Death Comes in Through the Kitchen

by Teresa Dovalpage

  “Yarmi was my fiancée,” he said, as if defending himself from a silent accusation. “She was poor, though she didn’t consider herself poor. As I said, she didn’t ask for anything. She even told me not to spend a lot on ‘stuff.’ She wasn’t a material girl.”

  “Did you believe she loved you?” Padrino asked softly.

  “Yes. Either Yarmila was an Oscar-worthy actress or I’m the biggest pendejo in the world, but I did believe she was sincere. She wasn’t interested in money, dollar shops or fancy places. I once invited her to Tropicana and she refused to go.”

  Padrino listened carefully, with his head cocked toward Matt.

  “Why?”

  “She said it wasn’t ‘the real Cuba’ and she didn’t like the way the dancers presented themselves to foreign audiences. She thought it was disrespectful of her country’s image or something like that.”

  “I see.”

  “Besides, I didn’t send her that much. For you Cubans a thousand bucks may look like a lot, but it isn’t for us.”

  “Everything is relative,” Padrino said.

  He looked at Matt with a knowing smile.

  “And something else,” Matt added. “She wasn’t anxious to leave Cuba. She seemed happy enough with her life here so I never had the impression that she was using me to get a visa.”

  “Were you planning to settle in Havana after you guys got married?”

  “Oh, God, no! I don’t think I could live here. Yarmi once said she wanted to visit San Diego and hinted that she could travel back and forth.”

  “That doesn’t sound realistic. Unless you are very rich, of course.”

  A window with metal shutters filtered the sun onto Padrino’s desk. Matt watched the light patterns for a few seconds. Had I been rich, maybe Yarmi wouldn’t have cheated on me.

  “I am not,” he said at last. “I am a journalist for a small border paper. I couldn’t have paid for her trips, or mine, more than once or maybe twice a year.”

  “Then?”

  “I guess she wasn’t going to marry me,” Matt admitted. “I guess she wasn’t my fiancée, after all.”

  “Was she or wasn’t she? Let’s make this clear.”

  Matt took his time to answer again. When he did, his voice cracked.

  “I proposed to Yarmila over the phone on February 14. I asked her to be my wife and—she didn’t say yes. But she didn’t say no either. She told me that it was a serious matter, something to talk over in person.”

  Suddenly, he recognized the image on the print. It was a representation of the Virgin of Regla, the one he had just seen at the church. It was the only item in the office that gave a clue to Padrino’s spiritual role.

  “But I went ahead and bought the dress and the ring, and got that stupid certificate of single status that the Notaría Internacional website listed as a requirement just in case she happened to accept my proposal,” he went on. “I was too hopeful, wasn’t I?”

  In the end, she would have rejected me or told me that we’d have to wait. She loved Pato Macho, not me. And I knew it in my heart. That’s the worst part of it, but I won’t tell this guy, or anybody else. I suspected the truth and that was why I went for a secondhand dress at Buffalo Exchange instead of a new one from Macy’s.

  Padrino nodded in silent agreement. “While you were in the apartment, did you notice anything out of place or unusual?” he asked. “I know you were there for the first time, but still.”

  “Well, let me see . . . I remember a couple of books on the coffee table. There was an old refrigerator that reminded me of my grandparents’ times, and an ironing board right in front of it. It was kinda odd, actually, unless she had been planning to iron before she was—”

  “Like this?” Padrino showed him his notepad with a crude sketch of the two pieces.

  “Yes, exactly,” he said. “It would have been impossible to open the refrigerator door unless you moved the ironing board first. Other than that, the place looked neat, though something there stank badly. I don’t know what it was. It was then that I discovered the body and—”

  He stopped and covered his face with his hands. He saw Yarmila again, rigid in the bathtub. To think that this would be the last image I’d have of her. After I had expected to find her making merenguitos for me.

  “Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Padrino asked after a short pause.

  “I’d like to know why she was cheating on me with . . . that young man,” Matt said. “Like, why bother? She could have broken up with me. She didn’t have to string me along, did she?”

  “That is beyond my skills,” Padrino said. “I can, with some luck, discover who killed her. But why she acted the way she did, that’s another story. The only person who could give you an answer is now dead.”

  Matt swallowed hard. It briefly occurred to him to ask Padrino if he wasn’t a medium too. Could santeros channel spirits or get in touch with them somehow?

  No, wait. I don’t want him to think of me as a gullible Yuma. Well, he may be thinking that already. No need to ask such a stupid question and remove all doubt.

  When the interview was over, Padrino wrote down Román’s address and phone number and said he would be in touch. He also gave Matt his cell number.

  “You can call me anytime,” he said.

  They shook hands.

  “May the orishas bless you,” Padrino said.

  “Thanks,” Matt answered. “Ah—do you mind if I ask you a question, Padrino?”

  It was the first time he called him by his name, or rather his nickname. The santero smiled, amused.

  “You can ask all the questions you want, my friend. You are paying me to find the answers.”

  “It’s not about the case.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are you a Santería practitioner?” Matt asked.

  “Yes, I am a babalawo.”

  “That’s like a priest?”

  Padrino fingered his necklaces. “Close enough.”

  “Do you use your babalawo powers to solve these cases?”

  Padrino laughed.

  “I ask the orishas for guidance in most situations, professional and personal, but they have never told me, ‘This guy killed someone, or the money he stole is buried under that tree,’” he laughed louder. “I wish!”

  “When you offer spiritual sessions, how much do you charge?”

  “Donations only. Some bring me food; others gifts, even animals.” Padrino shrugged, then chuckled. “One Christmas Eve, one of my godsons showed up with three piglets. I said to him, ‘You’re crazy. What am I supposed to do with these oinkers?’ And he said, ‘Eh, that’s up to you. I just want to pay my respect to you and the orishas.’ That was two years ago. We have been eating pork quite often ever since.”

  Yarmi Cooks Cuban

  Old Farmer’s Broth

  Hola and welcome to my kitchen!

  I hadn’t written in the last few days because I had a cold. Ay ay ay, my poor head hurt so much and I couldn’t keep a thing in my stomach. And as you know, I love having stuff in this pancita of mine!

  So I made myself a big batch of what Grandma Hilda called Old Farmer’s Broth. It is simple, delicious and curalotodo, meaning it can heal everything. I have been having it for the last three days and I am feeling much better, thank you.

  People always think caldo de pollo, chicken broth, when they come down with a cold, but Grandma Hilda differed. She said that chicken was too heavy for a weak stomach. She made El Caldo del Guajiro Viejo instead.

  It’s easy to prepare. Chop five zucchinis, one pound of green beans, one pound of quimbombó (I believe the English name is okra) and a bunch of parsley. While you are chopping, boil five cups of water, then add all the ingredients and bring them to a boil again.

  Let it simmer for half an hour. After tw
enty minutes, you can also add marjoram and cilantro to spice things up a bit. Let it cool for a while and puree everything.

  That’s it! So green and beautiful you will feel better after looking at it.

  My friend Fefita came to see how I was doing. When I told her about the broth, she made a face. As some of you have noticed, Cubans have an aversion to vegetables. “Fo,” she said.

  “Fo” means “Arf,” my Yuma boyfriend told me.

  “That must taste like blotter paper,” she huffed, without having as much as tasted it. Blotter paper, listen to that! I made her try the caldo and she had to admit that it wasn’t half as bad as she thought. But still, she brought me a cup of chicken broth.

  Have you ever had anything similar to my caldo?

  Comments

  Cocinera Cubana said. . .

  Hi Yarmi! Hope you are feeling better. This is almost exactly like Bieler’s Broth, only that it has celery instead of okra.

  Julia de Tejas said. . .

  Be well, amiga. Your broth will be perfect for a cold winter night.

  Anita said. . .

  I love how you people take care of each other.

  Taos Tonya said. . .

  Add chile, hita! That will make it even better.

  Yarmi said. . .

  Thanks, you all! I am back to my usual self and I appreciate your good wishes. Yes, Anita, we love helping each other here. That’s part of our Cubanidad.

  Lucy Adel said. . .

  Tonya, I already know that in Taos, wherever that is, you add chile to dessert. Do you put it in your beer too, by any chance?

  Folks of all nationalities also take care of their family and friends. That’s not a Cuban trait, Yarmi. That’s universal.

  Part III

  Chapter One

  Comrade Instructor

  Marlene Martínez started her workday at six thirty in the morning. She liked to spend some time alone before the phone began to ring and people started to pour in the Unidad. There was a stack of files on her desk. She had meant to shred them all the night before since the information they contained was now stored electronically.

  Finally, technology was catching up with the Unidad. A computer had just been assigned to her. When Martínez’s boss, Captain Rogelio Ramos, had told her that she was the only person in the building who could use the device, she had beamed. The computer was an old model, with a small screen and an MS-DOS operating system. Marlene wished it had internet access—she had become more familiar with the concept thanks to Yarmila’s blog posts—but the service wasn’t available inside the police station. Still, “something was something.”

  “You can dispose of your old papers, compañera,” Captain Ramos had said. “Now everything will be much easier to organize.”

  She had stayed until 10:00 p.m. the previous night, transferring all the handwritten information to the computer. She looked forward to reviewing it in its new, improved form. She might see certain things with more clarity now. But when she turned on the computer, the screen blinked annoyingly for several minutes. Martínez tried rebooting. The monitor went blank. She hit the tower case, cursed Captain Ramos, and congratulated herself for not throwing away the paper files.

  “So much for technology!”

  She opened an old-fashioned but reliable paper folder labeled “Yarmila Portal” and went over her list of suspects. Yosvani Álvarez, aka Pato Macho, had been at the top originally, but she had moved him to the bottom after confirming his alibi: he had spent the morning of the day that Yarmila was killed at El Cincuentenario Bar. Five people had seen him, though there was a period of around an hour, at lunchtime, when he claimed he had gone home. Only his mother could attest to it, which she had of course done.

  Pato had broken into tears when Martínez questioned him. Could that have been an act? She didn’t think so. She couldn’t see him killing Yarmila, or anybody else. More suspicious was his mother, an abrasive woman with a bad temper that she had barely controlled in the detective’s presence. Isabel had been defensive of her son, protesting her niño’s innocence and badmouthing Yarmila in subtle ways. Marlene concluded that Isabel was the type who made her daughter-in-law’s life miserable. And she had no alibi. She said she had been “cooking up a storm at home” all day.

  Martínez wrote a question mark next to Isabel’s name. The next page was devoted to a couple, Carmela Mendez and Pablo Urquiola. They had caught her attention right away, not only because they were among the few close friends Yarmila had, but also because they used to be members of the Communist Party and had turned into dissidents. That was enough for Marlene to look at them suspiciously.

  She reread her notes on them. They lived two blocks away from Yarmila, who visited them often. She had invited them to La Caldosa and paid for their dinner from her own pocket, though Isabel, who provided the information, considered the couple bad for business. “They were her friends, not mine,” she had said when Martínez pressed for details. “I only knew they were gusanos.”

  Martínez didn’t have to go far to find more information about Carmela and Pablo. La Seguridad already kept a watchful eye and a huge file on them because of their political activities. They wrote for a Miami website that documented human rights violations in Cuba. They listened to Radio Martí and went to the American Interest Section every week to read foreign newspapers and—an unnamed informant assumed—conspire against the revolution. Pablo had once spent three months in prison. They were likely to get an American visa, the Seguridad agent’s footnote read, if they ever asked for it. “Difficult to deal with. Obstinate. Won’t shut up, especially Carmela,” the informer had concluded.

  Martínez distrusted them, though she hadn’t even met them yet. Couldn’t it be possible that these two and citizen Portal had had a disagreement over money? The detective had read that the CIA paid dissidents generously and that all human rights groups were financed by the Americans. Yarmila had been quick to accept Matt’s “help” though she obviously didn’t love him. Maybe she had tried to get something out of the gusanos. Yarmila could have threatened to turn them in, and so they had killed her.

  It was a wild assumption, but now that Pato Macho had been discarded, Martínez felt more inclined to consider it. In truth, she disliked the dissidents as much as she was starting to dislike citizen Portal. That was new for her. As a detective, she had always been on the victim’s side. But this was no ordinary victim. First, Yarmila did extra work at the paladar, a private business that paid her in dollars or CUCs. Why did she do that, when she had been assigned a perfectly good job at the Institute of Literature and Linguistics? Martínez shook her head and scowled at the file.

  Don’t tell me she cooked for Isabel only in her spare time. I bet she cut her hours short at the Institute to work at La Caldosa.

  Then she had cheated on her official boyfriend with Pato Macho. Though Marlene had done her best to conceal it, she had secretly sympathized with Matt. He might be an American, but he seemed like a nice guy. She felt sorry for him, more so after he admitted that he had sent Yarmila a lot of money.

  What a sucker. And not bad looking, by the way. More handsome than Pato Macho, who is just a big mama’s boy. Martinez would have let Matt go—she didn’t consider him a suspect anymore—but it wasn’t up to her.

  The worst part, in her opinion, was citizen Portal’s relationship with the gusanos. Fefita, the President of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (the same woman who had been with Matt when he found the body, Martínez recalled), hadn’t accused her neighbor of any counterrevolutionary activities, but that didn’t mean much. The two had been good friends. Marlene had the impression that Fefita had tried to smooth things over. Even so, she had hinted that Yarmila sometimes “kept bad company.”

  Martínez made a note to call Fefita again. At times like this, she wished she had someone with whom she could discuss things. She could have go
ne to Jacobo Rodríguez—“Agent Pedro”—but didn’t feel comfortable with the idea. The Seguridad guy had put himself in charge of the case, confiscating Matt’s passport and searching the crime scene before anybody else, including Martínez, was allowed in. She resented his intrusion and wondered if the secret police didn’t trust her. Maybe they thought she wasn’t doing her job properly or doubted she could handle a foreigner with enough professionalism.

  Martínez had yet another reason to be concerned. At the Unidad, she was used to dealing with petty criminals, drug dealers, jineteras, and pimps. This was only the third murder case she’d had. With the other two she had been part of a team, but now she was on her own—except for “Agent Pedro” who hadn’t done a thing to be of help to her.

  Ah, if she could have called her favorite teacher at the National Revolutionary Police Academy! He had taught research methods and data analysis. Marlene had been his best student. He had recommended her for her first job. But “comrade instructor,” as she still called him, was now a believer in Afro-Cuban deities, a dispenser of charms! She had seen him once after he retired, dressed totally in white and wearing a strange necklace.

  Marlene couldn’t understand how a former detective, someone who was well versed in dialectical materialism, had become a santero. But so many people in Cuba believed in Santería. Her own mother kept a glass of water behind the door “to quench the spirits’ thirst” and a small saucer full of honey for the orisha Oshún. She also had a Virgin of Charity altar hidden in a kitchen corner and she lit candles in front of it.

  Marlene snickered. As if the orishas could materialize and, say, help me solve this case. Come on, Oshún, lend me a hand here. Ha!

  The phone rang, though it wasn’t eight o’clock yet. Martínez wanted to ignore it but she finally answered. Her face lit up when she heard the man’s voice.