King Peso: An Emilia Cruz Novel (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 4)

by Carmen Amato

“We can argue about him later.” Emilia opened the first ledger. It was filled with columns of figures. “It’s full of math,” she said blankly.

  “Let me see.” Kurt pulled the ledger towards himself and slowly paged through it as Emilia watched. After a few minutes Kurt looked up. “My best guess is that this is a record of foreign exchange transactions. Euros, pounds, yen, you name it. Exchanged into dollars or pesos. I have no idea if the exchange rates are fair or not.”

  Emilia slid the other ledger over to him.

  Nearly half an hour ticked by as Kurt studied it.

  “This is a real estate business,” he said at length. “A dozen commercial properties and a circle of investors who own shares. Each of the properties generates income from tenants that pay rent. The investors get paid a percentage from the rental income. Sounds like the investment club Tony Wilcox wants me to join.”

  “Show me,” Emilia said.

  “Okay.” Kurt flipped pages. There was an address printed in block letters at the top of every few pages. He smoothed the center binding so that the ledger stayed open and swiveled it around so he and Emilia could read the page at the same time.

  “Here’s a good example,” he said. “It’s a building on Avenida Almendros. Three business tenants. Soledo Enterprises, Consolidated Solutions, Vector Analytics. Rent is received monthly. Investors are paid quarterly. My guess is that these initials are the investors.” He showed her a column of initials with a percentage next to each.

  “I work in that building,” Emilia said. “All those businesses are on the first floor. Las Palomas offices are on the second floor.”

  “So this investment club is either the owner or the rental agent.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” Emilia took a deep breath. “There’s nothing going on in those offices. Soledo and the others. There are signs, but no one ever goes in or out.”

  “They’re fake?” Kurt asked. “Storefronts?”

  “I never really thought about it,” Emilia said. “I figured the building was so new they hadn’t moved in yet.”

  “If that’s true, Em,” Kurt said. “This could be a money laundering scheme. I’ve seen it in the hotel business where chains try to say rooms or condos are rented when they’re empty. Real estate is a great way to move dirty money around.”

  “As the so-called rental income.”

  “Exactly. The unwitting investors provide iron-clad legitimacy.” Kurt flipped open the first ledger. “My guess is that all this foreign currency is cash from drug sales. It’s basically washed through the real estate scheme, masked as rent in dollars and pesos.”

  “What about the investors?” Emilia asked.

  Kurt leaned back. “If this is Tony Wilcox’s investment club, they don’t have a clue.”

  “How could that be?”

  He shrugged. “The investors’ money is recycled and paid out bit by bit. They think they’re getting paid a dividend or whatever and that eventually they’ll earn more than they paid in.”

  “But they won’t?”

  “They’ll keep getting dividends as long as new members and fresh money keeps coming in.” Kurt shook his head. “It’s a classic scam. But in this case the scam is also a front for the money laundering.”

  “Would Tony would know who’s in charge?” Emilia groped for what to do next. “We could find out who’s making the payouts, right?”

  “Give me a minute to think, Em.” Kurt passed a hand over his face. “This is has been a hell of a day. I had to wait two hours in Mexico City while the drug dogs walked all over my suitcase which meant I missed my connection to Acapulco. When I finally get home, some spook is waiting to give you a present from superstar Dario Delgado.”

  “Are you jealous?” Emilia asked.

  “No, I’m not jealous,” Kurt said uncomfortably.

  “Good, because I think this has to do with the El Trio murders.”

  Kurt stood up in agitation. “Great, just great. The El Trio murders in my hotel again.”

  “You told me to tell you things.” Emilia slammed the ledger shut and jumped up to face him Who the hell was this pendejo, this father who abandoned his child, to get mad at her? “When I do, you don’t want to hear.”

  Kurt raised a hand. “Stop. Stop.” He inhaled and let it out slowly. “Look, I’m hot and tired, had a shitty flight, and this seems like bad news. Let’s not take it out on each other.”

  Emilia took a deep breath, too. “Okay. I’m sorry, too. It’s been an awful week.”

  “I’ll call Tony Wilcox,” Kurt said. He went to his desk and pulled out an address book. “Make like I want to join the club. There’s no need to tell him anything else.”

  “Wait, wait.” Emilia interrupted. She leaned against the edge of his desk and pressed her fingertips against her temples. “Obregon’s in it, too.”

  “Carlota’s police union goon?” Kurt asked. “The one who always wears black?”

  “Yes. Him.”

  “What’s he got to do with all of this?”

  “The building on Avenida Almendros belongs to the police union,” Emilia said. The connections and implications came at her like an alarm ringing in a storm. “What time is it?”

  Kurt checked his watch. “A little after 7:00 pm,” he said. “Do you want some dinner?”

  “I have to go,” Emilia said.

  “I just got home, Em.”

  But Emilia barely heard him. She scooped up the ledgers, grabbed her sports bag, and sprinted out of the office.

  Chapter 25

  “You called just in time,” Josefina said. She closed the door to her office in the state’s attorney general’s building and motioned to Emilia to have a seat on a small beige sofa by a dark wood coffee table.

  “Thank you,” Emilia said. “You’d said that you stayed late and I was really hoping to catch you.”

  The attorney sat next to Emilia rather than behind the desk piled high with legal sized folders. She wore a chic charcoal linen suit with a ruffled white blouse. If she wondered at Emilia’s capris, cross trainers, and wrinkled sweatshirt, she didn’t say anything.

  “I have a few more questions about Javier Salinas,” Emilia said.

  “Have you made an arrest?” Josefina asked hopefully.

  “Not yet.” Emilia took the ledgers out of her shoulder bag and placed them on the small coffee table in front of the sofa. “Have you ever seen these before?”

  Josefina picked up one of the ledgers and fanned through the pages. The color drained out of her face. “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

  Emilia waited.

  “I couldn’t say anything before,” Josefina faltered. “No one else knew. And Javier made me promise . . .”

  Emilia waited some more. The silence grew awkward.

  “I guess there’s hardly any point in trying to protect his reputation now,” Josefina said. She closed the ledger and ran her palms down her thighs, smoothing the linen of her skirt. “Javier had a case a few months ago. Foreign exchange trading fraud, something like that. I don’t remember exactly. I was in his office when a man came in. He didn’t have an appointment and I remember Javier was upset with security that they’d let him in. Later, the security guard said that the man was a police officer. He had these ledgers with him. Basically he offered to trade them to Javier in return for getting the foreign exchange case thrown out.”

  “And Salinas took the bribe,” Emilia said.

  Josefina gave a lopsided smile. “Not really. Javier kept the ledgers and said he’d see what he could do. Then he followed procedure and the criminal went to jail.”

  “The man who brought the ledgers,” Emilia said. “Was he thin, kind of lanky? Dressed in jeans and a tee shirt? Ponytail?”

  “Yes.” Josefina clasped her hands together. “Do you know him?”

  Castro, of course it was Castro. Trying to get his brother out of a jam.

  “I know who he is,” Emilia said. “Did you ever see him again?”

  �
�No.”

  “Did you know where the ledgers came from?”

  “They’re from the El Pharaoh casino.” Josefina’s mouth tightened with tension. “Javier was assigned to that case. Money laundering charges But there wasn’t enough to prosecute and Noriega ordered him to drop it. There’s only time for the most solid cases.”

  “But Javier had the ledgers,” Emilia said. “Didn’t they prove the case?”

  Josefina shrugged. “He never did anything with them that I know of.”

  “So Javier kept the ledgers but didn’t use them to prosecute the money laundering case,” Emilia said. “And he didn’t drop the fraud case, either.”

  “That’s right.” There was little decoration in the office except for a silver frame on the coffee table. Josefina moved it an inch to the left.

  “Wasn’t Javier afraid of retaliation?” Emilia asked. Castro had connections, although she didn’t think he had the gall to murder a member of the state’s attorney general’s office. “After all, Javier didn’t keep up his end of the bargain.”

  “We talked about it.” Josefina fiddled with the photo again. The picture inside was of her and a handsome man. The photo was posed but their smiles were genuine. “Javier said he knew a cop who dealt with financial crimes. Someone very senior. Well placed within the department. Javier thought this officer would protect him. When I asked him who it was, he said he wanted me to forget I’d ever seen the ledgers. He was adamant and I promised.”

  Vega. Emilia remembered the partial biography that Loyola had filed away. Vega had led a financial crimes task force for Chief Salazar. “That’s all he said?” Emilia pressed. “That this police officer was protecting him from retaliation?”

  “There’s something else,” Josefina said slowly. “A few days before Javier was murdered, he said that things weren’t going his way. He’d been left with a choice between two evils. I thought that meant that he and Dario were having problems. You know, whether to come out or not.”

  “Two evils?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said.”

  Emilia replaced the ledgers in her shoulder bag. “But nothing else about the senior police official? You’re sure?”

  “Is that how you got them?” Josefina asked. “From this other police officer?”

  “No,” Emilia said. “Javier gave the ledgers to Dario for safekeeping.”

  “Did someone kill Javier because he kept the ledgers? Because he tricked them?”

  “I don’t know,” Emilia said honestly. “But do us both a favor and forget you saw the ledgers tonight. I was here . . .” She hesitated and looked at herself. “Because you asked about my health club.”

  “Are you afraid sometimes, Detective Cruz?” Josefina asked.

  “Yes,” Emilia said simply.

  Josefina picked up the picture in the silver frame. Emilia was reminded of the photo of Isabel and Silvio she’d taken from their house. It, too, had been in a silver frame.

  That’s what people in love did, she thought. Capture happiness in little silver frames and think it will last forever.

  ☼

  Emilia drove slowly around the parking lot of the police station. Given the late hour, there weren’t many cars. Castro’s SUV was gone. But a certain dented piece of crap was still in the lot, which was even better. She parked in an unlit corner where the big Suburban was less noticeable, got out, and waited.

  An hour later, her quarry emerged from the rear exit of the building, wearing his Australian canvas duster. He paused and lit a cigarette.

  “Hey, Ibarra.” Emilia sidled around the back fender of the dented sedan as the stocky detective jammed the lighter in his pocket. She was gratified to see him jump and dart a glance at the guard shack on the other side of the parking lot. “Haven’t seen you in awhile,” she went on. “How’re you doing?”

  “Rayos, Cruz.” Ibarra pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and spit out a chip of tobacco. It snagged on the sleeve of his coat. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Thought we could have a chat,” Emilia said. She leaned against the driver’s door.

  “That business with Castro and Gomez is over,” he said, trailing smoke out of both nostrils. “No sense travelling over an old road, you know what I mean?”

  “I’m not here about that,” Emilia said.

  “You better go home,” Ibarra cautioned. “It’s late.” He pulled out his keys and jingled them impatiently.

  “It’s 10:00 pm,” Emilia said. “Not so late.”

  “There’s nothing for you here, Cruz.”

  “I want the ballistics report from the Javier Salinas murder investigation.”

  Ibarra shrugged and drew hard on his cigarette. “Good for you.”

  “You and Loyola opened the case into Salinas’s murder,” Emilia said. “You two showed up at the state’s attorney general’s office. Talked to at least three of his colleagues there. Made them believe the Acapulco police department was taking point on the case.”

  “Never happened,” Ibarra said coolly. He walked directly at Emilia with his keys ready to unlock his car door. “Nice talking to you, Cruz.”

  “They described both of you,” Emilia said, folding her arms and standing her ground. “You and Loyola without a doubt. They wondered why it was taking so long to get back to them. What should I tell them?”

  Ibarra snaked an arm around her to get his key in the door lock.

  “I never took you for a coward,” Emilia said. “Or a thief. Must be something in between.”

  Ibarra stepped back, leaving the key in the lock, and blew smoke into Emilia’s face. White tendrils drifted by the mercury light mounted on the massive wall surrounding the parking lot.

  Emilia snorted out ash and waited.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said finally.

  “Enlighten me,” Emilia replied.

  Ibarra met her eye and drew hard on the cigarette. The end was hidden by his cupped hand.

  “I’ve got all the time in the world,” Emilia said.

  Eventually Ibarra threw down the butt. He ground it under his heel, the buckle on his boot jingling softly. “Okay,” he said. “Loyola told me he was directed to do a preliminary inquiry into Salinas’s murder the day after the body was discovered. Orders were to be discreet, talk to the family and the office. Keep them quiet.”

  “Who gave the orders?”

  Ibarra shook his head and took out the pack of cigarettes again. “We looked at the car, asked a few questions at the office, talked to the family. Got the body shipped off to his mother.”

  “And then?”

  “Then nothing. Loyola was told that was enough. Acapulco jurisdiction didn’t allow for us to do anything else. Our part was over.”

  “So you and Loyola walked away without a word to anyone?” Hearing it from the pompous ass in the state’s attorney general’s office was one thing, hearing Ibarra admit it was another. Emilia was stunned. “As many conversations as we all had about the El Trio murders and you never said a word. Never logged it in, made any record, asked any more questions?”

  “Loyola had his orders. It was an inquiry, not a murder investigation.”

  “So what happened to the crime scene reports?” Emilia demanded. “The ballistics report?”

  “Never happened,” Ibarra said.

  “What do you mean, never happened?” Emilia forced herself to stay calm. “The techs had to be there.”

  “Doesn’t mean there’s a report.” The stocky detective lit another cigarette with his cheap plastic lighter.

  “There would be a ballistics report,” Emilia insisted. “It was a high profile murder.”

  “Leave it, Cruz.”

  “What about the final ballistics report for Isabel?” Emilia persisted. Loyola might have shared the original report with his former partner before hiding it in his safe. “No match for anything. Wasn’t that a surprise?”

  “For fuck sakes,” Ibarra said, his casual at
titude gone. He waved the lit cigarette. “Have you forgotten Hernandez?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten about Hernandez.”

  “Want to stay alive?” Ibarra was too close now. A cloying mix of tobacco and sweat thickened the air. “No questions.”

  “You’re willing to let this killer go?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I like breathing.” Ibarra stuck the cigarette in his mouth, grabbed Emilia by the shoulders and muscled her aside. He snagged his keys and wrenched open the car door.

  Emilia caught the sleeve of his duster before he could get in. “Who told Loyola to stop investigating Salinas’s murder?”

  “Go home and keep your mouth shut, Cruz.” Ibarra angled himself into the car, nearly dragging Emilia along with him.

  She hung on, stooping in the door opening, and suddenly they were face-to-face, inches apart. The interior of the old car smelled like an ash heap. “Vega or Obregon?” she asked softly.

  Ibarra stared at her, the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Leave it alone, Cruz,” he said.

  Emilia stood. She didn’t need his answer; it had been inside Loyola’s file all the time.

  Ibarra slammed the door closed and the engine groaned into life. She stepped aside and let him go.

  Chapter 26

  Emilia didn’t get back to the Palacio Réal until after midnight. Kurt was asleep. She crawled into the bed next to him and stared at the ceiling, her thoughts a stew of conspiracy theories and crippling paranoia. She slept fitfully. Nightmares shook her awake more than once.

  Daylight helped. Emilia and Kurt discussed next steps as they stood on the balcony, cups of strong coffee in hand, and watched the sun climb into the brilliant blue sky.

  Just another day in paradise.

  Kurt called Tony Wilcox, who agreed to an 11:00 am appointment. Emilia wondered if she’d make it through the entire morning without screaming to relieve her nerves.

  As Kurt showered, Emilia sat on the bed with the ledgers, drawn to the entries for the building on Avenida Almendros. Those empty office suites on the first floor supposedly brought in thousands of pesos in rent every month. How could she have been so blind?