The Execution (12 page)

CHAPTER 27

D
etective Kiser returned Fisk’s call within ten minutes, catching him before he got in to work.

“Detective Fisk,” said Kiser. “You calling again about the case you don’t have any interest in?”

“Exactly right,” said Fisk. The details had been gnawing at Fisk all night. “Thanks for the call back. I know you’re busy, so give me the one-minute download.”

“No identifications yet. Working on the tattoos, going through the database. Fingerprint on the cigarette butt is a true partial, and I’m told it might not be enough to help us pull it up through latents. The ‘friction ridge analysis’ is inconclusive, but could be enough to tie a perp to the scene, just not vice versa. There’s not enough to reliably put through the system. They are going to run some tests on how specific the partial is, but it doesn’t look great.”

“Okay,” said Fisk.

“We’re canvassing stores based on the bottling code on the Jarritos. We don’t have any outstanding missing persons reports that match our headless beachgoers.”

Fisk said, “Probably illegals then. More afraid of the police than trusting.”

“Yup,” said Kiser. “And we have no faces to put out on the news. There’s some internal debate about going out with the tats, but that seems like a desperation play to me. I don’t think we’ll get that far. Somebody’s going to come forward . . . if we don’t match up one of these bodies first.”

“Where are the bodies now?”

“Queens morgue. I don’t think they’re cutting them. Cause of death is self-evident.”

Fisk said, “They may want to know if they were dead before they were beheaded.”

“Maybe so,” said Kiser. “Thankfully, we’re getting out of my area of expertise there. Now give me the one-minute download on what this means to you.”

Fisk smiled. He didn’t know how to answer that exactly. The beep on his phone told him he didn’t have to. A second call coming in, this one from the office. “I’ve got another call I have to take.”

“No, you don’t,” said Kiser. “I need to know what I might be looking at—”

Fisk dumped him, switching over to the other call. “Fisk.”

“Where are you?” It was his boss, Dubin.

“Almost there,” said Fisk. This did not sound good.

Dubin read him an address in Bushwick. “Eight-three Precinct is on scene. They’ve got one DOA in a car in a cemetery.”

Fisk frowned, wondering how this mattered to him. “And?”

“The car is registered to the Mexican consulate.”

Fisk’s pulse rate jumped. Comandante Garza. “Is it a female?”

Dubin said, after a pause to read his alert, “I don’t have that.”

Fisk said, “Give me the address again.”

CHAPTER 28

B
ushwick was a neighborhood in Brooklyn, just on the edge of Queens. After a very rough end of the twentieth century, which saw a spike in the drug trade and violent crime, the “Bushwick Initiative” and a concerted effort from the local precinct’s Narcotics Control Unit had started to revitalize the neighborhood. It was ethnically diverse, made up of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Salvadorans, but the fastest-growing group in the area was Mexicans.

Fisk badged his way through the police tape at the main gate of the Evergreens. The westernmost corner of the cemetery was right on the border of Queens. For Fisk, it was a long walk back to the crime scene, and he was moving quickly. The side gate the vehicle had entered through—the area that was geographically still in Bushwick, in the Eighty-third Precinct—was closed for crime scene processing. The lanes along the graves were hilly and well groomed. He passed a towering monument of a winged angel, came to the top of a rise, and saw the black vehicle in the distance.

The incident had drawn a nice crowd. As he drew closer, he recognized a captain, an assistant chief, two Secret Service agents, a gaggle of cops and crime scene techs, and a trio of Mexican bodyguards who looked ready to kill somebody.

Fisk was some thirty yards away when he spotted Garza, her black hair jumping out among the greenery and the gray headstones. Fisk’s pace slowed a bit. Not her. He felt a small measure of relief that he dismissed as simply a result of having met her the day before, and not wanting some harm to come to a person to whom he could put a name and face.

She was getting into it with the deputy inspector from the Eighty-third. It looked like a good squabble. The captain had six inches on her, but she was more than holding her own.

Fisk came up behind the captain, and when Garza saw him she paused just a moment, a distracted beat, before continuing. “This vehicle has diplomatic plates and is the property of the Mexican government.”

“This is a New York Police Department crime scene,” said the deputy inspector, a black man wearing rimless eyeglasses. “A homicide. That trumps any claims you or your government might have—”

“Not so, sir,” said Garza. “The homicide occurred within the vehicle, which is Mexican property, and we, as Mexican law enforcement officers, are authorized to investigate this crime. We will call on you for assistance, as needed.”

“Assistance?” This word was spat out by the imposing plainclothes woman standing shoulder to shoulder with the deputy inspector. She was a homicide detective in the Eighty-third. “We don’t assist in these matters, Officer . . . ?”

“Colonel Garza,” said the comandante, giving the American equivalent of her rank. “Mexican Federal Police, under assignment to President Umberto Vargas’s security detail. I have phone calls in to the Mexican ambassador in Washington, D.C., who is contacting the State Department.”

The tall homicide detective turned to her deputy inspector. “Sir, this smells to me like a goddamn cover-up.”

The deputy inspector wisely—and gently—forearmed the detective back and away. She looked mystified at the treatment, but then Fisk stepped up beside her.

“Stand down, not your fight,” he said.

She looked at him, saw the badge on his belt. “Not my fight? It’s my job.”

Fisk nodded to her confidentially, leading her back a few more steps. “It’s a fight the Eight-three is going to lose. I know that pisses you off.” He was referring to the three Mexican bodyguards standing near the vehicle. The NYPD was not used to being muscled. “Can you catch me up? Fisk, Intel Division.”

She gave her name as Sue Escher. Leading him toward the car, she couldn’t help but seize upon his being an Intel cop as a way to get back into the case. “They’re trampling all over my crime scene.”

The car was a black sedan. The rear license plate was bordered in blue on top, red on the bottom. Inside the red field were the words
ISSUED BY AND PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE
.

“Right there,” said Escher. “Property of the United States!”

“That’s just the plate,” Fisk explained to her, smiling at her earnest tenacity.

The Mexican bodyguards—more likely plainclothes EMP agents—moved near them in an attempt to cut them off. Fisk shook his head at the nearest one. “We can look, partner.”

The Mexican said nothing, his eyes hidden behind Oakley shades.

“We have a problem?” asked Fisk.

Again, no response.

“Good,” said Fisk.

The body lay lengthwise in the front seat, keeled over from behind the steering wheel. A male in his thirties or late twenties, Fisk guessed, with close-cropped black hair, wearing blue jeans and a thin, hooded sweatshirt.

Blood spray was splashed against the interior of the windshield, probably arterial. There was blood on the man’s cheek, his hands, and the seat beneath his body.

Fisk did not recognize the man, only knowing that it was not the other man he had seen with Garza and General de Aguilar the day before, the man known as Virgilio.

“Knife wounds,” said Escher. “Could be as many as ten or twelve. Gate was chained, links snapped by bolt cutters. We’re confirming with the groundskeeper, but looks like no cameras on the gate, none in the cemetery.”

Fisk nodded. “Good place to dump a body.”

“I’m thinking he was forced to drive in here. Not a lot to go on in terms of tire tracks and footprints, but he didn’t clip the chain and drive himself in here with multiple stab wounds. There’s no blood outside the car at all. The engine was cool, the car ignition turned off.”

“Wallet? ID?”

“Nothing in his pockets. Glove compartment is clean. Wears a shoulder holster. It’s empty.”

Fisk shook his head. “Not good.”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s one of these guys here.” She thumbed at the Mexican plainclothes bodyguards. “Somebody attached to the Mexican contingent. It stinks to high heaven, Fisk.”

Fisk nodded. “Something’s going down. No knife found, I’m assuming.”

“You assume right. Nothing found yet. We were about to remove the body and work the vehicle when this shit fight started.”

Fisk looked around. “Did you call the Mexicans or did they happen to show up?”

“No, we called. Not me, the deputy inspector. Called Intel. Your people went to the Mexicans. Then little miss Colonel Bitch showed up.”

Fisk smiled again. “She’s tough.”

Escher turned on him. “You know her?”

“Know of her. Let me get in there, see what I can do. You’re not going to win the jurisdictional issue. My guess is somebody’s going to slap a temporary injunction on the NYPD and seal this thing until somebody on the federal level works out who’s got what. If he’s in New York on a diplomatic passport, they’ll claim there’s some kind of diplomatic immunity.”

Escher shook her head in disgust. “The guy’s dead, he’s beyond needing immunity. Are they going to fly up an entire crime lab to process this, too?”

Fisk nodded, showing her his open hands in a gesture of calm. “Let me see.”

A skirmish erupted to their left, as a Secret Service agent got into it with a Mexican PF bodyguard who was trying to enter the vehicle. The Secret Service agent was physically restraining the man.

Fisk hustled over, and with others separated the two men. That brought the deputy inspector over, coming around one end of the car. Garza marched around the other end.

Fisk said to the Secret Service agent, “You know better than that. Get Dukes on the phone.”

Then he went to head off Garza.

“You’re going to need the NYPD on this one,” he told her.

“Detective Fisk,” she said. “I don’t have time to debate this. I have lost a man—”

She was going to say more, but stopped.

Fisk said, “Could I have a word with you over here, Comandante?”

Garza looked at the other officials, then stepped to the side with Fisk away from the others.

She looked even more pale than she had when he met her at Intel headquarters yesterday—though her bearing, perhaps exacerbated by the turf argument, was more erect, her chin higher, her eyes more imperious.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t give a shit about any of this squabbling here. It’s only holding things up. I’m playing a much longer game. I want to know what is going on here.”

She did not hesitate with her comeback. “I wanted your help yesterday. You refused. You want answers for what has happened here? I don’t have them yet. But when I get them, they will remain with me.”

“Okay, we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. Get my meaning? It’s an American idiom. We didn’t hit it off right. I’m ready to apologize and move forward if you are.”

“No.”

“I see.” Fisk looked back at the others, who were standing around waiting to see what came of this head to head argument. “I imagine General de Aguilar has official duties to attend to. I’m wondering where the other man is at this hour. His name was Virgilio.”

He read distress in Garza’s refusal to answer.

“I’m telling you right now, my Intel Division can help you better than anyone. If your man is missing, we can mobilize and follow his tracks. But—and that’s a big goddamn but—you need to be up front with me about what is going on here.”

“I accept.”

“You . . . what?” Fisk all but scratched his head. “Didn’t you just refuse to apologize a moment ago?”

“You were rude yesterday. But I am more than willing to put aside pride in order to draw upon your full resources in order to—”

“ ‘Full resources’ is a matter to be decided. We move predicated on the level of seriousness.”

Garza said, “It is of the utmost seriousness, but the focus is President Umberto Vargas.”

“Who is going to be signing a treaty with our president in a few days.” Fisk reset, thumbing his pockets, checking her eyes for signs of untruth. “What do you think happened here?”

Garza said, “This man was with Virgilio last night.”

“He is part of the Presidential Guard?”

“Yes,” said Garza, her eyes narrowing just a bit. “And no.”

“Where is Virgilio now?” asked Fisk.

Garza swallowed. “I believe he has been taken.”

CHAPTER 29

I
n Fisk’s car, on the way back into Manhattan, Cecilia Garza finished a telephone call with General de Aguilar, the head of the EMP, updating him on the discovery of the dead man. She was cognizant that Fisk understood Spanish, and did not go into full detail. She hung up and looked at Fisk, watching him drive.

At first she thought he was still wearing the same clothes as the day before, but no. This was a fresh blue shirt, red necktie, and gray suit tailored to his athletic frame. He had about him a look of solidity, as though nothing that happened around him was going to move him from what he intended to do. He was quite handsome. This was something she generally distrusted in a man.

She felt a wave of vertigo as he cut across two lanes of traffic. The possibility of losing Virgilio made her sick. She might never be able to convince a foreigner what kind of man he was.

“I know this man,” she said. Her voice came out strident and high-handed, as it always did when she felt stressed or defensive. Sometimes it was useful to have that quality. But she was not sure if this was one of those times. “We have been in a state of war, of civil war. Nobody trusts the police, and often with good reason. I would put my life in his hands.”

“He is not a
federale
?”

“He was a member of the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional. The CISEN. Do you know what that is?”

“Mexican CIA. The equivalent.”

“There is a new group forming . . .”

“The CNI,” said Fisk. It was a new national intelligence agency within CISEN, created by the newly elected President Vargas, aimed at centralizing and coordinating efforts against organized crime, part of an overall movement to centralize Mexico’s security apparatus.”

“Calderón was focused on attacking major criminal groups,” said Garza, referring to the previous Mexican president. “It was effective at times, but at a great cost. We saw massive waves of violence unleashed all across the country. Vargas’s strategy is to prevent violence through intelligence gathering and improved communication within the Interior Ministry.”

“Sounds like you voted for him.”

“I did.”

“So what was Virgilio, if that is his real name, doing here as part of Vargas’s advance team? I know he did not register with our people.”

“No, he is here under deep cover. Brought in on my recommendation.”

“Because of a threat to your president. Why didn’t you alert the United Nations, the State Department, Secret Service . . . ?”

“Is that what you would do when your president visits a foreign power? Even a close ally? Do you turn his welfare over to them? No. We are his security force, and we are best suited to safeguard him against any threat.”

They were on the bridge, crossing over into Manhattan. Garza looked for landmarks, spotting the Empire State Building spire to the west. The sight of that icon should have set her mind at ease, should have demonstrated to her that she was beyond the reach of the man who had filled the plaza in front of the Palacio de Justicia in Nuevo Laredo with headless corpses. But apparently now nothing was beyond his reach.

She was certain now. Chuparosa was here.

Fisk asked, “Which drug cartel is it? The Zetas? Sinaloa?”

Garza shook her head. “None of the above.”

Fisk looked at her. “Colombians?”

“Can you drive any faster?”

She was not ready to explain it fully. And there was no way to explain it partially. She knew that questioning a man’s driving was the surest way to get him to speed up and to distract him from the issue at hand.

Fifteen years ago, Cecilia Garza wouldn’t have felt even a ghost of shame at feeling vulnerable in front of a stranger. In fact her twenty-year-old self would have been ashamed
not
to feel deeply, would have considered it almost a moral imperative, a necessary affirmation of her own humanity. But now? Sometimes she hardly even recognized the person she had become. A decade and a half ago she had been an outgoing, lighthearted, maybe even somewhat frivolous person. University life, ditching early classes, taking weekend trips with girlfriends, singing karaoke when that craze was new. Dancing with strangers and drinking with friends. That girl wouldn’t have had a moment’s regret about feeling insecure. In truth, she had been proud and even protective of her volatile artistic temperament, nurturing it: thinking of herself as someone alive to the rhythms of the world, her skin raw and sensitive to every change of wind, every frothing wave washing across the surface of her life. Like her mother. And her young sister.

Would that girl have recognized who Cecilia Garza was today? No. No, she wouldn’t.

Because of course she knew the answer. She had become the Ice Queen almost as an act of pure will. Between her first and third years at university, she had not spoken to her father even once—other than an occasional exchange of meaningless pleasantries when she came home to visit her mother and her sister. Her father had disapproved of her choice of career and friends and lifestyle. So they had become . . . no, not precisely estranged. Almost worse, they had become infinitely distant from each other, irrelevant to each other somehow.

So when the phone had rung at her squalid little hippie-student-chick apartment in the Coyoacán district near UNAM, and she had answered and heard her father say, “Cecilia, it’s Papi”—she had known something terrible had happened.

And yet it turned out to be worse than anything she could ever have imagined.

That had been the beginning of the cocoon phase—a metamorphosis that had resulted, even demanded, the replacement of the frivolous and emotional girl of a decade and a half ago, emerging not as a beautiful butterfly, but as the lady Ice Queen, a woman without weakness, without pity, without fear.

She said suddenly, “I should not have left the crime scene.”

Fisk shook his head. “We’re good at that. We know some things. I can guarantee you that nothing will be withheld—fingerprints, trace evidence, nothing. Let the professionals do their work. This is what we can do.”

She appreciated his professionalism. Even if what he was saying was just for her benefit, she acknowledged the gesture as one she herself would have made.

“Focus on when you saw him last,” said Fisk, speeding north toward Fifty-seventh Street and the Four Seasons. “Because if someone had wanted to pick up his trail, they would have done it at President Vargas’s hotel.”