by Carmen Amato
“Did Maria Teresa know that?”
“You can ask her, Detective.” Chang stood up, as if he’d decided that the game was over, and checked his watch. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I have patients to see.”
Emilia decided he wasn’t so good looking after all. The tinny laugh. The cloying manner. He wasn’t anything special.
Before leaving the medical center building, she stopped in the restroom on the first floor and washed her hands. Twice.
☼
The detectives straggled in. To Emilia’s surprise, Loyola and Ibarra had run down the names on the business cards. The most interesting was Marco Cortez Lleyva, an engineer and an expert in hydraulic cement and high-stress building materials. His wife and Maria Teresa both belonged to the same charitable organizations. He’d spoken to Fausto Inocente about months ago at a party, a casual conversation about building materials and the properties of various choices, because the Inocentes were planning on building a new house and Fausto was concerned about it being ultra-hurricane proof. Emilia made a mental note to ask Maria Teresa if they had indeed been planning to build a house.
Emilia was back in el teniente’s office going through old files when the phone rang. It was the dispatch sergeant calling for Lt. Inocente.
“He died on Tuesday,” Emilia said in surprise. How could dispatch not know?
“You the secretary?”
“This is Detective Cruz,” Emilia snapped. “I’m acting lieutenant for now.”
“No shit?”
“What can I do for you, sergeant?”
“Lt. Inocente didn’t log in your unit’s dispatches.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday and today. Day before that, too.”
Emilia dropped her head into her hand. “I’ll let him know.”
“But you said he was dead.”
Emilia closed her eyes. “Probably why he didn’t do the dispatches.”
“Oh.” There was a long pause. “You’ll have to call back.”
The line disconnected. Emilia suppressed a smart remark along the lines of I hadn’t called to begin with and replaced the receiver in its cradle. She imagined the bedlam right now in dispatch.
The lieutenant in charge of the dispatch office called half an hour later. In a pompous tone he explained that the revered dispatch log would have to be completed, despite the death of Lt. Inocente, today and every day. Emilia held the receiver out from her ear as he bombasted on. When he finally wound down she said she’d be glad to do it if he explained how. He advised her that someone else had to do that and that she should call back.
The next call was from a dispatch clerk. The dialogue from the previous two phone calls was repeated, with some additional back-and-forth until they both understood the problem: there was a computer application that showed all the open dispatches assigned to all components. Each component had to note who’d been assigned to their dispatches and close out every log entry. It didn’t appear to be a case of trying to track that business was taken care of, the main issue was that too many open entries caused the system to crash.
As the clerk gabbled on and Emilia felt brain cells dying, she stared at the various papers el teniente had taped to the wall. He’d been taller than Emilia so they were placed higher than it was easy for her to view and she hadn’t really focused on them. She stood up as the dispatch clerk went on, mollified by her occasional Oh and I see, and studied the papers taped to the wall. One was a set of directions for logging into something but when she interrupted the clerk and described it he said, no, that wasn’t what he was talking about. There was a list of all the detectives’ contact numbers, in alphabetical order, with Castro at the top and Silvio at the bottom. A city seal topped an old roster of the police department’s administrative offices. A half sheet of paper looked like a list of phone numbers for a Catholic school and Emilia assumed it was the school the Inocente children attended.
“Detective Cruz?” the dispatch clerk huffed. “Are you listening to me?”
“Of course,” Emilia said automatically.
With the office phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, Emilia wrote down the instructions the clerk droned into her ear. It took another hour to have the technical people send Emilia’s online profile a link to the application and give her authority to access it, time she could have used away from the station following up on el teniente’s hotel stay, tracking down Bruno Inocente’s former security guard or looking for the key to the last locked desk drawer. By the time Emilia could actually open the application and scroll down the entries she wanted to scream. It didn’t help when she realized that Silvio, as well as Lt. Inocente, had the authority to open and close entries for the detective unit. And of course, the instructions taped to el teniente’s wall were exactly what the clerk had given her.
Open entries included the Tuesday morning call from the Palacio Réal. She typed in “Cruz, Portillo,” as the assigned officers, thinking about how much had changed in such a short time. She closed out all the entries until she got to the one for that day.
“Report of possible counterfeit Estados Unidos currency.” A manager of the Bancomer Bank near the commercial wharfs was cited as the person to see.
She hadn’t even looked at the form when she’d picked it up from the dispatch desk early that morning. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have given the clipboard to Silvio. But she’d done that to try and smooth some of the hostility between them.
She logged off, Obregon’s warning like thunder in the back of her mind. The squadroom was deserted. Emilia got up, grabbed a roll of toilet paper, and went into the detectives’ bathroom.
The stall doors were thick blue enameled metal panels. The room was freshly painted as well and the white walls gleamed. The cracked urinal was still there but overall the place now looked like a restroom in one of Acapulco’s nicer department stores.
Emilia went into the last stall and locked the door. The narrow space felt like a refuge and she sat and held her head in her hands, wondering if Silvio had taken that particular dispatch assignment for a reason. And then she wondered why she was sitting on a toilet breathing in old pee and paint fumes instead of having a drink in the Pasodoble Bar with a man who had all the quiet confidence she lacked.
☼
She met Rico and Fuentes as she headed back to the squadroom. Rico gave her a funny look and led the way back to el teniente’s office.
Emilia flipped the roll of toilet paper into one of the unlocked desk drawers. “What’s up?”
“Got some stuff on Agua Pacifico.”
“Okay. She motioned to both of them to sit down. Fuentes dropped into one of the chairs in front of the desk but Rico stayed standing. She knew him well enough to know that he was agitated. She didn’t sit either. “So tell me.”
“Guess who owns Lomas Bottling?” Rico asked.
Emilia went still. “An American couple named Hudson.”
“No.” Rico shook his head. “Bernal Morelos de Gama.”
“Morelos de Gama.” Emilia held out her hand for his notebook and Rico handed it to her. The name was written clearly. She looked up. “Isn’t that the family name of the little boy who was kidnapped?”
Rico nodded. “Bernal Morelos de Gama is his father.”
“Well.” Emilia’s thoughts jumped around. Rico and Fuentes both looked at her expectantly. “So Morelos de Gama buys Agua Pacifico from the Inocente brothers for a very small amount.”
“And three years later his son is kidnapped--.” Rico trailed off, obviously unsure how much to say in front of Fuentes.
And he pays the ransom with fake money muled in by some invisible people named Hudson whose records have been obliterated by someone who stayed at a hotel the same time they did. “It’s a strange coincidence,” Emilia said.
“But hard to connect the sale of a company and the seller dying three years later,” Fuentes offered.
“Seguros Guererro was the seller.” Emilia handed back the
notebook. “From what the lawyer said, el teniente wasn’t really involved. I don’t know if this makes a difference or not.”
“It’s a lead,” Rico said cautiously. “You want us to follow up?”
“Well,” Emilia said. She didn’t want to say much more in front of Fuentes. He didn’t know about the counterfeit money and she didn’t know how far she could trust him. And he was Silvio’s partner. “It might be something and it might be nothing. Just to make sure we’ll talk to Morelos de Gama. Get his side of the story and compare it to what Bruno Inocente and his lawyer have said about the sale of the company and the gambling debts.”
“We still have to check out El Pharaoh,” Fuentes said. “Long list of bookies and other casinos, too.”
“I know.” Emilia shrugged. “It’s a lot. But I want to tie up all the loose ends.”
Rico opened the door and Fuentes walked out ahead of him. Rico turned his head and rolled his eyes at Emilia. She shrugged and mimed texting him. He nodded and left.
Emilia sat down in el teniente’s chair, replaying the conversation, worrying at this new fact like a dog with a bone just like she knew Rico was doing. But it just produced more questions. Notably, had Fausto Inocente kidnapped the son of a man who’d purchased a company from the Inocente family business? Is that how Inocente found his victim? Seguros Guerrero had a lot of interests. Had others been kidnapped as well?
Kidnapping was a complicated business, Emilia knew. Once again she wondered who else was involved.
Emilia swiveled the chair and dialed the number for the records department. Announcing herself as Lieutenant Cruz, asked if the personnel files for all the detectives and the late Lt. Inocente could be made available for her.
Three phone calls and 40 minutes later, she was told by a pompous Captain Grillo that if she filled out all the correct requisition forms, and had them stamped by the office of the chief of police in triplicate, she’d be able to have access to them in six to eight weeks if she came to the office in the central administration’s personnel office building. Emilia thanked the pompous voice, broke the connection, pulled out the card with two cell phone numbers on it and called Obregon.
She was on her way to the administration building to fill out the express request form that now magically was the only prerequisite, when she passed the fingerprinting area. Maria Teresa and her children were there. Emilia recognized Juliana and Juan Diego from the photos in their uncle’s home. They were good looking children, sturdily built with honey-colored hair, but they both looked terrified. Juan Diego was a tall teen and managed to keep his emotions in check. But Juliana was much younger and started to cry as the uniformed sergeant jammed her fingers onto the ink pad, tears running past a series of small abrasions around her mouth and cheeks. Instead of comforting the child Maria Teresa looked annoyed that her daughter was causing a scene. The maid was there as well, her scarred face tense as she watched the children.
Loyola and Ibarra were with them; Loyola looked distressed at Juliana’s sobbing. Emilia let them know she had business with Maria Teresa and waited until the fingerprinting was done before asking Maria Teresa if she could have a word.
“I have my children with me,” the woman snapped.
“It will only take a moment. They’ll be fine on the benches there with CeCe.”
“I don’t think so.”
Emilia put some ice into her voice. “Señora, it will be much easier this way.”
Out of the corner of her eye Emilia saw Loyola and Ibarra watching her. Thankfully, Maria Teresa didn’t baulk further. She gave directions to CeCe before turning back to Emilia. “Very well, I expect I have a minute.”
Emilia led her around the corner to an empty interrogation room. The place was little more than a concrete cell with walls that had once been white. The plain wooden table flanked by two simple chairs was gouged and dinged from interrogations gone bad and the occasional forgotten suspect. In her coral silk pants, abstract print tunic top, chunky gold necklace and designer bag, Maria Teresa looked wildly out of place.
“Well.” Maria Teresa looked around her with disdain. She pulled out a chair, looked at the seat and remained standing. “I assume you have an update for me, Detective. We have the funeral planned but I’m told the body hasn’t been released yet.”
“We have the final forensics report, señora. I’ll let the coroner know he can release the body. If you need any help--.”
“You’ll send the body to the funeraria?”
“Have you made arrangements?”
Maria Teresa clutched her designer bag to her side. “Santo Domingo. You can talk to Alvaro.”
“We’ll do that,” Emilia said.
“Is that it? My children are waiting.”
“Your husband rented a room at the Palacio Réal hotel a few weeks ago,” Emilia said. “Do you happen to know why he would have stayed at a hotel so close to home?”
Maria Teresa looked blank for a moment, then she blinked rapidly. “Yes, of course. It was the baseball dinner.”
Emilia waited.
“Juan Diego’s baseball team’s annual dinner was at the hotel,” Maria Teresa said. “In the Lido Room. We wanted to make it special so we had a suite. For the before and after party.”
“Who else was there?”
Maria Teresa waved a manicured hand as if Emilia was an idiot. “All the families of the players. Even Bruno and Rita came. He and Fausto promised no arguing all night.” She sniffed. “Although that prune Rita had her sour look on.”
“Well, thank you,” Emilia said. “The hotel should be able to verify that.”
“So we’re done?” Maria Teresa stepped toward the door.
“Just one more thing, señora,” Emilia said. “I met a friend of yours. Dr. Rodolfo Chang.”
Maria Teresa lifted a shoulder in a noncommittal shrug.
“You lied about being at the San Pedro fundraiser all night,” Emilia went on.
Maria Teresa looked at the clasp on her bag as if it was new.
“Dr. Chang stated that you and he left together at 11:00 pm for his house. His driver took you back around 3:00 am.” Emilia wondered what would happen if she reached across the table and shook the woman. “Or was that another lie, señora?”
“It’s got nothing to do with anything,” Maria Teresa said with unexpected heat. “So you can take your prying nose and put it elsewhere.”
“Your husband was murdered that night,” Emilia said evenly. “And you lied about where you had been.”
“You don’t know anything.” Maria Teresa’s voice was shrill.
Emilia folded her arms.
Maria Teresa threw her a murderous look. It changed the entire shape of the women’s face and Emilia had a sudden vision of the woman with something heavy and chunky in her hands.
The room contracted until there was just the scarred table and the two women standing across it. The air was thick and silent.
“My husband had his interests,” Maria Teresa said finally. “I had mine.”
“Your interests being Dr. Rodolfo Chang.”
“The sort of man I should have married.”
“Were you planning to leave your husband for him?”
Maria Teresa threw her bag on the table. “I don’t know.”
“Dr. Chang said that he has a number of female friends,” Emilia said. Madre de Dios but this was a sick conversation.
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“I think you maybe know more about the night of your husband’s death than you told us, señora.”
“Do you think I killed my husband?”
“Did you?”
“Maybe I should have,” Maria Teresa snapped. “Before we had children and he decided to play policeman.”
Emilia didn’t reply.
The silence seemed to irritate Maria Teresa. She snatched up her bag. “Are we done talking, Detective?”
“You still haven’t told me the truth about where you were the night of your
husband’s death, señora,” Emilia said quietly.
“Rodolfo already told you, apparently,” Maria Teresa said. Her face was red. “I left early with Rodolfo. We went to his house. His driver brought me back to the party. It was over but my car was still there. I drove myself home and went to bed.”
“What time did you get home?”
“After 3:00 am.”
“You weren’t worried that your husband wasn’t there?”
Maria Teresa flicked her hair, an abrupt, defiant gesture. “It wasn’t the first time.”
The rest of the conversation matched up with what Dr. Chang had said. Maria Teresa knew the address and the name of his driver and the type of car used to transport her back to the party. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that and Emilia opened the door. Maria Teresa stalked out and collected her children. Loyola was still there and Emilia gave him Chang’s address and driver’s name to run down. He looked surprised but didn’t push back.
Emilia returned to an empty squadroom. No one was going to work late on a Friday night, although she suspected that Rico would be haunting the casinos.
She went into the office. There was a photocopy of an erect penis on the desk chair. The black and white image was crisp, no inky streaks or blurring.
Obregon had apparently sent a very good quality copier.
Emilia took out a black marker and drew a face, complete with moustache and flapping ears, on the photocopy. She taped it to the wall above the coffeemaker as she left the squadroom.
Chapter 14
Lomas Bottling took up most of one of the office buildings near the International Center. Security was tight inside and out. Guns were left in the security office and they had to walk through a metal detector as well. Emilia tried not to look impressed. Fuentes’s head was on a swivel as he took in the imposing lobby, the escalator to a café, the elevators that opened and closed with a soft whoosh. Emilia wondered again about his background as well as that of the other detectives, what motivated them and what they thought about the discrepancy between Lt. Inocente’s police career and his opulent lifestyle. Rico seemed immune to the luxurious office building and jabbed at the elevator button with impatience.
