“Because she came back last time. And she’s been gone a while. Her leaving didn’t have anything to do with me. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Didn’t you care your girlfriend was gone?” Lauren asked.
“I cared, but we were sort of broken up anyway. I liked her, but I was a senior and all that. I just wanted to have fun. She wanted a serious boyfriend.”
“What does ‘sort of broken up’ mean?”
His cheeks burned red. “She’d call me and we’d hook up. It was like friends with benefits, you know? She knew I wasn’t her boyfriend anymore.”
Lauren wrote that down. “When was the last time you saw her before she went missing?”
“That’s the thing; I saw her maybe the last week in March. We hung out at my house because my mom was at a show with her friends. Everything was fine. That was on a Friday. I tried to call her that whole weekend because she took my favorite baseball hat home and I wanted it back. She never answered me. She didn’t show up for school all week and the next week her father reported her missing. He waited at least a whole week. So I thought, if he did that, he must think she ran away.”
Violanti leaned back in his seat and rubbed his eyes. “Is there anything else we should know that you haven’t told us? Anything that will make me cancel my Fourth of July plans?”
“No, I swear. I didn’t even know this was important or I would have.”
“I want you to write down all your social media usernames and passwords. Every single one. The prosecutor’s office is probably subpoenaing your accounts as we speak. No surprises, right? No pictures of your junk you sent to underage girls?”
He laughed. “No. A guy in my school did that in tenth grade. He still has the nickname Light Switch.” His face turned serious. “I never posted much. You just have to be on because you’d never know what was going on if you weren’t. None of my friends call each other. It’s all texting and Instagram and stuff.”
“That’s good. One less thing to worry about.” Violanti pushed a paper and pen to him and he dutifully began to write down the names and passwords.
“All done.” When he turned his big brown eyes to Lauren, she could understand why Amy Hooper had a crush on him. He was a good-looking kid who had a way about him, a kind of glimpse you could see of the handsome man he would become, which drew you to him.
The corners of his lips turned down in a slight frown. “Hey,” he said with obvious concern, “what happened to your mouth?”
17
“Look at this.” Back at work that afternoon, Lauren pointed out a photo to Reese as they stood in front of the mess table where they’d spread out the entire file to look at multiple documents at the same time. She’d been right. It was a good one. Vinita Ortiz had been a twenty-two-year-old single mother of two living on Wadsworth Street in the city’s Allentown neighborhood. In the early nineties a string of bars opened on Virginia Street and had become the new hotspot. On a summer night in 1993 Vinita got into a fight with another woman in the now-defunct Ozone Bar. Both women had gotten thrown out by the bouncers. Vinita ended up facedown in the street. No arrest was ever made.
The white tank top she wore was punctuated with three dark spots in the middle of her back. From one of the stains, the handle of a pocket knife stood straight up, casting a shadow across her back under the light of the lamppost overhead. Lauren tapped the close-up. “There. Right there. See? That random blood drop on the victim’s skirt? And those fat drops leading away? That’s our suspect. She must have cut herself.”
“I see it.” It was Reese’s turn to take the notes, which they both hated because Reese’s handwriting looked like hieroglyphics and he used the hunt-and-peck method for typing up reports.
Lauren paged through the evidence reports. Clothing seized. Bloody weapon recovered from the body. The only lab test done at the time was blood typing on the knife. Two different types. The stabber definitely cut herself. What seemed like a slam dunk now was a dead end back then. Without a suspect, a blood type meant nothing.
“We have a statement from the girl she was with that says when Vinita turned her back to leave, the other woman just stabbed her.”
“No.” Reese picked up the signed statement, complete with a Polaroid picture of the witness stapled to the bottom. “Luz Hernandez stated that Vinita told the woman she didn’t want her man, spit on her, and had turned to walk away when the assailant jumped on her.”
“Doesn’t justify severing her aorta.” Taking the full statement from him, she examined the picture. Before the Internet, Homicide detectives would take a Polaroid of every witness and suspect. It was the only way to know for sure who you actually interviewed that day. It showed a young Hispanic female sitting in the interrogation room, mascara running down her face, hands clasped in front of her. Her black hair was permed, sprayed, and teased up in the latest style, while two huge gold hoop earrings hung from each lobe. She looked tiny in the old office chair, like a middle school student someone had dragged in. Only the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray next to her pegged her as an adult.
“No, but give the whole story if you’re going to tell it.”
She shoved the statement back at him. “Duly noted. We need to find Luz. We need to find the bartender. We need to find the bouncer …
Rufus … ” She shuffled through the papers until she came to the bouncer’s statement. Reese picked it up.
“You don’t recognize the name of the bouncer? Rufus P. Jackson was murdered two years ago on Jefferson Avenue. I got called in because we were short-handed. It was that deli robbery, remember? He caught a stray half a block away walking his dog.”
“I do remember that. Shit.” At least Rufus’s murder had been solved right away. A car crew grabbed the two gunmen within minutes of the shooting and Reese had gotten tearful confessions from both of them.
“Poor bastard.” Reese’s green eyes trailed over Rufus’s younger self captured in the Polaroid. “His poodle was jumping up and down next to the body trying to wake him up.”
Lauren picked up another statement. “It looks like the bartender saw the most, anyway. He was at the far end of the bar in front of the big picture window.”
Reese scribbled that down. He hadn’t fixed the air conditioner from the day before and he had sweat puddles collecting under the armpits of his navy golf shirt. It wasn’t even noon yet. “I already called Henry down in Evidence and he’s going to pull the boxes. We’ll get the clothes and the knife into the lab today or tomorrow.”
Fanning the black-and-white crime scene photos out in front of them, details of the night started to come into focus. Facedown on the pavement of the narrow one-way street, Vinita Ortiz was sprawled with her arms out to either side. Her legs were bent together, as if she had crumpled with the blows, one high-heeled shoe lay a foot away from the body.
Reese made another note on the long, yellow legal pad. After the lab received the items from the Evidence unit, Riley and Reese would meet with the lab staff and go over the scene pictures with them. Then they could point out exactly what they wanted to be tested and the lab techs could make suggestions as well. Paul, the deputy director of the Erie County Crime Lab, loved cold cases and always met with Reese and Riley personally before assigning a case. And for their part, they never failed to mention the outstanding work the lab had done at press conferences.
Hands on her hips, Lauren took a step back to survey the entire case file. “I think we have a really good start on this one.”
Reese threw the legal pad down on the only empty space on the table. “Are you going to call the victim’s daughter, or should I?”
She blew a strand of her blond hair out of her eye. “You type up those notes. I’ll make the call. We’ve both got some research to do.”
“I got a good feeling about this one,” he said, starting to separate the paperwork into piles—statements, lab repor
ts, photos, notes—so that their report technician could make working copies for them. The originals would go back in their folder for safe keeping.
“Me too, but you know it’s never as easy as we think it’s going to be.”
“It never is,” he agreed, still organizing. “If it was, it would have been solved the first time around.”
18
Luz Hernandez was a hard lady to pin down. Born in Puerto Rico, she moved to New York City when she was ten, eventually following her mother to Buffalo. Over the years she had bounced back and forth between the Nickel City and San Juan, changing names twice between husbands. When she did come back to Buffalo, she never strayed far from her lower West Side neighborhood. But pinning her down to a specific address was tricky. From what Lauren could piece together through public records, her name was now Luz Hernandez Santana and her last known address was on 10th Street.
“I got a line on the bartender,” Reese told Lauren, opening the passenger door to their broken down, rusty, unmarked Impala.
“I want to start with Luz.” Lauren swung herself into the driver’s seat, adjusting it back for her long legs. “If we can’t find her, he’s next.”
Reese slid his sunglasses on against the glaring noonday sun. “You sound confident.”
“Her daughter was so grateful on the phone when I told her we found all the evidence and had already put it in the lab. You should have heard her.” Lauren inched her way out of the tight parking spot Reese had crammed their car into that morning, easing into the Franklin Street traffic.
“I have heard her. A hundred times, from a hundred victims’ family members.”
Lauren smirked. “Now you sound like me.”
He sank back in his seat. “That would sound like this: ‘All guys suck! I’m in this alone! Why is everyone against me?’”
“I don’t say things like that.”
H glanced at her sideways. “No, but you think it. I can see it on your face.”
“Can you see what I’m thinking now?”
He laughed and looked out the window. “You kiss your mother with that face?”
Tenth Street was full of people. On that hot Friday at the very end of June, it was bustling with energy. People were excited for the Fourth of July, hanging American and Puerto Rican flags side by side out their windows, shooting off firecrackers in the middle of the road, congregating together on the front porches that graced the upper and lower levels of the houses lining the street. Cars were cruising slow with their windows down, stereos pumping, the occupants yelling in Spanish to the pretty Latinas dressed in short-shorts.
The smell of barbeque wafted into the open car window as Lauren scanned the faces they passed. Luz’s picture was taped to the front dash for quick reference. She’d never had a driver’s license, so she probably took care of her business on foot. The only recent photo they had of her was a decade-old shoplifting arrest mugshot. She looked older than her interview Polaroid, which was tucked safely away in the original folder, more worn out. Still, if she walked past them, they’d know.
Her last-known address was a rundown double with a sagging upper porch that looked on the verge of collapse. Sitting on a floral couch surround by plastic kid’s toys were two older Latina women sipping beer from forty-ounce bottles. They looked up suspiciously when the Impala came to a halt in front. A pit bull barked furiously in the side yard, held back by a heavy chain around his neck, his jaws snapping as they exited.
“Is he secure?” Lauren called to the women, holding her door open in case she had to dive back in.
“She is. She don’t bite. She only bark,” the larger of the two ladies told them, knocking back some more of her beer.
“Can you put her away?” Reese was smiling but had his hand on his gun. “All dogs bite, ma’am.”
“You the police?” the other woman asked, leaning forward to get a better look.
“Yes, ma’am. No trouble, we just want to ask some questions.”
“We don’t know nothing about nothing,” the bigger lady said, extracting herself from the couch and moving towards the dog. “We mind our own business.” She carefully undid the chain from the side of the house and pushed the barking dog into the side door. She folded her arms across her ample chest and stood her ground in the driveway.
Lauren and Reese approached slowly, aware of the gangbangers sitting on the porch next door taping them with their phones, making sure to catch the gold badges on their right hips as they walked toward the woman. The big lady yelled something dismissive to them in Spanish, waving them off. One of the teenagers said something back, but his friend thumped him on the chest and shoved him toward the front door. The whole flock waded inside, letting the rickety screen door slam behind them.
“They’re stupid,” she told them, looking toward the now empty porch. “They sit and smoke weed and look for trouble. We don’t need no more trouble here.”
“Ma’am,” Reese began, “we’re looking for Luz Hernandez. This was her last-known address.”
“Yeah?” Arms still crossed, voice hard. “What she do?”
“Nothing,” Lauren broke in. “We’re here to talk to her about the murder of Vinita Ortiz.”
The woman dropped her butt on the ground and mashed it out with her house slipper. “Now? Now you come asking about Vinita?”
“You knew Vinita?” Reese’s voice took a more gentle tone.
“Sí. Luz is my niece. They were best friends. She had two babies left without a mommy, you know?”
“We know. It was her daughter, Carlita, who called us,” Lauren said. “We need to speak to Luz about the night of the murder.”
The woman looked them both up and down with a scornful eye. “Now you come.” She shook her head. “Come with me. Luz’s upstairs. She work the night shift, but I know she want to talk to you.”
One of the boys from next door stuck his head out the screen and the woman let loose with a tirade of Spanish curses that made him duck right back in. Satisfied the boys would stay inside, the woman turned and tromped up the rotting wooden porch steps. Reese and Riley followed her past her drinking companion, who was still parked on the stained floral couch sipping her forty-ounce beer.
The first thing that hit Lauren’s nose when they walked in was the overwhelming smell of bleach. It stung her nose and eyes, making them tear up.
“Sorry, I clean today,” the woman said, looking back at Lauren’s watering eyes.
“Can I get your name?” Reese called bringing up the rear. The steps were steep and narrow, every cop’s nightmare—totally exposed and nowhere to go but up or down.
“I’m Erma Hildago. This is my house. Luz rent the upstairs from me.” She stopped in front of a wooden door someone had painted yellow, maybe to lighten up the dark, gloomy hallway, but dirty hands and time had made it look shabby. There was no number on the door, just a handwritten sign taped above the doorbell that read: DO NOT KNOCK DURING THE DAY! IF YOU NEED ME CALL AND LEAVE A MESSAGE. IF YOU DONT KNOW MY NUMBER FUCK OFF!!!
Erma pounded on the door with one meaty fist. “Luz? Come open the door. The police are here to see you.” There was a muffled reply in Spanish from somewhere inside the apartment and the sounds of heavy things dropping to the floor. The sound of locks turning, then the door swung inward.
It was always unsettling to Lauren, the first time she came face to face with a suspect or witness from one of their old Polaroids. In her mind’s eye she saw that young girl, pretty, with teased up hair, dressed for a night out. In that split second the door opened she was faced with the fast forward of a tired-looking forty-something clutching a green bathrobe around her, lines etched like roads on a map down her cheeks, wild black hair cut short and dishwater gray.
“Luz Hernandez?” she asked.
Luz’s eyes traveled to her left hip, then to the radio in Reese’s hand, which squawked with a
call for a car in the vicinity of the convention center. The narrow hallway made it boom and he automatically turned it down.
“These police are here to talk to you about Vinita,” Erma cut in. “Talk to them.” With that she turned and bumped her way back down the stairs.
Luz opened the door wider and stepped back. “Come in.”
Despite being furnished in secondhand furniture and thrift store décor, the apartment was spotless. Luz motioned to the small kitchen, where Lauren took a seat on a rickety chair at a cracked Formica table. Reese stood beside her, his nervous energy better focused that way. Luz picked a coffee mug up from the kitchen counter and sat across from Lauren. It always surprised her how unsurprised people were to have two police detectives in their home. If two cops showed up at her door, she’d be firing questions at them before they set one foot across her threshold, if they even made it that far.
“I’m Detective Riley, this is my partner Detective Reese,” she said and slid an official police business card across the bumpy surface to Luz, who picked it up and studied it. Reese fished his out of his pocket and set it down next to her coffee mug. “We’re here because we’re reinvestigating the murder of Vinita Ortiz. We want to go over the events of the night with you.”
“Reinvestigating? No one investigated it to begin with. If a Latina girl stabbed a white girl, every police in the city would have come down on the neighborhood. White girl kills a brown girl? No one cares. I never even spoke to another cop after the night it happened. No one came around.” She wrapped both hands around her mug, chipped red nail polish tipping her callused fingers.
“Her daughter, Carlita, called the office. I know this may seem like it’s coming out of the blue, but we have restarted the investigation. We have some good leads but we need to go over exactly what happened that night.”
She hung her head for a second. “Carlita. I haven’t seen her since that night. She was just a baby. Vinita didn’t want to go out that night, she was tired, but I begged her. I just got paid from my new job at the old Faciana’s restaurant. The one on Niagara Street? It’s closed now but I was waitressing there. Good money in tips. I convinced her to leave the kids with her neighbor and come to see the band playing at Ozone.”
A Cold Day in Hell Page 7