snow, deep in the coldest winter in a century, she saw herself on the tip of an iceberg. And all around her in the water were sharks.
The purple bunting was already hung above the main entrance to the precinct when they got back. Of course, business in the house was still being conducted, but the air was somber. On the trip through the lobby to Homicide, Heat noticed that the uniforms wore mourning bands across their shields. Conversations everywhere she passed were hushed and had the odd effect of making the ring of telephones sound louder. Captain Montrose’s office remained empty and dark. There was also a seal on his door.
Detective Rhymer gave her an interval to settle at her desk before he came over. After they shared brief condolences, he handed her a file. “Just came in. An ID of your dude from the park.”
Detective Heat flipped open the cover and a mug shot of the rifleman she had stabbed at Belvedere Castle stared back at her. Sergio Torres, DOB February 26, 1979, was a shoplifter turned car radio thief who did enough jail time to hook up with Latin gangs on the inside. That relationship earned him a few new stretches stacking time for carjacking and assaults. She closed the file on her lap and stared into the near distance.
“I’m sorry,” said Rhymer. “I should have waited.”
“No, no, it’s not that,” said Heat. “It’s just… This is not sitting right. I mean, Torres had no military background. I saw this guy in action. He had skills. How does a gang banger get trained like that?” Her phone rang.
It was Rook trying her again. It must have been his tenth call. And for the tenth time, Nikki didn’t pick it up, because if she did, she’d have to talk about it. And once she did that, it became real. And once it became real, it was all over. And Heat couldn’t afford for it to be all over right now.
Not in front of everyone else. Not while she was going for lieutenant.
“Hey?” said Ochoa. “Timing sucks, but before all this went down I set a meet with Justicia a Garda and they’re here. Want me to try to push it to tomorrow?”
Heat gave it serious thought. No, she had to power forward. Keep paddling or risk sinking. “No, don’t cancel. I’ll be right there… . And Miguel? Thanks for stepping in like that, ID-ing the captain.”
“Before you thank me you should know something,” he said. “The God’s truth? I couldn’t look.”
“Thank you for coming,” said Nikki as she entered the waiting room. She was met by silence. A man and woman, both about thirty, sat across the table from Detective Ochoa, arms folded, without so much as a glance her way. Heat couldn’t help but notice that they also still wore their coats, another nonverbal cue.
As soon as Nikki sat, the woman, Milena Silva, spoke. “Mr. Guzman and I are here as hostile participants. Also, I am not only one of the directors of Justicia a Guarda, I have a law degree, so you have fair warning before you begin.”
“Well, first of all,” began Heat, “this is just an informal meeting…”
“In a police station,” said Pascual Guzman. He looked around the room, clawing fingertips through his Che beard. “Are you recording this?”
“No,” she said. It bugged her that they were trying to run her meeting, so she pressed on. “We invited you here to help give some background on Father Graf, to help us find his killer or killers.”
“Why would we know anything about his killers?” said Guzman. His co-leader put her hand on the sleeve of his olive-drab coat, and it seemed to calm him.
Milena Silva said, “Father Graf was a supporter of our human rights work for many years. He marched with us, he organized with us, he even traveled to Colombia to see firsthand the abuses of our people at the hands of the oppressive regime your government supports there. His death is a loss to us, so if you are thinking we are involved in his killing, you are mistaken.”
“Maybe you should look at your CIA.” Guzman punctuated his shot with a pointed nod and sat back in his chair.
Heat knew better than to level the playing field by engaging in polemics with them. She was more interested in Father Graf’s last hours and, especially, if there was any bad blood in the movement, so Nikki kept to her own agenda. “Father Graf was last seen alive at your committee offices the other morning. Why was he there?”
“We don’t have to share the confidential strategies of our group with the police,” said the woman with the law degree. “It’s a First Amendment right.”
“So he was there for a strategy session,” said Nikki. “Did he seem upset, agitated, acting out of the ordinary?”
The woman fielded that one, too. “He was drunk. We already told your cobista here.” Ochoa’s face revealed nothing at the insult and he remained quiet.
“What kind of drunk? Falling down? Disoriented? Happy? Nasty?”
Guzman loosened the knit scarf around his neck and said, “He became belligerent and we asked him to leave. That’s all there is to know.”
Prior experience told Nikki that when someone declared that that was all there was to know, the opposite was true. So she drilled down. “How did he show his belligerence, did he argue?”
Pascual Guzman said, “Yes, but-”
“What about?”
“Again,” said Milena Silva, “that is confidential under our rights.”
“Did it get physical? Did you fight him, have to restrain him?” When the two didn’t answer but looked to each other, Heat said, “I am going to find out, so why not just tell me?”
“We had an issue-” began Guzman.
Silva chimed in, “A private, internal issue.”
“-And he was irrational. Drunk.” He looked to his companion and she nodded to go on. “We were… passionate in our disagreement. Shouting became shoving, shoving became punching, so we made him leave.”
“How?” She waited. “How?”
“I… threw him out the door.”
Nikki said, “So it was you who fought with him, Mr. Guzman?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” said Milena Silva.
“Where did he go?” Heat asked. “Did he have a ride, get a cab?”
Guzman shrugged. “He went away is all I know.”
“This was about…,” Heat looked at her notes, “ten-thirty A. M. Early to be drunk. Was that common for him?” This time they both shrugged.
“Your organization is well armed back in Colombia,” said Heat.
“We have the spirit to fight. We are not afraid to die, if necessary.” It was the most animated she had seen Pascual Guzman.
“I understand some of your members even attacked a prison and helped Faustino Velez Arango escape.” The pair exchanged glances again. “Yes, I know Faustino Velez Arango.”
“Dilettantes and Hollywood stars pretend to know our famous dissident writer, but who has read his books?”
Nikki said, “I read El Corazon de la Violencia in college.” Ochoa regarded her with an arched brow. She continued, “How much of that.. . fighting spirit… did you bring here?”
“We are peaceful activists,” said the woman. “What use would people like us have for guns and rifles here in the United States?”
Heat wondered the same thing, only not rhetorically. She placed the mug shot of Sergio Torres on the table between them. “Do you know this man?”
“Why?” asked the lawyer.
“Because he’s a person I’m interested in knowing more about.”
“I see. And because he’s Latino and a criminal, you ask us?” Guzman stood and tossed the photo. It fluttered halfway across the coffee table and landed facedown. “This is racist. This is the marginalization we rise up to fight against every day.”
Milena Silva stood, too. “Unless you have a warrant to arrest us, we are leaving.”
Nikki was done with her questions and held the door for them. When they were gone, Ochoa said, “You read El Corazon de la Violencia?”
She nodded. “Lot of good it just did me.”
The remainder of the afternoon she spent using her focus on work to fend off the malaise that had settled
