said. “And I’m telling you, he wasn’t your ordinary eighty-year-old man. He was tough and strong and in good health. He ran that prison yard like he was the warden.”
“You were the one who’s been visiting Carmen in prison?” I asked.
He looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. “Why would you say that?”
“Because Savage checked to see if he’d had any visitors,” I said. “And the warden told him he’d only had one visitor, but the logs had disappeared.”
Vince blew out a sigh. “Yeah, that cost a pretty penny. I figured it’d buy me a little time before they checked the cameras. There’s no way to make those disappear.”
“Why were you visiting de Salva?” I asked.
“Because Valentina had help, and it wasn’t Rudy Guzman. Guzman was a politician, but he had no brains. There was no way he was smart enough to coordinate drug shipments in and out of different waterways, while avoiding everyone who had them all under surveillance.”
“So she had help from cops,” I said.
“The guy running the federal task force was a good guy. Agent Simmons. But he must’ve hit a nerve because he ended up dead, along with the DA and another couple of local cops. They were wiping out anyone who was clean. I think the only reason my team stayed intact was because we were just workhorses. We didn’t have any power, and it was never our decision what plan was implemented.
“Your dad was never settled with this case,” Vince said. “He was obsessed. But he was like that with cases, so I didn’t think anything of it. He and your mom even split up once because he couldn’t be anything but a cop.”
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“You were really young,” Vince said softly. “I just hadn’t realized that he’d kept digging into it all the years before he died.”
“Why did you visit Carmen?” I asked.
“Because I found the file in your dad’s shed last October,” he said. “That’s when I decided to go pay a visit to Carmen. I wanted to see what he knew, what he thought.” Vince shrugged and brought me a mug of coffee, though I noticed he didn’t make one for himself. He was nervous, though he was trying not to let it show.
“What did Carmen say?” I asked, wrapping my cold hands around the mug. I almost moaned at the warmth.
“He was skeptical at first,” Vince said. “He remembered me, but he was cool as a cucumber. We didn’t talk about much at first, but then I asked him how he felt about what Valentina did to him and his sons and he just smiled. He didn’t answer. Just told me he enjoyed our talk and to come back and see him again. So I did.
“When I came back the next time, he was a little more talkative. Told me he’d had a lot of time to think about Valentina, and he didn’t hold any grudges against her. She was what she was—a beautiful woman with a calculating mind and no conscience—and he knew that about her when they got married.
“He also knew she was messing around on him with someone, but he figured it all equaled out since he was never faithful to her either. He was a fascinating man. A great storyteller. And it was hard to remember him as the criminal he was.”
“Angelica was like that when I talked with her,” I said, understanding.
He shook his head. “I still can’t believe you went to Miami to see her. You’re lucky you’re still alive.”
“You certainly got lucky,” I said.
He nodded. “The last time I talked to Carmen was a day before he died. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. And he was cremated within hours of his death, before family or anyone else could be notified. He told me on my last visit that he could appreciate a guy like me, who was always on the up and up. He thinks it takes as much skill for a cop to be good as a criminal to be bad. It’s probably a closer line than most people know.
“Anyway,” Vince said. “Carmen was a showman. He liked to be in control. And even behind bars he wanted to run the show. So he’d feed me a little at a time and then tell me to come back and see him. So that’s what I did.”
“And then he died,” I said.
“And took whatever he was going to tell me to the grave. I knew I was