The 19th Christmas - James Patterson Page 0,14
that he’s the shooter. Did Eduardo know the victim?”
“Yes. They were acquainted.”
“How did they get along?”
“From what Maria told me, they just lived on the same street. That was all.”
Yuki said, “Okay. Assuming Eduardo Varela had no motive to shoot Gordon Perez, the case against him is based on witness statements. Varela has a crappy alibi. As it says here, he was sleeping in his car, heard shots, got out, and saw some boys run off.”
“He didn’t call the police,” said Cindy. “He just drove to his second job.”
“Hmm. Or, as the state will put it, he shot the guy, got rid of his gun, then drove to his second job.”
Yuki had worked for a nonprofit lawyers’ organization. Cindy knew she had defended a couple of undocumented immigrants while assisting the head of the Defense League, who was now a friend.
Yuki said, “I’m thinking about that big case that gets talked about a lot. Jorge Alvarez was deported five times and got back into San Francisco, where he fatally stabbed a man in a hotel lobby. It was an unfortunate criminal career path,” Yuki said, “but it made a big impression on the public consciousness, and it hardened the courts against illegal immigrants.”
“What happened to Alvarez?” Cindy asked.
“He’s awaiting trial. He could be your guy’s cell mate, for all we know. But there’s another guy I just read about, an immigrant convicted of murder, Jaime Ochoa. Ochoa got a break—after twenty years.”
“Twenty?”
“The one and only witness retracted her statement. She maintained that she had told the cops she wasn’t sure at the time, but the state ran with the witness testimony and got a conviction. After twenty years, the witness was willing to swear she’d ID’d the wrong man.”
“Holy crap. Twenty years of life, wasted.”
“Ochoa walked out a free man. He wasn’t deported, and he thanked the court and went home to his family,” Yuki said. “He was undocumented, but he had no prior record.
“Varela, on the other hand, is not only here illegally, he’s a repeat offender with a murder indictment.”
“So there’s no hope at all?”
“I’ll make a call to Zac Jordan, the lawyer I worked for at the Defense League. He’s good, Cin. He’s smart as can be. Still, I wouldn’t bank on Eduardo Varela walking on this one. He has the right to a fair trial. But unless he has a brilliant lawyer and the state is too overwhelmed to pay attention, odds are he’s going to prison for the rest of his life.”
“Please call your friend, Yuki,” Cindy said. “I believe in miracles.”
Chapter 17
The day after the shootout at the Anthony Hotel, the bullpen was standing room only, packed wall to wall to wall with investigators from our station and representatives from Northern and Central as well.
Brady had called an emergency meeting. Two FBI agents had been hit; one had died, and the other had been moments from bleeding out. The tension in the room was expressed with tight body language and nervous chatter.
I watched Brady leave his office at the back of the bullpen and edge through the crowd. When he got to the front, he grabbed a chair, stepped up onto it, batted away a garland of tinsel tacked to the ceiling, then ripped it down.
He said, “Good morning, everyone.”
The chatter immediately shut down, and our lieutenant and acting chief got right to it.
He said, “We’ve been tipped off that there is going to be a big, likely heavily armed robbery in the next few days. We’d like to head that off.
“Here’s what we know.”
Talking over the fresh round of murmurs, Brady detailed the chase and capture of petty thief Julian Lambert, the info he’d given us on a hitter hired to work the upcoming robbery, and the tip that the hitter was staying at the Anthony Hotel.
“That hitter,” said Brady, “is now laid out at the morgue. Everyone here heard what happened last night?”
A murmur of “Yes, sir”s rumbled through the room. The story of the one-man ambush and Dietz’s utter obliteration on the sixth floor had traveled fast, first over the police and fire department channels, then by word of mouth, then via the internet, and finally as a “Sources tell us” piece on the broadcast news.
Conklin and I exchanged looks, both of us still shell-shocked, hoping for answers. After this, we planned to go back to the Anthony and meet with CSI director Charlie Clapper. He and his team had been processing the scene all night, and I was dying to