The Beggar's Opera

by Peggy Blair

  The inspector’s cellphone rang. It was the female member of his investigative team, Natasha Delgado, updating him on the results of their canvassing. Once again, his team had done well.

  “We found several men on the Malecón who saw a foreigner with a scarred face,” said Delgado. “One remembers seeing him walking with a Cuban boy who wore red shorts, accompanied by a blonde woman. Another said the extranjero pushed him after he tried to talk to him, that the foreigner was visibly angry.”

  “Good work, Natasha. Get Dr. Apiro and his crew over here right away.” He snapped his cellphone closed. “Treat this as a crime scene,” he instructed Sanchez.

  The men walked out into the hall. Ramirez checked that the door was locked. He gave Sanchez the plastic room key and left him standing in the hallway to make sure no one entered.

  The dead man stood beside Sanchez. He held his hat over his heart like a mourner at a funeral.

  Ramirez took the elevator down to the lobby to wait for Apiro. Once the forensic process began, protocol required that the police turn evidence-gathering over to the forensic team to avoid contamination.

  Apiro arrived a few minutes later, his black kit in hand, and Ramirez explained what they had found.

  “Thank you, Ricardo. I’ll take over from Detective Sanchez.”

  “Tell him I’ll wait for him outside.”

  It wasn’t the first time Ramirez had seen photographs like this, but they always disturbed him. He wanted to breathe in some fresh air, get the bitter taste of bile out of his mouth. He tried not to think of his own children.

  A few minutes later, Sanchez joined Ramirez on the sidewalk. “I can walk over to the Hotel Machado and bring the suspect back to you for questioning,” he suggested.

  “No,” said Ramirez. “Better if we drive. In case he tries to run.”

  FIFTEEN

  As Mike Ellis waited for the waiter to bring his bill, a short Cuban in an open-necked white shirt with a slightly pockmarked face walked towards his table. A number of heads turned to look. Ellis’s heart skipped. He wondered how the plainclothes officer had found him, until he recalled that Miguel had promised to call the police about his wallet. He forced himself to relax.

  “Señor Ellis?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am Detective Sanchez of the Cuban National Revolutionary Police. You wanted to file a report with us about losing your wallet?

  “Yes, I did.”

  “We have found it. Will you accompany me to the police station, please?”

  “Of course,” Ellis said, and felt some of his tension ease. “That’s great news.”

  Ellis left a few pesos on the table to cover his bill along with a generous tip. They walked to a very small blue car parked across the street. Ellis didn’t recognize the make. It had no police markings and the windows were rolled down.

  Sanchez opened the door to the back seat. Another man with the light blue-and-grey shirt and dark pants of the Cuban police force sat in the driver’s seat.

  The car was far too small for someone of Ellis’s size, and he bumped his head on the door frame as he got in. He winced at the fresh jolt of pain. He lowered his head and folded himself into the car, squeezing his legs behind the front seat until they were bent almost to his chest.

  Like police cars everywhere, the doors couldn’t be opened from inside, but in this case it appeared that was due to rust, not protocol.

  “I didn’t think the Cuban police would have time on a holiday weekend to look into such a small matter as a lost wallet. That’s very impressive. Thanks. Where did you find it?”

  Neither man answered.

  Ellis looked out the window as they drove down roads jammed with honking hansom cabs and taxis. They stopped for a red light beside a camello, one of the oddly shaped buses made from truck parts and salvaged buses for which Havana was famous. For a second, the large bus, crowded with hundreds of weary Cubans, blocked out the sun.

  Ellis ran a hand over his scars, remembering how dark it was when Steve Sloan died in his arms.

  Sanchez and Ellis walked up to the second floor of police headquarters. The building was not at all what Ellis expected. Unlike the Soviet-style government buildings he’d seen elsewhere in Havana, it resembled a turreted medieval fortress with a beautiful stone exterior.

  Sanchez opened the door to a dark room. He flipped on fluorescent lights, which flickered from time to time. Ellis guessed that the power supply wasn’t particularly reliable. As directed, he sat down on a hard red plastic chair with metal legs.

  The room had grey walls with large cracks, but it was cool compared to the blistering heat outside. There was a mirror on the wall. Ellis assumed it was two-way glass like they had in the Rideau Regional Police interview rooms back home so that investigators could watch suspects being questioned without being seen themselves.

  Sanchez closed the door. He sat across from Ellis and pulled out a small tape recorder, which he placed on the Formica table between them. He pushed the “record” button.

  “We will tape this interview.” He didn’t ask for permission, and Ellis was surprised that a report of a stolen wallet required this much formality.

  “This is an interview with Señor Michael Ellis,” Sanchez said into the small microphone. “You are from Canada, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Ellis. “I’m from Ottawa. Ontario.”

  “Do you speak Spanish, Señor Ellis?”

  “No. Only a few words.”

  “Very well. Then we will proceed in English.” Sanchez spoke with a heavy Spanish accent, but his English was very good. “It is Sunday, December 25, 2006. This interview is being conducted by Detective Rodriguez Sanchez of the Major Crimes Unit, Havana Division.”

  Sanchez brought out a plastic evidence bag, opened it, and put the contents on the table in front of them. “Is this your wallet?”

  It was soaking wet, and there were white salt stains on the brown leather, but Ellis recognized it immediately. “Thank God. Where was it?”

  “We found it on a young boy earlier today.” Sanchez waited for Ellis to respond.

  “That little bugger,” Ellis exclaimed, and laughed as he realized what happened. It wasn’t the hooker after all. He felt surprisingly relieved. “He must have lifted it from my pocket. He followed my wife and me around yesterday, begging. After I gave him some money, he hugged me. He must have been a pickpocket. The cab driver warned us to watch out for them. It never occurred to me to look out for a child.”

  “Did you have any other contact with the boy?”

  “No,” Ellis said, “I didn’t even notice my wallet was missing until this morning.”

  “Do you remember anything about him?”

  Ellis thought back to how crazy the night had been. “I think he had red shorts and a bright coloured shirt. Yellow, maybe? He was with a group of boys that begged us for money in Old Havana initially, then he followed us — my wife and me — along the seawall after the others took off.”

  The Cuban detective waited, a slight buzz coming from the recorder. Ellis could think of nothing else to add.

  “May I?” He reached for his wallet and opened it. His badge was inside, and although his passport was sopping wet, at least he had one again. He wasn’t surprised to see that the money in it, the equivalent of about a hundred U.S. dollars, was gone. “That’s about all I remember.”

  “Do you remember seeing a man on the Malecón after you met with this boy?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Was there a man who spoke to you?”

  “I saw a lot of men on the seawall on my way to the bar.” Ellis tried to think where Sanchez was going. “There may have been someone I talked to for a moment, but I really don’t remember. I got pretty drunk later on.”

  “Why was that?”

  “My wife — well, it’s a long story. She went back to Canada last night. I decided to go out for a few drinks.”

  “There is a man who saw you on the Malec
ón who says you were extremely angry after the boy ran off.”

  The question made Ellis uneasy. It suggested the police had investigated him, not the theft. “My wife had just told me she was leaving Cuba early. We had a bit of an argument. But it’s not like we were yelling at each other or anything. Quite the opposite.”

  Their fights were too often like that, he thought. Holding back, hiding what they really wanted. Who they really were. But what could he tell her? Not the truth.

  The detective’s next question interrupted his thoughts. “Your wife is not in Havana any longer?”

  “No. Like I told you, she left last night.” Ellis tried to change the subject. “There’s nothing missing from my wallet except some money. Can I have it back now?”

  He reached for it again, but this time Sanchez pulled it away. “It is evidence of a crime, Señor Ellis. I told you, we found it on the boy.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Ellis, chuckling uneasily. “That kid is what, seven, eight years old? If that’s what this is about, I don’t want to press charges. I’m just glad you found it. No real harm done.”

  Sanchez said nothing. Ellis knew the technique. Suspects were uncomfortable with silence; it tended to draw them out. He suddenly sensed that this was about something other than his wallet and felt his heart jump. Did they know? He had to assume they didn’t. How could they? Even his own wife didn’t know.

  “I’m being questioned as if I’ve done something wrong. Was it a crime to give the boy money?” Ellis asked.

  “This is Cuba, Señor Ellis. No crime exists until we have completed an initial investigation.”

  Ellis sat back, trying to think how to approach the ambiguities of that response. He decided to fake confidence.

  “Detective Sanchez, I am a police officer with a Canadian police force. A detective just like you. If there is more to this story than what you’ve told me so far, maybe I can help. If not, I really do have other things I’d like to do, if you don’t mind. I’m on holidays.” He stood up. “I appreciate your help. But I don’t want to press charges against that little boy. I would never have asked Miguel to file a police report if I’d known he was the one who took it.”

  “This interview will be over when I say it is. Please,” Sanchez gestured, “sit down. I have complete discretion in this regard. Trust me.”

  Ellis sank back onto the chair. He was starting to feel anger and fear on top of confusion.

  “You became quite drunk last night at a bar, Señor Ellis?” Sanchez continued.

  “Yes, I told you that already.”

  “And you say the boy took your wallet from you earlier in the day?”

  “I’m guessing that’s what happened, yes.”

  “Then how did you pay for your drinks?” Sanchez asked.

  He hadn’t thought about that, but Sanchez was right. “Then I must have lost my wallet afterwards. Or left it somewhere. Maybe even at the bar.”

  “And the wallet just happened to end up on the boy?”

  “Apparently, if he had it. But what difference does it make?” asked Ellis. “I’ve already said I don’t want to press charges either way.”

  But even as he said it, he began to worry. If the boy didn’t take his wallet that afternoon, how did he get it? And how did Ellis pay for his drinks?

  For a moment, Ellis wondered if the Cubans had found his police service records, but pushed that notion aside. No, he was in trouble for something that happened here, not in Ottawa. But he didn’t know what, so he had to be careful.

  Sanchez leaned over, then slapped a Polaroid photograph of a young boy on the table. “The boy, Señor Ellis. The boy you gave the money to. His name was Arturo Montenegro. He was not quite nine years old.” Sanchez leaned back in his seat, watching for Ellis’s reaction.

  Small boy, round face. “Yes. That looks like him. Is that it? I broke the law by giving him money? I’ll pay the fine then. Trust me, I had no idea you people took this kind of thing so seriously.”

  Detective Sanchez gave Ellis a look that merged disgust with surprise. “The rape and murder of a child, Señor Ellis, is taken very seriously in Cuba. We punish it by firing squad.”

  SIXTEEN

  Inspector Ramirez had watched the Canadian closely from his side-view mirror as he drove to the police station. His car had no rear-view mirror, and it was impossible to find a replacement for a Chinese car in Havana these days.

  He looked for signs of guilt in the man’s demeanour, but all he saw was a typically nervous, if uncomfortably seated, tourist. The Canadian seemed no more anxious than any other foreigner in Cuban police custody would be, which meant far from relaxed. Still, Ramirez observed nothing unusual except the crooked scar that ran from the suspect’s forehead down to his nose, then twisted at his upper lip, splitting his face unevenly in two.

  Sanchez and Ramirez had agreed they would not tell the suspect anything at first. Ellis had no way of knowing the boy’s body had been recovered. They would not arrest him, or even let him know he was a suspect. Instead, Sanchez would interview him about his wallet and see what information he volunteered while Ramirez watched from the observation room and waited for Apiro to come down with his preliminary results. Semen, hair, blood: once he knew if they had anything from the items seized at the hotel room, Ramirez would take over the interrogation.

  Ramirez hoped Apiro could get laboratory results back to him quickly. He felt his adrenalin pumping, excited to have a suspect already in custody.

  Questioning, cross-examining, trapping suspects in their own words: these were his greatest strengths. Like having a strong fish on the line, the pleasure came from playing it out, wearing it down. It was the part of the job he most enjoyed.

  This was Ramirez’s first case in years involving a child’s death, and it was important that the investigation of something so serious be done properly. That he keep thoughts of Edel out of his mind.

  Ramirez wondered what kind of animal would rape a boy for his own sexual pleasure, what kind of monster would murder a small child.

  The Russian author Leo Tolstoy had a club when he was a boy, Ramirez recalled. Tolstoy’s friends could only belong if they could stand in a corner for ten minutes and not think of a white bear. Edel was the white bear in the corner. He would have to try not to think about Edel during the interrogation and stay focused on the suspect’s responses.

  So far, from what Ramirez could see through the two-way mirror, Sanchez had used standard interview techniques. He tried to frighten the Canadian, cajole him, impress him into confessing. Nothing much, except an inconsistency as to when the suspect lost his wallet.

  The door creaked open and Hector Apiro entered. The small pathologist was fair-minded and very good at what he did, despite his obvious deficiency. Apiro took a moment to explain his preliminary findings.

  “I should have a written report for you in a few hours. But there were some stains on the sheets we seized from Room 612.

  Seminal fluid. I examined them under the microscope against the samples taken from the boy’s rectum. Both contained motile sperm. We also tested all the underwear in the room. Not the ones he is wearing, of course, he still has those on,” the small man joked. “Or at least I hope he does. If not, he will stick to the seat of that plastic chair very soon.”

  Ramirez smiled. Black humour kept them both sane.

  “We found one pair of briefs in the chest of drawers with microscopic amounts of blood that match the boy’s blood type,” Apiro continued. “The seminal fluid in all the samples appears to be from the same man. Type A blood. I’ll do DNA testing to make sure. Of course, I have no way of confirming that the seminal fluid came from this man.”

  “It’s his bed; no one else had access to it. It has to be his. That’s more than enough,” said Ramirez. Sufficient evidence of a crime was all he needed for an arrest. He was pleased he could meet the legal test so quickly. “Anything else, Hector?”

  “I found Rohypnol in the child’s blood.”
<
br />   “The date-rape drug?”

  “Yes,” Apiro said. “A powerful tranquillizer that stupefies its victims. Banned in most countries these days. It is hard to find in Cuba, or elsewhere, for that matter. Once it was discontinued in 1986, supplies quickly vanished. But there is still some around, used in veterinary clinics to anaesthetize animals for surgery. Because of this, it should be relatively easy to trace. That is good for you, yes?”

  “It certainly helps. I’ll get Sanchez to look into it. When was the boy drugged? Can you tell?”

  “Assuming he ingested the contents of that one capsule only, early evening sometime. Maybe three or four hours before he died. That’s a reasonable assumption, Ricardo. Given his weight, two capsules would have killed him. Rohypnol has a relatively long half-life. I can calculate back from the quantity in the boy’s system at the time his body stopped metabolizing the drug — that is, when he died — and come up with a range. But I can’t be certain of my results until I sit down with a working calculator. Mine has run out of batteries.”

  Ramirez shook his head. He could still feel frustrated, even after all these years, at the impediments to a proper investigation. “I’ll tell Sanchez to get you some from the exhibit room. So what do you think, Hector? Is he is guilty?”

  “Ah, Ricardo, I am merely a scientist. I can only tell you what I have found. But it would be helpful if you could get a blood sample from your suspect so that I could check his DNA against our samples. Even better if you could somehow obtain semen.” Apiro laughed. “See if you can get him to spend a few minutes alone with a glossy magazine with big-breasted women and a plastic bag. Although that might be difficult; I have not personally seen such a magazine in Cuba in twenty years.”

  “Nor I, my friend,” Ramirez chuckled, then stated more soberly: “But it is not women that interest him. And we should probably not joke about such things.”

  “We must, Ricardo. Or we shall lose our minds.”

  Apiro was right. When they stopped being able to joke about their work, they would no longer be able to do it. They would lack the emotional distance required to conduct an investigation objectively. “Have you determined the exact cause of death?”