“You think I can make a baby on demand, Blondie?” Joe said, unbuttoning my pajama top. “You think a guy in his late forties can ‘just do it’? Hmmm?” He unknotted the tie on my drawstring pants and pulled the string as I unsnapped his drawers.
“Because, I think you could be taking me for granted. Maybe even taking advantage of me.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess I am.”
Joe’s hands on my breasts made my skin hot and my blood burn. I shrugged out of my flannels and lowered myself onto him.
“Go ahead,” I sighed. “Try and stop me.”
Chapter 109
IT WAS EARLY DECEMBER, about 10 p.m. on a damned cold night in Pacific Heights. Conklin and I were in an SFPD SUV, miked up, wearing our Kevlar and ready to go.
Six unmarked cars were parked here and there along the intersecting roadways of Broadway and Buchanan. Civilian vehicles provided cover for those of us on the ground.
Above and around us, snipers hid on the rooftops surrounding the eight-story Art Deco apartment building with its white-granite facade.
I’d been staring at that building for so long that I had memorized the brass-etched door, the ornate motifs and appointments, and the topiary boxwood and hedges between the side of the building and the street. I knew every line in the face of the liveried doorman, who was, in fact, Major Case lieutenant Michael Hampton.
There was a NO PARKING ANYTIME, NO LOADING sign in front of the building, and we could see every pedestrian walking past the door or going into the building.
If Major Case’s confidential informant was telling the truth, all of our planning and manpower would culminate in the takedown of a legendary bad guy.
If the CI was wrong, if someone blew the whistle and called the game, there was no telling when, or if, we’d ever get this opportunity again.
I stretched out one leg, then the other, to get the kinks out. Conklin popped his knuckles. My breath fogged out in front of my face. I would have given up half my pension for a cup of coffee, the other half for a chocolate bar.
At half past eleven, just when I thought I’d never be able to walk again, a long Cadillac limo pulled up in front of the apartment building. Adrenaline fired through my bloodstream, chasing out the cramps and the lethargy.
The “doorman” left his post and opened the door for the passengers. They had come from the opera and were dressed accordingly.
Nunzio Rinaldi, the third-generation capo of an infamous mob family, stepped out of the limo, wearing a smart black suit and a silver tie. He offered a hand to his wife, Rita, who had platinum-white hair you could have seen in a blackout. There was a high shine on the limo, and Rita Rinaldi’s jewels sparkled in the night.
As the Rinaldis stepped away from the car and moved toward the lavish vestibule of their apartment building, a slight man in a dun-colored hooded raincoat, carrying a shopping bag and walking a small Jack Russell terrier, rounded the corner.
I saw him only out of the corner of my eye—he was one pedestrian out of many, and there were also cars speeding across my sight line to the doorman. But suddenly the little dog was running free and the man had dropped the shopping bag and pulled a gun from inside his coat.
It happened so fast, I doubted my eyes. Then I saw streetlight glint on the gun barrel.
The gun was pointed at the Rinaldis.
I inhaled and yelled, “GUN!” into my mic, blowing out eardrums all along Broadway.
Chapter 110
AS I YELLED, Lieutenant Hampton lunged for the gunman. Bringing down his arm, he yanked and twisted the would-be shooter around and fell on top of him.
Three bullets were discharged. Pedestrians screamed, but almost before the echoes died, it was all over. The shooter was disarmed and down.
Conklin and I charged across the street and were there before the bracelets snapped shut. I was panting, standing over the hooded gunman as Hampton leaned down and said, “Gotcha, you bastard. Thanks for making my day.”
A few feet away, Rita Rinaldi pressed her bejeweled hands to her cheeks and wailed. She had to be thinking that the men in black had come for her husband.
Nunzio Rinaldi put his arms around his wife and said to Conklin, “What the hell is this? Who is that man?”
Conklin said, “Sorry for the commotion, Mr. Rinaldi, but we had to save your life. We had no choice.”
But I had questions, and maybe I’d get some answers, too.
I ripped off the gunman’s hood, grabbed a thin tuft of silver-brown hair, and lifted his head clear off the pavement.
He looked at me, his gray eyes glinting with amusement, a smile on his lips.
“What’s your name?” I said, although I was sure I already knew. The face matched the fuzzy picture of the man sitting in an SUV with a Candace Martin look-alike.
He had to be Gregor Guzman. Had to be.
I’d read up on Guzman and learned that he was born in Cuba in 1950 to a Russian father and Cuban mother. He’d left home in a stolen fishing boat in the late ’60s, and after landing in Miami, he’d made himself useful to organized guys in the drug trade. Later on, he carved out a career for himself as an independent assassin for hire on three continents.
That grainy picture of Guzman, or someone who looked a lot like him, had launched a fresh search for him. His picture was at airport security checkpoints, on BOLO alerts, in FBI agendas, and on my desktop.
Did we have him?
Was this the man who had met with Ellen Lafferty a few weeks before Dennis Martin was killed? Had Caitlin Martin really killed her father? Or had this hired killer had a hand in Dennis Martin’s death?
“You tell me your name, and I’ll tell you mine,” Guzman said.
“Sergeant Boxer,” I said. “SFPD.”
“Nice to meet you, pretty lady,” the killer said.
Sure. He was going to tell me everything, right here on the street. Hardly. I released my grip on his hair and his head dropped to the sidewalk.
I stood by as Lieutenant Hampton arrested Guzman and read him his rights.
Chapter 111
GREGOR GUZMAN had been charged with the attempted murder of Nunzio Rinaldi, but even if convicted, it wasn’t enough to lock him up forever. That’s why law enforcement agents from Bryant Street to Rio de Janeiro were digging up charges to throw at him, hoping they had enough Krazy Glue to make something stick.
By just after two in the morning, Guzman had a lawyer and had been interrogated by Lieutenant Hampton. When he spoke, it was only to say, “You’ve got nothing on me,” even though he’d been caught with his loaded semiauto pointed at Nunzio Rinaldi.
Lieutenant Hampton wasn’t bothered by Guzman at all.
Hampton had a lot to show for his work. He’d used the intel, set the trap, and had physically taken the hit man down. It looked like a guaran-damn-teed indictment. And now that we had him, we had his fingerprints, his DNA, and the possibility of linking him to unsolved crimes going back thirty years.
But I was more concerned about a crime that had happened just over a year ago.
I knocked on the glass window of the interview room.
Hampton came out to the hallway, ran his hand across the stubble on his head, and said, “Okay, Lindsay, I’m done. I’ll stay with you if you like, and back you up.”
It had been a long month and a longer night, and Hampton was ready to go home to his wife, but he held the door, followed me into the interview room, and said, “Sergeant Boxer, you’ve met Mr. Guzman?”
I said, “Yep, it was a pleasure.”
“Pleasure was all mine,” Guzman said in his oily voice.
“This is Mr. Ernesto Santana. Attorney-at-law,” said Hampton.
I said hello to Guzman’s lawyer, pulled out a chair, and dropped a file folder down on the table. I opened the cover to the short stack of 8 x 10 photos I had brought over from the squad room.
“Who do you have to screw around here to get coffee?” Guzman asked. No one answered.
I sai
d, “Mr. Guzman, we’re charging you with first-degree murder in the death of Dennis Martin.”
“Who?” Guzman said. “Who the hell is that?”
“Dennis Martin,” I said, showing him the ME’s shot of the dead man lying in the foyer of his multimillion-dollar house, blood forming a dark lake around his body.
“I’ve never seen that guy in my life,” Guzman said.
I took out another photo of Dennis Martin. In this shot, Martin was alive and well on a sailboat, his full head of hair blowing back from his handsome features. A pretty redhead by the name of Ellen Lafferty was under his arm.
“Maybe you recognize him alive,” I said.
I thought I saw recognition flicker in Guzman’s eyes. His irises contracted.
“I still don’t know him,” he said. “Look. Ernie. Do I have to sit here, or can I go to my cell?”
I noted the slight Spanish accent, the well-tended hands, the aggression he didn’t bother to hide.
Santana said, “Sergeant, this isn’t evidence. It’s nothing. So, what’s this about? I don’t get it.”
“See if you get it now,” I said. I took out one of Joseph Podesta’s surveillance photos of Ellen Lafferty in a blond wig, sitting in an SUV with Guzman.
The Cuban peered at the picture. Smiled. Said, “Coffee first.”
Hampton sighed. “How do you like it?”
“Con leche,” Guzman said. “No sugar. Served by a topless girl, preferably blond.”
Chapter 112
TEN LONG MINUTES went by. I sat staring across the table at a piece-of-garbage contract killer while the killer looked at me and smiled. Just as I was ready to get him his damned coffee myself, the door opened and a cop came in, put a paper cup of milky coffee in front of Guzman, adjusted the camera over the door frame, and left.
Guzman took a sip, then turned the photo I’d brought so that he could see it better.
“Very bad quality,” he said.
“Not so bad,” I said. “Our software matched it to your spanking-new mug shot.”
“Okay, I was sitting in a car with a lady. What the hell is that? You want to charge me with being heterosexual? I plead guilty as charged to liking girls. Ernie, do you believe this?”
“Let’s hear them out,” Santana said.
“The woman in this picture is Dr. Candace Martin,” I said. “And she paid you, Mr. Guzman, to kill her husband. I think she’ll be happy to identify you and cut a better deal for herself.”
Sure, I was lying, but that was strictly within the law. Guzman called me on it—as I hoped he would.
“That’s not Candace Martin,” he said.
“This is Dr. Martin, Guzman. The widow Martin. We both know who she is.”
Guzman drank down his coffee, crumpled the paper cup, and said to his lawyer, “I didn’t kill Dennis Martin. They’re screwing with me. I’ll tell them what I know about it if they drop the charges in this attempted rubout.”
“Drop the charges? Are you nuts?” I said. “We’ve got a witness to the shooting. We’ve got photographic evidence linking you to the woman who hired you to do the hit. And we’ve got a dead body. And since we’ve got you for the attempt on the life of Mr. Rinaldi, we’ve got time to fill in the blanks.”
“You should be an actress, lady. You’ve got nothing.”
I took back the pictures, closed the folder, and said, “Gregor Guzman, you’re under arrest for the murder of Dennis Martin. You have the right to remain silent, as your attorney will tell you.”
Anger crossed Guzman’s face. He looked like he was going to spring across the table, all one hundred and forty pounds of him. I imagined the punch I’d throw if I had the chance.
“Don’t say anything else, Gregor,” said the attorney, putting a hand on his client’s arm.
“Don’t worry about it, Ernie. This is all crap.”
“So straighten me out,” I said. I clasped my hands on top of the folder.
“I can straighten you out, Sergeant Boxer, but I’m not doing it to hear the sound of my voice. I want this crappy murder charge dropped.”
“We’ll consider doing that if you point us to Dennis Martin’s killer,” I said, “and we can prove who did it.”
“Look. I didn’t kill Martin. You’ll never connect me to that killing, and I’m not going to do your job for you, lady. I’m willing to trade information so that I don’t get wrongfully convicted by an unsympathetic jury. That’s it. That’s what I’m willing to do.”
“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,” Cindy said. “But what do we have to show for it?”
“I think we can eliminate Guzman as a suspect in Dennis Martin’s death.”
“Agreed.”
I said, “Ellen lies as easily as she breathes. If she knew that Caitlin was being molested, what did she do to stop it?”
“Do you seriously think Ellen killed Dennis?” Yuki asked.
“She had the means, the motive, and the opportunity,” I said. “And she’s smart in a vicious, clueless, stupid kind of way.”
Cindy said, “She didn’t have the opportunity to kill Dennis. Her alibi checks out for the time of the murder. Rich and I went to see her last night.
“Ellen told us that she left the Martin house at six p.m.—exactly what she’s maintained since the murder. She texted her friend Veronica from six until she met up with her at six-fifteen. She showed us a record of text messages that fill her window of opportunity.”
Cindy went on, “Ellen’s friend Veronica verifies that they met for dinner at Dow’s at six-fifteen, and the waiter remembers the time, because their table wasn’t ready. And he remembers the two of them because they were hot and flirting with two guys who were sitting next to them at the bar.
“Ellen picked up the bar tab at six-thirty-two,” Cindy said, “and he has her signature on the credit-card receipt.”
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