The 8th Confession - James Patterson [64]
Conklin pushed on. “So let me get this straight. Booker was cooking meth in his house?”
“He was for a while, but it was dangerous.”
Sammy sighed long and loud, remained silent for a few seconds, then resumed.
“My whole life dried up when Bagman died. Now my freaking parents are ‘cleaning me up.’ You know what it’s like to drop down a well? That’s my life. I’m going out of my mind.”
“ Uh-huh,” Conklin said. I admired his tenacity. “You told Cindy Thomas that you know who killed Bagman —”
“I never said that.”
“Sergeant?” Conklin said.
“We have enough,” I said, standing up, putting on my jacket.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Conklin said to Sammy. “Anything you say can and will be used against you —”
“You’re arresting me?”
Sammy stiffened as Conklin got her to her feet, clamped the cuffs around her wrists.
“I want my phone call,” she said. “I want my father.”
Chapter 84
SAMMY’S FULL NAME was Samantha Pincus, as we found out when her father blew into the squad room like a winter squall.
Neil Pincus was a lawyer who worked pro bono for the down-and-out habitués of the Mission District, where he and his brother had a two-man law practice in the same building that housed From the Heart.
I sized Pincus up as he stood over me at my desk and demanded to see his daughter. He was five ten, a taut 160, late forties, balding, and his scalp was sweating from the steam that was shooting out of his ears.
“You’re holding my daughter for something she said without counsel present? I’m going to sue you each individually and I’m going to sue the city, do you understand? You didn’t read her her rights until she indicted herself.”
“True,” I said. “But this wasn’t a custodial interrogation, Mr. Pincus. Her rights weren’t violated.”
“Sam didn’t know that. You terrified her. What you did was tantamount to torture. I’m a heck of a victims’ rights lawyer, and I’m going to send the two of you to hell.”
Jacobi was watching from behind the glass walls of his office, and twelve other pairs of eyes in the squad room were cast down, sneaking peeks.
I rose to my full five-foot-ten, plus two inches for my shoes, and said, “Take it down a few notches, Mr. Pincus. Right now this is just between the four of us. Help your daughter. Get her to cooperate, and we won’t book her.”
Pincus grunted in disgust, nodded, then followed us to the interrogation room where his daughter was waiting, hands cuffed in front of her. Her father squeezed her shoulder, then wrenched a chair out from the table and sat down.
“I’m listening.”
“Mr. Pincus, by her own admission, your daughter is a junkie and a dealer,” I said. “She was involved with Rodney Booker, also known as Bagman Jesus, now violently deceased. Samantha was not only selling crank for Booker but she told a very credible source that she knows who killed him. She’s a material witness, that’s why we’re holding her, and we need her to tell us who Booker’s killer is.”
“I’m not admitting she was dealing,” Pincus told us, “but if she was, she’s not doing it now and she’s not using either.”
“Well, everything’s fine, then,” I snapped.
“Listen, her mother and I are on her. Early curfew. No cell phone. No computer. She volunteers in a soup kitchen so she can see how bad life can get — and she works underneath my office.”
Pincus lifted his daughter’s cuffed wrists so I could see her watch. “It’s a GPS. She can’t go anywhere without me knowing. Sam has become a model of sobriety. I give you my word.”
“Is that all, Mr. Pincus?”
Samantha wailed.
“Where’s your decency?” Pincus spat. “Booker was scum. He was dealing to kids who sold to kids. Not just to my daughter but to other girls. Many good girls. We reported him.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I demanded.
“The Fifth Street Association. Look it up. I filed a complaint on behalf of the association in February, and again in March. Again in April. The cops did nothing. We were told, ‘If you don’t have proof, fill out a form.’ ”
“You own