Salvation in death

16

TO GIVE TERESA A LITTLE TIME TO COMPOSE herself, and Penny more time to stew, Eve asked Tony Franco to bring his wife to Central. She booked the smallest conference room.

“I’ll handle the mother,” Eve told Peabody. “I started a run on a partial list of John Does, in the area and at the time of Flores’s disappearance. Start following up. If I’m not done in thirty, check on Spitting Penny. She’ll be crying lawyer by then. Let her contact one.”

“Check. What about the case file access?”

“I’m hitting that between the mother and the bitch. Tag Baxter, see if he got anywhere with his part of the John Doe list you’re on. And check my incoming. I’m expecting lists of names from Officer Ortiz and from López on former members of the Soldados still in the neighborhood. Soto’s the key,” Eve added, “but we’ll cover the bases.”

“On that. It’s coming together. It feels like it’s coming together.”

“Parts of it.” Eve peeled off, set up her conference room. At her go, one of her men brought in the Francos.

Teresa’s eyes were swollen and red, but she appeared to have the weeping under control.

“I want to thank you for your help. I know that wasn’t easy.”

“It was never easy with Lino. I made mistakes. I can’t unmake them. Now I’ll bury my son. You’ll let me do that.”

“As soon as I’m able. I need to ask you questions now.”

“All right. I feel like I’m between worlds. The one that was, the one we have.” She took her husband’s hand. “And that I won’t ever be all the way in either again.”

“Why was he here?” Tony asked Eve. “Do you know? I think it would help to know.”

“Yes.” Teresa steadied herself. “It would help to know. Why was he pretending to be this priest? I raised him to have respect for the Church. I know he went wild. I know he went bad. But I raised him to have respect for the Church.”

“I think he was hiding, and I think he was waiting. I don’t know why yet. But I think some of the answers go back to when he was with the gang. Do you know what the Clemency Order was?”

“Yes, they told me. I didn’t know where Lino was, but he contacted me after it passed. I begged him to come home. He could start fresh. But he said he wasn’t coming back until he drove back in a big, fancy car with the keys to a big, fancy house.”

“Due to the Clemency Order, even though it was later repealed, all of Lino’s police records from when he was a minor were deleted. What can you tell me about the trouble he’d been in?”

“He stole. Shoplifting, that was first. Little things, foolish things… at first. If I found out, I made him go back to the store with me, take back what he stole. Or I’d pay for it. He broke into places after they’d closed, and into cars on the street.”

She sighed, then reached for the water Eve had on the table. “He broke windows, tagged buildings, started fights. The police would come, take him, question him. He went to detention, but it didn’t help. It was worse after. He got into more fights, worse fights. He’d come home bloody, and we’d argue. They said he cut a boy, and put him in the hospital, but the other boy said no. He lied, I know, but the boy said he didn’t see who cut him. He killed, my Lino. He took a life.”

“Whose life?”

“I don’t know. They never came for him, never arrested him, not for that. It was always smaller things. But I knew he’d killed. I knew what it meant the night he came home with the mark under the tattoo on his arm. We fought-terrible, terrible fight. I called him a killer. I called my son a murderer.”

She broke then, tears rolling. Pulling out a tissue, she mopped at her ravaged face. “He told me I didn’t understand, that he did what he had to do, and he was proud. Proud, and now the others, they knew he was a man. Now, he had respect. He was fifteen years old. Fifteen years old when he came home with the kill mark still raw on his arm.”

She stopped, struggled. “I wanted to get him out of the city. If I could get him away from the streets, the gangs. But when I told him what I planned to do, that I was buying two bus tickets to El Paso… My godmother lived there, and said she’d let us come, help me find work.”

“Your godmother?”

“A friend of my mother’s, from their childhood. My mother was dead. My father beat her to death when I was sixteen. I ran away, and he beat her to death. So I married the same kind of man. I know it’s typical, it’s a cycle. It’s a sickness. But my godmother had a house and work, and she said to come. I told Lino, and he refused. I threatened, argued, and he went out, slammed out. He was gone a week.”

She stopped, sipped water.

“Terri, it’s enough.” Tony stroked her arm. “It’s enough now.”

“No, I’ll finish. I’ll finish it. I went to the police, afraid then he was dead. But a boy like Lino, he knew how to hide. He came back when he wanted. And he told me I could go, but he wouldn’t. Go, he said, he didn’t need me. But if I thought I could make him go, he’d just run again. He wouldn’t leave his family. He wouldn’t leave the Soldados. So I stayed. He defeated me. He lived as he chose, and I allowed it.”

Eve let her get it out. “He kept the medal, Mrs. Franco.”

Teresa looked at her, eyes blurry with tears and gratitude.

“Mrs. Franco, you said he’d left before, for days, even a week. But this last time he told you he was leaving-leaving New York, when he’d objected and refused to leave New York before, when you had somewhere to go.”

“Yes, yes, that’s true. I didn’t believe him, even when he packed his things. I didn’t really believe he was leaving, and part of me hoped he was. That’s a terrible thing to feel, but I did. Still, I thought he was just angry, in a mood. I know he’d fought with Joe-Joe Inez-about something, and Lino was so mad at him. I wondered since it was just Lino and the Chávez boy planning to leave, if Lino had fought with Penny.”

“What were they fighting about? Lino and Joe Inez?”

“I don’t know. He never told me his business, the gang business. Lino didn’t talk to me about that kind of thing. But I know they were all mad, all upset about the bombing at the school. The neighborhood was in an uproar. A girl died. A young girl. Other kids had been hurt. Lino had cuts and burns. One of his friends-one of the other Soldados-was very badly hurt, in the hospital. They thought he might die. We held a prayer service at St. Cristóbal’s for him. He got better, but it took a long time. It took months and several operations, I think.”

“There was another explosion, and there were several fatalities, only days later.”

“Yes, it was horrible. They thought it was retaliation-the other gang members said, and people were scared there’d be more violence. The police came to talk to Lino, to question him, but he was gone.”

“He left New York after the second explosion.”

“No, before. Two days before. I remember thanking God he’d gone, that he didn’t have a part in that, in taking those lives.”

“How did he leave New York?”

“By bus. I think. It was all so fast, so quick. I came home and he was packing. He said he’d come back one day, rich, he’d be somebody. He’d be the most important man in El Barrio. More than Mr. Ortiz, Mr. Ortega, others who were rich and had position. Big car, big house. Big dreams.” She closed her eyes. “A couple weeks later, when I went to pay the rent, I found out he’d taken the money out of my account. He’d gotten into my bank account by the computer, he was clever that way. He stole from me before he left, and I had to ask Mr. Ortiz for a loan, an advance to pay the rent. Lino, he’d send money now and then, as if that made it all right that he’d stolen from me so I had to beg for money to pay the rent.

“He was my child,” she finished, “but he was his father’s son.”

“I appreciate all you’ve done, Mrs. Franco, and I’m sorry for all you’ve lost. As soon as I’m able, I’ll notify you so you can make arrangements for your son.”

After she’d led them out, she went to her office. At her desk, she checked access for the case files she wanted, found Whitney had come through.

She got coffee, sat, and as she read made notes of the names of the investigating officers, the witnesses, the victims, the fatalities.

She stopped on Lino’s name, saw the notation that the subject could not be located, and the statement from Teresa about him leaving town two days prior. A statement corroborated by others. Including Penny Soto.

Joe Inez had been questioned and released, alibied up tight. And he, too, had corroborated Teresa’s statement regarding Lino. The investigators had canvassed the neighborhoods, hit all of Lino’s and Chávez’s known haunts, followed up at transpo stations. Lino had gone into the wind-and reading between the lines of the detective’s report, he hadn’t believed Lino had blown prior to the incident.

“Hey, me either,” Eve concurred. She took what she had and headed out to take a swing at Penny.

The lawyer wore a chunk of gold the size of home plate on the middle finger of his right hand, and a suit the color of radioactive limes. There was enough oil in his hair to fry a small army of chickens, and his teeth were a blinding white gleam.

Eve thought: Do you actually want to be a cliché?

He got out of his chair when she entered and rose to his full five feet, five inches. And an inch of that came from the heels of his snake-patterned boots.

“My client’s waited over two hours,” he began, “and nearly all of that without benefit of legal counsel.”

“Uh-huh.” Eve sat down, opened her file. “Your legal counsel, which I assume is this.” Eve glanced up at the lawyer. “Should be aware that two hours is well within the reasonable time frame, and that you haven’t been questioned since you requested counsel. Therefore, he should sit down so we don’t waste any more time. Record on.” She read off the salients, cocked her brow at the lawyer. “Ms. Soto is represented by?”

“Carlos Montoya.”

“Who is present. Mr. Montoya, did you present your identification and license to practice for scan?”

“I did.”

“Good. Ms. Soto, you’ve been read your rights, and have stated you understand them, and your obligations in this matter.”

“It’s all shit.”

“But you understand all the shit?”

Penny shrugged. “I understand fine, just like I understand me and my lawyer are going to sue your ass for false arrest.”

“Won’t that be fun? You’re charged with assaulting an officer, which includes assault with a weapon and resisting arrest.”

“I never touched you.”

“As the touchee, I beg to differ. However, I’d be willing to negotiate those charges if you find yourself now willing and able to answer questions regarding Lino Martinez, and events pertaining to him.”

“I told you already, I haven’t seen Lino since I was fifteen.”

“You lied.”

“My client-”

“Is a liar, but you probably get that a lot. Me, too. The body of Lino Martinez has been officially identified. We are aware he posed as one Father Miguel Flores for a period of more than five years, and frequented the bodega where you work. We are aware of your previous relationship. You want to keep insisting you didn’t know, then we’ll stick with the assault and resisting, and given your record, you’ll be doing a little time in a cage.”

Eve closed the file, started to rise.

“I’m not doing time for knocking your hand away when you went to grab me.”

“Oh yeah, you are, and for pulling a knife, for spitting in my face, and resisting. And since you don’t know me, let me point out to you-and your counsel-that if you had even one private conversation with Lino Martinez, met him anywhere, any time outside the bodega, I’m going to find out. Then I’m going to knock you back for making a false statement-and I’m going to start wondering if you got your hands on some cyanide, then-”

“This is bullshit.”

Eve only smiled, turned for the door.

“Wait a damn minute. I want to talk to my lawyer before I say another thing.”

“Pause record. I’ll just step out so you two can chat.”

Eve left them, considered risking Vending for a tube of Pepsi, but decided it wasn’t going to take that long. Inside three minutes, Montoya came to the door.

“My client may be willing to amend her statement.”

“Okeydokey.” Eve stepped back in, sat, smiled, folded her hands. “Resume record.” Waited.

“If my client addresses your questions regarding Lino Martinez, you will drop the charges currently against her.”

“If she answers truthfully, to my satisfaction, she gets a pass on the charges.”

“Go ahead, Penny.”

“Maybe I kinda had this feeling, this vibe, you know, when he started coming in. He didn’t look like Lino, or not a lot. But there was something. And after a while, maybe we flirted some. Weird, him being a priest, and I don’t like the holier-than-thou types. But Lino and I, we always had something. We made it a lot back in the day, and I kept getting this buzz from him.”

“Did you start banging before or after you knew who he was?”

Penny smirked. “Before. I think he got off on it. Maybe I did, too. Back room of the bodega, after closing. Man, he hammered me. Pent up, you know? Had to figure it was all that celibacy song. Couple times after, we’d meet at this flop a friend of mine has. She works nights. Or we’d use a rent-by-the-hour. Then this one time, after we’d made it, he tells me. We had a big laugh.”

“Did he tell you what happened to Father Flores?”

“What did I care? How’m I supposed to know there ever was one?”

“Why was he masquerading as a priest?”

“He wanted to come back, lay low. He liked people looking at him like he was a big deal, he liked the respect.”

“Five years, Penny. Don’t string me. What was the angle?”

“He liked the secrets, too, the sins. He used them when he could, when he wanted.”

“Blackmail?”

“He had some ready, sure. More than a priest earns. When he was in the mood, he’d get us a room at a fancy hotel, and we’d order room service and shit. Paid cash.”

“Did he buy you things?”

“Sure.” She flipped her finger at one of her earrings. “Lino wasn’t stingy.”

“He trusted you a lot.”

“Lino and I went back, all the way back. We needed each other. That’s what this is about.” She slapped her palm on her tattoo. “This is family, and it’s protection. My mother was useless, more interested in her next fix than me. More interested in that than stopping my old man from moving on me. Barely twelve years old the first time he raped me. Slapped me around good, too, and he tells me I’ll keep my mouth shut about it, and he won’t slap me around next time. Kept it shut for two years before I couldn’t take it anymore. I joined the Soldados, and I got family.”

“Your data states that your father was killed when you were fourteen. Stabbed. Cut to pieces.”

“No loss.”

“Did you kill him?”

“My client’s not going to answer that. Don’t answer that, Penny.”

Penny only smiled, rubbed a fingertip on her kill mark.

“You and Lino,” Eve concluded. “Makes a hell of a bond. And two years later, he’s smoke. Gone.”

“Nothing lasts forever.”

“Were you in on the planning of the Skull bombing?”

“My-”

Penny held up a finger to stop her lawyer. “Questioned and released, a long time ago. Nobody ever proved that was Soldado work.”

“People died.”

“Happens every day.”

“Lino planned it. He was one of the leaders, and he had the skills.”

“I guess you’ll never know, seeing as he’s dead.”

“Yeah, he’s dead. You’re not. And your legal counsel will tell you there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

“You can’t hang it on me now any more than they could then.”

“What was Lino waiting for? When was payday, Penny?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes skittered away. “He’s dead, so I guess we can’t ask him.”

“Where’s Steve Chávez?”

“Don’t know. Can’t say.” She yawned. “We done?”

“Lino was marking time, picking up some grease along the way so he could show off, live high, then duck back under the collar. A man doesn’t do that for five years so he can bang an old girlfriend.”

“He loved me. We used to talk about taking off, making a big score, and coming back riding high. Never worked out, but he came back.”

“Do you have an alibi for the day of his death?”

“I opened the bodega at six A.M., along with Rosita. We did the prep, and worked the breakfast counter for three hours straight. Around ten, Pep and I-stock boy-took our break together in the back room, then I was back on the counter when the first cops came in asking questions. And I heard he was dead.”

“What did you do then?”

“Worked my shift, went home. What was I supposed to do?”

“All right. You’re free to go.”

“About damn time.”

Eve waited until they’d left the room. She sat alone, in silence another full minute. “Record off,” she said.

When she was back in her office, standing, staring out the tiny window, Peabody came in.

“Any luck with Penny?”

“Yeah. A twisted mix of lies and truth. More lies than, but enough truth to get a picture. She claims she doesn’t know what happened to the real Flores-lie. That she doesn’t know what Lino was waiting for here-lie. She admits no knowledge of the bombing. Not a lie, more a ‘Prove it, bitch.’ Same with Chávez’s whereabouts. She said Lino loved her. I think that’s truth, or she believes it to be. She never said she loved him. If she had, it would’ve been a lie. But she had been banging him for the past few years.”

“If they’ve been having it on for that long, he told her what he was up to.”

“Yeah. I think he may have helped her kill the first time, earn her mark-maybe they earned them together as the timing jibes with Teresa’s statement. Her father. He’d been sexually abusing her. She had enough. They cut him up.”

“She admitted-”

“No. She admitted the abuse, and that was truth. She admitted she’d joined the gang at fourteen to escape it, to make family, for protection. Her father was found hacked to pieces in an abandoned building when she was fourteen. He was a known dealer, and the cops put it down to an illegals deal gone bad. Probably didn’t work it very hard. Why bother? She and Lino would’ve been covered for it anyway. Others in the gang would’ve alibied them, or threatened someone else into it.”

She heard Peabody close the office door, turned.

“Are you doing okay?” Peabody asked.

“Yes.” Eve walked to the AutoChef, programmed coffee. “Let’s keep going. We’re going to want to dig back into that case file. I’ve got the case files for the bombings, and we’ll need to reach out to the investigators. I need to put some pressure on Penny. More pressure than a couple months in over slapping at a cop.”

“Do you think she killed Lino?”

“We’ll check her alibi, but I bet it’s nice and tight. She had it ready for me, and on a platter. No, she’s the hothead. I don’t think she did the kill. But I think she’s connected. At the very least she knows who did.”

“Maybe they had a fight. Lovers’ tangle.”

“Maybe. I can’t see her going five years without getting pissed off at a lover. Or being exclusive,” she said slowly, and handed one of the coffee mugs to Peabody. “Let’s find out if she was banging anybody else besides Lino. Lino used his confessional privileges to blackmail when it suited him. Can’t see him hitting up for nickels. So we see who’d use the church who had enough to make paying for sin worthwhile. And we need full information on the victims and fatalities of the restaurant bombing.”

“You know how I said I thought it was starting to fall into place? Now it feels like it’s spreading out all over.”

“Just more pieces. They’re going to fall somewhere. Let’s start with the bombings, work forward. The primary investigator’s still on the job. Contact Detective Stuben, out of the Four-six. See if he and/or his old partner have time for a sit-down.”

“Okay. Dallas.” She wanted to say more, it was all over her face. The need to comfort or reassure.

“Right now let’s just work the case, Peabody. That’s it.”

With a nod, Peabody stepped out, and Eve turned back to the window. Time enough, Eve thought, time enough later to feel it, to let herself feel any empathy or connection to another young girl who’d killed to escape the brutality of her father.

She finished off her coffee, then requested the case files for the Soto murder. And was grateful that Peabody buzzed through with an affirmative from Stuben before she had the chance to dig into them.

Stuben wanted to meet at a deli by his own cop shop. He was already packing into a mystery sandwich and a side of slaw when Eve and Peabody arrived. “Detective Stuben, Lieutenant Dallas. My partner, Detective Peabody.” Eve offered a hand. “Thanks for taking the time.”

“Not a problem.” His voice was tough-edged Bronx. “Getting my lunch in. Food’s good here, if you want to eat and meet.”

“Wouldn’t mind.” Eve settled on a steamed dog and some sort of pasta curls, and noted Peabody was offsetting her morning burrito with a melon plate.

“Kohn, my old partner’s off on a fishing trip. Testing retirement out, see if it suits him before he takes the jump,” Stuben began. “If you want to talk to him, he’s due back tomorrow.”

Stuben dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin. “I used to take that file out every couple months, the first year or two after the bombings. I guess longer.” He shook his head, bit into his sandwich. “Take it out again, review, maybe do more follow-ups once or twice a year for another stretch. Dack, too-my partner. We’d sit down like this, over a meal or a brew, and go through it again. Ten, twelve years down, I’d still get it out. Some of them don’t leave you alone.”

“No, they don’t.”

“That area, it was going through a bad time then. Couldn’t bring itself back after the Urbans. We didn’t have enough street cops, not enough on the gang patrols. And the gangs shoved it up our ass, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Did you know Lino Martinez?”

“I knew the little bastard, and the rest of them. I worked those streets when I was in uniform. He was a badass by the time he was eight. Stealing, tagging stores, busting things up just to bust them. His mother, she tried. I’d see her dragging him to school, to church. I caught him with a pocketful of Jazz when he was about ten. I let him off, ’cause of the mother.”

“Did you know Nick Soto?”

“Dealer, street tough, liked to rough up women. Slippery bastard. Then someone slipped a knife in him. Fifty, sixty times. I didn’t work that one, but I knew him some.”

“Did anyone talk to the daughter or Lino on that one?”

He paused, rubbed a finger over his cheek. “Had to. Lino and the Soto kid were tight. The fact is, I think she was worse than he was, worse than Lino. He stole something, it was for money. He beat the shit out of somebody, there was a reason. Kid had a purpose. Her? Carried hate around in her. She stole, it was to take it from somebody else. She beat the shit out of someone, it was for the hell of it. You’re sniffing at them for that case?”

“I had Penny Soto in on something today. She claims her father raped her, regularly. That didn’t come out.”

“Like I said, I didn’t work it. But I knew some of the particulars.” He shook his head. “That had come out, I’d know.”

“You looked for Lino after the bombing.”

“He’d taken over the Soldados by then, him and Chávez served as captains. The site wasn’t strict Skull territory. It was in the disputed turf, but plenty of them hung there. It was retaliation. I know it was Soldados, and the Soldados didn’t breathe without Lino telling them to. Mrs. Martinez said Lino took off, two days before the bombing.”

He shook his head. “I had to believe her, or I had to believe she believed it. She let us go through the place. No sign of him, and we checked with neighbors, and not all of them had any love for the son of a bitch. Got the same story. He lit out before the incident. We put the heat on the Soldados, and turned it up. We couldn’t get one of them to refute that. Not one. But they did it, Lieutenant, they set it up, Martinez and Chávez. I know it in my guts.”

“My guts say the same.”

“Have you got a line on them? Either of them?”

“I’ve got Lino Martinez in the morgue.”

Stuben scooped up noodles. “Best place for him.”

“How about any of the alternate gangs? Would any of them take a hit at Lino after all this time?”

“Skulls, Bloods. Most of them are dead, gone, or locked up. Always a few around, both sides of that. But that fire’s been out a long while. How’d he buy it?”

“You’ve heard about the murder at St. Cristóbal’s? The one posing as a priest.”

“Martinez?”

“Yeah. How’s that play for you, him going under like that for five years-in plain sight?”

Stuben sat back, gave it some thought over his tube of cream soda. “He was wily. He had brains and could stay frosty. It was hard, even when he was a kid, to pin anything on him. Knew how to cover his tracks, or get someone to do it for him. He fought his way up to the top level of the Soldados by the time he was sixteen. Had to be something in it for him, some game. Something big to keep him under. You had the Soto girl in on this?”

“Today.”

“She’d have known, no question in my mind. He came back, he’d go to Penny Soto. Lino had a weak spot, she was it. He made her a lieutenant, and she’s not fifteen, for Christ’s sake. Word was, there was some dissention in the ranks about that. Lino took out the dissenter with a pipe, and let her kick the shit out of him. ’Course, the dissenter claimed, from his hospital bed with his jaw wired, that he fell down some stairs. Back then? You couldn’t work one of them against the other. They’d take a knife to the heart first.”

“Times change.”

Stuben nodded. “They do. You might try Joe Inez.”

“I ran it by him once. Weak link?” she asked, but for courtesy as she already knew.

“That’d be the one. Joe, he didn’t have the kill switch in him. Didn’t have the hardness for it.”

“Is there anyone else I should talk to? Any other former members? I’ve got a couple people working on getting me names, but you’d know better.”

“I can tell you anybody who was top rungs back that time, they’re gone. Dead, in a cage, or in the wind. Some are still around, but they’d’ve been rank and file. Martinez and Chávez were in charge. And Soto. She took it over when they lit out.”

“I appreciate it, Detective.”

“You get anything leads to closing the bombing, we’re square.”

She got to her feet, paused. “One more thing. The families of the victims. Are you in touch?”

“Now and then.”

“If I need to, can I tap you again on this?”

“You know where to find me.”