“You should’ve known when you went up to see Moya they would know you figured everything out and were a danger.”
“That’s crazy, Lorna. Because I didn’t figure everything out. Not then and not now. I’m still flying by the seat of my pants on this case. Besides that, the day before, Cisco said they weren’t seeing anything, and I’d made an executive decision to pull the Indians back because they were costing us a lot and you were on my back all the time about the money.”
“So you’re blaming me?”
“No, I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming anybody, but obviously somebody missed something because we were not in the clear.”
“And Earl got killed.”
“Yeah, Earl got killed and so far they’ve gotten away with it. And I have to live with making the call to pull back on the surveillance, not that it would have changed anything.”
I raised my hands in an I-give-up gesture.
“Look, I don’t know why this all comes to the surface right now, but can we stop talking about it? I’m in the middle of a trial and I’m juggling chain saws. All of this doesn’t really help. I see Earl’s face every night when I try to go to sleep. If it helps you to know he haunts me, well, he does.”
We rode in silence for the next twenty-five minutes until finally we pulled into the parking lot behind the loft on Santa Monica. I could tell by the number of cars in the lot, including three beat-up panel vans, that our staff meeting would have musical accompaniment. Under the house rules, bands were allowed to practice in their lofts after four p.m.
Lorna and I said nothing as we rode the freight elevator up. Our shoes made angry sounds on the wood floor. They echoed across the empty loft as we headed to the boardroom.
Only Jennifer Aronson was already there. I remembered that Cisco had said that he had something to do first.
“So how did it go?” Aronson asked.
I nodded as I pulled out a seat and sat down.
“Pretty good. Things are in play. I was even able to suggest to Forsythe that he let Lankford vet the new witness list.”
“I meant the trial. How was Fulgoni?”
I glanced at Lorna, aware of her sympathies for Sly Jr.
“He served his purpose.”
“Is he off yet?”
“Yeah, we’re finished with him for now.”
“And so you gave the new list, and what happened?”
Jennifer had prepared the new witness list, making sure that every new name had some connection to the case so that we could argue its place on it. That is, every name but one.
“Forsythe objected all over the place and the judge gave him till tomorrow morning to respond. So I want you there, since you know the names better than me. Are you clear in the morning?”
Jennifer nodded.
“Yes. Will I be making the response or just whispering to you?”
“You respond.”
She brightened at the thought of going up against Forsythe in court.
“What about if he brings up Stratton Sterghos?”
I thought for a moment before responding. I heard someone riffing on an electric guitar somewhere in the building.
“First of all, there is no if about that. Sterghos is going to come up. When he does, you start to answer and then you sort of look at me as if to ask if you’re saying too much. I’ll step in then and take it from there.”
The new witness list I had submitted was a carefully constructed part of our defense strategy. Every person we had added had at least a tangential connection to the Gloria Dayton case. We could easily argue for his or her inclusion and testimony. However, the truth was, we would actually call few of them to testify. Most of them had been added to the list in an effort to cloak a single name: Stratton Sterghos.
Sterghos was the depth charge. He was not directly or indirectly connected to Dayton. He did, however, live for the past twenty years across the street from a house in Glendale where two drug dealers were assassinated in 2003. It was in the investigation of those murders that I believed an unholy alliance was somehow struck between then–Detective Lee Lankford and DEA agent James Marco. I needed to root that alliance out and find a way to tie it in with Gloria. It was called relevance. I had to make the Glendale case relevant to the Dayton case or I would never get it to the jury.
“So you’re hoping Lankford does the vetting and comes up with Stratton Sterghos’s connection,” Jennifer said.
I nodded.
“If we get lucky.”
“And then he makes a mistake.”
I nodded again.
“If we get luckier.”
As if on cue, Cisco entered the boardroom. I realized that the big man hadn’t made a sound as he had crossed the loft. He went to the coffeepot and started pouring a cup.
“Cisco, that’s old,” Lorna warned. “From this morning. It’s not even hot.”
“It will have to do,” Cisco said.
He put the glass pot down on the cold burner and swallowed a gulp from the cup. We all made faces. He smiled.
“What?” he said. “I need the caffeine. We’re setting up on the house and I could be up all night.”
“So everything is set?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I just checked it out. We’re ready.”
“Then let’s hope Lankford does his job.”
“And then some.”
He started pouring more of the dead coffee into his cup.
“Let me just make a fresh pot,” Lorna said.
She got up and came around the table to her husband.
“No, it’s fine,” Cisco said. “I can’t stay long anyway. Have to get up there with the crew.”
Lorna stopped. There was a pained expression on her face.
“What?” Cisco asked.
“What is this you’re doing?” she asked. “How dangerous?”
Cisco shrugged and looked at me.
“We’ve taken precautions,” I said. “But . . . they are men with guns.”
“We’re always careful,” Cisco added.
I now realized where the heated discussion between Lorna and me in the car had come from. She was worried about her husband, worried that the fate that had befallen Earl Briggs would come to her house next.