The courthouse was on full lockdown.
Kara paced Craig Dyson’s office. She itched to leave and find out what was going on, but Michael had made her promise to stay, then he went to get answers.
Craig sat at his desk reviewing the David Chen file as if there hadn’t been a shooting half a block from them. Kara stopped pacing and stood in front of his desk long enough to catch his attention.
“We’re stuck here,” he said. “But the hearing isn’t going to be canceled.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “If Chen can’t get in, the judge will postpone!”
“We don’t know what happened. It could be any number of things, and as soon as the sheriff’s department clears the building, it’ll be business as usual. We’re the first case in front of Judge Hargrove after the lunch break. If the hearing is delayed, we’ll still be the first case this afternoon.”
She continued to pace. Craig was an experienced prosecutor with a long history in the DA’s office and a prestigious background in private practice. He had sacrificed a lucrative income to seek justice for victims after his mother, an investigator for the attorney general’s office, had been killed while working a case. She respected him for his dedication to the job—he was noble, smart and beyond reproach. However much she admired him, they sometimes butted heads.
Craig admired her ability to communicate clearly on the witness stand, winning over juries with her likability. He appreciated how she meticulously built cases and gathered evidence for his team. He once praised her for remaining composed under cross-examination from the defense. However, he sometimes questioned her methods, fearing she walked a precarious tightrope where one misstep could jeopardize a case. Despite their differences, she had worked closely with both Craig and her boss Lex and brought him a solid case.
Until the feds put their fingers in the pot and started stirring up shit, taking the case from them and making Craig fight tooth and nail to get it back.
“Sit,” Craig finally said, closing the file.
“I can’t.” She stood at the narrow window in his office and looked out. She could see nothing because they didn’t face the park where the shooting had occurred. They’d only had confirmation that two people had been shot on Broadway in front of the park adjacent to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center.
He gestured to a chair. “Please.”
She sat. Leaned back. Stuffed her hands in her armpits with a sigh. “I hate this.”
“We’re going to get Chen one way or the other. I can’t share the details, but because of the work you did on the Chen case, I have another—bigger—investigation. I’m optimistic.”
“You’re going after the people who aided and abetted Chen.” They’d discussed that early on.
“That’s only a small part of it. Two inspectors have been fired and both made plea arrangements. They will be available to testify when this case goes to trial. I have a business owner willing to testify, but he’s scared—he’s left the area, though I know how to reach him. I’m confident he’ll come in, do the right thing. The LAPD officer that I suspected was on the take has been transferred to the North Valley substation, and he’ll cooperate.”
“Asshole,” Kara muttered.
“So far he’s kept his nose clean.”
“Who?”
“I’m not going to tell you that. I’m still working with him on his testimony.”
“He’ll lose his job.” He should have already lost his job.
“Better to lose the badge and be free than lose it and go to prison.”
She could get the information. All she needed was to dig around to find out who had been transferred from the downtown division to North Valley in the last eight months.
“But there’s another, bigger investigation and I’m very close to going to the grand jury. I have a whistleblower in city hall and I want you to meet her—it’s because of your raid that Violet started looking into records in the mayor’s office.”
Kara leaned forward. “The mayor? He was involved with Chen?”
Craig hesitated. “I can’t talk about it.”
“You said the mayor.”
“I don’t believe the mayor is involved, but—” He hesitated, probably trying to figure out what he could tell her. She wished he’d just spill everything. Who was she going to tell? But ethics and all that. Carefully, Craig said, “Someone in his office may be party to a broader graft and corruption scheme.” He paused again, then nodded as if his statement was vague enough. “Violet called me last night and said she has something important to share, and I’m hopeful—her previous information has been very good, but I need a few more facts for the grand jury.”
“Who is she?” When he didn’t immediately speak, she said, “You already told me her name is Violet and she works for the mayor. I’m not going to spill the beans.”
“I trust you, Kara, you know that. I want you to meet her. She works for the IT department in city hall. Very smart young woman. Quiet, observant, rather intense. She had a volatile childhood.”
“I can relate,” Kara said.
“Between the information Violet obtained and my investigation, I’m confident that a lot of people will be very unhappy next week.” He paused. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but you’ll find out after the hearing.”
Her stomach sank.
“You’re cutting him a deal,” she said bluntly.
He didn’t answer the question. “I contacted Chen’s attorney. I am confident about the hearing today—there’s no legal reason to toss your testimony or any of the evidence. I told him that I would be willing to negotiate a plea if Chen would answer detailed questions regarding the housing used for his laborers.”
“What the fuck, Craig?”
“It’s part of a bigger investigation, and again, I can’t give you the details. I won’t let him walk—you know me better than that. But I can negotiate time. This is a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.”
Something clicked. Violet—working in city hall. Chen—using housing that was what? Paid by the city? How would that work?
Kara was getting a headache. She hated public corruption cases. They were complicated and took thousands of hours to investigate and almost always ended up in a plea deal where someone lost their job and paid a big fine but rarely had to deal with the fallout from their actions.
“You’re letting him plead. Damn you!” This was the part of the system she hated. Plea deals and letting bad guys off with a slap on the wrist. It sucked. “Sunny is dead. He killed her,” Kara snapped.
Craig took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I promise you, Kara, he will serve time.” He retrieved a small cloth from his desk and cleaned his lenses, then put his glasses back on. “The reason I’m telling you this is because Chen’s attorney contacted the AUSA. I have a good relationship with the AUSA on this case, and she’s not going to let Chen walk, either, but she knows how to play the game. I want you to be prepared, because after this hearing, Chen is going to start negotiating. He knows that if the judge allows the evidence to stand, he loses.”
She got up and started pacing again. Dammit! She knew this could happen—it had happened before—but she thought Chen was a big fish, too big for anyone to agree to plea.
A knock on the door gave her momentary relief that the courthouse was open and the hearing would continue as scheduled.
“Craig, it’s Peter.”
“My investigator, Peter Sharp,” Craig explained. “Please let him in.”
Kara didn’t know the name, but recognized him when she opened the door. Tall, with lean muscles and smart brown eyes. There were dozens of criminal investigators in the DA’s office to assist prosecutors by verifying facts, interviewing witnesses and researching cases. Investigators often interrogated law enforcement or verified reports before a case went to trial to make sure that there’d be no surprises by the defense.
“Detective Quinn,” he said. “Glad you made it in before the lockdown.”
“Lucky me,” she muttered.
She secured the door behind him and he handed a file to Craig. “The statements you wanted before court today, though I suspect all hearings will be canceled.”
Craig glanced through the contents, nodded, placed the folder precisely on his desk. “You may be right, but Hargrove likes to keep a tight calendar. He may simply push everything back an hour.”
“If Chen can’t get into the building—his attorney is in the lounge, but Chen isn’t—then his attorney would have cause for postponement.”
Kara moaned. “That would really suck, Dyson. They’ll send me back to DC.” She hated this uncertainty. She wanted the hearing over, the trial confirmed, Chen in jail. Was that too much to ask?
“We don’t know what we don’t know,” Craig said calmly. “Let’s wait until we have more information.”
Sure, she thought, that was the logical, mature thing to do. But right now she felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. She suspected that had as much to do with her odd meeting with Lex this morning as being trapped in this office.
“Did Ms. Halliday make it in before the lockdown?” Peter asked Craig.
“I haven’t seen her,” Craig said.
“I’m curious to see why she was so insistent on coming in today,” Peter said.
Another knock on the door interrupted Craig’s response.
“Kara, it’s Michael.”
She let him in.
“Two men were killed in the park. One of them is David Chen.”
Kara stared at him in disbelief. “Chen was shot?”
“Dead. Chen and his bodyguard, based on what I could glean. Matt’s down there now, and we’ll get more information soon.”
Kara sat, stunned by the news. “I don’t fucking believe this. He’s dead.”
Craig introduced Peter to Michael, then said, “What else do you know, Agent Harris?”
“Not much. Matt said there are conflicting witness statements, but that’s to be expected. LAPD is all over the scene. One of the deputies in the lobby indicated that the lockdown has been partially lifted—the building is restricted, but people can come and go with an ID and badge through the main entrance.”
Kara said, “He was shot and killed downtown in the middle of the day, there must be dozens of witnesses.”
“The shooter wore a surgical face covering, no one thought twice about it. Most people concurred that he was a male, half said Hispanic, half said white. But two people said a white female in jeans was there and they hadn’t noticed the male in a face mask, and a third witness stated they saw a white female running away from the bodies with something in her hand that may have been a gun.”
“There are security cameras all over the place,” Peter said. “Law enforcement should be able to pull together enough feeds to find out what happened.”
Kara texted Matt and asked for an update. She was going to go stir-crazy if she had to stay in here.
Chen is dead, she thought. I’m free.
“You’re thinking,” Michael said.
“I’m always thinking.”
“Act like there’s still a threat against you until we can confirm that there isn’t.”
As reality sank in, Kara realized that her life was finally her own again. With Chen dead, she was free to go back to her old job. It didn’t make her happy—she’d wanted him in jail for the rest of his miserable life. But death was the next best thing.
Though, Lex had been acting strange. That had bothered her all morning. He could simply have been worried about her, but he’d seemed angry that she’d come by headquarters.
Who wanted Chen dead?
Random violence didn’t make sense—not downtown during the lunch hour. He had enemies, but there would have been a better time to take him down. Why here, with witnesses, on the block that housed the criminal justice center on one side and police headquarters on the other?
She wasn’t sorry that he was dead. She was only sorry that he didn’t expose others who were guilty.
But maybe...maybe with his death they would find the answers.
She texted Matt.
We need to be involved in Chen’s murder investigation. Get access to his house, his files. He may have the names of everyone who helped him run his sweatshops, and I want to take them all down.