Accomplice Liability Page 2

  Jackson himself mirrored the compact feeling of the space. He was on the short side, but with a thick chest and arms, and a full mustache that matched his salt-and-pepper crew cut. His gun holster hung from a hook by the door, but he wore his badge on his hip and, apparently, his heart on his sleeve.

  “Damn it,” Jackson repeated. He pushed past the bookshelf and slumped back onto the front of his desk. “I really thought he was gonna make it out.” He looked up to Chen. “What happened?”

  “He was shot,” Chen explained. “Three times to the chest. His body got dumped behind the gas station at a Hundred-and-Twenty-Third and Lake City Way.”

  Jackson looked down again. “Damn it. He was a good kid. He deserved better than that. “

  “So you were working him?” Brunelle confirmed. “He was your informant?”

  Jackson stood up again and put his hands in his pockets. “Oh yeah, I was working him. Had been for a few months. I popped him with a half-kilo of black tar heroin. He had syringes, baggies, the whole bit. I thought he was dealing but he insisted it was all for him. After a few minutes I could see how strung out he was and I believed him. Then I recognized him.”

  “You’d arrested him before?” Brunelle supposed.

  But Jackson shook his head and chuckled a little. “No. He played little league with my son. They’re the same age. I think he even slept over at our house once when Neil had a birthday party sleepover.”

  “Oh,” Brunelle said.

  “Yeah, ‘oh’ is right,” Jackson agreed. “I didn’t recognize him at first. For one thing, he wasn’t that good of a friend. They just played little league together, hung out sometimes. You know, stuff like that. By the time they were in high school, I don’t think they were really friends any more. But the other thing was, he looked like total shit. You know how these heroin addicts get. Filthy walking skeletons. I was gonna book him for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, but when I ID’d him, I recognized the name. I was like, ‘Derrick, is that you? You used to play right field for my kid’s little league team.’“

  Jackson took a moment to gather himself, then continued. “He looked at me with those huge skeleton eyes, and then he just started bawling. Sobbing. He couldn’t stop.”

  “So you turned him into an informant,” Chen surmised.

  Jackson nodded. “Maybe I just shoulda booked him. Let him and his public defender figure it out. But the only way I could justify not booking him was to turn him. He was begging me to just let him go. I couldn’t do that of course. Not unless he agreed to work for me. Then I have to let him go. I’d need him out on the street so all the other druggies would think he was still on their side. And I needed to establish his credibility first. I had plans for him, but first I had him do a couple of controlled buys. Small time stuff. Just to prove he was reliable so I could use him to go after my real target.”

  Jackson shook his head. “We had a whole plan. He was gonna kick the heroin and go stay with his uncle in Bozeman. I hooked him up with a methadone clinic down in the Rainier Valley so no one in Lake City would see him.”

  “You can’t inform on druggies if they know you’re clean,” Brunelle knew.

  “Exactly,” Jackson confirmed. “He did a couple of small buys. Went great. No problems. The methadone was working. Uncle Larry had a bedroom and a job waiting for him. He just had one last job and then he was all set to take his life back.”

  “Instead,” Brunelle observed, “he lost it.”

  “What was the last job?” Chen asked. “Who was the target?”

  “The same bastard who shot him,” Jackson answered. “I’m sure of that. Derrick’s cover must have been blown. He dumped his body so everyone would know what happens to snitches.”

  “Who?” Brunelle asked. “Who shot Derrick? Who dumped his body so everyone would know?”

  “The biggest heroin dealer in North Seattle,” Jackson answered. “Elmer Hernandez.”

  Chapter 4

  Brunelle liked hanging out with cops, but he knew they were the real heroes of law enforcement, not him. He helped. He took their hard work and carried it across the finish line. But they were the ones out there, knocking on doors, talking to witnesses, even literally risking their lives sometimes. The other part of being a prosecutor and not a cop was that he didn’t get involved until the cops finished their job, or at least the initial part of it. Dead body in a ditch? That’s a job for a detective. But the lawyers don’t get involved until the killer is identified, arrested, and charged.

  Usually.

  Brunelle was gazing out his office window when his phone rang. It wasn’t as nice a view as his boss had, but then again, it probably shouldn’t be. Matt Duncan was the elected District Attorney for King County; Brunelle was one of his Assistant D.A.s. An experienced, talented, successful assistant but an assistant nonetheless. Still, it was hard to have a bad view from two dozen stories above downtown Seattle. Everywhere you turned there was water, mountains, and/or glass skyscrapers. Beautiful. Which is why it took a few rings before Brunelle managed to tear himself away from the view and answer the phone.

  “King County Prosecutor’s Office, Dave Brunelle speaking.” He’d considered copying Chen’s gruff, ‘Chen, Homicides,’ intro, but again, he was a lawyer not a cop.

  Good thing, too. Chen would have teased him about it. “Dave, it’s Larry. We have a ... situation.”

  That didn’t sound good. Brunelle said as much.

  “I know,” Chen answered. “Can you come down to the station right now?”

  “Right now?” Brunelle questioned, although he considered that he’d just been staring out his window. “Why?”

  Chen sighed into the phone. “Jackson went a little rogue. He had Hernandez picked up on some old probation warrants. I guess he thought he could scare him into confessing to the Shanborn murder.”

  Brunelle rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. The biggest heroin dealer in the north half of the city wasn’t intimidated by some old misdemeanor warrants and an angry detective?”

  “Not even close,” Chen confirmed.

  “So why do you need me?” Brunelle wondered.

  “Hernandez isn’t scared,” Chen repeated, “but he isn’t stupid either. He said he wants to talk to the D.A. That’s you.”

  “Why does he want to talk to me? He should get his own attorney and talk to them.”

  “Maybe because there are no charges yet,” Chen guessed. “I don’t know. But you better get down here while the iron’s still hot. We can book him on the warrants but he’ll be out again tomorrow. And we don’t have enough to arrest him for murder.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Brunelle agreed. “What did Jackson think? He’d just confess or something?”

  “Between you and me,” Chen offered, “he wasn’t thinking. He was feeling. A dangerous thing to do when you’re a cop. But now we have Hernandez here and he wants to talk to you. So get your ass down here and maybe we’ll get that confession after all.”

  Brunelle reluctantly agreed then hung up the phone. He looked out the window. The sun was shining and there were few places more beautiful than Seattle when the sun was shining. Everything looks perfect from twenty-four stories up. Then he shrugged and headed for the door. It was time to trade the sunshine of perfect Seattle for the drug dealers and murdered of real Seattle.

  * * *

  Brunelle observed Hernandez through the two-way mirror into the interrogation room. He was a large man, as thick as Jackson but much taller, with a full black beard and a bald head. His clothes were fashionable but not gaudy. Undoubtedly, he was doing well selling heroin, but he was smart enough not to flash it around. Cops would notice, and so would potential rivals. Brunelle already admired the man’s style. On the other hand he sold poison to little league friends and dumped bullet-ridden bodies behind gas stations.

  “What does he want again?” Brunelle asked before going into the room.

  “He just said he wanted to talk to the
D.A.,” Chen answered.

  “And you’re sure he said D.A., not attorney?” Brunelle confirmed. “There was a prosecutor who did that once, pretended to be a public defender so they could get a confession from a murderer. The confession got suppressed and the prosecutor got disbarred. I’m not signing up for that.”

  “No, no,” Chen assured. “He was very specific. He said D.A. We even clarified. Asked him if he meant defense attorney. He said, ‘I know how to call my own attorney. I want to talk to the D.A.’ Not sure why. Seems like he should be talking to his own lawyer. I don’t know what you can offer that the defense attorney couldn’t.”

  Brunelle frowned. “I do.”

  “What?” Chen asked.

  “Immunity,” Brunelle answered. “He wants immunity in exchange for information.”

  Chen nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “For him, maybe,” Brunelle said. “Which usually means it doesn’t make sense for us.” He bumped Chen on the arm. “Come on, I’m not going in there alone. Let’s you and I get this over with.”

  They exited the observation room and joined their subject in the interrogation room. Although one look at Hernandez’s sharp eyes and Brunelle wondered who was really whose subject.

  “Mr. Hernandez,” Brunelle began. He always made a point of addressing criminals with the respect anyone else deserved. A little respect could go a long way. “I’m David Brunelle. I’m an Assistant District Attorney with the King County D.A.’s Office. Detective Chen said you wanted to talk to a prosecutor.”

  Brunelle was no detective. He’d watched plenty of interrogations, hundreds if not thousands, both live and on tape. But his questioning expertise was in a courtroom. Pulling information from a civilian witness, a reluctant victim, a testifying defendant. In a bright courtroom, with a book of evidence rules and a judge to settle disputes about whether any given question was phrased properly to admit only relevant evidence and not confuse a jury. But Brunelle found himself in a windowless room in the basement of a Seattle P.D. precinct, with no judges, jurors, or defense attorneys, and just one cop in case the drug dealing murderer on the other side of the table decided to get violent.

  “Good morning, Mr. Brunelle,” Hernandez replied in a smooth, almost soothing voice. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.”

  Brunelle tightened his poker face. He’d been expecting something gruffer, more street-hardened. He supposed Hernandez was plenty hardened. But he was polished too. Brunelle immediately considered that he’d play well in front of a jury—if they ever got that far. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Detective Chen. When he asks for a favor, I’m usually agreeable.”

  “Of course, of course,” Hernandez replied. “Then I am indebted to Detective Chen. I sensed that Detective Jackson is less amenable to accommodating my requests.”

  “He gets that way when his friends get murdered,” Brunelle quipped.

  “Ah, then Derrick was a friend of his,” Hernandez said. “Or more than just another doper on the street anyway. Good to get confirmation of that.”

  Brunelle cursed himself. He never should have offered information to Hernandez. He didn’t know what Jackson had or hadn’t already told him. Although apparently Jackson hadn’t revealed the informant relationship. No, that was left for Brunelle to stumble across.

  “What do you want?” Brunelle snapped.

  Hernandez raised a thick black eyebrow at Brunelle’s changed tone, but then shrugged it off. “It’s not what I want, Mr. Brunelle, it’s what you want.”

  Brunelle wasn’t in the mood for games. He’d given up a nice view and a fresh cup of coffee for this. “And what is it that I want?”

  Hernandez grinned. He had nice teeth too. “You want, Mr. Brunelle, to know who killed Derrick Shanborn.”

  Brunelle offered a grin of his own. “I think I already know that, Mr. Hernandez.”

  Hernandez smiled more broadly. “Let’s be careful with our word choice, Mr. Brunelle. You may suspect who killed Derrick, but you don’t know. If you knew, then I would have been picked up for murder, not for failing to report to probation on a two-year-old misdemeanor case.”

  “So you’re admitting to the murder?” Brunelle parried.

  “Not at all,” Hernandez dodged. “I’m pointing out that you and these fine detectives think I did it, but you don’t have any evidence or else you would have already arrested me.”

  “So, if you’re smart enough to figure that out,” Brunelle asked, “why bother talking with me? Why not just wait to get released tomorrow and go back to selling heroin to hopeless drug addicts?”

  Hernandez’s smile lost some of its warmth. “We can discuss the ethics of the criminalization of drugs another time perhaps. No, the problem I face is that so long as Detective Jackson and the rest of the Seattle Police Department believe I’m responsible for a murder, they will be watching my every move and making themselves quite apparent to everyone I know, both friends and business contacts.”

  “And that would be bad for business,” Brunelle remarked.

  “Terrible for business,” Hernandez replied. “I have as much interest as anyone in bringing this investigation to a speedy conclusion.”

  “But first you want immunity, right?” Brunelle asked. “That’s why you wanted to talk to me. Detectives can’t give you immunity. Defense attorneys can’t give you immunity. Only the D.A.”

  “Correct,” Hernandez confirmed. “I knew you’d understand.”

  “I understand,” Brunelle replied. “But I haven’t heard anything yet that would make me want to give you immunity.”

  “Right, well, that’s really the problem,” Hernandez said. “You won’t hear anything until I get immunity.”

  Brunelle shook his head and surrendered a dark chuckle. “But if I give you immunity first, and you confess to the murder, I can’t prosecute you.”

  Hernandez smiled. “I suppose that’s just a risk you’re going to have to take, if you want to solve this case.”

  Brunelle frowned and crossed his arms. He regarded the man across the table from him. He was smart, well-spoken, and ruthless—he’d have to be to have become a major player in Seattle’s heroin trade. A jury would likely believe him, whether it was testifying for the state that someone else had killed Derrick Shanborn, or testifying for himself after getting charged with that murder himself.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hernandez,” Brunelle said. “I’m a prosecutor. I don’t take risks. I lock the case down and give it to the jury so they hold killers responsible. If you want to tell us who killed Derrick Shanborn, great. No one’s stopping you. But there’s no way I’m giving you blanket immunity before I know what you’re going to say.”

  “And there’s no way,” Hernandez replied, “that I’m going to tell you what I know without that immunity.”

  “Then I guess we’re at an impasse.” Brunelle stood up.

  “You won’t solve it without my help,” Hernandez insisted. “If I don’t talk, no one else will.”

  Brunelle smiled. “That’s why we need to hurry up and tell people you did talk before you get out again.”

  For the first time since Brunelle walked in, Hernandez was rattled. “What? You can’t just—”

  Brunelle turned to Chen. “Go ahead and book him on the warrants. Then round up every known associate and bring them here. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

  Chapter 5

  “Any luck?” Brunelle asked a few hours later, after the police had swarmed into Lake City to round up any known associates of Elmer Hernandez they could find. The good news was, Hernandez had a lot of known associates. The bad news was, people like that were good at not being found.

  “The patrol guys are still looking for more people to grab up,” Chen answered, “but they’ve got two for us to start with. The easiest two to find.”

  “Who’s that?” Brunelle asked.

  “Hernandez’s girlfriend, Samantha Keller,” Chen answered. “And his right-hand man, Nate Wilkins.
Keller was at their house, and Wilkins was on Lake City Way, making sure business was running smoothly while his boss was temporarily out of commission.”

  “So, the two people closest to him,” Brunelle observed.

  “And probably the most loyal,” Chen finished Brunelle’s thought. “Imagine how surprised they’ll be when we tell them Hernandez snitched them out.”

  * * *

  This time, Brunelle waited in the observation room and Jackson accompanied Chen for the interview. They started with the girlfriend. They figured it didn’t hurt to let the junior drug dealer sweat a little, wondering who was saying what. They also figured, with no known involvement in Hernandez’s drug activities, and the best info they had putting her relationship with Hernandez at just under six months, Samantha Keller might hear the word ‘murder’ and crack wide open.

  They figured wrong.

  “Fuck you, pigs. I ain’t saying shit.”

  Nice language, Brunelle thought as he watched through the glass. You kiss your murderous, drug-dealing boyfriend with that mouth? Oh right, of course you do.

  Samantha Keller was one feisty little ball of nerves. She was small, barely five feet tall and thin as a rail. She had long black hair that fell onto her shoulders in a tangled heap, and her eyes were oversized and deep brown. Dark red lipstick decorated that aforementioned mouth of hers.

  “Samantha,” Chen soothed, “nobody’s saying you knew anything about this. We just need to know what happened. You’re a witness, not a suspect.”

  Chen was playing good cop. Brunelle wondered if Jackson really had a bad cop in him. It might just be good cop, good cop. But then again, that might be just as effective with such a lovely young lady.

  “Eat shit, mother fucker. I don’t know shit. I ain’t saying shit. Fuck both of you, you fucking cock-gobblers.”

  Brunelle understood what Hernandez saw in her. What she lacked in class, she more than made up for in hatred of the cops. A good quality for the girlfriend of a drug lord.