46

“When is Ortiz arriving in New York?” DeMarco asked.

“This evening,” Justine said.

“We need to put him someplace where Fields can’t find him.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve reserved a room for him at the Howard Johnson’s in Soho. I’ll have a cop meet him at the airport and—”

“I’ll meet him,” DeMarco said. “I want to talk to the guy. I want to see if he’ll admit that Fields made him leave the city.”

“I don’t know,” Justine said. “I don’t want to lose this guy as a witness.”

“Justine, we have no evidence that Ella Fields has done anything illegal. But if Ortiz will admit that she—”

“Joe, my priority is convicting Toby Rosenthal, not Ella Fields. If Ortiz admits that Fields bribed him to leave, then the judge might not allow him to testify.”

“Only if you tell the judge,” DeMarco said.

“Or if Ortiz is worried that he can go to jail for taking a bribe, then I don’t know what he’ll do. Maybe he’ll split again. So I don’t want to do anything that makes him change his mind about testifying against Rosenthal.”

“Okay, I hear you,” DeMarco said. “But I still think I’m the one who should pick him up. We want to minimize the number of people who know where he’s staying before the trial. We can’t take a chance that Fields might locate him and do something to him.”

“Yeah, all right,” Justine said, and she gave him Ortiz’s flight information.

DeMarco hated to lie to Justine—well, maybe he didn’t really hate it—but he was going to question Edmundo Ortiz. He wanted to know what Fields had done. He wanted proof that Fields had done something. And after the Rosenthal trial, if he could convince Ortiz to testify against Fields, he was going to find some way to track her down and have her arrested for witness tampering. Ella Fields had become his white whale—and he was going to bag that whale.

DeMarco met Edmundo Ortiz in baggage claim at JFK. He was a small guy—five five or so, with graying dark hair and a thick black and gray mustache—but one of those small guys who looked as if he could bench-press three times his weight. Edmundo Ortiz had done nothing but hard work all his life.

DeMarco explained that he worked for the DA’s office, and started off by telling Edmundo that the state of New York was very grateful that he had come back to testify at Rosenthal’s trial.

“I’m just doing my duty,” Edmundo said, but he didn’t sound proud. He sounded nervous—and maybe guilty.

DeMarco explained that he was taking him to a hotel and that Edmundo would stay in the hotel until the trial. He said that the ADA would meet with him before the trial and go over his testimony but that other than that, he could just relax.

“Think of this as a vacation,” DeMarco said. “Eat room service, watch TV, swim in the pool. But you can’t leave the hotel. Okay?”

Departing the airport terminal, DeMarco asked, keeping his tone casual, “What were you doing out in Alaska?” Edmundo had flown in from Anchorage.

“I’m a cook on a fishing boat, a crab-fishing boat. When the ship docked at Anchorage, I called the lady, the prosecutor, and told her I needed a ticket to fly back if she wanted me to testify.”

“A crab-fishing boat. Wow. I’ve heard that can get pretty hairy sometimes. I mean if you have a storm or something.”

“It wasn’t too bad, at least not so far this year. It’s a good job.”

“How’d you get the job?”

Edmundo paused. “A friend told me about it. I applied.”

DeMarco felt like making a buzzer sound. Lie!

DeMarco didn’t ask anything else while they were in the cab. At the hotel, as Justine had told him, Edmundo had a reservation under the name “Manuel Rivera” and the bill was charged to a city credit card that Justine used. His room was nothing fancy: queen bed, no view, no minibar, small TV. DeMarco hoped he wouldn’t go stir-crazy inside the room.

“Now,” DeMarco said, “I gotta ask you something, Mr. Ortiz, and you need to be straight with me.” He took a photo of Ella Fields from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and said, “Did this woman make you leave New York so you wouldn’t testify at Toby Rosenthal’s trial?”

Edmundo studied the photo for a long time—time he was most likely using to decide what he planned to say. “No. I have never seen her before,” he said.

Lie! DeMarco hammered away at him for the next ten minutes, saying how it was good that he was willing to testify but it was important to know if someone was tampering with witnesses. DeMarco didn’t threaten him and he didn’t treat him like a criminal; he just kept saying how important it was to do the right thing, just like it was important that he tell the truth at Rosenthal’s trial. He emphasized how much he admired him for being willing to take time off from his job, fly all the way from Alaska, but as good as all that was, he needed to say if the woman in the photo had coerced him in any way.

DeMarco couldn’t budge him. Edmundo wouldn’t look him in the eye; he just kept shaking his head and softly saying, “No, no, she never talked to me.”

DeMarco finally gave up. He told him again that he needed to stay inside the hotel until the trial, and this time Edmundo asked him why.

“For your own protection,” DeMarco said. “You’re an important witness in a murder trial and, well … Just stay in the hotel.” He could see that he was scaring him and he thought: Good. Let him be scared.

DeMarco went to the hotel bar, ordered a beer, and spent a few minutes mulling over where things stood. Then he called Justine.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” he said. “Who’s the better witness, Rachel Quinn or Edmundo Ortiz?”

“Quinn, of course. For one thing, Quinn actually saw Rosenthal shoot DiNunzio. Then there’s the fact that Quinn, being a lawyer herself and having a better command of English than Ortiz, will be better able to handle Slade’s cross-examination. Plus, if you go back and look at statements they both made when they were first interviewed and at the lineup, Quinn was more positive about ID’ing Rosenthal.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” DeMarco said.

“Why are you asking this?”

“I think it would be smart to watch Quinn until the trial. As long as no one knows where Ortiz is except you and me, he should be safe enough. But Quinn …”

“Quinn lives in an apartment with a doorman and her office in the Financial District has more security than I do here at the courthouse.”

“But when she’s not in her office …”

“Do you think Fields will try to kill Quinn?” Justine said.

“I don’t know,” DeMarco said, and he reminded Justine of the witness in Minnesota who’d been killed in a so-called hit-and-run accident.

“Come on, DeMarco, we’re not dealing with the Mafia here,” Justine said.

“People like David Slade and Ella Fields are a lot brighter than the Mafia guys I’ve encountered, and Toby Rosenthal’s father has money coming out of his ears. So I think they’re a bigger threat than your average wiseguy. We need to keep Rachel Quinn under surveillance until the trial, and that means I’m going to need some help. I’ll pick her up when she gets off work today and make sure she gets home okay, but I can’t watch her twenty-four hours a day. On top of that, keep in mind that I’m not carrying a gun.”

“Okay, you watch her today and put her to bed, and I’ll get somebody to help you tomorrow.”

“Good,” DeMarco said.