, Your Honor”-he raised his hand as though swearing an oath-“the officers didn’t touch anything. Just glanced around and sealed up the place.”
The irony of SFPD’s breaking into Hamlin’s apartment rose up before all of them. It was exactly the sort of illegal search Hamlin had exploited a hundred times to force courts to dismiss otherwise provable crimes. And now that same violation might taint the prosecution of Hamlin’s own killer.
Donnally heard Goldhagen mumble a few words.
“What did you say?” Donnally asked.
“I said it’s poetic justice.”
Donnally pushed himself to his feet. “And I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”
“Look,” Navarro said, his voice rising, “if we didn’t go inside and there was a victim bleeding out in there, we’d look like idiots for not doing it.”
“By that logic,” McMullin said, “you’d have the right to search every apartment in San Francisco.” He pointed at Donnally, now sliding back his chair in order to make his way to the door. “Hold on.” He then asked Navarro, “Have officers also broken into Hamlin’s office?”