Читать книгу The Miracle of Saint Lazarus - Uva de Aragón - Страница 6

Chapter 1

Day 1—Monday, November 2, 2015

When she arrived at police headquarters, Maria immediately noticed that something strange was in the air. She had a sixth sense about these things. Even though everything seemed normal, a thick cloud hung over her colleagues who were glued to their monitors. The hellos were scarce; she knew she wasn’t mistaken.

“Any fresh meat?”

For years she hadn’t had any other choice but to adapt to the police jargon. At first, it made her sick to her stomach to refer to a homicide victim, a person who had just died, as “fresh meat,” but after so many years, it had become perfectly natural.

The only response she got was a few negative shakes from some heads. What will be, will be, she thought. Indeed, it didn’t take long. As soon as she put up her purse and even before she had sat down at her desk, she heard:

“Mariita, my office, now.”

It was the thundering voice of her boss. He had been her father’s subordinate for years, and she had known him since she was a little girl.

It had always annoyed her when he called her by the diminutive “Mariita”—typically reserved for relatives and childhood friends—and not the more formal “Maria,” if nothing else to maintain the appearance of a professional relationship, which in fact they had despite the sentimental ties.

The chief seemed upset. That became clear when she noticed the evidence that he had stuffed himself with meat pies from the corner bakery, disregarding his persistent efforts not to put on weight and to keep himself fit.

“Have a seat, young lady.”

The familial tone put on her guard. This one wants a favor, she thought.

“Look, I’m sorry for what I’m about to ask, but I don’t have anyone else to turn to. Captain Rios has presented us with a list of unsolved cases in Miami-Dade County that they want to reopen for some reason or another. Rather than reassigning them to the original detectives, he wants other people to work on them so they can offer a fresh perspective. For the moment, he’s given us two cases. I don’t know if there’s a link between them. I’ve put all the files they brought us in the conference room. I want you to be in charge. Choose whoever you want to help you and, once you see what’s involved, let me know what else you’re going to need. You know our budget’s tight, but I want us to solve this as quickly as possible.”

Six foot tall and very fair skinned, with red hair with an occasional touch of gray and eyes as blue as beads, Lawrence Keppler was an American who had gone native, as they say. Not only did he speak Spanish perfectly and loved eating Cuban food and playing dominos, but he even talked with his hands like Cubans, and he spoke so passionately about the Castros that one would think they had confiscated ten factories from him or executed his best friends. The reality was that he had never been to Cuba, but having been born and raised in Miami and having been married for over twenty years to a Cuban had an inescapable effect on him.

Fifteen years earlier, Maria’s father had retired, and Keppler would probably do the same before long. He always referred to Don Patricio as his mentor and even went to see him occasionally to ask for advice when he had a difficult case, perhaps because he really needed help from a former detective or maybe just so her father would feel useful. She thought it was cute that he included the courteous title of “Don.” Larry, as his friends called him, had learned the expression when he spent a semester studying in Seville perfecting his Spanish, and it was his way of showing respect to his former boss. What was certain was that her father loved it when they asked him for advice.

She had never worked on a “cold case” before, and the thought of sitting there, reading old, yellow files didn’t seem very appealing. Nevertheless, Maria hadn’t agreed to the assignment out of friendship. Even if he had started out as if he were asking for a “favor,” it was a direct order.

She understood what the long faces of her colleagues meant that morning. Everyone was afraid they’d get assigned to one of the cases. Once in the conference room, she nearly lost it. Seeing the dates when the crimes had taken place, she was dumbfounded. She took a deep breath, but she had to start somewhere. She opened the first box. She only found some plastic bags and a thin file. It didn’t deal with a homicide but an accident. On September 19, 1992, a car driven by thirty-one-year-old Raimundo Alberto Lazo had fallen into a canal on 8th Street at 177th Avenue, near Krome Avenue, and its occupant had died. The file included photographs of the car removal and of the cadaver. She also found a death certificate and a coroner’s report that determined the death to be an accident. The plastic bags contained the clothing and shoes worn by the deceased as well as a few personal effects that for some reason hadn’t been returned or claimed by the family. For the moment, nothing seemed out of the ordinary except that there was very little information and that the case had been closed hastily. Then she reread the date and understood why.

The accident had taken place only a few weeks after Hurricane Andrew. The police were having a hard time coping. Many officers had lost their homes, but even then the majority were working sixteen and eighteen hour shifts in an effort to help the victims, prevent looting and vandalism, direct traffic, and impose a seven o’clock curfew. There were areas without electricity for more than a month. Similar accidents with people trapped in their cars submerged in canals were frequent in Miami, so it didn’t surprise her that they hadn’t pursued the investigation further in a such a moment.

She was about to close the file when something caught her eye. Although the old Polaroid was blurry, you could clearly see a child’s car seat in the back. She kept on reading until she found what she was looking for. a five-week-old baby had also been in the car, but they had never found the body.

She went out to get a bottle of water before deciding to open the second box of files. All of sudden she got that feeling in the pit of her stomach that comes from a new case, when you realize you’re tackling a puzzle; a reality that had been dashed in an instant, and now it was up to her to find the cause and how it had happened.

She was just about to head back to the conference room when her cell phone rang.

It was her father.

“So whatcha doing, mija?”

“Just here playing on the seesaw, Papi.”

Her father chuckled as he always did when she used some old Cuban saying.

“So, you’re taking it easy… No new case?”

“No…”

“If you’re just goofing off, you could go to lunch with your old man.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m goofing off. I’m looking over some unsolved cases they want to reopen. Besides, I’m on a diet and I’d prefer to get a yogurt.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking strawberry.”

“No, come on, I mean, is the case interesting?”

“I don’t know, Papi, I just started looking over the documents. Let’s talk later. Behave yourself.”

“What choice do I have?”

She headed back into the conference room and opened the second box. She found a bag with the car seat, the birth certificate, a couple of photos of the newborn, and documentation about the search for the body, the false alarm when they had found other remains, the order to close the case, and the various attempts by the mother to reopen it, which until now had been unsuccessful. She wondered what must have happened for them to finally reopen it now that twenty-three years had passed. She went over to the computer and searched through the file where she found a short note:

“Mother asserts having seen missing daughter at Heat game.”

She also did a Google search on the girl. She found out about the many efforts carried out by Gladys Elena Lazo to find her daughter because she was convinced that she hadn’t died in the accident. She had hired private detectives and sought assistance from associations dedicated to searching for missing children. Over the years, they had made three or four sketches of what the child would have looked like at a given time. The last one, made two years ago, showed a young brunette with large eyes and a fixed gaze. Suddenly, that small, missing child took on life. Was it possible that she hadn’t died? And if she had survived, where had she been all these years? And how to even go about looking for her?

She grabbed the phone and dialed the most recent number in the file.

“Hello, is Gladys Elena Lazo there?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Officer Maria Duquesne. Is there a convenient time when I could come by and see you at your house?”