A Bullet for Carlos (41 page)

“Okay, okay. Enough with the Texas sayings. How about that case you never solved?”

Tip didn’t answer for a few seconds, then he got real serious. “I don’t like to talk much about it, Connie. It was a little girl, about six.” He shook his head. “I’m still convinced it was her mother. She was a drug user, and I think she got carried away one day and killed her then came to her senses and tried to cover it up.” He drove along in silence again. “I could never prove it, though.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll get this one.”

“Damn right we will. As soon as you figure out why Maxwell lied to us.”

“I’m going on that
date
with him. Maybe I’ll find something out.”

“Don’t take that ‘undercover’ work too far.”

I laughed. “You
are
disgusting.”

“I know,” he said, then picked up his phone and called the station. He filled Renkin in on what was going on, then got hold of Julie. “I need anything you can find on the dead girl—Santiago—and tell Susie to patch calls into my cell. And, Julie, I’m putting you on speaker so Gianelli can hear.”

“You got it,” Julie said, and then, “Hi, Connie.”

“Hey, Julie, see if you can get us details of that witness call. Exact time. Who called it in. Where the call originated. Everything. And did Ben call with any news?”

“Nothing from Ben yet. I’ll let you know as soon as we hear, and I’ll get back to you on this other stuff.”

“Okay, thanks, Julie,” I said, then to Tip, “Why don’t we stop and let me get my car.”

“Too much traffic.”

Tip and I talked about everything but the case for the next few minutes, and as he drove down the gravel road to his house, I felt serenity kick in. I had only been here a few times, but it already felt comfortable. Surrounded by trees, a pond, and some small open fields, it was a different world than the one I left behind in Brooklyn. It felt foreign, yet secure. “You’ve got a nice place.”

“I kinda like it. It’s quiet. On clear nights I sometimes sit on the dock and stare at the stars. The frogs are chirping, bugs making noise, and I can usually hear an owl or two hooting. But my favorite times are when the coyotes howl. Usually from right over there.” He pointed to a spot in the woods to the right.

“They ever bother the dogs?”

“They’ve had a few scuffles, but nothing serious. Mostly telling each other whose territory it is. I’ll find coyote markings planted right in the middle of the drive a day or so later.” He laughed. “The real challenge for the dogs isn’t the coyotes, it’s the wild pigs. I don’t usually see them, but I hear them at nights, and I see their tracks. My dogs are smart enough not to tangle with them, though. Those pigs would tear them up.”

As Tip pulled into the driveway, Flash and Kassie came running. Kelly stood on the porch like royalty, waiting to be greeted on her own terms. When I got out they ran to me, smiling and barking and jumping around. “Hello, girls. Hello.” I stooped, petting each one and making a fuss over them. “Where is that Kelly girl?” I said, and when I did, Flash went nuts, running around in circles and barking.

“Jealous damn dogs. Must be the gender that’s like that,” Tip said.

“And men don’t get jealous? Don’t try that with me.” I stood and started toward the porch. “I see Queen Kelly won’t lower herself to come begging for pets.”

“She feels she’s above that.” Tip reached down and patted her head. “Hi, Kelly girl. How’s it going, baby?”

I paid my respects then we went inside. I headed to the work area. Tip for the refrigerator. “You want a beer?”

“Sure, thanks.”

By the time Tip got the beers, I had already started making a new chart, writing ‘Filomena Santiago’ at the top of the poster board, with today’s date alongside it.

I opened a folder and looked inside at the notes, then added some content to the chart.

‘
Age, 29. Hair color, dark brown. Eyes, brown. Single
.’

Tip handed me a beer. “Not wasting time, I see.”

“We don’t have time to waste. This guy is stepping things up.”

“I assume you mean Carlos. And by the way, you didn’t have to write her first name on the chart. I usually use the last name only.”

“Yeah, well tough shit, I used both. As to Carlos, you know it’s not him, but whoever it is has raised the stakes.”

Tip sat in a chair, staring at the four charts aligned next to each other. ‘Gardner, Mason, Green, and Filomena Santiago.’

Underneath the names of the others were the things each case had in common. ‘beaten severely, raped, lips removed, scene cleaned thoroughly, no breaking and entering, no witnesses.’

I was filling in the blanks for Santiago, adding ‘lips removed, beaten severely, no B&E, and raped?’ using the question mark until we got Ben’s report. Then, underneath of that in big red letters I wrote ‘witness, but who?’

“What else do we know about these victims?” Tip asked.

I handed the folders to Tip and we looked through them together. “God she was gorgeous,” I said.

Tip scanned the pictures, moving from one to the other. “They all were,” he said. “Another thing to add to the charts. It’s subjective, but I don’t think anyone could argue that they weren’t attractive.”

“No doubt about it.” I said, and wrote it in.

“What else do we have?” Tip was up and walking now. “Want another beer?”

“I still have half of mine.”

The phone rang while he was in the kitchen, but he got it on the first ring and put it on speakerphone. “Tip Denton.”

“It’s Julie.”

Tip set the beer down and got his notepad. “Go.”

“As far as the dead girl, not much more than we had. She managed a store owned by Carlos Cortes. She’s an American citizen, but born in Argentina. You’ve got the rest, name, DOB, statistics.”

“And Carlos?”

“Got a lot more about him from the feds. Filthy rich, originally from Spain, and, surprise, his family is filthy rich. He apparently was disinherited years ago, his brother and sister getting everything.”

“What else?”

“Officially, that’s about it, other than businesses he owns, etc.”

“And unofficially?”

“Unofficially, it’s like you guessed. He is suspected of being behind one of the major drug dealers in Mexico. In the past ten years he’s risen from obscurity to being the suspected head of the premier cartel in the east. He runs things from Monterrey, and, from what the government reports say, he’s the most dangerous. They attribute more than three hundred murders to him, many of them to him personally. The problem is, he does it all through other people. Nothing ties him to it personally.”

Tip whistled. “So we got a live one.”

“
Very
live,” Julie said. “Oh, and that call, it came in at 3:29 from a phone booth at a gas station, but it was ten miles from the scene.”

“Give me the address.”

“And if you’re wondering,” Julie said, “that’s less than ten miles from Mr. Cortes’ residence.”

“Is that it?”

“I’ll call if I get more.”

“Okay, Julie, thanks.”

I was standing right next to him, staring at the notes. “If we buy Manuelo’s story that Carlos got home at 2:42—and he seemed pretty certain about that—then it couldn’t have been Carlos.”

“All that means is that he didn’t call it in,” Tip said, “not that he didn’t do it.”

“Then who called it in? You telling me a neighbor drove ten miles to use a pay phone to report something suspicious.”

“They probably had to go ten miles just to find a phone booth.” Tip grabbed the phone and hit dial on Julie’s call. She picked up right away. “Hello.”

Tip hit the speaker. “Julie, what
exactly
did that caller say?”

“You mean the witness?”

“Yeah, read it to me.”

“Hang on.”

Within about a minute she returned. “Here it is. Verbatim.”

Caller
: I just saw someone leaving my neighbor’s house and it looks suspicious.

Operator
: What is your name, sir?

Caller
: I don’t want to give my name.

Operator
: What looks suspicious, sir?

Caller
: He is carrying something. Actually two things. One is a bag of some kind and the other looks like a vacuum cleaner.

Operator
: What kind of bag, sir?

Caller
: (sounding frustrated) I don’t know what
kind
of bag. A garbage bag, I guess.

Operator
: What is the address?

Caller
: 1511 Mercado Street.

Operator
: Are you there now?

Caller
: (silent)

Operator
: Sir, are you still there? Are you at the address now?

“That’s all there is,” Julie said.

“And they verified the address he called from?”

“Pete already did that. Got the phone company emptying it now to see about prints on coins. And they already dusted the booth and surroundings.”

“Okay, Julie, thanks again.”

Tip made sure the phone was off, then turned to me. “So if it’s not the killer who called it in, who did? And why travel ten miles to do it?” I made my way to the fridge to get another beer, popped the top, then sat next to Tip at the kitchen table. “Let’s assume the neighbor is frightened—”

“Of what?” Tip asked. “Of someone carrying a vacuum cleaner and a trash bag out of a house? And what were they doing up at 3:00 AM to begin with?”

“People stay up late all the time.”

“And just happen to be staring out their window at 3:00 in the morning? Come on, Gianelli. I’m sure this guy didn’t make a lot of noise. This is the same guy who never got seen or heard even in apartment buildings.”

I sipped more beer. “All right, we assume it’s the killer who called it in.”

“Has to be,” Tip said.

“Now we have to figure out why.”

Tip got up and walked into the other room. “Let’s get on it.”

I paced, taking occasional glances at the charts. “How about the differences? We’ve focused on what we have in common, how about what’s different?”

“Okay, what
is
different?”

“For one thing, we have a witness. That might be the biggest difference. Even if we assume the caller was the killer, we—”

The phone rang. “It’s Julie,” Tip said and put it on speaker.

“Crime scene guys said there were plenty of prints this time. On a wine bottle they found in the trash. Wine glasses, computer, shower, all over. Matched Carlos Cortes and the victim. There were prints in other parts of the house that didn’t match either one”

“That it?”

“Ben should be calling you any minute. He’s got some preliminary stuff.”

“Okay. See ya’.”

As Tip and I discussed it, Ben called. Tip put it on the speakerphone.

“Tip, there was semen in the victim, and while I can guess she might have been raped, there’s no solid proof. Except for the bruising. The same guy did this, no doubt in my mind. The pattern is the same, the way he beat her, the way he removed the lips, all of it.”

“Anything different?”

“The only thing I can tell is that this one never had a chance to fight back. There were no signs of defensive wounds. The other ones had been struck on the arms, places where the victims might have tried blocking his blows. Not here. It’s as if he disabled her with the first blow.”

“Okay, Ben, thanks. Call me if you get anything else.”

“I will.”

“And, Ben. I’ll need DNA on that semen as soon as you can.”

“I rushed it.”

Tip turned back to me. “All right, Connie, what were you saying about the caller?”

“I said, even if we assume the caller was the killer, we’re left with the question of
why
he called it in? This is giving us evidence that we wouldn’t have had. The others he let sit and rot until they were found by accident, and this one he calls in. Why? And why stop at that gas station?”

Tip stopped. “Shit, we screwed up.” He reached for the phone, punched in a number to the station. “Get me Fat Charlie, quick.”

“Tip, what’s up?”

“Charlie, we need to check the dumpsters between the victim’s house and the phone booth where that call came from. This son-of-a-bitch dumped the clothes, sheets, and contents of that vacuum somewhere and it might be in a dumpster that hasn’t been picked up yet.”

“All right, I’m on it. I’ll get Vic and the others to help out, too.”

“Get everybody, and keep me posted.” Tip punched the table. “I should have thought about that this morning. Snowball’s chance in hell of finding it now.”

“Not your fault. I even thought, where is he taking that vacuum, but then I got distracted and never asked myself again.”

Tip gathered himself, drained his beer and sat up straight. “Let’s get back to that first question.
Why
would the killer call it in?”

“He wanted us to have the evidence…” I came alive. “But the only evidence we have points us to Carlos. Prints, and probably the semen.”

“And the fact that he was with her the night before, and she worked for him,” Tip said.

“So…the killer would have to know that with all of that information it would seem too obvious.” I lost some enthusiasm.

“Or,” Tip said, “he knew it, and counted on that. In other words, it could be Carlos taunting us. Like saying why would I kill her and then leave my prints and semen all over the scene?”

I
pounded the table this time. “Son-of-a-bitch. We ought to find a way to pin it on him. And make it stick.”

“I say we do it.”

Tip’s response hit me hard. I looked to see if he was serious. He was.

As much as I wanted Carlos to rot in jail, even worse, my gut churned. This was everything a cop swore not to do. “You’re okay with that?”

An icy stare greeted me. “You think Carlos deals drugs?”

I couldn’t find my voice, but I nodded.

“You think he killed Tony?”

“I’m positive.”

“Then let’s do it.”

I took a slow, deep breath, tried focusing on what I was committing to, looked for a way out. “Suppose we pin this on Carlos. What happens when we find the real killer.”