“Think about it. If your theory is right, this wasn’t a premeditated thing. Something happened and the killer decided there was no other choice. He pulled his gun and fired.”
“And?”
“And it just so happened his gun matched Thomson’s. So does mine, Castro. So does yours. You see what I’m saying?”
“Anybody could have a sig Sauer.”
“Sure they could,” I say. “But we both know that’s not the deal here, right? For the time being, I need this to look like a suicide investigation, and if you shoot your mouth off about this theory, the wrong people are going to find out I’m on to them. So for now, can we keep it between the two of us?”
“I already told the other guys,” he says quietly.
“But they didn’t listen, did they? Let’s leave it at that.”
The struggle on his face lasts a second or two, then he nods with resignation. Playing along means no immediate recognition for his work, but since his colleagues aren’t backing him, there’s not much risk of professional trouble. This way, at least, he can feel like he’s in the know, keeping secrets for the detective in charge.
“Okay,” he says, sticking a hand out. “Deal.”
There’s no way he’ll let me go without a handshake, so I give in. His palms are damp and warm. I wait until I’m safely hidden behind the elevator door to wipe mine dry.
Get a cop to open up about his personal frustrations, and once you get past the office politics, the slow advancement, and the various fractures in the justice system, he might, assuming he’s the philosophical type, start talking about the gap between knowledge and proof. I’ve been cut by both sides of the blade, knowing things I couldn’t prove and proving things I didn’t really believe. The idea that there’s any connection between what we believe and what we can prove goes out the door early, at least it does if you’re paying attention.
I’ve sent men to prison with no idea whether they did the crime or not. The case was there, so I made it. The ultimate decision belongs to the judge or jury, something I took comfort in once, though not so much anymore. If we had to know – really know – what happened, no one would ever go to jail. Fortunately, you can prove things in court that you can never truly know.
By the same token, you can know things that can’t ever be proven. And that knowledge often has a certainty to it that the evidential sort never does. There are these unproven things about which I have a quasi-religious certainty, things I would act on more readily than anything I could support with mere evidence. I can’t explain this exactly, but anyone who has trodden long enough on the line between fact and truth will tell you the same.
Or not. I can only speak for myself.
When I try imagining Keller’s hand on the murder weapon – or Salazar’s, which is easier somehow – the mental image is absurd, almost laughable. Even so, it’s my new article of faith. Castro’s hunches fit in with Bridger’s qualm, but it can all be explained away. Everything can. Only I know what these men are capable of. I bear the marks on my flesh.
It’s not enough. It won’t convince Hedges or Bascombe. It won’t satisfy Wilcox. And if I go to any of them, I’ll tip my hand. That’s why Castro has to keep quiet. That’s why I have to tread very carefully, planning my next moves for maximum effect.
Back at my desk, I put in another call to Cavallo. She hasn’t returned yesterday’s call, and I’m beginning to think she never will. She’s probably relieved to see the back of me. Vance, the man who’s supposedly holding a box from Thomson, hasn’t called me, either. That’s the lead I want to follow up, and it’s as simple as feeding his phone number into the computer.
While I’m copying down the contact info on Mr. Vance Balinski, a Caucasian male aged thirty-four years, residing in an Uptown condo with a ten-year-old Mercedes coupe registered to his name, Detective Aguilar appears at my elbow, black eyes sparkling in his lobster-red face, a photo lineup clutched in his hands. Thanks to his gang experience, he caught my shooting, and now he perches on my desk and hums a little fanfare.
“What’re you so chipper about?”
He hands over the lineup, along with a well-chewed ballpoint pen. “You know the drill.”
Right away, I recognize the shooter. Looking at his mug shot, I’m surprised my guard wasn’t up from the get-go. A tough customer with the faraway stare of a man who’d gut you just to see whether his knife was sharp.
Aguilar nudges my chair with his foot. “You see him here or not?”
I circle the right man and hand the page back.
He nods in satisfaction, humming another bar. “Dude’s name is Rafael Ortiz, an enforcer for LTC. Which means the cholos in the house with Morales were his boys.” He gives me one of his unreadable stares. “Any reason they’d want to clip you?”
“Something to do with the case, I assume. Beats me what it is.”
We commune silently, aware that I’ve only stated the obvious. Then he starts humming again, like a man whose case is down. He folds the sheet and tucks it into his jacket. “You won’t have to worry about this Ortiz, anyway.”
“Why?” I ask. “You haven’t picked him up already, have you?”
“As we speak, he’s cooling on a slab at the morgue. Most of him is, anyway.”
“He’s dead?” It doesn’t make sense. I replay the shooting in my mind. He put a round in my door, then another in my leg, and I touched up his dental work with my elbow, but nothing rough enough to put him in the ground. Plus, it was after I shot up the truck that he hopped inside, so my bullets didn’t do the work. I can’t figure it out. “It wasn’t… I mean, I didn’t do it, did I?”
He gets a kick out of this and slaps my arm in appreciation. “Did you put a shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger?” He flattens his hands against his head, then pops them sideways, the same gesture he might use to exaggerate the size of a fish he’d caught, only in this context it’s meant to be an exploding cranium. “No? Then you can rest easy, March. It wasn’t you.”
“The individual driving the truck,” I say. “He had a shotgun.”
“Yeah, I know.”
As he leaves, patting the lineup in his jacket pocket, I sink back into my chair, wallowing in bewilderment. Not that I’m going to lose much sleep over the buckshot decapitation of a man who tried to make Charlotte a widow. Still, I’d like to know who did the business. And why.
“I’m not avoiding you,” Cavallo says. “Believe it or not, there’s all this work they want me to do. It didn’t stop just because you left.”
“Wanda said you took a personal day.”
“I was sick. I think this case is giving me an ulcer.”
There’s more to it than that, I have no doubt, but I don’t want to press her. Her voice sounds scratchy, like she’s been yelling at someone. I don’t want to make her yell. I want her happy. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s an integral part of my master plan.
“Listen,” I say, “Theresa…” If she objects to my use of her first name, she doesn’t verbalize it. “There’s a favor I need to ask you.”
“Fire away. But just so you know, the answer’s gonna be negative.”
“In that case, I’m not going to say it over the phone. Mind if I drop in on you?”
A long pause. “Is it really that important?”
“Life or death.”
“Right. Well, I’m up at Northwest. Lunch is on you. And the answer’s still going to be no.”
“See you in twenty.”
As soon as I hang up, I grab my jacket and take the elevator down, moving on autopilot through the car pool. After lunch I’m going to drop in on Vance Balinski in person and find out why he hasn’t gotten back in touch. First, though, I need to convince Cavallo to do a little moonlighting.
The car clunk-clunks along the Pierce Elevated, static coming in loud and clear over the radio. My phone starts to ring.
“March.”