Blindman’s Bluff

THIRTY-EIGHT

THE PACING SERVED a twofold purpose. It kept Decker warm and it shook off some nerves. At three in the morning, the hospital loomed like an electric ghost as he held the phone to his ear.

He was shaking, but from excitement. “You got Cruces and Pine in custody?”

“Not bad for a day’s work-a very full day. I’ve been up around twenty hours.”

“Who’s down at the station house besides you?”

“Oliver, Messing, and Pratt. Who should interview whom?”

Decker thought a moment. “Okay, here’s the thing. The optimum would be that neither Pine nor Cruces gets a deal, but we may have to flip one against the other. With Pine, we’ve not only got fingerprints, we’ve also got Rondo Martin’s eyewitness testimony. He mentioned Pine before I did.

With Cruces, Rondo Martin remembered him, but only after I mentioned his name. His memory with Cruces is less clear. It makes more sense to have Cruces flip on Pine. So you and Oliver take Pine. If you don’t get anywhere, bring in someone else for a fresh perspective.”

“That sounds good. Where are you at up there, Rabbi?”

“There’s a team from Herrod P.D.-which is the next town over-that’s taking over our positions at the hospital in about a half hour. Tim England-Sheriff T-said he’d drop in in the morning. Martin’s in good hands.”

Marge said, “Now that Pine is in custody, maybe Martin can breathe a sigh of relief.”

“Maybe a little sigh, but not a big one until we find out who El Patrón is. Did anyone go back to interview Truillo, the bartender, at Ernie’s El Matador?”

“By the time Bontemps and Lee reached the place, it had closed for the night. I’ll make sure someone’s there when it opens tomorrow. Maybe it won’t be necessary once we talk to Cruces and Pine.”

“Rechecking is always necessary. Willy and I are taking the first flight down in the morning.” Decker checked his watch. The plane was set to leave at six-thirty-four hours from now. “We’ll see you at around eight in the morning.”

“Get some sleep, Pete.”

“Too wound up. Any word from Gil Kaffey or Antoine Resseur?”

“Nope.”

“No idea where they are?”

“Not a clue, but if they’re like most people at this time of night, they’re sleeping.” Marge paused.

“Unless they’re dead. In that case, nothing’s gonna wake them up.”

THE FIRST THING Marge did was check Joe Pine’s fingerprints against José Pinon’s school fingerprint card. When it was confirmed that Joe/José was the same person, Marge and Oliver steadied themselves for a long night. Watching from the video camera, they saw Pine go through a series of nonverbal gesticulations almost as meaningful as speech. There was the pacing, then plopping in the chair with the head in the hands, then laying the head on the table, then pacing again. There was one quick swipe at the eyes, wiping away tears, crying for no one but himself.

Pine had on a lightweight nylon jacket over black jeans and a black T-shirt and the usual B and E ski cap. He was built on the small side, around five seven with wiry arms. His face was long, and his complexion was mocha with cream. His dark brown hair had been snipped a few millimeters shy of a crew cut. His round brown eyes gave him a boyish expression mitigated by a strong, masculine cleft chin.

When Marge and Oliver came into the room, Pine was sitting, his eyes at his feet. He glanced up and then looked back down. The room was around eight-by-six feet with a steel table pushed up against the wall and three chairs. Pine occupied the chair on the right side, the one farthest from the door.

Marge took up the seat closest to him while Oliver sat opposite.

“Detective Scott Oliver.” He placed a cup of water in front of Pine. “How’re you doing?”

Pine shrugged. “Okay.”

Marge introduced herself and placed her clipboard on her lap. “We’re a little confused,” she told Pine. “What was going on back there, Joe?”

“What do you mean?”

“What we mean is we found you hiding in a closet with a gun.” Marge tried to make eye contact, but his focus was elsewhere. “What was that all about?”

“No big deal.”

Oliver nodded. “How’s that?”

“Just what I said…no big deal.”

Oliver said, “To the guy living there, it was a big deal.”

Marge said, “Tell us why you were there.”

“In the closet?”

“In the closet in the condo that didn’t belong to you.”

Pine said, “I heard you banging on the door and I knew you’d take it the wrong way. So I hid.”

“Okay,” Marge said, writing down notes. She stopped and regarded his face. “How would we take it wrong? What way were we supposed to take it?”

“It isn’t like you think. It was just a game, you know?”

“A game?” Oliver repeated.

Marge said, “Explain it to us.”

“You know…a game.” Pine leaned his head against the wall until he couldn’t move any farther.

Beads of moisture were forming on his forehead. “To get in with the right people, you gotta play the game.”

“Which right people?” Oliver said.

“My bros, you know?”

“Which bros?”

“In Bodega 12th.” Pine shrugged. “It’s all a big game.”

Marge said, “I thought you were already a member of Bodega 12th.”

“To move up.”

Marge nodded. “How does that work? Moving up?”

Pine snickered. “Hey, you been in your business for a while, no? You know how it works.”

“So tell me anyway.”

“You gotta prove yourself. If you don’t, there are plenty others who will. So that’s what I was doing.”

“You committed a breaking and entering to get into a higher position in the gang?”

“Exactly.”

Oliver said, “So what were you supposed to do when you got inside the condo?”

“Just like…take something…to prove you were there, you know?”

“Then why the gun?”

“Just in case…”

“In case of what?” Marge said.

“In case things get like…you know…complicated.”

“How would things get complicated?”

“What if he had a gun?” He smiled and sipped water. “A guy’s gotta protect himself.”

“So you knew who lived in the condo you were breaking into,” Marge said.

“Uh…no.” Pine shook his head. “No, I didn’t know.”

“You said in case he has a gun.”

“He…she. I’d only use the gun for protection.”

“Joe, you’re confused about something,” Marge said. “If you break into a person’s house and he uses a gun against you, that’s protection. If you use the gun against him, that’s called a home invasion and that’s a felony.”

“I wasn’t gonna use it,” Pine told her. “It was for protection, man.”

“You’re still committing a crime,” Oliver said. The two of them went back and forth on the gun until Marge broke in. “Why did you choose that condo?”

“What?” Pine answered.

“Why did you choose to break into that particular condo?”

“I dunno.” Pine’s eyes went to the floor. “It was on the ground floor. It was easy.”

“So to prove that you deserve a…promotion in the organization, you chose to do an easy B and E?”

Pine narrowed his eyes in anger. “It’s never easy…things can happen.”

Marge said, “And things did happen. You committed a felony, and because you were packing, now you could go away for a long time.”

“No one got hurt.”

“Your security guard days are over,” Oliver told him.

“That’s okay with me.” Pine sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “Who needs that shit?”

“The Kaffeys gave you shit?”

“Not the Kaffeys…that motherfucker Brady…reaming out my ass for being a minute late. I don’t need that shit.”

Marge noticed he hadn’t broached the murders. He spoke as if he had been merely fired. “What else didn’t you like about Neptune Brady?”

Her question unleashed the furies. For the next half hour, she and Oliver heard a litany of complaints about “that motherfucking, half-nigger, asshole Brady.” And while she didn’t feel any warmth for the Neptune, the punishment Brady had given Pine for his infractions fit the crime.

1. Neptune docked his pay whenever he was late.

2. He docked his pay if his uniform wasn’t cleaned and pressed.

3. He docked his pay if he heard inappropriate language.

4. He docked his pay if he’d miss a day without twenty-four-hour notice.

Oliver said, “So why’d you keep working at the job?”

The question momentarily threw him. “I dunno. It was steady money. Just not enough of it, know what I’m saying?”

“What’d you think of the Kaffeys?” Oliver asked him. “I dunno.”

“It’s not a trick question,” Marge told him. “Did you like the Kaffeys?”

“I didn’t know them enough to like them.”

“But you guarded them,” Marge said.

“Yeah, but that don’t mean we were bros. It was just like…yes ma’am, no ma’am. The guy never talked to me. I coulda been a piece of furniture. Once he reamed my ass for talking to the wife.”

“What were you talking to her about?” Marge asked.

“I said I liked her new Vette or something like that. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Don’t talk personal to the lady.’ From then on, it was good morning, ma’am, and nothing else.”

“Sounds like you didn’t like them.”

Pine shrugged. “I was furniture to them, but they were furniture to me.”

Making them that much easier to blow away, Marge thought. “I heard it was Guy Kaffey who brought you onto the staff.”

“News to me.” Pine frowned. “Why you asking me so many questions about Kaffey?”

“That’s kinda obvious, Joe,” Oliver said.

“Uh-uh, no way. I didn’t have nothing to do with that!” Pine slapped his arms across his chest. “I’ve been out of town.”

“Yeah, I know,” Marge said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Pine tightened his grip on himself. “So I’m here.”

“You were out of town when it happened?” Oliver said.

“I was in Mexico,” Pine told him.

“What were you doing there?”

“I got family there. Hey, you wanna arrest me for the B and E, hey, what can I do? But I didn’t have nothing to do with the Kaffeys.”

“Joe, we’re in Homicide, not CAPS.” Marge gave him a moment to digest that. “We’ve been interviewing all the guards who worked for Guy and Gilliam Kaffey for the last few weeks. We’ve been looking for you, then you just happened to be in the closet of a guy that the cops were protecting. That makes us curious.”

“Yeah, Joe, about that,” Oliver said. “Why’d you break into a condo where there were cops in front?”

“They were out front.” Pine shrugged. “I was in the back.”

“But it didn’t bother you that the cops were out front?”

“Makes me a bigger man with the bros, you know?”

“Do you know why the cops were out front?”

“No idea,” Pine said. “I’ve been outta the country for a while.”

“How’d you feel when you found out about the homicides?” Oliver said.

Pine shrugged. “Shit happens.”

Marge said, “When did you go to Mexico?”

“I don’t remember the exact date, just that I went before it happened.” Again the arms crisscrossed his chest.

“How’d you find out about the murders?”

“My cousin called me. I thought, man, that’s real messed up. Then I was happy it wasn’t me doing the shift. I heard they all got whacked.”

He looked at them expectantly. Neither Marge nor Oliver responded. His knee started to bounce up and down. “Then I thought, I’m out of a job. So I stayed in Mexico a little longer.”

“Who’s the cousin?” Marge asked him.

Pine looked confused. “The cousin?”

“The one who called and told you about the crime,” Oliver said.

“Why you want to know?”

“So he can give you an alibi,” Marge said.

“Oh…okay. He’s not my real cousin, but we’re like brothers, you know?”

“His name?” Oliver asked.

“Martin Cruces. He worked for the Kaffeys, too.”

Marge willed her face to remain impassive. “Yeah, we know. He’s on our list.”

“Yeah…he’s the one who got me the job.”

“Martin did.”

“Yeah.”

“And he called you and told you about the murders?” Oliver said.

“Yeah, he told me all about it. Sounded real gory, man.”

Marge said, “Martin’s in deep trouble, Joe. Did he tell you that as well?”

Pine’s face momentarily froze. “That’s bullshit. I just talked to him, man. He don’t say nothing about that.”

“Yeah, you just talked to him, but we just arrested him,” Marge said.

Oliver said, “He’s right next door, talking to another set of Homicide detectives.”

Marge said, “So if you have something to tell us, now’s the time.”

“I don’t have nothing to tell you.” Pine’s eyes darted back and forth.

“That’s weird,” Oliver said. “Because Martin has plenty to tell us.”

Marge said, “We found your fingerprints at the Coyote Ranch, Joe.”

“’Course you did,” Pine said. “I worked there.”

Marge clarified. “We found bloody prints, the kinds that were made by someone who was there when the murders went down.”

“You’re in deep doo-doo,” Oliver said. “Martin is in the building, talking to us…this may be your only chance to explain what happened.”

“Don’t let Martin tell the whole story for both of you,” Marge said.

Oliver said, “Yeah, we want to hear your side.”

Pine refused to be baited.

“Hey, Joe, maybe it wasn’t supposed to go down like it did,” Marge said. “You just brought along the gun for protection.”

“Or maybe all you wanted to do was scare them,” Oliver said. “If it was an accident, then we can make a case for you.”

“I wasn’t there,” Pine insisted.

“Your fingerprints, Joe,” Marge said. “Fingerprints don’t lie.”

“Yeah, but the cops do,” Pine snapped back. “You’re trying to get me to lie.”

“No, Joe, that’s not what we want. We want the truth, Joe. That’s it.”

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass,” Pine said. “I bet you don’t even got Martin in custody.”

“Well, then, hold on a moment.” Marge stood up. “We’ll see if we can take you to the video room.”

She and Oliver left and returned a few minutes later. Marge placed six Polaroid pictures of Martin Cruces, dressed in jacket and jeans, being questioned by Messing and Pratt. “Look at the date on the pictures.”

Pine glanced at them and tried to shrug them off. “You can fix those up. You guys got all sorts of stuff so you can trap me into saying lies.”

“But that’s just it, Joe,” Oliver said. “We don’t want lies. We want the truth.”

“Martin is telling us the truth,” Marge said. “We’re just curious if his truth is the same as your truth.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“You were there. We have witnesses saying you were there. The guy whose house you broke into. He heard people talk about it,” Marge said. “He overheard people talking about you. How Martin was pissed at you because you didn’t finish off Gil Kaffey.”

“I wasn’t there!”

“Your fingerprints say you were there.”

“You’re lying. I wasn’t there.”

“No, you’re lying. You were there,” Marge said. “You can keep lying or you can help yourself by telling the truth.”

Something finally got to Pine, and he started sweating in earnest. Still, it took another couple of hours, several cups of coffee, and a half-dozen nutrition bars before Marge and Oliver noticed his psyche cracking. They excused themselves and went out of the room, leaving Pine alone to weigh his options.

The two of them stared at Pine in the video camera for a minute or two. Then Marge looked at the clock. “Decker’s due back in two hours. I’d love to wrap this up before he comes.”

“He’s coming apart,” Oliver said. “Now’s the time to bring up Rondo Martin.”

Marge took a swig of water and regarded Messing and Pratt going after Cruces. She turned up the volume, hearing Wynona trying to seduce Cruces into talking about the murders.

But we have your fingerprints at the scene, Martin. We also have witnesses who heard you talk about it. Plus, we have Joe Pine in the other room. He screwed up tonight. He got caught. He’s telling us things. We want to hear your side of the story.

Marge turned the volume down. “Let’s go.”

They returned to the interview room. Marge said, “I just checked in with Martin Cruces, Joe. I’m telling you that this is your one chance to tell your side of the story.”

“I wasn’t…” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I need sleep, man. Maybe after I sleep, I’ll talk.”

“We have your fingerprints in the Kaffeys’ blood, Joe,” Oliver said. “We have an eyewitness who told us everything. Just tell us what happened.”

Pine’s eyes darted from side to side. “What eyewitness?”

“Joe…” Marge leaned over and spoke softly. “You think we’d come down on you if we didn’t have your fingerprints at the scene? You think we’d come down on you if we didn’t have an eyewitness who said that you looked him in the eye and then pulled the trigger? You think we’d arrest you for murder if we couldn’t deliver the goods?”

“You’re lying,” Pine answered.

Marge moved in close to him and spoke softly. “We’re not lying, Joe. Martin Cruces is talking. It’s not right for you to take all the shit when you were just part of the plan. Now’s the time to man up. You gotta start thinking about yourself. Because you can’t explain away fingerprints and eyewitness testimony.”

“You don’t have an eyewitness,” Pine insisted. “That jackass mighta heard things, but he never saw me before in his life!”

“Which jackass is that?” Marge asked.

“The court guy.”

“The court guy whose condo you broke into?”

Pine didn’t answer.

“Joe, we know you didn’t pick his condo at random. Who sent you there?”

“Okay…” Pine took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll tell you this, okay. Martin sent me over to scare him. That’s the only thing I’ll admit to, okay?”

“Why did Martin Cruces send you over to scare the court guy?” Marge asked him.

“’Cause he overheard his cousin talking about the crime.” Under his breath, Pine uttered, “Fucking idiot!”

“Tell us about it,” Oliver said.

Pine sighed. “Can I get something to eat around here?”

Marge got up and came back with an assortment of candy.

Pine unwrapped a Snickers bar and ate half in a single bite. “Cruces said that the court guy overheard his moron cousin talking about the murders. He told me to break into the court guy’s house and scare him.”

“So why were you assigned to scare the court guy?” Oliver said. “Why didn’t the moron cousin scare him?”

“’Cause he’s an idiot and can’t do anything right. He got arrested before he could get to the court guy.”

“What’s the cousin’s name?” Oliver asked.

“Alejandro Brand.”

Strike one! Marge thought triumphantly. “The court guy overheard Brand talking about the murders?”

“Yeah.”

“What did the court guy overhear Brand say?”

“Hell if I know, but it made Cruces nervous. So he tole me to take him…to scare him.”

Marge went in for the attack. “Martin Cruces didn’t lie to you, Joe.”

Oliver said, “The court guy did hear Brand talking about the Kaffey murders.”

Marge said, “The court guy overheard Brand talking about Martin Cruces…and the court guy overheard Brand talking about you.”

“That you screwed up by not whacking Gil Kaffey,” Oliver said.

Pine finished his candy bar. “That’s a lie, man. I wasn’t there. The court guy’s lying.”

Marge said, “Since Brand had the big mouth, Martin Cruces told Brand to take out the court guy?”

“That’s the first true thing you said in the last four hours. Cruces told Brand, not me. He gave the assignment to Brand. But then Alejandro screwed up and got arrested. So Cruces asked his other cousin, Esteban Cruz, to take out the court guy.”

Marge said, “And when Cruz screwed up, he told you to get your ass back from Mexico and finish the job, or he’ll fuck you over good. That’s what’s happening right now, Joe. Martin is screwing you over. Cruces told you to break into the court guy’s condo and finish him off.”

“Why go down when it was Cruces’s order?” Oliver said.

“Yeah, it was Cruces’s order.” Pine pushed sweat from his eyes. “But all I was supposed to do was scare him.”

Strike two! They now had collusion: Cruces and Pine working together against Brett Harriman.

Marge said, “So we have the court guy’s testimony, we have your bloody fingerprints…why don’t you just tell us what happened?”

Oliver told Marge, “You forgot something.”

Marge said, “What did I forget?”

“Our eyewitness.” Oliver leaned back in his chair. “Joe, you told us a couple of hours ago that all the guards were whacked. But the truth is…not everyone died.”

Pine was quiet.

“Rondo Martin survived,” Marge said. “And he’s talking.”

Oliver said, “So we have Martin Cruces telling his side of the story, we have Rondo Martin telling his side, we have the court guy telling his side of the story.”

Marge leaned forward. “Why don’t you tell us your side?”

Oliver said, “Joe, it’s real simple. Just tell us exactly what happened.”

A few seconds passed and then Pine began to talk.

He talked and talked and talked and talked and talked.

Though she kept a straight face, inside she was grinning.

Strike three and you are so out!