Джеймс Паттерсон - The 19th Christmas

“You’re a Christmas gift from my wife,” Varela said, shaking his head, “I swear to God.” Then, to Zac, “But if you’re going to be my lawyer—I have no money.”

Zac said, “I’ll decide if I’m taking your case after we talk, Mr. Varela.”

“Eduardo. Please.”

“Eduardo,” said Zac. “We’ve got only fifteen minutes. Tell me about the murder.”

Chapter 29

“I didn’t kill that guy. I didn’t kill anyone,” Varela told Yuki and attorney Zac Jordan.

He looked anguished, defeated. Two years in a maximum-security jail would have that effect on anyone. Double that if he was innocent.

“Do you know who did kill him?” Yuki asked.

“It was one of the three damned gangsters who put it on me,” said Varela. “Their names are in my file. Pablo Esteban, Miguel Perez, Antonio Vasquez. Gangsters on our street. They told the cops it was me.”

Zac asked him to start at the beginning. Eduardo nodded and collected himself.

He said, “I had three jobs. On the weekdays I kept the auto-body repair shop clean, then at night, I worked at the Stop ’n’ Shop gas station and convenience store. I did house painting on the weekend. This happened on a Wednesday night.”

Zac nodded. Go ahead.

Varela said that he had left his day job at the auto-repair shop and gone home to wash up. He had dinner with his wife and kids. Then he walked to his car, reclined the seat back, and took a nap before to driving to his night job.

“I heard a bang,” said Varela. “I was still in my dreams. Did someone hit a car with a pipe? But then another bang. Then two more.”

He was breathing heavily now.

“I think, What’s happening? I sit up and look out. A man is lying in the street up near the corner. I get out to see, and three thugs I know from the neighborhood see me—and run very fast up the street. Like the devil was chasing them.”

Varela looked panicky as he said, “I go over to the man lying in the street. It’s dark. He is facedown in his blood. The back of his head— gone. I see his brains.” He tapped the back of his head to indicate where the man had been shot. “I think maybe I should call for help, but he’s dead. I don’t want to talk to the police. Maybe they take me in. I have a family. I can’t go to jail. So I go to work.”

He lowered his head and shook it: No, no, no.

“Police come to the Stop ’n’ Shop and arrest me. They tell me the three gangsters—”

“They used that word, gangsters ?” Zac asked.

“They say men called the police and gave my name as the killer. The policemen drive me to the station. They take my fingerprints and my picture and fill out forms and ask me, ‘Where is the gun?’ I tell them, ‘I don’t have a gun. I never have a gun.’

“They ask me the same questions all night. They tell me that the dead man is my neighbor. First time I knew.”

“Did they tell you you had a right to have a lawyer?” Zac asked.

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“Did you waive your rights?”

“I don’t know. I answer all the questions they ask. They tell me the dead man is Gordon Perez. I do know him. He lives across the street. We had arguments about where we park our cars. It was never anything. Some shouting. But no fights, understand? So I tell them that. After all night of this, they put me in a cell.”

Zac said, “Eduardo, this is important. You didn’t have a gun? You’ve never had a gun? No one is going to show up with a gun that your fingerprints are on?”

“No, no. Never.”

“Were you given a gunshot residue test?”

“I don’t know. The whole night was like a bad dream. I was very afraid of the cops. I see too many people deported. That’s all I can think. They will drop me off in the desert.”

Varela put his head down on the table and started to cry.

Guards came into the room.

Zac said, “I need another minute.”

One of the guards, a young woman, said, “One minute.”

Zac said, “Eduardo. Who is your lawyer?”

Eduardo stopped crying. “Peter Bard. He took my money. He didn’t get me bail. He didn’t say he quit, so I wait to hear from him. I need a public defender maybe, but they haven’t said anything about that.”

“Okay. Okay,” Zac said. “If you want, I’ll be your lawyer. No charge.”

Eduardo started crying again. Zac patted his hands and gave him his business card.

Yuki said, “I’ll call Maria for you, Eduardo. I’ll tell her you have a lawyer now. A good one.”

Chapter 30

’Twas the day before Christmas Eve, and I was not in my house.

At the desk across from mine, Conklin muttered to himself as our internet connection winked off-on-off and then went down completely. Curses flew up from surrounding desks. A wastebasket was kicked. Brady came out of his office, looked around, headed for the elevator.

“Why now?” Conklin said.

I didn’t have to answer because it was obvious. The Hall was old. Our signal was weak. The building was “seismically unstable.” The next earthquake could break it up into chunky granite rubble.

That pretty much summed up my mood.

Richie found Michaels, our most tech-savvy colleague. While they talked about the Wi-Fi, I watched the second hand on the wall clock sweep around the dial, propelling the minutes and hours forward.

At 10:00 a.m. we were no closer to learning the identity of the mysterious Loman or pinpointing his target than we had been when Julian Lambert coughed up the news that a big heist was going down.

I was starting to think that Lambert had made it up.

This morning had begun with another anxious full-house meeting of all available investigators from Robbery, Narcotics, Homicide, and Vice. The law enforcement pros were frustrated, clueless, and resentful that they were working on rumors instead of sitting at home eating sugar cookies and watching a ball game with their families.

I had to admit, I felt that way, too. I had a child and a husband, and the Loman heist was a potential robbery. If Lambert was to be believed, he had gotten this breaking news from a street person named Marcus who had overheard a phone call. This tip had resulted in a dead FBI agent and a dead shooter named Dietz who before dying had circled the de Young Museum on a map. For all we knew, the de Young was on the shooter’s bucket list of sights to see.

In sum, we were working a crime that hadn’t happened. A possible crime, potentially. Maybe. And right now, while I tried to solve a puzzle of random pieces, Mrs. Gloria Rose, our nanny in chief, was standing in for me at home.

I adored Mrs. Rose. Imagine the most loving granny ever living in an apartment across the hall from you. A woman who can cook, who loves dogs and babies, and who is available almost on call. She even had a little OCD, which meant the apartment was tidy when I got home and locked my weapon in the antique gun safe.

I was damned grateful to Mrs. Rose. But right that minute I would have loved to trade places with her, be the one playing reindeer games with Julie. Instead I was at work, as was Joe, and I didn’t know when I would be home.

From the cheers around me I gathered that the Wi-Fi had returned. And in the next second Brady’s voice startled me.

He said, “Conklin, you get anything on Dietz from the prostitute?”

“TMI,” said my partner. “Dietz was twisted, but all he told her about Loman was that he’d hired him to do a job on Christmas.”

“Fantastic,” Brady said glumly. “Another lucky day. I guess I’ll go out and get a lottery ticket. Buncha them.”

I said, “Conklin and I are going out to the museum to go over procedures with the head of security. Jacobi is on his way to San Quentin.”