White Tombs

by Christopher Valen

  “I’ll give Nick Baker a heads up. Kacie Hawkins can take a look at Mendoza’s financial and phone records.”

  “You find anything in the other room?”

  “This.” She handed Santana a 4 x 8 color print. “Found it taped to the wall behind the toilet tank in the master bath. A tech took a picture of it before I removed it. I wrote my initials and today’s date on the back and logged it on the inventory.”

  Santana could see two naked men in the color photo. The man standing was photographed only from his chest down. The second man knelt before him. His face was partly covered by the other man’s hand, but the photo left nothing to the imagination.

  “The guy standing could be Mendoza,” Gamboni said.

  “If this gets out, female subscriptions for Twin Cities Magazine could plummet.”

  Gamboni tilted her head. Clearly, she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Mendoza was on a recent cover as one of Minnesota’s most eligible bachelors.”

  “I didn’t know you read the magazine, John.”

  “Every night just before bed with my milk and cookies.”

  “Think the guy on his knees is Córdova?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You see any tats?”

  Santana looked more closely at the photo. “No, but it looks like the guy standing has an appendix scar on his lower abdomen. Given the redness, I’d say the scar was recent. I’ll have to check the autopsy report. See if Mendoza has a scar.” Santana looked at the back of the photo. “It was taken in October of last year. You find any other sexually explicit photos?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you figure if Mendoza was into this sort of thing, there would be more photos around.”

  “Spoken like a man who would know.” Gamboni cracked a smile.

  “Right. But ask yourself this, Rita. If Mendoza really didn’t want this photo found, why wouldn’t he put it where only he had access to it?”

  “Well, if he wanted someone to find it, why not just leave it out in the open instead of behind the toilet tank?”

  “Maybe for protection. It could be that someone didn’t want this information to go public. People have murdered for less. If Mendoza gets killed, he knows someone doing a thorough search is going to find the photo.”

  “Like the police,” she said.

  “Exactly. But someone in a hurry might not.”

  “Like Córdova.”

  “Córdova or whoever else was going through the dresser drawers.”

  “You really thinking that someone killed Pérez and Mendoza and had Córdova take the fall?”

  “Leaving the .22 shell casing at Pérez’s house was real convenient.”

  “Could be Córdova was just careless.”

  “All I know is that we’ve got three dead Hispanics, two of them prominent community members. The mayor is going to want a quick resolution. Especially if the other dead Hispanic is the prime suspect.”

  “Come on, John. Give me some credit.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about, Rita. Just keep Kehoe and the mayor’s office off my back until I’ve had time to look at all the evidence.”

  She thought about his request for a moment. “I’ll do what I can.”

  It was midnight when Santana arrived home. Ice crystals had turned into large flakes of snow. The twenty-minute drive east on Interstate 94 from downtown to his house at the end of a narrow blacktop road in St. Croix Beach took him forty.

  The renovated brick house he owned sat on two heavily wooded acres of birch and pine on a secluded bluff overlooking the St. Croix River, which formed a natural boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin. The previous owner had been a well-known chef in town before an ugly paternity suit took most of his money and all of his house. Santana knew some members of the department wondered how he could afford the place on a detective’s salary, but he couldn’t care less.

  He unlocked the front door and turned off the security system, tossed his wool overcoat and sport coat on the couch and unclipped his Kydex belt holster. He preferred the Kydex because it could be molded to fit the Glock 23 he carried and had a permanent memory of the gun’s shape.

  Santana lit the logs in the grate, undressed and took a long, hot shower. After he toweled off, he slipped on a robe and poured a couple of shots of aguardiente Cristal. Then he put an Armando Manzanero CD in the compact Bose system, turned the rheostat light switch down low, and sat down on the soft leather couch in front of the fieldstone fireplace. His body ached with exhaustion, but his mind still raced with the day’s events.

  Aguardiente helped him relax. Imported from the Caldas region of Colombia, the smooth mixture of sugar cane and anisette created a comfortable burn as it settled in his stomach. Only a few liquor stores around town stocked it.

  He checked for messages on his answering machine. Then he picked up the phone and called Rick Anderson. He knew his partner and figured he would still be awake. Santana wanted to hear how Anderson’s interview had gone. They had met separately at the station with IA after leaving the Riverview Lofts.

  Anderson’s phone rang six times before Santana broke off the connection. Anderson had probably unplugged his phone, something Santana had done on numerous occasions, and especially when he wanted to avoid the media. He considered calling Anderson’s cell phone, but decided to let it go. He would talk to his partner in the morning.

  Instead, he dialed a familiar number in Santa Fe, New Mexico. While he listened to the phone ringing on the other end of the line, he looked at the framed photograph on the mantle over the fireplace of the older couple. Phil O’Toole with his bulldog expression and the crewcut he had worn nearly all of his sixty-five years. And Dorothy with her sweet smile, untouched by deceit.

  For a moment he saw his own mother, Elena. Her auburn hair the color of a maple leaf in autumn; her smooth, unmarked complexion deeply tanned and slightly freckled; her iridescent eyes that changed from blue to green depending on the color of clothes she wore and the ever-shifting light. He had called her sancocho because, like the stew, she was a beautiful mix of Spanish and English blood. The picture in his mind’s eye still matched the photo of her in his wallet though it had been twenty years since her death. He thought she would have aged as gracefully as Dorothy.

  “You still up, Phil?”

  “Well, Dorothy and I were just talkin’ about you this evening. Wondering why you haven’t called in nearly two weeks.”

  “Sorry. Is she asleep?”

  “Went to bed an hour ago. Sleeps like a baby. Wish I was so lucky.”

  “It’s that old cop in you, Phil. Too many night shifts.”

  “Must be,” he said. “You sleepin’ much?”

  “Enough.”

  “Then how come you’re callin’ after midnight?”

  “New case.”

  “I figured as much.”

  He coughed and Santana could hear the rattle of fluid in his chest.

  “How’s the emphysema?” he asked.

  “Horseshit. But I get by.”

  “You ever miss it, Phil?”

  “Mostly at night after Dorothy’s gone to bed. Darkness gets you thinkin’. You remember the one or two that didn’t get solved. You play ‘em over in your mind. Wonder what you could’ve done differently.”

  Phil had always been Santana’s sounding board when it came to solving cases. He reviewed the current investigation with Phil and then said, “I’ll send you some clippings on this one. You might find it interesting.”

  “That’d be great.”

  Santana could hear the excitement in his voice.

  “When you comin’ down here for a visit, John? Thought we might see you at Christmas.”

  “I couldn’t get away.”

  “Don’t you have some vacation time comin’?”

  “This spring. I’ll come down.”

  “Dorothy’s going to be upset she missed your call. I could wake her.”

  “No, don’t do that
. I’ll call again soon.”

  “You better if you know what’s good for you. Have you been eatin’ right?”

  “Trying.”

  “I’ll bet. Dorothy’ll put some meat on those Colombian bones. Remember how thin you were when you first got off that plane?”

  Santana laughed. “I remember. I remember how you two took care of me. Saved my life.”

  “Hell! We just fed you.”

  “You did more than that. And I’ll never forget. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be a detective.”

  “I’m proud of you, John. You’ve done all right for yourself.”

  “Is Emma still teaching in Peru?”

  “Yes. She’s comin’ home this summer to finish her Ph.D. in languages.”

  “She sure gets around. When you talk to her let her know that I said hello.”

  “We will. You take care of yourself.”

  “Always.”

  Santana said goodbye and hung up the phone.

  He drank another swallow of aguardiente and let his thoughts return to the current investigation and the 4 x 8 color photo Gamboni had found in Mendoza’s loft. He wondered why Mendoza had the photo? Why he taped it to the back of the toilet tank in his bathroom? He would check with Tony Novak in the crime lab tomorrow. Perhaps enhancing the image would help identify the two men. He wanted to talk with some of the immigrants on the list he had made, specifically those who had applied for visas. Thinking of the immigrants reminded him of Sandra Pérez, which reminded him of her daughter, Gabriela.

  He took a final pull on the aguardiente. He knew it would be a long time before he slept.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  DAY TWO

  SANTANA AWOKE FROM A DREAM just before dawn to the howling of the wind; a lonely, plaintive sound like a wolf on a cold, barren landscape, howling at the moon.

  He had been standing on a fog-shrouded bridge high above a river of fire. From somewhere in the darkness, a woman had cried out to him. He needed to find her. Needed to help her. But when he opened his mouth to call to her, to let her know that he heard her cry, there were no sounds, no words, only a numbness that rose like a tide within him, and a silence that hung in a breath of condensation in the cold night air.

  He lay still for a moment, listening to the January gusts and the inner voice warning him it would be a mistake to discount or ignore the message in this dream. He had learned about the meaning and importance of dreams as a young boy from Ofir, the maid, who worked for his parents in the house that sat on a steep hill in the Chipre neighborhood overlooking the city of Manizales, Colombia, 7,000 feet high in the Andes, in the shadow of the Nevado del Ruíz.

  He remembered listening to the old woman as he sat in the kitchen with the windows that faced the snow-covered volcano, the indoor air heavy with the smell of celery from the apio tea brewing on the stove. Ofir had warned him then that his two recurring dreams of falling from a high place and running from something that chased him would mean great misfortune and exile some day. She had been right on both counts.

  He guessed this dream represented the doubts he still had about his sister, Natalia’s, safety. He had wanted to bring her with him when he fled Colombia at sixteen. But she had no visa and waiting for her to get one would have put both their lives in jeopardy. He wished he could hear Ofir’s voice again explaining the meaning of this dream. Yet, he only heard the wind pounding the frosty panes like a fist.

  He got out of bed and went downstairs to the bedroom he used as a workout room. He did three sets of bench presses and curls. Jumped rope and hammered a speed bag against the rebound board with a rhythm that created its own music in his head until his arms ached and sweat soaked his T-shirt. He finished his workout with one hundred sit-ups, a hot shower and a close shave.

  Once he would have described his face as soft and boyish. Now, at thirty-six, the complexion he saw in the mirror had grown harder and darker despite the close morning shaves, as though the darkness in his heart had suddenly appeared as a permanent shadow on his face.

  For breakfast he ate two fried eggs, a slice of cheese and one of the arepas he had made two days ago. He washed it down with a cup of hot chocolate topped with cinnamon. The hot chocolate reminded him of the sugarless, dark chocolate made by the Luker Company in Manizales. He would often mix it with Panela Del Valle brown sugar. Sometimes in the mornings he would boil just the brown sugar in water and add cinnamon. He enjoyed the chocolate here, but nothing he found could match the taste he had once known.

  Santana felt relaxed and focused as he drove west on Interstate 94, past the 3M building with its row upon row of windows looking blue in the reflected sunlight, then past the Sunray Shopping Center toward downtown St. Paul. The patches of snow that stitched the trees and bushes had changed the landscape overnight from dingy brown to gleaming white. A combination of heat from the bright morning sun, and sand, courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Transportation trucks, gave the surface of the freeway the texture of a snow cone.

  Santana recalled his first winter in Minnesota as an unending nightmare of cold and ice and futile attempts to stay warm. He had come as a foreign exchange student and had stayed with the O’Tooles for nine months before returning home. He would not have picked Minnesota as a permanent place to live, but when he fled Colombia for good a year later he had no choice. He knew he could trust the O’Tooles, knew he had nowhere else to go. Over the years he had made peace with the weather and even found comfort in the isolation created by a snowstorm.

  José López was the first name on the list of immigrants Santana had copied from the files in Rafael Mendoza’s loft. Mendoza had filed four requests for labor certifications for short-order cooks over the last two years for the Bay Point Restaurant in downtown St. Paul. That seemed like a lot of requests for foreign cooks.

  Santana parked the Crown Vic along the curb in front of the restaurant near Rice Park and the Ordway Theater. He badged the parking attendant on duty and walked to the entrance with the sign on the window stating that guns were banned on the premises.

  The white signs with the large black letters were as commonplace as goose shit in spring ever since the legislature passed the conceal and carry law. Santana found it laughable that an average citizen armed with a permit, a handgun, and a three-week training course could deter a degenerate gangbanger who thought the only difference between taking a human life and stepping on a garden-variety insect was the weapon of choice. But what else could be expected from politicians who pandered to fear and the lowest common denominator in their zeal for votes, and whose limited vision stretched only as far as the next election.

  The atmosphere inside the restaurant was nautical: nets and ship’s wheels and aquariums. The aquariums were built into the rough-hewn walls and filled with brightly colored fish. Two waitresses in black slacks; white shirts, black vests and ties were arranging silverware and wine glasses on the tables, while another folded white linen napkins.

  “Table for one, sir?”

  The maitre d’ was a short, bald man with a mustache.

  Santana showed him his badge. “I’d like to see the manager.”

  The maitre d’ examined it as if searching for the flaw in a factory second. When he was satisfied that Santana’s badge had not come out of box of Cracker Jacks, he looked up and said, “Certainly, sir. One moment.”

  He scurried off and in a few minutes came back.

  “It’s through the kitchen,” he said, pointing toward the back of the restaurant. He then turned his attention to two men waiting behind Santana, as if the detective no longer existed.

  Santana skipped the customary thank you as he brushed past the maitre d’ and went through a set of swinging doors where the air smelled of fried eggs and potatoes. Pots banged and a deep fryer sizzled. He walked along an aisle between the hot food table and two large ovens toward a second set of swinging doors on the opposite wall. Near the dishwasher and pre-rinse sink he came upon a Mexican kid weari
ng a wet, stained apron. He appeared to be about sixteen.

  A fat man in a chef’s hat standing in front of the kid said, “I don’t want to hear any more goddamn Spanish, you understand? You want to work here, you speak English.”

  He jabbed the cleaver he held in his hand at the boy.

  Santana recalled another scared kid who was once told by a boss to speak English if he wanted to keep his job.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  The fat man gave him a menacing stare. “Who the hell are you?”

  Santana showed him his badge. “This is who I am.”

  The fat man’s beady eyes widened and he swallowed hard. “Hey, no problem, Detective.”

  His white face turned the same shade as the tomato on the counter. He lowered the cleaver and looked around for a place to put it.

  Santana had an idea where it might fit. “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “You bet,” the fat man said with a forced smile.

  Santana turned to the Mexican kid. “Hay algún problema aquí?”

  The kid glanced at the cook and then looked at Santana. “No, señor. Gracias.”

  Santana handed him a business card. “Si algún día necesitas ayuda llámame.”

  “Gracias, señor,” he said.

  Santana stepped close enough so that the fat man had to tilt his head back to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to have to come back. Comprende?”

  The fat man’s chin went up and down like a bobblehead doll on the dashboard of a car.

  Santana left the kitchen and went to the office where an Asian woman stood in front of a mahogany desk.

  “I’m Kim Nguyen,” she said. She had a small hand but a firm grip. She was slender, with short, jet-black hair whose ends were cut at a sharp angle. Santana made her for Vietnamese.

  He handed her a business card.

  “Please,” she said and gestured toward an armchair in front of the desk.

  The leather cushion let out a sigh as he sat down.

  She went behind the desk and said, “What can I do for you, Detective Santana?”