by HN Wake
His eyes locked on her. “Yes.”
That had been an easy question for him. She circled back to one that wasn’t. “What did you talk about?”
He scratched his neck. “I can’t remember.”
This line of questioning was definitely making him anxious. “You can’t remember anything you talked about?”
He cracked his neck. “Nah.”
“Nothing?”
“Nah.”
She didn’t believe him. “Roberto, I need to know what you talked about. It may help find his killer.”
He stared out the window. “Something about a project.”
“What kind of project?”
“I dunno, something he and Hettie were doing.”
“What was the project?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He turned on her with hard eyes and curled lips. “Yo, bitch, back up.”
She stared him down.
“You need to step the fuck back.” But he didn’t move forward. “I said I don’t remember.” He finally glanced away.
“Roberto, I’m the law enforcement that’s gonna find your brother’s killer. You understand that, right? I’m not the one you’ve got an issue with. You want me on your side.”
He moved to the window, his eyes downcast. “Like I said, it was just like any other family dinner. Parents hassling me, telling Micah how great he is.” Pain crossed his features as he stared into the distance.
She fished out her cellphone and pulled up the photo of Micah with Toro. “Your dad called this guy Toro. Said he was bad news. You know him?”
Roberto glanced at the photo. “Yeah.”
“You know how recently Micah saw him?”
He shrugged.
“It may be important.”
“I dunno. That kid’s a punk. He ain’t no gangster.”
“I’m not worried about his bona fides. I wanna know if Micah was still in touch with him recently.”
He shrugged again.
“Do you know his full name?”
“Pena.” His chin jutted as if Toro was insignificant. “Kelvin Pena. Punk.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Why ever’body gotta be from somewhere?”
She stepped away from him. “Roberto, we’re on the same side. I’m just asking questions here.”
“Yeah, he from Tegucigalpa.”
He meant Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Honduras was emerging as a common theme. “Any idea where I can find him?”
“Nah.”
“What about his parents?”
“Last I knew they over in Hunts Point.” It was a Bronx neighborhood. “But he just a punk.”
She pushed both hands into her jean pockets and softened her shoulders. I’m just a nice Feddie asking easy questions. “What was the project you discussed with Hettie and Micah?”
Roberto stared mutely across the Jiffy Lube lot. He was done with this interview. He spoke to the broken glass. “They kill my brother, they take Hettie?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“They take the white girl but kill the cholo.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
He turned and spat on the floor. “I’ll put the word on the street. Maybe somebody knows somethin.”
“I’m not averse to that.” She handed him her card. “See what you find out.”
He clicked his cheek. “Somebody’s gonna pay.”
“Yeah, one way or another. You’re absolutely right.”
The interior of the sports car muffled the noise from the outside. She knew a few things, but not a lot. The killer was probably experienced. They knew where both Micah Zapata and Hettie Van Buren lived, so this was planned. Micah had a past. Honduras could be an early lead. Kelvin Pena was worth pursuing. And a project of Micah and Hettie’s caused Roberto discomfort. Dom would circle back to him once he had time to digest the news and get angry.
She pulled out her phone. There were two new items. First, Beecher had sent a text. How’s it going?
The second was an email from Lea Peck at HQ. It was the NYPD criminal records on Roberto Zapata. Dom scanned his sheet.
October 2014: Zapata was charged with first-degree assault with intent to cause serious injury with a weapon and possession of a loaded firearm.
September 2014: Zapata pleaded guilty to operating as a major trafficker of controlled substance. He was arrested by US Customs and Border Patrol officers at John F. Kennedy Airport off an American Airline flight from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
July 2013: Zapata was charged with third-degree felony possession with intent to sell while in prison.
July 2011: Zapata was arrested for alleged possession of marijuana.
November 2007: Zapata was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and intent to sell, a Class B felony. He pleaded guilty to a Class C felony.
August 2004: Zapata was charged with criminal possession and intent to sell. He pleaded guilty.
Roberto Zapata was a serious player who escalated his game over ten years. His most recent altercation was an assault with a weapon.
In the alley, Roberto very easily could have hit her across the head with a single fatal blow with that steel pole. Her heart hummed. Her father’s voice whispered through the silence. Everybody gets scared, my Dom.
But her mind spun as she imagined an obituary. Special Agent Domini Walker. Killed in the line of duty, protecting the American people. Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity. She is survived by a single younger brother, Beecher Walker.
In the rearview, the red taillights of a car receded down the street.
Who would take care of Beecher if Dom died?
The skin on her neck was clammy. Beecher would not be okay without her.
Her hands felt numb. Beecher would not be okay on his own.
She shook her hands. Maybe Beecher would be okay?
She cracked her knuckles. Maybe Beecher would be fine because he was strong?
Her fingers tingled as she squeezed the steering wheel. She blew against tight lips. Yes, whatever happened to her, Beecher would be fine.
She turned the key in the ignition and the race car growled. She felt older than she could handle.
13
The grimy floor tiles of the sixth floor of the Javits Building reminded Dom of Operation St. Christopher. Built over twelve months, St. Chris had culminated in thirty thumbtacks pinned to an enormous map of the country that covered a large portion of one wall in the fourth floor operations room. Each of the red thumbtacks represented a place she had surveilled—a burned--out house in Detroit, a decrepit tract home in Southern California, a rusted double-wide in Indiana—and each had been confirmed as a link in a larger network that bought and sold purity. Each red thumbtack indicated a bunker where a child was held and regularly raped. She had been staring at the map when Fontaine had summoned her to this hallway outside his office. It had been four months since he had given approval for the surgical strike that had lasted ten hours and crisscrossed the nation. St. Chris had been a righteous and exhilarating win.
But they had all moved on. She rubbed her stinging eyes. If you worked in the Bureau, you knew evil hung over the horizon like a desolate mist.
The ring of a desk phone broke Dom’s reveries and she peered through the door frame. Fontaine’s executive assistant set the phone on the cradle and nodded to the inner door. “You can go in, Special Agent.”
Dom cracked her neck and pushed through.
“Claude Van Buren called.” Fontaine was a small, angular black man with a distinctive bald head and thick black-framed glasses that sat high on sharp cheek bones. He rarely smiled, and his eyes were bright and intense. A light French Haitian accent colored sharp barks.
She said, “Okay?”
“He wants a more senior agent. He also called the mayor.”
Claude Van Buren was calling Fontaine directly—one rich man to a powerful one. That’s ho
w this town worked. She waited.
“I told him you were one of my best. He has acquiesced for now.”
Dom was skeptical about Fontaine. The New York field office dealt with the most monied, lawyered, and crooked individuals in the country—white collar crime, financial crimes, mob rings, foreign influence. Many fingers were wriggling in this honey pot. By his very position as the New York ASIC, Fontaine would be highly political, but to date, Fontaine had treated her straight.
From behind the large wooden desk, he steepled his fingers and tapped his lips. “What have you got?”
“Hettie Van Buren has been missing since Sunday. She has a nice apartment, nice lifestyle—restaurants, friends, the regular rich gig—but she’s no Paris Hilton. She works at the Museum of Natural History. She studies birds. By all accounts she’s shy, well-behaved, polite.” She shifted on her feet. “Hettie’s parents have some nuances. The father is a banker. My sense is he’s a bully—"
“Whoa there, Agent,” Fontaine plunked his elbows on the desk. “Or Claude Van Buren could just be very upset his daughter is missing.”
Here we go. Politics coming in hot. Her jaw tensed. “Sir, that is a possibility. About the father. The mother is very polished, old school. My guess there is she’s afraid of her husband. Emotionally remote—"
He held up a solitary finger. “Slow down, Special Agent. Watch yourself. The mother could simply be distraught.”
Actually, family dynamics often provided a great deal of evidence in an investigation. But rather than push back on her ASIC, Dom continued. “Micah Zapata, the dead boyfriend, did some drugs in high school and had some bad friends, but, by all accounts, he has been free of that since attending NYU. I talked to his brother, guy named Roberto. Roberto is a bad hombre with a long record, but my sense is he wasn’t involved in the murder of his brother.” She didn’t tell him that Roberto was also chasing down information among his gang contacts. A politically savvy ASIC may not want to know about nontraditional avenues of investigation. “One old friend has cropped up recently. This guy, Toro, was hitting Micah up for money. Even mentioned Hettie in some texts.”
Fontaine thumped the steeple against his lips. “This friend from high school, that your most compelling lead?”
“I’m just not sure yet. It’s too early for anything definitive.”
“Okay. Keep me posted. And to be clear, the Van Buren’s are the one percent.”
Politics were blazing hot on this one. She nodded.
“These people, they fly high. We need to be careful here.”
How many warnings was he gonna give her? She straightened. What was he asking her to do? From deep within her ear, Stewart Walker whispered, You do the right thing, my Dom. That’s how you earn respect. It was an ironic statement coming from the imaginary ghost of her father.
“You need to be careful here,” Fontaine said.
She crossed her hands behind her back, a soldier reporting to a superior. “What exactly are you saying, sir? My job is to protect the American people. My job is to bring Hettie Van Buren home.”
He squinted at her. “I know what your job is, Walker, but I need you to also be careful.”
She was not going to make this easy for him. “Sir, I follow the evidence. I get the victim back. I lock up the bad guys. That’s what I do. I’m not sure what you’re suggesting I do differently.”
He exhaled loudly. “Walker, you just need to be careful.”
“I’m not understanding you, sir. Are you suggesting I don’t turn over all the rocks that present themselves?”
He stared hard at her. “No, that’s not what I’m suggesting, and yes, you do understand me. I’m telling you to not be a bull in a china shop around the family. Play nice with these people. They are very well connected in this town.”
“Sir, playing nice is not my trademark.” Everybody knew Dom’s overly principled view of the world ruffled feathers.
He glared at her.
She bit her tongue. She was getting a feel for Hettie, she was narrowing in on leads, and she was regaining her confidence. She wanted this case and to be the one to find Hettie.
He sighed. “Okay, Walker. Follow the lead. The money, maybe drugs, whatever. If this begins to get close—in any way—to the family, you come tell me first. Before you do anything to disrupt the family, you come clear it with me. Is that English plain enough for you, Special Agent Walker?”
Sitting behind a big desk in HQ, that probably sounded like an appropriate compromise. Get advanced clearance of potentially difficult interactions with the family. But for a field agent, it might prove challenging to execute. But she nodded. She wanted the case.
As she turned to go, the hard edges of disapproval on his face slipped. She caught a faint sadness in his eyes and turned back. “Sir?”
He shook his head, reluctant to say something.
“Sir?”
He closed his eyes. “Darlin Montgomery is downstairs.”
Her heart rate spiked. “What?”
“Office of Professional Responsibility brought her in, as part of the inquiry into St. Chris.”
Her throat constricted. “Can I see her?”
“You can go try.”
Behind one-way mirrors of the child psych room on the fifth floor, Dom watched as two Office of Professional Responsibility investigators closed their briefcases and nod to the middle-aged social worker watching solemnly from a corner. In the center of the room a young black girl was making two Barbie dolls converse, dancing their bare arched feet on the white laminate of a child-sized table. Dom had found Darlin Montgomery in a dark, cold cellar outside Cleveland in a location marked by a red thumbtack.
The two officers stepped through the door.
Dom asked, “Can I see her?”
Their faces were sympathetic and the taller of the two said, “Yes. We’re finished.” He held the door for her.
Darlin set down the Barbies and watched Dom approach with stoic eyes.
“Hi, Darlin,” Dom said as she squeezed into a small seat and gently placed both hands flat on the table in an unthreatening gesture. “So good to see you! How you doing?”
Darlin’s face was a mask of seriousness. “I’m fine.”
Darlin Montgomery had no home to go to and was in the foster system, which, at best, would be a long road to adoption. She was far from fine.
Dom swallowed. “You look really good. You back in school?”
Darlin nodded.
“You like it?”
Darlin shrugged. “I like my teacher. She’s nice.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Grippi. She has long hair.”
“That’s nice. What else do you like about school?”
Darlin’s face broke into a small devious smile. “They have lots of stuff for PE. We do lots of stuff in PE.”
“Like what?”
“We have balls, and rolling seats, and stretchy bands.” The smile grew.
Dom grinned. “That sounds fun.”
“And we eat good food.” Darlin smacked her lips. “Healthy.”
Children were so resilient, persistent proof that life carried on. Dom chuckled. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. We gotta eat a square meal. So they give us apples, and pasta with sauce, and string beans. I like the pasta. We don’t get pizza every day.”
Dom laughed, “Is that good? I mean, I kinda like pizza.”
“Oh, I love pizza! But you gotta be healthy a lot.”
“You’re right. But are you allowed pizza at school?”
“Oh sure. Just not all the time.”
“You like pepperoni?”
Darlin shook her head emphatically, “Hell no! I gotta have me Meat Lover’s.”
Dom laughed out loud. “You are so right. It’s gotta, gotta, be Meat Lover’s.” Dom looked at the Barbies. “What were they talking about?”
Darlin’s face dropped and Dom regretted changing the subject.
“Just stuff.” Darlin shr
ugged. “Maybe college.”
This was interesting. “Oh really?”
“Yeah, they have ta make a plan.”
Dom waited.
“They have ta plan because they are strong and they are in charge of their destiny.”
Someone had been working with Darlin. It was better to be strong and forceful than to be a victim. “Absolutely, Darlin. You are always super smart. You are strong, too.” She gave her a gentle grin.
The child placed her hand on Dom’s wrist. “You working, Dom?”
Dom’s throat thickened. “Yes. I’m just starting back.”
“You catchin’ the bad guys?”
“I’m trying.”
Darlin nodded sagely. “That’s your job.” The young girl pushed back her chair, stood, leaned over, and gave Dom a tight hug around the shoulders. “That’s what you do.”
14
Dom started the hunt for Kelvin Pena, aka Toro, at the NYPD 52nd Precinct up in the Bronx. She parked on a side street, exchanged her Bureau jacket for a loose jean jacket, and slid the mirrored sunglasses on her head. By the main entrance, a uniform stood by the front door looking lazily up and down the street. It was a slow afternoon. Inside the quiet station, the ubiquitous near-retirement desk sergeant gave her a quick once-over and grumbled, “What can I do for you, lady?”
She flashed her badge. “Can I get a word with Detectives Johns and Rodriguez?”
His eyes widened, and he grunted as he picked up the phone.
Johns and Rodriguez emerged from the back.
Johns spoke first. “What have you got?”
“A lead. I’ve got the name and an address for the one with the tattoo in the photo. Named Kelvin Pena, aka Toro. My vic spoke to him a month ago. Toro wanted money. The vic said no.”
“Mm-hmm. What are you thinking?”
“Maybe this Toro wanted that money real bad. He wasn’t happy Micah had turned them down. Scenario A: Maybe he went to see Micah Zapata and things got heated.
Johns shook his head. “That shot was too clean. This wasn’t an emotional shooting.”
“Scenario B: Maybe Micah turned him down and Toro left, cooled down, got a gun, and went back in later. This time they talked it out over a gun. But Micah still said no. Toro shot his friend.”