Suspicion of Rage (51 page)

45

 

 

Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy. And a Samuel Adams beer."
 

Gail handed the menu back to the waitress. Detective Sánchez had said he wanted to try some American food. He had told them that at his brother's house in Hialeah, all they ate was Cuban. He had found his way to JohnMartin's, an Irish pub in Coral Gables near Anthony's law office. The walls were dark wood, lace curtains covered the windows, and the murmur of the lunchtime business crowd filled the dining area.

"But I will tell you this about my brother and his family," Sánchez continued. "They're just like the Cubans at home. Just as loud, and maybe twice as crazy. He wants me to stay, then try to get my wife out, but I couldn't keep up with the pace here. It's too much for me. My brother says he'll come back to Cuba someday, but it won't happen. He has the house, his kids, his job. He won't come back."

Sánchez moved his elbows off the table so the waitress could put down their drinks He lifted his beer mug. "Cheers."

"Salud, dinero, y amor."
Anthony was having a shot of Jameson.

"Health, wealth, and love," Gail said. "And the time to enjoy them." With a court hearing later that afternoon, she toasted with iced tea.

Sánchez ran his tongue over his lips, considered, then nodded. "I like it."

He thanked Anthony for arranging yesterday's tour of the morgue, which was, he had to say, more enjoyable in its way than Sea World, where his family had taken him last weekend. "And this afternoon, the crime laboratory. I will give you my impressions, but I think it will be quite wonderful. With such facilities, how do you have any crime here at all?"

When the food arrived, Sánchez rubbed his hands together theatrically and tucked his napkin into his collar. He sampled the meatloaf and looked toward the ceiling before giving a little shrug.

Gail laughed and turned around to ask the waitress to bring some hot sauce.

Sánchez bit into a roll, then dusted his hands. "I have something to report to you, Quintana. It was on my e-mail this morning from my office, the inquiry into the death of Abdel Garcia. Here are the official findings: The sergeant, whose name was Raúl Ruiz, killed the soldiers below with a knife. Garcia shot him, then ran out ' onto the roof. Ruiz followed and cut Garcia's throat... and then fell over the side."

Sipping his beer, Sánchez waited for a reaction. Anthony said, "Is that so?"

"Mmmn." Sánchez drew his napkin across his mouth. "And here is a curious thing. Garcia was found with a Beretta, but he had no ammunition for such a weapon. Another thing. If Garcia had the gun, how did Ruiz get close enough to kill him? There were four bullets left in the magazine. A bit of a mystery, no?"

"I should say it is."

"The CDR in that zone never looked too closely at what was going on in the apartment, considering Garcia's rank and so forth, but now that he is dead, they come forward with all kinds of bizarre tales, which ... I will not repeat here." He shrugged, then set down his mug. He asked if he might sample Anthony's tuna melt. Anthony cut off a comer.

"Ah," said Sánchez, closing his eyes. "Very good. I wonder if they would give me the recipe?" He shook his head at Gail's proffered spinach salad. "No, thank you, Gail, my body can't tolerate so many vitamins."

He dug into his mashed potatoes. "The case of Olga Saavedra has also been officially closed. At first we suspected the driver who worked for your brother-in-law. Teodoro Cobo. We suspected him based on his past relationship with the victim, and the fact that he had hanged himself, but nothing conclusive came of our investigation. And then we received a tip from an anonymous caller that General Garcia was responsible. Blood-soaked towels were found in his apartment in Chinatown. The DTI ran some tests and confirmed that the blood was indeed that of Olga Saavedra."

Anthony glanced at Gail. "Well. This is interesting."

"Isn't it."

"And strange," said the detective. "I did not see the towels during my initial search of the apartment, and I am sure we searched thoroughly."

Anthony said, "Strange indeed."

"You have nothing to add? It's just my curiosity, you understand. The case is closed."

"My information is even less than yours," Anthony said.

"Well. Then we drink to closed cases."

They raised their glasses again.

When Sánchez got up to leave, his foot kicked something under the table. "How could I forget this?" He picked up a paper shopping bag from Books and Books, a store on the next street. It appeared to have some weight in it. "For my new granddaughter," he explained. "Her name is Patricia. She's only four months old, a little too young for all these books, but she'll learn."

Anthony stood up to shake his hand. "You will come back to see us, I hope."

"Si
Dios quiere.
And thank you for the delicious American lunch." Sánchez put a kiss on Gail's cheek and dropped a Florida Marlins ball cap onto his gray hair. He waved at the door, then was gone in the blazing light of midday.

Gail said, "Ramiro seems to be surviving all this very well, wouldn't you say?"

"He has always had that ability." Holding his tie in, Anthony sat back down. He pushed his plate to one side and turned his chair. As he settled back against the wall, which was decorated with old photographs and Irish beer advertisements, he took an envelope from inside his suit coat. "This arrived at my office today. They had my business card, otherwise it would have come to our apartment."

Gail turned the envelope faceup. The stamp was from Spain. The postmark said the letter had been mailed a week ago.
Sr. Anthony Quintana y Sra. Gail Connor de Quintana.

"Why didn't you open it?" she said.

"You can," he said. "It's to both of us."

She smiled. "Open the damn letter."

He slit the envelope with a steak knife and removed a snapshot and a single sheet of paper, which he shook so that it would fall open. "Ah. It's from Mario. I'll translate. 'To my beloved friends.' He wishes us well. He says thank you from the depths of his soul... his mother is fine... José is still writing... they expect a new book of essays soon... and Mario hopes to start at the university in the fall—"

Anthony cleared his throat, unable to go on. His eyes lingered on the photograph for a moment before he showed it to Gail.

It had been taken by the sea under a sun so bright it had made them squint. José was a little heavier. Yolanda's mouth was open, as if she'd just started to say something. The camera had caught Mario laughing, his black hair whipped by the wind, his arms across his parents' shoulders, and the misty coast of Spain behind him.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

 

 

It is fortunate that José Leiva and Yolanda Cabrera left Cuba when they did.

In March 2003, the Cuban government arrested seventy-five members of various opposition movements, including independent librarians and journalists. Agents of State Security, who had infiltrated the groups, called them "mercenaries" of the U.S. government. They were prosecuted under a law that criminalizes dissent. The charges included: writing articles critical of Cuba; communicating with international human rights organizations; having contact with individuals viewed as hostile to Cuba's interests; possessing items such as radios, battery chargers, video equipment, or publications; and involvement in "counterrevolutionary" groups such as unofficial trade unions, doctors' and teachers' associations, press associations, and independent libraries.

The trials, none of which lasted more than a few days, were held in May 2003. Everyone arrested was found guilty, and most received sentences of twenty years or more. I was dismayed, but not surprised, to learn that two men whom I had met in Cuba were among those rounded up. Hector Palacios, a librarian and a member of the umbrella group
Todos Unidos,
received twenty-five years. Internationally known poet and journalist Raúl Rivero was sentenced to twenty years.

I had originally intended that José Leiva remain in Cuba, but as I wrote closer to the end of the book, I couldn't bear to see him suffer the same fate as Palacios and Rivero and the many others whose love for their country gave them the courage to speak out.

To write a novel set in a country not your own is a challenge, particularly when your government won't let you travel there freely. If Cuba seems real on these pages, credit goes to friends on both sides of the water.

The initial spark for this story came from Ramón Colas and Berta Mexidor, a married couple who founded
Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba
(Independent Libraries of Cuba) in February 1998 in the city of Las Tunas. At a book fair in Havana, they had heard Fidel Castro say: "In Cuba there are no prohibited books, only those we do not have the money to buy." Taking him at his word, they created the Felix Várela Library in their home, and within nine months supervised the opening of a dozen other home libraries throughout Cuba. In 1999, Ramón and Berta were detained by State Security and warned to stop. They were evicted from their home. After suffering continued harassment, threats, and confiscation of their books and personal papers, Ramón and Berta, along with their children, sought political asylum in the United States and arrived in Miami in December 2001.

The Independent Libraries project was left in the hands of Gisela Delgado and her husband Hector Palacios, who operated the Dulce Maria Loynaz Library in a spare room of their Havana apartment. The number of independent libraries grew to more than one hundred. In late 2002 I traveled to Cuba (legally) and took a box of books for their library. Hector and Gisela, and her daughter Giselle, welcomed me into their hearts with the generous hospitality typical of the Cuban people. When Hector was arrested, police seized their books, computer, fax machine, and personal papers. Through donations, Gisela is now working to rebuild the library.

I am also grateful to many others in Havana who must remain anonymous: N. R., A. C, E. S., V. R., N. V., R. V, O. S., C. M., B. N., A. C, J. D., M., and J.

On this side of the water, my sincere thanks to Dr. Jaime Suchlicki, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, and to Juan Pérez, Magaly Ferrada, and Dinorah Pérez. For technical information that I couldn't have done without, many thanks to Fred Rea and Robert Cole.

For the jokes,
gracias
to "El Pible." And for making sure the
español
was correct,
un abrazo
for Ellie de la Bandera.

You can find information on the libraries at
www.bibliocuba.org.
(Click on the English version.) There is no shortage of information about Cuba in printed form or on the Internet. For a list of the books I relied on most and some links I found particularly useful, you can go to my website, www.barbaraparker.com.