14th Deadly Sin

CHAPTER 38

AT JUST BEFORE 5 p.m. that day, Yuki followed Officer Creed Mahoney through several steel doors and gates to the jail on the sixth floor of the Hall of Justice. From there she was escorted to one of the claustrophobic counsel rooms with high barred windows, reserved for meetings between prisoners and lawyers.

She’d been waiting for about ten minutes when the door opened and Li’l Tony Willis clumped into the room in chains from wrists to ankles, all five foot nothing of him, wearing an orange jumpsuit and two full sleeves of tattoos, twists in his hair and ’tude on his face.

“Who are you again?” Li’l Tony asked as Mahoney threaded his chains through the hook in the table.

“Fifteen minutes, OK, Ms. Castellano?” said Mahoney. “I’ll be back.”

The door closed and locked.

Yuki said to the man-boy wife beater, drug dealer, and possible killer sitting across from her, “I’m an attorney. Yuki Castellano. I want to hear about Aaron-Rey Kordell getting killed. What happened?”

“Are you kidding me? You want to ask me did I kill him? Because no, I didn’t. Got any cigarettes?”

“I hoped you might be able to tell me who might have killed Kordell, because that could be helpful.”

“To who? I got nothing to tell you because I didn’t do nothing to that retard. So if that’s all, this is good-bye, Ms. Cassielandro.”

“Here’s what I know. You’ve given evidence against Jorge Sierra,” she said, referring to a savage Southern California drug lord who was known as Kingfisher, a man whose whereabouts were unknown. Even his true identity was a mystery.

“You were one of his inner circle, weren’t you, Tony? Don’t bother to lie. I know a lot of cops and I know you cooperated. If Sierra finds out, you’re going to have a very short li’l life.”

The kid looked scared for the first time. He shot his eyes around the small room, searching for a camera.

“Who said that?” he said. “Whoever said I ratted on the King is lying, lady. I’m no snitch.”

Yuki said, pressing on, “Let me be very clear. I’m not looking to pin Kordell on you. I’m looking to find out why that kid was killed.”

“Same thing,” said Tony Willis. “OK, listen, it wasn’t me. It mighta been a couple of guys in here working for the King that took him out. But tell you the truth, Kingfisher’s name was in the air, but I don’t think he had nothing to do with it.

“I’m spekalating, Ms. Cassielandro. I don’t know shit about who killed A-Rey. That’s all. And it’s for free.”

“I’ll have cigarettes for you in the canteen.”

“That’s it?”

“Here’s my card. You have any new thoughts about who killed A-Rey, get in touch. I’d consider that a big favor.”

After Tony Willis was taken away, Yuki rode the elevator down to the street, went to the underground garage, and found her car. She drove to her office, her mind on what Li’l Tony had told her, which was nothing.

Shit. She thought of Aaron-Rey, that sweet look on his face in the picture in his mother’s hands. She couldn’t imagine that boy killing three drug dealers who’d befriended him.

No matter how many ways she looked at it, Aaron-Rey killing three drug dealers made no sense at all.