Home Killings, page 21
Afterwards we separated them again. Jerry made a trip to the bathroom. I couldn’t help but comment when he came back out, “Coffee runs through, doesn’t it?”
I think I embarrassed him. He turned slightly red. But he grinned at me. “You ready?” he said, excited over this bust, more than what I thought he would be.
“Yeah, but I’ve got an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“You know how the press has been so diligent about keeping their noses up our butts? This may not be exactly about the Kaibiles, but how about we give them a bone to chew on, with just a little meat on it? This could also be a way to shake Tekún Umán from his tree.”
Jerry just smiled.
Chapter Thirty
Pajarito’s apartment was right above Doña Marina Osegueda’s taquería, on the second floor of the same building. Doña Marina owned the entire building and rented the upstairs rooms to individuals. Obviously, she had various avenues of income.
We watched from our Taurus as Chamba and Daniel made their way up the outside stairs and to the second floor. Two streetlights provided us enough light to watch their actions in the night. Once they disappeared behind the door, Jerry asked me, “You sure they won’t try to sprint, or maybe tip Pajarito off?”
“I really don’t think so. They know they’re wired. That means we can hear everything they say. And they’re sufficiently scared to keep put.”
“So let’s see. Once we do the bust, I’ll take our two friends here and load them in my car,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to another Taurus that we had parked around the corner of Doña Marina’s building. “You all right with bringing Pajarito in by yourself?”
“Sure. He’s not a lot to deal with. But it’s better to keep them separated, considering Daniel and Chamba are part of our little sting party here.”
“Great. I think it’s better that I take them anyway.”
“Really? Why?” I was baiting him, knowing what he was going to say, that the two men would perhaps be too much for me to handle.
He was very diplomatic, seeing in my smile the fact that I was ready to pounce upon any hint of sexism. “Just helping to protect the well-being of my partner.”
“I see. Hey, did you call for backup?”
“They should be here any second.”
“Good.”
He changed the subject. “You know, I was thinking, we could get in trouble for this.”
“Why?” Looking at the door as it closed, I kept my eyes through the upper portion of the windshield. The headphones slipped off my ears slightly. I had to readjust them as I creened my neck.
“Because this is out of our jurisdiction. U.S. Immigration should be the ones making this bust, since it deals with false immigration papers.”
I thought about that for a scant moment. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re following up on a possible drug operation that is connected to our murder investigation. All the data we received from Atlanta pointed to the possibility that Tekún Umán is a drug dealer. Pajarito is one of his workers. I know nothing about immigration papers.”
He grinned at me. “To be so young, you’ve got a sly little mind.” He looked up the stairs. “But our two friends here have lost just about everything. No papers, they’ve just gotten caught in our crosshairs, and now, after we finish using them here, we’ll hand them over to immigration.”
“Better than going down for a drug rap.”
“But that’s not really the case,” he said. “There are no drugs involved.”
“Look, I can’t be bothered with their life stories, Jerry.” I looked over at him. His talking was keeping me from hearing them through the earphones. Even though they were just walking down the hall, I wanted to hear everything, even their heavy, nervous breathing. “They got caught. That’s their problem. They’ll be okay. Immigration will ship them home, and they’ll be back here again in about two weeks.”
Again, I could feel his gaze upon me. In his eyes, I suppose I was also cold-blooded, along with being sly. Perhaps my being Latina meant I had to think a certain way, specifically regarding undocumented foreigners. Right now all I wanted to think about was nailing Pajarito, and ultimately his boss.
Three backup cars pulled up around us as I heard, through the earphones, one of the boys knocking on the door upstairs. I could hear their knuckles against the door. Jerry got out and directed the cops. I listened to my earphones. The door opened. Pajarito’s voice greeted them. “Entren, muchachos.” They said their hellos and nothing more. Pajarito’s door closed. He sounded conciliatory, saying that he was sorry he couldn’t find the papers in his office downtown, but that he had left them here, in his apartment. I wished he had specifically said whose office it was; it would have put more pressure on Tekún later. But I had to take what I could get.
“Aquí están,” Pajarito said, handing them papers. I could hear them being rifled through their fingers. He said that everything was taken care of, the stamps had been put upon their cards, everything was made to look perfectly legit, and in fact, looks were everything. So, as far as he and the rest of the world were concerned, they were legit. Then he asked about his payment, por favor, what they had originally agreed upon. Wallets were pulled out, money extracted, counted, placed in his hand. “Gracias, jóvenes,” said Pajarito.
“That’s our cue.” I ripped the earphones off my head and pushed the door open.
Jerry and I made our way up the stairs. Two officers followed behind. The others circled behind the building. I was afraid that, with the distance between our car and the second-floor apartment, we were going to lose them somehow. That became a realistic concern the moment I looked down the hall and saw that there were six doors, three on each side. “Damn,” whispered Jerry, “which one did they go in?”
I played back in my head how many steps they had taken. They had appeared to have gone the distance of the hallway, from what I remembered of their breathing and the wordless walk. I walked to the end of the hall, stopped, and listened. Spanish came from the left door. I leaned in. “They’re in here,” I said to Jerry.
He kicked the door in. We shoved our weapons in the air and pointed them at the men. Pajarito’s eyes looked ready to leave his body. He meant to leap out of the closed window behind him. His eyes glanced from me to Jerry. He looked as if he wanted to say something. He stumbled back toward a filing cabinet that stood in one corner, a Mexican serape covering its top in order to make it an end table. I knew he meant to close it. “Don’t you dare, Pajarito!” I shouted, knowing that, once closed, I’d have to ask for a search warrant to get it open again. He raised his hands up high. I walked to his side. Jerry was busy shuffling the other two men out the door and toward our car. Pajarito stared hard at the three as they left.
With my gun on Pajarito, I moved next to the filing cabinet and looked down. He was a very organized crook, I had to give him that. All the files were in neat arrangement, with their little tags sticking out, telling me, like tiny captured legal documents, what each of them were. “Goodness, Pajarito, what an interesting file cabinet. You look like your own local satellite office of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. Biographical Information, Temporary Residence, Legal Resident, Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, Death Certificates—you’ve just got a slew of blank documents here, ready to be filled in for a price.” I kept my gun in my right hand and used my left to flip through a few of the files. “Looks like you’ve gotten really good at making false green cards, even false American citizen documents! That’s very impressive, Pajarito. How much is it to become an American citizen overnight?”
He didn’t say anything. He kept his hands up. His eyes whirled around me, avoiding me every chance he could.
“I need to read you your rights, Pajarito. How would you like them, English or Spanish?”
Jerry had already packed away Daniel and Chamba in the other Taurus. He was gone. I moved the cuffed Pajarito down the hallway and ordered the backup police to secure the scene. They rolled out the yellow tapes. In a few minutes no one would be able to touch the file cabinet of evidence.
People had heard our movements. A woman peeked out of her door, the crack of the door only as open as the chain allowed. A man stuck his head up against the window as we stepped onto the stairs outside. I’m sure he watched us all the way down. About five people stood at the window of Doña Marina’s store, including Marina, staring at me as I led Pajarito away.
Across the street stood a white man wearing a large parka. His hood was down, showing his long hair and a large earring in his left ear. He held up a camera and was shooting away.
As I placed Pajarito in the back seat of my car, the photographer waved at me. “I already got some of Detective Wilson with the other two guys. Thanks.”
“Fine. No problem.” But I wanted him to stop talking to me.
He didn’t feel my wish. “By the way, Mr. Stapleton wants to know when he can interview you about this.”
“He can call me at the office in about an hour.”
“Great. He really appreciates your help on this, Detective.”
“Fine. Fine.” I slammed the door on Pajarito, then walked around the car. The backup police cars flashed blue over my face. I could feel every single eye that pushed themselves against the windows of Marina’s building, watching me, someone of familiar skin, doing something so very foreign to one of our own.
Chapter Thirty-One
PHILANTHROPIST’S EMPLOYEE
ARRESTED IN IMMIGRATION SCAM
I just smiled at the headline.
Tony Stapleton’s article was very thorough. He had not only talked with me, but he had called U.S. Immigration in Memphis to ask if Pajarito was an employee of theirs, to which they said wholeheartedly, clearly, and without a doubt, no. He was not. They were also very interested in knowing how Pajarito had gotten hold of such documentation, considering that most of those found in his apartment were documents printed only by and for immigration. “This is a federal case now,” said the head of immigration in Memphis. “Mr. Colibrí will no longer be in the hands of the Nashville police. He will need to contend with us.” There was anger in the words, felt even on the printed page.
Then Stapleton made sure to call Mr. Rafael Murillo to ask if the well-known philanthropist had known anything about, or was even involved with, Mr. Colibrí’s false paper scam. “Absolutely not,” said Tekún, “and I am shaken by this news.” When asked if it were true that Mr. Colibrí had worked for Mr. Murillo for several years, and if so, how was it such a shrewd, philanthropic businessman as himself could be so blind to his employee’s actions, Tekún replied that sometimes even the wisest can be fooled.
Jerry walked into the office. “Good morning,” he said, his smile only exacerbating his cheeriness. “You take a good picture, partner.”
“As do you.” I flipped again to the front page to stare once more at the two photos, me with Pajarito, Jerry carrying the other two men to the car, the police blues in the background. “It also looks like you’re back in the news, Jerry.”
“Yeah, well …” He said little more, but his grin gave his feelings away. This bust put a warmer public light back on him. The way he moved back and forth in front of my desk, I thought he was ready to do a jig. “I just love catching bad guys!” he exclaimed in an enthusiastic, southern falsetto.
A uniform cop approached my desk. It was Beaver, the young officer whom I had first met at the Sáenz murder scene. He looked at me with much more respect and perhaps some admiration. I allowed for this. Also, his eyes didn’t fall down from my face and try to outline my body. “What’s up, Officer Beaver?”
“That fellow you brought in last night. We’ve still got him in custody downstairs until the Feds come to cart him away. He says he wants to talk to you.”
Just as he said that, my phone rang. Jerry quickly stood up and offered to go downstairs. I thanked him, then turned to my phone. “Homicide, Chacón.”
“I’m sure you’re pleased with yourself this morning.”
Tekún Umán. I smiled, but a muscle leapt out of my chest and up into my throat. “Good morning, Mr. Murillo.”
“Not really. Not at all. You see, this is a very bad morning, mi amor. Very bad.”
“Why should it be bad? Are you having guilty pangs about something?”
He forced a chuckle. “I have no guilt, Detective. But I am angry. I like you, Romilia. I like you a great deal. But I don’t like having my name dragged through the muck, just so you can feel better about trying to bring me down.”
“Mr. Murillo, if you’re presuming I have some personal vendetta against you, you’re mistaken. I just did my job, which last night meant collaring one of your employees. Now if you’re involved in any way in Pajarito’s immigration scam, then of course we would need to deal with you through the law.”
“Stop that shit right now, Romi,” he said. It sounded like a father reprimanding a child. My body reacted like a daughter’s. “You know damn well that I have nothing to do with Pajarito’s dirty-paper business. He was caught at home, you remember, not in my office. What my employees do with their private time is of no concern to me.”
“Then you should be more careful who you empl …”
“You, hija, should be more careful where you step.”
My voice froze and locked into my throat.
“I know what you want, Romilia. You want to connect those murders to me. You’re hoping that Pajarito is another link between me and Sáenz, Hatcher, and that woman, Kim. You probably even feel like you’re getting closer to some truth, don’t you? As if you’re closing in on a catch.” His voice lowered. It almost seemed warm, as if I could feel its heat through the wire. “¡Púchica, mujer! You have no idea what you’re digging into.”
I cocked an eyebrow up. The shiver that was working through me stopped momentarily.
“I suggest that you start looking elsewhere, mi amor.”
His continual reference to me as ‘his love’ was getting under my skin. “I will look wherever I need to, Tekún.”
“I see. Recalcitrant little lady, aren’t you? Fine. Just remember, as you continue thinking that you’re closing in on something, be careful that that something doesn’t feel too cornered. It’s liable to leap from the darkness. You should warn that new partner of yours to watch his step as well.” He let that sink in, then ended with, “Always be sure whom you’re dealing with. Black cats may have nine lives. But you, my dear, have one.” He hung up.
The shiver turned into a clutching sensation around my windpipe. Just then Jerry walked back into the office.
“Well?” I asked, my voice obviously shaky. I decided to say nothing of the phone call until I could control the leaping muscle in my throat. “What did Pajarito want?”
Jerry shrugged his shoulders. “I go all the way downstairs just for Pajarito to tell me that Tekún Umán knew nothing about his illegal paper operation, and that he knows nothing about Umán’s business deals.” Jerry picked up the paper to look again at the article. He sat down with all his weight into the chair by my desk. “He’s making sure to lawyer up. I guess we won’t get anything out of him about Tekún’s possible drug business. Or his possible connection to the killings.”
I looked down at the desk. I swallowed. My breathing fell shallow. “No,” I almost whispered. “I guess we won’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I called home and asked my mother what “Púchica” meant.
She laughed over the phone. It was the first time I had heard her laugh in two days. She was just happy that I had made it home last night, after busting Pajarito. Now, in the daylight, she felt less fear. “Púchica, it means, well, it really doesn’t mean anything.”
“But it’s got to mean something, Mamá. You’ve never heard of it before?”
“Of course I have. Especially when we left El Salvador. We had to spend a month in Guatemala before crossing into Mexico. Your father had gotten robbed, so we had to work in order to get back some of our savings. He worked in construction in Guatemala City for awhile. I used to tease him how he would come back home and sound like a Chapín.”
So the word was Guatemalan. “Then why do they say it?”
“It’s an exclamation, like the gringos say ‘wow!’ Like ‘Púchica, look at that good-looking man!’ or ‘Púchica, can you believe the price of this chicken?’ That’s how they use it.”
Which was exactly how Tekún Umán had used it. And Tekún was Guatemalan.
“Thanks, Mamá,” I said, ready to hang up the phone.
“Wait a minute. When will you be home tonight?”
“The same time as usual, I hope.”
“Just like last night, when you were out playing heroine, arresting that bird man. I see.” The cheeriness was stripped from her voice. The moment she thought about night, she also thought about the Kaibiles. I had yet to catch the killer. She had yet to completely re-bury a past that had been so recently and dramatically dug up. I could almost feel her shaking her head as she hung up.
Jerry had taken a lunch break when I had called Mamá. I thought about waiting for him to come back before following up on this, but I wasn’t sure when he would return. Besides, this púchica business was eating at me.
I drove back out to Tekún’s offices and sat in my car. “This really is a long shot, girl,” I muttered to myself. Or perhaps not. Either way, I sat and waited, watching the only person who moved around in the building.
Miguel Martínez pushed his mop over the front hallway floor of the old, abandoned school. I stared at him for a long while. He could not see me in the distance, not with the shade of the trees keeping my windshield dark. Clouds hung over Nashville like thick, grey metal, not allowing very much sunlight in at all. That depressed me. Then again, I was not sure what made me feel this way, the day’s weather or the question that I had in my mind about this boy who now pushed the huge dust mop out the door and let the dust and debris billow away from the building’s interior. He walked outside and sat down a moment to drink a cola while leaving the mop handle to rest on the cement and brick steps just outside. Though it was cool, he did not wear a jacket. He had also rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. I could see the sinewy muscles under his brown skin. He was small, but obviously strong, svelte, with not a bit of fat lining his body. He lit a cigarette and smoked it casually. Obviously, the boss was not around today. I could not tell, with Pajarito absent, if Miguel was feeling lonely. After finishing it, he dropped the butt to the ground without grinding it out. A tiny wisp of smoke left its end.
