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“Thanks so much,” Jo said.
“Not done. There are no unknown or unexplained calls or emails on Ashville’s and Sakurai’s personal or business lines. Nada, zip, zilch, bupkis.”
“Of course not. That would be far too helpful.” Jo grimaced, and leaned back against her chair.
“But—” Lopez paused dramatically. “I did find some calls between Patricia Flynn and Judge Sakurai. Not recently, but still. They knew each other, for sure.”
Jo leaned back forward. “How long ago?”
“The last call was about a month after she left the DA’s office.” Lopez flipped Jo’s sheets and pointed to the relevant call.
“Very interesting.” Jo jotted a note next to it, then shared her theory about Flynn. “If she’s that disillusioned, she may be channeling her anger over her lost career into a misguided attempt to get supposed ‘justice,’ and convincing herself it’s for others rather than for herself.”
Arnett scratched his chin. “Still hard for me to picture a scenario where she kills Sakurai.”
“Could be she was angry because she’d expected more from her mentor,” Lopez said. “Some people getwickedattached in those situations.”
Arnett considered. “It’s possible.”
“I also pulled the financials for Lacey. She got a fair amount of money from the sale of her marital home, most of which went directly into the mortgage on her current place. Other than that, her only income comes from theGazette.”
“Great work, thanks.” Jo stared down at her watch. Ten o’clock already—how could that be? She pushed a vision of Matt’s angry face out of her mind. “So Flynn is very much still in the running. How do we feel about Hauptmann? If he killed Ashville and Sakurai to try to bury the rape charge, why go out of his way to alert someone who’d drag it up?”
“People like that tend to assume everyone is too stupid to figure things out. He was dumb enough to harass an ADA,” Lopez said. “What about the wife?”
“A pit bull with a perm,” Arnett said. “Wouldn’t even let him speak.”
Lopez pulled her legs up under her. “Sounds like overcompensation. I don’t see how anybody’s okay with finding out their husband is a rapist.”
“Maybe she’s in on it, like the Ken and Barbie Killers.” Arnett shrugged.
Lopez raised her brows in admiration. “Okay, good one. But what I’m saying is, maybe she’s putting on an act so he won’t kill her, skin her, and bury her in the backyard. That would fit with the random texts, if she’s saying one thing and doing another.”
“That’s the best explanation for the texts I’ve heard so far,” Jo said. “But then why tell us ‘one down’ and ‘two down?’”
“Maybe that was just her way of warning us there will be more kills. Everyone knows intention is impossible to read in texts.” Lopez tapped her temple with her index finger.
“Then there’s Ossokov,” Jo said. “The way he responded to Arnett, he’s not as Zen as he likes to claim. Bernard is definitely a sympathetic ear, so maybe he pulled her in to make sure she gets his message out there.”
Arnett’s face went professionally guarded. “Could be.”
Jo did a double take—he used that expression when maintaining distance with suspects, not when discussing them with colleagues.
“I don’t think we can rule any of them out,” Arnett continued. “You have the warrants for the phone records and emails?”
“In process,” Lopez said. “Hopefully we’ll find something that’ll justify a warrant to search their homes.”
“What’s taking so long?” Jo glanced at her watch again. “I know it’s a Sunday, but we’re looking at another possible murder in less than twelve hours.”
“We didn’t know that when we put in the initial request. I left another message for the judge, stressing the urgency.”
Jo reached for her phone. “Let me call Barbieri, he’ll be able to move it faster.”
Lopez’s hand shot up. “I’d call Hayes first if I were you.”
Jo winced. “Good point.”
She put through the call to Hayes. “She’s on the line with someone else. It’s going to voice mail.” After informing her about the texts to Bernard and the implications for further murders, she called Barbieri. “Same thing.”
