Broken Saint, The (13 page)

Chapter 20

“Did you hear that?” he said. “Sounded like gunfire.”

I tried to pull myself out of my dream. “What?”

“Just a moment ago,” he said. “Sounded like two
shots.”

And when he said that, I remembered hearing them.
One sounded like it hit something metal; the other one I couldn’t identify what
it hit. I got out of bed, pulled on my bathrobe, and grabbed my Smith &
Wesson 9mm from the drawer in the bedside table. “Stay here. Be quiet.”

I stood still, just inside the bedroom door, listening
real hard. Nothing.

I ejected the magazine, checked to be sure it was
full, and slid it back in. I heard the reassuring click, then walked slowly
down the hall toward the living room and the entry hall.

The house was making all the sounds I never pay
any attention to. The clock in the living room was ticking away with its
two-tone rhythm. The refrigerator was cycling though its hums. The gas jet on
the water heater in the utility closet turned off. I listened. No human sounds.

As I was about to open the front door, I saw it: the
blunt head of a bullet. It looked like a .45, knee-high, sticking halfway
through my crappy pressed-wooden door. I could feel the blood draining from my
face.

I crouched and walked slowly into the living room.
Then I raised my head to look out the corner of the picture window. The
scraggly black limbs of my Japanese maple were silent and immobile in the chill
night air. The lawn, dark gray in the moonless night, stretched out to the
empty street. A few of the neighbors’ cars that didn’t fit in the garages and
driveways sat silent along the curb. Across the street, the houses were
lightless hulks.

I couldn’t tell what time it was. I glanced at the
big old wooden clock, but it didn’t light up so it told me nothing. I walked
back to the front door and slowly opened it. The aluminum storm door showed the
bullet hole, its edges flared like a flower just starting to open.

I closed the door and
walked
carefully into the kitchen, leaving the light off, and grabbed a small
flashlight from the first drawer beneath the counter. I checked to see it
worked.

I walked back out to the front door, opened it and
the storm door, and walked outside, the AstroTurf mat cold and prickly against
my bare feet. I walked out onto the concrete stoop, down the two steps to the
walkway. I scanned the property. Whoever it was took the shots was long gone. I
heard the high hoot of one of our resident owls.

Turning back to face the house, I shined the
flashlight on the area around the door. After a few seconds, I saw it: the
second bullet. It was behind one of the laurel bushes, buried in the old asbestos
shingle of my house. Seeing as it was quite a distance from the other bullet, I
figured the shooter had simply slowed the car down, without stopping to try to hit
anything in particular.

I came back up my steps and wiped my bare feet on
the entry mat. Mac was standing there in the dark, my leather slippers in his
hand. He placed them down on the floor.

“Thanks,” I said as I stepped into them and walked
back toward the door and turned on the hallway light.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“They’re long gone,” I said. “What time is it?”

“Two fifteen.” He was tightening the belt on his
bathrobe. “You’re not afraid they might come back?”

“No, it’s all right. They’re not gonna come back.
They already accomplished what they wanted.” I pointed to the door.

He walked over. “Holy shit.” He touched the bent
nose of the bullet sticking through the front door.

“Would you mind making some coffee?”

“Sure,” he said.

I went back into the bedroom, turned on the light,
and grabbed my phone. I hit Headquarters and logged the incident with the
officer on duty, Sergeant Bradish. He asked me if I wanted him to connect me
with the night-shift detectives. I told him no, I’d contact my partner and
decide what to do.

The coffee pot started to gurgle. Really good
thing about Mac was that he was willing to let me do my cop things without
asking a lot of questions or getting in the way. I met him through my sponsor
at AA. That’s probably not the best way to meet a guy, but when you’ve got my track
record with liquor and men, the list of eligibles is fairly short, and none of
them come without a couple of attics’ worth of their own baggage. My sponsor
once told me a guy who hasn’t spent a good long time in hell probably wouldn’t
understand me enough to make any kind of connection. He’d just be interested in
saving me, but any guy who’s interested in getting a merit badge is way too
young for me, if you know what I mean.

I didn’t know where I was going with Mac, although
Probably Nowhere would be the most likely sign on the front of the bus. He hadn’t
been out of his personal hell that long, but he seemed like a kind man, and he
readily admitted he had no idea which way was up. At my age, I found that
attractive.

I went into the living room and hit Ryan’s name on
my speed dial.

“Everything okay, Karen?” His voice was concerned.

“Yeah, I’m okay. There was a drive-by. Someone fired
two rounds at my house.”

“Anyone hurt?” I think he knew about Mac, but
since we hadn’t officially discussed him, Ryan was being his diplomatic self.

“No. One bullet lodged in my front door, another ten
feet away.” I walked into the living room. There weren’t any lights on in the
houses I could see. No sense canvassing now. The unis would get it at the start
of the day shift.

“What do you want to do?”

“Wanna take a ride with me to see if Hector’s
home?”

He didn’t answer for a second. “Let me think this
through.”

“What’s to think?”

“I don’t know. With Samosa doing the press conference
this afternoon, and the chief telling us he needs probable cause, do you think
it’s a good idea? I mean, the chief might think we’re poking Samosa because he
pissed us off.”

“No, Hector’s a legitimate person of interest.
Remember Samosa said he’s gonna have people around Hector all the time,
recording him so we can’t persecute him? Why not call his bluff?”

“How about we drive over to the trailer park, take
a quick look at his place. Decide what to do when we’re there.”

“Yeah, good,” I said. “I’ll pick you up in a half
hour.”

“See you.”

An hour later, we rolled slowly into the Lyric
Mobile Park. One big difference between my neighborhood and this one: every
block in the trailer park had one or two trailers with lights on. TVs were
putting out eerie, shifting colored light. Some of these trailers had two or
three cars clustered out front, like they were having a card game or selling
drugs in the middle of the night.

I turned off my headlights as we bumped our way toward
Hector’s trailer. There were no lights on. I stopped my Honda about fifty yards
away. We got out of the car and half-closed the doors to keep the noise down.

We both had our pistols out as we walked slowly
toward Cruz’s trailer. His Dodge Neon was out front. We walked over to it to
check the hood. It was stone cold. We turned and walked back out to the street
so we could talk.

I whispered, “Want to knock on his door?”

“I don’t know. The car’s cold,” Ryan said. “If it
were warm, I think that would give us cause to knock on the door. But what are
we going to learn? He’s there or he’s not there. Either way, he could have
thrown the shots at your house—or not.”

I wanted to knock on his door, just to wake him
up. I have to be up at two in the morning, so should he. But Ryan was right.

Before I could say anything, I saw a light come on
near the left side of the trailer. “I think Hector solved our problem for us.”

We walked over toward the door of the trailer, up
the three steps, as more lights turned on inside. We were standing there as he
opened the door. He looked at me, then at Ryan.

“Good evening, Hector,” I said.

He was wearing a scowl. “What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything,” I said. “What do you
want?”

“I want to go back to sleep,” he said.

“Okay, go ahead.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Somebody took two shots at my house, about an
hour ago.”

There was some noise coming from down the block,
three trailers away, the thumping of a bass rhythm. If that happened in any
other neighborhood, cops would be all over it.

“You think I did it?”

“The thought crossed my mind. You know, to pay me
back for the racial profiling my partner and I been doing on you.”

He looked at me, didn’t say anything. He rubbed at
an eye. “I didn’t shoot at your house. I don’t even know where your house is.”

“Now, that’s not the best answer, Hector, since my
address is listed in the phone book and on the Web.”

“What answer did you want?”

“I’d have preferred, ‘I’m sorry someone shot at
your house, but I didn’t do it.’ Or ‘Samosa’s an asshole. I know you aren’t
guilty of racial profiling.’ Either one of them would be better than ‘I don’t
know your address.’”

“You going to arrest me now?”

“Did you take a couple shots at my house an hour
ago?”

“No.”

“Want to come to headquarters with us now, make a
statement, do a gunshot-residue test? Let us rule you out?”

He paused. “No. I’m not going to do anything
without checking with my attorney.”

“Shit, Hector,” I said. “I can see you’re so close
to being straight with us. So close to making us want to help you. What’s the
problem? You’re already awake. Come in with us now, I promise I’ll personally
drive you home, you’re back in bed in under an hour. That way, my partner and I
think, ‘That Cruz guy didn’t have anything to hide, he didn’t kill Maricel.’
You can make it happen, Hector. Right now.”

“If you’re going to arrest me for shooting at your
house—or for killing Maricel—do it. If not, we don’t have anything to talk
about.”

“Sorry to hear you say that, Hector. Just for the
record, you have an alibi for the last two hours?”

“I been here. Sleeping in my bed. Alone.”

“Hector, we need to talk to you. There’s some
stuff happening at headquarters that you need to know about,” I said. “Can we
come in?”

“You got a warrant?”

“No, Hector, it’s fucking freezing out here. Just
let us come in for a second, just to talk.”

“No way I let you in.” He pointed at Ryan. “All of
a sudden this guy finds a baggie full of rock sitting on the counter.” He shook
his head. “No way. You got something to say, you say it right here.”

“All right,” I said. “Let me tell you what’s going
on. The chief, he’s new with us, comes from LA. There’s one thing he hates more
than gang bangers. Gang lawyers. That stunt Samosa pulled this afternoon,
saying how we were persecuting you, the racial profiling, how we were gonna
plant evidence on you, all that shit—that really pissed him off. He told us
we’re gonna look real hard at you. My partner and I told him we don’t like you
for the murder. Everything you’ve told us checks out. Your boss thinks you’re
being straight with him. We even believed you on not being in with the Latins.

“But he comes back at us with, if Hector’s clean,
why’d he get involved with a cocksucker like Samosa. And, I gotta level with
you, my partner and I didn’t have a good answer to that. So he repeats to us
the dead girl’s got Latin colors on her, you’ve got their ink on your chest,
and you go call a five-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyer who happens to work for
the Latins.

“So just let me give one more chance to get
yourself out of this. It’s gonna take one hour of your life. You’ll be back at
the university tomorrow morning. Come with us now, take the gunshot-residue
test and you’re a free man.”

He shook his head.

“Why are you more afraid of Samosa than of the
police? What the hell does he have on you?”

“You want me to come in to headquarters now?”

“That’s what I been asking you.”

“Arrest me.”

I sighed.

“I guess that means you don’t have any evidence,”
Cruz said.

“Last chance, Hector. You understand I got two
bullets in my house. I come back with a search warrant and find a gun, match it
to the bullets, getting from there to you killing Maricel is like knocking over
a domino.”

He turned and walked back into his shitty trailer,
pulling shut the door that didn’t quite seal against the frame.

Chapter 21

“Detective Seagate,” the chief said, “and Detective Miner, I
believe you’ve met Mr. Raul Samosa, representing Hector Cruz.”

We had just been called into the chief’s office to
meet with the cocksucker attorney. I shook his hand, then Ryan did.

The chief said, “Won’t you all sit down?” With the
two soft chairs and the small couch, there was enough room for the four of us.

“I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you,
Chief Murtaugh, and your detectives.” Samosa had on a different thousand-dollar
suit, but I recognized the gold watch and the gold chain on the vest. I caught
some kind of cologne. Okay, he’s the guy in Montana who wears cologne.

“Of course, Mr. Samosa. How can we help you?” I
understood why the chief had to say things like that, but I just wanted to get
up and slap the lawyer across his face.

“You had a chance to listen to my press conference
yesterday, is that correct?”

“Yes,” the chief said, nodding his head. “The
three of us did.”

“So you know why I’m here this morning.”

“Not really,” the chief said, wearing a confused expression.
He was lying. I had told him about the drive-by when I got in this morning.
That was when he told me Samosa would be stopping by for a chat. The chief’s
“not really” made me feel a little better, like he was planning to leave a couple
square inches of Samosa’s ass unkissed, at least for a while.

Samosa said, “My client, Hector Cruz, was awakened
in the middle of the night—it was about three o’clock, Detective Seagate?—”

I wasn’t expecting to be brought into the
conversation. But my mouth worked. “Not sure when he was awakened, or by who or
what, but we talked with him about three o’clock, yes.”

Samosa paused, then gave the chief a look to
signal that he didn’t appreciate my attitude. “The two detectives awakened my
client about three o’clock and threatened him. This was less than twelve hours
after I warned the department that I would not tolerate exactly that sort of
extra-judicial harassment.”

The chief shifted in his chair, then opened his
arms out in a can’t-we-all-get-along gesture. “Why don’t we see if we can start
by establishing some of the basic facts of the case, Mr. Samosa, and then we’ll
talk about whether our investigation is being conducted in a lawful way? Do you
think we could do that?”

“Proceed,” Samosa said. “You tell me what the
basic facts of the case are, Chief Murtaugh,” waving his hand as if the chief
was just trying to stall.

“All right,” the chief said. “Good. From the
moment Ms. Salizar’s body was recovered, the entire department has been focused
on conducting a thorough and lawful investigation to apprehend her killer. I
assigned Detectives Seagate and Miner to lead the investigation—”

“Yes, yes,” Samosa interrupted. “I am aware there
was a murder. Can we get to the point?”

“Mr. Samosa,” the chief said, leaning forward,
“I’d like to set down some guidelines here for our discussion. I’m treating you
as a person of good will, an attorney who is trying to safeguard the rights of
his client, Hector Cruz. I expect you to treat me and all other representatives
of the Rawlings Police Department as persons of good will, as well. I am happy
to meet with you, and—by the way—to pull my two detectives off the
investigation to participate in this meeting, to give you an opportunity to
express your thoughts and concerns. But I ask that you keep in mind that, just
like you, we have a job to do, which is to apprehend Maricel Salizar’s killer
or killers. That mandate was given to us by the City of Rawlings. So when I am
speaking, or one of my detectives is speaking, I expect you to listen respectfully,
without interrupting.” The chief paused and looked at Samosa, holding the gaze.
“If you don’t think you can do that, we’ll terminate this meeting right now,
and you can go outside and call another press conference and say whatever you
want—and interrupt anyone you want. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Samosa nodded his head.

The chief continued. “Your comments yesterday
about the detectives engaging in racial profiling were inaccurate. They were
doing nothing of the sort. They have been pursuing all legitimate avenues of
the investigation and have interviewed many persons who knew Maricel Salizar.”

“Did they wake any of those persons up at three
o’clock this morning?”

I said, “Wait a damn minute. You don’t have any
evidence that I—”

The chief held his hand up for me to stop talking.
“Detective Seagate is right that it hasn’t been established that she and
Detective Miner woke Mr. Cruz up at three in the morning. But let me address
the broader concern that Mr. Samosa is voicing.”

Jesus Christ, I thought. You give me a million
bucks, I still couldn’t say the words
voicing a concern
.

The chief continued. “Hector Cruz is a legitimate
suspect in this case. He was Ms. Salizar’s boyfriend. We know from interviewing
him that he and Ms. Salizar did not agree on her decision to abort their child.
He is associated in one way or the other with the Latin Vice Lords.” He paused
a beat. “As you undoubtedly know. And he has a criminal record, which includes
a felony conviction for a violent offense. As you are aware, this morning,
around two
am
, someone committed
a drive-by shooting at Detective Seagate’s house, a crime we consider very
serious, and I think the detectives’ decision to drive out to Mr. Cruz’s home
was completely appropriate. I see no evidence at all that the detectives
harassed your client in any way.”

“Detective Seagate clearly threatened my client.”

“In what way?” the chief said, his brow furrowed.

I had gotten the point: Sit there, silently. Speak
only when spoken to.

Samosa pointed a finger at the chief and said, “She
made it very clear that if he did not come in to police headquarters with
her—at three in the morning—to do a gunshot-residue exam, she would conclude
that Cruz was guilty not only of firing shots at her home but also of killing
Ms. Salizar. That is outrageous.”

“Detective Seagate,” the chief said, “is Mr.
Samosa’s description of the interview with Mr. Cruz this morning accurate?”

“First of all, Detective Miner and I did not wake
him up. We were parked at least fifty yards away. We did not walk up to his
door, and we did not make any noise. All we did was put our hands on the hood
of his car to see if it was hot. When he turned on his lights and came to the
door, I did talk with him. But I didn’t bully him or harass him or anything
like that. I asked him if he had done the drive-by—which I have every right to
do. And I invited him to come to headquarters and take the gunshot-residue test.
I told him we’d bring him back to his trailer, and I said that if he was clean,
that would help us see him as clean on the Salizar murder.” I turned to Ryan.
“Is that what I did?”

Ryan nodded his head. “That is exactly what
happened.”

Samosa’s hands were up in the air, him being so
exasperated at me asking Ryan to confirm my story.

“Of course one detective is going to confirm
whatever lies the other—”

“Mr. Samosa,” the chief interrupted, “I ask that
you remember the ground rules for this discussion. None of us has characterized
any of your statements as lies. I will not let you characterize the detectives’
statements as lies.” He looked at Samosa. “Understood?”

Samosa smirked, like the chief was bringing up a
technicality to change the subject. “What Detective Seagate said is exactly what
I am referring to. Your detective has just admitted that she threatened Mr.
Cruz.”

The chief smiled briefly. “Let’s be frank, Mr.
Samosa. You represent, among many other clients, the Latin Vice Lords. You are well
aware of what constitutes bullying and what constitutes a legitimate, candid
discussion between a police officer and a citizen. When Detective Seagate told
Mr. Cruz that a clean gunshot-residue test would help her see him as innocent,
she was doing him a favor. She was simply explaining how every police officer
thinks. If you’re willing to take a forensic test that will establish your
innocence, you look innocent. If you refuse to take that test, you look guilty.
I’m sorry, Mr. Samosa,” the chief said, allowing himself a hint of a smile, “but
you’re going to have to do a lot better than that to get anyone to believe the
detectives bullied your client.”

Samosa stood up, so the rest of us did. “Expect to
hear from me again.”

“Yes, I fully expect to,” the chief said, sighing.
“But can I share one more thought with you?”

Samosa said nothing.

“You’re not helping Mr. Cruz by telling him not to
work with us. We think he’s clean, and we’d love to rule him out and be out of
his life. We’re not out to persecute him because he’s Hispanic—or even because
he’s in the Latins. We have only one goal: to get Salizar’s killers. If you and
I share that goal, you’ll back off and let him talk to us.” The chief paused.
“Unless, of course, he killed Maricel Salizar.”

Samosa walked out, fast, leaving the three of us
standing there, not sure what to do.

“Chief,” I said, “I want to thank you.”

“What for?” he said.

“For getting my back.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing,” he said. “Samosa
is a pain in the ass, but I wanted to set down some ground rules with him.”

“You haven’t worked with him before?”

“No,” the chief said. “We haven’t had a
gang-related case since I’ve been here. I wanted to tell him that I know he has
a job to do, but I do, too. He can call as many press conferences as he wants,
but I’m not going to have my detectives go easy on his people because they’re
the Latins.”

“Okay, so how do you want us to pursue the
drive-by on my house?”

“I’m going to treat it as a separate case.”

“What? I’m working on only one case. You think
someone’s shooting at me because I don’t recycle?”

The chief raised an eyebrow. “Detective, do we
need to go over the ground rules for this discussion?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Chief, but really,
you think it’s unrelated to the Salizar case?”

“No, I don’t think that. But I’m giving it to
Halloran and Esposito. If they can link the bullets to any weapons we know
belong to the Latins—or link Cruz in any other way to the Salizar case—I’ll let
you follow it wherever it leads.”

I was standing there, my arms crossed on my chest.

The chief continued. “Think about it, Karen. I
want to be able to say—honestly—that we treated it as a separate case. The way
I read it, Samosa asked one of the Latins to do it to set you up. He knew you
had a temper. That’s the easiest way to get you to do something stupid so the
charges of harassment and profiling look legitimate. Until the evidence links the
drive-by to Salizar, Halloran and Esposito work it.”

“What am I supposed to do about some shithead
shooting at my house?”

“Couple of things you could do: stay somewhere
else for a few days while we see if it happens again, or, if you want, I could
put a detail on your house.”

I shook my head. “Are you telling me to back off
Cruz?”

“I’m telling you to treat Cruz like you treat
anyone else. You’ve got a reason to talk to him, you talk to him. But you’ve
asked him to take a gunshot-residue test voluntarily. He declined. Give me some
reason to pursue him for the drive-by, I’ll consider it. But don’t do what
Samosa says you’re already doing. Is that clear?”

I nodded, but then I heard myself say, “Do you
think going out to Hector’s place was stupid?”

He exhaled, slowly. “I would have handled the
drive-by differently.”

I looked at him. “How’s that?”

“You called in to headquarters to report it. That
was good. But I wouldn’t have gone out to Cruz’s place.”

“Why not?”

“For the reason you and Ryan realized after you
put your hands on the hood of his car. There wasn’t anything you could have
learned. If he wasn’t there, it wouldn’t mean he was out shooting at your
house. If he was there, it wouldn’t mean he just got back from shooting at your
house. If the hood of his car was hot, it wouldn’t mean he did it. If it was
cold, it wouldn’t mean he didn’t do it. If you hadn’t gone out there, Samosa
and Hector wouldn’t even know you knew about the drive-by. You could’ve been
sleeping somewhere else when it happened.”

He didn’t say it obnoxious, but he must have seen
my expression. He held up an index finger to let him continue.

“If they don’t know whether we even know there was
a drive-by, we’ve got the jump on them. We pull the bullets out of your house,
try to match them with known weapons, we might be able to send a half-dozen
squad cars out to Hector’s place, arrest him for attempted murder—of a police
officer—and from there we might be able to bundle it with the Salizar murder,
all before Samosa wakes up.

“But where we are now, all we’ve accomplished is
to get Cruz to dig in a little, and get Samosa to be a bigger pain in the ass.
Plus, if there was any incriminating evidence in his trailer or his car, that’s
gone now.”

I was studying my shoes. “Anything else, sir?”

“No,” he said. “Thanks.”

Back at our desks, I said, “You hear the chief say
we can’t talk to The One?”

“The head of the Latins?”

“Yeah.”

“Not in so many words,” Ryan said.

“Me, neither. Salizar had their colors on her when
she died.”

“That’s very true.”

“So as long as we don’t make it all about Hector
Cruz …”

“Want me to see if Martinez in Anti-Gang wants to
ride along?”

I thought a second. “No, it’s not a raid. We’re
not bringing anybody in. We just want to talk. Besides, I want to shake things
up a little. The One’s gonna expect us to bring the cavalry. So we won’t.”