Broken Saint, The (7 page)

Chapter 9

“Hector Miguel Cruz,” Ryan said, looking at his screen. “He’s
had a Montana driver’s license for six years. Three traffic misdemeanors: one
speeding, one failure to yield, one running a red light. Had a drug
possession—misdemeanor, marijuana possession, three years ago. That’s it for
Montana.”

“Didn’t his boss at the university say he had a
battery?”

Ryan looked down at his notebook. “Yeah, he said
they do a Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho check, but that Hector volunteered about
the battery from California. He was drinking, got in a fight. Eight years ago.”

“How do you read it, him volunteering the battery?”

Ryan shrugged. “Could be that he’s honest? He’s
saying, that part of his life is over, and he wants to be upfront with the guy
who’s going to hire him?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I got all kinds of stuff
in my own life I like to think are over, but I don’t go around telling people
about them—especially if they don’t ask.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “‘My name is Karen …’?”

He knew I was in AA, just like the chief knew. I
didn’t mind that. “Yeah, I say that, but only in front of the other drunks. You
don’t hear me saying it here in the department.”

“I understand,” Ryan said. “But it’s really the
same thing. You say it not for the other people in AA. You say it for yourself,
to remind yourself. That could be what Hector was doing.”

I tapped a pencil against my desk. “Or it could be
that Hector’s got some other, bigger shit he doesn’t want anyone to find. So he
offers up the California battery so bleeding hearts like you and his boss think
he’s being all noble.”

Ryan smiled. “I’m not so sure the head of
Buildings and Grounds is a bleeding heart. He gave Hector the key to the
computer labs. If he thought Hector was a risk, he would’ve done a more extensive
criminal search. Or he wouldn’t have hired him in the first place. Or Hector
would have screwed up already and been fired.”

“What about the blue handkerchief in Maricel’s
pocket? The one we thought might be the Latin Vice Lords?”

Ryan put up his palms. “Hey, I’m not saying
Hector’s clean. I’m not saying he’s dirty—”

“Yeah, I know. You’re just not saying.”

Ryan nodded.

“Okay,” I said, “we definitely need to talk to
him.”

“Absolutely. Soon as we can find him.”

“And our girl Amber?”

He looked back at the screen. “She’s had a
driver’s license since she was 17. No record of any kind. Not even a parking
ticket.”

“And her stupid boyfriend, Jared?”

“Well,” Ryan said, “Jared’s a different story. He’s
got a criminal trespassing and vandalism, and a DUI.”

“Tell me more.”

“Let’s see. He’s 24, only had a Montana license
three years, so he probably had one in another state, too. When he was a senior
in high school, he and two other kids broke into the computer lab at his
school, tossed some computers around. Fourteen thousand dollars in damages. He
was suspended for a month, and his parents compensated the school district. And
last year, a felony DUI, going down I-15 at ninety-five in the wrong direction.”

“Kill anyone?”

“It was three in the morning. Wasn’t anyone to
kill. License was suspended for six months, thirty days in County, whole bunch
of points, fifteen-hundred dollar fine.”

“Okay, so that’s what we know about him in
Montana. He could have some other stuff in other states.”

“That’s right,” Ryan said. “Also, I checked with
the university to get his records.”

“Let me guess: shitty student?”

“In a couple of ways. Low grades. He gets put on
probation, then the next semester, he raises his grades just enough to get off
probation. He’s been on pro three times so far and he’s only earned fifty-seven
credits.”

“And the other way he’s a shitty student?”

Ryan looked down at his notebook. “He was a
freshman, living in a dorm, drilled a hole in the wall, set up a little camera,
videoed a guy and a girl going at it—”

“And put it on the Web?”

“Very good.”

“Okay, don’t tell me. I’m channeling this guy.” I
closed my eyes. “Let me think. I’m a total douche missile. I video the guy in
the next room slamming a girl. What do I do next? What do I do?” I thought for
a moment. “I got it! I blackmail him and the girl. A hundred bucks each or it
goes on YouTube.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “You’re overestimating
Jared’s entrepreneurial spirit. One more guess.”

“All right, he isn’t doing it for the money.” I
paused a moment. “Then it’s about embarrassing them.”

“You’re getting very warm.”

“He lost wood?”

“No.”

“She farted?”

“Thanks for playing the game, Detective. The
correct answer is, the YouTube video was titled ‘Zit Face Screws a Fat Girl.’”

“I think I deserve credit for my answers.”

“Your answers were very good, but wrong is wrong.”

Ryan and I were silent for a little bit. I enjoyed
our little game, but Ryan was wearing a cloudy look, like he was ashamed. He’s
the kind of guy doesn’t think he should get any pleasure out of someone else’s
misfortune. I say, screw it. I didn’t video the two kids humping. I didn’t put
it on YouTube. If I can get a fifteen-second break without doing any more
damage, I’m going to do it and feel good about it.

“So what did the university do to him?” I said.

“They suspended him for a semester.”

“He got off easy.”

“Agreed,” Ryan said.

“I’d like to bring him in. Let him sit in Holding
for a night or two. Watch him cry.”

“Not sure the chief would approve.”

“We should go talk with the chief,” I said, “get
him up to speed. Maybe he’ll let us check some more on Hector and Jared.”

We walked out of the detectives’ bullpen, down the
hall to the big office.

“The chief in?” I said to Margaret, his secretary.
The door to his office was closed.

She picked up the phone. “Detectives Seagate and Miner,
Chief.” He must have told her to let us in. “Go right ahead,” she told us.

I nodded thanks.

The chief was standing behind his desk, looking
down at some papers. He lifted his eyes when he heard us come in, then motioned
for us to sit. “The exchange student?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maricel Salizar.”

“What have you got?”

“She’s from the Philippines. Staying with the
Provost, Albert Gerson. He tells us she had a boyfriend, a Hector Cruz, works
at the university.”

“A professional position?”

“No, maintenance. He’s got a short sheet with us,
passed the university’s screening. But he didn’t come to work yesterday, and
didn’t call in, which his boss says he’s never done. We tried him at his
trailer park. He’s not there. So we’re waiting on him.”

“Who else are you looking at?”

“She had this Big Sister—not a real big sister,
just another student supposed to look out for her—named Amber Cunningham, a
pre-law student, good grades, no record. When we interviewed Amber, she hadn’t
heard about the murder, told us she and Maricel were no longer friends. She
called Maricel a bitch. Amber’s got this boyfriend, Jared Higley, he’s a little
gamier. He’s a student, but a shitty one, got a criminal trespass and vandalism
when he was a minor, a felony DUI just last year.”

“How do you know about Jared?”

“When we went to interview Amber yesterday
afternoon, Jared’s in her bed.”

The chief raised an eyebrow. “So I take it you
don’t like Amber for this because she didn’t know Maricel was dead?”

“That’s what we’re thinking, but Amber had a big
black eye and a busted up cheek.”

“How old was the black eye?”

“Five days, Chief,” Ryan said.

“So she might have gotten into it with Maricel,” the
chief said.

“Or maybe Jared popped her,” I said.

“So what do you want to do next?”

“We want to get to Hector as soon as he comes up
for air. Do we have manpower for surveillance at his trailer?”

The chief sat down at his desk and hit a few keys
on his computer. He frowned at the screen for a few moments. “Sorry,” he said.
“If he doesn’t show up in another day, ask me again and we’ll shift some people
around. But we don’t have anything solid on him yet. In the meantime, you can
put out an alert for his car.” He looked up at us. “Any other players?”

Ryan said, “Al Gerson’s got a son named Mark, who
we haven’t interviewed yet.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Nothing, really,” I said. “Gerson said he’s …
What’d he say about his kid?”

Ryan said, “Said he’s got his own challenges. He
didn’t give us any details. The kid’s about eighteen. Dropped out of high
school. Parents don’t know where he is half the time. Apparently he’s big into
online games.”

The chief said, “You’re thinking since he spent
some time at the house with Maricel, he might know something about her and
Hector?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Her and Hector. Her and his
father. Or maybe Mark had his own motive for hurting Maricel.”

“Okay, thanks,” the chief said, nodding his head.
“We really need to find Hector and Mark.”

Chapter 10

“Detective Seagate, this is Bill Saffert, Building and
Grounds at the university?”

“Yeah, Mr. Saffert, what’s up?” I put the call on
Speaker.

“Just want to tell you Hector Cruz came in to work
today. He’s on a one-to-ten
pm
shift.”

“Great, thanks a lot. Can you tell me where he is?”

“You want me to call him in?”

“No, don’t notify him. If you don’t know where he
is, you can contact his supervisor to find out, but I don’t want you to notify
him.” I paused a second. “You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” Saffert said. “Let me get back to you in a
minute.”

“Thanks.” I hung up. “I don’t think he’s going to
bolt.”

“I don’t, either. If he was taking off, he’d be
long gone. He has to know if he shows up on campus we’ll find him.”

“And he’s going to have his story thought out and
well-rehearsed.”

“There might not be a story,” Ryan said. “He might
be straight.”

My phone rang. I looked at the screen. It was Saffert.

I picked it up. “Seagate.”

“Detective, he’s doing the restrooms in the Multi-Purpose
Building. That’s 1750 University Avenue. Look for his cart.”

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Saffert. Appreciate it.” I hung
up and said to Ryan, “You think you got a lousy job?”

“Me? No, ma’am.” He put on his good-boy face. “It’s
a privilege to be a cop.”

We drove over to campus. Temperatures had soared
into the mid-twenties, and the sun was breaking through the swirling clouds. The
snow on the roads was getting churned up and wet around the edges. My
windshield was picking up a gray mist from the traffic in front of us.

We parked in a metered spot outside the Multi-Purpose
Building. It was one of the newer buildings on campus, with lots of glass on
each of the four corners, exposing the staircases, where we could see students
going up and down. It was kind of a cool look. Like an ant farm but with
college kids.

Inside, the first floor was devoted to a food
court, with a bagel place, a pizza place, and the sandwich shop. “Look at
this,” I said to Ryan. “Like they’re helping the kids make the transition from
the mall to the classroom.”

“Admit, it, Karen. You’re just an old
fuddy-duddy,” Ryan said, smiling.

“Me? At least I don’t say ‘fuddy-duddy.’”

“The universities write contracts with these
shops, and a certain percentage of the revenue goes to scholarships.”

We passed an elevator, which I would’ve taken if I
was alone. But Ryan always takes the stairs. So up we climbed. “Whatever happened
to state legislators funding state universities?”

“The state share has gone from sixty percent to thirty
in the last decade.”

“Where’s the state money go now?”

“Corrections. It’s us recruiting people for the
prisons.”

“Hey, don’t blame me,” I said. “When I catch ’em,
I let them kill themselves.”

He smiled. “Okay, now I get what you did with the
Hagerty case.”

The first case Ryan and I did together was about
this vic named Hagerty, a phony evangelist killed by a guy who worked with him.
I knew the murderer wouldn’t kill anybody else, so when I arrested him I kind
of let him kill himself, which I knew—and probably hoped—would get me fired.
Which it did, but being fired didn’t work out that well because it gave me more
free time to be a self-destructive drunk, for which I apparently have a real
aptitude.

We tracked Hector down on the third floor. He was
cleaning a women’s restroom. His cart was out in front, the door held open with
a block of wood and a yellow plastic sign that said Caution: Cleaning in Progress,
in English and Spanish.

“I’ll bring him out,” I said. I pulled my shield
from my bag and put it around my neck. Then I pulled my coat and blazer back in
case I needed to get to my belt holster fast.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said without looking up, “the
restroom is closed for a few more minutes.” He was swabbing the floor with a
long string mop. When he noticed I hadn’t left he looked up and saw my shield.
He straightened up, his hand still holding the mop.

“Hector Cruz?” I said.

He nodded, looking ragged and depressed. It wasn’t
exactly a you-got-me look, but it was at least an I’ve-lost-another-shift look.

“Detective Karen Seagate, Rawlings Police
Department.”

He nodded.

“You want to come talk to me and my partner?”

Again, he nodded.

He put the mop head into the bucket and walked out
of the rest room, pulling the wheeled bucket behind him.

“You mind if I go lock this up, right down there?”
He pointed to the janitor’s closet twenty yards down the hall.

“Go ahead.”

He kicked the block out from under the door,
folded the cleaning sign, carried the stuff down the hall, and came back to me
and Ryan, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“This is my partner, Detective Ryan Miner.”

Hector Cruz nodded, his hands at his side.

“How ’bout we go over there?” I pointed with my
chin toward a bank of study carrels with fiberboard dividers between them, up
against the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the north face of the
building.

We walked over, him between me and Ryan, his head
hanging down. I could tell he wasn’t going to bolt. I could see he was thinking
about how his future was going to get a lot less pleasant, but I couldn’t tell
if he was thinking in terms of a few hours, a few days, or twenty-to-life.

“Sit down.” I motioned to one of the study
carrels. Ryan and I stood, pretty close to him so we could speak softly.

“You know Maricel Salizar is dead?”

His head sagged as he nodded.

“Is that a yes?” I said.

He lifted his head, his forearms resting on his
legs. “Yes
.
” He paused. “I knew that.”

“Tell us about your relationship with Maricel.”

“She was my girlfriend.”

I put him at five-nine, one sixty, with a thin
waist and good shoulders. His skin was medium dark. He had a broad nose, like
maybe he had some Indian in him. His hair was thick and black, cut long and
moussed, combed straight back, carefully trimmed around the sides. He was
wearing blue jeans, black Nikes, and a long-sleeved Henley shirt, the buttons undone.

“I appreciate you not wasting our time with
rambling answers, but could you tell us a little more? When did you meet her,
what were your plans with her, that sort of thing?”

“I met her in August, just after she arrived
here.”

“Come on, Hector. Where’d you meet her?”

“I met her here on campus, in the Student Union Building.
I was working, setting up folding chairs in one of the meeting rooms. She came
in and asked me directions to a room in the SUB. She smiled, I smiled back. She
said
‘Gracias,’
I said
‘No hay de qué.’
She looked a little lost.
I asked her if she wanted to sit down. We sat and talked. She seemed happy to
be able to speak Spanish. I asked her for her phone number. That’s what it
was.”

“So you started going out.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever pick her up where she lived?”

“Couple of times. Mostly I picked her up somewhere
in town, or here on campus.”

“So you met the provost?”

“I don’t know what that word means.”

“The family where she lived. That man is the provost
of the university.”

Hector shook his head. “You mean the professor,
Dr. Gerson? Yes, I met him a few times.”

“How did that go?”

“He was okay with me. Seemed protective of
Maricel.”

“He didn’t give you any attitude, you not being a
college guy?” Students walked past us on their way to classes. With the way
Hector was dressed and Ryan and I were dressed, we were the ones stuck out.

“No, he talked with me about school a few times. Said
I could take courses almost for free if I was working full-time at the
university. How he’d be happy to talk with me or get me in touch with someone
who would sit down with me.”

“That’s pretty good.” I nodded. “Did you ever take
him up on that?”

“I didn’t feel real comfortable around him and his
wife. And their son.”

“The wife do anything to make you feel that way?”

“No, nothing she did. She was just … I don’t know
the word. She was just … I’m not sure what her problem is. She couldn’t look at
you when you talked. Whatever.”

“And the son. Mark, that his name?”

He nodded. “He scared me.”

“Yeah, how’s that?”

“He was so spaced out. I didn’t understand half
the things he said. Just strange. The things he said.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t remember. He just couldn’t talk normal.
Things would get all mixed up in his mind. And Maricel told me she thought he
was kind of a freak. She didn’t like hanging out with him. She said he seemed
to have some kind of crush on her or something. She would catch him staring at
her.”

“Mark was two or three years younger than Maricel,
right?”

“That didn’t mean he wasn’t hot for her.”

“So you didn’t hang out a lot at Maricel’s house.”

“I’ve got my own place.”

Ryan said, “Hector, you in with the Vice Lords?”

Hector looked at him hard. “No.”

“I notice you’ve got their tat on your chest.”
Ryan was pointing to the top of the letter “L” partly visible at the open neck
of his shirt.

“Four years ago, I put it on. I was going through
a bad time, felt kind of alone, got in a few scrapes. I thought I wanted in.”

“How far did it get?”

“I met with them, we talked. The president, guy calls
himself The One, he didn’t like it I’d put their colors on. How I hadn’t earned
the right, hadn’t gone through an initiation.”

“What happened next?” I said.

“That was as far as I took it. I thought about it,
decided it wasn’t for me.”

“I mean, from their point of view. You say The One
didn’t like you putting on their colors. What’d he do about it? He say he’s
real disappointed in what you did?”

Hector looked at me for a moment. “He didn’t do
anything to me.”

“Interesting,” I said. “He sounds like a very
reasonable guy. I’d’ve thought he maybe would’ve asked you for some favors
since then?”

“He didn’t do anything to me.” His expression told
me that whatever beatdown he took, whatever they made him do, he wasn’t going
to tell me and Ryan.

“Where were you two nights ago, around ten or
midnight?” I said.

“I’d been with Maricel.”

“Where was that?” I said.

“I’d picked her up, we got some takeout, took it
to my place. I took her home around eight. She had to study.”

“Did you have sex with her that night?”

“Is it necessary to answer that question?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not interested in your sex
life, or hers. It has to do with the murder investigation. But you do get the
choice of whether you answer it here—now—or at police headquarters.”

“No, we did not have sex that night.”

“There you go. That wasn’t that hard,” I said.
“Can anyone vouch for where you were?”

“If I was going to kill Maricel, I’d have brought
her someplace public so people could see us together, lay down an alibi. But we
were just hanging out, so I didn’t think to do that.”

I saw that as a reasonable answer. Some cops would
see it as obnoxious. Hector was unhappy. I didn’t blame him. But he wasn’t
stupid. Some guys are so stupid they show you they’re pissed. They curse you
out or flip you off or, if they’re genuine morons, try to run away or take a
swing at you. So you put a check mark next to Bad Temper in your mind. You
start to think about how that could figure into what happened to the victim.
No, Hector wasn’t stupid. He looked at me long, and I could see the wheels
turning, but he wasn’t going to make it easy for me to think he killed Maricel.

“And yesterday, you didn’t come in to work. And
you didn’t contact the university.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know. I was very upset. Wasn’t
thinking clearly.”

“Can you help us with anyone would want to hurt
Maricel?”

“Like I said, Mark Gerson is kind of loco, but I have
no idea.”

Ryan said, “Yet you’re the one with a battery
conviction.”

“Yeah, I know that.” Hector looked down at the
carpet. “It was a long time ago. I got in a fight with a guy. No weapons. We
were drunk. I punched him. He lost a tooth. That was all.”

“Stay in town, Hector.”

“Can I get back to work now?”

“Yeah, go back to work.”

Ryan and I headed toward the staircase. I turned
my head to see what Hector was up to. He was back at the janitor’s closet,
pulling the mop and the bucket and the other stuff out into the hall.

Ryan and I started down the stairs. “You buy what
he’s saying?”

“About not having an alibi?” he said. “Yeah, that
sounded good to me.”

“And about the Vice Lords?”

“Not so sure about that.”

“He could be on the hook to them,” I said. “All
kinds of little favors they could’ve been asking him to do over the years.”

“True, but the question is, would one of those
little favors be to kill his girlfriend?”

“That would be a pretty big favor,” I said.

“I bet The One can be quite persuasive.”

“Maybe it’s time to talk to Martinez in
Anti-Gang.”