Hat Dance (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 2)

by Carmen Amato

  “I told you,” Emilia said. “There’s a girl missing from my neighborhood.”

  “That’s not my question, Cruz.”

  Just the way he said it, with an edge that didn’t need to be there, irritated the hell out of Emilia. “It’s pretty late in the day for games, Franco,” she snapped. “Just spit it out.”

  “You got an investigation going on the side?” he asked. “Something you don’t want to tell me about?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to lash out, ask him why she’d have to tell him anything. He wasn’t her partner. But they had to spend at least another two hours cooped up in the car together.

  “She’s a Missing Persons that Rufino sent to the federales in Mexico City,” Emilia said, keeping herself in check. “A girl named Lila Jimenez Lata. The priest in my neighborhood asked me to help. But don’t worry, I’m doing it on my own time. It doesn’t affect you.”

  “You go to Mami’s and end up dead, I got a problem,” Silvio warned.

  “You get arrested for your illegal bookmaking, and everybody’s going to say I was involved,” Emilia countered.

  “You need to relax, Cruz. Like Isabel.”

  “Your wife is a saint.” Emilia had met Silvio’s wife once and knew that they’d been married for more than 20 years. In her own way, Isabel was as tough as her husband.

  Silvio snorted and didn’t reply. They passed the Mesa Italia restaurant, turned and drove slowly by the back. Traffic was light. No club cab truck in any direction. Emilia checked it off the spreadsheet.

  “So why Mami’s?” Silvio asked.

  Emilia glanced at him in surprise; she’d thought the conversation was over. “According to Lila’s brother, their mother is a hooker someplace,” she said. “Lila went to see Julieta Rubia. Guess she’d heard of Julieta and thought she’d find her mother there.”

  “Rayos, Cruz,” Silvio grumbled. “Julieta Rubia’s not at Mami’s now.”

  “I met Mami’s new management,” Emilia said. “A hatchet-faced puta named Olga.”

  Silvio gave a dry chuckle.

  “So I went to see Julieta in prison,” Emilia went on. “She acted like she owns the place and wouldn’t talk.”

  Silvio braked for a red light and both detectives scanned their respective sides of the car, looking for signs of trouble, taking in the people on the street, other cars. “You really thought Julieta Rubia was going to talk to you?” Silvio scoffed. “What else you got?”

  “A doctor visits her every week,” Emilia said. “If we catch the grenade throwers tonight, I’ll go see him on Monday.”

  “On your own time,” Silvio warned.

  “I just said that.”

  Once again, the exchange with Silvio had hit a sour note. The day was lasting forever. Emilia checked her watch. Only 10:00 p.m.

  Silvio cleared his throat. “You got another problem,” he said.

  “You don’t like working with women.” Emilia smirked at her own wit.

  “And why do you think that is?” Silvio growled. “Half the time I have to babysit you, make sure you don’t run off. The rest of the time I gotta keep the moths away.”

  “What are you talking about?” Emilia asked.

  “Murillo.”

  “What about Murillo?”

  The arson investigator had somehow convinced his superiors in Mexico City to let him stay in Acapulco another week. Between helping the detectives piece together the Que Paso Acapulco leads and sifting through the two fire locations, he’d been around a lot. He had the same sense of humor as Rico and was a pleasant coworker.

  They turned north toward the next restaurant on the route. Vespa’s ad on page 6 of Que Paso Acapulco featured a bright red vintage scooter. “Murillo’s acting like a lovesick cow,” Silvio said in disgust. “Apparently he went to talk to Rucker again and found out Hollywood’s not there.” The big detective cut his eyes to Emilia. “Asked me if he could take you out. Like I’m your keeper or something.”

  Emilia bristled. “What did you tell him?”

  “I fucking told him that I’m not some grade school kid, and I’m not carrying notes for him.”

  “Well.” Emilia had been prepared to wax indignant, but Silvio’s words deflated her ire. “Thank you.”

  “So?” Silvio slowed the car and they cruised past Vespa. Like the El Tigre, it had a bar in front, but this one was open to the street. Fairy lights were strung across the courtyard, and the restaurant’s signature vintage red scooter was parked in front where people could pose for pictures with it. Silvio followed traffic and they made the block. No club cab truck, nothing unusual for a Saturday night.

  “So what?” Emilia asked as she checked Vespa off the spreadsheet.

  “You and Rucker still on or what?”

  Emilia sniffed. “That’s none of your business.”

  Silvio blew out a mouthful of air. “So what’s the deal with Murillo?”

  “There’s no deal with Murillo,” Emilia exclaimed in exasperation. “He’s a nice guy. Reminds me of Rico.”

  The radio crackled with a call for all units. Meet the bomberos at the Toby Jones Beach Club. Reports of an explosion and fire. An address on the west side of town was given.

  “Madre de Dios,” Emilia swore. She grabbed the magnetic strobe light from its niche in the center console, switched it on, and clapped it to the roof of the vehicle. Silvio simultaneously hit the siren and swung the car into a U-turn, sending oncoming traffic spraying in all directions.

  “Fuck!” raged Silvio. “Is it on the list?”

  The car picked up speed and Emilia was pressed into her seat by the safety belt. As the car sped under a streetlight, she scanned the alphabetized list. “No,” she shouted above the siren. “It’s not here. It’s not on the list.”

  “We fucked up.” Silvio hit the steering wheel in fury.

  Emilia rubbed the red weal on her hand from the burn at El Tigre as her heart started to hammer. She’d be walking into it all again. Scorching heat. Choking smoke. Paralyzing fear. Bodies.

  Without slowing, the car hit a tope speed bump, sailed into the air, and came down with a crunch of rearranged metal. The words to the Hail Mary ran through Emilia’s brain.

  Chapter 27

  “Hey, Em.”

  “Kurt!” Emilia struggled to a sitting position on her bed with her cell phone pressed to her ear. She glanced at her watch to discover that it was 8:00 a.m. Sunlight poured through her bedroom window, brightening the gray blanket, the white wall, and the cross above the bed.

  She must have fallen asleep in her clothes, shoes, jeans, gun and all. “Where are you?” she asked.

  “I’m in London.” Kurt’s voice was as clear as if he was calling from the Palacio Réal. “I thought you’d be up by now.”

  “I am, I am.” Emilia kicked off her shoes and wriggled herself out of her shoulder holster without putting down the phone. “Tell me all about London.”

  “Just got here,” he said. “London in November is cold and rainy. I’ll walk around a little, check out what’s near the hotel. Meetings start tomorrow.”

  “Have you seen the queen yet?”

  He laughed, and Emilia closed her eyes and drank in the sound.

  “Don’t worry,” Kurt said. “As soon as I see her, I’ll let her know you’ve been asking after her.”

  “How was Belize?” Emilia asked.

  Her mother’s bedroom door opened and shut. Footsteps went down the stairs. The bathroom toilet flushed at the same time. Ernesto had apparently spent another night in Sophia’s room.

  “Belize was nice,” Kurt said. His tone was neutral.

  Emilia coughed. Her hair smelled like a barbecue. “Go on,” she said.

  “Big place,” Kurt said after a pause. “New development. Very exclusive, very secluded.”

  “As nice as the Palacio Réal?” The acrid smoke smell was making her eyes water. Emilia pressed the fingers of her free hand against her eyelids.

  “I could make it a
s nice,” he said.

  “Do you want to?” Emilia couldn’t help asking. Her throat tightened as she waited for his answer. Every pinch of air that got by tasted of smoke and soot.

  Her clothes stank worse than her hair. Emilia held the phone with one hand and whipped off her tee shirt with the other.

  “I told you, this was just to look,” Kurt said. “Nobody made any promises.”

  “Okay.” Emilia coughed again, stood up, and shoved off her sooty jeans. On the other side of her closed bedroom door, footsteps again crossed the hall and started down the stairs.

  “Are you all right?” Kurt asked.

  Emilia curled up against her pillow again, wearing just her bra and panties. “There was another fire,” she said. “The third.”

  “And you were there,” Kurt said, concern sharpening his voice.

  “We had a good lead,” Emilia said. “I was so sure. An extortion ring targeting the places advertising in Que Paso Acapulco. But the place they hit wasn’t on the list.”

  “So where does that leave you?”

  “Back at zero,” Emilia said. “No witnesses, of course, and the manager too panicked to say much of anything.”

  Last night had been another nightmarish scene of fire and fear. Emilia tried to keep her voice calm as she gave Kurt the bare minimum, skipping over the panic attack that had gripped her throughout the night.

  Macias and Sandor had been first on the scene. She and Silvio had arrived 15 minutes later, about the same time the fire and rescue trucks showed up. Emilia had shaken like a shock victim as soon as she saw the flames and smoke. Her teeth clattered for hours as she forced herself to do what needed to be done.

  The damage wasn’t as extensive this time and there were no deaths. No one had seen a club cab truck or army camouflage. The owner said he’d never gotten a tax notice. They all knew he was lying.

  By 3:00 a.m. Murillo had been able to ascertain that the fire had been started by one explosive device. Unlike the first two fires, this time the explosion did more damage to the cars in the restaurant parking lot than to the building itself.

  They were trying to assess the type of explosive device—which everyone knew would turn out to be an army grenade—when Lt. Rufino showed up and the night went from bad to worse. El teniente berated all four detectives as well as the arson investigator for everything: for depending on a worthless list from the Que Paso Acapulco magazine, for never arresting Conway and Serverio, for the fictional club cab truck no one had ever seen. Emilia in particular was singled out for driving around in search of firebugs when she’d been reassigned to the El Pharaoh case.

  Having all the bomberos witness el teniente’s tirade had been humiliating and all the detectives were furious by the time Rufino left.

  “I wish I was there, Em,” Kurt said seriously. “Wish there was some way I could help.”

  “With any luck, Lt. Rufino won’t even remember.” Emilia rubbed at a crick in her neck, feeling grubby and miserable and lonely. “After the last fire, he suspended me and didn’t remember. Silvio had to tell him I’d called in sick. I think he’s losing it.” Even worse than me.

  The smell of coffee wafted in, a welcome mask over some of the smoke stink.

  “I tell you what,” Kurt said. “Go over to the hotel for dinner. Have a decent meal, unwind. Charge it to my account. I’ll send them a text to say you’re coming.”

  “I can’t do that,” Emilia said.

  “I can hear how wound up you are all the way from here,” Kurt chided her. “A good meal will help.”

  “You’re in the right line of business, you know,” Emilia said. “You always want people to eat and relax.”

  “It always works.”

  Emilia didn’t want to get into a wrangle about owing him for a dinner, or how odd it would feel to walk into the Palacio Réal on her own. “When are you coming back?” she asked instead.

  “Next weekend.” He paused. “It’s good to hear your voice, Em. I miss you.”

  Her eyes were stinging again. Emilia took a deep breath.

  Come home. Don’t leave Acapulco. I need you.

  Stay.

  “Bet you say that to all the girls,” Emilia said.

  ☼

  “Take as long as you need,” Mercedes said. She led the way across the dance studio to her busy and colorful office. “Print whatever you need. The paper is right by the printer.”

  “I really appreciate this,” Emilia said.

  Mercedes had been surprised but pleasant when Emilia had called her in the early afternoon to ask if she could use the dancer’s computer. In church Emilia had mechanically followed the Mass as her brain picked apart Lt. Rufino’s actions at the fire. It was a crime scene, but he’d been careless in what he touched and where he walked. By the time she was following her mother out of the church, Emilia had been forced to admit to herself that el teniente had been drunk at Toby Jones’s. To be honest, he’d probably been drunk at the Luna Loca fire, too. And that day when he couldn’t get out of the interrogation room. Certainly on Thursday, when she’d tried to talk to him about the missing euros. Obregon’s words in the gym now seemed prophetic and Emilia wanted to know the truth.

  If Lt. Rufino’s family had been killed, no doubt it would have been reported. A couple of Internet searches would let her know if Obregon had played her or not. But her computer at work didn’t have external access, and if she used the single Internet-enabled machine in the office, her search would be tracked and logged. Alvaro had a computer at home, but he’d want to know what she was doing, and she wasn’t sure what he’d do with the information. Another trip to an Internet café would not only be expensive, but her search would be tracked there, too, as her last experience had showed.

  Besides, Mercedes was . . . well, a friend.

  “Do you want some coffee?” Mercedes asked. The dancer wore capri-length teal leggings, a gauzy white tunic, and flat sandals. Emilia felt heavy and clumsy in jeans and an old tee shirt from a long-ago Maná concert.

  “Thanks,” Emilia said as she sat down at the small desk. The laptop screensaver was a picture of a line of ballet dancers in feathery white costumes. A swath of fabric hung on the wall behind the desk onto which Mercedes had pinned a scrapbook of sorts. Most of the images were from magazine cut-outs or cards that her students had made.

  The hanging collage was a sad reminder of Lila’s bedroom, with its own wall of magazine pictures. Emilia swiveled the chair. “I haven’t told you yet, but I found Lila’s brother.”

  Mercedes looked around from the coffee maker, her mouth a perfect O. “You really found him?”

  “Long story, but yes.” Emilia nodded. “He goes by a new name now. Pedro Montealegre. Works at the CICI water park.”

  “Did he help?” Mercedes wore a hopeful expression.

  “Not really,” Emilia admitted. “He says their mother is still alive, but he doesn’t know where she is. She’s a hooker and sends him money now and then. He gives it to Lila.”

  Mercedes looked confused. “So Lila really ran away to find her mother?”

  “I think so.” Emilia told Mercedes about finding Carla and going first to Mami’s and later to the prison to talk to Julieta Rubia.

  Mercedes’s eyes grew wide as she listened, breaking away only to pour the coffee. “Por Dios,” the dancer said as Emilia finished. “You are so brave. I can barely face Berta. She’s so mad at me. She’s been saying that Lila’s disappearance is all my fault. Two of my students have quit because of what she’s been saying.”

  “Berta is only now finding out who her granddaughter is,” Emilia observed.

  They finished their coffee and Mercedes gestured to the laptop computer. “I’ll let you get on,” she said. “I’ve got some cleaning to do.”

  Emilia swiveled the chair back around, navigated to a search engine page, and typed in keywords like “Cuernavaca” and “murder victims.” It took her the better part of an hour to narrow the searches and focus the date,
but eventually she found what she was looking for on a newspaper website.

  Matilda Vargas de Rufino had been 36 years old and a teacher at a private elementary school. Her daughter Paola was eight and a student at the same school. They were the victims of a carjacking.

  The news story was fairly comprehensive. Vargas de Rufino was reportedly divorced, and she and her daughter lived in Mexico City’s Santa Fe suburb, in a gated privada neighborhood. The carjacking had occurred as the mother and daughter returned home in the evening. As Vargas de Rufino drove up to the slowly opening privada gate, two vehicles closed in. An armed gunman smashed the side window of Vargas de Rufino’s car, jumped in, and drove away with both victims still in it. The privada guards said it happened so fast they were unable to react. Besides, it had happened outside the gate. They were only authorized to take action inside the privada itself.

  The naked bodies of mother and daughter were found a day later in a small apartment building in the city of Cuernavaca, located about an hour away from central Mexico City. Both had been mutilated. Their deaths were attributed to a random act of violence. Drug cartel violence was no longer limited to surrounding areas, but was making dangerous inroads against the relative stability of Mexico’s capital.

  The keyboard blurred. It was impossible to imagine what Lt. Rufino felt when he found the bodies. Horror? Anguish? Guilt? Reading between the lines, Emilia could see how he’d tried to protect his wife and daughter. The fake divorce. Setting them up in an ostensibly safe upscale privada neighborhood. Maintaining a separate residence while no doubt using a fake name for himself.

  Emilia kept hunting, looking for any mention of the residents of the apartment building where the two bodies were found, or of Vargas de Rufino’s supposedly estranged husband. After another hour, she’d found nothing and was too emotionally exhausted to continue. Her stomach growled.

  “All done?” Mercedes asked, coming back into the office. She put a stack of magazines on the floor by the window.