Cliff Diver (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter
2

The bucket was
light blue plastic with a metal handle and a red handgrip, one of millions sold
in
mercados
across Mexico. The head was that of Alejandro Ruiz Garcia,
the recently arrested and released driver. There were burn marks around the
mouth and inside the ears.

“
Madre de Dios
,”
Rico said and crossed himself.

Beheadings and
torture were the signature signs of a drug cartel hit. Emilia had seen death
before, but nothing this grisly. The blood smelled sickly sweet in the warm
evening air. She choked down bile and tears at the same time.

The crime scene
technician eased a small piece of paper from the mouth. “‘The small one cannot
wait long,’” he read aloud.

Emilia looked at
Kurt Rucker who shook his head unhappily. “I don’t have a clue,” he said.

The manner of
death meant that the army was there as well as a swarm of police. Kurt Rucker’s
dark green SUV was parked in an hourly lot about two blocks from the police
station. Although the lot was surrounded by a concrete wall and there was only
one way in or out, both panicked parking attendants claimed to have seen
nothing. Across the street, a busy sidewalk café served
taquitos
and
empanadas
and Jarritos cola but no one there had seen anything, either.

After an hour of
conflicting orders from the army captain and the lead crime scene technician,
the head was dispatched to the morgue, Kurt Rucker’s SUV was towed to the
vehicle lab to be dusted for prints, and the parking lot was closed off with
yellow PROHIBIDO EL PASO tape. As each owner returned to claim their car,
they’d be questioned. Emilia knew it would be a dead end. Someone had walked or
driven into the lot, deliberately placed the bucket on Kurt Rucker’s vehicle,
and left.

They brought
Rucker back to the police station and Rico took his statement. It was well
after midnight before Lt. Inocente dismissed him. “Señor Rucker, this was
obviously nothing to do with you, but stay in Acapulco. We may be calling you again.”
El teniente
gestured at Emilia. “You take him back to the Palacio Réal
and then go home.”

Lt. Inocente went
into his office and Emilia gathered up her shoulder bag and jacket. Rico’s eyes
narrowed and the heavy-set detective thrust a thick finger at Rucker. “This is
just orders from
el teniente
,” he said.

Emilia led Rucker
through the back of the police station. The discovery of the head and the
search for the body meant that more police than just the normal skeleton night
crew were there. Both uniformed and plainclothes officers yawned and talked and
drank coffee, vibrating with the gut-popping combination of dread, excitement,
and adrenaline that a major cartel crime always provoked. But as usual, Emilia
got a few catcalls as they passed the holding cell guards and as usual she
smiled and pretended to shoot them with her thumb and forefinger.

“Look,” Rucker
said. “I can take a taxi back to the hotel.”

“Don’t get me in
trouble with Lt. Inocente,” Emilia said and pushed open the door to the impound
yard. “You’d be robbed in two minutes trying to get a taxi in this neighborhood
at this time of night.”

She unlocked the
white Suburban and they got in.

“Is this . . . ?”
Rucker asked.

“The investigating
detective gets to drive a confiscated car until the case is resolved,” Emilia
said.

Rucker didn’t
reply.

At the exit Emilia
leaned out the driver’s side window to show her identification to the impound
yard guard. The big gate swung open.

The police station
was located in the old part of Acapulco on the western side of the bay. Emilia
drove through small streets, past the old cement buildings and billboards
advertising Herdez vegetables and Tía Rosa snacks, getting the feel of the
Suburban. She’d barely had a chance to drive it since being tossed the keys by
Lt. Inocente the day Ruiz was arrested. “
Finalmente
,” he’d said, which
Emilia took to mean she’d finally landed a case with fringe benefits.

The streets
widened as they turned onto Costera Miguel Aléman, known as la Costera, the
city’s main boulevard, and cruised through the center of Acapulco. Despite the
late hour, traffic was heavy. The evening had just started at clubs like Carlos
and Charlie’s and Señor Frog’s. The Playa Condesa beach vibrated with dance
music. This was where the younger
turistas
came and shopped and spent
money and saved the city.

“I didn’t know
him,” Rucker said quietly.

“I know.” Emilia
had listened as Rico pushed Rucker hard. But Rucker’s story had been
consistent. He’d managed the Palacio Réal for nearly two years and had no
contact with Mexican police during that time. He knew Ruiz only in the context
of the man being a seasonal employee of frequent hotel guests. The strange
message in the dead man’s mouth was meaningless. As
el teniente
had
said, it had to have been a mistake.

“So what’s with
your partner?” Rucker asked. “Is he your bodyguard as well?”

Emilia shrugged.
“You’re a
gringo
.”

“So I can’t talk
to you?”

“Look,” Emilia
said, torn between loyalty and attraction. “Two years ago I was the uniform cop
who got the highest score on the detective exam. Even broke my nose in the
hand-to-hand test. But they didn’t want a woman so they made up a new rule. I
couldn’t become a detective unless somebody who already was a detective agreed
to take me on as partner.” She looked away from the road to meet Rucker’s eyes.
“Rico was the only one who stepped forward.”

Rucker’s gaze was
disconcerting. “So you owe him?”

Emilia flushed.
“Not like that,” she said.

They didn’t talk
again as they left the lights of the city behind. The Suburban was heavy and
unwieldy, laboring to climb the rises and wallowing in the declines. Emilia was
glad for the quiet; all her energy was devoted to managing the vehicle.

It was at least a
dozen miles to Punta Diamante, the picturesque spit of land where the rich and
famous played. Along the way, la Costera became the coastal highway called the
Carretera Escénica, winding high up the side of the mountain that guarded the
most scenic bay in the world. It was a ribbon of tarmac carved from the face of
the cliff, lanes without guardrails or a safety net. Far below, on Rucker’s
side, the bay twinkled and shimmered under the night sky. A few cars passed
heading toward Acapulco but for the most part they were alone on the road with
nothing to spoil the dramatic scene of mountain curves and glittering ocean.

“You know the
hotel entrance?” Rucker asked.

“Yes.” The Palacio
Réal was part of an exclusive gated community built into the cliff face below
the highway. From the huge
privada
gate a steeply pitched cobbled road
led down to the water, linking private villas, a luxury condominium building,
and the Palacio Réal hotel complex.

Emilia slowed to
turn right into the gate entrance. Headlights blinked on in back of them and
her rearview mirror filled with glare.

“Where’s the army
checkpoint?” Rucker asked sharply.

All the major
hotel entrances were guarded by the army as a deterrent to the cartels. But
tonight there was no big green vehicle, no soldiers milling around, nothing.

“
Por Dios
,”
Emilia gasped. She stamped on the accelerator, the engine groaned and the
Suburban strained to pick up speed.

The headlights in
her mirror zoomed in. As the Suburban passed the deserted
privada
gate a
salvo of gunfire tore the night and something hit the back end with a dull
thud. The heavy vehicle shuddered and slewed to the right.

Emilia broke out
into a cold sweat as she fought the wheel, trying to keep the vehicle on the
high mountain road. The tires on the right side lost traction along the cliff
edge. Time stopped for a day and a year before the lethargic vehicle responded
and rumbled toward the center of the road and then the rear window exploded,
spraying shattered glass inward. Emilia and Rucker both instinctively ducked as
shards rained down. Somehow Emilia kept the accelerator pressed to the floor.

The Suburban
lurched around a slight bend. The glare in her rearview was refracted for a
moment and Emilia clearly saw the vehicle behind them. It was a small pickup,
with at least four men braced in the bed. They all carried long guns.

“They’ll take us
out here,” Rucker said. “There’s nowhere to hide and we can’t outrun them.”

“I know.”

“Brake and turn
it.”

“
Madre de Dios.
”
Before she gave herself time to think, Emilia hit the parking brake and swung
the wheel to the left.

The small truck
shot by as the Suburban screamed into the oncoming lane, tires chewing the
tarmac, engine protesting. The mountainside loomed out of the inky darkness so
fast Emilia felt the vehicle start to claw its way upwards. But momentum and
gravity won out and the vehicle continued to spin.

The landscape was
lost in a dizzying blur. Like a hand racing too fast around a clock face, they
were pointed toward Acapulco in the right lane, then at the center of the road,
then at the other lane, then straight at the cliff edge. Far below, white lines
of waves rolled gently toward the sand, hypnotic and teasing.

Suddenly Rucker’s
hands were on Emilia’s helping to straighten the wheel. He reached across her
body and released the parking brake. The Suburban shuddered and surged forward,
wind coming through the shot-out rear window like a monsoon. Together they
wrestled the vehicle back into the right lane.

They hugged the
mountain as the Suburban plunged back down the highway toward Acapulco. Emilia
nearly lost control several times as the heavy vehicle was propelled by its own
weight. Next to her, Rucker kept a lookout for the truck.

“Maybe they tried
the same thing and went over the cliff,” he said.

“No.” Emilia saw
the welcome glow of the city and turned off the headlights in a vain attempt to
hide. “They know where you live. They’ll just wait for you to come back.”

The night was very
black. Once they hit town Emilia wove north through the narrow
barrio
streets she knew so well until she was sure they hadn’t been followed. The
neighborhoods were deserted. She parked the Suburban in an alley, killed the
engine, and found she couldn’t breathe.

“You did good out
there,” Rucker said, his voice like a safe haven in the darkness.

Emilia nodded and
sucked in air. Her face was wet.

“You okay?” Rucker
asked.

“What do these
people want from you?” Emilia’s voice sounded harsher than she intended. She
wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Is there something you didn’t tell
us?”

“A better question
might be who knew you were taking me to the Palacio Réal,” Rucker said.

Fear surged into
Emilia’s throat yet again. “What are you saying?”

Rucker folded his
arms and stared out the windshield. The neighborhood was nothing more than
trash and cement and cardboard roofs that would only last until the next rainy
season. “We’ve got twenty of these cars at the hotel for hauling luggage and
guests,” he said. “Fully loaded, none of them handle this bad.”

“We could be
sitting on a ton of cocaine,” Emilia managed. Everything connected. “Maybe
meth. Somebody wants it and you’ve been the only link to the car since Ruiz got
arrested and the Hudsons left.”

“Know anybody who
can take a car apart?” Rucker asked.

Emilia swallowed
hard. “Yes.”

☼

Three hours later
they were staring at six million green
Estados Unidos
dollars piled on
the floor in her uncle Raul’s auto repair shop. The rear body panels of the Suburban
were off, exposing the ingenious system welded into the car frame to
accommodate brick-sized packages. Even the four-wheel drive mechanism had been
cannibalized to create more hidden hauling capacity.

“Money in, cocaine
out,” Emilia said. “The Hudsons are mules.”

Rucker fingered
one of the dollar bills, his forehead furrowed with thought. The hotel manager
had worked side-by-side with Tío Raul as if he repaired cars in a greasy garage
every day. His beautifully starched shirt had been cast aside, revealing a
white singlet undershirt and muscular arms. Both the white undershirt and khaki
pants were now as dirty and oil-spotted as Tío Raul’s coveralls.

“These are brand
new bills,” he said.

“So?” Emilia got him
a glass of water from the big jug of Electropura purified water. Tío Raul had
gone to the one-bedroom apartment over the shop to tell Tía Lourdes to make
them all some breakfast.

“A couple of years
ago they changed the design of American money.” Rucker spread several bills on
the tool bench. “Made the image bigger. Added a tint. New watermarks.” He took
a swallow of water. “But these are the old design.”

Emilia ran her
finger over the crisp paper. “You think it’s counterfeit?”

“Only way to find
out is with one of those bank scanners.”

“Ruiz was arrested
in front of the Banamex,” Emilia said slowly.

“I know the
manager at Citibank,” Rucker said. “He’ll scan it for us and won’t say
anything, either.”

He leaned against
the tool bench as he studied the money, his
norteamericano
confidence
undimmed despite the setting. Oil filters and alternator belts were stacked
haphazardly on shelves, plastic jugs of used oil filled a corner, a garbage can
overflowed and at least one rat had scurried away when a bleary-eyed Tío Raul
had opened the door and waved in the Suburban. Then Emilia had felt as if the
garage was a sanctuary. Now she wasn’t so sure she’d done the right thing.