“Your data states that your father was killed when you were fourteen. Stabbed. Cut to pieces.”
“No loss.”
“Did you kill him?”
“My client’s not going to answer that. Don’t answer that, Penny.”
Penny only smiled, rubbed a fingertip on her kill mark.
“You and Lino,” Eve concluded. “Makes a hell of a bond. And two years later, he’s smoke. Gone.”
“Nothing lasts forever.”
“Were you in on the planning of the Skull bombing?”
“My-”
Penny held up a finger to stop her lawyer. “Questioned and released, a long time ago. Nobody ever proved that was Soldado work.”
“People died.”
“Happens every day.”
“Lino planned it. He was one of the leaders, and he had the skills.”
“I guess you’ll never know, seeing as he’s dead.”
“Yeah, he’s dead. You’re not. And your legal counsel will tell you there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
“You can’t hang it on me now any more than they could then.”
“What was Lino waiting for? When was payday, Penny?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes skittered away. “He’s dead, so I guess we can’t ask him.”
“Where’s Steve Chávez?”
“Don’t know. Can’t say.” She yawned. “We done?”
“Lino was marking time, picking up some grease along the way so he could show off, live high, then duck back under the collar. A man doesn’t do that for five years so he can bang an old girlfriend.”
“He loved me. We used to talk about taking off, making a big score, and coming back riding high. Never worked out, but he came back.”
“Do you have an alibi for the day of his death?”
“I opened the bodega at six A.M., along with Rosita. We did the prep, and worked the breakfast counter for three hours straight. Around ten, Pep and I-stock boy-took our break together in the back room, then I was back on the counter when the first cops came in asking questions. And I heard he was dead.”
“What did you do then?”
“Worked my shift, went home. What was I supposed to do?”
“All right. You’re free to go.”
“About damn time.”
Eve waited until they’d left the room. She sat alone, in silence another full minute. “Record off,” she said.
When she was back in her office, standing, staring out the tiny window, Peabody came in.
“Any luck with Penny?”
“Yeah. A twisted mix of lies and truth. More lies than, but enough truth to get a picture. She claims she doesn’t know what happened to the real Flores-lie. That she doesn’t know what Lino was waiting for here-lie. She admits no knowledge of the bombing. Not a lie, more a ‘Prove it, bitch.’ Same with Chávez’s whereabouts. She said Lino loved her. I think that’s truth, or she believes it to be. She never said she loved him. If she had, it would’ve been a lie. But she had been banging him for the past few years.”
“If they’ve been having it on for that long, he told her what he was up to.”
“Yeah. I think he may have helped her kill the first time, earn her mark-maybe they earned them together as the timing jibes with Teresa’s statement. Her father. He’d been sexually abusing her. She had enough. They cut him up.”
“She admitted-”
“No. She admitted the abuse, and that was truth. She admitted she’d joined the gang at fourteen to escape it, to make family, for protection. Her father was found hacked to pieces in an abandoned building when she was fourteen. He was a known dealer, and the cops put it down to an illegals deal gone bad. Probably didn’t work it very hard. Why bother? She and Lino would’ve been covered for it anyway. Others in the gang would’ve alibied them, or threatened someone else into it.”
She heard Peabody close the office door, turned.
“Are you doing okay?” Peabody asked.
“Yes.” Eve walked to the AutoChef, programmed coffee. “Let’s keep going. We’re going to want to dig back into that case file. I’ve got the case files for the bombings, and we’ll need to reach out to the investigators. I need to put some pressure on Penny. More pressure than a couple months in over slapping at a cop.”
“Do you think she killed Lino?”
“We’ll check her alibi, but I bet it’s nice and tight. She had it ready for me, and on a platter. No, she’s the hothead. I don’t think she did the kill. But I think she’s connected. At the very least she knows who did.”
“Maybe they had a fight. Lovers’ tangle.”
“Maybe. I can’t see her going five years without getting pissed off at a lover. Or being exclusive,” she said slowly, and handed one of the coffee mugs to Peabody. “Let’s find out if she was banging anybody else besides Lino. Lino used his confessional privileges to blackmail when it suited him. Can’t see him hitting up for nickels. So we see who’d use the church who had enough to make paying for sin worthwhile. And we need full information on the victims and fatalities of the restaurant bombing.”
“You know how I said I thought it was starting to fall into place? Now it feels like it’s spreading out all over.”
“Just more pieces. They’re going to fall somewhere. Let’s start with the bombings, work forward. The primary investigator’s still on the job. Contact Detective Stuben, out of the Four-six. See if he and/or his old partner have time for a sit-down.”
“Okay. Dallas.” She wanted to say more, it was all over her face. The need to comfort or reassure.
“Right now let’s just work the case, Peabody. That’s it.”
With a nod, Peabody stepped out, and Eve turned back to the window. Time enough, Eve thought, time enough later to feel it, to let herself feel any empathy or connection to another young girl who’d killed to escape the brutality of her father.
She finished off her coffee, then requested the case files for the Soto murder. And was grateful that Peabody buzzed through with an affirmative from Stuben before she had the chance to dig into them.
Stuben wanted to meet at a deli by his own cop shop. He was already packing into a mystery sandwich and a side of slaw when Eve and Peabody arrived. “Detective Stuben, Lieutenant Dallas. My partner, Detective Peabody.” Eve offered a hand. “Thanks for taking the time.”
“Not a problem.” His voice was tough-edged Bronx. “Getting my lunch in. Food’s good here, if you want to eat and meet.”
“Wouldn’t mind.” Eve settled on a steamed dog and some sort of pasta curls, and noted Peabody was offsetting her morning burrito with a melon plate.
“Kohn, my old partner’s off on a fishing trip. Testing retirement out, see if it suits him before he takes the jump,” Stuben began. “If you want to talk to him, he’s due back tomorrow.”
Stuben dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin. “I used to take that file out every couple months, the first year or two after the bombings. I guess longer.” He shook his head, bit into his sandwich. “Take it out again, review, maybe do more follow-ups once or twice a year for another stretch. Dack, too-my partner. We’d sit down like this, over a meal or a brew, and go through it again. Ten, twelve years down, I’d still get it out. Some of them don’t leave you alone.”
“No, they don’t.”
“That area, it was going through a bad time then. Couldn’t bring itself back after the Urbans. We didn’t have enough street cops, not enough on the gang patrols. And the gangs shoved it up our ass, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Did you know Lino Martinez?”
“I knew the little bastard, and the rest of them. I worked those streets when I was in uniform. He was a badass by the time he was eight. Stealing, tagging stores, busting things up just to bust them. His mother, she tried. I’d see her dragging him to school, to church. I caught him with a pocketful of Jazz when he was about ten. I let him off, ’cause of the mother.”
“Did you know Nick Soto?”
“Dealer, street tough, liked to rough up women. Slippery bastard. Then someone slipped a knife in him. Fifty, sixty times. I didn’t work that one, but I knew him some.”