Blaine Hastings Sr. was waiting at the front door. He greeted the detectives with a scowl. “What do you want?”
“We’d like to speak to your son,” Anders said.
“About what?”
“A case that has nothing to do with his conviction.”
“What case?”
“It’s a homicide, Mr. Hastings. Douglas Armstrong’s partner was murdered in his office last night, and we’ve heard that your son threatened Mr. Armstrong.”
“Now you people are trying to frame Blaine for a murder? You’ve got some balls coming here. Do you have a warrant?”
“No, sir,” Dillon said.
“Then get off my property.”
“Your son is a convicted rapist who has been released on bail,” Dillon said. “It would be to his advantage to cooperate with us.”
Hastings laughed. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to fall for that? You’re not talking to my boy, so get lost.”
Hastings watched the detectives drive away. When they were out of sight, he went inside and slammed the door.
“What did they want, Dad?” Blaine Junior asked.
“Armstrong’s partner was murdered, and they wanted to know where you were last night.”
“Me?! Why do they want to know about me?”
“They know you threatened Armstrong. I guess that faggot whined to someone and they heard about it.”
“What’s that got to do with his partner getting killed?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask them. I told them to shove off as soon as I heard what they wanted.”
“Well, I didn’t murder anyone.”
“But you were out last night,” Senior said. “Did you go anywhere near Armstrong’s office?”
“Of course not. Why would I want to go there? I was at a club. I’ve been locked up, and I wanted a night out.”
“You’ve got to be smart, Blaine. You can’t go clubbing. There’s drugs, someone might pick a fight with you just because you’re famous. You’re out now, but the cops will use any excuse to put you back in.”
“You’re right, Dad. No more clubbing. I’ll stay home at night until this blows over.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jessica Braxton spotted the buyer sitting at the end of the hotel bar where Harry said he would be. He was a big dude in a leather jacket and black turtleneck who looked like a character in Shaft, one of those blaxploitation movies out of the seventies. Jessica scanned the bar for anyone who looked like a cop before taking the stool next to him.
“A Cuba Libre,” she told the bartender, using the code Harry had instructed her to use.
“That’s a pretty powerful drink for a little woman,” the man said, giving her the response she was expecting. They made small talk until Jessica finished the Cuba Libre. Ten minutes after she walked to her car, the buyer was sitting in her passenger seat.
“You got the stuff?” he asked.
“You have the money?”
The man handed Jessica a wad of cash. She counted it and gave him the heroin. That’s when he showed Jessica his badge.
“Hi, Miss Braxton,” the chubby young man in the mismatched jacket and slacks said. “My name is Ron Jenkins, and I’ve been appointed by the Court to represent you.”
Jessica was sick and she had trouble paying attention. Withdrawal was a bitch, and she was in its throes. “Can you get me out?” she asked. “I gotta get out of here.”
“That may be a problem. The amount of heroin the police say you delivered to the undercover agent was large enough to warrant sending this case to the feds.”
Jessica put her head in her hands. “I gotta get out. I’m really sick. I’ll do anything.”
“I did talk to the district attorney, but they have such a strong case against your supplier, Harry Newcomb, that they aren’t inclined to deal.”
Jessica ran her tongue across her lips. “What if I had something bigger than Newcomb to trade? Could you get me help? I really need help.”
“Big like what?”
Carrie Anders opened the door to the interview room. Jessica Braxton was sitting on one side of a wooden table, and her public defender was sitting beside her. Anders thought Braxton looked awful. She was a lot skinnier than she’d been when Anders had interviewed her at the hospital about her rape case, and she was twitching and scratching like someone who was really hurting.
“Hi, Jessica,” the detective said. “I’m a little surprised we’re meeting under these circumstances.”
“Yeah, well, I fucked up big-time, but it’s not my fault.”
“Whose fault is it?”
“I’m an addict, Detective Anders. I wasn’t thinking straight. You can see that, can’t you? I’m not a criminal. I’m sick and I need help.”
“Being an addict and being a criminal aren’t mutually exclusive, Jessica. The way I see it, you’re an addict who needs medical help and you’re a criminal who sold a shitload of heroin to an undercover agent. You’re facing a ton of jail time.”
“But you’d help me get into rehab if I told you something important, right? Mr. Jenkins says that we could make a deal.”
“That depends on what this important thing is.”
“This is all off the record until we have a deal?” Jenkins interjected.
Anders nodded. “I’m here to listen. If Miss Braxton has something useful to trade, I’ll work with her. So, Jessica, what do you want to tell me?”
“It’s about Blaine Hastings.”
“What about him?”
“It was a scam.”
“What was?”
“I wasn’t raped. His father paid me to say I was raped. He told me to say a guy named Ray did it, and he gave me a description of this Ray I was supposed to give to the cops.”
“You had a black eye and a split lip. How did that happen?”
“Blaine’s father did it. He said it would make the story more believable. He gave me a little extra. He called it combat pay.”
“Let’s back up here,” Anders said. “When did Mr. Hastings ask you to say you were raped?”
“Right after his kid was convicted.”
“How do you know the Hastingses?”
“I was working at his company and I got in a little trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I took some money to buy drugs, and he found out—so I had to go to a motel and work it off.”
“You had sex with Mr. Hastings so he wouldn’t call the police?”
“Yeah.”
“When was this?”
“About a year and a half ago.”
“Did you keep working for the company?”
“No, he fired me.”
“Did you see him after that?”
“Not until he called me after his kid went down. He said he would give me five thousand dollars if I told the cops I’d been raped. I was down on my luck and out of a job, so I said I would.”
“This doesn’t make sense. The DNA test showed a match to Blaine Junior’s DNA. How did they figure out a way for you to have sex with him while he was in jail?”
Braxton laughed. “It was simpler than that. Junior jacked off into a ketchup packet and slipped it to his dad when Senior visited him in jail. Then I put some of it inside me and wiped the rest on my panties.”
Anders stared at Braxton, dumbfounded. Then she started laughing, too. “A ketchup packet?”
Braxton nodded. “We sure fooled everybody.”
“You sure did,” Anders agreed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX