by Jerold Last
Eduardo looked thoughtful, but remained silent. That made it my turn.
“Let’s go with what seems to be the most likely here, just to get started, and not rule anything else out prematurely, no matter how unlikely it may seem. I think we can assume that whoever planned this is based in Montevideo, just because the timing of everything that has occurred thus far is so critical. We didn’t decide to come here until just a couple of days ago. Whoever planned this needed to know that we were coming, exactly which flight we were arriving on, and which hotel we would be staying at. We made our own plane reservations, so they needed to get that information from the airline.
"Do we know who made our hotel reservations for us, and when they did so? I initially assumed Martin did the reservations himself, but it’s possible he delegated the job to someone else. We need to check that out. But as of now, my instincts are telling me loud and clear that there’s a cop involved in all this. Who else would have been able to get this information so quickly and anonymously from the airlines and the hotel? And I think Suzanne is right and we can't assume this elaborate murder scene was designed to make the two of us look guilty; we can't rule out that you or Martin is the target for this whole set-up.”
Eduardo moved towards me, so I was finally included in his discussion with Suzanne. For a big man he is amazingly light on his feet.
"OK, let's leave this to Martin for now. We have what's left of a free afternoon to eat lunch and go play, then a long and boring dinner to get to downtown. I've borrowed a car from one of my colleagues here in town. How about a visit to the local zoo, where we can see some of Big Bird's relatives and an entire island full of monkeys running around loose?"
"Sounds good to me," said Suzanne, taking Eduardo's hand and leading us out of the hotel. "I'd love to go somewhere that doesn't remind me of finding Bernardo's body. And to get rid of the feeling I have here in the hotel that someone is watching us."
By mutual unspoken consent we deferred any discussion of the unpleasant occurrences of the day thus far. We ate a quick, and very late, lunch of Milanesa sandwiches (thinly sliced beef dipped in a batter of egg and bread and fried, with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and ham) and French Fries with the local beer.
Eduardo drove west through the oldest part of Montevideo and continued for about 15 miles around Montevideo Bay to the small town of Santiago Vazquez, home of the Parque Lecocq, a modern nature reserve and one of Montevideo’s three zoos.
"The zoo is far enough out of town that we should be able to spot any car that might be tailing us," Eduardo pointed out. "That's why I suggested we come all the way out here." We both carefully checked who was behind us throughout the entire trip and were pretty sure that we weren't being followed.
We saw the usual animals one might expect to see in a zoo anywhere, along with carpinchos (by far the largest rodents in the world), emus, ostriches, and a small island full of free ranging monkeys. Among the more exotic creatures were crab-eating raccoons and crab-eating foxes.
Suzanne took Eduardo's hand in her own left hand and mine in her right as we walked past the animal enclosures. "Thanks, Eduardo. This was a perfect suggestion for where we should go to recharge our batteries this afternoon. I actually managed to forget about dead bodies and enjoy animal watching for a while here."
All too soon, it was time to get back to the hotel and start changing for an elegant dinner. On the way back we were finally relaxed enough to discuss the murder of Bernardo Colletti, and what it meant to us.
Suzanne leaned forward in the back seat so we could hear her more clearly. “Given when our plane arrived and that Martin can vouch for our arriving with it, and given that we were in his sight all of the time between then and us getting to the hotel and finding the body, I don’t think we're very likely suspects for the murder. That means we probably weren't the targets of this kind of frame-up for the killing. So that leaves Martin or you, Eduardo, as the target of this mess. Have you been doing any investigation or other activity recently that might have gotten someone very nasty particularly upset with you?”
The car swerved slightly as Eduardo was distracted, throwing us all back in our seats, but he corrected the direction immediately and we were once again driving straight on the highway. “Not that I know of, Suzanne, but I’ll think some more about it.”
Suzanne leaned forward again. “May I please borrow your cell phone to call long distance back to the USA, Eduardo? Would that be OK?”
“Sure. I assume you just want to make sure that Robert hasn’t run away from home trying to find you. Just direct dial your number. My cell phone plan includes international long distance without roaming charges.”
“You know me far too well. That’s exactly what I need to do, to say hello to the baby just to make sure he’s all right.”
Two minutes on the phone sufficed---one minute to be assured by Bruce that Robert was fine and doing a good job of faking that he didn’t miss her and another minute to talk nonsense to the baby. Suzanne visibly relaxed as she returned Eduardo’s phone to him.
"Robert wanted me to tell you both that he misses us, but he can handle it."
As we drove through the western end of Montevideo to the hotel I looked out of the car window and thought about what I was seeing. The city looks old and tired, dirty and used too long without new buildings being built to replace the old ones I was seeing. The city is not only dirty with trash and rubbish littering the streets and alleys, but all of the buildings are dirty with the ingrained grime of decades. Buses and cars run on diesel fuel and there aren't any emission controls. Most of the particles coming out of the tail pipes find their way to the bricks and concrete surfaces of apartment buildings and industrial facilities, as well as to their windows. Despite the frequent cleansing rains the dirt and diesel exhaust particles seemed to be winning the battle. The pervasive dirt and grime were a metaphor for the crime and corruption we kept encountering every time Suzanne and I visited the city. As much as I like our friends in Montevideo, their city could use some industrial scale cleaning.
A short time later we were back to the hotel, in our new room with a bed we didn't have to share with a corpse, getting dressed for tonight's dinner with plenty of time to spare before we needed to meet Eduardo and drive over to the Intendencia Building. Suzanne was visibly more relaxed since her chat with Bruce and Robert.
She walked over and gave me a spontaneous, and long, kiss. "It's fun doing some adult things without the baby for a change. We should do it more often."
Chapter4 . Dinner with the top cops
Dinner that night was a semi-formal affair catered in a large banquet room with ornate chandeliers and functional tables covered with white linen tablecloths and elegant place settings in the City Hall Building. The celebration started at 9 PM with a couple of hours of drinks, nibblies, and socializing. In the traditional South American social fashion, where being an hour late is arriving on time, people arrived anywhere between 9 and 10:30. Suzanne and I really didn't know anyone there except the guest of honor, Martin Gonzalez, and his wife Sylvia. Sylvia took us under her wing, as she had done most of her adult life for Martin, and introduced us to the Mayor, the Police Chief, and a lot of high ranking police officers and their wives. It was a festive occasion and everyone seemed relaxed and friendly, so the cocktail party was a pleasant experience overall. In that uniquely South American tradition, dinner began at 11 PM with lots of food, lots of wines, and lots of speeches. We could plan on finishing dessert some time around 2 AM.
Suzanne and I found our seats at a table of eight without Eduardo. Seating had seemingly been assigned at random except for the dignitaries clustered at the head table on a dais in front of the group. Eduardo ended up at a table of wifeless men, so the seating assignments weren't completely random. We sat with three other couples, all police captains of Martin's rank and their wives. There was a lot of gossip and shoptalk among the cops, and a bit of curiosity about who we were and why we were here. Everything was, of c
ourse, in Spanish. I appreciated once again my recent college classes and crash course in conversational Spanish, and Suzanne's fluency, in the local language.
There was a pause in the conversation, so I introduced Suzanne and me to the table. "I'm Roger Bowman and this is my wife Suzanne. We're friends of Martin, visiting Montevideo from California."
There was a ripple of recognition and interest among the three men at the table with us. Captain Eloy Flores, a solid looking man in his 50s, stared at us for a moment, lifted his wine glass, and proposed a toast.
"Unless I'm mistaken these are the folks who gave us all so much help in Martin's two big cases, which earned him this promotion. Let's drink to good citizens who help the police and make this a safer city for all."
We all drank. I almost blushed in embarrassment. We refilled our glasses just in time for the next toast, this one proposed by Captain Andres Fortunato. Andres was about the same age as Eloy Flores but a lot bigger, both taller and a good deal heavier. My guess was that he'd been a street cop who had spent the last few years behind a desk creating paper.
The captain leaned towards us as he raised his glass. "As far as I'm concerned, and I think I speak for all of the police in Montevideo, these two folks should be the ones receiving an award tonight. Let's drink to our two heroes who have been responsible for much of Martin's rapid advancement to his current position."
The inevitable third toast was offered a short time later by Captain Juan Blanco. Juan was a good bit older than the others and had the look about him of career military service before he became a policeman.
Once again a glass was raised in a toast. "The well deserved reputation of Senor and Senora Bowman precedes them. I suspect that they are the only people in Montevideo except our colleague Martin who could stand up in the middle of this room, murder someone in front of all of us, and not be arrested. We would all assume they had a good reason for killing whoever it was and give them the benefit of the doubt. If it were up to me, I'd probably clean up the mess and never report it. You two are truly respected and admired by everyone in this room, and most deservedly so."
The three captains introduced their wives, Graciella Amarillo, Maria Verde, and Carla Rojas. Maria and Carla were both middle-aged, age-appropriate for their husbands, while Graciela looked to be in her mid-twenties, beautiful, the classic second marriage "trophy wife". Captain Flores drank some more wine, leaned towards Suzanne, and asked her a question.
"Wasn't there was someone else involved in your adventures here in Montevideo, both times, with Martin? He's in all the stories, but never with a name or a face."
Suzanne came up with a perfect non-answer. "Yes there was another policeman, but not from here. We'd know him if we saw him again, but I can't give you his name."
Since Captain Blanco was sitting the closest to me, it seemed quite natural to start chatting with him. As a rule of thumb everywhere in the world, police and civilians have a "we" and "them" relationship. Unless I could get him to put me in the "we" column, it was going to be a long night socially. Small talk in Spanish isn't my strong suit so I tried to establish some things we had in common while asking him about his work.
"I used to be a homicide detective in the City of Los Angeles, which is similar in size to Montevideo. Can you tell me a little bit about how your police system in Montevideo is organized? What do you and your colleagues here at the table with us actually do in your typical working day?"
"Ah, so you understand what it is like to be a member of a police force. Yes, I can answer your question. Our police command structure here is a lot more centralized than is typical for the big cities in the USA. For example, we have all four captains working out of the central station in the Intendencia. Martin, as you know, is our new Chief of Detectives. I'm the Chief for Administration, which means my job is to make sure there are enough bullets for our guns, enough guns for our police force, and enough policemen and policewomen to keep the city reasonably safe and solve most of our crimes. I also am responsible for liaison with the press and handling the flow of information between the police and the public.
Captain Flores is the Chief for patrol, which means responsibility for the entire uniformed force, which is all of our police except the detectives. Finally, Captain Fortunato is the Chief for intelligence, which means heading up all of our drug-related, anti-gang, anti-subversive, and anti-terrorist activities.
"Enough shop talk. Let's all dance with our wives, and perhaps also with your wife, and enjoy the party!"
As luck would have it the next dance was a slow fox trot, which is just about my speed. As Suzanne and I moved across the dance floor we took advantage of the relative privacy to discuss our newest friends.
Suzanne spoke to me in a low voice, in English. She was clearly excited. "I had a couple of intuitive leaps while Eloy Flores was talking, Roger. Can I bounce the ideas off of you and see what you think?"
"Sure. I could use a few ideas now. And I'm even enjoying dancing with you at the moment, even if I normally hate dancing. You look and feel great."
"First, I find it hard to believe that all three of the previous captains loves us and Martin for upstaging them and becoming the local superheroes, however transient that honor might be. I'm suggesting that those three toasts might have been just a bit hypocritical. If that's true, maybe one, or all, of the captains could actually be wishing us less than well. That took me to my intuitive leap: what if one of these three at our table was the source of the leaked information about our travel schedule and/or set up the hotel room murder scene starring Bernardo Colletti? Any of the three would easily have had access to our exact schedules, and could have made the arrangements at the hotel.
"What do you think, Roger? Is that too far-fetched to have happened or is that a place for us to begin looking for our perp?"
"So far I like the way that devious, but extremely logical, little mind of yours is working. But you said you had a couple of leaps. What was the other one?"
"Captain Juan Blanco made a great toast, but I wonder if he didn't say more than he actually meant to after all that wine. He pretty much said that nothing anybody here could do, including framing Martin or us for murder, would get any of us into real trouble. The rank and file police would cover it up to protect us. And Captain Flores really tried to get me to identify Eduardo by name, seemingly totally out of context. My second intuitive leap is that Eduardo Gomez is the intended target of this elaborate frame-up.
"I'm not trying to say that any of the Captains actually murdered Bernardo with their own two hands, or even planned his murder. What I'm suggesting is that one, two, or all three of them could be the source of the leaked information that someone else used as part of an elaborate scheme to discredit Eduardo with his employers, which include the Paraguayan version of the CIA and the Israeli Intelligence Service, the Mossad. This whole affair is getting a spooky sort of feeling about it. And the motive for one of Martin's colleagues for betraying him could be jealousy or money, or both. We know very well that the police in this part of the world tend to be very much underpaid and that many of them are corrupt as a consequence."
I pulled Suzanne close so our bodies were in full contact and I could speak very softly and only be heard by her. "It's a place to start, Suzanne, which is more than we had when we came here. Let me add one other possibility to all of our guesses and speculation. We know very well that our good friend Martin not only looks like the TV detective Columbo, but that he thinks as deviously and cunningly as the TV character. It's possible that our being seated at the same table as the three captains wasn't a random coincidence, but a scheme orchestrated by Martin. He may have his own suspicions about his colleagues too. I know him well enough to be sure he wouldn't accuse a colleague without hard proof, but I'm also positive that he wouldn't hesitate to throw us into a potentially dangerous situation if he thought we could find out the answers for him without his having to get personally involved. He knows we can take care of ourselves in any p
hysical encounter."
The music changed to the first of several Tangos, as is traditional for Uruguay and Argentina, so I suggested that Suzanne dance with all three of the Captains and see what she might get them to say during several minutes of dancing cheek to cheek while I took a break.
"Be careful. Don't say anything that might make one of these guys suspicious. From the rank they've achieved in a highly competitive police hierarchy we have to assume they are all intelligent and experienced political infighters. Tomorrow will be soon enough to discretely start checking the finances of our new found friends we're sharing a table with."
The dinner and party seemed to go on forever. Wine, champagne, lots of beef, cooked vegetables, side dishes, and sweet desserts featuring dulce de leche were available in seemingly infinite quantities. Suzanne did a lot of dancing and small talk with the captains, and with various other dignitaries who sought her out and came to our table to invite the only blond gringa in the room to dance. I danced a bit when the music was slow and chatted a lot with the wives of the three captains and with people at the adjoining tables. Finally it was time to head back to the hotel and to bed, which looked more and more appealing with each passing hour. Martin and Eduardo agreed to meet us for a late brunch at a restaurant near our hotel at 11 that morning to discuss the case. We finally got to bed for an all too short morning's sleep.