“From where?”
“The guy’s a jogger. He does an early morning run from his apartment down along the Golden Gate Promenade. That includes running past the yacht harbor on most days. He says last Wednesday morning, somewhere around five thirty, he was doing his usual run when a limousine with its lights off nearly clipped him. He got steamed. He chased down the limo where it pulled in to park and started laying into the driver. It was pretty hot between them. Then a few tough guys in suits arrived from one of the boats tied up in the harbor. The leader of the pack suggested that Romeo move along, and he backed up the suggestion with a knife in his hand.”
“Casal?” Frost said.
“That’s right. Romeo swears it was Diego Casal, says he wasn’t likely to forget a guy who made a threat like that. That puts Casal down near Denny’s boat on the morning after this mystery cruise. Casal must have started taking out the witnesses, probably including your missing persons. Then he came to get Romeo, but ended up on the losing end of the fight.”
Frost thought again, All neatly tied up with a bow.
“Do you believe this guy?” he asked.
“I don’t think he has any reason to lie,” Cyril replied. “The guy’s not a gangbanger. He’s a fricking coder who makes more than the two of us combined. And it all fits, doesn’t it? We’ve got Casal, the boat, the witnesses, the drugs, the phone contacts, the poison.”
“Yes, it all fits,” Frost agreed. “Do you mind if I talk to this Romeo for a couple of minutes?”
Cyril shrugged. “Knock yourself out. We’ll do a full interview at the station. Assuming that checks out, we’ll cut him loose. We don’t have any witnesses, but so far, what we’ve got adds up to self-defense.”
Frost felt like Coyle, obsessed with paranoid conspiracies. Yes, everything fit, but it fit too well. It fit like loose ends being tied up. He said nothing more to Cyril. He walked through the wet grass of the park and across the MUNI tracks. He climbed a shallow slope to Church Street, where a squad car was parked at the curb. The uniformed officer outside unlocked the rear door. Frost got inside with Romeo Laredo.
Romeo didn’t look like an IT nerd. He looked like Chris Hemsworth. He was bulky and big, with messy blond hair and blue eyes. He was probably in his late twenties. He wore a snug pale-blue T-shirt and jeans, and he had the muscled physique of a weightlifter. Diego Casal would have been crazy to take him on in a fight.
“Hey, how are you?” the man said politely, extending his hand with a winning smile. “I’m Romeo Laredo.”
Frost made no effort to shake the man’s hand. He waited until Romeo pulled his arm back with a puzzled expression on his face. The man was obviously used to disarming people with his earnest charm, and he didn’t know what to do when it failed him.
Then Frost said, “Identification.”
Romeo’s eyes widened with surprise. It was obvious that he’d heard that demand before, but not in this context, and he wasn’t sure what to believe.
“Identification!” Frost snapped again, broaching no hesitation.
The man’s whole body stiffened. He became a soldier, obeying orders. “Guerrero.”
Frost nodded slowly without saying anything more, and Romeo realized that he’d tipped his hand with the wrong person. The eager mask disappeared from his face. He was a big, strong man who was suddenly scared.
“So,” Frost said. “You work for Lombard.”
“Who? I don’t know who that is.”
“Come on, Romeo. Don’t play games with me. You screwed up, but you’re in too deep now. You might as well talk to me. Lombard came up with the whole cover story, right? He told you what to say about Wednesday morning. You never saw Diego Casal at the harbor, did you? That was a lie.”
“No, I did. The guy threatened me, and then tonight he came after me.”
“Really? See, I think it was the other way around. You came after him, Romeo. Lombard told you where to find Diego Casal, and then you followed him here and pushed him in front of the train. Did Lombard give you the pellet gun to plant on him, too?”
Romeo held up both hands. “Whoa, dude, you are freaking me out. I’m the victim here. This Casal guy was going to kill me.”
“Then what’s Guerrero? Most people would pull out their driver’s license when a cop asks for identification. Instead, you said Guerrero. Why?”
The man grasped furiously for a lie. “I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s been a hell of a night, okay? Some dude tried to kill me, and then I watched his brains get squirted out by the train. I said the first thing that popped into my head. I spotted this guy following me over on Guerrero. That’s where I identified him. It was a brain fart, man, that’s all.”
Frost shook his head. “That’s the best story you’ve got?”
“What can I tell you? It’s the truth.”
“So you won’t mind if I put the word out on the street that Guerrero is talking to the police? That won’t mean anything? That won’t make you nervous?”
Romeo rubbed his fingers. He was sweating. “Say whatever you like. I’m innocent, man. I just want to go home and have a beer and forget about this whole night.”
Frost shrugged. He wasn’t going to get anything more out of Romeo Laredo. He was sure the man’s biography would check out. He was sure they wouldn’t find anything to disprove his story. Lombard didn’t leave things like that to chance. The pieces of the puzzle that was Denny Clark’s death were falling into place one after another.
They had a killer — Diego Casal — and the killer wasn’t around to say he was innocent.
They had a motive. Drugs.
They had evidence and a witness tying the killer to Denny and the boat. Everything was in a pretty package. And it was all a lie.
He opened the back door of the squad car again.
“Watch your back, Guerrero,” he told the man as he got out. “You made a mistake by opening your mouth tonight. We both know that Lombard doesn’t like mistakes.”
26
“They’re closing the case right out from under me,” Frost told Herb the next morning.
They sat at an outdoor table at a café on Cole Street. Herb nursed a large mug of chai tea that wafted cardamom into the chilly air. Frost had black coffee and a plate of eggs. It was barely past dawn, and the neighborhood around them was slow to wake up. Victorian homes made a side-by-side checkerboard down the street. Near the intersection at Haight, the walls of the shop buildings were painted with murals of rainbows and a guitar-playing Jerry Garcia.
“Captain Hayden thinks Denny’s murder is connected to drugs,” Frost went on, “and right on schedule, a dead drug dealer drops into our laps. As far as headquarters is concerned, it’s time for me to let it go.”
Herb didn’t say anything in response. His attention was focused on a two-story Victorian home almost directly across from the café. A black wrought-iron gate blocked the front steps. The lights behind the curtains were on, and children’s paintings were taped to the bay window. Herb’s mouth was pinched into a frown. He played with the beads that were strung into his long strands of gray hair.
“Herb?” Frost said. “Everything okay?”
His friend awakened as if from a trance. Herb adjusted his black glasses on his face. “Yes, yes, sorry. I’m somewhere else today. I understand your frustration, Frost, but isn’t it possible that Mr. Clark’s death is exactly what it appears to be? The result of his unfortunate dealings with a violent cocaine dealer?”
“You mean, instead of a cover-up contrived by a mysterious criminal mastermind with a network of operatives around the city?” Frost asked with a little smile. “I know, I sound as crazy as Coyle.”