Pine refused to be baited.
“Hey, Joe, maybe it wasn’t supposed to go down like it did,” Marge said. “You just brought along the gun for protection.”
“Or maybe all you wanted to do was scare them,” Oliver said. “If it was an accident, then we can make a case for you.”
“I wasn’t there,” Pine insisted.
“Your fingerprints, Joe,” Marge said. “Fingerprints don’t lie.”
“Yeah, but the cops do,” Pine snapped back. “You’re trying to get me to lie.”
“No, Joe, that’s not what we want. We want the truth, Joe. That’s it.”
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass,” Pine said. “I bet you don’t even got Martin in custody.”
“Well, then, hold on a moment.” Marge stood up. “We’ll see if we can take you to the video room.”
She and Oliver left and returned a few minutes later. Marge placed six Polaroid pictures of Martin Cruces, dressed in jacket and jeans, being questioned by Messing and Pratt. “Look at the date on the pictures.”
Pine glanced at them and tried to shrug them off. “You can fix those up. You guys got all sorts of stuff so you can trap me into saying lies.”
“But that’s just it, Joe,” Oliver said. “We don’t want lies. We want the truth.”
“Martin is telling us the truth,” Marge said. “We’re just curious if his truth is the same as your truth.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“You were there. We have witnesses saying you were there. The guy whose house you broke into. He heard people talk about it,” Marge said. “He overheard people talking about you. How Martin was pissed at you because you didn’t finish off Gil Kaffey.”
“I wasn’t there!”
“Your fingerprints say you were there.”
“You’re lying. I wasn’t there.”
“No, you’re lying. You were there,” Marge said. “You can keep lying or you can help yourself by telling the truth.”
Something finally got to Pine, and he started sweating in earnest. Still, it took another couple of hours, several cups of coffee, and a half-dozen nutrition bars before Marge and Oliver noticed his psyche cracking. They excused themselves and went out of the room, leaving Pine alone to weigh his options.
The two of them stared at Pine in the video camera for a minute or two. Then Marge looked at the clock. “Decker’s due back in two hours. I’d love to wrap this up before he comes.”
“He’s coming apart,” Oliver said. “Now’s the time to bring up Rondo Martin.”
Marge took a swig of water and regarded Messing and Pratt going after Cruces. She turned up the volume, hearing Wynona trying to seduce Cruces into talking about the murders.
But we have your fingerprints at the scene, Martin. We also have witnesses who heard you talk about it. Plus, we have Joe Pine in the other room. He screwed up tonight. He got caught. He’s telling us things. We want to hear your side of the story.
Marge turned the volume down. “Let’s go.”
They returned to the interview room. Marge said, “I just checked in with Martin Cruces, Joe. I’m telling you that this is your one chance to tell your side of the story.”
“I wasn’t…” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I need sleep, man. Maybe after I sleep, I’ll talk.”
“We have your fingerprints in the Kaffeys’ blood, Joe,” Oliver said. “We have an eyewitness who told us everything. Just tell us what happened.”
Pine’s eyes darted from side to side. “What eyewitness?”
“Joe…” Marge leaned over and spoke softly. “You think we’d come down on you if we didn’t have your fingerprints at the scene? You think we’d come down on you if we didn’t have an eyewitness who said that you looked him in the eye and then pulled the trigger? You think we’d arrest you for murder if we couldn’t deliver the goods?”
“You’re lying,” Pine answered.
Marge moved in close to him and spoke softly. “We’re not lying, Joe. Martin Cruces is talking. It’s not right for you to take all the shit when you were just part of the plan. Now’s the time to man up. You gotta start thinking about yourself. Because you can’t explain away fingerprints and eyewitness testimony.”
“You don’t have an eyewitness,” Pine insisted. “That jackass mighta heard things, but he never saw me before in his life!”
“Which jackass is that?” Marge asked.
“The court guy.”
“The court guy whose condo you broke into?”
Pine didn’t answer.
“Joe, we know you didn’t pick his condo at random. Who sent you there?”
“Okay…” Pine took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll tell you this, okay. Martin sent me over to scare him. That’s the only thing I’ll admit to, okay?”
“Why did Martin Cruces send you over to scare the court guy?” Marge asked him.
“’Cause he overheard his cousin talking about the crime.” Under his breath, Pine uttered, “Fucking idiot!”
“Tell us about it,” Oliver said.
Pine sighed. “Can I get something to eat around here?”
Marge got up and came back with an assortment of candy.
Pine unwrapped a Snickers bar and ate half in a single bite. “Cruces said that the court guy overheard his moron cousin talking about the murders. He told me to break into the court guy’s house and scare him.”
“So why were you assigned to scare the court guy?” Oliver said. “Why didn’t the moron cousin scare him?”
“’Cause he’s an idiot and can’t do anything right. He got arrested before he could get to the court guy.”
“What’s the cousin’s name?” Oliver asked.
“Alejandro Brand.”
Strike one! Marge thought triumphantly. “The court guy overheard Brand talking about the murders?”
“Yeah.”
“What did the court guy overhear Brand say?”
“Hell if I know, but it made Cruces nervous. So he tole me to take him…to scare him.”
Marge went in for the attack. “Martin Cruces didn’t lie to you, Joe.”
Oliver said, “The court guy did hear Brand talking about the Kaffey murders.”
Marge said, “The court guy overheard Brand talking about Martin Cruces…and the court guy overheard Brand talking about you.”
“That you screwed up by not whacking Gil Kaffey,” Oliver said.
Pine finished his candy bar. “That’s a lie, man. I wasn’t there. The court guy’s lying.”
Marge said, “Since Brand had the big mouth, Martin Cruces told Brand to take out the court guy?”
“That’s the first true thing you said in the last four hours. Cruces told Brand, not me. He gave the assignment to Brand. But then Alejandro screwed up and got arrested. So Cruces asked his other cousin, Esteban Cruz, to take out the court guy.”
Marge said, “And when Cruz screwed up, he told you to get your ass back from Mexico and finish the job, or he’ll fuck you over good. That’s what’s happening right now, Joe. Martin is screwing you over. Cruces told you to break into the court guy’s condo and finish him off.”
“Why go down when it was Cruces’s order?” Oliver said.
“Yeah, it was Cruces’s order.” Pine pushed sweat from his eyes. “But all I was supposed to do was scare him.”
Strike two! They now had collusion: Cruces and Pine working together against Brett Harriman.
Marge said, “So we have the court guy’s testimony, we have your bloody fingerprints…why don’t you just tell us what happened?”
Oliver told Marge, “You forgot something.”
Marge said, “What did I forget?”
“Our eyewitness.” Oliver leaned back in his chair. “Joe, you told us a couple of hours ago that all the guards were whacked. But the truth is…not everyone died.”
Pine was quiet.
“Rondo Martin survived,” Marge said. “And he’s talking.”
Oliver said, “So we have Martin Cruces telling his side of the story, we have Rondo Martin telling his side, we have the court guy telling his side of the story.”