They are, and I’m not going to argue about who has better manners. “Why did she call?”
“To place a take-out order. She talked to Mercedes for just a moment. We were busy.”
On to the main event. “Did she come to the restaurant to pick it up?”
“We don’t know. It was picked up at the delivery window by the door, but Mercedes didn’t see her.”
I ask him if he has a receipt.
“Yes, we do.” He reaches into his desk and hands me a photocopy of a computer-generated receipt indicating that a phone order for a chicken burrito was placed by someone identified only as Maria at nine fifty-one P.M. “Payment was made in cash, but we don’t record pick-up times.” He says they checked their security videos, but they didn’t see her there, either.
It proves that she called in, but it doesn’t place her in the restaurant or confirm that she called Doe. I ask who was working at the take-out window.
“A new employee. You can talk to him if you’d like.” He tries to sound magnanimous when he adds, “In fact, you can talk to everybody who was working that night.”
“We’ll need a list.”
“Fine. You can use my office.” He calls Trujillo and tells her to start rounding up the troops. His apparent cooperation is admirable, but it means his employees aren’t going to impart any information that may help our case.
I try another direction. “Did you happen to see the news tonight?”
The genial smile returns when he says, “I’m afraid not.”
“It seems Ms. Concepcion was pregnant.”
He pauses for a beat before he says, “I hadn’t heard.”
“Do you know anything about it?”
“No.”
“You realize they’re going to do DNA testing.”
“Of course.”
There’s no reason to be subtle. “If it turns out you’re the father of the unborn baby, it will cast suspicion in your direction.”
“I’m not.”
“How can you be so sure?”
His smile turns patronizing as he pantomimes the motion of cutting with scissors. “Because I had a vasectomy over twenty years ago,” he says.
Chapter 34
“You Don’t Want to Base Your Defense on the Testimony of a Hooker”
“Fame and fortune are great, but a man’s most valued possession is his reputation.”
— Pete Daley. Private Investigator Monthly.
Pete takes a sip of bitter coffee and says, “It isn’t enough, Mick.”
And he thinks I’m the pessimist. “It’s close,” I say.
“Not close enough.” My brother is stewing over a Styrofoam cup of scalding java at the McDonald’s at Twenty-fourth and Mission, around the corner from Concepcion’s apartment. She may have passed this spot last Monday night on her way to Lopez’s restaurant, where we just finished interviewing the employees. Nobody remembered seeing her that night. The scared kid who was working at the pick-up window recognized her photo, but he couldn’t confirm that she had come to the restaurant. “The cops already know about the call to Doe,” he says. “Roosevelt would have contacted us if we’d solved the case. Besides, you don’t want to base your defense on the testimony of a hooker.”
It’s sound advice, but I take glimmers of hope wherever I can. “It’s more than we had.”
“It’s not enough to get the charges dropped.”
He still thinks like a cop. “It may be enough to get them to re-open the investigation.”
“I’d feel better if we had somebody who actually laid two non-bloodshot eyes on Concepcion at Lopez’s restaurant after ten o’clock last Monday night.”
So would I. “At least we know Lopez isn’t the father of the baby.”
“That doesn’t help, either,” he says. “If he was the daddy, he would have moved up several notches on our list of potential suspects.”
I gnaw on a french fry and try to find something positive. “Trujillo will testify that she talked to Concepcion.”
“That’s irrelevant. It proves Concepcion made a phone call ten minutes before Ramon left her apartment.”
“It isn’t inconsistent with Doe’s testimony.”
“It doesn’t corroborate it, either.”
“Doe has no reason to lie.”
“Unless she was trying to get something in return.”
“Like what?”
“Free legal services.”
“You think she’s using us?”
“Maybe. She’s been around the block.”
“I don’t think so. She couldn’t have faked the phone call to the Mitchell Brothers.”
“She’s bright enough to know that she needed to offer you something. Maybe it was a set-up. Maybe her pimp called her at that hour every night.”
“The jury will be able to connect the dots.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if you’re wrong.”
Neither would I. I look for a reality check. “Do you think Concepcion called Doe?”
He takes another long drink of scalding coffee and decides, “Probably.”
“But?”
“I can’t prove it yet, and I wouldn’t want to go to court until we can.”
“How can we prove it?”
“First, you need to get your ass on TV to tell everyone that we have a witness who spoke to Concepcion at ten-thirty last Monday night without looking like one of those hack defense lawyers who gets on the tube and blames everything on aliens from outer space or a cult.”
“I like to think I have a little more finesse.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Mick. Second, we need to find a credible witness who saw Concepcion after ten o’clock last Monday night–preferably at Lopez’s restaurant or in the immediate vicinity.”
# # #
Preston Fuentes is less than thrilled to see us as he buffs the grill of his treasured red Corvette. He’s a wisp of a young man with a dark buzz cut, narrow shoulders and arms covered in tattoos. He weighs no more than a hundred and forty pounds dripping wet, but I’d take him even up in a twelve-rounder with Terrence the Terminator. There is a small caliber handgun in his belt. He doesn’t look up at us when he says, “I told you I can’t help.”
His garage door is open and the cool night air smells of a mixture of chrome polish and paint fumes. In addition to the fire hazard, we’re probably standing in a toxic swamp.
Pete uses his cop-voice when he says, “We aren’t trying to start trouble. We’re looking for information about what was going on last Monday night.”
“Talk to the cops.”
“They won’t tell us anything.”
“Neither will I.”
“A woman was murdered across the alley.”
“It happens. I didn’t know her and I don’t know who killed her.”
Nice guy. “You may be able to help us find out who did.”
“Getting involved in a police investigation will make my life more complicated. I like to keep things simple.”
“It doesn’t bother you that a murderer is walking the streets of your neighborhood?”
He glances at Fluffy, who is sitting at high alert in the corner. The only thing keeping the Doberman from dismantling us is a heavy choke collar that’s been securely tethered to a thick block of cement that looks like it could be used to weigh down a body in the Bay. “That’s why I have her,” he says.
Pete tries his persuasive powers for a few more minutes with no success, then he decides to up the ante. “Look,” he says, “we have reason to believe you may be engaging in some questionable activities in your spare time.”
“Says who?”
“Your cousin.”
“It isn’t true and she has a big mouth.”
Sounds like the Fuentes and Moreno families have some issues.
Pete is still talking. “I have some friends in the SFPD. I could make a couple of calls.”
Guys like Fuentes don’t respond well to threats. “I could make a c
ouple of calls, too.”
Or he could simply turn Fluffy loose.
Pete isn’t backing down. “I know a lieutenant at Mission Station who could shut your operation down tomorrow.”
“Your friend isn’t going to bother me. I fix the cars of all of the top brass.” He takes a deep breath of the pungent air and says, “I think this would be a good time for you to leave.”
They stare at each other in any icy silence for a long moment. Fuentes returns to his work and Pete heaves a frustrated sigh.
My father used to say that you get more with honey than with vinegar. “What would it take to get you to help us?” I ask.
Fuentes doesn’t fudge. “Money.”
“What else?”
“More money.”
“We can’t do it.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
I lateral the ball back to Pete, who looks at the Corvette and says, “Are you almost done?”
“Yeah. I have a buyer who wants to take delivery next week, but I’ve been having trouble getting some parts.”
This gets Pete’s attention. Among macho hard-ass types, auto parts are the universal currency. “What do you need?”
“A carburetor. They’re hard to find for a sixty-six.”
“Have you tried the Internet?”
“Of course.”
The animosity between them disappears for a moment as they bemoan the dearth of auto parts suppliers in the Bay Area. To the untrained eye, it appears to be an academic exercise between two car junkies, but Pete never engages in small talk just for fun. “If I can find you a carburetor,” he says, “would you be willing to help us?”
“Depends on the quality of the equipment.”
“It will be top of the line–I guarantee it.”
“Who’s your supplier?”
“Pick.”
Fuentes’s eyes light up. “You can still get parts from Pick?”
“Yeah.”
I have no idea what they’re talking about.
“He went out of business,” Fuentes says.
“He’s reopened, but he only services his best customers, and everything is cash up front.”
Fuentes’s slim shoulders sag. “He won’t talk to me,” he says. “We got into a fight about the cost of some equipment.”
“Pick doesn’t negotiate price.”
“So I learned. How can I get in touch with him?”
“You can’t, but I can.”
“What’s it going to cost me?”
“The price of a carburetor and information about last Monday night. We might be willing to pay for the carburetor if you can provide us with some good dish.”
Fuentes weighs the potential upside against the risk of abandoning his long-standing policy against talking about police matters. The buyer of this Corvette is probably going to pay well into six figures and the economic analysis tilts in our favor. “What do you want to know?” he asks.
“Were you here last Monday night?”
“Yes.” He says he was in the garage until one o’clock.
Pete holds up a photo of Concepcion and asks, “Did you see this woman?”
“No.”
“Did you see anything unusual?”
He ponders for a moment before he says, “A black SUV was parked in the alley a few minutes before one.”
“What model?”
“I don’t recall.”
He’s playing hard-to-get. A car fanatic like Fuentes knows every make and model. “Was it somebody from the neighborhood?”
“People around here don’t drive SUVs and they know it’s a bad idea to block this alley.”
“I don’t suppose you caught a license number.”
“No.” He says the car was parked for about ten minutes.
“Was anybody else in the alley that night?”
“I can ask around.”
“How soon?”
“How soon can you get me my new carburetor?”
“I’ll call Pick right away.”
“Meet me back here at ten o’clock on Sunday night with a carburetor and maybe I’ll have something for you.”
Chapter 35
“Who’s Pick?”
“Our workouts and camps stress baseball fundamentals for elite players. Our coaches are experienced and knowledgeable in all aspects of the game.”
— Brochure for the Jeff Pick Baseball Academy.
“Fuentes knows something,” Pete says. He’s simmering as we’re sitting on crates in the back of Tony’s market at eleven o’clock on Thursday night. Tony is sweeping up and I can hear the bells of St. Peter’s chime as the aroma of fresh fruit wafts through the closed business. Rosie’s always-level-headed brother offers a succinct explanation. “Preston is an asshole,” he says, “but he’s a great mechanic.”
I take a bite out of an apple and turn to Pete. “Who’s Pick?” I ask.
“Jeff Pick.” His matter-of-fact tone suggests that I should recognize the name.
Tony stops sweeping and says, “You know Pick?”
“Yeah.”
Tony’s tone fills with reverence when he says, “I need some stuff for my truck. Can you talk to him for me?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I’m still clueless. “Who’s Jeff Pick?” I ask.
“The best baseball player ever to come out of Serra High School,” Pete says.
The powerhouse Catholic School in San Mateo has produced as many great athletes as St. Ignatius, including Tom Brady. “Barry Bonds went to Serra,” I remind him.
“Pick was better. He was unhittable. He got a full ride to Santa Clara and was an All-American his senior year. He signed with the Giants and had a couple of seasons in the minors before he hurt his arm. He still throws in the mid-eighties, but he was never the same.”
I was an all-conference pitcher at St. Ignatius, but my fastball topped out at eighty-two miles per hour and I had to rely on finesse and guile and there were no scholarship offers. Pete says Pick now pitches for a couple of semi-pro teams and coaches high school and college kids.
“What does this have to do with getting a carburetor for a sixty-six Corvette?” I ask.
“There isn’t a lot of money in pitching lessons,” Pete says.
There’s even less in semi-pro baseball. “So?”
“He has a side business dealing in auto parts that’s quite lucrative. Most pitching coaches don’t live in Hillsborough.”
I’m beginning to get the picture. “How did you meet him?”
“I played against him in high school. More precisely, I heard three fastballs go by before I took a seat on the bench. Our paths crossed again when I was working at Mission Station.”
“He became a cop?”
“No, he became a criminal. He was dealing in stolen auto parts, but we never pressed charges.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a good guy, Mick. He got me some parts for my old Mustang. He supplies half of the SFPD, including a couple of the assistant chiefs, and he pitches on the department’s semi-pro team. They came in second in the nationals last year. Everybody wins.”
I’m not hearing this. I ask if he now acquires the parts by legitimate means.
The corner of his mouth turns up slightly. “Depends on your definition of ‘legitimate.’”
“Are they stolen?”
“Sometimes they’re borrowed.”
Got it. “What are the chances he can find a carburetor for Fuentes?”
“Excellent.”
“How soon?”
“I’ll call him right now. We should have something to offer Fuentes in the next day or two.”
“Don’t forget to ask him about the struts for my truck,” Tony says.
I glance at my watch. It’s eleven-eighteen. I turn to my brother and say, “Pick operates at this hour of the night?”
“Most of his inventory becomes available after the sun goes down.”
MD05 - The Confession Page 19