Part 30 (1/2)
Fifty-Eight.
When Thinnes and Oster walked into the squad room after lunch, Viernes hailed Oster. ”Carl, some suspect you busted is screaming for you down at County. Name of Leon. Mark Leon.”
”Now there's a coincidence,” Oster said. ”Just so happens, we want to talk to Mr. Leon.”
”Let's see if Columbo would like to get in on this,” Thinnes said. ”Maybe he can meet us down there.”
An hour later, they brought him into the conference room at 26th and Cal, and Leon went ballistic. He took one look at Thinnes and did an about-face. When the guard wouldn't let him out, he aimed an impressive stream of profanity at them, finis.h.i.+ng with a demand for his lawyer.
”Learns fast, doesn't he?” Thinnes asked.
”Take him back,” Columbo told the sheriff's deputy.
”Wait!” Leon said.
Thinnes could see the conflicting desires at work. ”Are you waiving your right to have your lawyer present?”
Leon thought about it for a minute. ”No! I wanna talk to my lawyer first.”
It was another hour before they could locate the public defender who'd been a.s.signed to represent him. A woman. Just under five feet and a hundred pounds-fully clothed and soaking wet. She was in uniform-power suit, female version; expensive, unrevealing blouse; and three-inch heels, matching briefcase. She'd been angry when she'd found out how Leon had been duped into talking to Oster in the first place, now she was furious. ”Where do you get off-”
Columbo interrupted. ”There're two more murders, Counselor, in which your client's implicated.”
That rattled her cage. But she said, ”You're bluffing!”
Columbo shook his head. Thinnes said, ”So far, it's purely circ.u.mstantial, Counselor, but the ballistics test done on the gun we found in Leon's possession shows it was used in a killing last year. And the MO of that killing matches one we had a few weeks before Leon killed Jolene Wilson. If he doesn't have an alibi for the times those shootings occurred, we could probably clear up both of them by making him the offender.”
”What's stopping you?”
”Just the fact that he talked to Carl about Wilson,” Thinnes said.
Her mouth actually dropped open. ”Did I miss a step?”
Columbo was staring, too.
”He cooperated,” Oster said. ”We'd like to cut him some slack.”
Both attorneys looked skeptical.
”We'd like to get the real killer in those cases, but we don't know that wasn't Leon unless he helps us.”
”What're you offering?” the PD asked.
”He cooperates,” Columbo said, ”and we'll let him plead to murder two.”
”Manslaughter!”
Columbo shook his head. ”C'mon, Counselor. He was driving around with her in the trunk.”
”You didn't know that when you stopped him.” She turned to Thinnes. ”How many traffic citations have you handed out in the last year, Detective?”
Thinnes managed to avoid smiling. Gotcha! ”I didn't write the citations, but I made three stops. And all of them were cited.”
That got her.
”We'll put in a good word at the sentencing hearing,” Columbo said, ”if he'll plead second and cooperate on these other homicides. That's the best we can do.”
The PD shrugged and sighed. ”I'll talk to him.”
Leon looked faded and scared as he sat across from Oster in the conference room, and he started his statement with, ”He said he'd kill me if I ever narked.”
”We just need his name and address,” Oster told him. ”We'll get a search warrant and if we find any guns, we'll nail him for that.”
”You're lying! He'll know as soon as you ask about the gun.”
”You can't be the only one he's sold a gun to,” Oster said.
”If you won't give us a name,” Thinnes said, ”we'll have to a.s.sume it's because there isn't anyone else, and you did the two killings yourself.”
”No!” Leon buried his face in his hands and sobbed, mumbling, ”Just the girl. That was a accident.”
Oster stood up and leaned over the table to put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. ”You'll feel better after you've told us everything. And you'll clear yourself on these...” He tapped the Indian case files on the table between Thinnes and himself. ”...other two shootings.”
Leon wiped his face on his sleeve and snuffled. ”Little kid-said his name was Chico-sold it to me.”
”How little?”
Leon shrugged. ”What do I know about kids?” He held his hand up, palm down, about midchest level. ”This tall, maybe. Little spic kid. Oh, and he had a scar under his...” Leon had to move his own hands to figure out right and left and translate to where'd they'd be facing him.
The guy was dumber than a box of hammers.
”Left eye,” Leon finally said. ”I gave him fifty bucks and he went away and came back with the gun.”
The tactical officer folded a copy of the Daily Bulletin into an airplane and sailed it into the wastebasket between Thinnes and Oster. Then he took his feet off his desk and said, ”The kid's Chico Galardo. Ten years old going on fifty. He's a gofer for Xaviar Ocampo, a.k.a. Hielo, the neighborhood gang chief.”
”Ocampo,” Oster said. ”Must be Irish.”
”Yeah. Just like the IRA.”
”It would be nice,” Thinnes said, ”if we didn't have to name our source. Maybe we could set up a buy and use that for probable.”
”We got a little problem there-finding someone they won't spot in a Chicago second.”