“Coconspirator! You’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t know!” He looked from me to Bailey to Todd. “I didn’t! You’ve got to believe me!”
“Actually, we might. But I can’t speak for anyone else. Probably another DA will handle your case. And if they decide to charge you with conspiracy and you wind up in front of a jury? Conservatively speaking, I’d say you’re toast. Try to imagine how badly they’re going to want to string up anyone who so much as gave Logan directions to the bathroom. Now imagine how they’ll feel about the guy who gave him the guns.” Shane was shaking his head. “You paying attention? It’s important you stay with me here, because I’m talking about hundreds of counts of conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder.”
Shane’s breath was coming fast and shallow now. “I didn’t know shit! They can’t convict me!”
“Well of course they can. And my guess is they will. They’ll bury you so deep you’ll still be in prison when you reincarnate. So you can talk now and buy yourself a little goodwill. Or you can keep fucking with me and roll the dice with the twelve-headed monster. Your choice.”
Shane shook his head slowly. “I can’t tell you. I’ll be dead.”
“Oh, please, Priscilla, spare us the drama. You’ll be plenty safe. You didn’t think we were just going to take a statement from you and let you trot on home?” I shook my head. “You’re going down for those gun sales no matter what-”
“You think they can’t get to me in prison?”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
Shane pressed his lips together. His face looked pinched.
“We’ll make sure you’re housed in a safe place. Maybe federal custody. Trust me, by the time you finish your sentence, they’ll have forgotten all about you.”
Shane dropped his head and sagged in his chair for several long moments. No one said a word. Finally, he cleared his throat. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “You got my cell?”
Bailey held it up. “Give me the name.”
“Jax. Jax Esposito.”
Bailey started to scroll through his contacts. “How’d you meet him?”
“At a gun show. He had a couple of guns that needed fixing. I fixed them and he paid me in cash on the spot. After that, he asked me if I wanted to help him get rid of some extra inventory. I thought, what the hell? Sell a few guns here and there, but man, I had no idea. Crates of the shit.”
“What kind of guns?”
“All kinds. You name it, he had it. Rifles, shotguns, AKs, revolvers, semi-autos. Dude even had a flamethrower. It was crazy.”
“So how did you wind up buying enough to make a living?” Bailey asked.
“Because I wound up providing…extra services. He was looking for a drug connection in the States-”
“The States?” I asked. “Where’s he from?”
“Mexico.”
“And he was looking to buy?” Bailey asked.
“No, to sell.”
“What kind of drugs?” I asked.
“Weed, yayo. I think pills too, but I’m not a hundred percent. Drugs aren’t my thing.” I raised an eyebrow. “Anymore.”
“Yayo?” Todd asked.
“Cocaine,” Bailey said. “Slang, taken from the Spanish word for ice, hielo.”
“So what was the deal?” I asked.
“I’d hook him up with a buyer in the States and he’d give me a sweet deal on guns.”
“Sweet enough to let you resell for a fat profit.”
Shane nodded. “I’ve been saving up to buy a place in Camarillo. I’ve almost got enough for a little two-bedroom near the airport.”
“Had, Shane,” I said. “You mean had.” Shane sank in his chair and nodded. “How did Logan meet up with this Jax guy?”
“How’d you know he met Jax?”
Because Logan and his buddy had dropped the assault rifles Shane sold them at the school. Because they’d had two more when they did the theater shooting. Which meant Logan had to have bought two more after the Fairmont shooting. If Shane was telling the truth and he hadn’t sold Logan any more guns, then Logan had to have had his own connection. And being a Valley boy, as opposed to the son of a Mafia don or Yakuza oyabun, his opportunities to find gun connections were pretty limited. “Just answer the question. How did Logan meet this guy?”
“The first time I met up with Jax to make the exchange-”
“Guns for you, the name of a buyer for him,” Bailey said.
Shane nodded. “I was nervous. I mean, I’d done some repair work for the guy, but this time we were making a deal, and it was pretty big, so I wanted backup. Someone else around just in case…”
In case Jax decided to take the name and blow Shane off-or blow him away. “You brought Logan,” I said.
“Yeah. Logan knew about my gun business already so I wasn’t worried about him going to the cops or anything. Plus, he was real tall, and with shades on he looked older-and kind of scary.” Shane stopped and shook his head. Even he couldn’t miss the irony of that statement.
“Weren’t you worried Logan might cut you out? Get rid of the middleman and make his own deals with Jax?”
“Of course. That’s why I never left them alone.”
“Never? Your back was never turned? Logan never had a second to slip Jax his phone number, or vice versa?”
Shane frowned. “No…well, I guess I can’t say for sure.”
Bailey and I exchanged a look. Logan was a lot smarter than this nimrod. Plus, he knew that he’d need to restock his arsenal after the school shooting and wouldn’t be able to go back to Shane. “Whose idea was it to bring Logan to that meeting with Jax?”
“Uh, mine. And his. I told him I was about to score the guns he wanted but that I needed some backup, because the guy was kind of shady.”
“And Logan said he could be that backup.”
Shane nodded. “Yeah.”
I inclined my head-Get it?
He expelled a long breath and turned his head away as he muttered, “Fucker played me.”
Big-time. I took Shane’s phone from Bailey and looked at the entry for Jax. The area code was for Riverside, a few hours south of La Conchita. “You know what, Shane? You need more guns. And right away.”
58
Bailey tapped me on the arm. “Can we powwow for a minute?”
“Sure.” I turned back to the bound-and-cuffed Shane. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
“‘Don’t go anywhere,’” Shane said. “That’s a real knee-slapper. Who knew you DAs could be such a laugh riot.”
Bailey pulled me into the bedroom. “I like your idea of a setup with Jax, but I think we need to take a minute and decide what we want to do with him, assuming Shane can arrange a meet.”
“My guess is that Logan has to hook up with him again to restock. So, we put a bug on Jax and follow him until they meet.”
“But what if Logan’s already met with Jax?”
Then the next shooting couldn’t be far off. That was probably true regardless. I knew that. We all did. But somehow, Bailey’s words brought the urgency home in a way that made my chest tighten. “Then we’ll need to squeeze the guy. Find out everything he knows about Logan. See if he knows what Logan’s planning.”