Corbin laughed.
After they said goodbye, Corbin pulled up Blue’s number, but he didn’t dial it. Instead, he turned off the cell phone. He was tired. He rubbed his temples and stared out the window. Beneath the yellow street lights, he could see sheets of rain falling against the deserted street.
Chapter 27
By the time Corbin reached the office the following morning, his overcoat and hair were wet from walking through the drizzle, though his suit remained dry. Beckett sat behind his desk reviewing a forensics report. He looked damp from head to toe as his winter coat was more of a jacket. It hung on the doorknob to dry. As usual, his paisley tie was frayed.
“I’ve got a lead on a witness,” Beckett said.
“Who’s the witness?”
“A drug dealer. He calls himself ‘Saitoo.’ He says Beaumont was with him all day on the 14th.”
“Did you find him or did he find you?” Corbin asked.
“Does it matter?”
“It would be nice to know how happy he’ll be to see us.”
“He called me.”
“All right, when do we leave?”
“Now,” Beckett said, rising from his chair. “Oh, and I’ve set up an interview with one of the cops this afternoon.”
“The old guy or the rookie?”
“The rookie. Russell ‘hasn’t decided if he wants to talk to us yet’.”
Corbin decided against sitting in the broken chair. Beckett chose to stand as well. The room around them looked like it had been attacked. There were holes in the walls, holes in the floor, and empty fast food wrappers liberally strewn about. The paint was peeling from everything and wires hung where fixtures once had been. Lounging in a beanbag in the middle of the floor was a small black man in a light-blue track suit and dark glasses. He was covered in faux-gold jewelry and was smoking a joint.
“He was wit’ me the whole day,” said Chester Williams, aka Saitoo. “That’s all anybody gots to know.”
“Listen, Site-
“That’s ‘Si-too’.”
“Sure it is, Chester-”
“Don’t disrespect me, I teach you a lesson.”
“Try it,” Corbin offered. He sized Saitoo up for a poser the moment he met him.
As Corbin expected, Saitoo backed down. “Look, man, I was wit my friend all day. What more you want me to say?”
“Try answering the question. Where did you two spend the day?”
“We just hung out: his place, my place, then we drove ’round ’til we came back here and ’et dinner.”
“Dinner?” Corbin looked around the shattered empty apartment with no table and no kitchen. “By dinner, you mean you got high?”
“Man, I ain’t never touched no drugs in my life,” Saitoo protested, with the joint still resting between his fingers.
“It would be helpful if you could remember what you ate,” Corbin suggested.
“Why does that help?”
“Everything helps,” Corbin replied.
“We had tacos.”
“You remember that?”
“Sure do.”
“Do you have a receipt?”
“Tossed it last week.” Saitoo mimicked crumpling up paper and dropping it to the floor.
“Where did you get the tacos? Maybe they have a videotape of you two entering the store.”
“Don’t nobody keep videotapes this long,” Saitoo said incredulously.
“You’d be surprised. Give me the name of the place, and I guarantee I can get the video.”
“Uh, we didn’t go in and get ’em. We sent this girl we was hanging out wit’.”
“Oh goodie, a third witness,” Corbin laughed. “What’s her name.”
“Rochelle DeMint.”
Beckett stepped forward. He’d been taking notes. “How can we contact Rochelle? Do you know her phone number?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Saitoo flipped through his cell phone directory. “867-5309.”
Corbin burst out laughing and walked across the room.
Beckett followed him. “What’s up?”
“867-5309!?” Corbin repeated.
“What?” Beckett asked.
“Are you serious? That’s a fake number, Evan.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me on this one.” Corbin looked over his shoulder at Saitoo puffing away on the joint. “This guy is telling us whatever we want him to tell us. He’s just making it up on the fly, and he’s not very good at it.”
“We should still run down this Rochelle.”
“There is no Rochelle. He made her up.”
“We don’t know that,” Beckett said earnestly.
“You know, for an experienced attorney, you can be remarkably gullible.”
“I’ve learned over time to run everything down, because you never know where it might lead,” Beckett offered in his defense.
“All right, when we get back to the office, you look up that phone number. You’ll find it belongs to someone named ‘Jenny.’ And if you want to meet ‘Rochelle,’ let’s cut to the chase.” Corbin walked back toward Saitoo. “Listen up, idiot,” Corbin said, tapping the bottom of Saitoo’s foot with his own foot, causing Saitoo to jump backwards in the beanbag and curl up his leg. “We need to talk to this Rochelle. Go find whoever it is you’ve got in mind and then call us when she’s ready to meet us.” Corbin tossed a card at Saitoo with their office number written on it. “Oh, and tell Beaumont he needs to get better witnesses.”
Without another word, Corbin and Beckett left. Once they were back in the car, Corbin turned to Beckett. “Did you notice he never once fought me on any of the challenges I made to his story? Beaumont paid this guy to play along with everything we said. He wasn’t with Beaumont on the 14th and there’s no Rochelle or Jenny or whatever her name is supposed to be. Let’s go see the cop.”
Paul Webb walked into the coffee shop. He arranged this meeting after the prosecutor told him Beckett wanted to meet with him. Webb had no obligation to meet with Beckett, but he somehow felt he should. He didn’t tell the prosecutor. Webb spotted Corbin and Beckett right away. They sat in the corner, away from the window and the other patrons. Webb clicked off his two way radio, a violation of regulations, and walked over to their table.
“I’m Paul Webb,” he said, without extending his hand to either Corbin or Beckett.
“Thanks for coming, Officer. Can I get you a drink or something?” Beckett motioned Webb to sit down.
“No, no thanks.” He sat down.
“This is my co-counsel Alex Corbin,” Beckett said, pointing toward Corbin. “We wanted to ask you some questions about the arrest.”
“What do you want to know,” Webb asked cautiously.
“I’ve got some questions about the police report.” Beckett pulled a copy of the report from beneath a manila folder. He offered the report to Webb, who declined to take it. Beckett planned to start with a series of simple questions, each designed to get Webb agreeing with him before hitting him with some of the controversial
