The Poisoned Pawn Page 2

  O’Malley shrugged. “Maybe something they served on the plane.”

  “My God. I can’t believe it.” Ellis shook his head as tears filled his eyes. But they weren’t for his wife; they were for his partner. If Hillary hadn’t seduced him, Steve Sloan would be alive. “Where is she? Where’s the body?” He wanted to see for himself, to make sure.

  “Ah, Michael, I’m sorry to tell you this. But the remains were cremated this morning. The coroner said they could go ahead; they’d done an autopsy. He’s still waiting on some results, but it looks like the finding will be undetermined or accidental death.”

  “Cremated?” That was a shock. Ellis thought Hillary’s parents would have insisted on an open casket. With all the Botox his wife injected, he half expected O’Malley to tell him the funeral home had exploded. We should never have got married, he thought. Steve was right.

  “Take a few days off, Michael. I know how bloody hard it’s been for you. And now this. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Ellis shook his head. “No, I’ll be alright, Chief. I think I’m going to sit down now and get drunk. Maybe you can stay and have a drink with me. It’s not quite the way I expected to celebrate the New Year.” He shook his head, unable to believe it. Erased into ashes. Till death do us part. “You’re right; it’s been tough.”

  Ellis flashed back to the interrogation room; the stained, damp holding cell he’d shared with frightened Cubans. They’d jumped whenever they heard footsteps. Every backfire in the street had terrified him, reminding him of the very real prospect of being executed by a firing squad. He tried to control his breathing, to ease the pain at the top of his heart.

  And now Hillary was dead. How was he supposed to react? He exhaled slowly, forcing the taut muscles above his heart to relax, willing himself to stay calm.

  “Now, you know I’d never say no to a whisky, Michael.”

  Ellis went to get the bottle while O’Malley called his man in to join them. Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humour. Sobriety would have to wait.

  “Detective Ellis took it a lot better than I expected, Chief,” said Constable Mullins as he staggered down the driveway, two empty bottles later. “He sure got mangled up in that ‘trouble with man’ call, didn’t he?”

  O’Malley nodded. “It’s hard to know what’s going on in that head of his sometimes because of it. He was a handsome lad once. I can’t imagine what it’s like, living every day with that disfigurement. I’m sure he thinks of his best friend every time he looks in the mirror.”

  “Can’t they do something about those scars with plastic surgery?”

  “Now, that I don’t know. He’s still recovering, Martin. I’m worried about him. First Steve was killed and Michael so badly mutilated in the same attack. And now his own wife has passed away without him even knowing. He’s a good man, but there’s only so much anyone can handle before they break. Best give me the keys, man. You’re starting to weave.”

  Mullins handed the car keys over sheepishly. He stepped around to the passenger side of the unmarked car. O’Malley folded himself into the driver’s seat.

  “She was gorgeous, that wife of his. I could never be anywhere near her for more than a minute or two before I had to excuse myself and find a place to settle down, if you know what I mean. Thick blonde hair, long legs, a little thin for my taste, but a lovely woman nonetheless. I’ll tell you this, whatever they say in public, a lot of officers’ wives will be glad she won’t be flirting with their husbands at the Christmas parties anymore. My own included.”

  The patrolman turned his head towards Ellis’s house as he pulled his car door closed. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what, son? I don’t hear anything. Too late for fireworks. It’s long past midnight.”

  “It must be my imagination. I could have sworn I heard him laughing.”

  FOUR

  Inspector Ricardo Ramirez rolled out of bed, groaning. He walked heavily to the kitchen and picked up the phone, scratching himself sleepily.

  “This is the clerk to the Minister of the Interior,” a woman said. “The minister wants to see you immediately. He is extremely busy, comrade, getting ready for the Liberation Day festivities. You should be grateful he is taking time from his busy schedule to interrupt your holiday.”

  Unfortunately for Ramirez, Francesca did not share his gratitude. Examining a corpse at a crime scene, even one so badly decomposed, he thought later, would have been preferable.

  “I’m sorry, Francesca,” he said, as his wife walked into the kitchen, her hair tousled, “but I have to meet with the Minister of the Interior. It shouldn’t take long.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You promised we would go to the opera today, Ricardo. Can’t they leave you alone for a single day?”

  “I’ll get the tickets as soon as we’re finished, I promise.”

  “You’d better hope there are still tickets left,” she said, frowning. “I’ll believe you once we are actually sitting in the theatre, listening to the Peachums plot to murder their son-in-law for his money.”

  Ramirez kissed her on the side of the mouth. “Sweetheart, I’d better get dressed and get going or I’ll be late.”

  “Will he even notice if you’re not there?” she said. “That man is such an idiot.”

  Ramirez dashed down the three flights of stairs to the street and started up his car. He drove quickly through Old Havana, steering the mini-car around ancient taxis, his hand kept firmly on the horn.

  The small blue car sliced cleanly through crowds of hungover, sunburned revellers who made the nearly fatal mistake of thinking the sidewalks were safe. Ramirez was amused at how quickly even non-athletic, middle-aged men leaped out of the way like Chinese acrobats as the car hurtled to its destination. But being late for a meeting with a member of the inner Cabinet was at least a disciplinary offence, if not a capital one.

  The dead cigar lady slid sideways on the passenger seat. She clung to the door handle as the car skidded to a stop. Ramirez had not yet been able to get her to communicate with him. She seemed to think the large knife sticking out of her chest was all he needed to know.

  In the hours since she’d materialized in the police parking lot, she’d spent most of her time looking disappointed in him. She must have been someone’s mother-in-law, thought Ramirez. That look of stark disapproval, conveyed with a single raised eyebrow, took years to perfect.

  Ramirez was regularly haunted by the ghosts of crime victims. His Vodun slave grandmother had warned him they would come—messengers sent by Eshu, the Cuban orisha in charge of the crossroads. It was her gift to Ramirez as the eldest son. Although he sometimes thought it was his curse.

  Ramirez had been raised a Catholic, despite the government ban on Catholicism. His father was Catholic. But his African grandmother had believed in Santería. This had caused consternation on the part of his mother, who had enthusiastically embraced the Cuban policy of official atheism.

  “The true mystery of the world is what we see, Ricky, not what we don’t,” his mother warned him after his beloved mamita died. She placed little stock in superstition, none in ghosts. “Your grandmother’s illness made her believe many things that weren’t true.”

  “But Papi believes in God, and Fidel Castro says God isn’t real either,” the confused boy protested.

  “Talk to your father,” she said. But his father had no satisfactory answer.

  Ricky was only nine when his grandmother passed away. Before she died, she made him promise to keep her ghosts a secret. Young Ramirez liked the idea of secrets, of ghosts. It was exciting, like a sunken pirate ship or a giant squid that washed up on the beach.

  His mamita correctly predicted that he would become a police officer when he grew up. The visions began to appear as soon as Ramirez started investigating homicides.

  At first, he thought they were hallucinations, caused by the same rare dementia that claimed his mamita’s life. But Hector Apiro ruled that out after he found an old
autopsy report that established she’d died of natural causes.

  Hyperthyroidism was the illness Apiro thought might account for the occasional trembling in Ramirez’s fingers and legs and the times he was out of breath.

  After ruminating about it, Ramirez wasn’t entirely convinced that Apiro was right. After all, Apiro had attempted a diagnosis without full patient disclosure. Ramirez had not told Apiro, or his own wife, for that matter, that he saw ghosts. He wasn’t sure how they would react, not to mention his mother. Apiro had also mentioned that some other illnesses, like tumours and strokes, could cause hallucinations.

  Until Ramirez could see a specialist, which might take months, he’d decided it was best to treat the ghosts as if they were real.

  After all, his grandmother’s final words were a warning: “Do nothing, Ricky, to anger the gods.”

  FIVE

  Inspector Ramirez parked his car and walked briskly down the cracked concrete path to the government offices at the Plaza de la Revolución. The dead woman trailed behind.

  The landmark building that housed the Ministry of the Interior was decorated with a huge outline of Che Guevara’s head and the words Hasta la victoria siempre. Che had used the phrase to end his last letter to Fidel Castro. But like everything else in Cuba, it was nuanced. Without punctuation, it could mean either “We will always fight until victorious” or “Wait for me until I come home.”

  The old woman tagged along as Ramirez entered the building. He strode past a long row of black-and-white photographs hanging on the wall. She stopped in front of one of them and scrutinized it closely. Ramirez glanced at the image as he nodded to the minister’s clerk, who was seated behind a scratched wooden desk.

  Raúl Castro had been photographed with a priest and two prisoners in the Sierra Maestra mountains in the thick of the revolution. Fidel Castro’s younger brother wore camouflage pants and a khaki hat. The prisoners were counter-revolutionaries, supporters of Fulgencio Batista, on their way to the firing squad, if they had survived that long.

  “La China roja,” Raúl Castro’s men had called him. It was a play on words—“Red China.” But because of the female article, China could also mean “Chinese woman” or “painted china.” This resulted in much gossip and speculation about the clothes Raúl wore in private.

  “The minister will see you now,” the clerk said, to Ramirez’s surprise. She waved him straight through to the minister’s office for the second time in less than a week.

  He opened the heavy door, allowing the dead cigar lady to precede him. The old woman coyly held her fan to her face and fluttered her lashes. For a moment, the years slipped away, and Ramirez glimpsed the passionate young woman she once was.

  The minister sat behind a massive mahogany desk. He tapped a cigar on its smooth surface. His desk was almost the same size as Ramirez’s car.

  “Happy Liberation Day, Minister.”

  The politician nodded impatiently. “Your travel authorization to Ottawa has been approved,” he said. He seemed distracted. “You will leave Wednesday. Two days should be enough. The travel costs will come from your department’s budget.”

  The minister placed a tarjeta blanca, an exit permit, on the desk’s polished top. “As you know, the Canadians have arrested Rey Callendes. We want him brought home.”

  Home. It was a strange word, thought Ramirez, to use in relation to a foreign national. He lowered himself into one of two soft brown leather armchairs. He glanced at the signature on the permit. The minister’s scrawl was readily identifiable by the looped y that circled beneath his surname.

  This was a complete departure from the rules. Special travel authorizations, even the urgent ones, usually took months. Normally, in these circumstances, a letter of invitation would be required from the Canadian government, as well as a declaration that it would pay all costs.

  Travel documents were supposed to be legalized at the Consultoría Jurídica Internacional. And one could expect to spend an entire day queuing up at a Bank of Credit and Commerce branch to divest oneself of three years’ wages to pay for them.

  Which was why so few Cubans travelled. Salida ilegal del país was considered treason. Thousands of political prisoners served time because they had tried to leave Cuba without the proper paperwork.

  “That’s good news,” Ramirez said, his heart sinking. He could only imagine how angry Francesca would be when she found out he was leaving the island without her. “Do you have any further details about the charges?”

  “The Canadian authorities have informed us that his laptop was full of rather indelicate photographs. Small boys. It’s believed some were Cuban. There’s concern his arrest will cause quite an international scandal once word gets out.”

  “I can imagine,” Ramirez nodded. A Catholic priest caught travelling with child pornography would draw attention.

  “About this business with Detective Sanchez,” said the minister, waving his hand dismissively. “His funeral will be held on Thursday. Full military honours.”

  Ramirez felt a wave of regret that he would not be able to attend, even if the military honours were a sham. “As his superior officer, I would have liked to be there.”

  “There are more important matters for you to deal with in Ottawa. Here,” the minister picked up a second document and tossed it to Ramirez. “The Canadian lawyer, Celia Jones. Have her attest this while you are in Ottawa. You can assure her, if she is reluctant to do so, that we don’t plan to use it in court.”

  “If that’s the case, may I ask why we need a sworn document?”

  The minister snorted. “Your job is to carry out orders, not to question them.”

  “I’m sure she’ll ask.”

  “Tell her there’s a bigger picture.”

  Ramirez nodded slowly. He wondered if anyone would paint it for him. The dead cigar lady, he noticed, had removed the fabric flower from her white bandana and held it loosely in her fingers.

  The politician gestured, waving his cigar. “I want the contents of that attestation reflected in your final report to the Attorney General about Sanchez’s death. And I want to see that report before you file it.”

  “I see,” said Ramirez, starting to understand what was expected of him.

  He glanced at the ghost. She began a slow circuit around the room, holding her flower in both hands. A woman with a generous rear end, she waddled behind the minister as he paced back and forth in front of the cracked window overlooking the square.

  The politician finally sat down, again tapping his Montecristo on the surface of the desk. The cigar lady pulled out her own hand-rolled cigar. On the point of machismo, she won handily; hers was twice the length of his.

  Ramirez scanned through the pages of the attestation. It had been prepared by Luis Perez, according to the page at the back of the document. And as was so often the case with the corrupt prosecutor, the document was full of lies.

  It stated that Detective Rodriguez Sanchez died on December 29, 2006, in a Viñales boarding school while accompanied by Celia Jones, a Canadian lawyer. It said that Sanchez lost his life bravely and courageously when he fell through a rotten floor while investigating crimes against children committed by representatives of the Catholic Church.

  It was translated into English well enough, although Ramirez hoped the sentence that said Sanchez had been extremely well “licked” by his colleagues was simply a typing mistake.

  It was true that Sanchez died in Viñales. The floors in the boarding school were certainly rotten enough to kill someone, as in so many Cuban buildings, even those not abandoned for years. It was also true that when it was open, its students were routinely abused by Catholic priests.

  What the affidavit failed to mention was that, two decades earlier, Sanchez was one of them. Rodriguez Sanchez died on the steps of the school, not inside. He blew out his brains with his service revolver as Celia Jones looked on, horrified.

  Sanchez committed suicide only minutes before Ramirez arrived on the
scene. The inspector was too late for the rescue he’d hoped to effect. Not of Jones, Sanchez’s hostage, but of his protegé. Ramirez was still trying to cope with Sanchez’s death and the fact that he had known so little about his best detective, a superb investigator and a man Ramirez had considered his friend.

  “Do you want this statement notarized too?” Ramirez asked.

  “Of course,” the minister said indignantly. “It is a legal document. It has to be genuine.”

  Ramirez managed not to laugh. Genuine evidently meant something other than true to politicians.

  The minister lit his cigar and drew on it deeply several times. The cigar lady stood behind his large chair, her flower once again pinned to her bandana. She looked over his shoulder at Ramirez, fanning herself in the heat. She pointed to the attestation.

  Ramirez nodded. He folded the papers and slipped them into his jacket pocket.

  Securing the return of Padre Callendes to Cuba in only three days would be difficult. Cuba lacked a formal extradition treaty with Canada, and with most countries, for that matter. Even foreign judgments from civil courts were unenforceable. But persuading a Canadian lawyer to swear a false affidavit would be next to impossible.

  Still, as the minister himself had emphasized, these were not requests but orders from the highest levels. Ramirez would have to think through the practical problems involved in carrying them out. But it seemed to him that he had advanced up the political food chain several levels. He was no longer a lowly vegetable but more of a sheep.

  The minister exhaled, sending a cloud of fragrant smoke overhead. He looked relieved. A conspiracy of sorts existed between them now, even if its object was known only to the politician. But Ramirez was sure he would eventually discern what it was. As Hector Apiro once observed about conspiracies, it takes more than one bird to flock.