by Carmen Amato
“Not a passenger?”
Emilia wished she’d taken a mask from the worktable before looking at the body. “What did you want Silvio to see?”
“I thought maybe it had something to do with boxing clubs,” Prade said. He turned the cadaver’s left arm to expose the inside of the forearm.
Emilia bent to look. The arm bore a large green tattoo of two crossed fists in front of the tines of a devil’s pitchfork. The words Salva Diablo were printed over the point at which the wrists intersected. “Save the devil,” she murmured. She dug out her phone and snapped a picture of the tattoo.
“Have you seen it before?” Prade asked.
“Only in pictures.” She took a picture of the man’s face. “Briefings. Alert memos.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Prade said.
“It’s just a tattoo, right?” Flores sounded bewildered. His boyish face was tinged with green and Emilia wondered if he was going to pass out.
“Salva Diablo is a gang from Honduras,” Emilia said. “Known tumbadores. Rip crews. They steal other people’s drug shipments and sell it for what they can. So far they’ve stayed out of Acapulco.”
Flores flinched backwards as if the body had made a motion and startled him.
“Detective Flores, go sit down.” Prade jerked his head at the worktable. The younger man crossed the room and settled onto a stool.
“This isn’t the best surprise I’ve ever had,” Emilia said as she texted the picture of the tattoo to Silvio. “What about prints?”
“He’s not in the system.” Prade pointed at the body. “Got enough pictures?”
Emilia nodded and he rolled the drawer shut, its dead gray cargo disappearing into the wall. The medical examiner went over to the worktable where Flores was sitting and Emilia followed.
“Another item of interest.” Prade shuffled through the forms he’d been completing and pulled out a printed test result. “The lab found traces of heroin and a hallucinogenic chemical in the pocket of his jacket and on the glove submitted with the body.”
Emilia quickly scanned the printout. “Ora Ciega.”
“What’s Ora Ciega?” Flores asked.
“Ora Ciega. Blind Gold.” Emilia dropped the test result in front of Flores and rapidly tapped out another text to Silvio. Madre de Dios, but this low priority case just became a major drug investigation. Honduran gang member, who’d been handling Ora Ciega, murdered on a ship with a giant loading hatch that would eventually end its cruise in El Norte. Loyola would have to be an idiot not to see the connections.
“Colombian variety of heroin laced with a synthetic drug similar to meth,” she said as she texted it all to Silvio. “Name comes from users who say they go blind from longing for it so hard.”
“Oh.” Flores sounded bewildered.
“Ora Ciega,” Prade said. “That’s a new one.”
Silvio texted her back almost immediately. They’d need to bring in dogs, see if there was Ora Ciega aboard ship. But they’d need a sample.
“Can I have his clothes?” Emilia asked Prade.
Prade looked through the labeled bags on the work counter and picked one out. “Sign for it and it’s all yours.”
She would bring the clothes, Emilia texted back to Silvio. Two swift texts and they’d planned out the next few hours, both gripped by a fresh sense of urgency. Ora Ciega was rarely seen in Acapulco. Despite the demand, it was difficult to blend and the Mexican cartels had largely stayed away from it. Emilia couldn’t help thinking that if the Honduran Salva Diablo gang was looking to move into Acapulco, it wasn’t big enough to operate on their own. They’d try to align with an established gang or cartel network. Was Ora Ciega from Colombia their price of entry?
“What would we do without modern technology?” Prade asked as he stripped off his latex gloves and mask before pointedly gathering up his handwritten forms.
Emilia was ready to rush out of the holding room but the cooler was still there, like a giant stone. She picked it up and set it on the worktable. “Can you give me another two minutes?” she asked Prade.
“For you, Emilia,” Prade said. “Five.”
He set the paperwork to one side of the table.
Emilia opened the cooler, removed the enamel box, and lifted out the glass relic case. She set it in front of the medical examiner. Flores gave a muffled gasp.
Prade adjusted his reading glasses and read the inscription aloud. His eyes narrowed behind the lenses. “Where did you get this?”
Emilia opened the little drawer and took out the letters. “The Villa de Refugio. It’s a very high end Catholic store in El Centro. These are letters attesting to its authenticity as Padre Pro’s finger.”
Prade took off his reading glasses and held up the glass box. “I dimly remember the legend of Padre Pro. How old is this thing supposed to be?”
“Padre Pro died in 1927,” Flores said faintly.
Emilia glanced at him.
“I went to Catholic school,” Flores explained.
Prade switched on a large adjustable lamp. He angled the shade to illuminate the box. For a minute he said nothing as he turned the relic carefully so as to view the finger from all sides. Emilia waited without speaking. When Prade turned the box upside down and shook it, the finger stayed rigidly in place.
“I think it’s stuck onto a big nail,” Prade said.
Flores made a funny sound, pressed a hand to his mouth, and hopped off the stool. He walked out rapidly. Emilia hoped he made it outside before he threw up.
Prade put down the relic box. “Somebody has taken pains to preserve it,” he said. “The skin has some sort of sealant on it.”
“Do you think it could be genuine?” Emilia asked. Now that the relic was here in the morgue, under a glaring light with Prade’s dispassionate eye on it, she felt all hope ooze away. Maybe it had been wrong to give in to Kurt. She should have left the relic in Villa de Refugio. Some true believer, untroubled by harsh realities, would have bought it and venerated the memory of Padre Pro.
Prade held up one of the letters in its glassine envelopes. “Did you test these? Are they authentic?”
“I know that at least one of them is factually incorrect,” Emilia admitted. “But . . . I thought . . . maybe.”
Prade took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll run a few tests on the finger, see if I can at least assess the age. Who knows, we might even be able to get a print. But once I break this glass, it’s broken. The morgue isn’t going to be responsible for putting this thing back together.”
Emilia packed up the enamel box and letters in the cooler, leaving the relic with Prade, and tucked the Salva Diablo gang member’s bag of clothes under her arm.
Prade walked her to the exit. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” he said. “But we’ve just gotten approval to do a beta version of the victim identification website. It won’t be an open website, the way we initially wanted, but a site that requires a login and profile before a user can look through the pictures.”
Emilia stopped walking. “But even a limited site is good news,” she exclaimed. “I mean, it’s a start, right?”
“We’ll start with the most recent unidentifieds from the morgue,” Prade went on. “Unless you have something else about his identity, we can include the Salva Diablo.”
“Might help us get a lead on the case,” Emilia agreed.
“I’ll let you know when the site is up. Shouldn’t be long.”
“What about expanding beyond the bodies in the morgue?” Emilia asked, thinking of Lila Jimenez Lata. “Any chance we could include photos of missing people from the local area? Instead of relying on posters outside the mortuary when the bodies get sent there?”
“One step at a time, Emilia,” Prade admonished her, with a shake of his head at her impatience.
“That’s the problem,” Emilia said. “We take one step at a time. And the cartels take two.”
☼
Flores was waiting
by the Suburban. Emilia beeped open the locks and slid behind the wheel. Her watch said 11:00 am. For the second time in two weeks she smelled bad.
“Sorry I walked out,” Flores said.
“You lose your breakfast back there?”
“Yes, but I found the men’s room first so I’m calling it even.”
She looked at Flores, surprised that he was managing to keep a sense of humor. “A cop’s first body is always bad,” she said. “And this one was missing half his head. Always adds a certain something to the experience.”
“I was ready for the body,” Flores said. “Not a finger belonging to Padre Pro.”
“It might not be his,” Emilia warned as she started the engine. “Nobody thinks so.”
“It would be wonderful if it was, wouldn’t it?” Flores said.
Emilia blinked. Flores was the first person who’d echoed her own thoughts. “Padre Pro is a saint,” she said. “Or will be one day. Yes, I’d like to think I’d once been that close to him.”
“Could you not tell Silvio I got sick in the morgue?” Flores asked as he buckled his seatbelt.
“Sure.” Emilia headed for the gate enclosing the morgue lot. “We’ll keep it between the two of us for now.”
“It’s not that I’m scared of him or anything,” Flores said.
Emilia showed her identification, the gate rolled open and she drove over the forward-facing spikes. Once out of the lot she turned right and headed for the docks.
“Silvio’s a hell of a detective,” she said. “You’ll be learning from the best. Just don’t confuse his manners with his brains, okay?”
“Okay.” Flores nodded.
“The next couple of weeks are going to be tough, like drinking from a water cannon,” Emilia went on. “Lose the suit and wear shoes you can walk in all day.”
“I really appreciate your advice, Detective Cruz,” Flores said.
“Sure,” Emilia said. “Call me Emilia.”
Flores grinned. He was really quite good-looking, with his curly hair and big eyes, in a soft young pup kind of way. “I’d like that, Emilia. And I’m Orlando.”
“This is a tough job, Orlando,” Emilia warned.
“I always knew I was going to be a cop,” he replied, taking out his headphones and music player.
“Why the degree in music?” And why didn’t you take any notes this morning? Emilia slowed the car; the midday traffic was heavy.
“Music is my life,” Flores said. He thrust the headphones at her, like a toddler excited to share a toy. “Here. It’s Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.”
“Maybe later,” Emilia said. Or never. “I’m driving.”
Silvio was going to eat this kid for lunch.
☼
Two hours later, Emilia was alone in the small office of Irma Gonzalez Perot, regional head of Human Resources for the federal Department of Customs, known as Aduanas. Irma was a small, fine-boned woman with wavy blown hair and a severe business suit who’d said, yes, the secretary had remembered the call from Detective Franco Silvio. Irma hoped to be able to help.
The woman had consulted her computer, then excused herself after taking a phone call. Something in the way the woman’s back stiffened during the call made Emilia fairly sure that it had been Irma’s boss.
Emilia did a few arm stretches as she sat in an upholstered chair by Irma’s desk. It was nice to have a few minutes to herself and let her thoughts slow down. Silvio and a uniformed team had finished the cursory search of the ship, and as expected, had found nothing. The K-9 team was on its way from the airport. Silvio said he’d even babysit Flores for a chance to see the look on Bonilla’s face when the dogs tracked the scent of Ora Ciega back to the man’s cabin.
Irma’s office was impressive, with a blonde wood desk, four blue and green print upholstered chairs around a matching blonde wood table, and a large window framed in slubbed silk blue draperies. Two Frida Kahlo framed prints on the wall by the door and a blonde wood credenza laden with framed pictures of what Emilia assumed were Irma’s family completed the decor. The centerpiece of the credenza tableau was a posed family portrait of Irma, a fairly good-looking man who was evidently her husband, and a little boy of about four or five. Several other pictures were of the boy wearing a school uniform complete with navy shorts and matching blazer.
Above the wall were Irma’s college diploma and several certificates she’d earned from the Customs service. Irma had done well, they all suggested, their crests and bolded script proclaiming her proficiency in team building, mediation skills, and human resource dynamics.
Emilia’s phone chirped. She dug it out of her shoulder bag to see a text from Kurt. Hi.
One little word. It braced Emilia like a fresh latte. Hi, she typed back.
Kurt replied a second later. Sorry we argued :(
Irma bustled back into the office with a folder in her hands. Emilia shoved the phone back in her bag as the human resources executive sat behind her desk, leaving the office door open. “I’m sorry about that, Detective. We’ve had a systems crash. We’re so dependent on technology these days that everyone goes crazy when there’s a problem.”
“Of course,” Emilia said. “I realize how busy you must be. If you could print out that duty roster, I’ll get out of your hair.”
Irma had small hands, half the size of Emilia’s, and they skittered over the computer keyboard to the accompaniment of clicking keys. “That’s the problem. I can’t access the information.”
“I can wait.”
Irma stopped typing and met Emilia’s eyes. “We’re going to need a systems administrator to look into the problem,” she said. She seemed nervous, but it was an honest emotion, as if the problem was far bigger than Emilia’s request. “The whole database has crashed. I don’t know how long it’s going to take. The whole back end is magic to me.”
“Bad timing,” Emilia said with a rueful smile.
“I’m so sorry,” Irma apologized. “If you’ll give me your number I’ll call when we’re back online.”
Emilia dug out one of her cards. To preserve a detective’s much-needed anonymity, it was only printed with her cell phone number. She wrote in her first name with a pen. “I really appreciate your help,” she said.
“Hopefully, this is only a matter of a few hours,” Irma said.
Chapter 6
Emilia navigated around the downtown tourist crowds by swinging west from the bay. It was high season in Acapulco, although the crush of wandering tourists, buses and cars would be worse in a few weeks, when the norteamericano college crowd came down for spring break. She bulled her way through the messy intersection where Jose Valdez Arevalo and Calle 5 de Mayo collided with La Noria and Xochitl, and finally turned south on La Costura.
Playa Dominguillo was on her left, a stretch of the bay’s shoreline that for her was the real Acapulco. It wasn’t the best swimming beach; there were too many rocks. Instead, it was a good place to fish from a small boat. Several skiffs bobbed out in the bay like white birds skimming on dark blue water. More boats were pulled up on the pebbly beach. Their traditional turquoise painted interiors were a sudden reminder of the door at Villa de Refugio.
But everything was dwarfed by the sight of the Pacific Grandeur berthed at the city docks. Once again Emilia was struck by the sheer size of the thing. The ship could swallow up entire neighborhoods, houses, schools, streets and all. Cruise ships had been coming to Acapulco for as long as she could remember, and as their size grew, so did the feeling that soon they wouldn’t fit into the bay at all. Someday, a ship would be so big that it would get stuck like a cork in the neck of a bottle between Isla la Roqueta on the west side, and Punta Bruja on the east. Its bottom would batter the ocean floor and the iconic white skyscrapers that ringed the bay would be swept away in a tsunami.
It was a foolish thought and Emilia grinned to herself. It had been a fairly good day so far, what with Prade’s news about the trial website and Irma Gonzalez Perot’s helpful
attitude. She wasn’t sure what to think about Flores, however.
The Costera curved to the west, slicing between the small Parque de la Reina on her left and the massive walls of the ancient Fuerte de San Diego on her right. The Pacific Grandeur loomed ahead.
But it wasn’t until Emilia parked the car in the lot next to the docks that she realized what was wrong with the scene in front of her.
The big hatch of the cruise ship was open and five trucks from a company called Fiesta Verde were parked in the loading zone. A steady stream of crew appeared to be offloading pallets of supplies from the trucks and trundling it aboard using hand trucks. And that meant that someone had taken down the crime scene tape closing off the kitchen supply deck.
She found Silvio and Flores next to the trucks. Flores was sitting on a bench, headphones on. He gave her a little wave.
Silvio was pacing, phone in hand.
“What’s going on?” Emilia asked with a nod at the purposeful activity surrounding the trucks and the ship.
“Exactly what you think is going on.” Silvio was livid. He shook his phone in her face. “The fucking food trucks arrived an hour ago. The ship’s crew had already taken down the crime scene tape and disinfected the entire deck by the time I got inside. I called for backup, got nothing. Too late to do anything about it now.”
“What about the dogs?”
“We’ve been waiting for the dogs since you left. Now the delay is because of the fucking Olympic people. They’re at the airport and the dogs are on fucking parade for them.”
“Wait a minute.” Emilia felt her blood pressure match his. “No dogs? Nobody came? Did you tell Loyola about the Ora Ciega?”
“I talked to Loyola.” Disgust was evident in every word Silvio spat out. “Didn’t want me to do anything to get in the ship’s way. Said to let the loading go on. Like he thought I was going to start shooting dock workers.”
“That’s all he said?” Although it wasn’t inconceivable that Silvio would have done just that.
“Loyola said he’d call the K-9 unit, the uniformed dispatch office, and Chief Salazar’s office. He called me back ten minutes ago. Get this. Chief Salazar and every one of his toadies are at the fucking airport with the mayor and the fucking Olympics. And the fucking dogs!”
