“We’re just going to talk,” Juarez said. “And he walks out of here when we’re finished.”
“Does he even know I’ll be here?” Stilwell asked.
“I told him I had to have an investigator present.”
“But you didn’t tell him it was me.”
“No, that will be a surprise.”
“And not a good one.”
Stilwell expected Baby Head to do a one-eighty the moment he saw him in the room.
“So, what’s our best-case scenario?” he asked.
“He has to have evidence,” Juarez said. “It can’t be a he-said, he-said. We won’t even file that shit.”
“You tell him that already?”
“I did. He said he had something we’re going to like.”
“Well, he—”
He stopped when Juarez’s phone started buzzing. She took the call, listened, then responded that she would come get her visitor.
“Here we go,” she said as she headed toward the door. Her voice sounded shaky. She was nervous and Stilwell knew why. Terranova had already marked her for life. There was no telling how he would act if things didn’t go his way in the next hour.
The room was unlike any interview room at a sheriff’s station. It was used mostly for negotiations between prosecutors and defense attorneys. The table Stilwell sat at was unscarred wood that had been polished with Pledge and not the sweat and tears of accused suspects.
The door reopened and Juarez entered first, followed by Oscar Terranova, dressed in bleached white pants and an untucked Tommy Bahama shirt with blue parrots on a field of yellow. But two steps into the room, he saw Stilwell and stopped dead.
“What’s he doing here?” he said. “This ain’t the island.”
“I told you I would have an investigator in the meeting,” Juarez said.
“Yeah, but not him,” Terranova said. “This ain’t happening.”
As Stilwell had predicted, he turned back to the door.
“Sit down, Oscar,” Stilwell said. “You leave, you break the agreement. I’ve got deputies outside that’ll grab you up and put you in a cell. You want that?”
Terranova turned back and looked at Juarez for confirmation.
“Oscar, sit down, please,” she said. “I think the only way you walk free today is if you keep our deal. So sit down and tell us what you’ve got. If it’s as good as you said it was, there won’t be any problem here.”
“Fuck this,” Terranova said.
But he went to the table, yanked out a chair, and sat down opposite Stilwell.
Juarez sat in the chair next to Stilwell.
“So, as we agreed, we’re not going to record this,” she said. “We’re just going to talk and listen to each other. You told me you had nothing to do with the crimes that occurred recently on Catalina and that you could prove it. This is your chance.”
Terranova sat back in his chair, one arm on the table, fingers tapping the wood like he was contemplating a bet in a poker game. Finally, he spoke.
“Okay, so what you’ve got to know is that I’m totally clean on Gaston and what happened with your girlfriend, Stilwell. It was somebody else callin’ the shots and not telling me shit. That Spivak motherfucker is his guy, not mine.”
Juarez looked at Stilwell and nodded slightly, giving him the lead.
“Who was calling the shots?” he asked.
“That’s my ace card, el jefe. I don’t reveal it till everybody’s all in.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I want a guaranteed no-incarceration deal. Like you were going to give Henry Gaston to get to me.”
“We’re not making a deal until we know what you’ve got. Stop dancing, Oscar. I know your silent partner is Mayor Allen and your corporate lawyer’s fingerprints are all over the Big Wheel deal. Why don’t you start by telling us how you and the mayor connected.”
Stilwell kept his eyes on Terranova, looking for a reaction. Terranova showed no surprise that Stilwell knew about him and Allen.
“Yeah, we’ve got business,” he said. “I made a little money back home and came out to Catalina to invest it. I wanted to start a legitimate company, you know, so I did my homework and saw they needed more golf carts and tours out there. I applied for a license to operate and that was when I met him.”
“Because of your application for a business license?”
“Yep. I met him pretty quick about that and he told me it could take three years or three months to get the operator’s license, depending, and how did I want to handle it?”
“He wanted a bribe.”
“I just call it doing business. Everybody always wants a piece of a good thing. I don’t begrudge that, you know. I say go along to get along.”
“You knew it was a two-way street. You pay the guy off and you get leverage on him down the line.”
“That’s right, like that.”
“You keep any records of these... transactions?”
“Let’s just say I got enough to deal. You want my help, you keep me out of a cell — permanently.”
“If all you’ve got is the mayor taking kickbacks from a small-time tour operator, then we’re done here, Oscar. This is a murder investigation, not a minor corruption case. But I can give you a ride downtown where there are people who want to talk to you.”
Terranova smiled like he was the only one in the room who knew the real lay of the land.
“Oh, big man,” he said. “You think you’re so smart and tough. Tell you what, you didn’t have that badge, this’d be a different story between you and me, Stilwell.”
Stilwell just stared at him and their eyes locked in mutual hatred. Juarez broke the moment.
“Oscar, he’s right,” she said. “Talk to us about the killing of Henry Gaston. And remember, anything you tell us is useless if you can’t back it up.”
“I told you on the phone,” Terranova said. “I can back up every fucking thing I say. I got documents and I got tapes. You want to hear what I got, Stilwell?”
“Yes,” Juarez answered. “We do.”
“Okay, then,” Terranova said. “Let me give y’all a little sample.”
He dropped his hand below the table to reach into his pocket. Stilwell sprang up from his chair, ready to go across the table at him. Terranova immediately raised his hands.
“Relax, man,” he said. “Just going for my phone.”
“Slowly,” Stilwell said.
He remained standing while Terranova retrieved his phone and held it up to show it was not a weapon. Stilwell sat back down.
“What are you going to show us?” Juarez asked.
“I ain’t showing you nothing,” Terranova said. “Take a listen to this.”
Terranova opened the recording app and played what was obviously a recorded phone call. Stilwell recognized both Terranova’s voice and that of Douglas Allen, starting with the mayor taking the calclass="underline"
“Hello?” he said.
“What the fuck you do?” Terranova asked.
“I told you never to call this number.”
“Fuck that, it’s a burner. What the hell, man? I just heard Gaston was dead in a fucking cell.”
“He was going to rat you out. That was not a risk I was willing to take. I was watching out for you.”
“Now you got me tied up in a murder, man. You should’ve talked—”
“I don’t need to talk or clear anything with you. You understand? And do not call on this line again.”
The call ended. Terranova typed a command into his phone and dropped it on the table.
“Erased,” he said. “You want it, I got a copy stashed with my lawyer. You don’t get it unless we make a deal.”