Page 81 of Zero Divergence
“Keep me posted,” Babineaux called out.
“Will do,” Sawyer replied.
Sylvia hadn’t accepted the flower delivery, but it didn’t take them long to find the person who had. Phil Trimble, a junior prosecutor, recalled seeing Bonita and placed the flowers in Babineaux’s office. They questioned him about the woman’s demeanor. “Did she act oddly or appear to be in distress?”
“No, not that I can recall,” he said.
Then they walked him through the entire encounter from start to finish. Midway through, he recalled a comment she made about an upcoming trial. “I told her I couldn’t comment or speculate.”
“Do you recall which case?” Royce asked. Sawyer was impressed his partner’s voice had remained calm.
“Of course,” Trimble said. “The same one everyone was talking about and still is. Franco Humphries.”
They continued to ask Trimble more questions but didn’t learn anything else. A few other people in the building recognized her but couldn’t recall specific conversations or any unusual behavior.
When they returned to the precinct, Ky was back from the lab, and Blue had wrapped up his interviews too. Mendoza pulled them all into his office for a progress report. Many people recognized her at the precinct, the DA’s office, and the lab, but only Trimble recalled a specific encounter. It didn’t mean she hadn’t overheard what she wanted to know.
“How are we going to proceed with Humphries tomorrow, sir?” Sawyer asked the chief.
“We very carefully set a trap the arrogant son of a bitch can’t resist stepping into,” Mendoza replied.
Vivian Gross’s phone records were waiting for them the next morning when they arrived at the precinct. Knowing they had time to kill before Humphries returned, Royce and Sawyer went through the staggering number of calls, then looked up the numbers to see who they belonged to. Royce’s eyes began to cross, and the numbers blurred together after a while.
“Tiffany Humphries,” Sawyer urgently said, snagging Royce’s attention.
“What about her?” Royce asked.
Sawyer handed him the piece of paper and pointed to the highlighted number. “That’s Tiffany’s cell phone number. Vivian talked to her quite a bit the week before she died.”
“She’s Franco’s attorney,” Royce said, trying hard not to get his hopes up too high.
“Yes, and the phone calls between the two women while Humphries was incarcerated make sense,” he said, pointing to older records. “Why would Tiffany call her after Franco was free? What the hell did they talk about at seven in the morning on the Friday before Vivian died?”
Royce’s pulse sped up. “That’s the same morning she called Vincenzo and told him about the new evidence she had on a client.”
“Here’s the outbound call to Vincenzo not long after she talked to Tiffany,” Sawyer said, pointing to an entry an hour later. “There’s no way in hell it’s a coincidence. There are texts between Gross and Tiffany as well, including a quick exchange around eight thirty in the morning.” They hadn’t requested a script of the individual text messages because reading them would violate her clients’ privilege. They could see the numbers she texted though, and Sawyer was right.
“You think Tiffany Humphries discovered something about her husband and went to Vivian instead of coming to the police?”
“Maybe Tiffany wasn’t sure what she had, or maybe Vivian had convinced her the cops were crooked. Tiffany might’ve just wanted to tell someone and clear her conscience.”
Royce nodded. “She could have stumbled across it accidentally and panicked. She wasn’t sure what to do and called Vivian.”
“It’s as logical as anything else. The woman has no family around here, and she’s surrounded by people who are convinced her husband is innocent,” Sawyer pointed out.
“Let’s tell the chief and see if he wants to alter our plans,” Royce said.
“Stay the course,” the chief said after reviewing the phone records. “I agree the timing of the text messages and phone calls is suspicious, but we need to see if Humphries leads us to Bonita Brothers.” He glanced at his watch. “Their plane is due to land in a few hours.”
Royce wanted to meet Humphries at the airport in person, but he had to hang back and see how things played out. He hated being sidelined, but the chief had made the right call. They spent the next few hours interviewing professors and staff at South University to see if they could offer insight as to where they might be able to find Bonita Brothers. Everything they’d learned aligned with Mick Sattler’s statement the previous day.
They were headed to lunch at a bistro near the university when Royce’s phone rang.
“We might have a problem,” Mendoza said after Royce answered.
Royce stiffened when he heard the urgency in the chief’s tone. “We’re in the car. Let me put you on speaker so Sawyer can hear too.” He tapped the button on his phone. “Go ahead, Chief.”
“I just heard back from Humphries’s detail. Their plane landed, but guess who wasn’t on it?”