part0013

The salmon came and we ate in silence for a while. Then Dehan surprised me by saying, “George Allen is not the guy.”

I glanced at her and returned to my salmon. “I have to agree.”

“So, that leaves, of Alvarez’s suspects, Campbell and Vargas, and of course Golam Heitz who we haven’t spoken to yet. I’m guessing you noticed in the file Allen gave us...”

I nodded. “I did. She went several times to the Mescal. Vargas wasn’t running it back then, but he frequented it, like all the Cabras . The private eye didn’t mention him by name, but I’m pretty sure he’s in the pictures with her at the door, leaving. We can get the lab to enhance them.”

She gave her head a small shake as she pressed a cracker and salmon into her mouth. “Be cam, bu’ dash him.”

“We can but that’s him?”

She nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“So that connects Vargas with three of the victims, Claire Carter, Margaret Allen and Maria Ortiz. But we have no connection with Olga Hernandez, Sharon Lipschitz or Mary Campbell.”

She wagged her knife at me across the table.

“You said something yesterday which struck me as important.”

“Keep this up and you’re going to make me blush.”

“Yeah, right. You said that it felt like there were two people at work in these killings. One who painted her and tried to redeem her, and another who brutally destroyed her. What if, and I am shooting the breeze here, but what if there actually were two killers?”

I shrugged my eyebrows. “It’s not unheard of, but we need more than my feelings to go on...”

“Yeah, sure, but what if one of those killers was a man whose whole purpose in life was to redeem, and save souls? What if that man had a congregation? And what if the other killer shared something crucial with this redeemer: a deep, violent, misogynistic streak? What if they both hated women, but where one wanted to destroy them, the other wanted to save their souls?”

I leaned back in my chair, chewing my lip.

“That is a very compelling idea, Dehan. We haven’t a shred of evidence, but it is a powerful idea.”

She laid another piece of salmon on a cracker and eyed me a moment.

“It goes further. If both of them were at work, that duality would give them the objectivity to plan the murders in such a way as to leave red herrings and misleading patterns to confuse the cops.”

“They would be able to talk to each other and plan, and get as much of a kick out of confusing the cops as they did out of killing the women.”

“Exactly. And if those women were connected in some way with the congregation, they would not hesitate to open the door to a preacher.”

I nodded for a bit, looking at the angles.

“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have a couple of problems here. The first is, how many women do you think Campbell attracts to his church? My money is on not many. And following from that, we have no indication whatever that Olga Hernandez and Sharon Lipschitz were ever anywhere near Campbell’s church.”

“True.” She stuffed the last piece of salmon in her mouth and chewed, watching me across the table. “But,” she said, and swallowed, “we should explore the relationship between Vargas and Campbell to see if there is one, and we should also try to find out if those women were ever at his church. Let’s face it, Stone, all six women are linked somehow to Mommy’s Boy. If we find what links those women, we must find the killer, or killers.”

“That link might be the church, or the axis of the church and the Mescal Club. A truly unholy alliance.”

“Punishing women they deem to be whores.”

My phone rang and I pulled it from my pocket. It was the chief. I tried to catch Dehan’s eye, but she was gazing at the black glass of the dining-room windows, pierced by small lights from beyond.

“John, where are you?”

“In Rochester, sir. We’ve been talking to George Allen.”

“Why, the man had a watertight alibi...”

A stab of irritation made me interrupt him.

“He also had information he had never given to Alvarez. Information which might have an important impact on the case.”

There was a moment’s silence, then he said, “I see, well, good. Good. When will you be back?”

I was about to tell him nine in the morning, thinking we could rise at four. But watching Dehan across the table I said, “Lunchtime. It’s a five-and-a-half-hour drive.”

“I see. Fine, fine… Jose has agreed to talk to us. But he says he’ll only talk to you and Carmen. Try and get back as soon as you can. Good work, John. As always.”

“Jose has agreed to talk.”

“That’s good news.”

The waitress came and took away our plates. Another brought us our steaks and told us to enjoy them. We ate in silence for a while, until I laid down my knife and fork and said:

“You want to come off this case?”

“No.” She said it, then shook her head.

“At least until we know for sure, one way or another.” She studied me across the table while she chewed. I went on. “You could work from the station, looking at the alibis. If I need backup I could take Olvera. We should keep you out of harm’s way.”

We ate a little more in silence and she said, “Joe is going to tell us something about Vargas. It will either incriminate him in our investigation, or it will provide us with information we have to hand over to the Feds. Either way I want to be a part of that. And I want to know if Campbell is involved. If he’s not I want to know who is. I can’t do that sitting at a desk, Stone. It will drive me crazy.”

“You know a lot of stress and trauma can affect the baby, even in the first few weeks.”

Her face softened into a smile.

“Stone, don’t get your hopes up. I’m just a couple of weeks overdue. I may not be pregnant at all.”

“The baby could be born with a hideous birthmark.”

“Shut up!” She laughed.

I smiled. “OK, but tomorrow you phone to make an appointment with Doctor Kelly. If the test is positive, we have to keep you out of harm’s way. Agreed?”

She nodded. “Agreed.”

We arrived back in the Bronx at half past noon and went straight to the 43rd . We briefed the chief on what Allen had told us. He said he’d spoken to the DA and to the Feds and they were willing to cut a deal with Jose. So we spent half an hour inspecting the file Allen had given us from his private eye, and had Jose brought up from the holding cells.

When we went in to talk to him he looked nervous and drawn, like he hadn’t done much sleeping in the last twenty-four hours. I sat at the table opposite him and Dehan leaned against the wall with her hands in her pockets.

I said: “So, what have you got for us, Jose?”

“I’ll give you Vargas and Vargas’s boss. I can tell you where they get their H, their blow, their weed and their pot. I can tell you who supplies them and who distributes for them. And I can tell you where and how it comes across the border. I can name names, man. I can tell you who Vargas has killed and who he’s had killed, and who his sicarios are. Him and his boss. But you gotta give me immunity. I need a guarantee from the DA, and I need to get on the witness relocation program, man, because my life won’t be worth shit.”

Dehan snorted. “It’s not worth that now, smartass. It stopped being worth that the day you joined the Cabras .”

“Hey! Don’t give me a hard time, man. I’m cooperating here. If you ain’t gonna give me immunity, what the hell am I doing here?”

I leaned back in my chair and gave him the dead eye.

“Relax, Jose. You have your immunity. But the information has to be enough to bring Vargas down with his organization. Is it that good?”

“I can tell you everything.”

“I’m guessing you don’t want to use your attorney.”

“Juan Mendez? You gotta be kidding me.” He shook his head. “The Chupacabras own that guy. He does everything for them, from concealing evidence to money laundering. Nah, you need to appoint me a lawyer, man.”

I nodded and glanced at Dehan. She said, “I’ll tell the chief to call the DA and get a counselor.”

“But hold off on the Feds.”

She left the room. I opened the file Allen had given me and pulled out the photographs taken outside the Mescal Club and laid them out in front of him. He frowned.

“Recognize any of these people?”

His eyes took in my face with quick, darting movements.

“What are you trying to do? Is this a trap or something?”

“No, Jose. You have your immunity. Your lawyer is on his way and the interview is being recorded. I just want you to tell me if you recognize any of the people in these pictures.”

He hesitated. “Yeah, that’s Nelson.” He looked a little closer. “Juanito, Leandro...”

“OK, but that is Nelson Vargas?” I pointed at him in the picture.

“Yeah, man. That’s him.”

“How about this?” I pointed at Margaret Allen. “Who’s she?”

He stared at the picture a while, then frowned a bit.

“Yeah, I recognize her. But that was three, four years ago, maybe more. She came to the club a few times. Nelson liked her. She was different, you know? Not like the chicks that usually hang out at the club. She had more class.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “Nothing happened. She stopped coming to the club. That’s it. Why have you got photographs of her?”

“He ever sleep with her?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“She ever turn him down? How come they stopped seeing each other?”

He spread his hands and shook his head. “I don’t know, man. She just stopped showing up. That’s all I know. What’s the big deal?”

“Is Nelson religious?”

“We don’t usually talk about that shit, you know? Most of us are Catholics, and we all know we’re going to hell. So we don’t talk about it.”

“Has he ever talked about religion? You ever heard him?”

The door opened and Dehan came in. He watched her sit down and I repeated the question.

“Has he ever talked about religion in front of you? Have you ever heard him talk about his religious beliefs?”

“Yeah, OK, yeah he has. He says he’s a Satanist. But I think that’s just like a pose.”

“Has he ever mentioned women in the context of religion?”

“Women? Like the Virgin Mary?”

Dehan said, “Or Eve, Mary Magdalene… The question is a simple one, Jose. Has he ever talked about his opinion of women in relation to religion?”

He thought about it for a while. Eventually he pulled down the corners of his mouth and shrugged.

“I guess. He says, like, that women are inferior, weaker, more stupid, with no integrity. He uses that word. He likes that word. He reckons women are like an inferior species.”

Dehan took a deep breath and sighed heavily. “Does he go to church?”

“What’s the big deal with religion and women? I thought you wanted him for...”

I snapped, “Just answer the question, Jose.”

“I never seen him go to church, but that don’t mean he don’t go. Most Sundays I go to church with my mom and my sister. So I don’t know what he does. He don’t go to the same church as me, anyhow.” He screwed up his face. “But it’s not a big deal. You know what I’m sayin’. Guys in the Cabras got all the chicks they want. We don’t talk a lot about women. Or religion.”

I slipped a piece of paper across the table to him. On it I had written the names of the six victims.

“You ever hear him talk about these women?”

He ran his eyes over the list.

“Maria, Maria Ortiz. He liked her. She was like a whore, but not a street whore. You know what I mean? She had like regular guys who would go see her. She was nice. I wanted to see her, but she had a rule, no Cabras . She had a place on East 151st , South Bronx, over the Huaxciaxtla eatery.”

Dehan asked him, “So how’d he take it when she told him no?”

He laughed. “You don’t say no to Nelson, know what I’m sayin’. You say no to Nelson he gonna cut you. He’s a crazy son of a bitch. I seen him cut a guy’s face off for tellin’ him he don’t wanna do something.”

“So what did he do?”

“He told her he was gonna go over there and do some bad shit to her.”

“And did he do it? Did he make good?”

He looked down at the table and shook his head. “I don’t know. I know she was killed after that, but I dunno if it was Nelson who done it. Usually, when he iced someone, he would talk about it. It was prestige for him. That made him higher in his standin’, you know what I’m sayin’? It was like he had more respect, the more people he killed. But he never said nothin’ about killing Maria.”

I pointed to Claire Carter’s name. “How about her?”

“He was talkin’ about some white bitch he wanted to screw. He said she was a whore, had some kind of club. Nelson likes fat women, and he said she was fat. Like Maria. Maria was fat too. He’s always sayin’ how a man needs a big woman. Some shit like that.”

“So what happened with this white woman?”

“I dunno, man. He jus’ stopped talkin’ about her.”

I pointed to the rest of the names. “None of these others mean anything to you?”

“Maybe Olga Hernandez. But that’s a pretty common name. Might not be the same one.” He frowned. “Wait a minute… Olga died too. Wait, these are the girls. I remember now. These are the girls who was killed by that freak.”

I held his eye. “I want you to think very carefully, Jose. Did Olga Hernandez have any contact with Nelson?”

His jaw dropped and he flopped back in his chair. “Oh, man! Oh, holy shit, dude. You cannot be serious! Nelson? ”

I gave him a moment. His eyes searched the ceiling. He shrugged.

“Man, she was in the hood. She was Colombian, real sweet, you know? Colombian chicks got a special thing. She lived over a mission or a chapel or some shit on 149th and Courtlandt. I don’t know if he knew her. She had a kid. She was big too, real fun, party chick. She wasn’t with the Cabras , but she was around. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Dehan asked, “You never saw them together or heard him talk about her?”

“No, man. I can’t believe you’re trying to pin, what was his name? Them murders, that was five years ago, man. You tryin’ to pin that on Nelson?”

“I have one more question for you, Jose. Do the names James Campbell and Mary Campbell mean anything to you?”

He blinked a lot and looked around the room, at the walls and the ceiling.

“Campbell? Jim Campbell? That the preacher?”

Dehan said, “Yeah, how do you know about him?”

“Yeah, Nelson gone and seen him a couple of times. Not to his service, but private. He gets deep sometimes, and he sometimes says that a warrior needs a spiritual path, especially when he gets older. Like the Samurai, know what I’m sayin’? When you do a lot of killing and cruel shit in your life, you need a spiritual path to balance that. I get what he’s talkin’ about. I can see that.”

“So you’re telling us that Nelson sought out Campbell as some kind of spiritual guide, or guru?”

“He never talked about it. But I know he went to see him a few times. Me, I prefer Zen, and Tao and that shit.”

There was a knock on the door and a uniform leaned in.

“Chief says the Assistant DA is here, Detectives.”

I gave him the nod and he went away. I turned back to Jose and slipped a piece of paper across the table to him with a pen.

“I want the name and the date of every woman Nelson ever killed.”

“Every woman. You don’t care about the dudes?”

“The Feds will ask you all about that, and they are the people who are going to save your skin. But before I hand you over to them, I want to know about every woman Vargas ever killed, or threatened to kill.”

He shrugged. “Well, that’s easy, man. You already named her. That was Maria Ortiz. Apart from her I don’t know no more bitches he might have killed. You ask me about rape, bitches he give a slapping to, then I’m gonna need more paper, know what I’m sayin’? But kill? Nelson killed dudes, dudes who stood in his way, dudes who wanted trouble with him. Those dudes he wasted. But women...” He shrugged again.