An Inconsequential Murder (28 page)

Inside, the two men were shown to a table discreetly tucked into a back corner of the room. The head waiter brought a folding screen and placed it between the two men and the rest of the customers in order to afford them a measure of privacy. The two men sat down and after the waiter had served them coffee, they began to talk in soft, confidential tones.

Another waiter, a tall, thin fellow with dark hair and dark brown skin, came up to the two men and greeted them cheerfully by name,
“Buenos días, señor Gutierrez; Buenos días, señor Peniche.” He asked them if they would like fruit juice, but since both men said they didn’t, he asked them if they would like to order. The two men said they did, so the waiter reached into the inside pocket of his blue jacket as if to get a pad and pen but instead, he withdrew a small-caliber automatic, which had a thin, tubular silencer. The two men did not notice the gun pointed at them since they had gone back to conversing. The first bullet, a hollow cavity round, entered Gutierrez Zavala’s head just behind and above his right ear, destroying most of the occipital lobe with damage reaching down into the cerebellum as the soft lead shattered into pieces after penetrating the skull. The second bullet entered Peniche Saldivar’s left temple at an angle since he turned, with a look of surprise on his face, when he heard the strange “piewf” as the first bullet left the silencer. The bullet that entered his skull did not break apart as much as the first one had done, but rather lodged, almost complete, in the parietal lobe.

Both men were dead instantly, with Gutierrez Zavala’s chin resting on his chest as if he were in deep meditation about something and Peniche Saldivar’s head resting on the wall, his eyes closed as if he had been overcome by sleep.

An official of the Parks and Recreation Department, who was facing the table of the two murdered men, and who was the only person to witness the event because he could see Peniche Saldivar’s back by the space left between the screen and the wall, would later testify that the waiter walked out from behind the screen, coolly put his gun away in his jacket, walked normally past him (he said he was so shocked and afraid that he was literally speechless), even smiled at him, and went out the front door.

The two bodyguards standing by the entrance would later say that indeed a waiter had come out the door and had said that there was something wrong with one of the bosses and that they were needed inside.

After the bodyguards ran inside, the driver of Peniche’s SUV would relate that he saw a waiter come out of the Café, talk to the bodyguards, and then walk away around the corner of the building.

A taxi driver waiting for customers at the corner taxi stand testified that he too saw a waiter walk out of the Café and talk to the bodyguards. He added that the waiter had walked away and had gotten into a white car that was parked halfway down the block. The car drove off normally and not in any particular hurry. He said he thought it odd that the waiter would leave the restaurant in the middle of the morning.

Lombardo was arriving at
the Investigations Department’s building when he heard the sirens of unmarked cars that were rushing out of the Department’s underground garage. Inside the building, people ran about and talked excitedly into telephones and radios; one of the secretaries was wiping tears from her cheeks.

Lombardo went up to one of the uniformed officers who stood guarding the main entrance. “What’s up?” he asked. The officer without looking at him said they had just gotten word that Gutierrez Zavala had been shot.

Lombardo went down to the underground garage. A van, filled with heavily armed men wearing body armor and black riot helmets was about to leave. Lombardo asked the driver if he was going to the scene of the crime and the driver said he was. Lombardo jumped into the van.

Avenue Cristobal Colón
, the street that runs past the Café Florida, where the crime was committed, was now blocked by police cars. They were diverting traffic to a street two blocks before the Café Florida location. The driver of the van had to ask one of the police cars to move before the van could get through. After it did, the Major leading the squad of helmeted, armored policemen ordered the area’s perimeter secured. Lombardo thought the whole thing unnecessary but it was probably done for the benefit of the television cameras.

Lombardo had to show his badge to three uniformed cops before he could get into the Café itself. Inside, a large group of men in suits, as well as all of the Café’s waiters, cooks, and busboys, had been herded into a corner and were being held there by a squad of policemen bearing automatic weapons. The cops stood, stone-faced with rifles at the ready, facing their charges as if they were guards in a miniature concentration camp.

Most of the men in suits were protesting loudly and shouting at the police captain who seemed to be in charge of the squad holding them. Lombardo walked up to the captain and after identifying himself asked, “Customers and the staff?”

“
Yes,” said the police captain, “and most of them are big shots, or so they say.”

Men with unholstered weapons walked around hurriedly talking into their handheld radios. Lombardo walked over to the corner of the Café where a group of forensic medics huddled. Looking over their shoulders, he could see the two bodies; the entry wounds were small and clean. The powder burns were evidence that the shots had been fired at close range. The exit wounds were horrendous. To Lombardo it was obvious that the bullets used had been modified to do the most damage possible. He doubted they would ever recover but bits and pieces of them.

A few meters away, Lombardo saw the Fat Man standing with his hands in his pockets, his mouth hanging open as if his face had been frozen into a look of disbelief. Lombardo walked over and lighting a cigarette he said to the Fat Man, “I guess we’re out of a job, Gonzalez.”

The Fat Man looked at him as if he did not understand what Lombardo had said.

“
What was this meeting with Peniche about, do you know?”

Gonzalez swallowed hard and said, “He got the word just last night. He was going to Mexico City as head of, uh…what’s it called?”

“
Never mind, I know,” said Lombardo. “But, what was he doing here with Peniche?”

“
We heard he was going
to ask him to come along, you know, to go down with him to the capital.”

“
I guess the
‘chilangos’
didn’t want them down there,” said Lombardo using the derogatory name most Mexicans use for the inhabitants of the capital.

Gonzalez looked at him with an expression of a child who had heard someone laugh at the death of his puppy. “How the hell can you make jokes at a time like this,” he said and walked away.

Lombardo walked over to the police major who was telling a captain to keep the media out of the Café until the Public Ministry people had arrived and done their work. Lombardo identified himself. “Major, I’m Captain Guillermo Lombardo. I worked for Gutierrez in the Investigations Department.”

“
Sorry about your boss, Captain,” said the major.

“
Yeah, he was a good man,” said Lombardo dryly. He nodded toward the corpses. “It looks like a very professional job.”

“
Very professional, Captain. The man shoots them both, walks out, gets in a car and drives away.” He shook his head. “No one saw anything. The restaurant was crowded but I can’t even get a general description of the perpetrator.”

“
How about the bodyguards? What were they doing all this time?”

“
They say that they were standing outside, by the door. One of them remembers a waiter coming to say that something had happened to their boss but they say it’s none of the waiters that are here now. No one can say if the waiter who talked to them was the perpetrator.”

“
I bet you won’t get much out of the staff either. They will have been too busy to have noticed a new waiter or will now be too scared to say anything if they did.”

“
Well, I will leave that to the super cops of the Public Ministry.” He nodded toward the door. “Here they are now.”

A group of men dressed in black military
-style pants and shirts, wearing sunglasses, and body armor with the letters MP in large, white type painted on it, and Glock automatics strapped to their waist in fast-access holsters, rushed into the room. “Who’s in charge here?” yelled one of them.

“
That’s your cue, Major,” said Lombardo as he started for the door.

Outside, Lombardo walked over to the spot where the getaway car had been purportedly parked. The taxi driver who had reported seeing a waiter get in the car was still being questioned. He could not now be sure if the waiter had gotten into the passenger side or if he had driven the car away himself.

Two forensic specialists with the letters MP on their white robes were carefully studying the empty parking space where the white car had been.

Lombardo knew that the whole exercise was useless. It was clearly the work of the Gulf Cartel and they were very good at organizing these things. The shooter was now probably on a flight to Los Angeles or New York or Mexico City or Acapulco.

The assassin was a pro, probably brought in from somewhere in the world exclusively for this. He was no Zeta. Those murdering bastards were used for mass killings of rival gang members or Mexican Army soldiers. They would have walked into the place and sprayed it with their AK-47s. No, this was a guy contracted in Chicago or Sao Paolo, Brazil—a man with no police record, untraceable. Gone—like a shadow goes when you shine a light on it.

It was Lombardo
’s guess that his boss had somehow betrayed or threatened the Gulf Cartel. He might have changed sides, having decided that the powerful federal job he was getting was worth the risk. It was obvious that the wind was changing in national politics, and that the country, tired of the gang violence, kidnappings, and general lawlessness was ready to elect a conservative candidate who would take on the Cartels and the gangs.

If his boss had decided not to protect the Gulf Cartel anymore and had accepted to become their mortal enemy as the Federal Prosecutor’s enforcer, he had signed his death warrant. Don Oscar Garza Cantú, head of the Gulf Cartel himself had probably ordered the hit.

The Public Ministry would investigate the deaths for months and eventually blame it on a Zeta or a Gulf Cartel member that was caught in some raid. It was useless trying to unravel the complicated political and criminal alliances, betrayals, corruption, and personal vendettas that motivated these killings. In a cruel twist to an old adage, another detective had once told Lombardo, “If you line up against a wall all the guilty parties in this country, who’s going to be left to order the firing squad to shoot?”

There was nothing Lombardo could do now but wait to see who would be named to replace his dead boss. Probably someone from the conservative party would
come to head the Department. That seemed how the prevailing winds were blowing over the political landscape.

The ruli
ng Partido Liberal Revolucionario (the Revolutionary Liberal Party) feeling the mounting pressure of the opposition led by the Partido de Acción Conservadora (Conservative Action Party) had recently named members of the latter to key law enforcement positions.

According to the political strategist of the PLR, this would be doubly beneficial to their party because one, it would ease the pressure applied by the opposition’s calls for getting tough with the cartels and gangs, and two, any further fumbling around or gaffes in high-profile criminal investigations would reflect on the opposition not the ruling PLR.

As an added benefit, the charges of corruption in police forces would now be lessened since they were now in charge of overseeing the police forces of the nation and cleaning them up—or at least attempting to do so.

“
The country is spinning out of control,” said Lombardo as he walked across Cristobal Colón Avenue. The cops diverting the traffic stopped the flow of cars so the man, who seemed to be talking to himself, and who seemed oblivious to the cars, could cross the avenue.

Two days later, as Lombardo had predicted, and to no one
’s surprise, a member of the conservative PAC was named as the new State Prosecutor. What did surprise both the media and the public was the fact that the new Prosecutor was Alberto Peniche Saldivar, a brother of the murdered State Judicial Police Director.

Although very close to his older brother Alejandro, they had been members of opposing political parties. Known for his tough stance on law enforcement, Alberto quickly named one of his closest friends to replace his murdered brother as Director of the State Judicial Police, and another close confidant as Director of the Investigations Department.

On his first day in office, Joaquin Loera Neri, Lombardo’s new boss, declared that “as Director of the Investigations Department, any officer or investigator who did not have an immaculate record as a member of this important Department will be asked to resign.” He promised a “clean sweep” of the force and the incorporation of well-trained elements, and so forth.