Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

with just a hint of triumph. She gave me the nod, and I went out with her. In the hallway, I said, “How’s Chema coming?”

“He’s nervous. What about Carlitos?”

“He’ll crack in the next half hour. Let’s put some pressure on him. Give me five minutes. Then come in and ask if I can help you take a statement.”

She smiled and I went back in. I sat opposite him.

“It’s hard to get a lawyer at this time of the morning. You should do your drug deals at a more sociable hour.” He didn’t answer. After a while I asked him, “Were you wearing gloves when you handled those packages? It’s good stuff—gasoline!” I drummed the table. “Your pal wasn’t well up on the law. He thought he was going down for two to five. When my partner explained that with his record of violence he was looking at anything from eight to thirty, I tell you, he turned a whiter shade of pale. But you, you’ve managed to avoid arrest till now. You’re a smart cookie, right? So you’re looking at what, eight, with good behavior out in two or three years…”

The door opened and I turned to look at Dehan. She said, “Boss, can you help take a statement?”

Carlitos said, “This is bullshit…”

Outside, Dehan said, “I think we got them. Chema’s sweating so hard he’s going to dehydrate.”

“Okay. Give them fifteen to sweat, and then we’ll hit them with the homicide. You want a coffee?”

She followed me to the machine, and I got two espressos. We held each other’s eye for a long moment while we sipped. I said, “What if it wasn’t him?”

She shook her head.

Fifteen minutes later, I went back in. Carlitos looked pale and sick.

“Where’s my fockin’ lawyer, man?”

I looked real serious and sat down. I gave him a moment to assimilate that my expression was telling him something bad. He said, “What the fuck, man?”

“Carlos, did you know Nelson Hernandez?”

He stared at me. “I want my fockin’ lawyer!”

I watched him. “I have to tell you that we have received information that places you at the scene of his murder, and that of Dickson Rodriguez, Evandro Perez, José Perez, and Geronimo Peralta.” I shook my head. “Quintuple, premeditated homicide plus castration and decapitation. Carlos, you go down for this, you are never coming up again.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I can’t talk to you unless you sign a waiver, but from what I hear, Chema…”

“What is he saying? What is that mother tellin’ you?”

“Well, I hope he’s telling us the truth. And I hope your lawyer is worth waiting for.”

Dehan opened the door and said, “It’s ready.”

I stood, and Carlitos said, “Wait!”

I said to Dehan, “Come on in.”

I pulled the waiver from my inside pocket and put it in front of him. He read it and signed it. As he wrote, he was shaking his head.

“Okay, I hold my hands up to the deal, man. I’m gonna cooperate and tell you what you want to know. But I did not have nothin’ to do with Nelson’s death.”

Dehan sat down. “Bullshit.”

“She’s the bad cop,” I said.

He looked at her, and you knew that was the way he looked at all women. Then he turned back to me.

“You want to know who killed Nelson and his motherfockin’ primos? It wasn’t me. We was gonna whack him the next fockin’ week. He was goin’ around talking’ about how he was in with the fockin’ Ángeles. He married his bitch with a ceremonia del infierno. He was challenging the Chinese, the Mob, makin’ a fockin’ war, tellin’ everybody we was gonna back him up. Su puta madre! His fockin’ mother was gonna back him up!”

Dehan said, “So you killed him.”

“You ain’t fockin’ listening, bitch!”

I said, “Watch your mouth.”

“I’m tellin’ you. We was gonna whack him the next week. Somebody got to him first. Saved us the trouble. Chavez was sending a pro from Mexico. He was gonna do the job clean, go back home, no problem.”

I shook my head. “That’s not what Chema is telling us.” It was true. Chema wasn’t telling us a goddamn thing. Carlitos threw his hands in the air. “Then he is fockin’ lying, man! Let me ask you a question. How much money went missing from Nelson’s place, huh?” I watched him, but I didn’t say anything. He went on, “Is okay, you don’t gotta answer. Now let me ask you another question. How much coke, H, and dope was left behind, huh? You think, in my hood, I’m gonna shoot fuckin’ Nelson and his cousins, and I’m gonna walk away and leave fifteen Ks of coke and two Ks of heroin and ten Ks of weed so the fockin’ cops can help theirselves to it? You think I’m that fockin’ stupid?”

I sat staring at him for a moment. He knew he’d made his point, and I knew he knew it. It was the same argument Dehan and I had made to ourselves. But I kept repeating Holmes’s principle to myself over and over: “when you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.” It was improbable, but it was all we had left.

He said, “You want to know who killed Nelson? I’ll tell you. Mick fockin’ Harragan killed him. And I bet you know that already, but you tryin’ to pin it on me to let your pal off the hook. Nelson had stopped payin’ him. Nelson told him he was washed-up. He told him no more money, no more coke, no more Latina bitches for him. So he killed him, stole the money, tried to frame the Mob and the Chinks, and left town. You know I’m tellin’ the fockin’ truth, man.”

We left him to stew and went to talk to