Page 43 of Nightshade

JUAREZ MANAGED TO reserve a private room for what she’d told Stilwell would be a “discussion” with Oscar Terranova. Stilwell reminded her that while there was no warrant or charges on the books for Terranova, he was wanted for questioning in a homicide. He said he couldn’t promise not to arrest him, depending on how the discussion went. And Juarez reminded Stilwell that he had been relieved of duty and making an arrest would probably result in an internal investigation and discipline for not abiding by departmental orders and policy.

“We’re just going to talk,” Juarez said. “And he walks out of here when we’re finished.”

“Does he even know I’ll be here?” Stilwell asked.

“I told him I had to have an investigator present.”

“But you didn’t tell him it was me.”

“No, that will be a surprise.”

“And not a good one.”

Stilwell expected Baby Head to do a one-eighty the moment he saw him in the room.

“So, what’s our best-case scenario?” he asked.

“He has to have evidence,” Juarez said. “It can’t be a he-said, he-said. We won’t even file that shit.”

“You tell him that already?”

“I did. He said he had something we’re going to like.”

“Well, he—”

He stopped when Juarez’s phone started buzzing. She took the call, listened, then responded that she would come get her visitor.

“Here we go,” she said as she headed toward the door. Her voice sounded shaky. She was nervous and Stilwell knew why. Terranova had already marked her for life. There was no telling how he would act if things didn’t go his way in the next hour.

The room was unlike any interview room at a sheriff’s station. It was used mostly for negotiations between prosecutors and defense attorneys. The table Stilwell sat at was unscarred wood that had been polished with Pledge and not the sweat and tears of accused suspects.

The door reopened and Juarez entered first, followed by Oscar Terranova, dressed in bleached white pants and an untucked Tommy Bahama shirt with blue parrots on a field of yellow. But two steps into the room, he saw Stilwell and stopped dead.

“What’s he doing here?” he said. “This ain’t the island.”

“I told you I would have an investigator in the meeting,” Juarez said.

“Yeah, but not him,” Terranova said. “This ain’t happening.”

As Stilwell had predicted, he turned back to the door.

“Sit down, Oscar,” Stilwell said. “You leave, you break the agreement. I’ve got deputies outside that’ll grab you up and put you in a cell. You want that?”

Terranova turned back and looked at Juarez for confirmation.

“Oscar, sit down, please,” she said. “I think the only way you walk free today is if you keep our deal. So sit down and tell us what you’ve got. If it’s as good as you said it was, there won’t be any problem here.”

“Fuck this,” Terranova said.

But he went to the table, yanked out a chair, and sat down opposite Stilwell.

Juarez sat in the chair next to Stilwell.

“So, as we agreed, we’re not going to record this,” she said. “We’re just going to talk and listen to each other. You told me you had nothing to do with the crimes that occurred recently on Catalina and that you could prove it. This is your chance.”

Terranova sat back in his chair, one arm on the table, fingers tapping the wood like he was contemplating a bet in a poker game. Finally, he spoke.

“Okay, so what you’ve got to know is that I’m totally clean on Gaston and what happened with your girlfriend, Stilwell. It was somebody else callin’ the shots and not telling me shit. That Spivak motherfucker is his guy, not mine.”

Juarez looked at Stilwell and nodded slightly, giving him the lead.

“Who was calling the shots?” he asked.

“That’s my ace card, el jefe . I don’t reveal it till everybody’s all in.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I want a guaranteed no-incarceration deal. Like you were going to give Henry Gaston to get to me.”

“We’re not making a deal until we know what you’ve got. Stop dancing, Oscar. I know your silent partner is Mayor Allen and your corporate lawyer’s fingerprints are all over the Big Wheel deal. Why don’t you start by telling us how you and the mayor connected.”

Stilwell kept his eyes on Terranova, looking for a reaction. Terranova showed no surprise that Stilwell knew about him and Allen.

“Yeah, we’ve got business,” he said. “I made a little money back home and came out to Catalina to invest it. I wanted to start a legitimate company, you know, so I did my homework and saw they needed more golf carts and tours out there. I applied for a license to operate and that was when I met him.”

“Because of your application for a business license?”

“Yep. I met him pretty quick about that and he told me it could take three years or three months to get the operator’s license, depending, and how did I want to handle it?”

“He wanted a bribe.”

“I just call it doing business. Everybody always wants a piece of a good thing. I don’t begrudge that, you know. I say go along to get along.”

“You knew it was a two-way street. You pay the guy off and you get leverage on him down the line.”

“That’s right, like that.”

“You keep any records of these… transactions?”

“Let’s just say I got enough to deal. You want my help, you keep me out of a cell—permanently.”

“If all you’ve got is the mayor taking kickbacks from a small-time tour operator, then we’re done here, Oscar. This is a murder investigation, not a minor corruption case. But I can give you a ride downtown where there are people who want to talk to you.”

Terranova smiled like he was the only one in the room who knew the real lay of the land.

“Oh, big man,” he said. “You think you’re so smart and tough. Tell you what, you didn’t have that badge, this’d be a different story between you and me, Stilwell.”

Stilwell just stared at him and their eyes locked in mutual hatred. Juarez broke the moment.

“Oscar, he’s right,” she said. “Talk to us about the killing of Henry Gaston. And remember, anything you tell us is useless if you can’t back it up.”

“I told you on the phone,” Terranova said. “I can back up every fucking thing I say. I got documents and I got tapes. You want to hear what I got, Stilwell?”

“Yes,” Juarez answered. “We do.”

“Okay, then,” Terranova said. “Let me give y’all a little sample.”

He dropped his hand below the table to reach into his pocket. Stilwell sprang up from his chair, ready to go across the table at him. Terranova immediately raised his hands.

“Relax, man,” he said. “Just going for my phone.”

“Slowly,” Stilwell said.

He remained standing while Terranova retrieved his phone and held it up to show it was not a weapon. Stilwell sat back down.

“What are you going to show us?” Juarez asked.

“I ain’t showing you nothing,” Terranova said. “Take a listen to this.”

Terranova opened the recording app and played what was obviously a recorded phone call. Stilwell recognized both Terranova’s voice and that of Douglas Allen, starting with the mayor taking the call:

“Hello?” he said.

“What the fuck you do?” Terranova asked.

“I told you never to call this number.”

“Fuck that, it’s a burner. What the hell, man? I just heard Gaston was dead in a fucking cell.”

“He was going to rat you out. That was not a risk I was willing to take. I was watching out for you.”

“Now you got me tied up in a murder, man. You should’ve talked—”

“I don’t need to talk or clear anything with you. You understand? And do not call on this line again.”

The call ended. Terranova typed a command into his phone and dropped it on the table.

“Erased,” he said. “You want it, I got a copy stashed with my lawyer. You don’t get it unless we make a deal.”

Stilwell glanced at Juarez to see if she was going to respond, but she looked frozen. It was clear that Terranova still had a hold on her. This told Stilwell he needed to keep control of the interview.

“What about the abduction of Tash Dano?” he asked. “What did Allen tell you about that?”

“Not a thing,” Terranova said. “I read about it in the news.”

“That wasn’t you who called Spivak in the trailer that night?”

“Not me. I never spoke to him one time. Like I said, he was the mayor’s guy, not mine. I had nothing to do with that thing either.”

“Bullshit. They grabbed her because they thought the saw handle was still on the island and not at the lab. That piece of information came from you, so don’t try to claim you’re innocent. The whole thing went down because of you.”

“Well, maybe, maybe not. But if you want to go that way with it, your pal and prosecutor here is part of the chain of guilt. That comes out, I don’t know how the chips will fall.”

Terranova had thoroughly thought out the moves here. Stilwell would be forced to throw Juarez to the wolves if he tried to pursue him for abducting Tash. It was an impossible decision, so he put it to the side for the moment.

“Tell me about Spivak,” Stilwell said. “If this was all the mayor’s play, how did he know him?”

“Far as I know, they went way back,” Terranova said. “The mayor used him before. He was like a bodyguard for hire who was willing to do whatever needed to be done.”

“Including murder?” Stilwell said. “And assaulting a deputy to get into jail to carry out the murder?”

“For the right price, you can get people to do anything,”

Terranova said. “Don’t tell me you don’t know that, Deputy Doo-Dah.”

Terranova stared at him, and Stilwell saw the threat in his eyes. Then Terranova’s face transformed into a smile.

“So we got a deal or what?” Terranova said. He looked at Juarez for an answer.

“What kind of deal are you looking for?” she said. “You’ve committed serious crimes. You can’t expect—”

“I get the golden parachute,” Terranova said. “That’s what I get. No conviction and no jail time, or it’s no deal. You take your best shot at me, and we’ll see how that goes with no witnesses and a… compromised prosecutor.”

That brought a long silence to the room. Stilwell didn’t know if he should respond, because golden parachutes were Juarez’s department.

“We’re going to step out for a moment,” Juarez finally said. “Sit tight, Oscar.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Terranova said. “Yet.”

Stilwell followed Juarez out. She closed the door to the interview room and they walked several steps down the hall so their whispers could not be heard. Juarez spoke first.

“So, what do you think?” she asked.

“I can’t see him walking away clean,” Stilwell said. “That bothers me.”

“It may be the only way.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Nobody likes it. But there may be no choice. That recording alone is solid evidence, and he says he has more. We’re talking about a corrupt mayor who had someone killed.”

“And Baby Head’s complicit in all of it.”

“He may be, but he’s holding the high cards and we might not have a choice.”

“Yeah, you happen to be one of those cards.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t worry. As soon as we get through this—if we get through this—I’ll resign and never step into a courtroom again.”

Stilwell moved away for a moment to think and walk off his anger. He forced himself to concentrate on what was at hand, not what had been done in the past. He came back to Juarez.

“Okay,” he said. “What will you do, take him to a grand jury?”

“Possibly,” Juarez said. “But this goes way above my head. I have to take this downtown and see how they want to play it.”

“When?”

“I have no court today. I can go as soon as we cut him loose.”

“What will you tell them?”

“That this guy came in with solid evidence that the mayor of Avalon is corrupt and probably commissioned a hit on a witness in a developing case against him. I’ll say our live witness is a criminal himself but he’ll share compelling and incontrovertible evidence, including recordings, that outweighs his own crimes.”

Stilwell just nodded. He wasn’t happy, but this was how most cases went. People made deals, shredded their loyalties to save their own skin. There was never complete justice. But if Baby Head got his golden parachute and remained in business and on the island, Stilwell knew that he would get another shot at him somewhere down the line. And then true justice would be served.