by Carmen Amato
“Guess you won’t be eating here again anytime soon,” Silvio observed.
The snarky tone of his voice cut through the vision in her head and Emilia pulled herself together.
The back wall of the restaurant’s dining area was gone, revealing the blackened kitchen and beyond that, a truck-sized hole in the rear of the building. Piles of detritus were on display in the bright daylight. Nothing had been cleaned up.
Only the bar, a curved expanse of mahogany, was intact. Emilia recalled that an antique mirror had served as a backsplash. She peered behind the bar, careful not to touch anything, and saw a glittering wet heap of broken glass running its entire length. Thousands of pesos worth of alcohol, all gone.
Silvio crunched across the room. “They said the mayor’s security detail were all in the back of the place,” he said questioningly.
Emilia nodded. “The mayor had been sitting over there,” she said. They kicked aside glass and china from around the torched remains of the table that Kurt had pulled off Obregon. There were wet and discolored lumps that might have been the remains of Kurt’s shirt, or maybe the tablecloth. “Obregon got caught under the table and Kurt managed to move it off him.”
“Hell of a favor.” Silvio looked around, taking in everything. Emilia knew that later he’d be able to recall in detail what they’d seen. More than once he’d surprised her by quickly discerning patterns, recalling bits of evidence, and connecting facts and theories.
Emilia saw three red body outlines painted on the rubble of what had been the rear wall. “The entire detail was together back here.”
“Hey!” Two men climbed over the rubble of the back wall, both wearing the heavy canvas pants and bulky boots of firefighters as well as the latex gloves used at crime scenes. “Who are you two?”
“I’m Silvio and this is Cruz,” Silvio introduced them again and held out his badge, his voice as forceful as that of the other man.
Emilia recognized the taller of the two men from official bulletins that had appeared in her inbox. Rogelio Furtado Marcos had been chief of Acapulco’s fire department for several years. His presence underscored the fact that they were investigating an assassination attempt; the fire chief would hardly be there in person for an ordinary fire.
Furtado gestured with a gloved hand. “I’m Chief Furtado. Don’t touch anything.”
“You mind if we look at the kitchen and the back of the building?” Silvio asked.
Furtado handed them latex gloves, and they followed the fire chief over the rubble and into what remained of the restaurant’s kitchen. Darkened twists of metal looked like the ghosts of sinks, pans, and the legs of a prep table. The overhead lights were gone; chains and cords dangled from the smoke-blackened ceiling where they’d hung. A long stove was strewn with debris, the doors hung crazily from an industrial refrigerator as large as Emilia’s bedroom, and a heap of metal could have been anything from shelving to worktables. The floor was ankle-deep in sharp-edged trash, although a path had been cleared along one side. As Emilia looked around, she counted five more spray-painted body outlines. The walls were dotted with neon orange paint.
The huge hole in the back wall exposed a rear courtyard that was probably used as a parking area. A transparent plastic shelter similar to the one in the front courtyard was set up there and two firefighters were bent over a makeshift table. Emilia couldn’t tell what was on the table.
Chief Furtado led them into the shelter. “My guess is some sort of firebomb,” he said, pointing to one of the larger twisted bits. “Exploded near the kitchen door and set off the propane tanks.”
“There were three explosions,” Emilia said.
Chief Furtado looked at Emilia. “You the cop who was here that night?”
Emilia held up her bandaged hand.
“She was with Rucker,” Silvio said. “Guy who got the mayor and Victor Obregon out of here.”
“I heard he’s former military,” Furtado said. “Norteamericano special forces or something. Runs the Palacio Réal now.” He looked at Emilia inquiringly and she gave a nod. Later, she’d find a way to make Silvio die a slow, twisting death.
“Most of the dead were probably killed by concussion and falling debris rather than fire or smoke inhalation,” Furtado said. “Nobody in the kitchen went out the back. The ones who survived went through the main dining area and out the front.”
Silvio pulled on the latex gloves and picked up one of the fragments. Emilia did the same. The small bits of metal looked like what they were: tiny, twisted servants of death. She brought the metal to her nose and sniffed at it, and was rewarded with a sooty ferric smell. She put it back on the table.
“Let’s look around,” Silvio said.
The rear courtyard was basically a parking area. It was large enough to accommodate at least three cars. The metal doors were the kind that swung open wide enough for a delivery van or a large car. A narrow pedestrian gate was set into the wall as well. Emilia crossed the courtyard and tried the gate. It was unlocked, and she went out to look at the building from the rear.
A narrow alley ran behind the El Tigre. The fire chief’s vehicle was parked to one side, all but blocking the narrow road, but Emilia guessed that not many cars came down the short street.
She walked to the far side of the alley and looked at the building from that angle, trying to fix the scene in her mind. There were only three buildings in the block, all of which backed to the alley. The El Tigre was the last building on the left as Emilia faced the rear. The alley curved away before emptying into a wider street that wound downhill.
The El Tigre and the middle house in the block were both built in the traditional Spanish architectural style, with pale yellow stucco and red roof tiles. Both buildings, which shared a common privacy wall, were encircled by walls punctuated by wide car doors and a pedestrian gate. The last building looked more modern, with a whitewashed finish and square rather than arched windows below a slate roof. The alley ended there and the cross street ran toward the plaza.
Emilia recrossed the alley to the El Tigre’s pedestrian gate and realized there was no latch or knob, only a keyhole. The gate was solid corrugated metal, the same as the car doors. If she stood on her tiptoes and stretched, she could touch the top where it met the wall’s overhang. She shoved at it, wondering if it was spring-loaded. It didn’t budge.
She jammed her finger on the doorbell, and a moment later Silvio opened the gate from the inside. “Rayos, Cruz,” he grumbled.
“Gate locks automatically when it closes,” she said.
She waited for him to make a smart remark, but he just ran his hand over the edge of the gate, finding only the keyhole instead of the expected latch. “The garage doors are the same,” he said. “Anybody can open from the inside to go out, but you need a key to get back in. The owner parked his car inside. Gates were closed Saturday night when the fire trucks came through.”
“He’d already left,” Emilia said. “Gone to check on the other restaurant he owns.” She hauled out her notebook and a pen and started a timeline. “We’ll need to find out what time the owner came in, what time the gates were closed.”
“Who else had a set of keys,” Silvio supplied.
“An inside job?”
“Either that or we’re looking for somebody who is eight feet tall and voted for the other guy.”
Emilia looked up at the wall surrounding the rear courtyard. It was topped with the usual coil of razor wire. “Could someone have climbed over the wall?” she asked doubtfully.
“Be a big risk,” Silvio said. “You want to be climbing over that knowing a bomb is going off in a couple of seconds?”
Emilia’s hand started hurting again as they crunched back through the restaurant, the midmorning sun invading the empty windows. A trick of light and soot danced over the naked chandeliers, causing them to cast swaying shadows like the noose of a hangman.
Chapter 6
“This is a law office,” Ramón Cisneros said tes
tily. He was a tall, thin man with a sparse moustache, as if he hadn’t enough testosterone to grow a real one but wasn’t going to admit it. “We don’t keep the same sort of hours as a restaurant and until Saturday the arrangement worked out very well.”
“We understand,” Emilia said. The middle building that backed to the alley was the law office of this pompous ass. “We’d just like to walk through, see the layout, and talk to the security guard who would have been here that night.
“The chauffeur,” Cisneros said.
“The chauffeur was there?” Emilia asked.
“His living quarters are here,” Cisneros said. “We keep the town car here. The house is in the next block and only has room for my wife’s vehicle.”
It was common for a chauffeur to double as a night watchman. Emilia raised a shoulder at Silvio and he nodded in return. Silvio hadn’t sat down in the lawyer’s book-lined office but wandered around the office, making a show of looking at the diplomas and law books while Emilia sat primly in a chair near the desk. Emilia knew that the senior detective’s restlessness made Cisneros uncomfortable. It was a good-cop, bad-cop trick Emilia and Silvio had used before. Agitated people often talked to Emilia just to get away from Silvio.
Cisneros led the way out of his office, down a hallway adorned with small oil paintings of Acapulco’s better-known cliffs, and to a small room where two women sat clicking away at computers. The room was small, and they were hemmed in by rows of filing cabinets. “Please show the detectives to Santiago’s spaces and tell him to show them the rear of the building.” He turned to Emilia and Silvio. “Detectives, if you’ll excuse me, I have an important case that needs my attention.”
He walked out rapidly. One of the women rose from her seat, and the two detectives followed her down a hallway and out into the courtyard.
It was nearly a mirror image of the rear courtyard of the El Tigre building next door, with wide metal doors for a vehicle and a pedestrian gate, both made from metal pickets.
“Do the gates have to be unlocked from the outside with a key?” Emilia asked.
“Or the automatic opener in the car,” the secretary explained.
Santiago was Cisneros’s driver, a compact man in his mid-thirties with short hair and a pockmarked face. He was polishing the large black sedan parked in the middle of the courtyard, wearing jeans, a long brown apron, and rubber boots to keep his feet dry as water from the hose bubbled over the stone driveway.
The secretary’s face pinched when she saw the water. “Turn off that hose,” she snapped. “Señor Cisneros isn’t going to want to hear that you waste so much water.”
The chauffeur shuffled over to the spigot and turned it off.
“The police have some questions for you,” the secretary said. “When they’re done, you can go get your lunch at the shop.”
“I’m Detective Silvio,” Silvio said and flashed his badge. “This is Detective Cruz.” He jerked his chin in Emilia’s direction. “We want to ask you some questions about the fire at the El Tigre last Saturday night.
“I don’t know anything about that,” the chauffeur mumbled.
“Sure,” Silvio agreed. He moved past Santiago to a small structure built up against the courtyard wall. “Do you live here?”
“Yes.” Santiago watched Silvio.
“Were you here Saturday night?” Emilia asked.
The chauffeur spun around to look at Emilia. “Yes.”
“Alone?” Silvio interjected.
“Yes, sure,” Santiago said, turning back to Silvio before moving away to coil up the hose. The secretary folded her arms, face tight with disapproval.
Emilia exchanged glances with Silvio.
“So you were here when the fire started.” Silvio let his voice form it into a question.
Santiago shrugged, his back to both detectives. “I guess.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. I was watching television in my room.” Santiago wrestled a kink out of the hose.
“Nothing?” Emilia asked. “It was pretty loud.”
Santiago kept his eyes on the hose. “I heard sirens, that’s all.”
“What did you watch?” Silvio said casually. He took out a notebook from his inside jacket pocket.
Santiago risked another look at the secretary. She continued her sour lemon act. “When?” he asked.
“When you were watching television the night of the El Tigre fire.” Silvio walked over to the chauffeur and put his foot on the coil of hose.
The secretary stiffened and Emilia nearly snorted.
Santiago stared at Silvio’s foot. “What night was that?”
“Saturday,” Silvio said.
“Lucha libre,” Santiago said. “The libre fights. They show it live from the Coliseo on Saturdays.”
Silvio nodded. “What did you watch after that?”
“I went to sleep.”
“With all the sirens and all the noise?”
“I went to sleep,” the chauffeur repeated.
Silvio shook his head and put his notebook back into his pocket. “Thanks, that’s all the questions I have.” He stepped back from the hose and turned to Emilia. “You got anything for him, Cruz?”
“No, that’s it,” Emilia said. “Thanks for your help.”
The secretary escorted them back through the law office building, casting nervous glances at Silvio as if he was going to steal a painting or break something valuable. Emilia wanted to laugh at the woman’s expression of relief as they walked out.
Her phone cell rang just as they were back in the car and strapping on seat belts. Emilia put her back to Silvio before answering. “Bueno, Kurt.”
“Hey, Em.” Kurt’s voice sounded normal again, not raspy or hoarse the way it had on Sunday. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay,” Emilia said. They usually didn’t speak during working hours. “How are you? Everything all right?”
Silvio started the car and pulled into traffic. At the corner, he turned right. He made another right, pulled the car over, and let the engine idle.
“Look, I know you’re busy,” Kurt said. “I just wanted to check that you’re okay. How’s the hand?”
“It’s all right.”
“We didn’t get to finish our conversation Saturday night.”
“Can I call you later?” Emilia asked, belatedly remembering she’d promised to go over to Berta’s house for more information about the missing Lila.
“Look,” Kurt said. “Check your schedule and see if you can make it out to the hotel Saturday night. I’m leaving for Belize on Sunday. A couple of days there and the following week in London.”
“Um.” Emilia looked out the window. “I don’t know.” They were parked a block south of the El Tigre, on a residential street interrupted by a run of small shops. A scratched metal sign touted snacks, gum, and discount minutes for pay-as-you-go phones in front of an abarrotes shop. White plastic tables and chairs from a tiny restaurant spilled over the sidewalk. Most of the clientele looked to be laborers.
Kurt didn’t reply. The phone connection was a soft hum. She wanted to see Kurt, see for herself that he’d survived the fire unscathed, pull off his clothes and ride him until they were both wild with the feel of each other’s bodies. But they’d end up talking about the job in Belize; it was unavoidable. She was afraid of that conversation, afraid she’d break down, throw away her pride and beg him to stay. And afraid that she wouldn’t, too.
Silvio killed the engine.
“I might not be able to get away from the investigation,” she said lamely.
“Let me know,” Kurt said.
Silvio suddenly leaped out of the car, slamming the driver’s door behind him.
“I have to go,” Emilia gabbled into the phone. “Saturday’s fine. Seven. The hotel.”
She broke the connection as Silvio came back to the car, Santiago shoved in front and the unwilling man’s arm held in an iron grasp. The chauffeur had traded his rubber boots
and apron for black shoes and a navy cotton zip-front jacket. Silvio tossed him into the backseat and slid in next to him. Emilia hit the automatic door lock.
“You ready to start telling the truth?” Silvio demanded.
“I told you,” Santiago protested. He was sweating and the pockmarks on his face were ugly and pronounced.
“You were talking shit back there,” Silvio barked. “You were up to something and didn’t want that old bruja to know. What was it? Or do we take you in for setting that fire?”
The man’s eyes bugged in fear. “I didn’t light that fire! Jesu Cristo, I got no reason to do something like that.”
“You weren’t watching television, either.” Silvio’s bulk filled most of the rear of the car. Emilia got up on her knees to peer into the back.
“Look, I don’t know anything,” Santiago whined.
Silvio slapped the chauffeur. The crack of his hand was loud in the confines of the car. “You tell me what you were doing last Saturday night and I’ll decide.”
Santiago looked at his knees, face flushed with embarrassment and the sting of Silvio’s hand. “I’ll get fired.”
“What’s the sentence for arson, Cruz?” Silvio asked.
The chauffeur lifted his head and looked from one detective to the other. His breath came in a little gasp.
“With eight people dead?” Emilia scoffed. “That’s arson and eight counts of murder.”
“You heard her,” Silvio said. He took out his handcuffs. “You’re fucking screwed, pendejo.”
“Maria,” Santiago blurted. “She’s a good girl, you know.”
Silvio jingled the cuffs. “Go on.”
“Maria Garcia Lira,” the chauffeur said. “She’s a muchacha planta for the Cisneros.”
“A good girl?” Emilia repeated his line, her voice laced with suspicion. “How old is Maria?”
“Old enough,” he said.
Emilia leaned over the front seat and grabbed him by his jacket collar. “How old?” she snapped.
“Fifteen,” he mumbled.
Emilia shot Silvio a look as she let go. She got a what-did-you-expect shrug in return.