"No," Fairchild said. "It's just us guys so far. As you can see."
"Have you talked to her today?" Shiu asked.
"Not yet. She's not due till the afternoon gavel, and sometimes she's got other work and misses that." Fairchild shrugged as though this were no issue at all. "I expect her around for the wrap-up, though, you want to stop by then."
"What's up, guys?" Tombo asked.
"Well, since we're here, anyway, for starters," Shiu said, "we wonder if either of you could tell us a little about the extent of her involvement with the prison guards' union?"
"You mean, beyond them being her client?" Fairchild asked.
"Piersall's client, you mean," Shiu said.
The producer shrugged. "Okay, sure, but she worked on their stuff all the time."
"Maybe I'm missing something," Tombo said. "You guys are on Palmer's murder, right? What's Andrea got to do with that? Or the prison guards, for that matter?"
Juhle stepped in. His partner had said too much already. "We don't know," he said. "All we've got are some dots we thought Parisi could connect."
"About Palmer?" Tombo asked, followed by Fairchild's, "Like what?"
Juhle didn't like to give information out to television people. He offered both men a bland smile and asked his own question instead. "Has she ever mentioned a young woman named Staci Rosalier to either of you?"
Tombo shook his head. Fairchild frowned.
"Ring a bell?" Juhle picked up something in Fairchild's expression.
"No. Not from Andrea. The name's familiar, though."
"She was the other victim," Shiu said. "The other woman with Palmer."
"That's it," Fairchild said. "That's where I heard it. What's her connection to Andrea?"
Juhle reached for an edamame. "That's what we want to know."
Tombo and Fairchild shared a blank look.
Shiu said, "Okay, let's go back to the prison guards for a minute." He turned to Fairchild. "You said she worked with them all the time. So she must have been aware of Palmer's, um, problems with them."
"Sure," Fairchild said. "But who isn't? Some article's in the paper every couple of weeks, right? Inmates killed by their guards by mistake up at Folsom. Mexican Mafia's making a fortune running drugs out of Pelican Bay. They're staging gladiator fights to the death with the prisoners at Corcoran. Half the prison doctors have rap sheets of their own, don't have current licenses, give the wrong prescriptions. And every time, Palmer's threatening that this time he's shutting the union down. The guards are out of control. If the union can't discipline itself, he'll put it under federal jurisdiction. Well, guess who he communicates all this to the union through?"
"Wait a minute." Tombo came forward, no sign of laughter in his eyes now. "You think the CCPOA had something to do with Palmer's death?"
"We don't know," Shiu said. "We do know the union has muscle and isn't afraid to use it. We also know that people who run against the candidates it supports, especially in the rural counties, have had bad things happen to them, to their campaign headquarters, like that."
Juhle had listened to enough of Shiu's irresponsible chatter. Next he was going to tell them that they were looking into the possibility that Jeannette had paid somebody, maybe one of Palmer's union enemies, to kill him. This was where they'd been in Lanier's office early in the day. But since then, having come that far, Shiu might tell them that they'd realized that they didn't need Jeannette as the prime mover at all. It might have been some union henchman all on his own. Pretty soon, if Shiu kept it up, they'd hear all of their theories on television. "Anyway, what we'd like to see Parisi about," he said, "is maybe some context on this, that's all."
"But you've got her with the other victim somehow," Tombo said. "Isn't that right?"
Juhle evaded. "Again, context." He was getting out of the booth, his body language bringing Shiu up and out along with him. "When you do see her," he said in his most amiable tone, "would you mind telling her we'd like to talk to her? If we don't before, ask her to wait around, and we'll catch her on the wrap-up."
"This incredible story she was going to break." Fairchild didn't appear to be having any trouble with the dolmas. He was finishing his fourth. "That was why New York was really going to want her. She was going to be this amazing investigative reporter. Anyway, that's what started it."
"You told her it didn't matter."
"I had to." Fairchild shrugged. "It didn't matter. It doesn't."
"She tell you what it was?" Tombo asked. "The story."
"Some. But I got a better sense of it right now, talking to these guys."
"What?"
Fairchild leaned in over the table, lowered his voice. "It's one thing you get some union thugs to mess with people, right? But how about if you actually spring inmates for a night or two to do crimes? That's what she was looking at."
Tombo had already pushed his plate away, mostly uneaten. He was filling up on water. "To do what?"
"Whatever needs to be done. Trash a campaign headquarters. Intimidate some assemblyman leaning the wrong way on prisons appropriations. I don't know, maybe assassinate somebody. And meanwhile, they've got the perfect alibi if anybody ever comes and looks-they were locked up."
Tombo raised his eyes, shook his head. "No."
"'No,' what?"
"No everything. It couldn't happen."
"Why not?"
"Because, Spencer, here's what happens you let a convict out. He keeps going. He doesn't go do the job you've kindly asked him to do. He probably leaves the state. At the very least, he doesn't come back to his friendly local prison, having just killed somebody for you, or trashed a campaign headquarters, to peacefully serve out the remainder of his term."
Fairchild chewed for a moment, considering. "He does if, say, his brother's in the slammer with him and might have a fatal accident if you didn't come back."
"Oh, yeah. The ever-popular two-brothers-in-the-same-prison trick."
"Might not be a literal brother. Might be another relationship. Or," getting into it now, Fairchild said, "or how about you get conjugal rights every night, plus dope, plus liquor, cigarettes, any combination of the above? They bring it all in for you."
"Who does?"
"The guards."
"The guards who are guarding you?"
"Yeah, those guys."
"And where's the warden all this time?"
"He's in on it. He's just taking care of the union's business. It's grateful. He gets a bonus under the table every week. Not surprisingly, it's not a credit business."
Tombo was frankly smiling now, enjoying the idiocy. "How about they get him a Harley to drive around the yard with, too? I agree to go out and kill somebody, I'd demand a Harley."
"Maybe not the Harley," Fairchild said. "Too visible. Piss off the other inmates."
"Like conjugal rights wouldn't?"
"They might at that."
"This doesn't happen, my man. I can't believe Andrea was really looking into this."
"I think she was. She might be still. And I mean this minute."
"Even after you told her it wouldn't get her to New York?"
"Maybe it was the Palmer case. If she thought that it could have happened with him. I mean an assassin out of one of the prisons. She could break the case, get famous on her own, make the move to New York without my help."
Suddenly serious, Tombo went silent and twirled his empty water glass on the table.
"You think that hard, I can actually hear the cogs turning," Fairchild said.