14th Deadly Sin Read online

  “This cannot go on.

  “Everyone here, you are all working a piece of this war. Talk to your CIs. Think about things that have been said or done and you looked the other way. I don’t want any crap about never ratting out a brother. One of our brothers was tortured before he and his family were murdered.

  “This was a first in my experience, and I don’t have to tell you that this can never happen again. My door is open to all of you. If you have a clue, even if it involves someone we know and trust, you tell me in private.”

  Brady paced a little in front of the room, then asked if there were any questions. There were none. There were no strangers in our bullpen, just people who’d had our backs for years.

  One of them had left an anonymous note on my desk saying WATCH YOUR BACK.

  Brady went on.

  “Boxer and Conklin are primaries on Wicker House and the homicides of Tom Calhoun and his family. If you’re assigned to those cases, report to them.

  “Swanson and Vasquez are responsible for the mercado and check-cashing robbery homicides, past, present, and future.

  “Whitney and Brand are point men on cases where drug dealers have been shot. Any information about dealers being ripped off or killed by cops, report immediately to me.

  “My cell phone number and private e-mail address are posted in the break room. We’re smart enough to put this trouble down, so let’s do that. Vacations are canceled.

  “That’s all.”

  The meeting broke up, and Brady made his way through the roomful of cops to his office. When Conklin and I reached our desks, I picked up the phone. I called the men’s jail and in just a few minutes had set up a room for a conference with a car thief and former Wicker House stockroom boy by the name of Donald Wolfe.

  CHAPTER 66

  DONNIE WOLFE LOOKED to be in a pretty good mood when he was brought into the interview room in orange jumpsuit and cuffs.

  “Wassup?” he said, sliding into a chair as the guard left the room. He angled around in his seat, getting comfortable, enjoying the attention or maybe just happy to have company. “You making me miss my dinner.”

  Conklin said, “I’ve got some bad news for you, Donnie.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Someone took out your friend Rascal.”

  “Nuh-uh, no, they didn’t.”

  Conklin took his phone out of his pocket and found the photo of Ralph Valdeen lying facedown on his narrow bed, his blood soaking through the baby-blue covers. Conklin put the phone on the table and turned it so that Donnie Wolfe could see the picture.

  For a moment, you could see the young kid in Wolfe. His eyes got big, he drew back—and then, only a moment later, he disguised his shock and took on the cocky scowl of a criminal with aspirations to become a bigger, better criminal.

  “You faked that picture,” he said. “Trying to scare me.”

  “Really,” Conklin said. “You really think we staged this blood and brains on the headboard to shake you up?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Because, Donnie, we don’t need to scare you. You’re in a cell. You’ve got a trial coming up and you’ll be convicted of grand theft and you will go to prison for a long time. You might get out in time to see your unborn baby get married.”

  A long minute passed as Donnie seemed to picture that. Then he said, “Or what?”

  This is one of the things I love about Conklin. He’s a trustworthy dude. His goodness comes through, even to punks like Donnie.

  “Look, we need to know about Valdeen,” my partner said. “Why was he shot and who do you think did it? Help us and we’ll tell the DA you cooperated. That will count at sentencing. I promise you that.”

  A lot of quiet time gathered in the small interview room. I did my best not to fidget as Donnie thought over his options. Then he said, “How am I supposed to help you? I wasn’t there. I don’t know why anyone would do that to Rascal.”

  I had to step in.

  “Donnie. Your friend Rascal Valdeen was executed. You see that, don’t you? He wasn’t shot while holding up a store or stealing a car or screwing someone else’s woman. He was shot in his bed. While he was asleep.”

  “No, nuh-uh, no, no.”

  “Yes. And this is what I’m thinking, Donnie. Ralph knew something and someone didn’t want him to talk.”

  After a long pause, Donnie said, “He might have known something that I don’t know.”

  I pressed on. “Did he know who shot up Wicker House? Do you?”

  Wolfe looked up at the camera, then back at Conklin. He said to Conklin, “Not with that.”

  Conklin left the room and when he came back, the red camera light was off.

  “Go ahead, Donnie,” Conklin said.

  “Cops did that Wicker House deal.”

  “What cops?” I asked.

  “They was cops. Rascal and me, we told this one of them when the drugs were moving out for distribution. It was just supposed to be a heist. We didn’t know they were going to shoot. They didn’t tell us that, I swear on my baby’s soul. I just needed money to go away and that’s all.”

  Real tears were filling his eyes. He wiped them away, and again I saw the kid in him.

  “How do you know they were cops?”

  “They wearing jackets saying police.”

  “That’s all? Did you see a badge? Were they cops you knew?”

  “They talk like cops. They walk like cops. They cops,” Donnie said.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “I only met the one that made the deal with me and Rascal. I hear on the street could be, like, five more in the crew. I told the one that paid me. I say, ‘Watch your ass.’ I say to him, ‘Those drugs belong to the King.’”

  “Kingfisher? And what did he say?”

  “He say, ‘No problem.’ Like, ‘I got this.’”

  Conklin said, “What’s this cop’s name? We need his name.”

  The silence went on for long seconds as Donnie Wolfe thought about his odds if he gave us a name, and his odds if he didn’t. I think it came out as a draw.

  “What does he look like?” Conklin said.

  Donnie shook his head again, then made a decision.

  He said, “Both times I see him, he sitting in a car. White guy, wears a police cap and big shades. You can only see, like, his nose. And it’s just a regular nose.”

  Conklin asked again in his kind, steady voice, “What’s his name, Donnie?”

  “One. That’s what he said. That’s what I call him. Mr. One.”

  CHAPTER 67

  I’D JUST GOTTEN home when I got a call from Cindy. She was at the airport, just back from her book tour, so I invited her and Richie to come on over to our house for Joe’s sausage lasagna.

  A half hour later, Julie was in bed and two of my very favorite people were standing around the kitchen with me and Joe, all of us sampling the fine wine Cindy had picked up at our neighborhood liquor store.

  Cindy was wearing a butter-yellow pullover and jeans and had glittery clips in her curly blond hair. She stood hip-to-hip against Richie, and he had his arm around her. They both looked radiant. I loved to see this. Loved it.

  While I tossed the salad, Cindy told a story about her last stop, at the Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego. A woman had hung back until every one of the thirty people who’d wanted Cindy to sign their books had moved on. Then, said Cindy, “This woman whispered, ‘I have a story I think you’ll want to write.’”

  “Really,” Joe said. “A true story?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  Cindy relayed the woman’s fairly intense tale of a serial polygamist with five wives, each unknown to the other four. The guy posed as a traveling salesman, but in fact was a con man.

  Cindy said, “This woman, Nikki, told me, ‘Benny was the sweetest man you’d ever want to meet. Super-kind. Always attentive. He always made me feel like I was the most important person in the world—Oh. I forgot to say Benny was my fath
er.’” Cindy laughed at the shocked expressions all around her. Then she said, “Nikki said her father disappeared ten years ago and is presumed dead, but his body has never been found. She wants me to write an exposé of her own father and his mysterious disappearance. She wants me to find him, dead or alive, and if he was killed, to find the killer. She’s not asking much, right? But I am thinking about it.”

  Dinner was hot, tasty, and served with plenty of laughs, which I needed. But I was still feeling crappy about my set-to with Wayne L. Broward and couldn’t wait to tell Joe about it.

  I found everything that had happened from the moment I knocked on Broward’s door so embarrassing, I hadn’t even told Conklin. Luckily, Cindy and Rich were eager to take their party home right after dinner. As soon as we’d all hugged and kissed good-bye and I’d checked on Julie, I said to Joe, “I did a tremendously stupid thing today.”

  I told him about my lunchtime visit to Wayne Broward and how I’d let the guy get his gun on me. Joe scowled, and I could feel him winding up to remind me that I had a child now.

  I said, “Please don’t scold me, Joe. I’ve already had some strong words with myself.”

  “I haven’t said anything.”

  “I know. But you’d be within your rights. The guy is wacko. And by that I mean, his mind hardly tracks at all. He could be demented. I can’t see him making a note to kill a woman every year on May twelfth and then doing it and after that, getting away with it.”

  I shook my head, thinking about the house piled high with junk, the way Broward’s mind veered from past to present, and why I was pretty sure he’d never even focused on my badge.

  I said, “I turned my back on him. He had a gun.”

  “Come here,” said Joe.

  I went into my husband’s arms, took a few deep breaths, then pulled him to the sofa and leaned against his shoulder.

  “I’m gonna have to tell Brady and Richie about this guy, and after the arraignment the story is gonna get out. And I’m gonna take some crap for going into the guy’s house on a hunch.”

  “It was a dead end. The wrong tree,” Joe said. “But Tina Strichler’s killer is still out there.”

  “True,” I said. “But I wonder if there really is a pattern to these killings, Joe. Or if linking five separate stabbings to one killer with a mind like a clock is all in our minds. It could just as easily be that there are five different killers with minds of their own.”

  CHAPTER 68

  IT WAS DAY two of the trial.

  Yuki had had a rough night. She and Brady were at opposite sides of the justice system, and the so-called Chinese Wall was in play. She couldn’t talk to him about her case, he couldn’t talk to her about his, and that made conversation forced and sleep barely possible.

  She was at her desk at quarter to eight, and Natalie arrived a few minutes later with coffee. They picked apart Parisi’s opening statement, guessed about what he might be planning to do with their witnesses. Natalie told Yuki not to worry.

  Zac arrived and stopped in the doorway.

  “About a dozen people texted me about your opening yesterday,” he said to Yuki. “Mazel tov. And thanks to both of you.”

  Yuki’s mood lifted and, feeling freshly caffeinated, she drove with Natalie to McAllister Street and parked the car in the underground garage.

  Once in the courtroom, Natalie gave the videodisc to the clerk and joined Yuki at the counsel table. They spoke softly to each other as the courtroom filled. The proceedings were called to order.

  When it was time to present the plaintiff’s case, Yuki rose from her seat, walked past the lectern, and approached the jury box. Today, everything depended on the video.

  She said to the jurors, “Good morning, everyone. When I made my opening statement yesterday, I said you would see portions of the police department’s sixteen-hour interrogation of Aaron-Rey Kordell.

  “I also said that this case is about one thing: whether or not Aaron-Rey was coerced into making a confession. Because if a confession is coerced, it’s not a confession. And if Aaron-Rey didn’t confess, then he should not have been jailed, and if he had not been jailed, he would not have died.

  “I’ve selected portions of the interview to show you, but you’ll be able to read the transcript of the interrogation in its entirety.”

  Yuki told the clerk to play the videodisc. The lights dimmed and the video came up on the flat-screen. Aaron-Rey, heavily built and easily six feet tall, sat across a scarred wooden table from two police officers who introduced themselves as William Brand and Stan Whitney.

  Whitney was in his thirties; he had a close-cropped beard and round, wire-rimmed glasses. He looked more like a science teacher than a narc. From his posture and tone of voice, he appeared to be sympathetic to Aaron-Rey’s distress.

  He said, “Is this how it happened, A-Rey? You got scared? Those dealers. Freakin’ lethal dudes. Armed and dangerous, right? They threatened you and you surprised them, right? You shot them and ran. Because if that’s what happened, you were protecting yourself, and anyone would understand that.”

  Aaron-Rey said, “I didn’t shoot them. I didn’t even know they was shot. I found the gun on the stairs and I thought I could make fifty dollars. That’s wrong because it wasn’t my gun. I’m sorry about that.”

  Whitney said, “Aaron, listen. You don’t have to lie anymore. What you did is all gonna come out. But if you tell us, we can protect you. That’s what you need to do, son.”

  Yuki showed five minutes of Whitney befriending Aaron-Rey, telling him it was safe to confess. “Don’t you want to go home, Aaron-Rey? Don’t you want this to be over?”

  “I want to go home.”

  Whitney passed a piece of paper across the table. He said, “This paper says that we told you what your rights are and that you’re waiving them because you don’t want a lawyer. You don’t want to complicate this, do you, A-Rey?”

  “I didn’t shoot anyone,” Aaron-Rey said.

  Brand said, “Good for you, A-Rey.”

  He handed the boy a pen, and Aaron-Rey signed his name on the line where the detective put his finger. Brand hardly waited for Aaron-Rey to lift his pen before he whipped the paper away and took it out of the room.

  Whitney said, “Feel better now?”

  “No,” said Aaron-Rey.

  Yuki used the remote to fast-forward to hour six, which was the point where Inspector Brand took the lead.

  CHAPTER 69

  THE FOOTAGE ROLLED and the jurors’ eyes focused on Inspector William Brand’s interrogation of Aaron-Rey.

  Brand was on his feet.

  He stalked around the narrow confines of the interview room. He made angry gestures with his arms. At some angles you could see the tattoo on his neck, under his left ear, at the collar line. The tattoo was only an inch square and looked like a cow brand of his initials, WB.

  Brand said to his suspect, “You signed this waiver, A-Rey, saying you didn’t need a lawyer, so now you have to tell the truth. That’s what it means. And if you keep lying, you are going to drown in your own crap. Understand?”

  “I told you the truth,” Aaron-Rey said. He was crying. He put his head down on the table and sobbed into his folded arms.

  “You’re a liar, Kordell,” said Brand. “You make me sick. You’re a big man when you have a gun, but look at you now. A lying sack of shit, the worst kind of person, can’t stand up for what he did. And you should get an award for what you did. Taking out those dirtbags. That’s what you did, didn’t you?”

  “Nooooo,” said Aaron-Rey.

  “You dumb piece of crap,” said Brand. He leaned over and shouted in Aaron-Rey’s face. “I’m trying to help you. Don’t you understand? Tell the goddamned truth and end this. Don’t you want your parents to be proud that you stood up like a man?”

  “I didn’t shoot that gun,” Aaron-Rey sobbed.

  Yuki forwarded the video again. She said to the jury, “This is hour fifteen and forty-five minutes. Aaron-Rey ha
s had three sodas and a bag of chips. He has waived his rights so that he can go home—that’s his understanding, and he has told the truth. But Inspectors Whitney and Brand aren’t buying it.”

  Parisi objected. “Your Honor, the video speaks for itself.”

  “I’ll allow it anyway,” said Judge Quirk.

  Yuki hit Play. The placement of the individuals in the room was the same. Brand had his hands in his pockets. He was pacing, and his anger was undisguised.

  He said, “Last chance I’m giving you to get ahead of this, A-Rey, and then we’re done. You’re going to jail for the rest of your life, or maybe you’ll get the death penalty. Either way, you’re never gonna hug your mama again. Or … you can tell us what happened. You were high. You were confused. You felt threatened. And so you had to defend yourself and shoot those three violent, dangerous men.”

  Brand sat down, pulled his chair right up to Aaron-Rey, and put his hand on the back of the boy’s neck.

  Brand said, “It’s safe to tell us, A-Rey. It’s now or we’re done. I have a family, and I gotta go home. Tell the truth, or the next time I see you, it will be as a witness at your execution. Your moms and pops will be crying, but I’m gonna be saying to them, ‘I told him to tell the truth, but he told me to piss off.’ Is that how you want this to go?”

  Aaron-Rey picked his head up off the table.

  “I can go home after?”

  “Yes. What did I say? Start talking,” said Brand. “Or I’m walking out of here and going home. Unlike you.”

  Aaron-Rey sighed. “Awright. I did it,” he said. “I was scared and so I shot them, awright?”

  “Shot who?” said Whitney.

  “A. Biggy. Duane. Dubble D.”

  Aaron-Rey was crying again.

  “Good man,” said Whitney.

  He looked at the two-way mirror, gave a thumbs-up. Brand opened the door and uniformed officers came into the room and pulled Aaron-Rey Kordell to his feet.