you fucked with us and now you’re going to die. And the Colombians like to get fancy, it’s well known.”
“Yeah, I heard. So what I’m picking up here, Tito, is you think this is a lot simpler than what Oliphant thinks, that all the weirdness is like camouflage for a piece of colombianismo.”
“That’s how it’s looking. And that’s how it’s going to look up at the county.”
“I assume there’s people watching the other two guys, Garza and Ibanez.”
“Right. They live in the Beach, so the county’s covering that.”
“Okay, I’m done here. Let’s go over and see what Metro has to say for itself.”
They drove over in Morales’s unmarked Chevrolet, with Paz in the passenger seat.
“Just like old times,” Paz remarked.
“Not really,” said Morales, and they drove the rest of the way in morose silence.
Finnegan, as predicted, was not happy to see them, nor was Ramirez, his partner. The four men sat in a windowless interrogation room in the sheriff’s headquarters in Doral, northwest of the city of Miami, a large modern building that looked like an airport terminal, except not as cozy. Finnegan dispensed with the small talk, saying, “Let me make a couple of things clear. I’ve been ordered to cooperate and I’m cooperating.” He indicated a pile of folders and a large cardboard carton on the table. “There’s the file on the Calderon killing. I understand he was your father.”
“That’s right,” said Paz.
“Well, it’s against county policy for an investigator to work on a case where a member of his immediate family is the victim. I don’t understand what made the sheriff go along with this horseshit.”
“Just covering his ass, I guess,” said Paz politely. “I know you’re busy and we’ll try not to take up a lot of your time.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Ramirez, not sounding the least bit sorry.
Paz gave him the kind of look you give a farting drunk and turned back to Finnegan. “It’ll take me a couple of hours to go through this stuff. I’d like to see both of you after I’m done.”
“If we’re free,” said Finnegan. The two county detectives got up and went out of the room. Ramirez was singing “That Old Black Magic” as he left.
“You read this stuff yet, Tito?”
“No, but Finnegan briefed me on what they had.”
“Yeah, the county doesn’t love it when we get involved with them on account of they’re so professional and we’re so corrupt.”
“I’m so corrupt,” Morales corrected.
“My mistake. Why don’t you take advantage of this special situation and read this, too. I bet there’s all kinds of shit in here he didn’t tell you about.”
The two men read quietly together after that. Paz wrote notes to himself in a pocket notebook. Morales just read. Paz noted that Morales was a quicker reader, or perhaps just less thorough.
“What do you think?” Paz asked when they were both done.
“It’s consistent with the theory that this is a Colombian mob thing.”
“Anything is consistent with any theory if you pick and choose your evidence right. But for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Why the stuff with the jaguar?”
Morales shrugged and made a dismissive gesture. “Hey, we don’t know dick about these people. Maybe it’s a trademark. Some gangs cut the throat and pull the tongue through the hole, some gangs cut the guy’s pecker off and stick it in his mouth. This gang chops them up and takes body parts, makes it look like they’ve been killed by a jaguar. I mean they’re wack-job Colombians, who the fuck can tell why they do anything?”
“Oh, so you think there’s no actual jaguar?”
“Not really. They could’ve made those tracks with a stick and a cast of a jaguar foot.”
“And the same with the claw marks.”
“Right.”
“And the damage to the vics was done with some kind of blade.”
“Could have been, but-”
“And the same with jumping up fifteen feet into Calderon’s window, and then jumping over a ten-foot hedge after he did the job.”
“Maybe the guy’s a pro, he’s got mountaineer training.”
“That’s good, Tito, a mountaineering Colombian pseudo-jaguar assassin. Who, armed only with some kind of blade, scales a fifteen-foot blank wall, opens a window catch while hanging on to this blank wall, takes out Calderon, who’s armed and expecting trouble, takes out a Colombian chutero, who’s got a weapon out and gets off at least one shot, escapes from a shitload of other similarly armed chuteros, and nobody catches sight of him, because there was no more gunplay that night, even though your usual person of that type is inclined to expend many rounds with small provocation. Sounds like more of a ninja mountaineering Colombian pseudo-jaguar assassin, if you ask me. On the other hand, we do know two important things about him.”
“What?”
“Well, one, he leaves fingerprints. The county picked up a nice set off the iron gate at the house next door, where the guy escaped. No matches with anyone they could find, but never mind that. The guy pulls off the caper of the year but forgets about wearing gloves. Thus a sloppy ninja mountaineering Colombian pseudo-jaguar assassin.”
“Okay, so what’s your theory?”
“You’re not going to ask me what the other thing is?”
Morales took a deep breath. “You know, Jimmy, until just now I don’t think I ever got why every fucking detective in the Miami PD hated your guts.”
“And now you can join the crowd,” said Paz coolly. But he had to reflect on his recent observation that he had spent over two hours in a squad bay among men he had worked with for over ten years and not one had acknowledged his presence with a word or even a friendly nod. So he added, “I’m sorry, Tito. I’m a wiseass. I admit it. But those two bozos just now browned me off and I’m taking it out on you.”
“You’re forgiven,” said Morales, “and now I’m going to play the sucker: what was the other thing?”
“It was that the county lab did the same analysis on their paw print that you all did on the one at the Fuentes scene, to calculate the weight of whatever made it. And they got a figure within a pound of the first one, four hundred fifty-three point two pounds. That speaks seriously against your model-paw-on-a-stick theory.”
“Why? They could’ve had two guys stepping on a plate or something.”
“Oh, now it’s two guys, two huge fucking guys that nobody saw? I know, they threw the sloppy ninja pseudo-jaguar assassin through the window and over the hedge and then they just melted away.”
“So what’re you saying, we’re back to the trained cat?”
“No, I’m baffled, too.”
Morales raised his eyes to heaven and crossed himself. “Oh, thank you, Jesus, I’m not a total moron.”
“Fuck!” said Paz. “I hate this shit!”
“What?”
“There’s other stuff, Tito, and I’m going to tell you and I want it to stay between the two of us. Agreed?”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Okay, starting about a month ago, me and Amelia have been having dreams almost every night about a big spotted cat, starting about the time of the Fuentes murder, but before you came to see me. I think Lola’s been having the same kind of dreams, but she won’t say anything about it to me. But she’s a wreck, not sleeping, popping all kinds of pills. Also, I went to my mother’s santero and he threw Ifa for Amelia. You know what that is?”
“Sure, Santeria fortune-telling.”
“Right, and he got all upset and said Amelia was in danger from some kind of beast, a carnivore like a lion. And then I gave her my enkangue and her dreams stopped, but mine haven’t and Lola’s probably….” and then Paz stopped talking and stared at nothing for a long moment, and then banged his hand down hard on the table.
