“You first.” She sat on her desk to face them. “While I’m waiting for my warrant, why don’t you tell me a story?”
While Raley rolled over two desk chairs for them, Ochoa got out his pad to consult as he spoke. “Just like we thought, Victor says his cousin Esteban was making money on the side selling information about his celebrity riders to Cassidy Towne.”
Raley said, “Ironic when you consider the big stall was all about some snitch code.”
“Anyway, he was spying for pocket money that he got if his tips were hot enough to make her column. Twenty here, fifty there. Adds up, I guess. It’s all a beautiful thing until one night last May when some bad shit goes down on one of his rides.”
“Reed Wakefield,” said Nikki.
“We know that, but here’s where Victor swears to God his cousin never told him what happened that night, only that there was some bad business and the less he knew the better.”
“Esteban was trying to protect his cousin,” said Heat.
“So he says,” added Raley.
Ochoa flipped a page. “So whatever exactly went down is still unknown.”
Heat knew she could fill in some of that blank, but she wanted to hear their raw story first, so she didn’t interrupt.
“Next day cousin Esteban gets canned from his limo job, some vague BS about personality conflict with his clients. So he’s out of a gig, gets bad-mouthed in the business, and has to drive lettuce and onions around instead of A-listers and prom queens. He gets all set to sue—”
“Because he’s been wronged,” interjected Raley, quoting the Ronnie Strong commercial.
“—but drops it because once our gossip columnist hears from him about whatever happened that night—obviously involving Reed Wakefield somehow—she gives him a load of money to drop his suit and chill so he doesn’t attract attention to it. Probably she didn’t want a leak before her book was done.”
Nikki jumped in here. “Cassidy Towne gave him a hundred large?”
“Nope, more like five grand,” said Raley. “We’re coming to the big payout.”
“Esteban wanted more, so he double-dipped. He called up the subject of his tip to Cassidy Towne and said he was going to go public with what he saw that night unless he got a healthy chunk of change. Turns out it wasn’t so healthy.”
Raley picked it up. “Padilla got himself a hundred grand and then got himself killed the very next day. Cousin Victor freaks but hangs on to the money, figuring to use it to get away someplace where whoever did this can’t find him.”
“So that’s what we got,” said Ochoa. “We got some of the story, but we still don’t have the name of whoever Padilla was shaking down.”
They looked up at Nikki, sitting on her desk grinning.
“But you do, don’t you?” said Raley.