Chapter One
I brooded at my living room window, staring down on the panorama of Lake Merritt stretched out at my feet with downtown Oakland’s skyline silhouetted beyond, the stillness of deep night broken only by a solitary jogger laboring along the water’s edge. Behind me the existential angst of a ubiquitous TV police procedural flickered soundlessly, too prosaic and cutting too close to hold my attention. An inch of whiskey remained in the Jameson bottle perched next to an empty tumbler on the living room coffee table. My cell phone vibrated and Antonio Calabrese’s voice hurtled me back into the world.
“Jackson, David Ambrose has been shot. I need you here, at Highland.”
Antonio hung up, not explaining further or waiting for my reply. I tugged on a pair of light-weight hiking boots and threw on my black leather jacket, went out the door. Ten minutes later my boss and best friend threw a huge paw over my shoulder and pulled me into a corner of Highland Hospital’s dingy surgical waiting room.
I took in the peeling institutional green paint, the dirty walls, the worn- and cigarette-burned blond wood and orange cloth furniture scattered around the room. In the midst of a tight cluster of folks near the far door I recognized Mrs. Ambrose, crying loudly in the arms of a huge man in greasy overalls wearing a fierce but caged look on his face. The Right Rev. Wilfred Jenkins hovered over them, murmuring softly in prayer, flashing angry eyes at a knot of white police officers standing around uncomfortably in stiff blue uniforms. Bill Joplin, the sergeant who handled media relations for the Oakland Police Department, nodded distractedly at me in greeting.
Up close in the weirdly green light of the overhead fluorescents, Antonio’s dark bald skull glowed unhealthily, his gray walrus mustache drooping in a deep frown. Ugly lines etched a face that could only be described as haggard.
“What happened?” I tried to sound as though I could fix it.
“OPD shot David. In Clinton Square. There was an arson fire at the furniture factory David’s been organizing in the San Antonio.”
“The sweatshop with the undocumented workers?”
“OPD says David started it…”
“Bullshit.”
Antonio looked grim. “They say David was watching the flames when the fire trucks arrived, acting strange, threatened an officer with a weapon of some sort. Plain-clothes cop shot him in self-defense.”
Anger tightened my face. “How bad?”
“Two in the chest. He’s in surgery. I called you as soon as I got here.”
The last year had taken a toll on Antonio. In the nine months since he’d put me on the payroll of the Longshore Union newspaper, he’d negotiated two major contracts and waged a strike at a shipping company at the Port of Richmond. So far we were 3-and-0, but now Antonio was in the middle of a lockout with a large luxury cruise ship line that wanted their dockside workers to pay sixty per cent more for health coverage. With pressure ratcheting up, Antonio had been leaning on me more and more for trouble-shooting and less and less for article writing. From the feel of the room, I didn’t think I was going to see the keyboard of my laptop any time soon.
“What was David doing there this late?”
Antonio shook his head. “Edna,” he nodded to the weeping Mrs. Ambrose, “is in no shape to talk. David’s been meeting the factory committee after midnight in secret locations. They’re pretty cautious, worried the company gets wind, I.N.S. sweeps in.”
“Anybody else hurt?”
Antonio’s face crumpled in on itself. “There was a full graveyard shift.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Clear him.” Antonio looked at me hard. “Find who’s behind this.”
I turned on my heel and strode over to Sgt. Joplin. He separated slightly from the group of policemen, turned his body so we could talk privately.
“Bill,” I said evenly.
“A bad night, Jackson. Going to be worse before dawn I fear.”
“Your people okay?”
“I hear a couple of fireman got burned, nothing too serious.”
“The factory workers?”
The sergeant shook his head, downbeat, rubbed a weary hand over his pale face. The guy had always treated me right while I worked for the mainstream press, I thought Joplin a decent human being. It didn’t mean the next part of the conversation was going to go well for either of us.
“Who shot Ambrose?”
“I can’t tell you that, Jackson. Not right now. You know that.”
“I want the police report, first thing.”
“Not going to happen.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“Very definitely not going to happen.”
“Look, Sergeant. I know you’ve got a job to do, and you also know that if it was a white cop, in plain clothes, who shot Ambrose…” I let it hang. Joplin looked very uncomfortable. “A respected union organizer, a deacon in the largest black church in Oakland…” I stopped, applied pressure from a different angle. “The union lawyers are going to be all over your boss in the morning, anyway, but if you help now, early, so we can figure out what really happened, maybe they won’t start screaming to the press, too.”
Sgt. Joplin was shaking his head. “No, no, no. This one is going by the book. No special treatment.” He rallied. “And we know what happened. Ambrose torched the building, and resisted…”
“How long are you going to persist with that crap story?”
Joplin looked away towards the wall. I turned and watched the family. The Rev. Wilfred Jenkins was still scowling at the men in blue. He didn’t look on my white face with any favor either. “I’d think about that, Bill, I really would.” I eyed Sgt. Joplin carefully. “Something’s wrong here,” I said in a low voice. “You’re too defensive if you thought this was a righteous shoot.” I changed tactics again. “Who’s the scene commander?”
“Captain Wilson.”
I nodded, inwardly pleased. “Wilson’s good, fair. Call him, tell him I’m coming. Tell him to talk with me, let me look around. The press is already there anyway, right?”
Joplin looked at me finally. “Jackson, I wish I could…”
”Sergeant, you can. Tell him I’m acting under the authority of the union’s attorneys. I won’t mess the scene up.” If Joplin stonewalled me, I was going over anyway. But it would be nice if Wilson felt enough heat to not consider me a mosquito best swatted.
“Can the union keep Rev. Jenkins muzzled?”
“Honestly? No. But we’ll try. Mrs. Ambrose is a strong union member, too. She might be able to, at least in the beginning. Hopefully that’s all we’ll need.”
Joplin nodded once, pulled out his cell phone, and turned away from me. I headed for my car...