“We don’t have to share the confidential strategies of our group with the police,” said the woman with the law degree. “It’s a First Amendment right.”
“So he was there for a strategy session,” said Nikki. “Did he seem upset, agitated, acting out of the ordinary?”
The woman fielded that one, too. “He was drunk. We already told your cobista here.” Ochoa’s face revealed nothing at the insult and he remained quiet.
“What kind of drunk? Falling down? Disoriented? Happy? Nasty?”
Guzman loosened the knit scarf around his neck and said, “He became belligerent and we asked him to leave. That’s all there is to know.”
Prior experience told Nikki that when someone declared that that was all there was to know, the opposite was true. So she drilled down. “How did he show his belligerence, did he argue?”
Pascual Guzman said, “Yes, but — ”
“What about?”
“Again,” said Milena Silva, “that is confidential under our rights.”
“Did it get physical? Did you fight him, have to restrain him?” When the two didn’t answer but looked to each other, Heat said, “I am going to find out, so why not just tell me?”
“We had an issue — ” began Guzman.
Silva chimed in, “A private, internal issue.”
“ — And he was irrational. Drunk.” He looked to his companion and she nodded to go on. “We were... passionate in our disagreement. Shouting became shoving, shoving became punching, so we made him leave.”
“How?” She waited. “How?”
“I... threw him out the door.”
Nikki said, “So it was you who fought with him, Mr. Guzman?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” said Milena Silva.
“Where did he go?” Heat asked. “Did he have a ride, get a cab?”
Guzman shrugged. “He went away is all I know.”
“This was about... ,” Heat looked at her notes, “ten-thirty A.M. Early to be drunk. Was that common for him?” This time they both shrugged.
“Your organization is well armed back in Colombia,” said Heat.
“We have the spirit to fight. We are not afraid to die, if necessary.” It was the most animated she had seen Pascual Guzman.
“I understand some of your members even attacked a prison and helped Faustino Velez Arango escape.” The pair exchanged glances again. “Yes, I know Faustino Velez Arango.”
“Dilettantes and Hollywood stars pretend to know our famous dissident writer, but who has read his books?”
Nikki said, “I read El Corazón de la Violencia in college.” Ochoa regarded her with an arched brow. She continued, “How much of that... fighting spirit... did you bring here?”
“We are peaceful activists,” said the woman. “What use would people like us have for guns and rifles here in the United States?”
Heat wondered the same thing, only not rhetorically. She placed the mug shot of Sergio Torres on the table between them. “Do you know this man?”
“Why?” asked the lawyer.
“Because he’s a person I’m interested in knowing more about.”
“I see. And because he’s Latino and a criminal, you ask us?” Guzman stood and tossed the photo. It fluttered halfway across the coffee table and landed facedown. “This is racist. This is the marginalization we rise up to fight against every day.”
Milena Silva stood, too. “Unless you have a warrant to arrest us, we are leaving.”
Nikki was done with her questions and held the door for them. When they were gone, Ochoa said, “You read El Corazón de la Violencia?”
She nodded. “Lot of good it just did me.”
The remainder of the afternoon she spent using her focus on work to fend off the malaise that had settled like a toxic fog in the halls of the Twentieth Precinct. In any other field, after the startling death of a leader, business would have closed for the day. But this was the New York Police Department. You didn’t clock out for sadness.
For better or worse, Nikki Heat knew how to compartmentalize. She had to. If she didn’t put an airtight lock on her emotional doors, the beasts pounding on the steel plates to get out would eat her alive. The shock and sadness, they were to be expected. But the raging howls she worked hardest to silence came from guilt. Her last days with her mentor had been contentious and full of suspicions; some voiced, some merely contemplated — her own dirty secrets. Nikki hadn’t known where it was all leading, but she had clung to a tacit belief that there would be a resolution that would make the two of them whole again. She never imagined this tragedy cutting short the story Nikki thought she was telling. John Lennon said life was what happened while you made other plans.
So was death.
Blunt as they had been back at the crime scene, Nikki took the advice of Feller and Van Meter and sat down to unpack the facts of the Montrose death without prejudice. Detective Heat got out a single sheet of paper and penciled details. Making her own private Murder Board on the page, she especially focused on the captain’s strange new behaviors in the days ramping up to this dark one, logging them alclass="underline" the absences, the agitation, the secretiveness, his obstruction of her case, his anger when she insisted on doing the sort of investigative work he had trained her to do.
Heat stared at the page.
The questions lingering in the back of her mind stepped forward and raised their hands. Clean or dirty, did Captain Montrose know what the stakes were? Was he trying to protect her? Is that why he didn’t want her looking into the Graf murder too deeply? Because if she did, a bunch of armed guys were going to try to stack her garbage in the park? Were they CIA contractors? Foot soldiers from drug cartels? A Colombian hit squad? Or someone she hadn’t even landed on so far?
And did these guys go for him next?
Nikki folded her sheet of paper to put in her pocket. Then she thought a moment, took it out again, and crossed over to the squad’s Murder Board to write it up there. No, she was not buying the suicide. Not yet.
“This is an official call,” said Zach Hamner, making Heat wonder what their other conversations had been. “I just received a formal complaint from an organization called...” She could hear papers rustling on his end and helped him out.
“Justicia a Garda.”
“Yes. Nice pronunciation. Anyway, they are alleging harassment and racist statements based on a meeting you had with them earlier today.”
“You can’t be taking this seriously,” she said.
“Detective, do you know how much money the city of New York paid out over the last decade in claims against this department?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “Nine hundred and sixty-four million. That’s pocket change short of a billion with a B. Do I take claims seriously? You bet. And so should you. You don’t need something like this coming up right now. Not with your promotion pending. Now, tell me what happened.”
She gave him a brief recap of the meeting and the reason for it. When she was finished, The Hammer said, “Did you have to show the mug shot of the gang banger? That’s the inflammatory part.”
“Sergio Torres tried to kill me this morning. I will damn well show his picture to everyone connected to this case.” When Hamner said he got it, she continued, “And one more thing. Conducting an investigation is hard enough without outsiders second-guessing my case work.”
“I am going to chalk that up to your obvious stress from the day you’ve had. By the way, our condolences on the loss of your commander.” Nikki couldn’t shake her memory of The Hammer standing outside the ambulance that morning whining, “Where the fuck is Montrose?”
She figured one push-back was enough for this call, so she let it go. “Thanks.”
“Where do you go from here?” he asked.
“Back to what I was doing. Finding out who killed Father Graf. And maybe my boss.”