“You answer this one question.” Eve stepped closer so that her face was close to Joe’s. She kept her voice low, her eyes hard on his. “I haven’t read you your rights. You know what that means?”
“Yeah. But—”
“I want an answer to this before we go forward, before anything you tell me is on the record. Did you kill anyone, or have part in killing anyone?”
“No, Jesus, no, that’s—”
“Don’t say anything else. Don’t tell me anything. I’m going to have you taken to an interview room. You’re going to wait there until I make some arrangements.” She poked her head into the bullpen, snagged a uniform. “Take Mr. and Mrs. Inez to Interview B. Sit with them.” Eve turned back to them. “You’ve got nothing to say until I tell you to say it.”
She went straight to her office, contacted APA Cher Reo. “You need to get down here, but before you do, I need you to approve immunity for a witness.”
“Oh sure.” The pretty blonde waved a graceful hand. “Just let me get my special magic immunity wand.”
“I’ve got a wit, one who just came in voluntarily that may close out two cases that’ve been open for seventeen years and involved six deaths. The wit may give information that leads to an arrest in those matters.”
“What—”
Eve plowed right over her. “In addition, I’m about to close the St. Cristóbal’s homicide with two arrests. The wit was a minor at the time of the earlier incident, and would likely fall under the idiotic Clemency Order, or it could so be argued if there were charges brought. You do deals with scum to get bigger scum every day of the goddamn week, Reo. I’m talking family man here, one who comes off as doing a one-eighty on where his life was going. You authorize immunity, or I’m cutting him loose.”
“I can’t just—”
“Don’t tell me what you can’t. Make it work. Get back to me.” Eve clicked off, contacted Mira’s office. “I don’t care what she’s doing,” Eve began when the ferocious admin answered. “I need to speak with her now. Put me through, or I’m coming down there.”
The screen went to hot, waiting blue.
Moments later, Mira came on. “Eve?”
“I need you in Observation,” Eve began, and explained. “Maybe I’m wrong,” she added. “You’ll know if I’m wrong.”
“I can be there in about twenty minutes.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
She made the last call to Feinburg, and set in motion the last of her plan. When Reo tagged her back, Eve grabbed the ’link.
“I’m on my way. Immunity isn’t out of the question, but I need more information.”
“The wit was approximately seventeen years old, and a member of the Soldados when the bombings in 2043 occurred.”
“Jesus, Dallas, if he was part of that—”
“I believe his part, if any, was minor, and after the fact. And that he can give us information on the major players. Later today, I’m going to be picking up the only one of them I believe is still alive, as part of the St. Cristóbal’s arrest. They could skate on this anyway, Reo, but what he gives me would be another nail for you to hammer.”
“The Clemency Order’s a murky area as it was revoked. If a suspect wasn’t arrested and charged during the time it was in place, and information after its repeal—”
“Don’t lawyer me, Reo. You’re going to give my wit immunity.” No, she couldn’t stop them all, Eve thought. She couldn’t save them all. But she could save some. “I’m not taking this guy down for it.”
“What’s the wit’s name?”
“It’s going to be Mr. X until you give me the damn immunity.”
“Goddamn it, what is he, your brother? All right, conditional immunity. If he did murder, Dallas, I’m not giving him a wash.”
“Good enough.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Interview B. You may want to clear your slate for the rest of the day. It’s going to be a long one.”
She swung out, met up with Peabody, and went in to talk to Joe Inez.
“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, in interview with Inez, Joe, and Inez, Consuela. I’m going to read you your rights at this time.” Once she had, she sat at the table across from them. “Do you both understand your rights and obligations in this matter?”
“Yeah, I do, but Connie isn’t involved.”
“This is for her protection. Mr. Inez, have you come in to interview of your own volition?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“I’d like you to tell me, for the record, why you chose to come in and make a statement today.”
“I . . . I did a lot of things I’m not proud of, in the past. But I got a family. I’ve got three kids, three boys. If I don’t do what’s right, how am I supposed to tell them they have to do what’s right?”
“Okay. Do you want something to drink?”
“I—no.” Obviously flustered, he cleared his throat. “I’m good.”
“Mrs. Inez?”
“No, thank you. We just want to get this over with.”
“Tell me what happened, Joe. What happened back in the spring of 2043?”
“Ah, most of us, even if we didn’t go to the school, went to the dances. Maybe to dance, or pick fights, do some dealing, look for recruits.”
“Who are we?”
“Oh. The Soldados. Lino and Steve were co-captains then. Well, Lino mostly ran the gang. Steve was more muscle. Lino wanted more recruits, and he figured you got more recruits when you had trouble. When you had, like, a common enemy. He talked like that,” Joe added. “But I didn’t know, I swear to God, I didn’t know, until later.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“The bomb. I didn’t know. I’d been a member for about a year, year and a half, and Lino liked that I was good with my hands. That I could fix stuff. That I could boost cars.” He let out a breath. “He used to say I’d be somebody. He’d make me somebody. But I had to make my mark.”
“Your mark.”
“The kill mark. I couldn’t be upper level until I did a kill, until I’d made my mark.”
“You still wear the Soldado tattoo,” Eve pointed out. “It doesn’t include the kill mark, the X below the cross.”
“No, I never made my mark. I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t mind a fight, hell, I liked fighting. Get out there, get a little bloody. Blow off steam. But I didn’t want to kill anybody.”
“And still, you and Lino were friends,” Eve prompted.
“Yeah, or I thought we were. Lino used to razz me about it, but . . . just like guys razz each other about shit. I guess that’s why I didn’t know what he had going, what he set up.”
“He didn’t tell you about the bomb.”
“He never said anything to me. He said how he’d meet up with me there, at the dance. The bomb at the dance, when it went off, I was right there. Right there. Ronni Edwards got killed. She went up ten feet away from me. I knew her.”
He stopped, and rubbed his hands over his face. When he dropped them again, Connie took one in hers.
“I knew her,” Joe repeated. “Since we were in kindergarten I knew her, and she blew apart in front of me. I never . . .” He lowered his head, fought for composure. “Sorry.”
“Take your time,” Eve told him.
“It went—it went to hell in seconds. Music’s playing, kids are dancing or hanging. Then it went to hell. The noise, the fire. More kids got hurt, and then they’re running around, crazy scared, and more get hurt in the trample. Lino and Chávez and Penny, they’re hauling kids out like heroes, and saying how it was the Skulls, the motherfriggin’ Skulls.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But they weren’t there, not when it went down.”
“Lino, Steve, and Penny weren’t there,” Eve qualified.
“Yeah. I mean no, no they weren’t there when the place exploded. I’d been looking for
Lino. I had a couple guys who wanted in—wanted in the gang, so I was looking for Lino. Nobody’d seen him. Just minutes before it blew, nobody’d seen him or Penny or Steve. He never missed a dance. I figured, well, he was just late getting there. And probably lucky for him, I thought that after. Lucky for him because we figured he was the target. It was later when I realized he was the one making the noises about being the target.”
“Were you hurt in the first bombing?”
“Got some burns, cut up some from the stuff that was flying around. Not real bad. If I’d been standing where Ronni was . . . I thought about that. Thought about that and how Ronni had just blown. It got me up, got me thinking, yeah, those Skulls needed some killing. So I’m up, think I’m up to get my mark because of that, and I hear Lino and Penny talking.”
“Where were you when you heard them?”
“We had a place we used, like a headquarters. This basement in a building on Second Avenue, right off 101st. Big basement, the place was like a maze. Rattrap,” he said with a sour smile. “They fixed it up about ten years back. It’s apartments now. Nice apartments.”
“Just for my curiosity, do you know who owned it?”
“Sure.” He looked puzzled by the question. “José Ortega—the old guy—kind of a big deal in the neighborhood. José was one of us. Soldado—I mean the old guy’s grandson was one of us. But the fact was, Lino said it was our place.”
Ripples, Eve thought. “Okay. So you heard Lino and Penny talking when you went into the basement, into the headquarters.”
“Yeah, like I said, it was a big place, lots of rooms, and corridors. I was heading for the war room. I was up, and I wanted in on the retaliation. Hell, I wanted to lead the charge. But I passed one of the flop rooms, and I heard them talking about how it worked. How planting the boomer at the dance got the community—that’s how Lino put it—the community involved. How they’d hit the Skulls now, and everyone would cheer. The Soldados would be heroes because everybody thought the Skulls attacked, the Skulls brought blood to neutral territory. And Penny said they should’ve used a bigger bomb.”
He looked down at his hands, then lifted his gaze back to Eve’s. Tears glazed it. “She said that. Said how Lino should’ve built a bigger boomer so there’d be more dead instead of just that little bitch Ronni. How a bunch of bodies would’ve gotten people really juiced. And he laughed. He laughed and said, ‘Wait a few days.’ ”
He reached for his wife’s hand. “Can I get some water? I think I could use some water.”
Peabody rose, walked over to fill a paper cup. “Take your time, Mr. Inez,” she told him.
“I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe they’d do that. To our own. Chaz Polaro was in the hospital, and they didn’t know if he was going to make it. And they’re in there, laughing. They’re the ones who did it, and they’re laughing.
“It could’ve been me that night, dead or maybe dying. It could have been any of us, and he’d done it. They’d done it. I went in, so pissed off. They were on this old mattress we had down there, and she was mostly naked. I said, ‘What the fuck, Lino.’ I’m sorry, Connie, that’s what I said.”
Joe began to talk quickly now, pushing the words out, pushing the memories. “I said, ‘You fucking bastard, you set that boomer on us.’ He started telling me to chill, frost it up. How it was strategy, for the good of the gang, and all this bullshit. I told him to get fucked, and I walked out. He came after me. We had a lot of words—and Connie’s going to get steamed if I say them all. Upshot was he told me he was captain, and I’d follow orders, I’d keep my mouth shut or he’d set Chávez on me. He said we were going to hit the Skulls and hard, that he’d already made the boomer for the hit. If I didn’t want him to shove it down my throat and hit the remote, I’d keep my mouth shut. I guess he wasn’t sure I got the point because I got jumped a few hours later, got the shit kicked out of me.
“I kept my mouth shut. I kept it shut and the next day Lino and Chávez took off. I kept it shut when Penny hunted me up and told me to remember it might be Lino’s boomer, but her finger was on the trigger now, and if I didn’t follow orders they’d do to me what she and Lino had done to her old man.”
“Hold it there a second,” Eve told him. “Did Penny Soto tell you what she and Lino had done to her father?”
“Hell, they bragged on it all the time. How they’d diced up Nick Soto. How they made their mark together.”
“Okay. Keep going.”
“I guess there’s not much more. A couple days after Lino left, the bomb hit the diner. And I kept it shut. I didn’t say anything to anybody, and five people died.”
“You knew about the second bomb beforehand?”
“Yeah, I knew.” He crushed the water cup in his hand. “I didn’t know the when and where, but I knew they were going to do it. I knew people would die, because Penny wanted bodies, and Lino liked to get Penny what she wanted. I didn’t do anything about it. I went and got drunk, and stayed drunk for a long time.”
“When did you last see Lino Martinez?”
“The day we had it out. I kept waiting for him to come back, but he never did. Chávez neither. Penny ran the Soldados for a while after, but it all fell apart. I got busted for robbing a 24/7, did some time. She looked me up when I got out to remind me worse things could happen than a beating if I ever thought about running my mouth.”
“Okay, Joe, let’s go over some of the finer points again.”
Eve worked him through it, then punched details. When she thought she’d run him dry, she nodded. “I want to thank you for coming in today. You’ve been a big help.”
He stared up at her when she rose. “That’s all?”
“Unless you have something to add.”
“No, but . . . am I under arrest?”
“For what?”
“For, I don’t know, withholding evidence or . . . accessory or something.”
“No, Joe, you’re clear. You may be called on to testify in court as to the statements you’ve made today. If so, will you testify in court as to the facts?”
“We’ve got three kids. I have to show them how to do the right thing.”
“That’s all I need for now. Go home.”
Eve stepped out, wound her way to Observation and Reo.
“He’s clear,” Reo said, “but if you think we can make and win a case against Penny Soto on the word and the memory of a former gang member, ex-con—”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll get you more. I’ll get you plenty. The next on our lineup is Juanita Turner, the mother of one of the bodies Penny wanted, and the woman who poisoned Lino Martinez. She’s in A. I might as well tell you, I’ve got Mira coming to observe the interview, and believe she’ll conclude diminished capacity.”
“Today you’re a cop, lawyer, and shrink.” Sarcasm coated each word. “How do you do it?”
“You’re going to put her away, Reo, but if after the interview you want to put her away for first, I’ll send you on an all-expense paid vacation to Portafino.”
“I’ve always wanted to go there.”
Eve fueled up with a coffee, then turned to Peabody. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Take the lead.”
“What? What?” Peabody jogged after Eve. “Did you say I should take the lead?”
For an answer, Eve stepped into the interview room. She sat, said nothing.
“Ah, record on,” Peabody began and recited the salients. “Mrs. Turner, have you been read your rights?”
“Yes.”
“And do you understand those rights and obligations?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Mrs. Turner, are you a member of St. Cristóbal’s Catholic Church?”
“Yes.”
“And were you acquainted with Father Miguel Flores?”
“No.” Juanita lifted her head now, and her dark eyes smoldered. “Because Father Flores never came to St. Cristóbal’s. A liar and a murderer came with his face. He’s
probably dead, this Father Flores. Probably murdered. What do you think about that? What are you doing about that?”
Peabody kept her voice clipped, cool—and whatever her thought might have been, they were boxed outside the room. “Do you know the identity of the man who posed as Father Flores?”
“Lino Martinez. A murderer.”
“How did you come to be aware of his identity?”
“I figured it out.” She shrugged, looked away.
First lie, Eve thought.
“How?” Eve demanded. “Just how did you figure it out?”
“Things he said, how he acted, certain looks. What does it matter?”
“You worked with him at the youth center for over five years,” Eve added. “Went to the church. How long had you known who he really was?”
“I knew what I knew.” She folded her arms, stared hard at the wall. But the gestures of defiance lost impact with the quick, light shudders that worked through her. “It doesn’t matter how long.”
“Mrs. Turner, isn’t it true you were told his identity?” Peabody drew Juanita’s attention back to her. “You didn’t figure it out. You were told.” Peabody’s voice softened, into that confide-in-me tone Eve considered one of her partner’s finest tools. “Has Penny Soto threatened you, Mrs. Turner?”
“Why would she?”
“To ensure your silence. To make sure you take the fall for Lino Martinez’s murder alone. You did kill Lino Martinez, didn’t you?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Bullshit.” Eve stood so abruptly, her chair flew back. “You want to play, Juanita, let’s play. Penny Soto told you Martinez was conning you, conning everyone. Lino Martinez, the man responsible for your son’s death, was right under your nose, playing priest. You could see it then, you could see right through him then, once she told you. Once she told you all about how he’d planted that bomb that ripped your son to pieces.”
Eve slammed her hands on the table, leaned down close. The gesture and the words had Juanita jolting, had tears sheening over the defiance in her eyes.
“And she helped you plan it, every step of your vengeance. She walked you right through it, didn’t she?”