Salvation in Death

“Father Flores was traveling out West when he disappeared, nearly seven years ago. We’ve done some back-checking, and Lino Martinez drops off the grid at about the same time. He moved on and off prior to that. Changing identities, from what we’ve been able to ascertain. Identity theft has been part of his style, and one of his skills.”

  “It was always so. He was bright. A bright boy, and smart with electronics. He could have used it for his education, to build a good life, a career. Instead, it was part of his path into the gang. His usefulness in that area. Mother of God.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Did it come to this? Is he dead?” She began to rock. “Is he dead? Please, I need my husband. I need my family. I need to see my son. I need to see Lino.”

  “You haven’t seen him in twenty years, and he changed his appearance. Would you recognize him?”

  Teresa dropped her hands, and the tears fell with them. “He’s still my son.”

  Eve picked up the evidence bag in Teresa’s lap. “I’ll make arrangements for you to view the body.”

  A shudder moved through Teresa. “Please, can it be tomorrow? After my boy is in school. I don’t want him to know. . . . Maybe it’s a mistake, and he won’t ever have to know. If it’s not, I want to find the right way to tell him about his brother.”

  “Tomorrow morning. I can have transportation sent to you.”

  “Please don’t. The neighbors . . .” She choked on a sob, covered her mouth with her hand. “I know how that sounds. It sounds shameful and selfish. But my life is here. My little boy’s life is here. We’ve had no trouble with the police. You can look, you can ask. He’s a good boy. My husband, he’s a good man. You can—”

  “Mrs. Franco, we don’t want to bring you any trouble. I can tell you where to come, and meet you there. What time will your son be in school?”

  “My boy’s in school by eight. We can come to the city, my husband and I. We’ll leave as soon as our boy’s in school. My husband can—”

  “Okay. It’s okay. Nine o’clock.” Eve pulled out a card, wrote down the particulars. “Go here, ask for me. I’ll make the arrangements.”

  “We’ll come. We’ll be there, me and Tony, but . . . I need to go home now. Please, I just . . . I need to tell Sophia that I’m not feeling well, and need to go home.”

  “All right. Mrs. Franco,” Eve said as Teresa rose. “Why did Lino leave New York at seventeen?”

  The dark eyes that had been so rich and warm were dull now. “To get rich, to be important. ‘When I come back,’ he said to me, ‘I’ll be a rich man, and we’ll live in a big house. A big house like Mr. Ortiz. I’ll be somebody.’ ”

  “One more thing. Can you give me the names of friends he was closest to? Other gang members?”

  “Steve Chávez was his closest friend, and the worst of them. He and Steve left together.” Teresa pressed her fingers to her eyes, rubbed hard. “Joe Inez, Penny Soto. Penny was his girlfriend. Others, there were others. Some are dead or gone. I’ll think, and write them down for you. But please, I need to go home.”

  “I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

  Eve stepped out of the office behind Teresa, watched her hurry to the woman who’d seated them. “I guess we should leave her a big tip,” Eve observed. “But either way, I pretty much ruined her night.”

  14

  EVE RAN THE THREE NAMES TERESA HAD GIVEN her as Roarke drove home. “Chávez, Steven, has himself a long, crowded sheet, in various states. Assault, assault with deadly, couple of illegals pop, sexual assault—acquitted—grand theft auto, fraud, robbery. Crossing lots of state lines, and gracing many state facilities to do his penance.”

  “A traveling badass,” Roarke commented.

  “Arrested numerous times and/or questioned and released. A bit over seven years ago he got popped for possessing stolen goods, made bail and walked away. That was in Arizona.” She glanced over at Roarke.

  “And the last time Teresa had contact with Lino was seven years ago, in Nevada. A neighbor of Arizona.”

  “What do you bet he and Lino hooked up and had some old times’ sake over a brew?”

  “Only a sucker would bet against it. Where is he now?”

  “Dropped off the grid, just about the same time Lino did. Inez and Soto are still in New York. Inez is a maintenance mechanic at an apartment complex in the old neighborhood. Did some time for robbery in his late teens. A slap for drunk and disorderly after his release. Scans clean since, more than a decade of clean since. Soto has hits on illegals—sale and possession, sexual solicitation without a license, assault. She’s recently off parole—and, isn’t this handy, is employed at the bodega next door to St. Cristóbal’s. I’m really enjoying the coincidences.”

  “Who could blame you? Which one are we going to see?”

  It was a pretty lucky cop, Eve thought, who hooked a guy that easy about the work and the hours. “I could catch them both in the morning, but . . . since Inez lives in the building where he works, he’s a pretty sure bet.” She reeled off the address. “Thanks.”

  “You’ll owe me, as this sort of cop work is fairly tedious. All this talking, and no one’s trying to kill us.”

  “Well, it can’t be fun all the time. But maybe Joe will pull a sticker and try to take us out.”

  “Don’t placate me, Eve.”

  She laughed, stretched out her legs. “You want to talk deadly? Peabody had a meet today with Nadine and Louise, about planning this prewedding girl party. I’m hosting it, apparently, but they’ve relieved me of any actual duties.”

  “That doesn’t sound deadly. In fact, it sounds quite sane and safe.”

  “I guess. I drew the line at games and strippers. Figured I can handle anything else. Which means probably sitting around drinking girly drinks and eating cake.” At least the cake part was a good deal, Eve thought. “I probably have to buy Louise a present.”

  She slid a look in his direction.

  “No,” he said definitely. “I won’t be taking on that little chore for you as I have no more idea than you what would be the appropriate gift for a wedding shower.”

  As that small hope dissolved, her shoulders slumped. “There are entirely too many presents attached to too many things. And after this, we’ll have to buy them a wedding present, right? What the hell do you buy for two adults who both already have everything they want—or can buy it themselves—anyway?”

  “They’re outfitting an entire house,” he reminded her. “I spoke with Peabody’s mother about making them a tea set. Pot, cups, saucers, and so on. She’s an excellent and creative potter.”

  “Huh. That was a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that idea for the Louise present?” She brooded over it for a short time. “Inez is the only one of the group Teresa named who ever married.”

  “And how we wind around,” Roarke commented.

  “It just made me think—you know, showers, weddings. He’s the only one who got married, had kids.”

  “And the only one who, at least, appears to have rehabilitated himself.”

  “I don’t know if one has to do with the other, but it’s interesting. Then there’s Teresa herself. The way it reads, she got knocked up, married a wrong guy. Got kicked around, did what she could, or did what she thought she had to. Guy takes off, and she raises the kid on her own. Supports them, but she can’t keep the kid out of trouble. Then the kid takes off. She gets married again, to a decent guy, and has another kid. Makes a decent life, and this kid stays out of trouble.”

  “Is it nature or nurture?”

  “It’s both. It’s always both, and more, it’s about making choices. Still, Lino spent the first few years of his life watching his mother get knocked around, watching the father abuse her. So he hears about the Solas bastard beating on his wife, sticking it to his daughter, he breaks out of the priest mold long enough to kick some ass. His weak spot. He carried that medal—didn’t see his mother, didn’t come home to her, but he carried the medal she gave him.”

  “And sent he
r money occasionally.”

  “Yeah. Going to come home a rich man—important. Nothing like that bastard who knocked his mother up. That’ll be an underlying factor in his pathology. If we give a rat’s ass.”

  “Why do you?”

  She said nothing for a few moments. “She knew he was lost. Teresa. She knew there was something in him that she could never pull out, get rid of. Something that made him take the course he did. She’s got her good life now, and still, she’s going to grieve for him. Hell, she already is.”

  “Yes. She is.”

  “And when I can clear it and give it to her, she’ll keep that medal for the rest of her life. Her reminder of her little boy. I’ve interviewed people who knew him these past few years, worked closely with him, and they liked him. Respected him, enjoyed him. I think he was a stone-cold killer, or at least someone who killed or did whatever he wanted when it was expedient. But there was something there, something buried under the hard case. Sometimes you wonder why, that’s all. Why it gets buried.”

  “He wanted more,” Roarke said. “Wanted what he couldn’t have, or didn’t want to earn. That kind of desire can overtake all the rest.”

  She paused a moment. “You were going to be a rich man. Important. That was the goal.”

  “It was.”

  “But you never buried who you were under that goal.”

  “You see the parallels, and wonder. For me, the legal lines were . . . options. More, they were challenges. And I had Summerset, as a kind of compass at a time when I might have taken a much darker path.”

  “You wouldn’t have taken it. Too much pride.”

  His brow winged up. “Is that so?”

  “You always knew it wasn’t just the money. Money’s security, and it’s a symbol. But it’s not the thing. It’s knowing what to do with it. Lots of people have money. They make it or they take it. But not everybody builds something with it. He wouldn’t have. Lino. If he’d gotten the rich, he’d still never have gotten the important. And, for a short time, he stole the important.”

  “The priest’s collar.”

  “In the world he came back to, that made him important. I bet he liked the taste of it, the power of it. It’s why he could stick it out so long.”

  “A little too long, obviously.”

  “Yeah.” How much longer had he needed to go? she wondered. How much longer before he’d have collected on those riches and that honor? “Teresa may not be able to confirm the ID—actually, I can’t figure how she could. But it’s Lino Martinez in that steel drawer downtown. Now I just have to figure out who wanted him dead, and why.”

  Maybe Joe Inez would have some of the answers. Eve studied the twelve-story apartment building, a tidy, quiet block of concrete and steel with an auto-secured entrance and riot bars on the windows of the first two levels.

  She bypassed security with her master and took a scan of the small lobby. It smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and boasted a fake fichus tree in a colorful pot and two chairs arranged together on a speckled white floor.

  “He’s 2A.” She eschewed the two skinny elevators and took the stairs with Roarke. Muted sounds leaked from apartments into the corridor—shows on entertainment screens, crying babies, salsa music. But the walls and doors were clean, as the lobby had been. The ceiling lights all gleaming.

  From a glance, Inez did his job.

  She knocked on 2A. The door opened almost immediately. A boy of around ten with a wedge of hair flopping over his forehead in the current style of airboard fanatics stood slurping on a sports drink. “Yo,” he said.

  “Yo,” Eve said. “I’d like to speak to Joe Inez.” She held up her badge.

  The badge had him lowering the drink, and his eyes going wide with a combination of surprise and excitement. “Yeah? How come?”

  “Because.”

  “You got a warrant or anything?” The kid leaned on the open door, took another slurp of his bright orange drink. As if, Eve thought, they were hanging out at the game. “They always ask that on the screen and stuff.”

  “Your father do anything illegal?” Eve countered, and the boy phffted out a breath.

  “As if. Dad! Hey, Dad, cops are at the door.”

  “Mitch, quit screwing around and get back to your homework. Your mom’s gonna . . .” The man who walked in from another room, wiping his hands on his pants, stopped short. Eve saw the cop awareness come into his eyes. “Sorry. Mitch, go finish getting the twins settled in.”

  “Aw, come on.”

  “Now,” Inez said, and jerked his thumb.

  The boy muttered under his breath, hunched his shoulders, but headed in the direction his father indicated.

  “Can I help you with something?” Inez asked.

  “Joe Inez?”

  “That’s right.”

  Eve looked, deliberately, at the tattoo on his left forearm. “Soldados.”

  “Once upon a time. What’s this about?”

  “Lino Martinez.”

  “Lino?” The surprise came into his eyes as quickly as it had his son’s, but with none of the excitement. What Eve saw in them was dread. “Is he back?”

  “We’d like to come in.”

  Inez raked both hands through his hair, then stepped back. “I got kid duty. It’s my wife’s girls’ night. I don’t know how long Mitch can keep the twins in line.”

  “Then we’ll get right to it. When did you last have contact with Lino Martinez?”

  “Jesus. Must be fifteen years ago. Couple more maybe. He took off when we were still kids. About sixteen, seventeen.”

  “You’ve had no contact with him in all this time?”

  “We had some hard words before he left.”

  “About?”

  Something shuttered over his eyes. “Hell, who remembers?”

  “You were both members of a gang known for its violence, and its blood ties.”

  “Yeah. I got this to remind me, and to make damn sure my kids don’t make the same mistakes. I did some time, you know that already. I drank, and I kicked it. I’ve been clean for almost thirteen years now. When’s it going to be long enough?”

  “Why did Lino take off?”

  “He wanted out, I guess. He and Steve—Steve Chávez—said they were heading to Mexico. Maybe they did. I only know they took off together, and I haven’t seen or heard from either of them since.”

  “Do you go to church?”

  “What’s it to you?” At Eve’s steady stare, he sighed. “I try to make it most Sundays.”

  “You attend St. Cristóbal’s?”

  “Sure, that’s . . . This is about that priest.” Relief bloomed on his face. “About the one who died at the funeral. Old Mr. Ortiz’s funeral. I couldn’t make it, had a plumbing problem up on the fifth floor. Are you talking to everyone in the parish, or just former gang members?”

  “Did you know Flores?”

  “No, not really. I mean, I saw him around now and then. Most Sundays we’d go to the nine o’clock Mass. My wife liked to hear Father López’s sermons, and that was fine by me as he usually keeps them short.”

  “Your boys don’t go to the youth center.”

  “Mitch, he’s wild for airboarding. Doesn’t give a shit about team sports, at this stage anyway. The twins are only five and—” Whoops and shouts burst from the back of the apartment. Inez smiled grimly. “Right now, we’re keeping them on a short leash.”

  “What about Penny Soto?”

  His eyes shifted, went cold. “She’s around the neighborhood, sure. We’ve got different lives now. I’ve got a family, a good job here. I stopped looking for trouble a long time ago.”

  “What kind of trouble was Lino Martinez in when he took off?”

  It was in his eyes again, a knowledge, a fear, a regret. “I can’t help you with that. Lino was always in trouble. Listen, I can’t leave those three back there by themselves. I don’t know anything about Flores, and as for Lino? This is the only thing we’ve had in common for a real lon
g time.” He tapped the tattoo. “I gotta ask you to leave so I can keep my boys from beating on each other.”

  Something there,” Eve said when they were outside. “Something went down, and the something is why Lino went rabbit all those years back.”

  “But you don’t think he knew Lino was back.”

  “No, didn’t buzz for me. He wants to be done with all that, gets pissed off when he’s not. Can’t blame him, really. He’s got a parallel going with Teresa. He built a new life, and he wants to keep it. But there’s Lino.”

  She got in the car, sat back. “There’s Lino,” she repeated when Roarke slid behind the wheel. “An obstacle, a reminder, a weight, whatever you want to term it. And Lino is that element of the past, of the mistakes, of the trouble, of the hardship that shadows the new life. And his being dead, for these two? It doesn’t change that.”

  He pulled out, headed toward home. “If whatever went down to send Lino running from New York was big enough, we can find it. Media search of that time would turn it up.”

  “Maybe. But you know, the mother didn’t get that look in her eyes. That ‘oh shit, here it comes again’ look Inez got. Why didn’t she know? Her take was he left to get rich and important, not because he was running. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.” She scrubbed at her face. “I’m getting conflicting vibes on this case. Everyone I talk to has a different pop for me. I need to sort it out.”

  “You’re learning who he was now.”

  “Need the official ID to make that, well, official. But yeah, I’m getting a picture. Gonna have to skip church tomorrow,” she decided, and sent a text to Peabody’s mail with the change.

  “I don’t suppose it counts against you as you’ll be skipping church to interview Soto, and identify your victim.”

  “Hmm. Still want to hook López. Hit him at the rectory after Soto. Girlfriend,” she mused. “Childhood connections. I don’t really have any. You do. How far does the loyalty go?”

  “That’s much too vague and open-ended a question for a definitive answer.”

  “A friend from back in the old days did something, or didn’t do something, that caused a rift between you—something that you argued about, disagreed about. He takes off. Do you continue to protect him? Do you keep it zipped for all time because you were once, let’s say, part of the same team?”