Authors: Christopher Valen
Santana felt uncomfortable talking about his family and wanted the conversation to focus on hers.
“Ever been to Valladolid?” he asked.
She seemed to think a long time before she spoke, and he wondered if she was picturing the city in her mind.
“Yes. I have many relatives in the area.”
“When were you there last?”
“Two years ago.”
“So you know the city pretty well.”
“Well enough. Why?”
“I was wondering where in the city your father was born?”
Her face clouded and she gave him a hard stare. “Why do you want to know, Detective Santana?”
The throng of mourners in black, heavy coats parted and Father Scanlon and Father Hidalgo suddenly appeared.
“Ah, Gabriela.” Hidalgo came to her and nodded at Santana. “Detective. It’s good of you to come.”
Santana looked over Hidalgo’s shoulder at the other priest.
“Have you met the archbishop?” Hidalgo asked, following Santana’s gaze.
“No, I haven’t.”
Hidalgo motioned toward Scanlon who was standing a few feet away. The archbishop excused himself from Sandra Pérez and a group of mourners and walked up to Santana. He moved deliberately with the practiced grace of an unskilled dancer who had learned only one set of steps.
“This is Detective Santana,” Hidalgo said, touching Scanlon gently on the shoulder. “He’s conducting the investigation into Julio Pérez’s murder.”
Scanlon had a firm grip in a thick hand that felt more like a construction worker’s than a priest’s. His gunmetal-gray hair was cut short, and his nose had a reddish hue Santana figured was caused by something other than the cold.
“I’m sorry I never met your father,” Scanlon said to Gabriela Pérez. “I understand he was greatly admired.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the mausoleum and the crowd. “It’s no wonder we had to hold the service at the Cathedral.”
“My father had many friends.”
And at least one enemy, Santana thought.
Hidalgo said, “Detective Santana, have you found out anything that might free Angelina Torres and clear Rubén Córdova’s name?”
Santana suddenly felt as if he was in an elevator free falling from the top floor of a skyscraper.
Gabriela Pérez looked at Hidalgo and then at Santana, her eyes suddenly burning like candles. “What do you mean?”
“Gabriela,” Hidalgo said quietly. “We cannot condemn innocent people. Certainly you understand.”
“Innocent? How do you know they are innocent?”
Hidalgo seemed at a loss for words. He shifted his gaze to Scanlon, who remained silent as falling snow. Finally, Hidalgo said, “I don’t believe Rubén or Angelina could have done such a thing to your father.”
Gabriela Pérez’s expression, which a moment ago had been softened by the tender hands of tragedy, hardened in an instant. “You are in no position to judge him.”
“But I am,” Santana said.
She glared at him for a long moment before she said, “I understand now, Detective Santana. I understand perfectly.” Her tone was as cold as the chill in the air. “You did not come to my father’s funeral to pay your respects. You came here to question me.”
Santana started to protest but she cut him off.
“You are a man without feelings!” she said loudly.
Heads turned. Eyes stared.
“Leave!” she said, backing away from Santana as if he had a communicable disease.
“If you’ll let me explain —”
“Now!”
Santana made his way through the dwindling crowd and got into his car.
“
You are a man without feelings
.”
He told himself it was untrue. But as he drove away, Gabriela Pérez’s words reverberated inside his head, as though she were in a pulpit speaking into a microphone.
T
he air inside O’Leary’s bar was thick with a blue haze that hung like smog over the tables in the center of the room and the booths, which formed an L along two walls. It was 3:05 p.m. according to the clock behind the bar. It would be another two hours before cops getting off Tour II would pack O’Leary’s, as if it were the Metrodome before the seventh game of the World Series.
The 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. shift was known as Tour I. Tour II had two shifts. The first ran from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. A second began at 9:00 a.m. and ended at 7:00 p.m. Tour III also had two shifts. One ran from 4:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Another started at 6:30 p.m. and ended at 4:30 a.m. Shifts overlapped so that squads were always on the streets.
As Santana stood near the doorway, surveying the room, he saw a familiar figure coming out of the men’s room. “Rick,” he called.
Rick Anderson’s eyes slid away from Santana.
“Rick!” Santana called again.
Anderson acknowledged Santana with a nod and came hesitantly toward him.
“Don’t see you in here often, John,” Anderson said with a little laugh.
“I shouldn’t see you in here at all.”
Anderson looked as if he had just been told his dick was hanging out. “I only had one drink.”
Santana was sure Anderson was lying, but he said nothing.
“What brings you here, John?”
“I’m meeting Kacie and Nick.”
“Well, I’d love to hang around,” Anderson said, not all together convincingly. “But I’m meeting my ex for dinner at Ferns.”
“Lisa or Cheryl?”
“Lisa.”
“You two back together?”
“It’s her birthday. Hey, gotta run. Keep me informed.” He waved and headed for the door.
Santana was looking for Baker and Hawkins when he spotted James Kehoe sitting on a barstool. Kehoe was holding a mug of beer in one hand, a thick cigar in the other. The stool next to him was unoccupied, but there were a couple of empty mugs on the bar in front of it.
Santana found Kacie Hawkins and Nick Baker in a booth near the back. He slid into the space next to Hawkins.
Baker pushed a full mug of beer across the table to Santana. Some of the thick foam spilled over the side of the glass.
“To winters without snowplows,” he said, raising a frosty mug of his own. His eyes were bloodshot and a cigarette dangled from his lips.
Santana joined Baker and Hawkins in the toast. The cold tap beer slid easily down his throat.
“Good to see you’re okay, John,” Hawkins said.
Baker pointed a cigarette stained finger at her. “I got less than a year left before retirement. I’m gonna make sure I go someplace where they don’t have snow in winter and they don’t need snowplows. What’s Colombia like, John? Have much snow there?”
“Only near the top of the Andes.”
“Don’t plan on goin’ that high up.” Baker finished off the beer in one swallow and set the empty mug on the table with a thud. Stabbing the cigarette in Santana’s direction, he said, “You could’ve been killed by the plow. Or Córdova could’ve punched your ticket.”
“If he had drawn his gun,” Hawkins said.
Santana gave her a look.
“You know the department is like a small town, John,” she said. “Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”
“If Anderson says the punk was going for his gun, that’s all I need,” Baker said.
“He better hope it’s all IA and Canfield need,” Hawkins said.
“I don’t think Córdova or Torres are guilty of murder,” Santana said.
Hawkins said, “You mind telling us why?”
Santana shared what Angelina Torres had told him when she came to his office with Father Hidalgo, and when he spoke to her in her office before Kehoe arrived with a warrant. Then he explained what he had found in Córdova’s appointment book and on his computer.
“Does Torres have an alibi for the day Pérez and Mendoza were murdered?” Hawkins asked.
“She worked late that day. Said she heard about the deaths on the radio. Not real easy to verify. But Córdova’s cell phone records show that he called Mendoza three times prior to his death. I’m guessing to set up appointments.”
“I checked Mendoza’s phone records,” Baker said. “He called Córdova once as well. The day before they both died.”
Hawkins said, “Maybe Córdova was on to the visa scam, John.”
“That would be my guess. After Mendoza’s name in his appointment book, Córdova wrote the words,
learn more about scandal
.”
Baker motioned to the waitress and held up three fingers. “I’m guessing we’re having another round, John.”
“What gives you that idea?”
“My mug’s empty and we’ve got a whole lot to talk about.”
“You’ve got this whole detecting thing down to a real science, Nick,” Hawkins said.
He smiled and picked up a pretzel from the bowl on the table. “Stick around, kid, you might learn something.”
“What do your detecting skills tell you about Kehoe?” Santana asked.
Baker chewed on a pretzel and gave a derisive laugh. “If the Feds are bad, this guy’s worse. And he’s a real prick to boot.”
“Someone told Kehoe about Torres’ fingerprint.”
“Maybe it was Novak.”
“Tony wouldn’t do that unless he was ordered to. He knows I’m lead investigator. At least I was.”
“Hell,” Baker said, waving the fact away. “Putting Kehoe in charge of the investigation is nuts.”
“Well,” Hawkins said, looking across the table at Baker, “If neither Gamboni or Novak leaked the information to Kehoe, that means John thinks it’s one of us.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Kacie?” Baker asked. He leaned across the table, one hand clutching the handle of the mug, as if for support.
“Take it easy,” Santana said. “The department
is
like a small town. Everybody
does
know everybody else’s business. I’m not suggesting either of you leaked the information. But keep your ears open. Let me know if you hear anything. What I need to know right now, Nick, is what you found out about Mendoza. Besides the fact that he was born in the same city in Mexico as Pérez.”
Baker raised a bushy eyebrow. “You planning on running all of this by Gamboni at some point?”
“At some point.”
Baker wiped his mouth with a cocktail napkin, lit a fresh cigarette with a match, and retrieved a small notebook from an inside pocket of his sport coat. Flipping open the cover, he said, “From what I could piece together after talking with his friends, Mendoza came to St. Paul when he was nine years old. His mother raised him. She worked as a cleaning lady. Mendoza was the only child. Apparently, she couldn’t have any more kids. Might explain why the father went back to Mexico when the kid was ten and never came back. Mendoza went to Harding High School. Good student. Got a scholarship to the University of Minnesota. Went on to law school. Mother died of cervical cancer just after he graduated. Seems Mendoza took it pretty hard. Guess he never got the chance to make her life a little easier.”
Santana remembered his own mother; how she had hoped to see him become a doctor; how she never got the chance.
Baker turned a couple of pages in the notebook. “Mendoza went to work for Spencer and Wangensteen, a large law firm in the IDS building in Minneapolis that represented major corporations. Apparently Mendoza discovered his roots a few years later and left to start his own firm in St. Paul primarily representing spics.” Baker stopped abruptly and looked up from his notebook. “Sorry, John. I meant Hispanics.”
Hawkins rolled her eyes.
Baker smiled tightly, took a drag on his cigarette, let the smoke out through his nostrils. “Hard to teach an old dog new tricks. No offense.”
“None taken.”
Baker crossed something out in his notebook and continued.
“The move paid off. Immigration law grew and he moved into the World Trade Center in St. Paul. Became a big contributor to AIDS foundations. No dirty laundry that I could find.”
“But he must’ve pissed off somebody,” Hawkins said. “What about boyfriends?”
“I ran into pretty much of a dead-end there. Mendoza wasn’t into cruising. He was seeing someone, but nobody’s willing to talk about it.”
He took another swallow of beer and fell silent for a moment before he appeared to remember something else.
“Hey, John, what about that photo Gamboni found in Mendoza’s loft? You know, the one with the two mystery men? Any leads?”
“Tony Novak is supposed to get back to me. Anything unusual in Mendoza’s phone records or credit card statements?”
“Nothing I could see.”
“What about his financial records?”
“Mendoza made a good living as a corporate attorney in the nineties. Appears most of his money went into the stock market. When it tanked, he lost a bundle. Then, a few years ago, when he began representing immigrants, he started investing large sums of money in real estate. He had rental property in Lake Tahoe and Mazatlan, as well as his condo in St. Paul. Hard to see how representing poor immigrants paid as well as it did.”
“Unless a good share of his money was obtained illegally,” Santana said.
“I always thought real estate was a good investment,” Baker said, behind the stream of smoke from his cigarette. “Ever listen to one of those real estate infomercials that are always on Saturday mornings and late night TV? You know, the ones where you buy property with no money down?”
“Yeah, right,” Hawkins said. “The only reason those hucksters are millionaires is because idiots buy their stupid programs.”
“Maybe. But it’d be a cheap way of investing in rental property after I retire. Be a good source of income to supplement the pension. Problem is, I can’t fix shit.”
“Neither can most slum lords,” Hawkins said. “We don’t need any more white men investing in rental property so they can get rich by ripping off the poor.”
“What’s got you all wound up today?” Baker asked, draining the last of his beer. “Boyfriend troubles again?”
Santana saw the anger flare in Hawkins dark eyes. He said, “Let’s stay focused on the case. What else you got, Nick?”
Baker set the glass down and picked up an 8 x 11 manila envelope on the seat beside him. Inside were copies of monthly bank statements.
“Take a look at these.”
There were five columns of single-spaced numbers on each bank statement, dates to the far left, transactions to the right, followed by columns of debits, credits and balances.
“I don’t believe it,” Hawkins said, running a long index finger down the column marked credits. “Mendoza had to be raking in thousands. Where the hell was ICE?”