The Fifth Witness Part 48

When I finally got back to the office it was only four thirty, a half hour before Herb Dahl was scheduled to come in for a briefing. I called for a staff meeting and tried plugging back into the case as a means of pushing out thoughts about the conversation with Maggie. I told Cisco where I had parked his bike and I asked for an update on the list of our client's Facebook friends.

"First of all, why the h.e.l.l didn't I know about her Facebook account?" I asked.

"It's my fault," Aronson said quickly. "Like I told you earlier, I knew about it and even accepted her friend request. I just didn't realize the significance of it."

"I missed it, too," Cisco said. "She friended me, too. I looked and didn't see anything. I should've looked harder."

"Me, too," Lorna added.

I looked at their faces. It was a unified front.

"Great," I said. "I guess all four of us missed it and our client didn't bother to tell us. So the bunch of us, I guess we're all fired."

I paused for effect.

"Now, what about this name you came up with? This Don Driscoll, where did that come from and do we know anything more? Freeman could've unwittingly dropped the key to the whole case in our laps this morning, people. What've we got?"

Bullocks looked at Cisco, deferring.

"As you know," he said, "ALOFT was sold in February to the LeMure Fund with Opparizio still in place to run it. Because LeMure is a publicly traded company, everything about the deal was monitored by the Federal Trade Commission and made public to shareholders. Including a list of employees that would remain at ALOFT following the transition. I have the list, dated December fifteenth."

"So we started cross-referencing the ALOFT employees to the list of Lisa's Facebook friends," Bullocks said. "Luckily Donald Driscoll was early in the alphabet. We came up with him pretty quickly."

I nodded, impressed.

"So who is Driscoll?"

"In the FTC docs his name was in a group listed under information technology," Cisco said. "So what the h.e.l.l, I called IT at ALOFT and asked for him. I was told that Donald Driscoll used to work there but his employment contract expired on February first and it wasn't extended. He's gone."

"You've started the trace?" I asked.

"We have. But it's a common name and that's slowing us down. As soon as we have something, you'll be the first to know."

Running names from the private sector always took time. It wasn't as easy as being a cop and simply typing a name into one of the many law enforcement databases.

"Don't let up," I said. "This could be the whole game right here."

"Don't worry, Boss," Cisco said. "n.o.body's letting up."

Forty-four.

Donald Driscoll, thirty-one, formerly employed by ALOFT, lived in the Belmont Sh.o.r.e area of Long Beach. On Sunday morning I rode down with Cisco to tag Driscoll with a subpoena, the hope being that he would talk to me before I had to put him on the witness stand blind.

Rojas agreed to work on his day off to help make up for his misdeeds. He drove the Lincoln and we sat in the back, Cisco updating me on his conclusions regarding his latest investigations of the Bondurant murder. There was no doubt that the defense case was coming together and Driscoll just might be the witness who could cap it all off.

"You know," I said, "we could actually win this thing if Driscoll cooperates and says what I think he's going to say."

"That's a big if," Cisco replied. "And look, we have to be prepared for anything with this guy. For all we know, he could be be the guy. Do you know how tall he is? Six four. Has it on his driver's license." the guy. Do you know how tall he is? Six four. Has it on his driver's license."

I looked over at him.

"Which I wasn't supposed to see but happened to get access to," he said.

"Don't tell me about any crimes, Cisco."

"I'm just saying I saw the info on his license, that's all."

"Fine. Leave it at that. So what do you suggest we do when we get down there? I thought we were just going to knock on the door."

"We are. But you still have to be careful."

"I'll be standing behind you."

"Yeah, you're a true friend."

"I am. And by the way, if I put you on the stand tomorrow you're going to have to come up with a shirt that has sleeves and and a collar. Make yourself presentable, man. I don't know how Lorna puts up with your s.h.i.t." a collar. Make yourself presentable, man. I don't know how Lorna puts up with your s.h.i.t."

"So far she's put up with it longer than she ever put up with yours."

"Yeah, I guess that's true."

I turned and looked out the window. I had two ex-wives who were probably also my two best friends. But it didn't go past that. I'd had them but couldn't hold them. What did that say about me? I lived in a daydream that one day Maggie, my daughter and I would live together again as a family. The reality was, it was never going to happen.

"You all right, Boss?"

I turned back to Cisco.

"Yeah, why?"

"I don't know. You're looking a little shaky there. Why don't you let me go knock on the door and if he'll talk I'll give you a b.u.mp on the cell and you come in."

"No, we do it together."

"You're the boss."

"Yeah, I'm the boss."

But I felt like the loser. I decided right at that moment that I was going to change things and find a way to redeem myself. Right after the trial.

Belmont Sh.o.r.e had the feel of a rustic beach town even though it was part of Long Beach. Driscoll's residence was a two-story, 1950s-style apartment building of aqua blue and white off Baysh.o.r.e near the pier.

Driscoll's place was on the second floor where an exterior walkway ran along the front of the building. Apartment 24 was halfway down. Cisco knocked and then took a position to the side of the door, leaving me standing there.

"Are you kidding?" I asked.

He just looked at me. He wasn't.

I took a step to the side. We waited but n.o.body answered even though it was before ten on a Sunday morning. Cisco looked at me and raised his eyes as if to ask What do you want to do? What do you want to do?

I didn't answer. I turned to the railing and looked down at the parking lot in front. I saw some empty s.p.a.ces and they were numbered. I pointed.

"Let's find twenty-four and see if his car is here."

"You go," Cisco said. "I'll check around up here."

"What?"

I didn't see anything to check around for. We were on a five-foot-wide walkway that ran in front of every second-floor apartment. No furniture, no bikes, just concrete.

"Just go check the parking lot."

I headed back downstairs. After ducking to look under the front of three cars to get the number painted on the curb, I realized that the parking slot numbers did not correspond to the apartment numbers. It was a twelve-unit building, apartments 1 through 6 on the bottom and 21 through 26 up top. But the parking lot s.p.a.ces were numbered 1 through 16. I took a guess that under that number scheme Driscoll had number 10 if each apartment got one s.p.a.ce, which stood to reason since there were only sixteen spots and I saw that two were labeled as guest parking and two were marked for handicapped parking.

I was in the middle of turning these numbers in my head and looking at the ten-year-old BMW parked in slot 10 when Cisco called my name from the walkway above. I looked and he waved me up.

When I got back up there he was standing in the open door of apartment 24. He waved me in.

"He was asleep but he finally answered."

I walked in and saw a disheveled man sitting on a couch in a spa.r.s.ely furnished living room. His hair was sticking up in frozen curls and knots on the right side. He huddled with a blanket around his shoulders. Even so, I could tell he matched a photo Cisco had pulled off Donald Driscoll's own Facebook account.

"That's a lie," he said. "I didn't invite him in. He broke broke in." in."

"No, you invited me," Cisco said. "I have a witness."

He pointed to me. The bleary-eyed man followed the finger and looked at me for the first time. I could see recognition in his eyes. I knew then that it was Driscoll and that we were on to something here.

"Hey, look, I don't know what this-"

"Are you Donald Driscoll?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you s.h.i.t, man. You can't just break-"

"Hey!" Cisco yelled loudly.

The man jumped in his seat. Even I startled, not having expected Cisco's new interviewing tactic.

"Just answer the question," Cisco continued in a calmer voice. "Are you Donald Driscoll?"

"Who wants to know?"

"You know who wants to know," I said. "You recognized me the moment you looked at me. And you know why we're here, Donald, don't you?"

I walked across the room, pulling the subpoena out of my windbreaker. Driscoll was tall but slightly built and vampire white, which was strange for a guy living a block from the beach. I dropped the folded doc.u.ment in his lap.

"What is this?" he said, slapping it onto the floor without even unfolding it.

"It's a subpoena and you can throw it on the floor and choose not to read it but that doesn't matter. You've been served, Donald. I have a witness and I am an officer of the court. You don't show up tomorrow at nine to testify and you'll be in jail on a charge of contempt by lunchtime."

Driscoll reached down and grabbed the subpoena.

"Are you f.u.c.king kidding me? You're going to get me killed."

I glanced over at Cisco. We were definitely on to something.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that I can't testify! If I come anywhere near that courthouse they'll kill me. They're probably watching this place right f.u.c.king now!"

I looked again at Cisco and then back down at the man on the couch.

"Who is going to kill you, Donald?"

"I'm not saying. Who the f.u.c.k do you think?"

He threw the subpoena at me and it bounced off my chest and fluttered to the ground. He jumped from the couch and started to break for the open door. The blanket fell and I saw he was wearing only gym shorts and a T-shirt. Before he made it three strides Cisco hit him with his body like an outside linebacker. Driscoll caromed into the wall and fell to the floor. A framed poster of a girl on a surfboard slid down the wall and the frame broke on the floor next to him.

Cisco calmly bent down, pulled Driscoll up and walked him right back to the couch. I stepped over to the door and closed it, just in case the wall banging brought out a curious neighbor. I then came back to the living room.

"You can't run from this, Donald," I said. "You tell us what you know and what you did and we can help you."

"Help me get killed, you a.s.sholes. And I think you f.u.c.king broke my shoulder."

He started working his arm and shoulder like he was warming up to pitch nine innings. He grimaced.

"How's it feel?" I said.

"I told you, it feels broken. I felt something give."

"You wouldn't be able to move it," Cisco said.

Cisco's voice had a threatening tone to it, as if there would be further consequences if the shoulder actually was broken. When I spoke, my voice was calm and welcoming.

"What do you know, Donald? What would make you a danger to Opparizio?"

"I don't know anything and I didn't say that name-you did."

"You have to understand something. You have been served with a valid subpoena. You show up and you testify or you stay in jail until you do. But think about this, Donald. If you testify about what you know about ALOFT and what you did, then you're protected. n.o.body will make a move against you because it would be obvious where it came from. It's your only move here."

He shook his head.