The Trial (Women's Murder Club 15.50)

“Before tonight, you mean? We have a witness who saw you kill these women.”

“Don’t know them, never saw them.”

I opened a folder and took out the 8½ x 11 photo of Lucille Stone lying across the bar. “She took four slugs to the chest, three more to the face.”

“How do you say? Tragic.”

“She was your lady friend, right?”

“I have a wife. I don’t have lady friends.”

“Elena Sierra. I hear she lives here in San Francisco with your two children.”

No answer.

“And this woman,” I said, taking out the print of the photo I’d taken of the blond-haired woman lying on the bar floor.

“Cameron Whittaker. I counted three or four bullet holes in her, but could be more.”

His face was expressionless. “A complete stranger to me.”

“Uh-huh. Our witness tells us that these two, your girlfriend and Ms. Whittaker, were very into each other. Kissing and the like.”

Kingfisher scoffed. He truly looked amused. “I’m sorry I didn’t see them. I might have enjoyed to watch. Anyway, they have nothing to do with me.”

I pulled out CSI’s photos of the two dead shooters. “These men. Could you identify them for us? They both have two sets of gang tats but have fake IDs on them. We’d like to notify their families.”

No answer, but if Kingfisher gave a flip about them, you couldn’t tell. I doubted a lie detector could tell.

As for me, my heart was still racing. I was aware of the men behind the glass, and I knew that if I screwed up this interrogation, I would let us all down.

I looked at Richie. He moved his chair a couple of inches back from the table, signaling me that he didn’t want to insert himself into the conversation.

I tried a Richie-like tack.

“See it through my eyes, Mr. Sierra. You have blood spatter on your shirt. Spray, actually. The kind a person would expel onto you if she took a shot to the lung and you were standing right next to her. Your hands tested positive for gunpowder. There were a hundred witnesses. We’ve got three guns and a large number of slugs at our forensics lab, and they’re all going to tell the same story. Any ADA drawn at random could get an indictment in less time than it takes for the judge to say ‘No bail.’”

The little bird with the long beak smiled. I smiled back, then I said, “If you help us, Mr. Sierra, we’ll tell the DA you’ve been cooperative. Maybe we can work it so you spend your time in the supermax prison of your choice. Currently, although it could change in the near future, capital punishment is illegal in California. You can’t be extradited to Mexico until you’ve served your sentence here. Good chance that will never happen, you understand? But you will get to live.”

“I need to use the phone,” Kingfisher said.

I saw the brick wall directly up ahead. I ignored the request for a phone and kept talking.

“Or we don’t fight the extradition warrant. You take the prison shuttle down to Mexico City and let the federales talk to you about many mass murders. Though, frankly, I don’t see you surviving long enough in Mexico to even get to trial.”

“You didn’t hear me?” our prisoner asked. “I want to call my lawyer.”

Richie and I stood up and opened the door for the two jail guards, who came in and took him back to his cell.

Back in the viewing room Conklin said, “You did everything possible, Linds.”

The other men uttered versions of “Too bad” and left me alone with Conklin, Jacobi, Brady, and young Mr. Schein.

I said, “He’s not going to confess. We’ve got nothing. To state the obvious, people are afraid of him, so we have no witnesses. We don’t know if he’s the killer, or even if he is the King.”

“Find out,” said Brady. He had a slight southern drawl, so it came out “Fahnd out.”

We all got the message.