“I can save you some time and trouble,” Bohr said. “I hadn’t spoken to Mark in a year.”

Donnally raised up his hands in a football timeout motion, then realized that it might have been preemptive.

The old-people smell. Maybe Bohr didn’t remember.

“I understood you spoke to him within the last few months.”

Bohr glanced over at his wall calendar. It hadn’t been turned in half a year. He sighed. “That keeps happening.” He looked back at Donnally. “Refresh me.”

“I was told that you participated in a conference call about money. Somebody needing money real bad and real quick.”

Bohr nodded. “I remember. Sheldon Galen.” He pretended to spit. “That putz. The idiot borrowed from a client, then couldn’t pay it back. Could’ve lost his bar card for doing it.”

“Why’d you help him out?”

“I didn’t. Mark stepped in right away and paid the client to keep him from suing Galen. The rest of The Crew then put in money so Mark wouldn’t be out on a limb alone.” Bohr glanced at the calendar again. “I think Mark was supposed to pay me back by now.”

“You may want to put in a claim with the probate court.”

Bohr paused, thinking, then blinked. “It may be better to write it off. I’m not sure I want to be the one who explains to the court why Mark wanted the money.”

No, Donnally thought, you don’t want to explain to the court why Galen needed the money.

Donnally felt his phone vibrate once in his pocket. He pulled it out. It was the text message from Navarro with Tink Fischer’s address.

“Can you think of anyone who might want to kill Mark?” Donnally asked.

“By anyone, you mean Galen?”

“Not just Galen.”

“A thousand people.”

“I think you’ll need to narrow it down some.”

“Mark was an aggressive lawyer. And aggressive lawyers make enemies.” Bohr spread his hands. “How’d you like to be the father of a kid who was murdered by one of Mark’s clients? Mark dummies up some reasonable doubt—which doesn’t take much around here—and the killer walks.”

“The odds of that being the reason are pretty slim. A winning lawyer has never been murdered before, at least in San Francisco.”

Bohr paused and inspected Donnally’s face. “What did you do before you started this special master business?”

Bohr said the words “special master business” like Donnally was in the same class as the court-appointed lawyers in the building.

“I was a homicide detective,” Donnally said. “And it’s not a business. It’s a onetime thing.”

“How many unsolved homicides have there been in San Francisco. Hundreds? Thousands?”

Donnally nodded. He knew where Bohr was going, but didn’t get in his way.

“Then I guess you can’t say whether it hasn’t happened before.” Bohr gestured toward the window. “Lot of the people getting killed out there are old clients of Mark’s. Most of those murders don’t get solved. People assume it’s gang on gang. Maybe not.”

The old man had gone off course. They hadn’t been talking about clients being murdered, but their lawyers. He should’ve been arguing that some lawyers had been murdered over the years and not all of those murders had been solved. Donnally wondered whether there was some thought or memory inside Bohr’s brain that was pushing him that way.

“That just means killers get killed,” Donnally said. “It doesn’t mean their lawyers get killed for getting them off. I don’t recall any of those, even when there were serious criminal organizations involved.”

Bohr leaned forward in his chair. “But if it was going to happen to one of them, my candidate would’ve been Mark.” He leaned back again and squinted up toward the ceiling. “Where did we start with this? Oh yes. Sheldon Galen.” He looked again at Donnally. “You’re thinking that Hamlin’s murder is a lawyer-on-lawyer crime. Galen kills Mark so he doesn’t have to pay back the money?”

“I’m not thinking anything.”

Bohr smiled. “But if you were about to think something, I’d make it that.”

Chapter 17

Loan? It wasn’t no loan. That asshole Galen stole my money. Stole . . . it. A hundred thousand dollars.”

The man standing behind the chain-link fence next to a fight-scarred pit bull didn’t look to Donnally like a guy who’d ever seen a hundred thousand dollars in any form. Cash, check, or money order.

Having emitted a rapid first blast, Tink Fischer fell silent and then looked Donnally up and down as if only now having the thought he’d should’ve had when Donnally first walked up and set the dog to barking. What’s a white guy doing out here without a badge and a backup?

“Where’d you park your car?”

“Truck.” Donnally pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the curb in front of the faded pink stucco bungalow across the street.

“The Big Block Boys have been fighting a turf war with Bay Side. You’re in what you could call the line of fire. Lots of dope money to be made on the corner so there’s lots to fight over.”

Fischer glanced over at the mostly primer gray 1980s Caprice Classic in his carport. Donnally followed his eyes. The only shiny spots on the skin were the bent-in edges of the bullet holes.

“Maybe I should talk fast,” Donnally said.

Fischer smiled. “I’ll try to keep up once I know where you’re headed.”

Donnally smiled back. “I’m interested in Sheldon Galen.”

“You a private investigator?”

“Let’s just say I’m a dissatisfied customer.”

Fischer snorted. “Been down that road myself.”

Donnally looked down at the dog, guessing that it was the one that Fischer had tried to bring into the bank with him.

“Because he lost your case?”

Fischer waved the question away. “I wasn’t gonna win it. The DA was offering a bullet in the county jail and I figured I could get it cut down if the judge heard some kinda sob story from me.”

It was called a long sentencing hearing. Using a trial not to prove innocence, but mitigation. And a bullet was courthouse slang for a year in the county jail.

“I told them about how the dog was my son’s and how the dog got all despondent after he got killed and didn’t like being left alone.” Fischer tilted his head toward the corner, implying that was where the murder took place. “It was true. That’s what happened. Judge bought it and I got six months.”

“But it really didn’t have anything to do with why you punched the security guard.”

“I hit him because he was a racist asshole. He had what I call a black-guy-with-a-pit-bull complex.” Fischer spread his hands. “The dog is like a loaded gun. Like I was supposed to leave him tied up on the sidewalk so he could take chunks out of people’s legs walking by?”

“Then what was your beef with Galen?”

“He represented me in a civil suit. A false arrest case. Cops beat the shit out of me. I was walking by a sideshow—just . . . walking . . . by—”

“A what?”

“Aren’t you from around here?”

“I’m from up north.”

“A sideshow is where the kids spin donuts in their cars in intersections. Look at the pavement when you drive on out of here. You’ll see the skid marks. Big crowds show up. Sometimes the drivers lose control and jump the curb and people get killed. Cops always trying to stop them.”

Donnally nodded his understanding.

“I’m walking by one last year and the cops come squealing up and everybody scatters. Me and the dog are the last ones there. Next thing I know, I’m facedown on the sidewalk bleeding from out my broken nose and my neck all twisted up.”

Something of Donnally’s incredulity must have shown on his face.

“It’s true. I didn’t know what happened until I saw the cell phone video somebody took from their second story window. When the city attorney got a look at it, they couldn’t wait to get the case settled. Galen got me a hundred and forty grand. He was supposed to keep forty for his fees and expenses, like for the chiropractor treatments to help build up the damages, and give me the rest.”