14th Deadly Sin (Women's Murder Club 14)

“Yes. I’m Yuki Castellano.”

“I’m Clark. John. That’s my office,” he said, hooking a thumb toward his cruiser, smiling at her. “You’re working, Ms. Castellano? Because I gotta say, I wouldn’t like my wife to be in a car by herself on this block.”

“I’m OK, Officer. I’m looking into a multiple homicide that took place a couple of months ago,” she said, pointing to the crack house.

“Oh, right. Those drug dealers who were whacked over there. I arrested that poor mutt who did it.”

“Aaron-Rey Kordell?”

Clark said, “That’s him. He was a runner. Ran out for coffee, smokes, that kind of thing. I don’t know why he shot those pushers. But he did the City a service.”

“What did he say when you arrested him?” Yuki asked.

“Said he didn’t do it,” said Clark. “I asked what it was he didn’t do and he said, ‘I didn’t shoot those guys upstairs.’ So we went into the house and found the DBs.”

Yuki thanked the officer, then pulled her car out into the congested three-lane street. This would be a twisted story to sell to a jury. And maybe an impossible case to win.

CHAPTER 26

BACK IN HER new office at the Defense League, Yuki slugged down half a bottle of water, kicked off her shoes, and locked her handbag in a desk drawer. She booted up her computer and pulled up the Aaron-Rey Kordell dossier Zac Jordan had compiled.

The cops who interrogated Aaron-Rey after his arrest were Inspectors Stan Whitney and William Brand in Narcotics/Vice Division, SFPD.

Yuki easily located the documents showing that Aaron-Rey had been booked and incarcerated upstairs on the sixth floor of the Hall, County Jail #3, pending trial. There was also a death certificate dated a day later showing the teen’s cause of death as “sharp force trauma” to the liver, and a brief report from the correctional officer on duty that a fracas had broken out in the showers.

Eight suspects had been listed in the investigation of Aaron-Rey’s death, but there had been no evidence, no proof, no confession—and no informant had come forward. Aaron-Rey’s death had been subsequently written up as a killing by

an undetermined individual and no further action had been taken.

The transcript of Whitney and Brand’s interrogation of Aaron-Rey Kordell wasn’t listed in the document file, but Zac Jordan had already obtained the video.

Yuki slipped discs into her computer. From the very beginning, the hairs on her arms stood up as she watched the masterful interrogation of a mentally challenged black kid by a team of experienced investigators.

She watched for about an hour. Then she called her new assistant, Gina, and told her that she needed to have a deposition notice served on SFPD inspectors Stan Whitney and William Brand.

CHAPTER 27

CONKLIN AND I had met up with Robbery Division’s Edward “Ted” Swanson and Oswaldo Vasquez on the corner of Mission and Twenty-Third Street, down the block from the now shuttered Mercado de Maya.

Swanson and Vasquez got out of their unmarked Chevy and we all shook hands. Swanson was stocky, with a pleasant face, sandy hair, and light-gray eyes. He was exactly my height at five foot ten, probably my age, too.

Vasquez was muscular, shorter and younger than his partner, with an impressive grip. Looked like he’d once been a prizefighter.

The four of us, along with another team from Robbery, worked the streets adjacent to the mercado, canvassing dives and whorehouses and apartments in the area.

I personally went through Maya’s apartment above the mercado, looking for anything that would indicate that her death was anything but a murder of convenience for the Windbreaker cops. I found nothing but a small, neat home and a tiny room Maya had prepared for her unborn child. This was as heartbreaking a vignette as you could possibly imagine.

The walls were a sunny yellow in a room that never got sunshine. The crib had been made by hand, as had the mobile of rainbows hanging over it. It was all too touching, too sweet—and if I never see a rainbow mobile again, it will be too soon.

I interviewed Perez’s neighbors, who told me what a sweetheart Maya was, and a few of them cried. Feeling heartsick and angry, I rejoined the canvass, and between the eight of us, we came up with exactly no idea who had robbed the market and shot Maya Perez to death.

No one admitted to even seeing the robbery go down, and this time, there was no grainy surveillance footage.

When our shifts were over, the eight of us refueled at a local diner and went back to canvassing both sides of the block again, catching up with people who had day jobs and had just returned home.

We still got nothing.

And then I got a call from Clapper, head of Forensics.