“Look, if you’ve got something you want to say, something you want to tell us, you need to waive your right to an attorney. Otherwise—”
“Didn’t I say ‘screw a lawyer’?” His eyes darted back and forth between them, shooting out genuine fear. “I waive that shit then. Blackmail, my ass.”
“Okay, the record shows you’re waiving your right to an attorney and want to talk. You showed Ms. Dupont and Mr. Sparks photographs you’d taken of them in some very compromising positions.”
“That’s right, that’s right. With Sparks’s camera, for Christ’s sake. Do you think I could afford one of those long lenses? Do you think I could’ve gotten inside the walls of that big-ass estate without him setting it up?”
Michaela didn’t miss a beat, just cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Jesus, he expects us to believe Sparks set all this up? We’re wasting our time on this one, Sheriff.”
“He did! It’s what he does, it’s his game. He hits up rich women. He hits them up for loans, big-ticket gifts, cash, whatever. He’ll honeypot them for more if he figures he can squeeze them.”
“And you know this how?” Red asked.
“Maybe we ran a few together. It’s not the first time he’s tapped me for a game.”
“Now they’ve worked together.” Michaela kicked back, yawned. “Sparks makes good money as a PT for wealthy clients. Why would he risk that to hook up with a second-rate grifter like you?”
“Look, bitch—”
“Now, now,” Red said mildly. “Language.”
“He’s got the style, okay? That’s his gig. Sex, style, finding women who want some of both. Sometimes he wants somebody to hit the mark with photos. That’s me. You squeeze a few thousand, and you move on.”
“A few thousand? You were hitting for ten million.”
“Ten—” Everything about Denby went dark, went ugly. “That son of a bitch. He said two. We’d split two. Biggest take ever. He had the woman wrapped. He saw how it was. The kid wasn’t a big deal to her—but the kid was a really big deal with the father. And the father, he had the money. A hell of a lot of money. The fucking Hollywood Sullivans, right?”
He patted his chest. “Can I get a smoke?”
“No.” Red just smiled. “Keep going.”
“He says we’ll go for the big one, the kind you retire on. I’m not kidnapping some kid, that’s what I say. I mean whoa. But he’s, like, he can get the blonde to set it up. If she balks, we walk. But if she bites, we’re in.
“She bit.” He leaned forward. “It’s, like, I hit Sparks first, and he has to go to her, tell her. We meet up—she wears a wig, for Christ’s sake, big sunglasses. Like anybody gives a rat’s ass. I show the shots, she gets hysterical—‘What’ll it take? You can’t sell these. My career, the press!’ So I get how Sparks had it right. It’s all about her, and that makes it easy. I say, like me and Sparks set up, how I’ll let her know what it’ll take, and it won’t come cheap.”
“You didn’t directly demand the ten million?”
“No. Man, he said it was for two, so I say how I want two. They played me,” he muttered, bitter. “Played me for a mark, went for ten. I figured she could get two, sell some shit or whatever, but he comes to me, says she can’t get it, and how he talked her into using the kid. How she jumped on it.”
He squirmed in his chair. “Look, if I can’t get a smoke, can I get a Mountain Dew or some shit?”
“Finish it out, and we’ll fix you up.”
“Jesus, don’t you see? He set me up. They fucking set me up. I’m not going down for all this. They worked out how to get the kid. He said she had the perfect time and place because they were having the party deal for the old man—the dead one—up in Big Sur. It’ll be easy and slick. She knew about the house where we could keep her, that it was going to be empty. She knew it would be because they’d be out of town and wouldn’t be coming to the party deal, got it?”
“Yeah.” Enjoying himself, Red put his feet up on the table. “We’re following you.”
“I didn’t snatch the kid. Sparks did. The blonde set up where, and he dosed the kid, loaded her up into one of those serving cart deals—with the storage? Into a van—we fixed it up like one of the catering deals—and just freaking drove away with her inside the damn van.”
“How did the blonde set up where?” Michaela asked him.
“How the hell do I know? The two of them huddled about the details, right? I’m just supposed to get the room ready, get it, you know, secure, load in some supplies. I’m just babysitting, get it?”
“Did those supplies include masks?”
He squirmed again. “We don’t want her to see our faces, right? Better all around. And I bought those damn masks out of my own pocket. Same with the food and stuff. I’m supposed to get paid back for it out of the take.”
“Looks like a bad investment for you,” Red commented. “Then again, you did a lousy job at babysitting.”
“Who’s gonna expect the kid to climb out the window? Makes a rope out of frigging sheets. Uses a damn spoon like a crowbar to pull the nails out of the window lock. Who expects that? Sparks beat the shit out of me like it’s my fault.”
He leaned forward. “What I’m saying is Sparks came up with the whole game, he’s the one who brought the blonde in, and got plenty of sex out of it. The two of them worked out the details—and were goddamn cheating me all along. All I did was watch the kid.”
“You were practically an innocent bystander.”
Denby pointed at Michaela as sarcasm sailed over his head like a kite in a summer breeze. “Damn right.”
“Okay, Frank.” Red shoved a notebook and pen across the table. “Write it out, and don’t spare the details. We’ll see about that Mountain Dew.”
By the time they’d finished with Denby—because he didn’t spare the details—Red wanted a beer and a bed, in that order.
But he calculated the timing, and the fact Scarpetti loved playing the media like a fiddle.
He didn’t know Mark Rozwell, the lawyer Sparks pulled in—and who was even now consulting with him. But he had to figure more media playing.
The more they nailed down before the morning news, the better.
Once again he dug into his supply of Cokes when he called Michaela into his office. “You’re racking up the OT, Mic, and I’m going to ask if you’re up for more.”
“I can handle it.”
“I believe you can.” He tossed her the Coke. “We have to figure Scarpetti’s going to call a press conference in the morning, do what he can to put Dupont in the light of a victim. The only reason I give two shits about that is it’ll release the fucking kraken on the Sullivans, that little girl.”
“So we get all we can get from Sparks, like we did from Denby, so he can’t play into that before we do.”
“That’s the way.”
“Do you think Dupont was in on the whole thing?”
“I’m fifty-fifty there. I’ll weigh that again once we talk to Sparks. Right now, I’m going to do a run on his lawyer to give us a sense of what we’ve got here.”
“I already did.”
He sat, tipped back in his chair. “You’re an eager, enterprising soul, Mic.”
“Just a cop. I Googled him, too, just to fill it out. California native, forty-six, married, one kid and one on the way. Did his law thing at Berkeley. He’s worked at Kohash and Milford for ten years, and made full partner three years ago. He’s a high-priced trial lawyer with a solid rep.”
She took a long swallow of Coke. “He’s a good-looking guy, and the camera loves him. He’s not afraid of talking to the press. He’s also written a couple of legal thrillers, but it doesn’t look like John Grisham has to look over his shoulder.
“And Sparks is his personal trainer.”
“There it is.”
“There it is,” she agreed. “No criminal on the run. Has a house in Holmby Hills, a beach house in Oceanside. He drives a Lexus, as does his wife—she’s a fr
eelance script doctor.”
Red waited a beat. “That’s it? You didn’t get his shoe size, his political affiliation?”
“Registered Independent. I’d have to dig a little more for the shoe size.”
He laughed. “Okay, I see we play this cards on the table. The man’s got a rep, doesn’t sound like an idiot, and has a law firm’s rep to uphold. The guy’s his trainer, not his brother, not his best pal. We’ve got him cold.”
“You want to lay groundwork for a plea deal.”
“I want that son of a bitch to live the rest of his life in San fucking Quentin, Mic. That’s my personal want. And I have to hope I don’t get it, because the idea of putting that kid—and the family, but that kid—through a trial just makes me sick.”
Because her thoughts, her wants, ran the same, Michaela nodded. “I hate thinking he’ll walk out one day, that all three of them will. But I feel the same as you do on this. Even so, it’s not up to us.”
“State’s attorney will take twenty to twenty-five. We’ll see if they do. Our job is to lay it out, make sure the lawyer understands the preponderance of evidence, and Sparks knows in his guts he’ll face life, no parole.”
“Got it. I’ll ask the lawyer if they’re ready to talk to us.”
It took another twenty minutes, but Rozwell agreed to the interview. Since it wasn’t Red’s first day at the beach, he figured Rozwell assumed they’d all do a first pass, gauge the opposition, and restart in the morning.
Michaela had it right about Rozwell—a good-looking guy with a five-hundred-dollar haircut that allowed just a hint of silver at the temples, just a few strands of it through his dark brown hair. Dark brown eyes, smart, savvy. Clean-cut and handsome with a trim body.
But he paled against Sparks and his movie star gloss. Even a few hours in a cell, even the orange jumpsuit didn’t dull it. Gilded sun-streaked hair with just a hint of curl fell thick around a golden tanned face with carved features—the cheekbones, the heavy-lidded brown eyes, the full mouth.
And all that on top of a sleek, muscular build.
He played it—because in Red’s estimation of Sparks and his type, everything was a role to play—nervous, anxious, with no anger and just a hint of remorse and sorrow.
Red sat, turned on the recorder, read the necessaries in.
“Sheriff, Deputy, first, I appreciate you meeting with us tonight. I understand you’ve put in a very long day.”
Rozwell’s face stayed sober, his voice smooth. “At this time I’d like to inform you that I intend to file a motion for dismissal in the morning on a number of the charges made against my client. While my client is appalled at the part he inadvertently played in these events, any minor participation came at the behest and request of the minor child’s mother, and with the belief said minor child was being abused by her father. As he was unaware of Ms. Dupont’s scheme to extort from the Sullivan family—”
“Sorry, can I just stop you there?” He kept all the affable, just a county sheriff in his voice. “No point in wasting your time. Long day for you, too. So let me put some of that to rest. We have Charlotte Dupont’s written statement, Frank Denby’s written statement.”
He smiled at Sparks as he said it. Red had been very careful to keep those arrests, interviews, deals under his hat. “There’s direct corroboration in those statements, and evidence in hand supports that. As does the statement of the minor child.”
“It’s Mr. Sparks’s contention that Ms. Dupont and Mr. Denby worked together on this scheme, duping him.”
“Did they dupe you into sticking a needle full of propofol into that little girl’s throat?”
“I didn’t—”
“Cut it. You wore a wig—which we recovered—and sunglasses, but Caitlyn has eyes. Good ones. And ears. You spoke to her before you jabbed her, and you spoke to her behind the wolfman mask—also recovered—you used to scare a ten-year-old girl. You jabbed her, stuffed her into a serving trolley, then drove away from a good man’s memorial, from an already grieving family.”
“Sheriff, a child under such duress would hardly be able to, without a reasonable doubt, identify voices in this way.”
Michaela let out a laugh. “You haven’t met this child. Put her under oath, in a courtroom, I can promise you a jury will hang on her every word. The word of a child whose own mother plotted with her lover to use her, to drug her, to terrify her. For money. Your voice is on the phone, too, Sparks, demanding ten million dollars in exchange. They didn’t call the police, but they recorded the calls.”
“Your partners rolled and rolled hard. Denby’s pretty steamed you made the deal with him for two million—fifty-fifty—when you asked the Sullivans for ten. That opened him up like a steamed clam. And if you actually think a woman who’d bang her personal trainer in the same bed she shares with her husband, a woman who’d trade her own daughter’s sense of safety, allow that child to be drugged and terrorized, has any sense of loyalty, you’re an idiot.”
He shifted to Rozwell. “I’m laying this out for you because I’m tired, I’m disgusted, and I’ve used up my tolerance for bullshit today. Both Dupont and Denby have taken a deal. Your client’s last in line, and I figure everybody in this room knows the last in line gets shit. Maybe this fuck gave you a sob story, played the horrified dupe, and how sorry he is about the poor kid caught in the middle, but we have evidence that blows all of that aside.
“To sum it up, your dickbag of a client spotted Dupont for a mark, the last in a long line of wealthy women he bled for money. We have names, and will get statements to corroborate that. With Dupont, he saw a big-ass payday, enough to retire in style, starting with Mozambique.”
Layering it on, Red sent Sparks a pitying look. “You had a bunch of searches on Mozambique—no extradition treaty—on your laptop, asshole. He hooked up with his sometime partner, Frank Denby, to run the con. Blackmail—pictures taken with his camera, also now in evidence—of his mark and himself in—what’s that phrase?—in flagrante delicto. Said mark, being the worst shit of a mother in the history of mothers, agreed to the kidnapping for ransom—Sparks and Dupont boosted the price to screw Denby. She set up the kid, told her where to go for a goddamn game of hide-and-seek, where Sparks was waiting with the needle, the trolley, the van.”
As if revolted—not a stretch—Red rose, turned away. “Pick it up, Deputy. I need a minute to settle my stomach.”
She did, and seamlessly, snapping out the rest, or at least the high points.
Rozwell’s face showed little. Red figured he’d handle a poker game as well as he did a courtroom. But everybody had a tell. He had to look for Rozwell’s, but he caught it.
Just the slightest tightening at the corner of the mouth, a muscle twitch that brought out a tiny dimple.
When Michaela finished, Red sat again. “There isn’t a judge in the world who’s going to dismiss a single one of the charges. There isn’t a jury in the world that’s going to look at that sweet little girl and not convict. And your client gets life without parole.”
He glanced at Sparks. “Keep playing the game, and that’s your grand fucking prize.”
“I did it for love!” Sparks filled his outburst with grief.
“Jesus,” Red muttered. “Same coin, same mold.”
“Charlotte swore she—”
“Be quiet, Grant.”
“Mark, you have to believe me. You know me. I would never—”
“I said be quiet.” This time Red heard more than a hint of weariness. “I’ll need a few moments with my client.”
“Take it. I need some air anyway.”
When he went out, Red realized he actually did. “I’m going to step outside and breathe a minute, Mic.”
“Do you think he’s going to bail? The lawyer?”
“I’d say he’s considering it. Give me a holler when they’re ready.”
Outside, he looked up at the sky, found himself grateful the night was filled with stars. He might wish he still had the energy
left to sneak into Maggie’s bed for a late-night booty call, but since he didn’t have the stores left, a star-strewn night sky would have to do.
It calmed him, reminded him life offered a whole bounty of good things from the simple to the amazing. You just had to take a few minutes now and then to find them.
He heard the door open behind him. “Be right there, Mic.”
“Sheriff, your deputy’s taking Mr. Sparks back to his cell for the night.”
Red nodded at Rozwell. “All right then.”
“I’ll need another few minutes with him in the morning, and would like to meet with the prosecutor.”
“I can arrange that. Let’s say nine o’clock.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be here. I wonder if you could recommend a hotel, motel, just a decent place to spend the night. I didn’t have time to make arrangements.”
“Sure can. Come back to my office. I’ll give you a couple close by—if you’re looking for close.”
“Close would be great.”
“You can call from here, make sure they’ve got a room for you.” In his office, he scribbled names on a pad. “The top one? Good beds, good service, and twenty-four-hour room service if you need it. They charge for Wi-Fi though, which burns my ass.”
“Thanks.”
“Go ahead, use the room.”
Red walked out, waited for Michaela, and considered he probably had the energy for that cold beer before bed. And a hot shower. Christ, he wanted the shower more than the beer.
Rozwell walked out.
“All set?”
“Yeah, thanks. I’ll be here at nine. I left my cell phone number on your pad if you need to reach me.” He started for the door, turned, looked Red in the eye. “I have a daughter. She’s only four. I have a little girl of my own.”
And when he walked out, Red knew they’d deal.
Michaela walked back—still spit and polish, he thought. And had to admire it.
“You settle him in?”
“He tried tears on me. Slow, soulful ones. He’s good.”
“We’re better. Rozwell wants to meet with the prosecutor in the morning. I’m going to contact him on my way home. You can take tomorrow off.”
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