Trifecta (28 page)

"He would never kill his best friend," Julia
said mechanically, still staring at the gorgeous ring.  "It can't be real.
 It just can't be.  Robin even made a joke about it.  Said it would turn my finger
green.  It's as fake as his cheating heart."

Tony was shaking his head, distraught.  "First there
was the wager you found out about.  Now this...about the ring.  He'll never speak
to me again."

"You mean this is a real diamond?" Julia asked,
looking at him in confused surprise.

"Several real diamonds," Tony said, dismally. 
He sounded like he was giving dire predictions of the end of the earth.  "The
yellow ones are very rare."

"Oh, my God."  She looked at Tony.  "I don't
believe it."

"I am up shit creek without a paddle," Tony said. 
"I've ruined the whole thing and he'll never forgive me."

Robin's heart was as fake as the diamond, Julia was thinking. 
It felt like she had sticky candy cotton in her brain.  She couldn't fully grasp
the facts as she gazed into the gigantic middle diamond, as though mesmerized. 
And the diamond was real! 

Julia could hardly catch her breath and her heart was thumping
away like mad in her chest.  She could hear it pounding in her ears.  It made a
thundering noise.  She immediately burst into tears of relief, covering her face
with her hands.  She was so happy she felt she could float like a balloon right
through the ceiling; as though she had chugged far too many glasses of champagne
far too fast. 

Then she had a terrifying thought.  Maybe the diamond really
wasn't for her.  Robin had put it on her finger under duress.  To keep Quijada from
hurting her.

"Ah, now I've made you sad," Tony said, patting
her back softly, like he was burping a baby.  "You really don't care for him?"

"No.  No!" Julia said urgently, wiping away her
tears.  "Are you sure this ring's for me?  That it isn't supposed to go to
someone else?"

"Are you crazy?  He's been miserable since you left. 
Absolutely intolerable to be around.  Totally insufferable, to tell the truth. 
And then he showed the ring to me, after he bought it, and asked me what I thought. 
If you would like it.  Course it's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.  So I
said I thought you would like it.  As an understatement, you know?  And he muttered,
Thanks for the opinion.  But he seemed to be uncertain that it would fit or something. 
He was kind of anxious."

Julia threw her arms around Tony and hugged him tight. 
Then she started smiling.  "You and Robin had a secret bet about me.  Now you
and I will have a secret together, too.  And we won't tell Robin."

Tony nodded at Julia, who was still looking at the ring
and smiling with a stunned expression on her face. 

"Show time," he said.

She looked up and saw through the one-way glass that Robin
and Jay were entering the room.  It was like a movie theater.  No one else was in
that room for a while as they sat down and started putting legal documents on the
table in front of them.  Then a woman dressed in a police uniform went into the
room.  She had a dictating machine that she plugged into a wall socket.  She sat
down in a corner of the room, at a small desk, and set up the machine.

"The first interrogation is Mike Garcia," Tony
whispered in Julia's ear.  "His attorney has advised him to make a clean breast
of the whole thing, hoping to plea bargain.  If he's an accessory to murder he could
get the death penalty, so he has nothing to lose by telling the truth.  Hopefully,
he'll incriminate Juan Carlos."

Tony became quiet again as they waited.

Mike Garcia was led into the room, hand-cuffed, with a
hulking man she thought must be a prison guard in a dun colored suite.  Another
tall cadaverous man with a briefcase them in. 

It was kind of surprising to hear them all talking suddenly. 
Everything had been quiet, like a silent movie.  Julia hadn't expected to hear them
all so clearly.  Evidently there was some kind of audio equipment in the room where
she and Tony were sitting that had just been turned on.  There was also a videotape
camera in a corner of the interrogation room and Julia saw the red light go on when
the interview started.

"Can I take pictures?" Julia whispered to Tony.

"They might see a flash through the glass."

"This film is made for night photography.  There won't
be any flash."

"I don't see any reason why not then," Tony answered.

Julia nodded and set up the equipment on the desk.

As the interrogation started, Mike Garcia evidently had,
indeed, decided to give a truthful version of what happened on the night of Brian
Monay's nearly lethal beating.  Mike looked sullen and defeated, like a hulking
small-time thug, from his time in jail.  He was not a loquacious or articulate fellow,
so he slowly started describing how he and Juan Carlos had gone to the gardener's
cottage where Brian had been living for a couple of months, writing Quijada's autobiography.

"I didn't know nothing about what was coming down
that night.  You gotta believe I'm innocent.  See, when we went inside, Brian was
working on his computer.  He turned it off, real fast.  Like he was hiding something. 
He kept working, though, filing papers and cleaning up his desk. 

"We told him we just wanted to borrow a couple of
beers because Quijada was out of brew in the main house.  He said, 'Sure, go ahead.' 
I was making a racket in the kitchen and watched through the open door.  Juan Carlos
sort of crept up behind Brian and bashed him over the head with a short iron pipe. 
Man, was I surprised.  He hit Brian real hard.  Brian slipped right out of the chair
to the floor." 

As Julia listened to how the two men carried Brian's limp
body out of the cottage to Juan Carlos's car, she couldn't bear sitting in one place. 
She paced back and forth behind the table, listening, while tears coursed down her
face.

Tony got up, put an arm around her shoulders and walked
with her as the grim narrative continued. 

"Pete Estandos came out of the main house, got in
the car, and we drove to East Los Angeles and stopped under this noisy freeway. 
Pete and Juan pulled Brian out of the car.  He was conscious now, and struggling,
but Pete held him while Juan Carlos beat him until they thought he must be dead. 
He hit him with his fists mostly.  Kicked him some, too.  Grisly, man.  I didn't
even watch most of it.

"Man, were we surprised when these two old winos came
out from behind one of those concrete pilings that hold up the overpass.  They started
yelling at Juan and Pete to leave the poor kid alone.  The two homeless guys were
drunk and harmless, but Juan Carlos was afraid there were witnesses to the beating. 
That they might identify them.

"Juan and Pete picked up Brian and shoved him back
in the car.  He was bleeding, dead or unconscious.  I drove them a few blocks away
and Juan dumped Brian on the side of the road, like trash in the street.  Then,
to make it look like a robbery, they took his wallet and watch.  And his shoes.

"You gotta believe, I didn't know what was going down. 
I'm innocent.  Was just doing a job, you know, driving the car."

Then he started in again, describing how the two other
men had assaulted Brian in detail, in answer to specific and pointed questions from
Jay and Robin.

Pete Estandos was brought into the interrogation room next. 
He was blond and handsome with large watery dark eyes.  Julia took pictures of him
through the glass.

His interrogation went quickly, as he had already been
questioned.  He was read the testimony given by Mike Garcia and he concurred that
everything was correct.  When Pete was asked who his orders came from, he said he
had been following the orders of Juan Carlos.  It was just a job.  He said that
he didn't hit Brian Monay, but held him down while Juan Carlos used his fists and
kicked him.

Julia found it scary that such an innocent looking, handsome
man could have performed such a horrendous act for money.  She was shocked and horrified
by the violent underworld that normal society knew nothing of, as Pete repeated
again, in explicit and gory detail, how Brian Monay was assaulted.

"That's it," Tony burst out.  "That's enough,
Julia.  You don't have to listen any more."  He had been watching for the last
fifteen minutes, and it was he who couldn't stand seeing her suffer.  It was like
watching slow, painful torture.  "I don't know what Robin was thinking about. 
Bringing you here tonight."

Julia looked at Tony, her large eyes reddened from crying. 
"I knew what happened.  I knew Brian was murdered.  And I would have heard
it all at the trial, eventually.  This way is better.  Robin warned me it would
be painful."

Julia left to find a bathroom down the hallway to wash
her face before they brought Juan Carlos in for the final interrogation of the night.

Tony sat in the viewing room, waiting for Julia to come
back, and for the interrogation of Juan Carlos.  He had been moved to tears himself,
watching Julia cry, and he surreptitiously pulled a handkerchief out of his breast
pocket to wipe his own eyes.

Robin burst into the room like a tornado.  "Did you
see that!  We got Juan Carlos.  And maybe Quijada, too."

Tony looked up at his best friend, who was positively radiating
triumphant energy.  "You fucking bastard," he said tonelessly.

"What's wrong?  Where's Julia?"

"Probably crying her eyes out in the bathroom.  You
insensitive fuck."

Robin slumped as if he had suddenly deflated and pulled
out a chair, sitting down.  "I warned her it would be hard to listen to."

"Hard?  Oh no," Tony said sarcastically.  "It
wasn't hard to hear that her only brother was brutally hit with pipes, fists and
kicked senseless.  Then left dying, bleeding, and having seizures on a filthy roadway. 
It was fucking torture you just put her through.  You've been so close to the damned
case that it's just a story.  To her, it was like reliving the whole thing, blow
by painful blow.  Each time Garcia would describe how they hit her brother, Julia
would let out a tiny moan, like she was feeling it herself."

"Poor thing," Robin said sadly.  His voice was
low.  "But it would be worse to hear in court.  At least now she knows the
truth.  At the trial they're going to bring out the photographs of her brother,
when the police discovered him.  I wanted to prepare her for that."

Tony glowered at him.

"When she found Brian at the hospital she saw him
all bandaged up.  She didn't see his head caved in by the blows.  And all the blood. 
I know this is rough.  And it's going to get worse at the trial."

Tony nodded again, but he was still glaring at Robin.

"She believed her brother was getting better, when
he was in the hospital, but I don't think he would have survived.  The beating is
most important, because that's what really killed Brian.  Juan Carlos just speeded
up the process, when he tampered with the machines.  Julia had to understand that. 
And, Tony, you're the best person I could ever find to be with her through this,"
Robin added sincerely.  "I really appreciate it."

Tony sighed.  "Sorry I yelled.  It was just so sad. 
I thought she might faint dead away when Jay started questioning Pete Estandos. 
She was breathing so fast.  Probably hyperventilating with the stress."  He
smiled for a brief instant.  "She tried so hard not to cry."

"God, I better go find her," Robin said, jumping
up and leaving the room.

Tony sat there, glad that he had spilled the beans and
Julia knew Robin had not given her a fake ring.

Julia was splashing water in her face in a small one-stall,
one-sink bathroom and really crying hard, now that she was alone.  She knew that
she had to get herself under control, so she could go back into that viewing room
again and watch her brother's murderer go through his interrogation.  But she couldn't
seem to stop crying.  Every time she would almost stop, the terrible scene in her
mind would close in, as though an evil projectionist in her brain would not let
her go.

Julia thought of her baby and pressed her abdomen gently,
trying to picture the tiny curled infant inside, instead of the horrible scene of
her brother being beaten.  This type of painful emotion wouldn't be good for the
little one.  She hoped the baby would be a boy, so she could name it Brian, in memory
of her wonderful dead brother.

That started her sobbing again.  This pregnancy was causing
havoc with hormones and her emotions.  She had to get control.  Then there was someone
knocking on the door.

"Just a moment," Julia managed to say, between
sobs.  It was probably Thomas McQuery, who had run down the hall after her when
she had bolted out of the viewing room.  Now she really did have to stop, Julia
thought.  She might miss the whole interrogation;  cause people to worry about her
needlessly.  She frantically splashed more water in her face and then got some rough
paper towels from an ancient rusting dispenser and dried herself.  She had splashed
water all over herself in her haste and was glad the black clothing she wore hid
it.

There was more knocking.  "Almost out," Julia
called out, with fake cheer.

Maybe some police woman had to use the room.  Julia unlocked
the door and opened it.  Someone big was in front of her but the tears in her eyes
made the person a blur.  She tried to walk around without looking up, knowing her
face was swollen and her eyes fire engine red.

"Julia?"

She walked right into him and felt his arms fold around
her for one exquisite moment of peace.  She let herself relax in Robin's arms for
just a few seconds, leaning her head against his chest.  Then she pushed him away,
hard.  When she looked into his eyes, she saw how badly she'd hurt him.

"I didn't mean to be that abrupt," Julia apologized. 
She wanted to explain and everything went out of her mind.  She felt like she was
drowning in his eyes.  When she tried to look away she couldn't.  They were magnetized.