“No.”
“As an anthropologist, then, you know something about the rituals, what they do.”
“Some, but I don’t practice as an anthropologist. I’m an ethnobotanist. It’s a different specialty. Detective, maybe you should tell me what all this is about. The opele nut’s connected with some crime?”
“It’s evidence in a homicide case,” said Paz, shortly. “Are there, let’s say, sacrifices associated with this kind of divination?”
“Sacrifices? Well, many of the verses suggest sacrifices, but that usually means a tip to the diviner. Two chickens and ten dollars, that sort of thing.”
“I was thinking more of actual sacrifices. Killing things, right there, maybe before the ritual.”
“Not that I’ve heard of, but, as I said …”
“Yeah, right, you’re not an expert. Who would be?”
“In Santeria? Well, you have an embarrassment of riches here in Miami. On the faculty, Maria Salazar wrote the book on it.” Dr. Herrera reached to the bookshelf behind her, pulled down a thick volume, and handed it to Paz. Its title was simply Santeria. The dust jacket was red and had a picture of two red-and-yellow-painted wooden axes crossed and lying on top of an ornate covered urn. He flipped the book over. The author’s photograph showed a small elderly woman with fine features, her eyes large and deeply shadowed, her hair a halo of white frizz. She was sitting on a stone bench in a garden in front of a live oak covered with epiphytes.
He inscribed the name in his notebook. “Is she around?”
“From time to time. She’s semiretired now. Works mostly out of her home. You’d have to call her. You might also want to talk to Pedro Ortiz.”
Paz wrote this name down too. “And he is …”
“He’s a babalawo, ” said Dr. Herrera, smiling again, into his eyes. “He’s considered the best babalawo in Miami.”
He returned her look and he had to concentrate on keeping his expression neutral. He knew he had a problem with Cubans of this class, and he worked at it, on his cool. Coolly, then, he asked, “So anyway, you’re not a devotee yourself? You don’t believe in this …?” He left the word hanging. It could have been “crap,” or something more respectful.
“I’m a scientist. Santeria uses a lot of herbs, and that’s my business, to identify pharmacologically interesting folk medicines. As for the rest, the divination, the orishas … let’s just say that for a certain social class it provides a relatively inexpensive form of therapy and psychological security. If a bunch of uneducated people want to believe that they can call gods down to earth and interest them in Aunt Emilia’s bronchitis and Uncle Augusto’s sandwich shop, then who am I to say no?” Meaning, people like you.
Paz stood and put his notebook away. “Thank you very much, Dr. Herrera,” he said. “You’ve been very helpful.” He walked out, with the patronizing smile burning on his back.
Back in his car, with the A/C roaring, Paz called the university locator number and demanded, with the authority of the police, the home address and phone number of Dr. Maria Salazar. The operator hesitated, he bullied, she gave in. A Coral Gables address. But he did not wish to have another interview with another upper-class Cuban lady just yet, although he did not bring this reluctance fully to mind. Instead, he imagined a more important appointment. He called Barlow, got the beeper, left a message. He sat in the car, burned gas to make cool air, watched the fountain play on Lake Osceola, watched the students stroll languorously in and out of the cafeteria, the bookstore, the immense outdoor swimming pool. There was not much evidence of heavy intellectual activity to be observed. Most of the students were dressed as for a day at the beach. A young man walked by the car, stooped over, taking tiny steps. Paz craned his neck and saw that he was following a toddler, a little goldenheaded boy. The kid started toward the roadway, and the father scooped his son up in his arms, embraced him, tickled him until the child crowed with delight. Paz turned his face away, and did not feel what most normal people feel when they see paternal love. His stomach tightened and he took several deep breaths.
Paz refocused his attention, and did some light ogling of the undergraduate girls gliding by. Suntan U. He was not a big fan of the suntan. He preferred wiry women with red hair or blond hair, milky, silky skin and pale eyes, a cliche, he well knew, but there it was. Exogamous, a word he enjoyed. Either like Mom, or not like Mom, one of his girlfriends, a sociologist, had said of male tastes in women. Paz had at the moment three girlfriends in the steady-squeeze category: that sociologist, a child psychologist, and a poet working as a library clerk. He had always had several relationships going on, never more than four, never less than two. Women drifted in and out of this skein at their will. He did not press them to stay, nor did he insist on an exclusivity he was not ready to submit to himself. He was frank with them all about this arrangement, and was rather proud of himself that he never (or almost never) lied to get laid.
His cell phone rang: Barlow. Paz learned that the autopsy was done and also that Barlow had rammed the toxicity screens through as well, which was remarkable. Barlow said, “Yeah, I pushed them boys some. I figured it was going to be worth it.”
“Was it?”
“Un-huh, I guess so.” This was Barlow-talk for spectacular revelation.
“What?”
“Not on the line. I reckon y’all ought to get back here, though.”
Homicide is on the fifth floor of the Miami PD fortress, a small suite of modern rooms accessible via a card-eating lock. Only homicide detectives have cards. Inside there is industrial carpeting and a bay with steel desks at which the worker bees sit, and there are private offices for the brass, the captain in charge of the unit and the shift lieutenants. No one was in the bay when Paz walked in but Barlow and the two secretaries.
Barlow nodded to Paz and pointed at a thick manila folder sitting on the corner of his desk. Barlow always had the neatest desk in the bay. It was devoid of decoration, unlike those of the other homicide cops, nor did Barlow have little yellow Post-it notes stuck all over his desk surface and lamp. Barlow kept everything in his head, said the legend, or under lock and key.
Paz went back to his own desk and read the medical examiner’s report. First surprise: Deandra Wallace had not died of massive exsanguination resulting from the butchery that had been done on her. Her heart had ceased beating before blood loss would have stopped it. The baby, called Baby Boy Wallace in the report, had been withdrawn alive and operated upon shortly thereafter. The cuts on both mother and infant had been precise, with no hesitation marks observed. Tissue had been removed?here followed a short list?from the heart, liver, and spleen of the mother, and from the heart and brain of the infant. Unlike the mother, the infant had expired from its wounds. The instrument used had been extremely sharp, a short, wide, curved blade, much larger than a surgical scalpel, but smaller than a typical hunting knife. Both mother and infant had been healthy before the events under consideration. The infant was full term and?here another interesting surprise?labor had begun just before death intervened.
Next, the toxicology report. List of organs examined. Findings: negative for a whole list of recreational drugs, including alcohol and nicotine. Positive for: here followed a list of substances Paz had never heard of: tetrahydroharmaline, ibogaine, yohimbine, ouabane, 6-methoxytetrahydroharman, tetrahydra-?-carboline, 6-methoxyharmalan, plus “several alkaloids of undetermined structure” for which the chemical formulas were given. He sighed, went over to Barlow’s desk.
“Any thoughts?”
“None worth a dern until we find out more about what was in that poor girl’s body. I can’t hardly get to the end of some of them words, and I’m a high-school graduate. You have any luck?”
“Some,” said Paz, and related the results of his recent visits to the two scientists.
After a pause, Barlow said, “Well. I figured all that’d be something y’all’d know about.”