Outside, Freddy Munoz turned to Hauck as soon as they got to the parking lot. “What the hell was going on in there?”
It wasn’t adding up to Hauck either.
“Why does a guy who’s on the hook for fifteen to twenty in a federal jail laugh in our faces like we’re a couple of high school bus monitors? What was it he said? ‘When I’m out of here you can come to me, if you’re still trying to put two and two together…’?”
Vega didn’t need any help. From any of them.
“You know what I’m thinking, Freddy? I’m thinking we can look for a year for some kind of connection between Josephina Ruiz and DR-17 and we’re never gonna find it. Because it’s not there. Vega was doing a favor for someone. He knows he’s never going to face those charges. The man’s protected. That’s what that act was about.”
Someone had needed someone killed, and they used DR-17 to do the job.
That’s why they shouted out “Josephina” at the scene. Why they left the newspaper article in the truck for them to find.
The whole thing was set up to only look like a retaliation.
“We’re looking under the wrong manhole cover. Who the hell wipes away a sheet like that? Who gets accorded that kind of protection?”
They stood there staring at each other from over the car.
“Jesus, Lieutenant, the guy’s a CI!”
A confidential informer. Or people were in bed with Vega—the right people.
Hauck smiled. “Which one of us is supposed to be the high-priced honcho here, Freddy?”
Freddy slid behind the wheel. Hauck climbed in next to him, his mind racing with thoughts he didn’t much like. They’d have to look at everything, he realized. Everything. Not just DR-17 or Josephina Ruiz, but who it was aimed at. Sunil. Sanger. Two plus two… Who the real target was that morning.
Munoz started up the engine. “Something else my mother always says, Lieutenant…”
“And that’s what?”
“She says, ‘I don’t like it when people cover me up in shit and tell me that it’s gonna make me grow.’”
Hauck looked at him. “That doesn’t sound at all like your mother, Freddy.”
“No,” the detective said, pulling out. “You’re right. That one’s me.”