“He interviewed a lot of people on staff.” There was a tone of bitterness in his voice.
“Buddy,” Katella said, “I was doing my job.”
“I know, Don. Sorry. It was a miserable year.”
“Christina Hernandez.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“She was the legal secretary to the DA, left employment in June the year after Justin’s murder.”
“I don’t remember, seriously. I vaguely remember the DA’s legal secretary, but I didn’t interact with her much. Hold on.” Max heard him rummaging through files.
Lucy said, “Don’t give me anything I shouldn’t have.”
Max was going to tear her hair out if they had to walk the straight and narrow. This was the reason she didn’t like working with cops.
“You could leave the room,” Max said.
Lucy gave her such a look that Max almost did a double take.
“Just an idea,” Max mumbled.
Andrew said over the phone, “I can tell you that she doesn’t fit your profile, does that help?”
“Yes, just keep her information handy. Last name. Danielle Sharpe.”
Silence.
“You don’t know her, either?” Max said. Damn, and she thought it had been a good lead. Didn’t mean she was innocent, but she would be harder to investigate if they had to go back to square one.
Andrew said, “I remember Danielle.”
“It was nearly twenty years ago,” Lucy said. “That’s a really good memory.”
Lucy sounded almost like she was interrogating Andrew. It was subtle, but Max didn’t miss the tone.
“She almost screwed up one of my biggest cases in my early career. Not something I would forget.”
“Explain.”
“It was more my fault for trusting her with something so crucial, but she’d done outstanding work for one of my colleagues, and I was still new—I’d only been in the DA’s office for two years at that point, still making a name for myself.”
“What specifically did she do?”
“I had her researching cases to back up a fraud case I was prosecuting. She screwed up every citation. Every single one. I called her on the carpet for it—she blamed the computer program she was using, that it had shifted columns so everything was one off. Still, the DA pulled the case from me and gave it to one of my rivals.”
“Did you believe her?”
“Why shouldn’t I have? Mistakes happen—I was furious at the time.”
“When was this?”
Andrew took a long pause. “I got the case at the beginning of the year. It would have been around April. Before Justin. Are you saying she killed my son because I got her in trouble?”
“No,” Lucy said. “I’m not saying anything.”
“Then why all these questions?”
“Do you know if she was married?”
“I didn’t know anything personal about her. I never worked with her again. I considered her incompetent, but ultimately, it was my responsibility to double-check her research.”
“Thank you. I’ll let you go and—”
“Stop. Don’t you dare hang up, Lucy! Is this the woman who killed my son? Why? Dammit, Lucy, you owe me that!”
Lucy bristled, and Max said in a calm, controlled voice, “Andrew, I’m sure you don’t mean that.”
He swore in the background. Something crashed to the ground.
“Listen to me,” Lucy said. “Back off. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t want to tip you off because you would go off half-cocked and try to find her. Confront her. She killed your son and everything you felt then, you’re feeling now. I will find her, Andrew, and if she is guilty, I will prove it. I promise you, Andrew. I’m not letting this go.”
“Okay. Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry—I’m just—you’re right. I haven’t felt myself since Max called and told me she was looking at Justin’s murder. I have a question, though.”
“Of course.”
“Are you saying Don interviewed her? Is that why her name came up?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Katella spoke up. “She was at your house the morning after Justin disappeared. There were dozens of people there—she said she was a neighbor, but I don’t have her address in the files.”
“A neighbor. I didn’t know. I never saw her there.”
“You weren’t home that morning. According to my notes, you were out looking for Justin with one of the first responding officers, then insisted that he take you to the station so you could run all sex offenders. Then I believe you went to your office to find out who might have been released recently that you put away. All the things I would have done—and did do—after he turned up dead.”
“Those days are a blur. All I really remember was when Nell called me and said Justin was gone. I remember bits and pieces … but the pain is always here. Always.”
“Andrew,” Lucy said, “you know me. You know I’ll never back down. I will find Danielle Sharpe, and if she killed Justin, she will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
“I think it’s time you bring this to the police,” Andrew said.
Max leaned forward. She wasn’t giving this up, not yet. She was close, and as soon as the police got involved, she’d be shut out.
“We don’t have enough,” Lucy said before Max could comment. She shot Max a look and shook her head. What did she think Max was going to say or do?
“What do you mean? We have a suspect! She matches all of your criteria.”
“Andrew, we have no idea what her background is, where she’s from, if she’s married or was married or lost a child. We don’t know where she is or what she’s doing. We have no physical evidence to tie her to the murders. None. We turn this over to the police—even here in San Diego where you have clout—they will be stymied because they don’t have the resources to pursue this out of the area. They’ll pass it along to whichever jurisdiction she lives in now, and they’ll talk to her—and that will get us nowhere. She’s never been interviewed as a suspect to our knowledge, and I don’t want to spook her—not until we have something solid. This is a multijurisdictional case, and as soon as I have anything tangible, I’ll give everything to the FBI. You know they’ll be able to expedite this—I’ll call in every favor to make it happen. We don’t have it, not now. But we will.”
“You believe that.”
“Yes,” Lucy said without hesitation.
“Let me know what I can do. Anything.”
“Right now, go home. Do something to take your mind off this.”
“That won’t happen, but I have a charity event I’m supposed to go to tonight. That’ll distract me for a bit.”
“I’ll call you later.”
Lucy hung up. “David, would you be able to contact the assistant sheriff in Santa Barbara? I talked to him this morning. I don’t want to put in a formal request, but he seemed to be open to answering yes or no questions if we have a name.”
“You want me to ask if he interviewed Danielle Sharpe.”
“Yes.”
“Tommy’s uncle has been helping—he’s a cop.”
“Can he talk to the parents about her? I would like to talk to them myself if possible.”
“I’ll feel him out, see what he thinks, but I suspect they want him to mediate.”