by Baxter Clare
Chapter Twenty-nine
She left home again as the sky was graying to the east. The young day retained a hint of coolness and Frank sped down the highway with the windows open, the wind slapping her hair dry. Before the sun had crossed the horizon, she was walking up three flights of stairs, smelling dirty diapers, urine, and old grease. She knocked at Ocho Ruiz's apartment and an old woman opened the door, eyes snapping to attention when Frank flashed her badge. She protested, trying to close the door, but Frank held it open.
"Calmate," she soothed. Her accent was awful but it seemed to help and the woman quieted. In broken Spanish Frank told her she only wanted to talk to Ruiz. She wasn't here to arrest him. Sweeping her hand behind her she indicated she was alone, "No hay mas policia. Solo quiero hablar." Just talk.
The woman backed up, still frightened, and Frank spoke in English, telling her to get Ruiz. She must have understood because she went into a room down a narrow hall. After some muttering, Ruiz appeared, equally fuzzy-eyed and disheveled.
Frank showed her ID again and told Ruiz she needed to talk to him. He asked what about and she told him Placa's murder. Exasperated, he pawed on a low coffee table for a pack of cigarettes.
"Why you people comin' aroun' with that shit again? I don't know nothin' about that bitch."
"I believe you," Frank said. Ruiz lit up, cocking a curious eye at the lieutenant. Frank didn't think he recognized her from the Dolly Parton interrogation, but she didn't give him time to dwell on it.
"Look. You are not a suspect in Placa's shooting. I have a suspect. But unless you can give me a really good alibi, you look like the better suspect and the district attorney isn't gonna believe it's this other person."
Frank explained she needed to know exactly where he was, and who with, so that she could clear him. If he was innocent, he had nothing to be afraid of.
"We know you were involved in that shooting at Eagle Rock. Personally, I don't give a shit. The guy's okay. All I care about right now is nailing this sonofabitch who killed Placa. If you talk to me, give me a good alibi so I can eliminate you as a suspect, I'll make sure nothing happens to you. I don't want you for any of that other shit. I want to be able to say to the DA, Octavio Ruiz didn't do it and here's why."
"Then I go to jail for shooting that punk."
"No. If you're being carnal, if you had nothing to do with Placa, I'll make sure they can't touch you for anything related to that evening."
"What about my posse?"
Frank needed Ruiz, so she said, "Them too," unsure how she could guarantee that. Ruiz fell onto the couch, considering the bargain. He was being cooperative for once so Frank maintained a persuasive rather than coercive tack.
"I don't want you, Ocho. I don't want your homes. I want the person that I know did this. Thing is, I don't have a lot of evidence, so the DA's gonna laugh me out of her office when I go to her and say oh it's this other person not Octavio Ruiz. But if I can prove it's not you, and none of your crew, she'll have to look at what I got. Then we can lay off you. I don't like wasting my time chasing after you any more than you like my detectives all over your ass. If you help, we both get what we want."
"No matter what we was doin' that night?"
"Except for murder, I don't give a flying fuck."
"How do I know you ain't lying?"
"You don't. All you have is my promise. Ask around to see if it's any good."
Frank and Ruiz maintained a stare. Finally Ruiz said, "I've heard a you," and started to talk. He stuck to the story he'd told her in the box, only this time he added it was a business trip; he and his vatos had gone there to sell some guns. A .22, two .38s and a .44.
Frank nodded.
"I need to know who the homes were."
Ruiz pouted and Frank assured him, "I ain't gonna bust nobody. I just gotta check out your story."
"Man, this don't fly, bustin' my vatos."
"I'm not bustin' anybody. I already told you that. But just hangin' with your homes doesn't make a very strong alibi. I want people that were there, that are gonna swear to me that you were there too. That's all. I get that, you never see me again."
Ruiz sneered. "Yeah, right. First it's me, them my homes. You fuckin' one-times are all liars."
"Hey. Whatever. You can believe me and have me out of your life or you can have me in your face and in your friends faces until I get my answers. And if I have to do it the hard way, I'm taking everybody down with me, and I'll tell them it's 'cause you were too fuckin' chicken-shit to cooperate."
"Ain't chicken-shit," Ruiz laughed around a drag on his cigarette.
"Then let's end this right now. It's on you, man."
Ruiz considered her from behind the curling smoke.
"You know if somethin' was to happen to me, I got people on the street reppin' me. Even if you was to fuck me, you couldn't fuck everybody."
Frank nodded submissively. Her acquiescence lured Ruiz into thinking he had the upper hand. He stared at her some more, hard, before saying, "This is fucked, man."
Then he gave her names. She wrote them down, and as she was leaving he said, "You got a sister?"
"Yeah," Frank lied. "She's a secretary at the station."
"I thought so. You better be tellin' me the truth here, you know what I mean, cuz she's a nice lady. You wouldn't want nothin' to happen to her, you know what I'm sayin'?"
"I hear you, man."
Frank made it to the station just in time for briefing. It was short and tense, with a lot of unanswered questions and accusations that Frank said she'd explain later. She rushed back out, eager to catch Ruiz' homies still in bed. Camped in rush hour traffic she reflected that letting Ruiz go was highly immoral, and illegal, but she needed every thing she could lay her hands on to nail Placa's shooter. She didn't like bargaining over felonies, but told herself it was only a matter of time before Ruiz got in trouble again. Sooner or later he'd get caught for something.
She further rationalized Ruiz' shooting wasn't as serious as Placa's murder. It was a simple accounting based on the rules of the street: one lesser crime was not equal to or greater than the crime of murder. The only flaw in this logic was the possibility that Ruiz' next crime might be murder.
But Frank was willing to gamble on that. Inching along, she consoled her conscience with the fact that the Estrellas weren't inherently bad. They were simply playing a bad hand as well as they knew how. They hadn't gotten a lot of opportunities and none of them, except Placa, seemed to have the wherewithal to change their lives.
On the other hand, there was no justification for the shooter. Here was someone who had it all, who was sworn to uphold the law and protect the public, but was instead using his position to create more power. Frank could excuse ignorance and she could understand avarice, but she couldn't bear his total disregard for a justice that she still believed in, still fought for and tried her best to maintain every day.
Clay had nailed it during their first session together. Work was all Frank had. It was her god, her muse, and her passion. And to do her work she had to believe that justice existed at some level. Whether it was meted out from the courts or delivered swiftly on the streets, she had to know that there was a reason why she did what she did every day. Sometimes she failed, that was true, but not for lack of effort. Sometimes the system beat her and it was easier to go along so she could get along. And like with Larkin, sometimes, she looked the other way. Her old boss had been right when he'd said sometimes law and justice didn't recognize each other on the street.
Frank could justify until the freeway cleared, but the truth was, she would use whatever she had to get this bastard. If that meant playing outside the law and on the streets, then Frank was in the middle of the road. Joe had asked her if she was willing to take on the risks of this case and she'd meant it when she answered yes. If she had to, she'd leak what she had and let public sentiment force Nelson into action. It would probably get her fired, but better to be fired she reasoned, than not be able t
o look at herself in the mirror.
An hour after the deadline that night, when she still hadn't heard from anyone, Frank called the chief. She hadn't dug up much since yesterday. This bastard's tracks were well covered, but Frank had sworn testimonies from Claudia and Gloria, as well as Ruiz, Lydia, and two home boys. Not the most reputable witnesses, but Frank was hoping she could parlay the quantity of wits for the quality. She'd forked over a small ransom to a source at the phone company who faxed her a years worth of phone bills. She'd highlighted all the calls to Julio Estrella's house, and then the sudden flurry of calls to Claudia's house after the massacre. It wasn't much but it was better than what she'd had. He sighed heavily and told her he'd call back. Frank paced while she waited, jumping on the phone when it rang. Nelson told her to proceed.
Frank shot her fist to the ceiling, and yelled a silent, Yes!
"But only on trafficking and extortion charges."
"What?" she yelled, unable to contain her dismay.
"The department's legal team and the DA's office feel that at this time those are the only charges you can substantiate."
Despite the over-riding sensation that she was in a bad free-fall, she picked up the chiefs use of "you." It dawned on her as she listened to his self-serving rationale, that she was in this alone. All the way.
"The homicide charges aren't based on anything more than circumstance and hearsay. A bad attorney could laugh us out of court on that; in the hands of a good attorney . . . well, I don't even want to speculate on the repercussions that could invite."
Nelson said more politic things, then pointedly warned Frank from pursuing any investigations other than the ones he'd sanctioned. She hungup, dumb-struck. But she shouldn't have been.
The twenty-four hours had been to tear apart what little Frank had; the chief had only been stalling her. And she'd been an idiot to think he'd stick his neck out. Frank was furious with herself. She circled the empty desks in the squad room. It hurt, she thought. It hurt that she'd set herself up for a fall, that she worked for a man and an organization that wouldn't back her in doing the right thing. Their gross and abject failure was wounding. But what hurt the most was Frank's failure to protect Claudia and her children, the live ones as well as the dead.
Frank slammed a quick one-two at the wall, cracking the plaster board. She knew it was stupid but she welcomed the pain in her fists. It was better than the pain in her heart and she did it again. She bowed her head against the wall until she'd collected herself, then started making phone calls.
Chapter Thirty
She sat stoically behind the big desk. She had one card left and was waiting to play it. Her fingers beat a staccato on the chair's scarred old arms. Finally she heard him. Click, click. Those were his shoes on the stairs. Click, click. Through the squad room. Click, click, and into her office. He was handsome, even with the scratches on his face and swelling jaw. Of course he was as immaculate as always. He always rolled out beautifully. Tonight it was a tailored navy pinstripe with silk tie and French cuffs.
"Hey, what's going on?"
"You tell me," she answered.
Ike Zabbo's face screwed up.
"What are you talking about?"
Frank clucked and shook her head.
"You shouldn't have gone after Tonio, man."
Ike grinned in disbelief, "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Landing him in the hospital like that? You fucked up. Cut his liver in a couple places. Busted his spleen. If he dies, it's a homicide with two witnesses."
She shook her head again, disappointed. "Sloppy work, Pink. "
"Hey, you called me in to roll. I don't know what's going on here but if there's no case, I'm leaving."
"There's a case, Ike. We're on it. This is it."
The detective squinted at his lieutenant.
"Are you drunk?"
"No." Frank sat calmly behind her desk, ready to play her trump card. "You shouldn't have lost it. Before this, you were pretty much home free. I gotta hand it to you. You panicked a little with Placa, but even there it was hard to pin you down. You'd have probably walked on her too. But after tonight..."
Frank made a who-knows gesture.
"I'm sure you've been calling the hospital. He's thrown three clots already. That's a lot and chances are good he'll throw another one. The doctor said his heart's wearing out. If he dies, Ike, you're fried and fucked. Twelve different ways."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm out of here."
He turned to go but she caught the sudden gleam of perspiration on his forehead.
"What I can't figure," she responded evenly, "Is how the fuck you thought you were going to get away with this. I admit though, the traces of horse hair and alfalfa really threw me off. Funny how after all this time my prejudices still color my judgment. I was thinking Hunt had done all this. Can you imagine? But you've got to admit he's the sort of asshole you'd expect to do something like this. Yet here you are, worse than that damn Okie," she grinned with teeth.
"Tell me how you thought you were going to get away with this. I mean I always thought you were a smart cop, but this," she threw up a hand, "This is pretty stupid, Ike. Tonio’s rattled your cage and he's bringing you down. Some punk wetback's bringing the great Ike Zabbo to his knees. Go figure."
Ike laughed, "No one's bringing me to my knees, babe."
Frank admired his confidence, as she asked, "You want to talk to me or walk out that door?"
"I'm walking."
Frank slid an arrest warrant across the desk. "You won't get far."
"What the hell's that for?"
"All I could get you on. But I'm not done."
Ike picked it up and read it, put it down.
"You're making a big mistake," he warned.
"How so?"
"I want my lawyer."
Frank pushed her phone toward him. When he was done talking to his attorney, he jabbed a finger at her.
"You're going down in flames, baby doll. And I'm gonna laugh while you burn."
"Did you get behind on the ponies? Is that what started this all? I like the way you hooked up with Barracas. That was good. He'd confiscate the shit, you'd report half of it or less, then you had all the contacts to sell it to. Your associates at the track. Then you guys got bigger and wanted to branch out so you bought that string of ponies. Trailer them back and forth to the races in Texas and Arizona, concentrate on the border states where it's easy to pick up a couple keys, stash it in the trailers. False bottoms in the tack trunks. I like that, too. Nice. Nobody looks twice. Run it back in. Get Jimmy's family to run it for you. You two probably have old buds in Narco that agreed to not sweat the Estrellas. And you never get dirty.
"Then Jimmy tried to muscle you out. He put up all the money for the ponies and he had all the contacts now. Didn't need you anymore. Told you to take a walk. And you should've, Pink. Should've been smart enough to get out then. But instead you took him out. Took the whole family out. Set it up to look like Luis. You put his sweatshirt and his shoes on, didn't you? Must've been a tight squeeze but you got blood all over both them. None on his pants, though. No way you could've got into those. Oh well, close enough, huh? Then you drove over to Claudia's. Told them what you did. Told them they were your new partners. Did you do Luis before or after that? Huh?"
"Fuck you, Franco. You got nothing on me and you know it."
"Wrong, Pink. I've got you for this," she tapped a warrant, "and if Tonio dies, I got you for the rest of it too. Including Placa. You were good with the Estrellas and Luis. I admit, they'll be harder to nail you on, but give me time. I'll get you."
Ike laughed, "You're one delusional bitch. Yeah, so Tonio and I got in a fight. Little spic pulled a fucking knife on me. I was defending myself."
When Frank said that wasn't Gloria's version, Ike laughed again.
"Like a jury's gonna believe that cunt over me? I don't think so."
"They might when I pull some more rabbits ou
t of my hat."
"Like what?"
"Like her PERK results. Same as Placa's. Plus I combed the back of your chair for fibers, sent them up to DOJ with the wool ones we pulled off Placa. Think any'll match? You really gotta lose those suits. Way too incriminating."
"So I got some gash. What's your problem, Frank, you jealous?"
"My problem," Frank said tapping her murder book, "is that phone records — and that was sloppy too — show you calling the Estrella's one hour and thirteen minutes before Placa died."
"Since when is it illegal to call someone?"
"My problem," she continued, "is that she was raped sometime within that seventy-three minute period. How do you think your DNA sample's going to match up to hers?"
She didn't give him time to answer.
"That was your biggest mistake wasn't it? You underestimated her. Thought you could cut off a piece then dump her somewhere and that your cum would've dried up by the time she was found. But she got away from you didn't she? You had no choice but to fire right there. Fortunately for you, you always were the best shooter in the squad. But again, that was sloppy. Two wits placed a round-backed sedan at the scene. It was convenient for you that Ruiz drove a T-bird. They look a lot like a Lincoln down a dark street. But his has a brown interior. Yours is tan. I looked when you rolled Monday night. Got a carpet sample for DOJ too. Should match the fibers under Placa's nails and maybe the ones stuck in Luis' shoes. What do you think?"
"I think you're losing it, Frank. You've had your head up too many asses lately and you're short on oxygen."
"My problem is you set her up, Ike. You knew she was going to tell me. You heard it all at the Alibi that night. Even offered to go with me, which I thought was overly generous of you. You must have gone over to Claudia's the minute I left the bar. Bought yourself some time 'til you could think what to do with Placa. But you underestimated her again. She got away from you, didn't she?"
