The Judge and Garcia marched to the elevator, rode back to the 20th floor, and stood in the hall observing through the glass.
Luis, seated now at the elevator end of the conference table, looked bored. Roberto Cervantes was pacing up and down the length of the boardroom. Miguel Cervantes stepped out of the washroom and stretched. Pablo Cervantes was standing, leaning against the back of his chair for support, looking tired and frail. Rosa Cervantes was seated, still playing with her nails. Juan Moreno was still busily typing, his computer carefully angled against the wall, so no one could see its screen. Alan Clark was at the bar on the left, pouring Scotch over ice from a bottle that looked old and expensive. The whole lot looked like high school truants detained after school.
Garcia entered the room, dragging the Judge with him. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to remember where you were when María jumped off the roof.”
“We were all here, Inspector,” said Luis.
Beyond the end of the conference table, through the glass, the stairwell door opened, and Officer Gonzales stepped out into the hall. All heads turned to watch him as he stood uncertainly, looking for direction.
Garcia marched to the glass and gestured angrily at the hapless Gonzales and then up, toward the roof, pantomiming that Gonzales was supposed to be on the roof with Ana. Gonzales looked confused, spread his hands in a silent ‘but...’, then slowly turned and stepped back into the stairwell, moving like his feet hurt.
It was then a screech from Rosa at the conference table brought the Judge’s head around, just in time to glimpse Ana, plummeting in a panicky ball of olive and squash silk past the window, disappearing beneath the glass sill, her face a mask of terror, eyes narrowed to slits, her scream whipped away by the wind and canceled by the separating glass.
CHAPTER 9
“Oh my God,” muttered the Judge.
There was a stampede to the window, heads looking down. Rosa went hysterical, sobbing, “Ana, Ana, Ana,” folding her arms across her chest and rocking. Miguel turned, shock written across his face. The old man, Pablo, rose from his seat, hands on the table, looking wobbly. Roberto turned away, looking sick. Alan Clark had his mouth open and his jaws working, much like a large fish feeding, but no sound came. Luis stood from his seat at his end of the table facing the window, his face contorted in a mixture of emotions hard to interpret.
The Judge looked at Garcia. Garcia’s face was sliding from startled disbelief to horror, realization seeping in. This play had been Garcia’s idea; a half-baked Hercule Poirot sort of grandstand resulting in another death of a prominent board member. The result was on his head. The Judge wondered a little maliciously how he’d explain the result to his superiors.
The Judge shook himself and turned, making another dash for the elevators. Garcia clumsily moved to follow, stunned, still trying to comprehend the consequences of his little pantomime. Yelling back at his officer, “Take them back to the nineteenth-floor sales office now, Hernandez. Then find Gonzales. And search that roof.”
When the elevator hit the lobby, the Judge bounded outdoors to the cement walk where Ana lay. Garcia followed, still in shock, moving stiffly.
She’d landed on her buttocks, her feet and legs jackknifed in the air, the impact collapsing her torso into her hips, smashing them together like an insane jigsaw puzzle that could never be put right, spine shattered, legs and arms flung out at odd angles. The smell of puddling blood and fluids, warming in the hot sun, made the Judge suspect he might be sick. It was so God damn hot.
Garcia and the Judge squatted to either side of her. Garcia, his face drained of color now, automatically checked for a pulse. It was clear to the Judge there’d be none.
The Judge lifted one of her forearms and then the other, noting fine cuts on her palms and the undersides of her forearms. Just like María. Had she hit the same bit of outstretched plaster that María had hit, scraping her way down the side of the building? The Judge looked up at the sheer wall towering above them, Garcia following his gaze. There were blocks of plastered beams jutting out periodically along the floor line of the roof, hacienda style. Decorative additions seeming to serve no structural purpose. Perhaps window washers attached lines there and lowered themselves down the face to clean. Is that what she had hit? Both women had similar marks.
The Judge leaned over Ana’s face and sniffed. There was that same whiff of something he’d sensed on María Cervantes. Vaguely familiar. Pungent. He still couldn’t quite identify it.
“Madre de Dios,” muttered Garcia, looking around at his minions swarming from all directions toward the body. Then he yelled.
“Keep the building sealed, all exits. Take four men and search the roof, and I mean SEARCH! Search everything. No one gets in or out. Someone is hiding up there. Confirm with Gonzales when he was in the stairwell climbing to the roof that no one came up or down. Seal off that stairwell at the roof level. Check the window washer’s equipment, for lines down the building. Did someone rappel down the building face? Did someone take off from the roof in a glider or a parachute or something? I want answers. And I want them now!”
Garcia turned back to the Judge. “How, Judge? How? There’s nowhere to hide on the roof. No one came up or down the elevator. The elevators didn’t move. No one came up or down the stairwell, except Gonzales against orders, but he blocked the only stairwell. There can’t be two suicides in the space of an hour. It has to be murder. But how? How could it happen?”
“See these small cuts?” said the Judge, raising Ana’s arm again, pointing to her palm and the underside of her forearm. “Both arms.”
“The fall, the parapet,” said Garcia.
“I don’t think so. They’re the same as on María Cervantes. I think they both fended someone off with their hands, then in desperation covered their faces with their forearms.”
“It’s possible.”
“And the smell.”
Garcia leaned over the body to sniff, the Judge doubting the man could smell much over his garlic breath.
Garcia looked up. “Pepper spray,” he whispered.
Of course, thought the Judge. And something else too. Some other chemical. Something he couldn’t identify.
The Judge said, “She backed away, fending off with her hands, panicked, then threw her arms up to protect her face. Blind, eyes stinging, disoriented, driven off backwards over the low roof wall by her attacker.”
“But who? Where’d the attacker go?”
“I don’t know, Garcia.”
“Ay, Dios mío, he didn’t disappear into thin air.”
“You should check the other towers,” whispered the Judge. “The roofs. See what you find. Maybe someone is on one of the other roofs.”
Garcia nodded. He turned and barked more orders, sending officers scattering toward entrances to the two other towers in the project. “Seal off the other two buildings. Seal off the whole damn complex. No one leaves. Search everywhere.”
The Judge got off his knee, stiff now, tired, hot, depressed. Death was always depressing. It reminded him of his own mortality.
Just a short time earlier he’d been shaking the hand of this charming older woman, all done up in olive and squash silk, vibrant, opinionated, engaged in protecting her company from, what did she call it… ‘illegal activity’. And now there was just this sorry pile of bone, flesh and liquid, squashed on the pavement, as though stepped on by some giant foot. Lifeless. Gone. Existence terminated. ‘Joss’.
He slowly trudged away, back to the shelter of the lobby, up to the sales office, seeking Katy.
CHAPTER 10
The elevator doors opened on the 19th floor to hysteria. Mary Whittaker was holding her hands over her eyes, head down, small tear streaks etching her face. George, the sales manager, was babbling incoherently, too in shock to make sense of it all. Jeff, the exit closer, was taking large drafts on a Mexican cigarette, staring off into space. The recently married couple were drinking from a large bottle of vodka. The board m
embers were collected again in one corner of the room, looking despondent, avoiding each other’s eyes.
Katy spotted the Judge immediately, rushing forward, throwing her arms around his neck, holding tight, limpet-like, gasping, “Thank God you’re okay.”
“I’m okay, Katy. But this doesn’t seem to be the safest spot to be, particularly not the roof.”
Alan Clark came rushing over, flushed, almost hyperventilating.
“Get us out of here, Judge. They’re going to pick us off, one by one.”
“Who?”
“Whoever. The one who’s pushing ASAM’s directors off the roof. I don’t know. You’re the detective. But the police won’t let us go. Talk to them. Make them open the doors.”
“I don’t have any sway with the police, Alan. In fact, Inspector Garcia and I are barely on speaking terms. But I can try, as long as you answer some questions first.”
“Like what?”
“What was the board meeting about?”
“Luis Cervantes and his faction want to go into growing medical and recreational marijuana for the California market. Grow it in Mexico. Ship it across for US consumption.”
“Why? Don’t they and the others have enough money already?”
“It was a generational thing. The older shareholders, technically his second cousins, but everyone calls them the aunts, María and Ana, Miguel, and his great uncle, old Pablo, hold the controlling bloc in ASAM. They pay themselves large salaries and a bonus. Apparently, they pay the younger generation, Luis, Rosa and Roberto, pretty much squat. Luis wanted more. He wanted the corporation to fund a partially owned subsidiary in which he would have the controlling interest. A subsidiary with which he said would coin cash by growing and distributing to the states a very top grade of Mary Jane, providing a lush flow of cash to the company, and of course to Luis.”
“But Luis didn’t have the votes?”
“No. But he does now. With María and Ana Cervantes gone, Luis Cervantes’ faction controls the board.”
“And how are you involved, Alan?”
“Luis Cervantes brought me down to consult on the shipping, customs and marketing end, and the dispensary networks in California and elsewhere in the U.S.”
“But it’s illegal.”
“It’s legal in several states, illegal under a Federal law, but the Justice Department has decided not to enforce. And most think the Federal law will be rolled back soon.”
“Even with our new Attorney General?”
“Yes. There’s too much political pressure not to see it happen. Besides, I’m a consultant. They pay me either way.”
Alan produced a large smile.
The Judge asked, “How’d you meet Luis?”
“A mutual friend brought him to our special club near the airport. You know, Judge, the one in Silicon Beach where we first met.” Alan winked, triggering Katy to instinctively moved closer so she could eavesdrop.
“Luis is something of a celebrity in Cabo. Part of the founding families of the town. Belongs to all the best clubs, spends lavishly for goods and services, maintains an elegant lifestyle, is on several charity boards, often on the social page of the Cabo San Lucas Daily News, always donating large sums and his time to charitable causes. Well-liked and well respected here.”
“Tell me about the company.”
“ASAM? Originally formed by three brothers, José Cervantes, Antonio Cervantes, and a then-young Pablo Cervantes, in the nineteen-fifties, to explore for oil in Mexico. They were very successful. Became the biggest privately-owned oil company in Mexico, vertically integrating with a string of refineries, a trucking fleet for distribution, and a network of service stations. The brothers sold out to PEMEX in the seventies, keeping the trucking company, and used the proceeds to buy up a ton of the best farm land in Mexico, establishing an empire in agriculture, then moved into product distribution, manufacturing, and real estate development.”
“And today?”
“Today ASAM S.A.B., or just ASAM, is one of the larger privately-owned companies in Mexico. In addition to their agriculture and household supply businesses, subsidiaries produce auto components, aeronautical parts, missile parts, drones, petrochemicals, and oil and natural gas. They also provide IT and telecommunication services, and undertake real estate development, like this project.”
“And the current board of directors are descendants of the original three brothers?”
“Yes and no. José Cervantes, the original founding brother, died in 1995, and his two daughters, María, and Ana, and his son by a later marriage, Miguel Cervantes, came onto the board, taking an active hand in management, transitioning the company into high-tech manufacturing. Antonio Cervantes, the second brother, and his son, Jorge, died when their private twin-engine slammed into a swamp on a trip south for duck hunting. That was in 2000. Brother Antonio’s grandchildren, Luis Cervantes, Roberto Cervantes and Rosa Cervantes, all took positions on the board when they turned twenty-five. Pablo Cervantes, the old man, is the third brother, the only surviving founder.”
“Are Luis, Roberto and Rosa all Jorge’s children?”
“Yes. This morning, the board consisted of María, Ana, and Miguel, all children of José Cervantes, the original brother. Also, old Pablo Cervantes, the remaining surviving brother of the original three. They’re the Senior Bloc. Also on the board are the three grandchildren of Antonio Cervantes, the second founding brother who crashed in the swamp: Rosa, Roberto and Luis, the oldest. The Millennial Bloc.”
“A classic seven-man board,” said the Judge, “with a four-to-three split.”
“That’s about it, Judge. But two are now gone from the Senior Bloc, leaving the Millennial Bloc in control with a three-to-two majority.”
Katy piped up. “Can you give me the Who’s Who, Alan?”
“Sure.” Alan pointed to the slight-faced man who’d been arguing with María in the boardroom earlier. “Luis Cervantes leads the Millennial Bloc.” Luis was leaning against a wall, his arms folded in front of his chest, looking aristocratic. But the Judge noted he was watching the other board members carefully. He missed nothing.
“And Roberto Cervantes is over there.”
Alan pointed to a young man, perhaps 28, walking out to the balcony. He had the long narrow head and pointed nose of a Spaniard, and white skin, almost alabaster. He wore designer jeans, and a Nautica sport shirt, his dark hair piled on the top of his head in a man bun, a small man’s purse slung over his shoulder.
Feeling the attention, Roberto turned to look at the Judge, dark eyes regarding the Judge with intensity and a certain animosity the Judge suspected was characteristic of his personal relationships.
“Roberto’s sister, Rosa Cervantes, is over on the sofa.”
Rosa was in her mid-twenties, her expensive ivy blouse pulled tight across small breasts, her black silk skirt hiked up high, exposing spindly legs encased in pale stockings, the tip of a tattoo showing above one stocking.
“Miguel Cervantes, the son of José, the original founder, but from a later marriage, is the one in the Tommy Bahama shirt. Quite a sportsman I understand, fast boats, fast planes, fast cars, fast women.”
Miguel’s Bahama shirt was bright blue with large white flowers. His shirt had no pocket, so a pair of expensive aviator glasses hung from a top button like a badge of derring-do. He wore expensive silk pants, cream, matching the shirt flowers. Mid-fifties, he sported an expensive looking diamond ring on one hand and a Rolex Submariner on the other. His hair was long and combed back at the sides and on top, displaying a generous widow’s peak. Perhaps hiding a bald spot toward the back, the Judge speculated a little jealously, since his own hair hid an evolving open patch only tall people could see. Sometimes, if he was feeling self-conscious, he would take that into account when deciding when to sit, and where, and what direction to face.
Alan said, “The old man is Pablo Cervantes.”
Pablo was slumped on a sofa, staring glumly out at the view. Early eighties,
a large stomach defining his silhouette, his round face marked by age spots from a life well lived, squinty eyes set deep in wrinkled folds astride a hawk-like nose, swollen hands, perhaps arthritic, cuddling a whisky glass. He didn’t look well.
“María was the CEO, Ana was Secretary/Treasurer, and Old Pablo mostly just showed up to vote as María told him, as did her brother, Miguel.”
The Judge said, “Isn’t it unusual for women to be running a big company in Mexico, Alan?”
“It is Judge, although it’s slowly changing. But these were strong women, and they had the votes.”
“And now?”
“And now who knows. The Millennial Bloc has control of the board, at least until estates are settled and we see where María and Ana’s shares land. I suspect Luis will move quickly to consolidate his power, appoint himself CEO, appoint Roberto Secretary/Treasurer, and approve our new medical marijuana project. The path has been cleared.”
“That’s good for you, Alan.”
“Yes. Luis brought me down here. Has relied on my knowledge and my contacts. It looked earlier like my trip was a waste of time, but not now. I believe I’m going to be in the money, Judge.” Alan looked like he might dance a jig.
“Can you introduce me to the board, Alan?”
“Yes, but only if you keep your word and get me out of here. Bully that little Mexican inspector or something. Keeping us penned up here is unconscionable.”
“Let’s meet Pablo.”
Alan walked the Judge over to the old man, collapsed in the corner of a couch, looking small and tired.
“Pablo, meet a friend of mine. This is the Judge. We call him that because he was one.”
Pablo didn’t get up, but reached a tired hand up to clasp the Judge’s with a soft shake. The old hawk nose pointed skyward, and Pablo’s small beady eyes examined the Judge with interest. Not unfriendly, just cautious.
“I’m sorry about your loss, Pablo.”
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