“And those kids who bullied him, do you know their names?”
Pedro shook his head, and his dark eyes filled with tears once again. Maria noticed that he was biting his lip and his fists were clenched. He kept quiet for a few minutes.
“I can assure you that they will never know that you were the one that gave me their names.”
She took out a pen and a notepad and placed them on the table in front of him.
“The names, Pedro, please.”
The boy sat still.
“Look, I’m scared that they’ll deport us over this. It’s very sad, but perhaps it’s better to just let it go.”
“Do you think your brother deserved that death? And if they kill others? What if they do the same to you?”
Pedro finally wrote down the names of four boys and one girl. They all had criminal records, although not for violent crimes, and they soon found evidence that proved their guilt.
After they were arrested and interrogated separately, each one told the same story and with the same tone, as if they were all narrating the same exact movie that seemingly had nothing to do with them. A few days before they had dug a hole and buried a machete. That Friday night they arranged to meet Jose in the forest. They told him that if he was a real man he needed to prove it by smoking pot with them and having sex with a girl that they were going to bring, so they could see whether he was a fag or what… Jose showed up, and they took turns slashing him with the machete, not very hard at first, to see what his blood looked like. Later on, they told him to lie down in the hole, and that the girl was going to take off her clothes and get on top of him to see if he was a man or not. That’s when Jose tried to resist; he didn’t want to get in the hole, and Mikel lost it. He hit Jose so hard with the machete that his skull cracked in two, and he died.
“It was a shame,” said one of the suspects, “because we could’ve had a little more fun with him. I missed the first part because I had walked away to take a piss.”
Then they all helped bury him. They cleaned up the blood and took the machete and hid it far away. They all went to get some pizza, except for Mikel and Queenie, who stayed back there to have sex because he was really horny and couldn’t wait.
The girl was the only one who resisted when they arrested her. She headbutted an officer in the chest and slapped him in the face before they were able to put her in handcuffs.
In forty-eight hours, all five of them had been arrested and had appeared before a judge. All were going to be tried as adults.
When she got back home after two days of barely any sleep, Maria took a long shower and went to bed without eating. That bloody orgy had been much worse than anything she had read in Lord of The Flies as a teenager, and it made quite an impression on her. Each time she thought of the crime scene, with the mutilated corpse of the young Mexican boy, and imagined his last moments, she gagged uncontrollably and had to run to the bathroom to vomit.
Chapter 11
Day 10—Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Maria had finished all the reports about the Homestead case and was preparing to review her notes on Raimundo Lazo and his daughter when they forwarded a call to her:
“It’s a woman who says she lost your business card. I can’t tell if it’s a joke or not. She asked for the Duchess. She said to tell you it was Mercy.”
It only took Maria a few seconds to figure out that it was the missing baby’s grandmother who was trying to reach her.
“What can I do you for you, Mercedes?”
“Oh, hija, it’s been such a headache trying to reach you! I lost your business card. That’s what happens when I hide things so well that I can’t find them… I even invoked Saint Dimas by tying a cloth to the leg of a chair, but it still hasn’t shown up. Here’s the thing, I have a person that I think you should speak with. Do you have something to write with?”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“Her name is Rosa, Rosa Blass. She used to have a store in Miami Beach, but she’s much older now, maybe over ninety. But still very clear-minded.”
“What was her relationship to your son-in-law?”
“She told me that he used to stop by the store quite often and they’d talk. The truth is she mentioned that to me years ago but I had just forgotten, and then yesterday she called me out of the blue—I have to believe in mysterious forces, telepathy, whatever—and before I could get a word in she began talking about Ray… I asked her if she would mind if you called her sometime soon, and she told me to give you her number, so here it is.”
Maria was very interested in following up on the lead that Larrea had given her about calling his colleague the writer, but she had a feeling that the man wouldn’t speak on the phone, and she first needed to know if Larry would cover the costs to travel to New York to interview him. She didn’t think she could leave it in the hands of the NYPD, so she decided to call Rosa Blass and arrange an appointment. Her daughter answered, and Maria had to give her multiple explanations for why she wanted to see her mother until she heard a nasally voice in the background say, “It’s for me, hija, Mercy told me that the detective was going to call. I want to speak with her.”
Rosa Blass picked up the phone and agreed for Maria to come by her apartment in Miami Beach at four o’clock that afternoon. All the roads that went to the beach seemed to lead to another world, and Maria especially enjoyed the view of the ocean on either side of the highway and the silhouette of Miami Beach as she got closer.
After traveling for an hour, Maria came to the town of Surfside, home to many different economic classes and ethnic groups but mostly white. The wealthiest people lived in the tall condominium buildings like the one where she arrived precisely at four in the afternoon. When the doorman confirmed that they were expecting her, she went through an opulent lobby and took the elevator to the eighteenth floor. On the doorframe, she noticed a mezuzah—a small, oblong box where Jewish people hang scrolls with verses from the Torah. A few seconds later, a middle-aged woman opened the door and invited her to come in and take a seat.
The living room had a breathtaking ocean view, and it was decorated with high quality, modern furniture and a huge oil painting by the Cuban painter Baruj Salinas. There were many silver frames that showed off family photos: some old black and white ones, and more recent ones in color. The marble floors were impeccably polished. On one of the sidewalls, a large bookcase housed many well-kept, organized volumes.
Down the hallway she heard the voice of the woman who had opened the door, and clearly someone else was with her.
“Here comes Mrs. Blass.”
Rosa walked in, supported by a walker, but she moved with surprising agility. She acknowledged Maria with her head and sat in an armchair. She had her hair dyed dark brown and on her broad forehead she had thick eyebrows, an alert gaze, a half smile, and skin with some freckles and fewer wrinkles than one would expect for a woman her age. She didn’t have that fragility that just a few days ago Maria had noticed in the exiled Spaniard when she visited him in the hospital. Maria saw the signs of age primarily on her hands.
“I’ve just turned ninety-six.”
That was the first thing Rosa Blass said, as if presuming that Maria was adding up the years from the signs that might give away her old age.
“But my mind and memory are clear,” she continued, with the nasally voice in which you could hear the almost indiscernible influence of another language.
“What a pleasure it is to meet you, Rosa. You seem to be in such good health.”
“Thank you, my dear. Would you like something to drink? Yadiris can make us something. She’s Cuban and hasn’t been here too long, but she takes great care of me. Although she’s a horrible cook,” she whispered to Maria in a soft voice, using her hand to cover up what she was saying.
Faced with Rosa’s insistence, she accepted an iced tea, and Yadiris placed two glasses next to them.
As usual, Maria took out her tape recorder, notebook, and pen, and asked permission to record their conversation.
“Of course, I’m not going to reveal any war secrets to you,” said Rosa.
Maria was impressed that this almost one-hundred-year-old woman was still elegant and had a sense of humor.
“What can you tell me about Raimundo Alberto Lazo?” Maria asked without preface.
“Let’s see…we went into exile in 1960… Well…the second exile, because my parents went to Cuba from Poland in 1928…but not as refugees. They were fleeing poverty and lack of opportunities, and a special kind of misfortune that followed my poor father. I was just a little girl, but I have many memories from that rough time in my life. There were five of us sisters…you can imagine how difficult it was to feed such a large family… I can tell you more about that period in my life another day. In Cuba my parents went through tons of different jobs, like all immigrants do, but they did ok, and my sisters and I did even better… Then, you know what happened with the start of the Revolution. We left immediately, in 1960, and first we came to Miami with our daughters. The oldest was already married, and the youngest got married here. Next we spent a few years in Puerto Rico, but we returned to Miami where we had lots of friends. The idea was for us to retire, but my husband didn’t know how to go about life with nothing to do, and so he opened two stores on Lincoln Road. I didn’t want to get involved, but you know how it is… Little by little I started spending more time helping out at the stores.”
“Was that where you met Lazo?” Maria asked.
“No. We closed those stores sometime in the mid-seventies, but my daughter Sara had another store, and, even though I had sworn not to work anymore, I used to spend a few hours helping out there each week, and when she would travel to New York to buy clothes, I would spend the entire day at the store. She had great employees, but I had to keep an eye on things. Even more so at that time, because after Mariel, people who hung out at the beach started to change. But Ray was not one of those. He was a good guy.”
“Did he buy things at the store?”
“Well, not very often, only occasionally. But he would stop by now and then.”
“Why?” Maria asked.
“I think he would meet up with people in the coffee shop next door.”
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
“You never saw him talking with them?”
“Well, now that you’re picking my brain, actually, yes I did. One time these people came into the store and bought something. It was a man and a woman. I think they were married or at least a couple. You know how things are these days.”
“Do you remember anything about them? Their names? What they looked like?”
“It’s been so many years. You’re talking about the eighties…when he first got here. But although they seemed to be friends, I was under the impression that these meetings always made Ray nervous and that they were exchanging something… I don’t know, I don’t think that he was selling or buying drugs or anything like that, but they definitely didn’t seem like normal visits between friends.”
“And how frequently would they meet there?”
“Like once a month, maybe every six weeks.”
“Did Ray ever tell you anything about his life?”
“He kept to himself but was still very nice. He told me that he worked with an uncle installing alarms, but he said very little about his life in Cuba. Oh…and he told me that he liked to write. Sometimes while waiting, he would write something down in a notebook that he almost always had on him.”
“And about when did these meetings stop taking place?”
“I would have to ask Sara which year exactly she sold the store… And after that I didn’t really see him anymore until I ran into him with Mercy in a shopping center.”
“When did you meet Mercy?”
“I met her in Cuba, while we were on vacation in Pinar del Rio. Later she came to visit me in Havana. She’s much younger than me. Actually, her mother was more my age, but she died a while ago. She was a teacher, and in that little schoolhouse in Pinar del Rio she taught math to one of my sisters. I didn’t recognize Mercy when I first saw her again in Miami, but she recognized me. She had already arrived from Cuba, and her daughter was married to Ray. We would talk on the phone every now and again… You know, people like to talk with others who remember their parents and their lives back home.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about the couple that Ray would meet with?”
“I don’t know, they seemed pretty normal…they didn’t appear to be that classy…he usually looked worse than she did.”
“You don’t remember their names, not even their last name?”
“No…well, one thing… I don’t know if this is of any importance. It was a few days before Halloween, and Sara had put kids’ costumes on sale. There were various popular ones, of Michael Jackson and also a doll… And another one of a bear. It was a smiling bear, you know, for little kids. She took it in her hands and showed it to him, and said, ‘Look, if they had your size it would be perfect for you.’ He looked at her like he wanted to kill her and responded with some four-letter word because he saw himself as a bad-ass and not cute like that bear mask.”
“Do you think they called him ‘El Oso’?”
“That’s definitely a possibility.”
When Maria returned home from the beach, Miami gave her a splendid sunset, with a variety of pinks and oranges mixing on the horizon. She barely had time to enjoy it.
“Damn it! I’m looking for a dead electrician who aspired to be a writer, and I don’t know who he is. I’m looking for someone else called El Oso, and I’m looking a missing baby who would be twenty-three years old by now, and I don’t have a clue what her name is or where she is!”
Chapter 12
Day 10—Wednesday, November 11, 2015
The five o’clock, rush hour traffic heading home from Miami Beach was unbearable. Maria decided to use her time by making several phone calls. Previously she had thought it was dangerous to use her cell while driving, but now that she had Bluetooth in her car and didn’t need to hold the phone or even dial the numbers, it was a different matter. First, she called her son and got his voicemail. He must be in the gym at this hour, she thought, but just hearing Patrick’s voice made her smile. Her father answered on the second ring and not so subtly complained that she had abandoned him.
“No, Papi, we’ve been working nonstop since the beginning of the week on that terrible case in Homestead.”
“I know, I read about it in the papers.”
She detected a certain sarcasm in his tone, but she tenderly replied.
“Really, I haven’t had a single free minute to call you, and now I’m tied up once again with the case that we reopened.”
“And how it’s going?”
“I have a few leads, but I’m not close to solving it.”
“That’s how it goes sometimes, but then suddenly you see everything clearly, one thing leads to another, and when you least expect it you solve the puzzle. If you’d like to run some things by me…”
“Sure, sometimes talking out loud helps me, and you always have a good nose for these things.”
“You want to get a bite to eat? I’ll treat.”
“Thanks, but I’m beat. I’ll come by the house tomorrow for sure. I’ll give you a call first.”
She was about to call the hospital to get an update on Joaquin del Roble when she got a call. It was David. She had spoken to him a couple of times during the past week but neither of them had brought up the night when they had made love. She was glad. She hadn’t had time to sort out her emotions. When she answered, there was a certain sweetness in his voice that unsettled her. She wasn’t mistaken. After the initial obligatory small talk, David invited her over t
o his house that evening.
“The kids are away… I can cook us up something.”
She hesitated a moment. She preferred to have their dates at her house where she felt more in control of the situation. She began to make up an excuse:
“I’m on the interstate right now, and the traffic’s at a standstill. I’ve had a few days right out of the movies, and I desperately need a shower.”
“So then why don’t I come by your house, with the food, around seven thirty? Take a shower and get some rest. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of everything.”
He hung up so quickly that she didn’t have time to object. Instead of making more phone calls, she put on some music and, even though the traffic didn’t get any better, she started to feel the day’s tension easing up.
She greeted David at the door with a kiss on the cheek, but as soon as he had placed all the bags of groceries in the kitchen, without saying another word, he embraced her. He caressed her face with his lips and ran his fingers through her hair, and then kissed her passionately. Almost immediately, she felt that tickle of desire between her legs. He stood there, pulled her against him and ran his hands over her body. It was Maria who guided him to the bedroom. They made passionate love. They wound up out of breath and satisfied with their naked bodies intertwined. They remained there for a good while, she resting her head on his chest, both of them half-asleep, listening to their heartbeats and the rhythm of their breathing as it became increasingly slower.
David was the first to speak.
“Dinner must be cold by now.”
“Well, we can heat it up…”
Before getting up, David kissed her on the nose. He started to say something, but then he stopped himself. She was glad he did. She didn’t want to overthink things, and words—that desire to define one’s emotions—many times ruined relationships.
They ate dinner, drank some wine, listened to music, laughed, and talked about a thousand things except for work and themselves. Both of them felt happy and relaxed. She finally looked at her watch.
The Miracle of Saint Lazarus Page 7