J Bertrand - Back on Murder

Salazar’s willing to talk, but not with me in the room, the guy who put him in the hospital. His attorney does the complaining, and before Wilcox can lodge a halfhearted protest I throw my hands up and head for the door. Glancing back, I take little comfort in Salazar’s condition, the wheezing pumps and dripping tubes, the oxygen feed, the inert lump of flesh beneath the sheets. Partial paralysis, the doctors told us, the loss of control on his right side. In spite of the successful surgery, Salazar is anything but okay. I reached out and touched him all right, with a hand that’s never going to let up.

I wait in the hallway awhile, until Cavallo comes out to report.

“He’s putting it all on Keller,” she says. “He dragged the others into the business, he orchestrated the raids. It was him who killed Thomson and forced Salazar to cover it up.”

“And Evangeline Dyer?”

“He had no idea she’d be there. When they looked through the window and saw her, Keller wanted to abort, but Thomson insisted on going in. He says it was Keller who shot her, accidentally, firing blind through the door. They were taking her to the emergency room, he says, and then she died.”

“What was she doing there in the first place?”

“Says he doesn’t know. Rios told him it was another stash house, and afterward the informant disappeared, so he never got a chance to ask.”

“What about Rafael Ortiz, the gangbanger who shot me?”

“Says he’s never heard of the guy.” She shakes her head. “He’s not going to cop to that, March.”

I take off down the corridor in a rage. “So basically, he’s not giving us anything we don’t already have?”

“He’ll testify against Keller.”

“In case you didn’t notice, we don’t have Keller. At this rate, there’s not going to be a trial for Salazar to testify at.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“Not by much.” My frustration is the sort that only grows when it gets an airing. A host of dead-end possibilities flood my mind. “Think about it: he’s been trying to find Rios since day one. When I let the kid go, he was already gunning for him. Why? Because he wanted to put a bullet in him. Believe me, he wasn’t going to ask what went wrong, why the informant suddenly sent them to the wrong house. If he’d have been able to find Rios, somebody like Ortiz would have finished the kid off, like he almost did me. Or maybe Salazar would have done it himself and dumped the body alongside the Dyer girl’s.” I slap the wall, drawing a glare from a passing nurse. “You know what? Maybe he did. That would be perfect. The Rios kid might already be at the bottom of the Gulf. We’ll never find him because there’s nothing left to find.”

“Calm down, March,” she says. “It’s not your fault you didn’t arrest Rios when you had him. You had no way of knowing…”

“I’m not stupid. I realize that.”

“Then stop beating yourself up and get on with the job.”

That’s good advice, and I decide to take it. Leaving Cavallo to hold Wilcox’s hand for the remainder of the interview, I bug out, heading back to Montrose with my list of construction workers in hand. Nobody by the name of Rios, but that doesn’t mean the cousin isn’t on the list. I park in front of the site, where some damaged framing is being slowly repaired by a skeleton crew of helmeted workers, stripping my jacket off and leaving it in the car, not a concession to the heat but a psychological tactic. I want these men to notice that the approaching hombre wears a gleaming shield, and more than that, a dull black, well-worn gun.

“Francisco Rios,” I say, motioning them over. “Which one of you knows the guy? He’s got a cousin here, right?”

The workers shrug and exchange glances, one of them asking me to repeat the name. I do better, whipping out the driver’s license photo off the system, along with the picture Salazar took when he registered Rios as a confidential informant. They gather round, squinting and shaking their heads. One of them leans forward, though, tapping a hard brown finger on the page, his eyes drifting upward in recollection.

“Yeah,” he says. “I seen him. You know who this is?” He turns to one of the others. “That’s Tito’s cousin, the one with the big attitude.”

The man next to him looks again, then nods. “I think you right.”

“Who’s this Tito?” I ask.

“Tito the Painter.” He brushes his hand back and forth in the air, like I might not be familiar with the term. “He don’t work here. We got nothing to paint yet. But he’s always around, you know, at the various sites, ’cause he’s working so cheap.”

“What’s his last name?”

He scratches his chin, then murmurs something in Spanish to the other man, who shrugs. “Everybody just call him Tito the Painter. But I can tell you where he stays.” He rattles off an address over on the West side, an apartment complex off Hammerly.

I thank him, then turn to go. Instead of heading straight to the address, I drive around the area looking for other sites, asking workers and foremen alike whether they’ve seen Tito the Painter around, or know his full name. Everybody seems to be familiar with the guy, some even recognize the photo of Rios, but no one can add to what I already know.

Passing by the outreach center, I see Abernathy out on the front steps talking to two slender white guys in retro sunglasses and snap-front shirts. He comes out to the curb for a quick chat, but he’s already told me everything he knows about Rios.

“What about the van?” I ask. “You said his cousin would pick him up in a van.”

“It was white. It had ladders on the side, I remember that.”

“He’s a painter, apparently.”

“Makes sense. It was that kind without windows, you know? Sliding door on the side. I can’t remember if there was a company name. I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t write down the license number or anything?”

He smiles. “I’ll remember for next time.”

Back downtown I go through the boxes of task force paperwork, hunting for the Willowbrook Mall surveillance footage, or at least some stills. Aguilar, sensing my excitement, wanders over and dives in. A minute later, Lorenz joins him, and then Bascombe and Ordway walk by wondering what’s going on. Before long, we’re all digging through boxes side by side, stacking the contents on the floor, my chair, and any empty space we can find.

“Got it,” Bascombe says, lifting a sheaf of paper from the bottom of his box.

We spread the stills out on the conference table, scrutinizing the grainy images.

“Does that look like a ladder to you?” I ask, pointing to a pixely shadow alongside the van.

They all take turns looking. The consensus is that it might be, though Ordway has to spoil the moment by pointing out it could also be a long dent, a streak of paint, or even a missile – basically anything. Look long enough and you see what you want to.

“You have the address,” Bascombe says. “Why don’t we go check it out?”

“All of us?” I ask.

He smiles. “Why not? You want to keep the glory all to yourself?”

“Let’s roll.”

On the drive over, convoying in three cars, I can’t help remembering my last outing in force, the pointless kick-down of Keller’s door. Hopefully this one will turn out better. We pass the apartment complex and then circle around, cruising slowly through the parking lot. At the front of the line, Bascombe sticks his arm out the driver’s window, pointing up ahead. I crane my neck, gazing along the length of vehicles parked under the complex’s corrugated shelter. At the end of the row, a white van sits, with a long, paint-spattered ladder knotted to the roof rack. The lieutenant parks right behind it, leaving me to pull ahead while Aguilar takes up a spot behind. We all get out at once, donning sunglasses, adjusting gear.