Chance (36 page)

It was not long upon the heels of this particular revelation, time-worn as it might appear, that he came upon the file that would claim his imagination in ways the others had not. The file detailed an investigation, or at least the beginning of one, into the death of a certain Gayland Parks:

. . . Gayland Parks was found murdered inside of his condominium in a high-rise building overlooking the harbor in the city of Oakland. I, along with Homicide Team 1, responded to investigate the incident. . . .

There were a number of things about the case. The first was the date. While the other reports were more or less current, this was
several years old. The file was incomplete in that there was a beginning but no apparent end. More current reports either were works in progress or were accompanied by arrest records and so told a little story complete with endings in which perpetrators were brought to justice, or at least to trial. In the Parks case there were but three interviews with two individuals of interest and that was it. There was no record of what would seem the obvious next step and no records of any arrests.

And then there was the case itself. Gayland Parks was a retired psychoanalyst from San Diego who, until the time of his murder, had been living in Oakland, where he’d opened a practice as a life coach. He died in the nude, handcuffed to his bed, shot full of heroin, and finally bludgeoned to death with a glass dildo that was found nearby. Clearly, Chance thought, it was a case possessed of all the right ingredients. How could a man in his own circumstances fail to relate? But that was only the beginning.

During the investigation of the above-listed crime, we discovered the decedent had a cellular phone that was believed to be missing or taken during the murder.

Parks’s cellular phone number was determined to be an Oakland number. Detective Cesar Lopez researched the phone and discovered that calls were still being made on Parks’s phone. I reviewed phone records and noticed that on May 8th six calls were made to another cellular phone and that this was a number with a San Diego prefix. Also, a phone call was made on the same date to a second San Diego number. Detective Lopez obtained warrants for both telephone numbers. The first number belonged to T-Mobile cellular service and the subscriber was described as Mari Hammond.

The second number was a Pacific Bell Telephone Company number belonging to the residence of Mari and Woody Hammond, located at 1345 Sixth Street in the city of Normal Heights, California.

Based on the numerous calls made to Mari Hammond’s cell phone and residence, it was believed Mr. and Mrs. Hammond were possibly involved in the crime or knew the person using the decedent’s cell phone.

Using various Police Department computer systems, I conducted a records check on the Hammonds and their residences. I discovered the Hammonds did have contacts at 350 Green Street in San Diego. Furthermore, I noticed on one of the contacts that Mari Hammond worked for the Sunrise Travel Agency in San Diego, located at 3535 Camino de los Mares, Suite 400, in the city of San Diego where she was employed as a travel agent.

Further records checks of Mari Hammond revealed that she had recently received a traffic ticket. The ticket was issued by the San Diego Police Department. I noticed that Hammond was driving a ten-year-old tan Honda Civic. I believed this was possibly Mari Hammond’s vehicle.

Detective Lopez and I obtained permission to travel to San Diego to investigate the Hammonds and their possible involvement in the murder of Gayland Parks. We left the following morning.

On that same afternoon I drove to 3535 Camino de los Mares to look for Hammond’s vehicle. Parked in front of the building I noticed a tan Honda Civic. License plates revealed it to be Hammond’s vehicle.

At 1600 hours I walked up to the Sunrise Travel Agency building located at 3535 Camino de los Mares, Suite 400. I asked the receptionist if Mari Hammond worked in the office. The receptionist told me Mari Hammond did, in fact, work in the office, and walked me to Mari Hammond’s desk.

At approximately 1620 hours, I met Mari Hammond at her desk. I identified myself as an Oakland police officer and asked Hammond if I could speak with her. Hammond told me that she was just shutting down her computer and getting off of work. Hammond and I then stepped outside and spoke.

I explained to Mari Hammond that I needed to talk to her in reference to a homicide case. I asked Hammond if she would voluntarily come to the police station and talk with me. Hammond explained to me that she had to pick up her three-year-old daughter at the day care center located in Normal Heights. Mari Hammond told me that she had no other family members or friends who could watch her daughter. I asked Hammond if she would be willing to come to the San Diego police station
with her daughter after she picked her up. Hammond and I agreed that I would follow her to the day care center located at the intersection of Blake and Ward streets in Normal Heights and then go to the police station.

I followed Mari Hammond to Normal Heights, where she picked up her daughter, Julie, at the day care. I then asked Hammond if she and her daughter wished to eat prior to going to the station. Mari told me that she had eaten something at work but that her daughter had not eaten. Hammond also stated that she did not have any money to buy dinner. I provided Hammond with a twenty-dollar bill and told her she could buy her daughter something to eat on her way to the station. Hammond then drove to a Burger King and bought her daughter dinner. Hammond then followed me to headquarters.

It was here Chance stopped short, as if by a shadow fallen across the room, a sudden felt presence as palpable as his own, that of Raymond Blackstone, the injured detective: “I provided Hammond with a twenty-dollar bill and told her she could buy her daughter something to eat.”

The woman said she’d eaten, and yet without ever having met her or been present at the time, Chance had the distinct impression that this was a lie, and that, what was more, it was an impression that Blackstone must have shared. She wanted food for her daughter but Blackstone gave her a twenty, more than enough for them both if the destination was to be a Burger King. Now there might of course have been some ulterior “motus” in the detective’s actions. One could always
hope
for an ulterior “motus.” It was Doc Billy’s word but Chance had grown fond of using it at every available opportunity. Maybe this Mari had been a babe. Maybe Blackstone had been looking to score. The weird thing was, he couldn’t quite get there. His head suggested the possibility. His gut held out for a different reading, the one in which she really was just a single mom down on her luck and the detective really was looking out for her just a little because . . . Well, because in the end, he was pretty much just like every other fucked-up specimen on the planet and there really were marks on both
sides of the ledger—a discouraging enough proposition for a man in Chance’s position.

The pursuit of Gayland Parks’s assailant of course continued, Chance’s reservations and Blackstone’s humanity notwithstanding. Mari Hammond had stated that she had no idea who might have called either one of her two lines on a dead man’s phone and that the name Gayland Parks did not ring a bell. She did, however, go on to state that while both lines were in her name, one line was used exclusively by her brother, a disabled veteran who also lived with her from time to time and might well have taken calls on one or both lines. Her brother’s name was Woody Hammond. Woody, several years older than Mari, had served in the military at the time of the Gulf War and had not come whole from the experience. He had suffered serious burns over a good portion of his body, including his face. He suffered as well from long-standing post-traumatic stress disorder that he had sought to alleviate with alcohol and drugs. He was, however, and this according to his sister, now clean and sober, spending at least half his time in his own apartment, and had gone back to school in hopes of becoming a drug counselor. He received disability checks each month from the federal government. Detective Blackstone had gone in search of him.

On June 1, at approximately 1600 hours, I went to 320 Ocean Street in San Diego to locate Woody Hammond. I contacted the apartment manager for 320 Ocean Street. The apartment manager confirmed to me that Woody Hammond lived alone in apartment #6 and that he had seen Woody Hammond approximately two hours earlier. The apartment manager told me Woody Hammond was driving a green Ford Explorer and that Hammond was in parking space #6.

I located parking space #6 and saw a green Ford Explorer. I positioned myself in the parking lot, where I could surveil the vehicle.

At approximately 1645 hours, Woody Hammond got into the vehicle and left the apartment complex. I followed Hammond. Hammond drove to Northwestern College in San Diego. Hammond parked his vehicle and
walked to the college campus. I continued to follow Hammond into the college to building #300.

Hammond turned around, looked at me, and greeted me. I could see at once the burn scars across much of his face that his sister had alluded to. Hammond told me he received a telephone call from his landlord telling him that a detective had been to the building to ask about him. I told Hammond that I was a detective with the Oakland Police Department. Hammond immediately told me the only “bad” thing he does is meet with prostitutes in Tijuana, Mexico, and that it is the only bad thing he does. He told me he did not know why a homicide detective would want to talk to him.

I explained to Hammond that I wanted to question him at the headquarters of the San Diego Police Department and that I felt the college was not the appropriate place for an interview. I asked Hammond if he would voluntarily go to the SDPD headquarters building for an interview. Hammond told me he would. Hammond also told me he had no problem with taking a polygraph exam and that I could search his vehicle if I wanted.

At approximately 1830 hours Detective Lopez and I interviewed Hammond inside the SDPD Homicide interview room. The described interview was video and audio recorded. This report is not intended to be a verbatim representation of his statement. This is an “in essence” report.

Detective Lopez explained to Hammond that he was not under arrest and was free to leave at any time. Paraphrasing, the following represents Hammond’s statement in response to questions Detective Lopez and I asked him.

“I like Mexico. I go to Mexico once a week, sometimes more. I like to go to the racetrack at Agua Caliente and to the offtrack betting. I like going in the daytime because it is not so crowded. I go during the week. Sometimes I go to the red light district. I go to the Zona Norte. I go to The Alley in the red light district. The Alley is a club in the Zona Norte. I like The Alley because it seems clean and it is not too expensive.

“About six months ago, I met a girl in Tijuana. Her name is Jane. I met her in front of The Alley but, to be honest, I am not even sure if that was where she worked or not. I have been going to Tijuana for several
years and had never seen her there before till that point. Her complexion is very fair. I always assumed that she was of mixed blood. We had drinks there once or twice but usually we would walk back across the border and go to my apartment. She had some kind of work visa and her English was better than mine. It has been a while since she called me, about a month. She would call me just to be friends. I have her phone number in my cell phone. Jane was nice. Some of the girls don’t like to go with me so much, because of the scars. But this Jane didn’t care about that. She was different from the other women I had met there. She is educated. She told me she was a teacher. I assumed she taught English in Mexico. But then once, when I was having trouble with this algebra class I had to pass for one of my breadth requirements, she helped with all of my math homework, to the point that I received an A-plus in the class.”

It began to blur a bit after that. The night ran to cold sweats and spasms, moments of lucidity bordering on the hallucinatory. Chance read on.