Hungry Ghosts

by Peggy Blair

  “You see, now, that’s the problem. I know you didn’t kill her. Because I know who did, and it wasn’t Sheldon. But you tried to make it look like Sheldon. I think you framed him, because he was the only person you could frame. That’s why you took his prints on plastic tape, so you could transfer them to another surface, even though he told you he didn’t touch anything. There’s only one reason to frame somebody for a murder you didn’t commit, and that’s to give yourself an alibi for those other murders. If the Highway Strangler did this one, it couldn’t be you all those other times.”

  “You should have been a fiction writer, Pike. When all this is over, you may want to consider it. Because you have just ended your police career.”

  “The boots threw me off. But she was frozen pretty good; it would have been hard to remove them, and pretty much impossible to get them back on again. I’m guessing they’re in a ditch somewhere along the 562. Or maybe in the garbage behind the motel. Luckily, because of the storm, there’s been no pickup. The OPP is checking all those bins for me right now.”

  “This is bullshit,” Neville said, his face flushed. He sat down again, hard.

  “Did you throw away the ice axe you used to make those little round holes in the ground or is it in your suitcase? I’d love to know how you got it through airport security. Man, I can’t get through security that easy, even without a weapon. I’m guessing you put it in the body bag along with Dr. Kesler’s boots and let the techs carry everything out of the woods for you. Like you said, those body bags can be pretty useful.”

  Charlie Pike reached over and turned the laptop around. In the screen shot, Adam Neville and his wife each held an ice axe.

  Pike reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out the plastic exhibit bag containing the pack of Lucky Strikes. He placed it on the desk. “This was in the drawer, right beside where you’re sitting. Only one cigarette is missing. The one you left at the crime scene.”

  “How the hell did you get those,” Neville sputtered. “I locked them up.”

  “Thanks for confirming possession, Adam. From a guy who doesn’t smoke, I think that’s probably enough to make an arrest.”

  Neville slumped back in his chair. “It’s not what it looks like, Charlie. Believe, me, you’ve got this all wrong.”

  “You can come in now, Pete,” Pike called out.

  Sergeant Bissonnette opened the door. A uniformed policeman stood behind him, holding a pair of women’s boots in his gloved hands.

  “You were right,” said Bissonnette. “We found these in the dumpster outside.”

  “Charge him with obstruction for now. Make sure you read him his rights. You know, you really shouldn’t leave things lying around, Adam,” said Pike, standing up. He closed his notebook and put it in his pocket. “People up north are way too trusting.”

  53

  Inspector Ramirez jumped when his cell phone rang. His nightmare had left him unnerved and on edge. He steered through the heavy traffic, pressing the small device to his ear, struggling to hear his caller over the rattling exhaust pipes and bleating horns.

  “I have a preliminary cause of death for the man from the beach, Ricardo,” said Apiro. “He drowned, but not in the ocean. In saltwater drowning, we often find a higher chlorine concentration in the left chamber of the heart than in the right. It’s the opposite in freshwater. Freshwater also significantly changes the surface tension of the pulmonary surfactant—that’s on the surface of the lungs, Ricardo—­seawater doesn’t.

  “And you were right about the restraints. There were small hemorrhages around the wrists and ankles, and microscopic wood fibres in the skin on one leg, just above the part of the epidermis that detached as he struggled to get loose. It looks like he was tied up and that someone held his head underwater until he died.”

  “You mean in a swimming pool?”

  “Not necessarily. It doesn’t take much water to drown. You can drown in a sink or in a toilet, even a bucket.”

  Ramirez thought about his dream. Maybe the dead man wasn’t Antifona Conejo’s foreign boyfriend after all. He cast his mind back to the article he’d read in Granma.

  “He could have been waterboarded. It’s something the Americans do to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. They strap them to boards, lean them back, and pour water over their heads to make them feel like they’re drowning. It’s supposed to make them talk. He could have been a prisoner in the detention facility. Maybe something went wrong during an interrogation.”

  “That’s certainly one way to dispose of a body, Ricardo. Throw it in the ocean and hope it’s never found. But if you’re right, it will be almost impossible to prove.”

  Ramirez shook his head. An Iraqi prisoner from Guantánamo wouldn’t be wearing jewellery or expensive clothes. He’d been wrong about Antifona Conejo being dead too. His visions were becoming a problem. They weren’t just the product of stress, now they were contributing to it.

  He told his small friend about running into Antifona the night before. “I still can’t believe I found her alive.”

  “It sounds to me, no offence, as if she found you,” said Apiro. “Since when do jineteras pick up Cuban men? I thought you didn’t like coincidences. You remember Sherlock Holmes? He used to say, if two highly unusual events happened at the same time, they were usually connected. Be careful, my friend. I have a feeling something’s going on.”

  “Maybe she thought I was handsome,” said Ramirez, slightly offended.

  “More attractive than a paying client? If I had enough money, even I would look handsome. Not to mention taller.”

  Ramirez laughed uneasily. He swerved the car to avoid striking another stranded coco-taxi. If he ever hit one, he thought, it would roll down the street like a child’s ball.

  Detective Espinoza called Ramirez on his radio. “Inspector, I’m with Rider Aguilera at his mechanic’s. His car broke down weeks ago, it’s still here. The mechanic has confirmed that Señor Aguilera had no car to loan.”

  “I was afraid of that. Whoever did this had to have a vehicle to take those women to the forest. They didn’t walk. And they didn’t take a taxi. Juan Otero had no money.”

  As Ramirez said it, he was certain he was right. Even if Otero could have afforded a cab, the driver would have waited by the side of the road, maybe even entered the woods in search of his fare. The killer couldn’t take that chance. “It might not be Otero at all. Did you ever find a lead for that apple that Dr. Apiro found in the victim’s stomach?”

  “I checked with a few hotels, Inspector, but I stopped looking after we took Señor Otero into custody. Of the ones I spoke to, only the Hotel Floridita and the Hotel Nacional had any. They received a shipment on February 11 and put them out in the morning buffet the next day. The manager of the Floridita said they were imported from Quebec. They call the variety a ‘snow apple’ because of its white flesh.”

  “Find out how many of their guests ate at the morning buffet on Lovers’ Day. Once you have a list, we’ll need to cross-reference it to car rentals going back to say, mid-January. Check for the same time period last year. Let’s see if we find any names in common.”

  “There will be thousands of names,” Espinoza protested. “The hotel records are computerized, and some of the car rental agencies will be too, but they won’t be on the same computers. And many of the car rental agencies have no computers at all.”

  “I know,” said Ramirez. “It’s a huge job. Get Natasha to help you.” He thought for a moment. “I think Dr. Apiro’s technicians should go back to the forest again tomorrow.”

  “What for, Inspector?”

  “To start digging.”

  54

  After he hung up, Ramirez thought more about Hector Apiro’s comments. Ramirez didn’t like coincidences. If Ramirez hadn’t found Antifona, how had she found him?

  He recalled the warmth of her lips, her tongue tra
cing circles around his ear. She was alive, no doubt about that. But she had no twin, and her sister LaNeva was dead. Whose ghost had he seen? And why did that ghost keep putting her finger to her lips? What was it his subconscious wanted him to know?

  The dead woman had winked at him and pointed to the interior light in his car. Ramirez swerved across a lane of traffic and pulled to the side of the road, ignoring the blast of angry horns. He got out, leaned inside, and looked carefully around the car interior. He examined the plastic cover over the light above his rearview mirror and saw tiny scratches around the edges. Pry marks.

  Embedded inside the light was a small listening device. It wasn’t a thief who stole my mirror at all, he realized; it was someone covering up what they did, making sure that if I noticed any damage, I’d blame it on a thief.

  He reattached the cover but left the device intact while he considered what to do. If someone had bugged his car, they might have bugged his home as well. Was it Cuban Intelligence, bugging him the way they bugged Nassara Nobiko? But why?

  He started the car again and pulled a U-turn. He parked the car outside his apartment building and slammed the door. He ran up the three flights of stairs and tiptoed inside the apartment. He quietly checked every room, not wanting to alert anyone who might be eavesdropping.

  The bug was clipped to the electrical junction box for the kitchen light. He removed it and put it in his jacket pocket, then walked slowly back downstairs and climbed into his car. He looked at the interior light while he considered his options. He finally decided to leave the listening device exactly where it was.

  After all, he thought, starting the ignition, as Francesca had said during one of their better fights, good communication was always two-way.

  55

  It was almost eleven in the morning and Inspector Ramirez had only an hour before he had to release the paintings to the Italians. He decided to stop by the museum and let the director, Romero Garza, know the artwork could be crated for shipping, that his investigation had run out of time.

  He parked his small car in front of the museum and walked up the massive marble stairs to the mezzanine level. He nodded to Carlos Hernandez, who was seated behind the security desk, and asked for directions to Garza’s office. He found the museum director shuffling papers.

  “Hola, Inspector Ramirez, how goes it?” Garza smiled and stood to shake the inspector’s hand.

  “I’m sorry to say we haven’t made much progress. You may have heard. The Italians want their paintings back today. The government has agreed to release them.”

  “Yes, they’ve been kicking up quite a fuss. Well, it won’t take long to pack up the paintings as soon as you give the go-ahead.”

  “Before I do, can you answer a few questions for my report?”

  “Of course. Please, sit down.”

  Ramirez removed his hat and seated himself.

  “I was wondering. Señor Testa told me that the paintings are insured for quite a lot of money. Could that form any part of the motive for the damage?”

  “So that someone could recover the insurance proceeds? I hope you’re not suggesting that Señor Testa would be involved in something like that, Inspector. He is a highly regarded curator from one of the top museums in the world.”

  “Not at all,” said Ramirez. “I’m just trying to understand who might profit by damaging the paintings.”

  “It was a political protest, Inspector, nothing more. Besides, the ownership of these paintings is disputed. It would be very hard to recover on a claim. That’s why they can be exhibited in Cuba but not in certain parts of Europe or the United States.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” said Ramirez.

  “If the paintings were ever shown in those places, they could be seized,” said Garza. “All of them were once owned by wealthy Cuban families. They were expropriated by the revolutionary government and sold during the Special Period at auction. It’s the reason we wanted to display them. They are part of our cultural heritage.”

  “How could they be seized?”

  “Claims have been filed alleging wrongful expropriation. A state can confiscate property from its own citizens; it’s perfectly legal. The problem here is that the actual owners of the paintings may not have been the families themselves, but their companies, which were incorporated in the United States. Because of this, there is a legal issue as to whether Cuba had the right to expropriate them at all. American laws allow the original owners to recover a property in such circumstances. The Fanjul family sued Sotheby’s auction house following the sale of one such painting in England, the Castillo de Málaga. And the De la Torre family recently settled a similar claim for a Mariano. The American courts will claim jurisdiction over any disputed painting as soon as it touches American soil.”

  “Funny,” said Ramirez, “that they will assert jurisdiction over paintings that reach their shores but won’t accept any Cubans who manage to get there.”

  Garza laughed bitterly. “You don’t have to feed a painting.”

  Detective Espinoza stopped Ramirez as soon as he walked into the Major Crimes Unit. “We may have a suspect, Inspector. In the museum investigation. We still have time to make an arrest; it’s not noon yet. Patrol picked him up spray-painting a wall in Varadero about thirty minutes ago. He claims he didn’t arrive in Cuba until Friday, but he doesn’t have his airplane ticket with him. We’re checking with Customs. He had these in his backpack, along with a few other very interesting items.” Espinoza handed some stencils to Ramirez.

  The stencils depicted Fidel Castro urinating on a computer. Despite himself, Ramirez smiled. “What were the other items?”

  “Orange coveralls, still in their package. A black hood and plastic handcuffs. And a life-size inflatable doll. A male. Not the type we use here. The handcuffs, I mean.” Espinoza blushed. “But no police uniform. He’s in the interview room. I thought you might want these too.”

  Espinoza handed Ramirez an exhibit envelope containing photographs of the damaged paintings at the museum and the image spray-painted above them.

  They walked down the narrow hall to the room adjoining the interview room. Ramirez looked through the mirrored glass. A man sat at the Formica table on the red plastic chair. He was short-haired and wore glasses and a hooded jacket. There was nothing remarkable about him.

  But that was the problem, thought Ramirez. Most criminals didn’t look like criminals.

  “Was he carrying identification?”

  “A passport. He’s English. Robin Gunningham,” said Espinoza, handing it over. “He was born in July 1973, which makes him thirty-­three.”

  Ramirez took the passport and stepped into the hall. He walked the few paces to the interrogation room and opened the metal door. When it swung shut, it clanged. The prisoner jumped.

  Ramirez recalled Dr. Flores’s advice about the organized and disorganized criminal. If this man was responsible for the vandalism in the museum, he was certainly organized. But why would he have an inflatable doll with him? As a diversion of some kind? He remembered the profiler’s instructions: appeal to his ego.

  “My name is Inspector Ramirez, Señor Gunningham. It appears that you’ve been gracing our buildings with your art.” Ramirez put the photographs on the table. “In Cuba, unfortunately, expressing political sentiments of this type can land you in prison for quite a long time.”

  Not completely true. A foreigner was more likely to be expelled from the country. But the Englishman had no need to know that. Ramirez pointed to a photograph of the image sprayed on the museum wall. “Is this your work?”

  The artist leaned forward and squinted at it, then sat back. “Never seen it before.”

  “It was sprayed on a wall in our National Museum on Thursday afternoon.”

  “I didn’t even get here until Friday evening. Never even been to any Cuban museums; wouldn’t bother. I spend
all my free time at the hip-hop festival. Besides, this is clumsy technique. Nothing like mine.”

  “You sound like you don’t think much of museums.”

  The Englishman snorted. “They’re just retirement homes for old paintings, protected by a bunch of bored punters who don’t know anything about art. They can’t tell a fake from the real thing.”

  “And how would you know this?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to read me my rights or something?”

  “I have no interest in whatever crimes you may have committed elsewhere, Señor. The only reason you’re here is because of the vandalism in our museum. We’re checking out when you arrived; if it’s as you say, you’ll be released with our apologies.”

  The man visibly relaxed. “Then I should be out of here in no time. I used to hang my paintings inside museums, right beside the real ones. Takes about two seconds and a dab of glue to hang up a painting. Amazing what a cheap gold frame can do. Most people don’t notice for weeks that a painting doesn’t belong there. I’ve had one in the Louvre for years. I go in every now and then with a paintbrush to touch it up.”

  “You’re obviously a perfectionist.” Ramirez smiled. He leaned back in his chair. “Do you only enter these museums when they are open to the public?”

  “I haven’t had to break into one, if that’s what you mean. Not that it would be all that hard.”

  Ramirez fumbled in his pocket for a cigar. “Really? They’re heavily guarded.”

  “You know, you read an art review and the critics talk about how skilfully an artist uses his paint or his palette knife, or about his use of light and colour. But in my kind of work, it’s all about access. Besides, it’s a whole lot easier to get inside a museum than a bank. Someone broke into one in Dublin last year after some idiot left a ladder leaning on an exterior wall. The IRA pulled off an art heist in Boston a few years ago too. They put on fake police uniforms and tied up the guards. In and out in less than five minutes. They got away with quite a few expensive paintings. Never recovered any of them.”