Hissed through clenched teeth, “Bastard should’ve died; like a rat, though, he survives the sinking ship.”
She then leaned over Gutierrez and demanded, “Who was Ruiz taking his orders from?”
“This man needs treatment, an IV, transport. Not questions,” complained the medic on the other side of Father Pasqual. “Tell her Father!”
Now standing, Father Pasqual reluctantly agreed, pulling at Qui to come away. “Show some patience. Interrogation can wait.”
“You mean he’s not gonna die on us?” asked JZ.
“Not right now. But we need to move him.”
“No, he gets no medical attention. Do you hear that, Alfonso? Nothing!” she ended.
JZ put a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Easy Qui. You don’t want to be like Alejandro.”
Anger still rising, radiating in waves around her, she shook off JZ’s warning. “Alfonso, you die here, now, unless you tell me what I want to know!”
Pasqual exchanged a concerned look with JZ, and calmly said to Qui, “Maybe it would be best to question him later at the hospital.”
Ignoring Pasqual, she leaned into her boss’s face. “Why was Montoya killed?”
“No idea,” Alfonso groaned.
“Why were the three doctors killed?”
“Dunno ohhh, please…”
“Why was Tino killed?”
Alfonso grimaced in pain from his injuries. “I don’t know!”
“Just a poor lackey, heh? Then who does know?” she insisted. “Who is behind the killings?”
“Stop! I insist,” shouted the medic, nose to nose with Qui over the injured man.
“Best guess, Colonel!” she shouted. “Now!”
“Arias…Humberto Arias.”
“You’re going to say so in a court of law, Colonel. You can’t see them but there are three witnesses who’ve heard what you said, and there’re not all priests.”
Alerted by the shouting, Cordova joined them and placed a hand on Qui’s arm. “You have your confession and your witnesses to it, Lieutenant Aguilera. Now, back off and let us take care of him.”
“OK. Get him outta my sight, but you tell the doctors he’s an important witness. Make sure this weasel gets the best care the Cuban government can provide.”
She finally stepped away allowing the medics to transport Gutierrez. Shortly JZ and Cordova joined her where she stood staring out over the shimmering lake that disappeared around a bend.
“Arias somehow got wind of your interest in the lake,” said Cordova. “Obviously sent Ruiz after you.”
“You don’t suspect Alejandro?” asked JZ.
“No…it wouldn’t serve his ends.”
“People talk,” muttered Cordova. “Secrets are impossible to keep for long in this place.”
“Worse than in Havana?” Qui asked. “Colonel Cordova, I assume you be in charge of Gutierrez.”
“Yes.”
“Then see to it that he has round the clock guards placed on him.”
“In his condition, he’s not going anywhere.”
“He may not be a flight risk, but he is at high risk of being assassinated…and he may consider suicide.”
“Yeah, and some people don’t need to know he survived the explosion,” added JZ.
“Ahhh…of course…understood. We’ll keep him under constant watch and arrest.”
“Do you have the facilities for that?” asked JZ.
“We’re not exactly a backwater force here, Mr. Zayas. We have a prison wing at the hospital where he’ll be kept as soon as the doctors okay a move. Still,” he shrugged, “if the SP comes for him, there is little we can do.”
“Just like in Havana,” Qui muttered in frustration. “Where even three dead bodies disappear overnight.”
“Then, admit him under an assumed name,” suggested JZ. “That’ll give us time to seal our case.”
“As you wish. Do you have a suggestion for the assumed name?”
“Ass,” leapt from Qui’s tongue. “Mr. Ass.”
The two men laughed at this. JZ suggested, “Jacques de le Bontemps.”
Qui now laughed at the play on words, “Good times are gone for this jackass.”
This time all three laughed.
Qui added in a serious tone, “And by the way Cordova…”
“Yes?”
“Be sure Jacques has no access to a phone and no contact with anyone-remember, the other guy’s dead.”
“Of course! We haven’t the power to bring back the dead.”
“When the time comes, this dead man will walk and talk.”
“You may count on it, Detective Aguilera.” Then he added, “I cannot imagine how I would feel to learn that my own superior plotted murder against me.”
JZ asked, “What’ll happen to Gutierrez when it’s all over?” He imagined the man tortured behind stone walls for the rest of his life.
“Disgraced and on permanent ‘probation’ if he cooperates,” replied Cordova. “Unlikely he’ll be executed. I suspect his actions will make of him a social pariah.”
Several hours later at the Santiago Hospital
Qui and JZ joined Rita around Luis’s hospital bed. Other than being pale, the big man looked good.
“Uncle, how are you doing?” asked Qui.
“The nurses have petitioned to throw him out, Qui,” Rita joked.
“Ahhh, then he’ll live!”
JZ shook Luis’s hand saying, “Your single shot is gonna bring down an empire.”
“That’s funny, I don’t even remember firing!”
“Interesting weapon you fired, Luis,” Cordova calmly said, appearing suddenly in the doorway. “Created a hell of a fireball.”
Luis visibly stiffened. “Ahh…a loaner,” he weakly joked.
Cordova gave a nod, knowing it’d likely come from the local chapter of the growing anti-government faction. “Well, you’re not gonna get it back.”
“Get what back?” asked Pasqual entering the room.
“The weapon that saved out collectives lives,” replied JZ. “Seems the good colonel here doesn’t think Luis should be toying with such toys.”
“Some toy,” said Cordova suppressing a smile and garnering a smirk from Rita. “Now that we all know the terrible secret of the lake, what are we gonna do about it?”
Rita, with a hasty glance toward the door, walked over and firmly closed it. “This is better discussed in private.”
“I agree. This should be kept quiet,” said Qui. “It would serve little purpose to reveal the enormity of this fraud outside police circles right now.”
JZ promptly agreed, “In the meantime, the ‘Treasure of Santiago,’ must be handled with care and sensitivity by the most expert archeologists and antiquarians in Cuba.”
“Perhaps at some future date, once the second statue is authenticated, we can tell the world.”
Cordova added, “Most, if not all, of the treasures belong in Cuba’s museums and at the Basilica del Cobre.”
“But,” countered Qui, “such determinations must be left to the museum curators and specialists.”
“Like my Esmerelda,” piped in Luis.
“I promise on the spirit of our fathers that this remains secret,” Cordova added. “But such knowledge is a curse to carry.”
From his bed, Luis added, “A close look at Alejandro will tell you that.”
“But, if it hadn’t been for him,” Cordova said defensively, “Arias would still be dipping into his private bank from time to time whenever the need arose.”
“Such prizes as we saw down there would sell for a fortune on the international black market,” JZ assured Cordova.
“We’ll likely never know the extent of Arias’s dealings in Cuban treasures,” commented Qui. “Think of it, the most respected and successful man in antiques in Cuba-retired Majordomo Humberto Arias-a thief and murderer.”
“With a trail of crimes going back to the revolution,” declared Rita, “and who knows how many before that?”
Pasqual muttered, “Brought down by the hand of my brother.”
“A clean hand so far as we can tell,” Qui replied. “He clearly dangled the lock of El Cobre to lead us here.”
“This business of a third Madonna,” said JZ, “does anyone here think Alejandro knew?”
“Third Madonna?”
Qui drew in a quick breath glaring at JZ’s typical American habit of speaking before thinking.
“Oh, I meant second…second, the second Madonna. There’s too many Madonnas!” JZ grinned to cover his slip of the tongue.