The Ambivalent Corpse (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 1)

by Jerold Last

  All of this was a lot less complicated in practice than it sounds. We used the hotel's back door, walked a few blocks in the right direction, did a few crazy street crossings in traffic to make it hard for anybody following us to remain invisible, and called Eduardo. Eduardo gave us the all-clear signal so we went in and found our friends at a table in the back of the designated restaurant. Martin, Eduardo, and two cups of coffee were waiting for us. Everybody shook hands and sat down. Eduardo took the lead.

  "I think we all have some progress to report," Eduardo began. "I'll go first, Martin next, and we'll save the best, Suzanne and Roger, for last. My big news is that we've identified Colorado from Argentina, Pancho from Chile, Bernardo from Uruguay, and Tomas from Paraguay. Bernardo is Bernardo Colletti, as Suzanne and Roger already know from their dinner last night, an emergency room doctor at the Hospital de Clinicas here in Montevideo. He's had some medical training in the United States, but was born here in Montevideo and has lived most of his life in Uruguay. He comes from a wealthy family and makes a good living as a physician here, comparatively speaking. He's never been in trouble with the law. My guess is that he's a political dilettante, not a killer.

  "Tomas is Tomas Strosser, a third generation Paraguayan of German descent. He's bad news, ideologically a third generation Nazi and a tough and sane version of Carlos de Silva. Tomas is a lawyer and very well educated. He's capable of violence and has been arrested for assault and for vehicular manslaughter. He's never been convicted of a crime; money and political connections help a lot in Paraguay.

  "Pancho is Francisco Romero, a Chilean banker and financier," continued Eduardo. "He's very wealthy and well connected politically with the old Pinochet crowd. I think he's a political dinosaur with no real teeth. His ability to raise a lot of money for the Party keeps him indispensible.

  "Finally, and I saved the best for last, Colorado is Pablo Gutierrez, an Argentine fisherman by trade who owns a nice large charter boat that he takes out on the Atlantic for sports fishing. He's originally from Cordoba, but he's a porteno from BA now. He's the youngest and toughest of the group, in his forties. Pablo also has a reputation for violence, and has been arrested on charges of suspicion of murder, manslaughter, inciting to violence, and assault. He served a couple of years in jail for the assault, but that's his only conviction. Witnesses disappear or change their minds before his alleged crimes come to trial."

  "OK, it's your turn now," said Eduardo, turning to Martin.

  "I have lots of bits and pieces. First, we arrested Maria Fajao's husband last night in Rivera, trying to cross the border into Brazil. He says he remained in hiding because the newspapers have already convicted him and he assumed that the police here had already decided he was guilty. In fact he has an ironclad alibi. He was in Argentina the night of the killing and couldn't have done the dismemberment and display of the body.

  "We also located the missing girlfriend and daughter. They were hiding out in Argentina with a distant cousin because of the lurid newspaper coverage. I don't think they've committed any crimes."

  Martin went on, "Do you remember we were testing all of the fish cutting saws from the Rio de la Plata fish processing plants for Maria Fajao's blood type? We got a hit on one of the saws from a plant near Piriapolis that is closed for the season and totally deserted. The DNA analysis is being done now. We've also got a bunch of fingerprints to check against our Nazi friends. At least for the two of them with criminal records, we should be able to get some results today."

  "Let me do some guessing and save us all some time," I said. "I think we've got a pretty clear picture of what really took place by now. We've been puzzled by how the Rio de la Plata water got into Maria's lungs. With my apologies to Suzanne who hates theories that explain everything, I have a theory of the murder that explains pretty much everything we know. We can probably assume that Maria saw or said something to someone in Punta del Este that got her killed because she knew too much. Let's start with how she got to Montevideo with a stop in a fish processing plant near Piriapolis to be sliced into pieces. That needed a boat. I think Colorado must have been involved; he's the most convenient guy around Punta del Este with a boat for carrying a fresh corpse around. I'd start by trying to match the fingerprints you found with his. And I'd try to match the semen you found in Maria Fajao with Carlos de Silva's DNA."

  I drank some coffee and continued. "I'm guessing here but it makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe someone kidnaps Maria in Punta del Este, probably on the spur of the moment. He takes her at gunpoint to Colorado's boat to keep her from screaming for help in a crowded city. Maybe she gets carried to Colorado's boat in the dark when she's unconscious. In any case, she was alive on the boat. My guess is they threw her in the hold they put the freshly caught fish in. It's basically a large fish tank that keeps the fish alive and fresh between when they're caught and when they can get them on ice at a processing plant. Maybe they didn't know it had water in it. Maybe they didn't care. That's where she drowned. Your forensic guys should find evidence in that fish storage hold if you get a warrant and they look hard enough. If Colorado were as smart and professional as you say, he would have taken Maria's body ten miles out from Punta del Este into the Rio de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean and dumped it when she drowned. Nobody would have ever found it or identified it, and he'd be safe at home. The whole slicing, dicing, and posing thing is pure amateur. So who showed up at Colorado's boat asking for his help?"

  I had some more coffee. Talking this much was drying me out. "Thanks to our little Goddess here distracting Carlos yesterday in Punta del Este, he told us a little bit more than I think he meant to. He told us that a girl he knew from Sao Miguel recognized him and asked what he was doing in Punta del Este. His story is that he told the other Nazis what happened and they told him they would take care of everything and sent him back to Montevideo. Carlos denied knowing anything about what happened after he left. When I told Bernardo what Carlos had said, he told me that Carlos lied and that Carlos and Colorado had stayed on in Punta del Este to solve a problem that had come up. Bernardo also told me that Colorado was the alpha male in this group of Nazi leadership. I'm pretty sure Bernardo was telling me the truth.

  "That makes Carlos the amateur who came up with the idea of cutting up Maria's body and staging the whole ambivalent corpse thing. That particular bit of weirdness fits with his crazy scheme to use Suzanne as the reincarnation of the local Goddess Porá-sy to create a Fourth Reich in South America. The whole plan sounds like a bad script for a Steven Spielberg movie. Carlos really isn't playing with a full deck of cards. One of our dinner guests in Rivera suggested that the goal of staging the ambivalent corpse murder was to get publicity that would scare the Israelis off so the Nazis could have a free hand. This really was amateur night.

  "Anyway, that's how I think it happened. You can look for hard evidence on Colorado's boat and check whether the fingerprints on the saw that was used to slice up Maria Fajao's body belong to Carlos and Colorado. If they had any additional muscle to help, it had to be Uruguayan muscle, so Martin should be able to match any additional fingerprints that might show up in his files."

  "You asked me before what I thought would happen if you told Carlos that you were the ones who found Maria's body," Martin spoke up. "I told you it was too risky to try. Now I'm not so sure. A confession would tie things up very nicely, and would get us Colorado, who is the big fish here. What do you think, Suzanne? Should the Goddess and Roger make one more appearance in front of Carlos?"

  Eduardo added his contribution. "Nobody deserves to be treated as Maria Fajao was, in life or in death. It doesn't seem right that Carlos spends the rest of his life living comfortably in a mental hospital as his only punishment. I would take it as a personal favor if you beat the crap out of Carlos and inflict some serious pain on him before Martin formally arrests him after he confesses. I can arrange for some modern electronics to record his confession if you can get him in the right mood to make it."


  Martin nodded his agreement with this plan.

  Suzanne and I agreed with the general plan. Eduardo would leave a small package containing a special necklace for Suzanne at the front desk of the hotel for us in an hour or two. She would be wearing a wireless transmitter with a range of half a mile. We just had to hope that Carlos would say the right things with a little prompting. In the meantime the mundane police stuff, fingerprint matching and getting a warrant to search for evidence on Colorado's fishing boat, would be proceeding in the background. Martin's men would keep Colorado's boat under surveillance. They would watch but not touch until the forensic team arrived unless there were signs that the boat was leaving. In that case they would arrest everybody on the boat and worry about the charges later.

  Suzanne called Carlos on our cell phone. "We're going over to the Facultad de Quimica this afternoon to meet with Patricia Colletti and her lab group till about 4 o'clock. Would you like to join us?"

  She listened for a short time then replied.

  "It's too bad that you're tied up until 4. How about getting together for a drink in our hotel room afterwards? Say 5 o'clock? Great. We'll see you then. I have something important to tell you."

  "That sounds promising," said Martin.

  Eduardo agreed. "We'll get all set up in another room on your floor just in case anything goes wrong. If all goes well, just get him talking about the Ambivalent Corpse and let's hear what he has to say."

  "It looks like we have a day to kill," observed Suzanne. "Why don't we plan on finally getting in a good run like the one that was so abruptly interrupted our first morning here when we found the body and started this whole investigation before we visit Patricia?"

  "Sounds good to me," I said. "Call her and set our visit up. It'll give us another chance to ride that #52 bus."

  Martin and Eduardo took off to do whatever they had to do. We would see them at the end of Carlos' visit, one way or the other. If everything went as planned, that would be about 5:30.

  After changing into running gear back at the hotel Suzanne and I took the six-mile run east on the Rambla that had been interrupted so brutally the last time we ran. It was great. I felt energized and relaxed at the same time. After the run we jogged and walked back to the hotel, showered, dressed, and had a light lunch. Our visit to the university and Suzanne's new colleagues lasted for a few hours and we were back at the hotel by 3:30. We picked up Eduardo's package at the desk.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent catching up on email and other computer-related business. Suzanne and I discussed our strategy and how we wanted to stage the meeting. We decided she would take the lead with Carlos today. She changed back into the Levis she had worn to Punta del Este, still dark and visibly soaking wet from her last dip in the Rio de la Plata. Eduardo's necklace went on around her neck and looked quite nice. Carlos called from the lobby a few minutes before 5 and we invited him to come up to the room.

  There was a knock on the door. I took a quick look through the peephole and made sure Carlos was alone before I opened the door.

  "Good afternoon Carlos. Come on in."

  He looked quickly around, saw that we were alone in the room, and came in and sat down on the chair at the table. Our bottle of scotch and three glasses were waiting. I poured three glasses.

  "Is that a new necklace, Suzanne? I don't remember seeing it before."

  "Yes, it is. Our new friends Gerardo and Andrea took us to the Saturday morning Feria in Pocitos. I bought it there. Do you like it?"

  "I like everything you wear. I'm sorry, I have only a short time before I have to be on the other side of town. You said on the phone that you wanted to tell me something important."

  Suzanne sat down on the bed across from Carlos, while I stood against the wall by the door. I didn't see any sign that Carlos had a gun, but I wasn't 100% sure so stayed alert. Suzanne spoke directly to Carlos.

  "When we first met in Sao Miguel you said something like you felt that our destinies were intertwined and that our meeting was fated, not fortuitous. There's something I didn't tell you then that proves you are right. The first morning after Roger and I came to Montevideo we went for a run on the Rambla. It was a shorter run than we planned. We found a dead body over by the Graf Spee Memorial. Roger and I were the ones who discovered the Ambivalent Corpse. Somehow I feel a connection between that dead body, you, and me."

  "I knew it," said Carlos. "We're definitely connected by the gods. I'm the one who put the body there. It was your destiny to find her and then find me. You truly are my Goddess Porá-sy."

  "What do you mean by you put the body there? Where did you get her body?"

  "Colorado and I killed her and cut her up, of course."

  And it was as easy as that.

  Suzanne stood up and walked a few paces towards Carlos. He stood in front of her. I don't know what he was expecting, but what he got had to be a whole lot different from his fantasies.

  "Carlos, I usually like getting wet and enjoy turning Roger on by playing in the water. But I hate this whole wet jeans thing with you. I hate being looked at as a thing, not a person. I hate everything you stand for. I hate your sense of superiority. I hate your bigotry. I hate you."

  Without any further warning she launched a karate kick into his solar plexus. As he doubled up trying to breathe, a roundhouse kick to his face broke his nose. Before he could fall, two incredibly quick kicks tore some ligaments in his left knee and broke his right arm at the elbow. He fell to the floor moaning.

  "Think of that as your last message from the Goddess Porá-sy," said Suzanne. "Remember that message for the rest of your miserable life in jail."

  I carefully checked Carlos for any concealed weapons. Carlos had a miniature pistol in an ankle holster that he had never gotten a chance to use. I put it on the table and left the empty ankle holster exposed to make sure the stage was set for a self-defense scenario.

  Eduardo and Martin came into our room, followed by two very large detectives I didn't know.

  "Muy bien, very good," said Eduardo. "We'll take it from here. The audio was perfect, and the hidden gun from his ankle holster you must have picked up from the floor is a nice touch."

  Martin invited us all to dinner courtesy of the Intendencia of Montevideo.

  Dinner was interesting for several reasons. It was in a neighborhood restaurant between our hotel and the Old City that we had never noticed. The food and service turned out to be excellent. Martin brought his wife with him, a clear signal in Uruguay that we were now real friends, not just business colleagues. Since Eduardo was included in the dinner invitation, he too was being promoted to friend status. Martin introduced Sylvia, his wife, to us and vice versa. We made small talk until we were eating appetizers.

  “Here’s to our favorite Goddess, Suzanne, and to Roger. We wouldn’t have caught Carlos or any of the other bastards without your help,” Martin toasted us with his wine glass. “There are times that amateurs can accomplish things a police professional can’t. Between stupid rules, politics, petty rivalries and jealousies, and endless bureaucratic procedures, I spend most of my time writing and rewriting reports and filing them. You guys got more done in a week than I can usually do in a year. If you ever come back to Uruguay, I promise you another case to solve.”

  Martin, with apologies to Sylvia, switched to an update on the case.

  "We arrested Colorado this afternoon. He surrendered peacefully and nobody was hurt. He will have a much more difficult time getting off in Uruguay than he has previously had in Argentina. I can promise you he will spend many years in jail for his part in this murder. We also arrested two low-level Uruguayan Nazis as accessories. They left forensic evidence behind and Carlos implicated all three of his accomplices in his diary. Can you believe that he kept a daily diary that spells out the entire Ambivalent Corpse affair in detail? He really is crazy. Carlos is in the Hospital de Clinicas police ward recovering from his injuries and will go from there to a mental hospital for psychiatric evalu
ation. I doubt he will ever leave the mental hospital.

  "The good news for you two is that we won't need your testimony in any of the forthcoming trials. You can say good-bye to the Ambivalent Corpse."

  Now it was Eduardo's turn. "Tomas was arrested in Paraguay today on charges of conspiracy and accessory after the fact to murder. I think we can make the charges stick and he will serve a few years in jail. With your help, we have pretty much destroyed the leadership of the Nazi Parties in the Mercosur, at least for now. Score one for the good guys."

  It was my turn now. I had one more theory I wanted to test out. "If I were guessing, I'd guess Bernardo is working with you, Martin, and is a cooperative bad guy. You must have known about the Punta del Este meeting before you sent us on our dinner with the Nazis trip to Northern Uruguay and Brazil. I assume you decided to use us to infiltrate the Nazis that first morning when we found the body because we both look Northern European, especially Suzanne, didn't you? Am I right?"