Cuba Blue (21 page)

This mix of thought and emotion was abruptly ended when, in astonishment, she focused on the photo of a charred church door
with a large ornate lock hanging from it, effectively an anti-religious statement—
no one in and no one out
. The symbol loomed large in her mind for a reason never posited there before by this image. Growing up around her father’s collection of wartime photos, Qui had seen this fascinating image all her life. But the charred church door and the lock were just point-counter-point in an artistic composition. Nothing special in and of itself, but rather a stylized symbol. But now it seemed a symbol of murder—the same or near identical lock she’d seen strapped to the bodies dredged up by the Sanabela.

Still reeling from Montoya’s awful death, she hadn’t time to puzzle out the tendrils of these now three inexplicable conundrums in her life: the lock, Montoya’s obvious murder, and the killings at sea. Were the American and Canadian deaths somehow connected to Montoya’s? Or was this cruel coincidence? What had the lock to do with the deaths of the foreign doctors, and what had Montoya told her about meeting the Canadian woman? Was there some terrible ripple effect that’d engulfed Estaban?

None of it made sense, but she was reminded of an old Cuban proverb, one that said the best
ficciones
—lies—are woven on a loom of truth. Somewhere in all of this madness there was a storyteller, someone in charge, pulling at the chain…setting the lock.

JZ gently touched her shoulder. “Qui, I really think you need to get out of here.”

“Just a moment. That photo,” she pointed, and he followed her finger. “It’s mine. I gave it to Montoya years ago. I want it. I need something of his to take away with me.”

JZ looked at Peña and got a slight nod. Peña then disappeared into the bedroom, the scene of the crime.

For the time being, Qui wanted to keep the information about the lock to herself. It looked so much like the lock she’d seen aboard the Sanabela just two days before.

She felt weak and vulnerable, while simultaneously livid and incensed, a mix that proved dizzying. She let JZ guide her toward the door where she balked. “I should stay…find out what I can from the crime scene. Help Peña get to the bottom of this. They…they’re going to cover up his murder, call it accidental death. I just know it. It’s like the three deaths on the Sanabela, meant to stay undetected.”

“We’re out of here, now. It’s Peña’s crime scene. No way are they going to let you near the case; you’re too emotionally involved.”

“Yeah…I know you’re right.” Still, she hesitated at the door for a final glance at Montoya’s well-appointed home, where she’d spent so many hours. It felt so familiar and yet her detective’s eye caught nuances that proved unfamiliar. A home of someone with expensive tastes. Yet he drew only a civil servant’s pay.
What else about the man had she turned a blind eye to?

21

JZ drove Quiana back toward her abandoned Peugeot on the coastal highway. Fidgeting with the radio dial, JZ searched for something soothing, thinking of Qui’s comfort. Instead, the only station he could find was a political broadcast of Fidel Castro’s voice interrupted by cheers. “The economy is showing excellent signs of improvement.” More cheers.

“Yeah, right,” muttered JZ.
With 30% of the country going hungry every day. Usual political spin.

JZ reacted by immediately slowing and turning onto the shoulder. Kicking up dust, he threw the T-bird into reverse, executing a perfect three-point turn. They drove in silence for the Old City and Capitol headquarters.

At the stationhouse, Qui grabbed the photo and rushed in past the sergeant’s desk. JZ shadowed her every step. They descended a stone stairwell that ended in a narrow dungeon-like passageway leading to a door designated
Evidence Lockup.

Like a booth in the back in the corner in the dark,
JZ thought.
Odd place to keep evidence.
Entering the room, JZ took note of the armed uniformed officer behind a cage and the ever-present obligatory sign-in sheet with dangling pen on the counter.

Qui quickly logged in. “Carlos, I want to see the evidence collected from the Sanabela—my case.”

Carlos sleepily replied, “You got it, Lieutenant.” Yawning, he opened a thick logbook. Staring curiously at the photo under her arm, he continued, “checking that in?”

“Maybe. First I want to check something.”

Carlos scanned the log pages, then went in search of the evidence box labeled with the case number.

From the officer’s reaction, or his lack of reaction, JZ assumed that word of Esteban’s death hadn’t yet traveled this far. It would. Speculation and rumor spread like wildfire within security organizations, or at least that’d been his experience. He didn’t think Cuba’s being a communist state would change that. In fact, this sort of event, affecting one of their own, likely would produce more gossip.

While they waited on Carlos, Qui placed the photo on one of the tables scattered about the room. Here, she closely examined the photo. For the first time in all the years that she’d seen this depiction of a church in a wooded area with an ornate, elaborately detailed lock on its front doors, she questioned why a church would be locked. It wasn’t a church located in Havana. That much she knew, but where was this mysterious church? And how did this lock—or its twin-find its way onto Luis’s ill-fated Sanabela?

JZ, looking over her shoulder, squeezed her arm
,
and asked, “How’re you holding up?”

“With all that’s happened tonight? When it does hit me, I hope I’m not here.”

“You know, anything I can do…” JZ began but was interrupted by Carlos’s noisily kicking through the cage door and dropping the evidence box onto a nearby metal table. “Ay Dios, that is a heavy box!” said Carlos, catching his breath.

Regardless of Carlos’s remarks, there was very little inside the box. Three coiled modern chains, which may’ve come from anywhere, and atop the chains, the suspect lock. She took the lock and carefully laid it alongside the photo. She stood quietly looking from photo to lock.

JZ immediately said, “Identical. You were right.”

Softly for his ears only, Qui leaned in close and said, “I was right, yes.” She paused, “But this is not the same lock we took off the bodies on the Sanabela. That lock’s not here; it’s been replaced with this one.” She tapped the lock alongside the photo.

Alerted by her conspiratorial tone, JZ quietly protested, “But it’s identical to the one in the photo.” His tone matched his confusion.

“Yes, but the lock we took into evidence was removed with bolt cutters. Benilo was right. We’re dealing with cutthroats but stupid ones. They switched the locks but didn’t bolt cut the shackle. Dumb mistake.”

“Aha! So they come and go as they please in this place that passes for an evidence lockup in Havana? Great system you’ve got here.” He shook his head in disgust.

His sarcasm didn’t sit well with her; she felt moved to defend their procedures and her fellow PNR officers, but she knew his comment was all too accurate. Nothing to defend; nothing in Cuba was exempt from theft—not even crime scene evidence. Since the withdrawal of Communist support, Cubanos had made a sport and an art of petty theft to supplement meager paychecks; in fact, people who got away with such thievery drew pride from the practice. Anytime a common man outwitted his employer, it was considered a personal triumph and a private coup. So common was this practice that people no longer asked ‘Where do you work?’, but rather, ‘Where do you rob?’. She responded to his sarcasm. “Some of us do the right thing, JZ, despite the facts of life in Cuba. Others, well…” She shrugged, “Poverty breeds desperation, and desperation breeds theft. What can I say?”

SJZ nodded. “A universal truth.”

Returning to her own thoughts, Qui tried to puzzle out why someone might switch the lock. As it was an uncommon lock, somebody had gone to a great trouble to find a duplicate. And if that were so, what might this mean? What was so special about this lock? The more she thought about it, the less sense it made. It seemed almost as if someone had anticipated this entire scenario, holding the duplicate lock in abeyance for the right moment to use it. She glanced at Carlos, wondering if he knew the evidence had been tampered with, and if he’d tell her even if he did. He’d likely only been on duty for a few hours; no certainty he’d have even been here when the locks were switched.

“At this point,” she whispered to JZ, “how can I rely on anything?”

“Frankly, except for you, I’ve not found anything reliable or efficient within these walls. It’s been one put-off after another. Lies on top of lies.”

She nodded. “I know. I heard Peña spouting off Friday how you were sticking your nose into his missing persons case.”

“Now, he’s a piece of work.” JZ gave her a serious look, “What about the reports? Think they’ve been doctored?”

“Before today, I’d have said records were inviolate… sacrosanct. But now, who knows?” Qui returned to the sign-in sheet. Tino Hilito proved the only person on record to’ve handled the evidence until now, but clearly this was not the case.
Someone
had switched the locks. Money had to’ve changed hands somewhere along the chain of evidence, further contaminating her case. If she were Arturo Benilo, she’d instantly cry conspiracy.

“Let’s get out of here, JZ. You’re right about this place.”

“Yeah, we need to see someone about the photograph, you said?”

She signed out. “We’re through here.” She then grabbed her things, and marched out ahead of JZ, who gave a fleeting last look at Carlos’s narrowed eyes.
 

From behind his cage, Carlos waited until they’d left the room before he lifted the phone at his side. He dialed a number jotted on a scrap of paper. “Hey, Tino, this is Carlos. Detective Aguilera and some American came sniffing around.”