Thank you,Darcangelo.
Joaquin stood. “What aboutMia?”
“She’s free to go,too.”
“And myfirearm?”
“You can collect it at the front counter.” Wu turned and wasgone.
Joaquin stood and would have followed him through the doorway but found himself face to face withDarcangelo.
“Not so fast,cabrón.” Darcangelo forced him to back up, stepped into the interrogation room, and shut the door behind him. “What the fuck were youthinking?”
“We didn’t know we were walking into a murder scene. She got a strange text message. That’s it. It’s not like we heard gunshots and ran through thedoor.”
Darcangelo glared at him. “You were all of five minutes behind the real killer.Five minutes, Ramirez. What if he’d still beenthere?”
“I wasarmed.”
“You hadn’t drawn your weapon. If he’d been inside, he’d have heard and seen you coming. He could’ve opened that door and lit the two of you up before you cleared yourholster.”
It was thetruth.
Darcangelo drew a breath, some of his anger fading. “You did the right thing to stop Ms. Starr from entering thehouse.”
Then it hit Joaquin. “Wait—how do you knowthis?”
“You cannot repeat what I’m about to tell you. If the killer heard about this, a woman’s life might be atstake.”
“Okay.”
“The eighty-year-old lady across the street reported the gunshots to police and saw a man in a black hoodie run out of the house. She tried to record him with her phone but had technical difficulties and ended up making a very fine video of her ownface.”
“Nice.”
“She had the phone figured out by the time you two got there. She has a video showing when you pulled up and everything you did until Petersen arrived. The time stamps of the two videos—the one of her face while she’s watching the killer leave and the one of you and Ms. Starr—show that only five minutes had goneby.”
“Mierda.”
“Yeah. The killer stayed behind to ransack the place. He took the guy’s wallet and credit cards. He went through his medical kits, too, maybe looking fordrugs.”
“This video—that’s how you got Wu to let us go, isn’tit?”
“I made sure he heard about the evidence sooner rather than later. I figured you have better things to do than hang outhere.”
“Thanks, man. I oweyou.”
“Pay me back by keeping your ass out of trouble. What’s going on between you and Ms. Starranyway?”
“Nothing.” Notyet.
“She’s still a person of interest in the other case. You don’t want to get caught up in that,too.”
Joaquin was tired of this shit. “She had nothing to do with it. Someone is trying to set her up, attacking Andrew Meyer right after she left, dumping evidence at her place of work. I’ll bet the killer sent that text message tonight, too. Maybe he wanted to make Mia look bad. Or maybe he knew she’d come and hoped to get a shot ather.”
Darcangelo frowned. “We can’t be sure these two cases areconnected.”
“Oh, come on! Mia knew both men. The three of them served together in Iraq. In the span of a few days, one goes missing, and the other is murdered. Andbothsituations offer evidence that implicatesMia.”