Chapter 11 - A VOICE FROM NINETEEN YEARS AGO
Luis Marron chose the meeting place.
An abandoned marine supply office on a pier in Red Hook.
Park hated it.
"Too many exits."
Mateo said, "That's why he picked it."
"I wasn't asking you."
"You keep saying things near me."
Park looked at me.
"Why did I allow him to come?"
"Because Luis called him."
"Wrong answer."
"Because if you don't, he'll come anyway and badly."
Mateo nodded.
"That is fair."
Park pinched the bridge of her nose.
Luis arrived twenty-seven minutes late.
He was seventy now.
Thin.
Gray.
Walking with a cane.
I remembered a thick-necked man who could carry two fifty-pound cash bags without changing his breathing.
Time humiliates everybody eventually.
He stopped when he saw me.
"Daniel."
"Luis."
"You got old."
"You started first."
His laugh became a cough.
Park frisked him.
No weapon.
Mateo stood by the window.
"Say it," I told Luis.
He looked at Park.
"Police?"
"Detective Lena Park."
"Then no."
He turned to leave.
Park said, "Mr. Marron, you requested contact regarding a suspicious death."
"I requested Mateo."
"And Mateo requested me."
Luis glared at him.
Mateo shrugged.
"We're old. I make healthier choices now."
Luis sat.
His cane rested between his knees.
"Arturo Cordova told me to follow Elena."
No introduction.
No excuses.
Just the sentence.
Park started recording.
"Date?"
"October fourteenth, 2007."
"Purpose?"
Luis looked at me.
"Scare her."
My stomach hardened.
"How?"
"Stay on her bumper. Let her know she was being watched. Arturo wanted her to miss a meeting."
"What meeting?" Park asked.
"Didn't know then. Federal, maybe."
"Were you instructed to cause a crash?"
"No."
"Did you?"
Luis's hands tightened around the cane.
"I followed too close. Rain got bad. She sped up."
"And?"
"Another car cut between us."
I looked at Mateo.
"Your car?"
Mateo shook his head.
Luis said, "Dark Buick."
"Who drove it?"
"Didn't see."
"What happened next?"
"Elena took the ramp too fast. Hit the barrier."
The room disappeared around me.
I saw the hospital where a doctor had told me she was dead.
I saw baby Renata asleep in my sister-in-law's arms.
I heard myself asking the same question until the answer stopped changing.
Accident?
Accident?
Accident?
Park's voice brought me back.
"Did you stop?"
Luis looked down.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I was a coward."
That answer carried nineteen years inside it.
"Who cleaned it up?"
"Marcus."
"How do you know?"
"He called before police even reached me."
Park leaned forward.
"What did he say?"
"Go home. Burn your coat. Forget the car."
"And the Cordova fleet sedan?"
"Crushed two days later."
"Who ordered that?"
"Arturo."
I finally spoke.
"Why are you telling me now?"
Luis looked at me with watery eyes.
"Because I saw your girl on television."
"You had nineteen years."
"I know."
"You could've told me when Elena died."
"You would've killed Arturo."
"Maybe."
"Not maybe."
I had no answer.
Luis continued.
"Then they would've killed you. Or locked you up. Your daughter would've lost both parents. I told myself silence protected her."
"Did it?"
He looked at the floor.
"No."
The word sounded smaller than what it covered.
Park asked about the Buick.
Luis hesitated.
"I found out later who owned it."
"Who?"
"Vale Crisis Management."
Marcus.
I stared at him.
"Marcus was there?"
"His company car was."
"Was he driving?"
"I don't know."
"Who would?"
"His assistant back then. Woman named Nora Keene."
Park wrote the name.
"Alive?"
"Last I heard."
Mateo pushed off the wall.
"Luis, what aren't you saying?"
Luis's face tightened.
"Nothing."
"You always rub your thumb when you lie."
Luis looked down.
His thumb was rubbing the cane handle.
"Talk," Mateo said.
Luis breathed out.
"Elena wasn't just meeting prosecutors."
I felt something cold move through me.
"Who else?"
Luis looked at me.
"She was meeting a divorce lawyer."
For several seconds, I heard only gulls outside.
"No."
"Daniel—"
"No."
"I saw the card in her hand when she left a building the week before."
I looked at Park.
She did not rescue me from the information.
Good detective.
Terrible person to have nearby when your marriage changes nineteen years after your wife dies.
Luis continued.
"Maybe it meant nothing."
"Stop helping."
He nodded.
Then footsteps sounded on the pier outside.
Park drew her weapon.
Mateo moved away from the window.
Two uniformed officers appeared.
Park lowered the gun.
"What is it?"
One officer looked at Luis.
Then at us.
"Detective, we need Mr. Marron to come with us."
"Why?"
The officer's face was grim.
"His apartment was searched this morning."
"By who?"
"Unknown."
"Anything taken?"
"We don't know."
He hesitated.
"But someone left a body in his bedroom."
Luis's face collapsed.
"Who?"
The officer checked his notes.
"Nora Keene."
The woman who might have been driving Marcus Vale's car the night Elena died had just been murdered.
And her body had been placed inside the home of the man who finally talked.
---
(To be continued)
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