Hardy 05 - The Mercy Rule by Lescroart John

Author:Lescroart, John [Lescroart, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shared-Mom, General, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Legal Stories, Mystery Fiction, Detective and Mystery Stories, Hardy; Dismas (Fictitious Character), San Francisco (Calif.), Trials (Murder), Criminal Investigation
ISBN: 9780440222828
Google: bprEtd4KAAoC
Amazon: 0440222826
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1998-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Sarah had spent a lot of time at Hunter’s Point in the course of her career. It was a rough place where over eighty-five percent of the adult population had either committed or witnessed a violent crime. At the McDonald’s she suddenly realized that if they cruised the streets for a while in the neighborhood, she could find some somebody here she could break. And sure enough, there was Yolanda, coming out of one of the boarded-up establishments.

Marcel pulled up and Sarah was out of the car, badge out.

‘Hey, I didn’t do nothing. What you comin’ at me for?‘

‘Just get in, Yolanda. We’re going to talk.’

Now she had the twenty-year-old woman in the backseat of their unmarked car. Marcel was in plain sight on the corner, not fifteen feet away, but they weren’t going to good-cop, bad-cop this witness. Sarah was going to get some answers herself.

‘I saw you at the jail the other day, didn’t I, Yolanda? You were visiting Damon down there again, weren’t you? How is Damon?’

Damon Frazee was a goateed weight-lifter who occasionally did some mayhem on citizens, as he had a couple of weekends before – a friendly little bar fight with a knife or two. Unfortunately, Damon was looking at life in prison now under California’s three-strikes law. If convicted it would be his third violent offense and he would be gone from Yolanda forever. Sarah figured she could work this to her advantage.

‘Framed,’ Yolanda mumbled. ‘Damon got hissef framed.’

‘One of the brothers plant that knife on him, did they?’

A sullen nod. ‘But I ain’t do nothing. You got no business taking me in.’

‘I’m not taking you in. I’m talking to you, that’s all. I’m thinking maybe you can help Damon.’

‘Ain’t nothing gonna help Damon. You lyin’ if you think so.‘ The poor mixed-up girl was shaking, biting at her nails. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

Suddenly, Sarah leaned in close, snapping out her words like a drill sergeant. ‘Get your fingers out of your mouth, child, and don’t you dare call me a liar, you hear me?’

A sullen nod. Sarah slapped at the window by Yolanda’s head. ‘I said DO YOU HEAR ME?’

‘I hear you.’

Sarah hated this kind of interview, but she’d done it many times before and knew she would again. Too bad – she was doing Yolanda a favor. But she was going to get what she came for.

‘Now, listen, we got this shooting down here last Thursday, maybe you heard something about it.’ She waited. ‘That’s a question, Yolanda. Maybe you heard something about it?’

Silence.

‘What I’m thinking, see, if you remembered anything important, anything I can use, like who might have been in the car, something like that, who set it up, what you heard about it, anything, maybe I can do something about Damon.’

The eyes, almost more scared of hope than of anything else, came up. ‘What you mean?’

‘I mean we don’t go for the strike, the third strike. He does some county time, he’s back home for Thanksgiving.

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