Compromised

by James R. Scarantino

  Copyright Information

  Compromised: A Denise Aragon Mystery © 2017 by James R. Scarantino.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2017

  E-book ISBN: 9780738751665

  Book format by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Lisa Novak

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Scarantino, James, 1956– author.

  Title: Compromised / James R. Scarantino.

  Description: First Edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota: Midnight Ink, [2017] |

  Series: A Denise Aragon mystery; #2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016039126 (print) | LCCN 2016045344 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738750408 | ISBN 9780738751665

  Subjects: LCSH: Women detectives—Fiction. | Santa Fe (N.M.)—Fiction. |

  GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3619.C268 C66 2017 (print) | LCC PS3619.C268 (ebook) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016039126

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

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  To the men and women in law enforcement who lay it all on the line for us every day. They go where we never want to go except in the pages we turn.

  One

  Lily Montclaire needed these cops to believe her. That or, what did they say, three stacked jail sentences? What was left of her fashion model looks wouldn’t do her any favors for the next twenty years.

  “That thing you do with your hand, laying your fingers against your neck, showing your long lines, what a fine thing you used to be. You’re going to want to stop doing that.”

  Detective Denise Aragon talking now. Short, brown, solid forearms. Montclaire didn’t know there were that many muscles between a wrist and elbow. Black eyes that didn’t blink, that took you apart and let you know how bad it was going to be without her saying a word. Hair cut so close to her scalp you could see scars. Without the badge, Aragon could be like the women waiting for her if she couldn’t make this work.

  But the pretty-girl face on top of the thick neck. The buzz cut making her big brown eyes even bigger. The lips, no gloss, probably never lipstick—this close they were beautiful, even cracked from the drought and crazy heat all around them this summer in Santa Fe. Montclaire was wondering about the scars when Aragon spoke again.

  “Start over. Convince us we should help you.”

  “What else can I tell you?” She got no answer from Aragon’s dark eyes.

  She looked past Aragon at Detective Rick Lewis, hoping for something in his face. He had his chin down, showing her the part in his yellow hair, the shelf of his shoulders. What was he doing, texting someone while she was giving them more than anyone could believe?

  Five times already she must have told them about the judge and the girl. Andrea had said she was eighteen, but no way was she old enough to drive.

  “I picked her up at the Pizza Hut on Cerrillos. Then I drove her to the judge’s house.” Now giving the detectives a little more, the transportation details, something to help them believe. “I took her back there. She wouldn’t let me take her home.”

  They wanted her old boss, the lawyer she’d worked for serving subpoenas, finding and talking to people, handling evidence clients turned in. Marcy Thornton. Her and the chief judge, the Honorable J. S. Diaz—pretty much the two of them running things in Santa Fe’s First Judicial District Court. And the woman she saw in her mirror, Marcy’s salvage project, the gofer with the crow’s feet and sun damage who helped them keep it together.

  The judge and the girl, a gift from Marcy to say thanks. A little more to help them along: Yes, she’d followed Andrea once. Lost her cutting across a lot behind the Walmart. By the time she drove around, she’d lost her in the dark. Marcy had wanted to know where she went. Andrea could be a problem if she realized who she’d been with.

  “Following people. Was that something you did for Thornton?”

  Lily Montclaire started to lay her hand against her neck, then stopped, remembering what Aragon had just told her.

  “When I had to,” she said.

  “You ever follow me?”

  Was that a ridge of muscle growing between Aragon’s eyes? Who had muscle between their eyes?

  “Yes. Well, no. I was following someone else and they met up with you.”

  “You’ll tell me about that later. Back to Andrea. She knew the house,” Aragon said. “She could figure it was Judge Diaz’s.”

  “It was always dark. Those skinny streets off Acequia Madre, at night you can’t tell where you’re going until you come out on a bigger street.”

  These detectives wanted to believe. Maybe she should have given everything at the start, not making it better bit by bit when they interrupted and told her to start over. Why hold anything back? Like she had chips to bargain with.

  But that’s how Marcy played it. She’d watched her a hundred times never putting it all on the table, knowing she’d need something at the end to push the deal through. Always keep something in the bank, Marcy said. Late withdrawals are worth the most.

  “She did see the license plate.” Montclaire gave a little more.

  “How many Aston Martins in Santa Fe?” Aragon spread those stubby, square hands. No nails. Not bitten, clipped down to nothing. “It wouldn’t take long to find out who it belonged to. Thornton. So Andrea knew she was riding in a big-time lawyer’s car. Come on, she knew where she was going. You ever tell Andrea straight out who she was partying with? Try to impress her?”

  She remembered Marcy sitting right there with her not so long ago. Before she’d agreed to talk to the police. Marcy wanting to represent her, not leave her alone with these detectives. No charge. Don’t say a thing. Let me handle this. Wink. They’ve got nothing. Wink. Nothing to worry about. Another goddamn wink and Marcy’s hand on her thigh under the table.

  Nothing for her to worry about.

  Marcy had tried to keep her from reading the memo Aragon had waved around. All her mistakes when she thought she’d been so smart, doing what M
arcy wanted to make problems for clients go away. All the bad news laid out in five pages, with tabbed attachments stapled at the end.

  They’ve got nothing. Wink.

  Marcy, you’re fired.

  It had felt so good. Marcy Thornton going stiff, flipping her hair over her shoulder the way a person blinks when they hear something they can’t believe. She could still hear the sound of Marcy’s heels clacking on the floor outside the door as she stomped away down the hall.

  “Lily, it’s still your word only.” Aragon turned her head to hand the questions to her partner and Montclaire got a good look at the scar above Aragon’s ear, a lightning bolt in the skin running toward the back of her head. What could have cut her like that?

  “Give us some tangible evidence,” said Lewis, shirt too small for his big shoulders. He’d been standing against the wall. Now he came to the table and looked down on her. “This keeps getting richer every time you tell it. I believed you more before you added the judge and Andrea to your story.

  These two, Aragon and Lewis, bodies that made you back up when they came close.

  “What’s that mean, ‘tangible’?” Montclaire asked.

  “Solid, physical evidence to corroborate what you’re telling us,” Lewis said. “Look at it. Why should a jury believe someone like you talking their way out of jail? The chief judge, she’ll have her story. Not just judge, chief judge. She’s the boss of the nice man in the robe who swore them in, instructed them on their solemn duties. Diaz will say she never met this girl. Never had her in her house with you and Marcy Thornton. Never poured tequila for a minor, did the rest you’ve been telling us, even harder to believe. Chief judges don’t do those things to girls.”

  “Gran Patron Platinum,” Montclaire said. “Marcy brought it. Expensive stuff.”

  “Jose Cuervo, Everclear, Walmart wine out of a box, whatever,” Lewis said. “Look at it—a former Cosmo model saying Marcy Thornton gave the judge this girl as thanks for throwing a case. The first words that come to mind are ‘yeah, right.’ We’ll check about Cosmo. Everything you tell has to be absolutely true for us to keep our end.”

  “I was in it. Not the cover. An inset about a beach resort.”

  “Name it. The resort.”

  “It was years ago. I can’t remember. We flew into Miami. They had me in a long flowered dress on an old bike with the fat tires. It was hard pedaling in the sand. Another one, I was on a seesaw staring at the sun, trying to keep my eyes open. I hated that shoot. I looked great but felt dead.”

  “Everything will be a lot harder at Grants.” Aragon talking again, that ridge of muscle between her eyes pushing toward what passed for a hairline, little black dots on brown skin.

  “What’s Grants?”

  “The women’s correctional facility on I-25, surrounded by something called the Malpais. That’s Spanish for badlands. Lava that cooled, nothing grows on it, big tubes opening under your feet, everything for twenty miles black and scary. You wander in there you don’t get out. Perfect place for a prison.” Aragon leaned across the table, slapped down a palm. “Think Clinton and the blue dress. That’s the kind of evidence you need to give us.”

  Montclaire wanted to point out maybe Aragon hadn’t been listening close enough to who exactly was at these parties.

  A smart mouth wouldn’t help. She said, “Let me think about that.”

  It was cold in this bare room. Bright as flashbulbs, bare lights bouncing off the linoleum floor, the one-way glass. The detectives wore long sleeves with cotton tees underneath, jeans. Montclaire wore a short skirt, tank top, sandals, toenails red today. Ninety degrees outside and still morning. She’d seen smoke from the fire in the dry forests to the west of the city when they’d brought her in. No rain for months, everything on the edge of burning.

  They’d planned on making her miserable so she’d want to get this over with. They hadn’t been wearing long sleeves when they came to her house.

  “Can you turn down the AC?” She made a show of hugging herself, looking from the doll face on the thick neck to the guy who was all chest and shoulders, getting only stares as cold as her hands.

  Lewis said, “Give us something that can’t be made to look like you were working overtime to pull off a plea bargain.”

  Tangible. It sounded like a French perfume. She saw the ads, dark, smoky background, a little cut-glass bottle on a pedestal, a model, breastbone under skin, red lips parting, a tongue peeking between white teeth.

  She had it. “Judy bit her.”

  “Judge Diaz bit this girl.” Aragon cocked her head, raised an eyebrow. “Andrea.”

  “Yes. On the shoulder. Well, sort of a nibble.”

  “Here?” Aragon reached across her own chest and laid a hand on top of a shoulder. Montclaire wondered if Aragon hit the weights before interrogations to bulk up.

  “Closer to the neck.”

  Aragon slid the hand up her traps.

  “About there,” Montclaire said.

  “When? How long ago?”

  “There was a party Friday night.”

  “Forty-eight hours plus,” Lewis said.

  Montclaire felt this finally moving forward and added more to keep it going.

  “Marcy bit her, too. You can match teeth marks, show who did it. Both Judy and Marcy with the girl. And there’s DNA in saliva, right?”

  Aragon should be happy. But the fire in her eyes made Montclaire try to inch her chair away, put more room between them. The chair didn’t budge. It was bolted to the floor.

  “Where did you bite her, Lily?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “We’ve got you on aggravated arson, multiple counts of destruction of evidence, conspiracy to obstruct. All worse because the client you and Thornton were helping, your buddy Cody Geronimo, only killed, what, fifteen women? If Andrea has your teeth marks on her skin and you don’t ’fess to it now, we add another ten years to your tab—a child molester. The women you’ll be with, when they look at you, they’ll see the person that did them when they were kids.”

  Montclaire sat on her hands to keep them from shaking.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Not hard.”

  Aragon sat back, gave her room to breathe. “I might believe you.” Montclaire felt her heart jump. She was getting close. Then came, “Problem is, teeth marks are too unreliable, especially with this much time passing. And you said nibbled, not a bite to leave a bruise mark. Saliva on the girl’s skin is probably lost. I don’t know any teenage girl who’d go this long without washing. Back to square one. Time you told us about the handcuffs.”

  “How do you know about them?”

  “The night you brought Andrea to Judge Diaz’s house, I was at the end of the drive, under the trees, watching. I almost shot you. That gun you had on her, was that Thornton’s? We know she’s got a concealed carry. You don’t.”

  “You were watching? Were you there the other times?”

  “What other times?”

  “Get Marcy’s court calendar. Whenever she won a motion or something, she’d tell me to find Andrea and bring her to the judge’s house.”

  “The handcuffs, Lily.”

  “Marcy’s idea. Something different for the judge. Andrea thought it was funny.”

  “‘May it please the court’—I heard you say that when you walked Andrea to the door. And Diaz saying back, ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’ You all started laughing. Andrea, too. She hadn’t laughed, we might not be having this conversation. It would have gotten bad right there. Where are the cuffs?”

  “Marcy’s office. There’s a dressing table, bottom drawer.”

  “We’re a million miles from probable cause to search a lawyer’s office.”

  Lewis’s phone buzzed. He stepped outside.

  “With what I saw—” Aragon pointed one of those stubby fingers without nails.
“Cuffs, a gun at Andrea’s back. I can charge you with kidnapping. Maybe Andrea was nervous, laughing out of fear, thinking that was the best way to defuse the situation.”

  “But you heard her.”

  “Maybe Andrea won’t back your story. Maybe she’d say you abducted her at gunpoint. We still haven’t found her, and you dribbling information, wasting our time here.” Aragon folded arms across her chest. Fists under her biceps made them look huge. “Tell me what happened inside the house. About the cuffs, now they’re in the picture.”

  “I was getting to it. Inside, in the living room, Judy said, ‘She looks good enough to eat.’ She was giggling.”

  “Stop.” Aragon was back on the edge of her chair. Montclaire saw something different in her eyes. “Andrea had her shirt on. You had to unlock the cuffs to get it off.”

  “Judy couldn’t wait. Andrea was squirming. I couldn’t get the key in the cuffs.”

  “They started in while Andrea was still dressed?”

  Montclaire saw where Aragon was going and nodded, maybe more than she needed to.

  The door opened and Lewis stepped in, filling the entrance with his size.

  “They left saliva on her clothes,” Aragon told him. “We get DNA for Diaz and Thornton, this thing starts breaking open. With Thornton’s calendar, we can tie the house parties, whatever you want to call them, to Diaz throwing cases. We get their phone records, their e-mails. Imagine that girl’s testimony. Wait. Lily, were the cuffs part of it two nights ago?”

  “Judy liked Andrea coming in the door wearing them. ‘Remanded to custody,’ she said. They bit through her clothes.”

  “Bit? Before, it went from bit to nibbled,” Aragon said. “Now we’re back to bit.”

  “I meant, nipped. Love nips.”

  “We have to find Andrea.”

  Lewis didn’t return Aragon’s confident smile. He said, “Maybe someone did. Dumpster off Jaguar Road.”

  Two

  They caught the call, the only Violent Crimes detectives on duty today. They left Montclaire in the interrogation room with the promise a sweater would arrive. The two-mile drive gave Lewis time to explain why he thought this might be Andrea. Montclaire had given them hair, height, and weight and described a tattoo on the girl’s hip. All four matched the information he took over the phone.