White Tombs

by Christopher Valen

  Praise for White Tombs

  Named Best Mystery of 2008 By Reader Views Winner of the Garcia Award for Best Fiction

  “… Christopher Valen addresses a very wide range of extremely relevant social issues in White Tombs, and this book goes well beyond being just a detective story. The characters are fantastically well developed … the writing is solid an elegant without unnecessary detours. Any lover of solid writing should enjoy it greatly. White Tombs also screams out for a sequel — or better yet sequels.”

  —READER VIEWS

  … Valen’s debut police procedural provides enough plot twists to keep readers engrossed and paints a clear picture of the Hispanic community in St. Paul.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL

  “John Santana of the St. Paul Police Department is a man you will not forget…. The book is a great read, and Santana is destined to become one of my favorite detectives. Truly a five-star read from this author.”

  —ARMCHAIR INTERVIEWS

  “… Santana is an intriguing character. St. Paul readers will enjoy Valen’s sense of place.”

  —ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS

  “… In this page turner, Christopher Valen presents a clear picture of a modern, urban Hispanic community — plus the horrible Minnesota winter weather.”

  —THE POISONED PEN

  “… White Tombs is a well crafted who dun it I enjoyed immensely. It’s action packed. On a scale of 1–5, I give it a 5.”

  —FUTURES MYSTERY ANTHOLOGY MAGAZINE

  Praise for The Black Minute

  Named Best Mystery of 2009 By Reader Views Winner of the Lynda Goldman Award for Best Novel

  “The second John Santana St. Paul police procedural is a terrific thriller…. Christopher Valen provides the audience with his second straight winning whodunit.”

  —MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

  “… Santana is an appealing series lead, strong and intelligent … Readers who enjoyed White Tombs will settle easily into this one; on the other hand, it works fine as a stand-alone, and fans of well-plotted mysteries with a regional flair … should be encouraged to give this one a look.”

  —BOOKLIST

  … The Black Minute grabbed me from the first page on, and pulled me into a complex world of evil, violence, deceit, bravery and search for justice … While the plot is complex and anything but predictable, his storyline stays comprehensible and easy tofollow. The characters are well developed, very believable and constantly evolving. The setting of the story is vivid, detailed and engaging …”

  —READER VIEWS

  “… There is not one reason why this book isn’t a winner! Everything about it screams success. The book is masterfully written with a tightly-woven plot, visually detailed settings and well developed characters …”

  —REBECCA’S READS

  “… Valen does a super job of keeping the suspense going as the action reaches a crescendo …”

  —ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Certain liberties have been taken in portraying St. Paul and its institutions. This is wholly intentional. Any resemblance to actual events, or to actual persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases contact conquillpress@comcast.net.

  WHITE TOMBS

  Copyright © 2008 By Christopher Valen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Book design by 1106 Design

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007938630

  Valen, Christopher.

  White Tombs: a novel / by Christopher Valen – 1st edition

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9800017-2-3

  ISBN-10: 0-9800017-2-2

  Conquill Press/March 2008

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  eBooks created by ebookconversion.com

  Dedication

  For Martha

  Te quiero mucho.

  Acknowledgments

  The author would like to thank Bill Kraus of the St. Paul Police Department, and the officers and staff of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Citizen’s Academy.

  Special thanks also to Abigail Davis, Linda Donaldson, Lorrie Holmgren, Archie Spencer and Peg Wangensteen for your help and support, and to Bart Baker for bringing us together. You are deeply missed. My deepest gratitude to my wife, Martha, whose love, encouragement and stories of Colombia inspired me to write this book.

  This book would not exist in its present form without special contributions from Amy, Frank, Diane, Ronda and Michele at 1106 Design.

  “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.”

  — Matthew 23:27

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  DAY ONE

  JULIO PÉREZ SAT IN A SWIVEL CHAIR behind the mahogany desk in the study of his house on St. Paul’s West Side. His eyes were closed and his left cheek was resting on the desktop. Were it not for the bullet hole in his head, one could have assumed that he had merely fallen asleep.

  “What time did the call come in?” Detective John Santana asked.

  He and his partner, Detective Rick Anderson, were talking with the first officer on the crime scene. The nameplate above her breast pocket identified her as Larkin.

  “Just after five this afternoon,” she said. Her uniform was pressed and starched and looked like it had just come out of a box.

  “Who called it in?”

  “Mrs. Pérez. She met me when I arrived. Told me she left her husband alone to do some shopping. When she returned, she found him like this.” Larkin gestured toward Pérez’s body without looking directly at it. “I called dispatch immediately.”

  “Shit,” Anderson said. “The news media monitor police radio frequencies. No wonder they’re streaming around this place like squad cars at a Krispy Kreme grand opening.”

  Larkin’s face colored with embarrassment. “Sorry. I’ll remember it next time.”

  “I know you will,” Santana said. “Did Mrs. Pérez say anything else?”

  “Only that she couldn’t believe someone would do this to her husband.”

  Santana could hear sobs coming from another room. The warm, stuffy air in the house smelled like garlic, cumin, oregano and chili peppers.

  Anderson said, “Anyone with Mrs. Pérez now?”

  “Her daughter.”

  “Okay, Larkin. Keep your hands in your pockets so you don’t touch anything on the way out. And be careful where you step.”

  Despite Anderson’s warning, Santana knew it was impossible for anyone to enter a crime scene without changing it in some way. It was the reason he used gloves at a crime scene only if blood was present and AIDS was a concern, or if he needed to touch something. Gloves led to carelessness, which could destroy fingerprints.

  “I don’t see a gun,” Anderson said. “But there’s a shell casing on the floor near the desk.”

  He squatted near the shell casing. “Head stamp reads REM. Looks like the bullet came from a twenty-two caliber, Remington. Makes me wonder though.”

  “Why l
eave the shell casing?”

  Anderson stood up. “Exactly. It can be traced to the gun.”

  Santana drew a rough sketch of the crime scene in his notebook showing the location of Pérez’s body and the shell casing. Next to the drawing of the shell casing he wrote a question mark. Then he examined the gunshot wound in Julio Pérez’s head.

  Powder grains expelled from the muzzle of a gun had caused tattooing on one side of the angled wound indicating that it wasn’t a contact shot. The reddish-brown color showed that Pérez was alive when he was shot. The tattooing would have been gray or yellow in appearance had he been dead beforehand.

  Santana looked at Pérez’s arms and legs without moving them, then at the hands and fingers. He detected no defensive wounds and nothing was visible under Pérez’s fingernails. He saw no folds or rolls in the clothing that would suggest the body had been moved.

  “No sign of a struggle, Rick. No fear in Pérez’s face.”

  “I figure he knew the shooter,” Anderson said, reading Santana’s thoughts. “Maybe he was expecting company.”

  It was like that with a partner after awhile, at least a good partner. Santana imagined it was like being married for a long time.

  “They come into the study together,” Anderson said. “The shooter is behind him. Pérez sits down at his desk and gets capped in the head.”

  Santana noted that the powder tattooing was darker and denser behind the right ear, indicating the muzzle was near the ear when the gun was fired.

  “I’ll get some uniforms to help me canvas the neighborhood,” Anderson said. “Find out if anyone saw or heard anything.”

  “Make sure you run the names of all the neighbors, Rick. See if anyone has a criminal record.”

  “Sorry about giving you the hard part, John, but you’re better at dealing with the family.”

  Talking to relatives and friends of a murder victim was often the most unpleasant and difficult part of the job. But Santana knew at some point in the investigation he could tell those same relatives and friends that he had caught the perp who had caused them so much pain. It might be a small consolation for the victim’s family, but he derived great satisfaction from knowing it was the murderer’s turn to suffer.

  He concentrated on the floor and the ground around the body next, looking for any stains or marks. He took a small flashlight out of his pocket and focused the light toward the ground at an oblique angle, checking for footprints or drag marks in the thin layer of dust on the oak floor. Then he let the beam play across the walls and ceiling as he searched for blood spatter.

  When he was satisfied there was nothing of evidentiary value, he put away the flashlight, slipped on a pair of latex gloves and opened the folding door on a large closet that covered one wall. Inside it he found Pérez’s summer clothes, a pair of leather sandals and a pair of Reebok walking shoes. The clothes smelled musty after months on hangers and yielded no clues. Mahogany bookcases lined a second wall to his right. The authors were mostly Latino writers. Gabriel García Márquez, Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda, one of Santana’s favorites.

  Framed photographs of Pérez with his wife and daughter hung on the wall behind the desk. Organized in clusters according to periods of time, they represented a visual record of a family’s history. The daughter had black hair and looked to be in her early to mid-twenties when the most recent photographs were taken. She had piercing ebony eyes and reminded Santana of the Mexican actress, Salma Hayek. Mrs. Pérez appeared to be in her late forties. Her dark hair had begun to gray, and she had put on a few pounds over the years. But she still retained the high cheekbones and luminous dark eyes that were clearly evident in the earlier snapshots of her. Santana wondered how her husband’s death would change the peace and contentment he saw in her face.

  Many of the photos of Julio Pérez were taken with local celebrities and politicians. In one he was receiving an award at a Chamber of Commerce dinner. In another he was throwing out the first pitch at a St. Paul Saint’s game. Pérez had been a slender, good-looking man with silver hair, a neatly trimmed silver mustache and eyes the color of dark coffee. His chestnut skin looked firm and his complexion healthy.

  A framed copy of El Día, one of the monthly Hispanic newspapers in St. Paul, hung next to the family pictures. A former mayor had signed it. Santana remembered reading the newspaper when he first came to Minnesota. El Día became his main source of information and events, his lifeline to the Hispanic community. Since he spoke and read very little English at the time and preferred solitude to groups, he would often reread the same stories while he anxiously waited for the next issue to appear in the newspaper racks along Grand Avenue.

  He moved on to the desk. A humidor filled with cigars sat on one side. A half-smoked cigar rested on the edge of a ceramic ashtray beside a yellow pad of post-it notes and a Rolodex open to the card of a well-known local attorney, Rafael Mendoza. Santana wondered why Pérez had called a lawyer and if the phone call was related in any way to his murder.

  He walked into the master bedroom off the study. A thin layer of frost filmed the lower panes of the windows that looked out on the lighted park behind the house. The January sun already lay far below the horizon and a starless darkness covered the landscape. It was nearly mid-winter, yet the hard ground was still brown and free of snow, making it difficult to find any impression evidence.

  A small statue of the Virgin Mary stood on the nightstand beside the neatly made double bed. A large crucifix hung on the wall. On the wall opposite the windows was a Holy Card called Estampa de la Santísima Trinidad, the trinity, and one called Estampa de Jesús.

  Santana took off his latex gloves and stuffed them in his coat pockets. Then he went into the living room where Mrs. Pérez and her daughter were huddled together on a tweed couch. He sat down in a matching chair across from them.

  Serapes draped the backs of the couch and chair. Paintings of Native Americans on horseback hung on the walls. A picture window at one end of the room looked out onto the front porch. A statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe stood on an end table beside a burning candle that gave off an aroma of cinnamon.

  “I know this is a difficult time for you both,” Santana said. “But I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Por que alguien querría matar a mi esposo,” Mrs. Pérez said, wiping her red, swollen eyes with a Kleenex.

  “Mamíta,” her daughter said, embarrassment evident in her voice. “Speak English, please.”

  “Forgive me, señor,” Mrs. Pérez said with a heavy accent. “When I am upset, I sometimes forget my English. I was asking why someone would kill my husband.”

  The words brought tears to her eyes again. She rubbed them with the palms of her hands like she had just awakened from a nightmare and was uncertain if what she had dreamt was actually true.

  “It’s okay,” Santana said. “Yo entiendo bien el Español, Señora Pérez.”

  The two women looked at Santana as though he had just beamed down from the starship Enterprise.

  “You are from Mexico?” the daughter said.

  “Colombia. Me llamo, John Santana.”

  “You have only a slight accent, señor.”

  “It wasn’t always that way.”

  Santana could tell by the way the daughter’s body relaxed that she saw him differently, now that she knew he was not a guero; he was not the enemy.

  “I am Gabriela,” she said with very little accent as well. “This is my mother, Sandra.”

  “Mucho gusto.”

  “Te pareces a mi sobrino,” Sandra Pérez said. She put a hand momentarily on her mouth to prevent the words from coming out. “I’m so sorry, Detective Santana. But you do look like my nephew. It is the dark, wavy hair and blue eyes. And you are both handsome young men.”

  “Muchas gracias, señora.”

  “You must be over six feet.”

  “Six feet one inch.”

  She confirmed the fact with a nod and cast her eyes downward for a mome
nt, as though she were imagining a happier time, perhaps with her nephew.

  Santana said, “You were home all day, señora, except for the two hours when you went shopping?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to your husband?”

  “When I left the house,” she said. “He was working in his study.”

  “Do you recall what time you left?”

  “It was just after three o’clock.”

  “Was your husband planning on going out later?”

  “Why?” Gabriela asked.

  “Your father was wearing a white shirt and tie.”

  “Julio was always a good dresser,” Sandra Pérez said. “It did not matter whether it was a workday or whether we were going out or staying in. He was just that way.” She dabbed her eyes with the Kleenex and sighed deeply.

  Santana gave her a smile to reassure her that he understood. “Was your husband expecting anyone? A visitor, perhaps?”

  “No. I do not think so.”

  “And you, Gabriela? When was the last time you saw your father?”

  “Yesterday evening. I came over for dinner. I like to do that at least once a week.”

  Santana watched both of them carefully, their mannerisms, how they reacted to his questions. He had no reason to suspect them of committing the murder, but it would be unwise to rule either one of them out this early in the investigation.

  “Your husband owned El Día, señora.”

  “It was his life.”

  “Do you both work there as well?”

  “No. Gabriela worked there before she went to college.”

  “And sometimes in the summer when I was home from school,” Gabriela said.

  “You’re not in the newspaper business, then.”

  “I manage Casa Blanca, a restaurant in St. Paul.”