prints? Have they dusted his apartment for Cantoney’s or Stover’s prints? Maybe their gun sales took place there.”
“I doubt he dealt out of his apartment, but they dusted for Stover and came up empty. I already asked them to see if they could run a match on Cantoney. We’ll know the results tomorrow. Also, cotinued, “I talked to the lab and the gun you found in Cantoney’s apartment had several different prints on it, but none of them were Ramsey’s.”
“That’s a relief, at least,” she said. “Did they get a clear print of Cantoney’s, I hope?”
Cruz nodded. “Sure did. The gun yielded a set of his prints, and it was hidden in his apartment. I doubt they’ll need to use Ricky to testify against him. The case should stand alone on what we’ve got.”
They left then and went out to the car. Madeline was grateful that it was her turn to drive. Fighting the traffic would give her mind something else to concentrate on other than the man riding beside her. She’d gotten very little sleep last night after leaving Internal Affairs. And she was planning to go back there again tonight. Just a few more hours and she should be able to answer several of her questions about Cruz Martinez.
The lead ball in her stomach seemed a permanent fixture these days. It had been impossible to forget, even for a moment last night, just who she was investigating. It was hard to concentrate on her work, trying to compile enough facts that, taken together, might prove damning enough to point the finger at her partner.
It wasn’t only for herself that she dreaded the possibility of having Cruz turn up guilty. The thought of what it would do to his family also haunted her. And the fact that it bothered her so much angered her. Why should she be the one to feel guilty? If Cruz had made his choices without regard to their impact on his family, he was responsible for letting his family and the department down, as well as for putting illegal weapons in the hands of kids. All those involved in the gun supply ring were as guilty as those who’d pulled the triggers.
They arrived at Wynn Construction with only a few words being exchanged between them. The same manager greeted them, but had little more information for them than he’d had the first time.
“Somehow I’m not surprised that you’re back to talk to us,” he grunted, putting down his pen on the stack of paperwork he was filling out. “I should have known that hiring an ex-con was going to get me nothing but trouble.”
“It isn’t the practice of hiring ex-cons that has us interested,” Madeline corrected him evenly. “We’re looking for Valdez, as you know. We have no problem with you or your company.”
The man’s grimace told them what he thought of that answer. “Well, I could have saved you a trip out here. Valdez hasn’t been back since you were here last time. And it’s put us in a real bind, too. We were shorthanded anyway, and now this. I don’t need the aggravation, believe me.”
Cruz did. The man’s face seemed to be bright red all the time. Judging from that and the extra sixty pounds he was carrying, he was a prime candidate for a heart attack. “We won’t keep you very long. We want to question the foreman we spoke to last time, if we could.”
“Don’t suppose I could stop ya,” the man grumbled. “I tell you, hiring Valdez was the worst mistake I made all year. Hell, if I hadn’t gotten a memo from the powers-that-be at Andersen’s about equal-employment opportunities, I would never have considered him at all. The guy was spooky.”
The man’s attitude was making it increasingly difficult for Madeline to keep her tongue. Her eyes resting on the pen he’d dropped on the pile of papers on his desk, she crossed over and picked it up. “Wynn Construction.” She read the logo aloud, then she looked up with a smile as she replaced it. “Everybody’s into advertising, I suppose. Do you have a lot of these?”
The man looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Yeah, they’re all over the place. But after a few months it gets harder than hell to find one. They seem to have a way of walking away, if you get my drift.”
She smiled commiseratingly. “I suppose. You probably have things with Andersen Steel printed on them, too, since it’s your parent company.”
He shook his head. “No need. We have our own name on pens, hats, key chains, the whole nine yards.” He was clearly growing impatient with the time they were taking. “You can find Kurt, the foreman, outside somewhere, checking the equipment. He’s got to go out and inspect job sites in an hour, so don’t tie him up too long, okay?”
Cruz and Madeline left the office and headed across the construction yard to where they could see Kurt near some large earth- moving equipment. “Pretty friendly guy,” Cruz commented as he strolled along.
“He sure wasn’t happy to see us again,” she agreed. But her mind was only half on her own words. She was wondering about what the manager had said about not having anything here with Andersen advertising on it. That contradicted what Stephen Andersen had told them. And it left one question looming in her mind: If Valdez hadn’t picked the pen up here, at work, when and where had he gotten it?
As they approached Kurt, a construction worker in a bright yellow hard hat climbed up onto the huge bulldozer and started it up. The noise was deafening as they grew closer, and they had to shout to be heard.
“You’re back checking on Jose, I’ll bet,” Kurt called to them. “Hasn’t been back to work since the last time you came.”
“We know, we talked to the manager,” Cruz said. “We’d like to speak to the men on the crew that Valdez worked on. Maybe he talked to one of them.”
Kurt shook his head. “I’ve got his crew on the other side of the city. But you won’t get much from them. Valdez kept to himself. He was a good worker, I’ll give him that, but he didn’t talk much. His taking off really put me in a bind, too. I’ve got my hands full juggling several different projects, and I need every guy I’ve got. And if that’s not enough,” he complained querulously, “we’ve run out of steel, and the next shipment isn’t due in for several days.” He broke off then, as the man in the bulldozer cut the engine and climbed down. “If you want, I can write down the address of the place that crew is working, but I still think you’re wasting your time. Just make sure you don’t tie them up too long, okay? We’re on a tight deadline for the project they’re on.”
They spent the next several hours across town at the construction site where the crew was working, questioning each man who had worked with Valdez. But their efforts were in vain, just as the foreman had predicted. None of the men could shed any light on Valdez or his whereabouts. They all agreed that in the short time he’d been there he’d done his job, but hadn’t talked much. No one professed to have had an opportunity for conversation having to do with anything other than work.
When they finished questioning the crew members, they drove to Ricky and Ramsey’s apartment in the projects. A visibly subdued Ramsey let them in. “You heard Dirk was arrested?” Madeline asked him.
He nodded.
“He’s going away for another long stretch, Ramsey,” Cruz said soberly. “And if we hadn’t arrested him, you would have been the one to get put away. He was planning to get your fingerprints on the gun. He would have given you up as the shooter, if the killing had been traced back to him.”
Ramsey looked down. Gone was the sullen bravado he’d sported every other time they’d talked to him. The news had shaken him that was apparent. “I never even seen the gun.”
“Had you heard that Cantoney had gotten it?” Madeline asked.
He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “I knew he was planning to. He talked about it all the time I wasn’t there when he got it, though.”
“Do you have any idea who he bought it from?” Cruz pressed.
Ramsey shook his head. “I never heard no names. All I know is he got it from some guy he had to meet on the docks.”
“The docks?” Madeline frowned.
“That’s what he said,” the boy insisted. “He was in a big hurry that he get it when he did. Otherwise he said he was going to have to wait a couple weeks before he got another chance.”
“You had a pretty narrow escape, Ramsey,” Cruz noted, sending the boy a keen look. “If we’d been too late, it would have been you locked up, not Cantoney. Guess you couldn’t trust Dirk as much as you thought, huh?”
The boy shrugged, frowning.
“Next time you might not be so lucky,” Madeline put in. “Go back to school and steer clear of your friends in the Lords. It’s the only way you can stay clean.”
Driving back to the district headquarters, Madeline asked, “Think we got through to Ramsey this time?”
Cruz shrugged. “The whole thing made more of an impression on Ricky than it did his brother, I’m afraid. I’d hope he’d be smart enough not to trust the Lords again, but I don’t know if he can stay straight or not.”
“With Cantoney in prison, the gang probably won’t be as solid, since there was no clear second in command,”
