“We have a couple things, actually,” began Raley. “First, we have the connection we’ve been looking for between Esteban Padilla and Cassidy Towne. Not just a phone call, but a regular pattern of calls to her.”
Ochoa picked up the tour, pointing to a series of highlights on the first pages, the ones on the left side of her desk. “The first calls come here, once or twice a week last winter and into spring. These correspond to the dates he was working the limo. A sure sign Padilla was one of her informants.”
“Know what I think?” said Rook. “I’ll bet you can look at the dates of those calls to her, check who Padilla had booked that night, and match them to items in her column the next day. Assuming any of the tips were newsworthy.”
“Newsworthy?” said Heat.
“OK, gossipworthy.”
She nodded. “But I take your point. What else?”
“Here it gets even more interesting,” continued Raley. “The calls stop abruptly right here.” He tapped the printout for May. “Guess when this was?”
“The month Padilla got fired from the limo company,” she said.
“Right. A whole cluster of calls just after that—we’ll have to guess what that was about for now—and then nothing for almost a month.”
“And then they pick up again here.” Ochoa appeared on Nikki’s right and used the yellow highlighter cap to show resumption of contacts. “Calls. Lots of calls all of a sudden in mid-June. Four months ago.”
Heat asked, “Do we know if he was working another limo company then?”
“We checked that,” said Raley. “He started driving the produce deliveries end of May, shortly after he got canned from driving the black cars. So I doubt if he was still giving gossip tips.”
“At least not new ones.” Rook leaned in past Nikki and spread his fingers to span the gap in calls. “My guess is this hiatus in calls was when Mr. Padilla was not providing daily tips to Ms. Towne. And the resumption of calls in June was all about research for whatever the hell book she was writing. Depending on where she was with her manuscript, as a writer, I’d say that would be about the right timing.”
Nikki scanned the highlighted pattern, a time line in its own right, and then turned to face her detectives and Rook. “Great work. This is big. We not only have our connection between Padilla and Towne, but if Rook’s right about what the pattern means, it suggests why he was killed. If she was murdered for what she was writing, he could have been murdered for being her snitch.”
“Same as Derek Snow?” asked Rook.
“For once, not such a whacko theory, Mr. Rook. But still, only a theory until we can make a similar link. Roach, get on our concierge’s phone records first thing in the morning.”
As Roach left the bull pen, she heard Raley say in a low voice, “I’m looking forward to some sleep, but whenever I close my eyes, all I see are printouts of phone records.”
And Ochoa replied, “Me, too, Sweet Tea.”
Nikki was putting on her brown leather jacket when Rook stepped up to the coatrack, closing his messenger bag. “You boys kiss and make up?” she asked.
“How did you know that? Did we have that post-make-up-sex glow?”
“I may be sick,” she said. “Actually, I happened to catch you through the glass in Observation.”
“That was a private conversation.”
“Funny, that’s what the bad guys think when they’re in that room, too. Everybody forgets it’s a two-way mirror.” She flicked her eyebrows at him, a full Groucho. “But that was a good thing you did, reaching out to them like that.”
“Thanks. Listen, I was thinking . . . I’d love to cash in that rain check for last night.”
“Oo . . . sorry. Can’t tonight, I’ve made plans. Petar called.”