Cliff Diver (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 1) (22 page)

Chapter 19

Emilia paid the
toll, switched on the headlights, and headed into the Maxitunnel, the modern
4-lane tunnel that bored through the mountain separating Acapulco from the rest
of the state of Guerrero. The noise of the Suburban was distorted by the
tunnel’s high arch and thick walls; the rumble of other vehicles was swept
upwards into an echoing drone that set Emilia’s teeth on edge. The tunnel was
long and had a slight curve to it, making it seem longer than its three
kilometer length. She drove carefully as the pitch blackness was relieved only
by the lights of oncoming traffic, the colored arrows pointing down from the
roof to indicate which lanes were open, and the occasional neon sign warning of
pileups beyond the tunnel.

The traffic wasn’t
bad; there were always more cars coming into Acapulco than leaving it. She’d
rolled relatively quickly through the toll plaza. The place held too many
memories of weekends when she was a teen standing in the hot sun in front of
the booths with boxes of guava candy in her hands and a blank expression on her
face.

A warning light
signaled the end of the tunnel and the big SUV popped into gray twilight with
the setting sun trailing behind. For the next 40 minutes she followed the
directions Bruno Inocente had given her, leaving the city behind until finally
her phone’s GPS showed nothing and the Suburban bounced over a rutted dirt
track. Emilia hadn’t seen any houses or other signs of life for at least two
miles.

A black Mercedes
was parked in front of a strange gray structure with smooth sloping sides. The
back of it disappeared into a gentle hill. Scrubby pines and wild agave plants
substituted for landscaping.

Bruno got out of
the Mercedes when Emilia alighted from the Suburban. Other than his pressed
gray pants and navy baseball jacket, he looked much the same as when she’d met him
at his home: well-groomed, athletic, pleasant, a little dour. “Thank you for
coming,” he said. “Alone.”

Emilia nodded as
she looked around. “What is this place?” she asked. The structure reminded her
of an oversized beehive.

“I know that your
detectives have been talking to my accountants about my brother’s funds.” Bruno
shoved his hands in the front pockets of the baseball jacket. It was a garment
he was comfortable in, Emilia judged. “So you know that about a year ago my
brother managed to borrow a considerable sum of money without my permission.”

“Yes.” Emilia
shivered in her thin denim jacket. The sun still streaked the sky but the
shadows on the ground were long. The opening into the beehive gaped like a
toothless mouth.

“This is what he
did with it,” Bruno gestured tiredly at the odd structure. “Said it was a
prototype for a new house. Worked with some engineer. They were going to build
these little tunnel houses and sell them. Revolutionize the housing industry in
Mexico.”

“Was the
engineer’s name Marco Cortez Lleyva?” Emilia asked.

“Something like
that,” Bruno said. “I don’t remember.”

“We found his card
in your brother’s study,” Emilia said. “He said your brother was planning to
build a new house and consulted him about it.”

Bruno dug his
hands deeper into his jacket pockets. “It was just another gamble. Maria Teresa
refused to live in a hill, away from the beach and her friends. My brother lost
interest and here it sits.” He showed her a flashlight. “Would you like to see
inside?”

“All right.” Emilia
stepped through the shadowy entrance and took a quick look around,
uncomfortable in the dark space. There wasn’t much. The strange house was
divided into two equally dark windowless rooms, each shaped like half of a
tunnel. The sloping walls had never been painted. Ventilation fans were built
into the wall of one room but didn’t appear to be hooked to any electricity.
The place smelled stale.

“He was going to
market these as houses? Without bathrooms or windows?” Emilia asked when they
were once more standing outside in the gathering twilight.

“That’s what he
said,” Bruno affirmed.

“Why did you want
me to see this?” Emilia asked. “You could have just told me this over the
phone.”

“I want you to
stop asking questions about my brother’s family,” Bruno said.

Emilia raised her
eyebrows.

He glanced at her,
his face tight, and then away. “Juan Diego and Juliana are absolutely
devastated by the death of their father. They’re both so upset they can barely
speak. They’ve retreated into each other and I’m losing them.” He passed a hand
over his face. “Your cops are asking personal questions in the building where
they live. You made them get fingerprinted. You’re pressing Maria Teresa and
she’s unloading everything on them.”

“This is a murder
investigation,” Emilia said. “I can’t ignore basic questions about the victim.”

“Maria Teresa
didn’t kill her husband,” Bruno said. “She’s a silly woman but she hardly
needed Fausto dead after 20 years of marriage. If she’d have asked for a
divorce we would have seen her get a fair settlement.”

“She’s admitted to
a relationship with Dr. Chang,” Emilia pointed out.

“It doesn’t
matter,” Bruno said. He looked to be on the brink of tears. “I don’t know who
killed my brother but it had nothing to do with anyone in his family.”

“I’m sorry,”
Emilia said uncomfortably. “I want this to be over as much as you do.”

“The children
can’t take any more. They’re suffering and I don’t know what else to do.” Bruno
reached inside the jacket and pulled out a thick envelope. He held it out to Emilia.
“If it’s not enough there can be more. Don’t ask any more questions in the
apartment building. Don’t make them come to the police station again. Leave my
family alone.”

“Don’t do this,”
Emilia said.

The hand holding
the envelope shook uncontrollably. “Please.”

Emilia didn’t
touch the envelope. She got back into the Suburban and made a wide circle in
front of the concrete beehive, dirt and gravel spraying over Bruno Inocente’s
Mercedes. As the Suburban rumbled over the dirt track she glanced in the rearview
mirror. Bruno Inocente remained in front of the beehive folly, one hand over
his eyes, his shoulders trembling. The envelope was in the dirt by his feet.

Emilia hoped she
could find her way back to the Maxitunnel.

☼

When Emilia came
back to the squadroom at 8:00 pm it was empty. She went into
el teniente’s
office to check for phone messages and found a thick brown envelope from the
telecommunications office on the desk chair.

The records for
el
teniente’s
home and cell phone. Finally.

She’d felt tired
and shaky after the encounter with Bruno Inocente and the drive back into the
city but the prospect of some solid information woke her up. The envelope
contained six months’ worth of phone calls for both his home and cell phone.
The records indicated whether it was an outgoing or incoming call but provided
no information regarding the identity of the caller. Cell phone numbers had an
extra digit, so at least there was a distinction between a cell call or a call
to or from a land line.

She found the day
of Lt. Inocente’s death, slowly comparing every call made from the Costa
Esmeralda land line phone to every number she’d so far collected during the
investigation. In the afternoon there had been a number of outgoing calls from
the Inocente’s apartment. Two calls had been made to Dr. Chang’s office number.
One to the children’s school. Another number wasn’t on her list. Emilia called
and found it was the chairwoman of the San Pedro charity event Maria Teresa had
attended.

There were fewer
incoming calls. One from the children’s school. One from Maria Teresa’s cell
phone. No call around 10:00 pm.

Emilia picked up
the record for
el teniente’s
cell phone and located the same day. There
were two outgoing calls to the house and one to Maria Teresa’s cell phone. Two
incoming calls from an unidentified cell phone number, the first at 9:56 pm,
the next at 10:12 pm.

Emilia carefully
compared it against her list of numbers related to the case. When nothing
matched she reached across the desk to
el teniente’s
roster of squadroom
cell numbers. She held her breath, not wanting to see it. But it matched.

Obregon’s warning
rattled through her bones like a cold wind off the ocean.

Chapter 20

Emilia brought in
a box of ridiculously expensive designer doughnuts and made a pot of coffee.
Her heart clanged in her chest as 9:00 am approached. Her nerves weren’t helped
by the sight of Gomez and Castro, both of whom avoided looking at her as they
went to their desks and turned on their computers. Gomez had two black eyes, a
bandage across his nose, and his left arm was in a sling. Silvio, Rico, and
Fuentes came in shortly afterwards. They all nodded at Gomez but no one
remarked on his appearance. Macias and Sandor were there as well.

Silvio filled his
mug. Ibarra and Loyola came in together, both looking glum. Loyola brightened
up when he saw the doughnuts.

“Tito Vela’s got
an alibi,” Silvio announced. “He was at work until 2:00 am the night Inocente
died. Got a couple hundred witnesses who can place him at the El Pharaoh.”

Loyola swallowed a
bite of doughnut. “The hookers were our best lead.”

“Nights that
Inocente took his boat out late were Sunday nights,” Silvio went on. “Matches
the times both girls said they’d been with him.”

Emilia felt
herself start to shake. Of course the thug from the El Pharaoh was a false
lead. Everything was narrowing down to the man by the murder board with a
marker in one hand and her overpriced coffee in the other. Silvio had on his
usual white tee shirt, jeans and shoulder holster. The coffee mug looked
ridiculously tiny with his big fist curled around it.

Emilia listened as
Silvio walked them through the murder board again and the detectives rehashed
what they already had. The marina watchman who said Inocente went out shortly
before midnight. The boater who saw lights flashing on a speedboat about two
hours later. The alibis for Maria Teresa, Bruno, Rita, Dr. Chang, everyone
connected to the El Pharaoh. Useless statements from hotel guests and residents
of the Costa Esmeralda apartment building.

Probably none of
it mattered.

“I say we comb
through the apartment building again,” Fuentes said. “He didn’t take his car
keys, he wasn’t going far to find his girlfriend.”

Rico pointed to
the timeline. “Agree. We gotta fill in the time gap when he was having sex.”

Silvio nodded
thoughtfully. “Okay,” he said. He pointed at Loyola and Ibarra. “Go with
Portillo and Fuentes.”

Castro bristled.
“We can do that.”

“We don’t need to
be scaring the shit out of whoever doesn’t want to be found,” Silvio said with
a hard look at Gomez. “You two get on the hotline, see if there’s anything
today. If not, we can turn it off. It’s been a fucking waste of time.”

“The funeral is
tomorrow at 5:00 pm,” Emilia said when they were done and everybody had been
assigned a follow-up. Macias and Sandor took the dispatches.

She took a deep
breath and plowed on. “Orders from Chief Salazar. Everybody goes. In uniform.”

Silvio took a
doughnut. One with sprinkles on top.

☼

Emilia parked the
Suburban in the parking lot of the Bodega department store. The
barrio
streets were too narrow for the big vehicle although the vandals who’d strip it
if she left it closer to the address would leave it considerably thinner.

The area got
progressively more run down as she walked and she was glad she’d worn jeans and
running shoes today. The GPS feature on her phone showed that she’d have to
walk six long city blocks.

The address for
Horacio Valdez Ruiz turned out to be a bar called Los Bongos. The place was
located in the center of a block of shabby businesses specializing in tattoos,
bootleg video rentals, and used electronics. Its faded blue concrete front was
plastered over with posters for bands that played there on weekends. The front
door was open. Canned music, the smell of stale beer, and male laughter let
passersby know that the drinking started early in this neighborhood. Los Bongos
wasn’t on the tourist trail; it was the sort of place where the locals drank
before going home and beating their girlfriends.

Emilia unbuttoned
the top buttons of her denim jacket so she could reach for her gun if she
needed to, slung her shoulder bag over her head to carry it across her body,
and pulled back her shoulders. She mentally told herself she was as big as
Silvio and walked into the bar.

The shift from
bright sunlight to dim interior made her blink but she kept moving toward the
long bar running along the left side of the place and the bartender who
regarded her with a sour look. Cheap plastic tables and chairs filled most of the
space. Two older men in a corner quarreled over a chess board. Another couple
of men hunched over drinks without speaking and were probably junkies just
trying to survive until their next score.

The rear of the
room was taken up with two pool tables. Four younger men circled the tables,
carrying cues, talking loudly, beer bottles balanced on the edges of the
tables. A Maná song, one of Emilia’s favorites, rattled the speakers over the
bar with a persistent bass pulse. A neon Corona beer sign buzzed off and on
each time the bass thumped too hard. There was a space between the pool tables
and the main area with a small black stage and some blocky tower speakers.
Emilia supposed that was where the weekend bands played.

The chess players
stopped their game to watch Emilia as she made her way to the bartender.

“
Buen’ dia
,”
Emilia said.

He gave her a
grunt and a sizing-up look that said he knew she didn’t belong there.

“I’m looking for
Horacio Valdes Ruiz,” Emilia said, trying not to sound like a cop.

The pool players
stopped circling the tables and gathered together by the stage.

The bartender
pulled at his nose with thumb and forefinger. His nails were long and had black
half-moons of dirt under them. “This place is for drinking or pool.”

“Beer,” Emilia said.
She put down two 100-peso bills, the red and tan motif unmistakable against the
sticky dark countertop.

The bartender
palmed a bill and set down a warm bottle. He had a tattoo on the inside of his
left arm shaped like a long, thick blunt-bladed knife.

Emilia was in El
Machete territory. She’d heard about the gang before. It was small but
notoriously violent. Errand-runners for the Los Zetas cartel.

“So where’s
Horacio?” Emilia asked.

“You don’t like
the beer?” The bartender put her change on the counter next to the second
100-peso bill.

Emilia took a pull
from the bottle. She set it down by the money. “Horacio said I could find him
here.”

“You look kind of
old for him.” The bartender said it loudly enough for the pool players to hear
and the line was greeted with a ripple of laughter.

“He’s the father,”
Emilia said.

The laughter
degenerated into catcalls to the bartender.

Emilia shrugged
and tried to look pregnant.

The bartender
pocketed the second 100-peso bill. “His mother lives upstairs.” He wiped his
nose again, the black nails scraping against greasy skin. “Stairs are in the
back.”

The pool players
gyrated and made air kissing noises as Emilia passed by with the beer bottle in
her right hand.

The stairway was
dim but looked clean, which she took to be a good sign. Two heavy wooden doors
met her at the top, neither identified in any way. Emilia knocked hard on the
first with the side of her fist.

As she waited for
someone to answer she was conscious of a shadow behind her. Turning around, she
saw the bartender and two of the pool players standing at the foot of the
stairs grinning up at her.

Emilia pounded on
the door again.

“Other door,” the
bartender called.

Without turning
again Emilia raised the beer in acknowledgment and hammered on the other door.
The words to the Hail Mary prayer ran through her head, as if the Virgin could
somehow save her from the trap Emilia had foolishly gotten herself into.

“Who’s there?” a
muffled female voice rasped.

“Is Horacio
there?” Emilia called through the heavy door.

“Why?”

“Open the fucking
door, Marlena!” a male voice bellowed from the foot of the stairs.

“It’s important,”
Emilia said. She glanced at the cluster of men below her. “No trouble, I
promise.”

Heavy metal
clanked, a bolt screeched and the door opened a crack. Emilia angled herself
into the corner so she could smile encouragingly into the narrow opening. She
saw a bloodshot eye and the glow of a cigarette. “I’m Emilia,” she said.

Something scraped
away from the door on the other side. The door swung open just enough for
Emilia to see a short woman wearing a gray smock-type apron. She had a short
perm. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth.

“What do you want
with Horacio?” the woman asked. Her voice had the grate of a heavy nicotine
user.

“Marlena?” Emilia
asked. The apartment smelled strongly of cigarettes and cat urine. “I just need
to ask Horacio a question about a friend.”

The woman gave
Emilia an appraising look then stepped backwards and bawled, “Horacio!” The
cigarette never left the corner of her mouth but bobbled as she yelled. Ash
shook onto her apron front.

Emilia shut the
door behind her and looked around. They were in a short hallway that ended in a
small windowless room equipped with a bare mattress pushed against a wall and a
television balanced on concrete blocks. An older woman sat in a rocking chair
watching a
telenovela
. She didn’t pay any attention to either Marlena or
Emilia and seemed immune to the ammonia-like miasma beginning to make Emilia’s
eyes water.

Several expensive
game consoles were stacked in front of the television, with at least half a
dozen different controllers. Videogames in bright plastic sleeves spilled
across two plastic chairs that had looked more at home in the bar downstairs. A
corner outfitted with a wooden table, a two-burner hotplate, and a stack of
dishes apparently functioned as the kitchen. Magazine pages featuring pictures
of Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Juan Diego and the pope adorned the walls.

A door opened
halfway down the hall and a slight man clad only in low-riding jeans stumbled
out, cell phone in hand. He was in his early twenties, Emilia guessed; as tall
as her and slightly built, with long hair caught up in a ponytail and a scar on
his forehead. The distinctive El Machete tattoo decorated the inside of his
left forearm.

“She says she
knows you, Horacio,” Marlena said without preamble.

Without warning
Horacio charged at Emilia in the narrow space, head down. He was slower than
Gomez. She caught him under the chin with the neck of the beer bottle and
shoved it into the soft skin of his throat with both hands. He wasn’t heavy and
his head flipped back and carried the rest of him with it. His legs buckled
slightly and Horacio ended up almost squatting, his back plastered against the
wall, beer foam running down his chest.

“I never fucked
you,” he gasped, still holding the phone.

Emilia eyed him
warily. “They got it wrong downstairs. I just want to ask you a couple of
questions about your cousin Alejandro.”

Marlena mumbled
something and made the sign of the cross. Her cigarette was down to the filter.

“He’s dead,
puta
,”
Horacio said. He stood up slowly but stayed by the wall. “You’re out of luck if
he’s the father.”

“Did you ever meet
the people he drove for?” Emilia asked. “The Hudsons.
Norteamericano
.”

“No,” Horacio
said. “They’re not going to care shit about some
puta
their driver
fucked up.”

“Did he have a
number for them?”

“No. They just
called him when they came.”

“Did he ever tell
you where they went? If they had friends that he drove them to see?”

Horacio scowled.
“They were some rich tourists,
puta
.” His expression changed to a sly
grin. “It wasn’t Alejandro, was it? You get in trouble with that
gringo
,
eh?”

Emilia gave half a
shrug, not saying yes and not saying no. “Do you know how your cousin met
them?”

“No, but they paid
good.”

“Did you ever work
for them, too? Fill in for your cousin?”

Horacio peeled
himself off the wall and came toward Emilia, his swagger back. “No.” He leered.
“You’re all right,
puta
. Just surprised me before. You came to see a
real man, no?”

If anything,
Horacio smelled worse than the apartment. Emilia tightened her grip on the beer
bottle. “You got money?” she bluffed. “I heard you paid big to get Alejandro
out of jail. Where’d you get the money?”

“El Machete always
has money,” Horacio said. He leaned in close, one hand on the wall by Emilia’s
head. “I always take care of my
putas
.”

“You got real
money?” Emilia asked. “Or that crap kind of money Alejandro had?”

A moment later
Emilia found herself on the other side of the heavy wooden door looking down
into the upturned face of the bartender.

☼

Emilia kept
walking until her heart rate slowed. The only thing she’d learned was that Ruiz
had probably been El Machete, too, something they would have known if the body had
ever turned up. From the explosive reaction to the mention of counterfeit
money, she could guess that Horacio knew something but she could only guess
what that might be. Maybe they could bring him in, stick him in a room with
Silvio and see what happened.

It was that
thought that kept her walking through Silvio’s neighborhood just a few blocks
over, one step up from the poorest of the poor. This was the unlovely part of
old Acapulco, where the sidewalks were broken and everyone looked furtive.
There was a small church with a decided lean and a heavy corrugated metal door
set into the wall around it. The houses had once been pastel colors, peach and
sky blue and rose pink but no one in the neighborhood had had money for paint
in a long time and the sea air had weathered everything but the graffiti to
indeterminate shades of gray. Most of the walls around the houses were topped
with broken glass set into the cement. The few windows she could see had bars
set into the stucco, making each house a mini prison.