by Blake Banner
Dehan frowned and gave her head a small shake. “You don’t seem real broken up about what happened.”
She seemed genuinely shocked by the comment. “Give me a fuckin’ chance! When you stop fuckin’ harassing me and trying to fuckin’ frame me, when I get home and you’re not fuckin’ jumping down my fuckin’ throat, then I’ll cry my fuckin’ eyes out! I fuckin’ loved Luis!”
I studied her a moment and thought that perhaps she was telling the truth. People process grief in different ways. And we had seen plenty of that during the morning. I looked at Dehan. She said, “Please don’t leave town, Lynda. We may need to talk to you again.”
She stood up. “Fuckin’ priceless!”
I leaned back in my chair. “Lynda, I think there has been a bit of a misunderstanding.”
She froze, staring into my face. “What?”
“I think you’ve been under the impression that Luis was murdered.”
She frowned, then scowled at Dehan. “You said…!”
“No, what Detective Dehan said was that this was a murder inquiry. She didn’t say that Luis had been murdered. Luis was badly injured and is in critical condition in hospital. It was Sebastian who was murdered. They were both shot, Sebastian died. Luis may yet die, but as far as we are aware, he is still alive.”
“You fuckin’ dipsticks.”
She slammed out of the room and left a ringing silence behind her. Dehan stood and stretched, then walked around the room with her hands in her back pockets. She said to the wall, “What’s your impression?”
I laughed quietly to myself. “Right now, I’d like to get maggot and then get some shut eye.”
She turned and smiled at me. “Two nations divided by a common language.”
I nodded. “Shaw, but he was talking about us and the English. I don’t know, Dehan. I don’t believe she is a model, law-abiding citizen. She likes her dope and her booze. She has a house, albeit a small one, on a shop assistant’s salary. So she is getting money from somewhere other than her job.”
She nodded. “On the other hand, I don’t get the impression she’s making a stash. If she was supplying Jack and Angela, I’d expect her to be making more money than she seems to be.”
I drummed the table with my palms. “This may not even be our case, Dehan. Let’s go talk to the Inspector, tell him what we have and see what he thinks.”
She nodded. “OK, Sensei. Let’s go.”
Inspector John Newman was in his office. We knocked and he told us to enter. When we did, he was by the window, watering a small fern on the sill. He smiled at us with what looked like genuine pleasure.
“Come in, come in. Please sit.” He made his way back to his desk and lowered himself carefully into his large, black leather chair. He had tightly curled black hair going gray at the temples. That and his olive skin made him look like a villain from a Zorro movie.
“I imagine you are here about the Irizarry murder.”
It was Dehan who answered. “Yes, sir. We are unclear how to proceed and we would appreciate your guidance.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, but remained silent, contemplating the possibility that Inspector John Newman might be the only man in the world whom Carmen Dehan had ever asked for guidance.
He nodded slowly. “You are unclear whether it is a cold case or not.”
I said, “That’s right, sir. Angela Rojas is clearly connected to the case—and the murder—in that she was like a sister to the two victims. Her mother, who was a close friend of the victims’ parents, was murdered, fifteen years ago, in the same house outside which the boys were shot. As far as it goes, that is quite compelling. However, the details of the shooting so far do not suggest any link between the two crimes.”
Inspector Newman frowned and thrust out his lower lip. Before he could say anything, Dehan spoke, “However, sir, Detective Stone has a strong hunch, or intuitive feeling…”
“I know what a hunch is, Detective. At one time, I also used to have them.” He smiled. “I am a cop.”
“Yes, sir. Detective Stone has a strong hunch that the two cases are, in fact, connected. And in my experience, his hunches tend to be accurate.”
I added, “Or ace.”
He frowned at me, “Excuse me?”
“Ace, accurate, spot on.”
“Well, you have the case, I have no doubt you will tackle it with the same genius you bring to the cold cases, and if you can find a link to Mrs. Rojas’ murder and solve that, too, then so much the better. Does that resolve your dilemma?”
Dehan smiled. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“Glad I could help! If only all problems were that simple, hey?”
“That would be ripper, sir.”
We stood, I opened the door for Dehan, and we left, all of us smiling at each other.
On the stairs, I asked her, “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Detective Stone’s hunches are always dinky-di.”
“Enough already with the Australian slang!”
“You want this case, Dehan.”
“So what if I do?”
We had arrived at the door to the detectives’ room. I looked at my watch. “Here’s the plan. We go and talk to Jack O’Brien, then we go and check on Luis, see how he’s doing, and after that we grab some lunch and a grog.”
“Again?”
“I tell you, Sheila, I am as dry as a dingo’s donger!”
She sighed, shook her head and made for her car, muttering, “Dios!”
SEVEN
We parked a few doors down from his house. Dehan looked at me and I thought she smiled, but it wasn’t clear. She said, “I got this.”
I allowed my eyebrows to visit my hairline in an expression of surprise and said, “OK…”
She loosened her hair, ruffled it up a bit in the mirror, undid her top two buttons, and leered at me. Then she did a fair imitation of Sylvester the cat. “Do I look thexy, Detective Thtone?”
“Irresistible.”
She got out and slouched down the road with her hands in her pockets. When she got to 1719 B she stopped, looked up and down the road a couple of times, and knocked on the door. Then she stood staring down at her feet with her shoulders hunched. After a moment she looked up. I couldn’t see the door, though I guessed it had opened. She spoke, but wouldn’t make eye-contact, looked up the road, at her feet, laughed like a shy girl, then went quiet, listening, staring down at the sidewalk. She nodded a couple of times and now she made eye-contact. Said something and turned to beckon me. I climbed out of the car and headed toward the house.
Next thing, there was a rush of movement. Dehan staggered back. A big guy, maybe six-three, in jeans and a black T-shirt was shoving her. She stumbled against a fire hydrant and fell. Then he was running, sprinting. I shouted, “NYPD! Freeze!” But he was too hot to freeze.
Dehan was scrambling to her feet even before she’d hit the ground. I started to run, but she made off like an Olympic sprinter. Before I’d run four paces, she’d taken eight and she was on his heels. Next thing, she was flying in mid air. She wrapped her arms around his knees, held tight, and he went down like a sack of wet sand.
By the time I got to them, she was sitting astride his back, cuffing his wrists. He was wheezing badly. She stood, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him to his feet.
“Sap! Detective Stone, this man offered to sell me an ounce of marijuana. When I informed him that I was a police officer, he attempted to flee.”
“I saw the whole thing, Detective Dehan.”
He turned to look at us. He was almost bald and had pale blue eyes and a jaw like a slab of concrete. He looked mad, too. “Nah,” he said, and shook his head, “you got it all wrong, incha? I weren’t running. Thought I saw me mate, and went after him!”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re British.”
“English, mate. It’s different.”
“Right, you can tell us all about it inside. Get going.”
<
br /> Dehan led him back to the house, a small, gray, clapboard affair with a sharp, gabled roof and a wrought iron gate over the door. She shoved him inside and we followed after him through a hallway and into a small, open-plan living room and kitchen, where I noticed a cellar door. There were two beaten up sofas, a threadbare IKEA chair, and a TV, plus the obligatory pizza boxes and empty cans of beer. I guess you’re not a real guy if you haven’t got the take out pizza boxes and the cans. He turned to face us.
“Am I under arrest?”
I made a face and danced my head around in a ‘maybe you are and maybe you’re not’ kind of way. “That depends on you. Is your name Jack O’Brien?”
“Not much point denying that, is there?”
“Not really, Jack, no.”
“So how is it up to me?”
I pointed at the sofa and said, “Sit down, Jack. Let’s talk.”
His jaw set and his face took on a kind of obstinate, blank look. “If you ain’t arresting me, Detective, I’d like you to remove my handcuffs. Then we can talk.”
I glanced at Dehan, she shrugged and moved toward him. He grinned at her with what looked like genuine appreciation. “Where’d you learn to rugby tackle, then? You done all right.”
She almost smiled and unlocked his cuffs. “At bad-ass school, when I was four.”
He chuckled and sat. I sat on the other sofa and Dehan put her ass on the windowsill, by the door, with her arms crossed. I offered him an expression of wry amusement among guys.
“Here’s the thing, Jack. We’re not from vice.”
He frowned, trying to work out where I was going.
I looked over at where the door to the basement stood in the open plan kitchen. “Obviously, we have probable cause, Jack. So, what do you think I am going to find if I go down into your basement? How many plants am I going to find?” He opened his mouth to speak, but I tapped my nose. “I can smell it.”
He closed his mouth and sighed. Dehan shook her head. “You should have gone to Colorado or Cali. New York has strict laws on dope.”
He nodded at her. “But you can’t get the price, can you? Everyone’s fuckin’ at it out there, growing their own. Make it legal and the bleedin’ price goes through the floor.” He looked back at me. “What do you want, then, if you’re not vice?”
“What can you tell me about Luis Irizarry?”
He frowned a moment, then his face cleared. “Oh, that wanker! Luis.” He shrugged. “Not a lot. Thinks he’s a fuckin’ cut above everybody else just ’cause he’s a doctor. That, and he’s got his fuckin’ sights on my girl…”
Dehan said, “Your girl?”
“Yeah, my girlfriend, you know…”
“Yeah, I know what a girl is, Jack. Who is she? What’s her name?”
He narrowed his pale blue eyes. “Why d’you wanna know that? What’s she got to do with anything?”
I raised my eyebrows at him and tilted my head on one side. “Just answer the question, Jack. Alternatively, we can do this by the book down at the station, record the interview, get a warrant…”
“All right, all right. Lynda, Lynda Graham. But she ain’t involved in nothing dodgy. She’s a nice girl, got a proper job, nice house. I help her out with the rent a bit…”
I nodded. “That’s good of you, Jack. So, what I hear you saying is that you are making a commitment to Lynda.”
He got a far away look in his eyes and smiled. “I suppose I am. She’s the kind of girl what might make you take a look at your life, know what I mean? Think twice about the direction you’re taking an’ that.”
“I’m glad to hear it because, my friend, let me tell you, where you are headed right now is not anywhere you want to be, especially if you are thinking of getting serious about a woman. If you have, in that basement, what I think you have in that basement, you are looking at a long sentence. By the time you get out, Lynda could be married and with kids.”
He became serious. “I know. I was never doing it in a big way. It’s just…”
“Relax, I can see you’re cooperating.” I gave him a man-to-man, lopsided grin. “Must have made you mad to see Luis coming on to your girl, am I right?”
He sagged back into the sofa. “He’s not fuckin’ serious, is he? To him it’s all a big fuckin’ larf. Life’s one big bleedin’ party. And Lynda loves a party, don’t she? So she’s well up for it! And I don’t mind that. I ain’t the bleedin’ jealous type. But she don’t realize he only wants her for one thing. Me, I’m in for the long haul, ain’t I? I want a commitment.”
“When was the last time you saw Luis, Jack?”
“Last night. Why?”
“Where was that?”
“It’s what I’m tellin’ you. I went ’round to Lynda’s place. She only lives ’round the corner, I knocks on the door, and I can hear fuckin’ music and laughing inside. I go in and there’s fuckin’ Luis and a mate of his, sitting there drinking beer with my girl, in the house what I’m paying the rent for…”
“Must have made you pretty crazy.”
He shrugged. “Well, you know, there’s a fuckin’ limit, ain’t there?”
“So what did you do?”
“I told her, her and me needed to have a serious talk, ’cause I ain’t payin’ the rent on her bleedin’ house so she can entertain gentlemen there. I mean, I ain’t fuckin’ stupid. So she has to decide whether she is serious or not.” He frowned. “Here, what’s this about? You didn’t come here to play fuckin’ agony aunt to me, did you?”
I smiled. “Not really, Jack. We’re almost done. Just tell me where you went and what you did after you left Lynda’s house.”
“I come home, got a take away pizza, and watched a movie.” His frown deepened. “Why? I’ve played straight with you guys, I have a right to know what you’re questioning me about.”
Dehan said, “Where were you between two and three AM last night?”
Now he looked alarmed. “I was here, on my couch, asleep. And I ain’t sayin’ another word till you tell me what this is about.”
“So you have no one who can vouch for you…”
“I ain’t got a fuckin’ alibi, if that’s what you’re askin’. But I didn’t fuckin’ know I’d need one. I played fair and square with you an’ you led me into a fuckin’ trap! That ain’t right!”
“Luis was shot last night.”
“Oh, fuckin ’ell!”
I said, “Do you own a gun, Jack?”
He turned on me. “No, of course I don’t own a fuckin’ gun! I ain’t a fuckin’ Yank, am I?” He stopped himself, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just I’m… You’re scaring the livin’ fuckin’ daylights out of me. You know, we just don’t go around shootin’ everybody the way you do!”
I heard Dehan snort and looked at her. She was suppressing a smile. Jack shrugged. “Well, you do a bit, don’t you?”
“So your defense is, ‘I didn’t shoot him because I am British, and we don’t do that kind of thing’?”
“English. And no, that isn’t my defense. Am I under arrest? Do I need a defense? So far, your case against me seems to be that I’m in love with a girl and Luis was flirting with her. You wanna do me for sellin’ weed, that’s a fair cop. But if you want to stitch me up for a murder…” He shook his head. “No way, mate.”
I studied his face a moment. “Who said it was a murder?”
He laughed. “Come off it! You did. You said he was shot.”
I sighed. “He was shot, he wasn’t killed. He’s in hospital.”
He shrugged again. “Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know that?”
I stood and stared down at him for a moment, trying to make up my mind what I thought about him. Finally, I said, “What else do you sell, Jack?”
He frowned. “What do you mean, crack? That kind of shit?” I nodded and he shook his head. There was fear in his eyes, more fear than I would have expected. “Oh, no, mate. No way. Not me. I
sell a bit of weed to cover expenses. I don’t want nuffink to do with that hard shit. Never mind what you’d do to me if you caught me, it’s what the hard nuts ’round here would do to me. I been warned. I don’t wanna know, mate. I ain’t treadin’ on nobody’s toes. Not no way.” He stood up and laughed like I was crazy. “I’m not a fuckin’ criminal, mate! It’s New York, you’re twenty years behind the times! Anywhere else in the world, what I do would be legal! Almost.”
Dehan stepped over to him and stared up into his big face. “Here it’s illegal. That makes you a criminal. Get this clear, O’Brien, if vice come knocking on your door, make damn sure they find a clean house. Those boys don’t mess around. You got me?” Then she hesitated and frowned. “And, Jack, if you think the gangs here are cool with you growing and selling dope, you’re wrong, very wrong.”
He nodded. As I reached for the door, he said, “Thanks…”
I said, “Don’t go anywhere. We may need to talk to you again.”
We stepped into the early June sun and closed the iron gate behind us. The car bleeped and flashed and Dehan went and opened the door. I strolled after her slowly, with my hands in my pockets, chewing my lip and kicking small stones out of my path. She watched me a moment, then climbed in and I got in beside her. She fired up the engine and as she pulled away, she said, “He’s not as ‘straight up’ and innocent as he makes out. Or as stupid.”
“I know.”
“He’s clever and manipulative.”
“I know…”
“And his version of events does not square up with Lynda’s.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying ‘I know.’”
“OK.”
“OK, so shoot my theory down in flames.”
I shook my head and played the drum solo from In-A-Gada-Da-Vida on my knees. “Nope.”
She frowned as she turned onto Morris Park Avenue. “Why?”
I shook my head. “It is far too complicated for that. Something is wrong, and I just can’t see what it is. There is something…” I paused and stared out the window as the houses and the shops and the trees flowed steadily past. “There is something,” I said again, “unnatural about this murder.”