She continued to read him his rights asshe snapped the handcuffs on, Zoe helping by moving forward to restrain hisarms as he initially attempted to resist. Then she used the radio she andShelley had been given at the precinct to let them know they were coming in. Atthis rate, it was entirely possible that they would need backup to contain him.He was furious, and he wanted them to know it.
“Hey! Call my brother!” he yelled at oneof his fellow tattooists as they passed by, Zoe behind and Shelley in front, blockingany potential routes of escape he might have tried for. “Tell him to get me alawyer. I didn’t do anything. Call him!”
Zoe couldn’t help but smirk to herselffor just a brief moment, trying on the expression that she had seen on othersin a moment of victory. He couldn’t see her face, wouldn’t know that she wasbeing unprofessional.
They had their guy. And for Zoe, walkinghim out of the tattoo parlor and toward the car as he continued to yell abouthis innocence, it felt pretty sweet to know that the streets were going to besafe—at least for a few hours, if he really did manage to get a good lawyer.
They had him for now. And Zoe wasdetermined: she wasn’t going to let him weasel his way out of this duringquestioning.
No—if she had any say at all in thematter, Jasper Franks was going behind bars—and he was going to stay there, nomatter what she had to do to make that happen.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Shelley slammed the file down on thetable, the paper making a flat slapping noise against the metal. “Explain thisto me, Jasper,” she said. “Mr. Franks” was gone. In spite of the lawyer sittingbeside Franks, a weasel-faced man with thinning hair named Smith, she hadevidently decided that playing hardball was the way to go.
Zoe didn’t interfere. She trusted herpartner to know the right approach. She was only in the room so that she couldstep in if it seemed like they weren’t getting anywhere.
The top sheet of paper in the file wasan image taken from a surveillance camera. Jasper Franks, a little younger butunmistakable, the shape of the tattoos above his eyebrows able to be made outeven on the grainy shot. He was standing in front of a swath of fabric thatdisplayed a giant swastika, slapped across the front of what looked like theConfederate flag. The group of men that stood around him were all peaches andsweethearts, no doubt.
“I have explained it,” Jasper said,gritting his teeth. “I’ve explained it many times.”
“My client has already been investigatedon charges of belonging to the Aryan Brotherhood,” the lawyer piped upimperiously. “You will need more than that if you intend to keep him here forfurther questioning.”
“Oh, I have more than that,” Shelleysaid, smiling tauntingly. “Don’t I, Jasper?”
“I don’t know what you’ve got,” Jaspersaid, then caught his lawyer’s eye and corrected himself. “You can’t haveanything, because I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Not ever?” Shelley asked, raising hereyebrows. “Not even morally?”
Jasper looked like he was about torespond something ugly, but the lawyer cut across him. “Stop playing with myclient, Agent. You either have a basis for questioning or you don’t. Get to thepoint, or I’m walking him out of here.”
“All right, I’ll get to the point,” Shelleysaid, pointing to the photograph. “You see, I have new evidence that suggeststhat you aren’t as done with the Aryan Brotherhood as you want us to think. Sowhy don’t you start by giving me your explanation about this photograph?”
There was a brief pause, as the lawyerwhispered something into Franks’s ear. He made a similar response, the two ofthem leaning away from the table to put that much more distance between themand the agents on the other side of it. The lawyer gave one final, whispered comment,then returned to his original position, hunched shoulders facing Zoe with the sharpangle of a vulture’s wings.
“I was the only tattoo artist in thisarea who was willing to tattoo gang signs out of prison,” he said, his wordscautious and slow, as if he was unsure he was doing the right thing by givingthem the information. “I mean, I just wanted the money. I didn’t care whatpeople wanted put on them, so long as they paid well.”
Shelley flipped through a few pages,pulling out an image of a swastika drawn large across someone’s back. “Thatincluded neo-Nazi symbolism, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” Jasper’s head dropped between hisshoulders, his expression hangdog. “I was willing to tattoo anything. I didother gangs, too. LA gangs. National gangs. Prison gangs. Whatever peoplewanted. And I covered over gang signs, too. There were all kinds of peoplecoming to me for work. I just didn’t discriminate. Money was money.”
“If it was all so innocent, tell me howyou ended up at a meeting of the Aryan Brotherhood.”
The lawyer raised a hand. “I object tothat question, Agent Rose. It was never proven that my client was at a meetingof the Aryan Brotherhood.”
“Let me,” Franks sighed, ignoring the shakinghead the lawyer turned on him. “It was a mistake. That’s all. I didn’t know itwas going to be a meeting. I went there because they wanted me to give someonea tattoo, and they didn’t want to do it at the parlor. I figured it wasprobably going to be something nasty, something they didn’t want outsidersknowing they had. I charged them double and they agreed, so I went over there.”
“You’re expecting us to believe that youwalked into an Aryan Brotherhood base, in the middle of a meeting… by accident?”Shelley laid the emphasis on thick, making it clear just how ridiculous shethought the idea was.
“Yes!” Franks said, exhaling afrustrated whoosh of air. “I had no idea what I was walking into. I was naïve,yes. But I’m not a Nazi. Those guys disgust me. I just wanted their money. Thesecond I realized what was going on, I walked away and never did any of thatkind of work again.”
Shelley gave a half-laugh, devoid ofreal humor. “Isn’t it a funny coincidence that this revelation of yourshappened exactly when you were arrested in connection with
