Kyle rushed into the bathroom. He fell down on the white tiled floor and slid on his knees until he was next to the toilet. Then he started to vomit.
Conklin stood guard at the open door, not wanting to fall for a second ruse in one day. Although I’d have to say this seemed legit. Kyle vomited several more times. Rich helped him to his feet and wiped his face with a paper towel.
After he got Kyle settled back in a chair, the man looked up and said, “What kind of deal can I make?”
I looked directly at him. I kept my tone very even. “This is not a negotiation. Give us everything you have on the organization. Help us find the girls. And we won’t push for a maximum sentence. I’m not saying we’ll testify on your behalf. But we won’t block any attempt to get a lighter sentence. You won’t get that offer again once we leave this room.”
We let him think about it for probably five minutes.
Kyle looked up at us and said, “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
CHAPTER104
I WAS CAREFULto explain that we needed something concrete. Not some vague conspiracy with other people Kyle didn’t know. A smirk on his face told me he had something to trade.
The first thing he did was provide addresses to two houses. One of them was in the Mission. He said no one was there right now. The other one was the Pacific Heights house that we had gone to earlier. I told Kyle about the search warrant. At this point he didn’t seem to care.
He gave us some phone numbers and a couple of names of people he dealt with. It still wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
Kyle had a hitch in his voice. “I don’t know what else I can give you. I’ve already confessed. I’m really trying to work with you.”
“Do you want to go into any more detail about Donna Harris or Tina Barnes?”
“They were accidents. I don’t make money if I can’t provide girls. I didn’t mean to hurt either of them.”
“Which girl didn’t you mean to hurt? The one you punched in the throat and let suffocate slowly in the park? Or was it the girlyou strangled, then tossed in the ocean?” I was just about to end this conversation. I wanted to find a killer and I had. But something deep in my brain said it was important I keep finding out about the organization. I wanted to locate missing girls. I stayed silent to let Kyle realize all of this.
Kyle gave us two hotels where they had several girls housed. They weren’t the greatest hotels, but they weren’t like some of the hotels in the Tenderloin. “We sent some of the girls overseas. That only happened a few times a year. That was over my pay grade. All I did was check on the girls we had housed here in San Francisco.”
“We’re going to need names, phone numbers, and descriptions.”
“I’ll need my phone, but I think I can provide quite a bit. I do have a name for someone who referred a lot of girls to me. She also would ride with me sometimes when we were just looking for random girls on the street. It’s easier to have a woman with me to break the ice.”
That made my skin crawl. It also made me question allowing this monster to cut any kind of deal at all.
Then Kyle surprised me.
He said, “This woman used to work with Jason Cortlandt. She’s been very helpful. Her name is Gina Scrittori.”
CHAPTER105
YUKI CASTELLANO STAREDdown at her notes. Scribbles only she could decipher on a simple yellow legal pad. This morning’s trial had yet to begin. It was still early and there weren’t many people in the courtroom. She was trying to concentrate. It was difficult. Crazy difficult.
She was ready for her star witness. Roberto Paz was a fifty-eight-year-old Venezuelan immigrant now confined to a wheelchair. He’d been a long-distance runner most of his life. Just that introduction to the jury would be a great start. Then she’d build the narrative. He was working at his grocery store seventeen months ago when he’d walked outside and seen Elio Huerta. Paz knew who he was, and told him to move from the front of his store. They argued for a moment, then Elio pulled a 9mm pistol from under his shirt and shot Paz without warning. The bullet passed through his stomach and lodged in his spine.
Yuki had already presented medical and tactical experts to explain exactly what a wound like that did to a human body. Allshe had to do now was get Roberto Paz on the stand to tell the story of the incident himself.
Yuki turned her head and was surprised to see her husband standing in the gallery. He was decked out in a sharp blue suit with a yellow striped tie. She stood up from the prosecution’s table and walked to where Brady stood next to the low oak divider.
“I didn’t think I’d see you upright for at least a day.” She stepped through the swinging gate and gave her husband a kiss on the cheek. “What brings you around here after being up all night?”
“Can’t I support my wife?” Brady waggled his eyebrows and added, “I also wanted to get a look at this defense attorney, Angela Torres. You made her sound like the devil incarnate.” He glanced over at the attorney, who was chatting with one of the bailiffs near the empty jury box. “She sure don’t look like the devil to me.” He grinned.
Yuki slugged her husband in the arm. All that did was make him laugh. When she’d punched him, she’d dropped her pen on the floor. She bent down to pick it up and noticed a small pistol Brady kept on his left ankle. He called it his “backup” gun. A holdover from his days working in Miami. He’d once had a pistol jam on him. His backup pistol was the only thing that saved his life.
She stood up and said to him quietly, “You’re not supposed to have a gun in the courtroom. Even if you’re a cop.”
“I didn’t even realize it. I locked up my duty weapon downstairs and forgot all about my backup. The security guard let me through his station. The line for the magnetometer was too long. Don’t rat me out.”
