A Matter of Life and Death by Phillip Margolin (ereader with dictionary TXT) 📕

said she wanted to make love at the apartment. My next court appearance wasn’t until late afternoon. It was supposed to be in front of a different judge, but it was mysteriously switched to Judge Carasco’s court that morning. Since I didn’t have anything scheduled for a few hours, I went to the Grandview. This was the second and last time we were in bed. I never went back to her apartment after that.”

“Why is that?”

Hennessey turned red with embarrassment. “After we had sex, Stacey told me that she had been arrested in Portland for prostitution a few years ago and had outstanding warrants because she’d skipped town. She asked me to make the warrants disappear. I told her that was illegal. That’s when she said she’d tell Mrs. Cole that I’d paid her for sex if I didn’t get rid of the warrants.”

Hennessey hung his head. “I’m such a sucker. I never suspected that I was being set up for blackmail. There was a bookcase across from the bed. A camera was hidden between two books on the top shelf. Stacey said she had a sex tape of us she’d send to Vanessa if I didn’t help her. When I got upset, she pulled a gun on me and told me to get dressed and go to my office and fix the warrants. I left right away. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.”

“Did you get rid of the warrants?”

“No. That’s the crazy thing. Remember, I drove the judge home and we found Mrs. Carasco?”

Dillon nodded.

“He couldn’t stay in his house because it was being processed, so I drove him to a hotel. After I dropped him off, I went home and tried to sleep. But I couldn’t, so I went to the office real early and looked for the warrants.”

“What were you going to do with them?”

“I honestly don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. They’re gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s an order from Judge Wilma Malone dismissing the cases and the warrants, but it makes no sense. Why would she get rid of the cases? She wasn’t involved with them.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I know you won’t believe me, but I think Judge Carasco slipped Malone the order and she didn’t know what she was signing.”

“I do believe you. We have evidence that Judge Carasco hired the men who murdered his wife.”

Hennessey’s hand flew to his mouth. “Oh god. That’s why the judge had my case switched to his court. He set me up to be his alibi, didn’t he?”

“It looks that way. I don’t know if we’ll need you, but if we do, would you be willing to testify at a grand jury and at trial?”

“Definitely. This whole ordeal has been a nightmare. I love my job, and I never broke any laws. I never paid Stacey, and I didn’t do anything with those warrants.”

“I believe you.”

“What about the prostitution case? I swear I didn’t do it. I’ll take a polygraph.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Can I still stay in the DA’s office?”

“I’ll talk to Vanessa. She may want you to take some time off while this investigation is active, but I’m going to tell her that I don’t think you did anything wrong. Carasco’s murder plot was very complex, and it looks like you were an unwitting piece of it.”

“Thank you so much, Detective Dillon. Thank you.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

“We’ve got some interesting stuff for you,” Carrie told Vanessa when she and Roger were seated in the DA’s office. “First, we found Stacey Hayes. She used a credit card at a motel in Bellingham, Washington. A friend in the state police has her under surveillance. We’re driving up as soon as we finish here.

“Second, Sally has fixed the time of death to sometime late Thursday to sometime early Friday morning. Helen Raptis says she was in her hotel from dinnertime Thursday until Friday morning, and her bodyguard agrees.”

“Can anyone else vouch for her?” Vanessa asked.

“She ordered room service around nine, but that’s the latest she has covered.”

“So, they’re each other’s alibi?”

“Yup, and the alibis aren’t very good, because there were a lot of times they weren’t together.”

“Go on.”

“Here’s the most interesting thing we came up with. We used a drone to scope out the farm before and during the raid. We reviewed the pictures it took. As we went in, two men ran out the back and drove off the property—one in a pickup and one in a car. We blew up the pictures and we were able to read the plates. Andre Rostov was driving the pickup, and it’s registered to him. The car that left before the pickup is registered to Carasco. It’s the car that was parked in front of apartment 5 at the Grandview.”

Vanessa frowned. “How long after the raid did Robin have her encounter with Andre Rostov?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Find out how long it would take for Carasco to drive to the Grandview from the farm. Then figure out if Rostov would have been able to follow him, kill him, and drive home in time to get there when Robin captured him. If Carasco owed him money, that’s a motive.”

“Will do,” Carrie said. “But there’s something else. A car drove out of a logging road about a quarter of a mile from the farm and followed the car and the pickup. We ran the plates. It’s a rental, and the number on the plate matches the number on the plate the security guard wrote down.”

“The car that was cruising the lot at the Grandview?” Vanessa asked.

“Yes.”

“Who rented the car?”

“Brent Macklin,” Carrie said.

“Who is Brent Macklin?”

“That’s a good question,” Carrie said. “Roger and I met him in the courthouse during the Lattimore trial. He said he was a reporter who writes stories about UFC, boxing, combat sports, and he was working on a story about illegal fights. He wanted to know who was running the one where Lattimore and Ortiz fought.”

“Oh, right. He tried to interview