by Blake Banner
“Such as?”
“Well, for one, why did he kill Sebastian and nearly kill his own son?”
She walked away from me and stood staring at a giant pine tree that was casting a dark pool of shade on the blacktop. She repeated my question, as though she knew there was a wise old owl hiding in the tree who was going to give her the answer.
“Because his obsession with Rosario was transferred onto her daughter. He believed that Angela and Sebastian were having an affair and his jealousy…”
She trailed off.
I thought about it. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds, Dehan, but have you any evidence for it?”
“Not a shred.”
“The problem is, Little Grasshopper, that nobody has a motive to kill Sebastian. Nobody has a motive to kill either of the boys. Somebody had a motive to kill Angela, and by the looks of it a very strong motive. That motive was rage and hatred…”
She was nodding lots before I had finished. “And the one person who is full of that kind of rage and hatred is Ed! OK, not toward Angela maybe, but toward her mother—very possibly! Is it so hard to believe that over the years he has found some crazy-ass reason for transferring that rage onto Angela?”
“No.” I had to admit it wasn’t.
“Come on, Stone. You have to grant me this one! It’s clear. You said from the start there had to be a connection between the Rosario case and Sebastian’s case. Here it is: his transferred rage from her mother, for rejecting him, to her daughter. Hell, Stone, if he is crazy enough, and I believe he is, he may even have been raging against the two boys for even being at that house with Angela while she was alone, at that time of the morning. Remember she made them phone? His big beef was that Sebastian was leading his own son astray.”
She suddenly pulled her cell from her pocket and dialed a number. After a moment, she snapped, “Yeah, This is Detective Carmen Dehan… Yeah, hi, listen, I need you to run a check for me on the Handgun Owner’s Database…. OK, Eduardo Irizarry, of Herring Avenue in Morris Park, the Bronx… Sure I’ll hold.”
She paced up and down for a minute, watching her feet and kicking tiny stones. After three or four minutes she stopped dead, listening. “He does?” She nodded. “Thank you.”
She turned to me. “You have to give me this one, Sensei. He is a member of the Pistol Club. He owns a Colt Desert Eagle .45, and a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard. That’s a .38. They were at the hospital. It’s obvious. He followed them home and shot them.”
I looked at her for a long while, then spread my hands. “OK, Dehan, I give you this one. Let’s go and pull him in. See if we can make him confess.”
“You don’t believe it, do you?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t say that. I just think the motive is shaky, and there are a couple of minor details that remain unanswered. But you know what? I felt like this was your case from the start. I think it’s appropriate that you should close it.”
She raised a devastating eyebrow at me and we climbed in the Jag.
TWENTY-THREE
Mary Irizarry opened the door to us and her mobile, expressive face went through pleasant surprise, confusion, and worry all in a matter of one and a half seconds. Then she said simply, “Detectives…” like she’d opened a box and that’s what she’d found there. I let Dehan do the talking.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Irizarry. Is your husband at home?”
“Well, no! He had to go and attend to some things.”
“Do you know where he went?”
Unconsciously, her fingers touched her lower lip. “No… He doesn’t usually… Can I give him a message?”
I said, “Mrs. Irizarry, may we come in for a moment? We need to ask you a couple of questions.” She hesitated. I smiled and added, “We are very close to catching the person who shot your son, but we need a little help.”
“Of course, please come in.”
She led us through the ghastly aberration that should have been her home and, once more, into the kitchen. As she walked ahead of us, she spoke. “I hope I can help you, I don’t really know anything. He should be back soon. Can I get you some tea or coffee…?”
It was all delivered as an unthinking stream, like a woman anxiously seeking the best way to serve. We sat once again around the table where we had so recently delivered to her the news of her son’s shooting. I studied Dehan’s face and knew that she had had the same thought, because now she hesitated before speaking.
“How long ago did your husband go out, Mrs. Irizarry?”
Mary gave a small laugh. “Oh, he didn’t exactly go out. He left while we were at the hospital.”
“Perhaps you had better tell us exactly what happened, and what he said.”
Mary drew a deep breath and held it a moment while she thought, gazing at the large, silver fridge. “Well, Angela and Sue arrived, with… um… Angela’s friend…”
“Moses.”
She nodded. “Moses. And you took Ed away to talk about business. And I suppose half an hour later or thereabouts, he came back. He stayed for about ten minutes, then he gave Luis a kiss and said he had to go and attend to some business, and he left.”
Dehan thought for a moment. “He didn’t say anything about where he was going?”
“No.” She smiled. “Ed never really discusses his business with us.”
Dehan leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table, and looked hard at Mary. “Please think very carefully before answering this, Mrs. Irizarry. It could be very important. What was being discussed in the room immediately before he left?”
Mary’s face went completely blank. “Oh, well… um…”
Dehan sighed. “Did either Angela or Moses mention where they were living?”
She frowned. “Yes! Now that you mention it. Luis was worried about Angela, about her being safe. Well, we all were, you can imagine! And Moses said that she was staying with him in his uncle’s apartment.”
“Did he say where that was exactly?”
She blinked down at the floor for a bit. “Yes… um… It began with a ‘P’, in Edgewater Park…”
I said, “Prentiss Avenue.”
Her face lit up. “There you are! You knew all along!”
I smiled at her. “So we did.”
Dehan bit her lip and took another deep breath. “Mrs… Mary, your husband owns a couple of guns.”
Mary frowned and nodded. “Yes, he does.”
“Does he keep them at the house?”
“In his den, locked in a drawer. He has a license. They are legal, and I know he registered them under the SAFE Act!”
“I’m sure he did. Do you mind if we have a look at them? It is very important.”
She looked uncertain. “Well, I suppose so. I hope he won’t be angry.”
Dehan leaned forward. “Mary, it could be a matter of life or death.”
She stood and we followed her down a passage that was carpeted wall to wall in thick, red Wilton, and through a heavy wooden door into a mock Castilian office. There was a hand-carved, oak desk in the middle of the floor and she stopped, staring at it, and then turned to face us. “They’re in there, but I haven’t got a key. He keeps the key in the safe.”
Dehan turned to me. Her face was tight. I pulled out my Swiss Army knife and went around to sit in his big black leather chair. I stopped, looked up at Mary. “Top right?”
“Yes…”
I folded the knife and put it away. “The key is in the lock.” I slid the drawer open and pulled out a wooden case. I placed it on the desk and Dehan came and stood by my side as I opened it. There was a silver Desert Eagle and an empty space next to it for the Smith and Wesson .38.
Dehan stared at me. There was no triumph in her expression, only anxiety. “Stone, we should have seen this sooner.”
Mary was staring at us, from one to the other. “What is it?” She came and looked into the box, then at our faces. “What does it mean?”
Dehan stared at her a moment. “Mary, if he was dis
tressed, or in trouble, where would he go? Has he got a friend…?”
Mary had gone gray. “In trouble? What kind of trouble?”
“We are not sure yet. Where would he go?”
“Ed hasn’t got any friends…” Her lip was trembling, her eyes filling with tears. “Maybe his office?”
“Can you call him on his cell?”
“Yes!” She fumbled in her pocket, pulled out her phone, and dialed his number. She gazed at us in turn. “It’s switched off.”
“Mary, we are going to look for Ed. If he should come back here, I need you to call us straight away, you understand?”
She gripped Dehan’s hands. “What’s going on, Detective Dehan? What has he done?”
Dehan went to speak, then stopped, then shook her head. “We don’t know yet, Mary. We just really need to find him. I need a recent photograph, and what car does your husband drive?”
She stared at us, fighting the tears. “A dark blue Audi 8…”
We made our way out into the midday sun again. As Dehan climbed into the Jag, she was calling the precinct. I made a quick call of my own, then got in after her, fired up the big, old engine and we pulled away. She was saying, “I need an unmarked car on the Irizarry house and a APB on Eduardo Irizarry. I’m sending you a photograph now. He drives a dark blue Audi 8, license plate…”
She finished giving the details and hung up. Then she sat staring around her as we moved north-west along the Cross Bronx Expressway.
“Where are we going?”
“I think I know where he is.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then, “You going to tell me?”
“I think he’s at Rosario’s house.”
“Angela’s house?”
I shrugged. “If you like, but to him it’s Rosario’s house.”
“How do you know this? That he’s there?”
“You heard him. She is the reason behind all of this.”
She raised that devastating eyebrow at me again. “Isn’t that a little romantic, Stone?”
I smiled. “Maybe I’m more romantic than you think.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. Whatever. Question is, is he?”
I glanced at her. “The man who fell in love with Rosario because she disagreed with him with that fire and passion that only a Latina can have? I’d say so. Romantics can be arrogant, conceited, and obnoxious, Dehan. I should know.”
She shrugged, then after a bit she smiled, too. “OK. It’s as good a place as any to start.”
“Have I ever led you astray?”
“Only once that I can think of.”
I didn’t ask.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled up in front of Angela’s house. I killed the engine and we sat for a couple of minutes looking at the green, peeling door with the yellow police tape still hanging forlornly across it. The dark windows looked lifeless. Dehan shook her head. “You sure about this?”
I got out and climbed the nine steps to the porch and examined the lock. It didn’t look as though it had been tampered with. I peered in through the window. There was a faint glow from a small back yard, but nothing else. For the second time in a short while I pulled out my Swiss Army knife, selected the screwdriver, fit it into the lock and gave it a firm thump with my fist. I fiddled a moment and the door opened. I pocketed my knife, lifted the tape, and stepped in to the dingy, shabby hall.
The living room was empty and silent. Dehan stared around. I wondered if she was remembering being there with her mother and Rosario. I guessed she was. She looked at me and her face said she wanted to leave.
“He isn’t here, Stone.”
“Maybe.”
I climbed the stairs. I didn’t try to be quiet. The bathroom was empty, and so were the bedrooms. Knowing that Moses and Angela were dead somehow made the rooms feel emptier, more quiet, more still.
I went into the back bedroom and stood at the window, looking out. Dehan was in the doorway behind me, watching me. Her voice sounded odd, disembodied in the gloomy room.
“It’s OK to be wrong, Sensei.”
“Sure, I know.”
“He’s not here.”
“He is.”
“Where, Stone?”
I smiled. “In the back yard. He sitting there, having a beer.”
I could see him from where I stood, sitting in a deck chair on a small patch of lawn. He had a bottle of beer in his hand and the .38 on his lap. He was staring up at the trees and at the sky.
Dehan appeared by my side and stared down at him. “Son of a gun…”
“He knows we’re here. I made sure he heard us.” I turned to face her. “Trust me, Dehan, let me go first, please, and don’t pull a gun on him.”
She seemed to examine my face, then nodded once. “OK.”
We went down and I stood for a moment in the kitchen door, watching him. Dehan was behind me. I said, “Hello, Ed.” He looked at me but didn’t say anything. “Is it loaded?”
He took a swig. “There’s beer in the fridge. You going to join me?”
“Maybe in a minute. You didn’t answer my question.”
“Of course it’s loaded. What’s the use of an unloaded gun?”
“What I’m wondering right now is, what is the use of a loaded gun?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“You planning to shoot me, or my partner?”
He chuckled. “That’s all I need, to be convicted as a cop-killer. That would be the ultimate triumph of the establishment, wouldn’t it? ‘We always knew he was a damn criminal! Just goes to show, when the chips are down you can only trust a white man!’”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to. You set me up, you framed me, you got me.”
I stepped down from the door onto the patio flags. Another two steps took me to the edge of the lawn. I could feel Dehan behind me, leaning on the doorjamb.
“The weapon isn’t going to help, Ed. It doesn’t look good, you sitting there with it in your lap.”
He sighed and looked down at the beer bottle in his hand. “I’m sorry, Detective Stone, but that’s where it’s going to stay. I am licensed to carry it, and frankly, right now I feel threatened.”
I looked around for somewhere to sit. There was a low wall that framed the lawn along the patio and the right border, and held assorted flower pots. I sat there, on the right where I could see Ed’s face. I watched him a moment as he watched me back with dark, hating eyes.
“You’ve won enough trials over the years, Ed, to know that the system is not as corrupt as it used to be. Your big, mock Rococo house in Morris Park is evidence of that, your Audi 8 is evidence of that.”
He snorted. “Where would I be living, what would I be driving, Detective Stone, if I had been a white Anglo-Saxon protestant?”
“I’m not going to play that game with you, Ed. I am not a threat, neither is my partner. If you are not guilty, you will not go down for this. Just put the gun away, and let’s talk.”
He puffed out his cheeks and blew. “The gun stays. By all means, let’s talk, but your time is limited. I am done. I’m through.” He looked at me and I was in no doubt that he was serious. “There is just one way I leave this house, and that’s in a body bag.”
TWENTY-FOUR
The ringing of the doorbell made him frown and look toward the kitchen. Dehan raised an eyebrow at me. I said, “It’s Susanne Mackenzie. Would you mind showing her through, Dehan?”
She frowned. “You knew she was coming?”
I nodded. She sighed, turned, and disappeared into the house. Ed was scrutinizing me like he’d decided I wasn’t human, but he wasn’t sure what kind of species I was. Finally, he said, “Susanne?”
I nodded again.
He said, “Why?”
I shrugged with my eyebrows and my shoulders. A moment later, there was a presence at the kitchen door. Sue was there with Dehan behind her. She stared at Ed, who scowled back. Then she turned and stared at me. She
looked distressed.
“Detective?”
“Hi, Susanne. Thanks for coming. Eduardo is in a pretty bad way. I was hoping that you could help him.”
She looked startled. “Me? How?”
I pointed at the .38 in his lap. “He is planning to shoot himself.”
Her face went white. “Ed…?”
He looked angrily at me. “What is this, Stone? What are you playing at?”
I thought for a moment. “Well, it seems to me that that was a pretty important time in all your lives. You all had something really important, something you all lost afterwards.”
Sue was watching me fixedly. “What? What thing?”
“Hope. For some of you, it was hope for the community you cared so much about. For others, it was hope for your family, your young children… Or hope for that newfound love, a love we so rarely find in life. A love capable of making us dream,” I smiled, gave a small laugh, and glanced at Dehan. She was leaning on the doorjamb again, frowning at me like I’d gone crazy. I looked back at Ed. “A love capable of making us believe in magic. Back then, fifteen years ago, just before you moved, Ed, each one of the five of you had some kind of hope in your hearts.”
He growled, “What in hell are you talking about, Stone?”
I turned to Sue. “It was hard for you, Susanne, because you had lost your husband recently. I believe you loved him very much, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “Yes, I did. He was a wonderful man.”
“I’ve been trying to imagine what that must have been like.”
She smiled at me. There was tragedy and gratitude in her face.
“I imagine, to begin with, Rosario must have been a source of support. She was kind, loving, and most important of all, she had been there. She knew how you felt.”
She moved to the wall where it bordered the patio, and sat. She gazed for a while at the grass, dappled with the shadows of the leaves in the tall trees. “She was good. She was very kind, very humane.”
Ed growled, “She was one in a million. One in seven billion.”
She glanced at him. I said, “It’s probably the worst thing in the world, to lose somebody you love.” The same grateful smile again. “It leaves an emptiness that we think we will never be able to fill again.” Ed drew breath, went to say something, but subsided into silence with a small grunt. “But you thought you had found somebody, didn’t you, Sue?”