Panther's Prey (9 page)

“Until a few weeks ago, I worked with Jordan Walker,” I began. “She left Baker to work for the PD shortly after the Kairos trial. We tried a single case together. And of course everyone knows what happened to her after that.”

He nodded. His expression was cordial, revealing curiosity and wariness.

“Rodriguez confessed, but I'm afraid that's not quite good enough for me.” I briefly recapped the evidence we'd presented at trial about Rodriguez's history of making false confessions. “From what I understand, there's again no physical evidence connecting him to the crime.”

“So you're playing detective,” Ma said.

“Jordan was important to me. I feel that her death deserves a more careful investigation than it's gotten.”

“I read about your arrest.” He paused, appraising me with sober interest. “For what it's worth, you don't seem to me like a murderer. Then again, I wouldn't know what one's supposed to look like.”

“But you probably know there's no love lost between the San Francisco police and my family. Now I've humiliated the investigating detective in court. There's a measure of self-interest involved, sure, but even if there wasn't I'd be here asking you these questions. I need answers. Jordan's family deserves to know what really happened.”

“I'm not sure how I can help you. If you're suggesting my client may have done this in a fit of revenge, you're not as intelligent as your trial work makes you seem. The stakes were high, but they weren't that high. Anyway, Jordan wasn't the one he'd have gone for.”

“More importantly, Cho was dead by the time she was murdered,” I reminded him, puzzled by his mention of the man.

“If you say so. The body hasn't been found. Just the car. Like you said, that's not good enough for me. If I were Cho, I'd have considered faking my death. Not least to avoid paying the hundred and fifty thousand dollars he still owes me.”

“Wasn't there the possibility of his being prosecuted for underage sex?”

“That, too.” Ma shook his head.

“Was the charge legit?”

“They sprung it on us. It was clearly a setup. It made Cho look like he was connected to criminal enterprises in Chinatown. But come on, bathhouses? This is the twenty-first century. The old stereotyped ideas of Chinatown as this exotic place filled with opium dens and gambling halls is laughable. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“I thought there was a video showing the encounter.”

“There's a video showing two men having sex. And they brought in a witness who claimed to be one of the two, and he testified the other person was my client. The idea was to show he was receiving illegal favors from Chinatown bosses, but the purpose and effect were to distract from the real issues in the suit—Kairos's fraudulent practices.”

“You have any specific reason to believe he's still alive?”

Ma suddenly had lost his appetite for speculation. “He left a note in the car saying he intended to jump and apologizing. It was his handwriting. I'm told it's not uncommon for the bodies of bridge jumpers never to be recovered, and his wasn't. So, odds are he's dead.”

“No one seems to know why Jordan left Baker. Maybe Cho's suicide threw her for a loop, but I'm not sure I can see her blaming herself. She took her leave right after the Kairos trial, which leads me to suspect something happened. That is, other than Cho's death. I guess it seems to me that if I knew why she'd left the firm I might have a better understanding of who wanted her dead.”

“I thought Kairos's tactics in that trial were underhanded and even sanctionable, but killing … “ He flushed. “People willing to manufacture evidence and lie brazenly don't need to commit murder to get what they want.”

I sensed he had more to say, but didn't want to come right out with it. Evidently I was meant to extract it from him. “By people, you mean Jacob Mauldin?”

“He's the owner of Kairos, and the person with the most to gain by discrediting Gary. You tell me who else. But we're not in court now. I can't take advantage of the litigation privilege to make reckless accusations and expect to be shielded from a libel suit. So if you tell anyone I said any of this, I'll deny it. Mauldin will have to get his satisfaction from you.”

“Did Cho have a family?”

“A wife. I think she's still in Portola Valley. Look, Gary's dead, okay? He was going to be prosecuted and locked up for a decade at least. I'd like him to be around still, because then I might get paid. But he's not, okay? And much as I'd like to stick it to Kairos, it's true that Gary's business would have benefited if he'd won the case. Clients insist all the time the other side's evidence is fabricated, but never once in my career have I been able to prove it. I think that, probably, it doesn't ever really happen. Tom Benton doesn't strike me as
that
dishonest.”

“What about the dynamics between the lawyers on the other side? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“Between Jordan and Tom Benton, you mean?” He looked at me pointedly. “Like, was he fucking her?”

“You said it, not me.”

He shrugged. I realized he was still simmering with rage six months after the verdict. “They kept their clothes on in the courtroom. But it wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if he screws all his associates. Nothing about the man would surprise me,
except that he'd knowingly be party to a fraud on the court. I can't imagine any lawyer of his stature risking his career for any client.”

“You mentioned manufacturing evidence. What did you mean?”

He looked at me across the conference table as if gauging how much to say. “I can't prove it.”

“I imagine the trial would have turned out differently if you could.”

“Cho insisted the video was fake, of course. Even after we saw the evidence, he continued to tell me it was all fabricated, that the witness was lying, possibly bought by Jacob Mauldin. We took that position during the trial. You saw how well that turned out.”

I nodded, hoping he'd keep talking.

“He also insisted that the books were cooked, that all the evidence they'd turned over was contrived to screen their fraud from view. We couldn't prove it, of course. Anyway, I'm sure it didn't happen.” He looked away. “It doesn't matter now. I'm off the case. In fact, being sued by Gary's wife for malpractice.”

“The expert report you tried to submit after the deadline?”

“It shouldn't surprise me you've been looking up my docket.”

“What kind of expert? Whatever you filed was sealed.”

“A forensic accountant. We had two theories. The first was that Kairos was failing to live up to the terms of its contract that required it to hire locally, from the Bayview Hunters Point area. Theoretically, if we prove that, it would have invalidated the entire contract. Gary promised me he'd be able to produce witnesses who would testify that they'd never done a day's work for Kairos, even though the company's payroll shows a full complement of unskilled labor from the projects being paid for forty hours per week.

“To prove the second theory, which was overbilling for labor and materials, we needed a forensic accountant. Gary was against it. Cash flow problems. He promised me he'd be able to show the jury how the fraud worked. He was the whistle-blower, so it made sense to me
that he'd understand. Then he gives his deposition and the house of cards falls. He couldn't point to a single clear instance of fraud, other than Kairos supposedly refusing to hire the local workers who were supposed to be filling its payroll. Like I said, he believed the records we were relying on in the lawsuit were fraudulent, cooked up by the defense. He also couldn't give the name of a single witness with firsthand knowledge of the fraud or a single person whose name was on the payroll who hadn't done work on the project.”

Ma, seeming to realize he was violating client confidences, took a breath and went on: “Before that deposition, I was still drinking Gary's Kool-Aid. After the deposition he changed his mind. He started telling me we needed an expert after all, to show that the books were cooked, and that the numbers couldn't possibly be correct. But it was too late then. Now his wife is claiming it was my fault we didn't submit the report on time.”

He rose and went to stand at the immense window. “The bottom line for me is, I didn't vet the case carefully enough. I believed my client, and worse, I trusted him. I bet you never made that mistake.”

“You've got insurance.”

“I've got insurance.”

“But it rankles, having the wife blame the trial's outcome on you. After you fought for her husband, after his problems had kept you awake at night. Suddenly, you're the bad guy.”

“It wouldn't have made a difference anyway.” Ma was staring down at the street with intense focus. It was as if Gary Cho himself were crossing the plaza below. “What difference could a forensic accountant make when the other side's got you on video with a fourteen-year-old kid in the sauna of some gym controlled by the Chinese mafia? What the hell was he thinking? There's always surprises in litigation, but this takes the cake.”

“What was the Chinatown mafia's interest, according to Benton?”

“They had three theories of their own. First, Mauldin testified he'd been approached by representatives of a Chinatown civic
organization with a strongly worded demand for ‘charitable contributions.' Kickbacks, in other words. It's clear Chinatown interests had bought up large amounts of residential property around Candlestick. Benton argued that Gary and Lizhi were a front. That if Kairos was knocked out, and its contract instead awarded to Lizhi, money would have flowed straight out of the public coffers and into the pockets of the Chinatown bosses. They would've been in a position to siphon off a fortune.”

“If the evidence was manufactured, do you think Benton knew about it?”

“I think Tom Benton would've believed what he needed to believe to win. Like any lawyer would.”

“What about Jordan? Do you think she knew?”

“No,” he said after a pause. “She shared Benton's ruthlessness. He'd taught her, after all. But from what I saw, she had an integrity he lacked. I was impressed. She seemed to have her own compass. Most young lawyers don't. Especially not ones mentored by Tom Benton.”

“Her compass led her right out the door as soon as the trial was done.”

He nodded. “They were probably having an affair. Long hours, the heat of trial. By the third day out of seven, they knew they were going to win. After that, they were just running up the score. I tried to negotiate a settlement before closing arguments, a deal that would let Gary save face. Tom just laughed at me. He wanted scorched earth, and they got it. Gary was left with nothing.”

“And how much was the result worth to Kairos?”

“Sky's the limit. The verdict on the counterclaim was four million dollars, plus civil penalties, based on the project delays caused by the allegations Gary made that the jury decided were false and malicious. That basically meant Mauldin owns Lizhi now. But that's really the tip of the iceberg. If Gary had won, Kairos would have been debarred, removed from the contract and prohibited from
bidding on such projects in the future. Jacob Mauldin would have been left begging for scraps.”

“No wonder Gary's wife wishes you'd gotten that expert.”

Ma took it in stride. “That's how it always is with clients. They decide to draw a line, but they pick the wrong one to draw. To repeat myself, it wouldn't have mattered. After that video surfaced, his credibility was shot.”

He walked me out. “So who do you think killed her?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it was Rodriguez after all. A truly innocent client is a rare thing. Jordan and I thought we had one. We were probably fooling ourselves.”

As the elevator doors began to close, Ma stuck his hand in front of the door. “If Gary was right—and I don't think he is—then these are some heavy people you're dealing with. You might want to keep that in mind if you plan on asking others these same questions.”

It'd been a long day. Since getting out of jail that morning, I hadn't had a minute's rest, but I'd wanted to act immediately because I knew Chen could have me picked up again at any time. While I was still a free man, I needed to make as much headway in my investigation as I could. I didn't trust anyone else to interview these witnesses, because it seemed to me no one else could care the way I cared. I recognized the possibility that my personal involvement with Jordan might cloud my judgment, but at the same time it meant I was entirely dedicated to my task in a way no hired investigator could ever be.

That said, family business came first. Although the gun that killed Russell Bell had been found in my possession, I wasn't alone in facing the risk of prosecution. The police would assume what they'd always believed: the plot to kill Bell had been a conspiracy among the three of us Maxwells. Especially after Teddy's revelation about being in contact with Bo Wilder—which if known, would further suggest we were in on the conspiracy—I considered it essential
that my brother know the true reason for my arrest. He needed at once to break off all contact with the man who'd orchestrated Russell Bell's murder.

I called Teddy to tell him I was on my way over. He instantly began quizzing me about my arrest—which of course he'd seen in the news—but I simply said we'd talk in person. If nothing else, the gun was probable cause for a wiretap on our phones, and I guessed now that my conversation with the reporter this morning probably had been recorded. It was possible Chen's hope in releasing me was that Teddy or I would say something stupid on tape, providing direct evidence that would tie us to Bell's murder.

Soon I was explaining it all to him face-to-face, sitting on his back patio with a beer, listening to the sounds of traffic a few blocks away. “They think they've got us now,” I told him. “They're just waiting for us to make a blunder.”

“But I still don't understand how the gun ended up in Jordan's apartment.”

“Because I gave it to her,” I said. “Bo set me up perfectly. He used a former client to do it, a guy I had no reason to distrust.” Seeing Teddy's face tighten in anger, I shook my head, holding up a hand. “I'm sure when he gave me the gun he had no clue what he was doing, or that it would come back on me. He was just trying to make a buck. I had no business with an unregistered gun. When I came to my senses and realized it was too risky to carry it, I should have made it disappear. But I didn't. I kept it in a drawer.”

“You're not telling me Bo could have planned this.”

“He couldn't.” Not unless he was behind Jordan's murder. But that possibility was too horrifying even to consider. “Planting the gun on me was probably just a hole card, something he could play if he needed it. All it'd take would be an anonymous tip. At the same time, I doubt he minds what happened. As far as he's concerned, he has unfinished business with me, and he knows that no matter how much heat I get, I can't roll over on him
without worse trouble. That's because I've got no actual proof he was behind Bell's murder, and trying to hang it on him would be admitting too much. We can't let them establish any connection between us and Bo.”

“Hopefully, they can't tie the cell phone he's been using to him,” he said. “Otherwise, the calls are right there in my phone records.”

“I know. But from now on, you've got to assume your phone is bugged. No more late-night chats. If Bo calls, don't pick up. Any contact with him now offers them the chance to make the case that we were in contact before Bell's murder, that we hired the job through Wilder. If they can tie Wilder to the hit, then any association with him can hang us.”

“But now they don't even need to tie Wilder to it. They found the murder weapon in your room.”

“If I were guilty, it makes no sense that I'd hang on to the gun.”

My brother slumped in his chair. “It doesn't have to make sense, does it? It just has to stick.”

Seeing Teddy's fear, I tasted my own, like metal in my mouth. For most of the day, I'd been able to fool myself, passing off the discovery of the gun as simply a show of power from a police force with a personal vendetta against my family and me, but this was different. We had a clear motive, and Teddy's ongoing contact with Bo meant the police could put together enough evidence to charge us with murder.

“We need to let Dad know what's happened,” Teddy said.

“Why? So he can come home and be arrested with us?”

“That's right.” He turned vehement. “He ought to be here. For a while there it was like he was trying to make up for all the lost years, spending every minute with Carly. Then, after the fire, he was suddenly out of Dodge, leaving us to wonder what's next.”

The heat in my brother's voice surprised me. In the past it'd always been me judging our father and Teddy defending him. Now our roles were reversed.

“I don't think he can take going through another trial, or face the chance of being returned to prison now that he's out. If he'd stayed, sooner or later they'd have charged him with Bell's murder. No, I don't blame him for getting out while he had the chance. One false conviction's enough.”

“If you believe this one would be false,” Teddy shot back.

“Watch what you're saying,” I reminded him, suddenly aware of the night pressing in, the nearness of the neighboring houses, dark corners where listeners might be lurking. If the police had tapped Teddy's phones and mine, they certainly could have made the additional effort to conceal a bug in his patio table. I was becoming paranoid again, I realized.

“I don't mean it.” Teddy shut his eyes. “I'm just tired. I thought this was over but evidently it's only just beginning again.”

“Nothing's ever over,” I said. “You know that.”

“I still think Lawrence should know what's going on.”

He was right, I knew. “Do you have a phone number for him?”

My brother went inside and came out with a sheet of paper with a string of digits on it. “They've got a place in this little beach town in Croatia. Zadar. He was talking about trying to find a bed-and-breakfast to buy last time I talked to him. Can you imagine it?”

I couldn't. The idea of my father, the freed convict, going into the hospitality business was a serious stretch. I folded the sheet of paper into my pocket. “I need to pick up a prepaid phone. I'll buy one tonight, then call him in the morning. In the meantime, try not to worry. We've had our backs against the wall before.”

We went into the house. I said good-bye to Tamara, accepting a kiss on the cheek after she'd held me at arm's length—as if she was trying to divine what new trouble her husband and I'd been discussing. I'd leave it to Teddy to decide how much, if anything, to tell her about our predicament. She deserved to know, but on the other hand, I'd already resolved that if one of us had to go down for Bell's murder, it would be me, not Teddy.

On my way out the door I ducked into Carly's room, straightened the covers, and bent to kiss her sleeping cheek, promising silently that I'd do everything in my power to make sure she didn't grow up the way I had, fatherless and alone in the world.

In the morning I bought a prepaid cell phone and used it to call our father as I walked along the Embarcadero. It was nine hours later in Zadar, the coastal city where Teddy had placed him. When he answered, I heard street sounds in the background.

“It's Leo.”

A pause. “Hey, we were just talking about you.” He said something, but not to me. “Wait a minute,” he told me.

The ambulatory sounds grew dimmer and then I knew I had him to myself. The sense of missing him came back, and I was just as surprised by it as I'd been the first time it swept over me, when Rebecca had all but accused me of Jordan's murder after we'd talked to Hiram Walker in her apartment.

After the fire last summer, he and Dot had flown to Amsterdam, bought a pair of used motorcycles, and worked their way southwest through France, Spain, and Portugal. They'd crossed to Morocco and spent a dusty week traveling Algeria and Tunisia before returning on the ferry to Genoa. They'd toured the length of the Italian peninsula and back up the opposite side. Now I was hearing about Zadar, where they'd settled for the winter in an off-season rental while scouting for a more permanent home. They had a half-formed idea of starting a bed-and-breakfast after my father identified Croatia as a country having no extradition treaty with the United States and a place where Bo Wilder was unlikely to trouble him. They'd been up in the mountains most of the summer but were back in Zadar now, trying to decide whether to stay or move on.

“I can't imagine you in the hotel business,” I said.

I heard him snort. “I looked into it enough to see that an honest man can't possibly get ahead. A country like this, every official you deal with has got his hand out. Seems the bureaucracy's there for no other purpose than to let the bureaucrats squeeze you. And these European tourists … Leo, you've never seen such trash.”

I didn't know what to reply. And anyway, I knew he wasn't expecting a comment.

“It's hard to settle down,” he went on. “It just doesn't seem right. I feel like I ran away, left you two in the lurch when the going got rough. I'm always checking the news, waiting for the next terrible thing to happen. When, all along, I was the one who has to answer about the fire. I mean, I'm the one with the unpaid debt to Bo.”

“I don't think he's too particular about who pays,” I told him. Then I added, “But, in fact, it's the reason I called.” Having heard him admit to paternal anxiety on our behalf made it easier, somehow, to give him the bad news.

I started with Bo's late-night calls to Teddy, identifying these overtures as paving the way for a relationship like the one Teddy'd had with Ricky Santorez. Except I knew, even if Wilder didn't, that my brother was no longer up to the task. All his cunning and guile had been left in that restaurant when he was shot in the head.

My father just listened. Next I explained about Jordan, our working together and how it led to our too-brief affair. None of this was easy, but I made myself keep talking, moving on to her rape and death, and finally, to the cops finding at the scene the gun they believed had been used to kill Russell Bell.

Despite his claim of having kept tabs on the local news, my father hadn't heard any of this. “You're not saying Bo had your friend killed?”

“No. Bo's style's a little more direct. If he'd done it, he'd have made sure we knew.”

“A good point.” As he said this, my father no doubt remembered the message Bo had sent us after he'd had Santorez murdered in prison. We'd received Ricky's ears in the mail one morning at our office, a message of ownership we'd refused to heed. The fire that followed had also been a message, equally unmistakable.

“I'd better come home,” he said.

“That isn't why I called. We just thought you deserved to know.”

“We'd already half decided. It's just not possible to keep moving all the time. We're drinking too much, with too little to do. Starting to feel the strain.”

Hearing this made me think about my father's failed marriage to my mother, whose death had sent him—wrongly—to prison. Everything in my life stemmed from that sad, grim chain of events, and neither of us could ever put it behind us.

I realized he was still talking. “Dot's tired of living like a fugitive, she says. She keeps reminding me I was acquitted, wasn't I? She's made up her mind. We're coming back.”

“I worry that you're playing into their hands if you do.”

He knew I meant the cops. But his take was different. “It wasn't the police I was running away from. It's Bo. He's held the key all along. That's what the gun means. It's another message, letting us know he's still running the show, just the way he always has been.”

“I'm
concerned about the police.”

“That's because you've closed your mind to certain possibilities. Bo wouldn't have passed that gun to you if he hadn't planned a way out. The point of the gun is to remind us all of our obligations.” He paused, then said, “After all, none of us has shed any tears over Russell Bell.”

“So you've decided to go to work for Bo, after all.”

“It's you or me or Teddy—and we both know it's not going to be you.”

“How much longer will the settlement money last?”

“Depends whether I have any income coming in.”

“And you're hoping that Bo Wilder will help you with that.”

“You tell me what other kind of work there is for an ex-con, even one who's been exonerated. Everyone in the state knows the only reason I was acquitted is Bo had Bell killed to keep him from testifying. The DA and the cops made sure the newspapers got their fill of that. What else am I supposed to do? Flip burgers?”