White Tombs

by Christopher Valen

  They sat on colonial furniture, two chairs and a couch, arranged in a circle around a large square coffee table.

  “I was just about to have some tea,” she said. “Would you gentleman like something?”

  “We don’t want to inconvenience you, señora,” Montoya said.

  “There is no inconvenience, Mr. Montoya. What would you like?”

  “Do you have beer?” he asked hesitantly, as if he were asking for monkey urine.

  “Of course. And Mr. Santana?”

  “Beer is fine.”

  She summoned a maid.

  Santana had missed the slight tremor in her hand when they were introduced, and the way her head bobbed nearly imperceptibly. But now he saw it and knew at once that she was in the initial stages of Parkinson’s disease.

  “I rarely allow visitors,” she said, focusing her attention on the two of them. “But I am wondering why you are looking for someone who knew Julio. I have not seen him since we were children.”

  Santana said, “I’m also a police officer, Ms. de la Vega, but in the States. Minnesota to be exact. I’m sorry to have to tell you that I’m investigating Mr. Pérez’s murder.”

  She quickly raised a hand to her mouth. “Es terrible.”

  “Yes, it is. I believe that Mr. Pérez’s murder might be connected to something that happened here, in Valladolid, when he was a child. I’m hoping you can tell me what that connection might be.”

  “I can’t imagine,” she said. “I left Valladolid and went to Mexico City when I was eighteen. I won a beauty contest.”

  “Not just a beauty contest,” Montoya said. “She was Miss Mexico. And eventually, Miss Universe.”

  Santana half expected Montoya to ask her for an autograph.

  “That was such a long time ago,” she said with a mixture of embarrassment and nostalgia. “Much has happened since.”

  On the end table next to the couch were two 8 x 11 framed photos of Daniela de la Vega from the shoulders up. She was wearing a white terrycloth robe with a towel wrapped around her hair in both photos, as if she had recently emerged from a shower. She looked remarkably the same in each photo despite the fact that one had last year’s date written in the frame’s corner and the other frame a date twenty years earlier.

  The maid returned with the beers and tea.

  Santana poured a bottle of Corona in a clear glass and took a long drink.

  Montoya said, “How well did you know Julio Pérez, señora?”

  “We attended the same church.”

  “Did you know his family?”

  “Not well. My family and Julio’s … well, let me say that we did not see each other outside of church.”

  She was being polite, but Santana understood the underlying message. Social class was just as important here as it was in Manizales where he grew up. The original families who settled the city at the turn of the 20th century came from the cities of Abejorral and Sonson near Medellin in the state of Antioquia. If you were descended from this group, as Santana’s family had been, you had certain advantages. Heritage in Manizales’s society was everything. And no amount of money, legally or illegally gained, could ever change that.

  “Did you know Rafael Mendoza?” Santana asked.

  “Why, yes.”

  Santana looked at her without saying anything.

  “Was Rafael murdered, too?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Her right hand shook more now as she held the teacup and saucer close to her mouth. Maybe it was the weight of it that caused her hand to shake more and maybe it was something else.

  “Something happened here, señora,” Santana said. “What was it?”

  He had seen a moment of recognition in her eyes. Mendoza’s name had triggered a long forgotten memory.

  Daniela de la Vega set the teacup and saucer on the coffee table in front of her. Her full lips twitched slightly and her face grew pensive. She appeared to be composing herself, as though she was about to audition for the role of a lifetime.

  “It was such a long time ago,” she began. “I did not remember what happened until you mentioned Rafael Mendoza. He and Julio were best friends.”

  She was looking at Santana now, but her eyes were focused in the past and seemed scarred by some inner turmoil.

  “As I recall, their families were very close.”

  Santana glanced at Montoya. He wanted to make sure Daniela de la Vega’s recounting of the events would continue without questions. But he could tell by Montoya’s expression that he, too, understood the importance of what she was about to say and had no intention of disrupting the moment.

  “Julio looked after him like they were brothers. The boys did everything together.” She hesitated a moment and looked directly at Santana.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I am very much a woman of the world, Detective. I have seen a great many things in my life. And I have done things I am not especially proud of.”

  She paused and forced a smile.

  Daniela de la Vega was an actress used to playing different roles. Santana was certain that she could slip in and out of character as easily as she could a pair of shoes. But there was no character to play, no rehearsed dialogue to repeat now. There was only the past. And it was real and obviously painful.

  “What you have to tell us could be very important, señora,” Santana said.

  “Yes. I understand. I am just surprised that even today, it is difficult for me to speak of these things.”

  A warm breeze blew in the open windows gently lifting the edges of the napkins and exposing the glass underneath. The breeze brought with it a hint of rain and perhaps a storm to come.

  “I am a Catholic,” she continued. “I was brought up to respect the church, as were Julio and Rafael. They were altar boys.”

  She took a moment more to compose herself.

  Behind her, in an alcove next to a bedroom, a long, rectangular table was covered with a tablecloth of embroidered white lace. On the wall behind the table were framed pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Immaculate Conception. On the table was a blue wooden cross with the word INRI in gold lettering written at the apex. Along the vertical post underneath the word Jesus were gold symbols representing an angel, a chalice, a dove, the Eucharist and a tablet of the Ten Commandments. Leaning against the base of the cross was a picture of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. Around the cross were the constelacion de santos, the constellation of saints, six lighted candles and two, small vases of flowers.

  “There was a young missionary here at the time that everyone admired,” she continued. “Especially the two boys. Nothing was ever proven, but there were … allegations.”

  Montoya sat forward in his chair and leaned his elbows on his knees.

  “You’re suggesting the boys were sexually abused,” Santana said.

  She gave him a long look and then a slight nod, as if repeating the words would damn her soul forever.

  “Do you remember the priest’s name?”

  “There were only rumors,” she said. “This might not have happened. You understand.”

  “The name,” Santana said.

  She looked at Montoya for support.

  “Please, señora,” he said. “Do you remember?”

  She looked at Santana again, and he could see the cool resolve in her indigo eyes. “I will never forget his name. It was Scanlon. Richard Scanlon.”

  The shroud of sky outside the window of the 757 exploded with light every few seconds, like artillery shells fired in battle, as lightning zigzagged out of the black, anvil-shaped clouds looming high above the plane that carried Santana along the edge of a gathering storm.

  He was thinking about his sister, Natalia, how he had left her when he fled Colombia twenty years ago, how he regretted never having said good-bye. In a recurring dream he would see her walking away from him along busy Avenida 12 de Octubre in Manizales, forever seven years old. He would
call out, asking her to wait for him, running between and around people on the sidewalk, trying to catch her. But she would keep walking until the crowd swallowed her.

  When he arrived at the place where he had last seen her, he would find nothing ahead of him but impenetrable darkness, darkness so cold and ominous that fear kept him from following. In his heart he believed that Natalia was alive and safe in a convent somewhere in Colombia, and that the darkness merely represented loneliness, the ache he felt whenever he thought of her. It was, for Santana, confirmation that a small part of him still lived, still believed that there was good in the world. He feared that if he ever lost this feeling, he would die completely inside. So he welcomed the ache and ignored the voice inside his head that warned him the dream could represent only one thing.

  He peered down at the distant lights firing the landscape, as though he were God looking down on creation. He wondered how many husbands living in the houses below went to church on Sunday and then went home and abused their children or beat their wives? How many couples cheated on each other? How many were drug addicts or alcoholics? How many stole company profits, cooked the books and gutted pension plans? How many cared about nothing or no one but themselves? Most people would call him a cynic. Santana preferred to think of himself as a realist. No sane person could spend time in Homicide without coming to the conclusion that this was one very sick world.

  It was easy to convince himself that he was above it all, that his job gave him carte blanche to do whatever he deemed necessary in the name of justice. But he was no hypocrite. He readily acknowledged that he had broken the laws of society and of the commandments, that he had murdered his own soul. He did this knowing that someday, if there truly was a God, he might have to pay for his sins, if not in this life, then in another.

  It was nearly 8:00 p.m. on Monday evening when he entered his house and turned off the security system. The long flight and abrupt change in weather left him feeling vulnerable to a wind that was like cold steel pressing against exposed flesh.

  He disregarded the blinking red light on his phone, left his luggage and clothes on the bed and took a hot, steaming bath. He lay in the tub with his eyes closed and let warm water massage away the chill that was a deep bruise embedded in his muscles. He imagined the hell that would break loose in the department and city if he were to accuse Archbishop Richard Scanlon of sexually abusing two boys years ago in Valladolid, Mexico. He saw the abuse as further justification for his loss of faith in a religion that had once had a profound influence on his life.

  Once, he would never have questioned anything he heard inside a church or a confessional. He believed the words spoken there were more than those of a priest; they were the word of God. And God made no mistakes. But the strong cord that bound Santana to his faith had loosened considerably when his father was killed by a drunken driver and had completely unraveled when his mother died a senseless death as well. Suddenly, it was hard to believe in the goodness of a god who would allow this to happen. Now, he trusted a priest no more than he did anyone else.

  Julio Pérez and Rafael Mendoza had been trusting and vulnerable once, too. They had been taught to believe in the goodness of the church and of God. And each had been betrayed in the most intimate of fashions, sexually abused at the hands of a priest, forced to carry the shock and humiliation with them like a cancer all of their lives. Fate had brought them separately to St. Paul, literally within miles of one another, though indications were that the traumatic experience they shared as children had kept them light years apart.

  On the surface it appeared that they had come to terms with the abuse. Both were successful, one as a journalist and publisher, the other as an attorney. Yet, Mendoza’s life was much different from the one he projected in public. Mendoza had pocketed thousands by bringing illegal immigrants into the country on phony worker visas. He had maintained the image of an eligible heterosexual while leading a secret life as a homosexual. Was it Scanlon’s appointment as archbishop that finally upset the delicate balance Mendoza had achieved in his life? Were both men finally forced to face the demons of the past?

  Santana wanted very much to confront Scanlon, but even if the sexual abuse allegations were true, it didn’t prove that the archbishop had murdered Pérez and Mendoza. And Santana knew that without solid evidence to substantiate the charges of abuse or murder, it would be career suicide to accuse Scanlon of the crimes. There had to be another way.

  Before going to bed Santana unpacked his shaving kit. Inside it he found the scorpion Montoya had made for him out of a leaf. It reminded him of the story about the frog and the scorpion, and he wondered for a moment if he could ever change his nature.

  He placed the scorpion on the fireplace mantel and went to his computer where he read a short biography of Richard Scanlon the Pioneer Press had recently run on its website. Scanlon, sixty-five, had grown up in St. Paul, where he graduated from Seton Academy. He had received a B.A. at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. After graduation he had entered the St. Paul Seminary where he was ordained. Later he had received a Doctorate in Divinity at the Catholic University in Washington where he had done some teaching. He had also studied at the North American College in Rome. Before his appointment as Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Scanlon had been a priest at the Church of the Guardian Angels in St. Paul, had taught at Seton Academy, had served as a diocesan bishop in San Antonio and had been past president of the National Conference of Bishops. Speculation had it that Scanlon was offered the position of archbishop because of his midwestern roots and because the current three auxiliary bishops in charge of the three regional vicariates in St. Paul were less qualified. Consideration was given to Scanlon’s “intellectual qualities, social sense, and spirit of cooperation,” according to Pro Nuncio James O’Connor. Scanlon could serve as archbishop until he retired at seventy-five. According to the Pioneer Press reporter, the rapidly growing Hispanic population in the Twin Cities, and the fact that Scanlon spoke fluent Spanish and had spent time in Mexico as a young priest helped secure his appointment.

  Then again, Santana thought, perhaps Scanlon’s experience in Mexico might not help him one damn bit.

  Chapter 21

  * * *

  DAY 8

  TUESDAY MORNING’S WEATHER REPORT predicted snow flurries and falling barometric pressure. Winds were pushing a storm in a northeasterly direction out of Nebraska and toward the upper Midwest. Forecasters were on high alert, interrupting regularly scheduled programs and running dire warnings across television screens. If the storm stayed on its current path, the Twin Cities could receive up to a foot of snow. Then again, if it veered slightly east, there would likely be only an inch or two. It was hard to tell precisely which direction the storm would go because computer models were generating conflicting reports.

  Driving the Crown Vic across the Wabasha Bridge and into the West Side of St. Paul, Santana wondered what it would be like if homicide detectives were afforded the same latitude as meteorologists. He pictured himself telling Ashford that information he had fed into a computer was predicting the murderer might be Archbishop Scanlon or it might not. No matter whether he was right or wrong, he expected to keep his job. He laughed to himself, but it was a laugh of anxiety as much as humor. In reality, Santana knew he could not afford to be wrong. Not this time. Not ever.

  From a distance the tall steeple on the Church of the Guardian Angels appeared to impale the low, dark clouds that hung like a veil over it. Oak and maple trees lining the narrow neighborhood streets were stripped bare, their naked branches withered hands reaching toward heaven.

  In his mind’s eye Santana saw Richard Scanlon and Thomas Hidalgo at Calvary Cemetery right after the graveside service for Julio Pérez. There was a moment when Hidalgo introduced Scanlon. The way Hidalgo looked at Scanlon, the way he touched the older priest on the shoulder. It was a simple gesture that might have meant something and might have meant nothing at all. But Santana wanted to find o
ut for sure.

  He parked the Crown Vic in a parking lot and walked along the sidewalk behind the church to the rectory. It was a small stone Tudor with a tall chimney and a pair of steeply pitched gables. Thomas Hidalgo answered the doorbell.

  “Yes,” he said tentatively. He had a puzzled expression on his angular face and then a look of recognition. “Detective Santana. What brings you here?”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Hidalgo’s eyes looked past Santana at the church before shifting upward toward the darkening skies for a moment, apparently waiting for God to provide an appropriate response.

  “I don’t see how I can be of any help,” he said at last, his eyes settling on Santana’s face again.

  Santana gave him a friendly smile. “How can you be sure when you don’t know what I’m going to ask you?”

  “I’m kind of busy.”

  “This won’t take long.”

  “All right,” he said with a reluctant shrug. “Come in.”

  Gray light bled into the small, dark living room with the walnut floors and French provincial furniture across from a brick fireplace that looked like it had never been touched by flames. Even though Santana had his coat on, he still felt the chill in the air, as if the thermostat had been turned down to fifty-five degrees. The whole atmosphere was gloomy, not unlike the world beyond the walls.

  “Live here alone?”

  “No,” Hidalgo said. “With a seminary student.”

  He sat down on a couch and brushed an invisible piece of lint off the sleeve of a pale white shirt that nearly matched his chalky complexion.

  Santana stood with his hands in his coat pockets near the fireplace. Above the mantel was a large, framed artist’s sketch of the St. Paul Cathedral.

  “Want to sit down, Detective?”

  “No thanks. I was on a plane all day yesterday flying back from Mexico. Think I’ll stand.”