The 20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(50)

“It was a match to Kennedy’s gun?”

“Yes.”

“So who shot Kennedy? What are you thinking, Linds? I’m not my sharpest tonight.”

“I’m speculating here. Say that Kennedy was with Moving Targets. It’s a wild thought, but according to Bud Moskowitz, ex-SWAT and former Moving Targets player, cops and military were members of the inner sanctum. Let’s also say that for some reason, Moving Targets turned on Kennedy. Did he know too much? Did he threaten them? Had he just found religion when he took out that female drug dealer and was going to turn himself in?

“Joe, I just don’t know. Listen. You’ve never heard me say this before. These vigilantes outnumber us. They’re more organized than we are and probably smarter.”

Joe listened to Lindsay’s breathing. She was exasperated and maybe on the verge of tears.

He said, “Okay. I get it. Now that you’ve got that off your chest, what’s your next move?”

She groaned, but Joe wasn’t letting her go without an answer.

“Come on, Blondie. From your gut. Out with it.”

“Okay. I have one thought.”

“And that is?”

“Paul and Ramona Baron are being buried on Saturday. Rich and I should go to the funeral. See who’s there. Take some pictures. And hope a suspect shows up with a long gun.”





CHAPTER 75





THE PRISONERS’ WARD at Metropolitan Hospital was grim, but no grimmer than the rest of the place.

Same pale-green paint job, same dust-encrusted windows and gray-speckled linoleum floors. The ward had six beds, two of them in use. The bed closest to the door was occupied by a tattooed man the size of an oak tree, chained hand and foot, howling for something for the pain.

The bed in the farthest corner was filled by Clay Warren, the eighteen-year-old miscreant Yuki would be prosecuting for possession with intent, car theft, and acting as an accomplice in the murder of a cop, though all concerned knew he’d merely been the wheelman. Also, it was widely known but legally suspected that the real perp was a major drug dealer who had ditched the kid and the car and gotten away clean.

Said drug dealer was very likely living in a cute little cliffside hacienda overlooking the ocean, while the patsy had been stabbed in the chest with intent to kill him.

No wonder he wouldn’t talk, even for a pass to a lighter sentence and the possibility of breathing free air in his twenties.

Yuki knocked on the doorframe and, after passing the raging oak tree, headed toward Clay Warren.

“Clay?” Yuki called out. “I brought you something. I hope you like sweets.”

The young man turned his head toward her and almost instantly looked away.

She noted the flex ties cuffing his wrists to the handrails. His ankles were under the sheets, but Clay Warren wasn’t going anywhere. There were tubes running from his chest, from under the sheets, from the IV above his head, to the monitors behind him.

It was then that Yuki saw an older woman sitting in a chair at the far side of the bed, keeping the patient company. The woman, who was probably Clay’s mother, stood up. She was Yuki’s size, about forty, wearing drab gray clothing that hung to her ankles. And she was furious.

Yuki said, “Hello, I’m ADA Castellano—”

“I know you. I’ve seen you in court. How could you do this to my boy? Look at him. Look at him.”

Clay, just barely conscious, was present enough to say, “Mom. Stop.”

“Mrs. Warren?”

The woman didn’t answer. She stood facing Yuki, her eyes locked in a hard stare, her fists clenched.

“Mrs. Warren, I want to help Clay. Please understand that I need him to help me with the guy he worked for so I can go to the DA.”

“You’re lying, ADA Cutthroat. ADA Career Woman. You don’t want to help Clay. You want to win. How much time do you get for lying to his mother?”

Yuki looked down at the floor, not out of shame or to avoid the woman’s anger but in an effort to compose herself and explain her position. If Mrs. Warren could get Clay to agree to testify against Antoine Castro, Yuki would be able to get the charges against him lightened significantly.

“Let’s go to the cafeteria and talk,” Yuki said. “Maybe together we can make a plan.”

“You should leave. That’s what. Leave my son alone.”

“Please tell me what happened to him.”

“Do you need glasses?”

Yuki was actually wearing glasses, through which she watched Clay’s mother point a shaking finger at the whole length of Clay’s chest and abdomen, bandages wrapped around him. He must have been stabbed multiple times.

“He was shanked in the shower,” Mrs. Warren said so loudly she got the attention of the huge man at the front of the ward.

“Is that right?” he said.

Clay’s mother ignored him. “You have children, ADA Castellano? Try to imagine it. My son had lost gallons of blood by the time they got him here. His heart even stopped. Grace of God he’s alive. He should be out on bail, not in that place with those animals.”

There was laughter from the oak tree. “You don’t mean me, right? Because I didn’t do it.”

“Mrs. Warren, I have no power over Clay’s situation if he doesn’t help himself. He was driving a stolen car with a trunk full of dope. A cop was shot dead. The gun was inside the car. If Clay won’t testify against the real criminal, I cannot do a thing but try to convict him.”