Diablo Nights (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 3)

by Carmen Amato

  She’d called ahead. Alvaro buzzed them both through a steel door that led past the counter and into the staff area. Emilia introduced Alvaro to the squadroom’s newest: Detective Orlando Flores.

  Her cousin gave a much-practiced spiel about how the evidence locker worked, how many items passed through it every year, and it’s role in fighting crime in Acapulco. Flores was agog.

  Emilia had to admit that Alvaro was impressive. He was a highly decorated uniformed sergeant who knew his job well and was a good spokesman. Her mentor when she’d first joined the police force, he’d always had jobs inside the central police administration building. Over the years, he’d built up an impressive network of friends and contacts, yet made surprisingly few enemies. Alvaro was smart, but even more important, he was discreet.

  When Alvaro was finished one of his uniformed staff took Flores through the chain link enclosure to show him some of the locker’s holdings.

  “Madre de Dios,” Emilia muttered when Flores had disappeared beyond the fencing. She dropped into the chair next to Alvaro’s desk. “He’s training with me for six weeks. At least. I wouldn’t be surprised if it dragged on longer than that.”

  “Where’s Silvio?” Alvaro asked. “And what happened to your hair?”

  “The hair is what happened while questioning a witness who runs a beauty school.” Emilia ignored her cousin’s guffaw. “As for Silvio, he’s been reassigned. The kid’s got someone looking out for him, know what I mean?”

  “A rabbi.”

  “You wouldn’t know who, by any chance?” Emilia asked. Alvaro always had the inside story.

  Alvaro shook his head. “No. Sorry, never heard of the kid before.”

  “Start asking,” Emilia said. “Kid’s got a rich daddy. Rigoberto Flores. A real estate mogul. The Torre Metropolitano. The new construction at Playa Revolcadero. Guess Papi bought him a cop job. No academy, no detective test. Nothing.”

  Alvaro nodded and Emilia knew his curiosity had been piqued. His network would be notified later.

  Emilia looked at the clean surface of her cousin’s desk. “Got any new pictures?”

  “Of course.” Alvaro pulled a small leather photo album from a drawer and flipped it open. He had two children; a 3-year-old son and a daughter who was five months old. “Daysi wants to enter the baby in a contest,” he said. “But I said it would be too much publicity.”

  Emilia flipped through the album. The children were adorable. Before she’d started staying with Kurt on weekends Emilia had always seen the family at church on Sundays. “I haven’t see them in months,” Emilia said sadly. “They’re getting so big.”

  “Spending your Sundays in sin, I expect?” Alvaro said.

  “Pretty much,” Emilia admitted. Alvaro knew a little about Kurt, but they’d never met. She grinned ruefully. “Speaking of sin, I’m bringing Kurt to Mama’s wedding.”

  “It’s that serious, is it?”

  Emilia tried to downplay it. “Don’t make a big deal out of him being there.”

  “Does your mother know he’s coming?”

  “I’m a little afraid she’s going to ask him what school he goes to. What’s his favorite subject.”

  Alvaro frowned at her. “Maybe you should, you know. Prepare him.”

  “He knows,” Emilia said. “I told him. But you know how Mama can be.”

  “Okay.” Alvaro grinned. “We’ll treat him good.”

  “Thanks.” Emilia grinned back. She still knew it would all be a disaster, but having Alvaro on her side would help a lot. “Speaking of the wedding, Kurt and I ended up at Villa de Refugio looking for a gift. Do you remember it?”

  Alvaro thought for a moment. “The fancy Catholic store?”

  “Yes, the one with the gold coins.”

  “Por Dios,” he laughed. “I haven’t thought of that place in years.”

  Emilia closed the album. “You wouldn’t believe what we found. A relic of Padre Pro. More specifically, his finger.”

  Alvaro’s mouth fell open. Emilia had known that he’d be shocked. Because he would remember. Alvaro always remembered everything. But in all the years that he’d known what she’d done, he’d never talked about it.

  “It wasn’t his finger, as it turned out,” Emilia hastened to add. “It’s the finger of a woman, according to the morgue. We’re treating it as a kidnapping case.”

  Alvaro shook his head; shock had turned to disgust. “Do you have any leads?”

  “One,” Emilia said. “Have you ever heard of a group called Friends of Padre Pro?”

  “No,” Alvaro said. “But it’s no surprise that there would be one. Sainthood, et cetera.”

  “About right,” Emilia said. “But in this case, I wonder if they are making more of these fake Padre Pro relics.”

  “You need any help figuring this out.” Alvaro gestured vaguely at the evidence enclosure. “Let me know what you need.”

  Head of the evidence locker was one of the most rewarding jobs in the police force; it gave the incumbent unparalleled ability to right wrongs and grant favors. Lose or replace questionable items and make sure official records were adjusted as needed. Any rewards received for a job well done were handled with discretion, of course.

  Like Alvaro with her secret, Emilia never asked and he never told.

  “Sure,” Emilia said.

  ☼

  “Would you like to get some dinner, Emilia?” Flores asked. They were back at the police station but he’d made no move to get out of the Suburban.

  “I have somewhere I have to go,” Emilia answered.

  She was done for the day and certainly wasn’t going into the building. The last thing she needed was to run into Loyola. If she did, she’d either punch him or apologize; she didn’t know which. Better to put more space between what had happened in his office and the next time they met.

  “Where?”

  “I like to keep things private,” Emilia said.

  Flores pushed his lips out in a pout. “I thought that now that we’re partners--.”

  “We’re not partners,” Emilia interrupted. “I’m training you. Silvio and I are partners. He’ll working with Ibarra until your training is done and things get back to normal.”

  “All right.” Flores sighed and fiddled with the zipper of his jacket. “What are we doing tomorrow? Following any more clues about this drug smuggling stuff? You know, the stuff with the funny name?”

  “No.” The word flew out of Emilia’s mouth. She needed to talk to Silvio before doing anything else. “We should get you down to the range. Make sure you know how to shoot your gun.”

  Flores brightened. “Cool.”

  Emilia looked at his door. “Good night, Orlando.”

  He smiled. “Good night, Emilia.”

  Flores didn’t open the door. The silence stretched like the awkward end to a first date. Emilia dug out her phone and started thumbing buttons.

  “Okay, then.” Flores fumbled for the door handle. “Good night.”

  “Bye,” Emilia said, without looking up.

  When he finally left, Emilia dialed Mercedes. When the dancer’s phone clicked over to voice mail, Emilia knew she was giving a class. It would be over in an hour, ample time for Emilia to buy a box of hair dye and drive to the dance studio. As she drove out of the parking lot, she left Mercedes a message about hair that sounded totally stupid, but that was the way things were going lately. She’d explain when she got to the studio.

  As soon she turned onto the Costera on the way to Sanborn’s, her phone rang. The screen showed an unidentified number.

  “Bueno?”

  “Detective Cruz, do you know who this is?”

  “How many phones do you have, Señor Denton?” Emilia transferred the phone to her left hand and kept her right on the wheel.

  “Spare me your attempt to prove how clever you are, Detective.” The voice on the other end was the familiar combination of bad accent and testy attitude. “I have some news for you.”
<
br />   “I was wondering how you were getting on with my relic.”

  “Your finger is not that of our kidnapping victim.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing,” Emilia said. The nagging urgency of a kidnapping faded, along with her own chagrin at having to wait until Saturday to find the next link in the chain. “Or not?”

  “We were unable to make a positive identification of the owner of the finger, if that’s what you are asking,” Denton went on. The crackle of a poor connection vibrated against Emilia’s ear. “Victim was female, Latina, likely under 35 years of age.”

  “Basically what we’d already found out,” Emilia pointed out. So much for Denton’s patronizing attitude.

  “Well, Detective,” Denton said. “I’ll send over the full report but you might be interested in knowing that we found trace elements of an unusual mix of illicit substances ground into the skin under the nail. Our experts say it’s a Colombian mix of heroin and meth called--.”

  “Ora Ciega,” Emilia said and almost hit the curb.

  ☼

  Emilia called Mercedes to cancel, too shaken by Denton’s news to do anything but head to the house to think. Sophia and Ernesto were watching television. Emilia waved off her mother’s offer to cook. A cup of tea and a box of crackers would be enough.

  Sitting crossed-legged on her bed, the tea cooling on the nightstand, Emilia paged through her notebook. There had to be connections she had missed.

  The murdered Salva Diablo gang member was from Honduras. Killed aboard the Pacific Grandeur, his body stolen out of the morgue and never recovered. He’d been looking for friends. They’d never shown up.

  The Salva Diablo had stopped looking for his friends long enough to pay for a hooker. He’d been dealing Ora Ciega with his stash in a backpack and had almost certainly been the one to give Yolanda Lata her fatal hit. Had he also beaten her? Or left her to her Ora Ciega high and someone else had finished her off and stolen her phone?

  Emilia drank some tea. Maybe the friends he’d been waiting for were Bonilla and Ramos. Maybe one of them had used Yolanda while she was high and beat her afterwards. Bonilla would do that, Emilia thought grimly, along with killing the Salva Diablo and stealing the backpack. She made a note to ask Silvio if he’d seen a backpack when he’d searched the ship cabins belonging to Bonilla and Ramos.

  Thinking about the two cruise ship officers brought Emilia back to her original theory about the Pacific Grandeur. It still made perfect sense that the ship was being used to transport Ora Ciega to El Norte, but they still had no evidence to prove it. Organized Crime didn’t even believe the theory.

  She drank more tea and looked at her notes. Nothing connected to the finger of a kidnapping victim with Ora Ciega embedded in the skin under the nail. Emilia wanted to scream with frustration when she thought about how little she really knew about the finger’s journey from its owner’s hand to the Villa de Refugio store.

  It was past midnight and Sophia and Ernesto had gone to bed by the time Emilia tossed aside the notebook and closed her eyes. Denton’s news had done nothing but trip her up, make her less sure of everything they had so far.

  Nothing connected, nothing made sense. She’d been so sure that the Pacific Grandeur was carrying a cargo of Ora Ciega to El Norte. But when the facts were laid bare, she had no proof of anything.

  But investigations seldom ran on proof, she’d come to realize. Hunches were sometimes just as valuable.

  Chapter 18

  Loyola wasn’t in the squadroom on Friday, which was a relief. Ibarra, as if having been Loyola’s partner meant that he was now deputy acting lieutenant, took it upon himself to run the morning meeting. Emilia briefed on next steps in the finger case, including Flores’s attempts to find a similar kidnapping case in the archives. She didn’t mention Denton’s findings, which he’d emailed to her, sure that if she did the case would get sent to Organized Crime.

  After the meeting, she kept an eye on Silvio. After four cups of coffee, he went down the hall. Emilia silently counted to 30, then followed him into the detectives bathroom.

  The space was long and narrow with three toilet stalls along one wall. The stall doors were enameled metal panels. On the opposite wall a row of urinals hung below a mirror running the width of the space. A single sink was located between the last urinal and the door. The cement floor was cracked but the walls had been painted white not long ago and were still miraculously graffiti-free.

  “What the fuck, Cruz?” Silvio hastily pulled up his zipper and stepped away from the middle urinal.

  “I figured this was as private a place to talk as any.” Emilia said. She folded her arms and leaned against the first stall’s blue partition. “What happened when you took Flores to the gym?”

  Silvio turned on the sink faucet and shoved his hands under the water. “Nothing. A little sparring. He held his own.”

  “You put him in safety gear?” Emilia pressed. “He had a bruise on his jaw.”

  “Had him in safety gear the whole time,” Silvio said scornfully. “Had to. The kid’s made of fucking glass. Said he’d never been in a fight in his life.”

  “He’s been too busy playing the oboe,” Emilia offered.

  Silvio turned off the water and got a paper towel. “What the fuck’s an oboe?”

  “Like a clarinet.”

  “Well, Señor Oboe got knocked around a little. Dumped on his ass a few times. Same as the rest of us when we were starting out. He didn’t cry.” Silvio wadded up the towel and pitched it into the can.

  Emilia threw up her hands. “No, he ran home and complained to his rich father who made a call to Chief Salazar. Now you’re pulled away right when there might be a break in the case.”

  “What case?”

  “The Pacific Grandeur murder.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Did you see a backpack in either Bonilla’s or Ramos’s cabin when you were searching the Pacific Grandeur?” Emilia asked.

  “Maybe,” Silvio said. “I think they both had backpacks and suitcases in their cabins. Why?”

  “The Salva Diablo gang banger hired Yolanda Lata, according to Chavito.”

  “Chavito from the Fuerte?” Silvio asked in surprise. He leaned against the sink. “He was her pimp?”

  “Looks like it.” Emilia knew he understood her frustration in not having found Yolanda Lata earlier. “Chavito described him almost perfectly. Identified him from a picture on my phone. The Salva Diablo was looking for friends. Had a backpack with a stash in it. Promised some to Yolanda. He was her last john.”

  “That’s a big break? All you know now is who gave Yolanda Lata her overdose.”

  “Don’t you see?” Emilia demanded. “All along we kept thinking that the Salva Diablo came on board the Pacific Grandeur and was shot there. But he was looking for his friends, was going to party with them. Those friends were Bonilla and Ramos.”

  “Okay,” Silvio acknowledged. “If he had a backpack with enough Ora Ciega in it to share with a hooker, maybe the ship hasn’t been used to transport anything. Maybe their meeting was to set something up.”

  Emilia walked the length of the room, her brain humming. At the end of the room, the sole window gave a grainy view of the parking lot. For added security, the glass had steel netting embedded in it and iron bars were bolted into the wall on the outside. “Say they found him,” Emilia thought out loud. “Argued. Killed him, took his stash, but were afraid to leave the body. So they took it back to the ship and stuffed it in the meat locker until they could come up with something else. But the cook found it first.”

  “What about the blood on the wall?”

  “Carried the body down those stairs,” Emilia said. “Head wounds bleed a lot.”

  “Okay, let’s keep going with this,” Silvio said thoughtfully. “It explains why nobody I talked to on the docks saw the guy. He was never there. Alive, anyway.”

  “We should have been asking if people saw Bonilla and Ramos comi
ng and going off the ship.”

  Silvio nodded. “That’s where Customs comes in. They would have seen Bonilla and Ramos. Maybe somebody from Customs helped them.”

  “That’s what got Irma killed. Someone who was working that night saw them with the body.”

  “Okay,” Silvio said again. “I’ll buy that. But once the body was found, why would anyone risk stealing it out of the morgue?”

  “So he wouldn’t be included in Prade’s website of unidentified dead,” Emilia said.

  The bathroom door swung open. Gomez stepped in, lean and lanky in ripped jeans, rock band tee shirt, and straggly goatee. He snickered when he saw both Emilia and Silvio. “Now that you two aren’t partners, kinda hard to find someplace to do it, eh?”

  “Get out,” Silvio said.

  Emilia stood her ground. She and Gomez had gone three rounds in this very bathroom less than a year ago. He’d attacked her and she’d defended herself with one of the metal stall doors that he’d removed as a punishment for not wanting to date him. Gomez had ended up in the hospital.

  “I got no objection to a three-way, Silvio.” Gomez licked his lips at Emilia. His eyes were hard and assessing.

  “Go find a couple of dogs, Gomez,” Emilia said.

  Gomez’s expression didn’t change. “Your call, Silvio.”

  Silvio pivoted around Emilia, pressed a hand into Gomez’s face, kicked opened the door, and shoved the weedy detective through it. “Piss on my car and I’ll rip your dick off,” he warned.

  Emilia heard rapidly retreating footsteps as the door swung shut. “You really think he’d do that?”

  “Gomez has style,” Silvio said. He went to the sink and washed his hands again.

  Emilia pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser and handed it to him. “I’ve got more,” she said. “Report on the Padre Pro finger came back from the Pinkerton Agency. There was Ora Ciega ground into the skin under the nail.”

  “Rayos,” Silvio exclaimed and wadded up the paper towel. “Just how much of this shit is floating around?”