by Carmen Amato
On the other side of the big room, two desks were shoved into the corner which previously had hosted the coffee maker. Technicians armed with coils of wire and blinking equipment were obviously installing a hot line call center. Three uniforms were squeezed into the space; two spoke into headsets while the other typed assiduously on a computer keyboard. From its new perch on top of the filing cabinet, the coffee maker gurgled as the carafe filled with the promise of more caffeine.
Emilia got a wave of acknowledgement from Macias as she skirted Loyola’s impromptu briefing and went to her desk. It was pushed nose-to-nose with Silvio’s so that the backs of their computer monitors touched. Her partner’s coffee mug, with a puddle of brown sludge at the bottom, sat forlornly by his keyboard, a painful reminder of their discussion of the El Trio murders on Friday.
Like she did every morning, Emilia unlocked her desk, opened the deep file drawer, and dumped her shoulder bag on top of the binder containing Emilia’s personal files on women who’d gone missing in Acapulco. She shoved the drawer closed just as a uniformed courier came into the squadroom, stopped for a moment to take in the noise and the chaos, then made a beeline for her.
“Detective Cruz?” he asked.
“Sure,” Emilia said. “What have you got?”
He handed her a large gray envelope and left.
“That was fast,” Emilia muttered. The crime scene report from Silvio’s house, no doubt.
She unfastened the clasp and pulled out a log of calls related to a cell phone number. Emilia stared at the printout for a full minute before it clicked. This was the record of calls made to and from the cell phone of Yolanda Lata, a dead hooker whose daughter Lila was one of the missing in Emilia’s binder. Emilia had found Yolanda’s phone by accident weeks ago and had requested the phone records in hopes of picking up Lila’s trail again.
“You got something, Cruz?” Sandor called across the room.
Emilia shook her head. “Another case,” she said. “But it’ll wait.”
“God help us if anything else comes in today,” Sandor grumbled.
She dropped the cell phone record into the desk drawer with her bag and the binder and joined Macias and Sandor at the murder board. Macias had sketched in a brief timeline but like the start of every investigation, there was precious little information. Sandor tacked up two more photographs of the dead woman. Emilia swallowed hard as she looked at the photographs of the crime scene. It had been hard to look at the real thing last night; today’s gory images were no easier.
Loyola wound up his instructions to the uniforms and asked if anyone had questions. Emilia counted a dozen young men wearing bulletproof vests with POLICIA stenciled front and back. Bulky task force radios weighted belts already laden with guns, nightsticks, handcuffs, and pepper spray. Primary radios were clipped to shirt collars. Emilia knew the old radios were an emergency measure in case the primary radios got jammed. More and more frequently, the drug cartels were learning police radio frequencies and blocking them in neighborhoods like El Roble where business was brisk and violence was high.
These were the cops who’d be going door-to-door to ask questions but also to display a show of force. The message was clear: the killing of an Acapulco cop’s wife in a home invasion scenario was a high profile case being taken very seriously. A few of the uniforms asked questions about what to expect in El Roble, would they be out of there before sundown, how many suspects could they gather up. Emilia noticed their uniforms sported a small white diamond on the shoulder, the symbol of the Special Assignments unit. Like the Special Weapons and Tactics unit, Special Assignments officers had specialized skills.
Macias saw her looking at the group. “Silvio’s old unit, you know. Before he made detective.”
“Madre de Dios,” Emilia said. “El Roble is going to get a change of scenery.”
Considered one of Acapulco’s elite units, Special Assignments was called out when there was a need for breaking doors, heads, and rules. Recruited for size, strength, and toughness, the members were the thugs of the police department. The unit was informally known as the Ball Busters.
Calling out Special Assignments meant that Loyola was going big with the investigation and Emilia felt her spirits lift. He’d been acting lieutenant for a couple of months now and the stress of the job was taking its toll. The former teacher had been a solid investigator, and a fairly honest one, but as the head of the detective squadroom he was crippled by indecision. Every move had to be vetted with Chief Salazar’s staff. As a result, many cases went untouched and even the least competent detectives were frustrated to the breaking point.
The Ball Busters thundered out amid barking orders, the stomp of heavy boots, and the slap of nightsticks against palms as the men revved themselves up. Most of them probably didn’t know Silvio, but his reputation as both detective and bookie stretched far and wide. Bad things had happened to a fellow cop—and a famous one at that—and they were out to get payback.
Air rushed back into the squadroom. There was a moment of quiet then a blast of urgency as phones rang, the hotline techs gathered up their equipment, and the uniforms in the corner debated procedure.
“Cruz. Macias. Sandor.” Loyola gestured tiredly at his office door. “In here.”
Emilia dropped into one of the cheap plastic and chrome chairs in front of the scarred metal desk. Macias and Sandor seated themselves as well. The sickly green walls, fluorescent lighting, and mountain of files gave Emilia an instant headache.
Loyola took off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re throwing everything at the Isabel de Silvio case. Hotline in place, teams in El Roble, forensics working the scene. Dr. Prade is doing the autopsy later today, but from what we know I doubt there’s going to be much more for us there.” He resettled his glasses in place and looked at Emilia. “First piece of business. Tell us about the El Trio task force. Can they help? What can they give us?”
Emilia shook her head. “There is no El Trio task force.”
Both Macias and Sandor exclaimed “What?”
Loyola half rose from his chair behind the desk. “Explain.”
Emilia felt sick just having to tell them. “It was a meeting about a new unit Carlota is sponsoring. A female patrol unit called Las Palomas. I’m supposed to be the chief of operations.”
Loyola’s eyes bulged behind wire rims as he slowly sank back into his chair. “Nobody told me.”
“Not a good time to dance off to some sweetheart job, Cruz,” Sandor said angrily.
“I don’t get a choice,” Emilia said. “Chief Salazar was there and made it crystal clear. I go over on Monday.”
“Nobody told me,” Loyola repeated.
Emilia clenched her fists on her thighs. “I get to stay here for the rest of the week because, as she put it, Carlota expects us to produce impressive results. Apparently for her, El Trio is a public relations nightmare.”
“Cops are getting killed,” Macias exclaimed. “And this is about public relations?”
“Exact words.”
Macias let loose with a string of invective. Sandor looked angry.
Loyola took off his glasses again and polished them with the end of his tie, an article of clothing he’d never worn as a detective. “Go back to the business about there not being an El Trio task force,” he said. “Why not?”
“Chief Salazar claimed competing jurisdictions,” Emilia said. “I don’t think he’s convinced that the murders are related.”
“That’s crazy.” Macias leaned forward in his chair. “The shooter was going for Silvio and got Isabel by mistake. A fourth victim for whoever this pendejo is.”
Loyola held up his hands in a not-so-fast gesture. “What about Silvio’s bookie business?” he asked. “It happened the night of a Copa America match. Maybe somebody didn’t like his gambling odds. Got mad at Silvio and killed his wife to teach him a lesson.”
“Maybe the wife was the intended target,” Sandor suggested. “She had
an enemy in the neighborhood. She cheated at cards. Had a lover who wanted to get even after she kicked him to the curb.”
“Please, Isabel did not cheat on Silvio or at cards.” Emilia knew that like she knew her own name. “Isabel was not the intended victim. Nobody had a personal reason to kill her in the middle of the night. She was a nice lady who made meals for homeless kids.”
“She was a cook?” Macias asked.
“Isabel cooked for the homeless kids in El Roble,” Emilia said. “Dinners a couple of times a week. Probably fed 40, 50 kids each time in the courtyard of their house.”
“Like a welfare program?” Loyola asked, squinting at her across his desk.
Emilia nodded. “Something like that.”
“Why?” Loyola asked.
“It doesn’t matter.” Emilia looked at each of the surprised men in turn. They’d worked with Silvio for far longer than she had. “I can’t believe you don’t know. It’s why Franco kept on with the bookie thing. He made enough to buy the food so Isabel could keep feeding the kids.”
“Rayos,” Loyola swore. “This is going to be on the news tonight and the mayor is going to be screaming about another public relations nightmare. ‘The saint of El Roble gunned down in her own home.’”
“And the El Trio killer still out there, picking off cops,” Macias added.
“The press will make the connection to El Trio,” Emilia said. “Even if Chief Salazar’s office doesn’t.”
“All right, all right.” Loyola closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose again. “We work this on the theory that either Silvio was the intended victim, a fourth El Trio, or he’s got an enemy who wanted to send him a message by hurting the wife.”
“You know I worked with all of them,” Emilia said. “Salinas, Vega, Espinosa. Silvio.”
Quiet settled over the room. Loyola dropped his hand and opened his eyes.
“Any one of us could be next,” Macias said. He and Sandor shared a look.
“Do you know something, Cruz?” Loyola asked.
Emilia shook her head. “I don’t have anything more than you do.”
Loyola put his glasses back on and began writing on a pad. “All right. We’ll hit this as hard as we can, as fast as we can. With any luck, the Ball Busters will shake things up in El Roble, scare somebody into giving up a lead. Somebody will have seen something.”
Emilia was glad that for once, Loyola was leading instead of waiting for orders. He and Silvio had been colleagues and rivals for years. Loyola’s appointment as acting lieutenant created tensions between the two men exacerbated by Loyola’s crippling deference to his superiors. Everyone knew that Silvio was senior and the better administrator and investigator. But a combination of scandal and bad attitude had stalled Silvio’s career long ago.
“Cruz.” Loyola pointed his pen at Emilia. “For the time being, stay off the streets until we know more about what’s out there. I want you on old case files. Get a uniform to help you go through everything. Silvio’s old files from when he worked with Fuentes and Garcia. If this is another El Trio, there will be some hidden link to the other victims.”
“All right,” Emilia said.
“Macias and Sandor, you get with Silvio again. We left him at his cousin’s last night, probably still there. Take him through anything and everything that could be relevant. He can fall apart later.”
“What about the autopsy results?” Macias asked.
“You’ve got time to talk to Silvio before Prade starts cutting,” Loyola said.
“I’ll go,” Emilia said. “She was my friend.”
To her surprise, Loyola nodded. “As soon as Prade tells you anything, call it in.”
“We got Ibarra directing things in El Roble,” he went on, naming his former partner who now worked solo. “They’ll keep up the pressure as long as it takes. Castro and Gomez can follow up on anybody bothering Isabel, following her, anything like that.” The acting lieutenant’s pen swung to Macias and Sandor, both of whom were scribbling in their notebooks. “We need the preliminary crime scene report. The techs were all over that place last night. They should have at least the prints by now. I’ll put in the request for the house phone records, see if they’ve been getting calls from unknown numbers. Maybe they had a stalker.”
They talked through next steps before Macias and Sandor walked out of the office. They were an effective team who’d arrived at Silvio’s house last night shortly after Emilia called for backup. It had been a relief to see them instead of Castro and Gomez. In addition to being the least effective and most dishonest team, Castro and Gomez had both accosted Emilia in the restroom reserved for detectives, as if being female meant she was fair game. Emilia fought her way out each time, leaving her colleague bruised and bloody. Bad feelings remained on all sides.
Loyola picked up his phone but set it down when he realized Emilia was still in the office. “What?”
“This new police unit I’m assigned to,” Emilia said. “It’s a joke. Run by a 5-year-old chica admin type. You have to get me out of it.”
“I would assume that I’d be informed before one of my detectives is reassigned,” Loyola said cautiously.
Emilia rattled the phone on Loyola’s desk. “You talk to Chief Salazar’s office a dozen times a day. You have to know someone who can reason with him.”
Loyola sighed. “This is not the time to be your usual pain in the ass, Cruz. Let’s work Silvio’s case first. I’ll make some calls later.”
Emilia nodded, realizing that she was exhausted from too little sleep, emotional strain, and the bombshell that had fallen on her that morning. “Thank you.”
An hour later she had a young uniformed cop seated at Silvio’s desk, accessing old case files from the online archive. She wrote out a list of names on a pad next to him. If he found anything he was to print out the entire file.
As she retrieved her shoulder bag from the desk drawer, Emilia recalled her conversation with Silvio last Friday. If he had worked cases with any of the El Trio victims, he would have mentioned it.
She found herself compulsively checking her rearview mirror on the way to the morgue.
☼
“What happened?” Emilia asked the morgue technician as she followed him down a hallway. She’d never seen the morgue so crowded. Two metal rolling carts were stacked with body bags. As Emilia walked by, an attendant shoved one of the carts into motion. Wheels groaned in protest. It had been designed to carry four bodies, not eight.
“Riot at the bull pen,” the technician said over his shoulder. “Looks like a big knife fight. Guards broke it up.”
Emilia didn’t need to hear more to know that the bodies would reveal both stabbings and gunshots. The bull pen was the nickname for a temporary holding prison for men on the north side of Acapulco. The squat cinderblock facility was perpetually full to bursting with gang members, thieves, and other criminals. Most were awaiting charges, which under Mexican law didn’t always come quickly. Others were nominally out on bail but couldn’t raise the cash so the men stayed put. Inmates were fed once a day and dependent on family for additional food, plus clothing, soap, and other sundries. There were few cells; the majority lived in concrete rectangles holding 40-60 men. The pens were a nightmare environment where the strong ruled and the weak were raped. A few bodies were hauled out every month.
The morgue technician pushed open a thick metal door and handed Emilia a surgical mask to tie over her mouth. Dr. Prade, Acapulco’s medical examiner, was already in the room, bending over a flaccid female body.
He looked up and nodded at Emilia. The doctor wore a plaid shirt and surgical scrub pants, making for an incongruous outfit. It didn’t matter; Emilia respected him, not only for his obvious medical skill and dedication to a difficult job, but because he treated her as respectfully as he treated the male detectives. Moreover, Prade knew about her list of missing women and always let her know if an unidentified female passed through the morgue.
“I
’ve already placed time of death at between midnight and 2:00 am this morning,” Prade said through his mask.
“Okay.” Emilia had been in the room plenty of times, but this was the first time that it was personal. The body on the table had been a good, kind woman. Emilia had sat in her home, eaten her food.
Emilia fastened her mask in place, found one of the tall stools by the metal worktable where Prade wrote his reports, and got out her notebook.
Prade began his commentary, speaking into the recording microphone dangling from the ceiling.
“Three shots to the upper body. Large caliber handgun.”
She heard the clink of metal on metal and glanced up as Prade dropped a blunted metal bullet into a bowl from a pair of long thin tongs. “All three bullets removed.” He described the location of each in medical terms.
Prade’s assistant took photographs with a small digital camera.
“From the trajectory,” Prade said. “It would appear that the victim was shot at fairly close range while facing her assailant. The assailant was standing below her.”
Emilia closed her eyes for a moment, reliving the moment she’d stepped into Silvio’s house. It had been organized chaos, with the ambulance, two carloads of uniforms, and a van with an army of sleepy crime scene techs. As everyone fanned out, Emilia saw Isabel on her back, tumbled across the middle of the flight of stairs, arms and legs splayed awkwardly like a rag doll forgotten in the rain. Her head rested on the edge of a step, chin pushed into the neckline of the nightgown bunched around her thighs.
“The shooter was at the base of the stairs,” Emilia said. “Judging from the blood above the body, I’d guess Isabel was shot as she was coming down the stairs. She down several steps as she fell.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Prade said crisply. “Please keep editorial comments to yourself until we are done.”
