“Pffft!” Randall snorted. “Every piece a’ garbage killer I ever met says he’s innocent. If we listened to you scumbags, we’d empty out all the jails.”
Diaz glared at Randall angrily but remained silent. Randall clearly would have kept going, but Melanie held up her hand for silence, not wanting to provoke Diaz further.
“It’s natural Detective Walker would be a bit skeptical,” she said, “since a jury convicted you of killing the Flatlands Boys. But we’re very interested in hearing what you have to say about that trial. Like I said, we’re here to listen to your side of the story.”
“Maybe I’m ‘a bit skeptical,’ too,” Diaz said. “I been telling y’all about this trial for years, ain’t nobody listen. It was a fucking frame-up. If you want to hear that, fine, I’ll talk. Otherwise I’m gonna go exercise.”
His air of bitterness and resignation seemed authentic to Melanie. Whether or not what he said was actually true, she was starting to think that at least he himself believed it.
“I can’t speak for anybody else,” she said, glancing pointedly at Randall, hoping he would get the message and keep his mouth shut, “but I assure you I want to hear what you have to say.”
Diaz looked Melanie in the eye searchingly, clearly weighing whether she could be trusted. She looked back steadily, patiently, trying to convey by the openness of her gaze that she would give him a fair hearing. Still he said nothing.
“What did you mean when you said it was a frame-up?” she prompted.
“Aw, come on!” Randall exclaimed.
“Randall!”
“Fucking waste of time. I thought we were here to get some work done!”
“He don’t want me saying nothing!” Diaz practically spit. “He prob’ly know my conviction is bullshit. It’s a fucking conspiracy, is what it is! You know who the main witness was at my trial? You don’t even know, do you?”
“Who?” Her intuition told her something big was coming.
“You heard of this kid Junior Diaz? He go by Slice? Likes to sic a dog on people and then cut ’em up? You ever heard of him?”
“Yes.” A chill ran down Melanie’s spine.
“It was him. You go look at the trial transcripts, you’ll see. He killed the Flatlands Boys, not me. He killed ’em, and then he testified that I did it. The real killer is the one who put me away.”
THE NEWS THAT SLICE HAD TESTIFIED AT Delvis Diaz’s trial shocked Melanie completely. It meant Slice had been Jed Benson’s star witness, had cooperated with the prosecution. That flew in the face of everything she knew about Slice. And not only about Slice, but about Jed Benson himself. Relying on the testimony of a vicious killer like Slice was a dangerous enterprise for an ethical prosecutor. And though the thought that Jed Benson could have conspired with Slice to frame Delvis Diaz seemed impossible to Melanie, nevertheless warning bells went off in her head. She didn’t know enough about her victim. Jed Benson himself warranted closer scrutiny.
“Lemme explain a couple things, ma’am,” Delvis Diaz was saying. “First off, who I am, who I was on the street. I was a drug dealer, a kingpin, real high level and shit. I sold drugs. Dope, mostly, and a little cocaine here and there. I had a real nice organization, back in the day. Killin’ wasn’t my thing, okay? Ask anybody. Step to me and I’ll fuck you up. I won’t have a choice. I’ll have to, to stay strong in the streets. But I was a businessman, and violence is bad for business. Never believed in it.”
“Every other scumbag like you says the same thing,” Randall interjected with exaggerated disgust. “Admit to the drugs but not the murders. Sometimes a jury is stupid enough to believe it. But they got it right with you.”
“Randall, please!” Melanie snapped, wanting to hear more. “Let him talk.”
“I can’t believe you fallin’ for this horseshit.” Randall shook his head. “Fine, I’ll just keep my mouth shut! Pretend I’m not here.” Dan regarded Randall with bewilderment, then glanced at Melanie, raising his eyebrows questioningly. Melanie held her hand up again, struggling to pick up the thread of Diaz’s words.
“Okay,” she said, “so you were a drug dealer, not a killer, fine. But how do we get from there to a reputable prosecutor conspiring with a cold-blooded killer to set you up? I’m prepared to take this seriously, but you better have a damn good explanation and proof to back it up.”
“Why does anybody do anything? Greed. Money. That’s all. I saw it comin’, too, but I was too fuckin’ stupid, too soft, to do what needed to be done. See, Slice was with me from a shorty. He ain’t got no daddy, and his moms was a crack ho who just kinda faded out. He attach himself to me when he was ten years old, call himself Junior Diaz after me. He wasn’t born in no hospital, ain’t got no government name anyway. So I took him in, raised him up, kept him from starvin’, made him a player in my organization. But after all I did for him, look what I get.” He glanced down at his cuffed hand, shaking his head, genuinely upset. “The boy’d been a big problem for a long time. Stealin’ from me, beatin’ on people when he shouldn’t, cuttin’ ’ em up. I knew I shoulda bodied him-it was the only way. But I couldn’t do it. So he set me up, got me out of the picture, so’s he could be the kingpin himself.”
“Okay, I understand Slice’s angle. He wants to push you out and take over your turf. But what about Jed Benson? Surely you’re not suggesting that he knowingly collaborated with Slice-”
Randall smashed his fist against the metal door. They all jumped. “Enough! I can’t believe we’re all standing here listening to this crap!”
Diaz went white, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “You don’t wanna hear what I have to say? Fine, call the guards! I’m done!” he yelled.
“What? No, please!” Melanie pleaded.
“Think I ain’t never heard of the right to remain silent? I’m not saying another word to this asshole. You want to talk to me again, come back without him. And bring my lawyer.”
Melanie was powerless to try to change his mind. Once a prisoner invoked his rights, it was illegal to question him further. Diaz knew that. Randall had pushed Diaz to the breaking point, derailing the interview with his blatant hostility. To some extent Melanie sympathized. If you listened to the inmates, the prisons were overflowing with innocent people, every one of them with a hard-luck story. An old cop like Randall had very limited patience for that sort of talk. Most of the time, she didn’t subscribe to it either. But there were too many unanswered questions in this case-about Slice, about Jed Benson, about the relationship between them. There was a real chance Delvis Diaz could shed light on those questions. Now Randall had blown it, and Melanie was angry and surprised. It wasn’t what she expected from him. It wasn’t good police work.
MELANIE WAS DULY IRRITATED DURING THE long march back through grim corridors to the lockers where they’d left their things. Only the presence of their bleached-blond escort checked her tongue. She wouldn’t criticize Randall in front of the snippish Ms. Leona Burkett, but she’d let him have it the second they got to the car.
“By the way,” Leona said as they retrieved their cell phones and beepers, “next time please have the basic courtesy to turn off your communications devices before you stow them. They’ve been making an unholy racket in there and giving me a headache like you wouldn’t believe.”
As if on cue, Dan’s pager and Randall’s cell phone began to shriek simultaneously, and Melanie’s phone vibrated vigorously in her hand, startling her. They looked at each other for a split second before answering, their faces all registering the same terrible conviction: It had to be bad news.