The 19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19)(13)
“Twenty?”
“The one and only witness retracted her statement. She maintained that she had told the cops she wasn’t sure at the time, but the state ran with the witness testimony and got a conviction. After twenty years, the witness was willing to swear she’d ID’d the wrong man.”
“Holy crap. Twenty years of life, wasted.”
“Ochoa walked out a free man. He wasn’t deported, and he thanked the court and went home to his family,” Yuki said. “He was undocumented, but he had no prior record.
“Varela, on the other hand, is not only here illegally, he’s a repeat offender with a murder indictment.”
“So there’s no hope at all?”
“I’ll make a call to Zac Jordan, the lawyer I worked for at the Defense League. He’s good, Cin. He’s smart as can be. Still, I wouldn’t bank on Eduardo Varela walking on this one. He has the right to a fair trial. But unless he has a brilliant lawyer and the state is too overwhelmed to pay attention, odds are he’s going to prison for the rest of his life.”
“Please call your friend, Yuki,” Cindy said. “I believe in miracles.”
CHAPTER 17
THE DAY AFTER the shootout at the Anthony Hotel, the bullpen was standing room only, packed wall to wall to wall with investigators from our station and representatives from Northern and Central as well.
Brady had called an emergency meeting. Two FBI agents had been hit; one had died, and the other had been moments from bleeding out. The tension in the room was expressed with tight body language and nervous chatter.
I watched Brady leave his office at the back of the bullpen and edge through the crowd. When he got to the front, he grabbed a chair, stepped up onto it, batted away a garland of tinsel tacked to the ceiling, then ripped it down.
He said, “Good morning, everyone.”
The chatter immediately shut down, and our lieutenant and acting chief got right to it.
He said, “We’ve been tipped off that there is going to be a big, likely heavily armed robbery in the next few days. We’d like to head that off.
“Here’s what we know.”
Talking over the fresh round of murmurs, Brady detailed the chase and capture of petty thief Julian Lambert, the info he’d given us on a hitter hired to work the upcoming robbery, and the tip that the hitter was staying at the Anthony Hotel.
“That hitter,” said Brady, “is now laid out at the morgue. Everyone here heard what happened last night?”
A murmur of “Yes, sir”s rumbled through the room. The story of the one-man ambush and Dietz’s utter obliteration on the sixth floor had traveled fast, first over the police and fire department channels, then by word of mouth, then via the internet, and finally as a “Sources tell us” piece on the broadcast news.
Conklin and I exchanged looks, both of us still shell-shocked, hoping for answers. After this, we planned to go back to the Anthony and meet with CSI director Charlie Clapper. He and his team had been processing the scene all night, and I was dying to find out what he had learned from Chris Dietz’s rented room. Julian Lambert was still in our custody, and Brady would interrogate him again. If Lambert was holding anything back, I was pretty sure he’d give it up to Brady.
Brady said, “Here’s what we know about this robbery scheme. Supposedly, a man named Loman is behind it, and supposedly, it’s going down on Christmas Day.”
He paused and everyone waited.
“That’s all I’ve got,” said Brady. “No idea what the target is, what part of town it’ll be in, who else is involved. Heck, Loman might have decided to pull the plug on this operation, given all the publicity on last night’s action.
“But let’s say he’s still going forward. If you hear something, say something.”
Feet shifted. A voice called out, “Over here, boss.”
“Bentley,” Brady said. “Whatcha got?”
Sergeant Roger Bentley was from the Robbery Division. I didn’t know much about him, but I knew he was well positioned to hear rumors about a heist.
Bentley said, “I’ve heard the name Loman. People are afraid of him, like he’s a drug lord or a capo. But nothing more than that. I’ve asked, and what comes back is ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’”
Another hand went up and Brady called on Anderson from the Criminal Investigations Unit upstairs.
Anderson said, “Rumor has it that Loman was behind that casino heist in Vegas. The one at the Black Diamond. Netted nine million. Almost got out clean, but three of his crew—the guys transporting the take—were killed when their getaway car was T-boned by a gas truck on the way out of town.”
We had all heard about that heist gone wrong—a TV movie had been based on it. As I remembered it, the gas-truck explosion was shown in slow motion and it had been a mesmerizing special effect. But I hadn’t known that the man behind the heist that went way wrong was named Loman.
“Let’s have some ideas on possible targets,” Brady said.
Hands went up around the room; people suggested banks, museums, jewelry stores. Opportunities for potentially big hauls, like the nine million taken from the Black Diamond Casino.
When the brainstorming was over, Brady asked those present to work their informants and uniforms in their divisions and forward all possible leads to him.