Читать книгу The Christmas Present - Tracy Wolff, Tracy Wolff - Страница 10

“HEY, ARE YOU GETTING OLD, mi hermano? You’re playing like you’ve got arthritis.”

Rafael flipped his oldest brother, Miguel, the bird before backing up just enough to send the ball soaring into the basket for three points.

“Hey, look at the tall guy taking advantage.” This came from Jose, his teammate and best friend. After everything that had happened to Rafael, it probably should have felt weird to have a cop as a best friend, but they’d been buddies since they were in elementary school together.

Besides, Jose was cool like that—he’d hung by Rafa during his time in prison, despite the crap he’d caught from other members of the force.

“That’s right.” With a grin, he watched Jose intercept the ball, then cruised down the court for the pass. Jose didn’t disappoint, and as soon as Rafa had the ball in his hands, he blew around the opposite team—composed of his two older brothers—and slam-dunked the hell out of it.

Jose whooped. “That was game point, my man!” He looked at Rafa’s middle brother, Gabriel. “You owe us twenty bucks, Papi.”

“I thought gambling was illegal,” Gabe grumbled good-naturedly as he reached into the back pocket of his shorts and pulled out a ten. “Go hit Miguel up for the other half.”

“You know I will!” Jose danced away, talking shit and blowing smoke like he did every time they won. Or lost.

“So, Mama wants to see you.” Gabriel glanced at Rafa, then took a large gulp from his water bottle.

“What else is new? Is there anything specific or is it just time for another ‘you’re my youngest child and I won’t be happy until you settle down’ lecture?”

“I’m sure there’ll be a little of that in there, too.” He smiled when Rafael cursed. “But I think she wants your help planning a surprise party for Miguel.” He nodded at their brother, who currently had Jose in a headlock.

“Seriously? She really wants something to whine about other than how empty her arms feel without my baby in them?”

“I think so, man.”

“Why me? Aren’t the girls the ones who she usually gets to help with stuff like this?”

“Yeah, but Carolina’s a little busy with baby number three right now, and Michaela’s still recovering from pneumonia.” He stepped back and looked his youngest brother over. “Besides, freak boy, you won’t even need a ladder. That’s what you get for growing so big.”

Rafael grabbed a towel to wipe his face, decided to accept defeat gracefully. Maybe if he brought his mama flowers and kept her busy, she wouldn’t remember to nag him about being the only one of her children who was terminally single.

Yeah, right. His mother wouldn’t let a little thing like death stop her from hassling him—why should a bouquet of flowers do the trick? Still, Rafa thought as he drained a water bottle in one long gulp, it was worth a try.

“All right. I’ll call her.”

“You’re a good man.” Gabriel clapped him on the shoulder. “So, winners buy lunch, right? Because I’m starving.”

This time it was Jose who flipped him the bird, having extracted his head from under Miguel’s arm.

“Well, come on then, I’ve got to be back at work in half an hour and I’m hungry, too.” Miguel picked up his bag from the side of the court and headed into the center.

A few minutes later they were all seated at Manuel’s, Rafa’s favorite hole-in-the-wall taco shop, shoveling carne asada burritos into their mouths. Rafa had already blown through his first when he noticed Nacho standing at the corner with an unfamiliar white boy.

“Hey, Jose. Did you get a chance to talk to Nacho about what he pulled the other night?”

Jose followed his gaze. “Absolutely. My partner and I went by and read him the riot act. Hopefully, it’ll be enough.”

Rafa cut his eyes to his best friend. “You don’t think so?”

“No, man. That kid’s a walking time bomb.”

“That’s what I think, too.”

“Who’s he with?” Miguel nodded at the prepped-out white kid. In his chinos and fancy sweater, he stuck out like Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. “Is he one of your kids, Rafa?”

“No, but he seems familiar.” He continued to watch him, wondering what the kid was doing in this neighborhood—and with Nacho. “That doesn’t look good, though.” He turned to Jose.

“I know. But I can’t see Nacho buying any of his customers lunch.”

“He’s dealing?” This from Gabriel.

“That’s what I hear.”

Rafael cursed. “You know that’s not a good thing. The kid’s already an amoral ass. I can’t wait to see what a few months as a dealer turns him into.”

“I think it’s too late to worry about that.” Jose took another big bite.

“I know. But still…” Rafa ran a hand over his eyes. You can’t save them all, he reminded himself. Especially the ones who aren’t interested in salvation. It grated that a teenager was going bad in front of his eyes. He still remembered Nacho as a little kid. He’d been skinny and mean even then, but there’d been something endearing about him, anyway. Now he was just plain mean.

Regardless, Rafa couldn’t help wondering if the rest was still there, too, just buried beneath the crap. On his way out of the restaurant, he stopped by the table. “Hey, Nacho. Who’s your friend?”

“Screw you, Rafael.”

“Thanks, but you’re not my type.” He held out his hand to the other kid, who shook it, but then looked as if he wanted to swim in a vat of hand sanitizer.

Rafa didn’t get what these two were doing together, but he’d bet the twenty in his wallet that it had something to do with the drugs Jose had been talking about. “We’re having a barbecue at the center this weekend. You guys should drop by.”

“Yeah, ’cause that’s going to happen,” Nacho sneered.

“Too busy picking on defenseless women to make time for a hamburger, huh?”

“Too busy avoiding pendejos like you.”

“Well, that’s your prerogative.” He looked at the preppy kid. “Nice to meet you…?’

“Thomas.”

“Thomas,” he repeated. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Maybe.”

As Rafael hustled to catch up with the rest of the guys, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen the new kid before. Anymore than he could ignore how uncomfortable that knowledge made him.

“THANKS SO MUCH FOR seeing me today.” Vivian extended her hand to each homicide detective in turn. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

“Same here.” Detective Anthony Barnes nodded to her, a lock of his too-long, sand-colored hair falling over his baby face as he did so. He looked younger than Diego, and the idea that this guy had arrested her client for murder threw her for a major loop.

“You want some coffee?” demanded Daniel Turner, the other detective, even as he raised a hand to signal the waitress.

“That’d be great,” she said, though she’d already had an entire pot of the stuff that morning. But she didn’t want to seem prickly, especially since these two had been nice enough to meet with her when other detectives would have turned up their noses.

She smiled at Turner, and was glad to see that he, at least, looked like her idea of a homicide detective. A little overweight, a little rumpled, with lines in his face that showed every one of his forty-odd years, he seemed like he’d been doing this job for a long time.

“Thanks again for meeting me,” she said, in an effort to keep everything cordial. “I know how busy you are.”

“That’s okay.” Turner shrugged. “We wanted to get a look at the woman who was defending that piece of scum, anyway.”

Maybe he’d been on the job too long, Vivian thought, as sheer strength of will kept a pleasant expression on her face. “So, you’re really convinced Diego did it?”

“We’re not in the habit of arresting people for murder if we think they’re innocent.” The detective’s voice was deliberately bland.

“Of course. I wasn’t trying to imply that you did. It’s just that after reviewing the case, so much of the evidence seems circumstantial to me.”

“Enough circumstance adds up—if you know what I’m saying.”

“I do. But still, why Diego? I know you always look at the boyfriend or husband first, but sometimes he isn’t the killer.”

“Most of the time he is.” Turner reached for one of the little packets of half-and-half and ripped it open. “In this case, Sanchez is definitely it. He’s practically got a scarlet A branded into his chest.”

“Why? Witnesses say they saw him drop the victim off at her house at least a couple hours before she was murdered.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t circle back,” Barnes interjected. She glanced at him and was surprised at how uncomfortable he looked, as if he’d rather be anywhere but in this crappy little coffee shop.

Deciding to push him, she replied, “It doesn’t mean he did, either. It seems to me he really loved that girl.”

“Yeah, well, appearances are deceiving. If you learn nothing else in this foray of yours into criminal court, learn that,” Turner said, before Barnes could speak.

“Oh, I think that’s a lesson I’ve already learned.” Vivian smiled sweetly at him as she let her eyes run over him from head to toe.

He flushed. “Good. Because no one else had motive, means and opportunity.” He tore open two packets of sugar and dumped them into his coffee, then took a huge swig without bothering to stir it.

“Means?” she asked as she went over the file in her head for what felt like the millionth time. “I didn’t see anything in the case file about you finding the murder weapon.”

“I don’t need a weapon. That kid was popped for carrying a knife before he was twelve years old. He definitely knows his way around a switchblade.”

“Yes, but the case was dismissed as self-defense. Besides—”

“Self-defense, my ass. Is that what he called murdering his unborn kid?” Turner snorted, then shook his head as he repeated, “Self-defense.”

“Besides,” she said again, “Diego hasn’t been in any trouble since then—no fights, no problems at school, no drugs. His school counselor seems to think he’s had a pretty rough time of it.”

“Yeah, well, the vic sure as hell didn’t have an easy time of it either. Pregnant at sixteen, living with two of the scummiest dealers in—” He stopped abruptly, but it was too late and he seemed to know it.

Vivian was careful to keep a neutral expression as she seized on the opportunity Turner had inadvertently provided.

“So, you do know Esme’s brothers deal drugs?” She made sure to direct the question to both detectives, then watched as Turner’s face turned beet-red. But his reaction wasn’t nearly as interesting as Barnes’s was. The young detective started drumming on the table with the same nervous energy Diego had displayed when she was questioning him a few nights before.

Trying to capitalize on his obvious discomfort, she leaned forward and asked softly, “Why didn’t you at least look at the brothers—or their rivals—when Esme turned up dead, Anthony?”

“We did.” Once again it was Turner who answered. “There was nothing there.”

“Nothing there? They’re gang members and drug dealers, and both have been in and out of the system for years. How can there be nothing there?”

“Because they didn’t kill her!”

“Maybe, but what about other gangs? Other dealers? I hear there’s always a turf war going on in this neighborhood.”

“What do you know about this neighborhood?” Turner didn’t bother to hide his contempt. “You’re over here doing your little pro bono case, and as soon as it’s done you’ll run as far and as fast as you can back to where you belong.”

“Where I’m from is not the issue here.”

“Well, it should be. You do-gooders are all alike. You come over here thinking you can save some kid who doesn’t deserve to be saved. Maybe you save him, maybe you don’t, but either way you make life ten times harder for the victim’s family while you’re doing it. And then you just walk away.”

“What about arresting an innocent man?” she asked quietly. “How does that affect the victim’s family?”

Turner’s face went from red to purple, and for a second Vivian feared he might be having a stroke, but when he spoke, his voice was steady and poisonous. “I wouldn’t know. Your client did it and he’s going down for it. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get a needle in the arm by the time the D.A.’s done with him. Killing a pregnant woman counts as special circumstances.”

“Yes, well, the judge didn’t think that scenario was very likely. Otherwise Diego never would have had a chance to make bail.” She gave as good as she got, refusing to back down.

“Look, lady, we’ve got motive, means and opportunity. That’s a slam dunk.”

“Really? Because when I was looking through the file, it seemed to me that you had nothing. What’s the motive again?”

“He didn’t want the baby. According to Esme’s friends and brothers, Diego was getting cold feet.”

“These are the same brothers that we’ve already established deal drugs?” she asked. “The ones with the shady rivals?”

“That doesn’t make them liars.”

“No, but it doesn’t make them paragons of reliability, either. What else have you got?”

“He could come and go any time from Esme’s place—that’s opportunity.”

“Yeah, but nobody saw him there and he has an alibi.”

“Somebody did see him—the woman who lives across the street—and his alibi’s shaky.”

“So’s your evidence, but you don’t see me whining about that, do you? Your witness is a ninety-three-year old Chinese woman with cataracts. If I paraded Santa Claus in front of her, she’d finger him as the killer.”

“But she didn’t finger Santa Claus, did she? She fingered your client.”

“Because he was the only Mexican in the lineup. I can’t wait to see what a judge has to say about that.”

Turner shook his head in disgust. “Jesus, you’re just as bad as all the other defense attorneys, you know that? I thought a divorce attorney might have more sense.”

She started to snap back another smart-ass comment, but then his words sunk in. “How do you know what kind of lawyer I am? I never mentioned it to you.”

“What, are you keeping it a secret?” Turner shot his partner a furious look and then pushed back from the table. “This conversation is over. And don’t call me again. If you want to talk to me, you can do it in court.” He stormed off.

Barnes smiled awkwardly as he stood. “Sorry about that, Ms. Wentworth. He gets a little excited sometimes.”

“It’s fine.” She studied him for a second, more than a little intrigued by his discomfort. “Tell me something, Anthony. If Turner hadn’t been pushing for it, would you have arrested Diego Sanchez for murder?”

“Absolutely.” His voice was firm, resolute, but his eyes never made it past the bridge of her nose. “I have to go now.”

“I know. Thanks again for meeting me.”

“No problem.” He reached into his pocket for his wallet, but she stopped him.

“Don’t worry about it—coffee’s on me. It’s the least I can do after pulling you down here for nothing.”