Robert Crais - Suspect

Scott let him take a good look.

“This is how I know.”

Marshall glanced at Scott, then went back to the scars. He couldn’t stop looking at the scars.

“What happened?”

Scott pulled on the undershirt, and buttoned his shirt.

“When you cut your plea, you told detectives about a Chinese import store you hit nine months ago. They asked if you saw a shooting. Three people were murdered. One left for dead.”

Marshall nodded as he answered.

“Yes, sir, they asked. I did commit that burglary, but I didn’t see the shooting. My understanding is all that happened after I left.”

He glanced at Scott’s shoulder, but the scars were hidden.

“Was that you, left for dead?”

Marshall was so genuine and natural, Scott knew he was telling the truth. The poly wasn’t necessary.

“I lost someone close that night. Last night, you lost your brother. The same people who did this to me killed Daryl.”

Marshall sat there, staring, his face pinched as he struggled to get his head around it. His eyes shimmered, and Scott thought, if Budress was right, if a dog saw a person’s heart through their eyes, Maggie would see a heart broken in Marshall.

“Help me out here, ’cause—”

“Was Daryl with you that night?”

Marshall leaned back again, and seemed irritated.

“What the fuck? I don’t take Daryl with me to do burglary. What are you talkin’ about?”

“Up on the roof. Your lookout.”

“No fuckin’ way.”

He meant it. Marshall was telling the truth.

“Daryl was there.”

“Bullshit. I’m telling you, he wasn’t.”

“What if I told you I could prove it?”

“I’d call you a liar.”

Scott decided to leave Maggie out of it, and tell Marshall they had a DNA match. But as he took out his phone for a picture of the watchband, it occurred to him Marshall might remember his brother’s watch.

He held out his phone so Marshall could see.

“Did Daryl have a watch with a band like this?”

Marshall slowly sat taller. He reached for the phone, but the manacles stopped him.

“I got that watch for him. I gave it to him.”

Scott thought carefully. Marshall was with him now, and Marshall would help. Luck was better than DNA.

“This was found on the sidewalk the morning I was shot. These little smears are from a fence on the roof. I don’t know when he was up there that night, or why, or what he saw, but Daryl was there.”

Marshall shook his head slow, trying to remember and asking himself questions.

“Are you saying he saw those murders?”

“I don’t know. He never mentioned it to you?”

“No, ’course not. Not ever. Jesus, don’t you think I’d remember?”

“I don’t know if he saw them or not, but I think the shooters were scared he had seen them.”

Marshall’s gaze shifted, searching the little room for answers.

“Y’all thought I saw the shootings, and I didn’t. Maybe Daryl was long gone like me, and didn’t see shit.”

“Then they killed him for nothing, and he’s still dead.”

Marshall wiped his eyes on his shoulders, leaving dark spots on the blue.

“Goddamnit, this is bullshit. Fuckin’ bullshit.”

“I want them, Marshall. For me and my friend, and for Daryl. I need your help to get this done.”

“What the fuck, if he saw something, he didn’t tell me. Shit, even if he didn’t see anything, he didn’t tell me. Probably scared I’d kick his ass!”

“Something crazy and exciting like this? Let’s say he saw it. Let’s pretend.”

Because if Daryl left the roof having seen nothing, Scott had no place to go.

“It’s a big thing to hold. Who would he tell? His best friend. A person he might tell even if he was too scared to tell anyone else.”

Marshall’s head bobbed.

“Amelia. His baby mama.”

“Daryl has a child?”

Marshall’s gaze flicked around the room as he sorted through memories.

“Be about two, a girl. Don’t really know it’s Daryl’s, but she says it is. He loves her.”

Then Marshall realized what he’d said.

“Loved.”

Her name was Amelia Goyta. The baby’s name was Gina. Marshall didn’t know the address, but told Scott where to find her building. Marshall hadn’t seen the baby in almost a year, and wanted to know if she looked like Daryl.

Scott promised to let Marshall know, and was leaving to find the deputy when Marshall twisted around in his chair and asked a question Scott had been asking himself.

“All this time later, why they all of a sudden get scared Daryl seen’m? How’d they know Daryl was up there?”

Scott thought he knew, but didn’t share the answer.

“Marshall, the detectives will probably come see you. Don’t tell them about this. Don’t tell anyone unless you hear that I’m dead.”

Marshall’s red eyes grew scared.

“I won’t.”

“Not even the detectives. Especially not the detectives.”

Scott took a right turn out the door, collected his handcuffs and gun, and left the jail as quickly as he could.

He waited on the sidewalk by the parking lot for almost ten minutes before Budress and Maggie rounded the corner. Maggie bounced and yelped and strained at her lead, so Budress let her go. She raced toward Scott with her ears back and tongue out, looking like the happiest dog in the world. Scott opened his arms, and caught her when she plowed into him. Eighty-five pounds of black-and-tan love.

Budress didn’t look as happy as Maggie.

“What happened in there?”

“I’m still in the game.”

Budress grunted.

“Okay, then. Okay. I’ll see you later.”

Budress turned to leave.

“Paul. Marshall recognized the watchband. It was Daryl’s. Maggie pinned him, man.”

Budress glanced at the dog, then the man.

“Never doubt.”

“I didn’t.”

Scott and Maggie climbed into their car.

Scott found Amelia Goyta’s prewar apartment house on a shabby run-down street north of the freeway in Echo Park. The old building had three floors, four units per floor, an interior central stair, no air-conditioning, and was pretty much identical to every building on the block except for the Crying Virgin. A towering Virgin Mary crying tears of blood was painted on the front of her building. Marshall told Scott the painting looked more like an anorexic Smurf, but he couldn’t miss it. Marshall had told it true. The Virgin Smurf was three stories tall.

Marshall didn’t remember which was Amelia’s apartment, so Scott checked with the manager. Wearing his uniform helped. Top floor in back, 304.

Scott wondered if news of Daryl’s death had reached Amelia. When he and Maggie reached the third floor, he heard crying and knew it had. He paused outside her door to listen, and Maggie sniffed at the floor jamb. Inside, a child wailed between whooping breaths, as a sobbing woman alternated pleas to stop crying with reassurances they were going to be okay.

Scott rapped on the door.

The child kept wailing, but the sobbing stopped. A moment later, the wailing stopped, too, but no one came to the door.

Scott rapped again, and gave her his patrol officer’s voice.

“Police officer. Please open the door.”

Twenty seconds passed without a response, so Scott knocked again.

“Police officer. Open the door or I’ll have the manager let me in.”

The wailing began again, and now the woman’s sob came from the other side of the door.

“Go away. Go AWAY! You’re not the police.”

She sounded afraid, so Scott softened his voice.

“Amelia? I’m a police officer. I’m here about Daryl Ishi.”

“What’s your name? WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”