And there it was, a light-blue denim jacket. It had black burn marks on one arm, and all over it were little holes that mice might’ve chewed. I set the pallet and trash lid carefully against the wall and spread the jacket out. The pockets were empty—another sign of forethought on Jackson’s part, maybe—and aside from the burn marks, there was nothing else on it. Not a drop of anybody’s blood.
I did not want this kid to spend another day in jail. I did not want to plead him down and see him stuck there for a year. He didn’t deserve it. He was telling the truth.
30
Thursday, November 21, Afternoon
Thanksgiving was coming. I hoped the theme of the holiday, plus the prospect of enjoying a great spread at home with his kids, had put Ruiz in a charitable mood. I was driving over to talk with him. I’d told him today worked best for me, without explaining that the reason it worked best was that it was the only time he’d suggested when his boss wouldn’t be available. I wanted Ruiz’s candid take on the case, not what he felt comfortable saying in front of Ludlow.
I parked near the coffee shop, got his latte and my regular, and walked over to his office. He said hi like I was a friend, thanked me for the drink, and said, “Want a cookie? My wife made them. They’re cinnamon, but those ones have powdered sugar too.”
Two Tupperwares were sitting on his windowsill, about half-full of thick, diamond-shaped cookies. I took a brown one and sat down. He got a white one—or another white one, I supposed, since there were already specks of what looked like powdered sugar next to his keyboard.
“Good timing,” he said, raising his coffee cup.
I raised mine back. “And happy Thanksgiving.”
We chatted a bit. His holiday plans, which included fourteen visiting relatives, chorizo in the stuffing, and a couple of dishes his wife was preparing from plants she’d grown in their yard, sounded like the Mex-American version of a Hallmark movie. Mine just sounded sad: Noah and me eating rotisserie chicken, with pie out of a box for dessert. I’d invited Mazie, but she’d already signed up for double shifts that day. She’d said, “It keeps my mind off things.”
It didn’t make for a fun anecdote, so I moved on to business.
“I’m not here with the silver bullet that breaks the whole case wide open,” I said. “But I want to give you a heads-up about where this is going and see what you think.” For a little suspense, I paused to sip my coffee. “Oh, and we got time of death narrowed down.” I told him about the photo and the Charleston wedding planner, who had relented and was willing to get on the stand.
“Okay, hang on,” he said. He pulled open a drawer, got a legal pad, and started writing.
I also mentioned the selfie of Jackson, but not the arson defense yet. I didn’t want to put the kid on the hook for a felony unless I was sure we would get something out of it.
He finished scribbling and looked up.
I set my cup on his desk and said, “That heroin on Karl’s boat got me thinking. Because, you know, the whole town knew Karl was a drunk, but I never heard word one about him using hard drugs or having druggie friends. Drunks hang out with drunks, and he was no exception.”
Ruiz was nodding. We were both immersed in the same small-town gossip. As long as we’d lived here, it had kept us informed as to who had what problems.
“So I asked around,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of free time, as a consequence of starting out in my new line of work. I’ve talked to folks all over town, gone up to Charleston, dug through everything I could. And I keep hearing the same story: that Karl had started selling drugs.”
“That how he managed to afford the Mustang?”
“Yeah, exactly.” I was glad that hadn’t escaped his attention. “And that car has disappeared off the face of the earth. You know he paid cash for it?”
Ruiz laughed and took a bite of his cookie. “These people, my God,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean, a bright red sports car that you can’t possibly afford. You know how hard my job would be if criminals were smart? If they even tried to be discreet?”
I laughed. “I had a case five or six years ago where, I swear to you, when I had the victim on the stand and asked him if the man who’d robbed his store was in the courtroom—”
He started cracking up. “No! Don’t tell me! Did the defendant—”
“He raised his goddamn hand!”
He shot backward in his chair, laughing so hard I could see his molars. When he sat straight up again, he said, “My God. It don’t happen often enough, but sometimes I love this job.”
“Yeah, I’m with you on that.”
He sighed, quieting down, and scribbled something on his legal pad. “Okay, so, Mustang bought in cash. You got a witness for that?”
“Local business owner. We can get his records of the transaction too.”
Ruiz took a sip of his coffee. “Okay. For the drug dealing, you got witnesses?”
“One who I had to track down. Scared to testify. And another who will testify.” I meant Mazie and her story of Karl being suddenly flush with cash.
“Okay, so…” He drew a line across his pad halfway down the page, wrote Mazie’s name above it, and something else below it. A note about my scared witness, most likely.
“The other thing,” I said, “is that he was screwing somebody over. It seems he was stealing drugs from someone else—skimming off the top, maybe, and selling on the side.”
He nodded and said,
