Aruban Nights (Coastal Fury Book 19) Page 30

  “Go ahead,” Linden replied as the three of us headed toward Lopez’s office. “It’s your case. So far, you’ve done an excellent job of extracting information from all the men we’ve arrested, so I trust your judgment.”

  He reached up to knock twice on Lopez’s door.

  “Come in,” Lopez called in response. Linden pushed the door open, and the three of us stepped inside.

  Captain Lopez was sitting at his desk, hunched over several piles of papers. Every time we’d met him so far, he’d always had a cheerful and friendly smile on his face. Now, however, he looked grim. There was a strong crease between his brows, and he was rubbing his temple absentmindedly. He blinked in surprise as he looked up at us.

  “Oh, is it that late already?” he mumbled as he glanced down at this watch. “It was a long night. I didn’t realize how much time had passed.”

  “Long night?” Linden repeated. “Wait-- Captain, were you here all night!?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Lopez cleared his throat as he pushed his chair away from his desk and slumped back in his chair. He looked weary. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his clothes were creased and rumpled. “What’s happened the past few days… it’s unprecedented in Oranjestad, at least as long as I’ve been on the force. We’ve dealt with drugs before, but nothing on this scale. I’ve been dealing with all the clerical work involved since the group of you got back last night. But anyway, you don’t want to hear about that. You’re here to speak with Maduro.”

  “You should go home, Captain,” Linden advised gently as the three of us sat down.

  “Yes, I should.” Lopez sighed as he rubbed his eyes before sitting back up straight. “But that’s going to have to wait. I’m not heading home until I see what that man has to say. On that note, here is what we know about him.” He picked up one of the stacks of papers, loosely held together by a single paperclip, and leaned over the desk to hand it to me.

  “Damon Maduro,” I read the name printed at the top of the file out loud. There was a picture attached as well, an old mugshot that depicted a man in his late teens or early twenties. Even though it was several years old, the picture was very obviously of Maduro.

  “Murdered his own father some twenty years ago,” Captain Lopez explained as I read through the file, his mouth twisted in revulsion as he spoke the unpleasant words.

  “What?” Linden exclaimed with shock.

  “Why would he do that?” Holm added.

  “According to his testimony, he was upset that his father wouldn’t let him go out with his friends one night.”

  “Are you serious?” I balked as I looked down at the picture attached to the file. The young man in the image glared back at me with a hateful snarl.

  “A psychologist was consulted to examine him during the trial,” Lopez continued. “According to her, Maduro had a lot of anger and aggression issues. Of course, that didn’t excuse his behavior. He was only seventeen at the time, and Aruba treats juvenile offenders with a very gentle hand. Had he behaved and put effort into his rehabilitation, he would have been a free man within a handful of years.”

  “I’m guessing that isn’t what happened?” I scoffed as I looked up at Lopez.

  “He very viciously attacked one of the other juveniles at the facility he was sent to,” Lopez replied. “Apparently, he became convinced that the other boy was spreading rumors about him behind his back. Maduro stabbed him in the eye with a fork during their mealtime one afternoon, completely unprovoked, according to witnesses that were present. The penal system transferred him to a proper prison after that, and a judge sentenced Maduro to an additional eight years. After that, he fell off the map, until now.”

  “Sounds like he’s always had issues with paranoia,” I muttered. “He must have a pretty inflated sense of self-importance if he’s this convinced that everyone is conspiring against him.”

  “I’d have to agree,” Lopez replied as he stroked his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “I haven’t had many interactions with him since he arrived, but it seemed to me like he was constantly on edge.

  “I think that could work to our advantage,” I replied as I handed the file back. “Agent Holm and I were just discussing it on the way over here, actually. I think that if we push him into believing that Sandoval was the one who told us where he was, instead of Thiel, we might be able to get him to roll over on Sandoval.”

  “That might work.” Lopez nodded slowly. “It probably won’t take much convincing since he already believes that Sandoval was trying to cheat him. Alright, I agree. I think that’s a solid plan.” He stood up from his chair. “Let’s head over to the interrogation room now, if you’re ready.”

  “We definitely are,” I replied as I stood up as well. I was itching to get back there. Now that we’d brought one of the leaders to his knees, I felt like we were so much closer to solving this case for good. The faster we got back there and found out where Sandoval was, the faster we could make sure that no one else was ever used as a living drug mule against their will again.

  Linden, Holm, and I followed Captain Lopez out of his office and back through the bullpen, down the now-familiar hallway that led to the interrogation room.

  “Wait in here,” Lopez instructed as he opened the door that led into the attached viewing room. “I’ll go get Maduro.”

  I leaned my back against the wall as he left, folding my arms over my chest and tapping my foot a little impatiently as I waited for him to return. I was confident that my plan would work, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t still nervous. It was never possible to be completely certain which way an interrogation would go, especially when it involved someone as volatile as Maduro.

  The door that led into the main interrogation room opened a few minutes later, and as if to prove my fears correct, Lopez and another officer dragged Maduro inside, kicking and fighting the whole way.

  “Now settle down, or I’m going to have to keep these handcuffs on,” Lopez warned.

  “Screw you!” Maduro roared as he continued to yank in vain against Lopez’s hold. I could see Lopez’s expression turn dark through the glass.

  “Alright,” he sighed as he took off the cuffs that bound Maduro’s hands behind his back. Maduro wasted no time, immediately lifting his fist to take a swing at Lopez. Before he could bring it down, the other cop grabbed his arm.

  “Let go!” Maduro screamed as Lopez shoved him down into the chair before cuffing Maduro’s hands together again from the front. After doing that, he produced another set of handcuffs from his hip, though these had a significantly longer chain between the two cuffs. He clicked one end around Maduro’s wrist before securing the other end to the table leg.

  “I can’t imagine that’s too comfortable,” Lopez noted as Maduro yanked hard against the chain, but you brought it on yourself. “Now stop doing that, or you’re going to injure yourself!”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Maduro snarled up at Lopez, who just shook his head down at the man, pity evident in his eyes.

  “Anything else, Captain?” The officer asked as he stepped away from Maduro.

  “That’s all, thank you, Officer Jakobs,” Lopez replied.

  Maduro was still trying to get free, pulling at the chain and even trying to lift the table to pull the cuff through. The chain itself was way too short for him to pull that off, though. Lopez just shook his head at the wild man before turning and retreating from the room.

  “We definitely need to invest in some kind of better restraint system,” Linden muttered as he watched the display through the glass. “I understand now why you were surprised at the fact that we usually don’t keep suspects restrained during interrogations.”

  “Yeah.” I winced as I watched Maduro try to slip his wrist through the handcuff. “It’s pretty useful when we get a nutjob like Maduro in.”

  “I can see that,” Linden sighed. “Then again, I sincerely hope we never have to deal with anything of this magnitude again.”r />
  Before I could respond to his remark, the door to the observation room creaked open.

  “Is that really the man in charge of an entire gang?” Captain Lopez asked with disbelief as he stepped into the room. “I can’t imagine why anyone would willingly align themselves with someone this unstable.”

  “Fear?” I suggested as I watched Maduro slam his fist down onto the table in frustration. “Thiel said that the men were all too afraid to speak up against him for fear that they’d be targeted next. They probably didn’t realize just who they were getting mixed up with until they were in too deep. By then, it was too late, and their only choice was to go along with it or be culled.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Lopez replied as he sat heavily onto one of the chairs facing the glass. “I’ll defer to your judgment on this, Agent Marston. If you think you can get him to talk, then, by all means, do what you think is necessary.”

  “Thank you,” I replied before turning to Linden and Holm. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go,” Linden replied. Holm nodded in agreement, and the three of us walked into the interrogation room where Maduro was waiting. He stopped pulling against the chain and looked up at us the moment we walked inside, his face morphing into a furious grimace as recognition lit up in his eyes.

  “You,” he sneered as he narrowed his eyes at me. “What the hell do you want?”

  “I want to have a discussion with you,” I answered him calmly as I sat down at the table across from him. Linden and Holm followed suit. Maduro’s eyes shifted rapidly between the three of us, as though he didn’t want to take his eyes off of any one of us for more than a second. “My name is Agent Marston, remember? We spoke briefly back at the beach house.”

  “I remember you,” Maduro growled. “Stupid bastard. You have no idea who you’re dealing with!”

  It was such a childish threat that I almost wanted to laugh, but I needed to keep my composure for now. Until we knew how my theory would play out, it would be better to remain stoic.

  “Actually, I know exactly who it is I’m dealing with,” I replied. “Damon Maduro. You spent four years at a juvenile correctional facility before attacking one of the other kids there. Then you spent another eight years behind bars at the Korrectie Instituut Aruba. That’s the highest security prison in Aruba, Maduro. Looks like you made quite a spectacle of yourself.”

  “Go to hell!” he spat at me. “So you looked up my records on your little computers, so what? You don’t know me! You don’t know anything about me!”

  “Wrong again.” I sighed as I leaned casually back in my chair. “We learned quite a bit about you from all of your men that we’ve arrested in the past month or so. They had a lot to say, actually. It seems like you haven’t been treating them all that well.”

  “I knew it,” he grumbled angrily. “I knew those spineless little snakes were all sneaking around behind my back. What did they tell you? Who was it?”

  “Oh, too many for me to remember off the top of my head.” I shrugged. “To be honest with you, though, the biggest source of information actually came from a completely unexpected source. I was so surprised when we suddenly received an anonymous phone call from a Venezuelan number. Up to that point, we had no idea that anyone from Venezuela was even involved in all of this. Of course, we had our suspicions, since we were trying to find the source of the drugs, but--”

  “What did you just say?” Maduro muttered darkly, his shoulders hunched as he stared blankly down at the table.

  Perfect, I thought smugly to myself. He took the bait just as I’d wanted him to. It was almost too easy, and I couldn’t help but worry that something might go wrong. I just needed to focus on keeping my cool and maintaining the bluff.

  “Hm?” I raised an eyebrow at him in mock confusion. “Oh, of course. I got a little ahead of myself, didn’t I? Yeah, it really shocked me. I never thought that Sandoval of all people would blow the whistle, but I guess he was more interested in saving his own skin--”

  “I’ll kill him!” Maduro cut me off again as he slammed both fists down against the table. “That traitor! I knew he was trying to get rid of me! I knew it. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

  “Wait, did you really not know?” I played dumb. “I don’t understand, then. How did you know that we were waiting for you at the docks? When your men suddenly attacked us that day, I assumed that you must have found out about Sandoval tipping us off that you’d be arriving that morning.”

  “He was the one who told you?” Maduro yelled. His face was red, and his eyes were practically bulging out of his head. He was so angry that he was letting his bias against Sandoval cloud his rational thinking. If he was calmer, he might have noticed the obvious flaws in the story I was feeding him, but he was so worked up that he was playing right into my hands. “All this time, I thought it was that little runt, Ruiz. I thought that he must have betrayed me for Sandoval, but I never realized that rat would give me up himself.”

  “I’m sorry you have to find out this way,” I replied sarcastically. “But you can’t possibly be surprised, can you? I mean, I heard all about how things were between the two of you from your men. You were already suspicious of him long before, weren’t you? After all, isn’t that why you went through the trouble of retrieving the drugs yourself this time?”

  “He was right there in front of me,” Maduro muttered, a crazed expression on his face. “Just a few days ago. I knew he was planning something against me. I knew it. I should have killed him right then. Now, because of him, I’m here, getting hassled by a bunch of cops. He’s the one that should…” His eyes went wide as he trailed off. For a long moment, he just sat there in silence. Then, slowly, a malicious smile began to creep onto his face. “You want to know how to find Sandoval, right? You haven’t caught up to him yet. If you had, you wouldn’t be sitting here yapping away at me right now.”

  I held my breath nervously. I’d managed to maneuver him exactly where I wanted him, but I wasn’t sure what he would say next. Would he take the bait, or would he realize what was going on and refuse to talk?

  “I can tell you where he is.” Maduro smirked victoriously. “Sandoval thinks he’s so slick. If I’m going down, I’m going to drag him right down with me, all the way to hell!”

  I had to fight against the triumphant smile that was threatening to form across my face. He’d fallen for my trick, hook, line, and sinker. I hadn’t even had to ask him myself where Sandoval was, he’d offered that up all on his own. Now, I just had to reel him in.

  “You’d really do that to your own partner?” I asked, not bothering to hide the disgust I felt at him since that would only help the act.

  “He’s no partner to me,” Maduro spat. “He stopped being that the moment he snitched on me to you pigs! He can rot for all I care! I’m the one who built up this organization. I’m the one who’s had to suffer to make everything work. Sandoval thinks he can take that all away from me? I’ll make sure he ends up in jail before he gets the chance to take all of my hard work from me.”

  “Why should I trust you?” I asked skeptically. Part of me just wanted to accept and ask for the location, but I knew that if I was too eager, he might notice that something was up. “How do I know you won’t lead us into a trap?”

  “Look, do you want to know or not?” Maduro growled, and for a moment, I worried I might have pushed the act a little too far.

  “I think we can trust him,” Holm spoke up as he turned to look at me. “Maybe it’s just me, but I understand where he’s coming from. I’d be pretty mad if someone I trusted stabbed me in the back like that.”

  “Exactly,” Maduro grumbled, and I silently thanked Holm for the quick save. “That’s exactly what Sandoval is, a backstabber. You want to know where he is? He’s in Caracas. He’s got a base near the water, in the middle of the jungle. That’s where they cook up the drugs.”

  “Do you know the exact location?” I asked as I slipped my phone out of my pocket
to make a note of it. “An address? Maybe a street name or some kind of marker?

  “Sure I do.” Maduro grinned. “So what are you gonna give me if I tell you?”

  Crap, I thought to myself. This was going so well. Was he really about to try bargaining now?

  “I thought you wanted to take Sandoval down with you,” Linden scoffed. “We’re already doing the dirty work of catching him. How do you expect us to do that if we don’t know where he is?”

  “Heh, guess you have a point,” Maduro chuckled after a moment of thoughtful silence. Alright then, I’ll tell you. I don’t actually have an address, though. It’s on an unmarked road, a few miles north of Castillo Negro, to stay off the authorities’ radar. Just follow the main road up until you come to a dirt road marked by an ugly wooden sign with a horse on it. The house is a few miles up that road. It’s in the middle of nowhere, so it might take you a while to find it.”

  “Thanks for the information,” I replied as I pushed my chair back to stand as soon as he’d finally revealed the instructions on how to get to the base. “I think that’s all we needed. What do you guys think?” I turned to look at Holm and Linden.

  “I agree,” Linden replied as he and Holm stood up as well. “I think we got what we came for.”

  “Huh?” Maduro muttered as he narrowed his eyes up at me, his expression marred with confusion. “Wait, what are you talking about?” I could practically see the moment that realization flooded through him. “Was this some kind of trick!?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied coldly as I turned to walk away.

  “You tricked me!” He roared as he yanked so hard against his restraints that the table lifted off the ground for a moment. “I’ll kill you!”

  He lunged fruitlessly toward us, the chain keeping him in place creaking as he pulled violently against it. A moment later, two police officers rushed into the room and grabbed Maduro by the arms, forcing him back down into his chair.

  “Did Sandoval even talk with you?” Maduro demanded. “Was that a lie too?”