Chapter Thirty-Eight

Less than fifteen minutes later, back at Freedom Plaza, Hunter and Garcia finally got to sit down with Officer Emiliano Esqueda.

Craig Thompson was sitting inside the same coffee shop, a couple of tables to their right, taking such large bites of the sandwich Hunter had bought him, he was risking snapping one of his fingers off.

‘That was kind… what you did.' Emiliano addressed Hunter, nodding in Craig's direction. ‘Most detectives I know are so sick and tired of excuses that they wouldn't hesitate in booking that kid in. "Save it for the judge," they'd say, and that would be it.'

‘We all need a little help every now and then,' Hunter said.

Emiliano chuckled. ‘I somehow get the impression that there's a little more to it than that.' He paused, as if considering his next words. ‘Did you have problems when you were younger as well?'

Hunter noticed the way that Emiliano's eyes narrowed as he said the words ‘as well'. He didn't seem to mean them as – ‘Did you have problems when you were younger, just like Craig did?' He seemed to mean them as – ‘Did you have problems when you were younger, just like I did?'

‘Families can be difficult to deal with,' Hunter said, keeping his reply as general as possible. ‘And unfortunately, we can't exactly choose our parents.'

Another chuckle from the officer. ‘Yeah, you can say that again.' He sipped his coffee and allowed his gaze to move over to Craig for a split second. ‘Years ago, I found myself in a pretty similar situation. My mother and I moved in with her new boyfriend who…' He shook his head. ‘Turned out to be a complete asshole.'

‘Violent?' Hunter asked.

Emiliano looked away for a beat. ‘Yeah, I guess you could say that.' Reflexively, his left hand moved up to his face and his index finger lightly brushed against the outer edge of his left eye, rubbing the gentle dip that Hunter had noticed earlier. It had been a subtle movement, one that Emiliano probably didn't even notice doing, but Hunter did. Some psychiatrists call it a telltale reflex… a subconscious giveaway – when a subject would unconsciously somehow drive attention to a part of the body associated with a memory, distressing or not.

Garcia seemed to have noticed it as well.

‘Thankfully,' Emiliano continued, ‘my mother was only with him for a couple of years.' His gaze became distant again – his mind clearly tapping into another undesirable memory for a quick second before he snapped out of it. ‘Anyway.' He sat back on his chair. ‘How about we jump back to the very beginning here.' His head jerked in Craig's direction. ‘Before all this started. Why do detectives from the UVC Unit want to talk to me?'

‘This boyfriend of your mother's,' Hunter questioned. ‘The violent one… was his name Shaun Daniels?'

The mention of that name alone seemed to be enough to make Emiliano's body go rigid. His surprised eyes moved from Hunter, to Garcia, then back to Hunter. ‘What is this? How do you know that?' He paused, his mind clearly racing through thoughts. ‘Did he go after my mother again? After all these years? Is that why you mentioned her earlier today?'

‘No, no… relax.' Garcia tried to calm him down again. ‘Like I said before – this has absolutely nothing to do with your mother.' He sneaked a glance at Hunter. ‘But it does have to do with Shaun Daniels.'

Emiliano half-opened his mouth, as if he was about to say something, but no words came out. His eyes kept on bouncing between both detectives.

‘Shaun Daniels is dead,' Garcia finally revealed.

The half-opened mouth slowly closed.

The bouncing stare became a skeptical one.

‘When?'

‘Almost a month ago,' Garcia replied. ‘His body was found on June 16th.'

Emiliano exhaled a heavy breath. ‘I'll be goddamned.' The skeptical stare morphed again, this time into a thoughtful one. ‘And the fact that two detectives from the LAPD Ultra Violent Crimes Unit are telling me this, clearly means three things. One – his death wasn't accidental. Two – he probably died in some horrific and quite violent way. And three – I made the POI list, right?'

Garcia gave him a sideways nod. ‘You've got two out of three there.'

A half-frown from Emiliano.

‘You're not a person-of-interest in the investigation,' Hunter informed him.

‘Oh-kay, so why on earth are you telling me this?' He lifted both hands at the two detectives. ‘Because I don't want to sound insensitive here, but seriously, I couldn't give a fuck about that asshole. And I'm sure that he deserved everything he got.'

‘We're telling you this because we need your help,' Hunter clarified.

‘My help?' Emiliano laughed. ‘How?'

‘Information.'

The bouncing stare came back. ‘Information? Are you two kidding? Shaun Daniels was only with my mother for two years and that was what… eight, nine years ago? I haven't seen him since. And even during those two awful years, I would've moved heaven and earth to avoid that man. We didn't have a relationship. I hated the fucker.'

‘We understand that,' Hunter said.

‘Do you?' Emiliano countered. ‘Because it really doesn't seem like you do.' He sat forward on his chair. ‘Look, I knew nothing about that man back then and I know even less now. I didn't even know if he was still in LA, or not. How do you expect me to help you? I have no information on him, whatsoever.'

‘The info we need…' Garcia, this time. ‘…isn't exactly about him… it's about you.'

‘Me? I thought you said I wasn't a POI.'

‘You're not.' Garcia took a breathing pause. ‘What we really need to know is – what sort of violence did Shaun Daniels use against you and your mother?'

Emiliano looked at Hunter and Garcia as if he hadn't understood the question. ‘What sort of violence? The violent kind. What other sort is there?'

‘Sorry.' Garcia accepted the criticism, lifting his hands in surrender. ‘Bad phrasing on my part. Let me be a little more specific and all you've got to do is say "yes" or "no", OK?'

Emiliano still looked like he was having trouble understanding exactly what to do, but Garcia knew that he would get it.

‘Did Shaun Daniels ever use enough violence against either you or your mother to… maybe break a bone?'

The officer seemed to chew on that question for a couple of seconds. ‘Yes,' he finally confirmed, his tone acquiring a somewhat angry edge to it. ‘More than once.' He showed the two detectives his left hand. ‘He broke two of my fingers when he slammed a door on my hand for no reason. He fractured one of my mom's ribs with a single punch because she refused to get him a beer from the fridge. And he fractured my left eye socket with an elbow slam.' He angled his head so that both detectives could see the dip in the outer edge of his left eye. ‘The man was a fucking animal.'

Neither Hunter nor Garcia needed to note that down. They could both remember that broken fingers and fractured ribs were some of the injuries that Shaun Daniels had suffered during his torture phase, together with a fractured left eye orbit.

‘And you've always lived here in LA?' Hunter asked.

‘That's right. We used to live in Boyle Heights. After my mom finally got away from that monster, we stayed in BH for another year – different apartment, though – before moving to Gardena. My mom now lives in San Jose with her new partner, but this guy is different – kind, respectful… he's nothing like Shaun was.'

‘I'm glad to hear that,' Hunter commented, and paused, knowing that his next question would sound strange, but it would also be the ultimate confirmation.

‘And can you remember if he ever did anything that resulted in either you or your mother being cold? I mean… too cold?'

Emiliano's eyes widened at Hunter, as he held his breath for a confused moment. ‘How could you possibly know something like that? Not even my mother knows about that night.'

And there it was – a confirmation even without a proper reply. Hunter was just about to thank Emiliano and end their conversation right there and then, but curiosity got the better of Garcia.

‘What did he do?' he asked. ‘I mean – this is LA. Even on a bad winter night, temperatures don't even get as low as forty degrees.'

Emiliano looked away for a beat. When he looked back at the two detectives, the focus in his eyes was undeniable – like a heavyweight champ's during a face-off just before the fight.

‘For some extra cash,' he explained, ‘two to three nights a week, Shaun drove a van for a food delivery company… a refrigerated van. One night, something happened. His shift got canceled, or something… I can't remember, but he came back home a lot earlier than he was supposed to. Mom was working at the diner that night, which so happened to be a very warm night. I thought that I'd be home alone, so me and a friend grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and we're just chilling in the living room, smoking some pot, when Shaun came in through the door. He was already angry because he didn't get his night's pay. When he saw that we had grabbed a couple of his beers, he went ballistic. My friend bailed and I got taken for a ride in the back of the refrigerated van.'

‘That's fucked up right there,' Garcia commented.

‘That wasn't the end of it,' Emiliano continued, crossing his arms in front of his chest – another telltale reflex. ‘I had no idea how long I'd been in the back of the van for – forty minutes, an hour… I don't know – but I was fucking freezing. The van finally came to a stop and I thought that that was it. We were back home – punishment over, you know? But I should've known better.' He took a breathing pause. The focus in his eyes stayed exactly where it was. ‘The back door to the van swung open and there he was – asshole Shaun – with a fucking water hose.'

This time, even Hunter cringed.

Emiliano shook his head. ‘I got drenched from head to toe. Shaun slammed the door shut and we took off again. By the time we got back home, I could barely move. I couldn't feel my fingers. I couldn't feel my toes. My body was just beginning to show signs of hypothermia. I was ill for over a month after that – pneumonia.' He shrugged and the focus finally vanished from his eyes. ‘How I didn't die that night, or in the days that followed, I have no idea. He told me that if I ever told my mother about that night, the consequences would be severe… for both of us.'

‘Did you ever tell anyone?' Garcia asked.

Emiliano's headshake was almost imperceptible. ‘No one. Not even Lexy.'

‘Lexy?'

‘My friend who was drinking beer with me in the living room when Shaun got home.' Emiliano shook the memory away with a head movement. ‘So yes, Detectives, like I've said, that asshole deserved whatever he got. And I really hope that it was something nasty.'