Broken Saint, The (5 page)

Chapter 6

Ryan was pulling up a map on the computer in the cruiser to
help us get to Hector’s address. “It’s 1700 Clayborne, number 35.”

“Where’s that?”

He twisted the computer so it was out of the
light. “It’s in a place called Lyric Mobile Park.”

“Ah, shit.”

“What is it?”

“You ever been there?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re lucky,” I said. “It’s a sewer. It’s
one of those trailer parks just outside the city limits.”

“So we can’t officially police it?”

“That’s it. It’s County’s problem. The guys that
build these places, they figure out which is the weaker police department. I
was talking to an officer in County, says they logged over 300 code violations last
year in that place.”

The snow had stopped. Driving was okay. Enough
people have studded tires in Montana that there were a couple of clean tracks
for my tires. The trick was to aim straight and avoid the strip of ice running
down the middle of each lane.

“But they’ve got a manager on site, right?”

“Yeah, probably. We’ll see.”

“Turn left here,” Ryan said. “On Linder Lane.”

Linder Lane sounds better than Shit Street. A
hundred yards in, Clayborne branched off to the left, where a battered tin sign
announced Lyric Mobile Park. A second sign, underneath, said “Please Drive
Slow.” When our cruiser hit the first pothole, a harmless-looking little dip
beneath an inch of snow, the chassis clunked pretty hard against the drive
train or something, despite our heavy-duty shocks. Which would explain why the
sign said drive slow. It wasn’t about not hitting pedestrians. There wasn’t
anyone walking around.

I brought the speed down under five as we bumped
along, rocking into and out of the little canyons on the dirt road. Even with
the fresh layer of snow, the place was disgusting. Every third trailer had an abandoned
car out front, rusty water staining the cinder blocks, the occasional hood or
trunk open, God knows why. Engines sitting off to the side. Lots of tires
without wheels, wheels without tires. Black plastic garbage bags, torn open by
raccoons or rats, sitting on the lawns. Busted plastic tricycles without wheels,
busted couches with ripped-up cushions darkened by seasons of rain, busted
swing sets missing the swings, busted shopping carts. Busted, busted, busted.
Everything was busted.

“Think they’ve got enough people growing weed?”
Ryan said. Every row of trailers had one or two with aluminum foil on some of the
windows, to keep the high-intensity lights from blinding the neighbors.

“Hey, small business is the backbone of our
economy,” I said. “See the sneakers?” I pointed to a couple sets of shoes hanging
from the utility wires. “Means they sell it here, too.”

We crawled forward, rocking and swaying in our big
cruiser.

“Hector should be in the next row of trailers,”
Ryan said.

“Here we go,” I said.

We pulled up outside Hector’s trailer and I shut
the engine down. I got out of the cruiser. The whole place looked and smelled
like it was already dead. I couldn’t see any people, but there were plenty of feral
cats, crouching warily or running under a trailer where the lattice-wood skirting
or the corrugated tin was missing. They were here for the mice and the rats.

“Someone burning garbage?” Ryan said as we walked
up to the metal steps outside Hector’s door.

“Someone cooking meth,” I said. “Come take a look
at this one.” We walked over to the trailer next to Hector’s. Half of it was
burned out, the black flame marks streaked across the gray aluminum. The shell
was peeled away, showing the paper-thin wallboard, the wispy cotton-candy
insulation, the one-inch studs, and the aluminum wiring.

“I’m surprised anyone survives these trailer
fires,” Ryan said.

“Usually they don’t,” I said. “Let’s see if Mr.
Cruz is home.” We walked back to his trailer, up the three black metal steps. There
was no vehicle in the spot worn into the scrubby grass in front of the trailer.
I knocked. We waited fifteen seconds.

Ryan walked down the steps and over to the side of
the trailer. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he peered in the window. “Doesn’t
look like anyone other than Hector lives here,” he said. “No flower pots or
anything.”

“Let’s try next door.” We walked over to a red and
yellow fiberglass trailer, slightly newer and better looking than Hector’s,
except that the door had a big crack running the length of it. Near the top, where
the door was bent and didn’t touch the door frame, a half-inch sliver of dim
light shone out. We walked up the steps, and I knocked on the door frame.

I could hear someone walking slowly toward the door,
the rocking of the trailer transmitted to the metal steps, which were touching
it. “Just a second,” a thin voice said. I heard her messing with whatever it
was that was holding the door shut against the frame.

A short, round woman in her sixties, in a housecoat
with a hoody sweatshirt over it, opened the door, releasing a putrid smell of garbage,
mildew, and cat shit. She had an elastic bungee cord in her hand, the kind you
get at Wal-Mart. She stood there, her face blank. “What do you want?”

I showed her my shield. “We’re detectives from
Rawlings Police Department, ma’am. We wanted to ask you a couple of questions
about Hector Cruz.”

“Who?”

“Hector Cruz? Next door?”

“The Spanish kid?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” I said. “He a good neighbor?”

“He leaves me alone,” she said, shrugging her
shoulders. “So yeah.”

“He doesn’t cause any disturbances? Loud parties?”

“No, none of that.”

“Does he ever have anyone over?”

“I seen a Spanish girl sometimes.”

“Okay, thanks, ma’am. Sorry to disturb you.”

The woman turned and pulled the door up against
the frame. I heard her wrapping the bungee cord around the knob inside to keep
it shut.

“Real friendly woman,” Ryan said. We headed back
toward the cruiser.

“Me in fifteen years.” I got in the cruiser and closed
the door. “Might as well stop and see if the manager has anything on Hector.”

Ryan nodded, and I drove us back out to the
entrance, where the manager’s office was.

The office had those cheap Christmas lights
hanging from the roof, the ones that were supposed to look like icicles. A
section off to the side had come detached from the roof and hung across one of
the windows. The trailer, with a neon “Office” sign in the front window, looked
as old as most of the others in the park, but it was in better repair, with new
metal skirting around it. We knocked on the door.

A scrubby guy opened it. He was about fifty-five,
maybe five-ten with narrow shoulders and a beer gut. His nose and cheeks were
full of busted capillaries.

I introduced us and showed him my shield.

“You wanna come in?”

The air was a gray haze of cigarette smoke, but I
said yes.

He had a cig going. The fingers of his right hand
were stained yellow. He eased into the chair behind his small wooden desk,
which had an old desktop computer with a CRT monitor. The ashtray next to the
keyboard was full.

“Only have one chair,” he said, pointing to a
stained cloth side chair. Ryan chivalrously gestured for me to take it. Now I’d
definitely have to get my coat cleaned.

“We wanted to ask you a few questions about one of
your tenants: Hector Cruz.”

“What’d he do?” His patchy hair and his two or
three days’ beard were white. He wore a short-sleeve poly shirt, a yellow
print, with black suspenders. His right forearm had a faded USMC tattoo.

“Now why would you ask that?”

He smiled, showing a row of stained teeth. “I’m
guessing you’re not here to give him some kind of medal.”

“Just a couple of routine questions, that’s all.”

“Well, then, go right ahead and ask, young lady,”
the manager said. “Would you like a cigarette?” He held up the pack of
Marlboros.

“No, thanks, that’s very kind. I’ll pass.” He held
up the pack to Ryan, who shook his head. “About Hector Cruz, trailer 35—”

“Let me just pull him up here. Gimme a second.” He
hit some keys. “
A
ll right, Hector
Cruz.” He expelled a twin stream of smoke from his nostrils. “How can I be of assistance
regarding Mr. Cruz, Miss?” He smiled his yellow-green smile, like he’d just
said something clever.

“How long has Mr. Cruz lived here?”

The manager stared at the screen, his brow
furrowed. “Five years and two months.”

“Does he pay his rent on time?”

Back to the screen. “Six times he was late. One of
those times, two months late. Otherwise, on time,” he said. “Which makes him
one of my best tenants.” He looked up and gave me a small smile.

“You get complaints from your other tenants about
him? You know, parties? Noise? Garbage?”

“Mr. Cruz keeps to himself.” He looked again at
the screen. “Says here he is employed at the university.” He looked up at me. “Personally,
I do enjoy having Mr. Cruz as one of my tenants.”

“Any record of County Sheriff’s office having to
come out here about anything related to Mr. Cruz?”

“Tell you the truth, Miss, I don’t keep records of
such things. Else I wouldn’t have much time to maintain the common property. I
imagine you could inquire of the County Sheriff’s office yourself. I’m sure
they’d be happy to have a chat with an attractive policewoman like yourself.”
He showed me a few of his stained teeth.

I smiled. “Do you think you might have some time
for me this afternoon, Mr. …” I looked at his business card in a little holder
on the desk. “Mr. Warren?”

“It depends,” he said, sitting up a little in his
chair and putting on a little leer. “What did you have in mind?”

I leaned in toward him. “I was thinking maybe I’d
call some of my buddies at County, have them send a team over. See if there’s
any code violations in this shithole.”

The leer slid off his face.

“You’re a disgusting little man. You look like a
troll, you smell like a catbox, and when you call me attractive—well, I just
don’t know whether to shoot you because you’re so hideous or shoot myself
because you think maybe I’d let you put your yellow fingers on me.

“So, please, I ask you, as a personal favor: make
one more inappropriate comment. Let me come back this afternoon. Let me make it
my mission to see that you do thirty days in lockup. Let me make sure the
lights are kept way low in your cell at night. Let me arrange it so you bunk
with a big guy who also likes to make sweet romance. Will you let me do those
things, Mr. Warren?” I was standing now. “Will you please call me ‘sweet cakes,’
just this once, Mr. Warren?”

He was looking down at his desk now. There wasn’t
any embarrassment or shame on his face, just the blank look that told me he’d
been reamed out by authority figures a few times and knew when to play possum.

“Thanks for your time,” I said, as Ryan and I left
the smoky little trailer. Outside, I took my coat off, opened the trunk, and
tossed it in.

Once we were both in the cruiser, Ryan said, “It’s
about fifteen degrees.”

“I’d rather be cold than have his smell on me.”

He got out of the car, took off his coat, threw it
in the trunk, and got back in.

“Aren’t you just the sweetest thing?” I said.

“Whatever you say, Detective,” Ryan said, his
hands up in a gesture of submission.

I started the cruiser and pointed it away from the
trailer park.

Ryan said, “Let me see if I can track down Hector
on campus.” He swung the computer around and looked up the main university
number as I drove us back toward town.

“Yes,” Ryan said into his cell. “Detective Ryan
Miner, Rawlings Police Department. One of your employees, Hector
Cruz—C-R-U-Z—where can I find him on campus?” He listened. “Thanks very much.”
He ended the call.

“Yeah?”

“Hector works in Buildings and Grounds. It’s in
the Operations Building, on Thompson Street.”

I drove us there and parked.

We walked into the ugly seventies one-story
building, made of what looked like tan cinder blocks. I showed the receptionist
my shield and asked if we could speak to whoever was in charge.

“That’s William Saffert. I’ll bring you back. Go
around to that door, okay?” She pointed.

She led us back to a small office. “Bill, these
are police officers.”

I introduced us, and he invited us to sit in the
two small plastic chairs in front of his desk. A little light came in from a
shallow window up near the ceiling.

“We want to talk to one of your employees, Hector
Cruz.”

Saffert hit a couple of keys on his keyboard. He
frowned. Then he picked up a phone and tapped in a few numbers. “Helen, did
Hector Cruz check in today?” He waited. “Okay, thanks.” He hung up and turned
to me. “Sorry, he didn’t show up today.”

I nodded. “What kind of employee is he?”

“Quiet, dependable, does his job.” Saffert was a
big man. He looked like he’d done his time in Building and Grounds.

“Does he have a problem missing his shifts?”

Saffert looked at screen. “No,” he said. “Only
three or four a year. His sick days are piling up.”

“Did he call in today?”

“No, he didn’t,” Saffert said. “That’s not like
him.”

“What’s your procedure when you hire guys? You do
a background check?”

“Human Resources does. It’s a state reg if the
employee is going to be involved in any duties related to safety, or if he has
access to a master key. Since Mr. Cruz does some custodial work in labs, he
falls in that category.”

“What did you find on him?”

Saffert walked over to a large filing cabinet in
the corner, slid open a drawer, fingered through it, and pulled out a folder. “State
does a Montana-Wyoming-Idaho criminal background check for felonies and
misdemeanors, a Social Security trace, and a National Sexual Offender Registry
check.” He flipped through some pages in the folder. “Let’s see. Social
Security was fine: he’s documented. Sexual Offender, also fine. A couple of
misdemeanors: some traffic violations, a misdemeanor drug possession—and a
felony, a battery that he copped to from California that we didn’t catch.”