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The Black Minutes

Page 11

by Martin Solares


  Rangel knew Alviso was right, but he couldn’t let the driver go. René Luz de Dios would have to go through the purgatory that the legal process is for innocent people. It was clear to him after six years on the force that no one ever left headquarters unscathed. The experience of being guilty until proven innocent changed people. Besides, while he was waiting to be called in, René Luz ran the risk that any one of the guys there, even El Chicote, would try to extort money from him. Most likely, El Chaneque or El Travolta would handle it. Rangel didn’t like that part of his job, but if he didn’t do things by the rules, it’d seem like he was protecting the driver; in the unlikely case that René Luz turned out to be guilty, he himself could face jail time. So he held fast.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to follow procedure. If I don’t, I’d be under arrest,” and he put the driver’s ID in his pocket.

  “Right, but you let the big shots go, don’t you?” Mr. Alviso shot back. “Even though they were in the bathroom longer. It’s obvious whose back you’ve got.”

  Rangel stared at the businessman. “What? What’d you say?”

  “Mr. Williams was in there for half an hour, right? And my driver here, who was only in there for a minute, just to wash his hands, you want to arrest him? That’s outrageous.”

  Rangel made a note to ask Junior a few questions, but in any case he’d have to take the driver in.

  “Look.” He lowered his voice. “I give you my word that this is a routine procedure. I’m sorry,” he said. What a fucking joke, he thought, this job is bullshit.

  The Professor and Wong arrived at 4:05. The first one interviewed the drunks waiting their turn at the bar, and Wong used his irritable oriental look to interrogate the regulars at the tables in the back. At 4:30, Rangel went to see the forensic experts.

  They’d already placed the body on the ground, and Ramírez was taking the last pictures. They’d laid it out on a yellow tablecloth with the Cola Drinks logo on it, provided by the bar’s owner. Rangel was an experienced police officer, but he couldn’t keep his stomach from turning. When they emptied the remains from the bag, a leg came out and almost fell off the tablecloth. Rangel and the doctor stared. In view of the fact that the extremities were separated from the torso, there was no doubt it was the same perp.

  “Hurry up,” he told Ramírez. “I want to get this done already.”

  They were examining the marks on the body when a strange phenomenon caught their attention. Every time Ramírez pressed the shutter of his camera, it seemed like the lightning flash had a kind of echo effect that made it last longer than normal. The phenomenon was repeated twice, until they raised their eyes and discovered La Chilanga was focusing her camera on them through a window. Fucking nosy bitch, Rangel said to himself, I can’t believe it. Rangel pointed a finger at her.

  “Hey, you; stop!”

  La Chilanga made like she was going to leave, but her shirt got caught on the window. When she tried to get free, the window moved a little and Rangel understood everything: Of course, he said to himself, I look like such an idiot. The girl was understandably upset and shot back at him with some Marxist rhetoric, but Rangel ignored her.

  “What’s on the other side of those windows?” he asked the manager.

  “Customs Alley.”

  Sure, he said to himself, it all made sense.

  “Wong,” he said, “you take charge for a minute, OK?”

  Three dozen onlookers had gathered at the bar’s front door. They asked him what was going on, but he didn’t respond. He went around the block, all the way to the alley. He didn’t want to run into El Albino. When Rangel went into the alley, the photographer came out, but the officer didn’t do anything to stop him. Maybe he didn’t want to accept it, but he was always a little freaked by the albino. Maybe he was intimidated by the guy looking at him; he was always so quiet, and his eyes were so pale. El Albino shot him a calculated look, like a gravedigger taking measurements of a body, and left without saying a word. Rangel didn’t breathe until he saw him move away. Then he noticed the photographer was rewinding a roll of film. Ay, caray, he guessed: he took snapshots of the girl and I didn’t even hear him working. Rangel didn’t know which paper El Albino worked for, but he didn’t want to ask. Deep down, he was afraid he didn’t work for any newspaper at all. One time, he asked his uncle about him: An albino? Who? I don’t know him, and Rangel left it at that.

  The alley behind the Bar León was a trash dump for all the buildings around it. There were six dumpsters, countless cardboard boxes, and the metal skeleton of an old rusty refrigerator, abandoned there a few decades before. La Chilanga was struggling on top of it with one of her sleeves caught on the edge of the window. Fucking broad, he thought, she might say she’s a Marxist but she needs a lot more experience; you can tell she just got out of college.

  There were three different routes to get to the back window of the bar: one was coming from Calle Aduana, another from Calle Progreso, and the last was from the Avenida Héroes de Palo Alto. Sure, Rangel said to himself, three buildings come together here, the killer could’ve gone in and come out on any one of the three streets; he just had to climb onto that refrigerator and throw the body through the window. But why leave the girl’s body in the bar if he could throw it away outside with no danger of being seen? There was something very strange about all this. It doesn’t make sense.

  He helped La Chilanga down; she was raging mad. Assholes, gangsters, cabrones! He climbed onto the refrigerator. He immediately realized the window was only half-open. From inside the bathroom, Wong and Dr. Ridaura were watching him.

  “Of course,” he said to them. “He put the girl in through here.”

  He looked over that section of the alley quickly and determined that there weren’t any other bloodstains. He didn’t kill her here; however, as he examined the window, he discovered there was a dark stain on the outside edge. Ramírez has to check this out, he said to himself; it’s too bad the metal’s so rusty, I don’t think he’ll get any fingerprints. Fucking sea air destroys everything. He was examining the stain when he heard the sound of the shutter click.

  “Listen, smart-ass, who do you think you are?” he asked the girl.

  “I’m doing my job!”

  He was trying to think of what to say when he saw the department pickup truck, La Julia, drive by. Finally, he said to himself. He was sure that Fatwolf had recognized him. The truck ground to a halt a few meters farther on, went in reverse, and stopped so Cruz Treviño could get out and go into the alleyway. The huge guy looked at La Chilanga suspiciously. I should have run her off, Vicente said to himself, this guy’s going to think I was the one who leaked the news to her.

  Cruz Treviño was incredibly rude. “Get out of here,” he ordered. “You can’t be around the crime scene.”

  The woman spit out a slew of insults at him. When she walked by, Treviño watched her angrily and then said hello to the detective.

  “Another girl?”

  “Like the El Palmar one.”

  Cruz Treviño took a step back. “That’s Taboada’s case.”

  “They sent me. I was on call.”

  “Okay, it’s up to you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Everybody gets the same treatment?”

  “It’s your decision.”

  The huge guy nodded and went to leave. Before turning halfway around, he patted his pants. “You got cuffs?”

  “I’m gonna use ’em.”

  “I need ’em more than you do.”

  Reluctantly, Rangel stuck his hand into his right pants pocket and threw him the handcuffs. Cruz Treviño was right: what he found out about the window made it practically impossible that one of the regulars was the killer. If they were going to arrest a suspect, they wouldn’t find him in the bar. He said that to himself and then went to coordinate transportation for the dead girl’s body.

  All in all, they were there for two hours. During that time, Fatwolf and Cruz Treviño picked up all the suspects they could find in th
e area. Cruz Treviño parked La Julia a block away from the Bar León, and the two officers walked to the historic center of the city. They walked around the Plaza de Armas, paying attention to every detail, and when they found a bench full of gang members, Fatwolf went up to them and dragged them to the truck. One of them tried to get away, but Cruz Treviño caught him by the arm and knocked him to the ground in one fell swoop. Cruz Treviño could throw a good punch. Then they went down to the train station, where they picked up the bums sleeping on the benches; after that, they stopped at the black market stands and repeated the same operation.

  Cruz Treviño was from Parral, Coahuila. A good friend of El Travolta, Cruz Treviño was in a very bad mood whenever it was hot out.

  That day, Cruz and Fatwolf put all the prisoners into one cell, including two hippies who were on their way to Acapulco. Fatwolf wrote the suspects’ names in the registry, while Cruz Treviño rolled up his sleeves and got his arms warmed up. When he was ready, Cruz went into the cell with the prison guard behind him.

  “Door.” He was asking them to open it. “You.” He pointed at one of the hippies and made him come out.

  Once in the hallway, Cruz took a step toward the prisoner—he had a John Lennon look, long hair, sideburns, round glasses, and shoved him.

  “What’s the deal with the girl?”

  The hippie—a political science student from the Universidad Nacional on vacation in the port—adjusted his glasses and replied, “What girl?”

  He never should have said that. The punch took the wind out of him; at least that was the guard’s judgment. The guard was named Emilio Nieto, aka El Chicote, and he elected to study the ceiling as Cruz Treviño got ready to repeat the treatment in controlled doses. The prisoner panted until he could gather enough air to ask again, “What girl?” and take another punch. Meanwhile, the prisoners started to whisper “Assholes,” and the second hippie’s face went pale.

  Then Cruz Treviño shouted, “Door!” and the suspects, like sheep in a flock, scurried out of the way.

  Identifying the body took half an hour. One of the waiters confirmed that the uniform was from Public School Number Five, which wasn’t too far from there. The Professor telephoned the principal and found out that the mother of one of the girls had called asking about her daughter.

  “Send her over here.”

  The mother arrived, escorted by two female neighbors. She was carrying a rosary and a few holy cards in her hand. What a shame, Rangel thought, those aren’t going to help her at all. The woman erupted in tears as soon as she saw the shoes, and there was no way to calm her down. Finally, they injected her with a tranquilizer and she left in the same ambulance as her daughter. They found the husband an hour later, thanks to the neighbors who came with the mother. His name was Odilón and he worked in the refinery. It’s always painful to see a grown man break down.

  “Yes, that’s her,” said the man. “It’s my daughter.”

  The girl was named Julia Concepción González. Once they were at headquarters, the father mentioned that his daughter was in her second year in elementary school and was about to turn nine years old. Nine years old, thought Rangel. Who could attack a defenseless little girl? Only a sick murderous bastard.

  “Taboada’s not back?”

  It was the second time in an hour that Chief García had asked for him. For the last few months, the fat guy had become the chief’s favorite, so much so that he even let him take the patrol car for personal business for as much time as he needed. Anyway it doesn’t matter, Rangel thought, as soon as he gets here, they’re going to screw him. Supposedly, El Travolta was the one in charge of the case, since he was the one who picked up the first girl’s body. But, knowing his coworker’s ways, Rangel doubted the chief would find him that day. On Fridays, after eating lunch, El Travolta would head to the docks, perhaps to the Tiberius Bar, pick up a prostitute or two, and go party.

  When Rangel got back to headquarters, they told him Dr. Ridaura had called. Rangel pulled out his tiny phonebook from his back pocket and dialed the university morgue. It was six in the afternoon.

  “Doctor? It’s Rangel. You got something?”

  “I’m finished already. But before I say anything, tell me something. Did you send a photographer over here?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Hold on, hold on, what do you mean?”

  “A guy with a norteño accent called and told me you ordered him to come.”

  “And you let him in?”

  “Of course not, even though he tried to intimidate me. I told him I was going to confirm what he said, and he hung up.”

  An accent from northern Mexico, Rangel thought. It must be Johnny Guerrero, that fucking piece of shit.

  “Thanks, Doctor. Did you find out anything?”

  “Yes, but I’d rather tell you in person. They’re probably tapping our call.”

  He got to the morgue at nine P.M. on the dot. Rangel parked at the university medical school and walked down the wide staircase leading to the student amphitheater. He had to knock hard for someone to open the door. A sweaty young man led him to the laboratory, a room covered in tile where the smell of chemical products was particularly strong. The doctor was still working. As soon as she saw Rangel, she sent the young man away and let out a tired sigh.

  “Welcome.”

  “You’ve been at it a long time.”

  “If I don’t do it myself, someone else will do it worse,” she said. “Can you imagine El Travolta managing all this?”

  Rangel didn’t respond. He didn’t like to talk badly about other officers, even though he agreed with her.

  “Do you have any news?”

  “I’m almost finished typing it all out.” She pointed to a hefty Olivetti typewriter. “The first thing you’ll be interested to hear is that it’s the same weapon they used in El Palmar. See? This cut here, and see this photo?”

  “Was any organ in particular affected?”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Do you think it was a doctor, a butcher, a medical student, or an employee at the city market? Did the person know where to cut to cause harm?”

  “I don’t think so. Do you remember the sailor?” The doctor was referring to a drunk sailor who stabbed a prostitute two months previous. “I’d say it’s the same: mindless violence, completely irrational. If he had started cutting here, for example,” she pointed to a specific point on the torso, “the knife would have traversed the heart and death would’ve been instantaneous. Instead of that: look. See? And again, look.”

  “Right-handed?”

  “Yes, without a doubt.” Using a metal rod, the doctor lifted the skin away from the cadaver. “Look at the trajectory. The cut slants to the left as it moves down; I think he cut her like this.” The doctor lifted the little rod and swiped it downward. “But first he had to lay her down on the ground.”

  “Was there sexual violence?”

  “Just like the other.”

  “The same way?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “Before or . . . ?”

  “No, after she was dead, like before. And this. You remember the first one? I asked myself, How could someone hate a little girl this much? And now I’m saying to myself, How could someone do this to two girls in a row? I can’t understand it.” She sneezed.

  Rangel asked if she could do a blood test on the two girls. The doctor wrinkled her nose.

  “What’re you looking for?”

  “Anything that would put them to sleep. I’m wondering if he sedated them.”

  “I’ll have it for you tomorrow. I need reagents that only Orihuela has in his lab.”

  A moment later, she handed him the report, which Rangel read immediately. When he was almost finished, the doctor interrupted him again:

  “Is that all, officer?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m asking if they can take her already. The father’s called twice.”


  “Tell him they can; we’re finished. But one thing: no one’s authorized to photograph the body. Tell the parents. Only family gets to see.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Then the doctor did something Rangel would never see her do again. Already a black blanket covered the girl’s body from the neck down, but the old woman took out a white handkerchief and used it to cover the girl’s face.

  “Poor thing. Here, chiquita, it’s all over now. Your parents are on their way.”

  3

  He was up writing his report until three in the morning. Like usual, he hit a wall eventually; he couldn’t do anything else and there was no other choice but to wait. El Chicote was snoring at the front desk, and Crazyshot had gone to sleep in his car. The last person to come in was at one o’clock, when Wong came back from interviewing the parents at the funeral home.

  “The parents don’t suspect anyone, the father doesn’t have any enemies, and no one has seen anyone suspicious on the street. It’s the same thing as El Palmar.”

  Wong was a good officer. He identified leads quickly and pointed them out so the investigation could proceed. Thanks to him they were able to establish the approximate time when the killer went into the bathroom. As soon as Rangel proved the murderer had climbed through the window, Wong had found out that two of the regulars had heard a noise around 2:30. It was the psycho, thought Rangel.

  Now we’re getting somewhere, Wong cheered, we can move forward. Rangel said yes, even though deep down he had the feeling that the investigation wasn’t going anywhere. All he had to do was close his eyes and remember the bizarre way the body was found. There was something about all this that was irrational, hidden, reminiscent of something else; as if someone were sending a message he couldn’t decipher. Shit, he said to himself, how could he break the code?

  As Rangel wrote his report, El Chicote dropped off the latest edition of El Mercurio, hot off the presses: THE JACKAL IS BACK. Ah, cabrón— and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach—how irresponsible can they be? Now they had really gone too far giving the murderer a name: the Jackal. In the article, the reporter wrote he was shocked by the number of rapes in the city: “At least three every month, according to official statistics.” I didn’t think there were so many, Rangel thought. The reporter argued that the guilty party was “a real-life jackal.” They said men who attacked minors were like jackals, predators that hunt in a pack and when they’re sure their prey is small and defenseless. “The authority’s ineptness is what laid the foundation for the Jackal to emerge.” Just a second here, Rangel said to himself, I don’t like this one bit.

 

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