He stared deeply into her eyes, searching her meaning. “Then you think the crew is right? That this…this can only bring evil on us?”
Qui knew what he suggested but feared to vocalize: If a future accident befalls any one of us, will it truly be an accident? “Uncle Estrada, you’ve already spoken to my colonel, and he’s sent me here. No throwing them back, no cutting loose the net, not now. Maybe before, but not now. It…it’s gone too far.”
Everyone aboard heard her words.
She meant them to hear.
Pointing now to the cache of death, Qui demanded, “Open the net! On the deck, Uncle. Let’s get on with it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, do it. Now.”
Estrada swallowed hard but gave the signal. The pulley operator yanked a switch, and the net bottom fell out. Bodies, chain and lock, dead shrimp, and assorted sea life spilled from the net like a mosaic created by a madman. The bodies slid on the wet sea life, rippled toward them, making everyone start, and at once creating a kind of creepy knell, lock and chain having careened into a bulkhead.
“Jesus Christ!” shouted Tino from atop the nearest bulkhead. Intent on photos and observations, and not paying attention to the conversation, he’d been standing almost under the net when it opened, and had to move quickly to escape the deluge Qui’s orders had created. His shoes and pant legs were shiny with splashed fluids and be-speckled with bits of gore.
Sergio, staring at the disturbing montage, muttered, “Medical examiner’s not going to like this.”
Except for a growing cloud of scavenging sea gulls, silence again settled over the boat.
Feeling brutalized, her brain screaming, Set up…set up! Qui was hit with the certain knowledge that Gutierrez knew what she’d find aboard the Sanabela, that Estrada had filled him in on more detail than the colonel had shared. She imagined his grin at her horror and loathing. I can do this, she told herself. It’s what I trained for.
From the evidence kit, Sergio handed her a pair of surgical gloves. “Time to go to work?”
With growing paranoia, Qui knew this crime scene must be treated with absolute precision. Proper procedure adhered to with greater care than with any of her previous cases. She turned to Tino, who was about to light up another cigarette, and barked, “Tino, we need to call a medical examiner-now! Radio for one to meet us at the marina. You take the police cruiser. Sergio and I’ll stay here with the bodies.” Turning to Sergio, she continued, “I need you, Sergio, to pilot us into harbor, and oh, Tino-”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Meet the medical examiner and brief him. Also, I need you to find us a slip!”
“I can do that.”
“Make it as close to the Capital headquarters as possible. Understood?”
“Got it, Lieutenant.” He rushed off and climbed aboard the police boat, where he cast off tie lines, freeing the vessels from one another.
Qui now quietly said to Estrada, “Uncle, please allow Sergio to pilot the Sanabela into harbor.”
Her tone, body language, and action informed the crew that they were no longer taking orders from Estrada-that the lone woman on deck was in charge. Qui sensed a feeling of relief come over everyone, pleased that someone in a position of authority had taken charge. She had in effect cast an official cloak over the terrible find.
Estrada replied, “For now, Lieutenant, you are my captain.”
4
At Havana’s Police Capitol Headquarters
Alfonso Gutierrez sat in the darkening office as twilight had turned to evening, imagining what Detectives Qui Aguilera, Hilito and Latoya must, at this moment, be going through. He felt only a twinge of guilt at having withheld information as to what they’d face out there on the water.
Earlier, after Estrada had described the nature of the problem on his government-contracted boat, Colonel Gutierrez did what he always did in a difficult situation: call General Cavuto Ruiz, Commissioner of Police and Military Matters in Castro’s cabinet.
Gutierrez sat behind his desk, fingering a wrapped cigar here in his second home. He thought about how he perspired just talking to the general, how he held the phone tightly in his grip, knuckles pale against his dark skin whenever he spoke to Cavuto Ruiz.
His mind raced with the strange order coming from some source above Ruiz-high up in the hierarchy of Cuban officialdom, a snake with many heads-an octopus with twice the tentacles- he thought. While Ruiz claimed the order as his own, Alfonso knew better. Someone else had forced the order on the dangerous General Cavuto Ruiz. Colonel Alfonso Gutierrez deplored any light being cast on him or his day-to-day operations, but with such machinations going on over his head, he feared it out of his hands. Still, he must avoid the spotlight.
“Damn it, why was Aguilera placed under my command?” His outbursts were so numerous that his civilian secretary just outside his office merely frowned.
Six major districts lay across the islands, five of which were softer environs than Havana, each a relative paradise according to crime statistics. Why had they not placed Tomaso’s daughter in any one of these safe havens? Why was there a push to make her so visible? Politics, he imagined. Another attempt on Fidel’s part to show the whole damn world how bloody soft he was on women’s rights. The whole thing stank of politics, but now this strange and queer order: assign Aguilera to a triple homicide? What kind of sense did that make? Not only was she a new detective, but she’d never worked a murder case on her own.
With Luis Estrada’s call-an unreliable yet long-time police informant on the docks-what option was left Gutierrez but to call Ruiz? Cuban waters…three dead, likely foreigners. This could become an international incident, something no one wanted. When Ruiz came on the line, Alfonso did all he could to pass the case onto Ruiz’s plate, as Ruiz had direct connections to the secret police. Who better to handle what could prove to be an international brouhaha. But Ruiz had immediately bounced it back to Alfonso. It was as if Ruiz were reading from a script.
“Put the woman detective on it, what’s her name?”
“Hey? The woman?”
“Yes, damn it. Are you deaf?”
“That Aguilera woman? But, General-”
“Didn’t she get her Lieutenant’s status?”
“Her investigator’s badge, yes.”
“Recently?”
“Well, yes, but to throw her into a triple homicide with God only knows what sort of complications? I don’t think this is the wisest-”
“Alfonso, no one’s asked for your fuckin’ opinion. Just do it.”
“I’d have to team her up with Pena, and then perhaps she-”
“No, no Alfonso, no! This is to be a test case for the woman. She does it alone.”
“Alone…by herself? She’s only had minor cases. Never murder. It’ll look as if I want her to fail.”
“Your views about women on the force in any capacity, Alfonso, are well known. This will do nothing to your reputation and may, in the end, prove you right.”
“Do you think so?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Hmmm…then it’s you who expect her to fail?”
“Who can know these things, my friend?”
Then the phone went dead.
Gutierrez understood the mandate- Aguilera is to fail and I must ensure it. He smiled thinly, contemplating success. If it goes well, not only will she fail, but women in the department will be seen as a bad idea. Aguilera would be demoted to some place like Santa Clara, Pinar del Rio, or even the stinking backwater Isla de la Juventud- where she can chase down Cubanos illegally associating with tourists and look good doing it. This last thought had made him laugh, a cruel and ugly sound in the dimly lit office. In fact, he was still chuckling over the entire situation as he took out a Fuentes cigar and lit it, savoring the smell of the rich tobacco.
Once he’d gotten off the phone with Ruiz, Alfonso shouted for Detective Aguilera to come into his office, where he’d given her the order, all the while thinking how delighted she’d be to finally have a major case. And, what a case it would prove to be! He thought how unsuspecting she’d be of all these intrigues from above. “She’ll fail,” he’d said in a self-satisfied tone when she left headquarters. He’d done his part, sending her out to the shrimp boat.