AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I told you and I’m not sayin’. I just want you to know that Cruz didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t kill Lucia Costa?”
A pause. As if the caller had been stunned at the use of Lucia’s name, shocked that Montoya knew about Lucia and her death. And then a sharp beep behind Montoya made him aware that the traffic light had turned. Pissed, he turned on his dash flasher, making it known he was a cop.
Whoever was behind him in the black Buick backed off.
“I’m asking you, Jazz,” he said into the phone as he hit the gas again, “are you saying that Cruz didn’t kill Lucia Costa?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jazz said, recovering. “That’s what I’m tellin’ ya. Cruz was set up. To take the fall.”
“The fall?” Montoya repeated, his eyes narrowing as sunlight bounced across the hood of his car. “For whom?”
“Hey, man, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
“Where is Cruz now?”
“Don’t know. Don’t wanna know.”
“Can I get back to you at this number?” Montoya asked.
The fucker hung up. Quickly, Montoya called back, and—big surprise—got no answer.Damn.He’d try to locate the guy, but he knew in his gut that “Jazz” or whatever the hell his real name was had called on a burner phone and even now that cell was probably at the bottom of a river, maybe the damned Trask River.
“Shit.” He saw the pack of Marlboros on the console, grabbed it, shook out a filter tip, and lit up. After taking a deep drag, he crushed the pack in his fist. This is how it always was with Cruz.
Never easy.
Always trouble.
Though that trouble usually didn’t involve homicide.
“Son of a—!” Montoya tromped on the accelerator and, with his light on his dash still flashing, drove straight to the station.
CHAPTER 23
Montoya strode into the office, kicked out his chair and dropped into it, the smell of smoke from a recent cigarette clinging to him.
“Bad news?” Bentz asked.
“Is there any other kind?” Montoya muttered, then recounted his visit to the crime lab. “So once we hear back on the Rosary Killer’s blood type, we’ll most likely know if he killed Jay McKnight. It’s not a hundred percent, of course, we won’t have that until the DNA test results come back, but this will be a strong indicator. In my mind, we’ll know. B neg was left at the scene. It isn’t all that common.”
“So if we find out Father John is B negative, it only means he was possibly there,” Bentz said, then added, “Probably.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yeah.” He brought Montoya up to speed on what he’d learned at the church.
“So back to the Laroches.”
“Right.” Bentz glanced at the clock. “They should be here any minute. Coming in with their lawyer.” And he’d no more said the word, than he got the call that the Laroche family had arrived. He glanced at Montoya. “Showtime.”
“Good.” Montoya didn’t smile, just got to his feet. Yeah, he was bothered. Big-time. And whatever was eating at him wasn’t explained by what he’d learned at the crime lab. Bentz got it. He didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to put two and two together; whatever was bothering Montoya was personal and most likely his brother. Again. As he climbed to his feet and grabbed his jacket, Bentz said, “By the way, I took a call. Detective from a county in Oregon. He wanted to talk to you, but when you weren’t here they asked for your partner.”
Montoya tensed, his face turning to granite. “What did they want?”
“For you to call them back.”
“You didn’t give them my cell?”
