Read Night Is the Hunter Online
Authors: Steven Gore
J
anie glanced over from the passenger seat of his truck as they drove south from Mount Shasta toward San Francisco.
“By not approaching your father head-on, you're treating him like a suspect rather than as a possible victim of a disease. Like you're lying in wait.”
Donnally glanced in his rearview mirror at Ray McMullin following them, his eyes concentrated on Donnally's tailgate as though being led through fog.
“I don't want to just stumble into things. He might react by thinking I'm trying to get him diagnosed with Alzheimer's as revenge for what he did to Donnie. He knows his public confession doesn't change what happened and he knows his feeling guilty doesn't mean I'm obligated to forgive him.”
Janie shifted her body so she could face him. “But you have forgiven him, haven't you?”
“I'm not even sure I understand forgiveness. The forgive-but-not-forget idea. Seems to me it's only for saints.”
A curve west left him squinting into the sunset fanning out against the sky. The next turn broke them free from the pine-lined highway and angled them toward the snow-tipped Castle Crags, the bright granite spires seeming more brutal, than beautiful.
“That's not right,” he said. “It's more that I know people forgive terrible acts, but some acts are just too terrible.”
Donnally felt Janie still looking at him.
“Is that how you feel about what he did?”
Donnally shrugged but didn't answer.
“You think Donnie would've forgiven him?”
Now he looked over. “Don't play that game. Dead people are just hand puppets and we're the ventriloquists. And thinking the words we put in their mouths reveal real insight into who they were and what they would've done is a delusion.”
Janie's face reddened. “That's not what I meant, and you know it. Donnie had a personality, a way of looking at the world. It's not ventriloquism to imagine what his thoughts and feelings might be.”
“Maybe that's the problem. Donnie probably would've forgiven not just my father, but the people who ambushed him.”
Janie turned back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. She stared ahead, her lips compressed.
They rode in silence except for the rumble of his tires on the ice-pitted pavement and the hum of tension in the cab. Donnally knew he'd started it and that it was on him to quiet it.
“Sorry. I went off course and didn't answer your question.”
Janie blew out a quick breath through her nose. “All of our serious conversations these days seem to go off course.”
“Not all of them. Just the ones that begin with my father.”
“That doesn't make it any easier.” Her voice was edged with resentment and impatience.
“I suspect Alzheimer's will. He'll be a different person and a lot easier to forgive.”
She looked over. “So answer me. Why are you treating him like a suspect?”
“Because I don't know enough about Alzheimer's and dementia in general and his behavior in particular. Because his moment of insight into one thing hasn't made him less rigid in everything else. And because I'll only have one chance to get it right.”
“I'm not sure it's true you'll have only one chance. It's not like you're playing the part of judge and jury.”
“But it will seem that way to him, with you as a coconspiring expert witness.”
Donnally thought back to his fireside conversation with McMullin, then realized the doubts the judge expressed about his handling of the Dominguez case were confusing his own thinking about how to deal with his father. The two men had merged in his mind as objects to be examined and, perhaps, manipulated for their own good.
He reached into his inside jacket pocket and handed Janie the copy of Dominguez's letter that McMullin had given him just before they headed south. She unfolded it.
Dear Judge McMullin:
I know you will be surprised to receive this letter after all these years, perhaps even surprised I am able to write to you. As you know from evidence presented during the penalty phase of my trial, I dropped out of school at twelve, but since I have been on death row, I have obtained a GED and then a B.A. from the Prison College Program, the only condemned inmate to have done so.
It has been over twenty years since my trial and soon the California State Supreme Court will take up my case, and soon after that I will be executed.
The irony of all thisâthe implied malice defense, the appeals based on your jury instructions, and the claims of ineffective assistance of counselâis that I am factually innocent of the crime and all of these legal maneuvers were off the point.
The district attorney's theory of the case was just wrong. I had no malice toward Edgar Rojo Sr. I premeditated nothing. I did not form an intent to kill him. I did not fire a gun that night.
I told all of this to my attorney the first time I met with him and I never backed down.
Since I did not shoot Rojo, the manslaughter instruction would have allowed the jury to convict me of something for which I was, in fact and in law, innocent.
The same would have been true of the second-degree murder conviction my attorney sought, wrongly believing it was the only way to save my life.
The further irony of my situation is that even if the Supreme Court were to accept the fact of my innocence, I will be executed anyway. The court has adopted the view of former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Antonin Scalia that the “Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is âactually' innocent.”
Which is to say that I have already had my days in court and my innocence is no longer a legal defense.
Looking back, it seems beyond absurd that my trial and all
my appeals have been based on a false premise, but so has your career as a judge. And you know that better than anyone.
I don't know whether you believed I was innocent when you sentenced me to death, but I know you doubted the first-degree, special circumstances verdict.
The truth is that the real killers needed to focus the police investigation on someone other than themselves and they picked me. Why, I don't know. Maybe because Rojo and I argued the day before. Maybe just because I was convenient or happened to be the same size or age or complexion as the real shooter. Maybe it was because I had the right reputation they needed so the police would believe I was the kind of person who would commit this kind of crime, that an argument over nothing would provoke me to commit murder.
I kept looking at you all during the trial waiting for you to stop it. But you never did. And that failure is the false premise of your career. You know it and I know it.
Since my fate is what it is, I've decided to fire my appeals lawyer and file the rest of the paperwork
pro per
. She's a well-meaning person just trying to make a living and she shouldn't have to bear the burden of my death for the rest of her life. By relieving her of her duties, at least she'll be able to say, “If only . . .” She would then be free to blame me when my application to the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari asking it to review the California Supreme Court rulings is denied and my clemency request to the governor fails.
As you know, I've been blamed for worse.
Sincerely,
Israel Dominguez
Janie refolded the letter and stared ahead at the highway as it approached the bridge over the Pit River arm of Lake Shasta, the cobalt blue water polished by the sliver of sun, the windless surface seeming slate flat and rock hard. She glanced over at the distant Slaughterhouse Island, then back at Donnally.
“The guy's either completely innocent or a manipulating sociopathic son of a bitch.”
H
omicide detective Ramon Navarro pulled his car to the curb near the two-story apartment building in Hunters Point in which Edgar Rojo Sr. had lived. To Donnally its faded pink stucco, its oxidized aluminum windows, and its patched gray cracks and spackle-filled bullet holes had the feel of predestined despair and of ruined dreams.
“Not much has changed in twenty years, has it?” Navarro said.
Drug dealers on the four corners half a block away alerted to the burgundy Crown Victoria. They held their places, but the ones sitting on the stoops of the row houses on either side of the storefront church across the street rose and slipped inside.
Donnally and Navarro both recognized them to be the runners who held the cocaine, but never the cash, who were employed to separate the drug handover from the money transaction.
“A lot has changed,” Donnally said, as they stepped out. “In the old days, they all would've drifted away.” He grinned as he looked over the hood at Navarro. “The kids don't know how to show respect anymore.”
Navarro rolled his eyes. “Don't talk to me about respect. You know how hard all the old-timers in the department are going to be riding my ass if they find out I'm helping you with this?”
Donnally pointed at Navarro's decade-old herringbone sports
jacket. “If you cared about other people's opinions, you'd dress a whole lot better.”
Navarro blew out a breath. “I wish this was just a fashion issue.” He then looked up at the second-floor window where Rojo Sr. was killed. “Seems to me the Rojo murder was the worst declaration of war in the history of San Francisco. Worse than anything involving the black or Asian gangs. That killing proved the Sureños were a force to be contended with up here.” He glanced up and down the street, then looked back at Donnally. “Can you think of a hit that cost so many lives in such a short period of time in such a few square blocks?”
Donnally shrugged. He'd never done the math. Navarro was probably right, but it was hard to tell. When he was in the department, the chief and the police commission exaggerated the number of gang murders as part of their annual budget pleas. In truth, many of those homicides arose less out of gang affiliation, and more out of personal animosity or a juvenile notion of dignity, jealousies over women, a dice game that transformed from a war by other means into just a war. Even when a killing was gang related, sometimes the gangs never knew who did it or why, whether it was the start of a new war or the taking of revenge for someone who fell in a past one.
“I went over to see Rojo Junior a couple of years ago at San Quentin,” Navarro said. “It was just before he finished his sentence on the mayhem case. I figured I could leverage his being on parole into rolling him for information on a couple of homicides. His parole conditions would prohibit him from associating with felons.” Navarro tilted his chin toward the red zone at the corner. “He and I both knew he'd be in violation as soon as he stepped off the bus.”
“And?”
“He wouldn't go for it. Invited me to come out here and pick him up any time I wanted. Said he could do the time. He told me he became a Norteño the moment his father's head hit the floor and he wasn't gonna change.” Navarro shook his head. “Nine years old and a Norteño junior gangster in training.”
Navarro's meaning reached beyond the bare words he'd spoken and beyond the street on which he'd spoken them, for it had been a slug from a Norteño about Rojo Junior's present age, from this same neighborhood of pointless warfare, that had ended Donnally's career.
Donnally opened the folder Navarro had given him containing crime scene photos and the diagrams that had been drawn on the night Rojo Senior was killed.
To conceal his involvement in Donnally's investigation, Navarro had told his supervisor who'd spotted the file on his desk that he'd checked it out as part of a background investigation of a witness in a pending case. He'd been willing to take the risk because he knew Donnally would have done the same for him. Their careers at SFPD had done more than just overlap, they'd intertwined, both on the street and in the homicide unit. From the day in the early '90s when Navarro as a rookie patrol officer was assigned to an arrest team Donnally was leading, they had the silent understanding some cops have with each other.
Donnally pointed at the spot near the curb in front of the apartment building where a shell casing had been found. He and Navarro walked over and looked up at the living room window behind which Rojo Senior was standing at the moment he was been shot. Donnally then calculated the path the shell casing might have traveled after its ejection from the semiautomatic.
That put him in the driveway leading to the rear of the complex.
“How tall is Israel Dominguez?” Donnally asked.
“Five six.”
Donnally raised his hand toward the window as though aiming a gun.
“That makes him five inches shorter than me.” He glanced over at Navarro. “And Rojo Senior?”
“Five eight.”
Keeping his arm extended, Donnally lowered himself to Dominguez's height.
“That's a real extreme angle. In order for Dominguez to deliver a headshot, Rojo Senior had to be standing right in front of the window. Even then it would be tough to hit him. A margin of two or three inches from thirty feet away.”
The thudding of hard-soled shoes rumbled down the sidewalk.
Donnally and Navarro turned to see two lines of fifteen Muslim Nation members marching toward them. Young black men in black suits, black shoes, and black ties and white shirts. The columns spread on approach, one forming a barrier between Donnally and Navarro and the building, the other semicircled behind them. The men stopped, spread their feet to shoulder width, then locked their hands in front of their belts.
The leader of the Black Nationalist group, a slim six two with a close-shaved head and jewel-brown eyes, stepped toward them and said without raising his voice, “Get your white asses out of here. This Muslim Nation territory.”
To Donnally, the last sentence sounded idiotic, just one of those Bay Area delusions, too often territorial, that he'd been happy to liberate himself from when he moved north. More dangerous in
effect, but otherwise not all that different from the leather subculture in the Castro District, the purple-haired punks in the Haight, and the derivative demigods of the financial district. Just more and different gangs involved, like the dice players, at war by other means.
Navarro turned toward the men behind them in the street so he and Donnally could cover each other's backs.
Donnally pointed at Navarro's car outside of the semicircle and said to the leader, “I must've misread the map. I thought we were still in San Francisco.”
Navarro reached for his radio and called in “406,” officer needs emergency help, and gave their location.
The leader smiled at Donnally. “11-99 should've been enough.” 11-99 was the code for an officer needing only nonemergency assistance.
“You guys scared?”
The rising wail of distant sirens sliced into the static of Navarro's radio.
Donnally shook his head. “You want to go one-on-one, let's do it.”
Without the need of a command, the last three members at the ends of each line stomped once and pivoted toward the opposite street corners to face the soon-to-be-arriving patrol cars.
Donnally caught motion in the window of Rojo Senior's apartment. He looked up and spotted the frightened eyes of an elderly Hispanic woman. A large crucifix hung high on the wall next to her, the figure of Jesus gazing down at her in anguish. He was tempted to ask the leader whether the apartment these people lived in was part of his pseudo-Islamic state, but didn't. He'd be
leaving the neighborhoodâone way or the otherâwhile the residents were condemned to live there, and there was no reason to make them part of this battle.
Two units approached from the east, one from the west. Their sirens died as they came to a stop. More rose up in the distance.
Donnally heard car doors open but kept his eyes on the leader, who locked his on Donnally's for a moment, then glared past him.
“Get back, old man.”
Donnally glanced over his shoulder. The minister from the storefront church was crossing the pavement toward them. He was wearing a clerical collar and a burgundy suit and fedora. Donnally spotted his name, Reverend Julius Jones, written in hand-painted letters on the front of his building, just below the words
Burning Bush Church of God in Christ
.
“Take your slave religion back across the street,” the leader said to him.
Reverend Jones kept coming. He slipped inside the semicircle behind the back of one of the members facing the police, then passed by Navarro and Donnally and stopped three feet from the leader. He pointed up into the man's face. “You don't live here anymore, Georgeâ”
“George is a slave name. My name is Aasim.”
“Your name is George. Learn some history. It was the slaves who had names like Aasim. Go build your so-called nation in your own neighborhood. No one invited you to invade ours.” The reverend pointed south. “Or is that frowned upon in San Bruno.”
Donnally smiled at the leader over the reverend's shoulder. San Bruno was a white and Asian bedroom community on the peninsula. There were so few African Americans in the city that they were outnumbered by Native Americans.
“Fuck you.”
Donnally stepped up next to Reverend Jones, then cut in front of him. He didn't like the feel of being rescued by someone old enough to be his father.
“Watch your mouth, George,” Donnally said, making himself the target again. “What's Aasim mean in Arabic? Insulter of the Aged?”
“It means âProtector.'”
Donnally heard movement behind him and looked back. The corner drug dealers were lined up behind the Nation members, hoping a fight would erupt and figuring this was their chance to draw blood and exact revenge. One of the few crimes the Nation disapproved of was drug dealing, and robbing drug dealers was therefore sanctioned. It permitted the Nation members to view themselves as Robin Hoods, though they never gave to the poor, except as bribes to convert them to their cult. Instead, they used the stolen money to support themselves and their women and children and, Donnally suspected, to pay the mortgage on their mosque in the next block.
Behind the dealers were patrol cars and uniformed officers, some holding batons, others cradling shotguns.
“Protector?” Donnally said. “You've got both the cops and the cons ganged up around you, so I'm not sure you'll be doing much protecting today.” He looked hard in Aasim's eyes. “Do you?”
“Maybe not now.” A compensating smirk. “But soon.”
Aasim glanced left and right, then barked out a one-word command in Arabic and the members pivoted toward the west and marched away.
Donnally turned back toward Reverend Jones. “How long have you known this guy?”
“His whole distorted life. His father was a leader of Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, the Assembly of Authentic Muslims, in prison.”
He glanced at the receding backs of the Nation members as Navarro walked over to talk to a patrol sergeant.
“That's how the kid got recruited. A couple of years ago, the Mexican Mafia ordered his father's murder in Pelican Bay. George showed back up here right afterward on a mission from Allah to clear the Hispanics out of the neighborhood in the name of racial purity.”
Jones nodded toward Navarro. “He's probably the reason the crew came hustling down here.” Then toward the apartment house. “George has been trying to take over this building and kick the last of the Hispanics out so he can move all their women and kids in.”
“Why's this particular place so important to them?”
“It's right in the middle of a redevelopment project. Ground zero. The city wants to raze four square blocks and build thousands of condos and low-income housing. Lots of white people and Asians and Hispanics will be moving in, and from then on they'll be running Hunters Point.”
Donnally pointed at the church across the street. “That means that you'll be moving out too.”
“Even when we're gone, God will still be here.”
Donnally raised his gaze toward the second-floor apartment. “You know who lives up there?”
“The Rojos. They've been living in that same unit for twenty years, maybe longer.” Jones shook his head as he stared up at the building. “I don't know why they stayed. Their oldest son was murdered standing right next to that crucifix.”