by Blake Banner
She rose and left the room. Angela watched her go. Then she looked back at her mug, avoiding my eyes.
“Do you know who that man was, Angela?”
She shook her head.
“Did you get a look at his face?”
“No, he had the mask on.”
“How about the color of his eyes?”
“Black. His eyes, his hands.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
Somewhere outside, I heard a siren. It seemed very far away, but I knew it would be there soon. She hesitated, like she was going to tell me something he’d said, but closed her moth and stared at me for a moment. Then she shook her head.
“No. He didn’t say anything.”
I sat forward, put my elbows on my knees. “Angela, is this the same man who killed Sebastian?”
Again, the long pause while she looked at me. “I don’t know.”
“You understand that if it is, you are at risk. You are seriously at risk.” I shook my head. “I can’t protect you unless you help me.”
Dehan came in and sat by her side again. She placed a blanket around her shoulder and held her. Outside, the sirens were getting louder. Dehan spoke gently to her.
“What he’s saying is true, Angela.”
A twist of bitterness contorted Angela’s face and she turned to Dehan. “The cops didn’t protect my mom, did they? Or yours!”
Dehan didn’t flinch. She came right back, “That’s why I became a cop.” She shifted her ass so that she was facing her, and took hold of her left hand in both of hers. “Let me tell you something. A year ago, Detective Stone and I met. He had just formed the cold cases unit.” I raised an eyebrow at the slight inaccuracy, but she ignored me and went right on. “The very first case we worked together, we hunted for the cop who killed my mom, the same cop who allowed your mother’s killer to go free.” She flicked her eyes at me and there may have been a smile in there, somewhere. “It didn’t work out how we expected, but I learned something about my partner, and about myself. He’s a good man that I can trust with my life, and I know that we will both do the right thing, whatever the cost. We will protect you, Angela, if you’ll let us. If you trust us, we will not let you down. You have my word.”
She stared at Dehan for a long moment. Then she looked at me. I tried to look like the kind of man Dehan had described. Outside, the sirens swelled and an ambulance drew up, and just behind it the CSI team. Dehan rose and went out to meet them.
I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees again. “Angela, I want to help you. We’d both like to help you. But the bottom line is, you have no choice. If you don’t let us help you, that man is going to keep coming back. We can’t let that happen. So if you refuse to help us, I will charge you with obstructing justice, and that can carry serious prison time.”
She went pale, and I felt bad. But I told myself I’d feel worse if I had to come back to this house and investigate her murder.
She said, “You wouldn’t do that…”
“You heard what my partner said, Angela. I will do whatever it takes to catch the person who did this to you, and to Luis and Sebastian. I don’t want to investigate your murder. I want to put him away before that happens. I want to help you. That’s why I am giving you a choice.”
She nodded.
Suddenly the room was full of paramedics bustling and pushing, and Joe was at the door with Dehan, calling me. I stood and spoke to the paramedic who was inspecting Angela’s wound. “If you’re taking her to hospital, I have to talk to her before she goes.” I turned to Joe. “You need to take samples of the blood, it may not all be hers. You also need to print her neck and face. I can’t remember if he was wearing gloves. I don’t think he was.”
One of the CSI guys came in and hunkered down next to the paramedic. I stepped over to Joe. “She was attacked while she was sleeping in the bedroom upstairs. There’s quite a bit of blood. Either she has another wound or he has. I don’t see it all coming from that gash on her head. Check her fingernails, too.”
Dehan nodded. “He bolted like he had a jalapeño pepper up his ass. I think he got more than he expected.”
I smiled at her. “Graphic.”
She grinned. “That’s Latinas, Stone, but what would you know?”
She stepped away, back to Angela. I frowned, aware I had been told something but not quite sure what it was. Joe raised an eyebrow at me. “What would you know? I am going to have a look at the crime scene. Catch you later.”
I went back to Angela. The chief paramedic was talking to Dehan. He looked at me as I approached. “Detective, I was just explaining to your partner. Angela needs to be seen by a doctor at the hospital. She is in shock and she may have other injuries that we can’t detect here. If you want to take a statement from her, you’ll have to do that at the hospital.”
I nodded. “OK. We’ll be right behind you.”
They took Angela out and we left the house to Joe and his team. Outside, under the early June sun, I climbed behind the wheel of my old Jaguar, while Dehan got in the other side and we watched the ambulance pull away. For some reason, I kept hearing Dehan’s words repeated in my head. “It didn’t work out how we expected, but I learned something about my partner, and about myself. He’s a good man that I can trust with my life…”
For some reason I couldn’t explain, those made me feel a vague sense of loss. I frowned at her and opened my mouth to ask her. But she was on the phone.
“This is Detective Dehan, I need you to trace a license plate and put out an APB…”
I closed my mouth again, pulled away after the ambulance, and told myself to get a grip and focus on the job in hand.
On what was important.
THIRTEEN
She was sitting in bed. A large square of sunlight lay warped across the blanket. She had a large sticking plaster on her forehead, over her right eye, and the bruising on her face and her neck was beginning to come out. She was a pretty girl, but right then she looked a mess. However, she looked calm, and she was able to talk to us.
Dehan sat on the far side of the bed, with the sunlight making a halo around her black hair. I sat on the near side, with my back to the door, watching Angela while she spoke.
“I share the house with my boyfriend, Moses. Moses Johnson. We live together, like we were married. We are married, we just don’t believe in the church, or the state.” She looked at us both in turn, like we might disapprove. “We believe in each other. He’s a good man, brave and strong. We want to have kids, raise a family, do what we can to improve the barrio. But it’s hard here.”
Dehan nodded her agreement. “Where is Moses now?”
Angela bit her lip, stared down at her hands.
“Angela?”
“He’s away.”
I scratched my chin, then smiled. “That’s telling us where he’s not. But we need to know where he is. And also, what made him go there.”
“He got into some trouble with some people in the neighborhood.”
Dehan frowned. “What kind of trouble, Angela?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. He said it was best if I didn’t know.”
“You think he might have borrowed money, or got involved in trafficking? Is he moving drugs right now?”
Angela was shaking her head, staring at Dehan. “No! No! Absolutely not! Never! He would never do that! He would rather die than get involved in drugs. He is passionate about that. You don’t know him.”
I said, “We’d like to. Hunts Point needs people like Moses. Like both of you. Where is he?”
Again the silence, and a big sigh. This was hard for her. “He won’t tell me where he is. He said it’s for my own good. He’s looking for a way so we can both leave.”
Dehan nodded like she understood. “But you must be in touch. You must have some way to communicate.”
“We call each other, on the phone.”
“You have to call him, Angela, and tell him that for your safety, an
d his, we need to see him. We need to meet with him, very soon.”
“I will, I’ll call him. I’ll let you know what he says.”
Dehan sat forward, with her elbows on her knees. “So you think this guy who attacked you was after Moses?”
“I know he was.” She looked Dehan in the eye. “He was trying to make me tell him where he was. He said he’d kill me if I didn’t.”
“OK, I’ve asked you this before, but I am going to ask you again, and it is absolutely imperative, Angela, that you tell me the truth. You understand?”
“Yes, of course. I will.”
“Do you have any idea who your attacker was?”
She shook her head. “I honestly don’t. He was very big, like a giant. He was so heavy, and strong.” She paused, breathing slowly to steady her nerves. “He was black, he had an accent. He wasn’t Bronx. He sounded maybe…” She made a face and shrugged. “Maybe French or Nigerian, something foreign.” She stopped again to think. “Like he didn’t pronounce his ‘rs’. He kept saying, ‘Where is Moses?’, but instead of ‘where’ he said it like, ‘whe-ah’. Does that help?”
I glanced at Dehan. She glanced at me. I said, “Yeah. It helps a lot. Angela, my next question is really important, more than you maybe realize. What were Sebastian and Luis doing at your house that night?”
Her head tilted on one side. She bit her lip. Tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheek. It was an expression of almost intolerable sadness. She shrugged. “They wanted to party. I didn’t want to, but they were happy, joking. They had the next day off. They said they’d been somewhere and they had to leave. That made them laugh. They arrived in a taxi…”
I interrupted her. “What time was this?”
“I guess it was maybe thirty minutes after one. I let them in, and told them I had no drink. I don’t really drink. Neither does Moses. We don’t keep drink in the house. They said to let them borrow the car, they’d go to the all night store. I said no way, but Luis, you know, he always gets his way. He took the keys from the hook in the kitchen. They were laughing and I couldn’t make them be serious…”
She trailed off. Wiped her eyes with her fingers. I said, “What happened next, Angela?”
“I told them to phone their parents, tell them they were with me and they were going to stay the night. Sleep it off. I would not let them drive while they were drunk. Sebastian agreed. While they called, I made coffee and some eggs. They had some and after that, Sebastian said he was OK. He wasn’t as drunk as Luis. They said they just wanted a few beers and then they’d go to bed. In the end, I agreed.”
I thought for a moment. “So at what time did they go out?”
“Maybe two o’clock. Maybe a bit later. They had to go to an ATM to get some money. Then the store…”
“So they were gone, what? Forty-five minutes?”
“I guess about that.”
“Then what happened?”
“I heard the car pull up outside. I went to the window to see if it was them. It was. But there was another car, over on the right. It had its headlamps on. A guy got out. He was big, tall, he was dressed in black, with a ski mask. He walked up, real quick. Then he had the gun in his hand and he just started shooting through the driver’s window. I saw Luis fall out of the passenger side. He staggered a couple of paces, then fell on his knees and tried to crawl up the steps. The guy just walked back to his car and drove away.”
Dehan asked her, “Was it the same car as your attacker used today?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t see what car he used today.”
“Do you think it could have been the same man?”
She thought for a long time before answering. “It’s possible. When he attacked me, I was sleeping. Everything is a kind of blur. The night of the shooting, he was outside… under the streetlamp, and in the headlamps, he looked big. He was tall. He was dressed in dark clothes. That’s all I could make out.”
We were quiet for a while. I was trying to fit all the pieces together in my head. The problem was they didn’t all fit. I thought of the old cliché about a case fitting together like the pieces of a jigsaw. The problem here was that there seemed to be at least three jigsaws.
I sighed. “We’re nearly done, Angela. This is all really helpful. But there is one more thing I need you to clear up for me. The bullet holes in your door. They’re not from the same night, they are earlier. What happened there?”
She turned and gazed out the window. After a moment, she wiped a tear from her cheek. Then she reached for a box of tissues on her bedside table, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes again. She gave a small laugh and apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s just all so much. I feel kind of overwhelmed.”
Dehan smiled. “Take your time. We’ll leave you in peace in a minute. I promise.”
Angela smiled at her, like she didn’t really want her to leave her in peace.
“It was a couple of weeks ago. It was what made Moses decide to move out. We were watching TV. I guess it was about six in the evening. There was a ring at the doorbell and Moses went to open the door. I heard some voices, like Moses was talking to a man. Then all of a sudden there was this shout. It was Moses yelling, ‘You get out of my house!’ really mad, really angry. I heard a crash, like somebody falling down the stairs. The door slammed. And then, like firecrackers going off. Two of them, and I heard Moses curse in the hallway. When I went out to see what was going on, he was holding his leg and he was bleeding badly.”
Dehan spread her hands. It was an eloquent gesture of frustration. “Why didn’t you call the cops?”
Angela held her eye for a long moment. “You know why, Carmen.”
Dehan looked at me and heaved a big sigh. “Mick.”
I nodded. “Angela, I’ve had a police guard put on your door. When they discharge you, we are going to move you to a safe house until the trial. I want you to call Moses. He can be with you if you want. When we catch whoever did this, I need you both to testify at the trial. Have we got a deal?”
She nodded. “For my part, yes. I’ll talk to Moses and convince him to see you and talk to you.”
“Good girl.” I stood. “Call me as soon as you get an answer. Now get some rest.”
We stepped out of the room and I walked toward the elevator, stretching and cracking my vertebrae. Dehan was close behind me, rubbing her eyes. The doors hissed open and we stepped inside. As it began to move down, she shook her head at the floor and said, “What the hell, Stone? What’s going on?”
I stared at the ceiling of the elevator. “What’s going on? What’s going on is that we are going to Emilio’s Pizza Gourmet, down the road, for a couple of gourmet pizzas and a couple of beers while we try and untangle this mess.”
She stared at her boots like she was disappointed in them. I raised an eyebrow and added, “If you for some reason do not want to join me, and would rather have a beef sandwich at your desk, I’ll join you later.”
She shook her head. “No. Pizza and beer sounds good.”
“You bet your sweet ass it does.”
She looked a little startled. I felt a little startled myself, though I didn’t show it. The doors opened and we made our way out to the Jag.
As we pulled onto Morris Park Avenue, headed west, I sighed and gently thumped the wheel with my fist. “The more we find out, the more complicated it gets. It’s like two cases. It’s like two separate cases, but the separation is in the wrong place.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
I drummed on the wheel with my fingers as we cruised slowly toward Emilio’s. “If we were wrong, and there was no connection between Sebastian’s killing and Rosario’s, then there should be a degree of coherence in the evidence relating to Sebastian’s killing, and then there should be coherence in the evidence relating to Rosario’s killing. Right?”
She nodded. “Mm-hm…”
“But the incoherence all relates to Sebastian and Angela. Who the hell is this guy who attacked her
? Why the hell is he after Moses? Did he kill Sebastian because he thought he was Moses? Why’d he do it at three AM? Who waits for somebody who leads a quiet life and doesn’t drink, outside their house at three AM? It doesn’t make sense. The chances of their turning up are nonexistent, because at that time of the morning they are going to be inside, in bed!”
“I know.”
I pulled up outside Emilio’s and we went inside. We sat at a table by the window and I stared out at the Jag while Dehan gave our order. When she was done, I said, absently, still staring at my car, but seeing the Toyota with Sebastian’s riddled body stretched across the seat, and Luis struggling up the steps toward the door, “All of which means that either the shooter knew they were going to be out in the car, or the shooter planned to go inside, and the killing was opportunistic.”
FOURTEEN
She leaned back in her chair and watched me for a moment till I met her eye.
“Maybe,” she said, “Maybe it’s simpler than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe we are complicating things unnecessarily. Sometimes you can do that. Not you, necessarily, but one. One can do that. Unnecessarily.”
“Complicate things.” I smiled.
“Yeah.”
“OK, so how do we uncomplicate them?”
Emilio came over with our beers. When he’d left, Dehan took a pull, settled the glass carefully on the table, and licked the foam from her top lip.
“Sebastian and Luis finish work and go back to Lynda Graham’s house. They start partying, they get drunk, yadda yadda. At some point Jack turns up. Maybe he spoils the vibe, maybe he doesn’t, whatever, come one o’clock the boys leave. They still feel like partying so they decide to go to Angela’s place. Maybe they know she’s alone. Either way, they get a taxi and get there in the small hours. Nobody is stealing from the hospital, nobody is encroaching on anybody’s turf. Just two nice med students letting off steam with an old friend.”
I nodded. “OK, so far I like it.”
