John patted his phantom cigarette pack and felt the letdown of the nicotine gum container. Not that he could sneak a smoke in a public building; the cigarette pack was a touchstone, a security blanket.
“Mr. Contreras has nothing to say to you, Detective.” The attorney put his pricey briefcase on the table between Penley and his client, a leather-bound barrier of legal protection.
“We were having a friendly discussion about the life and times of Daniel Cardozo,” Penley responded.
“And dude was just getting to the part where Danny was up to no good,” Contreras said to his attorney.
“That’s enough, Manuel,” Morrison said to his client. He turned to Penley. “What are you charging him with? I’ll remind you that the terms of the gang injunction apply in Yolo County, not over on this side of the river.”
“We found the body of one of your clients on the Sacramento side.”
“Mr. Contreras has no knowledge of that.”
“We were about to find out,” Penley said.
“Are you charging him with murder? With anything?”
“No.” Penley shook his head.
“Then we’re done here. Mr. Contreras, let’s go.”
The gang member stood and started out the door behind his attorney. He paused and said, “You’d better find him. Danny was a respected man. This could get out of hand if you don’t get whoever done this.”
Morrison turned and grabbed his client by the sleeve. “That’s it. Don’t say another word until we get in the car.”
“Dude deserved better than this. It ain’t right what they did to him,” Contreras complained as he pulled away from his lawyer’s grip.
“I can’t help him unless you tell me who ‘they’ are,” Penley said.
“I dunno who, but Danny was one tough dude who could handle himself. It had to be a setup, a trap.”
“That, or someone he thought he could trust,” Penley added.
“It better not be that, or someone else will be floating in the river,” Contreras said.
The attorney jerked on his client’s arm once more and pulled him from the room. Morrison’s face flushed with anger. “Give him a reason to lock you up, why don’t you?”
Contreras pulled free from Morrison and walked ahead. Morrison turned toward Penley and said, “Leave my client alone. You have anything further, you come to me, understood?”
“What do you know about Cardozo’s murder?” Penley asked the attorney.
The rate of gum chomping increased, and Morrison said, “If I knew anything, attorney-client privilege would bar me from telling you. In this instance, I assure you that Daniel Cardozo’s death was not gang related. If someone inside the family did this, it would be tantamount to suicide. Even their wives and children would be green-lighted for retaliation.”
“Nice family.”
“It is what it is, Detective. You need to find another angle, is what I’m saying.”
Penley watched the attorney catch up with his client down the hall, and the duo disappeared around a corner.
Penley found a dead end as far as the street gang connection was concerned. He had to admit the desecration of Cardozo’s body didn’t carry the usual hit-and-run characteristics of a gang killing. The body dump was calculated and purposeful. Disposing of a well-known gangbanger out in the open was bold. The killer could take anyone anywhere and wasn’t concerned about the police. He wasn’t going to stop.
FOUR
John Penley’s work area consisted of two battered metal desks pushed together so that he faced his new partner, Detective Paula Newberry. The two desks were a study of contrasts in organization and individual styles. They reflected the personalities of their respective occupants. Penley’s well-ordered desktop had files stacked neatly in one corner with his computer angled precisely on the opposite corner. The blotter in the center held a single binder and a notepad. Paula’s desk looked like a photo from a FEMA disaster area. Crime-scene photos, computer printouts, reports, and files littered the surface. Her computer keyboard balanced precariously atop an overfilled in-box, and four paper coffee cups incubated a filmy layer over coagulated coffee remnants.
John and Paula were partners of last resort. She came from internal affairs after a short but rocky assignment investigating other officers, and most detectives welcomed her like a communicable disease. Paula was an outsider in a world that valued having your partner’s back above all else. The lieutenant paired them up, and his only direction to Paula was to “leave the IA baggage behind.”
Paula perched in an old desk chair she rescued from a thrift store. The chair lifted her five-three frame so that she could work at her desk without feeling like she was at the kids’ table at Thanksgiving. Most of her personal belongings rested in a box under her desk, uncertain if, or when, they would find a permanent place to rest. She examined a series of photos of the Cardozo crime scene she had placed on a whiteboard on the wall behind her desk. Paula didn’t look away from the graphic images of the mutilated torso when John Penley entered.
“Let me guess—Manny Contreras says he didn’t do it,” Paula said.
“That’s right. I’m thinking he might be playing it straight on this one. When did you get back home?”
“It was a five-hour drive to San Luis Obispo. You know they call that prison the ‘men’s colony’? Sounds nice, huh? Anyway, five hours down, ten minutes of testimony at a lifer hearing, then turn around and drive five more hours. I haven’t been home yet.”
“Is this the guy who killed his neighbor over an argument about their backyard fence? Is the Board of Parole Hearings gonna release him?”
Paula shrugged. “Don’t know. He’s old and sick, so they might give him a date. But anyway, about Contreras, he always has some angle going. What makes you believe him now?”
“If our victim was laying down on the gang business—and we’d have to get the Yolo County sheriff and West Sac. PD to confirm that—then I don’t see any benefit to a hit on Cardozo.”
“Why would Cardozo end up this way”—she gestured to the photos—“if it wasn’t about him?”
John lowered himself into the chair behind his desk and made sure that the notepad and files remained in place on the desktop. “Manny thought that Cardozo was onto a big score or something,”
“Like what?”
“He claimed he didn’t know. Some kind of job,” John said.
“Our other victims, Johnson and Mercer, didn’t have any score going on—anything we know about anyway. They were gang members, like Cardozo. All three ran with different gangs but had the same lifestyle.”
“Hustling, moving a little meth, some protection racket action. All the usual stuff.” John pointed at the photos from the Cardozo crime scene. “That is not your typical gang killing.”
“I don’t need the medical examiner’s official report to tell me Cardozo, Johnson, and Mercer were all killed by the same guy. We haven’t leaked the details of the murders, but this,” she said, pointing to a photo of the open carcass, “is our guy’s signature.”
“Question is, what’s our guy do with the parts he doesn’t leave behind?” John asked.
Paula swiveled in her chair. “Other than sending a message to gangbangers?”
“What? You think our killer is cleaning up the city? I mean, sure these victims had gang ties, but why them? They weren’t the worst of the worst.”
“Maybe he’s a vigilante, making a statement about gangs. Cardozo ran with the West Block Norteños, Mercer was a Crip, and Johnson was a Skinhead. I’d say it was a little equal opportunity roadside cleanup, except for the way they were mutilated,” she said.
“If this was gang on gang, we’d have heard about it. If this is some kind of gang move, what does it mean when the killer leaves you behind without your arms, legs, and gooey bits? Did the profile the lieutenant got from the FBI mention anything?”
Paula pulled a thick file folder from one of the piles on her desk, which caused a min
i–paper avalanche. She ignored the disarray, thumbed open the file, and glanced at the contents. “The usual psychobabble about a loner with narcissistic tendencies. Here we go—the profiler said the mutilation could be symbolic of a ‘psychic injury’ experienced by the subject, or displaced rage. Killers who display their victims in this manner often experience abandonment by parental figures.”
“Doesn’t tell us much we didn’t know.”
“Other than he may have ‘mommy issues.’”
“The lieutenant told them about the gang connection on the first two victims, right?” John said.
She flipped a page, ran a finger down the print. “Yeah, the profiler said further field intelligence from the gang unit is needed to rule out racially motivated gang activity. Get this: ‘Considering the symbolic nature of the mutilation, investigators should consider the victims were chosen specifically. The killer literally spilled their guts, indicating they may have been seen as informants.’”
“Cardozo takes the racial angle off the table. Black, white, and now Hispanic victims. From my dealings with Cardozo, I didn’t take him for a snitch. Contreras seemed to back that up.”
“Would Contreras tell you if dearly departed Daniel Cardozo was an informant? If he wasn’t, then we have a killer taking out gang members at random. How do you warn anyone when you don’t know what the killer wants? I’m not ready to admit this guy is a Zodiac or Son of Sam targeting gangsters at random.”
“How can you work like that?” John said, indicating her desk.
“What are you, my mother? I have a system that works for me—that’s what matters.”
“Your desk looks like an episode of Hoarders. It—”
“Rubs your OCD the wrong way? Get over it.” She flicked her hand dismissively.
“I’d hate to see your house. I hope you have GPS on your cell phone so the rescue crews can find you when you get lost in your living room.”
“Are you done?”
“For now.”
Paula glanced back at the file in her hand. “We interviewed the Johnson and Mercer next of kin for any connection to one another. I seriously doubt they ran in the Yolo County gang circles with Cardozo. Maybe Cardozo’s wife can tell us something about Daniel’s decision to turn his back on the homeboys. That had to have pissed off someone.”
“Maybe,” John said. “Manny Contreras thought it had nothing to do with the West Block Norteños.”
“What else is he gonna say?” Paula swung her hands open wide to emphasize her point, knocked her computer keyboard off its perch, and sent it clattering to the floor.
“Would you at least get rid of those coffee cups before they spill all over the files?”
Paula retrieved the keyboard and tossed it on the desktop, where it toppled over one of the paper cups. The thick, dark-brown sludge remained solidly adhered to the bottom reaches of the container. She grabbed it along with the others that littered her work area and disposed of them in her trash can. Paula held the can up. “Happy now?”
“A little.”
“As I was saying, Contreras and all his gang buddies will say nothing to implicate Daniel Cardozo in their business. The Yolo County DA would swarm all over them for any violations of the injunction.”
“Were you able to locate who reported finding the body?”
“An anonymous caller. Didn’t call nine-one-one but called in on a direct line to the watch commander.”
“So no recording?”
“And no trace on the number. The caller said where to find the body, and the first black-and-white found Contreras. No one else was there,” Paula said.
“What time was the call?”
“Four fifteen in the morning.”
John’s desk phone rang, and he picked it up. “Penley.”
He listened to the caller and shifted his eyes to Paula. “Where can we meet?” Another pause, then he said, “How about thirty minutes? Fine—see you then.”
“That was Cardozo’s wife. Manny Contreras told her that she should call us and talk.”
“You mean he told her what to say. We should pull Contreras back in for obstruction. He’s tainted our investigation talking to the next of kin,” Paula said.
“Why don’t we hear what she has to say before you go all medieval on his ass? She sounded like she wanted to talk—”
“Oh, she will. Whatever Manny told her to say.”
“I’m interested in what she knows about Mercer and Johnson. If she can lead us to a connection there, I don’t care what Contreras told her.”
“Where we meeting her?” Paula stood and grabbed her jacket from a pile of shoes and sweats on the floor behind her desk.
John opened a desk drawer and removed a fresh notebook, tucking it in his jacket pocket. “She’s staying with her mom, here in Sacramento. The projects off Broadway.”
Paula shrugged into her jacket. “Neutral territory, at least.”
FIVE
The brick-and-mortar public housing projects were anything but neutral territory, as far as a half dozen street gangs were concerned. Drug deals took place on the sidewalks in plain view, watched over by sweat shirt–hooded sentries posted on the ends of Kit Carson Street. Before Penley piloted the unmarked police sedan onto the street, the signals went out by cell phone from the watchers, warning the dealers and their runners of the approach.
The thugs’ body language was easy to read. Penley saw hands in pockets, undoubtedly clutching various weapons. The dealers planned to protect their turf from all rivals, other gangs, or narcotics officers. Tense and ready to run and gun.
Penley slowed the car and pulled to the curb. “Roll your window down,” he said to Paula.
“Is that George Watts?” she asked.
“Yeah. When did he get out of prison?”
“I dunno. He probably got kicked because of overcrowding,” Paula said.
“We should say welcome home.”
Penley leaned over toward Paula’s open window and yelled at a knot of men. “Hey, George! Got a second?”
One man, slightly older than the twenty-year-olds with him, squinted, and recognition spread across his face. He spoke in hushed tones to the men around him, and the group relaxed slightly. A few hands came out of pockets, but most important, the hands held no semiautomatic weapons. The older man separated himself from the group and walked toward the unmarked car.
“Detective Penley, what brings you ’round here? You get busted back to narcotics?” George chided. He held a gold-framed smile provided by an elaborate grill of gold and diamonds in the shape of a marijuana leaf over his front teeth.
“We’re here about a murder,” John said.
“Ain’t been nobody killed here in more than a week.”
“You hear about Daniel Cardozo?”
George nodded and said, “Yeah, damn shame too, if you ask me. He seemed to be getting his life together since he got out of prison.”
“Did you see him around here recently?” Paula asked.
“I ain’t talking to you, Newberry. You’re the reason I gotta wear this.” George put his foot on the passenger-side window frame and pulled up his pant leg to reveal a GPS ankle monitor. “Cause of you, I got no privacy and can’t go more than a quarter mile from here.”
“I didn’t make you sell pot over at Kennedy High,” Paula said.
“I wasn’t selling nothing.”
“Only because you got busted before you had a chance. That’s why you got twenty-four months instead of sixty,” Paula countered.
“Man, you had them take away my medical marijuana card. That ain’t right. I got a right to smoke to help my condition.”
“George, you had three pounds of weed, and there’s nothing wrong with you that jail time can’t cure,” Paula said.
“That’s harsh, Newberry,” George complained.
“Now about Cardozo—you seen him?” she pressed.
“Last couple of weeks, he was here a lot. His wife moved in with her mom, The
resa, and they took care of the kid—I think the girl is sick or something. Cardozo was straight up about layin’ down on the West Block Norteños and convinced the South Side Pirus that he weren’t gonna cause no drama.”
“How’d he convince them he was done with the gang?” John asked.
“Paid ’em.”
“How much?” John demanded.
George shrugged. “Don’t know, but I figure it had to be a bundle since the Piru shot-caller lifted a ‘hit-on-sight’ order on the dude.”
“Why did Cardozo have a hit on him?” John asked.
“From what I hear, it went back years to when Cardozo was a heavy with the boys. A drug rip-off. He took down a Piru runner and left with the product.”
“Is Rotten Ricky still the Piru shot-caller?” John questioned.
“Yep, dude takes a cut of all the action out here in exchange for protection and so forth.”
“Including yours?” Paula asked.
“Man, why you always gotta be like that? If I was into anything, then yeah, Rotten Ricky would get his.”
John pointed to a first-floor unit with a long, wide sidewalk in the center of the housing complex across the street. “Seven-twelve. That’s where Cardozo’s wife is staying, right?”
George nodded.
“Thanks. If I park my car here, am I gonna have all my tires and rims when I get back? You being an entrepreneur and all?” John said.
George smiled. “Depends on how long you’re gone. I’m doin’ my own number, so alls I can say is that I won’t bother your broke-ass ride.”
John took the keys from the ignition and opened his door. “Good enough for me.”
George strolled back to his posse of young thugs, all of whom eyed the two cops with unveiled contempt. The group listened as George spoke and gestured toward John and Paula. From the street, the conversation was unheard, but the message was clear: George ordered the men to stand down and leave the two cops alone.
Paula joined her partner on the street, and the pair walked across the neglected asphalt to the sidewalk. “What did he mean by ‘doing his own number’?” Paula asked.
At What Cost Page 2
