Innocence

by David Hosp

  z

  Lissa Krantz stood on the front porch of the small, neatly kept Cape where Juanita Sobol—formerly Sanchez—lived in West Roxbury. By all indications, it was a solid middle-class neighborhood where working families piled into minivans and cooked out on their barbecues during the summer.

  Lissa rang the doorbell, checking her watch as she waited quietly. She should have called first, just to make sure Mrs. Sobol was there. She was going to be annoyed with herself if she’d wasted the trip. She was sure the woman was home, though—Dobson’s notes indicated that she was a stay-at-home mother, and the telltale three-year-old Grand Caravan was sitting in the driveway. Dobson’s notes also indicated that fifteen years earlier, when Sobol was still Sanchez, she was an illegal immigrant living a few blocks from the apartment Vincente Salazar had shared with his family. She was giving birth at the time Madeline Steele was shot, and according to what she had told Dobson, Salazar was there helping with the delivery. At the time of Vincente’s trial, she had been unwilling to come forward because of her fear that she would be deported, but now that she was married to a U.S. citizen, she had agreed to tell her story.

  This was what Dobson had indicated in his notes, but it was now Lissa’s job to lock in the woman’s story and get her to sign an affidavit. Lissa looked at her watch again and rang the doorbell a second time. At last the door was unlocked from within and pulled open a crack. Lissa could see a sliver of a woman in her late thirties with straight black hair and nervous eyes.

  “Yes?” the woman said. She had a heavy accent.

  “Hi. My name is Lissa Krantz, and I’m looking for Juanita Sobol.”

  Lissa’s friendly tone did nothing to chase the nervousness from the woman’s eyes. “I am Juanita,” she said.

  “Great. I work with the attorney who represents Vincente Salazar, and I just wanted to go over your statement with you—get it all down on paper and have you sign it. Can I come in?”

  “There’s been a mistake,” Juanita blurted out.

  “A mistake?”

  “Yes. I am sorry, I can’t help you.”

  Lissa was stunned. “I don’t understand. How has there been a mistake?”

  “There just has. I was wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know whether I was with Mr. Salazar. I can’t help you.”

  Lissa took out a copy of the affidavit she had drafted from Dobson’s notes. “But you spoke with Mark Dobson. Didn’t you tell him that Vincente Salazar was with you at the time the police officer was shot?” She waved the draft affidavit in front of the woman.

  “I’m sorry,” Juanita said as she started to close the door, but Lissa stuck her foot in the way.

  “They can’t deport you anymore,” Lissa said. “You’re an American citizen.”

  Juanita shook her head. “I can’t be sure it was the same night,” she protested.

  Lissa crossed her arms in front of her chest. “What’s your son’s birthday?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sure you know your son’s birthday, right? And Vincente Salazar was there to deliver your son? All we have to do is match up the dates.”

  The woman’s look went from nervous to scared. “Leave, please,” she said.

  “No.”

  “I will call the police.”

  “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  “I have a family. I have a husband. I have children.”

  Lissa took a step back and looked at the woman carefully. “Did someone threaten you? Did someone tell you to change your story?”

  “I have a family,” Juanita repeated.

  “I know. Including a son that Vincente Salazar delivered.”

  She shook her head. “I am sorry, as I said. But I will call the police if you don’t leave.”

  She closed the door, and Lissa was left standing on the front steps of the neat little Cape. “Fuck,” she said. She slapped the door once. “Vincente Salazar has a family, too, you know!” she yelled.

  She waited another minute to see whether that fact might move Juanita Sobol to change her mind, but the door remained closed. At last she picked up her bag and walked back to her car.

  z

  B-2 was an old cement structure built in the 1950s, with all the postmodern utilitarian warmth of the period’s architecture. As cold as the December winds were, Finn didn’t really feel the chill that morning until he stood outside the police station.

  “Charming,” he commented.

  “Yeah,” Kozlowski replied. “It’s worse on the inside.”

  They walked into the station house, and Kozlowski headed straight for the front desk. The man behind the desk was a roly-poly specimen in his fifties with huge jowls and a double chin that looked like it was competing for goiter status. “Koz,” the man greeted him genially. “They didn’t let your sorry ass back on the force, did they?”

  “No such luck for you, Sarge,” Kozlowski replied. “They figure they got to give the bad guys a fighting chance, I guess.”

  “Good to see you. How’s everything going?” The man held out a flabby hand, and Kozlowski shook it.

  “Good. How’s everything here?”

  The sergeant shrugged. “You know, same shit, different decade. It never really changes; we just keep fighting the tide. What brings you down?”

  Kozlowski nodded toward Finn. “This is Finn, a guy I work with. We need to talk to Eddie Fornier, down in the fingerprint unit.”

  The desk sergeant’s face darkened. “’Bout what?”

  “Nothing serious,” Kozlowski replied. “Just an old case. We need some details.”

  The frown hung in on the man’s face. “Okay,” he said skeptically. He looked over the roster behind the desk. “He’s downstairs. Checked in an hour ago or so.”

  Kozlowski looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon. They pulling night shifts down there these days?”

  The sergeant shook his head. “That’s just Fornier. Always has been.” Finn had the distinct impression that the man would have said much more had he been alone with Kozlowski. Finn made a mental note to have Kozlowski follow up with him later to get the whole story. “You know where the unit is, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Kozlowski replied. He shook the sergeant’s hand again and turned to head through a door toward the back of the lobby.

  Finn followed Kozlowski down the hallway to a steel door, saying nothing. As Kozlowski pulled the door open, Finn was assaulted by a wave of warm, humid, putrid air.

  “What the fuck is that stench?” he asked.

  “Mold, for the most part. That and car exhaust. The motor pool is attached to the fingerprint lab, and they have to keep the door open to get any circulation.”

  They walked down the concrete steps, along another corridor, to a dark door with white stenciling that read latent fingerprint unit, chipping at the edges. Kozlowski pulled the door open, and the two of them stepped inside.

  It took a moment for Finn’s eyes to adjust. The jaundiced fluorescent lights pulsated, giving the small room a strangely cinematic quality that made it difficult to focus. There were no windows, and the aging ventilation system delivered a steady stream of mildewed air that choked his nostrils. Finn wondered what manner of sins an officer had to commit to be sentenced to this dungeon.

  A young woman was sitting at a desk near the door, hunched over a stack of greasy, inky fingerprint reports, moving a magnifying glass back and forth from sheet to sheet with passionless assembly-line efficiency. She looked up at her visitors. “Can I help you?” she asked. She was dressed in a gray pantsuit, her jacket slung over the back of the chair to reveal a white cotton dress shirt that flickered yellow under the fluorescents.

  “We’re looking for Fornier,” Kozlowski said in a neutral tone.

  “In the back,” she replied. She turned back to her task.

  She reminded Finn of an automaton from some Orwellian nightmare. “Thanks,” he said. She didn’t acknowledge him.

&nb
sp; The room was partitioned into four separate areas by large gray dividers. Finn noticed that the fabric was stained and fraying and falling off in numerous spots. As they moved back, deeper into the space, Finn saw a half-eaten meatball sandwich sitting deserted on a desk. Two flies jousted above it.

  They passed into the back area and found a diminutive man in his late forties sitting with his feet up on his desk, staring at the ceiling with a vacant expression. A can of Coca-Cola was wedged into his crotch.

  “Fornier?” Kozlowski asked him.

  It took a moment for the man to react, and Finn wondered briefly whether he was dead. Then he spoke. “Who wants to know?”

  “Officer Fornier, we have a few questions to ask you about a case you worked on awhile back,” Finn said.

  Fornier pulled his legs off the desk, and the shift in his balance pulled his body forward, snapping his head upright. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger, then rubbed his eyeballs as though attempting to focus. “Why?” he asked.

  Kozlowski opened his wallet and displayed the card identifying him as a former police detective. “It’s just routine,” he said. He sounded like he was still a cop.

  Fornier crossed his arms. “Fine. Ask away.”

  “Do you remember the Vincente Salazar case?” Finn asked.

  Fornier’s posture stiffened. “No.”

  “Your testimony put him away,” Finn said.

  “My testimony has put away a lot of scumbags,” Fornier retorted. “I can’t be expected to remember every one of them.” His eyes were lined in red, and what little was left of the whites shone a sickly yellow-gray, but he seemed determined to hold his own.

  “We have reason to believe the testimony you gave in this particular case was wrong,” Finn said, instilling his tone with confidence. “Are you going to talk to us, or are we going to have to get a subpoena and do this under oath?”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m Mr. Salazar’s lawyer, and I can assure you that we’re going to have this conversation one way or another.”

  Fornier’s resolve seemed to slacken. “It was a long time ago,” he said. “What the fuck do you want to know?”

  Finn glared at him. “I thought you said you didn’t remember the case. Now you know it was a long time ago?”

  “Fuck you. He shot a cop. I do maybe twenty cases a week, but I remember the ones who shoot cops.”

  “So, you want to tell us about the prints?” There was a threat in Finn’s tone, though he had nothing to back it up with.

  Fornier studied Finn closely, sizing him up. Finally, he said, “Fuck you. You’ve got shit. I can see it in your eyes. I did my job.”

  “What I’ve got,” Finn said, “are the results of a DNA test that show Salazar didn’t do it. He’s innocent. You talk to us, and maybe you can get out ahead of this thing before it ruins your career.”

  Fornier sneered. “Bullshit. If you had DNA tests that backed you up, you wouldn’t be wasting your time here. Besides, even if you did have test results, you think I give a shit? Check the prints yourself. They match, so you can get the fuck out of my face. Besides, the cop he shot identified him, right?”

  “Are you saying you were told about the ID before you ran the prints?” Finn pushed.

  “What I’m saying is that I’m done talking to you.” Fornier stood up and started walking around his desk to get out. Kozlowski took two quick strides and stood in front of him, trapping him behind the desk. The size differential between the two men was comical, but Fornier wasn’t backing off.

  “Careful, big boy,” he said. “You’re in a police station now, and the word ‘retired’ is printed in big bright letters across that fucking ID you showed me. You want a world full of trouble, you just keep standing there.”

  Kozlowski leaned in close to the man, meeting him eye to eye. Then he closed his eyes and gave a sniff. “I smell fear,” he said, opening his eyes again.

  Fornier shoved the bigger man in the chest. Kozlowski didn’t move, and Fornier managed only to push himself back farther behind the desk. “Motherfucker,” Fornier said. “You got any issues, you take them upstairs. Like I said, I’m done talking. Now back off and let me out, or I swear I’ll call the desk sergeant and he’ll have a SWAT team down here in a matter of seconds.”

  Kozlowski stepped back, and Fornier squeezed between him and the wall.

  “This isn’t done,” Finn said. “Expect a subpoena and a lot more questions.”

  “Fuck you.” Fornier walked past him toward the door at the front of the room. “You got shit, and you know it. Your boy is where he belongs, and that’s where he’s gonna stay.”

  z

  Back out on the street, Finn and Kozlowski headed toward the parking lot. The day had grayed while they were in the windowless basement, and their moods were a fine match for the weather.

  “Nice bluff,” Kozlowski said. “Let me know the next time you want to get up a game of poker. I could use the cash.”

  “You’re one to talk. ‘I smell fear’? Did you really just say that?”

  “He knew what I was getting at.”

  “What, are you part dog now?”

  Kozlowski stopped. “You didn’t smell it?”

  “What? Fear?”

  “No, courage,” Kozlowski said. “Straight out of the bottle.”

  Finn raised his eyebrows. “Booze? You serious?”

  “No question about it. That’s why I leaned in close to him. It was oozing out of his pores, so that takes care of last night. But it was also on his breath, so he had this morning covered as well. He’s been soaking in it for a long time, from what I could tell. And I can tell you this for sure: That wasn’t just Coke in the can between his legs. That was what you might call an Irish soda pop.”

  “That’s an offensive slur,” Finn said, defending his ancestors. “Fornier’s French. You really gotta go after my people?”

  “Fine, it was the champagne of soft drinks, then. No matter what you call it, he was already hip-deep and sinking fast.”

  As the two of them kept moving toward the car, they heard someone calling from behind them. “Kozlowski! Koz! Wait up!”

  They turned and saw a fit man in his fifties running toward them from the police station.

  “He looks familiar,” Finn said.

  “He used to be my boss,” Kozlowski said. “Captain Weidel. You probably dealt with him at some point during the Natalie Caldwell murder investigation—most likely when we thought you were our best suspect.”

  “Great,” Finn said. “This day just keeps getting better.”

  Weidel reached them quickly. In spite of the fact that he’d been moving at a full sprint, he wasn’t even breathing hard. “Kozlowski, we gotta talk,” he said.

  “How’s it going, Cap?” Kozlowski said. “Long time. You remember Scott Finn, I’m guessing?”

  The man looked Finn up and down; it took a moment for the recognition to show on his face. “We had you made for the Little Jack deal a few years ago, right?” he said. He didn’t offer his hand. Or an apology. Instead, he looked back at Kozlowski. “I see you’re hanging out with only the most respectable people these days, huh, Koz?”

  “Hey, I was cleared,” Finn protested.

  Weidel ignored him. “Word’s out in the department, Koz. You’re trying to buy a walk for the piece of shit who shot Maddy Steele. Is it true?”

  “No,” Kozlowski said. “I’m not trying to buy anything. We’re just trying to figure out whether the guy who went away was the same guy who pulled the trigger. If he is, then he stays in jail, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he stays put. If not . . .”

  “You know what this kind of shit does to those of us on the front line, right?” Weidel was pointing a finger angrily at Kozlowski.

  Kozlowski frowned. “I never really thought of you as a front line kind of guy, Cap. You were really always more in the rear with the gear, from what I remember.
”

  Weidel crossed his arms. “Fine, Koz. You can play the comedian, but there are people you used to work with who go out there on the streets every day and put their asses on the line. Then a bunch of liberal candy-asses come along and try to free some asshole who put one of our own in a chair for life. How do you think that looks to us?”

  “Excuse me, Captain,” Finn said. “I really think of myself as more of a libertarian candy-ass. Just an FYI.”

  Weidel ignored him. “It’s wrong, Koz. It’s just plain wrong, and you know it.”

  “There’s a lot wrong with this case,” Kozlowski said. “I know that much for sure.”

  The police captain stared at him. “You and I never really got along all that well when you were on the force. And I’m not going to stand here and lie to your face and tell you I miss you, or that I was sorry when you left the department—”

  “When you forced me out of the department,” Kozlowski corrected him.

  “Like I said, you were a pain in the ass, and I never liked you. But I at least had respect for your dedication to the job and to your fellow officers. I never would have thought you were capable of this kind of betrayal.”

  “That’s quite an indictment coming from someone who knows as much about betrayal as you.”

  The man looked away, and when he turned back, there was real hatred in his eyes. “Being a PI can be pretty tough work. You’ve had it a little easier than others because of your connections on the force. It’s given you access a lot of PIs don’t ever get. That’s over as of now, you know? Don’t bother calling anyone here anymore. I can guarantee that no one’s going to return your calls. And if I was in your shoes, I’d take great care to make sure I was doing everything by the book. You step even close to the line, and I promise everyone in this department will land on you with both feet. You get that?”

  Kozlowski just stared back at the man. Then Weidel turned and headed back toward the station house.

  Finn and Kozlowski walked on to the car in silence. When they got there, they looked at each other across the soft top.

  “A libertarian?” Kozlowski asked. “Seriously?”

  Finn shrugged. “More or less.”