White Tombs

by Christopher Valen

  Santana could see the fear in Anderson’s eyes now.

  “You don’t understand, John. I can explain.”

  “You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how my partner could fuck me over like you did.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “It wasn’t, huh?” Santana poked him in the chest with an index finger. “What else did you tell Kehoe?”

  “Nothing. Really. You gotta believe me.”

  “What? Now you’re asking me to trust you?”

  “Listen,” Anderson said, spreading his hands. “Kehoe told me if I helped him out with some information involving the case, he’d have the mayor put some pressure on IA to speed up their investigation. Clear me of the Córdova shooting. So I could get back on the case. Help you out.”

  “Oh, you helped out all right.”

  “Look, John. I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

  “So did I. No debés confiar ni en tú propia sombra.”

  Anderson shook his head, indicating he didn’t understand.

  “It’s a Colombian saying. Don’t trust even your own shadow. I made a mistake trusting you, Rick.”

  “There was no mistake, John. You can trust me. We’re partners.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Anderson’s face went white. “What’re you saying?”

  “I’m saying I should go to Rita. Ask for a new partner.”

  “Don’t do that, John. It’ll never happen again.”

  Anderson’s eyes were wide and filled with regret, as though he had just bet his career on a throw of the dice and lost.

  Santana said, “You worried about me telling Rita?”

  “I don’t give a shit about that.”

  “What is it you give a shit about?”

  “I don’t want to lose you as a partner. As a friend.”

  Santana let him squirm awhile. “I have to think about it.”

  “That’s fine. Take all the time you need. You want me to do anything, just ask. I’m through with Kehoe.”

  Santana shook his head. “You’re not through with Kehoe.”

  “I am.” His voice was strained. “I swear.” He raised his right hand tentatively like he was taking an oath.

  “I still may want you to meet with him.”

  Anderson blinked hard. “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to tell you what I want you to say to him.”

  “You want me to lie to him?”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “No, John. Whatever you want. Name it.”

  “Good. I’ll let you know.”

  “What about us? We still partners?”

  Santana fixed his eyes on Anderson. The cavernous range was as quiet as a crypt.

  Santana ratcheted a bullet into the Glock’s chamber and put on the ear covers.

  Anderson took a step back.

  Santana smiled. Punched in the code on the metal box in the stall.

  Tiny beads of sweat appeared on Anderson’s brow.

  Santana motioned with the Glock for Anderson to put on his ear covers.

  Anderson hesitated, unsure.

  Santana motioned again.

  Anderson’s hands shook as he put on the ear covers.

  Suddenly the target spun and Santana half turned. Raised his right arm and fired the shell in the Glock’s chamber. Then he walked over and handed the magazine and the empty Glock to the ashen-faced Anderson and headed for the door.

  Santana had no desire to confirm whether the old man pictured on the target was holding an umbrella or a gun, or where the bullet had landed. He knew.

  It was 8:42 when Santana returned to the Crimes Against Persons Division, poured himself a cup of hot chocolate from his thermos and sat down in his chair. The muscles in his neck and deltoids were ropes strung tight with tension. His right hand was still sore from the fight with the Colombian assassin. He was frustrated with Anderson, frustrated with Kehoe, frustrated with the whole damn investigation.

  He ran through the tape of the case once more in his mind, looking for something that he had missed, a reason to change his mind, but no matter which way he played it, the ending always came out the same. Whoever had killed Pérez, had killed Mendoza. The two men had known each other despite what Pérez’s daughter had told him. Pérez had called Mendoza from his home on the day he was murdered. But what was the connection? Both men were the same age and were born in Valladolid, Mexico. It was a large city, but it was certainly possible that the two men had known each other as children. Mendoza was bringing illegals into the country on phony worker’s visas and making a lot of money, but if Pérez was involved in the scam, where was his cut of the money? And if the double murder wasn’t about money, then what was it about?

  Mendoza was gay and had an explicit photo of two anonymous men engaging in oral sex in his loft, but was that reason enough for someone to kill him? It might be if that someone wanted the photo kept secret. But if Mendoza were threatening to use the photo to blackmail someone, then he would have to out himself. And why kill Pérez? There was no evidence that he was gay. Whoever killed Pérez and Mendoza had used Rubén Córdova’s gun to do it and had tried to set up Córdova to take the fall. Córdova had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. So who or what was the connection between Pérez and Mendoza? And who benefited the most from their deaths?

  Santana set his cup on the desk, pushed himself out of the chair and went over to Internal Affairs. He paused in the open doorway and looked at the office, wondering if he had time to walk in and search for the file on the Córdova shooting before anyone arrived. He was about to enter when he spotted Trina Martelli, one of the investigators assigned to IA, coming down the hallway, briefcase in one hand, a brown paper bag in the other.

  She acknowledged Santana with a nod. “Looking for me, John?”

  “Something you have.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The report on the Córdova shooting.”

  “No can do,” she said, squeezing past him in the doorway.

  “This isn’t about Anderson.”

  “Sure.”

  He followed along beside her. “What’s with the uniform?”

  “Rumor has it the chief’s planning to issue an order about wearing our uniforms whenever the country’s on orange alert.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “The hell I am. Chief figures it gives us more of a presence around the city. Keeps the citizens calm. I agree. Thought I’d get a head start.”

  “Not real good for clandestine investigative work.”

  She set the leather briefcase on her desk next to a copy of a Weight Watcher’s recipe book. “I haven’t done much of that lately.”

  “But you’re part of the preliminary investigation on Anderson.”

  “That’s pretty much wrapped up from what I understand. The mayor’s office took it over. Cut us out.”

  “Kehoe?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She kept nodding as she spoke. “Came in here like he owned the place. Wanted all the information on the shooting. Like we were working for him. Sorry if he’s a friend, John, but the guy’s a first class prick.”

  “He’s no friend of mine.”

  “Well, at least we agree on that.”

  “You keep copies of everything?”

  She gave him a look that said I’m not an idiot. “Of course I kept copies.”

  “Look, Trina, there’s a woman suspected as an accomplice in two murders. And there’s a dead guy who everyone seems to think was a killer. How about helping me out here?”

  “You don’t think Córdova’s guilty?”

  “I don’t. But Kehoe does.”

  “Jeez,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’d really like to help you, John. But Anderson’s your partner. If word got out I gave you access to the report before the investigation was complete, I might as well kiss my career goodbye.”

  She opened the paper bag and took out a naval orange the size of a gr
apefruit.

  “I understand if you’re worried about pissing off Asshoe.”

  She laughed. “That what you call Kehoe in Homicide?”

  “Fits, doesn’t it?”

  She laughed again. “That’s for sure.”

  “I just want to look at the wit’s statements on the shooting, Trina. That’s all. You’d really be doing me a favor. And if I can prove Córdova was innocent, you’ll be shafting Kehoe at the same time.”

  She clicked the locks on her briefcase and opened it. Inside were a manila folder, a copy of the Pioneer Press, and two black pens.

  “I tell you what,” she said. “I’m going to make a fresh pot of coffee and use the restroom.” She looked at Santana. “No copies. And when I get back, you’re gone?”

  “Hey, I was never here.”

  “Remember,” she said, walking away. “You owe me.”

  “If I forget, I’m sure you’ll remind me.”

  “You got that right.”

  Inside the manila folder were witness statements along with photographs of Rubén Córdova lying in the broken glass from the store window on the ground level of the Riverview Lofts. Each statement was about one typed page with a signature at the bottom and an information box at the top. The first uniforms on the scene, Roy Davis, Joe Donaldson and Keith Holmgren, took the statements.

  Santana scanned each of the statements. None of the witness statements contradicted Rick Anderson’s contention that Córdova had gone for his gun because no one had actually seen the shooting, which was good news for Anderson. But there was nothing that stood out in any of the names or the statements, which was bad news for Santana.

  He put the manila folder back in Trina Martelli’s briefcase and returned to his desk. He took Rubén Córdova’s notebook out of his briefcase and began looking carefully at each page. Halfway through it he came across a name he recognized from Rafael Mendoza’s files. José López. Prior to his death, Córdova had been arrested for unlawful assembly in both Worthington and Minneapolis while protesting the unfair treatment of illegals. He had written articles about their plight and obviously sympathized with their cause. Someone had given Córdova a tip about Mendoza’s visa scam. Santana had a hunch it was López.

  José López lived in a cluster of low-income town homes on Maryland Avenue not far from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension field office. The young woman with the dark, wary eyes who answered the door was reluctant to speak to Santana in Spanish, even after he showed her his badge and after he assured her that José wasn’t in any trouble. She finally told him that her brother was working at El Burrito’s. Santana thanked her and left.

  Almost half as big as a large chain store, El Burrito was the most popular Hispanic grocery on St. Paul’s West Side. It was advertised as offering a unique Mercado experience and sold everything from hard to find spices and fresh peppers to homemade tamales and salsa. The grocery also contained a specialty meat department, imported gift items, a few pieces of furniture, a deli, fresh pan dulce and the authentic El Cafe restaurant.

  Santana parked in the small lot behind the yellow and blue building and entered through the rear doors. He walked past the racks that held Hispanic newspapers like El Día, Gente and La Prensa and went up to one of the two registers. From where he stood, he could see the restaurant at one end of the store that featured tortillas, burritos, enchiladas and carnitas.

  “Estoy buscanto a José López.”

  The Mexican teen in a blue smock behind the counter pointed two aisles over.

  Santana thanked him and went up a narrow aisle, past a heavy-set Mexican woman pushing a cart filled with groceries and a baby strapped in a car seat, toward the front of the store. Purple, orange and green piñatas in the shape of animals and stars hung from the pipes that veined the ceiling tiles, as speakers pumped Rancheras music throughout the store. Santana found López lifting cans of frioles out of cardboard boxes and stacking them on shelves.

  “Hablas Inglés?”

  “Si.”

  Santana showed López his badge. “My name’s John Santana. St. Paul P.D.”

  López only glanced at the badge as he continued stacking cans, but Santana saw immediately that López’s left eye was black and blue and swollen to the size of a small egg, which suggested the injury was recent.

  “I want to ask you some questions.”

  “Sobre qué?”

  “It’s not about your status or your papers, José — but it could be.”

  López stopped stacking the cans and straightened up. He was short and slightly pudgy and his black hair was combed forward so it formed bangs.

  Santana made him for no more than nineteen.

  “I no in trouble?” López spoke quietly and with a heavy Mexican accent.

  “Not as long as you answer my questions truthfully.”

  He gave a hesitant nod. “Okay.”

  Santana followed him to the cafeteria where they sat down in a pair of wooden chairs across a square table from one another. “You want some coffee or a Coke, Jóse?”

  López shook his head.

  Santana took out a pen and his notebook and opened it. “How long have you been in the country?”

  “Two years.”

  “You come to the states alone?”

  “With my sister.”

  “Is she working?”

  “Not now. She work in a packing company. But the manager, he say she must sleep with him or lose her job. She say she will do it so she can keep working and make money. Then we can bring our parents here. But I tell her she has to quit before I kill the pig.”

  Santana remembered his younger sister, Natalia. Imagined what he would do to the man who tried to force her into sleeping with him.

  “Looks to me like you already had a discussion with the manager, José. Maybe his eye looks worse than yours?”

  “No. The pig is a weak man. He can only hurt women.”

  “You and your sister live alone?”

  “There are six in the house.”

  “All around your age?”

  “Si.”

  “Any of you go to school?”

  “We must work to live.”

  “You ever work as a cook?”

  “No,” he said with a little smile. “I no cook so good. My sister, Rosa, she cook real good.”

  “Did Rafael Mendoza get you a visa?”

  López hesitated.

  Outside the windows facing the street, Hispanic men and women wearing clothes more suited to a southern climate, walked resolutely along the sidewalk in the cold. Like López they came across the southern border, chasing a dream most would never achieve.

  “Si,” López said at last. “Mr. Mendoza. He get me a visa.”

  “You always work here at El Burrito?”

  “No. I work at a hotel in Minneapolis in the laundry. But I lose my job when we strike.”

  “You were asking for more pay?”

  “Not more. Just the same as the gueros.”

  “Is that when you met Rubén Córdova? During the strike?”

  “Si,”

  Santana leaned in. “This is important, José. Did you tell Córdova that Rafael Mendoza was bringing Mexicans into the country illegally?”

  López worked his jaw, as if chewing the answer. “Rubén was my friend. He get me this job.” His eyes teared and he looked down at his hands that were clasped in front of him.

  “So you did tell him.”

  “Si. Rubén no like it when he find out what Mendoza was doing.” López rubbed his uninjured eye with the heel of his hand, like he was only tired and not really crying.

  “I’m going to get something to drink,” Santana said. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

  “Coca Cola,” he said.

  Santana went to the counter and ordered a Coke and a hot chocolate.

  When he brought the drinks back to the table and sat down again, López stared at the open can in front of him, as though peering into a deep well.

&n
bsp; “I wish I did not tell Rubén. Maybe he will still be alive if I did not tell him about Mendoza.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  As López picked up the can with both hands, his shoulders seemed to sag from the weight of it. His eyes drifted from the Coke until he was looking directly at Santana. “I say this to myself every day. But, you know, I no feel any better.”

  “I imagine you don’t feel good about your eye, either, José. Who did this to you?”

  “No one of importance,” he said. But the momentary panic that flashed across his good eye indicated the opposite.

  Santana said, “I need to know.”

  López looked at the can again. He rubbed his chin with his right hand and considered his options, which were basically slim and none. Finally he said, “You will keep my name out of it?”

  “If I can.”

  “His name is Luis Garcia. He worked for Mr. Mendoza.”

  “What exactly did he do for Mendoza?”

  López pointed to his eye. “He make sure no one talks about Mr. Mendoza’s business.”

  “You know where Luis Garcia lives?”

  “No,” López said with a shake of his head. “And I don’t want to know.”

  Chapter 15

  * * *

  HEAT FROM THE SUN’S RAYS radiated throughout the Crown Vic as Santana took the White Bear Avenue exit off Interstate 94 and turned north. A quick-moving warm front had blown in late in the morning. Santana could almost imagine that it was the middle of July despite the snow that lay like a soiled sheet over the landscape.

  Santana typed Luis Garcia’s name on the MDT keyboard in his Crown Vic. His name, last known address, and criminal history were in the computer system, as Santana had suspected, though there were no current wants and warrants. Garcia lived in a craftsman-style red brick bungalow with a gabled dormer on the corner of Kennard and Conway just west of White Bear Avenue.

  Santana parked the Crown Vic at the curb and navigated his way across a sidewalk still icy with unshoveled snow. The street was deserted. Most kids were in school, and it was too early for the gangbangers to be out.