Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Whenever possible, from smuggled copies of The Journal of the American Forensic Society and science journals in French and Russian. This information-running represents my chief bootlegging operation along with my supply of French wines. Now, are you going to arrest me?” He glanced at her, reading her expression.
“Nahhh…black-market reading material… Not my department.” She grinned at him, filing away the doctor’s ‘secret’ crime.
Nodding, Benilo continued to work as he spoke. “During my university days in France, I never had to curb my curiosity or appetite-not for wine, not for women, and certainly not for knowledge.”
“Many university students prefer wine, women, and song.”
“Cigarettes and whiskey and wild, wild women, yes, the common pursuits of young men everywhere. But properly appreciating tobacco, music, a good French wine is like the pleasures of being with a woman-that comes with age.” Benilo leaned back and looked up at her, before adding, “None of it to be rushed. Benilo leaned back his eyes unwavering. “None of it to be rushed, Detective.”
Discomfited by his gaze, Qui became aware of the doctor as a man, a sexual man. Was he flirting or just being Cuban? While old enough to be her father, he was handsome in a rugged, darkly mysterious way.
He continued speaking. “From enjoying the appearance of the package and its unwrapping, to slowly releasing its anticipation-building aroma, and then the final savored scent, body, and taste. Done slowly and with full concentration, there are few comparable pleasures.” He blinked, then smiled at her. “An indulgence I refuse to give up.”
“The wine or the women, Dr Benilo?”
Responding, Benilo looked up again, and shook a gloved finger at her. “At my age Detective? The music. What else?” He smiled at her, this time, it seemed to her with a look of amusement.
She returned an innocent, amused smile. Her father’s estranged friend was not what she expected.
Being thorough, Benilo pulled out a digital micro-camera from his bag and began taking close-up photos of the victims-scars, the tattoo, marks made by the chain, and a final image of the lock. “If only technology could keep pace with our needs, I’d take dental X-rays here and now. However, for the time being, that much will have to wait for the lab.”
She wondered what other high-tech gadgets he might have in that bag of his. To others who knew little of forensics, Benilo likely appeared grotesque-a curious sniffing fiend picking over the dead, examining the result of some demented mischief. However, Qui knew better. Far from a ghoul, he represented Cuba’s best, a professional who’d threaded his way through the landmine of Cuban politics to become a major player in the network- or rather the web — of officialdom.
The old ME now studied each victim’s eyes. “Please, more light here.” He pointed with a pen.
Qui kneeled and flashed her LaserTec to the eyes in question. She surmised because the soft tissues of the eyes had not been completely damaged that the victims had not been in the warm seawater as long as she’d first imagined. To verify her impression, she asked, “How long in the water? Best guess.”
“Estimating in the field under poor lighting conditions, not a good idea,” muttered the doctor, not wanting to make a judgment call. “Then again light in the darkness is a wonderful thing.” He eyed her flashlight possessively and took it from her, examining it. “Damn sure could’ve used a light like this at Santa Clara. Lost a lot of lives there to darkness, ineptness, lack of sutures, and infection.”
Finishing his close examination of the eyes, he reluctantly returned the gun-handled flashlight. Complaining about his knees, he pushed off the deck, stood, and stretched. Qui straightened and the flash in her hand bobbed, creating a crazy light show that danced across the deck and superstructure.
Benilo quietly asked, “How is your father these days?”
With a furrowed brow, Qui replied, “Papa is well…” She shrugged. “But you know my father-perhaps better than I.”
Benilo raised his eyebrows. “You think I know him better than you? That may’ve been true once, but we’ve lost touch. Fine man…strong, robust when I knew him. In his prime, but then so was I.” He threw up his hands in a gesture of mock humor.
“If you’d visit him, you’d find out firsthand how he is. He’s spoken of you on occasion.” Having reached the stern, Qui leaned against the railing.
“Really? I imagine the occasion was not so pleasant then.”
She frowned, “I think he’d like to see you.” She added, “He has no one to reminisce with, and me…well, ancient history holds no appeal. In some ways, he’s stuck in the past.”
“Too many old men are still living in the days of the Revolucion de Cuba.”
“Precisely why he needs you; he lives with too many ghosts. You…his old friend, you are real.”
“I see his photos in the galleries in Havana from time to time. I imagine he still carries a camera everywhere?”
“Everywhere…even while gardening,” she chuckled.
“So he’s still managing the bed and breakfast and the garden after all this time?” Arturo asked, recalling the lovely house in Miramar, where he’d last seen Tomaso after Rafaela’s funeral. They’d argued then, both men in tears amid Rafaela’s Mariposa garden. From all reports, Tomaso had tended her garden ever since-now his only battlefield.
“Yes, and he still enjoys art, food, and a good game of chess.”
“Ahhh, chess…he was a formidable opponent.” Benilo’s eyes crinkled in amused thought. “Tomaso had such dreams for you, Quiana. You were his angel, and now what have you become? A cop in Old Havana.” He looked anew at her, as if sizing her up all over again. She stood in disarray, her slacks stained with fish gore and smelling of death. “Your father hoped you’d become a doctor, teacher, artist, musician maybe…perhaps even a great dancer in the Cuban National Ballet.”
As she’d listened to Benilo, she recalled how, as a child, she’d danced for her father. “Doctor, I am proud of what I’ve become, a Lieutenant Detective, and one day I’ll make my father proud, so don’t go judging me.”
Reading between her words and recalling Tomaso’s arrogance, Benilo surmised that things between father and daughter were strained, at least on this issue. “I know of your promotion. I commend you, if it comes without strings.”
“Strings?”
“Then the Secret Police have not approached you?”
Popular opinion held that all police were corrupt and most influenced by the SP. Qui considered his unmasked question in silence. Everyone in Cuba feared the secret police, which openly and defiantly operated throughout Cuba. They did so with impunity, answering only to Fidel’s highest-and by extension most corrupt-generals who ran the Internal Affairs of State and Department of Presidential Security. She suspected that the American Secret Service operated with similar brashness. “No, Doctor, the SP has no hooks in me.”
“I suspect your father’s reputation has shielded you from some aspects of police life.” He sighed and in a softer voice for her ears only continued. “The days of Batista we once thought over, are not over. Look…out there.” He pointed to a well-lit pleasure craft.
In the distance, Qui watched the slow movement of the boat he referred to, doubtless filled with tourists having dinner and drinks, enjoying the best of what Cuba had to offer…in real estate, food, hotels, services, goods, nightclubs, all off limits to Cubanos. One country, several societies: the rich, the politicos, the tourists, and the people-once again victims of the economy. An economy once driven by greed and now by ideology. This time victimized by the very regime that’d promised sweeping changes, only to end up like a cardboard house after a hurricane, flat and useless.
Qui understood precisely what Benilo was driving at and unconsciously stepped closer to whisper. “Perhaps you’re right. In many ways…back to where we started.”
“History repeats. Look, like all half-assed dictatorships Cuba has many secu
rity units, mostly arranged according to function: riot control, illegal drugs, counter-intelligence, VIP protection…you name it.”
“I’m aware of this. All these units have fuzzy and overlapping jurisdictions.”
“Yes and disputes are settled according to the gauge of ‘my general can beat up your general’-that is, whichever commander is more buddy-buddy with Castro this week takes precedence.”
“Yeah but this is my case-my jurisdiction-until somebody’s general orders me off.”
“Touche!” Not to appear conspicuous, they walked back to the work at hand, where Benilo returned to the previous topic. “Trust me, you should just walk away.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“I have a detective’s pay and a shield, so I’m afraid I am this case.”
“Perhaps, if I were in your position, I’d want this assignment too; it is, after all, fascinating. Life never ceases to surprise me, and it appears that fate has created common ground between us, Detective.”
“Some common ground,” she agreed, nodding, “my father and three dead foreigners!”
He smiled at her jest and took a deep breath. Looking fatigued, he muttered, “You know, Detective, doing well in Cuba means doing well in a minefield.” He continued to organize his things, beginning to pack any items he no longer required. “And if not careful, you and I will be caught in that minefield. Things are not as they seem, not at all.”
She felt a need to distance herself from the cynicism of the old coroner. “Myself…I want things simple and clear, black or white, not all mixed.” Recognizing her own petulance, she became annoyed. Still, I know…nothing in Cuba is simple: not the food nor the music, not the culture, the politics, and certainly not the people. She added, “How’d we arrive at politics anyway?”
“Politics is life. People living in concentrated areas dealing with one another and life as best they can. Quarrels, squabbles, disease, and despots come about as a result of such concentrations of people as what makes up Cuba, Havana especially. And out of heated argument and dictatorial government crawls the snake we call politics.”
They were startled by Tino’s voice, amplified through a police bullhorn, screaming. “Stop! Get that boat outta here! Away from the Sanabela, now! Immediately, or be subject to arrest!”
As the boat veered off, a series of boos and hisses erupted.
“So, Doctor, this?” began Qui, pointing to the retreating boat. “This too is about politics?”
“Curiosity is human nature, and human nature is political. It’s all about politics.”
“I believe there’re areas that are a-political.”
“Hmmm…dreams perhaps.”
She protested, “What about art?”
“Political.”
“Literature?”
“Very political!”
“Music, theatre?”
“All political. It’s the nature of the beast. Politics rules our lives, and ever so often, we have a duty to rebel against it. Read Shakespeare.”
Qui shook here head. “All this talk of secret police and cover-ups and politics is beginning to get on my nerves.”
He glanced at her with heavy-lidded eyes. “Nothing in Havana happens without a political tendril. If you don’t know that, your career as a PNR detective is doomed.”
Qui gritted her teeth, holding annoyance at bay. “Doctor, please, can we drop the intrigues and concentrate on solving this case?”
“Sure, we can pretend… no dead foreigners here in Fidel-land.”
“OK, it’s political. Still, it’s my case, assigned by my colonel, and I’ll see it through!”
9
In a rich coffee-brown, book-filled stud y
The elder Cuban business sovereign huddled over his desk, his face half-hidden in the semi-darkness he preferred. A ragged scar ran down his neck from his right cheek, a leftover from the days of the revolution-the result of a machete attack from a subordinate who took issue with his orders. No one’s fool when it came to seizing opportunity, he’d fought on both sides, first with Batista, then later when fortunes changed, with Castro-politics less important than the power that winning conferred. The mutinous soldier had paid with his life along with any peasant who stood in Humberto Arias’s way. All the bodies disposed of not far from the local church. With the remains, he’d also hidden Cuban historical relics. Over the years, he secretly retrieved items that became the foundation of his current lucrative international antiques business.
He offered his visitor a fine cigar from a gold inlaid box.
“Ahhh…my friend, Alejandro,” he warmly began, “This is good news…that we will soon have the bodies in the hands of the SP. That man Benilo is dangerously clever-never underestimate him, never!”
“You can stop worrying about that old fool. Cavuto and I will not let you down.” The tall handsome Alejandro Valdes, known for his ability to ‘fix’ anything, deeply inhaled the full-bodied, rich aroma of the tobacco used to make the Fuentes, a prize the rest of the world hungered for at almost any price.
Alejandro had recently decided that a fundamental conundrum existed in his life: His boss, whom he’d originally intended to kill, had become first his mentor, then in all respects, his father. As a young man, Alejandro had been on a quest-in search of the man who’d ordered the brutal murder of his mother and others taking sanctuary in his village’s most sacred place-the cathedral. Surviving only because he’d hidden beneath her body, the memory of that terror still burned within. Often, the cries of those murdered woke him, their spectral voices pleading for vengeance. As a man, he’d tracked down the remnants of the revolutionary unit responsible for the wanton horror of these killings. One by one, Alejandro murdered each member of that wicked rouge unit, until only their leader remained-the man who was now his ‘father’. And all the while, the old man never suspected that his ‘adopted son’ had been a witness to his wartime atrocities. Ironically, with no son of his own, Arias had made it clear he considered the younger man his heir apparent-a twist of fate that the ‘son’ could never have predicted.
Adding to his dilemma, Alejandro had come to realize he loved the lifestyle of the rich and powerful, and he was reluctant to do anything to jeopardize its continuance. But what had become of his original plan? He’d gotten close to Arias, taking on more and more opportunities connected to the old man’s Havana operation as it related to Alejandro’s SP position with the express purpose of creating the appearance of loyalty. At Arias’s direction, many activities went unreported and many lives were ruined by the SP’s frightful attention. Over the years, Alejandro had lost count of the instances of mis-directions and legerdemain that enabled Arias to become a major player in the Cuban underworld.
Alejandro’s cunning plan so far had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams; however, his plan of assassination, rather than being quickly accomplished, had instead permutated into something else, something complex, something tangled. It’d taken years to reach this point-to be this close to his target-and for what? Killing this man was no longer the simple matter it ought to have been.
Rolling the Fuentes between his fingers and lifting it to his lips, Alejandro tasted its sweetness, so like that of his only love-Humberto’s youngest daughter, Reyna-to whom he gave a fleeting thought as the smoke curled about his darkly alluring features. Just the thought of her brought a half-smile to his face. Falling in love with the bastard’s daughter had not been by design, yet their coming marriage ensured his closeness and access to the position and power he’d craved.
With patience grown thin after so many years, he’d begun to plot Arias’s demise. How many times had he killed the old bastard in his mind? So often that when drunk, he’d wax poetic saying, “Let me count the ways.” These thoughts filtered through his mind even as he enjoyed the man’s largesse. Leaning forward, he lifted the rum-filled Waterford crystal snifter and drank. He imagined himself on the other side of the desk, his hands
on the controls, his fiancee proudly at his side.
“So tell me,” Humberto began, “do you have this pathologist Gomez…what’s his name? Trebeca in your control?”
“The SP has enough on Trebeca to send him away for two lifetimes. He’ll do whatever I tell him.”
“So when’s this press conference you’re orchestrating for the public? And are you sure this will work?”
“Don’t you see…when the SP announces to the world that these deaths are the result of a drug-smuggling deal gone bad, it will divert attention from us.”
“Clever…but still I see loose ends. That damned lock…and perhaps Montoya.”
Not wanting to pursue the subject of the lock, Alejandro asked, “Are you suggesting that Montoya should take a permanent vacation?”
“Only if he becomes a liability. He says a single word to his lady-this detective Aguilera-even in pillow talk, and we could be tomorrow’s headline.”
“I was against putting the woman on the case from the beginning, but at the time-”
“I know, but neither of us knew she was involved with Montoya.”
“Ahhh…that Montoya wouldn’t jeopardize the money,” replied Alejandro, sipping at his drink. “I know him.”
“Then that only leaves the lock.”
“Stop worrying. It’s already taken care of. The cop, Tino Hilito will be switching your lock so it can’t lead back to you.”
“Then you are telling me, Alejandro-”
“I’m telling you there is no way any of this can be traced. You’re safe.” Alejandro smiled, thinking that the astute Benilo and the equally shrewd woman, Aguilera, would most certainly trace the lock directly to his mother’s murderer. In this way, Alejandro believed he could successfully betray the old man without implicating himself, or destroying his relationship with his fiancee-his guarantee of access to Arias’s fortune. Furthermore, this plan relieved Alejandro of the onus of direct murder while allowing him to slip naturally into the chair he longed for.
“So, Alejandro, my boy, when will you and Reyna set the bans for your marriage?”
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