Chapter 94
I WAS DRIVING back to the office after Cruz, Caine, and I had spent half the day at Central Booking. We were there for moral support, but we saw Del Rio for only a moment before he was taken away to be processed and then locked up pending his arraignment.
I’m a graduate of Twin Towers Correctional myself, and I can tell you that it’s worse than its reputation as an overcrowded, gang-infested sewer, a brutal, dehumanizing hellhole you couldn’t dream up if you wrote horror films for a living.
And I was more worried about Rick than before. Unlike in the Carmody case, Rick had actually assaulted an officer of the court in full view of about fifty witnesses.
It didn’t look good for Rick. Not at all.
I was on the freeway, thinking of taking Justine out to lunch, bringing her up to date on what had just happened, when my phone rang. I glanced at it out of habit, thinking whoever it was, they could wait. But I changed my mind when I saw Luke Warren’s name on the caller ID.
The captain was my connection to a couple of loathsome serial felons from a godforsaken, landlocked pile of rocks called Sumar. I had offered to help the captain for free.
I said my name, and he got right into it.
“I’m at the Armstrong Hotel, Jack, over on Brampton. There was a murder here forty-eight hours ago, but it’s not my precinct, no reason for anyone to call me. Except for something a witness said to the first cop on the scene. The witness is sketchy, but I think he can ID the Sumaris.”
“You said it’s a homicide?”
Warren said, “Could be more than one.”