Manuel Contreras posed in the spartan interview room, chest puffed up and his thick arms crossed in defiance. Gang tattoos laced up his neck from under his black shirt and painted a toxic camouflage that proudly displayed the gang member’s hatred. That hate was presently focused on the uniformed officer who stood at the door.
Penley opened the door and tossed a notepad on the table.
“Mr. Contreras, I see you’re wearing black. You in mourning for Daniel Cardozo?” John asked.
“What the fuck you talking about?”
“Cardozo was killed this morning,” John said.
“So I hear.”
“Who’d want to punch his ticket?”
Contreras shrugged and said, “Could be a long list. Danny pissed off a lotta people over the years.”
“You on that list?”
“Nah. Since the dude got out of the pen last year, he ain’t been into nothing but his wife and daughter. Damn shame. His little girl got real sick. Some kind of cancer, they say.”
“So you and the other Norteños picked up his slack?”
The gangbanger shook his head. “All I’m sayin’ is that his head wasn’t in the game no more. He was still one of us. He did his part over the years. Nobody affiliated with the West Block Norteños had nothin’ to do with his death.”
“Who’d stand to gain by his death?”
“Like I said, he ain’t been in the game. He went back to prison for a bullshit weapons beef, and while he was behind walls, his little girl got bad. Nothing he could do but watch her get worse from the prison visiting room. I’m sayin’ when the dude hit the streets, all he did was take the kid to doctors’ appointments and shit.”
“Anyone think Cardozo wasn’t pulling his weight?” Penley asked.
“Nah, it wasn’t like that. Danny was a hardcore dude from way back. Nobody—and I mean nobody—questions that.” Contreras leaned back in the chair, his thick arms tensed.
Penley changed course. “You mentioned his daughter. Cancer treatment’s not cheap.”
“You talk about gangs—damn doctors are a gang, extorting people for money they don’t have. They promise one more treatment or some new surgery—if you can pay for it. How is that right? A dude like Danny, he got no insurance, and it’s like no pay, no play.”
“How did he pay the medical bills?”
“We take care of our own. We took up collections, held fundraisers in town, that kind of shit.”
“By fundraisers, you don’t mean taking down a liquor store?” Penley asked.
“No, man. Danny got respect from everyone, and people willingly gave for his kid’s cancer treatment. We collected twenty-two thousand for the girl. No one complained. Danny even did some jobs on the side to pay his kid’s bills.”
“What kind of jobs?” Penley asked.
Contreras shrugged. “I dunno, that’s just what I heard.”
“What about people he came up against before he went to prison?” Penley questioned.
Contreras thought for a moment. “There may have been a couple who didn’t like what Danny had to say.”
“Got any names for me?”
“Nah, ain’t my style. But I can tell you who had it out for Danny—the city attorney and the West Sacramento chief of police. They made up all kinds of shit to scare people into getting that gang injunction passed. Anyone who got beat down, they said it was us; anyone who got robbed, they blamed us; and anyone who got themselves killed, we got the heat. We’d have to be a thousand deep to pull off all the shit they tried to lay on us.”
“With Danny out of the picture, you have complete control now, right?” John asked.
“You sound like one of them organized crime cops from the feds. If there was anything to control, Danny wasn’t at the wheel no more. It ain’t up to me who fills his shoes.”
“Who would want him dead?”
Contreras locked eyes with Penley. “I honestly don’t know. You’d better find out before I do.”
“Where were you between midnight and six this morning?”
“Don’t try and lay this one on me.”
“Answer the question.”
“Man, from ten o’clock last night until you guys dragged me out of bed this morning, I was home. You know the gang injunction curfew says I can’t be in no public place after ten.”
“Where was Cardozo?”
“How should I know?”
“When did you see him last?”
Contreras shifted in his seat. “Danny left my place about eight last night.”
“What did you guys talk about? Did he say where he was going after he left your place?”
“Mostly, we talked about his kid. It was ripping him up. She wasn’t getting no better, and the doctor bills kept coming. Dude said he might have a way to take care of her and had a big score lined up. He was on his way to the job when he left my place. I guess his little girl ain’t gonna get no help now.”
“You don’t have any idea what kind of job he was talking about?” Penley pressed.
“Nah. He was quiet about that kind of stuff. He didn’t tell me nothin’ about what he was doing, but I got the feeling that he was on to something—something big, you know. It was like he found gold.”
A sharp rap on the door announced the arrival of Joseph Morrison, the on-call attorney representing the West Block Norteños when their various criminal endeavors fell apart. Morrison’s gray-flecked beard reminded Penley of a barnyard goat, especially when the lawyer chomped away on a wad of gum as he did now.
John patted his phantom cigarette pack and felt the letdown of the nicotine gum container. Not that he could sneak a smoke in a public building; the cigarette pack was a touchstone, a security blanket.
“Mr. Contreras has nothing to say to you, Detective.” The attorney put his pricey briefcase on the table between Penley and his client, a leather-bound barrier of legal protection.
“We were having a friendly discussion about the life and times of Daniel Cardozo,” Penley responded.
“And dude was just getting to the part where Danny was up to no good,” Contreras said to his attorney.
“That’s enough, Manuel,” Morrison said to his client. He turned to Penley. “What are you charging him with? I’ll remind you that the terms of the gang injunction apply in Yolo County, not over on this side of the river.”
“We found the body of one of your clients on the Sacramento side.”
“Mr. Contreras has no knowledge of that.”
“We were about to find out,” Penley said.
“Are you charging him with murder? With anything?”
“No.” Penley shook his head.
“Then we’re done here. Mr. Contreras, let’s go.”
The gang member stood and started out the door behind his attorney. He paused and said, “You’d better find him. Danny was a respected man. This could get out of hand if you don’t get whoever done this.”
Morrison turned and grabbed his client by the sleeve. “That’s it. Don’t say another word until we get in the car.”
“Dude deserved better than this. It ain’t right what they did to him,” Contreras complained as he pulled away from his lawyer’s grip.
“I can’t help him unless you tell me who ‘they’ are,” Penley said.
“I dunno who, but Danny was one tough dude who could handle himself. It had to be a setup, a trap.”
“That, or someone he thought he could trust,” Penley added.
“It better not be that, or someone else will be floating in the river,” Contreras said.
The attorney jerked on his client’s arm once more and pulled him from the room. Morrison’s face flushed with anger. “Give him a reason to lock you up, why don’t you?”
Contreras pulled free from Morrison and walked ahead. Morrison turned toward Penley and said, “Leave my client alone. You have anything further, you come to me, understood?”
“What do you know about Cardozo’s murder?” Penley asked the attorney.
The rate of gum chomping increased, and Morrison said, “If I knew anything, attorney-client privilege would bar me from telling you. In this instance, I assure you that Daniel Cardozo’s death was not gang related. If someone inside the family did this, it would be tantamount to suicide. Even their wives and children would be green-lighted for retaliation.”
“Nice family.”
“It is what it is, Detective. You need to find another angle, is what I’m saying.”
Penley watched the attorney catch up with his client down the hall, and the duo disappeared around a corner.
Penley found a dead end as far as the street gang connection was concerned. He had to admit the desecration of Cardozo’s body didn’t carry the usual hit-and-run characteristics of a gang killing. The body dump was calculated and purposeful. Disposing of a well-known gangbanger out in the open was bold. The killer could take anyone anywhere and wasn’t concerned about the police. He wasn’t going to stop.