by Glenn Meade
Kruger helped Schmidt carry the corpses one at a time to the edge of the chasm and fling them into the void, heard the sounds of each body seconds later as it flailed against rock on its downward journey into the black pit of the crevice. Schmidt finished the job by tossing in the mutilated body parts: gory handfuls of skin and organs. Then Kruger shone the flashlight down into the chasm. Nothing visible, only a tangle of green and rock.
Blood stained Kruger’s hands and overalls. He wiped his hands on the grass and saw Schmidt do the same. The blood would wash away with the first fall of rain. Schmidt packed the clothes into a black disposable bag, wiped the bloodied knife on his overalls, before removing them. The overalls went into the black disposable bag with Kruger’s.
Schmidt stowed the bag in the back of the pickup and climbed into the driver’s seat. As Kruger went to climb in beside him, he paused to shine the flashlight about the clearing. Nothing was left behind. The jungle animals and vermin that inhabited the chasm would finish their work. Pick the bodies clean of flesh.
He glanced at his watch: 1:00 a.m. Eight more hours, and he would be gone from this hellish country. He might still manage a couple of hours’ sleep before the helicopter arrived. He ached all over now, limbs tired.
As he climbed wearily into the cab beside Schmidt, the engine throbbed to life. Then the pickup turned in an arc and drove back down the narrow track.
15
ASUNCIÓN. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1:02 A.M.
Sanchez was seated behind his desk.
There were dark rings beneath his eyes, and his face looked swollen from lack of sleep. A coffeepot stood on a tray beside him, three cups poured, a half-smoked cigarette lying in the glass ashtray on the desk. Volkmann and Erica sat opposite him.
Sanchez opened a fresh file and stared down at its contents, several sheets of handwritten paper in Spanish.
“First, let me explain what I’ve learned about Winter. He visited Paraguay eight times in the last three years. Each time at intervals of about four months, each time for a stay of only two or three days. The reasons on his immigration papers say ‘company business.’ ”
Sanchez had already explained that Winter’s date and place of birth as registered on the immigration papers matched the information Volkmann’s people sent in their report.
“On each immigration paper a hotel address was given for the period of his stay. On each occasion that he flew into Paraguay, he landed in Asunción. Four times from Miami, three times from Rio de Janeiro. All were connecting flights from Frankfurt. The last time Winter visited Paraguay was three months ago. Then he stayed at the Excelsior Hotel. Before that, at the Hotel Guarani. Before that, the Excelsior. Before that, some other hotels, but mostly the Excelsior. I have details; you may see them if you wish.”
Sanchez handed Volkmann a page, which he examined.
When Volkmann looked up, he said, “You’ve checked with all of the hotels?”
Sanchez shook his head. “So far, only the Excelsior and the Guarani. My men have still to check the others. It may take some time.”
“The immigration papers Winter filled in before landing: was there a company name given on any of them?”
“No. None.”
“So who paid Winter’s hotel bills?”
“In the two hotels we’ve checked so far, Winter paid. Always in cash. And in each case, he used a suite, not a room, although he was the only guest registered.”
“What about any telephone calls he made? Do the hotels keep a record?”
“Sí. They keep a record of all local and long-distance calls made by their guests; that is the law. But the hotels my men checked so far, the Excelsior and the Guarani, they have no record of any calls made by Winter. The only things on the bills were meals and drinks.”
Sanchez picked up his coffee, sipped the black liquid. Seeing the still-lit cigarette, he puffed on it once more before crushing it in the ashtray.
“No company name,” said Volkmann. “No telephone calls. What about the car-rental firms? You checked with them?”
“I have a list of all the car-rental firms in the city. They will be checked as soon as my men have time.” Sanchez consulted the file again. “The photograph your people sent of Winter—I had my people ask at the hotel if any of the staff remembered him. But of course no one did.” Sanchez shrugged again. “Big hotels, lots of new faces every day. My men are still checking the other hotels on the list.”
Sanchez turned to Erica. “But at least we know now that Rudi was not mistaken about seeing Winter in Paraguay.”
Volkmann said, “You mentioned Winter always hired a suite.”
“Sí. Always.” Sanchez consulted the file again. “On eight occasions.”
“That suggests he meant to entertain, or impress. Or both.”
“Perhaps. But we need more information.” Sanchez shrugged.
Erica leaned forward in her chair. “What about this man who sometimes worked with Rodriguez?”
“Sí, Miguel Santander.”
“Have you questioned him?”
“Sí. Before you arrived. He heard about Rodriguez’s death. I told him we are now treating the case as murder. Santander thinks we consider him a suspect. He says Rodriguez’s death had nothing to do with him. He claims he has been near the southern border for the last two weeks. Up to no good, of course. But he cannot come up with a good alibi.” Sanchez smiled briefly. “That suits us. He is scared and has talked a little.” He stood up wearily. “What he has to say is important. He is downstairs in one of the interview rooms. Come, I will take you.”
• • •
The interview room had the same gray, peeling walls as Sanchez’s office.
Volkmann saw a thin-faced man who looked to be about thirty seated at an ancient wooden table between two young, standing policía. The man was deeply tanned, unshaven, his stubble making his dark face appear even darker, his features more Indian than Spanish. His grubby hands fidgeted nervously.
Sanchez gestured to the two policía to indicate they should leave.
When the men withdrew, Sanchez offered two chairs to Volkmann and Erica. She accepted; Volkmann remained standing.
“This is Miguel Santander,” Sanchez said. “He speaks a little English. Or if you prefer, I can translate.”
Santander smiled weakly. “Please, I speak English. I like to practice.” His smile broadened, showing stained, uneven teeth as he regarded Volkmann and Erica.
Sanchez did the introductions, explaining only that his two friends were interested in Rodriguez’s death. He offered Santander a cigarette, lit it.
“I want you to tell my friends here what you told me. Slowly. So they can understand you. Comprende?”
“Sí.” Santander scratched his jaw. “From where do I begin?”
“From when Rodriguez asked you to help him.”
Santander drew on his cigarette nervously and glanced from Volkmann to Erica. “One month ago, Rodriguez come to me. He say he need to hire plane from friend of mine. His own plane is old, and he need part for an engine generator. So until he get part, he need to hire other plane.”
Santander glanced at Sanchez, then back at Erica and Volkmann, as if making sure he was understood. “The work Rodriguez does, sometimes it can be dangerous. For my friend who owns the plane, I need to know it’s going to be okay, that there are no problems. No big risk. Because if Rodriguez have trouble, my friend, his aircraft, maybe it is taken by the policía. So I need to know what kind of work Rodriguez is doing before he can hire the plane.”
Santander looked at the faces around him and shrugged. “He tell me some people use him to fly cargo across the border. To Montevideo. Already he has done many trips. These people, always they want Rodriguez to work alone. And always he must fly at night.”
Santander wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Each trip is always the same. Rodriguez, he fly plane to quiet place up north in the Chaco. There is no runway, just field. A field in the jungle with
lights. He land there, and men are waiting. They put boxes on plane. Boxes made of wood and steel. He fly these boxes to Uruguay, near Montevideo. He fly low, at night, so the radar don’t see him. In a field near Montevideo, it is the same. No runway, just field with lights. When he land, men are waiting to take boxes off plane. Rodriguez do this every two months in one year.” Santander shook his head. “And no problems. Never any problems.”
Santander paused, scratched his stubble nervously. “I trust Rodriguez. To me, he never tell lies. He say to me your friend’s plane will be safe. He said he only had to do one last trip. A special cargo. Just one small box. Then he is finished working for these people.”
Santander paused again, looked up at Volkmann. “Rodriguez, he’s good pilot. So I say, okay, you got the plane. But then he phone and tell me he don’t need it. He get the part for his generator.”
Santander sat back, looked at Sanchez. “That’s all I know. Rodriguez was a friend. Me, I would have no reason to kill him. I never kill person in my life.” He glanced at Erica, then Volkmann, a plaintive look on his face. “This you must believe.”
Sanchez said to Volkmann, “Do you have any questions for Señor Santander?”
“When was the last time you saw Rodriguez?”
The smuggler’s dark, Indian eyes flicked up nervously at Volkmann. “One month ago. When he ask me about hiring the plane.”
“Not afterward?”
“No, I swear. Two days later he phone to tell me he don’t need the plane. I don’t see or speak to him again.”
“The name Rudi Hernandez. Did you ever hear Rodriguez mention that name?”
Santander thought for a moment, shook his head. “No, señor.”
“Rudi Hernandez. You’re certain?”
“Certain. I never hear him say that name.”
“Did Rodriguez mention the names of those who hired him?”
Santander shook his head. “No names. Rodriguez never tell names. In such business, sometimes people you work for, they don’t give you names. It is better that way, you understand?”
“The places Rodriguez picked up and dropped off the boxes. You know where they are?”
“Rodriguez did not say exactly. Only that they were quiet places with no towns, no villages. The place in the Chaco where he picked up the boxes, he did not say. When I ask Rodriguez, all he would say is that it is one of the old German colonias up north, señor.”
“Did Rodriguez describe any of the men, or how many there were?”
Santander thought for a moment. “No. He say only that they work quickly. In ten, maybe fifteen minutes all the boxes are loaded. The same in Montevideo.” Santander thought for another moment. “But I think Rodriguez say that in the colonia, there was an old guy in charge.”
“A German?”
Santander shrugged. “I guess.”
“Did Rodriguez know what the cargo was?”
Santander scratched his stubble again. “He did not tell me. I don’t think he know. But the boxes are heavy, I think. Except the last one.”
“Why do you think they were heavy?”
“Rodriguez say he need a lot of runway. A long field. To lift off. And also a lot of fuel in the tanks.”
“He said nothing else?”
“No, señor. Nothing.” Santander looked up at Sanchez. “I tell the truth. Believe me.”
Volkmann sighed, feeling the tiredness taking hold of him. “How many boxes did Rodriguez carry on each flight, before the last one?”
“I don’t know, señor.”
“Big boxes, small boxes?”
Santander shook his head, shrugged. “Sorry, señor.”
“These people Rodriguez worked for, how did they pay him?”
Santander shook his head again. “He tell me nothing about that. But I think cash. After each trip. In such business, that is how it is done.”
“How did Rodriguez meet them?”
“He never tell me.”
“Is there anyone close to Rodriguez, someone maybe he might tell things to about his work? A woman, a friend maybe?”
“No, señor. Rodriguez always keep things to himself. Even when he was drunk, he did not talk about his work. To nobody. I am certain.”
“Is there anything else you remember? I want you to think hard. Anything. No matter how small.”
“Nothing. I swear it.” Santander made the sign of the cross.
Sanchez said, “If I discover you are lying to me, amigo . . .”
“As the Lord is my judge. Rodriguez was a friend.”
Sanchez grimaced, stubbed out his cigarette, looked toward Volkmann. “You have any more questions, señor?”
Volkmann shook his head.
• • •
The three of them were seated in Sanchez’s office again. The detective had more coffee, fresh and hot, brought to them. It was after two, the room silent now except for the gentle whirr of the fan overhead.
Erica sipped her coffee. “You think Santander is telling us everything he knows?”
“Sí, I believe so. And he is not the type of man who kills. Just a petty smuggler.” Sanchez picked up the coffee cup. “What he said about the old man in the German colony, it helps a little. But there are many German colonies in Paraguay. People who came here before and after the last war. Immigrants. What Santander said wasn’t much, but it makes the picture just a little clearer.”
Volkmann’s thoughts were elsewhere. After a time, he said, “The electronic equipment Hernandez borrowed: what distance could it work over?”
Sanchez shrugged. “Not far, maybe a mile.”
“Hernandez could have been anywhere the night he was killed.”
“I agree. The only clue I have is the word of the night watchman, who claims he saw him at the railroad station.” Sanchez shrugged. “Who knows what Rudi was doing there, if he was there? Maybe he used the recording equipment there, but I don’t think so. The watchman says the man he saw carried nothing and was in the station for perhaps only five minutes. Torres’s equipment, you would have needed something to carry it in. A bag, a small suitcase perhaps.”
Volkmann considered. “Okay, let’s say Hernandez was at the station. Why does a man go to a railway station in the early hours of the morning? And why enter through a rear entrance?” He was thinking aloud, but he asked the question.
“Perhaps it was the quickest way?” Sanchez frowned. “Rudi meant to buy a ticket on a train to someplace, leave Asunción? But the ticket office was closed until later in the morning.”
“Wouldn’t he have known that?”
Sanchez nodded. “I understand. It leaves a question. If Rudi did go to the station and stayed for only a short time, it suggests perhaps that he had a purpose. But what purpose? I don’t know the answer. Why do people go to a train station in the early hours of the morning? To catch a train, or to meet one, if there is one. But neither is possible in this case.”
Sanchez glanced at Erica. She met his eyes for a moment before looking away. She was listening to the conversation but not listening, preoccupied, her hands restless, a frown on her face. Sanchez thought, She’s still grieving.
Volkmann said finally, “What about the other hotels on the list?”
“My men have not called in yet. I will have the communications desk call them up.”
Sanchez shuffled the file pages on his desk before closing the folder. Erica looked at him, a strange expression on her face, her brow furrowed in concentration. In her right hand she fingered the keys to Rudi Hernandez’s apartment and car. She was toying with them.
Now she spoke softly, in Spanish. “You asked why Rudi might have been at the railway station. At the station . . . are there boxes, or lockers . . . for luggage, for people to leave things?”
Sanchez raised an eyebrow. He looked down again at the bunch of keys in the woman’s hand; she was holding one of them between thumb and forefinger. He answered her in Spanish.
“I believe so.”
Erica hesit
ated. “Maybe Rudi had one of those boxes?”
Sanchez looked at her blankly.
Volkmann looked at them both, wondering what they were saying.
• • •
The railway station faced the Plaza Uruguaya.
Inside the main hall, a half-dozen drunks slept it off in quiet corners. Indians and mestizos with young families, their babies wrapped in colorful blankets, sat or slept under the concession shops. Poor people from the north and south waited for the early trains, soft, pitiful brown eyes and looks of bewildered innocence on their lost faces, too penniless even to afford one of the cheap hotels nearby.
Some of them watched sleepily as the three people walked briskly through the station. The smell of diesel oil hung in the humid air. Sanchez looked at the curious, waiting people and pitied them.
The left-luggage boxes were near the concession stands. They turned a corner and saw the serried rows of several dozen metal boxes set against a concrete wall, black numbers stenciled on their doors. Sanchez stopped, facing the middle row.
“The keys, señorita.”
Erica handed him the keys.
Sanchez examined them again. Two of the keys had nothing to do with Hernandez’s apartment or car or office desk or locker, Sanchez knew. He had wondered about those keys. The way Erica had wondered. He had asked her at the police station what had made her think Rudi might have kept a luggage box at the station. She had shrugged. A feeling. An intuition.
The Indians in his country had a word for it: mon-ia-taah-ka. A voice from the world beyond. Perhaps Erica was right. Perhaps Rudi had kept a box here. The safe place he had told her about.
Now Sanchez fingered the key that looked closest to the size of the keyhole in the nearest locker facing him. The number 27 was stenciled in big letters on its metal door. He inserted the key. It went all the way in. He tried to turn it. The key moved a little, but no more, Sanchez feeling the resistance of the lock levers.
He turned to Erica and Volkmann as he removed the key, saw the looks on their faces. Hope, urgency.
He pointed to the left, where the row of boxes began, and smiled faintly. “Perhaps we should start at the beginning. It is always a good place to start. Sí?”