Salvation in Death (11 page)

She knew all about them. She had her own.

But gentle with women, she remembered. Kind, compassionate, protective. Not their fault, that was the line. Mother, sister, young lover. She’d bet the rest of the damn doughnuts it would turn out to be one of those connections.

One connection, she mused, would lead to the next. And they would lead to a name.

Initial task complete. Data displayed. Continuing secondary
 
task.

“Good for you.” Eve moved over, sat, and began to scroll and read.

Satisfied, she copied the data as an addendum to Mira, added it to her report, then printed out the image and its usage in duplicate. She took one out to drop on Peabody’s desk. “Gang tat.”

“The Soldados.”

“Soldiers. A badass gang forming just before the Urbans, and holding together until about a dozen years ago—though they’d lost a lot of steam power before that. That was their tat, and what Lino had removed before he came back here. There were some offshoots of Soldados in
New Jersey
, and in Boston, but primarily, this was a
New York
gang, turfed in Spanish Harlem. Their biggest rivals, internally, were the Lobos, though they supposedly had a truce during the Urbans, and absorbed the Lobos thereafter. Externally, they went to war regularly with the Skulls, for territory, product, and general pissiness. If you had the tat and weren’t a member, you’d be dragged before their council, beat to shit, and they’d remove the tat for you. With acid.”

“Big ouch. Odds are our vic was a Soldado.”

“Safe bet. And he died on his home turf. Gang initiation could start as early as the age of eight.”

“Eight?” Peabody puffed out her cheeks. “Jesus.”

“For full membership—which included the tat—ten was the cutoff. And full membership required combat. For the three drops of blood and the knife to be on the tat, blood had to be spilled in that combat. See the black X at the bottom of the cross?”

“Yeah.”

“Symbolizes a kill. Only members with the X could serve on the council. He wasn’t just a member, he was brass. And a killer.”

“So why isn’t he in the system?”

“That’s a damn good question. We need to find out.”

Eve went to her commander. Whitney rode his desk like a general. With power, prestige, and combat experience. He knew the streets because he’d worked them. He knew politics because they were necessary—evil or not. He had a dark, wide, and weathered face, topped by a short-cropped swatch of hair liberally salted with gray.

He didn’t gesture for Eve to sit. He knew she preferred to stand.

“Lieutenant.”

“The St. Cristóbal’s case, sir.”

“So I assumed. I’ve been speaking with the Archbishop. The Church isn’t pleased with the publicity, and are put off by the disrespectful manner the primary investigator on the case had employed to gain information.”

“A man poses as a priest for several years, and is killed while performing Mass, it’s going to alert the media. As for disrespectful manner, I requested dental records. When the red tape starting winding, I cut through it. Those records confirmed that the man in the morgue is not Miguel Flores.”

“So I understand. The Catholic Church is a powerful force. Tact can and does grease wheels almost as often as threats.”

“It may, Commander, but tact wouldn’t have gotten me those dental records in an expedient manner. The Archbishop may be red-faced that some imposter played priest under his nose. Exposing that deception doesn’t add to the embarrassment.”

Whitney sat back. “That, of course, depends on your point of view.”

Eve felt her back go up, but maintained. “If you feel my actions and methods have been improper—”

“Did I say that? Off the high horse, Dallas, and report.”

“The unidentified victim was, as reported previously, killed by potassium cyanide, which had been added to the wine used during the funeral mass for Hector Ortiz. This wine was contained in a locked box, but was easily accessed by any number of people. To refine that number, identifying the subject is key. To that end, my partner and I have interviewed the vic’s associates and close friends.

“During autopsy, Morris detected the signs of a professionally removed tattoo, as well as old combat wounds and reconstructive facial surgery. The lab has just reconstructed the tattoo.”

She put a copy on Whitney’s desk. “It’s a gang tat,” she began.

“The Soldados. I remember this. I remember them. I scraped up what was left of a few in my time, locked up a few others. They haven’t been around in a decade. More. Before your time, Lieutenant.”

“Then you know what the tattoo symbolizes.”

“A full member, with at least one kill. The victim would have been very at home in Spanish Harlem.”

“Yes, sir. The medal I found was inscribed to Lino. We’re working on getting baptism records from the church. I also believe he may have had a close female friend or relative who was abused sexually as a child.”

“Why?”

She told him, quickly, concisely. “These factors indicate this individual would have been in the system at some point. As a gang member, it’s hard to believe he wasn’t brought in at some time, that his prints and/or
DNA
aren’t on record. But we took both from the body, and we haven’t hit a match.”

Whitney puffed out a breath. “Any minors who were members, and who were not convicted of any crime that entailed sentencing, had their records expunged. Clemency Order, 2045. An order that was overturned in 2046.”

“Even so, sir, the records should still show prints and
DNA
, even if the record was cleared.”

“Not cleared, Lieutenant. Wiped. There is no record for minors who didn’t do time. Those who did, those records are sealed, that would be flagged. I’d say your vic was a minor w C war mho benefited from the Clemency Order. If he dodged the system after that, you won’t find his prints or
DNA
through our records, or IRCCA.”

Well, that was a pisser, Eve thought as she stalked her way back to Homicide. Some bleeding hearts worry about the city’s street rats, and their solution is to pat all the good little murdering, illegals-pushing, gang-raping gangsters on the head and say, “Go sin no more?”

Now she had to dig through reams of
possibly
relevant data to find information that should have been at her fingertips.

Lino had a name, and she was damn sure his killer knew it. Until she did, he’d be John Doeing it at the morgue.

Then there was the real Miguel Flores. She had to ID the vic to have any real hope of finding Flores, dead or alive. He was dead, of course, every instinct told her. That didn’t mean he didn’t matter.

The more she found out about the victim, the more Miguel Flores mattered.

She stopped at a vending machine, scowled at it. “Give me grief, I dare you.” She jammed in her code. “Tube of Pepsi, and stuff your damn contents and nutrition value.”

It coughed out the tube, then a tinkle of music. She continued to stalk away as the machine sang out the current Pepsi jingle.

“It’s enough to make you go thirsty,” she muttered, and turning, nearly ran over Father López. “Sorry.”

“My fault. I wasn’t sure where I was going, so wasn’t watching where I was going. I’ve never been here. It’s . . . big.”

“And loud and full of very bad people. What can I do for you?”

“I have the records you asked for.”

“Oh. Thanks. I could’ve come up to get them.” Or you could have e’d them, she thought.

“I . . . Actually, I wanted to get out for a bit. Do you have a few moments?”

“Sure. My office is around the corner. Ah, do you want something?” She held up the tube and nearly prayed he’d say no. She didn’t want to risk the machine again.

“I wouldn’t mind some coffee. I’ll just—”

“I have some in my office,” she told him as he stepped toward a machine.

She led him down the hall, into the bullpen where Jenkinson snarled into a ’link, “Look, you fucking shit-weasel asshole, I get the intel, you get paid. Do I look like some fuckhead sitting here jerking off? You don’t fucking want me coming down there, cocksucker.”

“Ah,” Eve said. “Office. Sorry.”

López’s face remained serene. “You neglected to add ‘colorful’ to your ‘loud and full of very bad people.’ ”

“I guess. How do you take the coffee?”

“Just black’s fine. Lieutenant . . . I brought the baptismal records.”

“So you said.”

“And I intend to give them to you before I go.”

Eve nodded. “That would make sense.”

“I’m doing so without authorization. My superiors,” he continued when she turned with the coffee, “while wishing to cooperate with the investigation, of course, are also cautious about the . . . backlash. And the publicity. They informed me they’d take the request under advisement. Advisement often means . . .”

“Just this side of never?”

“Close. I accessed the records myself.”

She handed him the mug. “That makes you a weasel. Coffee payment enough?”

He managed a soft laugh. “Yes, thank you. I liked—Lino. Very much. I respected his work, and his energy. He was my responsibility. I feel I can’t understand this, or know what to do until I know who he was, and why he did what he did. I have to counsel my parishioners. Answer them when they come to me upset and worried. Are we married? Has my baby been baptized? Have my sins been forgiven? All because this man pretended to be a priest.”

He sat, sipped. He lowered the mug, stared. Then sipped again, slowly. A flush rose to his cheeks. “I’ve never tasted coffee like this.”

“Probably because you’ve never had actual coffee. It’s not soy or veg or man-made. It’s the deal. I’ve got a source.”

“Bless you,” he said and drank again.

“Have you seen this before?” She took the print out of the tattoo, offered it.

“Oh yes. It’s a gang tattoo; the gang’s long disbanded. Some of my parishioners were members and still have the tattoo. Some wear it with pride, some with shame.”

“Lino had one. He had it removed before he came here.”

Understanding darkened López’s eyes. “So. This was his place. His home.”

“I could use the names of the people you know who have this tattoo.” When he closed his eyes, Eve said lightly, “There could be more coffee.”

“No, but thank you. Lieutenant, those who lived through those times and aren’t in prison are now older, and have work, and families, have built lives.”

“I’m not looking to change that. Unless one of them killed Lino.”

“I’ll get you the names, the ones I know or can learn. I’d like to have until tomorrow. It’s difficult to go against the authority I believe in.”

“Tomorrow’s fine.”

“You think he was a bad man. Lino. You believe he may have killed Flores to put on his collar—taken his name, his life. And yet you work like this to find the one who took Lino’s life. I understand that. I believe in that. So I’ll do what I can.”

As he started to rise, Eve spoke. “What did you do before you became a priest?”

“I worked in my father’s cantina, and boxed. I boxed for a time, professionally.”

“Yeah, I looked that up. You won your share.”

“I loved the sport, the training, the discipline. The feeling I’d get when I stepped into the ring. I dreamed of seeing big cities and fame and fortune.”

“What changed your mind?”

“There was a woman. A girl. I loved her, and she loved me. She was beautiful, and so unspoiled. We were to be married. I was saving money, nearly every penny I could from the matches I won. So we could marry and have a place of our own. One day, when I was training, she walked from her parents’ home toward town, to see me, to bring me lunch. Men—three men—saw her, and they took her. We searched for two days before we found her. They left her by the river. Strangled her. They’d raped her first, and beaten her, and left her naked by the river.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“I’d never known hate like that. Even bigger than the grief, was the hate, the rage, the thirst to avenge her. Or myself. How can we be sure? I lived on that hate for two years—that and drink and drugs, and whatever dulled the grief so the hate could stay ripe.