Dooling closed her eyes. When they opened, she said, 'I'm not certain. Like I said, I was looking from a second-floor window and I only saw his arm for a moment, but I think I saw snakes and a panther.'
Peter drove back to his office in a fog. Sandra Whiley knew, and was afraid of, Christopher Mammon. Was Mammon monitoring Gary's trial to make certain that he was not implicated by any of the evidence? Mammon had the opportunity to commit the crime. He left the Stallion around the time that Whiley left the bar. If Peter could show that a monster like Mammon had a reason to harm Whiley, Gary Harmon would cease to be the only viable suspect in her murder.
As Peter parked in front of Mancini's building, he remembered Amos Geary telling him to read Mammon's file before the preliminary hearing, but Peter had only given the documents in the file a cursory glance. Now he wished he had been more thorough. There might have been something in the file that would help Gary.
Asking Geary to see the file would be useless. He doubted Geary would even talk to him. Besides, the file was confidential and Peter no longer worked for Geary.
However, Steve Mancini represented Kevin Booth in the case involving the Whitaker State bust. He would also have the police reports.
All of the closed files in the office were in a large room behind the secretarial station. Peter turned on the lights.
Mancini's files were arranged alphabetically, so Peter found Booth's file quickly. It was not that thick, since the case had not gotten past the preliminary hearing.
There was a table with a reading lamp at the front of the file room. Peter sat down and opened the file. He took out the envelope holding the police reports and piled them on the table. He read through the reports slowly, but discovered nothing helpful until he found two reports halfway down that looked strange. They were different in form from the other report's and seemed neater. It did not take Peteir long to figure.out why the reports looked different. They had not been written by the Whitaker police or the campus police.
They were reports written by agents of the DEA, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
The first report detailed the activities of an unnamed, confidential, reliable informant, or CRI, who had been busted with cocaine and had agreed to work off the case by setting up Kevin Booth. The report was a chronological history of the contacts between Booth and the CRI in Whitaker. The CRI was to purchase increasingly larger amounts of cocaine from Booth until Booth was unable to supply the CRIS demand and had to agree to put the CRI in touch with someone who could.
The second report detailed the arrest of Kevin Booth and Christopher Mammon on the Whitaker campus, but it contained information about the arrest that was new to Peter. The CRI was supposed to be bringing thirty thousand dollars to Booth for two kilos of cocaine. After the sale went through, the CRI was going to up the ante to a point that would force Booth to use his contacts to supply a very large amount of cocaine. It was hoped that this deal would be handled directly by Booth's supplier. From the report, it appeared that the arrest by campus security had been totally unexpected and neither the DEA nor the Whitaker police wanted the arrest to occur.
J Peter was certain he had never seen either of the DEA reports in Geary's file. Why would Mancini have them, but not Geary? Peter reread the reports.
A thought occurred to him and he felt himself grow cold. What if Sandra Whiley was -not simply an innocent bystander who was murdered by mistake?
What if she was working off an arrest for cocaine and had betrayed Christopher Mammon to the DEA? That would give Mammon a huge motive for murder.
Peter put the envelope with the police reports back in the file. He was about to close it when he spotted a telephone message slip that Mancini had clipped into the folder on the left side. The slip was dated the day before the preliminary hearing. The letters ASAP underlined in red and written in capital letters caught Peter's eye.
Peter read the message carefully. It was from Becky O'Shay. She wanted Steve to call as soon as he came in-ASAP-so they could discuss a deal in the Booth case. Peter wondered what the deal had been. Maybe that's what Steve and Becky had been discussing when he saw them in the hall outside the courtroom before the prelim. But the deal had obviously fallen through because Booth had not pled guilty.
Peter replaced the file and was about to leave the file room when another thought struck him. -Becky O'Shay must have given Steve Mancini the DEA reports That meant she knew about the existence of the CRT. Did she also know the identity of the CRT? If Whiley was the CRT and Becky knew it, but kept it a secret, Peter could use that fact as a basis for a motion for a new trial. But before he confronted O'Shay or filed a motion, he had to find out if Sandra Whiley was the CRT and Peter thought he knew how he could do that.
'I don't know, Peter. I could get in a lot of trouble,' Rhonda Kates said.
'I know that. I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate.'
'Why don't you just tell the district attorney that you need to talk to Booth. Don't they have to let you talk to witnesses?'
'They do. But the D.A. would insist on coming along or she'd convince Booth to refuse to see me.'
'I thought that was illegal.'
'The reason I have to sneak Booth's room is because I think the D.A. has already done something illegal. Becky will do anything to win.
'Look, all you've got to do is get the guard away from Booth's door. I only have one question to ask him. I'll be in and out.'
'This is a lot to ask.'
I ; 'Rhonda, Donna's brother may be innocent. If Kevin Booth says what I think he will, I may be able to set Gary's verdict aside and give the police the real killer. If I don't get in to see Booth, Gary will most probably be on death row by the end of next week.'
Kevin Booth had been moved to a room at the Whitaker hospital two days before. A guard sat in front of his door at all times. Peter waited in an alcove a short distance from Booth's room and used his cellular phone to call the hospital. He asked for the extension at the nurses' station farthest from Booth's room. Rhonda picked up on the first ring and pretended to carry on a conversation. Then, she placed the receiver down and told the other nurse to make sure the phone was not hung up.
Peter watched as Rhonda told the guard that there was a call for him. He seemed nervous about leaving his station, but Rhonda said the call was from the station house and the caller had said it was urgent. As soon as -the policeman got up, Peter slipped into Booth's room.
Booth's hospital gown covered most of his burns, but here and there Peter saw patches of shiny, bright red and purple skin surrounded by bunches of scars. Booth's face was still covered with cream.
'Hi, Mr. Booth. I'm Peter Hale, Gary Harmon's lawyet,' Peter said with what he hoped was a winning smile. 'We met in Portland.'
'What are you doing here?' Booth asked. His speech was normal now. 'I thought the case was over.'
'It is. Actually, I had a question about the Whitaker State bust. The one you beat.'
'Why do you want to know about that case?'
'Chris Mammon still has to go to trial on it.
'Well, fuck him. I don't give a rat's ass about Mammon.'
Peter thought fast.
'This may not help Mr. Mammon. Actually, your answer could really hurt his case. But I've got to know if he's telling us the truth. If he's not, he could end up serving a long prison term.'
'What did you want to know?' Booth asked, interested in anything that would keep Christopher Mammon off his back.
'You know when you were busted at Whitaker State.
Was Sandra Whiley bringing you thirty thousand dollars or three thousand?
It will make a big difference at sentencing. Mammon claims that Whiley was only going to bring three thousand and that he didn't know how much cocaine was in the Ziploc bags.'
Booth snorted. 'Mammon's lying. He knew exactly how much dope was in the bags. He weighed them himself. And he knew how much dough Whiley was bringing because he told her to bring the thirty grand.'
'Sorry to hear that. Say, was Mammon aware that Whiley was Working for the feds?'
'Not before we got busted. But after, I said the bitch must have turned us in. Chris was furious. He said he was gonna check it out.
'That's what we heard,' Peter said solemnly.
