Chapter 7
SIMON BORROWED STILWELL’S office to call Captain Corum and update him on the morning’s activities. When he stepped back out, Stilwell was waiting.
“You didn’t tell me you’re supposed to be riding the pine,” Simon said.
“I thought you knew,” Stilwell said. “The captain’s upset?”
“He’ll get over it. I told him it was you who came up with Kalas. What’s he going to say to that?”
“Thanks.”
Simon pointed to a video screen on the wall that showed Kalas waiting in the interview room, his arms locked behind his back.
“What’s our strategy here?” Simon asked.
Stilwell noted that he called it “our” strategy and appreciated Simon’s decision to keep him involved despite what Corum might have told him.
“I was thinking that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” Stilwell said.
“Meaning what?” Simon said.
“He took off last night and was down the mountain when whatever happened on the landing strip happened. He probably knows the plane got away, but he’s been hiding all night and doesn’t really know what went down. Maybe we can use it to bluff him.”
“Maybe. We need him to talk his way into a charge, because that helmet isn’t going to be enough.”
“What I was thinking.”
“Okay, then. Are you ready?”
“You want me in there with you?”
“I want you to ask the questions. You were up there last night. You know more than anybody else around here.”
Stilwell wondered if Simon was giving him the lead as a way to insulate himself from failure should Kalas take the Fifth and clam up.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
“Are we recording this?” Simon asked.
“We’re recording.”
“Excellent.”
Two minutes later they entered the interview room. Stilwell took the chair across the table from Kalas while Simon leaned against the wall to his left.
“Mr. Kalas, we are recording this session,” Stilwell began.
“You have been read and understand your rights. I’m Detective Stilwell and this is Detective Simon.
You are under arrest and being held on a warrant from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
But we want to speak to you about your activities last night at the airstrip. ”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. What airstrip?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Gonzalo. We tracked you by camera from the moment you stole the ATV on Clarissa Street to the top of the mountain last night. If you cooperate with us, we might be able to work something out with ICE. Witnesses don’t get detained and deported.”
“I don’t know, man. I’m thinking I should talk to a lawyer about all of this.”
“Well, if you want a lawyer, we’ll get you a lawyer. But that ends things today. You go into a cell and we’re done.”
Stilwell paused for a moment and waited for a reaction. He got none.
“So what do you want to do, Gonzalo?”
“I want to call a lawyer.”
“Then we’re done here.”
Stilwell stood up and used his leg to push his chair back to the wall. He went around the table and behind Kalas. He used a key to open the handcuff linked to the metal frame of the chair.
“Stand up,” he said.
Kalas stood and Stilwell cuffed his wrists together behind his back.
He walked Kalas out of the interview room, through the squad room, and to the booking section of the jail.
He took mug shots of Kalas and scanned his fingerprints with a digital reader.
He then moved him into cell one, which had two sets of bunk beds but was empty.
“You get your choice of beds, Gonzalo,” he said.
“What are the charges against me?” Kalas asked.
“Right now, we’re going with the no-bail hold from ICE, but that’s the least of your problems. We’ll talk to the district attorney’s office and ask for a conspiracy-to-commit-murder charge. That’s the big one, Gonzalo. We get that and you’re gone. And I don’t mean back to Mexico.”
“What about my call?”
“Almost forgot.”
Stilwell pulled out his cell phone and handed it through the bars. Kalas didn’t take it.
“I want a real phone,” he said.
“That is a real phone,” Stilwell countered.
“A landline. I don’t want to use your phone, man. You could be recording shit on it.”
“All calls on our landlines are recorded.”
“Then bring me my phone. I’ll use that.”
Stilwell stared at him for a long moment, hoping to convey hesitancy.
“All right,” he finally said. “One call.”
Stilwell went out to the squad room and found Kalas’s phone in a bag in the evidence locker. He had checked it earlier and knew it was password-protected. There was also a money clip in the bag and a key fob with a Jaguar logo on it.
Simon was at a desk looking at a computer screen.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“I’m giving him his phone to make a lawyer call,” Stilwell said. “Hoping I get it back unlocked.”
He walked the bag over to Simon and held it up so he could see the key fob.
“Looks like he’s probably got a car in the Express lot in Long Beach,” he said.
“What about San Pedro?” Simon asked.
“He bought a ticket to Long Beach.”
“I’ll call the guys over there and let them know. I’ll take the key and check it out when I go back.”
“You sure?”
It would go against protocol. The key wasn’t evidence; it was property. He assumed Simon would not try to get a search warrant unless he knew there was something of evidentiary value in the car.
Stilwell gave him the key.
“How much money’s in the clip?” Simon asked.
Stilwell looked at the notations on the plastic bag. It said the property inventory had been handled by Mason.
“Six hundred,” he said.
“Nice stash,” Simon said. “Did you notify ICE that we have him?”
“Not yet, but I told them I had eyes on him. Thought I’d wait on that till we decide what we want to do.”
“Yeah, good idea. The captain texted and I need to call him. I’ll see how he wants to handle it.”
Stilwell took the phone into the jail and handed it through the bars to Kalas.
“You have one call and five minutes,” he said.
“It might take longer to get him,” Kalas said.
“Then leave him a message. I’ll be back in five for the phone.”
Stilwell went into the squad room and saw that Simon was on his phone, most likely talking to Corum.
He went into his office and pulled up the sub’s camera grid.
It showed eight camera angles from inside and outside the sub.
He enlarged the jail camera and turned the volume up.
He knew it was illegal for him to listen to a suspect’s communication with an attorney, but he suspected that Kalas wasn’t calling an attorney.
But Kalas had apparently seen or anticipated there was a camera. He was huddled with the phone in a corner of the cell talking in what sounded like Spanish in a low voice. Stilwell could not make out a word of what he was saying in any language.
“Well, fuck you,” he said.
When Kalas finished the call, he stood up and held the phone up to the camera located on the opposite wall.
“I’m done,” he announced.
“Funny guy,” Stilwell said.
He left his office and went back to collect the phone. Kalas had locked it.
When Stilwell returned to the squad room, Simon was off his call. He averted his eyes from Stilwell’s, and that was a tell.
“What’s up?” Stilwell asked.
“The captain wants me back there,” Simon said. “He’s sending an air unit. You think somebody can give me a ride over to the heliport?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“No, he wants you here. He’s a little bit pissed off and told me to remind you that you’re on the bench.”
“Did you remind him I came up with Kalas this morning?”
“I did but he still got upset.”
“Whatever. Are you taking Kalas with you?”
“No, he wants to leave him here for now.”
“Why?”
“He thinks ICE won’t come all the way out here for just one guy, so we keep him here for now. But if we hear ICE is coming for him, the captain will send an airship and we can do the shuffle.”
He was talking about the so-called sheriff shuffle, which was a means of hiding a suspect in custody from lawyers and other agencies by constantly moving him from one detention facility to another in the department’s massive jail system.
“What about the follow-up with Sellers?” Stilwell asked.
“The captain doesn’t think we need him since we got Kalas,” Simon said.
“I could do it.”
“I don’t advise it, Stil. The captain got pretty hot. He’s even pissed at me. Said he was going to call you. And, uh…”
He gestured at the video camera mounted on the ceiling in the front corner of the room.
“He wants the link to the cameras you got here,” he said.
“Are you kidding me?” Stilwell said. “He wants to watch me?”
“Sorry. You know how he gets.”
“I guess I do now.”
Stilwell walked over to Mercy’s desk and asked her to radio one of the deputies on patrol to come pick up Simon and take him to his rendezvous with the sheriff’s helicopter.
“You also want me to send the camera link to the captain?” she asked.
“Yes, go ahead,” Stilwell said.
“Everything—interior and exterior links?”
Stilwell thought about that for a moment before answering.
“Just the interior cameras,” he said.
The sub was covered by six interior cameras: two in the holding area focused on the cells, and single cams in the squad room, kitchen, interview room, and entryway.
Stilwell’s office, the bunk room, and the restrooms weren’t covered.
If Corum thought he was going to be able to monitor every move Stilwell made, he was wrong.