Silenced in Spain

by D'arcy Kavanagh

  Menard nodded and Burke could see the man’s skepticism about the coastal trip. However, clearly the veteran broadcaster didn’t mind because he stood, wished Burke and Tessier a good night’s sleep and left.

  Burke turned to Tessier. “Interested in going on a road trip tomorrow morning, say at 7 a.m.?”

  “Where?”

  “To a wasteland and then a marshland.”

  Tessier smiled. “I’m in.”

  Chapter 18

  The next morning, Burke and Tessier left Tarragona as the sun was starting to show. Burke drove their compact car hard and they reached Oropesa in 80 minutes, turning off in the abandoned developments where Burke and Colin Bothwick had ridden.

  “What are we looking for?” Tessier asked as Burke slowed the vehicle to 15 km/h.

  “Anything that is out of the normal,” Burke said.

  Tessier looked at the rows of bleak buildings, weed-ridden parking lots, broken street lights and cracked sidewalks. “But what’s normal?” he asked.

  “If you see a lot of people milling about, that’s not normal, at least for this area. Or if you see a bunch of parked vehicles, that’s not normal.”

  “Got it.”

  Burke turned the corner. He looked up at the nearest building and saw awnings on two balconies and several small plants on a third. Other than that, it didn’t seem like anyone was using the condo complex.

  Block after block, it was the same. Once, Burke and Tessier saw three youngsters kicking a soccer ball near the entrance of a building. Otherwise, they saw no one.

  “That’s a little different,” Tessier said pointing.

  Burke stopped the car and looked where the young man was indicating. But he didn’t see anything.

  “What’s different?” Burke asked.

  “Do you see the ramp going down to the building’s indoor parking lot?”

  Burke looked, but spotted nothing unusual.

  “Look at that huge pot at the side of the entrance,” Tessier said.

  There was a dead palm tree stuck in it. Burke couldn’t figure what made it unusual to his companion.

  “Can you see the side is cracked and there’s dirt beside it?” Tessier said.

  “Yes, but so what?”

  “I’d say that happened recently. If it had happened a long time ago, the dirt would likely have blown away or maybe the entire pot would have collapsed.”

  “OK,” said Burke, surprised at how the young statistician was asserting himself. “But I’m still not getting your point.”

  “Let’s get out and get a better look,” Tessier said.

  Burke turned off the ignition and they walked over to the pot, studying the area immediately around it.

  Tessier waved his hand at the apartments above. “There’s no sign that anyone’s using these apartments, right? No plants or chairs or barbecues or anything. So, if the building isn’t being used, why is a pot partly damaged by the entrance into the parking lot?”

  “Maybe some kids decided to vandalize it.”

  Tessier looked around. “Nothing else looks like it’s been deliberately damaged. Neglected, yes, damaged by accident or on purpose, no.”

  “So, what do you think happened?” Burke asked. He didn’t mind asking questions. Tessier’s brain was quick and agile, and definitely faster than his.

  “It’s just a guess, but I’d say someone was careless when driving into or out of the parking area.”

  “OK.”

  “Or maybe someone was in a rush to either get in or get out,” Tessier added.

  “Like they wanted to hide quickly or go out quickly?”

  “Like I said, just guessing.”

  Tessier walked down to the garage door with Burke on his heels. They both looked down. There was no accumulation of dirt. And the door itself wasn’t dusty. In short, it seemed it was being used. But that still didn’t tell them much.

  Tessier tried to lift the garage door, but he couldn’t make it move. Burke wasn’t surprised. The door looked extremely heavy and, besides, Tessier was obviously far more brain than brawn. Carrying his laptop was probably his sternest physical test.

  Burke glanced to the side and saw some kind of box. “What’s that?” he wondered out loud.

  Tessier approached the box, touched it and then tried to open it. He got nowhere. “Whatever it is, I can’t open it. It’s made of steel and doesn’t budge. Interesting, though.”

  “Why ‘interesting’?”

  “It’s not what you see outside garages very often. I mean, look back to the start of the ramp and you’ll see where residents can use their fob. That’s where they get the door to open.”

  Burke glanced over his shoulder and saw the spot Tessier was indicating.

  Tessier returned his attention to the metallic box, bending forward to get a closer look. “There’s some kind of super small sensor here,” he said. “I missed it before, but I spotted it this time. Or maybe it’s an opening for a fibre-optic camera.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Whatever it is, I think it’s sophisticated.”

  Burke took a few photos of it, explaining that maybe he’d be able to find someone who knew what its purpose was. Then he said he wanted to see if any of the other garage doors in the area had the same strange box. He led Tessier back to the street and looked at the neighbouring buildings.

  None had a box. But they all had the same fob-use entrance.

  “Let’s look around some of the other buildings in the area,” Burke said.

  “Do you want to wait and see if anyone shows up, Paul?” Tessier suggested.

  Burke thought for a moment and shook his head. “We could sit here for hours or even days and see nothing new. Besides, we’re on a tight schedule.”

  They started toward the car, but Burke stopped part way, noticing a small patch of orange on the concrete, no larger than a thumb print. He walked over. He thought it was paint and scuffed the spot with his toe, smudging it a bit. It was a few grains of some odd powder.

  “What are you looking at?” Tessier said.

  Burke pointed. “It’s some kind of weird powder.”

  Tessier bent and rubbed a finger over the spot. He stood and showed Burke his finger, which had the slightest hint of orange on it. He smelled it and shook his head. “I don’t know what it is. I can’t detect any smell.”

  He held it out to Burke who smelled it, but sensed nothing. Then Tessier rubbed the material off his finger as they walked back to the car and Burke drove the vehicle 100 metres to a nearby building, stopping by the parking entrance. There were two enormous pots there, neither damaged. He went back another half block and checked out a third building. Same result.

  “You’re really stuck on all this, aren’t you, Paul?” Tessier said.

  Burke nodded. “I can’t forget what happened to Colin Bothwick and I can’t stop thinking that the secret behind what happened is in this area.”

  “OK, so where do we go next?”

  “Let’s keep touring this area for a few more minutes and see what we see.”

  As they drove, they saw nothing different and the only building with that special box was the one they had stopped at. When they reached a cul de sac offering a view of the Mediterranean Sea, Burke stopped and studied the dark blue water. He spotted a couple of swimmers and, in the distance, three small boats which looked like fishing vessels. Farther away was the outline of a large container ship heading west.

  “Pretty quiet out there,” Burke said.

  “I think most of the big sea traffic is down the coast a bit,” Tessier said. “So, what’s next?”

  “I want to see where Bothwick died.”

  “But haven’t you been there with the police?”

  “I was. Now I want to see it without them around.”

  Chapter 19

  As the car bumped and jostled its way along the dirt road, Burke hoped he wouldn’t damage the re
ntal vehicle. If he did, he didn’t want to be the one to tell Suzanne Godard.

  “And this is the road Colin Bothwick took?” Tessier said.

  “It is.”

  “It makes no sense, especially if he was on a racing bike. The narrow tires wouldn’t have worked on this at all.”

  “You know something about cycling,” Burke said.

  “I’m not really into racing, but I like to ride when I get the chance, usually to get groceries or to meet some friends.”

  “Well, you’re right. Narrow tires wouldn’t last long on this kind of surface,” Burke said. “In fact, I’d say it’s lucky Bothwick got this far. He could easily have had a flat tire anywhere along this route. And if he had, what would have happened then? The same result?”

  When they reached where Bothwick had been struck, they saw it was roped off, but no one was around. It seemed to Burke the local police must have collected all the evidence they wanted, but still wanted to keep sightseers away.

  Burke turned off the ignition and got out, walking to the cordoned-off area. He stared at the spot where someone had probably found Bothwick’s body and felt a pang of sadness. He hadn’t been close to Bothwick, but he had liked him, quirks and all.

  Glancing around, he wondered if Bothwick had been killed instantly or had lay on the ground for a period before dying. If the latter, it would have been a frightening, lonely way to go and Burke shuddered at the thought.

  “And the police say no one saw the accident, right?” Tessier said.

  Burke nodded. He didn’t feel like correcting his companion on ‘accident.’

  “Do you know the details of how he was struck?”

  “No. The police aren’t saying anything beyond it’s now a murder investigation.”

  “He was engaged, wasn’t he, Paul?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “Did you ever meet his fiancée?”

  “No. I only saw a couple of photos he showed me. Very attractive.”

  They stood there for a few minutes, looking around, each lost in his thoughts, and then Burke said they needed to turn around and go to their next stop.

  It took an hour to reach where the truck driver had had his fatal accident. The site was also sectioned off with yellow tape. This time, however, there were two crime-scene people checking the ground. Their van was parked on a ramp, perilously close to a canal.

  “Not very wide,” Burke said as he pulled to the side of the road and stopped.

  Tessier tapped the screen of his tablet. “You know, Paul, I’ve been doing some calculations and by taking this route, the driver would have added almost 20 minutes to his trip if he kept to the speed limit which would be wise along this road. That’s an estimate, but it’s probably accurate.”

  “No one would take this route to save time,” Burke agreed. “So, why come this way?”

  They looked around. There were a few farmhouses nearby and a handful of sheds for farmers working the rice fields that stretched out endlessly. On a small hill maybe two kilometres north was a small community of white-washed buildings. Burke thought it was the village of Camarles. During one long ride years before, he had stopped there for lunch at a café overlooking the small village green.

  Burke decided to test his luck, got out of the car and walked toward the crime-scene duo. They stopped working when he reached the yellow tape.

  “Are you looking for something, Seῆor?” asked the older one, a tall, skinny man in his 50s.

  “I’m with the Vuelta and I heard about the accident,” Burke said. “I was driving through the area and thought I’d stop and see what happened.”

  The crime-scene tech nodded. “I can’t tell you anything.”

  Burke shrugged. “Like I said, I was just passing by.”

  The second tech, a short, heavyset woman in her 30s, wasn’t interested in Burke and returned to her work. The tall tech waited to see if Burke was finished.

  He wasn’t. Burke looked to see if there were any skid marks on the ground. He didn’t see any, but they could easily have been erased by other traffic.

  “I wonder why he was out this far,” Burke said.

  “What do you mean?” the tall tech said, his curiosity getting the better of him.

  “The highway isn’t far away and he’d have made much better time using it. So why take this country road?”

  “Not my business.”

  “Do you think he was going too fast?”

  “As I said, I can’t tell you anything.”

  “I understand. One final question if you don’t mind. What happens to the vehicle in such instances?”

  “It’s taken away and examined. Now, I need to get back to work.”

  Burke thanked him and returned to his car.

  “Don’t turn the ignition on yet,” Tessier said. “Just sit here for a minute or two and watch the female tech.”

  Burke was puzzled but didn’t argue. Tessier was proving his worth with every passing minute. And so Burke watched the woman scrape carefully at the side of the road and then bend over, almost to the point where it seemed she was going to tumble into the canal. She poked at something, changed instruments to a tiny digging tool and then brought out something which she deposited in a plastic bag she pulled from her pocket.

  “I wonder what that is,” Burke said.

  “I don’t know anything about crime scenes, but what she’s doing looks a little odd.”

  “As if she found something she didn’t expect.”

  “It might be interesting to know what it is,” Tessier said.

  Burke agreed. He got out of the car again and approached the two workers. As he did, he saw the female tech take the plastic bag and put it carefully into a metal box.

  “Our map isn’t very good,” Burke began. “Does this route link back up to the main highway?”

  “It comes out at L’Ampolla which is just up the road a few k’s,” the male tech said, impatience in his voice. “From there, you can get back on the N-340.”

  “Thanks. By the way, it looks like you found something interesting in the canal,” Burke said, pointing at the female tech.

  “We’ll see,” the woman replied.

  “This whole thing was an accident, right?”

  The two techs exchanged a glance. “It’s an investigation is all we can tell you.”

  “Sorry to bother you. We’ll be on our way.”

  Burke walked back to his car, feeling them watching him.

  “Find out anything?” Tessier said.

  “I don’t know, but I have the feeling those two techs don’t think what happened here was an accident.”

  Chapter 20

  Burke kept his eyes on the narrow road as they headed for L’Ampolla. His thoughts, though, were wandering.

  “Any chance you can check something for me as we drive?” he asked Tessier.

  “We have a signal, so go ahead and ask.”

  “How big a deal is commercial fishing in this general area?”

  “Fishing? Really?”

  Burke smiled. “Humour me.”

  A couple of minutes later, as Burke reached the outskirts of L’Ampolla, Tessier had an answer. “Fishing has been going on in L’Ampolla for almost 3,000 years. It was a big deal during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Lots of boats, lots of fishing-related industry.”

  “And now?”

  Tessier tapped away for a half minute and then read. “A few commercial boats and some sport fishing although most of the good sport fishing is on the Ebro Delta.”

  “And how big is fishing back in the Oropesa region?”

  More tapping. Then Tessier said, “Same result. Some commercial fishing but not a lot. Some sport fishing.”

  “All year round?”

  “The commercial fishing, yes. The sport fishing is summer based.”

  Burke took the turnoff to the N-340 and punched the accelerator to get ahead of an oncoming truck. />
  “Why do you want to know about fishing around here?” Tessier said.

  “Just curious.”

  “That’s not fair. You have to tell me. Otherwise, I might not be able to help you if you make another request.”

  “I’ll tell you but not yet,” Burke said. “Right now I’m just sorting through what we’ve learned.”

  “And did we learn much today?”

  “I think we might have.”

  That satisfied Tessier and they drove the rest of the way to Tarragona in silence. After filling up with gas, they returned to their hotel and gathered their bags and Burke’s bike. Then they checked out which took a half hour thanks to the dozens of tourists and Vuelta workers who were doing the same.

  When they were done, Burke heard Nico Menard call his name. “Over here,” said Menard, standing in a corner with his small carry-on by his feet. For the first time since Burke had seen him on the Vuelta, Menard looked rested.

  “You look well today, Nico,” Burke said.

  “I slept like a baby, thanks to a clean conscience and a late-night cognac,” Menard replied with a grin. “Hopefully, the days ahead will be equally peaceful.”

  Five minutes later, with their gear stowed in the car and the bike locked onto the rack, they walked to a nearby café and sat at an outside table, ready to have lunch before heading to Girona.

  “So, what have you two been up to?” Menard asked.

  Burke and Tessier exchanged a glance. “We took a short trip down the coast,” Burke said.

  “You’re hiding something, Paul,” Menard said. He pointed a finger at his broadcast partner. “Now tell me what you and Jules were really up to.”

  Burke shrugged and gave him an abridged version of his trip with Tessier.

  “You can’t let Bothwick’s death go, can you?” Menard said.

  “You’re right, it’s been on my mind since I first heard. But why shouldn’t it be, Nico?” said Burke, starting to feel annoyed, partly at Menard but mostly at the injustice of what had happened to his old rival. “We both knew him. I was with him hours before he was killed. We were supposed to work with him. How can I ignore what occurred?”