Martin was handsome from every angle.
I raised my eyes as Ellen Lafferty returned to the living area with Conklin. She looked happier to see me than she could possibly be. She took a seat in an armchair and said, “I thought the investigation was closed.”
I said, “There are a few stubborn loose ends. Well, one loose end.”
I pulled the photo from my inside jacket pocket and put it down on the coffee table.
Ellen reached over to pick it up and said, “What is this?”
“That man may be a contract killer by the name of Gregor Guzman. The woman in this picture looks like Candace Martin,” I said. “She’s got the same blond hair, same cut as Candace — but it’s not actually her, is it, Ellen?”
“It’s hard to tell. I don’t know,” she said.
“You know how we know it isn’t Candace?” Conklin said. “Because when we ran that photo through forensic software, it matched your picture from the DMV. The woman in this picture is you.”
Conklin went to the mantel and picked up a gold-framed photo of Ellen and Dennis Martin on a sailboat out in the Bay.
“No,” she said, getting up to snatch the picture out of Conklin’s hand. “You can’t have that.”
I said to her, “I think Judge LaVan will give us a search warrant to go through everything in your house. Meanwhile, we need to continue this talk at the police station.”
I pulled out my phone and was calling for a patrol car, but Ellen said, “Wait. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
I closed my phone and gave her my full attention.
Chapter 89
IF ELLEN LAFFERTY didn’t try to hire a killer, why was she in that car with Gregor Guzman? I couldn’t wait to hear her explanation.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, certainly nothing
“Dennis sent me to meet this ‘Mr. G.’ in the parking lot of Vons,” she said. “He gave me an envelope of money to give to this Mr. G., but when he opened it, he handed it back to me and said, ‘Tell Mr. Martin thanks but no thanks.’”
“This Mr. G. gave back the money,” Rich said.
Ellen nodded.
“So, you’re saying you met with a man you didn’t know because Dennis told you to do it. You gave him money — which he gave back to you, and you didn’t know why you were there. Is that your story?”
“I didn’t know he was an assassin until after the trial started and I read about him online. I was just a messenger. This is one hundred percent true.”
“You’re not in any trouble,” Conklin said. “We’re trying to piece some facts together.”
“So, tell us about the blond hair,” I said.
“It was a wig,” Ellen blurted out. “It belonged to Candace when she was having chemo. She threw it out and I took it. Dennis liked me to wear it sometimes. Do you want to see it?”
Ellen Lafferty headed down a hallway toward the bedroom.
“You really think this girl hired a hit man?” Conklin asked me.
“I don’t know. I know less now than I did when I woke up this morning.”
I picked up the sunset-lit, highly romantic photo of Ellen and Dennis Martin and ran it all through my mind again.
Had Ellen hired Guzman to kill Dennis? Was Ellen the intruder, and had she killed Dennis herself? Did Dennis set up the meet between Ellen and Guzman so that his private eye could document a Candace look-alike meeting with a hit man?
If so, had Candace killed her husband before he could kill
As I was turning over the possibilities yet again, Ellen came back into the room holding a black satin bag. She opened the drawstrings and shook out a blond wig.
“Mostly I just wore this when we made love,” she said.
I couldn’t hold back.
“Help me to understand you, Ellen,” I said. “Your lover liked you to wear his wife’s wig in bed? Didn’t you find that sick?”
Tears jumped to her eyes.
I muttered, “Crap,” under my breath. Was I ever going to learn to be the good cop? Conklin took the bag and said to Lafferty, “We need you to come to the station, okay, Ellen?”
“But — you’re not arresting me, right?”
Conklin said. “We want your signed statement to what you just told us.”
I hung back as Conklin walked Ellen out to the street. I called Yuki but got her voice mail.
I waited out the beeps, then said, “Yuki, I need a search warrant for Ellen Lafferty’s premises. Yes, we’ve got probable cause. Call me back ASAP. Uh — I think you’re going to thank me for this.”
I hoped I was right.
Chapter 90
YUKI SAT BESIDE PHIL, the two of them in matching leather chairs across from Judge LaVan’s leather- topped desk. The room had been decorated in fox hunt-style: old prints of people in red coats on bay horses, and heavy wooden furniture against forest-green walls.
The judge’s eyes were red behind his glasses, and he explained in the fewest possible words why he had been out for three days.
“My mother had lung cancer,” he said. “She died. Badly.”
He nodded his head as the two attorneys said that they were sorry for his loss. Then he cleared his throat and went on.
“I don’t want any more of the crap that’s been going on in this trial. Ms. Castellano, you know how to ask a question without turning it into a summation. Mr. Hoffman, you know how to rein in your witnesses, so for God’s sake, just do it.”
Yuki wanted to object, but the judge was leaving no doubt about his intentions. He wanted the trial streamlined, and he wanted it over.
“Here are the new rules on objections,” he said, as if he were reading her mind.
“If you have an objection, stand up. I’m a smart guy and I was a trial lawyer for twenty years. If I can’t figure out why you are objecting, I will not acknowledge you. In that case — sit down.
“If I know why you are objecting, I will tell opposing counsel to knock it off. I don’t expect to have to do that.”
“Your Honor,” Yuki and Hoffman said in unison.
“No theatrics. No drama. No stupid lawyer tricks. I will levy fines. I will find either or both of you in contempt. Do you understand me?”
Neither Phil nor Yuki answered.
“Good. I’ll see you in court,” said LaVan.
“This is a joke,” Hoffman said to Yuki as they left Judge LaVan’s chambers and walked down the hall toward the courtroom. “He can’t tell us not to object.”
“Apparently he can today,” said Yuki.
