If Cooks Could Kill Page 15

  “You have the right to remain silent…”

  Chapter 18

  Angie raced along beside Paavo as they entered City Jail, Connie’s panic-stricken phone call still playing in her mind. The jail shared a parking lot with the Hall of Justice, whose back door was near the jail’s front entrance. “I just hope my father’s attorney has already been able to bail Connie out,” Angie said, huffing a little as she kept pace with Paavo’s long-legged strides. “What in the world is going on?”

  “We’ll know soon enough.” Paavo showed his ID to get past the night guard, then they rode the elevator up to the jails. He quickly located the clerk for the night magistrate.

  “She’s here,” the clerk said, checking his logs. “In fact, if you hurry, you’ll catch her in a lineup in 7-C.”

  “A lineup!” Angie glared at Paavo as if it were his fault. “What are they trying to do to her? Let’s get her out of here.”

  “I’ll run down the arresting officer. We’ll know more in a while.” He’d been in the field with Yosh investigating the murder of twenty-four-year-old Janet Clark, who had worked for Couriers Unlimited, when the message had come in that Angie needed to talk to him immediately. He left Yosh on the scene to help Angie find out exactly why Connie had been arrested. Angie’s version from Connie was muddled, to put it mildly.

  “I want to see this lineup.” Angie whirled on the clerk. “Which way is 7-C?”

  He pointed toward the right, down a long hall.

  “Angie, why don’t you wait here?” Paavo suggested, ushering her toward one of the benches lining the hallway.

  “No!” She dug her heels in. “Connie’s my friend and I want to know why the police arrested her. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Paavo led her close to the room where the lineup was being held and found her a seat, explaining that she couldn’t go inside. He could, and would let her know all about it.

  She didn’t like it, but there was nothing she could do.

  Paavo had turned to enter 7-C when Robbery Inspector Vic Walters stepped out. He looked at Paavo, and a smug expression crossed his face. “Hey, you Homicide boys are fast. Guess you heard we might have solved your case for you.”

  That wasn’t what Paavo was expecting. “My case? What do you mean?”

  “The courier. Hold on a minute.” Walters began to make a call on his cell phone.

  A sick feeling gripped Paavo at Walters’s words. A thought struck him, but it was impossible. “I’m going into the lineup,” he said.

  “It’s ended. Just a sec.” Walters quietly said a few words into the phone. As he spoke, they stepped aside as a man in his sixties or so, with a thick gauze bandage on one side of his head, was led out of the lineup room, accompanied by a robbery inspector and a uniformed cop. As soon as the door opened, Angie was on her feet in search of Connie, trying to see around the men leaving the room.

  “That old guy isn’t Isaac Zakarian, is he?” Paavo asked.

  “He sure is.”

  His impossible idea was beginning to look more probable. “And the lineup was for him to identify the woman who stole his diamonds?”

  “You Homicide boys sure are smart,” Vic said.

  “What makes you think the woman you arrested is the right one?”

  Vic pushed back the sides of his jacket and put his hands on his hips, his chest puffed up like a peacock’s. “Other than the fact that Zakarian made a positive ID right now, you mean? She killed the courier, dressed up in the courier’s clothes, and stole half a million worth of diamonds.”

  “Impossible!” came a furious shout behind them. “Connie’s no murderer!”

  They spun around as Angie stormed toward them. “She’s no thief, either! Anyone with half a brain can see that! What’s wrong with you?”

  Vic raised his eyebrows at the angry woman. “This must be your fiancée,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about her.”

  “Yes. Angie, this is Vic Walters, Robbery. Vic, meet Angie.” As the two shook hands, Paavo couldn’t help but think how incongruous it was to be introducing Angie to a peer as his fiancée, while her best friend was being charged not only with a robbery she didn’t commit, but possibly of a murder he was investigating.

  “Connie Rogers is my dearest friend,” Angie explained to Walters, visibly trying to calm herself. “This has got to be some horrible mistake!”

  “I’m sorry.” Vic’s expression said he’d heard that one before. “But if the lineup confirms our case…”

  “Angie’s right,” Paavo said coldly. “Connie doesn’t have it in her to do any of this.”

  “There’s a man involved,” Vic said out of one side of his mouth, angling his shoulder to try to cut Angie out of the conversation. “You know how nutso some dames get around a guy. She might be one of them.”

  “No way!” Angie said, once again proving how sharp her hearing was. “Not my friend.” She was so annoyed she was practically hopping.

  “Who’s the guy?” Paavo asked.

  “The jeweler called it. Six-one or-two, a hundred eighty or so, sandy hair, longish, curly, said his eyes seemed ‘dark,’ but he was too faraway to see their color. His clothes apparently seemed pretty grubby—jeans and an old black overcoat.”

  Paavo turned to Angie. “Does Connie know anyone like that?”

  She paled, and then shook her head. More subdued now, she slid closer to Paavo as if for protection. “Let’s talk to Connie, see what she says.”

  Paavo’s eyes narrowed, but he turned back to Vic. “How bad is it?”

  “Looks cut and dried to me.”

  “You know how unreliable eyewitnesses are. Any evidence?”

  “We’re sending a team over to search her place right now for the diamonds. Half a mil worth.”

  “You have people going through Connie’s things?” Angie shrieked. “And she’s not even there to watch them? Paavo, you’ve got to stop them! What if they break something? Or steal it?”

  “Angie, they’re cops,” Paavo said with a you’ve-just-gone-too-far warning tone to his voice.

  “I don’t care who they are! She has rights. Cops can’t just go barging into her place and—”

  “We got our search warrant approved when Zakarian ID’d her. That was the call I made,” Vic explained.

  “You did?” Angie quieted down considerably.

  “How did you know to search her place?” Paavo asked.

  “A phone tip. Anonymous, from a phone booth downtown, next to Union Square. They gave us the apartment to go to, said we’d find the robber, her lover, and the diamonds there. So far, we haven’t found the stones or Casanova.”

  “So you’ve got nothing but some anonymous call and an old man who probably has a concussion,” Paavo said. He didn’t need to add what a good defense attorney would do with this.

  “He was with the woman,” Walters pointed out.

  “And also scared to death.”

  “He doesn’t seem like the type who’d say a thing and not mean it.”

  “You’re talking five hundred thousand in diamonds. That can be pretty convincing.”

  Walters shrugged. “Maybe we’ve got something else, besides.” With a Cheshire cat smile, he walked away.

  Angie and Paavo went in search of the lawyer Angie had contacted after receiving Connie’s desperate phone call. They found him talking with the Robbery inspectors. When he noticed Angie, his expression mirrored the grimness of Connie’s situation.

  Luciano Matteo had often worked for Angie’s father and had known her from the time she was a little girl. He was a meticulous dresser, even at nearly eleven o’-clock at night, and his suit showed no wrinkles, his shoes were glossy, and his shirt fresh and starched. A fringe of black hair surrounded a bald crown, and he had a narrow Hitleresque mustache. As soon as he finished with the police, he held his arms out to her and they hugged. She introduced him to Paavo. “I’m so sorry this is happening to such a nice young lady as your friend,” Matteo said.

&nb
sp; “Can you get her out of here?” Angie asked, worried. She read the answer on his face and her stomach sank.

  “There will be an arraignment soon, but until then, there’s no bail. I’m frankly out of my league here. I do corporate and family law—civil cases—people suing each other, that kind of thing. She needs a good criminal lawyer. I have some people I can recommend.”

  “This case isn’t going to be over quickly, then?” Angie asked.

  He shook his head sadly. “Not without a break. Let’s go see Connie. She’ll be happy you’re here.”

  Angie waited while Matteo and Paavo signed her in with them to the attorney’s visiting room. Connie had already been made to change into an oversized prisoner’s orange jumpsuit and paper slippers. With no makeup, she looked pale, confused, and frightened. When she saw Angie, she flew into her arms with a sob. Angie’s eyes teared up as well.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Connie said as they hugged. After a moment, she backed away and turned to Mr. Matteo. “Can I go home yet?”

  His gaze was gentle. “The jeweler said you robbed him.”

  Angie was holding her hand, and Connie nearly crushed her fingers at this news. “How can he do that? I was at work!” she searched their faces, bewildered. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Let’s all sit down,” Matteo said, “and discuss this calmly.”

  Except for a wooden table and four chairs, the beige-colored room was bare. Wired glass faced the hallway, allowing the guard to view everything that happened inside.

  “Since she’s got to spend the night here,” Paavo said, “you need to request that she be put in the ASU.”

  Matteo nodded. “Right. I do know about that, at least.”

  “ASU?” Angie asked.

  “Administrative Segregation Unit. Isolation. It’s not great, but it’ll keep her away from the general population. It’s for her protection.”

  Connie and Angie both blanched and scooted closer together.

  At the lawyer’s tacit consent, Paavo asked Connie, “Do you have proof you were working yesterday afternoon between one and three P.M.?”

  “Yesterday? Today I had a lot of customers, but yesterday…The store was open. I was in it,” Connie said helplessly.

  “Did anyone see you there? Any customers who could testify for you, if necessary.”

  “What about later? Around six o’clock, does that help?”

  Paavo shook his head.

  She thought a moment. “Anyone walking by could have seen the OPEN sign on the door.”

  “What about Helen Melinger?” Angie asked. “Did you have the door open? Did you talk to her?”

  “Actually, the door was shut. The heating system isn’t working well, and I was freezing.”

  “Connie, how many times have I told you that you need to make your shop inviting for people to walk into?” Angie cried.

  Connie looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “And find me sitting there blue with my teeth chattering? I don’t think so!”

  “Now isn’t the time for this,” Paavo interrupted. “What about the phone? Did you make any phone calls?”

  Connie nervously flexed her fingers. “Between one and three? I doubt it.”

  “E-mails?” he asked.

  “I don’t have a computer in the store.”

  “How can you run a business without a computer to help with inventory?” Angie put her hands to her head in frustration.

  “People have been doing inventory for centuries without them, and so do I!” Connie was growing more hysterical with each question she couldn’t answer. “Anyway, what good would a computerized inventory do now?”

  Angie rolled her eyes. Paavo frowned at her to keep quiet.

  “What about this fellow who was supposed to be with you in this?” Mr. Matteo asked.

  “Why do they keep asking me about—” Connie abruptly shut her mouth.

  “About who?” Paavo asked.

  Connie faced Angie, her eyes wide. Angie faintly shook her head. “No one,” Connie said.

  “Do you know what’s going on, Angie?” Paavo asked, his jaw tight.

  Angie stared at Connie, desperate for her to say something. She didn’t. Angie glanced at Paavo. “How could I know?”

  He faced the attorney. “Miss Amalfi seems to have lapses of memory at times.”

  “Yes.” Matteo stroked his mustache. “It runs in the family, I’m sorry to say.”

  “You need to think twice before protecting anyone, Connie,” Paavo warned, “because in the course of the robbery, the female courier was killed.”

  “Killed? You mean I could be up for murder?” Connie’s voice rose so high she could have broken the sound barrier. She looked ready to pass out. Angie jumped up and pushed Connie so that she was bending forward, her head between her legs.

  “I didn’t tell my client that part of the proceedings yet.” Matteo sighed. “She was already so upset, I didn’t think it would help matters any if she fainted.”

  Paavo was not so sympathetic. Both Connie and Angie were hiding something. They had to know how serious this was. “She had to find out sometime.”

  “I suppose she did,” Matteo responded, eying Paavo with new respect.

  At this point, Connie was crying harder than ever, and Angie burst into tears with her. The two men escaped.

  Once outside, they stood in the hallway in mutual sympathy. The nature of the charges against Connie Rogers meant that if she were convicted, she’d spend the rest of her life in jail. The only thing Paavo was sure of was that she was innocent. Angie wasn’t wrong there.

  “There’s nothing we can do tonight,” Paavo said. “I’ll talk to the DA first thing in the morning.”

  “Then?” Matteo asked with some professional curiosity.

  Paavo looked at the closed door of the waiting room. “Then, I’m going to take apart the case point by point, and find out who really stole the diamonds and killed the courier.”

  Chapter 19

  The San Francisco District Attorney’s office was located on the third floor of the Hall of Justice, right below Homicide. The DA had a walnut-furnished office to the right of the reception area, and the assistant DAs—the ones who handled ninety-nine percent of the casework—were in a cubicle-lined room to the left.

  The Zakarian robbery and Janet Clark murder case had been assigned to Assistant DA Hanover Judd.

  Paavo had worked with Judd on many occasions and knew him to be a hard-nosed by-the-book guy. File folders, message slips, briefs, and a half-eaten bagel with cream cheese cluttered his desktop. After shared greetings, Paavo said, “I’m here to talk to you about Connie Rogers.”

  Judd offered a chair. He didn’t answer right away. Handsome, ambitious, and in his early thirties, a few years out of Hastings Law School, he was cautious to a fault, seeing the DA’s office as his most promising route to a political career. “We’ll be pressing charges for the Zakarian robbery. I assume you’d like to add in the murder of the young courier as well. You weren’t thinking special circumstances, were you? To go after a woman with the death penalty—”

  “I’m asking that you take a little time before you indict her on anything,” Paavo said. Judd put his pen down on the desk and regarded Paavo as if he’d lost his mind. “I know Connie Rogers. I have no idea, yet, what’s going on here, but there’s no way she could have been involved.”

  Judd tapped his fingers and Paavo noted his suspicious look. “Sounds like some guy took part as well,” Judd offered. “Maybe he masterminded it and she just went along. An accessory to murder, though, is equally guilty.”

  “Did Robbery find any diamonds in her apartment?” Paavo asked.

  Judd’s face closed, but meeting Paavo’s direct look, he relented. “No. But she could easily have stashed them somewhere else. Or the guy got to them before we did.”

  “The jeweler’s identification was weak,” Paavo added. He was only guessing, but based on past experience, it was true in about
two-thirds of the cases. “He ‘thought’ she looked a lot like the robber, but he couldn’t say positively, right?” When Judd didn’t protest, he added, “Something about her face bothered him.”

  Judd didn’t deny it. They were both old hands at this, and there was little need for subterfuge or mind games. “What do you expect? Zakarian has a slight concussion from where she clobbered him. Plus he was under stress. And his vision isn’t great.”

  The identification sounded even weaker than Paavo had imagined. He pressed his point. “Connie Rogers is as clean as they come. She’s never been involved in any crime. Probably not even a traffic ticket. I’ll bet she doesn’t even fudge on her tax return. You’re saying that someone like that committed murder and robbery?” Since Judd didn’t stop him, he pulled out the big gun. “Someone whose own sister was murdered, by the way. Tiffany Rogers. You remember the case. It involved our very own former district attorney, Lloyd Fletcher.” Paavo watched the ADA’s face turn gray.

  “She’s that sister?” Judd’s voice cracked. He remembered the case. He should. It had rocked City Hall and San Francisco politics for months.

  “That’s right. It has no bearing on this case one way or the other, except for me to tell you that Connie is a law-abiding citizen. She certainly wouldn’t stand around and let some boyfriend kill an innocent woman.”

  “There’s the phone call—”

  “Called in anonymously. How much can you rely on it? A good lawyer could say it’d been called in to throw off a bunch of cops too eager to close a case.”

  “But if so, he’d have to answer why Connie Rogers?” Judd mused. “There’s got to be something going on there. Her name wouldn’t have come out of a hat.”

  “She looks like the real robber, obviously.”

  “Hmm. Next thing I know you’ll tell me the robber is a third sister. Or maybe Tiffany, come back from the dead. Look, Robbery had enough on her to bring her in.”

  “I don’t know what the connection is,” Paavo said. “I’m working on it. The courier’s death is my case. I’ll find out who killed her, but I don’t want my investigation stalled or the whole case going off on the wrong track if you indict Rogers and only later learn it was a mistake. I’m here to stop you from ending up with egg on your face.”