Grave Secrets (32 page)

“Look at this.”

I rotated the book.

Ryan studied the photo, read the caption.

“Alejandro Bastos was in command of the local army post.”

“Nordstern accused Bastos of being responsible for Chupan Ya,” I said.

“Why do you suppose Nordstern circled the weasel next to him?”

Ryan handed the book back and I looked at the circle.

“Jesus Christ.”

“
IT’S ANTONIO DÍAZ.” THOUGH THE LENSES WEREN’T PINK, THERE

“And he would be?”

“The DA from hell.”

“The guy who confiscated Patricia Eduardo’s skeleton?”

“Yes.”

Ryan reached for the book. I gave it to him.

“Díaz was in the army.”

“Apparently.”

“With Bastos.”

“One picture is worth a thousand chalupas.”

“The guy Nordstern accused of running the show at Chupan Ya?”

“You heard the tape.”

“Who is Alejandro Bastos?”

“Search me.”

Ryan started to rise.

“Down, boy.”

He dropped back into his chair.

“Díaz served with this Bastos. What the hell does that mean?”

Just what I was asking myself. Were we back to Chupan Ya? Was it just that Díaz was in the army and was now a judge? Was that Nordstern’s concern? Nothing unusual there. Galiano had laid that all out in our conversation at the Gucumatz. The judicial system in Guatemala was full of torturers and murders. Everyone knew that. It wouldn’t be news. Was there a link with the Paraíso? No answers were popping to mind.

“Maybe nothing,” I said, not really believing it.

“Maybe something,” Ryan said.

“Maybe Díaz had reasons for not wanting me on the Eduardo case.”

“Such as?”

“Maybe he thought it was someone else in the Paraíso tank.”

“Who?”

“Someone connected with Chupan Ya.”

“A pregnant teenaged girl?”

He had me there.

“Maybe Díaz wanted me diverted from the Chupan Ya investigation.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he feared revelations about his past.” I was just thinking out loud. “Maybe he feared they’d cost him his job.”

“Didn’t the Paraíso case do just that?”

“What?”

“Divert you from working with Mateo and the team? And the more you investigated Paraíso, the more diverted you would be. If he wanted you diverted, he would not thwart the diversion.”

A sudden terrible thought.

“Jesus!”

“What?”

“Maybe Díaz was behind the attack on Molly and Carlos.”

“Let’s not get jiggy until we have some facts. Do you know anything about this Bastos character?”

I shook my head.

“Why would Nordstern circle Díaz’s picture?”

“You ask good questions, Ryan.”

“About what?”

We both turned. Galiano stood in the doorway.

“Who’s Alejandro Bastos?”

“Army colonel. Went on to become minister of something under Ríos Montt. Died a couple of years ago.”

“Was Bastos involved in the massacres?”

“Up to his eyeballs. That prick was a perfect example of why amnesty was a lousy idea.”

Ryan handed Galiano the picture.

“Hijo de la puta.”

Galiano looked up.

“With Díaz.” This time in English. “Sonovabitch.”

A fly buzzed the window. I watched it and again felt a shared frustration. I wasn’t getting anywhere either.

“What’s up with Specter?” I asked Galiano

“Turns out the ambassador has an airtight alibi for the week surrounding Patricia Eduardo’s disappearance.”

“He and Dominique were at a nunnery renewing their vows.” Ryan.

“An international trade conference in Brussels. Specter gave daily presentations, attended nightly cocktails.”

“Aida Pera would have thought it was neat.” Ryan.

“It’s not her fault.”

Both men looked at me like I’d said Eva Braun wasn’t so bad.

“Specter’s obviously a black-belt sleaze. Pera’s a kid.”

“She’s eighteen.”

“Exactly.”

For several seconds, the only sound came from the fly.

“Patricia Eduardo had to have some contact with the Specter household for Guimauve’s hair to get into her jeans,” I volunteered for no particular reason.

“Maybe the hair transferred from Specter while he was getting into her jeans.” Ryan.

“Eduardo disappeared on October twenty-ninth.” Galiano said.

“She didn’t necessarily die that day.”

“Did you track down Dr. Zuckerman?”

Galiano pulled out the ubiquitous notepad.

“Maria Zuckerman earned an MD at NYU, did a residency in OB/GYN at Johns Hopkins, spent a couple of years in Melbourne, Australia, at some institute of reproductive biology.”

“So she’s no dummy.”

“The good doctor’s on staff at the Hospital Centro Médico. Served as Patricia Eduardo’s direct supervisor for the past two years. I talked to a few of Eduardo’s coworkers. One was aware of Eduardo’s run-in with Zuckerman, but didn’t know the cause. Here’s an interesting sidebar. Seems I’ve already spoken to Dr. Zuckerman.”

Ping!

“Zuckerman runs the Mujeres por Mujeres clinic in Zone One!” I said.

“The very one. She’s going to enjoy my next visit even less than she enjoyed my first one.”

“I’d like to go along.”

“Bus leaves at oh-eight-hundred.”

Poor Mateo. I’d have to call him again.

“Here’s another intriguing sidebar. The coworker thought Patricia was seeing someone behind her boyfriend’s back. An older man.”

When I look back, I recall that meeting as the beginning of the spiral. From then on details multiplied, information proliferated, and our perceptions formed and re-formed like patterns in a kaleidoscope.

Ryan and I spent another couple of hours going through Nordstern’s tapes and books. Then we dragged ourselves home, grabbed a quick dinner, and went to our rooms. He didn’t make a pass. I didn’t care.

I’d been distracted since Galiano’s report. I thought his revelation about Maria Zuckerman had been the ping I’d felt at the Eduardo home, but something else kept bothering me.

What? Something I’d seen? Something I’d heard? The feeling was like a vague itch that I couldn’t quite scratch.

Ryan phoned at nine-fifteen.

“What are you doing?”

“Reading the label on my antacid.”

“You do live on the edge.”

“What did you think I’d be doing?”

“Thanks for your help today.”

“My pleasure.”

“Speaking of your pleasure—”

“Ryan.”

“O.K. But I’ll make it up to you when we return to the great white North.”

“How.”

“I’ll take you to see
Cats.
”

My itch suddenly localized.

“I’ve got to go.”

“What? What did I say?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I clicked off and dialed Galiano’s number. He was out.

Damn.

I grabbed the phone book.

Yes.

I dialed.

Señora Eduardo answered on the first ring.

I apologized for phoning so late. She dismissed it.

“Señora Eduardo, when you shooed Buttercup, you told him to join the others. Did you mean other cats?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Two years ago, a litter of kittens turned up at the barn where my daughter boarded her horses. Patricia adopted two and found homes for the rest. She wanted to bring the kittens here, but I said Buttercup was enough. They were born at the barn, they could stay at the barn. That worked fine until Patricia stopped going.”

She paused. I could picture her performing the eyelid maneuver.

“About three weeks ago the barn owner phoned and insisted I take the cats or he’d drown them. Buttercup doesn’t like it, but they’re here.”

“Do you know who adopted the other kittens?”

“Families around here, I suppose. Patricia plastered the neighborhood with circulars. Got about a dozen calls.”

I cleared my throat.

“Are the cats shorthairs?”

“Plain old barn cats.”

Dominique Specter’s phone rang four times, then a male voice requested a message in French and English. I left one after the tone.

I was flossing when my cell phone rang. It was Mrs. Specter.

I asked about Chantale.

Fine.

I asked about the weather in Montreal.

Warm.

Obviously, she was not in a chatty mood.

“I have just one question, Mrs. Specter.”

“Oui?”

“Where did you get Guimauve?”

“Mon Dieux.
I will have to think.”

I waited while she did so.

“Chantale found a notice at the pharmacy. We phoned. Kittens were still available, so we drove out and chose one.”

“Drove where?”

“A barn of some sort. A place with horses.”

“Near Guatemala City?”

“Yes. I don’t remember the exact location.”

I thanked her and rang off.

Would there be no end to the mistakes I would make on this case? What a moron I was. I’d explained it to Ryan, failed to grasp it myself.

Guimauve’s hair wasn’t with the bones in the Paraíso tank. The hair came from Guimauve’s littermate. Guimauve’s sibling. An animal with identical mitochondrial DNA. Patricia Eduardo’s barn cats had shed the hair I found on her jeans.

André Specter wasn’t a murderer. Just a horny slimeball who deceived his family and gullible young women.

I fell asleep with a million questions swirling in my brain.

Who killed Patricia Eduardo?

Why had Díaz not wanted me to identify the body?

Why had Patricia Eduardo and Dr. Zuckerman argued?

How many people had been responsible for ChupanYa?

Who shot Molly and Carlos?

What had Ollie Nordstern discovered that got him killed? Why couldn’t we discover it?

Why the interest in stem cell research?

Always questions, never answers.

I slept fitfully.

Galiano didn’t arrive until eight-thirty. By then I’d had three cups of coffee and was wired enough to put two coats on Shea Stadium. He brought cup number four.

I wasted no time describing my conversations with Señora Eduardo and Mrs. Specter. Galiano showed no surprise. Though I might not have seen it behind the Darth Vader lenses.

“One of his staff has been pretty forthcoming,” Galiano said.

“Looks like Specter’s a lecher, but otherwise harmless.”

“What happened last night?”

“Pera must have warned him. Specter never showed.”

The clinic was bustling on a Friday morning. At least a dozen women sat in chairs ringing the waiting room. Several held infants. Most were pregnant. Others were there to avoid becoming so.

Four toddlers played with molded plastic toys on the floor. Two older children colored at a child-sized table, a tub of crayons equidistant between them. The wall behind was a record of the exuberance of thousands of their predecessors. Kick marks. Food splotches. Crayon graffiti. Gouges from Tonka trucks.

Galiano stepped to the receptionist and requested an audience with Dr. Zuckerman. The young woman looked up, and light flashed off the lenses of her glasses. Her eyes widened when she saw the badge.

“Un momento, por favor.”

She hurried down a corridor to the right of her desk. Time passed. The women stared at us with wide, solemn eyes. The kids colored on, faces tense with the effort of staying inside the lines.

A full five minutes later, the receptionist returned.

“I’m sorry. Dr. Zuckerman is unable to see you.” She waved a nervous hand at the uterus brigade. “As you can see, we have many patients this morning.”

Galiano stared directly into the lenses.

“Either Dr. Zuckerman comes out here—now—or we go in there.”

“You can’t go into the examining room.” It was almost a wail.

Galiano unwrapped a stick of gum and put it in his mouth, never breaking eye contact.

The receptionist gave a deep sigh, threw both hands into the air, and retraced her steps.

A baby began to cry. Mama raised her blouse and directed the infant’s mouth toward a nipple. Galiano nodded and smiled. Mama turned a shoulder.

A door flew open down the hall. Zuckerman steamed into the waiting room like the little engine that could. She was a thick woman with dirty-blonde hair cut very short. At home. In poor lighting. With dull scissors.

“What the hell do you people think you’re doing?” Accented English. I guessed Australian.

The receptionist crawled behind her desk and hunched over something lying on it.

“You can’t come barging in here, traumatizing my patients—”

“Shall we traumatize them further, or would you prefer to take this somewhere more private?” Galiano gave the doctor an icy smile.

“You refuse to understand, sir. I do not have time for you this morning.”

Galiano reached under his jacket, produced a set of handcuffs, and dangled them in front of her.

Zuckerman glared.

Galiano dangled.

“This is preposterous.”

Zuckerman spun and stormed up the hall. We followed her past several examining rooms. In more than one I spotted a sheet-covered woman with her knees in the full upright and locked position. I did not envy the women their delay in the stirrups.

Zuckerman led us past an office door bearing her name to a room containing chairs and a TV-VCR setup. I imagined the instructional videos.
Tips for Examining Your Breasts. Success with the Rhythm Method. Bathing the New Baby.

Galiano wasted no time.

“You were Patricia Eduardo’s supervisor at the Hospital Centro Médico.”

“I was.”

“Is there a reason you failed to mention that when we spoke?”

“You were inquiring about patients.”

“Let me understand you, Doctor. I came here asking about three women. One of those three women was under your charge at another facility, and you failed to point that out?”

“It is a common name. I was busy. I didn’t make the connection.”

“I see.” His tone indicated that he did not. “All right. Let’s talk about her now.”