A half hour later, I was sitting with Lopez and Minkins in a jury room.
Lisa cut to the chase. 'Before he says anything, I want full
transactional immunity,' she said.
She knew that was impossible. Transactional immunity is the brass ring
of plea deals, and no one ever receives it. Hand that over to a
defendant, and he can boast of every bad thing he ever did, and you can
never touch him for any of it.
'First of all, you know that's not going to happen,' I told her. 'More
important, you know that what I'm willing to give him depends on what
he's got to say.'
'Are you in a position to give him a walk?'
I was nervous about making a deal without talking to Russell. But if I
called him now, not only would I look weak, but he might screw things
up and stop the flow of information. I steeled my courage. This was
no different than what I'd done hundreds of times before with drug
informants.
'Again, it depends on what he's got to say. Can he give me PC for
murder?' With probable cause for someone other than Jackson, I'd have
enough to make arrests and obtain search warrants.
'No,' she said without hesitation, apparently surprised that I had even
entertained that as a possibility. Minkins eyed her suspiciously, and
I got the feeling that he would've offered to say whatever was
necessary to save his ass.
'No promises,' I said. 'You've got to take your chances or take the
stand. Up to you.'
Lisa nodded at Minkins, and he said what he had to say.
'First off, I got nothing to do with anyone dying. Swear to God, to
this day I still don't know what the fuck's going on. But far as I can
tell, you think someone set up this Jackson for a fall. As to that
point, what I can add is that Larry handed me the dude's number a
couple weeks ago and told me to hire him. Didn't matter what the terms
were. Gunderson owed a friend a favor, and that meant I had to get
Jackson on-site. Turned out not to be a problem. The guy jumped at
it.'
'Did he say who the friend was?' I asked.
'No clue.'
Most likely a cover story Gunderson gave Minkins just to get Jackson on
the property.
'Anyway,' he continued, 'Jackson gave his information to a girl we use
for personnel-related stuff, and that's about all I had to do with him.
Then Friday I'm working at the site late, checking out the status of
things, and I see Jackson packing away some paint into his van. I
didn't recognize him, so I asked the guy his name. I remembered it
from when Larry told me to hire him, so I told him, Go ahead and take
it. Then I called Larry.'
'What was his reaction?'
'Nothing special. Just thanked me for telling him about it. Next
thing I know, we got a body on our hands Monday and Jackson's getting
arrested for it.'
'Why didn't you call the police?'
'So I'm not a good Samaritan. Sue me.'
I wasn't buying it. If his decisions today said anything about his
behavior generally, Minkins was self-interested. No way did he sit
there silently while Gunderson dragged him into the middle of this.
'You're leaving something out. How'd you wind up at the library?'
He pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling. 'So you did make me. I
was beginning to wonder.'
Sucker.
'When I saw the news about Jackson, I asked Larry what the fuck was
going on. All he said was and I remember this 'Take a lesson from it,
Billy, and keep your mouth shut.' Scared the shit out of me. So I
started doing some snooping around of my own. Figured if I got the
goods on whoever pulled that shit on Jackson and the lady judge, they
couldn't pull anything on me.'
'And what did you find out?'
'Not a lot. I know Larry's leveraged up the ass trying to keep the
bills paid. And I know you were doing some serious research into the
urban growth boundary.'
'You're still not telling me why you were following me, Billy.'
'It was stupid, OK? I watched the news Friday about the hearing, and
they said something about there being a shooting at your house last
month. I was thinking about trying to work something out with you, so
I went by Saturday morning, just because I wasn't doing nothing else.
