An Inconsequential Murder

by Rodolfo Peña

  “Still, they got to his cousin who is now in jail.”

  “Hmm, yes, that is worrisome, but I think that they know that the President is concentrated on wrapping up his term in office and getting the all-important Bilateral Trade Agreement signed.”

  “OK,” said Lombardo getting up from his chair, “so let’s get back to you. I urge you to go back.”

  “What do you get out of it if I do, Captain?”

  Lombardo hesitated. He looked at the man. In this shabby motel room he did not seem a key player in the political struggles between two countries, between two ideologies, and between law and order and the rule of violence and corruption. He was just a homosexual man pining for his lover. Someone willing to risk capture for a few hours of sex and love in a motel room. Maybe he would be willing to risk his life for something even more important.

  “As I said before, now that the three men who killed Victor are dead, I have no more to do in that case. I am hoping you go back and that you come under the protection of the liberal forces that still have some power in Mexico. I’m sure you can convince a judge to drop the fraud charges, because there is nothing to them, is there?”

  “No, not really.”

  “OK, so you do a couple of months in jail while your case is being heard. Perhaps by then the candidate will have been elected and you will be freed. Then, while you enjoy the newly elected President’s protection, you can use these to go after the people who killed Senator Romero and Victor, and ruined your career,” said Lombardo producing yet another copy of the files and tossing it to Herrera.

  “For such a tough policeman, Captain, you are quite a dreamer.”

  Lombardo went to the door. “The death of the three guys that killed Victor let that bastard in Guadalajara get away with murder. Who knows what else they have been getting away with, helped by some not so loyal Mexicans. I just hope that someone has the guts to kick some of these bastards out of the country and put some of the others in jail.”

  Herrera looked at the CD Lombardo had given him. He sighed and said, “For centuries there have been Pinochets and Somosas, and stooges like that silly little man in Panama, who do the dirty work for foreign governments while reaping huge benefits for themselves. We have been the “backyard” forever. A place where bananas and fruit grow, where you can find minerals and oil, and where you can have your product manufactured cheaply without having to worry about toxic waste and labor laws. They won’t give that up so easily. No matter how many of their ‘agents’ we kick out, more will come.”

  “Maybe so,” said Lombardo, “but I don’t think about the future or worry about the ‘big picture.’ This is personal. I want this particular bastard out of here.” He opened the door. “Be careful, boys. Don’t stay too long. You have no protection,” he said while flicking at the broken door chain.

  On the way out, he went to the office and asked the young man if anyone else had come around asking for the persons in room 17. The young man said that no one had. Lombardo put a $20 bill on the desk and said, “And I hope that if someone does ask you’ll say you’ve never seen them.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the clerk.

  Chapter 42: The Prodigal Son Comes Home

  A week after having come back from San Antonio, Lombardo was still laboring to finish the reports on Victor Delgado’s murder. The judge that had been assigned to review the case was asking for the Investigations Department to hand over the case file and evidence by the following Monday. He had privately told Lombardo that he would instruct the Public Ministry to make arrests pending charges, only if the evidence and circumstances warranted coming to that conclusion. To Lombardo, that meant that the judge would take months if not years to review the case, allowing it to grow cold, evidence to disappear, and witnesses to, well, vanish one way or another.

  The Friday before the Monday deadline, Lombardo left the office satisfied he would be ready to hand over the reports and the evidence. He went to a bar called La Costilla where Lupe was waiting for him.

  He had just finished his first whiskey when the football game being shown on the half dozen television screens in the bar was interrupted for a “breaking news” bulletin: “Filiberto Herrera, ex-Dean of the State University, had been arrested on the International Bridge of Nuevo Laredo. After days of negotiations, Mr. Herrera agreed to turn himself in at the bridge where members of the State Judicial Police of Nuevo León met him at the point designated as the international border between the United States of America and Mexico…”

  “Why is it, Lupe, that we, the law enforcement people, seem to be the last to know always?”

  “Because these things have nothing to do with law enforcement, my friend,” said Lupe, “they are just moves on the eternal chess game of politics, money, and power.”

  “I went to see him, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. You came back and you never said a word, not even a call to say how it had gone.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Right, so what happened?”

  “He was there, at the spot he’d said he would be. His friend showed up and they went to a motel.”

  “One thing you can say about ex-Dean Herrera, he always has his priorities straight.”

  “Yeah, so, I busted in and told him about the case and how it had ended with the death of the three men. I told him people were looking for him and that his best bet was to give himself up to friendly forces. I don’t know if that helped him make up his mind but there he is,” said Lombardo pointing at the television screen where a video of Filiberto Herrera being taken into custody was being shown.

  “So, the case is over, huh?”

  “Yeah, it’s over, as far as Victor Delgado’s murder. I’m turning everything over to the judge and the Public Ministry on Monday. They should take it from there. But, you know, I gave a copy of the documents to Herrera. I told him that now that the originals have most probably been destroyed, that copy with his testimony was the only way this whole dirty war between the two factions on opposite sides of the legalization thing could be exposed.”

  “Was he willing to do that? It seems to me he doesn’t have the balls.”

  “Well, he’s gambling, and so am I, that the PLR will win the elections and that the candidate, once he is President, will go ahead with the legalization program and will be more amiable to exposing all those who have opposed legalization.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said Lupe, “there are rumors that the President is very unhappy with the candidate’s campaign, especially a speech he gave a couple of weeks ago in which he hinted not only at legalization, but at ending the ‘understood’ immunity of former government officials.”

  “Damn, he is taking a stick to a hornet’s nest by going against the tradition,” Lombardo said. “Somebody ought to warn him about how dangerous his opponents are.”

  “Yes, somebody should, but don’t look at me, I don’t know anybody that high up in the Candidate’s campaign.”

  Lombardo laughed. He laughed so rarely that his laugh sounded unpracticed, forced.

  “By the way, “asked Lupe, “what do you think will happen to our ex-Dean?”

  “Oh, he’ll be given a chance to tell his side of the story; he’ll be in jail for a ‘reasonable amount of time’—at least while the case is being investigated—then he’ll be given a light sentence if anything at all and he’ll disappear into academic studies in Europe, or something. If the PLR wins, he might be offered some kind of position in the Budget Ministry or some other place where his knowledge of economics and statistics will be useful. And, if we’re lucky, he’ll turn the information I gave him over to the newly elected President so he can rid the country of some of the sons of a bitches who orchestrated the legalization wars.”

  “That’s a long shot, brother,” said Lupe and he signaled the waiter to bring more whiskey.

  “Yeah, but it’s the only one we’ve got.”

  “Have you informed Victor’s widow about why the ca
se is being closed?”

  “No, I haven’t. But, I will. I’ll call her tomorrow, and see if she can receive me.”

  Lupe noticed that Lombardo was hesitant, as if shy, whenever he talked about the widow.

  “She’s beautiful that widow, eh?” he said smiling slyly.

  “Yes, yes, she’s, uh, quite handsome.”

  “Handsome? Man, we’re not talking about a male movie star! Handsome, my ass! Or rather, handsome her ass.” Lupe laughed at his clever joke.

  “Don’t be vulgar, Lupe. OK, she’s beautiful. So, what?”

  “So it’s a shame—a woman like that with no man now.”

  Lombardo said nothing, but quickly drank his whiskey and soda and signaled for more.

  * * *

  Monday morning, Lombardo walked into the Investigations Department with two folders both thick with papers. He was relieved that the part of the case that he disliked most, the paperwork and preparing evidence, was over. He went over to the Documentation Department and dropped one of the heavy folders on the supervisor’s desk.

  “Check that file in and send it on to the judge,” he said to the policewoman.

  She told him that the Director wanted to see him.

  He went over to his desk and put the second folder into a desk drawer. He locked the drawer and rather than take the elevator, he walked up the two flights of stairs to the Director’s office. He hadn’t done that in a long time, but he felt energetic, light on his feet, this morning. He did indeed feel as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  The Director’s secretary, performing the indispensable task of filing her nails, asked him to wait before going in—the Director was on the phone.

  Lombardo stood in front of the secretary’s desk, pointedly looking at the nail filings that were falling on her computer keyboard. She noticed his stare and tried to ignore it but finally gave up and put the nail file down loudly. Lombardo smiled, glad that he had annoyed her.

  A light on her phone turned off which meant that the Director had hung up, so she buzzed him and said Lombardo was waiting. “You may go in now,” she said with a frown on her face.

  Lombardo said nothing; he just smiled, very glad at her annoyance.

  As usual, the Director did not extend his hand, or ask him to sit down, or offer any of the formalities common in office environments. Nor did he look up when he began to speak.

  “I understand you were to finish your investigation reports today and ready them to be handed over to the Public Ministry and the judge today. Are they ready?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “As you know, the ex-Dean of the University turned himself in to the authorities last Thursday. Is his case relevant to the one your handling?”

  “No, not really,” said Lombardo dryly. He didn’t want to say more than was necessary until he knew where the Director was going with his questions.

  “But you said that the information that the victim’s killers were after was stored in the University’s computers and that the victim was acting under orders of the ex-Dean when he was killed.”

  “Yes, but I also mentioned that Victor Delgado acted on his own when he encrypted the information, not under orders by the ex-Dean. Delgado meant to give the Dean the key to decrypt the information as needed but he never had the chance. He died before he could inform the ex-Dean and give him the key.”

  “Hmm, all right, so bring me the file and I’ll look it over before I send it to the Public Ministry and the judge,” said the Director in a tone that implied that the conversation was over.

  “You’ll have to ask the Files supervisor for it. I just asked her to check the file in.”

  “Mm,” said the Director.

  “There is one more thing I would like to mention about my investigation,” said Lombardo.

  Lombardo’s words finally made the Director look up. “What’s that?”

  “Reading those emails and knowing the persons behind the men who killed Victor Delgado, it would seem to me that there is another person who should know about this, because I fear he might also be in danger.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Leobardo Contreras, candidate to the Presidency.”

  The Director laughed in a forced, artificial way. “Are you crazy? You should be careful about starting rumors like that.”

  “I am not starting a rumor. I am stating that the evidence in this case and the people that are involved lead me to believe that the candidate could be a possible target for them.”

  “And what do you think I should do about your speculations?”

  “I think that the candidate should be warned or at least informed.”

  “Are you mad? Do you want me to call him up and say, ‘Mr. Contreras, one of my investigators thinks your life is in danger?’ Do you know what he will say? ‘My fuckin’ life is always in danger! It comes with the territory!’”

  “That’s true, but in this case we know the source of the possible danger. We know who has a great interest in his never getting elected President.”

  “Who? The hard-line conservatives of the PAC? The DEA and other Americans? That is no secret, my friend. Everyone knows they have always opposed the liberal party’s ideas and politics.”

  “That might be the case, but this time they are willing to go to extremes. They have already committed one murder, and I suspect that they were involved in a couple others.”

  “Look, just tell them to bring me the case file. You can submit an addendum with your suspicions and speculations with it and I’ll see that it gets sent to the right people, ok?”

  Now the interview was really over. The Director went back to reading the file on his desk and Lombardo shrugged and left the office.

  When he got back to his desk, there was an envelope addressed to him. It was official stationery of the Public Ministry.

  Lombardo read:

  “According to our records…”

  They were being ‘nice’ enough to recognize the time he had been on the Guadalajara Judicial Police Force as part of the time he had been a public servant, therefore, according to their records, he was eligible for early retirement. It was strongly recommended that he accept that option since the difference in retirement pay and benefits was negligible if he chose to stay until the mandatory retirement age of 65. The memo went on to say that this would also benefit the Department since it would create vacancies to be filled by recent graduates of the Judicial Police Force Academy.

  “Meat for the grinder,” said Lombardo to no one in particular.

  There was a handwritten note by the Director: “I have asked the HR Department to have your paperwork ready for you to sign by tomorrow. If you decide not to sign, I have also asked them to prepare your transfer to the Judicial Police in Ciudad Juarez or Tijuana.”

  The warning that he might be transferred if he did not retire was like a death threat: Judicial Police cops had an average life span of 6 months in those two cities.

  Chapter 43: Signing Away the Past, Arranging a New Future

  The following day Lombardo signed accepting his early retirement. Since it would become official on the last day of the month, Lombardo went to see Victor Delgado’s widow. He wanted to tell her about her husband and about the “justice” that had been meted to his killers, but he wanted to do this while he was still a cop, not just some retiree recounting his last case.

  He called her and asked if he could come to see her and she said she would be available in the afternoon. She explained that she had a job interview in the morning and that she would be home at 2 p.m. after she had picked up her son from the Social Security Day Care Center.

  She told Lombardo that he could come by at 4 p.m., after she had fed the boy and he was having his afternoon nap.

  Lombardo cleaned out his desk and turned in the pieces of evidence for this last case, and some from other cases that he found in the drawers and the cardboard boxes that he’d stacked on top of the filing cabinets.

 
The Director’s secretary came to his desk and told him that the Director had asked that he remain available in case the judge considering the case wanted to question him about it.

  Lombardo said that he would be. “You have my home phone number, sweetheart; call me any time you want—day or night.” He winked at her.

  “That’ll be the day,” she said and walked away loudly clacking her heels on the tiled floor.

  Lombardo smiled. He loved annoying her.

  He doubted he would ever be called to testify. There was now no political motivation to push it forward. It would vanish into the dead file archives of the judicial system in no time.