“Can’t you at least tell me whether or not you were able to identify her?”
“No, I cannot,” the woman said. “Both the police and the family have asked us to keep anything involving her case confidential, pending investigation of the incident that put her in here. For all I know, I’ve already breached that confidence just by opening my big fat mouth.”
“So you do know who she is. You just said ‘family.’”
She scowled at him. “See what I mean? I think we’re done here.”
With this, she turned away and disappeared behind her office door.
Vargas knew this had been a long shot. You didn’t often run across medical professionals willing to risk their careers to help make life easier for a reporter, but he’d had to try. And at least he knew that the American woman had been identified.
The logical next step would be to contact the Albuquerque police, but it sounded to Vargas as if they weren’t likely to be cooperative, either.
His only choice, he decided, was to call in another favor and hope he got a better reception this time.
Several years ago, he’d done a story on a grisly string of murders stretching from California to Nevada and struck up a friendship with a Las Vegas homicide cop by the name of Jennings-the guy who had told him about the “itch.” After suffering a devastating loss, Jennings had flamed out and retired, then wound up doing half-assed magic gigs at a local casino to feed his gambling habit.
Jennings had an ex-wife in the LVPD and a lot of connections, and was one of the few people Vargas knew who hadn’t condemned him to his ignore list. In fact, when Vargas’s humiliation went public in a very big way, Jennings had sent him a card with a joker on front and a one-line message scribbled inside:
YOU’LL SOON BE DRAWING ACES.
That hadn’t happened quite yet, but Vargas knew that Jennings would help him if he asked. And a call to the Albuquerque police from one of their Southwest brethren was likely to receive more attention than a visit from Vargas. Short of that, Jennings was bound to have a connection with access to just the right database. He’d always been a master at getting things done.
So Vargas went outside to his car, checked his cell phone’s address book again, and dialed.
After several rings, the line came to life. “Hey, hey, Number Two, it’s been a while.”
Jennings called Vargas Number Two because they shared the same first name and because the first time they met, Vargas was “just another reporter come to take a dump on the cops.”
When that turned out not to be true, a friendship and a nickname were born.
“I need a favor,” Vargas said.
“So what else is new? Give me a minute or two to win this hand and I’ll get back to you. I just went all in.”
“You’re a brave man.”
“Tell that to my ex. In the meantime, I’m putting you on hold.”
Vargas heard the line click and waited.
A minute or two later, it came to life again and Jennings said, “I just won a monster pot, my friend, so you caught me in a good mood. What do you want and who do I have to kill to get it?”
“No killing necessary,” Vargas said, then gave him just enough details to convince him to help.
There was a pause on the line. “You sure this is something you want to get involved in?”
“No choice at this point,” Vargas said. “I’ve gotta know who she is.”
“Sounds to me like you’re developing a crush on the victim.”
“Hardly. I just found out she’s alive.”
“Yeah, and I’d lay odds your hardened little heart skipped a beat or two when you did.”
“Are you gonna help me or give me grief?”
“Both,” Jennings said. “The bad news is, nobody’s all that anxious to talk to a broken-down ex-cop. But the good news is that I know a couple of Albuquerque major-crimes investigators who still owe me a favor. Maybe I can get one of them to pony up.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
“Yeah, that’s me, hombre. Mr. Reliable.”
54
The detective’s name was Pasternak, an old-school Jack Webb clone, crew cut and all, a just-the-facts- ma’am kind of guy you wouldn’t want to meet on the wrong side of a nightstick.
He looked about as at home in a Starbucks as a bulldog at a Japanese tea ceremony.
“Jennings tells me you’re a good guy,” he said.
They were sitting at a corner table, nursing cups of coffee, Pasternak black, Vargas cream and sugar. Vargas didn’t particularly like Starbucks coffee, but Pasternak had chosen the meeting place. It was several blocks away from the Albuquerque police station, and Vargas figured the chances of running into one of Pasternak’s colleagues was unlikely.
Which, he supposed, was the point.
“But I just want you to know,” Pasternak continued, “that that don’t mean jack to me. I learned a long time ago to make my own judgment about people. So until I know what your interest in this case is, you ain’t gettin’ squat.”
“Jennings didn’t tell you?”
“Just enough to pique my curiosity and get you an introduction.” He sipped his coffee. “So what’s on your mind?”
Vargas cut straight to it. “Mexico.”
“And what exactly does that mean?”
“I just got back from Juarez. That’s where your vic was shot the first time.”
Pasternak stared at him. “The first time?”
“Come on,” Vargas said. “You’ve done the ballistics, talked to the medical examiner. You know she was shot three times, by two different guns. And since the third one was a head shot, I’m guessing she still hasn’t made much of a statement.”
Pasternak tried and failed to hide his surprise. “Know about head wounds, do you?”
“My brother was shot point-blank by a gangbanger when he was seventeen. He was never the same again.”
“Tough break.”
“Especially the part when he killed himself fifteen years later.”
Manny had led a tortured life for those fifteen years. Unpredictable motor functions, slurred speech, a diminished IQ. No more ghost stories. No more smiles. A lonely man who had decided that life just wasn’t worth living. So about two and half years ago, he had repeated what the gangbanger had done, and got it right this time.
Not that Vargas could blame him. As low as he himself had gotten after the suicide, he couldn’t even imagine the shit his brother had been going through.
But then this wasn’t the time and place to be dwelling on such things, was it?
Apparently Pasternak didn’t think so, either.
“So tell me,” he said. “Do we have a leak in the department or are you getting your information from somewhere else?”
“If you had a leak, we wouldn’t be talking. And, believe me, there’s a lot more.”
Pasternak stared down at the dark liquid in his cup, taking a moment to process this.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m on the hook. What do you want from me?”
“Just the basic facts of the case.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all I really need.”
“You’re a cheap date,” Pasternak said. “Maybe Jennings was right about you.” He took a sip of the coffee.
