I thought of the silhouetted figure standing in the darkness, and the awful stench. I said, “He won’t get away with it.”
I dropped Sid at the terminal and took MacArthur south to Jamboree. While I waited at the stoplight at San Joaquin, a white Crown Victoria rolled up behind me, and a Newport Beach patrol car pulled beside me in the left lane. The lights in the cruiser’s grill and on its dashboard started flashing. A second later the patrol car flashed its lights too. I looked over, and the cop on the passenger side pointed toward the curb.
I pulled over and killed the engine. I rolled down the window and waited with my hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. They got out of the both car and walked over, bracketing the limo with a uniformed Newport Beach cop and a plain clothes guy on each side. I looked up at the one who came to the window. It was Tom Harper.
“Malcolm,” he said.
“Hi, Tom.”
“You armed right now?”
“Yep. There’s a holstered M11 at my six.”
“Knife?”
“Right front pocket.”
“Would you lean forward until your chest touches the steering wheel, please? Keep both hands right where they are.”
“What’s the deal?”
“Just lean forward, would you Malcolm? These guys are watching me. I got to do this by the book.”
“Sure,” I said, leaning toward the wheel. He reached in and took my gun. “You can lean back now. And pass that blade out if you would.”
I handed him the knife.
He stepped away a couple of paces, then said, “Come on out now.”
As soon as I emerged from the car, the others converged on me. Harper stood by silently as I was told to assume the position and was frisked. Then one of the uniforms cuffed my hands behind my back and read me my rights. As they led me to the Crown Victoria, I said, “What’s going on, Tom?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. Turning away, he said, “We’ll discuss it down at county.”
30
It was a long ride to Santa Ana, with the traffic thickening around us and the sun rising at our backs. I tried to get Harper to explain, but he didn’t want to talk. He didn’t introduce me to the guy doing the driving, a black detective maybe twenty-two years old with a freshly scrubbed choirboy look about him. I gave up on getting any information and concentrated on finding a comfortable position with my hands cuffed behind my back. Now and then the dispatcher or a deputy said something on the radio. Otherwise, there was only the sound of tires slapping pavement joints on the highway.
We got off at West First Street and took that over to the civic-center area. The main station for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department was a new-looking concrete building conveniently located next door to one of the county jails. We turned into a driveway and passed between a building and a concrete block wall. We paused at a solid steel gate, which slid open to the left, and then we rolled into a paved area completely enclosed by the block wall. We parked and went inside, Harper at my left elbow, his silent partner at my right.
They took me into a small vestibule. A woman sitting behind thick glass buzzed open a steel door. On the other side of it was a corridor, which we followed through a series of turns until they stopped me at another door. Beyond it was a small interrogation room, just four concrete block walls, a solid ceiling, a vinyl floor, a steel table, and two chairs.
“Sit over there, Malcolm,” said Harper. When I was in the chair, he said, “Give me your word you’ll be peaceable so I can take those cuffs off.”
“You have my word,” I said.
At a nod from Harper, the young detective walked around behind me and removed the cuffs. “I’ll take it from here,” said Harper.
The young man left the room. I noticed a camera mounted high in the corner behind Harper. A red light on it glowed.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He said, “Where were you at one this morning?”
“In bed.”
“All night?”
“Yes. What happened?”
“You got anybody can confirm that?”
“I sleep alone, Tom. What’s going on?”
“Is there any way you can prove what you were doing?”
“I’m done talking until you give me a sitrep, Tom.”
He leaned back and stared. He rubbed his face, and stared some more. He sighed. “Okay, here’s your situation report. There was a home invasion. Four perpetrators. Three men and a woman. One of them was killed at the scene, a Guatemalan national name of Fidel Castro, if you can believe it. You know a guy by that name? And obviously, I don’t mean the Fidel Castro. This one was about forty, Latino most likely, bad facial scaring from acne, looks like he had a lot of Indian blood. Carried a Glock. That ring any bells?”
“It might.” If there was one thing I had learned when they came for me after Laui Kalay, it was never admit anything unless you’re sure they can already prove it.
“Do you know the guy or not? Cooperation is your best option here, Malcolm. I want to help you out, but this looks bad. I wouldn’t count too much on the band-of-brothers thing.”
“Whose home was invaded?”
“How do you know this Castro?”
“Should I get a lawyer?”
“If you want to. But why not just fill me in on this Castro guy?”
“Tell me whose home it was, and maybe that will help me remember.”
He sighed again and looked away.
I said, “Come on, Tom. You know you’re gonna have to tell me sooner or later. Let’s move this along.”
“It was the home of Congressman Hector Montes, as you know, since you were there.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“We have a round from your handgun fired at the scene.”
“What makes you think it’s from my gun?”
“We found that at the scene too. An M11, registered to you.”
I said, “Those guys got my only M11 when they attacked me in the mountains, Tom. And you know I wouldn’t leave a weapon behind.”
“Even gunnies make mistakes under fire.”
“Who was supposedly firing at me?”
“Doña Elena got off three rounds. She’s the one who shot Castro. Who were these guys who allegedly attacked you in the mountains?”
It was a classic interrogation technique, abrupt changes of subject, but after Laui Kalay I had learned a lot about that, too. “Allegedly? I have three bullets in my vest to prove it.”
“Listen. I believe you. But the district attorney will say a thing like that can be arranged, Malcolm. Tell me who they are so I can collar them and prove your alibi.”
“I already told you everything I know. Did Doña Elena claim I was there?”
“No. You caught a break there, Malcolm. Mrs. Montes says she can ID one of the perps, but it isn’t you.”
“Because I didn’t do it.”
“Help me prove it. Tell me why those two guys wanted to kill you.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me why they would want to frame you.”
“I don’t know.”
“Malcolm, we’re talking about a congressman’s wife and home. This is not a thing you want to take lightly.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then tell me what’s going on.”
I said, “I don’t know.”
Harper was obviously holding back. Congressman Montes and Doña Elena must have told him about my earlier visit to their house and the fact that I was looking into the Toledo murder for the URNG. I tried to remember how much I had told Harper and Russo about that over lunch. I was pretty sure I hadn’t mentioned Valentín Vega’s name, or Castro’s. And it didn’t seem to make sense that Vega would compromise his cause by attacking Congressman Montes or his wife. Killing either one of them would probably increase opposition to the URNG in Congress. The congressman would be much more valuable to the URNG if I could prove they had nothing to do with Arturo Toledo’s mu
rder exactly as Vega had hired me to do.
But then again, what if someone else took the blame for the murder? What if Vega had tricked me into running all over town, asking questions about the kidnapping and visiting the Montes’s home? What if Castro wasn’t a loose cannon after all? What if he had been following Vega’s plan all along? What if Doña Elena hadn’t been the target of the home invasion? What if Vega had always planned to murder Congressman Montes and frame me for the crime? It would get the congressman off their back and put the blame on a disgraced former marine instead of on the URNG.
Also, Castro’s addled mind was capable of anything. Maybe he had gotten his hands on my sidearm somehow and seen it as an opportunity to stop Montes’s opposition to the URNG in Congress by murdering him and framing me for the crime. But he hadn’t counted on the congressman’s wife being armed.
Or maybe the two guys who had tried to kill me in the mountains found out they had failed and decided to frame me this way while also getting rid of Castro. Two birds with one stone.
With so much still unknown, it might bury me to admit anything about my history with these people. The smart move was to tell Harper only what he already knew.
He said, “It gets worse, Malcolm. We found your fingerprints all over the scene.”
“I visited that house recently. The fingerprints are from then.”
“We know about that visit. But we found your prints in Mrs. Montes’s bedroom. She and her assistant both say you never went in there.”
“Means nothing. I touched a few things in the living room. A glass. A magazine, I think. Probably a lot of other stuff. Things get moved from room to room. And fingerprints can be transferred. Anybody with an Internet connection can learn to do it in five minutes.”
He went on as if I hadn’t said a word. “We also know the reason for your visit. You’ve been working for this Guatemalan group, the URNG. The same ones who kidnapped Mrs. Montes and murdered her first husband.”
“Allegedly kidnapped and allegedly murdered.”
Harper sighed. “Malcolm, the dead guy Castro is a known member of a former terrorist organization, which you already told the victims you’re working for. Your weapon was discharged and found at the scene. Mrs. Montes says there were two other men and a woman. They came into her bedroom. She heard them coming while they were still outside, so she managed to get to a revolver in her bedside table drawer and shoot Castro. The others ran away.
“Your fingerprints were on the front door handles, inside and out. The print guys say you had to be the last person who touched the handle. Sure, prints can be transferred, but it’s delicate work and it takes time. Good luck convincing a jury that’s what happened. And you really think a jury would believe somebody planted your gun? Especially when you’re already on record as working for Castro’s organization? We have a serious problem here, buddy. Help me find a solution.”
“Was Doña Elena hurt?”
“She’s a nervous wreck but otherwise okay.”
“How about the congressman? Or Olivia Soto?”
“It was the middle of the night, Malcolm. The Soto woman wasn’t there. And the congressman is out of town.”
“You said Doña Elena isn’t claiming I’m one of the men, but I was there just a couple of weeks ago If I had been there, she would have recognized me.”
“Mrs. Montes never got a good look at the guys, and she says they didn’t speak. I asked if one of them might have been you. All she can say is it’s possible, but she isn’t sure.”
“In that case, everything you have is circumstantial. Let me go.”
“I wish I could. You know I do. But what with the gun at the scene and the fingerprints and the fact that you’ve admitted to working for the suspects in Mrs. Montes’s kidnapping, the DA wants you charged. It’s a congressman, Malcolm. The DA wants this thing open and shut.” Harper went to open the door. He paused and said, “I’m really sorry, buddy.” He stepped into the hall.
I thought about the woman Doña Elena saw, as well as the facts that Olivia Soto didn’t live at the Montes’s estate and she had shown a definite interest in my investigation all along. It occurred to me the home invasion might have been an inside job, like the Doña Elena kidnapping seven years before.
As the door began to swing shut behind I said, “Harper.”
He stopped and looked back in.
“You said Doña Elena couldn’t ID the two men, but what about the woman?”
“Matter of fact, Mrs. Montes got a real good look at her.” Harper watched my face closely. “She says, no doubt about it, the woman was Alejandra Delarosa.”
31
In the bunk above me was a bodybuilder who called himself Flaco. He had tattoos everywhere, including teardrops at the corners of his eyes. On the bunk across the narrow aisle beside me lay another inmate named Chuy, who seemed to suffer from chronic flatulence. I didn’t know the name of the guy who was lying on the third bunk above Flaco, or the two guys above Chuy, or the guys in the bunks on either side of mine and Flaco’s, or the guys on either side of Chuy. There were a lot of guys I hadn’t met that day, six rows with three sets of bunks in the dormitory where I was, fifty-four beds and sixty-one inmates, seven of whom were sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor.
I wore the orange jumpsuit they had given me when I was booked. On the concrete beside my bunk were the cloth slippers they had given me when I gave up my shoes. I lay on a thin mattress, staring at the putty-colored steel under the mattress of the bunk above me. I was thinking about history. It is often said to repeat itself, and this was no exception.
I had been in jail before, in a Serbian-controlled village outside Sarajevo when my fire team had been overwhelmed after nearly three weeks in country, directing air strikes against Ratko Mladić’s artillery and mortar positions. The Serbs had been very unhappy with us. Compared to their accommodations, the Orange County Men’s Jail in Santa Ana was a five-star hotel. The snoring and occasional shouts and slamming doors made it tough to sleep. So did the fluorescent lights shining in my eyes from the corridor, but at least nobody was getting tortured down the hall, and my elbows weren’t wired together behind my back.
I also thought about other people’s history. Doña Elena’s, for example. Kidnapped before, and almost kidnapped again, if that had been their intention. It wasn’t surprising that she had managed to kill Castro. After the first kidnapping, it would have been much more surprising if she hadn’t begun to keep a weapon by her bed, and if she hadn’t learned to use it. But Alejandra Delarosa suddenly attacking her again after so many years… I hadn’t seen that one coming.
What had drawn Delarosa out of hiding?
The answer, I realized, might have been me. Me, asking all those questions up in Pico-Union.
I thought about Valentín Vega, setting me on Delarosa’s trail, and Castro, dead set against it. I remembered what Doña Elena had said about the other voices she had heard while Delarosa held her captive, men’s voices talking about the URNG. I wondered just how good a handle Vega had on his own operation. Was it possible a splinter group had been behind the kidnapping without his knowledge?
Or had Valentín Vega known that all along?
Maybe Vega had played me from the start, used me to stir the pot a little, make it hot for Delarosa and her confederates—Castro and whoever the other two men were. Maybe Vega had used me to get Delarosa to come out of hiding and to get Castro to show his true colors.
But even if Castro had been in on the kidnapping with Delarosa, why would they go after Doña Elena again? If the goal was to finish what they started, why wait so many years?
Maybe it wasn’t about the kidnapping. Maybe there was something else going on, something I hadn’t yet begun to uncover. For example, who were those two guys who had tried to kill me? Were they really with the Guatemalan junta, as I’d assumed? Were they actually allied with Castro in some scheme? Were they the two men Doña Elena had seen with him and Delarosa in her home? And if so,
what was their interest in the situation?
I felt like a tourist from a far-off country wandering through a town where nobody spoke my language. Now and then I caught a word or two or saw a facial expression or a gesture that made sense, but mostly I had no idea what anyone was saying.
A guy passed my bunk, making for the head. A few minutes later, he came back. This time he stopped. He turned to face my bunk. He put his hand on his groin. I sighed. He was hidden from the stomach up by Flaco’s bunk above me, but I could tell he had to be at least six and a half feet tall. The big ones always overestimated their abilities.
Bending down, he said, “Move over, punk.” His low voice rumbled like distant thunder.
I focused on what Bud had said. You defend yourself, no matter what. Haley would be happy with nothing less. I said, “Keep moving.”
He chuckled. He bent a little more to look down on me. He said, “Move over and get naked.”
He was a white guy, late thirties, probably, with a full black beard grown nearly to his chest, a shaved head, and a swastika tattoo on his neck. I popped him in the crotch with the knuckles of my left hand. He grunted with pain and bent a little lower as I spun around on my back, braced my shoulders against the wall, and kicked his knees with my heels. There was a loud popping sound. He screamed and dropped to the floor.
I got out of the bunk, got a grip on his beard with one hand, and took the collar of his overalls in the other hand. The inmates on the bunks on each side watched silently as I dragged him down the aisle between them. It was hard work. He was heavy. His screams became whimpering moans.
“Oh, my knees. You broke my knees.”
I reached the open area near the door where the overflow guys were lying on the mattresses on the floor. The inmate closest to the door was a little fellow, maybe five feet four and one hundred and twenty pounds.
I told him, “Go find this guy’s bunk and get in it.”
The little fellow got up and went looking. I dragged the would-be rapist to the little guy’s mattress and dropped him there. The rapist was still moaning loudly. I banged on the door ten or eleven times with the side of my fist, and then I went back to my bunk.
January Justice Page 21