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Donnie said, “Back at you, Mr. One. Adios. Take care.”
Donnie got into his car and watched through his rearview mirror until One drove off. Then he took the duffel bag and walked up the block and across the street to the car repair shop on Judah Street, which didn’t open for another three hours.
He went behind the garage and picked out a blue Honda Civic, not new, not old, just right. The car wasn’t locked. There were no keys, but he’d been boosting cars since he could walk. This was cake.
He hot-wired the engine. Then he got out of the Civic and changed the license plates to the Colorado ones from One. Passing his Camaro on the street, Donnie waved good-bye to his flashy car and drove the Honda east toward the Bay Bridge.
CHAPTER 43
AFTER CHARLIE CLAPPER had shooed us out of his crime scene, Conklin and I returned to our desks in Homicide, where we spent the morning reviewing Narcotics’ footage of the street in front of Wicker House.
At 2:34 a.m. precisely, before the shooting went down, two men had left Wicker House by the front door. They were wearing street clothes: jeans, a dark jacket on one, a light jacket on the other. One of the men was tall and wide, the other smallish and skinny.
The two men each had a quick smoke outside before bumping fists and getting into their cars.
The skinny one got into a red 2003 Camaro registered to Donald Francis Wolfe. The heavyset guy got into a brown 1997 Buick wagon belonging to Ralph Valdeen. Both men were in their twenties and Wolfe had an arrest record ranging from attempted home burglaries to possession to assault. He had also done time as a juvie for car theft.
As we’d been told, at 3:12 a.m., the surveillance crew had captured a split-second clip of a white panel van with three unidentifiable men inside—one of whom could be seen in the camera-side passenger seat and might have been wearing an SFPD jacket. The van was speeding past the front of Wicker House. Looked like mud had been smeared over the license plates.
We saw that clip for ourselves now, forward, backward, zoomed in, paused, and enhanced, and there was no way at all that we could ID any of the three men in the van, not in that light. SFPD Windbreakers? Maybe. I saw what looked like white letters on dark blue or gray or black.
Clapper had reported that the surveillance camera at the back of Wicker House had been shot out and that no hard drive had been found inside the store, not a computer, nothing.
At about nine thirty this morning, Donald Wolfe’s red Camaro was called in for blocking a driveway on a residential street a block and a half from an auto repair shop. Then the guy who worked in that repair shop reported that a blue Honda Civic had been stolen and that the plates had been left in the backyard, which wasn’t covered by a security camera.
That meant that Wolfe had abandoned the Camaro and was now likely driving a blue Honda Civic with stolen plates.
An APB for the Honda and the Buick had paid off when both cars were sighted on the 101 Freeway just after three.
Conklin and I, with the help of SFPD Traffic Control, located the two vehicles in AT&T Park’s parking lot at half past three. The Giants were playing the St. Louis Cards, and it was a beautiful, sunny-streamy day. The lot was completely filled.
Conklin and I showed our badges and IDs and entered the stadium through the Willie Mays Gate. Even the worst seats in the ballpark had a view of the Bay Bridge, and from where we descended the field box steps, directly behind home plate, we could see the entire ballpark.
At the plate stood St. Louis’s best hitter, Matt Holliday, with the score tied 1–1 in the bottom of the ninth. All eyes were on the pitcher, Tim Lincecum. All except mine and Conklin’s. We had still photos of both Wolfe and Valdeen in our breast pockets. All we had to do was pick those two out from the other forty thousand spectators.
Lincecum dealt Holliday an inside fastball that he lined over third and into the left-field corner. The fans erupted in unison as everyone sprang to their feet. But it was the last my partner and I saw of the game.
Conklin pointed off to our right and about six rows above us to a group of men standing in front of a Tres Mexican Kitchen.
“That’s Donald Wolfe. Dark jacket, Giants ball cap.”
“You’ve got a good eye, buster.”
I wasn’t sure, but by the time we had trotted up the aisle, I saw that it was Wolfe, beyond a doubt.
I approached Wolfe from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. When he spun around, I said, “Donald Wolfe. I’m Sergeant Boxer, SFPD. We need to have a word with you about your recent grand theft auto.”
I put Wolfe against the wall and frisked him. As I dealt with Wolfe, Valdeen threw a wild roundhouse punch at Conklin. Conklin blocked it and Valdeen threw another, putting his full weight into it. This time Conklin ducked, then landed an uppercut to Valdeen’s chin that made the big guy stagger backward into the Doggie Diner stand.
Tin panels rattled. The vendor squawked. Conklin twisted Valdeen’s arms around his back and clapped on the cuffs, saying, “Ralph Valdeen, you’re under arrest for assault on a police officer.”
No one thought either Wolfe or Valdeen was one of the Wicker House shooters, but there was every chance they knew who had executed the seven men inside. If the shooters were Windbreaker cops, we might have a clue that would help us solve the armed robberies of the check-cashing stores and the mercados, and the shakedowns and shootings of drug dealers all over the city.
I couldn’t wait to get these two into the box.
“Hands behind your back,” I said to Wolfe.
That was when he decided to make a break for it.
