“I don’t understand,” Sharmila said.
“Yeah, well… it’s a real mess.” The DA looked at his watch. “One thirty in the morning.” He sighed. “My wife’s going to kill me.”
“Surely Thomas’s confession is enough, when you combine it with what Michelsen told me about Baird’s involvement, to pick him up,” Bob said.
“That tape of Michelsen won’t stand up in court. There’s no chain of evidence and it sounds, from his gasping and sobbing, that you scared the right holy hell out of him. As envious as I am after a decade of him terrorizing this town that you had the opportunity to put the fear of God into him, no judge is going to give that much weight.”
“So what about Thomas?”
“Thomas will turn on Baird, but that’s problematic. He also stole Hap Singh’s wallet and money, and he has nothing in writing from Baird, just his word,” Valenzuela said. “He has given us chapter and verse of Mr. Merry Michelsen and his attempt to branch out from meth to real estate. Apparently, Mr. Thomas was seen meeting with Merry Michelsen a few days before Mr. Singh’s death. Someone reported it to him, and told him Thomas worked for Professor Jenkins.”
“So he confronted them.”
“And he pulled corporate and tax papers on everything he could find associated with Jenkins… including Jenkins Racing and The Big Cheese factory.”
“So he’d figured it out.”
The DA took a deep breath. Bob could sense the bad news coming immediately.
“But it still doesn’t prove Baird knew about any of this,” Valenzuela said. “His lawyers will argue he tried to invest, innocently, in a housing development. And he innocently rented a factory space to Michelsen, who was using a numbered front. Equally, Officer Czernowitz’s statement pegs his former partner for killing Professor Jenkins… but Czernowitz doesn’t know Thomas, and he can’t tie Baird to Hap Singh’s death. Thomas has lost credibility by robbing the victim. The only person who can corroborate his version is Michelsen.”
“Then bring him in!” Bob declared. “Interview him properly. Get him to admit it on the record.”
“The police department is in the process of arresting him as we speak, as I understand. But getting him to help us with Thomas? That,” the DA said sullenly, “will require cutting a deal, almost certainly. But we already have him dead to rights on the meth lab, a major felony that can put him away for life.”
Sharmila crossed her arms defensively. “What are you saying?”
“I can’t in good conscience risk that conviction on the chance of a ‘he said, he said’ with Parker Baird. Baird has a scrupulous reputation, a lot of money, political friends. It would be his word against a major drug dealer getting a break for his participation, to confirm the word of a confessed murderer. You see my problem here. I can put one dangerous felon away for a long time, or I potentially go easy on him and still not land Baird.”
“Land”, he says, like he’s going after a trophy fish. Bob wandered a few feet to the far wall and slumped down on the old leather two-seat sofa. He leaned back and closed his eyes momentarily, the weight of the week catching up to him.
“Sharmila’s father is dead. Professor Jenkins is dead. I have two broken ribs on my left side, another on my right, at least one third-degree burn. My friend, Marcus Pell, is isolated in pre-trial custody, possibly because Baird pulled strings to make sure he stays vulnerable. And you’re telling me the guy responsible is going to walk?”
In the adjacent room, Bob saw Swain pass in front of the window briefly on her way to the door. She joined them.
“I’ve been filling Ms. Singh and Mr. Richmond in on the Baird situation,” Valenzuela told her.
“He’s letting him walk,” Sharmila spat angrily.
“I know,” Swain said. “Shar… sometimes these things are complicated.”
“No!” Sharmila said. “No, it’s not complicated! He ordered this man to shoot my father. This man has admitted it. But we get no justice for the man who is actually responsible, because the state wants to bust another meth dealer!?”
Bob couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so tired. He nodded Swain’s way. “Why there, in the alley?”
“Thomas knew Marcus took that route home nightly. He needed a patsy. So he carjacked Singh in the parking lot and ordered him to drive down the alley and park behind the pawn shop, where he’d be unmissable. He left the car door ajar so that the interior bell would alert Marcus even if he somehow didn’t see the Cadillac. Then he exited the alley through the pawn shop, as if he’d never been there. No sign of him entering because he was in the car, or leaving, because he cut through the store.”
“And Fowler and Czernowitz were ordered to wait nearby,” Sharmila finished the line of thinking. “But… what about motive? Surely a jury would believe someone ordered Thomas to do it? He works for Baird…”
“But he also stole the money from your father’s wallet,” Swain said. “In that moment of greed, he accidentally gave himself sufficient motive—a robbery gone wrong.”
Sharmila was shaking her head steadily back and forth, the realization of what was happening sinking in. “This cannot happen.”
“I’m sorry, Shar,” Swain said. “We can give everything we have to our federal contacts, see if it’s enough to trigger a racketeering investigation of Baird, but beyond that, there’s nothing—”
“I have an idea,” Bob interrupted.
Parker Baird rose at six thirty every morning.
His schedule was identical; a traditional calisthenics routine of push-ups, sit-ups and deep knee bends; a hot-then-cold shower, to stimulate mental alertness; followed by a breakfast shake of protein powder, kale, blueberries and vitamin D powder with skim milk and no-fat yogurt prepared by his housekeeper, Consuela, who arrived at six.
Typically, he listened to Wagner throughout the house, the Teutonic composer’s gothic opera filling every room, controlled via Bluetooth and his phone, imbuing him with a fervor to win the day.
But he found himself taking out his phone to pause the song as he left the bedroom, a concerned expression on Consuela’s face as she walked up the left side of the curving double staircase.
“Mr. Baird, sir, you have a visitor. It’s Mr. Greg.”
Thomas? At such an early hour? “Let him in,” he instructed.
He followed her downstairs. Consuela pulled open the door.
Thomas rushed in. He had a crazed expression on his face, his hair mussed, eyes bulging. “Parker, you have to help me, man!” he gasped.
Baird leaned past him to close the door. “That’s all for now, Consuela. If you could see to the kitchen…” He let it hang there and the housekeeper took the hint, leaving the room. “Now… just calm down and—”
“Hell no, I won’t!” Thomas exclaimed. “You have to hide me, man!”
“What? Stop blathering! What the hell are you yammering about?”
