I reviewed the jackets of six felons who worked at RailGears and were hired directly by Carlos Aragon. Most had past records of robbery and burglary. There could be a connection to the thefts by Manny and Brad, but without police reports filed by the women robbed, I wasn’t confident that I could connect any of those men to their operation. Also, I didn’t want to stray too far from the subway killer investigation, which weighed heavily on my mind. I would discuss it with Lutz, but I thought the robbery investigation would be better served by that department. My intentions were to press Carlos for information then pass it on to our robbery division.
I took the jackets with me and knocked before entering Lutz’s office.
“Come on in, Jesse. What have you got?”
“A problem that I don’t want to get too deeply involved in.”
He cocked his head. “Let’s hear it.”
“I haven’t spoken to Carlos Aragon yet, but my gut tells me he’s somehow involved in the hooker robberies.”
Lutz pulled a sheet of paper and a pen from his desk drawer. “What’s your theory?”
“There are six felons who work at RailGears. Sure, they’ve done their time, but for felons, getting hired for decent-paying jobs is difficult. What if Carlos was aware of Manny’s side business, turned a blind eye, and hired those felons as long as they worked alongside Manny in the robberies and gave Carlos a percent of their action.”
Lutz frowned. “You mean, the I scratch your back if you scratch mine kind of scenario?”
“Possibly. The problem is, most hookers won’t file a police report because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. Those robberies could be widespread throughout the city, and nobody is even talking about it. Hell, I’ve never heard about a rash of late-night robberies targeting hookers.”
“I haven’t either.”
“If Leslie hadn’t been murdered, and we hadn’t had the opportunity to search Brad Risack’s apartment, we wouldn’t have found all those purses. There could be a real robbery epidemic going on right under our noses.”
Lutz doodled alongside his notes. “So what do you want to do?”
“I’ll question Aragon. He’s culpable to a degree in getting Brad Risack and Manny killed. He lied to police and impeded our investigation.”
“True enough.”
“I’ll see what he gives me, and then I want to pass it off to Robbery or Vice. It isn’t our responsibility to follow up on those crimes, but I won’t sweep them under the rug either. Even though those ladies are involved in illegal activities, they don’t deserve to be robbed, and they sure as hell don’t deserve to be murdered for their money.”
“Okay, see what you can get from him, and then I’ll have a talk with the robbery division commander.”
I pushed back the chair and stood. “These jackets are for you in case you want to discuss details with Robbery. I have my own copies that I’ll present to Carlos.”
I returned to the bullpen and called our jail wing. I wanted Mr. Aragon taken to an interrogation room, and Frank and I would head down in five minutes.
As I carried the copies of the police reports under my arm, Frank and I made our way downstairs. We entered box one and took seats across from Mr. Aragon. He stared at the folders as I placed them on the table.
“What are those?”
I opened the top folder. “Bargaining chips.”
“I don’t follow.”
Frank took over. “Do you know what obstruction of justice means?”
Carlos shrugged. “In my case, no.”
I looked at Frank and shook my head. “I don’t get how playing stupid is supposed to give him a pass.” I turned to Carlos. “Yes, you did say you wanted to speak to your company’s attorney yesterday, but you also blatantly lied when you said you didn’t recognize Manny. He’s your nephew for God’s sake, and because of your lie, he and his roommate are dead.”
Carlos began to perspire. “Can I have some water and a tissue?”
“In a minute. First, I’m going to read off these names to you, and then you can tell us what they all have in common.”
Carlos wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
“Ready? John Cole, Bruce Lindman, Kyle Jobs, Derrick Walters, Stanley Finch, and Joseph Alvarez.” I stared Carlos down until he looked away. “Well?”
“I don’t recognize the names.”
I slapped the table so hard my palm stung. “We’re going that route, Carlos? Okay, time to read you your rights. Stand up so I can cuff you. You’re under arrest for obstruction of justice and impeding a criminal investigation. I’ll make sure to charge you for the deaths of Brad and Manny too.”
“Wait! Can I look at the employee folders? Maybe reading the applications will refresh my memory.”
“You’ve got ten minutes, but after that, everything I was prepared to offer will be taken off the table.” I jerked my head toward the door. Frank and I left Carlos alone and entered the observation room, took our seats, and turned up the audio.
Frank crossed his arms and leaned back. “Now to see if he thinks out loud.”
I glanced at my watch. “And he only has eight more minutes.”
We heard a dozen or more curse words and watched him wring his hands multiple times, and he wiped his brow too.
“His time is up,” I said.
We reentered the room. “Time’s up, Carlos. What’s it going to be?”
“What are you offering?”
“You’re looking at three to five years behind bars, and that’s a sweet deal if I do say so myself.”
Carlos sneered at me. “I doubt if you’d think it was sweet if you were on the receiving end of it.”
“That’s the difference between you and me, pal. I uphold the law, and you have no regard for it. You tell us something about Manny’s robbery club and who’s involved in it, and if your story pans out, we might be able to reduce your time in the slammer. If not, then you can sit in gen pop with like-minded criminals.”
“Fine. Those guys worked with Manny, and I gave all of them jobs in exchange for five percent of everything they took in.”
Frank scratched his brow. “My question is why? You gave them all legitimate money-paying jobs.”
“Because I was greedy, and they knew none of the hookers would contact the cops. It was easy money for all of us.”
I stepped out of the interrogation room and yelled for Billy. “Lock him up. We’re done with this dirtbag for the night.”