Night Is the Hunter (17 page)

R
osa Gallegos wasn't as much of a liar as Donnally had thought.

It was true an internecine war had broken out within the prison-based Nuestra Familia and that it had been exported onto the streets in the form of oscillating shootings among rival factions of the Norteños.

Except the murder of Edgar Rojo Sr. had nothing to do with it.

All the intelligence reports and debriefings of the Norteños who'd become government informants during the years after the murder had said the same thing. It was nothing other than the Sureños trying to break the Norteño chain between the Mexican cartel and the San Francisco street corners and to become the new link.

Donnally leaned back in his chair at the kitchen table and surveyed the thousands of pages stacked in piles in front of him. It had been four hours and he'd only covered three years of the twenty. He remembered how many days it took him to read
Crime and Punishment
in college, and he was looking at the equivalent of ten of them.

The other problem was that few of the characters in the stories he was reading had names. Many just had informant numbers and
those numbers had different formats than the ones in the wiretap affidavits he'd read down at the National Archives.

He had been able to match up a couple.

Informant SSF-88-V0097 in a DEA 6 debriefing report had become Informant A in the initial affidavits.

Informant SSF-90-Z0234 in an FBI 302 had become Informant B.

Names of gang members and other informants and witnesses were redacted in the intelligence and debriefing reports and on surveillance logs, blacked out to conceal their identities.

Donnally knew from his own experience that cops and agents needed to protect not only their informants and witnesses, but also continuing investigations. At the same time, prosecutors were obligated, under the U.S. Supreme Court's
Brady
decision, to turn over investigative work underlying the indictments and anything that might be viewed by the court as exculpatory.

And it was the
Brady
motion Israel Dominguez had focused on in talking to Donnally on San Quentin's death row that he said he hadn't understood at the time Ordloff filed it on his behalf.

Ultimately, it was in the hands of the prosecutor to decide what got turned over, what got withheld, and what got redacted—

Except when an agent held something back because he didn't trust the prosecutor's judgment.

Sometimes a homicide detective at SFPD kept dual investigative logs, one to keep track of his actual investigation and another one to give to the prosecutor to pass on to the defense. This second log was structured to make it appear that all trails had led to the defendant. He'd never done it himself, but understood the
way in which the manipulated log prevented a defense attorney from discovering information that might lead to an argument that the wrong suspect had been arrested.

Donnally's cell phone rang. He didn't mind the interruption. He glanced at the number that showed on the screen just before he answered. It didn't mean anything to him.

“Just listen,” a male said just after Donnally answered. The voice was muffled. “Say a single word and I'll hang up and you'll never hear from me again.”

Donnally remained silent.

“I'm going to give you an informant code number.”

The man paused, as though testing to see if Donnally would respond. He could hear the man's breathing even through the cloth he must be using to alter his voice.

Donnally wondered how the man knew he was focused on just that issue.

He decided he'd better pass the current test if he wanted a chance to find out later. He said nothing.

“Write it down if you have a pen, otherwise just hope you can remember it.” The man paused again, then said, “SSF-94-X1112.”

Donnally wrote the code down.

The man repeated it two more times, then said, “Figure out who it is and you're halfway to where you're trying to get.” And he disconnected.

Donnally looked at his cell-phone call log. The area code was 415. The exchange 239. He ran both through a telephone search site on the Internet. It was a pay phone.

He imagined the man walking away, maybe wondering whether he'd done the right thing, maybe wondering whether Donnally
would act on the information in the way he expected, or maybe just walking away, his part of whatever it was, done.

Donnally thought of the man's voice. It sounded familiar, despite the disguise.

Likely it was someone who had found out, or at least suspected, that Donnally had been to the archives.

For a moment, he wondered whether it might have been Judge McMullin. But McMullin wouldn't have access to an FBI informant number. Any state-level warrants or affidavits passing across his desk would use local police informant numbers.

Maybe it was Chen. He'd worked some joint federal-state wiretap cases targeting Hispanic gangs. He'd know the informant numbers and who they belonged to, but there was no way he'd give all that up to Donnally.

Maybe it was Grassner. Except the ex-narcotic cop wouldn't hide behind a disguised voice. He would've said it straight out, laughing, maybe in person with slap on the back and a “Fuck all them motherfuckers.”

Maybe it was Ordloff, hiding his guilty knowledge, information he should've brought forward himself but didn't because he feared a new trial might reveal his incompetence; so he did it anonymously, so that it would seem to come as a surprise when it appeared in the press.

“If I'd only known . . .”

Maybe it was one of the attorneys from whom Ordloff had collected the old files, someone who'd learned something from a client, something privileged that the person wasn't supposed to reveal and didn't want to get caught disclosing.

How many attorneys had heard confessions from clients about
murders they'd committed that others were already serving life sentences for, but were forced by ethical rules to remain silent about even as the innocent lives were wasted doing someone else's time?

Providing the code number as a lead, rather than disclosing the name of the informant, might have been a compromise the attorney could live with.

There were too many possibilities, and too many dangers. It could be a diversion or a trap or even a trapdoor. In any case, or perhaps in all cases, it had to have been someone who either wanted to help Dominguez or wanted to hurt someone else.

And Donnally hoped that someone else wasn't him.

D
onnally began searching through the FBI 302s and DEA 6s looking for the informant with the code letters SSF-94-X1112. A hundred pages into the five thousand, he thought of
Crime and Punishment
again. It was like trying to find every time the name Dunechka showed up.

He glanced over at the DVDs lying near the far corner of the table. Maybe . . . He grabbed the top one and slid it into the laptop drive. After clicks and whirls, a screen appeared asking whether he wanted to install the CaseLinks application. He pressed yes and followed the directions and the program activated. It invited him to do a Boolean search in a blank field, but he wasn't interested in
and
s,
or
s, or
not
s, only in the exact sequence “SSF-94-X1112,” and he entered it. Fragments from the FBI and DEA reports appeared on the screen, snippets of text with the informant number highlighted.

Next to each snippet was a link to activate the underlying report.

Donnally activated each one in turn and printed out the associated document. He then retrieved the remaining DVDs and did the same. He read through the stack of thirty pages he printed, turning each sheet with rising expectation—

Until falling off a cliff edge.

SSF-94-X112 had said nothing about the murder of Edgar Rojo Sr.

Nothing.

There was no indication he'd even been asked about the murder.

Somebody wasn't trying to hurt him or help him, Donnally decided, only divert and delay him.

Donnally removed the final DVD from the drive and reached to close the laptop lid. His hand held there, inches away. He again got the feeling that he was missing something, something right in front of him. He folded his forearms on the desk and stared at the screen, the icons seeming to float against the desktop background image of a night sky. His eyes lost focus for a moment, then settled on a link to the
San Francisco Chronicle,
thinking he should do an archive search on the names that showed up as connected to the informant. He reached for the mouse and clicked.

A headline shot out at him.

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT REJECTS DOMINGUEZ FINAL APPEAL

D
onnally found Junior at the outreach program at the Willie Mays Boys and Girls Club in Hunters Point. Donnally sat down next to him in the first row of the bleachers where he was supervising a basketball game.

Junior looked over. He didn't react to Donnally's presence until after he returned his gaze to the court.

“What's up?” Junior asked.

“I need some information about the Twenty-Fourth Street killing of Felix Heredia ten years ago.”

It was the only incident Donnally had found in the discovery materials that Junior seemed to have a connection to.

Junior shook his head. “I told you when we first met, I ain't no snitch.”

“I'm not asking you to snitch on anybody. I know all you've got is secondhand information. You couldn't testify anyway.”

Donnally was lying, but he didn't feel all that bad about it. Junior's so-called outreach wasn't penance enough for the kinds of things he had done in his life.

The truth was that coconspirator statements, ones against someone's penal interest, were an exception to the hearsay rule.

“Then I ain't gonna be your domino falling on someone else.”

Donnally ignored the comment and showed him a copy of a paragraph he copied from the affidavit on which he had redacted the code for the informant. Just to ensure that Junior couldn't read it by holding it up to the light, Donnally had blacked it out, then copied it and blacked it over again.

Junior read it, then held it up to toward the high gym lights.

“Smooth. You don't miss nothing.”

Then he read it to himself.

Donnally's cell phone rang. He answered. It was Judge McMullin.

“I just had—”

“Hold on.”

Donnally covered the mic, then pointed at the page. “You may want to study that a little.” Then he walked to the door beyond the end of the bleachers and stepped outside onto the sidewalk. “What's going on?”

“I just had a visit from Judge Madding. Calling it a visit makes it sound more pleasant than it was.”

Donnally didn't like the way the judge's voice sounded, strained and exhausted. He felt protective, almost fatherly, and didn't like the feeling.

“He found out?”

“And is pissed. Grassner told Chen you said I'd asked you to look into this and then Chen told Madding.”

“Chen already jammed me up outside of the Hall of Justice. Real hard and way overboard.”

“So is Madding. He's saying that I should've come to him first and that the governor is about to appoint him to the court of appeals and he doesn't want to be seen in the press as being second-guessed by another judge.”

“You're not second-guessing him. You're second-guessing yourself.”

“That's what I told him, but he doesn't see it that way. He spent his career wanting to be seen as the crusading prosecutor, but now that a promotion is on the horizon he wants to be seen as an impartial, dispassionate agent of justice with a capital A and a capital J.”

“What do you want to do?”

The judge paused. Donnally envisioned an old man, even older than McMullin really was, on the other end of the call.

Donnally knew what he would want to do. When he got pushed, he wanted to push back.

But he wasn't McMullin, or whoever McMullin was becoming.

“I don't know.” His voice weakened. “I just . . . I just don't want you to be disappointed in me.”

The words struck Donnally like heartbreak. The judge was a man in pain, aching under the burden he'd taken on.

“It's not about disappointment. You've shown a whole lot of courage, more than any judge I've ever known. But it may be out of our hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see the news?” Donnally didn't wait for an answer. “The California Supreme Court turned down the Dominguez appeal.”

“Which means the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in a day or two.”

“Which means the Supreme Court will rule against him in a day or two and it will go to the governor.”

Donnally thought of Junior sitting inside with the FBI 302 excerpt.

“Where are you going to be later?” Donnally asked.

“I don't know. I've got to get out of here . . . maybe home.”

“I'll swing by when I'm done with what I'm doing.”

Donnally disconnected, then walked back inside. Junior was still staring at the page, almost squinting at it like he was trying to see through it and into the events it represented. Donnally sat down next to him and pointed at it.

“You know who that is, right?”

Junior looked over. “How do you figure?”

“I saw another report. The name I'm interested in was redacted in that one too. He said you were with these guys, all set to be their alibi if they needed one.”

Junior handed the paper back, then pointed at the name Donnally hadn't blacked out, Chico Gallegos.

“Ask him.”

They both knew the man was dead.

“Don't play games.”

“Why's it so important?”

“Remember the other thing we talked about the night we met? When you stood up, ready to go gunning for Chen.”

“I didn't go gunning for anybody.”

“Has your self-control improved since then?”

“It ain't no worse; otherwise, the gunning would be done.”

Donnally reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper with the name and telephone number of Junior's parole agent.

“Just to make sure, I'll have him yank your leash if you lose it.”

Junior shrugged, then flashed a half smile. “Like I said, smooth.”

“I think the guy whose name is covered up had something to do with the Israel Dominguez case.”

Junior rolled his eyes. “I know that. That ain't no secret. What kind of game you playing?”

Donnally had no clue what he meant.

Junior leaned back as though to leverage himself to his feet.

Donnally grabbed his shoulder to keep him seated.

“What do you mean it wasn't a secret?”

“Benaga. It's there in black and white.”

Junior leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, then his eyes widened and he jerked forward and grabbed for the paper. He stared at the redacted words.

“That ain't no name you got blacked out and that's why you didn't know. I've seen this kind of thing before. In the joint. It's an informant number.”

Junior pushed himself to his feet.

“Benaga is a fucking snitch.”