Last to Die

NINETEEN

MARIA SALAZAR SAT HUNCHED AT THE INTERVIEW TABLE, HEAD drooping as she wiped tears from her eyes. As a young woman, Maria would have been strikingly beautiful. At forty-five she was still handsome, but through the one-way mirror Jane could see the gray roots peeking through on the crown of Maria’s head. Her arms, propped up on the table, were heavy but solid with muscles built up from years of housework. While she had scrubbed and polished and swept other people’s houses, what resentments had bubbled up inside her? As she’d dusted the Ackermans’ antique furniture, vacuumed the Persian carpets, had it ever occurred to her that just one of their paintings, one emerald necklace from Mrs. Ackerman’s jewelry box, could make all her financial woes disappear?

“Never,” Marie moaned in the next room. “I never steal anything!”

Crowe, playing bad cop to Moore’s good cop, leaned in close, his teeth bared with undisguised aggression. “You disarmed the security system for your boyfriend.”

“No.”

“Left the kitchen door unlocked.”

“No.”

“Gave yourself a rock-solid alibi, babysitting your sister’s kids, while Andres slipped into the Ackermans’ house. Was he just going to rob them that night, or was murder always the plan?”

“Andres, he never hurt anyone!”

“His fingerprints are on the kitchen door. They’re inside the kitchen.” Crowe bent even closer and Maria shrank away. Jane almost felt sorry for the woman because there were few sights uglier than Darren Crowe’s snarl, shoved into your face. “He was in the house, Maria. Just walked through that kitchen door.”

“He brought my cell phone! I left it home that morning, so he comes to the house.”

“And left his fingerprints inside the kitchen?”

“I give him coffee. I clean the stove, and he sits for a minute.”

“And Mrs. Ackerman’s okay with that? A strange man, sitting in her kitchen?”

“She don’t mind. Mrs. Ackerman, she’s always nice to me.”

“Come on. Weren’t the Ackermans like every other rich asshole? Paid you almost nothing, while you’re on your knees scrubbing their toilets.”

“No, they treat me good.”

“They had all the money in the world, and look at you, Maria. Struggling to pay your bills. It’s so unfair. You deserve more, don’t you think?”

She shook her head. “You make this up. It’s not the truth.”

“The truth is, Andres had a criminal record in Colombia. Drug smuggling. Burglary.”

“He never hurt anyone.”

“There’s always a first time. Gotta be tempting when we’re talking about people as rich as the Ackermans. All those nice things, there for the taking.” He pulled an evidence bag out of the box he’d brought into the room. “We found these in your apartment, Maria. Nice pearl earrings. How did you afford these?”

“Mrs. Ackerman, she gave them to me. For Christmas.”

“Gave them to you? Sure.”

“She did.”

“They’re worth about five hundred bucks. Pretty nice bonus.”

“She didn’t want them anymore. Said I could have them.”

“Or did she suddenly find out you’d stolen them? Maybe that’s the reason Andres had to kill them. To keep them quiet so you wouldn’t get arrested.”

Maria’s head came up, her eyes swollen and damp, her face flushed with rage. “You are a devil!”

“I’m just trying to keep this city safe.”

“By making up lies? You don’t know me. You don’t know Andres.”

“I know he was a criminal. I know he ran from us. That tells me he was guilty.”

“He was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Colombia. He couldn’t go back to Colombia. They would kill him there.”

“So he chose to die here, instead?”

Maria dropped her face in her hands. “He wanted to live,” she sobbed. “He wanted to be left alone.”

“Tell the truth, Maria.”

“That is the truth.”

“Tell the truth, or …” Crowe paused at Moore’s touch on his shoulder. Though no words were exchanged between the two men, Jane saw the look that passed between them. Saw Moore’s disapproving shake of the head, answered by Crowe’s glare.

Abruptly Crowe straightened. “Think about it, Maria,” he said, and walked out of the room.

“Man,” Frost muttered beside Jane. “That’s one asshole on steroids.”

Through the one-way mirror, Jane watched as Moore sat with Maria. He offered no comforting touch, no reassuring words, as the woman continued to sob, hugging herself as though to stop her shaking.

“There’s not enough evidence here,” said Jane.

“The fingerprints on the kitchen door?” said Frost. “The fact he ran from us?”

“Give me a break. You sound like Crowe.”

“And those earrings. Who gives their housekeeper an expensive gift like that?”

“Maybe it’s true. Maybe Mrs. Ackerman was a generous woman. We can’t disprove it. And think about that house, all the things Zapata could have stolen, if this really was a robbery. Even the jewelry box was left.”

“He got spooked. Ran before he could take anything.”

“Does that sound plausible? It’s gotta bother you. It sure as hell bothers me.”

In the next room, Maria slowly rose to her feet, steadied by Moore’s hand. As he guided the housekeeper out the door, Jane said quietly: “It bothers Moore, too.”

“The trouble is, you don’t have anything else to go on. Just a bad feeling.”

That wasn’t enough, but it was also something she couldn’t ignore. A bad feeling was your subconscious telling you you’d missed something, a vital detail that could change the course of an investigation.

It could change lives.

Her phone rang. When she looked at the caller’s name, she had another bad feeling. “Frankie,” she answered with a sigh.

“I’ve called you twice and you didn’t pick up.”

“I’ve been busy.” Chasing suspects. Watching a man die.

“Yeah, well, now it’s too late. It’s all hitting the fan.”

“What’s going on?”

“We’re at Mom’s, and Korsak’s just arrived.”

“We? You mean Dad’s there, too?”

“Yeah. They’re all yelling at each other.”

“Jesus, Frankie. You’ve gotta keep Dad and Korsak apart. And get one of them out of there.”

“I swear they’re gonna kill each other, Jane.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll be right there.” She hung up.

“Remember. There’s nothing more dangerous than a domestic call,” said Frost, spectacularly unhelpful.

“I just hope I won’t have to call a lawyer.”

“For your dad?”

“For me. After I kill him.”