‘I din’ do nuttin.’
Gabrielle Grey leaned back in her chair and shook her head sadly. Edmundo Ortiz was the same age as her eldest son, but the seventeen-year-old gang member couldn’t have taken a more different path in life. High school was already a distant memory; he’d been in and out of foster care for years. The only real ‘family’ he’d ever had was the hoods he ran with in the Spanish Cobras – a well-resourced, high-profile drugs gang, currently fighting the Latin Kings for power and influence on the West Side.
To Gabrielle, he looked like so many of the angry young men she’d seen tearing up Humboldt Park. The sullen, hooded expression, the tattoos marking gang allegiance, the pants hanging halfway down his ass to denote that he’d done jail time – if he’d ever had a belt it was now the property of the CPD. He was still wearing the black and green T-shirt he’d been picked up in – another marker of his clan loyalty – a small detail which depressed Gabrielle further. During her early years as a communities liaison officer, she’d seen kids in kindergarten colouring pictures of Mickey Mouse in in gang colours – stark evidence of how early the gangs started to warp young minds.
‘I think we both know that’s not true, Edmundo,’ Gabrielle replied. ‘We’ve got you for possession of a firearm, automobile theft, murder …’
‘Not me, man.’
‘That’s not what your buddy says. Pancho is being very co-operative.’
But Edmundo just shook his head.
‘He ain’t sayin’ nuttin.’
He was right, of course. Pancho had confessed to jacking the car, but nothing else. To do more than that would be suicide.
‘Look, it’s your funeral,’ Gabrielle continued doggedly. ‘But I’d suggest you start talking. You got a little sister, right? What’ll happen to her when you’re inside?’
‘She threatenin’ me?’
Edmundo addressed this last question to his attorney, a beleaguered state official who looked thoroughly depressed by the whole affair.
‘She knows better than to do that,’ the attorney replied dolefully.
‘Good, cos she don’ wanna be steppin’ up to me –’
‘And nor should you,’ the attorney continued, staring down his client. ‘We’re just having a friendly conversation.’
‘About a murdered state’s attorney who was found in the trunk of the car you were driving,’ Gabrielle cut in.
‘I never saw the guy, don’ know who he is.’
Unfortunately, Gabrielle did. Dental records had now confirmed that their victim as Jacob Jones, an attorney living in West Town.
‘You’re going to have to do better than that, Edmundo. Because the CPD, the Mayor, and the wider law enforcement community will not rest until someone is charged with this crime. Whoever did this can thank their lucky stars we don’t have the death penalty in this state.’
If Gabrielle was hoping this would be a sobering thought for Edmundo, she was disappointed. The teenager continued to pick at his nails, avoiding eye contact.
‘Look, we can play this game today, tomorrow, the next day, the day after that,’ Gabrielle continued, deliberately dragging her words out. ‘But we’re going to keep coming back to the same problem. The victim was found in a car you were driving. There are no other suspects – it’s just you and Pancho – and sooner or later I’m going to have to charge someone. And when it comes to trial, who do you think the jury will believe? A decorated Chicago police detective? Or a couple of Cobras And the judge – do you think he’s going to be lenient? With the newspapers going crazy, the Mayor talking tough? Whoever did this is going away for the rest of his life.’
Gabrielle stared intently at the young suspect, awaiting his response.
‘Ok, maybe I took the car. Maybe …’
‘’Course,’ Gabrielle responded genially, pleased to finally be making some progress. ‘It was taken from the southern border of Logan Park, a short stroll from your place in Humboldt Park.’
‘I said maybe …’
‘And that’s very sweet, but we have your prints on the driver’s door, on the dash, the steering wheel. I think auto theft is a gimme here, Edmundo, so let’s talk about the rest –’
‘Nah, man.’
‘Where d’you and Pancho take the car from?’
‘Lyndale,’ came the muttered response.
‘West Lyndale Street?’
Edmundo nodded and Gabrielle scribbled a note on her pad. Pancho had also named West Lyndale Street as the pickup site.
‘Did you follow the owner there?’
‘Nah.’
‘Did you attack him?’
‘The lock hasn’t been forced, the windows are intact. This looks a lot like a car-jacking to me.’
‘It wasn’t locked.’
‘Come on, Edmundo, this is a luxury vehicle. Do you really think the owner –’
‘It wasn’t locked. We’d tried some others first, skipped the ones that had alarms, but this one was easy.’
‘So you just jumped in and drove off?’
‘Sure. Sell that kind of car for ten grand.’
‘Keys in the ignition, were they?’
‘Right.’
‘It sounds nice and easy, Edmundo,’ Gabrielle replied, leaning back in her seat. ‘But I don’t like it. Who told you to do it? Who told you to kill him?’
‘Nobody. How many times you gotta be told? – I don’ know the guy.’
‘The victim was a federal prosecutor, Edmundo. He’s put several of your compadres in prison over the years. It’s all here in black and white.’
Edmundo shifted in his chair, darting a nervous look at his attorney.
‘So, you can see what I’m thinking,’ Gabrielle continued. ‘Payback time …’
‘This is fucked up.’
‘Did you think that we would just let this go? You don’t get to go around wasting state’s attorneys.’
‘You got it wrong.’
‘According to the forensics guys, the car had fresh mud on the tyres. Did you take him somewhere?’ Gabrielle persisted, keeping up her assault. ‘Somewhere out of the way where you could torture him, kill him?’
The question was once more directed at his attorney, but Gabrielle cut in.
‘Let me show you why this isn’t going to go away, Edmundo. Why this is going to play badly for you …’
As she spoke, she pulled the crime scene photographs from a slim file.
‘Jacob Jones was a handsome, successful guy. He had a nice house, a beautiful fiancée … And this is what he looks like now.’
She slid the first photo across the table, but Edmundo turned away.
‘Look at it.’
Edmundo angled a glance at his lawyer, who shrugged uninterestedly.
‘LOOK AT IT!’
Reluctantly, Edmundo dragged his gaze to the awful image in front of him.
‘This is from another angle,’ Gabrielle carried on, sliding another horrific photo across the battered plastic surface. She was watching Edmundo closely – he was sweating and shaking his head.
‘And this is a close-up …’
Had she been expecting a confession? A fervent protestation of innocence? She got neither – for as she pushed the final image towards the suspect, Edmundo Ortiz fainted, sliding off his chair and tumbling on to the hard floor.
Half an hour later, Gabrielle pulled up outside the Jones residence.
The quiet suburban street was now a hive of activity. Crime scene officers traipsed in and out of the house carrying evidence bags, while uniformed officers continued their inquiries on the street. Jones’s broken fiancée, Nancy, would be arriving from San Francisco soon and Gabrielle fervently hoped that she would be able to shed some light on this strange and brutal crime.
‘How’d it go?’
Jane Miller had broken away from the melee.
‘Early days,’ Gabrielle replied evasively. ‘What have you got?’
‘Nothing much in the house – no sign of a struggle, no obvious forensics – but it looks like someone cut the power – the external supply cable was cleanly severed at the rear of the property.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Plus, we have a witness with some potentially valuable information …’
Miller gestured to an elderly woman, flanked by a couple of detectives, standing just across the road.
‘And?’
‘Well, it doesn’t exactly fit with the narrative.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, she says that she was watering her plants this morning,’ Miller continued quickly, ‘when she spotted someone leaving the Jones residence, dropping down from a back window before hurrying away.’
She had Gabrielle’s attention now.
‘Can she describe this person? Clothes, hair, build …’
‘Sure, her eyesight’s pretty good … but you’re not going to like it.’
Gabrielle stared at her, alarmed by her tone, as her deputy concluded:
‘She says the intruder was a tall, teenage girl with long, red hair.’