Faye Kellerman: Blindman’s Bluff

JOE PINE: I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.

MARGE DUNN: That’s crazy, Joe. No one’s going to believe that Martin Cruces offered you ten thousand dollars in cash to do something illegal and you never asked where the money came from.

JOE PINE: He gives me a lotta cash for a robbery, I don’t ask questions, lady.

SCOTT OLIVER: I don’t believe that, Joe.

(Decker read on. They kept pressing the point, but it took until two pages from the end to get something out of Pine.)

JOE PINE: Okay, you want me to make something up. I’ll make something up. Cruces said that he had a sugar daddy paying for everything. He called him El Patrón, but he never did say a name.

JOE PINE: I swear he didn’t say a name.

SCOTT OLIVER: Which patrón do you think Cruces was talking about?

JOE PINE: I don’t know.

MARGE DUNN: C’mon, Joe. You can do better than you’re doing.

(More pages of cajoling.)

JOE PINE: I swear I don’t know. Probably someone high up with a lot of cash who hated the old man. Cruces never did say.

The transcript ended. Decker put down the papers and finished up his third cup of coffee. Armed with a little bit of knowledge and a fresh cup of coffee, he was ready to face the fire.

“HELLO, MARTIN, HOW are you doing?” Decker asked him.

Cruces lifted his head from the table. Despite the man’s bloodshot eyes and tired face, he was decent looking. His features were symmetrical with dark eyes, dark hair, a dark mustache, prominent cheekbones, and a square chin. He said, “Who’re you?”

“Lieutenant Peter Decker. Can I get you anything?”

Cruces’s voice was slurry. “Are you…like The Boss?”

“I’m in charge of the detective squad.”

“So tell your people to stop lying.”

“What do you think they’re lying about?” Decker sat across from Cruces, giving him space. He’d move over later to the middle seat for intimidation or intimacy depending on how the conversation was going.

“They keep telling me I was involved in the Kaffey murders. I wasn’t anywhere near the Coyote Ranch. I was at a bar, getting drunk. You checked out my alibi. I was where I said I was. Why you come back and hassle me?”

“Because your bloody fingerprint was lifted from the crime scene.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Forensics doesn’t lie.”

“But you do.”

“I do lie,” Decker admitted. “But this isn’t one of the times.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Martin, I don’t care if you believe me or not. We have your fingerprint and you, my friend, are in deep trouble. Not only do we have forensics, we have an eyewitness who puts you there.” Decker leaned across the table. “I found Rondo Martin. I’ve been interviewing him for the last twenty-four hours. He’s locked up and he’s safe and you can’t get to him. None of your cousins can get to him either, because we’ve arrested almost all of them. Rondo can’t wait to testify against you.”

“You don’t know how many cousins I have,” Cruces told him. He looked upward and closed his eyes.

“Martin…” Decker moved over to the middle chair. “Even if someone did manage to whack Rondo Martin, it still wouldn’t do you any good. We’ve got everything that he told us videotaped, and we’ve already made copies. Help yourself and talk to us.”

“I never seen no videotape.”

That’s because it didn’t exist. Since Cruces did seem to have oodles of cousins, Decker decided that saying he had a videotape would be a good idea. He actually should make one in case something did happen. “Why in the world would I show it to you?”

“I wanna see it.”

“If you cooperate, maybe I’ll show it to you. So this is what we have, Martin. We’ve got José Pinon telling us all about you and Esteban and Miguel and Gordo and Julio Davis-the guy who gave you your alibi. We’ve got Joe telling us where Julio is. We have bloody fingerprints, we have an eyewitness who puts you at the scene.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Martin, it’s over. Joe Pine told us everything because he was looking at the death penalty.”

“So José tells you lies to save his skin and I’m supposed to be upset? It’s bullshit.”

“It’s not just him, Martin. It’s José and the rest of your homies from Bodega 12th. We’ve got them all…except maybe Julio.” Decker liked to throw in a bit of truth. “But we’ll find him. It’s only a matter of time.”

Cruces laughed derisively. “You got a problem, man. José is feeding you bullshit.”

“But José makes sense,” Decker said. “Sure, he’s probably handing us some lines, but the story makes sense and the forensics back him up. He’s saying that it’s all you, Martin. You set up everything, and you paid each of your cousins ten grand to do it. It’s all over, Martin. Help yourself out by helping us out.”

Cruces was silent.

Decker said, “How’d you get that kind of money, Martin?”

“José is telling you lies! How many times do I gotta tell you?”

“Why should I believe you when we have your bloody fingerprints, Rondo Martin’s eyewitness testimony against you, and Joe Pine talking like a mynah bird?”

“Rondo’s lying, too. He hates me.”

“The fingerprints don’t lie.” Decker leaned in close. “Martin, I know that you didn’t set this up without help. From the very beginning we knew that you were paid off by someone who wanted to murder the Kaffeys. Someone who had a lot of money. Help yourself and tell us who paid you to do the murders.”

“I didn’t get paid off by anyone. How many times do I have to tell you? I wasn’t there. And I’m gonna keep saying this until you guys let me go.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Martin. We’ve got enough to arrest you on three counts of premeditated murder, which can carry the death penalty. This crime was so cruel that I’m sure a judge would have no problem ordering the needle. Is that how you want it to end?”

“I wasn’t there!”

Decker went at him for another hour, but Martin refused to budge. If this had been going on for eight hours prior to Decker’s questioning, how likely was it that he was going to crack?

Patience, patience.

Decker suddenly recalled a police seminar he had about ten years ago. The lecturer spoke about a shrink who had been a master hypnotist. Sometimes instead of fighting the induction, the head doctor would incorporate the patient’s resistance in part of the induction. So what would it hurt if Decker just played along with Cruces’s lie?

“All right,” Decker said. “You weren’t there, okay?”

Cruces narrowed his eyes and stared at him. “That’s right.”

“You were not there. Rondo Martin was mistaken, Joe Pine was mistaken, the fingerprint was wrong, you weren’t there.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay.” Decker nodded. “I believe you.”

There was a long pause. Cruces said, “Good.”

Decker said, “You know why I believe you?”

“Why?”

“Because we’ve been questioning you for a long time and you keep coming up with the same sentence. You weren’t there. I have to ask myself: why would someone keep saying that when the evidence is so overwhelming against him? And the only thing that I can come up with is…it must be the truth.”

“That’s right.” Cruces straightened his spine. “It’s the truth.”

“Okay, you weren’t there,” Decker told him. “But you know some of the people who were there.”

“I don’t know who was there because I wasn’t there.”

“All I’m saying is that you know Joe Pine, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And you know Esteban Cruz and Gordo Cruces. They’re your cousins, right?”