Murder One

by Allen Kent

  Grace shifted her gaze back to me, then down at the notes she’d taken about the bruised children. “Yeah, I can take care of things here. Will I be escorting the state investigator around while you’re away?”

  Joseph answered for me. “I have plenty to keep me busy until the sheriff gets back. The place is all yours.”

  21

  Joseph asked if I’d ever been to Mexico. We were sitting at Gate B 21 at Dallas/Fort Worth waiting for an 11:47 a.m. departure to Mazatlán. I had been to Mexico but had to think for a minute before deciding what to tell her. Every Marine I knew at the Corp’s San Diego Recruit Depot had been to Mexico. Or at least they had been as far as Zona Norte in Tijuana where the women lined up against the faded plaster walls and corrugated roll-down doors of seedy clubs like so many faded Barbies in a secondhand store window. I’d gone with my buddies a few times. Had never sampled the Barbies. I was still under the saving influence of my mother’s strict Southern Baptist upbringing and scared to death of coming home with one of the many crotch-ravaging conditions that seemed endemic in the barracks. But I did take in a few shows that would have curdled our preacher’s urine and wasn’t sure how much Joseph needed to know.

  “Yes,” I finally conceded. “But only down into the border towns when I was in the service.”

  “Marines? That would be Tijuana,” she guessed. “I was thinking more of real Mexico.”

  “I guess not, then. And what would real Mexico include?”

  “Some place where regular Mexicans live.”

  “I think I was seeing real Mexicans.”

  “Yeah. Like Mustang Ranch is real America.”

  “And like you’ve been to Mustang Ranch?”

  She shot me a “You’re tap dancing around my question” look and said, “So, I take it the answer is no.”

  “Have you been to real Mexico, then?”

  She nodded in such a way that I knew the whole thing had been leading up to my asking that question. “My family used to spend part of the summer each year in San Miguel de Allende. Frankly, that’s one of the reasons I decided to take you up on this invitation.”

  I gave her a disappointed frown. “And I was thinking it was my irresistible charm.”

  “That was one of the other reasons,” she grinned back at me.

  “And this San Miguel de Allende. That’s real Mexico, I gather?”

  “There are tons of expats there from all over, but it’s a beautiful old colonial city. And yes, I’d say it’s real Mexico.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?”

  “Well enough to get around.”

  “Great. Then you’re in charge, once we get to Mazatlán. Unless we run into a delegation from one of the Arabian states. Then I’ll take over.”

  “I think Mazatlán will be different. It’s on the Pacific coast. San Miguel is inland. About the middle of the country.”

  “Close enough,” I said with a slight shrug. “They’ll still speak Spanish, won’t they? So you’re in charge.”

  She rolled her eyes and started to make some smart retort, but stopped to hear the gate announcement. “That’s us,” she said. “You want window or aisle?”

  I grabbed the backpack that held my ‘if my bags don’t make it’ change of socks and underwear. “Back in steerage, tall men always want the aisle,” I told her.

  Mazatlán was different. The airport is twenty minutes south of the city, and the mountain side of the drive into town was nothing but parched fields of thorny, head-high brush. On the ocean side, shells of what looked like resorts-gone-bankrupt lined the highway like so many Mayan ruins, suggesting the city had seen better days. The blazing sun reminded me of Dubai, and beyond a long strip of coastal buildings, the ocean gleamed silver-gray.

  I had arranged for a car and driver through a company called King David. The driver was a fiftyish man with a dark suit stretched over an ample paunch and official-looking chauffeur’s cap. Joseph’s running conversation with the man showed more than a passing facility with Spanish. I quickly learned how my Marine buddies felt when I was jabbering away in Pashto and they had no idea what I was talking about. I recognized “Don Pelayo Pacific Beach,” the place I’d arranged for us to stay, but the rest was—well, like Spanish to me.

  “Wanna share?” I knew I sounded as irritated as I felt.

  “I’m asking about good places to eat and what he recommends.”

  “So, what’s for dinner?”

  “There’s a place near the hotel called Chili’s Pepper. Right on the beach. He says it has some of the best molcajete in the city.”

  “Okay. What’s molcajete?”

  “You ever seen those three-legged Mexican lava bowls? That’s what a molcajete is. Chili’s cooks up a stew in them Gabriel says shouldn’t be missed.”

  “So, you’ve got dinner plans for us?”

  “You said I was in charge. What were you thinking? A Big Mac or a visit to the Colonel? They’ll have both here somewhere.”

  She was right. As we entered the city proper, I began to wonder if the failed resorts had just been ill-conceived efforts to build too far out. Brand name big-box retailers lined divided avenues that streamed with late-model cars. Every tenth face was an expat: pale, pudgy men in knee-length shorts, gaudy tropical shirts, and spanking new Panama hats shuffled along the walks with their dutiful wives three paces behind. And sure enough. There were the golden arches and KFC.

  The Don Pelayo was a towering white beachfront palace that looked more Mediterranean than Mayan. My room was creamy pink, the marble-topped desk and wall table molded out of the same concrete that formed the floor and walls. No one was going to walk away with the Don Pelayo’s furniture. A pink veranda overlooked a turquoise pool with a waterslide twisting down through a very natural-looking pile of rock. I’d stayed in places this fancy in Dubai and felt like a toad in an aquarium full of angel fish. But this one had a more natural feel to it, maybe because the couch and desk were poured concrete and I could hear a pretty good Mariachi band playing down by the pool. The seductive tang of refried beans and salsa wafted up from somewhere below. I hadn’t eaten anything but a bag of pretzels since leaving home.

  Joseph stepped onto the balcony next to mine, dressed in shorts that matched the blue of the pool below and a soft, white silk shirt. She smiled over at me, and I had to gulp a breath to keep my heart in check. I’d seen her wet in the creek and tightly packed into her state patrol uniform, but never with full makeup looking quite this womanly. Damn near beautiful when she wanted to be.

  “You feeling like dinner?” she asked, her face coloring at the flush she could see on mine.

  “I just need a minute to change.” I’d thrown a couple of pairs of shorts in my bag. But mine were more L.L. Bean with a dozen pockets. I wasn’t sure they’d even been pressed. The extra shirts both had logos over the pocket. Shelter Cove Resort. Indian Springs B&G. Better suited to a safari than a night out with the sexiest woman I’d been with since coming back to the Ozarks. I at least had a pair of loafers I could wear without socks, giving me some semblance of resort cool.

  During the quarter-mile stroll to the restaurant we passed more tourists than natives, and I had to wonder again if this was real Mexico. Most were dressed with much less concern about public appearance than I had, and Joseph didn’t seem uncomfortable walking beside me. I knew we looked like a couple, a pretty nice-looking couple, and I liked that.

  Chili’s Pepper was at the end of a corridor cut through a collection of T-shirt and souvenir shops, folk art galleries, and places renting boogie boards and beach umbrellas. The restaurant was open on three sides and overlooked a wide stretch of white sand and evening-gray ocean. A couple of rocky islands blocked the sun as it dove toward the western horizon, leaving our table against the railing in the cool, half-light of a salmon Mexican sunset. Families and gaggles of young singles partied beneath striped umbrellas along the beach. Grandparents lounged in plastic deck chairs and children chased after black-capped gulls that la
unched raids in twos and threes against the remains of picnics.

  Joseph stretched lazily. “Gabriel was right,” she murmured. “This is a beautiful, romantic place to spend an evening.”

  “You asked him about romantic places?”

  She smiled mischievously. “He volunteered. Thought we were a couple.”

  I gave her a little head nod, not wanting to ruin the fantasy with some lame comment. She ordered a Margarita and I a local Pacifico. It came with a saucer of salt and slices of fresh lime. We both ordered the molcajete and Joseph added something that sounded from my vague memory of high school Spanish like it was called “three milks.”

  “It’s a surprise,” she assured me. “And you’ll love it.”

  The molcajete lived up to its billing. The black lava bowl sizzled with a soup of sliced beef, thick-cut bacon, onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomato sauce, greens, avocado, and a coating of tangy white cheese. A savory vapor of cocoa, cumin, and chili hung over the bowl and my saliva glands opened to the point I had to wipe at my mouth to keep from drooling. We had asked for “medium” on the chili scale and Joseph sipped at the broth without a blink. The first spoonful slipped easily down my throat, then began to smolder its way back up to the tip of my tongue. I doused the flame with the Pacifico, gave my system a chance to turn on the fire suppressors, and dove back in. I hadn’t enjoyed a dish this much since leaving the Middle East. Or maybe it was the company.

  The “three milks” turned out to be a multi-layered, cream-filled cake with which some master baker had managed to find that perfect point between moist and soggy. Ambrosia to the taste buds!

  “Incredible,” I managed to mumble through a mouthful. Joseph’s laugh showed flirty delight. Candles now glowed in the center of the tables and the flame kindled gold embers in her dark eyes.

  During the walk back to Don Pelayo, a magnetic pull wanted to draw our hands together, but neither of us was willing to allow the first touch. At her door I said, “This has been a perfect evening. Best I’ve had in many years.”

  “It has,” she agreed and waited, looking up at me just long enough to give me hope, then dropped her eyes in what I read to be resignation, squeezed my hand to say “Nice thought, but better not,” and slipped alone into her room.

  22

  Mazatlán Numismatics was in the old part of town, what definitely would have qualified as “Real Mexico.” We rode into the city along a mile-long curve of white sand in what the locals called a pulmonia, a souped-up golf cart-looking jitney with an open canopy roof and a sound system that could churn butter.

  “From what the driver tells me, these are unique to Mazatlán,” Joseph yelled over a hundred decibel rendition of some Latin chart topper. “They’re built on old VW bug frames. The name literally means ‘pneumonia,’ I guess because of all the fumes we’re sucking in. They’re cheaper than a taxi, and faster than the bus.”

  “I’ll spring for a taxi on the way back,” I shouted, but she was watching fishing boats unload their morning catch along a makeshift pier. My offer disappeared into a throbbing bass from woofers the size of microwaves that hung just behind our heads. She had dressed again in shorts, her morning choice a loose khaki with a brightly flowered blouse. There was enough room on the vinyl seat for three to pack in tightly or two to sit without touching. She chose to slide close enough that our arms brushed. We both pretended not to notice.

  Angel Flores Street climbed away from the bay into the old city over a gradual hill, lined shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides by arched, Spanish-style homes in pinks, pastel blues, ochre, and Indian red. A walk fronted the houses, raised above the sunken street to chest-height and separated from traffic by heavy concrete balusters. As the street descended into the heart of Old Mazatlán, some of the homes yielded space to narrow-fronted specialty shops with small living quarters above.

  The single window in the shop selling rare coins offered an array of Central and South American specimens perched on plexiglass racks. Decorative cast iron grating covered the full pane of window glass, far enough from the treasures that an arm reaching though a broken pane couldn’t reach the display. I scanned the coins for US currency, finding only a row of buffalo-head nickels.

  Inside the shop, a long glass-topped counter stretched from the right of the door to an exit in the rear wall, cutting the room in half. When we entered, a chime jingled overhead and a hunched little man with a gray fringe surrounding a bald, chocolate-colored dome hurried through the back curtain. He was perfect for the part, with eyes magnified to twice normal size by thick, wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Hablas Ingles?” I asked before Joseph could launch into a conversation in Spanish. I wanted to hear all of this one firsthand.

  The man strained unsuccessfully to force the curve from his back, peering up at me with an amused grin. “I speak English very well, though with a bit of an Arkansas accent.”

  “We should understand each other well, then,” I said. “I hail from just north of the border.”

  He allowed his head to relax forward. “Mexican border or Arkansas border?”

  “Arkansas border. About thirty miles into Missouri.”

  His bent head wagged more side-to-side than up-and-down. “Very good. My name’s Pogue. Rufus Pogue. Can I interest you in some out-of-circulation currency? I have everything from souvenir coins and bills to investment grade gold and silver.”

  “I contacted you by email about the Confederate gold dollar you advertised. The1861-D. I asked if I could come have a look at it.”

  “Ah, yes. Mr. Tate.”

  “The same. And this is my friend Mara. There are a lot of Pogues up our way. Do you have kin in Missouri?” I realized as I said it that all the Pogues I knew were white, but it was too late to turn back, and they might be related anyway.

  He knew more about the Pogues than I did. “Yes. We’re related. But not closely. I wouldn’t know any of them.” He wasn’t any more interested in tracing the genealogy than I was. “What questions about the dollar can I answer for you?”

  “Would it be possible for us to examine the coin?”

  “Of course. Let me lock the shop while we look at it. I would prefer we go into the back and don’t wish to leave the front unattended.”

  “Not a problem,” I agreed. The little man lifted a section of counter and shuffled through to twist a deadbolt into place on the metal door.

  “Now, if you will follow me into the back.” He held up the counter flap while I ushered Joseph through, then scurried ahead to hold back the curtain. I wondered that he would trust us alone in a locked shop with such a valuable treasure until we stepped through the narrow doorway. A much younger man, easily my size but with twenty pounds of extra bulk, all solid, sat in a formed plastic chair beside a desk. He gazed without looking away at a muted Mexican version of Dancing with the Stars on a flat screen mounted on the opposite wall. He was a good looking guy, probably early twenties, and easily could have passed for any of the two hundred young immigrant men who were the lifeblood of the poultry farms and chicken processing plants that lined the state line south of Crayton. Except for the eyes. Cold and remote as black Mexican onyx.

  “My security man, Miguel,” the Arkansan said, twisting to try unsuccessfully to grin back over his shoulder. “When we first set up shop here about ten years ago, we had an attempt a week to free us of some of our more desirable merchandise. As you probably know, we are in Sinaloa State here, home to one of the more notorious cartels in the country. For a monthly fee, they now provide us with security. We had an attempted theft about three months ago, our first in several years. Miguel didn’t even have to manhandle the stupid kids. He just said a few words and they ran like a couple of scared rabbits.”

  Had we had dishonorable intentions, the explanation would have been enough to keep us from trying anything foolish. Miguel continued to stare at the muted screen, letting us know by his disinterest that he wasn’t someone to trifle with. I suspected he only left the chair if he
heard trouble.

  Other than the desk beside the guard, the back room had a wall safe the size of a double refrigerator, a small table with two chairs on one side and one on the other, and Miguel. Mr. Pogue indicated the two chairs, waited until we were seated, then blocked the dial with his bent body while he spun in the combination. From an upper shelf, he retrieved a square plastic case that he brought back to the table and placed in its center.

  Had Joseph and I not recently run our hands through a small pile of the cold coins, just the appearance of the dollar would have shrieked priceless. The metal’s sheen was as bright as the day it was minted and seemed to catch every beam that emanated from the three-bulb fixture that hung over the table. I bent low to look at the Princess side, confirming that the U in United States hadn’t minted cleanly, what I had read to be one of the signature indicators of a genuine 1861-D. Of the estimated 1250 that were minted, fewer than fifty recovered coins had been certified as genuine. There was good reason to be skeptical. I spoke while still staring down at the gold face of the Indian woman.

  “I noticed in your catalog that you’ve had one of these available for auction about every year for the past four or five years. How do you verify that they’re not fakes? For the prices these bring, someone could forge one out of pure gold and still make one hell of a profit.”

  The old man chuckled. “How much do you really want to know? I can give you the long answer or the short answer.”

  “How about the medium answer?”