Cliff Diver (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 1) (14 page)

Chapter 12

Emilia got back to
the squadroom late in the afternoon. The rest of the detectives were there,
joking and laughing a little too noisily.

As she crossed the
room to her old desk, Silvio went into Lt. Inocente’s office and walked out
again empty-handed.

“Where’s the
dispatch board?” he demanded. The noise in the room went down as the other
detectives watched, Gomez almost laughing, waiting for the showdown.

Emilia pointed to
the murder board. She’d screwed a hook into the wall that morning and hung the
dispatch clipboard there.

Silvio stalked
over and snatched the empty clipboard off the hook. “What the fuck is this?”

Emilia waited
until he came around to her desk. She wasn’t going to have a shouting match
across the room but she knew that there was more behind the anger than thwarted
authority. Whoever handed out the assignments had a lot of leverage over the
fortunes of the detectives. Good cases were opportunities to gain a few perks
or make a little money on the side. No assignments, no new money-making
opportunities. Moreover, the lieutenant invariably got a kickback from whatever
the detective got out of the case. The an age-old system of patronage was routine
police procedure. “New assignments get handed out at the 9:00 meeting,” she
said calmly.

Silvio broke the
clipboard in two, tossed it on her desk and walked out of the squadroom.

☼

It felt strange being
in Lt. Inocente’s office. Emilia hadn’t brought her nameplate in and her bag
was locked in her own desk drawer. Castro’s magic tool had made it impossible
to relock the office desk. She hoped she could find the key to the one drawer
that he’d been unable to jimmy. It required a four-sided serrated-edge key.

There was a folded
newspaper on
el teniente’s
chair. The society pages showcased Acapulco’s
rich and famous. Maria Teresa had looked directly into the camera, wearing a
slinky red gown and a crystal ornament in her hair. Castro and Gomez had been
hard at work on her alibi.

As Emilia typed up
the reports of her discussions during the day and picked out the facts to post
on the murder board, Loyola and Ibarra came into
el teniente’s
office
with the forensics report, acting as if it had just been released.

Six sets of
fingerprints had been found on the boat; one set was clearly that of Lt.
Inocente. There was no match for the others.

“Forensics said
that one set of prints was that of a child,” Loyola said. He was tall, with a
long mournful face and wire framed glasses. Emilia had heard that the former
schoolteacher was married, but he’d never talked about his wife or any
children.

“So I heard,”
Emilia said coolly. “Bring the family in to get printed. The wife said he used
to take the kids boating.”

“Hers, too?”
Ibarra asked.

“Yes.” The office
was stifling with both men in it. Ibarra was short and stocky. Cigarette fumes
wafted off him and thickened in the windowless office. “Anything off his
computer?”

Loyola grimaced.
“Not yet.”

The desk phone
rang. The two detectives walked out and Emilia lifted the receiver to hear
Obregon’s voice ask for an update.

☼

When Emilia got
home Ernesto Cruz was sitting on the sofa, a pillow and blanket next to him. He
was wearing old-fashioned long white underwear and a long-sleeved tee shirt.
Both were old but clean. It was long past midnight and she was tired to the
bone. She kicked off her
maldita
high heels. She was never wearing them
again.

“Hello,” Emilia
said. Part of her was still at the office, seeing the faded print of pages that
had been photocopied too many times, seeing Fausto Inocente’s signature on
half-hearted efforts to investigate escalating violence. She’d read the rest of
the files that had been in the office but ad found nothing relevant, either to
el
teniente’s
murder or
las perdidas
.

Ernesto touched
the blanket next to him. “You mother is very kind.”

Emilia let her bag
slip to the floor and peeled off her jacket, revealing her shoulder holster. The
last thing she wanted to do was deal with this situation but it could not be
put off another day. She slumped onto the loveseat.

Once upon a time
he’d probably been a handsome man. His eyes were large and dark, but trapped
within furrows of white-lined wrinkles as if he’d stared at a hot sky for too
long and his hair was sprinkled with gray but still thick.

“Are you from
Acapulco, Señor Cruz?” Emilia asked, hoping she sounded casual.

“No.” He folded
his hands in his lap. “No, I came here from Mexico City.”

“Do you have
family here?”

“No. I am a
stranger here.” He smiled sadly. Despite the lower gap, his teeth were
surprisingly clean and white. Maybe he wasn’t as old as she’d thought. “Your
mother is the only person I know.”

“So you’re just
visiting Acapulco, señor?” Emilia asked.

“But if you would
call me Ernesto, I would not be so much of a stranger.”

Emilia nodded.
“Ernesto, then.” She rubbed her eyes. “So you came for work?”

“No, I just got on
the bus.”

“You just got on a
bus in Mexico City to come to Acapulco?” Emilia nodded as if that was a
reasonable thing to do.

“I didn’t want to
be in Mexico City anymore,” he explained.

“Well.” Emilia
yawned. Obviously she was going to have to pull the full story out of this man
bit by bit. And she was too tired to be very nice about it. “Your family is in
Mexico City, señor. Ernesto, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“Do they know
where you are?”

Ernesto shrugged.
He stared beyond Emilia, to the picture of the pope on the wall by the window.

“My mother said
you had a business trip,” Emilia said. “Did you go see your family?”

Ernesto seemed to
shake for a moment. “No. I went to Zihuatanejo. There’s no knife grinder
there.”

“Okay.’ Emilia
rubbed her eyes again. “But what about your family, Ernesto?”

“Just my wife.”

“Does she know you
are in Acapulco?”

“I had three sons,
you know,” he said abruptly.

Emilia registered
the past tense. “Tell me about them,” she said.

“I got on the bus
because I could not stay there anymore. My sons were lost to me there.”

Emilia wondered if
she had the energy to listen to what she knew was coming.

“My three boys,”
Ernesto said. “There were no jobs, no nothing for them to do. So they paid all
our money to a
coyote
to guide them across the border.”

Emilia squeezed
her hands together between her knees.

“The
coyote
took their money but they were left alone in the desert. They died in the sun
with their wives. The police told us their tongues swelled because there was no
water and they died like that. They’re buried up there.” He made a tiny
flapping gesture with one hand. “Near the border but not in
El Norte
.
But together at least.”

“I’m sorry,
Ernesto,” Emilia said. Now she understood why he was like a man with a broken
mainspring.

They sat in
silence for a few minutes. “So now I am in Acapulco,” he said. “It is warm
here.”

“Ernesto,” Emilia
said softly. “What about your wife? She’s in Mexico City?”

“I suppose.”

“All alone?”

The thin shoulders
shrugged. “Your mother--.”

“My mother doesn’t
understand,” Emilia said.

Ernesto didn’t say
anything.

Emilia was
suddenly exhausted; exhausted to the point of death for the second night in a
row. She hauled herself out of the loveseat and went upstairs.

Chapter 13

Five detectives, including
Emilia, showed up for the 9:00 am meeting the next day. Silvio was there,
glowering. Rico and Fuentes stood on the opposite side of the room from him.
Macias and Sandor stayed at their desks. Emilia squared her shoulders and
walked over to the murder board. Once again she was struck by what a good job
Silvio had done, using painter’s tape to run a timeline across the top and
posting up the pictures of the location of the bloodstains on the upper hull of
the cigarette boat, how the body was found face down, a close-up of the bag
tied at the back of Lt. Inocente’s neck before it was cut, and the bloodsoaked
shoulders. On the right he had cards thumbtacked showing pertinent facts: phone
call at 10 pm; wallet, car keys and police credentials still at home, blood
alcohol level, sexual activity. There was a blank spot on the board for witness
and informant information.

“Anything from the
marina?” Emilia asked.

Macias and Sandor
exchanged nervous looks and came over to the murder board. Macias made a show
of consulting his notebook while Sandor stood and looked at him.

“
El teniente
had the boat about two years,” Macias reported. His most striking feature was a
full head of lush, curly black hair. From the squadroom chatter Emilia knew it
attracted women like flies to honey. “Always docked it at the building’s
marina. Took it out most weekends, usually with his kids. Wife went with them
sometimes. Dock fees are part of the building’s condo fees. Gas and maintenance
provided by the marina for a separate charge. His fees were always paid on
time, no problems.”

“Get to the
point,” Silvio said.

Macias nodded, not
at all discomfited by Silvio’s brusqueness. “Night supervisor says
el
teniente
took the boat out a little after 11:30. By himself.”

It was the first
bit of information they’d gotten since the maid said he’d received a phone call
around 10:00 pm and left the apartment. “He saw him?” Emilia asked.

Macias nodded
again. “Plus his code matched up and--.”

“Code?” Rico
interrupted.

“Marina gate is a
key code type of thing. Gotta punch in four numbers to open the gate.”

“Is there a
video?” Emilia asked.

“System hasn’t
been installed yet.” Sandor spoke this time. His voice was soft. He was an even
tempered man who was generally quiet except when it came to complaining about
the copier. “But the whole marina’s like a fortress. You can only get into it
through the building. Even if you get into your boat, you have to have the code
to get your boat out of its slip. So it’s pretty secure.”

“A security system
to take a boat out of the marina?” Silvio wrote
11:30 pm
on the murder
board timeline.

Sandor consulted
his own notebook. “Pretty good technology. Every boat has a tracking device on
it and a unique code to get through the water gate.”

“So, Lt. Inocente
would have had to be the one to take the boat out himself?” Rico asked. “No one
could sail up to the marina, come into the gate and take out his boat?”

“No boats came in
that late,” Sandor said. “We asked.”

“And they’re sure
that Inocente punched in his own code?” This from Silvio.

Macias shook his
head. “Supervisor ran the program that records the codes. Inocente’s code was
entered at 11:42 Tuesday night.”

“Okay.” Emilia
suppressed a little thrill that not only did they have a witness who saw Lt.
Inocente leave in his own boat but that the discussion was going so well. “Did
he say if this was normal? Did
el teniente
usually take his boat out
that late?”

Macias flipped a
page on his notebook. “The supervisor could call up the last 30 days of the log
for
el teniente’s
code. He’d taken the boat out at night around 11:00 pm
a couple of times.” He tore the page out of his notebook and handed it to
Silvio. “Here are the dates.”

“According to the
coroner’s report he would have been killed around midnight,” Rico said as Silvio
copied the new information onto the murder board. “He takes the boat out. Dead
twenty minutes later.”

“Enough time to
have a fuck,” Macias supplied.

Rico frowned, his
jowls drooping. “At sea.”

“Good job,” Emilia
said to Macias and Sandor. Rico’s theory of a delivery at sea gone awry seemed
to be more and more plausible, although
el teniente’s
stop to have sex
didn’t quite fit.

“More on the boat
angle,” Fuentes spoke up for the first time that morning. “Portillo and I have
been checking other marinas, trying to see if any boat would have met up with
el
teniente’s
at sea. So far nobody else near Punta Diamante but we’ve got
about a dozen more to check out.”

“No Water Patrol
calls near there, either,” Rico said.

Emilia silently
thanked Rico for following up with Water Patrol. He wasn’t the most imaginative
detective but he was dogged.

Macias put away
his notebook and he and Sandor closed ranks. Neither moved toward the other,
but Emilia could tell.

“Okay.” She looked
at Rico and Fuentes. “Did you have a chance to check out Seguros Guerrero and
Aqua Pacifico and the rest of the family business dealings?”

Rico shook his
head. “Just some news so far. Not too much more than what
el teniente’s
brother had to say. The father died about six years ago and the business went
to the brothers. Maybe it was in the will but Bruno got a bigger share and the
chairmanship. Started reshaping the company like you said, to focus on real
estate. Agua Pacifico was sold to this Lomas Bottling for about ten million
pesos.”

“Ten million
pesos?” Emilia was surprised. Ten million pesos wasn’t very much for a major
company. Agua Pacifico trucks were a common sight in Acapulco and neighboring
cities up and down Mexico’s Pacific coast. Doubtless millions of big water jugs
called
garrafons
, the kind designed for water coolers and dispensers
like the one in Tío Raul’s garage and her own kitchen, were delivered every day
by those Agua Pacific trucks. After all, bottled water was something that
everybody in Mexico had to have. The company should have been coining pesos.
“Was the company in debt?”

Rico shrugged.
“Don’t know yet.”

“See what else you
can find out,” Emilia said. She wondered if she’d asked Bruno Inocente and
Sergio Rivas the right questions. “Who owns Lomas Bottling. Did they buy any
debt along with Agua Pacifico. How the money was paid out. Macias and Sandor,
you follow up with the other marinas.”

“What about the
rest of the residents in the apartment building,” Sandor asked. “We didn’t get
to talk to many.”

“Castro and Gomez
should be able to handle that,” Emilia said.
If they ever showed up
.

She looked around
the little knot of men. They were all there grudgingly, even Rico, but they’d
discussed the case and made some progress. As a peace offering, Emilia handed
Silvio a new clipboard with the dispatch forms on it. There was only one for
the day. He took the form from the clipboard and put it in his pocket.

The phone in
el
teneiente’s
office rang. Emilia left the group and answered it.

The call was from the
desk sergeant. “Workmen have an order for bathroom repairs and your name is on
it,” he said.

“They can come
through,” Emilia said.

Villahermosa
walked into the squadroom a minute later with two burly workmen in blue
coveralls who were wrestling with several big flat cardboard boxes, a power
drill, and a tool box.

“The detectives
bathroom is down the hall,” Emilia said from the doorway to the office.

“You went
shopping?” Silvio turned his back on the murder board and marched over to her,
his shoulder holster dark against his white tee shirt.

Emilia watched as
Villahermosa and the workmen made their way down the hall. When they went into
the bathroom she went to the murder board. Silvio followed and she could feel
the anger rising from him. Only three days since the discovery of
el
teniente’s
body and she felt like it had been three years. “Murder board
looks good,” she said.

“Making Portillo
and Fuentes chase some water company his family sold a couple of years ago is a
waste of time,” Silvio replied. “You don’t know what else to do so you’re
running wild and they all know it.”

“So you have a
lead to the killer?” Emilia swung around to confront him. “And you’re not
saying?”

“You should be
knocking on every door in that apartment building,” Silvio snapped back. “He
was screwing somebody in that building before he got on that boat.”

“If you weren’t
trying to play games instead of focusing on the job, maybe everybody would be a
little more cooperative,” Emilia countered. She was angry, now, too. “We’d have
something from knocking on all those doors.”

“I think Obregon’s
paid you not to go there.” Silvio pointed a finger at Emilia. “Maybe he’s put
his little
chica
in charge so he can make sure we only look at the
things he wants us to look at. Leave the real stuff alone.”

“Leave Obregon out
of this,” Emilia blazed. “If you know something about Lt. Inocente you need to
spit it out.”

Silvio shook his
finger. “If it weren’t for Obregon we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d
be in charge and we wouldn’t be wasting our time on water.”

“What do you
know?” Emilia asked hotly.

“His computer’s
not going to tell you anything, either. Inocente never kept anything on a
computer except dirty pictures of little girls.”

“What do you know,”
Emilia repeated. Obregon’s warning spun through her head.
Watch your back
with Silvio
.

“Nothing.” Silvio
walked toward the door, skirting his own desk as he did. “Only that you’re
making it up as you go.”

He wrenched open
the squadroom door and nearly collided with two men in coveralls pushing a
brand new copier on a trolley. The machine was swathed in blue-tinted plastic.

☼

Emilia was in
el
teniente’s
office when Rico knocked on the open door. She gave a start when
she realized he had Kurt Rucker with him. “Got a visitor,” Rico said.

“Hi.” Kurt was in
uniform again; a crisp white shirt, khaki pants and ocean-colored eyes.

“Hi.” Emilia aimed
for casual and thought she managed it fairly well. “What brings you down here
all the way from Punta Diamante?”

He looked around
the office, at the stacks of files and the few items taped to the
sickly-colored walls. “Did you get a promotion?”

Rico snorted.

“I’m just using
this office for a bit.” She didn’t meet Rico’s eye. “For the investigation into
Lt. Inocente’s death.”

Kurt stepped in
front of Rico. “That’s why I’m here. Thought you’d like to see this.” He put a
folder with the Palacio Réal hotel logo on the desk.

Emilia opened the
folder to find a copy of a bill for a room at the hotel, a bill from the Pasodoble
Bar for a prohibitive amount of money, and a copy of a charge card receipt that
had paid for both the room and the bar bill. The name of the guest on all three
documents was Fausto Inocente.

“Come in and close
the door,” she said to Rico who complied. Emilia swung her gaze back to Kurt.
“He stayed at your hotel?”

“One night,” he
affirmed.

“Who?” Rico leaned
over the side of the desk and his eyes followed Emilia’s pointing finger. “Ah,
shit.”

“Notice anything
about the date?” Kurt asked.

“It’s before we
found Ruiz’s head,” Emilia said.

“He stayed at the
hotel the same time the Hudsons were there,” Kurt said.

“That fits,” Rico
said. He rubbed a hand over his round face and exhaled loudly.

“Everything about
the Hudsons has been purged from our files,” Emilia said quietly. “Plus some
other stuff from the Ruiz investigation.”

“You didn’t tell
me that,” Rico said.

“I haven’t had
time,” Emilia said. “I found it the other night.”

“Inocente?” Kurt
asked.

“
El teniente
or somebody else who was in on it with him,’ Emilia said with a nod to the door
to the squadroom. “Or both.”

“Does this help?”
Kurt indicated the folder.

“Yes. Thank you.”
Emilia was painfully aware of Kurt’s physical presence. She was also painfully aware
of the gossip that was almost certainly going on in the squadroom. She came
around the side of the desk and for a moment her knees sagged. He was just so
different from other men she knew. And so out of her league. “We’ll need to
keep this quiet for now.”

Rico jerked his
head at the door. “You know they’ll ask.”

The three of them
stood in silence for a moment.

“I’m registering a
complaint about the two detectives you sent around to ask questions,” Kurt said
with a grin. “They’re a couple of assholes.”

Rico snorted.

“That works,”
Emilia said.

She ignored the
looks as she walked Kurt out of the squadroom. They didn’t speak as they passed
the holding cells and Emilia shot the guards with her thumb and forefinger like
always. His SUV was in a visitor space in the front of the building and Emilia
felt their steps slow as they walked out into the sunshine. It was a beautiful
day, with a breeze rolling in from the bay and the sun warming cars and cement.

“How are things
going?” Kurt asked. They were at his car. He took out his keys but didn’t press
the unlock button on the fob.

“Awful,” Emilia
admitted. Someone in a flowered shirt probably polished his car every day. It
was so clean she could see her reflection; no makeup, usual ponytail, black tee
shirt tucked into skinny jeans. “The police union made me acting lieutenant and
head of the investigation and the rest of the detectives hate me for it. Nobody
even seems to care that
el teniente
is dead.”