Carson glanced at Hight through the doorway, then passed the bag over. “It’s a receipt for a gun,” he said quietly. “A nine millimeter Smith, Lena. Check out the gun dealer’s address.”
Carson opened the window shutter. Lena lowered the receipt into the light and started reading. The 9-mm pistol had been purchased in Arizona. The address was nothing more than a Web site, and nothing less. She didn’t see a phone number, but the date of purchase caught her eye.
“He bought the gun six weeks ago,” she said.
Carson nodded, his wide face flushed with color. “The day after the verdict,” he said. “No wait time and no background check. Hight types in his credit card number, and some asshole ships him the piece, no questions asked.”
“Where was the receipt?”
Street answered for his partner. “He’s got an office upstairs. We found it in his desk with a stack of other receipts. Looks like he was trying to write it off as a business expense.”
Lena felt someone move in behind her. It was Barrera. He reached for the evidence bag and examined the receipt.
“Business is business,” he said. “Find the gun. Tear the place apart.”
11
She had asked Mifune to remove his instruments from the table and wait outside. Barrera was seated on the couch in the living room, out of sight but within earshot. Hight remained in the kitchen, alone for the last thirty minutes with whatever was going on inside his head. She didn’t think that time would soften him. The man had been running on fumes for more than a year. When she finally entered the room, he was staring at that empty pack of cigarettes.
“What’s happened?” he said. “Why is this taking so long?”
Lena opened a file she’d pulled from her briefcase. “Do you keep a flashlight in your car, Mr. Hight?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
She found the surveillance photo and set it down on the table. Hight looked at himself behind the wheel and seemed amazed that his ride home had been documented. Lena pushed the photo closer, pointing at the dark object on the passenger seat.
“What do you think this is?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“On the seat beside you. What do you think it is? What’s your best guess?”
Hight didn’t answer and seemed confused. Leaning over the table, he tried to study the image.
“We’re not talking about six days ago,” she said. “It’s more like six hours. You’ve just left Club 3 AM. You said that you don’t keep a flashlight in your car. So what is it, Mr. Hight? What’s on the passenger seat of your car?”
His eyes returned to the photograph. “I don’t know. It could be a shadow. It’s nothing.”
Lena tossed the receipt for the gun on the table.
“A shadow?” she said.
Hight’s body stiffened as he realized what was in the evidence bag. Beads of sweat began to percolate on his forehead. His mouth quivered. Lena pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. Nothing about her voice or manner was confrontational.
“Where’s the gun, Mr. Hight?”
He took a deep breath and shuddered as he exhaled. He tried to look at her, but couldn’t. He seemed embarrassed. The room went quiet again.
“Make it easy on yourself,” she said. “You’re so close. Just tell me where it is.”
Another long moment passed. “I can’t remember,” he whispered finally. “I don’t know what I did with it.”
“You mean you got rid of it. After you left the club, you tossed it.”
He shook his head. “No. I mean I can’t remember where I put it. It came in the mail and I put it somewhere. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was confused.”
Lena sat back in the chair, unable to hide her disappointment. “That’s your story? You bought a gun, but you can’t remember what you did with it. You were at Club 3 AM last night, two men were shot, but all you took with you was your shadow.”
The cynicism in her voice registered on his face, though only for a brief moment.
“I think I should call my lawyers now.”
Lawyers. He didn’t have one attorney. He had more than one.
“I do, too,” she said. “And here’s what you’ll need to tell them. It won’t work, Mr. Hight. What you’re doing. What you’re trying to get away with. It won’t work.”
“I’m not trying to get away with anything.”
“Sure you are. You’re trying to get away with murder. But all that depends on it looking like a crime of passion. And you’ll need public opinion on your side to pull it off.”
“If I had killed Jacob Gant, it would have been a crime of passion.”
“But what happened last night wasn’t a crime of passion,” she said. “And that’s your problem. It doesn’t look like it. It doesn’t feel like it. So how do you expect your lawyers to sell it?”
“If I’d murdered Jake, it would have been,” he repeated with less conviction.
“I can only speak for myself and the people I work with, Mr. Hight. The whole thing looks planned. Everything you did looks scripted, like you spent a lot of time in that chair in the sunroom thinking it over from every angle. Watching the Gants from your window and letting it eat you up from the inside. You dreamed about murdering Jacob Gant. Like you said, you wished for his death over and over again.”
A beat went by. Then another, and Hight started weeping like a man overcome by his memories. His ghosts.
“But Jake murdered Lily,” he whispered into his hands. “My girl. That’s how a crime of passion works.”
Lena spotted a box of tissues on the counter and brought them over to the table.
“You planned it, Mr. Hight. You bought the gun six weeks ago. We checked. It’s not registered. You followed Gant to the club last night. You knew the layout and waited on the fire escape.”
“I haven’t seen him since the trial. I told you that.”
“You shot an innocent man. You shot Johnny Bosco.”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t. I liked Johnny. He was nice to me.”
Lena lowered her voice. “You shot him in the back. You’ll need to tell your lawyers about it because that’s what it really comes down to. The gristle on the bone. You shot an innocent man in the back.”
His body shivered-a tremor from deep within that came and went.
“Why do you keep repeating it?” he said.
“Because you’re playing us. Because you’re trying to take the city down with you. No matter what I might feel for your loss, you’re hurting other people now. You shot Bosco and then you killed Gant just the way you dreamed about it. You took care of business. You wasted him. You disfigured him beyond recognition. Just the way you wanted to. Just the way you planned it.”
“No.”
“When you talk to your attorneys about selling what you did as a crime of passion, remember the details and don’t leave anything out. You took the time to pick up your shell casings, Mr. Hight. You took the time to go through their wallets and make it look like a robbery. You knew Bosco. Everybody knew he carried a lot of cash. So you took his money and tried to make the murders look like something else. You tried to cover your tracks. And then what?”
“I didn’t do any of these things.”
“And then what?” she repeated. “You stayed behind to watch. You got lost in the crowd outside the club because you wanted to see the fallout. You called ahead and sent your wife to Bakersfield. You came home and mended the wound on your hand that you’ve been trying to hide from us. You made a drink and sat down in your chair by the window. And then you waited. You waited for the news to arrive next door. Your dream came true. You made sure it came true. Jacob Gant is dead.”
Lena paused a moment, her words settling into the room.
“That’s not a crime of passion,” she said finally. “That’s the death penalty, Mr. Hight. That’s a trip to the dead room. That’s a ride on a gurney and a needle in the arm.”