The Body in the Bed (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 5)

by Jerold Last

  "That turns out to be one of my many talents," Eduardo answered with his characteristic modesty. "What did you have in mind?"

  "What do you think our three police captains would do if Jose, the room clerk at the hotel, called them and asked for more money now that he knows he's involved in covering up a murder?"

  "I think two of them would get angry at the suggestion and hang up. It's the third one whose reactions would be interesting to hear. But I guarantee you that Jose is too scared to help us find a crooked cop. And, before you say it, he's also too scared to give us a voice sample for me to imitate."

  I took the small digital recorder out of my pocket and carefully laid it on the table. Then, like a magician performing his best illusion I covered the recorder with my napkin, turned it on, and removed the napkin with a grand flourish. Jose's voice came through loud and clear.

  "Voila! I can do magic."

  Eduardo didn't even smile. He just looked like a frustrated kindergarten teacher lecturing a very slow pupil. "Yes, Roger, I can do a very good imitation of his voice. I just need to write a script and we can give it a try."

  The script was ready in five minutes. Suzanne and I made a few minor suggestions and Eduardo was ready to go after five more minutes. He made three phone calls, doing a perfect imitation of Jose's voice, dialect, and mannerisms with each call. Two of the police captains hung up after the first thirty seconds. The third was careful not to say anything that might incriminate himself in case his telephone was being tapped, but stayed on the line until Eduardo hung up after promising to meet at midnight on a dark street corner 1.5 blocks away from the hotel's back entrance where nobody would see them.

  Eduardo looked very proud of himself as he stood up. "I told you I was an excellent mimic. It's one of my many gifts I've developed through the years working on the job I do. It looks like we know now which one the dirty cop is, and I apologize to you Suzanne for doubting your intuition. Of course, we'll never be able to prove it. But maybe we can use the information to blackmail a little information out of the good captain. I may need your help persuading him to cooperate. Can I count on you both?"

  We stood up as well, nodding our agreement. It was getting late and we needed to get back to the hotel and change for the late night activities.

  After a quick bathroom stop and a quicker change into dark clothes and a dark cap to hide Suzanne's blond hair, we were ready to go. While Suzanne was a good bit taller than Jose, she was thin enough to look like his silhouette in the dark, especially if she slouched to lose some of the extra height. Suzanne would be Jose standing in the shadows of a convenient doorway waiting for the police captain. We assumed he'd drive to the meeting, park on the street nearby, and approach the person he assumed was Jose on foot. Eduardo and I would be staked out half a block away in either direction in case the captain brought any friends with him to the meeting. If our crooked policeman was alone, Suzanne could either stall him until we got there or take him down using her karate skills. As Eduardo had learned the first time we met him, Suzanne could easily beat him, despite their enormous size differential, in hand-to-hand combat so she was confident she could handle herself in a fair fight with a Montevideo cop.

  We were all in place a few minutes before midnight. At about five minutes past the hour a dark car turned into the darkened street. It slowed as it passed "Jose" and parked about 100 meters from the doorway. A single figure wearing a dark coat got out of the car and walked slowly towards the doorway Suzanne was standing in. His right hand was in his outside coat pocket. Eduardo and I made sure that the four of us were alone on the street and slowly started moving silently towards the doorway, staying in the building shadows so we wouldn't be seen. Eduardo checked the parked car as he snuck past it to make sure there were no surprises there and gave me a thumbs-up signal.

  Things were going perfectly until the police captain got about three meters from the doorway. "Hijo de puta! You're not Jose," he shouted. His right hand came out of the coat pocket. There was a loud click as a switchblade knife opened. The blade glittered in the faint light on the street. Eduardo and I broke into a run to help Suzanne if she needed it. She didn't. She took a single step towards the dark figure with the upraised knife and launched a roundhouse kick with her right leg at the arm carrying the knife. Her kick landed flush on the elbow. The knife flew into the air as the assailant grunted with pain and shock. Suzanne continued her move with a straight kick into the solar plexus followed by another kick directly into his face as he bent over trying to get his breath back. We got there just in time to watch the would-be knife expert fall the rest of the way to the ground, obviously in great pain but clearly determined to tough it out.

  We deliberately made no effort to spare the battered assailant any pain as we dragged him back to his car, relieved him of his car keys, frisked him to ensure that he didn't have a gun, and shoved him into the back seat. The car was a small Brazilian-made Fiat. Eduardo sat next to him in the back, while Suzanne and I took the front seats.

  I flipped on the dome light for a few seconds to take a look at our new passenger then quickly turned the light off. I wasn't surprised at all to recognize that Captain Juan Blanco, the Chief for Administration, was our prisoner.

  "OK, Juan. At a guess you have a broken arm and a broken nose that need attention. There could also be some internal injuries. If you answer a few questions and help us out, you get to go to the hospital. If you don't help us out, Eduardo will break a few more things and then you'll be just another mugging victim lying on a dark street until it gets light enough in about seven hours for someone to find you and report the mugging to the police. I would guess that option would be excruciatingly painful."

  "What do I have to do to get medical attention?" he asked through gritted teeth.

  "I need Leila's address and apartment number. Then you need to ring her doorbell to get us in. If all goes well, we will talk briefly with her and then take you to the hospital."

  "Leila? Who is Leila?"

  "I'm going to count slowly to five. If you haven't given me the address by then, Eduardo will break your other arm. One....."

  Juan had nothing to say. "Two....."

  Still nothing. "Three....."

  "Eduardo, I know you don't want to break his other arm. Just so he knows we're serious, if he doesn't say anything by "four", dislocate one of his fingers on the left hand. If he lets me get to "five" go ahead and break the arm....."

  "Four....."

  There was a loud popping sound as the left middle finger was bent back until it dislocated, followed by a muffled scream.

  "This is your last chance to save that arm, Juan. Do you have anything to say?"

  "Yes," he moaned. "1317 Italia Boulevard, Apartment 10C."

  "That was the right choice, Juan. Now we'll drive over there and you'll fight through your pain to ring the doorbell and get us into that apartment. We'll have a brief talk with Leila then drive you to the hospital. It's only a few blocks from that address. They'll give you some morphine and fix you up. And then you'll be really quiet if anyone ever asks you what happened tonight. Otherwise I'll let my wife beat you up again, that time in front of all of your police buddies. And, of course, Martin Gonzalez will be told exactly what happened tonight. If you ever try any reprisals, you will have plenty of official explaining to do."

  Juan was obviously in a lot of pain and in shock. But he was a tough old bird and didn't let it show. "Don't worry about that. If you let me live tonight I promise you by all that is holy that I will not try to involve you in any way in any legal action or investigation. Nor will I seek revenge. I would like nothing more than the three of you to go home and to never see any of you again."

  I reached over and grabbed his broken arm to add to his pain and encourage an honest answer. "OK, I have only one more question to ask you and I'll be satisfied. Why did you get involved in all of this? Money? Sex? Politics? Did you want to get your revenge against Martin? Which was it?"

&nbs
p; Juan gritted his teeth together and blurted out his answer. "It was the sex, Senor Bowman. It was only the sex. I met Leila at an embassy party and she was the most spectacular woman I had ever gone to bed with. My wife has not been to bed with me since our last child was born. I would have done anything to get more of Leila. When she came to me with her request to set up an elaborate practical joke on you Senor Bowman, I knew she was planning something a lot worse than a joke. But if that is what it took to get her in bed a few more nights with me, it was worth it. I'm not proud of what I did. I'll do whatever you want me to do tonight if it will help to repay my debt to you."

  Chapter9 . Cleaning up the mess

  At this hour of the night there wasn't any real traffic to fight so it took less then fifteen minutes to drive to the address Juan Blanco had given us. We parked on the street a few houses up from the one we wanted. We all got up and walked to the apartment building supporting Juan as if he were drunk. The elevator took us to the tenth floor and we turned left to walk to 10C.

  We lined Juan up so he'd be the only one seen through the peephole if Leila checked and rang her doorbell. She had obviously been awake since she came to the door in well under a minute. She checked who was there, opened a deadbolt, removed a chain, and opened the door, saying "what brings you here so late, Querido?"

  By the time she registered that "Querido" had company, Eduardo had a huge hand around her throat and had lifted her off of her feet and back into the apartment. Suzanne and I followed, closing the door behind us. Leila wore a sheer nightgown made of something clingy and was a real beauty despite being choked by a man more than twice as large as she was.

  "I just have a few questions to ask Leila," explained Eduardo. "Then we'll say goodnight and go home since "Querido" here has promised us that he will start your deportation proceedings when he gets to work later today. Just nod if you understand me."

  She nodded.

  "My first question is why did you murder Bernardo Colletti?"

  "I didn't kill him," Leila croaked.

  Eduardo loosened his grip on her throat just enough to allow her to take a new breath. "My second question is what are you doing here in Montevideo?"

  "I'm here on my vacation," she replied.

  "Do you recognize me?"

  It was apparent from her facial expression that she did.

  "I'll take that as a yes, Leila. Open the French doors out to the balcony, please, Roger. Then step aside."

  I did and I did.

  Eduardo lifted Leila Tehrani high off the floor as if she was weightless. She tried to struggle but he had one hand locked around her throat and the other around her wrists, and he held her too far away from his body for her to kick him. As her body twisted and turned there was a loud "clunk" sound as a knife fell out of its sheath on her thigh and hit the wooden floor. Eduardo walked to the balcony and threw her terrified body over the edge of the balcony into thin air. We heard her scream, then stop screaming abruptly when she hit something metal in the building's side yard, probably a group of garbage cans ten stories below.

  Eduardo stopped to pick up the mini-scimitar knife as he walked over to the stunned Juan Blanco. Eduardo took him by the left hand and led him around the small apartment planting his fingerprints at several strategic locations, including the handles on the French doors and several places on the bed, the bathroom sink and toilet flush lever, and the doorknobs on the inside of the front door and several of the rooms. He also took pains to wipe the mini-scimitar clean of any of Leila Tehrani's fingerprints before he transferred a perfect set of the now moaning Juan Blanco's fingerprints from his right hand onto the handle of Leila's fancy knife.

  "Captain Blanco, you may have noticed that the three of us are wearing latex gloves, which we put on downstairs in the car. When the police get here to investigate Leila's accident, or suicide, or murder, guess whose fingerprints are going to be all over this apartment? And on the knife that was used to murder Bernardo Colletti, which I plan to keep in a sealed plastic bag in a safe place for now. It would probably be in your best interests if her death were ruled to be a suicide. I'm sure you can arrange for that to be the official finding. All three of us have ironclad alibis for the time this happened, so it would be a very bad idea to try to bring any of us into an investigation. Especially because Martin Gonzalez will be the detective in charge of the investigation, since I'm about to call him to anonymously report a body in the alley here as soon as I'm done searching this apartment.

  Eduardo turned to face Suzanne and me. "I need to make a thorough search around the apartment just in case there is any interesting paperwork or computer files to be found here. Why don't you two take Juan over to the hospital, make sure that he doesn't have any ID or a cell phone on him, but that he has plenty of cash. That way they'll take care of him but they won't let him out until the morning. Then come back and pick me up on the corner of the next avenue over to the north."

  Twenty minutes later we picked Eduardo up and I changed seats to the passenger side. Something was happening over on Italia Avenue since we could see the flashing lights from several police cars as we drove south on the cross street heading towards the Ramblas and the hotel. Perhaps it was some sort of accident or a suicide?

  I found myself thinking ahead about what came next, and wasn’t all that happy with the answers I was coming up with. I turned to Eduardo, who was now driving since he had borrowed the car, and started to point out the obvious to Suzanne and him.

  “We still owe Martin Gonzalez a killer he can arrest to close out the file on the murder of Bernardo Colletti. Have you thought about whom exactly we are going to suggest for this dubious honor? Leila Tehrani is not only dead of a questionable suicide, but should be completely off limits as a suspect so we don’t open up the whole question of Iranian involvement to the local police. That would just point right back to you, Eduardo, and what you're doing here in Montevideo and we don’t want that. Leila Tehrani would have been the perfect killer to give Martin if we were free to discuss her motives with the local police authorities, but that’s one of those “if wishes were horses then beggars would ride” deals. I assume we just gave Juan Blanco the equivalent of complete absolution for his sins, so he’s off the suspect list. Who’s left?”

  “Believe it or not, I’ve actually thought this one through,” replied Eduardo. “Just because we gave Juan absolution tonight doesn’t mean Martin has to offer him a prolonged state of grace over the long haul. I propose that we, and by “we” I mean you two, tell Martin that Juan Blanco arranged the murder of Bernardo Colletti. However, you have to also tell him at the same time that we’ll never know if he did it himself or hired someone else to do it. His motive was that most basic of motives, revenge. He bitterly resented Martin's rapid rise to a captaincy and was afraid of Martin because he knew that he was scrupulously honest, and Juan was afraid that some of his own corruption might come to light. He figured he could kill two birds with one stone by killing Bernardo. Juan assumed that he could control the investigation. He could implicate the two of you and embarrass Martin. If Martin did anything to try to cover up your alleged role in the murder he could use that information to blackmail Martin in the future.

  “There’s no way we can prove any of this in a court of law, but Juan Blanco knows that all three of us know, and that we'll tell Martin all of this tomorrow. That information should be enough for Martin to be able to control Captain Blanco for the rest of his career. And don’t forget there will be a police report in a few days that shows Juan Blanco’s fingerprints all over Leila Tehrani’s apartment, the scene of a very questionable suicide. So now the shoe is on the other foot in terms of which captain is in a position to blackmail the other captain into cooperation. That’s almost certainly as close as anyone is going to get as far as securing justice for Bernardo Colletti. And let’s also remember that Bernardo was not a very nice man, and nobody is really going to miss him. Juan Blanco essentially removed one large piece of garbage that nobody wi
ll really miss from the Montevideo scene.”

  “Not bad, Eduardo,” replied Suzanne. “No espionage, no infringement of Uruguay’s sovereign rights by a Paraguayan cop and a known spy, no Iranian involvement. But why not just give him Leila who we all assume was the real killer?”

  Eduardo took a quick look at Suzanne like a teacher explaining simple arithmetic to a particularly slow student. “Because keeping me at arm’s length from all of this is critical, or else the Iranians will have accomplished everything that Leila set out to do. In any scenario where Martin arrested Leila for Bernardo's murder I'm pretty sure that the Iranians would throw Leila to the wolves and figure out how to out me as a spy to everyone in the media who wanted a big story. I'd probably be deported from Uruguay as persona non grata. That would severely limit my usefulness to the Mossad in the future.

  "There wasn’t any motive for Leila to have killed Bernardo the way she did except to compromise me. So there’s no way she could be arrested for the killing that doesn’t end up with her losing the battle and winning the war as far as her mission to discredit me is concerned. Do you think she’d have kept quiet during a trial or when the press interviewed her lawyer? And how long do you think Leila would stay in jail here in Montevideo if she were convicted of the murder? Hezbollah would kidnap a few Uruguayans, there would be a discrete exchange of prisoners, and we’d be right back where we started from in all of this except I couldn't ever function in Uruguay again. And that would be particularly unfortunate given the way Iran is trying so hard to develop stronger economic and political ties to the government here in Montevideo. And clearly they wouldn't stop at anything, bribery or murder, to build those ties.