“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.”
“Okay, so moving past Ellen Lafferty, what about Caitlin?” I asked Yuki. “Did she take her father’s gun and shoot him?”
“I’m talking to her court-appointed shrink in, uh, five hours. I’ll let you know what he says.”
I said to Cindy, “I don’t need to say, ‘Sit on this until we say go,’ do I?”
“I haven’t got a story yet anyhow.”
“You sure don’t.” I grinned, slapping her a high five.
Yuki leaned forward and started the engine. Cindy and I reached for our door handles.
Yuki said, “Linds. I’ve been so sure Candace killed Dennis. If Caitlin hadn’t confessed in open court to shooting her father, I think I would have gotten the doctor convicted. It scares me. What if I’ve been wrong?”
Chapter 115
OVERRIDING THE PROTEST from the director of security at Metropolitan Hospital, Conklin and I took the two empty seats at the back of an amphitheater above an operating room.
The room was packed with interns and specialists. Two monitors showed close-ups of the operating table fifteen feet below, and cameras exported streaming video to medical people all over the country who wanted to see Candace Martin perform heart surgery on Leon Antin, a legendary seventy-five-year-old violinist with the San Francisco Symphony.
The patient was draped in blue, his rib cage separated and his heart open to the bright lights. Candace Martin was accompanied by other doctors, nurses, and an anesthesiologist operating the cardiac-bypass machine.
A young intern sat to my right, Dr. Ryan Pitt, according to the ID tag pinned to his pocket, and he was currently bringing me up to speed.
According to Pitt, this
was a complex operation under any circumstances, but even more so because of the patient’s age.
Pitt said, “The surgery is not going to improve his longevity by much — he’s an ASA class four. That’s high-risk. But the patient wanted his chance now that Dr. Martin was available. He just wanted his friend to do the surgery. Only her.”
Pitt explained that in the previous three hours, two of Antin’s veins had been harvested from his thighs and three of four grafts had been implanted into the coronary arteries. Dr. Martin was stitching in the last implant now.
I was staring at the screen above my head when I saw the medical personnel suddenly become highly agitated. Green lines jumped on the monitors below, and Candace Martin began shouting at the anesthesiologist while massaging Antin’s heart with her hands.
I said to the intern, “What is this? What’s going on?”
Pitt spoke pure medicalese, but I got the drift. The patient’s heart was beat-up and worn out, and it refused to work anymore. Dr. Martin was spraying curses all around the operating room, but she wasn’t giving up.
Needles went into IVs. Paddles were applied to Antin’s exposed heart, and then, once again, Candace Martin massaged the heart with her hands, begging her friend to stay with her. Demanding it.
After it was clear, even to me, that the patient wasn’t coming back, a nurse pulled Candace away, and a doctor pronounced the time of the patient’s death.
Candace ripped off her mask and made a rapid and direct line for the door. The video cameras blinked off.
I heard my name, turned toward the exit, and saw the security director beckoning to Conklin and me.
Security said, “Can I see that warrant again, please?”
Conklin took it out of his inside jacket pocket. The security chief read it and said, “Dr. Martin is in the locker room. Please follow me.”
We found Candace Martin still in her bloody scrubs, sitting on a bench, staring at a wall of lockers. I asked her to stand up, and she looked at me as though she didn’t recognize me. Conklin showed her the warrant and told her we were taking her into custody for the murder of her husband.
All the fight seemed to have gone out of her.
Chapter 116
YUKI AND I sat across a small metal table from Candace Martin and Phil Hoffman. Hoffman looked as he always did: contained, dressed for a press conference at a moment’s notice. Candace Martin looked like she’d been dragged by her hair through hell.
I was angry, feeling the calm before an emotional storm, pissed off at myself for the first time since Hoffman buffaloed me into getting involved in this case. But I’d done it, believed Candace Martin’s lies, and if I didn’t want to be patrolling the Mission in a squad car for the next year, I had to make this mess turn out right.
Yuki said, “Dr. Martin, it’s over. We’ve spoken with Caitlin’s shrink. She has recanted her testimony. She said she didn’t kill her father. She said that her father forced himself on her, yes. But she said you did the shooting.
“The People are ready to proceed with your trial, or you can tell us what really happened.”
Hoffman said, “I need to consult with my client. And she needs a little time to get her wits together. She’s suffering a grave personal loss.”
I was almost lit up with fury, the fighting-mad kind that you can control but just don’t want to. I said, “Phil, you have lied to me, your client has lied to me, and she tried to get us to look at an innocent person for murder.
“Ask me how much I care about her personal loss. Not. At. All. This woman killed her husband. She’s cooked, and this is her only chance to make a deal.”
Candace was shaking her head, her face contorted in pain. “You don’t understand.”
I was unmoved.
Yuki said, “Phil. The judge gave us sixty days to determine whether or not the People wish to try your client. This is day fifty-seven. On Monday, we either tell Judge LaVan that the defendant pleads guilty or we go back to trial.
“The children will not be in court, but Caitlin’s shrink will be standing by, and if you so much as hint that Caitlin killed her father, Dr. Rosenblatt will play the tape of Caitlin’s recantation for the jury.
“So, Dr. Martin,” Yuki said, “it’s us or the jury. Take your pick. Honestly, I think your odds are better with us.”
“Candace,” Hoffman said, “it’s your decision.”
“I’m tired, Phil,” she said. And then she was sobbing.
Phil nodded and handed her a tissue.
Candace dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose, and said, “Phil, I’m sorry I lied to you. I did it to protect my children. They don’t have anyone but me.”
“Let’s hear it,” Yuki said.
Chapter 117
CANDACE MARTIN SAID, “You want me to say I shot Dennis? I did. After years of torture, that bastard finally pushed me over the edge.”
“What edge is that?” I asked her.
The doctor’s eyes were flaming red. Her fingers shook and her voice wavered. The composed surgeon I’d met in this room back in October had been swapped out for a woman who still looked like her but was emotionally broken and ready to tell the truth.
“On the night in question, I was in my home office,” she said. “Ellen had left for the evening and a little while later, I heard a muffled shout. It could only be Caitlin. I got up from my desk and ran down the hallway in time to see Dennis coming out of her bedroom.
“He didn’t look right,” Candace said. “He jumped when he noticed me. Then he screamed at me, ‘Don’t sneak up on me like that.’”
“I didn’t even have a chance to answer before Caitlin ran out of her bedroom and into my arms. She was naked. She was flushed and crying and the insides of her thighs were wet. She cried, ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,’ the most savagely sad cries I’ve ever heard.
“She’d been raped,” Candace said, her face radiating horror. “My husband had done this to my little girl.”
Neither Yuki nor I moved or said a word, and then Candace continued.
“I held her and told her that I loved her and always would. I told her to shower and get dressed, that I’d be right back. And then I ran back down the hallway to the bedroom I shared with Dennis — and he was there, stuffing cash into his wallet, and he said, ‘Don’t believe what she tells you. Caitlin lies.’
“Dennis picked up his car keys and left the bedroom,” Candace said. “He had cheated on me for years, but whenever I tried to leave him, he said he would take the children and prove that I was an unfit mother. I knew that he would try. Even though he was never home, even though he was a horrible parent. I knew he would find a way to take them, just to make sure I didn’t get them.
“He must not have heard me come home that evening. He was raping her while I was actually in the house. How could he have done that?
“I hated myself for missing the signs. But I hated Dennis more. I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d done. I ran back to my office and grabbed my gun.”
Candace’s voice ran out and she just sat there, hands propping up her head, staring hard at the table, silent.
Phil went to the door of the interview room and opened it. I heard him ask someone to bring water.
As we waited, I went back over the pictures Candace had painted in my mind. I could see everything as if I’d been there myself and witnessed the horror.
It all rang true, but I still had questions.
Chapter 118
PHIL BROUGHT BOTTLES of water into the room and set them down on the table. Candace’s hand shook violently as she drank down half of one of the bottles. After that, she told Phil that she was all right and wanted to go on. She continued her story of betrayal in the first degree.
“Dennis was heading toward the front door and I was right behind him, screaming at him to stop, calling him names, but he just lowered his head and kept going.
“I had no plan to kill him. You have to believe that. I only wanted to stop him. All I could think abo
ut was that he had raped my child, his own daughter. And I didn’t want him to ever do it again.”
“What happened next, Candace?” I asked.
Candace had fallen down a tunnel of memory. I repeated my question and she returned to her story.
“I was charging after Dennis, but as I passed Caitlin’s room, she ran out to me and grabbed me by the waist again.
“I comforted her, but Dennis kept taunting me. He turned to me in the foyer and said that Caitlin was lying, that her hysteria was make-believe. I knew what he’d done. I knew full well what he had done to my little girl.
“He saw the gun in my hand, and I remembered that I was holding it. I said, ‘Stay where you are. I’m calling the police.’
“He laughed at me. I lifted the muzzle and aimed the gun at him, and for the first time since I’d met Dennis, I saw fear in his face — but only for a second. I shot him twice, once while he was standing, once when he was down.
“Caitlin was holding on to me, screaming and crying, and then Duncan was there, too. He saw his father lying dead on the floor. I put Caitlin aside and swept Duncan up, carried him to the foot of the stairs, and told him to run up to Cyndi’s room and stay there.”
Candace came back to the present and she spoke directly to me.
“Sergeant, it had all become quite clear to me — I had to protect those children. If not me, then who?
“I went to the foyer and picked up the gun. After that, I called nine one one. When the police came, I said that an intruder had broken into the house and had killed my husband. They tested my hands for gunpowder. I told them I had opened the front door and fired after him. They brought me here. You know the rest.
“I’m sorry that it happened this way, but in that moment, I acted on pure instinct. I couldn’t let Dennis live in the same world with Caitlin.”
Chapter 119
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