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CHAPTER 51

IT WAS MIDDAY and I was at my desk in the squad room, with Alvarez to my right, Conklin to my left, and the remains of lunch spread around our pod. I gave my pickles to Alvarez, and she gave me access to her bag of chips baked in truffle oil. Conklin had nothing to swap but a small bag of M&M’s, which he emptied onto a paper plate.

I downloaded Hallows’s crime-scene photos to my computer, and Alvarez and Conklin wheeled their chairs closer to mine.

Then I pushed the remains of my sandwich aside, and to the background sounds of ringing phones, cops talking over one another, and twenty-four-hour news coming from the TV hanging on the wall over my head, I clicked the Enter key on my desktop computer and started this nightmare slideshow.

I began with photos from the incident last week, and related to them what I’d heard about that day in court, the first day of Dario Garza’s trial, when a box containing a smoke bomb had exploded outside Judge Orlofsky’s courtroom, disrupting the trial just as Yuki was finishing her opening statement. The box with the smoke bomb had also held about two dozen colored cards, pictured in the next three photos, all inscribed with the numbers and addresses of the jurors, the judge, and the attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense.

It had been a warning. And now it was a fact.

I continued narrating as I shifted to the carousel of today’s crime-scene photos. The first photo on my screen showed the bloody bed and the beheaded body of Judge Martin Orlofsky. On the carpeted floor beside the bed was the headless body of the judge’s wife, Sandra Flynn Orlofsky.

I clicked next to shots of the CSIs working the living room, including a door from the yard to the ground level and a close-up of the jimmied lock. And finally, a series of horrific pictures of the severed heads in the bathtub.

Alvarez exhaled a loud, “Oh, my God,” and wheeled her chair away, back to behind her desk. Conklin cleared his throat and, after a moment, said, “When I was across the street at MacBain’s picking up lunch, I spoke with a depressed patrolman, Joe Greely, sitting at the bar. He said that he’d been one of the officers assigned to watch over the judge after that threat at the trial. And still this had happened.”

I nodded. “What’d he tell you?”

“He was slurring a little. Half sliding off the barstool,” said Conklin. “But I believed him when he told me that he might have talked to the killer.”

“Really? Might have?”

Alvarez said, “Don’t stop now, Richie.”

“Yeah. So, while I was waiting for our orders to be ready, I took the stool next to Greely,” Conklin said. “He told me that early yesterday morning there was a Mexican gardener in work clothes and a banged-up truck parked across the street from the judge’s house. Greely went over to check him out, since he was on protection detail. Greely says the gardener didn’t seem able to speak much English, but when he asked the guy his business, he got a name, registration, license, and tag numbers. Everything was registered to a Luis Perez.”

“Hunh. A pretty common name.”

“True,” Rich said. “There are a few million Luis Perezes in California, but only one truck with those VIN and tag numbers. And Greely has now learned that that particular Luis Perez has been dead since Alvarez was in grade school.”

I sighed. “Suspicious, true. But I can think of a dozen reasons this gardener might use someone else’s ID. What makes Greely think this guy was the killer? Did he act suspiciously? Was the guy’s truck seen somewhere it shouldn’t have been? Did Greely see him enter or leave the house?”

“Nope. It was cop’s intuition,” said Rich. “But just in case, I’m thinking we check to see if any of the neighbors have security cameras and caught a photo of the gardener. Even if they don’t, Greely can describe him to the sketch artist.”

“Once he sobers up.”

“I’ll make that happen,” Rich said.