by Carmen Amato
Emilia elbowed Silvio backwards. “I’m Detective Cruz,” she said to the young man. With his curly hair and expensive clothes he looked like a high school kid with too much money. “Detective Silvio’s my partner. Why were you looking for us?”
The young man smiled confidently at her and extended his hand. “Detective Orlando Flores Almaprieto.”
Silvio folded his arms and scowled as Emilia took the proffered hand. Flores extended his hand to Silvio but withdrew it when it was clear the big man wasn’t going to respond.
“You’re from Vice?” Emilia asked hastily. “Tech Ops?”
“I’m assigned here,” Flores said. “First day.”
“What the fuck,” Silvio exclaimed. “Did you know about this, Cruz?”
“No,” Emilia said. They’d been shorthanded for months but generally there was an announcement as to the patrol cops who’d achieved the highest scores on the detective exam and had thus qualified to apply for squadroom vacancies. Emilia nodded at the shabby, crowded squadroom with its metal desks and green filing cabinets. The bulletin boards, punctured with a thousand tack holes, dripped with pictures and notes from the most significant investigations. Only the copier and coffeemaker were relatively new. “Welcome. You took us by surprise. What unit were you with?”
Flores’s smile was replaced with an expression of caution. “You mean, police unit?”
Silvio shifted to stand next to Emilia. “Yeah, kid, where was your beat?”
It made a difference. If Flores had spent a couple of years in the administration building he wouldn’t have the street smarts of someone who’d survived as a uniformed cop in the violence-torn neighborhoods of El Roble or Arroyo Seco.
“I just graduated from university,” Flores said. “That’s why I’m supposed to ride with you two. On the job training.”
Silvio made a noise like a goat caught in a wire fence.
“Really?” Emilia frowned. No one walked off the street and into a detective billet. Every detective in the squadroom had spent at least five years as a beat cop. She’d spent ten. “What’s your degree in? Criminology? Psychology? Computers? We could really use somebody with cyber skills.”
“Music theory and composition,” Flores said.
There was a rushing sound as Silvio barreled across the squadroom. He banged once on the door to the lieutenant’s office, slammed it open, and charged across the threshold.
“Excuse me,” Emilia said.
☼
“What the fuck,” Silvio repeated.
“Chief Salazar called me this morning and the courier dropped off the file.” Loyola slumped in his chair and the overhead fluorescent light accentuated the shadows under his eyes. The deep creases running from his nose to the edges of his mouth hadn’t been there six weeks ago. “He said it’s a new program to integrate university graduates. Flores is the first.”
Emilia picked up the file from the corner of the cluttered desk. There was little in it: standard identification picture, fingerprint card, and a personnel action notification that said Flores had been hired by the city of Acapulco. His starting salary was more than what Emilia made after 12 years with the police force. But she didn’t have a college degree.
She handed the open file to Silvio whose face twisted in anger as he read. A moment later he slapped the file closed in front of Loyola, causing the papers strewn across the messy desk to flutter onto the floor. “There’s no new program,” the big detective snarled as Loyola dove to catch the mess. “This is por dedazo, pure and simple.”
Emilia had to agree. Por dedazo literally meant by the finger, as in a finger pointing to a job for a friend. Someone with power wanted Flores to be a detective and had pointed to the most direct way possible. Her mind lit on a bad pun about the Padre Pro relic and as quickly dismissed it.
“I only know what Chief Salazar told me,” Loyola said defensively as he piled the fallen papers back on the desk top.
For the past three months, ever since Lieutenant Rufino had been shot and left the force, Loyola had been acting lieutenant. Emilia hadn’t any strong feelings about Loyola one way or the other before his appointment, but under the bespectacled former schoolteacher, the squadroom had slowed to a crawl. She didn’t know if Loyola was unsure of his authority or had been ordered to do so, but every decision now had to be vetted through the office of Acapulco Chief of Police Enrique Salazar Robelo.
The appointment as acting lieutenant had been a surprise to everyone in the squadroom, including Loyola who’d been notified by text message. Silvio was the senior detective as well as the squadroom’s dominant personality and natural leader. But Silvio had a checkered past that included a temporary suspension resulting from unproven charges of murdering his own partner, charges that Emilia knew to be false. Moreover, there was bad blood between Silvio and Vincent Obregon Sosa, the head of the police union for the state of Guerrero.
Emilia pressed a hand to her temple and rubbed at a burgeoning headache. In the confines of the small office, the meat locker aroma clinging to her hair and clothes was especially raw. Silvio didn’t smell like a garden, either. “He’s actually expecting us to train him? A kid with a degree in music?”
Silvio paced in front of Loyola’s desk. “Tell Salazar to put him through the academy with uniformed recruits.”
“Chief Salazar was very specific,” Loyola said. “Flores comes directly into the squadroom and we’re to give him on the job training. He’ll ride with you two for a couple of weeks. You’ll have to get him qualified on the shooting range, get him trained on the intranet and evidence procedures, walk him around so he can figure out who’s who and find case files.”
“No.” Silvio stopped pacing. “Either tell Salazar to send him to the academy or give the fucker to somebody else.”
“There isn’t anybody else,” Loyola said.
“I don’t give a fuck.” Silvio leaned over the desk and shook his finger at Loyola. “Cruz and I got work coming out of our asses and we don’t have time for this.”
Loyola planted his hands on the desk as if to steady himself and rose to face the irate senior detective. “Ibarra’s flying solo and I’m not putting some rookie with him who is going to get him shot,” he said. “Macias and Sandor are in Mexico City starting next week at that training course. It’s either you or Gomez and Castro.”
Silvio huffed out a breath, rubbed a hand across his bristly gray crew cut, and turned his back on Loyola. Emilia gave an inward groan. Gomez and Castro were the squadroom’s troublemakers. She’d had run-ins with both of them and knew that they’d pilfered evidence from an important money laundering case against a casino. As a result, the case had collapsed and the casino had reopened. At least Castro’s brother, who’d turned up with some of the stolen evidence, was now in jail.
“Madre de Dios.” Silvio swore and smacked the wall. He spun around, always agile despite his heavy musculature. “We’re now babysitting somebody’s precious baby boy. What the fuck’s his name? Flores?”
“Whose baby boy is he, anyway?” Emilia asked. Who had pointed on behalf of Flores? Chief Salazar or someone else?
Loyola raised his hands in surrender and sat down again. “I only know what’s in his file.”
“Madre de Dios,” Silvio swore again. “Between Cruz’s fucking finger, that ship of fools, and now this kid, it’s been a hell of a day.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Loyola looked at Emilia’s hands.
“I bought a finger yesterday,” Emilia said.
“Tell me it was chicken or fish,” Loyola said.
“Supposedly a finger of the Cristero martyr Padre Pro,” Silvio said as he dropped into one of the chairs by the desk. Plastic and metal squeaked in protest.
Loyola’s mouth opened in surprise.
“Found it at the Villa de Refugio store downtown,” Emilia said. She leaned against the wall by the office door. “Fancy place, all religious items. Came with letters saying it’s the priest’s finger.”
“How fresh does it look?” Loyola asked.
“Hard to tell,” Emilia said. Why was she always surrounded by skeptics? “It’s in a glass box.”
“Take it over to Prade,” Loyola said. “Call some of the private security companies, too. See if anybody’s dealing with a chopper.”
Emilia slid into the other chair in front of Loyola’s desk, suddenly tired. She’d been so focused on the chance that the finger was truly that of Padre Pro that she hadn’t considered more obvious possibilities.
The number of kidnappings in Acapulco had climbed steadily during the years Emilia had been a cop, as the drug cartels turned to creative extortion to fund their bloody wars with each other, as well as the lifestyles that kept the ranks of the young and unemployed flocking to join up as lookouts, mules, and assassins. “Choppers” were kidnappers who cut off the kidnapping victim’s body parts in order to pressure families into paying a hefty ransom. In cases where it took the families a significant amount of time to scrape up the money, victims lost multiple body parts.
Local police were rarely part of the effort to rescue a kidnaping victim. Families invariably either used a relatively trusted federal unit or a private security firm to guide them through the negotiations and eventual ransom payment. Corruption was endemic throughout local police forces and most families were rightly afraid that the police were either part of the kidnapping ring or would insert themselves into the situation in order to make off with some or all of the ransom. Emilia had first-hand experience of how a kidnapping could go awry when a previous lieutenant had offered to deliver ransom money and switched the cash for counterfeit bills. The young victim had lost both thumbs.
“Open a case file.” Loyola began to swivel his desk chair from side to side, a nervous habit he’d acquired lately.
“Don’t we need to clear it with Chief Salazar’s office first?” Silvio asked.
He’d made no effort to hide his sarcasm and Emilia shot him a warning look.
But Loyola hadn’t noticed. “I’ll call,” he said, looking under piles of folders and loose pieces of paper until he found a well-thumbed spiral-topped notebook. He flipped to a clean page and began to write. “It’s a good case for Flores to cut his teeth on. No violence, just some phone calls. He can make some contacts right off.”
“Sure,” Emilia said unhappily.
Loyola looked up from his notebook. “Is that it?”
Silvio looked disgusted. “Well, there was the little matter of the body on the cruise ship. But hell, if you’re not interested--.”
“That’s right,” Loyola said. “What have you got?”
“Unidentified male, late twenties or early thirties,” Emilia said. “Shot in the head under a service stairwell on a deck used principally for kitchen storage and loading cargo. Killer tried to wipe off blood stains and then stuffed the body into their meat freezer.”
Silvio stood up as if restless. “Probably a dealer, thief, or stowaway.”
“So basically, nobody important,” Loyola said. He rubbed his eyes and resumed scribbling in his notebook. “Regrettable incident but not the high priority it would be if the victim had been a passenger from El Norte. Murder weapon?”
“Small caliber,” Emilia answered. “The two sleepwalkers you scraped up did a search of crew quarters only. We’ll finish tomorrow, for what’s it’s worth. The captain refused to let us into passenger areas and we’d need an army to do that, anyway.”
“Suspects?”
“Two. Both crew members,” Silvio said. “Working theory is crew member caught him, killed him. Panicked and tried to hide the body. Tomorrow we’ll follow up with Customs, dock employees, local vendors. Find out who might have seen him come on board.”
He went to the door and yanked it open. From where she was sitting, Emilia could see straight into the squadroom. Flores was now standing next to her desk. He was talking to Castro and Gomez, both of whom were rangy men with ponytails, scraggly beards, rock band tee shirts and slouchy jeans. Neither was trying very hard to hide his amusement.
“Fine.” Loyola kept writing. “Well, keep me apprised.”
Silvio snatched the pen out of Loyola’s hand. “Let’s get one thing straight. Taking on this Flores kid was your decision. Whatever fucking happens to him is your responsibility.”
Loyola bolted to his feet and thrust a finger at Silvio. “This is an order from Chief Salazar, Franco. Show a little loyalty.”
“You really need to grow a pair,” Silvio said, in a surprisingly quiet voice. “If you had any guts at all, you wouldn’t be dumping some clueless kid on the street. He’s not going to last.”
As Emilia watched through the open door, Castro said something in his usual jittery way and Flores looked down at the fly of his pants. When the young man’s gaze came back up to the two detectives, Gomez slapped him on the back hard enough for the folded earphones to fall out of his jacket pocket. They tumbled the length of the cord. Flores stuffed them back in as Castro and Gomez jinked around him like two drug addicts who’d found a lost tourist.
Emilia closed her eyes and said a little prayer.
Chapter 4
It wasn’t too late, only about 7:00 pm, when Emilia drove the clanky white Suburban into the courtyard of the house. A cartel mule’s wagon that had been confiscated by the police, the Suburban had seen its share of Mexico’s drug war. The rear window--which had been shot out and replaced--leaked in the rain. The doors jammed in hot weather because of the way they’d been rigged to carry bricks of cocaine. But having an official vehicle was one of the perks of being a detective and the Suburban had served Emilia well.
The lights over the front door were on, revealing the tidy yard and the pots of red geraniums that Sophia loved. Emilia sat in the car with the engine off and rolled her shoulders. It was her Monday night ritual, a way to cushion herself against the culture shock of returning to her mother and Ernesto after weekends with Kurt.
Emilia closed her eyes, counted to ten and opened her car door. She pulled out the Palacio Réal cooler in which the relic of Padre Pro had resided all day and carried it past Ernesto Cruz’s grinding wheel and the wooden sign with his prices for sharpening knives and scissors and machetes.
Ernesto was watching television in the living room. He was about 50, with skin tanned to leather from hours sitting in the sun and working his wheel. He wore a simple cotton shirt and trousers, but they were clean and neatly pressed.
She said hello and put down the cooler. Ernesto nodded at Emilia and his gaze went back to the screen. It was their usual interaction. He’d come into their lives almost a year ago, a sad broken man from Mexico City whom Sophia had found wandering in the mercado. His name was the same as her long-dead husband and so she’d simply declared that her man had come back to her. Ernesto had slid almost seamlessly into the role. In a few weeks they’d make it official.
Emilia followed the sounds of pots and pans through the small living room into the kitchen.
“Buena noche, Mama,” she said tiredly and gave her mother a kiss.
Sophia returned her kiss on the cheek and gave Emilia a gentle squeeze before letting go.
“I was worried about you, niña,” Sophia said.
Mother and daughter shared the same generous mouth, high cheekbones, chocolate eyes, and arched brows but Sophia’s guileless expression and floral clothing often made her look younger than Emilia. She wore a cotton dress and flowered apron and her hair was plaited into a single thick dark braid.
“It’s not late,” Emilia said. She got a beer out of the small refrigerator, twisted off the top, and drifted over to the stove.
“Where were you yesterday?” Sophia looked worried as she unwrapped waxed paper from a stack of fresh corn tortillas.
“Yesterday was Sunday, Mama.” Emilia sniffed appreciatively at a pan of shredded pork. “I was with Kurt. If you were worried you should have called.”
The schedule of when she was at the Palacio Réal and when sh
e slept at home was taped to the kitchen wall above the tile countertop, along with emergency telephone numbers: her cell phone, Kurt’s cell and office numbers, plus the number that rang in the hotel penthouse.
“That boy again?” Sophia frowned, then elbowed Emilia away from the stove so she could warm the tortillas on the flat round comal griddle.
“Kurt,” Emilia reminded her. “His name is Kurt.”
“What kind of a name is Kurt? Are you sure it’s not Carlos?”
“I’m sure, Mama.”
“Go sit down,” Sophia said.
The scent of pork and tortillas was rich and reassuring. Emilia felt hunger and fatigue rush in to claim her as she took off her jacket and unbuckled her shoulder holster. The late day encounter with the new detective had been a momentary diversion but now she realized how upsetting it had been to handle the rigid cadaver amid the swaying carcasses aboard the cruise ship. Hopefully, given that they had two suspects, the case could wrap up quickly. But she never liked to predict. As a detective, she’d learned long ago that some weeks were an exercise in sleep deprivation. A week would start slow, like this one, with only one new case—if she didn’t count Padre Pro—but speed up until the days stretched to 12, 14, or 16 hours. And still the case would be retired to the files as more crime rushed in.
Sophia put a plate on the table in front of her and Emilia gave a start, realizing that she’d all but fallen asleep as she sat there. The plate of carnitas looked enticing; warm corn tortillas wrapped around pork that had been slow cooked and then fried until hot and crisp.
“Thank you, Mama,” Emilia said. The first bite was heaven and made even better by the bowl of bayos blancos that Sophia set next to the plate. The salsa was already on the table. Emilia ladled a spoonful onto the beans and proceeded to inhale the food.
Sophia sat down across from her. For several minutes neither spoke as Emilia ate.
“I think I should speak to this boy’s parents, Emilia,” Sophia said at length.