We're not accountable to anyone except the commissioner. That includes Internal Affairs."
When they had absorbed that, he helped them work up a security schedule, making sure he, too, was assigned office-cleaning duties. Then, when that was done, he sat them down and stunned them with the news that his Cuban trip had been a setup.
"Why would the Cubans propose a deal like that?" he asked after he explained the sequence. "What could possibly be in it for them?" Ray thought the answer was better relations. "They want us to drop the embargo."
"A good reason to work with the feds. But not with NYPD." :'To get Tania Figueras off the hook," Sue suggested.
"We'd stopped looking for her. Technically, Mendoza was closed."
Aaron looked at him. "I know you've got a theory, Frank. " The others smiled; they knew him well.
"Mendoza has a lot of money," he said. "Something like fifty million bucks. But it's no good to him because he's locked up for the rest of his life. Think about that. Put yourself in his shoes. If you were that rich and locked in a cage, wouldn't you be willing to spend whatever it took to pry yourself loose?"
Everyone nodded.
"Fonseca's a corrupt Cuban security official. He comes here, ostensibly to work with the DEA, except now it turns out he was running drugs. A guy like that, for the right amount of money, would do most anything you'd want, including pulling a con job on our Detective Division, convincing us a forgotten ' witness' is telling the truth when she throws doubt on the whole premise behind Mendoza's conviction."
"You think Mendoza paid Fonseca to run the scam on Kit'?" Sue asked.
"That's the only theory that makes sense. The Cuban Government wouldn't care about Mendoza rotting in prison. liut Fonseca might care-if he was paid."
Aaron nodded. "If that's true, there has to be a financial Connection.
If money was paid out, it had to travel."
"That's what we're going to look at-who paid how to whom. Aaron, I want you to examine all large payments from Mendoza or his lawyer, Andrews, to any person or entity that isn't easily explained. Use the computer.
Go back a few years. Look into anything that seems the slightest bit phony. Track it down, check it out, stick with it till you're satisfied.
Sometime, somehow, money was paid out, maybe through a foreign bank account or intermediary. I'm betting sooner or later you'll find something that leads you to Cuba."
He was pleased to see he'd fired them up. But there was more.
"There's another payment I want you to look for. This would have been made three or four years ago, about the time of the copycat killing in El Paso. Same MO as Edith Mendoza-society woman beaten to death, strung up by her heels. That's another thing Mendoza may have arranged, to make us think the real killer was still at large. He could have paid someone to do it. Which is where"he turned to Ray and Sue-"you guys come in.
Check out Mendoza's career at Green Haven Prison. Who'd he bunk with?
Who'd he spend time with? Did he spread his money around? If so, to whom? You may find your Cuban connection there. You may also find someone from Texas. Look at people he buddied with who later got released. What happened to them?
Where do they live" Any signs of unexplained wealth? While Aaron's looking at the money, you two look at who might have gotten it."
"And you-what'll you be doing while we're doing all that?" Aaron asked.
"I'll be looking at a whole other side of the thing. The Clury side," he said.
The bomb squad offices were situated in a former butter warehouse on Wooster Street. The old dairy vaults, with their curved brick ceilings, gave the space a cloistered, ecclesiastical look. In fact, in Janek's view, the bomb squad had much in common with a religious order. It was elite, there was an intense stillness among its members, an aura that spoke of being involved in sacred work. When Janek walked unannounced into Stoney's office, he felt as if he'd interrupted a rector at his desk.
"What can I do for you?" the squat, blunt detective asked.
"I want to talk about Mendoza."
"Aren't you a little late?" Stoney couldn't conceal his disgust.
He really didn't put in much time at charm school.
"I was on another case. Now that's cleared. Today I start full-time on Mendoza. Are you willing to work with me or not?" "What've you got in mind?" Stoney asked.
"Clury: Who bombed him and why?"
"You ask interesting questions, Janek. Buy a new car yet?"
"Huh?
"I, m just curious. What kind of car does a guy buy when his old one's blown away? Or maybe he decides not to replace it. If they hit you once, they can always hit you again." "Okay," Janek said, sitting down, "we got off on the wrong foot. I'm no longer in the Detective Division. My squad is working directly for the commissioner. We've got one case.
Clury could be the key. You've already put in legwork. I want to collaborate. I'm serious."
"I notice you don't ask me to join your squad." "If I thought you'd consider it, I would." Stoney smiled. "Tell me about Clury. What do you know about him?" Janek told him everything he knew, and that he'd been given two new pieces of information. The first, from a reliable confidential source, was that someone might have had a reason to kill Clury that had never been explored. The second, from a source in Cuba who had deliberately tried to mislead him, was that Clury had been investigating Jake Mendoza on Edith Mendoza's behalf.
"Well, to me that's all garbage," Stoney said. "I deal in bombs, explosives-who makes ', who sets ' off."
"What did you find in Nassau County?"
"Couple of things. Clury's car was parked in his drive way all night, but none of the neighbors saw anyone tampering with it."
"Is that important?"
"It was ignition-wired, so the bomber had to open the hood. That's taking a chance, with the car right next to the house and the guy you want to kill inside."
"Bomber must have figured Clury was asleep."
"He could have woken up. He's a cop. He's got a gun. He could have shot the bomber. It doesn't smell right." Janek thought about it; he wasn't sure yet how. it smelled.
"What about the bomb signature)"
"That's not exactly like a fingerprint. But I checked it out. From the records it's only shown up twice, once on Clury's car, once on yours."
"What does that tell you?"
"That the bomber isn't a professional. Oh, he makes a good bomb, but he doesn't do it for a living. He only does it when it concerns Mendoza."
Interesting. "Anything else?"
"He wasn't self-taught. Whoever taught him taught him to do it right.
There're not too many places you can learn to make a bomb. Most likely he learned in the military."
"So, that's it?"
Stoney nodded. "Why're you so pleasant today?"
"Was I unpleasant before?"
"You didn't cooperate. I couldn't figure you, Frank. You'd lost your car but you didn't seem all that interested."
"I guess I wasn't focusing on it."
"But you are now. Got any ideas?"
"I'm wondering about something.. "What?"
"Not sure yet." Stoney smiled. "Well, let me know when you are sure.
I'll be here."
He stuck out his stubby hand.
It chewed at Janek the rest of the day-the notion that something about the Clury story was wrong. It continued to bother him after he went back to Detective Division files and read everything he could find on Clury in the Mendoza folders. There wasn't much. Clury, although a cop, had been viewed as the secondary victim. Most of the investigators' time had been spent on Edith; hers seemed a simpler homicide to solve.
When Janek finished reading, he realized he hadn't a clear sense of who Clury was. He called for Clury's personnel file, waited two hours for the clerks to find it. A dead cop meant a dead file; a cop nine years dead wasn't even in the computer. When, finally, they brought him the material, it was after six P.m. Hungry and tired, he decided to give it a quick look, then return in the morning to tackle it fresh.