Red Man Down (12 page)

‘Ah. But surely you do remember that the bank examiners never found the money, and neither did we. If Frank Martin hadn’t killed himself, convicting him would have been difficult, if not impossible. Because if he ever had the money he must have buried it under a bush somewhere, in coffee cans. It isn’t in anything he owned, or in any account those hard-working examiners were ever able to find.’

‘I know, I remember that part. But why’d he off himself if he wasn’t guilty?’

‘That’s what everybody in town wants to know,’ Jason said.

‘He left a note worthy of the Delphic Oracle,’ Leo said.

‘I forget – what did it say?’

‘I have a copy,’ Oscar said, ‘if you want to …’ He stopped when every eye in the room turned toward him.

‘What does it say?’ Delaney asked him.

Keeping his poise under scrutiny, Cifuentes pulled that same slip of paper out of his shirt pocket (Sarah thinking,
It can’t be the same pocket, he’s changed shirts two dozen times since we talked to Cecelia).
In a voice as expressionless as if he was reading a grocery list, he
read again that tragic and puzzling message: “I didn’t take the money, but I won’t put my family through this investigation any longer.” And then the postscript: “Eddie, I’m sorry for everything. I’ve loved you all your life, please try to forgive me.”

Delaney said, ‘You carry the damn thing around with you?’

Oscar shook his head a stoical inch each way and said, ‘I thought we might be discussing it today.’

‘What do you think he was sorry about?’

‘Taking the money, I guess.’

‘But he says he didn’t do that.’

‘Well then, I guess I have no idea, do I?’

Delaney scanned around the circle. ‘Where is it, by the way? The actual note?’

‘I don’t know that, either. Does anybody?’ They all shook their heads. ‘Must be in the case files, I guess.’

Delaney swiveled his chair sideways and faced the wall above his console, where a number of plain black frames held pictures of his children winning awards at school. He was not admiring his family, though, Sarah saw. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving, but no sound came out.

All his detectives waited, watching the clear plastic clock on his desk scroll through thirty seconds. When he turned back he said, ‘I’m not sure you’re right that this death is connected to the other two. But it seems to make sense out of a confusing string of events, so let’s run with it for now and see if we can prove it right or wrong. Here’s what I want you all to do. Everybody ready? Leo, you’re a good searcher, find everything that was printed in the local papers about the embezzlement case at the time it was discovered. Make one copy and bring it to me.’

‘I can certainly do that,’ Leo said.

‘I know you can or I wouldn’t have asked you. Editorial comments can wait, folks – we don’t have all day to fuck around here.’ Detectives began stealing furtive glances at each other. Delaney seldom had recourse to obscenity, unless he was pressured or angry.

‘Oscar,’ he swiveled his fierce blue gaze toward Cifuentes, whose face turned to polished granite as he stared back. ‘You seem to have a knack for remembering details, so let’s put it to work. Pull out the case files for both Frank Martin and Ed Lacey. Read them all the way through, including the autopsy reports. Keep on reading them until I tell you to stop. I want you to be totally conversant with everything that’s in them, so that if I ask you a question, you can answer it. I want you to do this all by yourself. Is that clear?’

Oscar glanced quickly at Sarah, his mouth a grim line, and said, ‘Yes.’

‘Jason, put fresh batteries in your pocket recorder, go back to that bar on Flowing Wells where the two men phoned in about the wire stripper. Hang out there for a couple of hours drinking plain soda and striking up conversations with everybody who comes in – but not about the shooting, understand? Talk about the weather and the band you heard Saturday night and the Cats’ chances in the playoffs – any old shit to get in everybody’s face, make sure they’ve seen your Glock and your badge and are changing the plan they came in with. About the third time you empty the place, the bartender will start trying to find out what you want. Keep smiling till he asks. Then tell him we need to know exactly what he saw during that shooting. And how well did he know Ed Lacey, for how long, how much of what did he sell him and what did he buy from him? Tell him we’re Homicide, we don’t give shit about what he’s buying and selling, unless he fails to tell us exactly how much he knows about Ed Lacey. You know the drill – if he helps us we forget his name and address; if he doesn’t his whole operation is toast.’

Jason, who had been nodding steadily for some time, said only, ‘Gotcha.’

‘Good. Ollie, here’s the keys to Angela Lacey’s car. Use her license and registration to find every record that exists, state, county and city, for her since the day she was born. Family, schools, work history, medical records, what she owned and what she drove, if there’s anything left who gets it? Any questions?’

‘What was her last name before she was married?’

‘No idea. Look it up. OK, that’s it. Let’s get at it. Sarah, you stay where you are, please.’ He got up and ushered them all out, closed his door and came back to his desk. Sarah, marooned among empty chairs, watched him carefully.
If I only hadn’t said, ‘Angela told us.’

‘You’re the best detective I’ve got, in some ways,’ Delaney said without preamble. Sarah swallowed, waiting for the
but
. ‘You don’t gag at autopsies, or fold in a fight; you listen well at interviews and you’ve got good instincts about what people don’t want to talk about. I’ve known for some time you want my job and I like that too – it means you’ll work your tail off to keep your place in line.’ He sat back and gave her the pop-eyed stare he usually saved for suspects. ‘So what the holy shit were you thinking when you helped Oscar two-step his way around the job I gave him to do?’

‘It was just a fair trade to save time, boss.’ It sounded pretty credible when you said it that way, she thought, forgetting how she had ridiculed Oscar when he first offered the swap. ‘He knew some of Ed Lacey’s family members and he offered to help me find them if I helped him with Angela.’ Watching his implacable stare she ventured, ‘What’s so bad about detectives helping each other sometimes?’

‘Nothing, when I know about it. Why did he need help with Angela?’

‘Well … I don’t know, exactly …’

‘Uh-huh, you don’t want to talk about that, do you? I can do it too, Sarah, that’s just shit-sniffing 101, we all learn that. You knew when I gave him the order – I saw you all looking at each other – that it was some kind of a test.’

‘What kind, though? I mean … isn’t he entitled to a personal life?’

‘Oh, bullshit!’ He hit the desk and she flinched. ‘Oscar Cifuentes has a crotch problem – he’s sniffing around one all the time. Maybe it was just a colorful hobby while he stayed in Auto Theft, but if he can’t stop being an alley cat he’s got no future in Homicide. Think about the decisions you have to make all day about people. Homicide is serious business, you can’t have your brains between your legs on this job. Oscar has to grow up if he wants to work here.’

He leaned back and scrutinized his ceiling for a few seconds, then put his elbows on his desk and said, ‘And so do you. You still want to sit over here on this side of the desk?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know I do.’ Her face said,
Not enough to beg for it.

‘Well, if you keep your nose clean you’re not the only candidate, but you’re definitely in the running. The way to wrap it up tight is not to help other members of the crew find a way around my orders so you can all snicker at the boss.’

‘I never meant to—’

‘Maybe not, but that’s the way it came out. Getting along with colleagues is very nice, Sarah, but following orders is also a proven road to success. So now …’ He sat back again. ‘That’s enough of that. Except to tell you I don’t ever want to have this conversation with you again, understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. How much digging up of old stuff do you think we need to do? Ed Lacey’s family on both sides for three generations?’

‘Well, no, but … I’d like to talk to Angela’s present employer, and everybody in Ed’s mother’s family. His father took off early, never played any part.’

‘OK, mother’s family … big family?’

‘Huge, but some are dead … I’ve got a list of the ones who live here. I can find them.’

‘What’s your take on them so far?’

‘All different, but … Cecelia, the younger sister? She says they’re warm, but … they all seem a bit secretive to me, as if they’re hiding something. Or guilty of something? Or afraid of someone? I can’t figure it out.’

‘Oh? Big warm family but the kid’s raised by his uncle – how come?’

‘Why don’t I find them all and then tell you?’

‘Yes,’ Sergeant Delaney said, turning away as his phone rang, ‘why don’t you do that?’

Luz García-Lacey said she had never been tempted to add any more hyphenated names after Lacey. ‘Boyfriends only. One husband was definitely enough,’ she said. She looked like Cecelia for a moment, when her eyes flashed. Then she settled comfortably back into her wrinkles and wattles and sighed.

‘But like every other woman in my family I always wanted a man around. Could not
stand
to live alone. And I liked the lively ones,’ she said. ‘The ones who wanted to go out nights, dance and play games. Each one brightened my life for a while, and when they grew tiresome I put them out. Boyfriends …’ Lying on her chaise in the shade, comfortable now in assisted living, she laughed and waved her hands in a gesture that said,
What can you do?
‘After a while they get like yesterday’s fish.’

‘But your son,’ Sarah said. ‘They didn’t brighten his life as much, hmmm?’

‘He was jealous,’ Luz tossed her head, defensive. ‘He liked having me to himself and each time when I found a new man he resented the attention I gave him. Adolpho, the one who beat him up? That was an outrage, of course, and we broke up over it, but in a way I understood – when Eddie got anxious he could be an awful pest.’

‘So your son went to live with your brother-in-law.’

‘By now I’m sure you have heard from the whole family what a careless mother I was. It’s true; I was never cut out for the part. But it made Frank very happy to care for Eddie, and my boy thrived there, so where’s the harm?’

‘Everybody tells me about Frank’s good deeds,’ Sarah said. ‘Why did he want to help everybody, do you know? Was he very religious?’

‘No, not really. He went to church when we all did, as a way of celebrating holidays. No, I think it started when Anita died. My poor sister suffered very much in the last two days of her life. She could not give birth to the child, and the pain …’ Luz closed her eyes and shook her head. All the Garcías had a knack for story-telling, Sarah thought, and were particularly good at the silent pause that conveyed,
Words cannot express
. ‘… and then the baby died too, after they finally had the good sense to cut it out of her body, and to see it, just born and already exhausted … I think Frank suffered from survivor’s guilt after that. He was trying to do enough good to wipe out the evil in the world.’ A sad little chuckle. ‘Good luck with that, amigo.’

‘Why do you think he stole the money?’

‘He didn’t. I knew that man as well as I know myself, and I tell you, Frank could not have done that. It was not in his nature.’

‘But his signatures—’

‘I don’t know how that was arranged. Some clever, evil person … I know nothing about accounting so I cannot help with details. But look at how he lived, always so careful – he even carried his own lunch from home, like a schoolboy, in a dinner pail, with a thermos for coffee. So no, he was not taking money from the charities. I don’t know who did; I can only assure you that there is an explanation and if you look hard enough you will find it.’

‘That’s what we’re doing – looking hard at everything. And talking to everybody in the family … Which reminds me, your brother Guillermo lives in this facility too, doesn’t he?’

‘He does, but there is no use trying to talk to poor Memo any more. His mind is totally gone.’

‘Ah. I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Yes, so are we all. It’s quite surprising, too, that he should be the one who loses his marbles. While I sit here, as Cecelia says, still thinking sinful thoughts as nimbly as ever. Cecelia, perhaps you have noticed, is the family judge. It’s a tough job but she feels uniquely qualified to do it. Memo was the family entrepreneur, the one who was clever and organized. He made plenty of money and had only one child. So we could usually tap him for a loan, which I think it’s safe to say none of us has ever repaid.’

‘So your family was blessed with two helpers?’

‘Yes. Unfortunately Memo’s help always came with good advice which was so hard to listen to that we put off going to him until we were truly desperate.’

‘But Frank didn’t give good advice?’

‘Or any other kind. That dear, sweet man. He would come to my door and say, “What can I do to help?”’

‘What kind of help did he give you?’

‘Everything from hauling away the broken furniture from the latest fight to re-stocking my empty food shelves – he did that one time when the brute I threw out stole all the money out of my purse before he left.’

‘So who else from your family is around to talk to?’ Sarah consulted her list. ‘Eduardo?’

‘He is deceased.’

‘Marisol?’

‘Gone to her reward also. Mimi married a man from Nicaragua and lives down there now. So except for Chico and me, only the younger family is left in Tucson; the second wife, Teresa’s children – Cecelia, Pilar and Joey. Cecelia you have met, no? Pilar is the perfect example of the Catholic housewife and mother – a slave to her husband and four children. She wants only to serve them and the Lord. A pillar of the Altar Society.’ Luz shook her head sadly. ‘Otherwise she appears quite sane. You have her address there?’ She looked at the list. ‘Yes, that is correct.’

‘And Joey? Nobody’s mentioned him to me before – does he live in Tucson?’