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  Tino joined them, standing stone-like, as fascinated as he was repulsed.

  Estrada said, “I count three heads.”

  For once Estrada had not exaggerated a situation. No one could exaggerate this. This was real, and in real life bodies smelled and tore at one’s senses like hungry ghosts screaming at the living.

  The three officers began examining every nook and cranny of the net and visible portions of the bodies.

  “Obviously, no accident,” muttered Sergio.

  Tino added, “Pure chance…a trawler out here, raising the dead.”

  “Curse of the Sanabela,” Qui muttered. As if to punctuate her words, more half-dead eels and crabs dropped from the net, scuttling slowly into the shadows near the railing.

  Tino lifted a camera and began taking photos, saying, “Still life takes on new meaning.”

  Estrada shook his head at the words. Qui said to him, “Uncle, it’s how we deal with traumatic death. Bad jokes.”

  Qui took a deep breath, her nose already de-sensitized to the odor. She stepped closer to the winch and held onto the solid metal to mentally ground herself. The death net continued to sway ever so slowly below the hoist and hook, making a high-pitched, irritating sound-sandpaper against raw nerves. A sound that made Qui want to reach out and stop the swaying until she remembered what was in the net.

  Qui again stared through the crisscrossed netting at the tangled bodies. Two white-skinned males and a paler, snowier-skinned female. All of them showing signs of torture: contusions, burns, and marks indicating some sort of binding of the wrists. Some of the bruising created a shadowed blush about the woman’s neck, and the chain had cut deep furrows in her thigh. Cigarette burns dotted the men. The same thick gray chain snaked around the lower legs, creating a knot of bodies bound together by a massive ornate lock of a type she’d never seen before. Qui noticed Estrada also staring at the lock, and she gauged his weathered face, his whiskers drooping in the damp night, the deep fissures of his wrinkles without his customary smile to lift them. She’d caught him in an unguarded moment of total despair.

  “Qui…why don’t we just do what my men want?” Estrada asked.

  “What exactly do they want?”

  Estrada conspiratorially whispered, “Send them back to the deep, where they came from. It’d be so easy. It’s why I left them dangling in the net. Why I didn’t bring the boat in…why I insisted it be you.”

  “Would solve our problem, wouldn’t it, Uncle? Pretend this never happened?”

  “Yes. What do you think?”

  She looked at Tino and Sergio. Each in turn raised his shoulders. Tino finally said, “Your call, Lieutenant.”

  Sergio lit a cigarette for Tino, handed it to him, and then did the same for himself.

  Now standing so close to the bodies that she again smelled the waterlogged decay that had taken hold, Qui asked Estrada, “Did you or your men touch any of them-or anything within the net?”

  “Are you accusing me of stealing from the dead?”

  She ignored his outrage. “Rings, watches, jewelry? I need to know. Such things help us to identify the dead.”

  He gave her a pained look and a little shake of the head.

  “I know, I know, but I have to ask, Uncle.”

  “Sure…sure you do…you’re a detective now.”

  The warm waters of the Caribbean, always kind to the living, were brutal to bodies left in the gulf. The normally sun-dappled waters made a poor preserver, bloating the bodies like parade floats-filling the lining between epidermal and sub-epidermal layers of skin with gases from rotting flesh that eventually pulled apart all semblance of outer cohesion, doing strange and surreal things to the features and the body. Floaters were a common occurrence in Cuban waters for many reasons, but not many were found in this manner, meant to be a forever-lost trio.

  Captain Estrada stared at his crewmen before saying, “These are fishermen, Qui. Something like this comes out of the sea no one dares touch it, not even for a new watch. This is no gift from the depths. This is evil.”

  Listening to him, she felt strangely disconnected, standing here on a gently rocking boat as if she were a gatekeeper between the dead and the living. All that ground her in the present was her queasy stomach, a constant reminder that she was still among the living, that this was not some horrid nightmare from which she might awake to bright sunshine and squabbling birds. She was here, the bodies were here, and it was up to her to find out why and how these once vital people had died. She was their advocate, and she began to feel both possessive and protective of them. Odd how this sense of ownership flashed through her mind, only briefly replaced by a repeating phrase: up to me…up to me…up to me. This was what she trained for, this was what she wanted, right? But she didn’t feel that sense of detachment she’d enjoyed in training, instead she felt a ball of emotions too complex to identify at the moment. Her father had spoken about similar feelings during the revolution, a war fought without a given battlefield, but rather guerilla-style, scattered across the island world of Cuba. Once he’d spoken of a day when he stood amid a field of bloodied bodies-still wired from an adrenaline high. He’d avoided speaking of it for years, saying no words existed for so eerie a sensation. But now, she knew what he’d meant-a co-mingling of gratefulness and elation at being alive, feeling an irrational invincibility-perhaps even invisibility to the enemy, and an overwhelming sense of guilt at surviving. He claimed the more bloodshed he’d seen, the more a profound sense of isolation set in along with depression and hopelessness, all due to a disagreement that had ended in mass death.

  She mused: I don’t believe that a soldier’s death in guerilla warfare is the same as stone cold murder. A seagull’s shrieking dive to snatch an escaping crab ended Qui’s reverie.

  She looked at Estrada. “Murder is an evil business, Uncle. No doubt of that.”

  Clearing his throat, Estrada repeated, “I also asked for you, Qui…” he repeated, “’cause my men… they wanted to disobey me, to throw these children of God back into the ocean.” He raised his shoulders and frowned. “They fear for what will come of this.”

  “I don’t blame them in the least,” she quietly replied, momentarily considering the possibility of her failing the dead, being unable to solve their murders.

  He stared deeply into her eyes, searching her meaning. “Then you think the crew is right? That this…this can only bring evil on us?”

  Qui knew what he suggested but feared to vocalize: If a future accident befalls any one of us, will it truly be an accident? “Uncle Estrada, you’ve already spoken to my colonel, and he’s sent me here. No throwing them back, no cutting loose the net, not now. Maybe before, but not now. It…it’s gone too far.”

  Everyone aboard heard her words.

  She meant them to hear.

  Pointing now to the cache of death, Qui demanded, “Open the net! On the deck, Uncle. Let’s get on with it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, do it. Now.”

  Estrada swallowed hard but gave the signal. The pulley operator yanked a switch, and the net bottom fell out. Bodies, chain and lock, dead shrimp, and assorted sea life spilled from the net like a mosaic created by a madman. The bodies slid on the wet sea life, rippled toward them, making everyone start, and at once creating a kind of creepy knell, lock and chain having careened into a bulkhead.

  “Jesus Christ!” shouted Tino from atop the nearest bulkhead. Intent on photos and observations, and not paying attention to the conversation, he’d been standing almost under the net when it opened, and had to move quickly to escape the deluge Qui’s orders had created. His shoes and pant legs were shiny with splashed fluids and be-speckled with bits of gore.

  Sergio, staring at the disturbing montage, muttered, “Medical examiner’s not going to like this.”

  Except for a growing cloud of scavenging sea gulls, silence again settled over the boat.

  Feeling brutalized, her brain screaming, Set up…set up
! Qui was hit with the certain knowledge that Gutierrez knew what she’d find aboard the Sanabela, that Estrada had filled him in on more detail than the colonel had shared. She imagined his grin at her horror and loathing. I can do this, she told herself. It’s what I trained for.

  From the evidence kit, Sergio handed her a pair of surgical gloves. “Time to go to work?”

  With growing paranoia, Qui knew this crime scene must be treated with absolute precision. Proper procedure adhered to with greater care than with any of her previous cases. She turned to Tino, who was about to light up another cigarette, and barked, “Tino, we need to call a medical examiner-now! Radio for one to meet us at the marina. You take the police cruiser. Sergio and I’ll stay here with the bodies.” Turning to Sergio, she continued, “I need you, Sergio, to pilot us into harbor, and oh, Tino-”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “Meet the medical examiner and brief him. Also, I need you to find us a slip!”

  “I can do that.”

  “Make it as close to the Capital headquarters as possible. Understood?”

  “Got it, Lieutenant.” He rushed off and climbed aboard the police boat, where he cast off tie lines, freeing the vessels from one another.

  Qui now quietly said to Estrada, “Uncle, please allow Sergio to pilot the Sanabela into harbor.”

  Her tone, body language, and action informed the crew that they were no longer taking orders from Estrada-that the lone woman on deck was in charge. Qui sensed a feeling of relief come over everyone, pleased that someone in a position of authority had taken charge. She had in effect cast an official cloak over the terrible find.

  Estrada replied, “For now, Lieutenant, you are my captain.”

  4

  At Havana’s Police Capitol Headquarters

  Alfonso Gutierrez sat in the darkening office as twilight had turned to evening, imagining what Detectives Qui Aguilera, Hilito and Latoya must, at this moment, be going through. He felt only a twinge of guilt at having withheld information as to what they’d face out there on the water.

  Earlier, after Estrada had described the nature of the problem on his government-contracted boat, Colonel Gutierrez did what he always did in a difficult situation: call General Cavuto Ruiz, Commissioner of Police and Military Matters in Castro’s cabinet.

  Gutierrez sat behind his desk, fingering a wrapped cigar here in his second home. He thought about how he perspired just talking to the general, how he held the phone tightly in his grip, knuckles pale against his dark skin whenever he spoke to Cavuto Ruiz.

  His mind raced with the strange order coming from some source above Ruiz-high up in the hierarchy of Cuban officialdom, a snake with many heads-an octopus with twice the tentacles- he thought. While Ruiz claimed the order as his own, Alfonso knew better. Someone else had forced the order on the dangerous General Cavuto Ruiz. Colonel Alfonso Gutierrez deplored any light being cast on him or his day-to-day operations, but with such machinations going on over his head, he feared it out of his hands. Still, he must avoid the spotlight.

  “Damn it, why was Aguilera placed under my command?” His outbursts were so numerous that his civilian secretary just outside his office merely frowned.

  Six major districts lay across the islands, five of which were softer environs than Havana, each a relative paradise according to crime statistics. Why had they not placed Tomaso’s daughter in any one of these safe havens? Why was there a push to make her so visible? Politics, he imagined. Another attempt on Fidel’s part to show the whole damn world how bloody soft he was on women’s rights. The whole thing stank of politics, but now this strange and queer order: assign Aguilera to a triple homicide? What kind of sense did that make? Not only was she a new detective, but she’d never worked a murder case on her own.

  With Luis Estrada’s call-an unreliable yet long-time police informant on the docks-what option was left Gutierrez but to call Ruiz? Cuban waters…three dead, likely foreigners. This could become an international incident, something no one wanted. When Ruiz came on the line, Alfonso did all he could to pass the case onto Ruiz’s plate, as Ruiz had direct connections to the secret police. Who better to handle what could prove to be an international brouhaha. But Ruiz had immediately bounced it back to Alfonso. It was as if Ruiz were reading from a script.

  “Put the woman detective on it, what’s her name?”

  “Hey? The woman?”

  “Yes, damn it. Are you deaf?”

  “That Aguilera woman? But, General-”

  “Didn’t she get her Lieutenant’s status?”

  “Her investigator’s badge, yes.”

  “Recently?”

  “Well, yes, but to throw her into a triple homicide with God only knows what sort of complications? I don’t think this is the wisest-”

  “Alfonso, no one’s asked for your fuckin’ opinion. Just do it.”

  “I’d have to team her up with Pena, and then perhaps she-”

  “No, no Alfonso, no! This is to be a test case for the woman. She does it alone.”

  “Alone…by herself? She’s only had minor cases. Never murder. It’ll look as if I want her to fail.”

  “Your views about women on the force in any capacity, Alfonso, are well known. This will do nothing to your reputation and may, in the end, prove you right.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Hmmm…then it’s you who expect her to fail?”

  “Who can know these things, my friend?”

  Then the phone went dead.

  Gutierrez understood the mandate- Aguilera is to fail and I must ensure it. He smiled thinly, contemplating success. If it goes well, not only will she fail, but women in the department will be seen as a bad idea. Aguilera would be demoted to some place like Santa Clara, Pinar del Rio, or even the stinking backwater Isla de la Juventud- where she can chase down Cubanos illegally associating with tourists and look good doing it. This last thought had made him laugh, a cruel and ugly sound in the dimly lit office. In fact, he was still chuckling over the entire situation as he took out a Fuentes cigar and lit it, savoring the smell of the rich tobacco.

  Once he’d gotten off the phone with Ruiz, Alfonso shouted for Detective Aguilera to come into his office, where he’d given her the order, all the while thinking how delighted she’d be to finally have a major case. And, what a case it would prove to be! He thought how unsuspecting she’d be of all these intrigues from above. “She’ll fail,” he’d said in a self-satisfied tone when she left headquarters. He’d done his part, sending her out to the shrimp boat.

  “Still,” he muttered, “it could all blow up in my face when she fails. Fingers may point to me for assigning her this case. A minefield if not properly handled.”

  He blew smoke toward the ceiling where the fresh acrid curls added to the dark smudge, residue of countless cigars burned while plotting strategy and anticipating success. He did not taste the cigar; it’d become a prop in his delaying tactic: smoke just one more Fuentes, after running out of excuses to avoid going home to his wife, Angelique, whom he’d long since stopped loving.

  A knock came at Gutierrez’s door, and he expected Flora, his timid secretary to be standing there, but it was Detective Jorge Pena instead-his favorite in the department. Pena also disliked the feminizing of the old police station and its ranks, but even more, he disliked Aguilera’s besting him on occasion.

  “Hey, boss!” shouted Pena.

  “Ahhh, my best man! Come in! A welcome intrusion.”

  “Some of us are going to San Souci…drinks, dancing, like that. Join us?”

  “Not a bad thought. Maybe.”

  “And a visit with Roberta or Teresa?”

  They laughed, remembering their last party with these two.

  “Yeah, OK…guess I will join you. Can catch up to my wife-the fat cow-no doubt at her father’s. Going on about her latest knitting or quilting project.”

  “That’s no way to talk about your wife, Colon
el. She’s not fat. Show a little respect.”

  “What respect does she or that old man have for me? Even today on her birthday?”

  “But…won’t they miss you if it’s her birthday?”

  Gutierrez shook his head, stood and paced to the window overlooking the darkest corners and blackest edges of Old Havana. “Ahhh, they won’t miss me so much, and she always has the ready excuse that a big case has fallen into my lap, and this time it’s true.”

  “A man in your position, sir, you’ve got to be careful. Appear the family man…the loving husband,” cautioned Pena. “Did you get her a gift?”

  Alfonso’s frown deepened, an unconscious response to Pena’s question. “Cono,” he muttered while jotting a note to buy a present. “Yes, it wouldn’t do to anger her father, but…still…it’s a waste of money. She won’t appreciate it, and her father, the bastard, will buy her something I could never match on my miserable salary.”

  “Hey, her old man can’t live forever,” Pena reminded him.

  “Maybe not…but more likely I’ll go first.”

  “Not a chance, boss.”

  “Yes, when this merciless ulcer bleeds me dry,” he bitterly replied, patting his cadaverous stomach. “My brother, Diego, now there is a prophet. Right all along.”

  “Right, sir?”

  “Yes, when he predicted that one day I’d have poisonous thoughts toward Angelique.”

  “But you did love her, right?”

  “You kidding? She was beautiful before she got old. And damn, the excitement of dating the daughter of the wealthiest man in our district.”

  Both men had the same unspoken thought: Only by marrying her had Gutierrez achieved his appointment in Havana.

  “So what’s been the result?” asked Alfonso. “Dead-ends; a dead end marriage in a city full of dead ends, and the proud husband in a dead end job. No promotion in years, and now stuck with Aguilera’s brat.” His stomach shuddered, contracted, seized up, and he cringed again, a reminder of the ulcer that just wouldn’t heal. He opened his drawer, pulled out a bottle, and gulped some of the vile liquid the doctors recommended. He puffed a few more times to rid his mouth of its noxious taste before turning again to engineer Quiana’s failure.