One idea Donnally took with him from college when he moved up to San Francisco was that an offense report was a kind of history that was either as true as the Holocaust or as false as one of his father’s movies. And he swore his would always be the former, even if some of those around him specialized in the latter.

Donnally rose from his chair. “I’m going to do my best to find out what the truth is.”

Jackson stared at him for a moment, then said, “Take your best shot.”

Donnally recognized the sarcasm in her voice, but also heard an undertone of longing, suggesting she meant it.

He walked with Jackson to the outer office, then drove south toward the Gordon & Sons headquarters near the San Francisco International Airport.

The ride down Highway 101, called the Central Freeway where it wasn’t central, the Bayshore Freeway long before it came close to the bay, and the James Lick when people weren’t sure what to call it, was less like driving than being swept along. Maybe it was because the freeway was a gateway from the constraints of the city to the liberation of possibility. A hop over the hills, a skip along San Francisco Bay, and then a launch from the San Francisco Airport into the sky.

Donnally felt the surge of motion on takeoff like everyone else, but didn’t like the feeling of being wrenched from the earth. He’d fly places if he had to, but preferred having his tires on the ground and the steering wheel in his grip and the speedometer arrow fixed at a speed that kept him in control.

As he transitioned from the freeway to the frontage road just north of the airport, he knew the chances were small that John Gordon would talk to him. The judge had suspended the victims’ civil suit against Gordon and Thule until the criminal trial was over since the defendants had Fifth Amendment rights. It was as though the judge had said to Gordon, You have the right to remain silent and if you’re smart, you’ll use it.

Even some of the witnesses who worked for Gordon and for Thule would also have refused to testify in the civil case until they were certain the DA wouldn’t expand the indictment to include them in a broader conspiracy.

Donnally pulled into a guest parking space in front of the two-story administration building. Gordon’s secretary directed him out to the football field–sized yard in the back where he found Gordon talking to a hard-hatted worker. Gordon sent the young man into the warehouse, then turned toward Donnally, who concluded from Gordon’s ruddy and wind-beaten face and hard eyes that he’d built the business. He was Gordon himself, the father, not one of the sons.

Donnally told him about the threats to Hamlin and asked him whether any of the victims had also threatened him.

“My lawyer’s gonna shit his pants when he finds out I talked to you,” Gordon said. “But what happened, happened. I never should’ve used that steel. Never did before that contract and never did afterwards.”

“What about that PI, Lange?”

“Sure I talked to him.” Gordon jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward his office, as if to say that was where he’d been interviewed. “He’s a lying son of a bitch. I told him the same thing I told everyone else. The victims knew it. They had no beef with me about that. They blamed me for the steel, but not for torpedoing the case against Thule.”

The concussive engine roar from a plane rising off the airport runway vibrated the metal roof and sides of the warehouse as it skimmed the bay. Donnally waited until it faded, then asked, “Why did Thule want to use steel from that particular importer?”

“My guess? And he can sue me for saying it if he wants to, but I think it must’ve been some kind of kickback scheme. I paid about five hundred thousand dollars for steel that would’ve cost seven-fifty if it had been manufactured over here. The wholesaler could kick back a hundred to Thule and still clean up. That kind of thing happens all the time, all across the country.”

Donnally knew that if Gordon had made a tape of his interview with Lange, he would have given it to the DA, so he didn’t ask.

“You have any proof of a kickback?” Donnally asked.

Gordon shook his head. “These guys are smart. Maybe they did it offshore. That way there wouldn’t be a paper trail.”

It was clear to Donnally that Gordon had thought about pursuing that theory, maybe had even suggested it to the district attorney, but there was no way a local DA’s office could pursue an international financial investigation. And with Gordon’s testimony, they probably didn’t think they’d need it to get a conviction. But the DA hadn’t counted on Frank Lange bending the jury away from the truth.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I killed Hamlin?”

“No. You strike me as a guy who takes responsibility for what he does and lets the world go its own way.”

Gordon looked out toward the bay for a moment, then said, “I’m my father’s son. That’s the lesson he learned in World War II and the one I learned in Vietnam.” He pointed toward the warehouse and the office building. “I built a good business, but I’m not sure I’ve been a very good citizen.”

“Like maybe you should’ve at least punched Hamlin out?”

Gordon nodded. “I should’ve done it when one of the victims was yelling at him outside of court after the verdict.”

“You think that victim later did it himself, or worse?”

“Not a chance. The guy was in a wheelchair. He was never gonna walk again. No way he could’ve lassoed Hamlin and hung him up out there.”

Gordon paused in thought and he gazed out toward the bay.

“Anyway,” he finally said, moving his gaze to Donnally, “if anybody was gonna get hit, it would’ve been that scumbag investigator.”

Chapter 27

Hamlin’s reception area seemed hushed, even kind of funereal, when Donnally walked in. For the first time he noticed the thud of his shoes and the muted squeaks of the worn wood-planked floor.

Jackson rose from her desk chair. She’d already called to warn him Hamlin’s family would be coming in. She intercepted him, pointed at the inner office, and said in a low voice, “Mark’s parents and sister are in there already. Matthew and Sophie and Marian, but everyone calls her Lemmie.”

Donnally took in a long breath and exhaled. He had nothing good to say about Hamlin, and therefore nothing to supplement the standard condolences that were due a grieving family.

The moment he reached the door he grasped that not all the family members were grieving.

Hamlin’s parents sat in chairs facing the desk.

His sister stood next to the couch, looking out the window at the brick façade of the building across the street, poised like a tourist guessing at the type of architecture or an artist deciding whether a scene is worth painting.

They all turned toward him as he crossed the threshold.

Donnally introduced himself and expressed his sympathies. He didn’t want to be seen as supplanting their son and brother by sitting behind Hamlin’s desk, so he pulled a chair away from a wall and placed it so it formed a semicircle with the couch and the chairs in which the parents sat. He waited until Lemmie took a seat on the couch, then sat down.

On his second look he recognized Lemmie. He’d seen her photo on the backs of best sellers that had migrated on and then off Janie’s nightstand over the years. She appeared to be at least ten years younger than her brother. He didn’t find it surprising that he’d run into a writer during the investigation. Writers crowded San Francisco the way actors crowded LA and painters crowded New York. He just hadn’t connected the Hamlin last name from her to her brother. Maybe because she was always referred to in conversation and in the press by her first name alone.