Most Wanted (20 page)

“The vermin that work in these places,” Dan muttered, shaking his head.

Diaz looked at his visitors belligerently. “Who the fuck are you?”

In answer, Dan and Randall flashed their badges. Melanie sat down across the narrow desk from Diaz and extracted her credentials from her briefcase, passing them to him. He took them with his free left hand, glanced at them dismissively, and shoved them back at her.

“Say what you got to say, because you interferin’ with my exercise period,” he said irritably.

“We thought maybe you might want to help yourself out,” Melanie said evenly, leaning forward in her chair slightly to make better eye contact.

“Yeah, like what? Giving up those assholes gettin’ blow jobs from the inmates in the women’s unit?” His gesture toward the door implicated the guards who had just left. “You don’t need me for that. Everybody in this place knows.”

“We came to talk to you about the murder of the man who prosecuted you, Jed Benson.” Melanie looked him in the eye. He stared back, defiant yet calm, sizing her up and tipping back slightly in his chair. “I take it from your expression you’re not surprised to hear that Mr. Benson was killed?”

“What goes around comes around.” He smiled nastily.

Melanie exchanged glances with Dan and Randall. This guy obviously hated Benson with a passion. Perhaps she should take Rommie Ramirez’s retaliation theory more seriously. At least she should treat Diaz as a viable suspect. She reached into her briefcase and took out a form and a pen, sliding both across the desk.

“These are your rights. If you’re unable to read, Agent O’Reilly can read them to you. Initial after each paragraph to show you understand, and sign at the bottom.”

“I can read. And I know my rights.”

Diaz made no move to take the form and instead began rocking his chair back and forth slightly. With his long experience of the legal system, he surely knew that she needed his signature waiving his rights. Without it, any confession he made could be thrown out in court. But Diaz continued to rock his chair as if bored to distraction, saying nothing. Melanie decided to get more aggressive.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, Delvis. You’re a suspect in Jed Benson’s murder. Some people think you ordered the hit.” He laughed derisively. She waited calmly for him to stop laughing, then continued in the same tone. “We’re working the case, and I promise you we’re gonna find the killer. And I don’t mean just the shooter, but everybody who was involved, including the guy who gave the order. We took time from our busy schedules to come up here and listen to your side of the story. You should view it as an opportunity.”

“Knock yourself out,” he said, laughing again, rocking the chair more exuberantly. “Pin it on me. I don’t give a fuck. I’m already doing three lifes.”

“Times have changed, Delvis. Back when you were convicted of killing the Flatlands Boys, the federal death penalty was almost never applied. But it is now. It would be pretty easy to convince a jury to impose it on someone who got three lifes and still kept killing.”

The chair stopped rocking, its front legs touching down. He sat up straight and looked at Melanie uneasily.

“Now that I’ve got your attention, what do you have to tell us?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Let’s start again. I wasn’t expecting a full confession up front. Obviously you didn’t do it with your own hands, since you’ve been locked up for over eight years. We understand that. We’re looking for the guys on the outside, the ones who pulled the trigger. You could help yourself by giving them up and telling us where to find them.”

“I told you, I’m innocent. I don’t have no outside accomplices, because I didn’t do the crime. Think about it. It’s mad late in the game! I hated Benson, sure, and I’m glad he’s dead. The prick fuckin’ set me up. But if I was gonna hit him, why do it now? I’d of done it years ago!”

Dan and Melanie looked at each other. Diaz had just confirmed an idea they’d kicked around before. Retaliation usually comes when the shock of conviction is still raw. Not years later, when most inmates have resigned themselves to doing their time. That was the biggest problem with the retaliation theory. Apparently, though, Randall felt differently. He wasn’t buying a word Diaz said.

“I suppose you’re gonna tell us you didn’t kill the Flatlands Boys either,” Randall taunted, cracking his knuckles. Melanie threw him a warning look. Antagonizing Diaz at this point in the interview seemed counterproductive to her.

“Matter of fact, that’s right. I knew ’em, they worked for me, but I didn’t never body ’em.”

“Pffft!” Randall snorted. “Every piece a’ garbage killer I ever met says he’s innocent. If we listened to you scumbags, we’d empty out all the jails.”

Diaz glared at Randall angrily but remained silent. Randall clearly would have kept going, but Melanie held up her hand for silence, not wanting to provoke Diaz further.

“It’s natural Detective Walker would be a bit skeptical,” she said, “since a jury convicted you of killing the Flatlands Boys. But we’re very interested in hearing what you have to say about that trial. Like I said, we’re here to listen to your side of the story.”

“Maybe I’m ‘a bit skeptical,’ too,” Diaz said. “I been telling y’all about this trial for years, ain’t nobody listen. It was a fucking frame-up. If you want to hear that, fine, I’ll talk. Otherwise I’m gonna go exercise.”

His air of bitterness and resignation seemed authentic to Melanie. Whether or not what he said was actually true, she was starting to think that at least he himself believed it.

“I can’t speak for anybody else,” she said, glancing pointedly at Randall, hoping he would get the message and keep his mouth shut, “but I assure you I want to hear what you have to say.”

Diaz looked Melanie in the eye searchingly, clearly weighing whether she could be trusted. She looked back steadily, patiently, trying to convey by the openness of her gaze that she would give him a fair hearing. Still he said nothing.

“What did you mean when you said it was a frame-up?” she prompted.

“Aw, come on!” Randall exclaimed.

“Randall!”

“Fucking waste of time. I thought we were here to get some work done!”

“He don’t want me saying nothing!” Diaz practically spit. “He prob’ly know my conviction is bullshit. It’s a fucking conspiracy, is what it is! You know who the main witness was at my trial? You don’t even know, do you?”

“Who?” Her intuition told her something big was coming.

“You heard of this kid Junior Diaz? He go by Slice? Likes to sic a dog on people and then cut ’em up? You ever heard of him?”

“Yes.” A chill ran down Melanie’s spine.

“It was him. You go look at the trial transcripts, you’ll see. He killed the Flatlands Boys, not me. He killed ’em, and then he testified that I did it. The real killer is the one who put me away.”

THE NEWS THAT SLICE HAD TESTIFIED AT Delvis Diaz’s trial shocked Melanie completely. It meant Slice had been Jed Benson’s star witness, had cooperated with the prosecution. That flew in the face of everything she knew about Slice. And not only about Slice, but about Jed Benson himself. Relying on the testimony of a vicious killer like Slice was a dangerous enterprise for an ethical prosecutor. And though the thought that Jed Benson could have conspired with Slice to frame Delvis Diaz seemed impossible to Melanie, nevertheless warning bells went off in her head. She didn’t know enough about her victim. Jed Benson himself warranted closer scrutiny.

“Lemme explain a couple things, ma’am,” Delvis Diaz was saying. “First off, who I am, who I was on the street. I was a drug dealer, a kingpin, real high level and shit. I sold drugs. Dope, mostly, and a little cocaine here and there. I had a real nice organization, back in the day. Killin’ wasn’t my thing, okay? Ask anybody. Step to me and I’ll fuck you up. I won’t have a choice. I’ll have to, to stay strong in the streets. But I was a businessman, and violence is bad for business. Never believed in it.”

“Every other scumbag like you says the same thing,” Randall interjected with exaggerated disgust. “Admit to the drugs but not the murders. Sometimes a jury is stupid enough to believe it. But they got it right with you.”

“Randall, please!” Melanie snapped, wanting to hear more. “Let him talk.”

“I can’t believe you fallin’ for this horseshit.” Randall shook his head. “Fine, I’ll just keep my mouth shut! Pretend I’m not here.” Dan regarded Randall with bewilderment, then glanced at Melanie, raising his eyebrows questioningly. Melanie held her hand up again, struggling to pick up the thread of Diaz’s words.

“Okay,” she said, “so you were a drug dealer, not a killer, fine. But how do we get from there to a reputable prosecutor conspiring with a cold-blooded killer to set you up? I’m prepared to take this seriously, but you better have a damn good explanation and proof to back it up.”

“Why does anybody do anything? Greed. Money. That’s all. I saw it comin’, too, but I was too fuckin’ stupid, too soft, to do what needed to be done. See, Slice was with me from a shorty. He ain’t got no daddy, and his moms was a crack ho who just kinda faded out. He attach himself to me when he was ten years old, call himself Junior Diaz after me. He wasn’t born in no hospital, ain’t got no government name anyway. So I took him in, raised him up, kept him from starvin’, made him a player in my organization. But after all I did for him, look what I get.” He glanced down at his cuffed hand, shaking his head, genuinely upset. “The boy’d been a big problem for a long time. Stealin’ from me, beatin’ on people when he shouldn’t, cuttin’ ’em up. I knew I shoulda bodied him—it was the only way. But I couldn’t do it. So he set me up, got me out of the picture, so’s he could be the kingpin himself.”

“Okay, I understand Slice’s angle. He wants to push you out and take over your turf. But what about Jed Benson? Surely you’re not suggesting that he knowingly collaborated with Slice—”

Randall smashed his fist against the metal door. They all jumped. “Enough! I can’t believe we’re all standing here listening to this crap!”

Diaz went white, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “You don’t wanna hear what I have to say? Fine, call the guards! I’m done!” he yelled.

“What? No, please!” Melanie pleaded.

“Think I ain’t never heard of the right to remain silent? I’m not saying another word to this asshole. You want to talk to me again, come back without him. And bring my lawyer.”

Melanie was powerless to try to change his mind. Once a prisoner invoked his rights, it was illegal to question him further. Diaz knew that. Randall had pushed Diaz to the breaking point, derailing the interview with his blatant hostility. To some extent Melanie sympathized. If you listened to the inmates, the prisons were overflowing with innocent people, every one of them with a hard-luck story. An old cop like Randall had very limited patience for that sort of talk. Most of the time, she didn’t subscribe to it either. But there were too many unanswered questions in this case—about Slice, about Jed Benson, about the relationship between them. There was a real chance Delvis Diaz could shed light on those questions. Now Randall had blown it, and Melanie was angry and surprised. It wasn’t what she expected from him. It wasn’t good police work.

MELANIE WAS DULY IRRITATED DURING THE long march back through grim corridors to the lockers where they’d left their things. Only the presence of their bleached-blond escort checked her tongue. She wouldn’t criticize Randall in front of the snippish Ms. Leona Burkett, but she’d let him have it the second they got to the car.

“By the way,” Leona said as they retrieved their cell phones and beepers, “next time please have the basic courtesy to turn off your communications devices before you stow them. They’ve been making an unholy racket in there and giving me a headache like you wouldn’t believe.”

As if on cue, Dan’s pager and Randall’s cell phone began to shriek simultaneously, and Melanie’s phone vibrated vigorously in her hand, startling her. They looked at each other for a split second before answering, their faces all registering the same terrible conviction: It had to be bad news.

THE HOTEL OFF THE INTERSTATE LOOKED LESS threatening today in the blazing-hot sunlight than it had yesterday in the gloom. Now it just seemed antiseptic, institutional—an impersonal place to die. Standing in the parking lot, Melanie let her gaze travel upward once again to that fifth-floor window. She remembered what she’d been thinking looking up from this exact spot yesterday, that anyone could find Rosario. She knew how vulnerable Rosario was, and how afraid. Yet she’d driven away and left it to others to protect her, consigning her to die in this soulless outpost, far from home. The only way to redeem herself in her own eyes was to find Rosario’s killer and bring him to justice.

Randall had bounded ahead, but Dan noticed her lagging and turned to wait for her. His face was troubled and grave, framed against the backdrop of flashing lights from the emergency vehicles in front of the hospital entrance.

He stretched his hands toward her in supplication. “Please, Melanie…”

“I blame myself more than I blame you.”

He took several steps, closing the gap between them, clasping her shoulders and looking down into her face. “That’s plain wrong! Look, it was somebody’s fault. But it wasn’t mine, and it sure as hell wasn’t yours. There’ll be an inquiry. We’ll find out what happened.”

“We know what happened. She wasn’t properly protected. Whose fault is that? Yours and mine, Dan. We knew she was at risk. We knew that animal was out there. We promised her she’d be safe, and then we left her here.”

“Yes, we left her here. We had to. What were we supposed to do, run the investigation from a fucking motel in Jersey? We had work to do, for Chrissakes!”

“We should have moved her!” she said.

“This guy is good. He would’ve found her anywhere. You know that.”

“
How
did he find her, Dan? How many hotels are there in spitting distance of the city? A hundred? Two hundred? More? What are the odds he’d find her in this one?”

“Come on, don’t get crazy now. There’s no evidence for what you’re saying.”