She greeted her kindly, invited her to have a seat, and offered her a cup of coffee.
Maria sat down but passed on the coffee. She preferred not to drink it at night. She started the same way she had with Gladys Elena, asking her if she was inclined to tell her the whole story again and to answer her questions honestly, even though she had done so a thousand times before. The woman agreed. Maria turned on her recorder and pulled out her notepad, then told her:
“Whenever you’re ready, Mercedes.”
“Mercy, call me Mercy, and don’t be so formal, you’ll make me feel old… Have you ever been to Pinar del Rio?”
“No, I’m sorry to say I was born here.” The woman looked at her as though not being born in Cuba was a sin.
“It’s beautiful…and it continues to be because the countryside is something that can’t be stolen. The Valle de Viñales looks like no other place in the world. The whole province is beautiful and has a rich history ever since the War of Independence. Oh, sorry, I tend to prattle on… I was Spanish on my father’s side. We were Asturian, so our life consisted of a small farm where we grew rice, tomatoes, potatoes, and I don’t know how many other things. Most people who live in that area were tobacco farmers, or vegueros as they’re called there. They also grew henequen, which yields a lot but theirs was modest… My mother’s family was of French descent. In Pinar del Rio, there are people from all over. Our neighbors were Lebanese… Mamá was a rural schoolteacher. You can’t imagine all the jobs that came her way, but the truth is she didn’t need the money. She only did it because it was her calling. In the province, education was important. Mamá showed me old photos of herself in a classroom with her students. She had to go on horseback… We lived in a house with a beautiful central patio, which is typical in those parts. Pinar del Rio is full of legends and music from songbirds.”
“When did you get married?” Maria interrupted, hoping that the woman would start talking about things relevant to the case.
“Oh, sorry, it’s just that no one wants to know about these stories, not even my children. I married very young, maybe when I was nineteen… I was born in ’54. I was only five years old when the Revolution started. My family told me everything changed, but I believe that some things stayed the same… What I mean is that where there was once a pharmacy, there’s still one; it’s just that now it’s falling down… When the agrarian reform came along, they tried to take the farm from my father, but we managed to keep a small part of it and stood up for ourselves. Supposedly, they made things somewhat better at my mom’s school. Yeah right! They told her what she had to teach, but she fought back in the beginning since she had principles. So, by the time I came along, the teachers looked down on me. They called us gusanos, or worms, and even more so when my Uncle Jacinto left for the United States. In spite of that, I participated in all of the revolutionaries’ activities. I went off to cut cane when I was only sixteen, and when I was eighteen I moved to Havana to go to school. I ran into even bigger problems when I was in college, mostly for making stupid remarks, because my cousin Jacinto Jose had been killed in Vietnam, fighting with the Americans. Someone said something about it, and since I am—or at least used to be—a loudmouth, I couldn’t stand it and I told them off. So, I returned to Pinar del Rio because I was expelled from college… That’s when I met Hilario. He was a decent guajirote from the country, polite, and considerably refined for being a farmer. We fell in love, got married… Gladys was born in ’74, when I was twenty, and Raulito in ’76. My husband worked the land, I tended the house and raised the children, and helped my mother at the school, where she still taught.”
Mercy paused to offer her some mango juice. Maria accepted and the woman came back with two glasses of the tropical nectar. They drank in silence for a while until she started her story again.
“Now, where did I leave off? Ah, things began to get worse… Some of the neighbors told Hilario to get on a raft and get out of Cuba. I always thought that was crazy. Besides, I didn’t want to leave my parents…but when that guajiro got an idea into his head, he was more stubborn than a mule. Finding materials and constructing the raft in secret was a real undertaking, as you know. You have to understand that I love my children, but I just couldn’t get on that raft with them. I had a panic attack when I saw the blackness of the sea…there was no moon…it was an imposing darkness. I didn’t believe that Hilario would do it, but our neighbors were pressuring him to leave. The thing is, they got onto the raft, pushed off, and I stayed on the shore as still as a statue. The ten days I waited without hearing from them were the longest of my life. At last, Gladys called me crying a river to tell me that her father had drowned, and our neighbor and his wife too. My children were the only ones who made it. The Virgin had protected them because of all of my prayers.”
She appeared exhausted after retelling this part of her story. She looked for a Kleenex and wiped her nose.
“I nearly went crazy thinking about my children, all alone. I haven’t even told this to my children, but it’s the only time in my life that I have borrowed money. I called my Uncle Jacinto in New York. He really came through. I had to pay eight thousand dollars to get there in a boat, because there’s was no way I could do it on a raft. But don’t think that the boat was an easy trip. It went quickly. Seated in the bottom of the boat with the other passengers, you could feel the waves from the bottom all the way up to the top of your head. I didn’t get seasick or vomit like the others did. Maybe because I was focused on praying… But sometimes I thought that I couldn’t put up with it anymore. It was daylight when we came ashore on an island. Then the coast guard picked us up. In the end, it was quite a journey. They detained me in Key West for a few days, but when I finally got to embrace my children, I knew that it had all been worth it.”
“And what can you tell me about Raimundo Lazo?”
“Well, I really didn’t have that many dealings with him. They left Cuba on October 15—can you believe it? In the middle of hurricane season?—and I arrived here at the end of December. He and my daughter were already dating. I didn’t approve. She had left a boyfriend back in Cuba, a decent boy who we had known for his whole life. And she was so young! But when I tried to give my opinion, they told me that they had already gotten married by a judge and that she was pregnant. They said that she was due in October and later on said that it was two months premature, but I knew it was just a cover-up—she was already pregnant when they got married… What could I do? And these days, what does it matter? Later, as you know, she ended up marrying the boyfriend from Pinar del Rio.”
“Yes…but what did you think of Lazo?”
“Well, I’ve never told anyone this before because it’s a difficult feeling to describe…but I didn’t like that man at all… I can’t tell you why exactly.”
“Did he treat your daughter well?”
“Like a princess… He seemed quite in love with her.”
“Did he drink, or do drugs, or was he impolite?”
“No, nothing like that, he was respectful, always around, and very attentive.”
“Then what didn’t you like about him?”
“I’m not sure… He gave me the impression that he was hiding something.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I’m not sure… It’s been a long time… I just had my suspicions.”
“And do you believe that your granddaughter is alive?” Maria asked unexpectedly.
“Sometimes yes. Sometimes I am certain she is and can almost feel her presence. Other times no. It seems like none of this happened and that it was all a dream…or a nightmare. But I have to tell my daughter that I am sure that she’s alive, or it’s going to kill her. If I thought I was going to go crazy when they were on the raft and didn’t know if they had arrived safely, and it was only for a few days, imagine waiting all these years! You understand that Duquesa?”
“Duquesne is
my last name. Yes, I understand. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. It’s late and I know you work, but if possible I might want to see you again.”
“Anytime you need to…don’t hesitate to call me.”
“Please think hard about why it seemed like Lazo was hiding something,” Maria said in the doorway.
And just as her daughter had done, Mercy said goodbye to Detective Duquesne with a kiss on the cheek.
Chapter 7
Day 4—Thursday, November 5, 2015
As soon as she got in her car, Maria felt her stomach growl. Undoubtedly, the smoothie she had drunk wasn’t going to hold her over. She remembered there was a restaurant—La Carreta—in the Hialeah area. According to her GPS, it was close, so she decided to stop for something to eat. She got in line for the carry out window to ask for a medianoche sandwich to take back home, but she thought she recognized someone inside and decided to go in instead. She looked for a table where she could go unnoticed, and she hid her face behind the menu. At first, she had her doubts, but it didn’t take her long to become convinced that she was looking at Ramon Morales, Lourdes’s husband. He was sitting with a young woman, and they were chatting animatedly. What was a man who lived in Coral Gables doing in Hialeah at this hour? Was her mother’s friend right that her husband was hiding something? There had to be a better explanation, she told herself. She also knew that she couldn’t spy on him, but if it happened to be a chance encounter, that was different.
The waitress came by. She ordered quickly. As soon as the woman left, Maria noticed that Ramon paid the bill and stood up with the girl. She had already given back her menu, so she didn’t have any way to hide her face. They were going to go right past her. She wasn’t sure whether to greet him or to get up and go to the bathroom. She didn’t have time to decide. Lourdes’s husband was already too close. Then she heard a cell phone ring and saw Ramon reach into his pocket to answer it, and he put his head down just as he passed her table. He had not seen her! She thought about following them. Her curiosity was piqued, but it was against department regulations to act as a private detective. Still, if no one paid her, it was a bit different… Besides, no one had to know. She doubted it would amount to much, and when she opened the door, she saw Ramon’s car driving away. However, it looked like he was alone. If that was the case, he had met the young woman there, and she had her own car. She thought about heading out and seeing if she saw the woman and taking down her license plate number, but she decided not to. Maybe in the back of her mind she preferred not to know what Ramon was up to.
She left half of the medianoche because she had quickly lost her appetite. She didn’t sleep too well that night, so in spite of her standard morning Cuban coffee, she was sleepy when she arrived at the station.
Day 5—Friday, November 6, 2015
“You have a message on your desk,” one of her fellow officers told her when she entered.
It seemed strange to her that someone she didn’t know had called from The Palace. She immediately dialed the number. They told her that they were calling on behalf of Don Joaquin. He had been hospitalized for a lung condition, and she wouldn’t be able to see him for a few days. She practically had to beg them to tell her that he was in Kendall Medical Center.
“But he’s not allowed to have any visitors,” the woman on the other end of the phone warned.
Regardless, Maria went to the hospital to try to see him. When she identified herself as a police officer and assured them that it would only take a few minutes, they let her in. Don Joaquin looked thinner than when she had last seen him, like a small, fragile bird between the sheets. He was on oxygen, and a nurse was in the process of taking his vitals. Even though the thermometer in his mouth prevented him from saying anything, his eyes showed that he was happy to see her.
When they were alone, Maria asked him not to talk; he needed to rest so that he could recover quickly and then tell her the rest of his story. They must have given him a sedative, because the old man smiled peacefully and fell asleep right away.
When she got back to the station, Detective Duquesne reviewed all of her case notes. Suddenly, she got up and knocked on her boss’s office door.
“Larry, I need to talk to you.”
Her tone was serious, and Lawrence Keppler lifted his glance from the papers he was reading and listened attentively.
“Look, one of the main problems we have to solve in this case is that we don’t know the identity of the person who died in the car that fell into the canal. He used a fake name and social security number, and there is no trace of him anywhere, not even in the Department of Immigration.”
“What do you propose we do?”
“I think we need to try to get the cooperation of the Cuban government.”
“You’re crazy! You know how unreasonable Captain Rios is. If you tell him that, God knows how he’ll react.”
“I know or, at least, I think I know, but our professional work has to come before our ideological differences. Now that there is more collaboration on a few matters between the two countries, it shouldn’t be too difficult to send the photo and the DNA, and for them to tell us his real name and if he had a criminal record. This man is obviously hiding something, and I think the sooner we find out, the sooner we can solve this case.”
“And what do you think happened?”
“You know that it’s not good to make conjectures until we have all the facts.”
“But you’ve always had a great instinct, and sometimes the nose of an investigator is her best weapon.”
“Fine, I could be wrong, and it’s very premature, but my nose—as you say—tells me that it wasn’t an accident, that they killed him, but I don’t know why or who.”
“And the little baby?”
“I think she’s alive, and if that’s true, we need to find her.”
“Ok, give me a few days, and I’ll see if we can get the cooperation of the Cuban government, but I don’t think the DNA will do us much good. When he left in 1980, they didn’t even use DNA to solve cases in the US, much less in Cuba. If you at least had his fingerprints, it would help.”
“I’ll keep looking, but the cooperation of the Cuban government could be crucial. Thanks so much.”
She went back to her desk and again plunged into the databases within her reach but couldn’t find any Alberto Gonzalez who would have come through Mariel with the same birthdate. Then it dawned on her that if he used a fake name and social security number, the birthdate could be fake too. It might have belonged to Ray Bow and not Alberto Gonzalez. She pulled up the information on four people by that same name, all who had arrived through Mariel. Two were small children, so she ruled them out. One was much older, age seventy. The fourth was born in 1963. That would have made him seventeen when he arrived, two years younger than the age on Raimundo Lazo’s papers.
She called Leo. His assistant answered, and she had to wait a few minutes before he came to the phone. She cut right to the chase:
“Leo, were minors under eighteen treated differently in Tamiami if they arrived alone?”
“You told me he was nineteen.”
“Yes, but I think the papers were falsified, and he was only seventeen.”
“They wouldn’t have let him leave the camp so easily if he were that young.”
“Wait, have you ever heard of anyone in the area who falsified documents?”
“I’ve heard rumors but have never been able to verify them.”
“Who would know?”
“The only person that comes to mind would be Manuel Larrea.”
“The writer?”
“Yes, he came through Mariel, and I think he talked about it in one of his novels, but maybe it was all fictitious. He lives in Miami Beach.”
“You’re a gem, Leo. I owe you one.”
Maria again felt that inner tingling sensation
that came with a new clue.
Next, she searched for Larrea’s books on Amazon. She learned that his novel about the Mariel Boatlift was out of print and copies sold for $175 each. She decided to call him instead and arranged to meet him the next day at his apartment in South Beach.
Chapter 8
Day 5—Friday, November 6, 2015
Maria woke up with one of those migraines that barely lets you move your head or tolerate the light. Still, she didn’t waste a single minute. She made some Cuban coffee and took two Excedrin. Then she got in the shower, adjusted the nozzle to increase the pressure, and soaked her head under the stream for a long while. As she dried her hair with a towel, she firmly pressed on her temples and pressure points.
When she got to the office, she felt better but didn’t feel up to driving all the way to Miami Beach. She saw Fernandez at his desk. He was a young man who hadn’t been on the force for very long. Larry had told her to ask for help if she needed it, so she stuck her head in his office and asked him if she could take the rookie with her to an interview.
Fernandez was delighted. On their way to Miami Beach, he couldn’t stop talking about the case and asking Maria questions. She was almost sorry she had asked him to come along.
She was caught off guard when Larrea opened the door. She was barely in high school when the Mariel Boatlift happened, but she remembered him as he was in 1980 when he had just arrived and had just published his novel. He had appeared a few times in the press. Back then he was a handsome, young man with a dark, bushy beard. Now, his hair, mustache, and the few remaining whiskers in his beard had all turned totally white. He had also put on some weight. Maria realized that thirty-five years had gone by, which was how old the writer must have been in the photos she remembered. He was probably near seventy now. When he smiled and stared back at her with his green eyes, she recognized a glimmer of the man she remembered.
The Miracle of Saint Lazarus Page 5
