Ochoa shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe find the exception?”
A black van pulled up to the receiving door of the mortuary and honked twice. Both detectives looked at their watches. They knew OCME had released Esteban Padilla’s body at 8 A.M. It was now a quarter to nine, and they watched silently as the rolling metal door rose and two attendants emerged to offload the gurney and the dark vinyl bag containing the victim’s remains.
Just after nine a white ’98 Honda pulled up and parked. “Here we go,” said Raley. But he cursed when the driver got out and the uncooperative cousin from the night before went inside the building. “So much for finding our exception.”
They waited ten minutes without talking, and when nobody else arrived, Raley started the car. “I was thinking the same thing,” said his partner as the Roach Coach pulled away from the curb.
Nobody answered their knock at Padilla’s row house on East 115th. The detectives were just about to leave when a voice came through the door, asking who it was, in Spanish. Ochoa identified himself and asked if they could have a word. There was a long pause before a security chain slid, a deadbolt shot, and the door opened a crack. A teenage boy asked if he could see badges.
Pablo Padilla brought them to sit in the living room. Although the boy didn’t say so, it seemed the invitation was not so much about hospitality as to get them all in off the street. Ochoa reflected on how this no-snitch thing was supposed to be about solidarity, but the eyes of the kid looked more like those of victims of terrorism he had seen. Or the townsfolk in some old Clint Eastwood Western who were scared of the tyrannical outlaw and his boys.
Since he was the Spanish speaker and was going to be doing the talking, Ochoa decided to go gently. “I’m sorry for your loss” was a good place to start.
“Did you find my uncle’s killer?” was where the boy started.
“We’re working on that, Pablo. That’s why we’re here. To help find who did this and arrest him so he can be sent away for good.” The detective wanted to paint a picture of this person off the streets, impotent as a source of vengeance to anyone who cooperated.
The teenager absorbed that and looked appraisingly at the two cops. Ochoa noticed Raley was keeping a low profile, but was being eyes and ears. His partner seemed especially interested in numerous garment bags hanging on the back of a door. The boy picked up on it, too. “That is my new suit. For my uncle’s funeral.” The sound of his voice was broken but brave. Ochoa saw the water rimming his eyes and vowed never to call the vic Coyote Man again.
“Pablo, what you tell me here will be between us, understand? Same as if you called an anonymous tip line.” The boy didn’t respond, so he continued. “Did your uncle Esteban have any enemies? Anybody who wanted to harm him?”
The boy slowly shook his head before he answered. “No, I don’t know anyone who would do this. Everybody liked him, he was always happy, a good dude, you know?”
“That’s good,” said Ochoa, while thinking, That’s bad—at least for what he needed—but he smiled, anyway. Pablo seemed to relax a bit, and as the detective delicately asked him the usual questions about his uncle’s friends, girlfriends, personal habits like gambling or drugs, the boy answered in the short-form way teenagers do, but he answered. “What about his work?” asked Ochoa. “He was a produce driver?”
“Yes, it wasn’t what he liked, but he had experience as a driver, so that was what he got. You know, a job’s a job sometimes, even if it’s not as good.”
Ochoa looked over to Raley, who had no idea what they were saying but could read his partner’s look signaling he had hit a point of interest. Ochoa turned back to Pablo and said, “I hear that.” Then, “I notice you said ‘not as good.’ ”
“Uh-huh.”