The Fall by John Lescroart

Author:John Lescroart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

27

AT WHAT WES Farrell considered the truly obscene time of 6:50 on Friday morning, he spotted Devin Juhle at one of the back tables near the corner at the Irving Street Café, which was about midway between their two houses. He wound his way through the crowd and took a chair across from the red-eyed, heavy-lidded Homicide chief.

Farrell’s face registered pure disgust. “Well, ain’t this a fine kettle of fish?” he asked. Sitting back in his chair, he let the waitress fill his coffee cup, then thanked her and said to Juhle, “Have you gotten anything else since we talked?”

“Actually, quite a bit, although I can’t guarantee you’re going to like it.”

“What a surprise. Hit me.”

“The girl’s name is, in fact, Honor Wilson. Both Waverly and Yamashiro knew all about her. She lives in Anlya’s group home, at least that’s the address on her DL, although there seems to be some question if she was still there.”

“What about this Utlee guy?”

“We don’t have much of a handle on him yet. This will shock you, but he’s not at the address on his DL, which is suspended anyway. He’s got a one-strike sheet with a Two-eleven as an adult, but I’m betting it’s got more than that robbery charge if you count juvie time. They’ve pulled a warrant on him based on Honor’s deathbed ID, but for the moment, he’s nowhere to be found, although my guys are heading out to Anlya’s house even as we speak and hope to talk to some of the other girls about what, if anything, was going on there. But last time, with Anlya’s death, nobody knew nothing. The usual.”

“Shit.”

“That’s what I thought. More important, what are we going to do about the Anlya Paulson thing?”

Farrell drank some coffee, made a face, dropped a couple of sugar cubes into his cup, and stirred. “First off,” he said after a more acceptable sip, “you can set your mind at ease about Anlya, because it’s hearsay and it’s not admissible. It’s just this Wilson girl’s statement.”

“Deathbed statement, though. A dying declaration.”

Farrell shook his head. “Nope. A dying declaration has to be about the cause and circumstances surrounding the death. So Utlee killed me, admissible. He killed somebody else, inadmissible. And not to quibble, there’s also no foundation. We have no idea why she thinks this Royce Utlee killed the tunnel girl. We don’t know if he confessed to her, if she saw it, or if her dead cat came to her in a dream and told her. We can’t prove she has personal knowledge. It’s not admissible. Maybe when you find this guy, you can sweat him and get a confession or something else you can use, but unless you do, the girl’s statement is worthless.”

“Okay,” Juhle said, “that’s the legal answer. But that’s not really my question.”

The waitress came by and interrupted to take their orders—eggs over easy, bacon, the best hash browns in the city, English muffins, and orange juice for both of them—then promptly disappeared again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.