by Blake Banner
She scrunched up her hat into a ball and watched it bounce open again. “Possibly he was popular because of the American intellectual’s infatuation with all things European.”
“Ouch.” After a moment, I added, “Ali is European, and she seems to have been infatuated with him. Or at least, they sought solace in each other. The allure of the familiar in an alien land.”
“How poetic.”
“Come on, Dehan. Let’s go and do some intellectual slumming, and have a chat with this mere linguist.”
FOUR
The college admin office, which sported a small, plastic Christmas tree on its counter, told us that Dr. Alicia Cobos was not in that day, so we got her telephone number and left. On the way to the car, Dehan pulled her woolen hat down over her ears, and then pulled her cell from her pocket. As we climbed into the car, she was dialing.
“Dr. Cobos? Hello, good afternoon. This is Detective Carmen Dehan of the NYPD…”
I started the engine and pulled into the traffic. Dehan smiled, but without much feeling. “Yes, yes, it is a Spanish name… Alicia, oh, like your mother. That’s nice. Dr. Cobos, we were hoping to talk to you about your colleague, Dr. Jose Robles. Is there any chance you could come in and see us?”
She did a lot of nodding, leaned against the door, licked her lips and raised an eyebrow at me. All the while, I could hear a voice in the background that belonged to somebody who apparently didn’t need to breathe.
“That would be great. Thank you. Two P.M. would be great. 43rd Precinct, Storey Avenue and Fteley. Thank you. See you then.” She hung up. “Man, she can talk! The problem is the ratio of content to volume.”
We were quiet for a moment, then I said, “That kind of sums up the case so far.”
She made a noise of thinking, followed by a small sideways twitch of her head. “I godda say, Sensei, to me it is looking more and more like what it has looked like right from the start.”
“And what is that? A crime of passion?”
She shifted in her seat to look at me. “What was the main problem we had? There was no trace of a relationship visible in either one of their houses. Now we know why. It’s not that there wasn’t a relationship, it’s just that they are weird.”
I laughed. “Don’t let the thought police catch you saying things like that out loud.”
“You know what I mean. They don’t express their feelings in the usual way. But you heard them. If there was one thing Dr. Meigh and Hays agreed on, it was the fact that they were emotionally dependent on each other. Only thing is, their needs were different. He needed people to need him, and she just needs him. It’s a story that’s as old as humanity. Faced with the possibility of being abandoned by him, she freaks out and kills him.”
“Where’d she get the gun from?”
“C’mon, Stone. This is America! The land of opportunity. Mail order, a pawn shop, maybe she went to South Dakota for the weekend. It is not hard to get a gun if you are determined.” She was quiet for a moment, staring at the limp, pre-Christmas lights outside, then went on. “So it’s a Sig, OK, that’s odd, but if she’s buying second hand and she doesn’t know what she’s looking for, maybe that’s the first thing that came along.”
I gave her a look that was skeptical and said, “Mad professor goes looking for a gun in a pawn shop and comes home with a Sig Sauer Tacops p226? Where shall I begin?”
“Yeah, OK, when you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”
“And you know why that is?”
“Yeah, because it is ridiculous. But the fact that it is odd she should have that particular gun does not take away from the fact that sexual jealousy is the most likely motive, and that she is the most likely suspect.”
I nodded. “That is true.”
I parked outside the station house and while Dehan went inside, I took a walk to the deli on the corner to buy some beef sandwiches and two coffees. When I got back, she was at her desk, going through a sheaf of papers. I put her sandwich and her coffee in front of her and she spoke without looking at me.
“His phone records, and hers. Gutierrez just brought them over.” She pointed at a file on my desk. “Also her financials. There it is.” She picked up a pencil and circled an entry on the record she was holding, then pushed it across the desk at me. “Saturday night, five past ten. She calls him. The call lasts four minutes.” She sat back and put her boots on the desk, pointing at me with the pencil. “He’s had his dinner, he’s washed up and put everything away because he is that kind of fastidious guy who has to have everything just so. Now he’s sitting down in front of the fire, reading about batteries and having a glass of Scotch. The phone rings...” She jabbed her pencil at the paper. “It’s Agnes and she wants him to come over because she wants to discuss something with him.”
“Hang on.” I raised a hand. “So far, what you’re saying is indisputable, but we have a problem with what comes next. “We have to accept that this very timid, self-effacing woman has gone out and bought a gun, and now lays on wine for this guy, preparatory to shooting him. It’s wrong, it just doesn’t scan.”
“Because, Sensei, you are making an assumption which is not founded in fact.”
“I bet you really enjoyed saying that. What assumption?”
“That she went out and bought the gun. She may have had it all her life. Maybe her daddy gave it to her. We have no idea where that gun came from, but it might just as easily have been sitting in her room for years.”
I nodded. “That is true.”
“And in that scenario, it does not seem so incredible. She invites him over. They are having wine and she asks him what gives with him and Ali. He replies with all the arrogance of the macho he believes himself to be. Maybe he puts Agnes down and humiliates her. Tells her that he plans to get serious with Ali. Whatever he tells her, it pushes her over the edge. She goes to her room, gets the gun…”
I sighed. “That is very plausible.” I picked up her financial records and waved them at her. “What do you say? Will we find an unexplained outlay of one thousand bucks within two or three weeks of his death?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
I started going through it. “Whether we do or not, we need to establish where that gun came from.”
As it was, I found no outlay of a thousand dollars that might have been attributable to Agnes’ purchase of a Sig Sauer p226. In fact, the most remarkable thing about Agnes’ financial records was, as with everything else about her, the absence of anything remarkable.
At five past two, Alicia Cobos arrived and I had her shown up to an interview room. We joined her a couple of minutes later. She was an attractive woman in her mid thirties. Her black hair was cut short and she moved her hands a lot when she spoke. She was overdressed and had too much makeup on, but in spite of that, she looked good. As I introduced us and we sat down, Dehan put a paper cup of coffee in front of her.
“I brought you some coffee, just in case.”
Dr. Cobos peered into the cup and offered Dehan a thin smile. “Thank you, but this is not coffee.” She turned to me. “I teach Spanish at the university, and I make it part of my program to introduce Americans to good coffee, good food and good wine. Is part of Spanish culture.”
She laughed like she’d said something outrageous, reached across the table and touched my hand. “I am afraid America has terrible food, and horrible wine!”
I smiled sweetly at her. “It must have been a comfort for you to have Jose at the university, somebody who shared your cultural background.”
She made a face and shrugged. “I have many friends. I am friends with everybody.”
“Sure, I can imagine…” I paused a moment so she could read whatever she wanted into the comment, then asked, “How close were you and Jose?”
“We was friends. Good friends, but nothing more. Go out, come in, have some drinks with friends, no more.”
I leaned forward, confidentially, like we were allies. “I’ll be honest with you, Dr
. Cobos, we believe that Agnes was in love with Jose…”
She did a thing where she tucked her chin into her neck, made her eyes big and flapped her hands like she was shooing me away, and at the same time emitted a long “Oooooh!” I took this to mean she agreed with me, a lot. “She was crazy! Crazy for him, and crazy. Point!”
“Point?”
Dehan gave a small sigh. “Period.”
Cobos ignored us both and stormed on. “She was with him all the time! But all the time! Never! Never you see him alone! Where you go, you see him with her, at the breakfast, at the lunch, when he is going home, if we going out for the dinner, always she is with him. I say to him, ‘Tio!’ We say this in Spanish, is like ‘Guy!’ I say, ‘Tio! You take her with you everywhere? You take her to the toilet? She is like your dog!’ He say to me, ‘She is my mascot. She bring me lucky.’”
She emitted a scream of laughter. Dehan nodded and said, with no particular inflection, “That’s funny. We’ve heard that he was a bit machista. Would you say that was true?”
She did the thing with the hand again and nodded, pursing her lips, “But a lot! But, he say it in a way that make you laugh. He use to tell me, ‘What you doing in the university? Taking a job from a man. You should be at home, cooking, making the cleaning. You are antisocial!’” She laughed. “He is joking, but he is serious.” She nodded and suddenly she was sad. “I miss him. He was a…” She searched the walls and the ceiling for the word, then fumbled, “…personage…”
Dehan said, “A character. He was a character.”
“Yes, a character.”
“Was he in love with you, Dr. Cobos?”
She flopped back in her chair, took a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks. “I don’t know. Jose was in love with one person.” She held up a finger to indicate one person. “He was in love with Jose Robles, himself. He was a…” Again she hesitated, looking for the world. “Narcisista.”
“Narcissist.”
“Yes, but…” She hunched her shoulders, spread her hands and nodded slowly several times. “We have a thing, you know? We laugh a lot, we have good compenetration. He like me, and I like him.”
Dehan asked, “So, he never said anything to you about his feelings.”
“No.”
“Did you ever spend the night together, without Agnes?”
Her cheeks colored. “We… Twice, he stay at my apartment. Agnes went home in a taxi.”
I said, “She was upset, obviously.”
She shrugged elaborately. “Is impossible to tell with Agnes.”
Dehan sighed and I scratched my chin. “How did that happen? I’m interested in the scene. Did she say she was going? How did it come about?”
“We went to dinner in a restaurant. Me, Jose, Agnes, Donald, some more people. Donald was another one always with Jose. Him and Agnes was crazy. Good, so, after the dinner we having a few drinks, then Jose say, come on, we go dancing!” She screwed up her face, presumably imitating Agnes. “No! No! We go home! We godda work! Tomorrow is Wednesday!” She rolled her eyes. “Americans! So boring! So Donald go home, Chen go home, others go home, but Agnes stay. What we are going to do? Go dancing? Me and Jose and Agnes? Like the three amigos? I think no. So Jose say to Agnes, ‘Agnes, go home.’”
Dehan grunted. “Just like that?”
“Yes. He call a taxi, give the address, ‘I see you in the morning.’ Finish.” We were all quiet for a moment, then she spoke suddenly. “And second time was similar. But he say to her, ‘I gonna spend the night with Ali, you go home now.’ She go, get a taxi and go home.”
I nodded. “That was pretty cruel. He must have known she was in love with him.”
She shrugged. “Is her problem.”
Dehan smiled. “As it turned out, it was his problem too.”
I drummed my fingers on the table for a second, feeling oddly frustrated. “Dr. Cobos, we are nearly done. I just have a couple more questions for you. We are trying to establish how Agnes came to get hold of a gun. Did either Jose or Agnes at any time mention a gun to you?”
The look of horror on her face was so extreme it was almost comical. “No!” she said. “Never! Jose hate guns! Always he was criticizing American gun law. He says to his colleagues all the time, ‘You have highest murder rate in the world, and you let everybody have guns by mail-order! Maybe put two and two together, it makes four!’”
Dehan smiled, but left her eyes on hold. “Yeah, shame it’s not that easy. Actually the U.S.A. is below the international average for murders, and most murders are committed with knives and bare hands, not guns. So he didn’t own or buy a gun.”
“No, no, no! He hates guns.”
“What about Agnes?”
She raised her hands and hunched her shoulders and made a face only Mediterraneans know how to make. “Ah! I don’t know! I speak to her only for say hello! But I think—I think—she is not a kind of person who owns a gun! Is just my opinion, eh! I don’t know.”
Dehan pointed at a pendant Cobos had around her neck and smiled. “That’s a very pretty cross. My mother gave me one very similar. Are you a Catholic?”
“Oh, yes! My mother too, she give it to me, for my communion. God is always with me, taking care of me. I no go to the church every Sunday, but in my heart I am a Catholic and with the Lord. Is important.”
“It sure is.” She turned to me. “So, Stone, I don’t know if you have any more questions…?” I shook my head. She went on, “Summing up, you and Jose were just friends, though you did spend the night together twice, Agnes was aware of that, and as far as you know, neither of them owned a gun?”
“That is correct—as far as I know!”
I stood. “Well, Dr. Cobos, I don’t think we need detain you any longer. Thank you for coming in, and maybe try some of the Italian cafes for your coffee. You have a good day.”
She left on prancing legs with a swing of her hips and a cute smile. Dehan stared at the empty doorway and chewed her lip. I said, “There’s your motive, right there.”
She nodded. “And you don’t like it any more than I do.”
I leaned against the wall and folded my arms. “What’s bugging you?”
“It’s nothing. It doesn’t count, but…” She shook her head. “She didn’t hit the sack with Jose.”
I was surprised and my eyebrows said so. “Based on what?”
She shook her head again. “I told you, it’s nothing. It’s stupid, but she’s a real, devout Catholic. She wears her cross on the outside of her blouse. I know the type. There is no way on God’s green Earth she is going to hit the sack with Jose if they are just good friends. I just don’t buy it. If they were engaged, maybe, but just friends? No way.”
I frowned. “Then why the hell would she tell us she had?”
“I don’t know, Stone. But I am telling you, sure as eggs is eggs, that woman did not have sex with Jose Robles.”
“As sure as eggs is eggs? Really?”
“Shut up. I read it somewhere.”
FIVE
Back at my desk, the internal phone buzzed. I answered and Maria the desk sergeant said, “Hey, lover boy, you got a call on line two.”
I smiled at Dehan as she dropped into her chair. “Maria, if Carmen ever catches us, she will surely kill us both.”
“Say hi to her for me.”
“Maria says hi.”
“Tell her to give her husband more celery, he has no staying power.”
I frowned. “Put it through, will you, Maria?”
Suddenly I could hear traffic, and the slightly breathless voice of a man who was walking.
“Stone.”
“Detective Stone, who was at the university before?”
“Yes, who am I speaking to?”
“My name is Am.”
“Am?”
“Uh-huh, Am is for Americano, like the coffee.”
I narrowed my eyes at Dehan, who was watching me with curious ones, and said, “I’m not really following you. Americano
coffee?”
“The color, bro. My daddy had me with a black chick, called me Americano on account of the color of my skin.”
“Oh, I see.”
“We done with my name?”
“Yes, how can I help you, Am?”
“I was a student of Jose Robles. Me an’ him had a special connection. He knew I was a genius. I figure maybe I can help you.”
“You have information that can help us?”
“Maybe I have.”
“Am, maybe isn’t really good enough. Do you have information that can help the investigation or not?”
“Well, I don’t know until I tell you, do I? You gotta decide that. Me an’ him use to talk. We talked a lot. I told him ’bout my plans and my projects, an’ the stuff I aim to do with my life, and he wanted to help me, you feel me? He was a good dude. I feel I owe him. I can tell you what we use to talk about, and then maybe there is somethin’ in there that can help you.”
I tried not to sigh. “Can you come in to the station, Am?”
He laughed. “No, man. I ain’t goin’ to no police station. I go in there, you ain’t never gonna let me out again.”
“OK, give me your number and I’ll call you when we…”
“No, man.” He laughed again. “Don’t give me that, ‘I’ll call you’ routine. You ain’t never gonna call me. You think I’m as crazy as his lady. But I ain’t crazy. You don’t wanna talk to me, that’s cool. I jus’ wanna help the dude. You hear what I’m sayin’ to you?”
“He’s a little beyond helping, but I hear what you’re saying. Where do you want to meet, Am?”
“You know where I live?”
I looked at Dehan, closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “No, Am, I don’t know where you live.”
“I’m gonna tell you. You know Hunts Point Avenue?”
“Yes.”
“You know where it makes a kind of wishbone with Bryant Avenue?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s where I live. Right there, dude. That’s where I got me my apartment. It’s new, you know?”
