by Rodolfo Peña
Lombardo had once stated, and incurred much derision from his colleagues, that it didn’t take a genius to figure out why there was so much crime, drug-related violence, and social upheaval. The pattern was the same whether it was Detroit, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, or Paris: overcrowded suburbs, favelas, ghettos, housing projects, where people had lost their roots, their customs (by governments demanding people “assimilate” into a “national” culture), and their identity. To that you add frustration, boredom, lack of opportunity, discrimination, and lack of education, and you have a perfect cocktail for producing the drug wars, the riots in Paris, guerilla warfare in Colombia, or the rampant criminal activity of the shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro.
Don José’s description of how folks from the country were assimilated into urban culture didn’t work anymore. No one wanted to wait 50 years and hope that one’s grandchildren or great-grandchildren made it to a steady job and a three-bedroom, 60 square meter house made with a cookie cutter. To a lot of Mexicans, either taking your chances crossing a deadly desert to get to California or taking your chances by joining a Cartel death squad for 500 dollars a month, were better options.
The Latin American governments and U.S. companies that had had the “brilliant” idea of pushing people from the countryside into the cities so that there would be plentiful cheap labor for factories had created an uncontrollable monster. It was time to pay the piper and the piper played to the sound of automatic rifles.
* * *
The only difference between Victor’s and the other 20 houses on the block was the color; it was painted a pastel green with darker green highlights while the others were in pastel shades of blue, pink, light brown, and so on. Lombardo knocked on the door softly and then noticing a small button, rang the bell, which made a pleasant ding dong sound somewhere deep inside the house.
After a half-minute, the door opened. Lombardo was startled by the beauty of the woman that stood in the doorway framed by the darkness of the house’s interior. Her body, wrapped in a light gray dress that faintly implied mourning, seemed sculpted by the strong sunlight that attenuated the interior shadows. She looked at him with large, dark eyes, and her hair, black and wavy, streamed over her bare shoulders, which were a smooth, light brown. She said nothing as she stood there, her eyes widening as if questioning who he was.
Lombardo stammered—an unusual thing for him, “I, I’m Detective Captain Lombardo.”
“Come in, Captain Lombardo,” she said in a soft almost whispered voice. She turned and he followed her into the dimly lit interior.
“Please sit down,” she said gesturing toward the small sofa in the living room. She went to one of the windows and pulled the curtains aside to let some light into the gloomy room. As she stood on her tiptoes and reached for the curtains, the cotton dress clung to her body—Lombardo looked away.
“Would you like something to drink? I have Jamaica or cold water—no beer or liquors, I’m afraid.”
“No, that’s alright. I can only stay a moment and I will be going soon.” Had fellow policemen accompanied Lombardo they would have wondered why he said that. He had no pressing appointment for later on in the day. They would have also been puzzled by the look of embarrassment on his face and how ill at ease he looked. But then, no one in the Department had ever seen Lombardo as emotionally moved at the sight of a female as he was now. Lupe had been right—Victor had probably not had any desire for philandering when this woman had been waiting at home.
She sat in an armchair opposite Lombardo. Thankfully, her dress draped well below her knees.
“Mrs. Delgado, as I said on the phone, I was assigned to the, uh, to find out the facts of your husband’s, uh, unfortunate.…” It was obvious that Lombardo was not comfortable using such formal terms. He usually did not speak like that. He was talking like some damned funeral director.
“You were told to find out why my husband was murdered, is that it?”
“Yes, in so many words; yes, that’s it.” He was obviously relieved by her directness. It was clear that she did not expect the usual hypocritical language everyone used on these occasions. Lombardo had always hated the mellifluous phrases, which were commonly used in Mexican society as an indirect way of broaching a subject, so he was glad he could dispense with them.
“Mrs. Delgado, were you aware of any problems, I mean serious problems, that your husband might have had?”
“No, I wasn’t aware of any problems.”
“Did he ever talk about any people he thought, uh, that he might have considered as, enemies, or threatening him, or, someone who might, uh.…”
“My husband was an employee of the University,” she said curtly, “he did his job and came home every night. He didn’t drink, he didn’t gamble, and as far as I know he never quarreled with anyone. He was a very serious person.” She looked away. “And he didn’t run around either; do you understand?”
Someone had asked her these questions before. It was obvious that when asked if he “ran around” she had been offended. He assured her that he considered Victor’s character beyond reproach. Then he added, “Everyone I have talked to about your husband has more or less said the same thing. Yet.…”
“Yet he is dead,” she completed his unfinished sentence.
“Yes, that’s my point.”
They were both silent for a moment, then she said, “I’ve been trying to understand it myself; I have tried to remember if he said anything or did anything that might have…; but I can’t. We had a very quiet life.”
“You had been married just a short time, uh, less than two years.”
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Did you, do you know any of the people he was friends with before you met him?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of people were they? Were they…”
“What kind of people? They were like him, computer technicians, operators, friends from school.”
“Can you think of anyone from his past that might, that maybe…?”
She looked at him and guessed what he wanted to know. “I was the first woman with whom he was seriously involved; he was a shy person, not given to…”
“I understand. Mrs. Delgado, if this is too, uh, difficult for you, I can come back...”
“No, I’m perfectly fine,” she said, and anyone looking at her at that moment would have believed it. Someone once said that the real tragedy of life is not having lost but having almost won. In spite of her beauty, there was sadness in Mrs. Delgado’s eyes and in her manner that went beyond her immediate grief. It was the sort of melancholy that permeates a life that has known a lot of unhappiness and has come to accept heartbreak as a constant in existence.
“Mrs. Delgado, a piece of paper was found in your husband’s possession,” said Lombardo sparing her the details, “that contains a string of numbers and letters. Did he ever mention anything about a piece of paper like that?”
“No, not that I can recall,” she said hesitantly, “but what do you mean, a string of numbers and letters? Do you mean like a phone number and name?”
“No, Mrs. Delgado, it was more like a code or what they call a password, perhaps.”
“I don’t recall that he ever mentioned anything like that.”
“You never saw a piece of paper around the house, or forgotten in his pockets, maybe?”
She shook her head. “Why do you ask, Captain? Is it very important?”
“I don’t know. I just thought that since it was found in his possession, it might have been very important to him or to his work.”
“He never talked much about his work here at home. It was very technical and something I wasn’t…that I don’t quite understand.”
“I see,” murmured Lombardo. “I understand that his father and brother came to identify the, uh, your husband.”
“Yes, that’s right. They have been very helpful with the arrangements for the funeral.”
“Do you have their phone numbers and ad
dresses? I’d like to talk to them as well.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll get my directory. Please wait a minute,” she said and getting up she went into the dark recesses of the rooms upstairs. Lombardo heard her muffled voice softly asking a child to go back to sleep.
She came down the stairs, stepping on the balls of her feet to avoid making noises; in her hand there was a notebook bound in flowery printed plastic and a letter-size envelope. She gave it to Lombardo without saying a word and she sat down in the armchair.
Lombardo looked at the envelope; it was addressed to Dean Herrera. The flap of the envelope had been lightly sealed with its own glue.
She must have noticed the puzzled look in Lombardo’s faces so she explained, “Your comments about a paper with some kind of code on it made me remember that he had given me that envelope some time ago. He said that if anything ever happened to him, I should hand this over to the Dean or someone in the University.”
“Do you know what it is, what the envelope contains?”
She shrugged. “I always assumed it was some kind of insurance policy.”
“May I open it, Mrs. Delgado?”
“I don’t know if we should. My husband addressed it to the Dean.”
“If you are worried about any legal complications, I will tell you that as an investigator of a criminal act, I can legally ‘search’ for evidence without the need of a warrant.”
Lombardo looked up at Mrs. Delgado before opening the envelope. She saw the question in his eyes and said, “I am giving it to you because he said I should give it to the Dean or to someone I trusted.” After a small pause she added, “I think I can trust you to give it to Dean Herrera.”
“Yes, yes of course,” Lombardo assured her. “Did you ask him what it was?”
“No; it was enough for me that he said it was information for the Dean and that I should have it delivered to the University.”
“Had he done something like this before?”
“No, never.”
“Didn’t you feel any curiosity or didn’t you want to know what it was?”
“No, it was something he had asked me to do and I felt that if it was something that concerned me, he would have told me so. Victor and I had no secrets. We were very open with each other, very sincere.”
“Although I will hand it over to the Dean,” Lombardo reiterated, “I think I should have a look at the contents, Mrs. Delgado. It might have information that could shed some light into his, uh, demise.”
Lombardo easily slipped his finger under the envelope flap. Inside there was a single sheet of paper. A long series of numbers and letters was printed on the top part of the page. Below this series there was a single sentence: “Dean Herrera, this is the private key.”
He showed her the paper. “Do you know what this means, Mrs. Delgado?”
She looked at the paper intently then shook her head.
“Have you shown this to anyone else? Or told anyone about it?”
Again she shook her head.
Lombardo thought about how he should phrase his next question. “Mrs. Delgado, why did you, that is, what made you decide to show this to me?”
She sighed. “He said I should send it to the Dean or to someone in authority at the University but not deliver it myself—just to make sure it was someone that could be trusted to deliver it. I don’t know anyone there and I feel I can trust you.”
She looked back into the dark house as if anxious that she might be overheard, as if what she was about to say might be compromising.
“I think that you will try to find out who killed my husband, and why.” Then she added, “And, I don’t know anyone at the University who can be trusted.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When I was studying there, we heard all sorts of rumors. The State University has always been very politicized, but there were speculations that the Dean might be using the resources of the University to help the PLR Party.”
“Did your husband ever mention anything about that? Or, if he was involved in something like that?”
“No, as I’ve said, he didn’t talk much about his work. But, I always felt that he was involved in something or doing something with which he wasn’t too happy. Lately, he would get phone calls late at night and he would rush off saying there was a problem at work and he had to go and see about it.”
“He never mentioned what kind of problems those were?”
“No, never. But, I always felt that it was something that worried him.”
“Why did you feel that, Mrs. Delgado?”
She shrugged and said, “A woman’s instinct tells her a lot of things, Captain Lombardo.”
She looked into his eyes and for the first time in many years, Lombardo was made to lower his eyes by someone else. Lombardo, the fierce infantry captain who could make a soldier tremble with a look, could not stand the soft gaze of her eyes so he looked down at the paper again, not because he was trying to understand it but because he was afraid he was blushing, afraid she might see in his eyes what he was thinking about her.
Finally, when he felt it was safe, he raised his head and asked more of the usual questions. Getting back to a routine police questioning would help to reestablish a distance between them. Did he ever talk about anyone at work? Did he ever mention that he was in any kind of danger? Did he ever seem unusually nervous or tense? Did she know any of his colleagues well? Did he ever talk about any of them disparagingly? Did he ever say anything negative about any of his bosses?
He probed from every angle that he thought might give him an insight, a clue that Victor’s job or the people and circumstances around it might have put him in some sort of danger, or in conflict with anyone.
She answered all of his questions quietly, but negatively. She insisted that he didn’t talk much about his work and when he did, it was mostly banal stuff—about a possible raise, about someone leaving or coming into the Department. Apparently, there had been nothing really eventful in his uneventful life.
As he listened to her answers, Lombardo had made a note to ask how this beautiful woman had married such a simple, unremarkable young man.
“Where did you meet Victor, Mrs. Delgado?”
“We met in the University. I was a student in the School of Accounting and he was working in the Computer Department. We were given an assignment, a project that had to do with using accounting programs and I didn’t understand much about them so Victor was kind enough to help me out.” She made a pause as if remembering something and then she said, “We became friends.”
“So, you are a graduate of the School of Accounting?”
“No,” she said and made another pause before adding, “You see, I was expecting my son when I met Victor. I had to stop my studies. We were married soon after I quit school.”
She looked straight into his eyes again; there was defiance, perhaps pride, maybe a challenge in her look. She had been through this before and she had not bowed her head in shame. Her penetrating look seemed to want to know how he was going to judge her.
“I’ll spare you the embarrassment of having to ask me, Captain Lombardo, so I will tell you that because I was pregnant, I lost my job. You see, my former boss is the father of my child. If it had not been for Victor I would have had a very difficult time.”
“Do you have no family?”
“Yes, but my father asked me to leave the house when he found out, that is, when I told him of my condition.”
“Did Victor know the, uh, your former boss?”
“Yes, but if you are thinking that they might have had some sort of problem let me assure you that Victor never once mentioned him and was truly indifferent to the man.”
Lombardo busied himself putting the paper with the key back in the envelope. He got up and said, “I am going to keep this for a while before I send it on to the Dean, Mrs. Delgado. Please don’t tell anyone else about it or that you have given it to me. I think that this is a very sensitive document and it i
s best that other people don’t know it’s been in your possession.”
“You mean the people that killed my husband.”
“Yes, among others.”
“Very well,” she said getting up, too.
“There are no copies that you know of, are there, Mrs. Delgado?”
“No, not that I know of.”
He extended his hand to shake hers. Her hand was long, and Lombardo held it a bit longer than was customary.
“Again, I am sorry for your loss, Mrs. Delgado. I hope the University does well by you. If there is anything I can do, please let know.” He gave her his card. “My cell phone number is there so if you think of anything else, anything at all, no matter how trivial, please don’t hesitate to call.”