“Our system is state-of-the-art. It is virtually impossible to enter or leave this building without being detected.”
“I understand. But virtually impossible isn’t one hundred percent foolproof, right?”
“No system is one hundred percent foolproof.”
Exactly the answer I wanted to hear. “Were you here on Tuesday morning?”
“Yes. I was the first security person on the scene. I took Mr. Gates’s call. I called the police.”
“What time was that?”
“Seven-oh-five. I went upstairs as soon as I called the police.”
“Are there security videos?” I ask.
“We’ve already provided them to the police.” He hands me a shopping bag containing about a dozen videotapes. “Inspector Johnson asked us to make copies for you.”
“Did you see the victim in any of the videos?”
“We’re still reviewing them.”
“But you haven’t found him yet.”
“Correct.”
“How is that possible? I thought you said your system is state-of-the-art.”
He backpedals. “This is a hotel, not a maximum security prison. Our cameras cover all of the public entrances but not every conceivable entry. If somebody wanted to get in without being detected, it’s possible they could have done so.”
That’s what I wanted to know. “Did you ever see the victim around here?”
“No.”
“Can you show me the room?”
“Sure. The police gave us the go-ahead to clean it up this morning.”
He takes me through a basement corridor to a stairway on the Sacramento Street side, which leads to the entrance to the tower. Although the Fairmont is no longer considered a crime scene, a police officer is sitting by the elevator. He nods to Evans. We enter the elevator and Evans punches the button to the fifteenth floor. “We aren’t going to let guests stay in the room until things calm down a bit,” he says.
“How else can you access the fifteenth floor?” I ask.
“There are two stairways on each floor.” He adds there is also a small service elevator.
The door opens at fifteen and I survey the corridor. There are about a dozen rooms in all. Evans tells me Skipper was staying in Room 1504, which has a southern view. The summit conference with Sherman’s people took place in Room 1504 and the room next door, 1502. He says the two rooms are connected by an internal door and the participants were able to circulate between them. Hotel room service provided drinks and hors d’oeuvres in both rooms.
Room 1504 has been cleaned and all traces of the events of earlier this week have been removed. It smells of disinfectant. There is a queen-sized four-poster, a desk, an armchair and a TV The carpet has been shampooed. The bed has been stripped of linens. He points out where Skipper was sitting when the waiter walked in. I ask him whether there were any police or security guards on the floor that night.
“No. A security guard and a police officer were stationed at the elevator on the ground floor. The politicians didn’t want a bunch of cops upstairs.”
“Was anybody else staying on the fifteenth floor?”
“No.”
“Realistically,” I say, “how difficult would it have been
for somebody to have gotten upstairs without being detected?”
“The last thing we needed was an incident while the DA was staying at our hotel.”
True, but not exactly the answer to my question. He shows me the closed internal door that connects Room 1504 with Room 1502. I ask whether it was open when he arrived.
“Yes.”
I ask him to open the door that leads to Room 1502. Like most hotels, the connecting door consists of back-to-back doors, one facing Room 1504 and one facing Room 1502. Evans uses his master key to unlock the door that opens into 1504. Then he pushes open the door on the 1502 side, which is not locked. The room is identical to 1504 but is furnished with tables and armchairs—no bed. Evans explains that 1502 is often used as a hospitality room for social events.
I say, “So somebody could have gotten into 1504 by going through 1502.”
“That’s true.”
I’ve started to look around the room, when we hear the toilet in the bathroom flush.
Evans gives me a puzzled look. “It must be a member of the maintenance crew,” he says.
The bathroom door opens. “Hi guys,” says Pete.
Evans reaches for his walkie-talkie. “Who are you?”
“He’s my brother,” I say.
“Nice to meet you,” Pete says.
Evans clears his throat. “Dave Evans. Building security. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Taking a look around.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“He’s a PI,” I say. “He works for me.”
“That doesn’t give him the right to break into one of our rooms.”
“I didn’t break in,” Pete says. “The door was open.” Pete
produces his license for Evans to study. Then he turns to me and says, “So what are you guys doing here?”
I glance at Evans and say, “Dave was just showing me their security system and telling me how hard it would be to get to this room without being detected.”
Pete grins. “It isn’t that hard.”
6
HANGING AL
“They come in, they enter their plea and they leave. That’s all that happens at an arraignment.”
—S
AN
F
RANCISCO
S
UPERIOR
C
OURT
J
UDGE
A
LBERT
M
ANDEL.
S
AN
F
RANCISCO
C
HRONICLE
. W
EDNESDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
8.
“And how
did
you get in here?” Dave Evans asks Pete a moment later. We’re still in Room 1502.
“I walked in the front door.”
Evans isn’t amused. “The hell you did.”
“You’re the one with all the fancy surveillance equipment.”
Evans glares at me. “I don’t have time for this nonsense,” he says.
“Suit yourself,” Pete says. “I’m not telling.”
“Pete,” I say, “let’s try to be cooperative.”
“Fine. I came in through the catering kitchen,” he says to Evans. “I took the tunnel under the grand ballroom to the service stairs. I jimmied the door and walked up to the fifteenth floor. That’s when I got lucky. The door to this room was open. I suppose the cleaning people left it that way. I’ll bet you dinner at that fancy restaurant downstairs that you won’t find me in your security video.”
“We’ll find you,” Evans says.
“No, you won’t.”
Evans turns to me. “I don’t care if he’s a PI. I don’t appreciate the fact that you sent him to break into my building.”
“Mike had nothing to do with this,” Pete says. “I got up here on my own.”
This isn’t entirely true. I did ask Pete to check out the security system. I didn’t ask him to see if he could beat it.
Pete adds, “We did you a favor. We found a hole in your system. Now you can fix it.”
Evans snaps, “This doesn’t have anything to do with what happened the other night.”
“Maybe not,” I say. On the other hand, if this case moves forward, we will put Evans on the stand to admit there are ways to get into this hotel that cannot be detected by his security cameras.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I recite. I’m sitting in a confessional near the back of St. Peter’s later the same evening. The church is quiet. A dozen votive candles flicker.
St. Peter’s was first dedicated on July 4, 1886, when San Francisco was still young and the Mission was a stronghold of Irish immigrants. It has been and always will be a symbol of our neighborhood. It rose like a phoenix after it was gutted by fire a few years ago. Although it has been completely refurbished, the feeling I have for the church that I attended when I was a kid is still there. To me, St. Peter’s will always be much like the Mission itself: ordinary-looking on the outside but special within.
“How long has it been since your last confession, Mike?” a familiar voice responds. Nowadays, there aren’t too many churches where you can recite your confession to a priest who knows you by name. For the last twenty years or so, St. Peter’s has been the sanctuary of Father Ramon Aguirre, a strong-willed priest who grew up a few blocks from here and
was a classmate of mine at the seminary. When we were in school, Ramon once told me that he didn’t just want to become a priest; he wanted to become the priest at St. Peter’s. He has brought a modern perspective and unlimited energy to a once-demoralized parish. He’s known as the “rock-and-roll reverend” because he allows rock bands to play at youth functions in the social hall on Saturday nights. From time to time, he’s been known to pick up a guitar and take the microphone. He’s the first to admit that he must bring political as well as spiritual capital to hold the parish together. He is worthy of the legacy of the legendary Reverend Peter Yorke, a pastor who plied his trade in this very building over a century ago. Yorke fought for labor unions, edited his own newspaper and supported Irish revolutionaries. He once sat in this very confessional booth.
“It’s been a long time, Ramon,” I reply. “At least a year or so.”
“You should try to set a better example for Grace.”
“I know.” We go to church when we can. I find it difficult to make Grace go into a little chamber by herself to confess some alleged sins that don’t seem particularly sinful to me. I worry about the effect of this. I want her to like herself. “It’s the old story,” I say. “It’s hard to get the kids interested. They’d rather be home playing with their computers.”
“Tell me about it. Last week I had a nine-year-old ask me if she could just log on to God’s Web site and submit her confession by e-mail.”
“What did you tell her?”
“God isn’t online yet.”
I can’t resist. “And what did she say?”
“If God is so almighty, how come God doesn’t have a Web site?”
It’s a fair point. “What was your answer?”
“Same thing we always say. Sometimes there are no easy
answers and you have to take it on faith.” He chuckles and adds, “I told her she could e-mail her sins to me in a pinch and I would see what I could do.”
There are some things they just don’t teach you at the seminary.
“So,” he says, “I understand that you’re representing Mr. Gates.”
“It’s true.”
“What’s that like?”
“Challenging.”
He grins and asks, “Did he do it?”
I shake my head and say, “I don’t think so.”
“It’s a sin to lie to a priest.”
“Very funny. It’s also a sin if I violate the attorney-client privilege. Actually, I was hoping you might be able to give me some information about the boy who died at the Fairmont. I understand he was from the neighborhood.”
His interest is piqued. “He was, but I think we have some business to attend to first.”
“Business?”
“Yes. This is a confessional and I’m a priest. You haven’t been here for a year. You’re going to have to confess to something while you’re here.”
Every time I go to confession, it seems I have to tell my deepest, darkest secrets to a priest who thinks he’s David Letterman. “Can I e-mail you?”
“No.”
“Fine. Have it your way. I have slept with a woman who is not my wife.”
His head drops. “Oh, Mike.”
“Wait,” I say. “There are mitigating circumstances.”
“There are no mitigating circumstances when it comes to this.”
“Hear me out.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m sleeping with a woman who
used
to be my wife.”
He sighs. “You’re still at it with Rosie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Jesus, Mike, you’ve been divorced for what, five years?”
“Seven.”
“When are you going to start acting like divorced people? Maybe you should get some counseling.”
“We’re doing the best we can, Ramon.”
“I can’t just give you a pass on this.”
“I understand.”
The penalty is lenient. He tells me I have to do my Hail Marys. Then he says he’ll ask around to see if there are any available single women who might be interested in meeting me.
“Thanks, Ramon.” He’s certainly a full-service priest.
I do my penance and we take a seat in the dark wood pews in the third row of the sanctuary. Ramon’s restored church looks better than it did when I was a kid. It was made of painted redwood in an era of Victorian-style construction in northern California. The interior is an example of an architectural style known as Carpenter Gothic, full of geegaws and elaborate fretwork. The ceilings are painted to resemble Gothic stone tracery in a manner called trompe l’oeil. The huge stained-glass window above the altar has been painstakingly restored to its original splendor. The smaller stained-glass windows along the sides of the church were remade from scratch. A new organ sits in the loft behind us.
I look at the ceiling and remember the words of Isaiah that are inscribed at the highest arch of the church: “I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house and the place where thy glory dwelleth.” My mother still recites these words every time she enters this building.
“How are you doing?” Ramon asks me.
“Fair,” I say. “When you’re still sleeping with your ex-wife seven years after your divorce, I think you’d agree that things aren’t perfect.”
“I suppose that’s true enough. I take it you aren’t seeing anyone else?”
“Not at the moment. Rosie and I have gone out with other people from time to time. Nothing has worked out for either of us. Somehow, we end up back with each other. It isn’t a great situation.”
“No, it isn’t.” We sit quietly for a moment and he asks, “Do you ever regret your decision to leave the church?”