14th Deadly Sin (Women's Murder Club 14)

“Aaron-Rey was hanging around at a crack house for the same reason anyone goes to a crack house. He used drugs. He didn’t just go there after school. He went there instead of going to school. At least, he did most days.

“And I have to say, Ms. Castellano has no idea whether Aaron-Rey picked up the murder weapon on the stairs as he was leaving the crack house, or whether he picked up the gun inside the crack house, or whether someone gave him a few bucks and told him, ‘Here’s a gun, Aaron-Rey. Shoot those dudes,’ so that’s what he did. I think the crack house closed-circuit TV cameras were down that day.”

The jurors laughed. Yes, he was winning them over.

Len continued, “No one has come forward to say that they saw what went down inside that crack house, and no one ever will. I will agree with Ms. Castellano that a gunshot residue test was not performed on Aaron-Rey. That was a mistake. But what Ms. Castellano didn’t tell you is that the bullets that killed those three men came from the gun in Aaron-Rey’s pants.

“We will put the gun into Mr. Kordell’s hand, and there will be no question at all, no dispute, that he had the gun in his possession. He had the murder weapon on his person. He ran. And he told the officers who pulled him in that he had not killed three people in the drug house, and then he named them.

“The police officers asked him where he got the gun, and he said he found it. And they found three dead men and they arrested Aaron-Rey Kordell—of course they did. That was their job.

“So, you might ask, how did Aaron-Rey get that gun? Well, he’s not around to tell us now, and it doesn’t matter how he got it. It was the murder weapon, and when he had the chance to tell us wh

at happened in that crack house, he told the narcotics investigators that he killed A. Biggy and Duane and Dubble D.

“But this trial is not about where the gun came from or who shot those drug dealers. It is also not about who killed Aaron-Rey Kordell.

“As Ms. Castellano said, this trial is only about one thing: Did Inspectors Stanley Whitney and William Brand from Narcotics coerce Aaron-Rey into making a false confession?

“We say they did not.

“Did they use legitimate interview techniques? Yes, they did. Did they lie? Very likely. An interview in a police station is like a lying competition where both parties lie and bluff and do whatever they can to get the other party to believe them.

“It’s legal for police to lie.

“And when we show you clips from the interview, you are going to see that this young man was cool, calm, and collected and that he confessed to murdering three men.

“So when he confessed, Inspectors Brand and Whitney put him in jail, where he belonged, because killers shouldn’t be loose on the street.

“Aaron-Rey was in jail awaiting his speedy trial, as was his right as an American, when an incredibly unfortunate incident happened.

“And we’re sorry for the pain of Aaron-Rey’s family.

“But Aaron-Rey’s death was not the fault of the San Francisco Police Department.”

CHAPTER 59

THE FUNERAL OF the Calhoun family was held at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma. It was one of the most emotionally devastating events I’d ever attended.

Marie Calhoun’s father, Tom Calhoun’s father, the boys’ Little League coach, and their homeroom teacher all gave eulogies. The SFPD was also represented at the service by Chief Jacobi, Sergeant Phil Pikelny from Robbery, and Inspector Ted Swanson, who choked out a few words about “what a good kid” Calhoun had been.

Hundreds of cops in dress blues packed the chapel and spilled outside, many of them crying, and they formed a thick blue wall behind the broken family at the graveside, where four caskets, two of them child-size, were slowly lowered into the ground.

The pervasive grief was cut with anger that these hideous, nauseating deaths had happened—and had happened to a cop and his family.

I’d hardly known Calhoun, but I vividly remembered his optimism that morning at the check-cashing store where three copycat Windbreaker cops had been gunned down by passing patrolmen.

And that thought nagged me and wouldn’t quite let me go.

Finally, the funeral was over.

Conklin and I climbed up into his Bronco and crept along with the traffic moving out of the cemetery. We slowly passed the block where my mother was buried and then the place where Yuki’s hilarious mother, Keiko, had been laid to rest. Washed over by images of so many other funerals, we left Colma and took 101 back to San Francisco.

When we were within the city limits, I wanted to hit a saloon, a quiet one where old barflies would be watching a ball game and where no one knew my name. I wanted time and space to get my feelings under control before I went home to my family.

But Conklin said, “I want to look at the Calhoun house again.”

“Why, Rich?”