“I’m not hungry. But I do have something to show you.”
“You’re being awfully mysterious.”
“It’s better to show than tell.”
Chi was working at his desk, his computer humming, his coffee mug on a napkin, and about thirty pens lined up with the top edge of his mouse pad.
I handed Chi the disc Joe Podesta had given me and said, “You mind, Paul? I want you to see these, too.”
The three of u
s focused on one frame at a time as the dozen digital shots PI Joseph Podesta had taken of a blond woman in profile, sitting with a possible hit man in his SUV, came up on the screen.
Conklin asked Chi to enlarge the best of them and to push in on the female subject’s fist to see if she could be holding on tight to a gold cross. But the more Chi blew up the picture, the fuzzier it became.
“That’s the best I can do,” Chi said, staring at the abstract arrangement of gray dots. “What are your thoughts?”
“Run it through the face ID program,” Conklin said to Chi.
“Face ID, coming up.”
Chi opened the program, and two windows came up on his monitor, comparing Candace Martin’s mug shot with the grainy shot of the blond woman in the car.
Chi turned to look at me and Conklin, a spark of excitement sailing briefly across his face like a shooting star. “It’s not her,” said Chi. “Whoever the woman is in this picture — it’s not Candace Martin.”
Chi then compared the grainy-pictured blonde against a database of tens of thousands of photos at blur speed.
And just as I was beginning to lose hope, we got a match.
Chapter 88
CONKLIN AND I got into an unmarked car and were soon speeding up the James Lick Freeway. As Conklin drove, I ticked off on my fingers the reasons I liked Ellen Lafferty for Dennis Martin’s murder.
“One, she was in love with him. Two, she was frustrated by him. Three, she had access to his gun. She knew where he would be and where Candace would be at the end of the day.
“That’s four and five. And six, if she didn’t do it, she could have ordered the hit.”
“All that,” Conklin said, “and she’s smart enough to frame Candace.”
“She must be a frickin’ evil genius,” I said.
Fifteen minutes later, Conklin parked the car in front of a pale yellow marina-style apartment building. Built in the ’20s, it was a tidy-looking place with bowed windows facing Ulloa Street. It was about a mile from the Martins’ house.
I pressed the buzzer and Lafferty called out, “Who is it?” And then she opened the door.
Conklin said “SFPD,” flashed his shield, and introduced us to the twenty-something nanny, who hesitated a couple of beats before she let us in.
I had watched Lafferty’s testimony from the back of the courtroom a few days ago. She’d looked quite mature in a suit and heels. Today, wearing jeans and a white turtleneck, her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked like a teenager.
Conklin said yes to Lafferty’s offer of coffee, but I lingered behind in the living room as the Martins’ former nanny walked Conklin to the kitchen.
In one visual sweep, I counted five pictures of Dennis Martin in that small room, some of them with Lafferty. Martin was handsome from every angle.
I raised my eyes as Ellen Lafferty returned to the living area with Conklin. She looked happier to see me than she could possibly be. She took a seat in an armchair and said, “I thought the investigation was closed.”
I said, “There are a few stubborn loose ends. Well, one loose end.”
I pulled the photo from my inside jacket pocket and put it down on the coffee table.