The 19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19)(20)

The phone followed the wallet, gun, and keys over the edge almost two hundred feet down to the rocks above the crashing waves. After double-checking that no one was around the parking area, Loman started walking along the verge of El Camino del Mar.

Only a few minutes had passed before a horn blew behind him and his black Escalade stopped. Russell reached across the front seat and opened the door for him.

Loman got in.

“Man, I’m wet. And hungry,” Loman said to his number two.

“Clothes are in the back seat and I’ve got reservations,” Russell said. “Table with a hazy view.”

“How’s it going from your end?” Loman asked.

“Like clockwork,” said Russell.

“That’s what I like to hear,” said Loman.

He grinned at Russell, who grinned back and stepped on the gas.





CHAPTER 26





CINDY WAS ALREADY hard at work in her home office at dawn, polishing the article about Christmas in San Francisco’s barrios.

Her interviews with undocumented immigrants had left her feeling sad. There was nothing uplifting about people celebrating Christmas in the darkness, wondering if a slipup or a traffic stop could turn into a deportation. Was it even possible to keep cultural tradition alive when living in shadows that could stretch for decades?

She attached a photo to her file, an image of a Christmas tree with a handmade papier-maché manger underneath. She titled the piece “Feliz Navidad” and sent it to publisher and editor in chief Henry Tyler.

Cindy drained her third mug of coffee and texted Yuki. Are we still on?

Yuki responded, I’ll be at the office at eight. C u soon.

Cindy closed her laptop and dressed, then nudged Richie and told him she was his requested wake-up call.

He kissed her, tried to roll her into bed.

“Can’t. Rain check. Love you.” She kissed his ear and fled.

She drove through the misty morning toward the Hall of Justice along streets lined with lights and houses adorned with twinkling Christmas characters. They didn’t lift her mood at all, wired as she was about her meeting with Yuki.

Twenty minutes after leaving home, Cindy tossed her keys to Brad, the parking attendant in the All-Day lot on Bryant. She shouted to him over her shoulder, “I’ll be back in an hour.”

She raced for the crosswalk, but as she reached the corner, she heard Brad calling her.

“Ciiiiiiiindyyyy. You dropped this.”

He held up her scarf. She trotted back, said, “Damn. Thanks, Brad,” and headed off again. Even after turning her ankle, she still made the green light.

She jogged up the granite steps, cleared security, crossed the lobby, and got into the elevator, her mind still fixed on Eduardo Varela and his lovable wife, Maria. After Tyler had green-lighted the jailed-undocumented-immigrant story, Cindy had spent enough time with Maria that she was totally convinced of Eduardo’s innocence.

But believing in someone’s innocence didn’t make a publishable story, and it wouldn’t spring him from jail, either.

Yuki had offered to help even though, as a prosecutor, she couldn’t work the case herself. Yet in a couple of hours, Yuki would be visiting Eduardo in the jail where he had been detained for the past two years.

Cindy couldn’t go with her, but Yuki would not be alone. She was bringing her old boss Zac Jordan, who worked at the not-for-profit Defense League. Zac was a do-gooding superstar with a Harvard law degree. He would decide if he wanted to take Eduardo’s case and defend him at trial.

Cindy jerked her thoughts back to the present, exited the elevator, and opened the door to the DA’s suite. Although the office was officially closed for the holiday, the reception area was lit by a gooseneck lamp at the front desk and the blue-and-gold twinkling of the tree in the corner.

She was about to phone Yuki when a man in a mail-room shirt entered reception through the side door and held it open for her to come through.

Cindy headed along the main corridor and knocked on the frame of Yuki’s open door. Her friend looked up and said, “Come in, come in, Girl Reporter. Sit yourself down. We have to work pretty fast. Want coffee?”

Cindy said, “No, thanks.” She was maximally caffeinated already.

Yuki said, “You brought the papers?”

Cindy opened her bag and put the folder in front of Yuki. Yuki flipped through the arrest record, police report, court transcript, and two witness statements, then transferred the folder to her own handbag.

Cindy asked, “What have you got for me?”

Yuki said, “There’s no central database for this, Cin. So I can’t get ahold of actual comprehensive data. The best I can do is give you the overview from thirty thousand feet.”

“That’s fine, Yuki. Right now I know less than zilch.”





CHAPTER 27





CINDY SAT ACROSS from Yuki, her arms folded on the desk, looking at her friend with her trademark intensity.

Yuki said, “You sure I can’t get you some coffee?”

“Only if you want to see me levitate,” Cindy said.

Yuki said, “Okay, then, Cindy, here are the basics. If you’re an undocumented immigrant—that is, living here without citizenship, green card, or visa—and you commit a crime of any kind, ICE can detain you.”