A Criminal Defense by Steven Gore Read Free Book Online Page A

the floor, visible in the inch-wide gap between the washer and dryer, and then said to the person on the other end of the call, “I think we may have found the crime scene. Let’s get some people over here.”

Chapter 7
    D onnally didn’t know whether Hamlin’s apartment was the crime scene or not, but needing the techs to go through it freed him to return to Hamlin’s office.
    A uniformed officer was waiting for him at the building entrance on McAllister Street with a printout of Hamlin’s cell phone calls for the last two weeks.
    â€œWhat did Mark use to keep track of contacts?” Donnally asked Takiyah Jackson as he walked into the reception area.
    Another officer sat along the wall opposite her desk with views both into the conference room where files were stored and into Hamlin’s private office. Donnally wanted all the cabinets guarded until he could install locks to keep Jackson out of them.
    Jackson pointed at her monitor. “His e-mail program and his cell phone.”
    â€œWere they synced?”
    She nodded.
    â€œHow about getting me into it?”
    Jackson leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t you need a search warrant for that?”
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    She chewed at her lip. Donnally could see that she was torn between what Hamlin would’ve said to protect a client—whether it was well-founded in the law or not—and what Hamlin would’ve said in order to help catch his own killer.
    Donnally then remembered what Navarro had said about a folie à deux and what Janie had once told him about how it operated. When the dominant person is gone, the submissive one tends to break free from the grandiose or persecutory delusion they had shared and that had bound them together.
    â€œI guess you don’t need a warrant,” Jackson said, then rose and led him into Hamlin’s office, where she turned on his monitor and activated his e-mail program. She returned to her desk as he sat down in Hamlin’s chair.
    It took Donnally half an hour to compare the telephone numbers from Hamlin’s call log with his contacts. He found matches for only about a third. He wondered whether any of those whose names he’d identified so far would turn out to be the source—or sources—for the hairs he found in Hamlin’s shower.
    Now he was ready to question Jackson about who Hamlin might have been talking to or meeting with during the last days. He hadn’t wanted to start that line of questioning until he had something to compare her answers with. Her knowing he’d looked at both Hamlin’s contact list and his calls would make it harder for her to lie. She’d assume that he knew more than he actually did, a mistake witnesses with something to fear or hide nearly always made.
    Donnally noticed the icon for Hamlin’s appointment calendar and then drew another fine line. He didn’t have any basis yet for invading privileged attorney-client material, for engaging in the fishing expedition that the judge had warned them all against. At the same time, the fact that Hamlin had met with someone couldn’t be considered privileged, only the content of the consultation, the he-said, she-said of the case. Based on that distinction, Donnally accessed Hamlin’s list of recent appointments and printed it out.
    Donnally saw that Hamlin used his calendar to track not only client meetings, court appearances, and motion due dates, but also personal lunches and dinners and political meetings.
    While looking through the names of the people Hamlin had met with, Donnally realized that his having moved north so many years ago was a disadvantage. A local might’ve recognized many of the names he had in front of him now and others that he would come across.
    On the legitimate side, he didn’t know who was now on the board of supervisors, who had the confidence of the mayor, who were