10th Anniversary - James Patterson [83]
“Okay. Done,” I said to Guzman. “Tell me what you’ve got, and if I like your story, I won’t charge you.”
Santana said, “Sergeant, no offense. If you want Mr. Guzman to give you information leading to the arrest of this man’s killer, we want an agreement in writing. From the DA.”
“It’s two-thirty in the morning,” I said.
“Take your time,” said the lawyer. “We can wait.”
My dad used to say you have to “strike while the iron is hot.” Well, my iron was sizzling.
“I’m here and you’re here,” I said. “I’ll rouse someone from the DA’s Office.”
Chapter 113
YUKI ANSWERED HER PHONE on the first ring.
“He’s primed and the grill is hot,” I said. “You’re going to want to hear this.”
“Just marinate him a little. I’m bringing my appetite,” she said.
An hour later, I brought ADA Yuki Castellano into the interview room on the third floor of the Hall.
Ernesto Santana stood and shook her hand, and Lieutenant Hampton did the same. Guzman groused to Yuki, “You seriously work for the DA? How old are you? Twelve?”
“Old enough to have been certified in spotting bull,” she said. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
I took the photos out of the folder again, and Guzman said, “This girl — I don’t remember her name — she’s the one who tried to hire me. She’s connected back east. She contacted me through channels. I said I’d meet her.
“She was wearing a blond wig,” he went on. “I know because I saw long red hair coming out the back of that thing. She brought an envelope of small bills, tens and twenties. About a thousand bucks. She wanted me to take out the doctor. Candace Martin.”
“You’re saying she ordered a hit?”
“Yeah. She brought money and a picture.”
I found Guzman more believable than I’d found Ellen Lafferty, who’d insisted she’d been doing an errand for Dennis Martin. That she didn’t know who Guzman was. That she didn’t know what was in the envelope.
“Go on,” I said.
“I said to this chick, ‘Thanks, but you’re crazy. I don’t know where you got my name from, but this is not exactly my line of work.’”
“Okay, Mr. Guzman. We’ll check out your story.”
“Check it out?” he said. “Check out what? You think that bitch is going to admit to wanting to have the doctor whacked? Candace Martin is alive, right? What more proof do you need?”
“Ms. Castellano,” I said. “Have you got enough to charge Ellen Lafferty with solicitation of first-degree murder?”
“I do, indeed,” she said. “And I’ll be following up on that in the morning. Mr. Santana, I’ll shelve the murder charge against your client for now. Sleep tight, Mr. Guzman.”
Chapter 114
YUKI AND I left the Hall together in silence. We briefly clasped hands in the elevator, then walked out to Yuki’s Acura parked outside the ME’s office. We got into her car and sat staring out at the dim streetlight in the parking lot.
I was thinking that I’d gone way over the line. That Brady was going to nail my hide to the squad room door if this plan of mine didn’t pay off, and maybe even if it did. I’d gone above, around, and behind my superior in investigating the Martin case, and saying “I was working on my own time” sounded lame, even to me.
Yuki was lost in her own thoughts.
I was about to break the silence and ask her to talk to me, when a car door slammed on the far side of the lot. I looked over my shoulder.
“Okay, she’s here,” I said.
A minute later, the back door opened and Cindy slipped into the backseat.
“I can’t believe Richie let you out at four in the morning,” Yuki said.
“Let me? Very funny. What have we got?”
I filled Cindy in on the fake charge we’d dropped on Guzman for the murder of Dennis Martin, and I told her what he’d told us: that Ellen Lafferty tried to hire him to kill Candace Martin and that he’d kicked young Ms. Lafferty to the curb.
“He was credible?”
“He was motivated to be credible.”
“Nice work, Linds,”