King Peso: An Emilia Cruz Novel (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 4)

by Carmen Amato

  Emilia managed a smile. “It’s a skill, all right.”

  Silvio’s amusement faded into grim stoicism. “Did he claim this is just like how I set up Garcia all those years ago?”

  “Something along those lines.” Emilia didn’t mention that the medical examiner had said the same thing but pushed a plastic grocery bag across the tabletop. “I brought you some stuff.”

  As Silvio sorted through the clothes, soap, and foil-wrapped food, Emilia dared to look around. The reception area for prisoners was a series of chicken-wire cages, each enclosing a table and two chairs. Prisoners entered from one side and family members from the other. There were guards on both the prison and freedom sides but none seemed concerned with what went on inside the mesh cubicles.

  She counted six cages, all occupied by a male prisoner. Most of the visitors were female; the exception was a priest.

  “Cigarettes,” Silvio said approvingly. “How did you get them in?”

  Emilia knew he’d need the cigarettes as barter goods. “I brought four packs,” she said. “The guard was nice enough to take two.”

  Emilia, her shoulder bag, and the parcel for Silvio had all been thoroughly searched by a male guard before she was allowed to enter the prison. Without the free passage her badge would have guaranteed, she’d anticipated the ordeal but that didn’t make it any easier. The “gift” of two packs of cigarettes, however, kept it to a minimum and convinced the guard not to take the food.

  “You brought a book?” Silvio held up a paperback.

  Emilia shrugged. “Thought it might help to pass the time.”

  Silvio tossed it across the table to her. “No distractions. Not in this place.”

  It was then she noticed that his hands were cut and bruised.

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “It’s a good place to be right now.” Silvio flexed his hands. A trickle of blood ran between two knuckles. “Can beat the shit out of anyone I want.”

  She’d been Silvio’s partner for nine months and had come to know him as well as anyone in the squadroom. The big man was street smart, menacing, and often callous. He was also a clever and tireless investigator. His initial contempt for her as a female in the otherwise all-male squadroom had gradually eased after Emilia had proven herself to be a match for his intelligence and fit enough to take on any challenge.

  Emilia stuffed the unwelcome paperback into her bag and pulled out her notebook. “Do they know who you are?”

  “Not yet.” Silvio unwrapped one of the burritos she’d bought from a downtown street vendor. “Any leads yet?”

  “Nothing solid,” Emilia wrinkled her nose against the stink of urine and body odor wafting from the man and woman in the cage next to them. “When I left they were running down some cars.”

  “I needed this fucking food, Cruz,” Silvio said, as he swallowed down half the burrito. “But coming here wasn’t your best idea if Loyola thinks you were my accomplice.”

  “Loyola can go to hell,” Emilia said. “I’ll get a new badge on Monday.”

  “El Trio task force?”

  Emilia shook her head. She’d forgotten that he didn’t know the outcome of Monday’s meeting. “There’s no El Trio task force,” she said. “I’m assigned to a new unit. Carlota is backing it.”

  She briefly recounted the meeting in Carlota’s office, including meeting Claudia Sanchez and the encounter with Chief Salazar.

  “So Macias and Sandor are running after nothing and you’re reassigned,” Silvio said. He put down the burrito and looked around as if seeing the prison for the first time. “Guess I’d better get used to this.”

  “This is crazy,” Emilia said. “Loyola can’t make this stick and he knows it. I’ll prove your alibi, and you’ll be out.”

  “You’re already suspended, Cruz,” Silvio said. “Don’t kill your career over me.”

  “I’ll do what I want, Franco.” Emilia poised her pen over her notebook. “What time did you leave the house?”

  It was the first time she’d ever won a staring contest with him. Silvio finished the burrito and reached for the next one.

  “We were supposed to go over to my cousin Antonio’s at 7:00 pm,” he started. “He got a new widescreen television. “I spent the afternoon doing the point spread, taking in a few more bets.”

  Emilia began a timeline in her notebook with 7:00 pm. “You and Isabel both planned to go?”

  “Yes.” Silvio swallowed a bite. “Walk over. It isn’t far.” He gave her the address.

  Emilia had never met Antonio but Silvio had mentioned him occasionally and she knew they were drinking buddies as well as close family members. “Who knew about your plans to go to Antonio’s?”

  Silvio shrugged. “Wasn’t a secret. Family. Neighborhood friends who were coming. You. Whoever was in the squadroom listening to us talk on Friday.”

  Emilia took down a dozen names of men with whom Silvio had shared his Copa America viewing plans before Sunday’s match. Macias and Sandor had the same names, but given what had happened, she couldn’t trust that they would follow up.

  “So why didn’t Isabel go over to Antonio’s with you?” she asked.

  “Said she didn’t feel good. Female problems.”

  “Did you tell anyone she was staying home?”

  “She called, talked to Antonio’s wife.”

  “What time?”

  “Couple minutes before I left the house. She said she was going to go to bed early. I left. Walked over there around 7:00 pm, just the same as we’d planned.”

  Silvio displayed no emotion. He didn’t say if he’d kissed his wife for the last time. Told her that he loved her.

  Emilia drew in a breath, forcing herself to stay in investigation mode. “So Isabel was home by herself after 7:00 pm.”

  “Everybody at Antonio’s knew she was home alone.”

  “I need the names of everyone who was there,” Emilia said. The guard was looking at her suspiciously and she wondered if he was going to try and confiscate her notebook.

  Silvio reeled off half a dozen names of friends and family members, many of whom were the same people who’d known of his plans ahead of time. As Emilia wrote she thought that the party at Antonio’s had probably been more fun than the event in the penthouse.

  “Were you there all night? You never left?” Emilia scribbled questions for those at the party. Would any of them be involved? It was unlikely, but she’d check. She found herself writing as if in a rush; the stink and noise of the prison was magnifying the emotional drama of the questions she had to ask.

  Silvio nodded. “We ate, drank beer, yelled at the screen. I stayed at Antonio’s until around 2:00 am. Walked home.”

  “How drunk were you?”

  “I could still walk a straight line.”

  “Anybody go with you? Or you walked home alone?”

  Silvio finished the last burrito. “Must have passed a dozen or so halcones doing sentry duty for their rock and rollers. Not exactly witnesses who would attest to having seen me.”

  He was right; even if they could find them, kids who acted as lookouts for drug gangs didn’t make reliable witnesses.

  “Okay, so you walked home alone.” Emilia gave him a keep going hand roll.

  Like all the houses in the neighborhood, his was surrounded by a tall concrete wall, bisected by two corrugated metal gates. The pedestrian gate was the size of an ordinary house door. The other gate was for vehicles and controlled by an automatic opener. At night, the entire front of the property was illuminated by a large mercury light. He’d turned it on before he left; a routine security precaution.

  The big exterior mercury light was still on as Silvio unlocked the pedestrian gate. As he crossed the courtyard to the house, the motion-detection light by the front door flickered on.

  Everything worked normally. There was nothing about the house to indicate what he’d find inside. Silvio’s dry, factual manner, exactly the way he dissected every other murder case,
was unnerving.

  “You’re sure that both the gate and the door were locked?” Emilia said.

  “Both the door and the gate lock automatically when closed,” Silvio said. “The same key opens both. If they’re closed, they’re locked. And they were both closed when I left at 7:00 pm.”

  The living room lights were on. The room was messy and he wondered if Isabel had been rearranging the furniture. He remembered thinking it was odd that she would do that when she’d said she wasn’t feeling well.

  He’d headed for the stairs and their bedroom on the second floor.

  That’s when he found Isabel, in her nightgown, sprawled on her back mid-way down the stairs to the second floor and congealed blood over the steps.

  “Prade’s done the autopsy,” Emilia informed him. “The shooter was below her, probably at the base of the stairs.”

  “You know the rest.” Silvio crushed the burrito wrappers into a ball, as if to close the discussion about Isabel’s death. “We talked through it all at the station.”

  He’d drawn his weapon and gone room-by-room to see if the assailant was still there. Once he’d cleared the house, he went back to Isabel’s body on the stairs and stayed there until the first patrol car showed up. He hadn’t checked if anything was missing.

  He didn’t mention calling her and Emilia didn’t prompt him. She wondered if he even remembered that he’d given his badge number and not his name when he called Dispatch.

  “Nobody broke in,” Emilia said. “The doors and windows were locked. The techs didn’t find any prints.”

  “Ballistics?”

  “Not yet,” Emilia said. “Look, would she have opened the door for someone?”

  “No,” Silvio said immediately. “She would have called me if someone had come to the house at that hour.” He held up a hand. “And don’t bother asking if she had a lover. I went over all that nonsense already with Macias and Sandor.”

  “Did they ask if you had a lover? A jealous one?”

  “Of course,” Silvio said. “You know I didn’t step out on Isabel. But the easiest answer is always the husband, right?”

  “It’s Loyola’s answer until we figure out how the killer got in,” Emilia said.

  “I had my key,” Silvio said. “Isabel’s key was still in our bedroom. The only other person with a key to the house is my cousin Antonio. He and his wife have a spare to ours and we have one to theirs.”

  “Have you been officially charged?” Emilia asked.

  “No,” Silvio said. “Do you think this is Loyola’s idea? Or is he somebody’s puppet?”

  Before Emilia could reply, the couple in the next cage started shouting at each other. He was a pendejo who’d never made a peso he didn’t drink and she was a bruja who was going to burst into flames the next time she went into church.

  The guards on either side of the cage perked up, snickering at each other through the wire mesh and angry hand waving.

  Emilia leaned forward so Silvio could hear her. “Until yesterday afternoon, the number one theory was that someone had come for you and got Isabel instead. The fourth El Trio murder.”

  “All the people you’ve worked with are getting nervous,” Silvio said. “You’re just a fucking good luck charm.”

  Emilia nodded. “I’ve been through all the case files I could get my hands on. Ours. Cases you worked before. Nothing stood out.”

  “Could be someone who is just targeting random law enforcement.” Silvio flexed his hands again.

  “What about your bookie business,” Emilia said. “Anybody mad at you? Felt they were cheated?”

  “Not that I know of,” Silvio said.

  “Owed you and couldn’t pay?”

  “Like brainless chicas who lost a big bet?” Silvio almost smiled.

  “Don’t joke,” Emilia said.

  Silvio rubbed his forehead. “Probably had a couple of big losers. I don’t remember exactly who. It’ll be in the books.”

  “What books?”

  “My account books,” Silvio said. “You didn’t think I memorized all those bets, did you?”

  “No, of course not,” Emilia said. “Where are the books? Did you have them with you at Antonio’s?”

  “No, they should still be in my office at the house.” Silvio mimed the size of a rectangle. “Two basic accounting ledgers. From the papelería down the street.”

  “Green?” Emilia asked. Most office supply stores sold one style of fabric-bound ledger. Virtually every small business in Mexico used them. “Linen-covered?”

  “Yes.”

  Emilia thought back to the crime scene reports she’d seen. “I don’t remember any books in the evidence reports. They’re probably still in the house.”

  “So you could get them,” Silvio said. “Antonio can help you identify the big losers.”

  “He’s in this with you?”

  “He helps out. The bets on Sunday’s match are still outstanding. Antonio can look up the bets if he gets the ledgers.”

  Emilia pressed a hand to her forehead. “I hate your maldita bookie business,” she swore. “The house is locked down. It’s a crime scene.”

  “I had to surrender my key,” Silvio said. “Antonio might still have his.”

  “What about Macias and Sandor?” Emilia asked. “When you talked to them, did they say they were going to get the books?”

  “No, it didn’t come up.”

  “Okay.” Something told her that Silvio’s bookie business wasn’t the reason Isabel had been killed but it was a loose thread that couldn’t be left hanging. Emilia nodded. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “You know, as long as we were together, there was hope we’d have kids someday,” Silvio surprised Emilia by saying.

  His words caught her unawares and Emilia felt a sudden lump in her throat.

  “Isabel never could hang onto a pregnancy,” he went on, without anger or grief in his voice. “Went to good doctors, too. Lost six or seven over the years.”

  “She had advanced endometriosis,” Emilia said.

  Silvio raised his eyebrows.

  “From the autopsy,” Emilia said.

  “So she fed every kid in the neighborhood.” Silvio spoke as if he hadn’t heard Emilia’s last word. “Gave her some peace to take care of all the lost kids. But it never replaced wanting our own.”

  “I guess not,” Emilia said lamely. She felt stunningly helpless.

  “She would have been a good mother.” Silvio’s gaze went to the couple in the next cage. The woman reached across the table and slapped the prisoner. The guards chuckled; obviously they’d seen this show before.

  “Yes, she would have.” Emilia closed her notebook and breathed hard to keep herself from breaking down.

  Silvio stared at the back of his hand for a long moment then rubbed absently at the dried blood. “Fatherhood. I would have fucked it up anyway.” He gave an odd laugh.

  “Do you want me to call a priest?” Emilia asked.

  Silvio looked up and the moment was over. “I don’t need a priest, Cruz,” he said with a touch of his usual gruffness. “I need those account books.”

  The cage door on Silvio’s side swung open. “Time’s up,” the guard announced.

  Silvio stood. “How’s Hollywood?”

  It was his infuriating nickname for Kurt. “He’s okay,” Emilia said.

  “Make the time count, Cruz,” Silvio said. “You know what I mean?”

  Emilia couldn’t reply; the lump in her throat made words impossible.

  Silvio collected the plastic bag of clothes and food and walked out of the cage. Emilia watched as the guard shoved him toward a scratched metal door. Her partner passed out of sight and the door clanged shut behind him.

  Emilia blundered past the guard on her side of the cage. He made a clumsy attempt to grope her as she passed.

  ☼

  The key to Silvio’s house burned a hole in the pocket of Emilia’s jeans as she drove into the El Roble neighborhood that
afternoon. Compared to the bull pen, the place didn’t look so bad.

  Same smell. Fewer guards.

  El Roble was a small barrio in Acapulco’s hilly northern suburbs, far from the moneyed circle of white hi-rises that ringed Acapulco bay and graced the city’s best-selling postcards. Tourists who came for Acapulco’s famous sun and fun never made it as far inland as El Roble, where every night street gangs aligned with rival cartels fought proxy wars for territory.

  Every structure in the neighborhood was surrounded by cement block walls topped with broken glass and razor wire. From the street, the high walls presented a continuous barricade with flat roofs and satellite dishes poking above wire and glass. The cement was painted with faded advertising for beer and tequila, and streaked with years of rust from roof-mounted water tanks and air conditioning compressors. Most of the walls were pocked with bullet holes.

  Emilia slowly cruised down Silvio’s street. His house was fronted by a faded blue two-story wall, one of the few swaths of cement in El Roble without graffiti. The wall was topped with the usual razor wire above shards of broken glass cemented into the top, a low-tech but effective deterrent to anyone trying to climb over.

  As she rolled past the wall, Emilia saw that the corrugated metal gate was open like the gaping mouth of a flat blue face. A police crime scene van in the courtyard occupied the space where Silvio parked his vehicles. Figures in crime scene gear crossed between the house and the van.

  Emilia circled the block, torn between coming back later or brazening it out with the crime scene techs. There weren’t that many and she probably knew those at the house. Maybe they didn’t know she’d been suspended.

  She pulled to the curb in front of a small grocery store with pineapples and mangoes in wooden bins by the door. She cut the engine but kept the keys in the ignition, took out her phone, and pretended to be texting, all the while watching the street ahead of her. Silvio’s house was half a block away and she could see the open gate. Maybe there would be enough activity to give her an idea of what was going on.

  A couple of small boys in rags and flip flops squatted on their haunches by the curb, playing a game with stones. Housewives with plastic shopping bags came out of the store and joined a small cluster of neighbors across from Silvio’s. They watched the techs through the open gates.