Hungry Ghosts (30 page)

59

Charlie Pike sat in the front
seat of Sheldon Waubasking's truck. “That's why you beat up Billy so bad in remand, isn't it?” said Pike. “You found out about Molly.”

Sheldon nodded, ashamed. “He called her a slut because she got pregnant. He had no right to do that. I should have told someone back then what Chesley did to her.”

“Don't beat yourself up now. We were just kids.”

That's how it started, thought Pike. Stories of incest that hid in the woods, in the bedrooms, behind walls.

“That Maylene Kesler, bringing all that stuff up. Did that guy Adam Neville really kill her?”

Pike shook his head. He turned to face his friend. “No. But you know who did, don't you, Sheldon. You recognized those tire marks. That's why you showed them to me. You wanted me to think they were all-seasons instead of just real old and worn. Same as those shoe prints. They weren't from a woman walking up to the truck
door and back to the highway. They were from a woman getting out of her truck and walking back to it later.”

Sheldon fell silent. He knew all right, thought Pike, but Sheldon wouldn't tell. He'd go to jail before he'd say who in his community was guilty of murder.

But Pike had it figured out. Celia Jones had said it herself. It didn't matter whether they were white, red, or green: when it came to getting into someone's car, women were afraid of men. But not of other women.

“I said another little prayer for her today,” the killer had said.
Another
prayer for Maylene Kesler. It had taken Pike a while before he realized that meant there was a first one.

Freda Wabigoon answered the door. Her shoulders sagged when she saw him.

“I know why you're here, Charlie. Sit down in the kitchen; I'll make us some tea. I'm alone today. All the boys are at school. You're not in a hurry, are you?”

“You know I have to caution you before you say anything else, Freda. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to a lawyer. If you can't afford one, one will be provided to you.”

“I don't need a lawyer. I know what I did. And I know what Chesley did too.” Freda sighed. “That woman, that lady doctor, she had Chesley's blood tests from way back in the 1970s. That's when they first tested him for mercury. And she had Pauley's too. After Molly ran away, she called me because I was Pauley's legal guardian.”

Freda started to weep.

“Tell me how you did it,” said Pike. He sat down beside her. He saw a box of Kleenex on the coffee table and handed her one.

“I said I'd meet her at the clinic,” she said, blowing her nose. “She explained it all to me there. She wanted me to know she was
going to report what she found. She said she had to; it's the law. She wouldn't listen when I told her Billy would be ruined if that story got out about his dad and his sister, that he'd never be elected chief again, would never be regional chief. And there are so many media up this way now. You know what it's like here, Charlie. People talk. She had no heart at all, that woman. It was like she was made out of ice.”

“Incest is a crime,” said Pike. “It's in the Criminal Code. She probably thought she didn't have a choice.”

“What about our laws, Charlie? You always have a choice. Nothing good was going to come out of her reporting that to the police; it was only going to hurt a lot of innocent people. But she was stubborn. I tried so hard, but I couldn't make her listen. She was just the same as all those nuns at residential school who treated us like we didn't matter. So I told her she'd better come home with me, so she could tell Pauley herself. She said she had a rental and it didn't have very good winter tires. I said we could take my truck instead. The weather was still bad. It had just stopped snowing. I pulled over to the side of the road as soon as we got on the reserve, away from the highway. I told her I was having problems with the engine. I put up the hood, put some red pylons out. But I forgot them when I drove away, I was so upset.”

The red pylons, Pike thought. He never thought to ask Sheldon where he got them.

“I pulled my axe out of the back and I told her to walk in front of me into the woods. I grabbed her from behind when we got inside. I'm still strong, Charlie. Despite the diabetes.”

Years of pulling nets in the bay
.

“I said a little prayer for her after. I burned some tobacco. Then I chopped out a grave, and I put the brush on top of her, to protect her from the animals.”

We always bury our dead.

“Where did the axe come from?”

“It's the one I use for ice fishing. It's in the back of the truck now, where it always is. What are you going to do to me, Charlie?”

“I have to take you in, Freda. That's first-degree murder.”

“What's the sentence for that? Will they hang me?”

Pike shook his head. “They don't hang people anymore. Life imprisonment is twenty-five years. Maybe they'll agree to second degree if you admit what you did. The judge will decide how long before you get parole. Could be ten, twenty years.”

“Twenty years?” She nodded, wiped a tear from her eye. “That's a long time. I'll be old when I get out. Okay. Let me go say goodbye to Pauley. You tell Bill what happened, okay? Tell him not to worry.”

“He knows lots of good lawyers, Freda.”

She smiled sadly. “A few too many, if you ask me.”

She stood up and walked down the hallway before Charlie Pike remembered that Pauley Oshig was at school.

He jumped to his feet and began to run after her. He heard the shotgun blast before he made it down the hall.

60

Inspector Ramirez met up with Detective
Espinoza at the airport. The young detective was grinning. “You were right, Inspector. They hadn't booked a flight at all. Patrol found them loading the paintings into a van, and arrested them. The driver says they offered him a thousand U.S. dollars to take them to Guantánamo. The museum had no way of knowing they weren't headed for the airport. Or that Señor Testa was an imposter. He's been wearing Testa's clothes all week. No one at the museum had ever seen the real Señor Testa in person. They dealt with him only by email, and occasionally by phone.”

“Good work, Fernando. Do we have any idea who Dominique Gatti is?”

“None. As I told you on the phone, she didn't fly into Havana—she's not on the airport surveillance tapes. Do you really think she came from Guantánamo Bay? It's not easy to get through the checkpoints. Maybe she's an American.”

Ramirez thought for a moment, remembering his dream. He shook his head. “Wait here for a minute,” he said to Espinoza, and walked over to one of the airport clerks.

“
Hola
,” he said, showing her his badge. “Is there anyone here who speaks Italian?”

“Sonia does,” the woman said. “She's on her break. I'll go get her.”

A few minutes later, the other clerk materialized beside the first one. “How can I help you?” she asked.

“The name Dominique Gatti. Do those words mean anything special in Italian?”

“Not really,” she said, wrinkling her forehead. “Dominique is just a name. Gatti is a common name too, but it can mean someone who is very agile, like a cat.”

Ramirez nodded. “
Gracias
, Señora.” He walked back to Espinoza, thinking.

Manuel Flores had said the organized killer enjoyed leaving clues out in the open. Maybe “Gatti” was Dr. Flores's little joke. Ramirez recalled Hector Apiro telling him about the Cuban doctors sent to foreign countries and the children kept behind to make sure they'd return. Castro would never let a valuable resource like Manuel Flores go to the United States for medical treatment without ensuring he'd be available whenever Castro needed him. And despite being in the middle of treatment for a deadly cancer in New York, Flores had come back.

“I think she could be Manuel Flores's daughter.”

“That makes sense, Inspector,” said Espinoza. “He told me she was living near the base at Guantánamo, and that she was a language teacher and a gymnast. That would explain how she was able to get in and out of the building so quickly.”

“People see what they expect to see. The tourists saw a policeman that day because the person they saw wore a policeman's uniform. We assumed she was Italian, because she spoke the language and because that's what she told us.” Ramirez shook his head at
how easily they'd been misled; how effectively Manuel Flores had predisposed them to believe what he wanted them to think was true.

“When you interrogate her, lie to her. Tell her that Manuel Flores is dead; it may unnerve her and help you with questioning. By the way, Natasha found an incident report filed by a foot patrolman. He saw Antifona Conejo standing outside the Hotel Nacional on February 14 with a foreign woman. Ask Natasha if she can get hold of the patrolman to see if the woman she was with is Señora Gatti. If he identifies her, you can use that to question her as well. If he doesn't, pretend he did.”

“You don't want to interrogate these two yourself?”

“No need,” said Ramirez.

If they were CIA operatives, Ramirez doubted they'd say anything incriminating. But they didn't have to. The two prisoners could be useful pawns in the diplomatic war of words being waged in Geneva. The man impersonating Lorenzo Testa might be of interest to the prosecutors in the torture trial about to start in Rome. If so, the Italians might be persuaded to keep the matter of the vandalism at the museum quiet.

Ramirez was sure the Cuban emissaries would find a way to work things out. Negotiations, he'd learned, involved the art of diplomacy. It worked well enough, as long as you had something of value to exchange. This time they did.

“It will be good experience for you, Fernando.” Ramirez clapped his hand on Espinoza's back. “I'm sure you'll do well.”

Ramirez had started to walk away when Espinoza called him back. “Oh, Inspector, I almost forgot. Dominique Gatti was wearing this gold chain. I think it belonged to Señor Testa. Once a thief, always a thief, yes?”

Espinoza handed Ramirez a plastic exhibit bag. It held a thick gold braid.

Mama Loa was waiting for Ramirez next to his car in the parking lot. She sat on a small patch of grass beside the iron fence, her swollen legs folded beneath her.

“She's dead now, isn't she,” she said. “I see her, Antifona, in my dreams last night. She's running in the woods, scared. She calls out my name; she wants me to help. She say she made a bad mistake; her
lwa
is angry. Nothing I can do in a dream. That pretty girl.” She shook her head. “Some
houngans
, they
claim they can bring back the dead. Me, I think it's better to leave them alone.”

“Yes,” Ramirez said. “She's dead. I'm sorry. I somehow dragged her into this.”

Antifona's ghost had come from the future to help him with his investigation into her sister's and boyfriend's deaths. Perhaps she hoped to change her fate as well. But the future was already written, as his grandmother often said. Sometimes, thought Ramirez, it was easier to rewrite the past.

“The gods must have wanted her. You can't blame yourself. But now both my goddaughters are gone. Sit beside me for a minute,” Mama Loa said, moving aside to make room for him on the concrete curb. The tears welled in her eyes; she wiped them away. “Tell me why.”

Ramirez told the old black woman about the failed art heist and the reason Antifona's foreign boyfriend hadn't contacted her. But he had no explanation for LaNeva Otero's death. It was pure, random evil.

He reached into his jacket pocket and removed the plastic exhibit bag. He opened it and handed Mama Loa the gold chain. “Here, I think you should have this. Maybe you can sell it and use the money to find a place to live. A place where your goddaughters can escape the men who hurt them.”

She nodded her head. She held the chain in her fingers and closed her eyes. “I can see it like I'm there. They get him at the airport. They tell him Antifona needs him, that she's in trouble. They
take him to an old part of the city, so old it's still haunted by ghosts. They tie him up. They make him breathe water until he answers their questions. Who else knows you? Antifona, she got a cell phone? What's the number? He has to tell; he's scared so bad. They say if he tells them, he'll be safe, but they kill him anyway. He dies ashamed of himself, that he didn't protect her.”

She opened her eyes and gripped Ramirez's fingers with her wizened hand.

“Now he can't cross to the other side. I think he blames himself that she's dead. He needs to know that things are okay with them, that Antifona understands. You have to tell her what he done, that he tried. Yeah, I know she's dead. But that's just her body. The rest of her's still out there, waiting. She's trapped too.” She stood up and straightened her skirt. “I got to go now. I got two funerals to plan.” She walked away, stepping lightly despite her massive weight.

“Mama Loa,” Ramirez called after her. “I saw those things. It's like I was there when he died. I was dreaming. But I
was
that man. I was inside his head. How can that be?”

She turned her head and looked at him sadly. “Spend enough time with the dead, you start to think the way they do. It's a gift, I guess. For some, it's a curse.”