“So, say the name of the guy. But don’t lie. Lying means you won’t get anything out of this.”
“Hector Camacho.”
Donnally and Navarro knew it was a lie, or at best a half-truth, since he and Camacho could still have some unfinished business, but it was the name they wanted to hear. Chino had decided to talk about somebody who was now out of the business and couldn’t be hurt, rather than give up the name of the distributor he was working with now. The DEA would squeeze the true name out of him later.
“That’s a start,” Navarro said, then opened his folder and took out a legal pad. He drew a square at the top, and then ten more below it, and drew connecting lines to make an organizational chart. “Let’s fill in the boxes.”
Donnally imagined the DEA and narcotics task force agents comparing the names Chino then gave with the names that Camacho had given them and that they had used to target the wiretaps. They’d shown Donnally and Navarro the list when they had arrived at the station.
Chino told them a name that wasn’t on Camacho’s list.
Navarro asked about a couple of others to disguise his approach. Finally, he got to it.
“Tell me about, uh. .” Navarro scanned the boxes as though he’d forgotten the man’s name. “This guy. . Calaca.”
“Skinny old man. Been close to Camacho since high school in Mexico. Not really part of the operation. More like a silent partner, somebody Camacho talks to, gets advice from. A godfather to his kids. Story is that he was with one of the first cartels.”
“A guy he’d call if he needed help with something that really worried him?” Navarro asked. Like a murder.
Chino nodded, almost smiling. “Camacho had sort of a bat phone to call him. Two, three times a day. Didn’t use it for nothing else.”
And Donnally was certain Camacho hadn’t told the DEA about it when he agreed to cooperate.
“You know anybody who’s got the number?” Donnally asked.
Chino shook his head. “I don’t even know whose name it’s in.”
Navarro asked about a few more on his chart, then returned the legal pad to the folder. He and Donnally stood up.
“We’re gonna run this by the guys outside,” Navarro said, “and see how much it bought you.”
Chapter 52
After four hours’ sleep, Navarro arrived grim and red-eyed at Donnally’s front door at 8 A.M., and thirty minutes later they were sitting in a surveillance van across the street from Camacho’s house. A canine officer was stationed around the corner along the route to Camacho’s restaurant.
Camacho backed out of his driveway into the oncoming lane, then Hollywood-stopped at a red light and took a right turn out of Donnally’s view.
A patrol unit siren blared for a second.
Navarro circled the block and stopped across the street from where the officer had pulled Camacho over. The officer glanced over his shoulder at them, then opened Camacho’s door and signaled for him to get out. The officer grabbed Camacho’s arm just above the elbow. Camacho pulled away. The officer pretended to lose his balance, then reached for Camacho’s wrist, twisted it behind him, and walked him to the front of the patrol car and bent him over the trunk.
“The idiot fell for it,” Navarro said. “We’ve got him on resisting.”
They needed Camacho to commit at least a misdemeanor in order to search him more thoroughly than just a pat down. The traffic infraction wasn’t enough.
The officer kicked at Camacho’s ankles, forcing him to spread his legs, then handcuffed and searched him, setting Camacho’s cell phones and wallet onto the hood. He then eased Camacho into the backseat of the patrol car. He slid into the driver’s seat of Camacho’s car so he could examine the phones out of Camacho’s line of sight, then called in a warrant check.
Ten minutes later, Camacho was again on his way. Twenty-minutes later, Judge McMullin signed an order so they could obtain the call and cell site records of Camacho’s secret phone. And an hour after that, Donnally and Navarro were reviewing them in Navarro’s office. They showed Camacho had made a call to Calaca from the area of Hamlin’s apartment at 2 A.M. on the night Hamlin was murdered and showed calls from and to some numbers they didn’t recognize on the night Frank Lange’s house was torched.
Donnally wondered why Camacho and Calaca hadn’t started with Lange. After all, he was the one actually in the DEA debriefing room with Camacho when Camacho shamed himself in his own eyes by snitching, and Lange would have been a more immediate target for Camacho’s rage.
They also spotted something else: calls a couple of days before Hamlin’s murder between Camacho and Ryvver Moon Scoville.
Chapter 53
You’ve got call records, but the rest is double hearsay, you overhearing Jackson talking to Janie about what Ryvver said to her,” Judge McMullin had told Donnally over the phone. “If you got it straight from Ryvver, then you could draft a search warrant that would stand up.”
Donnally wasn’t even sure he and Navarro could question Ryvver without advising her of her rights. These days, Navarro knew the law better than he did. He hadn’t read a DA legal advisory newsletter since he left the department. Who knew what the appeals courts were saying now as they second-guessed officers on the street whose duty required them to make quick decisions.
He was sure some judge somewhere would say that Ryvver running to a murderer like Camacho, to tell him something she knew would infuriate him enough to kill Hamlin, would make her part of a conspiracy, the death of Hamlin being a natural and foreseeable consequence of her action.
Ryvver hadn’t pulled the trigger, but she sure as hell had pointed a loaded and cocked gun.
Donnally didn’t like having to do it, but he asked Janie to come down to Hamlin’s office after Jackson got back from lunch and attempt to leverage Jackson’s guilt into a means to pry more information out of her about Ryvver.
Janie showed up, but she wasn’t happy about it, now uncertain about what her role was. She dropped into the chair across from Donnally where he sat behind Hamlin’s desk.
“There’s no expectation of confidentiality,” Donnally said. “She didn’t seek you out in your professional capacity and she didn’t ask you to come. You showed up here last time looking for me.”
“She knows what I do for living, that’s part of the reason why she talked, part of the reason I hoped she’d talk and unburden herself.”
“She also knows you’re an employee of the Veterans Administration-and no money changed hands between you and her. There’s no rational way she can see herself as your patient. At most, as a new friend.”
The sound of the opening door drew their attention to the outer office. Jackson looked toward them as she walked toward her desk, then stopped. Donnally rose. Jackson spun away, heading back toward the entrance.
“Wait,” Donnally said.
Jackson turned toward him. “This some kind of setup?” she asked, her eyes fixed into a glare as they shifted between Donnally and Janie.
Janie stood. “Only if you treat it that way.” She gestured toward Donnally behind her. “He’s getting close to the guy who killed Mark and Frank, but he needs your help.”
“Like what?”
“I need to see the payment history for the clients who cooperated.”
That wasn’t all he wanted, but it was a safer start.
Jackson took a step into the office and pointed at Hamlin’s monitor. “It’s in there.”
“I couldn’t find it.”
Jackson sighed like a frustrated little girl, then walked around the desk. Donnally stepped aside so she could sit down. She tapped a few keys, clicking tab after tab too fast for Donnally to follow until a report appeared on the monitor. He spotted Camacho’s nickname, Nacho. Short for Ignacio.