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“Same thing.”
“Hmm,” said Nguyen. “At least you solved one.”
“Gonna be a process,” said Milo. “What’s Bloomfield’s story?”
“Major guy at the Scranton, Pennsylvania, D.A.’s office,” said Nguyen. “Rose to second in command then became a honcho at the state attorney general’s office before going private. He defended some of the heaviest bad guys, including mob murderers and union racketeers, won a lot more than he lost. When he turned seventy, he retired, moved out here, and got himself an estate in Hidden Hills. Horses, the works. Then he got bored, took the California bar with no prep, passed the first time, and started doing defense work again, pro bono.”
“Montag lucked out.”
“Yup. Next name on the list. So what do you think for her? Voluntary manslaughter?”
“You’ve got to be kidding, John.”
“You hear laughter?”
“She sets Hoffgarden up, gets the twins to bind and gag him, drives him to the kill-spot, shoots him twice, and takes the casings for a souvenir?”
“I am aware of all of that,” said Nguyen. “Except the casings. Which don’t change anything. We’re talking a lowlife like Hoffgarden with a prior history of violence and a probable murder under his belt and she’s what, five-two, hundred pounds with absolutely no record? I can just see Bloomfield bringing in a parade of people that Hoffgarden terrorized. Some of them might even be righteous. I don’t play, I could lose.”
Milo threw up a hand. “I think it’s insane, John.”
“I’m thinking she pleads out,” said Nguyen, as if the last comment hadn’t registered. “Bloomfield asks for time served, I say no way and demand a serious sentence, he whittles, I whittle, eventually we reach a meeting of the minds. Like voluntary manslaughter.”
“What’s the sentence gonna be?”
“I’m a prophet? Last time there was anything remotely like this we got a tenderhearted judge who called it at four years and half of that suspended.”
“Jesus.”
Nguyen said, “Jesus was into forgiveness. Bloomfield applied for her bail this morning, I’m figuring not to argue but we’ll put an ankle bracelet on her.”
“What about the twins?”
“Even iffier prosecution-wise. Their parents are rich, called from the cruise ship to engage Harvey DiPaolo who doesnotwork pro bono. He called me, laid on a whole thing about them being mentally challenged and he can prove it with as many shrinks as he needs. On top of that, Montag’s not disputing their account. She planned it, recruited them, didn’t let on what she had in mind, and they never directly hurt the victim.”
“Binding and gagging isn’t hurting.”
“She did the gagging. I’m figuring accessory before the fact, couple of months in jail, then time served and they can go back to getting inappropriately strong.”
“Law and order,” said Milo.
“Mostly order, dude,” said Nguyen. “We both know all that bullshit about every victim counting the same is just that. The way I see it, we lucked out. Neither of us will have to prep and go to court and the city’s down one anger-issue murderer. Maybe a mass murderer if he did your other two. Maybe it’s not hopeless, you do have probable offender blood.”
“Still waiting on DNA, John. I’ll ask Basia to do an ABO but the offender blood’s O positive, the most common type. It differed from Victim Delage’s O positive but the offender’s was the most common pattern.”
“Hoffgarden matches, it means nothing, got it. On the other hand, it doesn’t eliminate him. What’s the ETA on the DNA?”
“Twelve to twenty weeks,” said Milo.
“Not bad, I’ve had worse.”
“Glad you’re so buoyant, John.”
“One life, why ruin it with worrying?”
“Yeah, right. Can you put in a rush for analysis?”
“See what I can do. Though the justification isn’t much. The only link between Hoffgarden and Gannett and Delage is he’s a likely prior offender. So you’ll probably need to wait in line.”
