by Rodolfo Peña
There was nothing Lombardo could do now but wait to see who would be named to replace his dead boss. Probably someone from the conservative party would come to head the Department. That seemed how the prevailing winds were blowing over the political landscape.
The ruling Partido Liberal Revolucionario (the Revolutionary Liberal Party) feeling the mounting pressure of the opposition led by the Partido de Acción Conservadora (Conservative Action Party) had recently named members of the latter to key law enforcement positions.
According to the political strategist of the PLR, this would be doubly beneficial to their party because one, it would ease the pressure applied by the opposition’s calls for getting tough with the cartels and gangs, and two, any further fumbling around or gaffes in high-profile criminal investigations would reflect on the opposition not the ruling PLR.
As an added benefit, the charges of corruption in police forces would now be lessened since they were now in charge of overseeing the police forces of the nation and cleaning them up—or at least attempting to do so.
“The country is spinning out of control,” said Lombardo as he walked across Cristobal Colón Avenue. The cops diverting the traffic stopped the flow of cars so the man, who seemed to be talking to himself, and who seemed oblivious to the cars, could cross the avenue.
Two days later, as Lombardo had predicted, and to no one’s surprise, a member of the conservative PAC was named as the new State Prosecutor. What did surprise both the media and the public was the fact that the new Prosecutor was Alberto Peniche Saldivar, a brother of the murdered State Judicial Police Director.
Although very close to his older brother Alejandro, they had been members of opposing political parties. Known for his tough stance on law enforcement, Alberto quickly named one of his closest friends to replace his murdered brother as Director of the State Judicial Police, and another close confidant as Director of the Investigations Department.
On his first day in office, Joaquin Loera Neri, Lombardo’s new boss, declared that “as Director of the Investigations Department, any officer or investigator who did not have an immaculate record as a member of this important Department will be asked to resign.” He promised a “clean sweep” of the force and the incorporation of well-trained elements, and so forth.
Lombardo who had heard all of this before sighed and said, “More good intentions as we pave the way to hell.” Knowing that his new boss would be busy starting an intended reformation of the Investigations Department, Lombardo waited a couple of days before he asked to see him.
In his first few days in office, the new Director had been playing at being the tough gangbuster so he had sent out memorandums and “white papers,” which talked about change and the “new way of doing things.” When Lombardo walked into the new Director’s office, Loera Neri greeted him curtly as if trying to affect a very businesslike manner. It was obvious that he came from the private sector because his memorandums talked about efficiency and result-oriented objectives, whatever that meant.
Lombardo used an old trick to indirectly ask a question: “I have heard of a police chief called Loera in Morelia; is that you by any chance?”
“No,” he said, “I was with the National Security Services before coming here. It’s a private security company.”
“Oh, I see,” said Lombardo.
“Captain,” said the new Director, “I understand you have been investigating a murder case; a, uh, man called (he looked into a folder) Delgado, Victor Delgado, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, that’s correct.”
“Can you brief me on how that is going? Are things, uh, proceeding?”
Lombardo slowly took out his packet of Delicados, more than anything to give himself time to weigh the consequences of keeping the gravity of the case from this bumbling idiot. He was about to start to tell him everything when the new Director said, “I am sorry, Captain, but in accordance with the new regulations prohibiting smoking in public buildings, I must ask you to refrain from smoking in my office.”
Lombardo nodded, put away his cigarettes, and decided to tell him nothing more than what was absolutely necessary.
“Well, sir, we have pretty good evidence that the suspect may be in Guadalajara. In fact, before, uh, before you came to, before you were named Director of Investigations, I had been requested by the late, that is, by the former Director, to go to Guadalajara and follow up on those leads.”
“Was it you that filled out an Expense Request? The one in this file?” The new Director rifled through the papers in the file.
“Yes, I filled it out. I don’t think the former Director had a chance to review it, which is why it is probably, that is, why it was not signed, sir, before he, uh…before his unfortunate demise, sir.”
When you tell a lie, Lombardo remembered the old saying, stick to the truth as closely as possible.
“OK, well, I will review it and if all is in order I will approve it.” He said closing the folder. “But, Captain, I also notice that there are very few investigation reports in the file. Haven’t you filed any lately?”
“Well, no, sir. I was waiting to see what results I got in Guadalajara.”
“Hmm, I see. Well, I think you should file a report now and update it when you get back from Guadalajara. By the way, why do you have to go to Guadalajara? Can’t they assist us and follow up on the leads that we have?”
“I talked to them about a week ago, sir. They will assist us, but they prefer that someone familiar with the case come down and handle the investigation. That’s normal procedure, sir; and, they insist that they are short-handed at the moment, sir.”
“Yes, yes, of course, we all are. OK, so file the report and I will sign the Request for Expenditures.”
“Expenditure Request, sir,” Lombardo corrected and almost smiled.
“Yes, yes, Expenditure Request.”
Part 6: Day 10
Chapter 34: Lombardo Makes a Promise
Lombardo wrote a report which left out many of the details about the encrypted archive of emails, documents, and messages. He simply said that evidence pointed at the possibility that three men were involved in the crime, that the motive was still unclear, and that a passenger list, cooperatively provided by the airline, pointed to three foreign men boarding a flight for Guadalajara the day after the murder.
The reason that three men of foreign provenance were suspected was that evidence found in the University parking lot plus surveillance recordings provided by the University’s Security Service, pointed to a certain make of car common to a car rental service. A follow-up investigation revealed that International Cars had rented a vehicle to a foreigner whose name matched a name on the passenger list. He was possibly an American or Canadian and the car rental people remembered that he had been accompanied by two other men.
The car had not been returned to the car rental facility, reported the rental clerk, and it had been reported missing or stolen by the company. “That,” Lombardo concluded in his report, “points to the possible guilt of these men or that at least they have something to hide, which might relate to the case in hand.”
“As close to the truth as necessary,” Lombardo remembered again as he handed in the report.
Lombardo was ambiguous in his feelings about keeping information from the new Director. His impulse to always “do the right thing” and his natural distaste for lying and dishonesty made him uncomfortable about withholding information from his superiors, but he distrusted this new man. Lombardo had had no chance to investigate where the Director stood on the loyalty issue. Was he a rabid “law and order, come hell or high water” conservative? Had he already reached an “agreement” with the Cartels in order to survive? Was he a paid stooge of the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, or all of the above? Many people in law enforcement were or could have been described (when alive) in any of these ways.
The report, Lombardo felt, would serve one of two purposes—either it would be accepted as it was and therefore p
rove to Lombardo that his new boss was very naïve about police work; or, if he rejected the report, it would mean that his loyalty had already been sold to any of the groups fighting to decide what Mexico’s attitude and public policy toward drugs would be in the future.
He knew that the Director would call him in a day or two and ask him to explain the report before he signed the Expenditure Request. So, he decided he would use the time to do two things he had been postponing for several days—he would call his ex-wife and he would visit Victor Delgado’s widow.
Calling his ex-wife was a chore; there would be haggling and arguments about money. Any question about his son or daughter would usually be answered with a sarcastic “Well, you finally remembered you have children,” and so on. Lombardo decided he would call from his house that night.
Mrs. Delgado was a more pressing matter. He found himself thinking about her and feeling anxious about seeing her again. He was attracted to her not only because of her dark beauty and the obviously sexual aura a twenty-nine-year-old woman in the physical prime of her life can project, but also because there was a sorrow in her eyes that went beyond the grief that her husband’s death had caused.
Her restrained manners and words told Lombardo that there was something in this woman’s life that had saddened her even before this tragedy. In Lombardo’s book, beautiful women always lead a tragic life. His own wife had been a beautiful woman, the kind that can never be satisfied with what they have. The kind that is always convinced that life has short-changed them and that they could have had more than they have.
She had spoken of Victor as being very kind to her, of helping her, and being very protective. Yet, it was obvious she had accepted his protection only as a last resort. She had referred to their relationship not in the starry-eyed, married-for-love terms of a girl, but rather in the way a mature woman that understands that a lasting relationship has to be based on more than desire and passion. The instincts that six million years had bred into women had kicked in and she had sacrificed all she had, beauty, sexual aura, for insuring her child’s survival.
He called her and she agreed to receive him that afternoon.
When she showed him into the living room, Lombardo noticed that the house had changed. The heavy curtains that had plunged the small rooms into deep darkness and a silence that sealed the house from the outside world, were gone. Light, filtered by white lace curtains, filled the house with cheerful rays that seemed to play about, shining and sparkling as they reflected off the chromed tubes of the dining room chairs and the cut crystal vases that sat on a small table near the window.
Mrs. Delgado herself had also changed. Though her face was still serious and serene, it was not drawn with the strained look of grief. Her black hair cascaded in curled strands down to and around her shoulders. The gray mourning dress, made of a thin print fabric, made no effort to hide the fullness of her figure.
“Mrs. Delgado,” Lombardo began, “I will be going to Guadalajara in a day or two. I think I have enough information to arrest three men that I suspect are guilty of what happened to your husband.” Lombardo could not bring himself to say the word “murdered.” He didn’t want to evoke anymore horrible images; he too, like Victor, felt the urge to protect her, shield her from the worst this world had to offer.
“I hope you manage to apprehend them, Captain,” she said in the quiet, even voice Lombardo was beginning to expect from her. “Please be careful,” she added.
These last words pleased Lombardo and he lowered his head trying to hide the faint smile that, like some schoolboy afraid of betraying a crush, was proof of the pleasure her plea for caution had given him. But, then he recovered and tried to affect a businesslike tone.
“But, Mrs. Delgado, letting you know about my trip is not the real reason, or I should say, the only reason I am here. I need to ask you a few questions more and since they are of a, uh, delicate nature, I refrained from asking them in my first visit.”
“Please, go ahead and ask about anything you wish to know, Captain. If it will help bring these terrible people to justice, I am willing to bear anything.”
Lombardo looked at her with the unblinking stare of the professional interrogator he was—a stare that saw beyond the answers that he got, that could pick up the almost invisible nuances in a person’s features that betrayed how much truth, or lack of it, there was behind the words.
“Mrs. Delgado, as I have said before, I have ruled out robbery and any involvement of the drug cartels in your husband’s unfortunate occurrence. But, before I leave for Guadalajara, I want to eliminate another possibility.”
“What’s that, Captain?” she asked and her eyes widened just a fraction as if anticipating what he was going to say.
“Mrs. Delgado, forgive me, but I have to rule out the possibility of, uh, what they call, a crime of passion.”
“You had asked me before if I thought that Victor was having an affair, Captain,” she said.
“I know, Mrs. Delgado. But, this time I am asking about you.”
She did not answer immediately. A light breeze moved the curtain in one of the half-opened windows and the shadows of the lace curtains flittered about the floor.
She did not look at him when she began to speak but rather at a point just over his shoulder—which was really a space somewhere in the distance of memory.
“You are aware of the difference in our age when we married and of the circumstances. I know you are aware that our marriage was one of convenience?”
“Yes, I know all that,” said Lombardo.
As if in a dream she continued: “I was going to night school and working during the day before I met Victor. I worked in a small company that sold cheap long distance service to companies. My job was to total up each client’s minutes and send out the bills.
The owner of the company, was…well he was a rich, well-known man.” She now turned to look at Lombardo. “I had an affair with him.” Lombardo made as if he was going to speak but she went on as if obsessed with the remembrance.
“When he found out I was pregnant, he fired me. One day, I was in the school cafeteria, crying, desperate. I had just gotten notice that if I didn’t pay my tuition I would be suspended.”
She turned to look at a picture hanging on the wall. Victor and the boy stood by the monkey cage in the zoo; they smiled, innocent of the future.
“Victor took pity on me. He helped me out, paid my tuition. He was very kind, and gentle. He would wait for me every night and drive me home. When I told him I was four months pregnant, he said we should marry. He didn’t mind about the boy. To him, it was his son.”
She stood up and went to close the open window. The afternoon air was now cold.
“I told Victor about my life. He said he didn’t care what had happened before we met. He said that all he wanted was to protect me, to help me. He said he loved me and understood that if I did not love him, I would at least feel…” She stopped talking.
“Mrs. Delgado, you don’t have to…” Lombardo said.
“No, it’s fine. I want you to understand that I loved Victor in my own way for his kindness and his gentle way. So, you see, Captain Lombardo, it would have been impossible for me to have been so ungrateful that I would…”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Delgado. I understand. I am sorry but I had to ask.” Lombardo got up to go. “In my profession, one sometimes has to do things that are, well, painful to people, cruel sometimes.”
“I understand, Captain.”
As they walked to the door, Lombardo said, “I give you my word, Mrs. Delgado, the men who did this to Victor will pay for it.”
She smiled at him as if saying that he didn’t have to make that promise in recompense of what he had asked her. “I believe you, Captain. Just be careful in Guadalajara.”
“I will,” he said, and added “again, I am sorry for having distressed you.”
Without a trace of self-pity in her voice she said, “In this country, Captain, poor gi
rls learn early that they are going to suffer a lot of moments like this. No one expects us to behave ‘properly.’”
“I imagine it is even more so if you are, uh, of a certain…I mean if you are a woman with looks that, uh…” said Lombardo.
“Do you mean if you are a good-looking woman whose poverty makes her vulnerable to a certain type of man?” She looked straight at him with an air of pride and defiance.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to say,” said Lombardo. Mrs. Delgado opened the door for him.
As they shook hands and Lombardo said good-bye, Mrs. Delgado looked at him and without letting go of his hand she asked, “Tell me, Captain: did you ask the questions in order to eliminate the possibility of a ‘crime of passion,’ or was it to satisfy your own curiosity?”