“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Hall,” Zack said in his most cordial voice. He extended his hand. “Detective Zack Travis, Seattle Police Department.” Obviously surprised, Hall shook it.
After introductions all around, they sat and Zack spoke. “I won’t keep you long, Mr. Hall. Your attorney filled you in on why we need your help.”
“You think someone framed me for that girl’s murder.”
Zack nodded. “Exactly.”
“I don’t know who, but I hope you catch him and he rots in prison like I almost did.” Hall glared at Perdue.
“I have some questions that might help your memory.”
“Go ahead. That’s why I came here.” He looked at Perdue again. “And nothing I say you can use to screw me with, right?”
“I took care of that,” Hall’s attorney Bledsoe interjected. “I showed you the papers on the way here.”
“I just want to hear him say it.”
“That’s correct,” Perdue said. “What’s said in here is inadmissible in court. You have complete immunity.”
Hall crossed his arms, smug.
Zack spoke. “When were you released from Vietnam?”
“April 10, 1972. Friggin’ about time, too. I only signed for a year, but they kept me sixteen fucking months. That was crap.”
“And you came to California. Were you born here, in Redwood City?”
Hall shrugged. “Down in Palo Alto. My ma has a house in Menlo Park. That’s where I grew up.”
“It’s ten minutes south,” Perdue explained.
“So you essentially came home,” Zack prodded.
“Yeah. I had a job, though. In a warehouse. Moving shit and stuff.”
“Did any of your buddies from the Army come back with you? Friends?”
Hall shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Did you know anyone you worked with who had also been in Vietnam? Maybe they didn’t serve with you, but had been there about the same time you were.”
“Hell, I knew a bunch of vets after I came home. Met most of them after my discharge. Honorable,” he stressed, then grunted. “Lotta good that did me in court when you guys railroaded me for killing that girl. I’m no fucking pervert. I don’t get turned on by little girls.”
Zack clenched his fist under the table to keep from throttling Hall for his cocky tone.
“Do you remember any of the vets you’d worked with, hung out with, maybe a roommate or drinking buddy?” Zack asked. “Someone with a tattoo on his left arm similar to yours?”
Hall frowned and looked up to his left, a sign that he was really trying to remember something. “There were a lotta guys in ’Nam that got tattooed up. I only got this one, on my first leave. Some of the guys, they got them all over their bodies.” He shook his head. “A lot of us got eagles. American bird and all that crap.”
“Any of the guys you knew when you came back to California?”
“A couple of the guys in the warehouse had tattoos like mine.”
“Do you remember any names?”
“Um, there was the manager. He wasn’t in ’Nam, but he did some time overseas in the early sixties. George something. I don’t remember his last name. We called him George. He was there when I started, and he was there when I left.”
Zack made a note of the information. The files had the information about Hall’s employment. He remembered the name of the manager, George Levin. Definitely worth checking him out.
“Anyone else you can think of?”
“There were some others, but I don’t know their names. Shouldn’t the cops have checked all this stuff out thirty fucking years ago?”
Perhaps, Zack thought, but the evidence against Hall had seemed solid at the time. Zack liked to think he would have pursued additional avenues of investigation, but he knew when confronted with a violent murder like Melissa St. Martin’s, circumstantial evidence usually did the trick.
He’d already checked into the warehouse where Hall had worked all those years ago. It was not only closed, but razed. A shopping mall had been built on the property more than ten years ago.
“You said that you’d been out at a bar drinking the day Melissa St. Martin was kidnapped.”
“That’s right.”
“Who was there with you? Anyone who might have seen you drink too much? Someone who knew what type of truck you drove?”
“No, it was just the guys, you know? A lot of them that hung out at the club were vets, from Korea or ’Nam or World War II. Those guys are too old. I-”
Hall cut himself off and slammed his fist on the table. “That fucker! That perverted sicko bastard! He set me up!”
The sudden rage and realization that crossed Hall’s face convinced Zack his reaction was real.
“Who?” he asked.
“Chris fucking Driscoll. I should have known, the bastard. I got him a fucking job, I set him up in a studio in my apartment building. I told him, hey, pal, let’s go score some chicks. He never came with us when we went out. Always doing his own fucking thing. Except that day. He came to the bar, had a beer with us. Now I know why. So he could set me up. Steal my truck. He’s a fucking pervert scumbag.”
Every hair on Zack’s neck rose. This was it. He felt it. He spoke much more calmly than he felt. “What do you know about Driscoll? Where is he from? Did he serve with you?”
“We were in the same unit for six months. He was a machine. Neat freak. Don’t fucking touch his stuff. That’s why he set me up. I touched his precious stuff. He said if I touched his stuff again he’d kill me. I didn’t believe him; everyone talks tough in the jungle, you know? All talk, no action. Except when we engaged Charlie; then we acted.”
“You think he didn’t like you because you touched his belongings?”
“He was wound real tight, but everyone had their own ways, you know? But it’s him. He got out four weeks after me. I told him, come by, we can share a pad, I’d get him in good with the warehouse. He did see me, but didn’t want to room. I found him a studio in my building. I tried to get him to lighten up. He was three years in Vietnam; I think it messed with his mind. But a guy I knew there, my sarge, said Driscoll was always like that. Cool most of the time, then wham! Something would set him off and he’d be ready to kill you for no fucking reason.”
“Why do you think it’s him and not someone else?” Though there was no doubt in Zack’s mind that something had triggered Hall’s memory of Driscoll and his belief that Driscoll framed him.
“ ’Cause I didn’t keep in touch with any of the other guys. A bunch of them got themselves killed, a couple reenlisted, most went home. Driscoll didn’t have a home to go to.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause he was a ward of the court, or something. Foster system. Some guy his ma was living with killed her or something.”
He was in the system. Zack had to get his records, but juvie records weren’t easy and they wouldn’t come quickly.
“Where was he from?”
Hall shrugged. “All over, he’d said. That Bruce was a sick bastard. That’s probably where Driscoll got it from.”
“Bruce?”
Hall paused. “He talked about Bruce all the time, and how he was going to kill him when he got out of the Army, and no one would know it was him. One of the guys asked who Bruce was, you know, like did he steal his girl or something? He said Bruce was in prison for killing his mother.”
“Can you remember anything else about Bruce? Where they might have lived? Where Driscoll’s mother was killed?”
Hall shook his head to every question. “Wish I could help, but I don’t know. Driscoll got all uptight whenever he talked about it, so we didn’t push him, you know? Except Driscoll did say once that Bruce was in San Quentin. Yeah, San Quentin.”