The man didn’t answer. Cruz went on easily. “It’s not like you’re admitting to anything we don’t already know. The gun’s in the evidence room right now.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So,” Madeline interjected, “we’d like to know where you got it.”
Stover snorted derisively.
Cruz turned to ask the officer, “Did he have papers for it?”
The man shook his head. “We didn’t find any.”
“So if you don’t have papers-” Cruz addressed Stover again “-you got it from someone on the street. We want to know who.”
The prisoner looked at his lawyer. “They offering me a deal, or what?”
Powell looked at Cruz and Madeline. “Detectives?”
Cruz shook his head. “That would be up to the D.A. But if you cooperated with us, I’d make sure it got on the record, so things could go easier for you at sentencing.”
Stover crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “If you ain’t got nothing to deal with, don’t waste my time.”
“Do you know Victor Ramirez?” Madeline inquired. The man shook his head and she continued. “How about Tyson Greene?” Another shake. She named off each of the victims of the drive-by shootings, and each time the man responded negatively.
Cruz stared at her in surprise. She wasn’t consulting any notes, and he couldn’t help but be impressed. As far as he knew, she hadn’t heard any of those names before she’d read them in the file today. The lady must have one hell of a memory.
“What you have in common with those boys, Mr. Stover,” Madeline continued in a hard voice, “is that you were caught using a weapon like this-” she indicated the picture “-and each of them was shot by the same kind of gun. We’re interested in that coincidence.”
The man’s eyes widened. “What! You can’t pin them shootings on me, too.” His head swiveled to his lawyer’s. “They can’t, can they?”
“Do you have any evidence to suggest a link between my client and any of these other shootings, Detective?” Powell asked.
Madeline replied smoothly, “Not yet, but we’re just getting started. The point we’re making is that your client has information we can use to nail the supplier of these weapons. If he doesn’t want to cooperate with us, fine. But then we’d have some free time to fill. And we might use that time to check up on his alibis for each of these shootings. That’s assuming, of course, that he has alibis.”
“Go ahead,” Stover invited in an insolent tone. “You guys are just fishing. Think I don’t know that?”
“Detectives, I’d like a couple of minutes to confer with my client in private,” Powell said finally.
Madeline, Cruz and Officer Lee stepped out of the room. “Do you really think there’s a link between Stover and those shootings?” Lee asked them.
Cruz shrugged, looking at Madeline. “Do we?”
“Who knows? None of the shooters have been identified yet. But if Stover thinks we’re going to try to hang him for some other crimes as well, he might be more likely to talk.”
That didn’t turn out to be the case. When they reentered the room Powell brusquely informed them, “My client has no knowledge of the shootings you mentioned. And he isn’t going to answer any more of your questions. If you manage to work something out with the D.A., he might have some information of interest to you regarding the person who sold him the gun.”
Officer Lee escorted Stover back to his cell, and Madeline and Cruz walked out.
“How much pull do you have with Brad Jacobs, the D.A.?” she asked.
Cruz shook his head as he guessed her reason for asking. “None, and even if I had some, it wouldn’t be enough to convince Jacobs to give up a high-profile, sure conviction just to help our investigation.”
“Maybe he would,” Madeline argued. “After all, if Stover could help us nail the supplier, that would be an even bigger fish for Jacobs to prosecute.”
“The operative word here is ‘if.’ But if you want to give it a shot, I’ll talk to Ritter about suggesting it to him.”
They were moving through the station house now, and both were intent on their discussion. Madeline didn’t even notice a man standing nearby until she heard him call out, “Hey, Romeo.” Cruz didn’t miss a stride, although she turned her head to look at the man curiously.
“Martinez! I’m talking to you.” The man stepped in front of them, halting their progress.
“What do you want?” Cruz’s voice was emotionless.
The man Cruz addressed smirked. He was almost as tall as Cruz, and his thin brown hair was slicked back. “You weren’t going to leave here without saying hi to your old buddy, were you, Detective?”
Madeline’s eyes bounced back and forth between the two men, mystified. Something was going on here; the undercurrents of animosity were evident.
Cruz said sardonically, “Yeah, sure,
The other man’s smile slipped a notch. “Nobody who didn’t deserve it. But then, I never did shoot anyone who didn’t deserve it, did I?”
Cruz struck so quickly that Madeline didn’t even see him move. One minute he was standing motionless beside her, the next he had the man by the shirt, pushed up against a nearby wall. “Stay out of my face, Baker,” he said in a soft but deadly tone, “or I’ll rearrange yours.”
A long second crawled by. Baker must have sensed the same danger that Madeline could feel emanating from Cruz, because he kept his mouth shut. Slowly Cruz loosened his grip and moved away.
When they were a safe distance from him, Baker called after them loudly, “Better watch that temper of yours, Pretty Boy. It wouldn’t look good for you to get hauled in on assault charges so soon after your promotion. People might get the wrong idea. Or should I say, the right idea?”
Madeline started to turn once more to look at the man, but Cruz grasped her elbow, guiding her inexorably through the maze of desks and out the front door. Once outside she pulled free. He walked quickly down the steps toward the car. She followed more slowly, trying to assimilate this new facet of his personality. She knew as well as anyone that a person couldn’t be judged by surface charm. Duress always brought out well-hidden, sometimes darker sides of their personalities. But even knowing that, she couldn’t help but be stunned by the suddenness of his fury. There was much, much more to this man than his easy manner and glib charm would suggest.
She got into the car and adjusted her seat belt. Cruz threw one arm across the back of the seat and turned his head to back out of the parking place. His gaze met hers.
“Friend of yours?” she asked blandly.
His face was expressionless. “Yeah, we’re real close.”
“Who is he?”
She didn’t think he was going to answer, he was silent so long. Finally he replied, “Detective Gerald Baker.”
Madeline realized she’d just witnessed firsthand the reason for his initial reluctance to interrogate Stover. He must have known Baker was stationed here, and wanted to avoid the possibility of encountering him. The preliminary file she’d read on Martinez had included the reason for his animosity toward the man. But he would expect her to wonder about the scene she’d witnessed, so she asked, “How do you explain Baker’s devotion to you? Did you donate a kidney for him or something?”
One side of his mouth quirked. “Or something,” Cruz agreed as he navigated the car through the congested downtown traffic. “He shot me.”
Her stomach clenched at the terse words, despite her prior knowledge of the incident.
Cruz explained, “I was working undercover at the time. Baker was with the transit police then. I’d busted a white-collar drug ring operating out of a train terminal, but one of the perps took off. I chased him through the building and I saw Detective Wondercop. I identified myself as a police officer, but he ordered me to stop. When I continued the chase, he shot me. The perp,” he added wryly, “got away.”
“So… he thought you were a crook?” Madeline had no doubt that, undercover, Cruz Martinez could look like a very dangerous customer indeed.
