An Inconsequential Murder

by Rodolfo Peña

  There was nothing in the newscast about the dead man. If the murder was not reported in the afternoon editions of the newspapers or the evening news, that meant that someone had managed to suppress it. That was more than likely. The University and the Dean were powerful entities in the community and from the way the interview with the Director of the Computer Center had gone, it seemed they were not eager for the story to be treated as a big news item.

  Lombardo felt sleepy when he finished his lunch. He was too tired to go to the office and face the Investigations Department’s Director’s questions about the investigation. Most likely Gonzalez would hurry there in the late afternoon to give him a full account of the interview with Dr. Delgado anyway.

  Lombardo went upstairs to his bedroom. As he undressed, he looked out the window. The street was quiet, peaceful under the grayish light of the autumn afternoon.

  Lombardo’s little, three-bedroom house was in the southeastern part of Monterrey. Most of the houses in this area had been built during the eighties. The walls were made of the cheapest, thinnest cinder blocks and the rooms were tiny. Originally they had been marketed to young, newlywed couples but now most were occupied by retired people or low-income families who, in spite of the number of children or family members, could not afford anything larger.

  All of the cars parked in the street (the houses were built in the smallest piece of land allowed by law and therefore did not have space for a garage), were used, ten-year-old models—not only because they were cheap to buy but because the owners avoided paying the yearly “car ownership” tax. “Stupid morons,” said Lombardo to himself when he thought about the bureaucrats that thought up the damned tax that encouraged people to keep old, smog-producing heaps of junk and punished those who bought newer, more efficient cars.

  When the Social Security System for the state’s bureaucrats had offered him a zero interest loan to buy a bigger house, Lombardo refused it, because, he said “I like where I live.” He had explained that he liked the modest, unpretentious people that brought out chairs to sit on the sidewalk after dinner and who politely left you alone if they sensed that you wanted to go no farther than the customary “Buenas noches” when you passed them on the street. He said he liked the fact that they were quiet folk who sent their uniformed children on foot to the near-by public school instead of rushing out in a stream of vans and SUVs as was the case in most upper–middle-class neighborhoods of the city.

  But, most of all, he liked the tranquil rhythm of life of the neighborhood: father went to sleep early because he left at seven for the factory, mother had had a long day of housework (there was no morning swarm of maids coming to work in these homes) so she retired early, too, and the kids, well, the boys played football in the park and the girls gathered in the corner store to gossip about the boys. After dark they went home, had dinner, did their homework, and watched TV. When he saw these kids going by in the morning, with their khaki-colored uniforms and blue sweater, well-brushed hair, and well-pressed clothes, Lombardo would pretend to be reading the paper outside just to be able to say “Buenos días.” He liked these well-mannered kids; they reminded him of his own.

  His two boys had once gone to school dressed like that, carrying huge backpacks full of books, and chatting with their friends. Now, one was a lawyer in Mexico City and the other, having something to do with computers, was living somewhere near San Francisco. “Don’t you ever call your sons?” Lupe, his friend, had once asked him. “Yes, yes, I call them often,” he had said—but the truth was, he never did.

  Lombardo had bought his house as an “investment” when he was in the police force in Guadalajara. But the truth was that he had bought it to please his former wife who was from Monterrey and had always said she wanted to come back here to live. But, they had divorced and his wife remarried and, ironically, settled in Guadalajara. His boys had lived with their mother until Guillermo, the oldest one, went to Mexico City to study law, and Roberto, the younger one, went to get a graduate degree in Computer Science in Berkeley. He never saw them again.

  After his divorce, he made the mistake of confiscating a truck full of smuggled goods that were under the protection of the General in charge of the 14th Military Region. That and the fiasco with the Governor’s daughter who had eloped with the drug lord had left Lombardo’s superiors with no other option but to force him to accept a promotion to Captain, which meant he would also be transferred out of Guadalajara. Given several options, he chose Monterrey for no other reason than the fact that he owned a house there.

  Even with the promotion, his pay was a pittance, but he had acquired the house on fixed interest so the monthly payments were very low. He bought his food and sundry items at the store that was exclusively for the state’s bureaucrats. Everything there was heavily subsidized and his needs were few so he had no problem subsisting, and had even finished paying for the house.

  He was, if not happy, at least at peace here. On hot days he could sit outside like his neighbors and drink a beer while his radio, tuned to the station that played music from the forties and fifties, played softly inside.

  Lombardo was not a man of strict habits but rather one of small routines. Every time he came home, the place was cool, almost cold, and dark because he made sure that when he left, the blinds were closed and the curtains drawn.

  As soon as he was inside, he would cross the small hallway in two steps and go into the living room-dining room area where he hung up his coat and his tired mackintosh on the door peg of the toilet that was under the stairs. He always took off the holster with his heavy .45 automatic and hung it on the second peg. He was fond of that old firearm; it was the only thing he had kept from his days in the Army.

  He would then fling his tie onto the sofa in the living room and go into the kitchenette, which was just a space with a stove, a sink, the fridge, and a few cabinets, divided from the living-dining room by a small breakfast bar. He would open the fridge’s door, which diluted the darkness with its soft, yellow light, and would take a beer from the shelf on the door.

  His meals were simple and usually involved no preparation. Although he liked to cook, and was very good at it, fatigue, lack of time, and the fact that he always ate alone, had reduced the content of most of his meals to some dry, hard Spanish sausage and bread, or cans of sardines, or frozen meals. Except for the ever-present beer, his refrigerator was mostly empty. Today, when he opened it, the only other thing in it was a lettuce, brown and completely wilted, which sat like a prisoner in solitary confinement in the plastic drawer labeled “vegetables.”

  When Lombardo woke after his nap, he realized that he had slept much more than he had intended. The red numerals on the digital clock said 16:50. He got up, washed his face, and went downstairs to get something to drink. The salty sardines had made him unusually thirsty.

  The beer can sighed softly as he opened it and his easy-boy chair whooshed as his thin frame sunk into its soft cushions. From the wooden folding table next to his chair he took the clicker and turned on the television.

  The afternoon newscast was starting. In the international news, there were terrorist attacks here and there, a plane crash, and the usual bevy of politicians traveling about visiting each other. In the local news there were car accidents, the mayor and governor inaugurating a new public building of some kind, and people protesting the high prices of water and gas. A union leader called for the boycott of the new market into which all of the vendors from the old market had been forced to move after the old one was torn down. The weather girl, looking like a streetwalker, said it was going to be a cold night in spite of the fact that it was only late September, and the newscast ended with the usual advertisements disguised as news that announced the latest films opening in local theaters, the concert that the gay singer was going to give for “charity and love of the most underprivileged.” But, there was no mention of the young man’s death.

  He clicked over to the other local channels but not one of them was re
porting the young man’s demise. It was useless to try the national channels. They only reported national news or happenings in Mexico City. The murder had been very effectively suppressed indeed. It seemed that to everyone but Lombardo the murder was quite inconsequential.

  A whish and a plop came from the hallway—the afternoon’s newspaper had dropped through the mail slot in the door.

  He turned off the television, got up, brushed his teeth, and peed. He went to the door, picked up the newspaper, and turned on the hallway light. The newspaper rustled loudly as if protesting the brusqueness with which he turned the pages scanning for any mention of the homicide.

  There, on the last page, in the section reserved for the drunken brawls, car accidents, burglaries, and arrests that had not gotten into the morning edition or had been deemed too unimportant for it, there was a story tucked into the bottom, right corner. It showed a grainy color picture of a body, covered with a white sheet, being carted off on a stretcher. “Murdered Man Found by the Railroad Tracks” read the headline in bold but small print. The story was very brief. It did not give the person’s name or any hint of who he was or where he had worked. It just said that the police had found the body of an unidentified man by the tracks and that there was an ongoing investigation to determine the cause of his death.

  To this uncaring city, it was just the faceless fatality of a nobody—but to an experienced cop such as Lombardo, the short shrift given the facts was evidence that somebody had acted quickly to quash the details. He knew that when this newspaper passed on a story like this, it had probably been bribed or pressured to do so. A juicy advertising contract from the government or a company was more effective at determining editorial policy than social concern. So much for freedom of the press. But the most likely suspect of suppressing the story was the University. The jaded investigator that Lombardo was could understand a company that didn’t want bad publicity that might hurt business, or a politician trying to keep stuff from the public that might hurt his chances in an election, but the University? How could the news of the death of one of its employees hurt or damage the University? It didn’t happen on campus; nor was it related to any University activity or to his job—apparently. So, why had they scrambled their forces to suppress it?

  To the ever-suspicious mind of an investigator, this was more than concern for the family’s feelings as the Director of the Computer Center had alleged; this seemed more as if the University was trying to hide something.

  He threw the paper into the cardboard box he reserved for old newsprint and went upstairs to change.

  Before going into his bedroom, he went into the small room he used as a studio. It had shelves filled with books in English and Spanish. He had had a large bookshelf built into one of the walls, with an integrated desk where he had his computer. He sat down and went through his emails quickly; there was nothing of any importance so he typed out an email to a friend: “Need your advice, when can we meet?”

  He clicked the Send button and then went into a third room. This he had turned into another studio but dedicated to his hobby, painting. The easel held the unfinished portrait of his ex-wife and his sons when they were two and three years old. He touched the paint. It was dry. He would be able to go back to it when he had the time—rather, if he ever again had the time. He looked at the photograph he was using as a model. His ex-wife looked beautiful, the innocence of a young mother lighting her face; his sons, chubby babies, looked firmly at the camera with expressions that presaged the determined lawyer the oldest one would become and the gentle intellectual of the youngest one was. Lombardo had at times said that he missed them, but he never explained why he did nothing about seeing them.

  From the closet of the third bedroom, he got a well-pressed, white shirt (all of his shirts were white), a tie, and a fresh t-shirt. Then he went into the bathroom to change.

  He looked into the mirror. A gaunt, thin face stared back. His dark features were musty, like unpolished leather—the result of the thousands of cigarettes he had smoked throughout his life. He pulled at the skin that hung down from his chin to the top of his sternum; it seemed as if the circles under his eyes were getting darker by the day. He combed his graying, lanky hair and then brushed the back of his hand over the black-and-white specks of beard. He sighed, “I’ll have to shave.”

  When he left the house, the bright afternoon sunlight made him squint as if he were a rabbit coming out of its hole. He fished for his sunglasses in his coat pockets but then remembered he had left them in the car.

  His phone dinged. There were three missed calls and two messages on the cell phone’s lists. They were all from the Director’s office. He deleted them without listening to the messages or calling back.

  “Goddamn it, how could I forget the sunglasses!” he said. “I bet they won’t steal the damned car but they’ll steal the damned sunglasses.” He called the Department’s garage and told them where the car was. They told him they could not go get it until the next day.

  He snapped the cell phone shut and said, “Damned lazy bastards.”

  He walked the couple of blocks to Paseo de las Fuentes and hailed a cab. “This is the only good thing about this damned city: lots of cabs,” he said to the driver.

  He told the cabbie to take him to the University. This time he would arrive unannounced.

  Chapter 9: The Computer Center, Again

  Traffic was heavy going down University Avenue. When he finally reached the main campus entrance, Lombardo told the cab driver to drop him off at the Computer Center.

  At the reception desk, he showed the girl his badge and said, “I’m Captain Lombardo of the Public Ministry, Investigations Department.”

  The girl remembered him from the morning visit and said, “Doctor Delgado is not in his office at the moment. I think he’s left for the day.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said lying. “The person I want to see is in charge of the Computer Center at the moment. Dr. Delgado said it was, uh, the person in charge of...,” he searched his pockets pretending he was looking for something, perhaps a piece of paper.

  “Maybe David López? He’s in charge during the second shift,” said the girl.

  “Yes, I believe that’s the person the Doctor mentioned,” said Lombardo.

  The girl picked up the phone and punched in a number. “David? Captain Lombardo of the Public Ministry is here. He says that Doctor Delgado told him to speak to you. (a pause). I don’t know. He just said he wants to speak to you. (another pause). OK, I will.” The girl hung up the phone and said, “He will be right out. Please have a seat.”

  Ten minutes later a chubby, pale young man came through the heavy door that had a sign warning that only authorized personnel were allowed to enter. He looked around and seeing Lombardo walked forward with an extended hand, “Captain Lombardo? I am David.”

  After shaking hands, they went to the reception desk where Lombardo signed in and was given an electronic pass. At the door, David López asked him to pass his security card over the detector at the side of the door. “This will keep a record of where you are and the areas for which you have clearance.”

  “Hmm,” said Lombardo looking down at the white, unmarked card. David passed the card that hung around his neck over the detector. David led Lombardo down a hallway, the right side of which was floor to ceiling glass. Small and large boxes with wires that hung out their backs and went into the false floor were arrayed in neat rows throughout the large room that was bright with fluorescent lighting. Young men and women moved about the machines, peering into screens, moving a mouse, removing a printout.

  “I noticed that you also passed your card over the detector even though my card had already opened the door. Is that standard procedure?” asked Lombardo.

  “Mostly it is habit. A detector on a door will sense a card within a radius of 3 feet and if you have clearance, it will open the door for you. There are other detectors that only keep track of the movements of your card or allow you to use
an elevator.”

  “That’s very sophisticated,” said Lombardo. “I wish my boss could see this. I’ve often complained that the Investigations Department’s doors don’t even have locks.

  “Well,” said David, “it’s the smart building concept. I could give you the name of the company that supplied the hardware.”

  “Hmm, yes, but I doubt that anyone in the Investigations Department would care. Anyway, I’d rather they spend the money on getting me a new car.”

  When they reached the end of the hallway, a glass door slid open. The steady hum and buzz of computers running and printers printing filled the large room. David gestured toward the opened door of a space in the middle of the large room; it was a small office walled in by panels that were half aluminum and half glass.

  Inside the office there was a desk, two chairs, and a bookshelf with manuals and thick, black folders. The room’s roof was solid aluminum panels so there was relative quiet when David closed the door.

  “Please sit down,” he said gesturing toward a chair. “So, Doctor Delgado told you to talk to me?”