17 Stone Angels

by Stuart Archer Cohen

  Fortunato felt anger surging up out of his chest. “I wasn’t in the middle of anything. You put me in the middle—”

  Bianco cut into his sentence sharply. “Don’t start whining now! The Institution has done well for you. You want to say that you can’t return the favor once in a while?” The Chief lowered his voice but continued with a stiff face. “Some operations go well and others go badly. You have to face up to them. A policeman must be hard! Resolved!”

  “I want the truth about this, Leon. All of it. You owe me that.”

  The Chief curled his mouth and looked down at the little mound of olive pits on the table. He exhaled and settled back into his chair. “Pelegrini wanted to squeeze Waterbury. The why isn’t clear: something of the wife, as your Diaz suggested. Pelegrini arranged it through Santamarina, the one you met here a few weeks ago. You know the rest.”

  “The man was completely innocent!”

  Fortunato’s reference to the crime seemed to puzzle Bianco. “What does that have to do with anything? The puta was up to something, or he wouldn’t be dead right now. He was going around with Pelegrini’s wife.”

  “You told me he was blackmailing him!”

  The Chief shifted under Fortunato’s glare. “One or the other. What does that matter?”

  Fortunato recognized in his mentor’s face the same blank disregard he’d seen twenty-five years ago when they’d raided the family of the Union representative and carried away every trace of them. He swallowed. “To me, it matters.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have fucked the whole thing up!” Bianco wrinkled his nose. “What’s going on with you? Eh? What’s going on? This isn’t time to be mounting little colored mirrors!” He caricatured Fortunato’s heavy manner: “Poor writer! He was going around with a rich man’s woman and ended up dead!” Are you crazy? People die every day. You, me, we all die! You’re drowning in a glass of water, Miguel!” The Chief stopped arguing abruptly and looked anew at Fortunato for a second, as if assessing him. “Forgive me, Miguel. I get mad, and … There’s much frustration.” He shrugged the rest, then looked to the side for a moment. “Don’t worry. I’ll cover you, like always. Everything will be arranged. In two weeks, no one will remember who Robert Waterbury was.”

  Fortunato didn’t answer, but he knew that certain things could never be arranged. Waterbury was dead, his wife a widow and his daughter an orphan. And he, Fortunato, had fired the final shot.

  Bianco shouted a greeting across the room and another officer came over and began discussing the Berenski murder with great relish. Fortunato gave a numb greeting when the Chief presented him, absently shaking the man’s hand then letting his gaze drift off to the Argentine selection of 1978, the fiercest year of the Dictatorship, when they had hosted the World Cup and won and the crowds had gone dancing in the streets while dead bodies washed up on the shore of the Rio de la Plata. Alone again with Bianco, the Chief’s glossy confidence: “Relax, Miguel. Everything will solve itself.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The final erasure of Berenski’s infinite laugh affected Athena more than she would have expected. After the meeting with Fabian she had left a message on Berenski’s machine, then flung herself on the bed to try to figure out how she would package a one-week extension of her stay to the people back in Washington. She’d turned on the television without sound, and as she placed a call to the embassy the afternoon news program began to roll out a series of photos and news clips of Berenski, contrasting them with a strange blackened mannequin lying at the feet of a half-dozen detectives. She gasped, turned up the volume, and when the worst hit her she sat on the bed and began to sob with horror and grief. One had to cry over Berenski, who laughed at all the lies yet never forgot who they really hurt. In his comical way he was a thousand times the fighter of Argentina’s medal-plated generals or scowling commandos.

  She wanted to talk to someone—Carmen de los Santos, Berenski’s family—but she was peripheral to all these lives, a tourist in other people’s misery. She switched channels until she found another version of the murder, watched the sober face of the Federal Comisario as he spoke of la investigación. After an hour she lay on her back, considering the strange lunch with Fabian and his story of Robert Waterbury. To her surprise, the telephone rang. Wilbert Small, from the embassy.

  “How’s our star investigator?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard they’ve got Robert Waterbury’s killer in custody.”

  She considered the dubious claim, then wondered who had called the embassy. Probably not Miguel Fortunato. “News travels fast.”

  “They know we’re interested. I’m impressed, Athena.”

  She tried to fight off the compliment but it got to her anyway. “I wouldn’t say it’s completely settled yet, Bert.”

  “Not settled? I heard they’ve got a signed confession.”

  “You mean two signed confessions. That’s something we need to talk about. I need to extend my stay here.”

  “That, Athena, is exactly what I called you about. But I’ve got some other news: the FBI wants to meet with you tomorrow at noon.”

  The announcement surprised her. She’d been trying to get in with the FBI since she’d arrived two weeks ago, and they’d always been too busy. “What’s it about?”

  “Oh, I prefer to let the FBI do their own talking, but I know they’ve heard about your work and they probably want to debrief you before they take it on.”

  A surge of pleasure filled her. The FBI! Once the FBI came into the investigation they’d start pulling so many strings that Fabian’s head would pop off. “That’s great!”

  “Hey, you came down here and kicked some fanny and word gets around. Why don’t I swing by tomorrow at eight-thirty and we can walk over together. That’ll give me time to tell you about the job offer.”

  “Job offer?”

  “You may be doing a lot more investigating. See you tomorrow!” he said coyly, and hung up.

  “Wow,” she said quietly, then opened up one of the tiny bottles of liquor on the shelf and poured it into a glass. She leaned her arm on the small table near the window and looked out at the rooftops and balconies around her. The cityscape looked dreamy and mythical in the saffron light of late afternoon, like a day from 1920 that had been kept in a hat box and now spilled across the TV antennas and clotheslines. She didn’t know exactly what to think except that everything she could have hoped for or imagined was coming to pass. The thought of Ricardo Berenski merged with the alcohol and bathed everything in a golden sadness. At least, she thought as she opened another little flask of liquor, he would have approved of the results.

  The offer Wilbert Small made the next morning in the Sheraton’s coffee shop was so perfect that it felt unreal. Over two hundred American citizens were languishing in Latin American jails, Small told her, on everything from drug charges to traffic accidents. She would be part of a team that investigated them case-by-case and made a recommendation about repatriating the prisoners.

  “Are these people innocent?”

  Small chuckled. “Frankly, most of them are guilty, and the best they can hope for is a nice clean cell in the States. But some of them committed minor infractions and didn’t know how to work the system. They don’t belong in prison. They need an advocate and you’d be that advocate. You’d travel all over Latin America investigating in much the same way you did here. Does that interest you?”

  She laughed. “Does it interest me?” She laughed again. “Of course it interests me!” She took the smile off her face. “What are my chances of getting the job?”

  “I’d say … ” he reached for her breakfast check and signed it for her, “you’ve practically got it already. Especially with a recommendation from the FBI.” He looked at his watch. “We’d better roll!”

  She’d been too enthralled by the job to bring up the matter of extending her stay in Buenos Aires, but if the FBI was calling her in to consult, it went without saying that she’d
be staying on. She couldn’t help but enjoy being squired through embassy security. Everything first rate: clipped Marines, bulletproof glass, intercoms. And outside, a line of visa seekers winding off around the block. The FBI agent met her in a nondescript conference room with a big wooden table and Old Glory hanging in the corner. Athena put his age at mid-fifties, with the thinning gray hair and staid blue suit of a successful insurance executive. Her new colleague. She caught the trace of an accent as he introduced himself as Frank Castro.

  “Cuban?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “No relation.” Castro brought out a yellow legal pad and an expensive-looking fountain pen. After ordering coffee from an Argentine assistant he closed the door and opened up a slim dossier. His manner of speaking was short and dry, and seemed to demand short, dry answers.

  “So tell me about your investigation,” he began. “Has local law enforcement been cooperative?”

  “Fairly cooperative,” she answered. She was excited but she wanted to keep up a professional front. “I’ve been working with Comisario Fortunato of the Buenos Aires Department of Investigations.”

  “The Bonaerense,” Castro affirmed. “Tell me what you’ve done.”

  “We started out by reviewing the expediente, then we visited the crime scene. A week after I arrived, Officer Fortunato heard through an informant that someone had bragged about killing a foreigner, and that led us to Enrique Boguso, who was already in jail for an unrelated double homicide.”

  “Who was the informant?”

  “Fortunato didn’t say.”

  Castro nodded.

  Athena went on. “Anyway, Boguso confessed to the murder, which he said he committed with another man, an Uruguayan.”

  “And his name is … ?”

  “Marco. It’s in his declaración. According to them, it had something to do with cocaine, and there were several chalks of cocaine at the scene. A day after Boguso confessed, he changed his story. He said he’d been paid by someone named Santamarina, who manages security for Carlo Pelegrini, who’s a big—”

  “I know who Carlo Pelegrini is,” Castro interrupted. “Why’d Boguso change his story? His conscience bothering him?” Wilbert Small laughed.

  She noted something perfunctory and slightly sardonic about the agent’s attitude. She struggled to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. “The police interpretation was that he thought Pelegrini could help him if he kept his mouth shut.”

  He gave a skeptical look. “Do you think they beat the second confession out of him?”

  “I was present at the first one, and in that case I’d say definitely not. There is a piece of evidence that supports the Pelegrini connection, and that was that the coroner found Carlo Pelegrini’s wife’s phone number in the victim’s pocket.”

  “Is that in the expediente?”

  “Yes.”

  Castro nodded and made a note on his yellow paper.

  The agent’s impatient manner had begun to make her nervous. She told a condensed version of Fabian’s story. Castro inquired about Fabian’s name and wrote it in his notebook, then asked a few follow-up questions. He didn’t seem particularly interested in the answers. At last he put his pen down.

  “Let me tell you where we’re at on this, Doctor Fowler. We’ve been interested in the Waterbury case for some time, but local law enforcement has been uncooperative, to say the least. We’ve asked four times for a copy of the expediente and every time they’ve found a new excuse for not handing it over. This morning we finally got a copy.”

  “Interesting timing. Do you think Pelegrini is really involved?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if Carlo Pelegrini is behind it. Between you and I, we’ve linked the Pelegrini enterprises with money laundering and some other activities that affect the security of the United States. In my mind, he’s overdue.”

  “And what would be his motive?”

  “Well, your friends in the police department seem to think that Waterbury was fooling around with Pelegrini’s wife. That might have been motive enough. Or maybe she gave Waterbury information that could hurt Pelegrini, as you said. Tried to play him off against her husband. That’ll get a person dead. At any rate,” he said briskly, “you’ve done an excellent job in re-energizing this investigation.”

  “Thank you.”

  “An incredible job,” Small added.

  Castro looked her in the eye with a business-like frankness. “At this point, we’d like you to return to the States and brief the victim’s family on what you’ve found out. We’ll go forward from here.”

  He’d said it so plainly that it took her a few seconds to fully understand. Wilbert Small shifted in his seat. “You mean…I’m done?”

  “You’re done. We’ve already talked to the Buenos Aires police and let them know that we’ll be handling the investigation directly from here forward.”

  “You’ve done a first rate job,” Small said warmly. “Now we need your skills in other arenas.”

  She was still confused by the bluntness of it. “I have to say, this is all a bit sudden. I mean, I came down here to resolve this case, Agent Castro, and I wouldn’t say it’s quite resolved yet.”

  Castro answered blandly. “This case could take months to resolve. Maybe longer. Tracing it back to Pelegrini is going to take a full-fledged investigation and a lot of training and expertise.”

  “But …” She found herself trapped in his viewpoint. It could take months. She had no real expertise.

  “The other factor,” Small broke in, “is that your other job is starting in less than a month. You need to go back to Washington and go through the formalities, get briefed on everything. You probably need to square things away with the university, don’t you?”

  “I understand that, Bert, but …” She stopped speaking and sat there absently for a moment. An ugly thought was taking shape in her mind. Maybe it was the agent’s perfunctory interview, or the FBI’s sudden interest in the case now that Pelegrini had been accused. Berenski’s words came back to her. He’s like Morelo, of the SuperClassic: The gringos paid him enough that he would start calling the foul. Now the FBI was calling the foul, eager to go after a man who had committed the double offense of being an enemy of justice and an enemy of certain American corporate interests. For reasons still unclear to her she’d flushed out admissions that might eventually lead to the truth about Robert Waterbury’s murder. Her job was to walk away with her accolades and her pats on the back while the FBI tied everything into a tight little package and hung it around Pelegrini’s neck. That’s the way the system worked: you write the report, you take the promotion, you leave the responsibility with someone higher up the chain. And one day you found out you were Miguel Fortunato.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and then turned to the agent. “I’m sorry,” she said in a low, steady voice, “but this is just not acceptable.”

  “What’s not acceptable?”

  “I’m not done here. I’m not leaving yet.”

  There was a confused silence. “No, Miss Fowler,” Castro answered. “You are done here. And you are leaving.”

  She looked from one closed face to the other. Small sat uncomfortably, offering no help, while Castro seemed irritated and impatient. “What is this, Agent Castro? For two weeks you won’t return my phone calls, and suddenly Pelegrini’s name pops up and you’re all over it! What’s the deal here?” He eyed her coldly. “This isn’t about Waterbury’s murder at all, is it?” she continued. “It’s about getting Pelegrini. Who are you working for here, Mr Castro? RapidMail? Did they come in and brief you, hint around that there might be some consulting fees in it for you down the line if you’re extra diligent? Maybe a little security contract after you retire?”

  Now he was visibly angry. “Who do you think—?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t question your integrity. RapidMail probably just worked this all out in Washington and handed the orders down from there.” She swiveled around. “How
about it, Bert? Did AmiBank grease the wheels back home? Is that why we’re all sitting here?”

  Agent Castro’s voice was leaden with contempt. “Why don’t you just take your conspiracy theories back to your friends at the university, Miss Fowler. This is the real world. You’re finished here.” He looked over at Small and the two of them came to their feet.

  She felt everything slipping away from her and there was nothing she could do about it. “Okay! Let’s all stand up! Fine!” She rose. “I know all about RapidMail and Grupo AmiBank and even William Renssaelaer, who used to work out of this very embassy and is working for Pelegrini now! I know all your filthy little corporate games. Ricardo Berenski told me everything!”

  This caught the FBI man by surprise, and for the first time she saw a trace of uncertainty in his features. “When did you talk to Ricardo Berenski?” he asked quickly.

  “That’s none of your business! You can read about it in the fucking New York Times!”

  The mention of the newspaper seemed to calm Agent Castro, as if she’d overplayed her hand. He fixed her with a faint smirk and said quietly, “Dream on.”

  The embassy worked fast at rolling up the welcome mat. When she returned to the hotel she was asked politely to re-register using her own credit card, and with that gesture she knew that she had no reason to expect more assignments from the State Department. She imagined that by now Wilbert Small had telephoned Fortunato to strip her of whatever meager official standing she’d had. She tried not to think about the job offer she’d just thrown away; that train of thought led straight to hell. Instead, she remembered Berenski and Carmen Amado, people who didn’t give up, and Naomi Waterbury, who had given up everything. Folding now wasn’t an option.

  She stared at the ceiling and squeezed her temples. She would need to corroborate Fabian’s story, to pull out his fictional cast and find out what was real. Starting with Teresa Castex. A woman who wouldn’t be eager to meet with an investigator, and could muster a wall of lawyers and bodyguards in a matter of minutes.