Cuba blue Read online

  He confided his concerns over the matter with Detective Pena, who appeared sympathetic. “Come on, boss. Let’s talk on our way to the cabaret. Earlier we get there, the likelier we’ll run into the women.”

  Alfonso gathered up his spotless white coat and wide-brimmed fedora. A pencil-thin man with sharp angles and high cheekbones, he still cut a good figure for a man soon facing fifty. They used his personal car, a 1958 cinnamon-colored Windsor with blindingly shiny chrome, kept in mint condition.

  Along the way, Gutierrez unburdened himself, explaining, “About this triple-murder case, Pena. I was ordered to turn the case over to Aguilera, bypassing you. I worry that this’ll come back to haunt the department. She’s hardly ready for a case like this.”

  Pena suggested, “Perhaps if old Arturo Benilo were assigned the case as well? Then…then-”

  “Then at the very least it’d have the veneer of respectability.”

  Pena added, “Despite what anyone thinks of him, the man’s reputation is impervious to assault.”

  “True. As the Chief Medical Examiner of Cuba, his name could indeed lend credence to the investigation.”

  “Exactly, anyone wanting to attack you, can go see Benilo!”

  “Ahhh…you make a lot of sense, Pena. You’re a good man.”

  “You can have Aguilera exactly where you want her- far away.”

  Gutierrez visibly relaxed behind the wheel. He loved driving this car, and he loved winning. Pena recognized an old and familiar glint in Alfonso’s eye. It was a look that said, ‘I’ve outfoxed my enemy’.

  5

  As the trawler began its journey to shore, the crew became increasingly restless, anxious at the prospect of these horrifying deaths becoming common knowledge-with them at the center of it. It was a kind of notoriety that turned an unwanted spotlight on a man. The kind of spotlight that scrutinized every aspect of his life. Qui, too, felt a pulsating fear of what would come of this once they reached the marina, once officials and civilians alike spread the word of the ugly business aboard the Sanabela II. Qui imagined that her working methods and her judgment would be examined and questioned no matter what course she chose to take. She mentally braced for harsh criticism.

  Surely, rumors would spread that Luis Estrada’s ill-named and cursed boat had now fulfilled all prophecy concerning it. The first Sanabela had been ripped apart during an ill-timed, ill-conceived plot to carry six Cuban families to Florida in a bid for sanctuary under cover of a tropical storm.

  Luis’s father, Miguel Estrada, had been convinced to challenge nature and the Florida Straits in a bid for ninety nautical miles. But his gamble had ended in death for all aboard-every man, woman, and child gone to the deep. When the younger Estrada named his boat in memory of his father’s vessel, people talked of his tempting fate, and now this. Was the entire Estrada family and all who associated with it cursed?

  Now as they neared the world of Havana, Qui kneeled near the bodies, doing a preliminary examination with gloved hands. The wind had shifted, and her nostrils filled anew with the stench of what was left of the three relatively young-looking, pale-skinned victims. The smell of decaying flesh made it hard to concentrate on processing the scene, setting the ‘grid’ as she’d learned to call it.

  A few breaths, just a few more breaths, and the scent will be less noticeable.

  With both hands, she worked one body loose from the heap and turned it over. With the movement, came an audible poof — an escape of gas-followed by an even louder collective gasp from the crew, many of them crossing themselves. This response sent old Estrada into a minor tirade, shouting at his men. “ Los estupidos! I must work with imbecils! This is the dead! They have no power over you! They cannot harm you! Have you never been with the dead, you fools?”

  “I know what my mother and my father taught me,” countered one crewman.

  “The man who goes too near the dead,” began another, “he can be next.”

  “Go with God, ” muttered a third, hurriedly crossing himself.

  The crewmen had huddled at one end of the boat, as far from the dead as possible given the confined space. Estrada jabbed a huge finger and shouted, “What are you fearing, fantasmas, brujas? Ghosts? Foolish sailors! Superstitious shrimpers — you’ve got no brains, the lot of you!” He pointed to his own head. “God help us. All of you, go put your faces to the sea!” But even Estrada knew that his words fell on deaf ears, that he could not combat the old African gods and ancient religion that was the underpinning of so much of Cuban belief: Santeria and Abukua.

  Qui admired how Luis managed to forego the superstitions common to many. He was a special sort, this man, one who made his own rules and openly complained of government ineptness and cultural mores and what he considered fairytales, despite the danger of doing so. However, Qui wondered how much of his bravado would be suppressed if he were not given protection as a snitch from her Colonel Gutierrez-a fact she’d only recently discovered. How much of his words were for show, as a cover, and how much was true dissent-impossible to say now. Still, his roguish reputation as a scoundrel of sorts, somehow above reproach remained intact. In every way, Luis resembled his independent and daring father. Having heard stories about his father since a child, Estrada now believed he must uphold the family’s honor against his father’s unfair image and infamy.

  Qui looked back to the body she’d earlier focused on. Blond hair lay matted and layered with seaweed, and the blue eyes of this one looked similar to those of a German or American tourist. This victim was perhaps in his late twenties, early thirties. Definitely a foreigner.

  The second male victim also seemed foreign born and of a similar age. Qui then turned her attention on the female victim, who also appeared in the same age range. However, bloating has a way of erasing age lines, and Qui decided that their true ages would be hard to estimate with any accuracy- better left to a forensics expert. A quick body scan showed one of the young woman’s hands had been crudely amputated. Additionally, all three victims showed signs of acid burns, an obvious attempt to destroy their fingerprints.

  “Going to be hard to identify,” she commented. Someone should shed a tear for these dead, she thought. “Uncle, help me turn the woman.”

  “Hey, hold on!” It was young Adondo, who’d inched closer. “I know this one. Sh-sh-she is Canadian.”

  “How do you know?” Qui demanded, eager to discover how and to what extent Adondo knew the victim.

  “I don’t really know…I mean…I saw her once in the museum.”

  “What museum? There are twenty museums in Old City alone.”

  “Museo Historica-”

  “Nacional de Ciencias?”

  “No, not Natural history? The other one.”

  “Oh, yes, de las Ciencias!”

  “Sciences, yes, that’s the one.”

  Like everyone in Cuba, Qui knew that fishermen had no money for museums. “When? When did you see her inside?”

  “I was not inside!” he protested the accusation. “I was just sitting on the steps in the sun. She tripped and I–I caught her fall.”

  Quiana read his body language and voice. Her training said he was not telling the truth, not entirely anyway. Adondo knew more than he was saying. “Then you actually met her?” asked Qui.

  “Yes, we… we had words.”

  “About?”

  “Her ankle bracelet…pretty sandals.”

  “An anklet…sandals?”

  “Yeah, I liked the way the straps went up her leg.”

  Qui thought this line of questioning useless, when Adondo added, “A pendant from her ankle bracelet came off. It was a leaf.”

  “A leaf? What sort of leaf?”

  “Maple leaf. Said she was Canadian.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Adondo and asked, “Did you learn her name?”

  “Denise.”

  “Denise? No last name?”

  “She had Denise on her nametag. Her last name was long… and, ahhh…strange.�
��

  “Nametag?”

  “On her blouse.”

  Qui pointed to the male victims. “Was she with these others?”

  Adondo shrugged. “Maybe. She was with a group.”

  “Did they all wear tags?”

  “I don’t know. I think so.”

  “And you have no idea of her last name?”

  “No. Maybe started with a B…”

  They were interrupted when Estrada gasped. When they looked, he pointed to a perfectly executed tattoo on one of the other bodies-a tattoo of the World Trade Center.

  “Oh God…Americans,” Qui blurted out. “Why’d it have to be Americans?”

  6

  Still aboard Sanabela II, Qui called headquarters to report her initial findings, and to her surprise, she was quickly put through to a waiting Gutierrez, except that the background clatter was hardly the old stationhouse; she could hear the throbbing sounds of a Rumba band behind his voice. Her captain assured her in a polite voice, “I’ve called in the best medical examiner in all of Cuba. He will meet you at the dock.” With that, he’d abruptly hung up to the sound of animated voices and laughter.

  Quiana knew that the colonel had been speaking of Dr. Arturo Benilo, Chief Medical Examiner of Cuba, who had seen everything in his forty-some years in medico-legal work. Trained in Europe-in Paris and later in Soviet Russia-there seemed little in Cuba’s post-Revolutionary history that he did not know something about. As a young man, Benilo had fought zealously alongside Che Guverra and Fidel Castro in the overthrow of Batista on New Year’s Eve 1958, when Havana had fallen to the revolutionaries. Since then, Arturo’s deep-seated cynicism proved infectious to those already flirting with pessimism. Doom and gloom naysayers had nothing on Benilo as no one so condemned the current climate and regime as did the old doctor when in the company of trusted friends, or so it was rumored. Anyone else would have had his head handed to him in a basket, but Benilo had shown himself to be in the ranks of the untouchables. Most who spoke out-especially those with a forum in an underground newspaper or pamphlet-met a quick disappearance explained away as “just another disaffected soul who tested the waters to Miami.” The ocean around Cuba covered many such sins.

  While Gutierrez had been abrupt, he’d given her this golden nugget, the help of Benilo. Why? It was uncharacteristic of the colonel. Was Alfonso being polite or politic in calling in Cuba’s best ME? Calling in a man of his reputation on a capitol case made sense-but still… What game was he playing? She hated that her suspicion of his motives colored everything. She hated that her relationship with her superior had never been good, had never lived up to her expectation. And she felt ambivalent about Benilo’s coming in on her case. On the one hand, Benilo was the best and that could only help; on the other hand, there were others he could have called, why specifically Benilo?

  Peering through the pilothouse window, Qui stared at the silhouetted skyline, the lights from the spiraling hotels of old Havana, built before 1958, like twinkling stars against the violet-colored sky. The sight proved almost as compelling and magical now as it had when her father had taken her out into the gulf for a nighttime birthday celebration when she was a child. It took her breath away to see the soft contours from this vantage point. How she loved Havana, her home, and Cuba, her country. But even as these calming thoughts filtered in, she smelled anew the diesel fuel and rot of the floating debris within Havana Bay, reminding her why she also hated Cuba. Its corruption and pollution reminding her of the wretched poverty and endemic problems that would only yield to ingenuity, patience, intelligent planning, and most importantly large influxes of cash. She sighed in frustration.

  Qui’s momentary reverie was broken by the blaring horn of a police harbor boat. “Ahhh…the escort Tino’s arranged,” she said to Sergio beside her. The police boat blared its horn again, and her captain motioned for the Sanabela to follow. Sergio leaned out and waved in acknowledgment.

  On shore, she saw a thin, tall man, who for a moment she mistook for her father-a ridiculous thought she immediately dismissed. No way had her father rushed from Miramar to her side to ‘fix’ whatever problem his ‘little one’ faced-in spite of his habit of interference. Her mind instantly readjusted: must be the elder statesman of forensics, Dr. Arturo Benilo. Curious about Benilo, she looked forward to meeting her father’s old yet estranged friend. According to her father, Benilo- reputed to be manipulative, cautious, and practical-always kept his cards close to his chest.

  She stepped from the pilothouse and made her way to the deck, thinking this long day was about to become even longer.

  Dr. Arturo Benilo ME stood on the docks, bored, staring out at two approaching boats, one a police harbor boat, the other an old shrimp trawler. He’d been told that the crime scene was on that shrimper.

  For some time, he’d curiously watched a single silhouetted figure moving about at the bow of the old tub being guided ashore. As the boat neared, he recognized the pose of a woman in trim dark pants and blouse. Her pose and movements looked startlingly familiar, reminding him of his long ago lover, Rafaela, a blonde blue-eyed beauty as fiery as the idealism that inspired the revolucion. She’d chosen his best friend, Tomaso Aguilera, marrying him instead of Arturo. Years later, Rafaela had died giving birth to Quiana. As he continued to watch the approaching crime scene, he realized the figure must be Rafaela’s daughter, Quiana Magdalena Aguilera, all grown up. Standing erect, she could not hide the grace that’d been her mother’s, and he wondered if she was as beautiful as Rafaela.

  While not altogether surprised to learn from Hilito that the lead investigator was a woman, Dr. Benilo had been startled to know he was about to meet Tomaso Aguilera’s daughter. He’d previously heard of her advancement in the police force. “Ahhh…irony…figures,” he muttered. “Things come full circle.”

  Her pacing suggested nervous energy at a low boil, reinforcing his memories of the beautiful Rafaela. He felt an instant certainty that Quiana, like her mother, was also the essence of pride and self-reliance. Perhaps, at times, a stubborn pride with her mother’s sudden flashes of lightning arrogance, but did she have the confidence and personality that made everyone who knew Rafaela forgive her temper?

  As the floating crime scene made final approach, Benilo took a deep breath and steeled himself for this challenge to his office-investigate a triple-homicide alongside a rank beginner, suggesting no one wanted to uncover the real answers. Add to this the twist of Rafaela’s daughter as lead investigator, representing a challenge to him on a personal level. He sighed and muttered, “It’s going to be a long night.”

  When the Sanabela suddenly and noisily bumped against the dock, Qui grabbed the weathered boat railing with both hands. As the Sanabela settled, Qui promised herself to observe and learn what she might from this man Benilo. Taking a moment to call in her position, Qui let a seemingly disinterested Gutierrez know they’d docked and that the ME had arrived.

  She watched Tino grab the tossed lines and secure the boat in the slip. Suddenly, another man came rushing forward, from a recently arrived jeep. He’d climbed out, hands waving, shouting, “You can’t dock that broken-down old hulk in my marina! Toss off those lines! Go away!”

  Tino held up his badge to the man, who fell silent in mid-shout. The dockmaster slinked off toward the safety and order of his world-a nearby small shack, his kingdom.

  Given the laws in Cuba, the dockman knew that if it suited their purpose, the police could put Estrada’s boat in his living room, or do far worse to him. Qui considered the cost of exerting such power in rampant disregard to people-how much good will was lost in the community when police did as they damn well pleased. Little wonder people feared the police.

  To Estrada standing next to her, Qui said, “Uncle, your boat is now officially impounded. I’ll do all I can to release it as soon as possible, so your life can return to normal.”

  “How do you define normal?” he sarcastically replied, thinking of his loss in under-the-table sale
s of specialty seafood. Anticipating his men and their families joining the population’s thirty percent going hungry, he said, “I curse those who’ve made fishing illegal, a senseless stupidity on an island.”

  “Careful uncle, people can hear us,” she cautioned. “I’m sorry this has befallen you.”

  “What am I to do while Sanabela is in police custody?”

  “Take time with your family.”

  “Which one?”

  She grinned knowing he had family and ‘family’ all over Cuba. This was more like the ‘uncle’ she knew.

  Her smile evaporated at the sound of rising voices once again on the dock. A crowd had gathered round to observe, question, wonder, and gossip-an audience to the night’s curious entertainment. Qui was grateful Tino had earlier cordoned off the area, keeping the avid onlookers at a distance. The growing audience had become vocal, asking what had occurred on the boat.

  Catlike, Qui jumped from the boat, and as she approached the men, hooting and whistling erupted from the crowd. Many in the crowd were out of work day laborers. A large element of the population made no distinction between the regime soldiers and the capitol police, despite realities, which made for a lot of catcalls and asides.

  “Hey, beautiful police woman!” came one lone cry from amid the herd where safety in numbers did not always protect.

  “Arrest me!”

  “What? You need the state to feed you today?” Qui replied, smiling.

  Laughter erupted from the crowd.

  “Do you have handcuffs?” asked another.

  She dangled a huge pair of cold metal cuffs overhead. “You bet!”

  “Hombres!” shouted Tino at the crowd. “Show some respect!”

  Qui’s amusement with the situation grew in relation to the jeering. She doubted that one female lieutenant on the Havana Police Force could make a significant difference, in the uneasy citizen-police relationship- especially with the Secret Police terrifying Cubanos at every turn — but her nature dictated a more humane approach, concession over threat, compromise over force.