As he turned the key, he glanced at his wrist. Scrawled there, above the latex glove,
was the alarm code: 4-0-3-1. Like the key, it was obtained from the late Mrs Reyes.
Ray knew after opening the door he had ten seconds to enter the alarm code to prevent
the alarm from activating. He gently twisted the key to minimize the sound of the
lock’s tumblers and opened the door. He saw the blinking green light on the alarm
panel directly across from him. The green light meant the alarm was not activated,
and that he hadn’t needed the alarm code after all. It also meant someone was home,
as he hoped.
Ray stepped inside, leaving the door slightly open, in case he needed to make a hasty
exit. He removed his sunglasses and pocketed them. Then, he drew his 9mm Glock from
under his shirt.
The patio door he had just entered led through a laundry room into the kitchen. The
floor was tiled, and Ray padded softly and slowly to dampen the sound of his footsteps.
Soon, he was through the kitchen and on plush carpet. Now able to move more rapidly,
he navigated the hallway toward the house’s interior.
Ray reached a set of French doors and peered inside. There, seated with his back to
the doors, sat Judge Callen. Ray ducked quickly away.
After peering cautiously for several long seconds, Ray relaxed. It was apparent the
elderly Judge was asleep at his desk, slumped in an expensive-looking leather chair,
in what appeared to be a study. He passed the study and swept the rest of the house,
room by room. Though confident the Judge was alone in the big house, Ray had to be
sure. Attention to detail, that was paramount. Within minutes, he’d ensured there
were no other occupants besides the Judge in the big mansion. He returned to the study.
The Judge was snoring peacefully, his chin on his chest, his reading glasses still
on his nose. His hands were folded over his rising and falling stomach. Next to him
on the desk was a mostly full glass of amber liquid.
Ray lit a cigarette. He picked up the glass and tossed its contents in the Judge’s
face.
“Wake up, Your Honor,” he said, as Judge Callen sputtered to wakefulness. “Court is
now in session.”
The Judge shook his head to clear the liquid from his vision. He looked up at Ray,
his eyes widening. He quickly reached under his sweater.
The Judge’s sudden movement surprised Ray, who reflexively leaped forward and slammed
the slide of his pistol against Callen’s head. The old man toppled to the floor, blood
flowing from a gash over his forehead. He sprawled out and lay still.
Ray leaned down and rolled the unconscious man over. There, in his hands, was a nickel-plated
revolver.
Ray let out a long, smoky breath. That had been close. Sometimes, even with the best
planning and attention to detail, things went awry. The old bastard certainly surprised
him. Who’d have expected the retired old codger to be wearing a gun, safe and snug
in his own study in the middle of the afternoon? Ray put the gun up on the desk.
Ray was disappointed. He wanted to tell the Judge what he was going to do to his daughter.
He wanted the Judge to hear what was in store for her. He wanted to see the Judge’s
face when he learned what awaited his only child.
He looked down at the old man. The pool of blood from his head was growing, but he
could still see the rise and fall of his chest. Ray suspected he might hemorrhage
to death within the hour, but he couldn’t wait that long; he had to be sure.
Ray put out his cigarette and pocketed the butt. He replaced his pistol in his waistband
and removed a guitar string and his extra-thick leather work gloves from another pocket.
He donned the gloves and was looping the guitar string around the Judge’s neck when
the doorbell rang.
He jerked upright from where he’d been leaning over the Judge. The doorbell rang again
and again, and between rings there was an insistent knocking. Drawing his pistol,
Ray raced from the study to a front window. He carefully parted the curtains and glanced
outside.
Parked in the driveway was a cherry-red Porsche. Standing on the porch, he presumed,
was the Porsche’s owner.
The man was short, much shorter than Ray’s own five feet ten, and wearing a double-breasted
pin-striped suit. He had on Italian loafers with no socks, and he had thinning hair
which looked to be dyed. The most striking thing about the man, however, was the two
black eyes he was sporting, along with a strip of surgical tape over his nose.
Ray waited long minutes for the man to go away, but he wouldn’t. Despite getting no
response to his incessant doorbell-ringing and door-pounding, the man continued to
do it. He tried the door handle several times between knocks and rings, and Ray was
certain the man would have entered if the door was unlocked. He reasoned the man must
be a regular visitor or perhaps was expected by the Judge. A relative? The whore’s
boyfriend?
Ray gritted his teeth and swore under his breath. He’d discounted the possibility
of a boyfriend during the months of preplanning and surveillance he’d conducted, but
now wondered if he’d missed something. He’d found no indication of a man in her life.
But then, he was surprised, outraged, and almost killed by the sandy-haired man who
came to her aid. Now here was another man in the picture, the man currently on her
father’s doorstep. Ray nervously wondered what other surprises he hadn’t anticipated
awaited him.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the man left the porch. But to Ray’s chagrin,
he didn’t return to his car. Instead, he walked through the side gate towards the
rear of the house, the same route Ray had entered. Ray suddenly remembered he’d left
the rear door ajar.
Cursing, Ray sprinted from the front of the expansive house, down the hall, past the
study, through the kitchen to the laundry room. He reached the rear door just as it
swung open.
A startled C. Timothy Potter looked up when he saw Ray. Ray barely had time to put
both gloved hands, and his pistol, behind his back as Potter entered.
“Who’re you?” Potter demanded indignantly.
“Uh,” Ray stammered, out of breath and momentarily taken aback by Potter’s bold arrival.
“I’m… uh… here to read the meter. There’s nobody home.”
“If there’s nobody home, how’d you get in? And why didn’t you answer the door? I’ve
been knocking for ten minutes.”
“There’s a gas leak,” Ray lied. “Doing some repair work.”
“Where’s the Judge?” Potter asked. “Where’s Paige?”
“They’re… uh… gone for the day. Due to the gas leak.”
“This doesn’t seem right,” Potter said. His eyes narrowed as he stepped forward and
scrutinized Ray. “Is that a fake mustache?” He puffed out his chest. “I think I need
to see some identification.”
“Identify this,” Ray said. He brought out the Glock and placed the barrel against
Potter’s forehead.
Potter’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped as Ray fired. The deputy DA’s head snapped
back as the 9mm slug tore through his skull. He crumpled to the floor.
At the sound of the shot, a dog began to bark in one of the adjacent yards. Ray looked
over his shoulder, back into the house’s interior, and was about to return to the
study when a man’s voice, emanating from the adjacent yard, stopped him.
“…was that? Sounded like a damned cannon going off.”
Ray looked in the direction of the voice and saw a bald man in Bermuda shorts and
sandals staring directly at him through a gap in the backyard hedges. Potter’s inert
body was clearly visible at his feet. His and the neighbor’s eyes met, and an instant
later, the man was scurrying off, no doubt to alert the police.
Ray needed no further urging. He ran from the rear of the house toward the truck he’d
parked at the end of Dayton Avenue, as front doors opened and people stared. He still
had the pistol in his hand.
It seemed like miles to the truck. Ray jumped in, stashed his pistol, and began to
frantically twist the filed-down master key he’d left jammed in the ignition. On the
third twist, the engine fired up and he screeched out of the neighborhood, heading
south toward the beach.
In less than a minute, he was on Shoreline Drive. He parked along the bike path that
ran parallel to the beach and turned off the engine. He rapidly stripped off his cap,
leather work gloves, PG&E shirt, and mustache, as well as his trousers and boots.
He was wearing a green Oakland A’s T-shirt and athletic shorts underneath. He kept
the latex gloves on. Ray slipped on a pair of tennis shoes and stuffed his tool belt,
clothing, and boots into a small knapsack, which he put on. He clipped the police
scanner to his shorts and inserted the earpiece into his ear.
Ray then nonchalantly got out of the truck and opened the rear camper hatch. He extracted
a bicycle from the bed of the truck and walked it across Shoreline Drive to the bike
path. He mounted the bike and forced himself to pedal slowly along the waterline,
making a point to study the panoramic view of the San Francisco skyline looming over
the Bay. He saw several police cruisers pass him as they raced toward the direction
of the Callen home. As he pedaled, he switched on the police scanner. He blended in
easily with the other bicyclists, pedestrians, joggers, and skaters populating the
beachfront path.
By the time Ray heard the dispatcher’s voice on the scanner, broadcasting the description
of the truck, he was halfway home, cursing his bungled opportunity.
CHAPTER 27
Bob Farrell brought his Oldsmobile to a halt in the Alameda hospital parking lot farther
from the EMERGENCY entrance than he preferred. The lot was already packed with marked
and unmarked police cars. He tossed his cigarette to the pavement and made his way
into the facility.
Farrell had dropped off Kearns at a car rental agency after leaving Judge Callen’s
house with instructions to rent a vehicle. They agreed to meet for dinner later to
discuss their next move. Kearns wanted to get a haircut and go to the Davis Street
shooting range in San Leandro to test-fire the .45 pistol Farrell had acquired for
him. Shortly after leaving Kearns, Farrell heard Judge Callen’s address broadcast
over the police scanner in his car as the location of a possible homicide.
Farrell raced to the Callen home on Dayton Avenue. An ambulance was pulling out, lights
flashing and sirens blaring. He parked a block away and approached on foot. There
were neighbors milling in the vicinity, and several uniformed cops scurried busily
about. He noticed a red Porsche in the driveway. A cop was putting up crime scene
tape around the property. One of the officers in the yard was McCord.
“The fuck are you doing here, asshole?” McCord demanded when he saw Farrell.
“Is the Judge all right?”
“This is a police matter, Mister Private Investigator. You ain’t a cop. This is also
a crime scene. So get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m Judge Callen’s friend. And I’m not in your crime scene, Officer McCord,” Farrell
said, gesturing to the yellow tape and his location outside of it. “I only want to
know if the Judge is all right.”
“Fuck you,” McCord said.
Several neighbors overheard the exchange between Farrell and McCord. A very elderly
woman approached Farrell, giving the uniformed cop a disapproving glare.
“The ambulance took Gene away,” she said. “He looked bad, but he was alive.”
“Thank you,” Farrell said to her. She stuck her tongue out at McCord and returned
to her own yard. Farrell turned to walk back toward his car.
“We ain’t finished,” McCord called after him.
“Speak for yourself,” Farrell said over his shoulder. Halfway to his car, he stopped.
He returned to the woman who had informed him of the Judge’s condition. McCord watched
this in disdain.
“My name’s Bob Farrell,” he introduced himself. “As you heard, I’m a friend of Judge
Callen’s. I was wondering if I could go into your side yard and get a glimpse into
Judge Callen’s property from your fence?”
The woman smiled. “Won’t that piss off that rude policeman with the foul mouth?”
“I’m certain it will,” he said.
“Then help yourself.” Farrell nodded his thanks and headed for her side yard gate.
“Where do you think you’re going?” McCord called out. Farrell ignored him. He navigated
the expansive side yard and went directly to the fence adjoining the Callen property.
He peered over the fence into Judge Callen’s rear yard.
He saw a plainclothes detective and two uniformed cops standing over the body of a
man which lay half in the open back door. The corpse was Caucasian, fat, and wearing
a suit. One of the shoes was off, revealing a bare foot. It was also wearing an exit
wound in the back of the head.
Farrell saw McCord storming into Callen’s backyard from the front, scanning the fence
line for him. When he saw Farrell, McCord came straight toward him.
“I told you to get the fuck out of here,” McCord said.
“We were in the Callen’s front yard when you told me that,” Farrell smiled pleasantly.
“I did what you asked. Do I look like I’m in your crime scene now?”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“If I decide to fuck with you, Officer McCord, you’ll be the first to know.”
Farrell abruptly turned his back on McCord and walked toward the front of the property.
When he emerged from the side yard, the elderly woman who had invited him onto her
property greeted him. She was talking to two other elderly neighbors in hushed whispers.
“Is it true there’s a dead guy in Gene’s backyard?” she asked eagerly.