White Tombs

by Christopher Valen

  “You better come clean, Luis,” Santana said.

  “Or what?”

  “Or I go to ICE. Let a couple of agents know about your mother.”

  “You fuckin’ do that and I’ll —”

  “What, Luis? You’re not threatening a police officer now, are you?”

  Garcia glared at Santana. Contemplated his next move. Gave Santana a badass stare designed to keep his gangbanger buddies and his compliant girlfriend in line. Santana had no intention of turning in Garcia’s mother, but he had to make sure Garcia absolutely believed that he would.

  He said, “Chill out, Luis. You cooperate with me, I won’t talk with ICE.” With his left foot, Santana slowly pushed another chair out from the table. “Sit down before I put you down. And tell Reínaldo everything’s all right.”

  “You think you’re pretty tough, man.”

  “No, Luis. I know I’m pretty tough. That’s one of the many differences between you and me. Now are you going to play this macho game all day, or are you going to tell me what you know. I’m losing my patience.”

  Garcia postured for another ten seconds before he said in a low voice, “Okay. But only because we’re brothers, man.”

  “Get this straight, Luis. We’re not brothers. We’ve got about as much in common as you do with the Pope.”

  Garcia sat down in the chair to Santana’s left. “You always this hostile, amigo?”

  “Murder investigations tend to bring out my irritable side.”

  “It’s all right, vatos,” Garcia called to Reínaldo. He gave his homeboy a reassuring smile. “The detective and me, we just had a disagreement. He understands now.”

  Garcia waved at the bartender. “Bring me a rum and Coke, Juan. And for my friend here, Detective …”

  “Santana. A hot chocolate if he has one.”

  “Hot chocolate?” Garcia said. “What the fuck kind of drink is that?”

  “A warm one.”

  “Yeah. It’s fuckin’ cold all right. Hey, Juan,” Garcia said to the bartender, “go to the restaurant next door and get Detective Santana here a hot chocolate. But bring me my rum and Coke first.”

  Garcia leaned over and said quietly, “You don’t really think I killed Mendoza, do you, Santana?”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t?”

  “Hey, I tell you what I know, man, I could go to jail.”

  “You’ll go to jail if you don’t tell me, Luis. But if you help me, I’ll help you.”

  “Yeah, like I’m going to trust a cop.”

  “What choice do you have, Luis?”

  He thought about that for a while.

  The bartender arrived with the rum and Coke and then grabbed a coat from the rack near the door and went out for the hot chocolate.

  Garcia said, “Look, Santana, it would be stupid to kill Mendoza. He was a lawyer. Without him, there’s no way we keep things going.”

  “You and your gangbanger buddies were providing the muscle in case one of the illegals got picked up and started making noise.”

  “Hey, man, you never know what one of those leaf blowers are going to do.”

  Garcia was rolling a quarter between the fingers of his right hand like a magician.

  “How often did you go to Mendoza’s place?”

  “Once a month.”

  “You sure it wasn’t twice?”

  “I’m sure, man. It was the fifteenth of every month.”

  “Was someone else working with you?”

  “No, man. Why?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, Luis.”

  “Hey, no problem.”

  Santana noticed that Garcia had gradually lost his heavy Mexican accent. He suspected that Ester Garcia was right. Her son was a bright kid. Probably hyperactive. Not well educated, but street smart enough to be worried.

  “How much you get from Mendoza, Luis?”

  “Enough so it didn’t make any sense to kill him.”

  “You know anything about the night Mendoza died?”

  Garcia hesitated. The table jiggled as his knee jackhammered against the table leg, his foot in constant motion.

  “You’ve got to trust me, Luis. If you’re telling the truth and you had nothing to do with Mendoza’s death, then I’ll help you. If you lie to me …” Santana let the sentence hang in the air.

  The bartender came back with a cup of hot chocolate and placed it on the table in front of Santana, a smile on his face.

  Santana took a drink. It was warm and heavy with chocolate. “Gracias, señor.”

  The old man seemed pleased.

  When he left, Garcia said, “I don’t know anything about that night, man. I wasn’t there. Mendoza was my meal ticket. I wouldn’t kill him.”

  “You have any idea who would?”

  He shook his head.

  “Tell me how you collected your payments.”

  “Mendoza gave me a card for the underground garage, so I could avoid security. He had two spaces reserved. I usually parked in a space next to his Mercedes. But I got shit now.” He gave a disgusted wave. “All the money was in Mendoza’s accounts.”

  “You ever meet any of Mendoza’s friends, Luis?”

  “Like who, man?”

  “Like Julio Pérez?”

  “I never met him. Everyone in the community knew who he was, though.”

  “Mendoza ever talk about Pérez?”

  Garcia shook his head.

  “How about Rubén Córdova?”

  “I didn’t know Córdova either, man.”

  Santana drank some hot chocolate and watched Garcia carefully, looking for any “tells” that he was lying. In the background, he heard the familiar ping of a pinball machine.

  “You and your mother lived in Worthington for a time. Your father worked in a meat packing plant.”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “Córdova was arrested for protesting in Worthington.”

  “Doesn’t mean I knew him.”

  Garcia sat back in his chair as a crooked smile played across his face.

  “What, Luis?”

  Garcia quit playing with the quarter. He took the straw out of his rum and Coke and started tapping it against the edge of the glass like a drummer. “I do know something that might help you, man. But I gotta have your word you gonna leave me out of all this.”

  “I told you before, Luis, I’ll do what I can for you. There are no guarantees. You know that.”

  Garcia’s dark eyes gave nothing away except that they were old beyond his years. “Okay, man. I gonna trust you. You got cojones.”

  “I’ll cherish the compliment. Now tell me what you know.”

  Garcia let out a cough of a laugh. “Mendoza was a joto, man.”

  “I know he was queer, Luis.” Santana also knew that joto in Mexican was worse than anything in English.

  Disappointment wrinkled Garcia’s brow. “Really? How you know that?”

  “I’m a detective, Luis. It’s my job to know.”

  Garcia raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, man. So you’re pretty smart.”

  “What gave you the idea that Mendoza was queer, Luis?”

  “I met his boyfriend once,” he said with a grin.

  Santana leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, interested now. “Where?”

  “At Mendoza’s loft. When I showed up one day to collect, Mendoza wouldn’t open the fuckin’ door at first. There was a lot of noise, you know. Like maybe he doesn’t want me to see what’s going on. When he finally lets me in, he’s acting all embarrassed. But I figure what’s the big deal? Mendoza’s got this reputation as a chick magnet, right? I start giving him a hard time, telling him I want to meet his chiquita. We get in an argument and I pushed him and he lets out a yell and falls over a table. All of a sudden this tall, black guy comes charging out of the bathroom with no shirt on. I couldn’t believe it.”

  Garcia shook his head as if he had just seen a pig fly. “Mendoza made me promise I’d never tell. I said I wouldn’t
long as he upped my monthly check. And I never did tell, Santana. I’m a man of my word.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Doesn’t much matter now that Mendoza is dead.” Garcia drank some of his rum and Coke.

  “You know the black guy’s name, Luis?”

  “Joto’s name is Donelle Walker. Used to play basketball at the University. Played some pro ball in New York for a while. Owns a jazz club downtown. The Sweet Spot.”

  Santana knew what Garcia was thinking now that Mendoza was dead. “Forget about, it, Luis. I hear anything about Walker having to pay hush money, and I’m going to come looking for you. Comprende?”

  “Hey, man. What do you take me for?”

  “A criminal.”

  Garcia feigned a shocked expression. “Man, that’s harsh.”

  Santana finished his hot chocolate and removed a business card from his badge wallet. He wrote a phone number on the back of the card and set it on the table.

  “You remember anything else about Mendoza or the night he died, you call me at the station or on my cell.”

  Garcia picked up the card. “No hay problema.”

  Santana stood up and put on his coat. Despite the shithole Garcia had dug for himself, Santana wanted to help him and his mother.

  “That it?” Garcia asked tentatively.

  “For now. You stay cool, Luis. I don’t want to have to come back and bust your ass.”

  “Hey, Santana, don’t worry. You know, I been doing some thinking. Maybe I’ll get a job.”

  Santana believed that about as much as he believed Córdova had been responsible for Mendoza’s murder. Still, he decided to make Garcia an offer.

  “You want to get in touch with someone that can help, Luis, I wrote a number for Latinos in Minnesota on the back of my card. They have people who can get you a legitimate job.”

  “Hey, I’ve heard of it, man. You got a deal.”

  “And Luis?”

  Garcia was lip reading Santana’s card and looked up.

  “Take good care of your girlfriend.”

  “You know me, amigo.”

  “Yeah,” Santana said. “I’m afraid I do.”

  Chapter 16

  * * *

  THE PHONE ON SANTANA’S DESK at the station rang as he was taking off his coat. Rita Gamboni wanted to see him right away in Carl Ashford’s office. Gamboni cut off the conversation when he asked her why, which was never a good sign.

  As he walked down the narrow corridor between cubicles, Santana saw Nick Baker sitting with his feet up on the corner of his desk, eating a bagel smothered with cream cheese.

  Baker said, “Wait a minute, John.”

  Santana stopped and leaned against the cloth-lined divider.

  Baker sat up and placed both feet on the floor. Nicorette gum wrappers littered his desk.

  “Gamboni and Kehoe are meeting with Ashford in his office. Word is, something’s goin’ down with the Córdova case. You got anything that proves Córdova and Torres are innocent, John, you better give it to ‘em.”

  “I just got a call from Rita. I’m on my way there now.”

  “Christ, I hope Ashford’s not gonna give you the red carpet treatment.”

  Because the carpet in the assistant chief’s office was red, it was a standing joke among detectives that if you were called to his office and reamed out, you were getting the red carpet treatment.

  “I’ve got a lot of assumptions and hunches, Nick, but still nada.”

  Baker shook his head. Pointed with a nicotine-stained finger. “That’s not good for you.”

  “Or for Córdova and Torres,” Santana said.

  He walked over to Ashford’s office and knocked on his door.

  The assistant chief’s deep baritone voice said, “Come in.”

  As Santana shut the door behind him, he noted that the blinds to the main office were closed. Another bad sign.

  “Have a seat, Detective,” Ashford said. “The three of us were just discussing the Pérez-Mendoza case.”

  Rita Gamboni and James Kehoe were seated in front of Carl Ashford’s desk. Santana sat down in the empty chair to Gamboni’s left. Kehoe was seated to her right. Like the carpet, the chair cushions were red.

  The walnut desk in the assistant chief’s office was the size of a cathedral door. It had a quarter inch piece of glass on top, along with a phone, intercom and an eight by twelve inch frame with a picture of Ashford’s wife, a former Vikings cheerleader, and their two teenage children, both boys. Their six year-old daughter had died of sickle-cell anemia seven years ago. Since then, Ashford had been a regular solicitor for the sickle-cell foundation. On the wall behind the desk was a picture of his deceased daughter, a picture of Ashford receiving an award from the president of the foundation, along with a series of framed pictures of Ashford in his college days as a football star with the Gophers and in his Army and patrol officer uniforms.

  Ashford said, “We believe we’ve got enough ammunition to push Canfield to seek an indictment against Angelina Torres as an accomplice in both murders.”

  “What exactly do we have that leads to that conclusion?” Santana thought he might have put a little too much sarcasm on the ‘we.’

  Ashford’s smile suddenly became a frown.

  “Well, for starters, John,” Gamboni said, jumping in quickly, “we’ve got the .22 that killed Pérez. Ballistics confirmed the bullet the ME removed from Pérez’s brain came from the gun that belonged to Rúben Córdova. The same gun he gave her when she drove to Minnesota from California. The gun she returned to him prior to Pérez’s murder.”

  Santana said, “The lab confirmed there was no GSR on Córdova’s hands.”

  “You know damn well that doesn’t mean he didn’t fire the gun,” Kehoe said. “It’s easy to get rid of gunshot residue.”

  “There was no backspatter on his shirt either.”

  “Maybe he changed his clothes before he went to Mendoza’s loft,” Kehoe said with a shrug.

  “There’s also evidence that someone broke into Córdova’s house recently,” Santana said. “Someone could’ve broken in and stolen the gun, so they could set up Córdova for the murders.”

  “Did Córdova report it stolen?” Gamboni asked.

  “No. But the gun was originally reported stolen in California. That’s probably why Córdova didn’t report it missing.”

  “How can you claim the gun was stolen from Córdova’s house,” Kehoe said, “when Córdova had it on him when he was killed?”

  “Someone could have taken it, used it to kill Pérez, and then planted it in Mendoza’s loft after he pushed him off the balcony. Córdova had an appointment with Mendoza about the time he died. I think Córdova came on the scene, recognized the gun, realized he was being framed, and took it with him.”

  “That’s a real stretch,” Kehoe said.

  Santana paused a moment, maintaining his composure, looking at each one of them.

  “So you all believe that Córdova killed Pérez and then Mendoza. Then he framed Mendoza for the Pérez murder and tried to make it look like Mendoza committed suicide.”

  “That’s the way it’s looking,” Ashford said.

  “And Angelina Torres?”

  “She was part of it,” Ashford said.

  “Why would Córdova use his gun to kill Pérez?”

  “You just pointed out the gun was stolen in California,” Gamboni said. “If we didn’t find Torres’ print on it, they would’ve gotten away clean.”

  “Then why didn’t Córdova just leave the gun in Mendoza’s loft? Why take it with him?”

  Kehoe said, “You and Anderson showed up unexpectedly right after Córdova pushed Mendoza off the balcony. Córdova probably panicked. It was his mistake. Most murderers make ‘em. That’s why they get caught.”

  “Like you would know,” Santana said.

  “Careful, Detective,” Ashford said. “No need to get personal here.”

  “Okay,” Santana said, “let’s say for the
sake of discussion that Córdova did kill Pérez and then pushed Mendoza off his balcony to make it look like a suicide. What’s his motive?”

  “Glad you asked that, Santana,” Kehoe said. He looked at Ashford, as if waiting for permission to speak.

  “Go ahead,” Ashford said.

  “It seems that before Mendoza began litigating on behalf of immigrants,” Kehoe paused, letting the word immigrants hang in the air as if it was an epithet, “he made his money defending companies like Greatland Industries.”

  Santana looked at Gamboni for clarification.

  “They’re a global company based in Minneapolis, John, with their fingers in lots of pies. Fertilizer. Farm machinery. But their primary source of income comes from the manufacture of pesticides.”

  Despite Nick Baker’s warning that something was up, Santana was unprepared for the feeling of dread that suddenly washed over him like a wave.

  “Córdova made a name for himself writing stories about what companies like Greatland were doing to migrant workers in the grape fields of California,” Kehoe continued, clearly enjoying Santana’s obvious discomfort and the chance to show off in front of Ashford and Gamboni. “Córdova and Torres’s parents worked in those same fields. They both believed their parents died of cancer from pesticide poisoning. It’s clear that they held Greatland responsible for the death of their parents. Mendoza defended Greatland in the lawsuit. That’s their motive.”

  “As for Pérez,” Ashford said, “Detective Kehoe believes that Córdova killed Pérez so that he could take over El Día.”

  “It’s perfect,” Kehoe said. “Córdova gets revenge on Mendoza for defending the company responsible for the death of his parents, and he takes over operation of the largest Hispanic newspaper in the Midwest.”

  Kehoe looked at Ashford. “Good detective work, Chief, is just putting two and two together. And,” he added smugly, “not getting sidetracked by another agenda.”

  “And what agenda is that?” Santana asked with an edge in his voice.

  “I understand you were over at Angelina Torres’s apartment the other night.”

  Santana felt the heat in his face. “What the hell are you suggesting, Kehoe?”

  “Not a thing. Other than maybe you should’ve spent more time investigating Córdova than his girlfriend.”