Interestingly, Milly Estrada handed off his case to another firm just before trial, claiming an unspecified conflict of interest. Jensen was convicted and spent four months in prison. His comments after his release suggested he thought Estrada had bailed on him rather than risk ruining her perfect no prison record. He sounded particularly salty about it. Jessie wrote him down as a person to look at more. She noticed that his wasnt an isolated incident.

Hey, she said to Karen, are you finding that Estrada dumped a lot of cases that looked like losers just before trial?

Now that you mention, I have seen a few, Karen said. At least three that I can remember.

Lets keep tabs on those folks, Jessie said. I suspect that if she ran into anyone at the party who she jettisoned before trial, their conversations might not have been too friendly.

*

Theyd gone through the files and collected a list of eight people who either had a history of violence, were left by Estrada at the trial altar, or both. Jessie called Jamil Winslows work line to leave a message asking him to focus on them when he started poring over the footage from Otis Estate tomorrow.

She already had him going through Beto Estradas alibi, and under normal circumstances, adding this to his punch list might have been asking too much. But ever since shed first worked with him on a murder case in the wealthy beach community of Manhattan Beach, hed proven to be a savant.

Short and skinny, at twenty-four, Jamil was brilliant, persistent, and seemingly immune to exhaustion. Hed actually left the Manhattan Beach PD to join her station, specifically to work with her and Ryan, a source of guilt for her considering that she now only intermittently consulted for the force.

To her surprise, he picked up.

What are you doing there, Jamil? she demanded. Its Sunday afternoon.

I wanted to get a jump on the Beto Estrada stuff and I figured it would be easier from the office, he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Dont you have things to do? she asked.

This is a thing to do, he insisted. Whats up?

She explained what she wanted. When she was done, the unexpected silence on the other end of the line immediately told her there was an issue.

Whats wrong? she asked.

I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you this, he finally replied. But the folks in tech have some bad news. Theres a problem with the security footage from Otis Estate. There are gaps.

What does that mean?