The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [127]
I didn’t respond at first. I swiveled in my chair, thinking the story over.
“You know what I don’t get and what isn’t in your story, Dahl?” Cisco said.
“What?”
“The part about you hiring those two guys to go after Mick. You left that part out, asshole.”
“What about that?” I added.
Dahl raised his hands in surrender to show his innocence.
“Hey, they told me to do it. They sent me those two guys.”
“Why beat me up? What did that do?”
“It slowed you down, didn’t it? They want Lisa to go down for this and they started thinking you were too good. They wanted to slow you down.”
Dahl avoided eye contact by brushing imaginary lint off his thigh as he spoke. It made me think he might be lying about the reason behind the attack on me. It was the first false note I had picked up during the confession. My guess was that Dahl had been freelancing on the attack, that maybe he was the one who wanted me hurt.
I looked at Bullocks and then at Cisco. My quibble with Dahl’s last answer aside, we had an opportunity here. I knew what Dahl was going to offer next. Himself as a double agent. We’d reach the beach with him feeding Opparizio false intelligence.
I had to think about this. I could easily give Dahl misleading information to take back to Danny Greene. But it would be a risky maneuver, not to mention the ethical considerations.
I stood up and signaled Cisco toward the door.
“Everybody sit tight for a minute. I want to talk to my investigator out here.”
We stepped into the reception area and I closed the door behind me. I walked over to Lorna’s desk.
“You know what this means?” I asked.
“It means we’re going to win this fucking case.”
I opened the middle drawer of Lorna’s desk and took out the stack of delivery menus for local restaurants and fast-food chains.
“No, it means those two guys at the clubhouse? They might’ve been Bondurant’s killers and we fucked things up with that little play in the back room.”
“I don’t know about that, Boss.”
“Yeah, what did your two associates do with them?”
“Exactly what I told them to do, drop them off. They told me later that both of them wanted to be left off at some bottle club in downtown. That was it. I mean it, Mick.”
“It’s still fucked up.”
With the menus in my hand, I headed toward the door to my office. Cisco spoke to my back.
“Do you believe Dahl?”
I looked back at him before opening the door.
“To a point.”
I went into the office and put the menus down in the middle of the desk. I took my seat again and looked at Dahl. He was a weasel always on the make. And I was about to go down the path with him.
“We shouldn’t do it,” Bullocks said.
I looked at her.
“Do what?”
“Use him to feed bad intel back to Opparizio. We should put him on the stand and make him tell the story to the jury.”
Dahl immediately protested.
“I’m not testifying! Who the fuck is she, saying how this—”
I raised my hands in a calming gesture.
“You’re not testifying,” I said. “Even if I wanted you to I couldn’t get you on the stand. You have nothing that directly connects Opparizio to this. Have you ever even met the man?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen him before?”
“Yeah, in the court.”
“Before that.”
“No, and I had never even heard his name until Danny asked me about him.”
I looked at Bullocks and shook my head.
“They’re too smart to leave a direct link out there. The judge wouldn’t let him anywhere near the stand.”
“Then what about Danny Greene? We put him on the stand.”
“And what do we use to compel him to testify? He’d take the Fifth before we even got to his name. There is only one thing to do here.”
I waited for further protest but Bullocks was finally and sullenly silent. I looked back at Dahl. I disliked the man intensely and trusted him about as much as I trusted that he had his own hair. But that didn’t stop me from taking the next step.
“Dahl, how is contact initiated with Danny Greene?