14th Deadly Sin

CHAPTER 17

BEN VIERA, THE surviving witness to the robbery-homicide at the check-cashing store, cracked open his door about four inches, which was the length of the chain lock. He demanded to see our badges, and we held them up. He asked our names, and after we told him, he closed the door in our faces.

I heard his voice on the telephone; he spoke and listened for a couple of minutes.

The door opened again, this time wide enough to let us in. Viera was of medium height and build, wearing green-striped boxers and a Giants T-shirt. He was saying, “I called the police station. To make sure you are who you say you are.”

“OK. I get that,” Conklin said.

The one-room apartment on Poplar Street was dark, and messy with pizza boxes and soda cans, dishes in the sink, and laundry on the floor. Viera folded his futon bed into a sofalike object, offered us seats, then got into a reclining chair and leaned back.

“I’m on Xanax. Prescribed for me. Just so you know.”

“OK,” said Conklin.

“I already talked to the police the night of the … thing,” Viera said to the ceiling.

“I know this is hard, Ben,” said Conklin. “You’ve told the story, and now we want you to do it again. Some new thought could jump into your mind. Right now we don’t have a clue who those guys were. They’re killers. You saw them, and we have to catch them.”

Viera sighed deeply before describing the holdup and the shooting, which had clearly traumatized him.

“Like I said, there were three of them. They were wearing police jackets and, like, latex masks. They came through the door fast. One aimed at us through the Plexiglas teller window, and another one kicked open the security door. Then one of them told Mr. Díaz, ‘Give us the money and no one will get hurt.’”

The young man went on to say that his boss had a gun but never got off a shot. One of the masked robbers shot Díaz in the right arm. Another of them got Viera in a chokehold, put a gun to his head, and demanded that he open the safe. Viera told them the safe was in the floor and that he didn’t know the combination, “I swear on my mother.”

Throughout the telling of this story, Viera’s flat affect hadn’t changed. But there was a tremor in his voice, and I could feel the terror bubbling up just below the tranquilizer.

He said, “Mr. Díaz was rolling on the floor screaming, but he wouldn’t give up the combination. So then they shot him in the knee. Oh, God, it was—bad. And then Mr. Díaz screamed out the combination.

“I opened the safe and they took the money and left. I thought maybe Mr. Díaz was going to make it. He was always good to me. I don’t even know why I’m alive.”

Conklin and I took turns asking questions: Did you notice anything unusual about any of the men? Did you recognize anyone’s voice? Did any of the men seem familiar? Like they’d been in the store before? Did any of them take off his gloves or mask? Did any of the men call anyone by name?

“Maybe one of the guys called another of them Juan.”

It wasn’t much, but we’d take it.

I gave Viera my card and told him to call me day or night if he remembered anything else.

He said, “I guess. God knows I can’t sleep and I can’t forget.”

He walked us to the door, and as soon as it was closed behind us, I heard the lock and the chain.

Our next stop was the check-cashing store with the sign over the window: PAYDAY LOANS. CHECKS CASHED.

CSU was wrapping up, and CSI Jennifer Neuenhoff walked us through. She showed us where the robbers had kicked in the door between the public space and the back of the store. She showed us the massive bloodstain where Mr. José Díaz had bled out. We looked into the open safe in the floor. It was like looking into a grave.

Neuenhoff said, “Not more than thirty million prints in here. They shouldn’t take more than three lifetimes to process.”

Conklin said, “Save yourself some time, Neuenhoff. The witness said the shooters wore gloves.”

When we were back in the car, I called Brady and told him everything we had, which was pretty much a textbook case of how to stick up a store and make a clean getaway. I said we’d be back in the house in a couple of hours.

“We’ve got a stop to make first, Lieutenant. Personal matter.”

After I hung up with Brady, I pulled the rubber band out of my hair, shook out my pony, and tried to shake off my sour mood at the same time. I pulled down the visor and slicked on some lip gloss, and even gave my eyelashes a thin coat of mascara.

When my face was presentable, I said to my partner, “OK. Now you can step on it, Inspector.”

“You want sirens, Sergeant?”

“Whatever you have to do.”

He snapped off a salute, which made me laugh, and not long after that, we parked outside the Ferry Building.