Betrayed (Rosato & DiNunzio, #2)(83)

His young expression looked grave, his handsome mouth an unsmiling line, and his bright dark eyes seemed sunken, as if he had been awake all night, hung over, or both. He flashed her an uncertain smile, and she smiled back as he walked toward her table, removing his hands from the pockets of a black hoodie, which he had on with a T-shirt, low-slung jeans, and flat sneakers.

“Domingo, hi, please, sit down.” Judy pushed the coffee mug and plate of doughnuts to his side of the table.

“Thank you, I’m so hungry.” Domingo took a chair, gulped some coffee, and set down the mug with a clunk. “Did you bring the money?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see.”

“Okay.” Judy reached for her purse, slid out the white envelope, and passed it to him across the table. She’d gotten the cash from the office’s petty cash and left a personal check in its place.

“Thank you, Miss Judy.” Domingo took the envelope quickly, folded it in half, and stuck it in the pocket of his hoodie. “I am sorry about Carlos, what he did to you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Your mouth, it hurts, from him?” Domingo motioned to his lips.

“No, thanks. How are you? I’m worried about you.”

“I will be okay with money.” Domingo smiled warmly, seeming to relax. He grabbed a doughnut and took a big bite, then another. “I go away, to New York.”

“Why there?”

“My uncle, he washes dishes in a restaurant, a nice restaurant.” Domingo took two more bites and finished the doughnut. “He said he can get me a job. He likes New York very much. I see it on the TV, Saturday Night Live. It looks fun.”

“It is fun,” Judy said, touched.

“I have to go away from Carlos and Roberto.” Domingo’s brief smile vanished. “They are not good man. They are the worst man in the world.”

Judy got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Are they the ones that killed Iris?”

“Yes.”

Judy swallowed hard. She wanted to know the truth, and at the same time, it was too awful to hear. “How did they do it?”

“Gas.”

“What kind of gas?” Judy asked, her mouth going dry.

“Bug killer, and they have a bottle, a soda bottle. They mix bug killer and acid, you know acid?”

“Acid?”

“Yes, acid, they use to clean plumbing and stones. This is the name. I copy from the bottle.” Domingo reached into his other pocket, retrieved a crumpled scrap of white paper, and slipped it to her across the table.

Judy opened it up, her heart pounding. On the sheet of paper at were two penciled words in capitals. BONIDE MURIATIC. “Is this English?”

“Yes, yes.” Domingo reached his hand across the table and pointed a dirty fingernail at BONIDE. “This kill bugs.” Then he moved his finger to MURIATIC. “Mix this, kill people.”

Judy gasped. She couldn’t speak, horrified. She couldn’t bear to imagine the agony of Iris’s murder. She couldn’t conceive of such cruelty. Her mind went into denial. Perhaps Domingo had been wrong. She asked him, “How do you know this?”

“I saw.”

Judy stifled a moan. “What did you see, exactly?”

“At the barracks, I see them, Carlos and Roberto.” Domingo picked up his mug and drained it of coffee.

“Roberto who?”

“Rivera.” Domingo picked up the second doughnut and began to wolf it down.

“How did they do it?”

“They take Iris and put her in the shed.” Domingo finished the doughnut and leaned over the table, his voice urgent. “She scream, ‘no, no.’ They throw bottle in pipe on top. Bottle break in the shed. No more screaming.”

Judy forced herself to understand the scene. “Why weren’t they gassed?”

“They wear—” Domingo raised his hand and covered his face.

“Masks?”

“Yes.” Judy thought it seemed oddly elaborate and she still doubted him. “Why did they kill her that way?”

“No, at home, the cartel, they do it.”

Judy shuddered. “Do Carlos and Roberto sell heroin?”

Domingo hesitated, his tongue licking dry lips. “I don’t know.”

Judy could see he was lying. “They work for some cartel, don’t they?”

“Miss Judy, I don’t know. I don’t want to … say. I tell about Iris, that is all.”

“Could that be why they killed Iris? Was she working with them or did she find out about them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was anyone there, when they killed her?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand, what were you doing there? Did you help them?”

“No.” Domingo recoiled, blinking. “I would never. It’s a sin.”

“Where were you?”

Domingo paused. “Inside.”

“In the barracks?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing there? Did they know you were there?”

“No.” Domingo hesitated. “I was with Pablo. In bed, you understand? Carlos and Roberto, they don’t know.”