Dell picked up my call on the third ring. I was back in a yellow cab, headed the long way around the city, making sure I hadn’t been followed before I made my way to Holly’s apartment.
“The DA is taking the plea off the table. Didn’t even let me read the damn agreement. Before you say anything, no, I don’t think he’s bluffing for more jail time for Child. Why would he? Zader is an ambitious son of a bitch, and this case will be front-page news all over the world. This is Zader’s ticket up the ladder, and he wants it played out in front of the cameras.”
Silence.
“You there?”
“I’m here. Don’t worry about Zader. I got that covered. You just get me my plea.”
“I can’t. There’s no time. The prelim starts in two hours. Once we start the hearing, the DA won’t take a deal. With the press scrutiny on this thing, if the DA makes a deal, it’ll look like he’s soft on billionaires and hard on the poor. Zader needs to make an example of Child.”
“I told you, I got it covered. Call me when you’ve got a deal. Five years for murder as long as we get the partners and the money.”
He hung up.
Holly’s apartment was in an expensive building just behind Central Park Eleven, where Child lived and where the murder occurred. I flicked through the prosecution file Zader had given to me, closing it after twenty minutes. We were three blocks from Holly’s.
I’d read the forensic report from the GSR expert, Dr. Henry Porter, and reread every document in the file—crime scene reports, witness statements, crime scene photographs, and computer printouts. Every single piece of evidence looked clean.
And it all proved, beyond any doubt, that David Child was a murderer.