Most Wanted

21

BY THE TIME SHE GOT TO HER OFFICE, DAN AND Randall were parked out front waiting for her. Randall unfolded himself from the front passenger seat and flipped it forward.

“Not only can’t I fit back there, but it scares me,” he said with a wry smile. “And that’s after nearly twenty years on the job.”

Melanie contemplated the cramped, cluttered backseat, littered with clothing, newspapers, and empty coffee cups. “Wow.”

“Yeah. We’ve had reports of animal sightings,” Randall said.

“You’re killing me, botha youse,” Dan groaned from the driver’s seat. He came around to where they stood and gathered up an armload of clothing and garbage, dumping it wholesale into the trunk. He was freshly shaved, wearing neatly pressed khakis and a clean polo shirt. She wondered if he’d ironed the pants himself this morning to please her. He came back around, smiling.

“Okay now? Him I’m not surprised, he’s a pussy-ass wimp. But you,” Dan said to Melanie, looking right into her eyes, sending a jolt through her body, “I thought you had nerves of steel. Chased by a stone-cold killer in the file room last night, and you performed better than this.”

“I’m very squeamish about dirt.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Didn’t I say you were high maintenance?”

Randall looked back and forth between the two of them. “Something going on here I should know about?”

Melanie climbed into the backseat, thinking she’d better put a stop to this thing. People were beginning to notice. It wasn’t good for either of them.

“Hey, Randall, you weren’t kidding. There’s definitely animal hair back here.” She brushed yellowish hairs off her black pants.

“My dog, Guinness,” Dan said as he got back into the car.

“Sometimes I think O’Reilly likes that mutt better’n he likes people,” Randall said. “The Irish are strange that way. Us black folks don’t go in for consorting with no animals.”

“Randall, you perv, you better not be implying anything about my dog.”

“Not your dog, son, it’s you I wonder about.”

“I know character when I see it. Guinness is a purebred golden retriever. They may not be the smartest dogs, but they’re honorable and true. Which is more than you can say for most people. You like dogs?” he asked, catching Melanie’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Maybe you’ll meet him sometime.”

“Maybe.” Her tone was unfriendly. He looked away sharply. It killed her to hurt him, but it was for his own good. Ring or no ring, she was still married, hardly a candidate for a new relationship. She wondered how this could have gone so far in one day.

“Uh, can you watch the road, please?” Randall said as Dan pulled out, nearly sideswiping another car. An awkward silence settled over them, lengthening as they headed for the West Side Highway.

“So,” Melanie said, intent upon breaking it, “Dan, did you tell Randall what I found last night when I went through your old files? The phone call between Jasmine Cruz and the UM?”

Dan was silent, as if the road required his full attention.

“Yeah, O’Reilly here told me about the whole incident. We were talking about it just now on the way to pick you up, back when he knew how to speak.” Randall’s glance was half concerned, half teasing.

“Make up your mind. A minute ago I was talking too much and not driving right,” Dan said.

“Okay, there he goes. Glad to have you back, son. My personal view, Melanie: I can’t believe that was Slice who took the stuff out of your bag. I’m familiar with the security in your building, and I don’t think it would’ve been possible for him to get in. At least not without some inside connection.”

“That’s what I said. He must’ve had an inside connection! We should follow up on that, maybe get the sign-in sheet from the security desk.”

“No, no. I’m not saying Slice had an inside connection, but that it wasn’t Slice in the basement last night. I don’t go in for conspiracy theories. Usually the commonsense explanation is the right one.”

“Who put the tape on the security camera, then?” she demanded. “Who stole the evidence from my bag?”

“Some low-life building employee doing a bit of thieving on the side.”

“He takes a cassette tape, a transcript, animal-torture Polaroids, and thirty bucks? But leaves credit cards and checks? To me the money is a cover. It’s the evidence he was after,” she said.

“Why would a building employee want your evidence?” Randall asked.

“He wouldn’t. That’s why I’m saying it was Slice, or somebody close to him.”

“Nah, I don’t see it. I’m sticking with Ramirez’s theory that this was a retaliatory hit, plain and simple. If we want answers, we should do exactly what we’re doing right now-go interview Delvis Diaz. Diaz is the only known link between Jed Benson and the Blades, so that’s the most promising angle, far as I’m concerned.”

Melanie looked at Dan in the rearview mirror. “Is that your position, too?” she demanded, eyes flashing.

“I agree with you the tape is worth following up on. I’m trying to get a lead on Jasmine Cruz’s whereabouts. If nothing else, she might know where Slice is. And Benson’s phone records should be in today. If there was some kind of relationship between Benson and Jasmine Cruz, it should show up on his phone.”

“I guess that’s fair,” she said grudgingly.

“Okay, so that’s that. Anything else?” Dan asked.

“Yes, actually. I took an interesting detour on the way to work this morning.”

She told them about the videocassette she’d taken from Sarah van der Vere’s apartment.

“Gotta love a prosecutor who doesn’t trouble herself about a search warrant,” Dan said to Randall.

“Oh, Jesus, you’re right!” Melanie exclaimed. “What was I thinking? I was so involved in playing cops and robbers I got completely carried away.”

“Been there, done that,” Dan said, laughing.

“Never did care for the Fourth Amendment much myself,” Randall said.

“What should I do? Should I take it back?” she asked, truly upset at herself. To do something so careless-it wasn’t like her.

“And what?” Dan asked. “Knock on her door and say, ‘Here’s the tape I pinched from your house-we’re all done with it’? You’d burn our entire investigation.”

“But it won’t be admissible in court without a warrant!” she protested. “And any leads we derive from it are fruit of the poisonous tree, inadmissible also. Although only against Sarah van der Vere. And only if she ends up being a defendant.”

“There, you see?” Dan said. “Not a problem. Sarah might be a porn star, but I’d bet good money she’s not Benson’s killer. So I vote we watch the tape.”

“Sign me up for that duty!” Randall joked. “My wife don’t let me watch blue movies at home.”

RANDALL HAD CALLED AHEAD, SO THE STAFF at Otisville was expecting them. A heavyset young woman from the Liaison Office, with a bleached blond buzz cut, met them at the X-ray machine. Her name tag read LEONA BURKETT, but she didn’t bother to introduce herself.

“Check your cell phones and your weapons,” Leona ordered, snapping her chewing gum. She gave them receipts for what they checked and peel-off name tags to stick on their clothes, then led them through a bewildering series of grimy corridors and elevators, metal doors clanging shut behind them. The ill-fitting polyester pants of her uniform emphasized her wide rear end as she sashayed ahead, the keys on her belt jangling.

“Wait here,” she barked, unlocking a gray metal door and motioning them into a small interview room. “Prisoner’ll be up soon.” She turned the key from the outside when she left, locking them in.

Claustrophobic and windowless except for a tiny pane of bulletproof glass set face high in the door, the room contained little beyond a battered steel desk holding a red telephone and three dilapidated swivel chairs. It was air-conditioned to an arctic chill and lit by a flickering fluorescent light.

“Not enough chairs,” Melanie noted.

“That’s okay, you sit.” With elaborate courtesy, Randall pulled over a chair. “I owe you one for taking the backseat on the ride up.”

“Don’t count on me being so cooperative going back,” she joked.

Randall’s snappy rejoinder was cut short by the sound of another key in the lock.

The door opened, and two burly, pasty-faced guards entered, with Delvis Diaz between them. Diaz was shackled hand and foot, but he walked with attitude. Everything from the set of his square jaw to his narrowed eyes to his erect posture said Fuck you to anyone who cared to listen. Short, stocky, and powerfully built, he still wore his lank black hair in the style of gangbangers of a decade earlier, long and gathered into a ponytail on top, shaved underneath. Clad in a standard-issue bright orange prison jumpsuit, he sported around his thick neck the milky green plastic rosary beads allowed inmates, designed to snap apart if you tried to garrote your bunkmate.

One of the guards unlocked Diaz’s cuffs, placed a hand on his shoulder, and pushed him down into a chair, fastening his right handcuff to the chair’s metal arm.

“Looks like it’s your lucky day, Delvis,” the other guard said wolfishly, looking Melanie up and down.

“Watch your tone, pal,” Dan warned.

The guard shrugged, as if to say What’s your problem? but said nothing.

“Pick up that phone when you’re done. It rings through to us,” the other guard said. They left, locking the door behind them.

“The vermin that work in these places,” Dan muttered, shaking his head.

Diaz looked at his visitors belligerently. “Who the fuck are you?”

In answer, Dan and Randall flashed their badges. Melanie sat down across the narrow desk from Diaz and extracted her credentials from her briefcase, passing them to him. He took them with his free left hand, glanced at them dismissively, and shoved them back at her.

“Say what you got to say, because you interferin’ with my exercise period,” he said irritably.

“We thought maybe you might want to help yourself out,” Melanie said evenly, leaning forward in her chair slightly to make better eye contact.

“Yeah, like what? Giving up those assholes gettin’ blow jobs from the inmates in the women’s unit?” His gesture toward the door implicated the guards who had just left. “You don’t need me for that. Everybody in this place knows.”

“We came to talk to you about the murder of the man who prosecuted you, Jed Benson.” Melanie looked him in the eye. He stared back, defiant yet calm, sizing her up and tipping back slightly in his chair. “I take it from your expression you’re not surprised to hear that Mr. Benson was killed?”

“What goes around comes around.” He smiled nastily.

Melanie exchanged glances with Dan and Randall. This guy obviously hated Benson with a passion. Perhaps she should take Rommie Ramirez’s retaliation theory more seriously. At least she should treat Diaz as a viable suspect. She reached into her briefcase and took out a form and a pen, sliding both across the desk.

“These are your rights. If you’re unable to read, Agent O’Reilly can read them to you. Initial after each paragraph to show you understand, and sign at the bottom.”

“I can read. And I know my rights.”

Diaz made no move to take the form and instead began rocking his chair back and forth slightly. With his long experience of the legal system, he surely knew that she needed his signature waiving his rights. Without it, any confession he made could be thrown out in court. But Diaz continued to rock his chair as if bored to distraction, saying nothing. Melanie decided to get more aggressive.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, Delvis. You’re a suspect in Jed Benson’s murder. Some people think you ordered the hit.” He laughed derisively. She waited calmly for him to stop laughing, then continued in the same tone. “We’re working the case, and I promise you we’re gonna find the killer. And I don’t mean just the shooter, but everybody who was involved, including the guy who gave the order. We took time from our busy schedules to come up here and listen to your side of the story. You should view it as an opportunity.”

“Knock yourself out,” he said, laughing again, rocking the chair more exuberantly. “Pin it on me. I don’t give a fuck. I’m already doing three lifes.”

“Times have changed, Delvis. Back when you were convicted of killing the Flatlands Boys, the federal death penalty was almost never applied. But it is now. It would be pretty easy to convince a jury to impose it on someone who got three lifes and still kept killing.”

The chair stopped rocking, its front legs touching down. He sat up straight and looked at Melanie uneasily.

“Now that I’ve got your attention, what do you have to tell us?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Let’s start again. I wasn’t expecting a full confession up front. Obviously you didn’t do it with your own hands, since you’ve been locked up for over eight years. We understand that. We’re looking for the guys on the outside, the ones who pulled the trigger. You could help yourself by giving them up and telling us where to find them.”

“I told you, I’m innocent. I don’t have no outside accomplices, because I didn’t do the crime. Think about it. It’s mad late in the game! I hated Benson, sure, and I’m glad he’s dead. The prick fuckin’ set me up. But if I was gonna hit him, why do it now? I’d of done it years ago!”

Dan and Melanie looked at each other. Diaz had just confirmed an idea they’d kicked around before. Retaliation usually comes when the shock of conviction is still raw. Not years later, when most inmates have resigned themselves to doing their time. That was the biggest problem with the retaliation theory. Apparently, though, Randall felt differently. He wasn’t buying a word Diaz said.

“I suppose you’re gonna tell us you didn’t kill the Flatlands Boys either,” Randall taunted, cracking his knuckles. Melanie threw him a warning look. Antagonizing Diaz at this point in the interview seemed counterproductive to her.

“Matter of fact, that’s right. I knew ’em, they worked for me, but I didn’t never body ’em.”

“Pffft!” Randall snorted. “Every piece a’ garbage killer I ever met says he’s innocent. If we listened to you scumbags, we’d empty out all the jails.”

Diaz glared at Randall angrily but remained silent. Randall clearly would have kept going, but Melanie held up her hand for silence, not wanting to provoke Diaz further.

“It’s natural Detective Walker would be a bit skeptical,” she said, “since a jury convicted you of killing the Flatlands Boys. But we’re very interested in hearing what you have to say about that trial. Like I said, we’re here to listen to your side of the story.”

“Maybe I’m ‘a bit skeptical,’ too,” Diaz said. “I been telling y’all about this trial for years, ain’t nobody listen. It was a fucking frame-up. If you want to hear that, fine, I’ll talk. Otherwise I’m gonna go exercise.”

His air of bitterness and resignation seemed authentic to Melanie. Whether or not what he said was actually true, she was starting to think that at least he himself believed it.

“I can’t speak for anybody else,” she said, glancing pointedly at Randall, hoping he would get the message and keep his mouth shut, “but I assure you I want to hear what you have to say.”

Diaz looked Melanie in the eye searchingly, clearly weighing whether she could be trusted. She looked back steadily, patiently, trying to convey by the openness of her gaze that she would give him a fair hearing. Still he said nothing.

“What did you mean when you said it was a frame-up?” she prompted.

“Aw, come on!” Randall exclaimed.

“Randall!”

“Fucking waste of time. I thought we were here to get some work done!”

“He don’t want me saying nothing!” Diaz practically spit. “He prob’ly know my conviction is bullshit. It’s a fucking conspiracy, is what it is! You know who the main witness was at my trial? You don’t even know, do you?”

“Who?” Her intuition told her something big was coming.

“You heard of this kid Junior Diaz? He go by Slice? Likes to sic a dog on people and then cut ’em up? You ever heard of him?”

“Yes.” A chill ran down Melanie’s spine.

“It was him. You go look at the trial transcripts, you’ll see. He killed the Flatlands Boys, not me. He killed ’em, and then he testified that I did it. The real killer is the one who put me away.”

THE NEWS THAT SLICE HAD TESTIFIED AT Delvis Diaz’s trial shocked Melanie completely. It meant Slice had been Jed Benson’s star witness, had cooperated with the prosecution. That flew in the face of everything she knew about Slice. And not only about Slice, but about Jed Benson himself. Relying on the testimony of a vicious killer like Slice was a dangerous enterprise for an ethical prosecutor. And though the thought that Jed Benson could have conspired with Slice to frame Delvis Diaz seemed impossible to Melanie, nevertheless warning bells went off in her head. She didn’t know enough about her victim. Jed Benson himself warranted closer scrutiny.

“Lemme explain a couple things, ma’am,” Delvis Diaz was saying. “First off, who I am, who I was on the street. I was a drug dealer, a kingpin, real high level and shit. I sold drugs. Dope, mostly, and a little cocaine here and there. I had a real nice organization, back in the day. Killin’ wasn’t my thing, okay? Ask anybody. Step to me and I’ll fuck you up. I won’t have a choice. I’ll have to, to stay strong in the streets. But I was a businessman, and violence is bad for business. Never believed in it.”

“Every other scumbag like you says the same thing,” Randall interjected with exaggerated disgust. “Admit to the drugs but not the murders. Sometimes a jury is stupid enough to believe it. But they got it right with you.”

“Randall, please!” Melanie snapped, wanting to hear more. “Let him talk.”

“I can’t believe you fallin’ for this horseshit.” Randall shook his head. “Fine, I’ll just keep my mouth shut! Pretend I’m not here.” Dan regarded Randall with bewilderment, then glanced at Melanie, raising his eyebrows questioningly. Melanie held her hand up again, struggling to pick up the thread of Diaz’s words.

“Okay,” she said, “so you were a drug dealer, not a killer, fine. But how do we get from there to a reputable prosecutor conspiring with a cold-blooded killer to set you up? I’m prepared to take this seriously, but you better have a damn good explanation and proof to back it up.”

“Why does anybody do anything? Greed. Money. That’s all. I saw it comin’, too, but I was too fuckin’ stupid, too soft, to do what needed to be done. See, Slice was with me from a shorty. He ain’t got no daddy, and his moms was a crack ho who just kinda faded out. He attach himself to me when he was ten years old, call himself Junior Diaz after me. He wasn’t born in no hospital, ain’t got no government name anyway. So I took him in, raised him up, kept him from starvin’, made him a player in my organization. But after all I did for him, look what I get.” He glanced down at his cuffed hand, shaking his head, genuinely upset. “The boy’d been a big problem for a long time. Stealin’ from me, beatin’ on people when he shouldn’t, cuttin’ ’ em up. I knew I shoulda bodied him-it was the only way. But I couldn’t do it. So he set me up, got me out of the picture, so’s he could be the kingpin himself.”

“Okay, I understand Slice’s angle. He wants to push you out and take over your turf. But what about Jed Benson? Surely you’re not suggesting that he knowingly collaborated with Slice-”

Randall smashed his fist against the metal door. They all jumped. “Enough! I can’t believe we’re all standing here listening to this crap!”

Diaz went white, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “You don’t wanna hear what I have to say? Fine, call the guards! I’m done!” he yelled.

“What? No, please!” Melanie pleaded.

“Think I ain’t never heard of the right to remain silent? I’m not saying another word to this asshole. You want to talk to me again, come back without him. And bring my lawyer.”

Melanie was powerless to try to change his mind. Once a prisoner invoked his rights, it was illegal to question him further. Diaz knew that. Randall had pushed Diaz to the breaking point, derailing the interview with his blatant hostility. To some extent Melanie sympathized. If you listened to the inmates, the prisons were overflowing with innocent people, every one of them with a hard-luck story. An old cop like Randall had very limited patience for that sort of talk. Most of the time, she didn’t subscribe to it either. But there were too many unanswered questions in this case-about Slice, about Jed Benson, about the relationship between them. There was a real chance Delvis Diaz could shed light on those questions. Now Randall had blown it, and Melanie was angry and surprised. It wasn’t what she expected from him. It wasn’t good police work.

MELANIE WAS DULY IRRITATED DURING THE long march back through grim corridors to the lockers where they’d left their things. Only the presence of their bleached-blond escort checked her tongue. She wouldn’t criticize Randall in front of the snippish Ms. Leona Burkett, but she’d let him have it the second they got to the car.

“By the way,” Leona said as they retrieved their cell phones and beepers, “next time please have the basic courtesy to turn off your communications devices before you stow them. They’ve been making an unholy racket in there and giving me a headache like you wouldn’t believe.”

As if on cue, Dan’s pager and Randall’s cell phone began to shriek simultaneously, and Melanie’s phone vibrated vigorously in her hand, startling her. They looked at each other for a split second before answering, their faces all registering the same terrible conviction: It had to be bad news.