January Justice Part 24

At a nod from Harper, the young detective walked around behind me and removed the cuffs. "I'll take it from here," said Harper.

The young man left the room. I noticed a camera mounted high in the corner behind Harper. A red light on it glowed.

"What's going on?" I asked.

He said, "Where were you at one this morning?"

"In bed."

"All night?"

"Yes. What happened?"

"You got anybody can confirm that?"

"I sleep alone, Tom. What's going on?"

"Is there any way you can prove what you were doing?"

"I'm done talking until you give me a sitrep, Tom."

He leaned back and stared. He rubbed his face, and stared some more. He sighed. "Okay, here's your situation report. There was a home invasion. Four perpetrators. Three men and a woman. One of them was killed at the scene, a Guatemalan national name of Fidel Castro, if you can believe it. You know a guy by that name? And obviously, I don't mean the Fidel Castro. This one was about forty, Latino most likely, bad facial scaring from acne, looks like he had a lot of Indian blood. Carried a Glock. That ring any bells?"

"It might." If there was one thing I had learned when they came for me after Laui Kalay, it was never admit anything unless you're sure they can already prove it.

"Do you know the guy or not? Cooperation is your best option here, Malcolm. I want to help you out, but this looks bad. I wouldn't count too much on the band-of-brothers thing."

"Whose home was invaded?"

"How do you know this Castro?"

"Should I get a lawyer?"

"If you want to. But why not just fill me in on this Castro guy?"

"Tell me whose home it was, and maybe that will help me remember."

He sighed again and looked away.

I said, "Come on, Tom. You know you're gonna have to tell me sooner or later. Let's move this along."

"It was the home of Congressman Hector Montes, as you know, since you were there."

"I wasn't there."

"We have a round from your handgun fired at the scene."

"What makes you think it's from my gun?"

"We found that at the scene too. An M11, registered to you."

I said, "Those guys got my only M11 when they attacked me in the mountains, Tom. And you know I wouldn't leave a weapon behind."

"Even gunnies make mistakes under fire."

"Who was supposedly firing at me?"

"Dona Elena got off three rounds. She's the one who shot Castro. Who were these guys who allegedly attacked you in the mountains?"

It was a cla.s.sic interrogation technique, abrupt changes of subject, but after Laui Kalay I had learned a lot about that, too. "Allegedly? I have three bullets in my vest to prove it."

"Listen. I believe you. But the district attorney will say a thing like that can be arranged, Malcolm. Tell me who they are so I can collar them and prove your alibi."

"I already told you everything I know. Did Dona Elena claim I was there?"

"No. You caught a break there, Malcolm. Mrs. Montes says she can ID one of the perps, but it isn't you."

"Because I didn't do it."

"Help me prove it. Tell me why those two guys wanted to kill you."

"I don't know."

"Tell me why they would want to frame you."

"I don't know."

"Malcolm, we're talking about a congressman's wife and home. This is not a thing you want to take lightly."

"I'm aware of that."

"Then tell me what's going on."

I said, "I don't know."

Harper was obviously holding back. Congressman Montes and Dona Elena must have told him about my earlier visit to their house and the fact that I was looking into the Toledo murder for the URNG. I tried to remember how much I had told Harper and Russo about that over lunch. I was pretty sure I hadn't mentioned Valentin Vega's name, or Castro's. And it didn't seem to make sense that Vega would compromise his cause by attacking Congressman Montes or his wife. Killing either one of them would probably increase opposition to the URNG in Congress. The congressman would be much more valuable to the URNG if I could prove they had nothing to do with Arturo Toledo's murder exactly as Vega had hired me to do.

But then again, what if someone else took the blame for the murder? What if Vega had tricked me into running all over town, asking questions about the kidnapping and visiting the Montes's home? What if Castro wasn't a loose cannon after all? What if he had been following Vega's plan all along? What if Dona Elena hadn't been the target of the home invasion? What if Vega had always planned to murder Congressman Montes and frame me for the crime? It would get the congressman off their back and put the blame on a disgraced former marine instead of on the URNG.

Also, Castro's addled mind was capable of anything. Maybe he had gotten his hands on my sidearm somehow and seen it as an opportunity to stop Montes's opposition to the URNG in Congress by murdering him and framing me for the crime. But he hadn't counted on the congressman's wife being armed.

Or maybe the two guys who had tried to kill me in the mountains found out they had failed and decided to frame me this way while also getting rid of Castro. Two birds with one stone.

With so much still unknown, it might bury me to admit anything about my history with these people. The smart move was to tell Harper only what he already knew.

He said, "It gets worse, Malcolm. We found your fingerprints all over the scene."

"I visited that house recently. The fingerprints are from then."

"We know about that visit. But we found your prints in Mrs. Montes's bedroom. She and her a.s.sistant both say you never went in there."

"Means nothing. I touched a few things in the living room. A gla.s.s. A magazine, I think. Probably a lot of other stuff. Things get moved from room to room. And fingerprints can be transferred. Anybody with an Internet connection can learn to do it in five minutes."

He went on as if I hadn't said a word. "We also know the reason for your visit. You've been working for this Guatemalan group, the URNG. The same ones who kidnapped Mrs. Montes and murdered her first husband."

"Allegedly kidnapped and allegedly murdered."

Harper sighed. "Malcolm, the dead guy Castro is a known member of a former terrorist organization, which you already told the victims you're working for. Your weapon was discharged and found at the scene. Mrs. Montes says there were two other men and a woman. They came into her bedroom. She heard them coming while they were still outside, so she managed to get to a revolver in her bedside table drawer and shoot Castro. The others ran away.

"Your fingerprints were on the front door handles, inside and out. The print guys say you had to be the last person who touched the handle. Sure, prints can be transferred, but it's delicate work and it takes time. Good luck convincing a jury that's what happened. And you really think a jury would believe somebody planted your gun? Especially when you're already on record as working for Castro's organization? We have a serious problem here, buddy. Help me find a solution."

"Was Dona Elena hurt?"

"She's a nervous wreck but otherwise okay."

"How about the congressman? Or Olivia Soto?"

"It was the middle of the night, Malcolm. The Soto woman wasn't there. And the congressman is out of town."

"You said Dona Elena isn't claiming I'm one of the men, but I was there just a couple of weeks ago If I had been there, she would have recognized me."

"Mrs. Montes never got a good look at the guys, and she says they didn't speak. I asked if one of them might have been you. All she can say is it's possible, but she isn't sure."

"In that case, everything you have is circ.u.mstantial. Let me go."

"I wish I could. You know I do. But what with the gun at the scene and the fingerprints and the fact that you've admitted to working for the suspects in Mrs. Montes's kidnapping, the DA wants you charged. It's a congressman, Malcolm. The DA wants this thing open and shut." Harper went to open the door. He paused and said, "I'm really sorry, buddy." He stepped into the hall.

I thought about the woman Dona Elena saw, as well as the facts that Olivia Soto didn't live at the Montes's estate and she had shown a definite interest in my investigation all along. It occurred to me the home invasion might have been an inside job, like the Dona Elena kidnapping seven years before.

As the door began to swing shut behind I said, "Harper."

He stopped and looked back in.

"You said Dona Elena couldn't ID the two men, but what about the woman?"

"Matter of fact, Mrs. Montes got a real good look at her." Harper watched my face closely. "She says, no doubt about it, the woman was Alejandra Delarosa."

31.

In the bunk above me was a bodybuilder who called himself Flaco. He had tattoos everywhere, including teardrops at the corners of his eyes. On the bunk across the narrow aisle beside me lay another inmate named Chuy, who seemed to suffer from chronic flatulence. I didn't know the name of the guy who was lying on the third bunk above Flaco, or the two guys above Chuy, or the guys in the bunks on either side of mine and Flaco's, or the guys on either side of Chuy. There were a lot of guys I hadn't met that day, six rows with three sets of bunks in the dormitory where I was, fifty-four beds and sixty-one inmates, seven of whom were sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor.

I wore the orange jumpsuit they had given me when I was booked. On the concrete beside my bunk were the cloth slippers they had given me when I gave up my shoes. I lay on a thin mattress, staring at the putty-colored steel under the mattress of the bunk above me. I was thinking about history. It is often said to repeat itself, and this was no exception.

I had been in jail before, in a Serbian-controlled village outside Sarajevo when my fire team had been overwhelmed after nearly three weeks in country, directing air strikes against Ratko Mladi's artillery and mortar positions. The Serbs had been very unhappy with us. Compared to their accommodations, the Orange County Men's Jail in Santa Ana was a five-star hotel. The snoring and occasional shouts and slamming doors made it tough to sleep. So did the fluorescent lights shining in my eyes from the corridor, but at least n.o.body was getting tortured down the hall, and my elbows weren't wired together behind my back.

I also thought about other people's history. Dona Elena's, for example. Kidnapped before, and almost kidnapped again, if that had been their intention. It wasn't surprising that she had managed to kill Castro. After the first kidnapping, it would have been much more surprising if she hadn't begun to keep a weapon by her bed, and if she hadn't learned to use it. But Alejandra Delarosa suddenly attacking her again after so many years... I hadn't seen that one coming.

What had drawn Delarosa out of hiding?

The answer, I realized, might have been me. Me, asking all those questions up in Pico-Union.

I thought about Valentin Vega, setting me on Delarosa's trail, and Castro, dead set against it. I remembered what Dona Elena had said about the other voices she had heard while Delarosa held her captive, men's voices talking about the URNG. I wondered just how good a handle Vega had on his own operation. Was it possible a splinter group had been behind the kidnapping without his knowledge?

Or had Valentin Vega known that all along?

Maybe Vega had played me from the start, used me to stir the pot a little, make it hot for Delarosa and her confederates-Castro and whoever the other two men were. Maybe Vega had used me to get Delarosa to come out of hiding and to get Castro to show his true colors.

But even if Castro had been in on the kidnapping with Delarosa, why would they go after Dona Elena again? If the goal was to finish what they started, why wait so many years?

Maybe it wasn't about the kidnapping. Maybe there was something else going on, something I hadn't yet begun to uncover. For example, who were those two guys who had tried to kill me? Were they really with the Guatemalan junta, as I'd a.s.sumed? Were they actually allied with Castro in some scheme? Were they the two men Dona Elena had seen with him and Delarosa in her home? And if so, what was their interest in the situation?

I felt like a tourist from a far-off country wandering through a town where n.o.body spoke my language. Now and then I caught a word or two or saw a facial expression or a gesture that made sense, but mostly I had no idea what anyone was saying.

A guy pa.s.sed my bunk, making for the head. A few minutes later, he came back. This time he stopped. He turned to face my bunk. He put his hand on his groin. I sighed. He was hidden from the stomach up by Flaco's bunk above me, but I could tell he had to be at least six and a half feet tall. The big ones always overestimated their abilities.

Bending down, he said, "Move over, punk." His low voice rumbled like distant thunder.

I focused on what Bud had said. You defend yourself, no matter what. Haley would be happy with nothing less. I said, "Keep moving."

He chuckled. He bent a little more to look down on me. He said, "Move over and get naked."

He was a white guy, late thirties, probably, with a full black beard grown nearly to his chest, a shaved head, and a swastika tattoo on his neck. I popped him in the crotch with the knuckles of my left hand. He grunted with pain and bent a little lower as I spun around on my back, braced my shoulders against the wall, and kicked his knees with my heels. There was a loud popping sound. He screamed and dropped to the floor.

I got out of the bunk, got a grip on his beard with one hand, and took the collar of his overalls in the other hand. The inmates on the bunks on each side watched silently as I dragged him down the aisle between them. It was hard work. He was heavy. His screams became whimpering moans.

"Oh, my knees. You broke my knees."

I reached the open area near the door where the overflow guys were lying on the mattresses on the floor. The inmate closest to the door was a little fellow, maybe five feet four and one hundred and twenty pounds.

I told him, "Go find this guy's bunk and get in it."

The little fellow got up and went looking. I dragged the would-be rapist to the little guy's mattress and dropped him there. The rapist was still moaning loudly. I banged on the door ten or eleven times with the side of my fist, and then I went back to my bunk.

A few minutes later, two guards came in. One of them knelt beside the moaning man while the other one stood facing the bunks. He shouted, "Who did this?"

I lay on my back, studying the underside of Flaco's bunk above me. I was still thinking about what Bud Tanner said and what Haley would have said if only she were there. Step one is, you go on. You don't take the easy out. Semper Fi, no matter what.

Again the guard shouted, "Who did this?"

n.o.body answered.

A minute later, two other guards arrived. The four of them each gripped a corner of the sheet under the moaning man. They picked him up and carried him away. The door slammed behind them. Everyone was quiet. After a few minutes, someone in a nearby bunk began to snore.