Faye Kellerman: Blindman’s Bluff

“Uh-uh, no way. I didn’t have nothing to do with that!” Pine slapped his arms across his chest. “I’ve been out of town.”

“Yeah, I know,” Marge said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Pine tightened his grip on himself. “So I’m here.”

“You were out of town when it happened?” Oliver said.

“I was in Mexico,” Pine told him.

“What were you doing there?”

“I got family there. Hey, you wanna arrest me for the B and E, hey, what can I do? But I didn’t have nothing to do with the Kaffeys.”

“Joe, we’re in Homicide, not CAPS.” Marge gave him a moment to digest that. “We’ve been interviewing all the guards who worked for Guy and Gilliam Kaffey for the last few weeks. We’ve been looking for you, then you just happened to be in the closet of a guy that the cops were protecting. That makes us curious.”

“Yeah, Joe, about that,” Oliver said. “Why’d you break into a condo where there were cops in front?”

“They were out front.” Pine shrugged. “I was in the back.”

“But it didn’t bother you that the cops were out front?”

“Makes me a bigger man with the bros, you know?”

“Do you know why the cops were out front?”

“No idea,” Pine said. “I’ve been outta the country for a while.”

“How’d you feel when you found out about the homicides?” Oliver said.

Pine shrugged. “Shit happens.”

Marge said, “When did you go to Mexico?”

“I don’t remember the exact date, just that I went before it happened.” Again the arms crisscrossed his chest.

“How’d you find out about the murders?”

“My cousin called me. I thought, man, that’s real messed up. Then I was happy it wasn’t me doing the shift. I heard they all got whacked.”

He looked at them expectantly. Neither Marge nor Oliver responded. His knee started to bounce up and down. “Then I thought, I’m out of a job. So I stayed in Mexico a little longer.”

“Who’s the cousin?” Marge asked him.

Pine looked confused. “The cousin?”

“The one who called and told you about the crime,” Oliver said.

“Why you want to know?”

“So he can give you an alibi,” Marge said.

“Oh…okay. He’s not my real cousin, but we’re like brothers, you know?”

“His name?” Oliver asked.

“Martin Cruces. He worked for the Kaffeys, too.”

Marge willed her face to remain impassive. “Yeah, we know. He’s on our list.”

“Yeah…he’s the one who got me the job.”

“Martin did.”

“Yeah.”

“And he called you and told you about the murders?” Oliver said.

“Yeah, he told me all about it. Sounded real gory, man.”

Marge said, “Martin’s in deep trouble, Joe. Did he tell you that as well?”

Pine’s face momentarily froze. “That’s bullshit. I just talked to him, man. He don’t say nothing about that.”

“Yeah, you just talked to him, but we just arrested him,” Marge said.

Oliver said, “He’s right next door, talking to another set of Homicide detectives.”

Marge said, “So if you have something to tell us, now’s the time.”

“I don’t have nothing to tell you.” Pine’s eyes darted back and forth.

“That’s weird,” Oliver said. “Because Martin has plenty to tell us.”

Marge said, “We found your fingerprints at the Coyote Ranch, Joe.”

“’Course you did,” Pine said. “I worked there.”

Marge clarified. “We found bloody prints, the kinds that were made by someone who was there when the murders went down.”

“You’re in deep doo-doo,” Oliver said. “Martin is in the building, talking to us…this may be your only chance to explain what happened.”

“Don’t let Martin tell the whole story for both of you,” Marge said.

Oliver said, “Yeah, we want to hear your side.”

Pine refused to be baited.

“Hey, Joe, maybe it wasn’t supposed to go down like it did,” Marge said. “You just brought along the gun for protection.”

“Or maybe all you wanted to do was scare them,” Oliver said. “If it was an accident, then we can make a case for you.”

“I wasn’t there,” Pine insisted.

“Your fingerprints, Joe,” Marge said. “Fingerprints don’t lie.”

“Yeah, but the cops do,” Pine snapped back. “You’re trying to get me to lie.”

“No, Joe, that’s not what we want. We want the truth, Joe. That’s it.”

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass,” Pine said. “I bet you don’t even got Martin in custody.”

“Well, then, hold on a moment.” Marge stood up. “We’ll see if we can take you to the video room.”

She and Oliver left and returned a few minutes later. Marge placed six Polaroid pictures of Martin Cruces, dressed in jacket and jeans, being questioned by Messing and Pratt. “Look at the date on the pictures.”

Pine glanced at them and tried to shrug them off. “You can fix those up. You guys got all sorts of stuff so you can trap me into saying lies.”

“But that’s just it, Joe,” Oliver said. “We don’t want lies. We want the truth.”

“Martin is telling us the truth,” Marge said. “We’re just curious if his truth is the same as your truth.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“You were there. We have witnesses saying you were there. The guy whose house you broke into. He heard people talk about it,” Marge said. “He overheard people talking about you. How Martin was pissed at you because you didn’t finish off Gil Kaffey.”

“I wasn’t there!”

“Your fingerprints say you were there.”

“You’re lying. I wasn’t there.”

“No, you’re lying. You were there,” Marge said. “You can keep lying or you can help yourself by telling the truth.”

Something finally got to Pine, and he started sweating in earnest. Still, it took another couple of hours, several cups of coffee, and a half-dozen nutrition bars before Marge and Oliver noticed his psyche cracking. They excused themselves and went out of the room, leaving Pine alone to weigh his options.

The two of them stared at Pine in the video camera for a minute or two. Then Marge looked at the clock. “Decker’s due back in two hours. I’d love to wrap this up before he comes.”

“He’s coming apart,” Oliver said. “Now’s the time to bring up Rondo Martin.”

Marge took a swig of water and regarded Messing and Pratt going after Cruces. She turned up the volume, hearing Wynona trying to seduce Cruces into talking about the murders.

But we have your fingerprints at the scene, Martin. We also have witnesses who heard you talk about it. Plus, we have Joe Pine in the other room. He screwed up tonight. He got caught. He’s telling us things. We want to hear your side of the story.

Marge turned the volume down. “Let’s go.”

They returned to the interview room. Marge said, “I just checked in with Martin Cruces, Joe. I’m telling you that this is your one chance to tell your side of the story.”

“I wasn’t…” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I need sleep, man. Maybe after I sleep, I’ll talk.”

“We have your fingerprints in the Kaffeys’ blood, Joe,” Oliver said. “We have an eyewitness who told us everything. Just tell us what happened.”

Pine’s eyes darted from side to side. “What eyewitness?”

“Joe…” Marge leaned over and spoke softly. “You think we’d come down on you if we didn’t have your fingerprints at the scene? You think we’d come down on you if we didn’t have an eyewitness who said that you looked him in the eye and then pulled the trigger? You think we’d arrest you for murder if we couldn’t deliver the goods?”