“If you can please be more specific.”
Zapelli was suspicious and trying not to act it, Lucy noted. “Is there a reason why you’re asking me these questions?”
“Yes,” Nate said, and nothing more.
“And?” Zapelli pushed.
“And we’d like to know.”
Zapelli leaned back. “I don’t like the direction of this conversation.”
Lucy’s phone vibrated. She glanced down. Villines had sent her the Honeycutts’ phone records. Someone had called Zapelli Tuesday at ten-thirty a.m. and spoke to him for six minutes.
Nate gave Lucy a nod, and she said, “We have a record that Marisol de la Rosa called you yesterday morning. You spoke to her for six minutes. Ms. de la Rosa is now missing, and she told witnesses that she was meeting you at seven o’clock last night.”
Zapelli may be an arrogant and overly confident criminal, but he couldn’t hide his surprise that they had not only that information, but Marisol’s name as well. He glared at her, then covered, just not quickly enough.
“Marisol—the girl who worked for my dad? That was ages ago.”
“Yet you spoke to her yesterday.”
He didn’t say anything.
“If you didn’t speak to her, who did you talk to for those six minutes?” Lucy asked.
Zapelli turned to Nate. “Yes, I spoke to Marisol. She called me, said she was in trouble. I of course wanted to help. I offered to pick her up—my father has been greatly worried about her and her sister. They left, no notice, nothing. We assumed they went back to their village, but girls like them, they look for the easy way, if you know what I mean.” He winked at Lucy.
Through sheer willpower, she kept her poker face. Nate said, “When did you see her?”
“I didn’t. She never arrived. I waited for nearly an hour.”
“Where?” Lucy demanded. She bit her tongue. She was coming off too strong.
“At a four-way stop on Highway Fifty-Nine.”
“Don’t you think that was odd?” Nate asked.
“I did, but figured she was on foot. When she didn’t come, I assumed she’d gone back to whatever sugar daddy she came to the States with. Like I said, those kind of girls are predictable.”
“Why were you in Del Rio yesterday morning?” Nate asked, completely changing the subject to throw Zapelli off-guard.
It did, just for a minute. “Visiting a friend.”
“Name?”
Zapelli shook his head. “I don’t know what you hope to find, but I think we’re done. I need to get home, my father needs me to help run his business.”
“You’re not leaving,” Nate said.
“You can’t detain me.”
“You’re a material witness in an ongoing investigation.”
“I told you, I didn’t see Marisol.”
“We found strands of long black hair on your laptop case. We’re testing it now,” Lucy said, “and my guess, it belongs to Ms. de la Rosa.”
He stopped talking. Right then and there. “Either arrest me or let me go.”
“Very well,” Nate said. “You are under arrest.”
“Why?”
“We don’t need to give you a reason right now. We can hold you for up to seventy-two hours just because you’re an asshole.”
“I want a lawyer.”
“I was just getting to that point.” Nate read him his rights.
Zapelli grew increasingly frustrated. “This is bullshit,” he said.
“You may exercise your right to remain silent now,” Lucy said.
He lunged for her. It happened so fast, Lucy almost missed it. Nate didn’t. He was up and between Zapelli and Lucy so fast she barely saw him move. Nate didn’t say a word; his expression spoke volumes. Zapelli froze.
“Turn around,” Nate said in a low voice. “Put your hands on the back of your head.” He got out his cuffs.
“You can’t do this,” Zapelli said. “I’ve done nothing. This is bullshit, and you know it. I don’t know what that bitch has been saying about me, but I’ve done nothing. I came here to help her. That’s all I did.”
“Did? So you did see her?” Lucy asked.
“That’s not what I said!”
“Yes it is. You helped her how?”
“I don’t have to answer your questions without a lawyer!”
“That is correct,” Nate said. He searched the guy after he cuffed him.
“They already did that!” Zapelli said.
“Procedure,” Nate replied.
The process humiliated Zapelli, making him turn red and even angrier. Angry criminals talked.
“You’re all screwed,” Zapelli said. “None of you will get out of this alive.”
Nate pushed him against the wall. He held him there without much effort. “Is that a threat?”
Zapelli scowled.
Nate held on to him and said to Lucy, “Grab the recording, I want to make sure his threat is loud and clear for the judge when we arraign him. Threatening a federal officer is a felony.”
“Yes it is,” Lucy said.
Nate turned Zapelli over to two DHS guards and said, “He gets one call, to his attorney, and that’s it. You have a cell in this place, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put him in it, do not let him out unless I or my boss, Noah Armstrong, authorizes it.”