Page 26 of Angel's Share

Matt handed the paperwork back to him. “It’s perfect, but you knew that already.”

“Another pair of eyes never hurts.”

“Fair,” Matt said, then tilted his head toward the interrogation room. “So come with me to observe in case I miss something, at least until social services gets here.”

Jamie neatened up the stack of papers, then followed Matt. “You think this case is related to your jewel thief one?”

“On the front end, I doubt it,” Matt said as he closed the observation room door behind them. “The thefts I’ve been looking into are clean, neat, professional. But I’m not ruling out that the end buyer could be the same.” He flicked on the speaker so they could hear what was said on the other side of the one-way glass.

As Berat went over identification particulars with White and his public defender across the table, Jamie studied their suspect. Late thirties, white, greasy brown hair, sunken brown eyes, dingy clothes that hung loose on his thin frame. Meth head, Jamie recalled from White’s rap sheet, and by the sweat dotting his brow and his bouncing knee beneath the table, withdrawal was starting to kick in.

Potentially good for their team.

“Tell us what you were doing at Long Beach Port on Friday,” Aidan said from beside Berat.

“I wasn’t there,” White replied.

Berat opened a file folder and withdrew a picture. He pushed it across the table in front of White. “That’s you behind the wheel of a truck we found off the 125 in San Diego County. Sounds to me like you were violating parole.”

“You found me here. I didn’t violate my parole.”

“But you were in that truck.”

“Okay, fine, yeah, that’s me.” He flicked a dismissive hand at the picture. “I was filling in for a friend. He couldn’t make it to the port on time, so I picked up his load.” His jittery gaze bounced around the room, and his knee bounced faster with each lie he added to the pile. “I met him in Torrance. That’s still LA County.”

“And the opposite direction of San Diego,” Aidan said.

White shrugged. “Not my business where he went with it afterward.”

“What’s this friend’s name?” Berat asked.

“Peter.”

“Peter who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because there was no Peter.” Aidan rested his forearms on the table, leaning forward. “You drove the truck to El Segundo Beach, where you gave a briefcase of stolen goods to Angel Crane.”

White slumped in his chair, away from Aidan. Whether he realized it or not, White was telegraphing that every word out of his mouth was bullshit. That Aidan and company were dangerously close to the truth. Jamie wondered if that was why the PD remained silent; he already knew this was an open-and-shut case, at least against White.

Who continued to dig his hole deeper. “That kid’s full of shit.”

Berat slid another sheet of paper across the table. “Your fingerprints are all over the windowsill of the car he was driving.”

“Yeah, cause he’s all the time visiting my sister’s ward. The two of ’em are attached at the hip, always talking in not American so we can’t understand.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “Who wants to tell him American isn’t a language?”

Inside the room, Rooster spoke for the first time, his voice carefully neutral. “Her ward?”

White’s gaze shot to Rooster leaning against the wall, and some of his jitteriness calmed. Sensing an ally, Jamie supposed, in the man who looked and sounded the most like him in the room. “Yeah,” he said, a half-smile exposing his stained teeth. “Deidra lets her stay. Puts a roof over her head.”

“And that’s about all,” Matt remarked beside Jamie.

“State don’t give her nearly enough for it.”

“So you do,” Rooster said. “With the money you make from selling meth.”

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