“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.
22
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?”