The 5th Horseman - James Patterson [93]
Chapter 133
IT WAS AFTER 9:00 P.M. when Jacobi and I brought Dennis Garza and Maureen O’Mara into the squad room, both of them in handcuffs.
“How the mighty have fallen,” cracked Jacobi.
I was bone tired, scraping the bottom of my energy reserves, but elation kept me going. Dennis Garza was in custody, charged with reckless endangerment, possession of a deadly weapon, obstruction, and suspicion of murder.
He wasn’t killing people at Municipal Hospital.
And he wasn’t sunning himself on a beach in Rio.
O’Mara had been charged as an accessory after the fact, but we were bluffing and she knew it.
We had no evidence whatsoever that O’Mara had witnessed a crime or had even seen the blood in Garza’s house.
Twenty minutes after we brought them in, O’Mara was calmly reading a book in her cell, keeping her mouth shut, waiting for one of her law partners to bail her out of jail.
But we weren’t finished with her yet.
I still felt a little shaky and weak in the knees. I went to the bathroom, washed my hands and face in the old porcelain sink. Ran my damp hands through my hair.
I remembered the last time I’d eaten, the granola bar I’d bolted down after Noddie Wilkins called to tell me that Jamie Sweet had died.
All of that seemed like a week ago.
I rejoined Jacobi in my office and had just ordered a meatball pizza, extra large, when Sonja Engstrom returned my call.
She, too, was pulling a late night at her office in the hospital.
“We’re going through the dispensary computer’s history, byte by byte,” she said in her crisp, self-assured tone. “The hospital is completely invested in getting to the truth.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“If Dennis was screwing with the computer system, he’s a killer and he was acting alone. The police can have him,” she said. “We’re happy to help.”
We still had no proof that Garza had killed anyone at Municipal. I wished we could subpoena the hospital’s computer records ourselves, but I knew what the DA would tell me.
You want us to scrutinize three years of Municipal’s computer records? With what staff, Lieutenant? We don’t have the time, the money, or the manpower to go fishing.
But with the hospital backing her up, maybe Engstrom could pin a tail on our killer.
I said, “Sonja, for God’s sake don’t burn, shred, alter, or delete anything. Call me if you detect a pattern or find anything I can take to the DA. Please.”
I’d just wished her good luck when the next call came in. It was Conklin. His voice was triumphant, almost giddy.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m looking at Garza’s car.”
Chapter 134
I LEANED FORWARD in my seat, slapped the desk to get Jacobi’s attention. I put Conklin on the speakerphone.
“Garza’s Mercedes is in the Park ’n’ Fly lot,” Conklin told me. “We haven’t touched it.”
“Excellent. What do you see?”
“Car’s clean and empty, Lieutenant, except for a newspaper on the floor of the passenger side. The doors and trunk are locked.”
“Stay where you are. Don’t touch anything,” I said to Conklin. “We’re doing this a hundred percent by the book.”
I still had friends in the DA’s office, and I found one who was young, persuasive, and not afraid to call a judge after the dinner hour. Forty-five minutes later, I had a search warrant in my hand.
I called Conklin.
“Open up the trunk,” I told him. “I’ll hold while you do it.”
I heard Conklin talking to McNeil in the background, the metallic crack of a crowbar snapping the trunk lock, McNeil barking, “Oh, shit. Goddamn it.”
“Conklin? Conklin?” I was gripping the edge of my desk, white-knuckled by the time Rich got back on the line. He was breathing hard.
“There’s a frickin’ body in the trunk, Lou. Wrapped up in a quilt.”
I stared at Jacobi, not having to say what I was thinking because I knew he was thinking it, too. The missing body had turned up. But whose body was it?
“You checked for a pulse?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. He’s dead. White male. Brown hair. Looks to be in his thirties.