Two months ago there’d been a routine traffic stop.
The vehicle in question had a busted turn-signal light and stolen plates. The cop who’d pulled over the vehicle was approaching on foot when the passenger got out of the offending vehicle and shot him.
The cop’s partner returned fire, missed, and fired on the vehicle as it took off on Highway 1 South. The cop called for assistance and stayed with the dying man.
A few miles and a few minutes later the squad cars in pursuit forced the getaway car off the far-right lane and road-blocked it. The police found that the passenger had ditched, leaving the teenage driver, Clay Warren, and a sizable package of fentanyl inside the car.
The patrolman who’d been shot died at the scene.
Clay Warren was held on a number of charges. The drugs were valued at a million, as is, and impounded. Warren and the car were identified by the dead cop’s partner, and Forensics had found hundreds of old and new prints in the vehicle, but none that matched to a known felon.
Bastard had worn gloves or never touched the dash, or this was his first job and he wasn’t in the system.
Yuki doubted that.
So in lieu of the killer dealer, the wheelman was left holding the bag.
The DA was prosecuting Clay Warren for running drugs in a stolen car and acting as accomplice to murder of a police officer, but largely for being the patsy. Yuki had hoped that Warren would give up the missing dealer, but he hadn’t done so and gave no sign that he would.
Using the inside of the stainless-steel elevator door as a mirror, she applied her lipstick and arranged her hair, then exited on the seventh floor and approached Sergeant Bubbleen Waters at the desk.
“Hi, B. I have a meeting with prisoner Clay Warren and his attorney.”
“They’re waiting for you, Yuki. Hang on a sec.”
She picked up the desk phone, punched a button, and said, “Randall. Gate, please.”
A guard appeared, metal doors clanked open, and locks shut behind them. The guard escorted Yuki to a small cinder-block room with a table and chairs, two of the chairs already occupied. Clay Warren wore a classic orange prison jumpsuit and silver cuffs. His attorney, Zac Jordan, had long hair and was wearing a pink polo shirt, a khaki blazer, jeans, and a gold stud in his left ear.
Zac gave Yuki a warm smile and stood to shake her hand with both of his.
“Good to see you, Yuki. Sorry to say, I’m not getting anywhere fast. Maybe Clay will listen to you.”
CHAPTER 4
ZAC JORDAN WAS a defense lawyer who worked pro bono for the Defense League, a group that represented the poor and hopeless.
During a brief break from her job with the DA, Yuki had worked for Zac Jordan and could say that he was one of the good guys and that his client was lucky to have him.
In this case, his client was facing major prison time for being in the wrong car at the wrong time.
Yuki sat down and asked, “How’s it going, Clay?”
He said, “Just wonderful.”
Clay Warren looked younger than his age. He was small and blond haired, with a button nose, but when he glanced up, his gray eyes were hard. After his quick appraisal of Yuki, he lowered his gaze to his hands, the cuffs linked to a metal loop in the middle of the table. He looked resigned.
“Clay,” she said, “as we discussed before, a police officer is dead. You know who shot him. I’m asking you again to help us by telling us who did that. Otherwise, I can’t help you, and you’ll be charged as an accomplice to murder and for possession of narcotics with intent, and tried as an adult. You’re looking at life in prison.”
“For driving the car,” he said.
“Do you understand me?” Yuki asked. “You’re an accomplice to the murder of a cop. If you help us get the shooter, the DA might help you out. The charges could be lowered significantly, Clay.”
“I don’t know anything. I was driving. I heard the siren. I pull over and get charged with all of this bullshit. It’s wrong. All wrong. I was speeding. Period.”
“And the drugs inside the car? Where’d you get a million dollars’ worth of fentanyl?”
Yuki knew that there was a tentative ID on the dealer. The cop who’d watched his partner die on the street had reviewed photos of likely suspects, big-time drug dealers, and thought the shooter might be Antoine Castro, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
Yuki said, “Why are you taking the weight for scum like Antoine Castro?”
The kid shook his head no.
Castro was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. By now, Yuki was willing to bet, he’d left the country and assumed a new identity.
Zac said, “Lying isn’t helping you, son. I know ADA Castellano. I’ll negotiate for you.”
“For God’s sake,” Warren shouted. “Leave me alone.”
Yuki imagined that if the killer dealer was Castro, he’d gotten word to the kid. Warned him.
You talk. You die.
Clay Warren wasn’t going to talk. Yuki stood up.
“I’m sorry, Zac.”
“You tried,” he said.
She went to the door and the guard opened it for her. She left Zac Jordan alone with his client, a scared kid who was going to die in prison, just a matter of when.
CHAPTER 5
FRIDAY MORNING AT 9 a.m., give or take a few minutes, homicide lieutenant and acting police chief Jackson Brady strode down the center aisle of the bullpen.
The night shift was punching out, day shift straggling in, calling out, “Hey, boss,” “Yo, Brady.” He nodded to Chi, Lemke, Samuels, Wang, kept going.
At the front of the room there were two desks pushed together face-to-face. Boxer and Conklin’s real estate. Brady had partnered with both of them when he first came to the SFPD as a switch-hitter. Stood with them with bullets flying more than once. He counted on them. Would do anything for them.
Brady slid into Boxer’s desk chair. He looked at Conklin over Lindsay’s small junkyard of personal space, swung the head of the gooseneck lamp aside, moved a stack of files and a mug to make space for his elbows.
Conklin looked up, said, “You okay, Lieu?”
Brady knew that he looked like shit. Too many hours here. Too much junk food. Too little sleep. Worried eighteen hours a day. His collar was tight. He loosened his tie. Undid the top shirt button.
“So the way I understand it,” Brady said, “Boxer had a doctor’s appointment yesterday afternoon. A checkup. She calls to say, ‘I’m fine, boss. Doctor said I need to start taking me time.’”
Conklin said, “She told me the same.”
Brady thought about when Boxer had been very sick. Took off a couple of months and came back. Said she felt perfect. So now what was she saying?
“You think she’s all right?” said Brady.
Conklin said, “She’s fine. Doctor told her she shouldn’t run herself into the ground like she does. So her sister has the wild child, and Lindsay and Joe took off to parts unknown for the weekend, maybe another day or two. You know, Brady. Most people take weekends off.”
“Oh, really? I don’t know many.”
Brady gathered up loose pens and pencils and put them into a ceramic mug.
Conklin said, “What worries me is how you look.”