Wednesday, December 28
"Hey, Louis. Here's a belated Christmas present. Jackson wants to strike a deal." Mike announced as he caught up with Lieutenant Miller in the hallway.
"How so?"
"Jackson got an attorney. He'll talk about who paid him in exchange that no charges are pressed against his wife. With that, he'll plea to second degree murder."
"That would be a generous offer on our side. I mean, the guy got paid for the hit. I would consider that pre-meditated and first degree."
"But we can't tie the money to the hit without this."
"Got it. So what happened? Did you scare the wife?"
"I didn't, but I think she saw what they were both facing. Since we've been working several angles, all that had to happen was for Cruz, or whoever set this up, to spill their guts first. It was a game of chicken and Jackson blinked first. It was a smart move on his part."
"So you are working with the DA's office to get that deal finalized."
"We sure are."
oooooooo
Thursday, December 29
Mike and Louis Miller drove to San Quentin and joined the Assistant DA Omar Hudson and Jackson's attorney. They met in a small room by the visitor's area along with Lorenzo Jackson.
Jackson talked…a lot. His statement was recorded.
Jackson and Cruz had become fast friends while they shared a cell for nearly two years. Jackson knew of Cruz's connections to the San Francisco organized crime scene. Only caught and convicted once, Cruz had participated in a number of robberies. He also had become connected with the Chang drug ring through his cousin, Juan Hernandez.
After Cruz was released, Artie was moved into Jackson's cell. As far as prisoners went, it was a miracle that Artie had survived as long as he had. Artie was weak. He felt tremendous remorse for the crime he had committed and that weighed heavily on his mind. Showing that to other prisoners made him a target to begin with.
As he had with his prior cellmate, Sheffield began talking to Jackson about the murder. The more he talked, the more obsessive he became until that was all he could focus on.
After a while, he mentioned Sanders and his role in the attack against his mother. The more he discussed Sanders, the more embittered he became. The situation had evolved to where Artie chattered non-stop about the attack and his hatred and contempt toward Sanders. "He got me into this," Sanders would say. "It was him, it was all him." And he'd continue to repeat that mantra. He was losing his mind.
Cruz had contacted Jackson's wife when he was released – mostly to let her know how Jackson was doing. It was initially done as a simple act of kindness. Jackson had always spoken well of his wife and in fact had her on a pedestal. Cruz felt sympathy towards to woman considering what she had to endure with a husband in prison.
Mrs. Jackson and Cruz continued to talk since she would frequently visit her husband. It was during one of these conversations that Mrs. Jackson had mentioned her husband's new cellmate, Artie Sheffield, his mother's killing and Artie's continual condemnation of Caleb Sanders.
The name "Caleb Sanders" rang a bell with Cruz. He had heard his cousin, Juan Hernandez, mention Martin Bradford and Caleb Sanders as two drug distributors that were encroaching on the Chang's territory. He told Hernandez the story. But by then, Bradford had established connections with distributors in Los Angeles for a new line of heroin. The Chang group viewed Bradford as a danger and had devised what they thought would be a surreptitious way of eliminating the threat by breaking up the partnership.
Through Hernandez, Chang had arranged for a hit on Sheffield. They hired Jackson to gag Artie, strangle him, and then hang his body on a noose fashioned from Sheffield's own cot sheet. All of this occurred in the wee hours of the morning in between guard patrols.
After completing the task, Jackson went to sleep. The guard saw the body hanging from the bars and called for assistance. They opened the cell only to find Artie dead. They 'woke' up Jackson who acted surprised. A report was written and the initial determination was suicide.
Mike inquired about the letter. "Who wrote the suicide letter?"
Jackson responded that he had stolen two of the letters that Artie had intended to send his aunt. The letters were put into envelopes addressed to Cruz and Hernandez's apartment. They wrote their own letter, mimicking the handwriting as best they could. They mailed the letter and an envelope addressed to the aunt to Jackson, who kept it hidden in his Bible until the murder occurred.
Mike thought out loud, "So with Artie's aunt receiving the letter, they knew she'd become troubled about another party involved in her sister's murder. That alerted us and made us reopen the investigation."
Louis Miller let out a deep breath.
ooooooooo
After Jackson and his attorney left the room, Omar, Mike and Louis met.
"Do we have enough to make some arrests here?"
Omar replied, "We have testimony from a con who has copped a plea. His testimony will incriminate Sanders on the homicide and Cruz and Hernandez on a variety of charges. We have expert testimony that Cruz was the one that wrote the letter and we can surely get Hernandez as an accessory to anything we pin on Cruz directly. There'll be plea bargains galore here. No one will get life on any of this, but at least we'll get these creeps off the street for a while."
Omar continued. "So yeah, I think we can arrest Sanders and Hernandez, plus we have more to add on Cruz. We need to get back to the office to dot all the I's and cross all the t's. I want this to be as tight as possible."
Louis joined in. "If we get Sanders and Hernandez off the streets, what does that do to Bradford? And can we nail any of the Changs with this or even get something we can us against the distributors in Los Angeles?"
Mike and Omar looked pensive. "I'd like to get as many of these guys as we can," Louis continued. "It will save some lives to get these people off the street."
Mike thought again. "Okay, we get Sanders off the street. What does that do in the big scheme of things?"
Louis pondered, "Well, word gets back to Hernandez and that gets back to Chang. With only Bradford as the primary principle left, the Chang outfit will make a move. If we cover Bradford and the warehouse, we can get the whole group. Then we can see if we can turn testimony against the LA ring."
Mike asked, "Do you have enough on Bradford?"
"Thanks to Steve and Chuck Johnson, yes. And once we bust him, we'll have all the documentation we need to go after LA."
Mike was concerned. "Remember you have Steve in the middle of all that. I don't want him in the midst of some rival war. He could get killed."
"And what if we go after Bradford and Hernandez first?"
"Well, we probably don't make too much of a dent into the Chang ring. If we catch them with Hernandez and going after Bradford, the case is much stronger."
"What if we pull Steve out now," Mike asked.
"Bradford will know something's up and could go underground. And if he closes up shop, we could lose the LA group too," Louis answered.
"I don't like this, but I see your point. We need to keep Steve in and catch Bradford and the Chang group by surprise," Mike said.
"That will be the plan then. You bust Caleb Sanders, Mike, and we play the rest out very closely. We'll have Johnson and Liu, plus an army backing us," Louis advised.
"I'm not worried about an army backing us, I'm worried about us backing Steve."