The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [56]
“What’s up?”
“I just got word that I need to be in Staten Island ASAP. You think you can handle Gallegos by yourself?”
“I guess,” I said, resting my forearm on the roof of his car.
He leaned over a little farther to get a better angle on me.
“You sure? You look kind of beat this morning. No offense.”
“I didn’t get a lot of sleep. And I had to tell Claire and Kate about Alex before they heard about it somewhere else. They were both pretty upset.”
“I bet,” he said, shaking his head. “What about you?”
“I don’t know.” I was grateful he didn’t ask if I’d also told them about the Kyle e-mail. I hated keeping things from Claire. Our relationship was initially built on the idea that we were a nation of two, without secrets. But Kate’s revelation and my conversation with Claire in bed had rocked me. I couldn’t risk upsetting her further until I had a better sense of how to respond. “I feel like I could use a stiff drink.”
“One of the first things you learn as a rookie cop on patrol—if you feel like you need a drink, take one.”
“Great,” I said, laughing despite myself. “That makes me feel a lot better about our police force. Any update on Alex or the missing hard drive?”
“Not that I know of, but I’m not sure I’d hear. His father has everybody from the mayor down on eggshells. I’m betting the coroner rules it an accident unless they turn up a note, and maybe even then. Families tend to resist suicide verdicts.”
I understood how Walter must feel. It would be horrible to think your child was so unhappy that he deliberately took his own life.
“So, listen,” Reggie continued. “Gallegos. Don’t go barging in with a bunch of questions about his brother-in-law or he’s likely to just clam up. Get him talking about himself first, and then work your way toward the subject when he seems comfortable.”
“Is that from the police handbook?”
“Yeah,” he said. “And if that doesn’t work, smack him in the kidney with your nightstick.”
“Fifty percent of my job is getting people to talk to me. I’ll be okay.”
“Try and find out as much as you can about the car, the motel, and the hooker. How often Carlos used it, where he usually went, and whether he was in the habit of picking up working girls. Also, if he had any enemies that Gallegos knew about.”
“The cops must’ve asked those questions the first time around.”
“The file’s pretty skinny on what Gallegos had to say. I’m a little curious about that.”
A bus pulled up behind Reggie’s car and blasted its horn. Reggie hit the switch to activate the red emergency lights in his rear window and waved it around. I could read the obscenity on the driver’s lips as he wrestled with the oversized steering wheel.
“You, too, buddy,” Reggie said, watching the driver in the mirror. “And one more thing, Mark. Make sure to ask Gallegos his opinion about what happened. It’s a question that a lot of detectives tend to forget.”
• • •
The smell of bacon greeted me as I pushed the diner door open. The interior was long and narrow, with ten or twelve booths to the left of a central aisle, and an old-fashioned lunch counter to the right. It was about half full. A sullen, purple-mascaraed cashier was perched on a stool next to the entrance, the tendrils of a ragged spider plant trailing into her hair.
“One?” she said, reaching for a menu.
“I’m supposed to be meeting a guy named Mariano Gallegos. You know him?”
She snapped her gum and led me toward the rear of the restaurant. A man wearing a light brown suit and a maroon tie was seated in a booth, facing in my direction. He was pudgy, with a weak chin and thinning hair, and looked to have about ten years on me. He half stood as I approached and extended a hand.
“Mark Wallace?”
“Nice to meet you.”
We shook hands and sat down.
“I know who you are and what you do,” he said rapidly, fidgeting with a fork. “Pardon my saying so, but I think you’ve made a mistake. I’m a commercial attaché. I deal with contracts. Everything