Just south of the light, Del Sol pennants began appearing on lampposts. Mexican families had first immigrated to the West Side of St. Paul as early as 1900 after the original Wabasha, Robert and High bridges were completed across the Mississippi. Crop failures in the state’s sugar beet fields after World War I forced poor migrant workers to seek employment in the city. Many became permanent residents. Since the 1900s, the Mexican population had swelled in St. Paul to more than sixteen thousand.
Santana drove past the Torres de San Miguel housing project and the Boca Chica restaurant. He merged onto Cesar Chávez Avenue and then onto State Street in the Latino commercial district.
Before Gamboni had left his house last night, Santana told her that Angelina Torres and Father Thomas Hidalgo had come to see him yesterday at the station. He went over his notes with her, reviewing the conversation he’d had with Gabriela Pérez about her father and a possible Mexican connection with Rafael Mendoza.
When he finished recounting the conversation, Gamboni explained that the gun found on Córdova was reported stolen in California. He had asked her to update Baker and Hawkins and requested that they interview a short list of El Día employees to make sure their alibis were solid. The give and take discussion reminded Santana of how it used to be with Rita when they were partners and lovers.
The office where Angelina Torres worked was located in a converted, two-story apartment building. Santana parked in the lot out front and walked under a green canopy and in the main entrance.
A receptionist sitting behind a counter directed him to a hallway and to Angelina Torres’ small, windowless office.
“Detective Santana,” she said, standing to shake his hand.
She wore a black skirt, turquoise blouse, a thin gold necklace with a heart, and small gold earrings.
“Tome asiento, por favor,” she said, closing the door and pointing to a chair.
Santana sat down on a steel-legged chair with black vinyl pads opposite her desk. The walls of her office were bare except for a framed diploma from the University of Southern California. Next to him was a glass table with today’s edition of the Pioneer Press. One of the stories on the front page was about an unidentified illegal immigrant who stole a MnDOT truck after rendering the driver unconscious. The story went on to say that:
The man apparently lost control of the vehicle near the town of St. Croix Beach where he died in a collision with an Explorer driven by John Santana, a St. Paul homicide detective. The detective escaped serious injury.
A separate story further down the page described the deaths of nine illegal immigrants who were crammed into a pickup that crossed the median on Interstate 80 in Iowa at 2:40 a.m. and collided with a tractor-trailer. All of the victims were Hispanic men and women.
“I’ve been reading about you, Detective. Are you all right?”
The soreness in Santana’s right hand stilled throbbed with each beat of his heart. “Fine.”
“Have you found out something that might clear Rubén?”
“Not yet. I’d just like to ask you a few more questions.”
“If it will help,” she said, and sat down in a chair facing him.
He had considered bringing a tape recorder along, but figured it might intimidate Angelina Torres. He didn’t want her to know yet that she was a suspect in Rafael Mendoza’s death and possibly in Julio Pérez’s death as well. Once she was Mirandized and placed under arrest, she could get a lawyer who could derail the whole investigation.
He took out his notebook and a pen. Rather than interrogating her, Santana preferred a low-key interview so he could watch how she reacted to the questions he had mentally prepared. This would give him a chance to find out more about her background and to build rapport. He would have to rely on his intuitive skills and the training he’d had in college.
While majoring in criminology with a minor in criminal psychology, he had studied the Facial Action Coding System or FACS, based on the work of Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen. Through years of research, the two psychologists had created a taxonomy of about three thousand facial expressions. Santana had been trained to look for discrepancies between what someone said and what was signaled through facial expressions. It wasn’t a perfect science, but it gave Santana an edge.
“How long have you been in the states, Miss Torres?”
“For ten years.”
“Are your parents still living in California?”
He could tell by the way the corner of her lips drew down that they were not living in California or anywhere else.
Finally she said, “Like many of the braceros, they died of cancer.”
“Lo siento,” Santana said.
“You know Spanish, Detective, but you are not Mexican.”
“Colombian.”
A smile flickered across her face. “Do Colombians know anything about what happened to the braceros working in the fields?”
“I know a little something about Cesar Chávez.”
“Then you know how he organized the workers before he died. But the pesticides are still being used in California. Toxins like meta-sodium and chlorpyrifos. Workers are still not being told that a field is restricted. Employers do not provide translators when there is a complaint. When the government comes to investigate illnesses, the employer is there during the interview. The workers won’t speak up in front of them because they are afraid.”
She was remembering it all now, and the tone of her voice grew angrier.
“It is illegal not to give farm workers, even undocumented ones, breaks, toilets or drinking water. It is illegal to pay them for less than four hours of work per day and not to pay overtime. It is illegal to charge them for rides or tools. But these abuses happen all the time. If the workers complain, they are fired. They have no legal recourse. Even if they did, the companies could hire very expensive attorneys to shield them from litigation.”
Santana recalled the AFL-CIO farm worker’s flag he had seen in Córdova’s house. “So you have sympathy for the illegals.”
“Who keeps the service economy of this country running? You think the whites want to mop floors, clean toilets and flip burgers? Illegals are doing the jobs no one else wants. Businesses hire them cheap because they are afraid to join unions. Once in a while ICE closes some small business for hiring illegals. That way they can claim they are doing something. But everyone knows what’s going on. The schools, the businesses. So, yes, I have sympathy for illegals. Don’t you?”
“There are legal means of entering the country.”
She grimaced. “If you were desperate, and there was nothing for you in your own country, then you might think differently.”
“I might.”
She nodded as if to say, “I told you so.”
“What about you, Miss Torres? Are you illegal?”
She remained silent for a time before responding. “Once,” she said. “But now I have my papers and my citizenship.”
“You ever help get any illegals into the country?”
“No. I only want illegals to be treated fairly when they are here.” Her tone was calmer now, but he could hear the frustration in her voice. “Many of the young people I see in my office have tried working, but they have no rights. They see no future. Some give up and turn to crime.”
Santana remembered the Hispanic kid in the Bay Point Restaurant and the kids he had seen hanging around street corners in their baggy pants and do-rags. He wondered what he would have eventually chosen if he had not had Philip and Dorothy O’Toole to help him.
“Lot of crime out there, that’s for sure,” he said. “Citizens feel they need to protect themselves. Some of them buy guns. How about you Miss Torres? Do you own a gun?”
“No, I don’t.”
He watched Angelina Torres closely looking for any signs of deception. Because it was easier, most people lied with words rather than with their faces or body movements. Words were voluntary and could be managed, manipulated, rehearsed. Facial expressions
, however, were involuntary and harder to control unless you were a con artist, actor — or politician. A suspect’s face was usually a roadmap of uncontrolled emotions. Santana knew the better a detective was at reading those emotions, the better he would be at locating the truth.
“You know,” he said, “Córdova had a gun on him when he was killed. The gun had your fingerprint on it. How do you suppose it got there?”
She let out a long breath. Let a few seconds pass. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything the day Father Hidalgo and I came to see you. But Rubén gave me a gun when I left California for Minnesota. I was driving alone and he wanted me to have it for protection. I really didn’t want to take it, but he insisted.”
“A .22 caliber?”
She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know much about guns.”
Suspects being interviewed or interrogated often manipulated their brow or forehead, so Santana looked for any signs that Angelina Torres was lying or trying to control what she said by focusing his attention on her lower jaw and mouth where it was more difficult to disguise an emotion. But she made it more difficult for him when she consciously or unconsciously looked down at her hands.
“How long ago did you give the gun to Córdova?”
She thought for a moment before she answered. “Two weeks.”
Santana looked back at the notes he had taken the first time they met in his office. “You told me before that Córdova was afraid, but he wouldn’t tell you why.”
“That’s right,” she said, looking at him again.
“What was your relationship with him?”
“We were … friends.”
“Nothing more?”
“Once,” she said with a trace of regret.
“Do you know any reason why Córdova might want to kill Rafael Mendoza?”
“Rubén did not kill Mendoza.”
He had expected her to say that, so he let it go and moved on. “Where were you the night Córdova was killed?”
“I worked late that day. I heard about the deaths on the radio.”
“Anyone verify that?”
“Everyone went home at five. I locked up the office.”
“Do you know where Córdova was when Julio Pérez was killed?”
“Are you suggesting Rubén had something to do with Mr. Pérez’s murder?”
Santana remained quiet, hoping that she would answer her own question.
Someone pounded on the office door and Angelina Torres nearly jumped out of her shoes.
“Police!” a voice shouted. “Open up!”
She looked uneasily at Santana. “What’s going on?”
Santana got to his feet and went to the door and opened it.
James Kehoe stood in the doorway flanked by two uniformed officers.
“What the hell are you doing here, Kehoe?”
“Your job. I got a warrant here for Angelina Torres.” He held it up like it was a badge of honor.
Santana wondered who had leaked the information about her fingerprint, and what he was going to do about it once he found out.
“You’re going to fuck up this whole investigation, Kehoe.”
“Yeah, right. What are you doin’ in there anyway? Tryin’ to get your Hispanic friend off?”
He gave a contemptuous laugh and looked at the uniforms on either side of him to see if they had caught the dual meaning in his sick joke. If they had, they were not showing it.
“Listen,” Santana said. “I don’t care if you’re the mayor’s chief ass kisser or not. Stay out of my way.”
Kehoe said, “Enough of this dickin’ around, Santana. I got the murder weapon and her print is on it. That’s all I need.”
“What about a motive?”
That point seemed to confuse him. He took a moment to compose himself before he held up the warrant again, as if Santana had not seen it the first time.
“But I got this.”
“You got shit,” Santana said.
“Outta my way,” Kehoe said with dismissive wave. He took one short step forward, but when Santana stood his ground, he stopped.
Kehoe looked at the two officers on either side of him for support. One was staring at his shoes, the other at an apparent stain on his uniform.
“Remember that I warned you, Kehoe,” Santana said, finally stepping aside to let him pass.
Kehoe barged into the room.
As he Mirandized Angelina Torres, she said, “Yo no lo hice.” I did not do it.
Her eyes had a look of desperate hopefulness, as though Santana held the last extra lifejacket on a sinking ship.
Chapter 10
* * *
“I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO KEEP Kehoe off my back, Rita.”
Santana was seated in one of the uncomfortable hard backed chairs in Gamboni’s office at the 10th Street station, trying to throttle the anger that raced inside him.
Gamboni sat behind her desk, biting her bottom lip. The expression on her face was a mixture of turmoil and dread, as if she had just witnessed a murder and knew the killer was coming for her next.
“Am I the chief detective on this case, Rita, or is it Asshoe?”
She appeared to be contemplating his question. Santana was about to protest when she said with a slight smile, “Is that what Kehoe’s known as?”
“Among other things.”
“And what do they call me, John?”
He was reluctant to tell her that she was affectionately known as “Bony” among the males in the Homicide Unit. The nickname had absolutely nothing to do with her figure, but rather the reaction it inspired.
“Commander,” he replied.
Her blue eyes were dubious. “I’ll bet.”
She had a knack for steering the conversation in the direction that she wanted it to go, both as his partner and his lover. Santana compared it to daydreaming while driving a car. Before you realized what had happened, you had drifted over the centerline, lost control. She was doing the same thing to him now and he needed to refocus.
“Who the hell leaked the information about Torres … Commander?”
Gamboni smiled a little more and reached for a cinnamon Altoid in the metal container on her desk. “I can tell you it didn’t come from this office.” She placed the Altoid delicately in her mouth and offered him one from the box.
He declined.
Unlike many of the pretty women with good figures Santana had known, Rita Gamboni was smart. He admired that trait, just as he had admired it in his mother. She, too, had been pretty and smart; a doctor in Colombia at a time when women’s rights meant you could have five kids instead of ten. Thanks to his mother’s influence, coming to the U.S. was less of a cultural shock for Santana than it could have been. Most of the Latino males he had met here over the years complained that American women were too assertive, too pushy. In his mind’s eye, Santana could see the Latino men walking around with stunned looks on their faces, like aliens on Pluto rather than in the U.S.
“Where are Baker and Hawkins?” he asked.
“Doing background checks on Mendoza and Pérez. Like they’re supposed to do.”
“Well, Kehoe got the information about Torres’ print from someone, Rita. And it sure as hell wasn’t me.”
She gave him a sharp look. Leaned forward and placed her palms flat on the desktop.
“Instead of worrying so much about a leak in the department, Detective, maybe you should concentrate your efforts on finding out who really murdered Pérez and Mendoza. If you still believe Córdova and Torres weren’t involved.”
He knew she was upset when she called him “detective” instead of using his surname, that and the fact that her light complexion had become as red as a drop of blood.
Her office door suddenly swung open and Assistant Deputy Chief Carl Ashford strode in. He nodded at Gamboni and acknowledged Santana with a curt, “Detective.” Hiking up his trousers around his wide waistline he said, “I heard about your accident. You all right?”
“Fine.”
Ashford gave a quick nod indicating that he wasn’t interested in the details. “I don’t have a lot of time so I’ll skip the customary banter. We’ve got Hispanic groups picketing the mayor’s office. The press is suggesting that the Pérez-Mendoza murders may be a hate crime. Needless to say, we don’t need that. John, you and your team will continue working the case, but I’d like Detective Kehoe to head up the investigation from now on. It appears that Córdova murdered Pérez and Mendoza and the Torres’ woman was his accomplice.”
Santana looked at Gamboni for support, but he could tell by her blank expression that she had no intention of challenging Ashford’s decision. He was on his own.
“I guess that makes it easier, Chief,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ashford’s accusatory tone was clearly a warning to Santana that he should just let it go. After all, he could work around Kehoe. Let Asshoe think he was actually in charge.
“Well?” Ashford said.
“I was just thinking …” Santana began.
“John,” Gamboni said.
Santana could hear the caution in Gamboni’s voice. He considered keeping quiet. Then continued despite her misgivings.
“If the department can pin the murders on Córdova and Torres, it makes it much easier. I mean the city expects Hispanics to be killing Hispanics. Better for everyone concerned if the murderer isn’t white.”
Ashford clenched his large fists and glared at Santana.
Santana could imagine the same look on Ashford’s face as he stormed into an opponent’s backfield as a Minnesota Gopher linebacker and put a vicious hit on the quarterback.
“That’s bullshit, Santana! You’re talking to a man who’s dealt with race issues all his life. This murder investigation has got nothin’ to do with race. And if you think differently, then perhaps you need to be pulled entirely off the case.”
White Tombs Page 9
