Blindman's Bluff (31 page)

T
HE PACING SERVED
a twofold purpose. It kept Decker warm and it shook off some nerves. At three in the morning, the hospital loomed like an electric ghost as he held the phone to his ear.

He was shaking, but from excitement. “You got
Cruces and Pine
in custody?”

“Not bad for a day’s work—a very full day. I’ve been up around twenty hours.”

“Who’s down at the station house besides you?”

“Oliver, Messing, and Pratt. Who should interview whom?”

Decker thought a moment. “Okay, here’s the thing. The optimum would be that neither Pine nor Cruces gets a deal, but we may have to flip one against the other. With Pine, we’ve not only got fingerprints, we’ve also got Rondo Martin’s eyewitness testimony. He mentioned Pine before I did. With Cruces, Rondo Martin remembered him, but only after I mentioned his name. His memory with Cruces is less clear. It makes more sense to have Cruces flip on Pine. So you and Oliver take Pine. If you don’t get anywhere, bring in someone else for a fresh perspective.”

“That sounds good. Where are you at up there, Rabbi?”

“There’s a team from Herrod P.D.—which is the next town over—that’s taking over our positions at the hospital in about a half hour. Tim England—Sheriff T—said he’d drop in in the morning. Martin’s in good hands.”

Marge said, “Now that Pine is in custody, maybe Martin can breathe a sigh of relief.”

“Maybe a little sigh, but not a big one until we find out who El Patrón is. Did anyone go back to interview Truillo, the bartender, at Ernie’s El Matador?”

“By the time Bontemps and Lee reached the place, it had closed for the night. I’ll make sure someone’s there when it opens tomorrow. Maybe it won’t be necessary once we talk to Cruces and Pine.”

“Rechecking is always necessary. Willy and I are taking the first flight down in the morning.” Decker checked his watch. The plane was set to leave at six-thirty—four hours from now. “We’ll see you at around eight in the morning.”

“Get some sleep, Pete.”

“Too wound up. Any word from Gil Kaffey or Antoine Resseur?”

“Nope.”

“No idea where they are?”

“Not a clue, but if they’re like most people at this time of night, they’re sleeping.” Marge paused. “Unless they’re dead. In that case, nothing’s gonna wake them up.”

THE FIRST THING
Marge did was check Joe Pine’s fingerprints against José Pinon’s school fingerprint card. When it was confirmed that Joe/José was the same person, Marge and Oliver steadied themselves for a long night. Watching from the video camera, they saw Pine go through a series of nonverbal gesticulations almost as meaningful as speech. There was the pacing, then plopping in the chair with the head in the hands, then laying the head on the table, then pacing again. There was one quick swipe at the eyes, wiping away tears, crying for no one but himself.

Pine had on a lightweight nylon jacket over black jeans and a black T-shirt and the usual B and E ski cap. He was built on the small side, around five seven with wiry arms. His face was long, and his complexion was mocha with cream. His dark brown hair had been snipped a few millimeters shy of a crew cut. His round brown eyes gave him a boyish expression mitigated by a strong, masculine cleft chin.

When Marge and Oliver came into the room, Pine was sitting, his eyes at his feet. He glanced up and then looked back down. The room was around eight-by-six feet with a steel table pushed up against the wall and three chairs. Pine occupied the chair on the right side, the one farthest from the door. Marge took up the seat closest to him while Oliver sat opposite.

“Detective Scott Oliver.” He placed a cup of water in front of Pine. “How’re you doing?”

Pine shrugged. “Okay.”

Marge introduced herself and placed her clipboard on her lap. “We’re a little confused,” she told Pine. “What was going on back there, Joe?”

“What do you mean?”

“What we mean is we found you hiding in a closet with a gun.” Marge tried to make eye contact, but his focus was elsewhere. “What was that all about?”

“No big deal.”

Oliver nodded. “How’s that?”

“Just what I said…no big deal.”

Oliver said, “To the guy living there, it was a big deal.”

Marge said, “Tell us why you were there.”

“In the closet?”

“In the closet in the condo that didn’t belong to you.”

Pine said, “I heard you banging on the door and I knew you’d take it the wrong way. So I hid.”

“Okay,” Marge said, writing down notes. She stopped and regarded his face. “How would we take it wrong? What
way
were we supposed to take it?”

“It isn’t like you think. It was just a game, you know?”

“A game?” Oliver repeated.

Marge said, “Explain it to us.”

“You know…a game.” Pine leaned his head against the wall until he couldn’t move any farther. Beads of moisture were forming on his forehead. “To get in with the right people, you gotta play the game.”

“Which right people?” Oliver said.

“My bros, you know?”

“Which bros?”

“In Bodega 12th.” Pine shrugged. “It’s all a big game.”

Marge said, “I thought you were already a member of Bodega 12th.”

“To move up.”

Marge nodded. “How does that work? Moving up?”

Pine snickered. “Hey, you been in your business for a while, no? You know how it works.”

“So tell me anyway.”

“You gotta prove yourself. If you don’t, there are plenty others who will. So that’s what I was doing.”

“You committed a breaking and entering to get into a higher position in the gang?”

“Exactly.”

Oliver said, “So what were you supposed to do when you got inside the condo?”

“Just like…take something…to prove you were there, you know?”

“Then why the gun?”

“Just in case…”

“In case of what?” Marge said.

“In case things get like…you know…complicated.”

“How would things get complicated?”

“What if he had a gun?” He smiled and sipped water. “A guy’s gotta protect himself.”

“So you knew who lived in the condo you were breaking into,” Marge said.

“Uh…no.” Pine shook his head. “No, I didn’t know.”

“You said in case
he
has a gun.”

“He…she. I’d only use the gun for protection.”

“Joe, you’re confused about something,” Marge said. “If you break into a person’s house and he uses a gun against you, that’s protection. If you use the gun against him, that’s called a home invasion and that’s a felony.”

“I wasn’t gonna use it,” Pine told her. “It was for protection, man.”

“You’re still committing a crime,” Oliver said. The two of them went back and forth on the gun until Marge broke in. “Why did you choose that condo?”

“What?” Pine answered.

“Why did you choose to break into that
particular
condo?”

“I dunno.” Pine’s eyes went to the floor. “It was on the ground floor. It was easy.”

“So to prove that you deserve a…promotion in the organization, you chose to do an easy B and E?”

Pine narrowed his eyes in anger. “It’s never easy…things can happen.”

Marge said, “And things did happen. You committed a felony, and because you were packing, now you could go away for a long time.”

“No one got hurt.”

“Your security guard days are over,” Oliver told him.

“That’s okay with me.” Pine sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “Who needs that shit?”

“The Kaffeys gave you shit?”

“Not the Kaffeys…that motherfucker Brady…reaming out my ass for being a minute late. I don’t need that shit.”

Marge noticed he hadn’t broached the murders. He spoke as if he had been merely fired. “What else didn’t you like about Neptune Brady?”

Her question unleashed the furies. For the next half hour, she and Oliver heard a litany of complaints about “that motherfucking, half-nigger, asshole Brady.” And while she didn’t feel any warmth
for the Neptune, the punishment Brady had given Pine for his infractions fit the crime.

1. Neptune docked his pay whenever he was late.
   
2. He docked his pay if his uniform wasn’t cleaned and pressed.
   
3. He docked his pay if he heard inappropriate language.
   
4. He docked his pay if he’d miss a day without twenty-four-hour notice.
   

Oliver said, “So why’d you keep working at the job?”

The question momentarily threw him. “I dunno. It was steady money. Just not enough of it, know what I’m saying?”

“What’d you think of the Kaffeys?” Oliver asked him. “I dunno.”

“It’s not a trick question,” Marge told him. “Did you like the Kaffeys?”

“I didn’t know them enough to like them.”

“But you guarded them,” Marge said.

“Yeah, but that don’t mean we were bros. It was just like…yes ma’am, no ma’am. The guy never talked to me. I coulda been a piece of furniture. Once he reamed my ass for talking to the wife.”

“What were you talking to her about?” Marge asked.

“I said I liked her new Vette or something like that. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Don’t talk personal to the lady.’ From then on, it was good morning, ma’am, and nothing else.”

“Sounds like you didn’t like them.”

Pine shrugged. “I was furniture to them, but they were furniture to me.”

Making them that much easier to blow away,
Marge thought. “I heard it was Guy Kaffey who brought you onto the staff.”

“News to me.” Pine frowned. “Why you asking me so many questions about Kaffey?”

“That’s kinda obvious, Joe,” Oliver said.

“Uh-uh, no way. I didn’t have nothing to do with that!” Pine slapped his arms across his chest. “I’ve been out of town.”

“Yeah, I know,” Marge said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Pine tightened his grip on himself. “So I’m here.”

“You were out of town when it happened?” Oliver said.

“I was in Mexico,” Pine told him.

“What were you doing there?”

“I got family there. Hey, you wanna arrest me for the B and E, hey, what can I do? But I didn’t have nothing to do with the Kaffeys.”

“Joe, we’re in Homicide, not CAPS.” Marge gave him a moment to digest that. “We’ve been interviewing all the guards who worked for Guy and Gilliam Kaffey for the last few weeks. We’ve been looking for you, then you just happened to be in the closet of a guy that the cops were protecting. That makes us curious.”

“Yeah, Joe, about that,” Oliver said. “Why’d you break into a condo where there were cops in front?”

“They were out front.” Pine shrugged. “I was in the back.”

“But it didn’t bother you that the cops were out front?”

“Makes me a bigger man with the bros, you know?”

“Do you know why the cops were out front?”

“No idea,” Pine said. “I’ve been outta the country for a while.”

“How’d you feel when you found out about the homicides?” Oliver said.

Pine shrugged. “Shit happens.”

Marge said, “When did you go to Mexico?”

“I don’t remember the exact date, just that I went before it happened.” Again the arms crisscrossed his chest.

“How’d you find out about the murders?”

“My cousin called me. I thought, man, that’s real messed up. Then I was happy it wasn’t me doing the shift. I heard they all got whacked.”

He looked at them expectantly. Neither Marge nor Oliver responded. His knee started to bounce up and down. “Then I thought, I’m out of a job. So I stayed in Mexico a little longer.”

“Who’s the cousin?” Marge asked him.

Pine looked confused. “The cousin?”

“The one who called and told you about the crime,” Oliver said.

“Why you want to know?”

“So he can give you an alibi,” Marge said.

“Oh…okay. He’s not my real cousin, but we’re like brothers, you know?”

“His name?” Oliver asked.

“Martin Cruces. He worked for the Kaffeys, too.”

Marge willed her face to remain impassive. “Yeah, we know. He’s on our list.”

“Yeah…he’s the one who got me the job.”

“Martin did.”

“Yeah.”

“And he called you and told you about the murders?” Oliver said.

“Yeah, he told me all about it. Sounded real gory, man.”

Marge said, “Martin’s in deep trouble, Joe. Did he tell you that as well?”

Pine’s face momentarily froze. “That’s bullshit. I just talked to him, man. He don’t say nothing about that.”

“Yeah, you just talked to him, but we just
arrested
him,” Marge said.

Oliver said, “He’s right next door, talking to another set of Homicide detectives.”

Marge said, “So if you have something to tell us, now’s the time.”

“I don’t have nothing to tell you.” Pine’s eyes darted back and forth.

“That’s weird,” Oliver said. “Because Martin has plenty to tell us.”

Marge said, “We found your fingerprints at the Coyote Ranch, Joe.”

“’Course you did,” Pine said. “I worked there.”

Marge clarified. “We found bloody prints, the kinds that were made by someone who was there when the murders went down.”

“You’re in deep doo-doo,” Oliver said. “Martin is in the building, talking to us…this may be your only chance to explain what happened.”

“Don’t let Martin tell the whole story for both of you,” Marge said.

Oliver said, “Yeah, we want to hear your side.”

Pine refused to be baited.

“Hey, Joe, maybe it wasn’t supposed to go down like it did,” Marge said. “You just brought along the gun for protection.”

“Or maybe all you wanted to do was scare them,” Oliver said. “If it was an accident, then we can make a case for you.”

“I wasn’t there,” Pine insisted.

“Your fingerprints, Joe,” Marge said. “Fingerprints don’t lie.”

“Yeah, but the cops do,” Pine snapped back. “You’re trying to get me to lie.”

“No, Joe, that’s not what we want. We want the truth, Joe. That’s it.”

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass,” Pine said. “I bet you don’t even got Martin in custody.”

“Well, then, hold on a moment.” Marge stood up. “We’ll see if we can take you to the video room.” She and Oliver left and returned a few minutes later. Marge placed six Polaroid pictures of Martin Cruces, dressed in jacket and jeans, being questioned by Messing and Pratt. “Look at the date on the pictures.”