17 Stone Angels Page 3

  “That was a strange case, no? Six chalks of milonga and a dead foreigner. Domingo was telling me about it. Somebody was settling accounts.”

  Fortunato’s stomach tightened at Domingo’s name. He didn’t welcome Fabian’s interest in the case. “Thus the theory.”

  Fabian nodded. “I looked over the expediente a few months ago. Nothing’s going to come out of that mess.” Fortunato didn’t answer and Fabian dropped it. “Whatever, it should be interesting to work with a police from the United States,” he said.

  “She’s not a police. She’s a professor. A specialist in Human Rights.”

  Fabian raised his eyebrows and shook his head, laughing as he turned to leave the office. “This is a thing of gringos!”

  She arrived promptly at eleven o’clock, accompanied by a young weightless attaché from the United States embassy. The embassy man, a Mr Wilbert Small, introduced himself with an accent that tried hard to accommodate the Italianate cadences of Buenos Aires. Fortunato could tell he was a man of little rank. If the embassy was serious, they would have sent over someone from the FBI. Fortunato offered them a coffee and ceremoniously took a few coins from a wooden box. He handed them to a sub-inspector and asked for him to bring three cortados, the thick spicy coffee with a dollop of milk.

  They sat down and the embassy man started in with his embassy verses: the United States was grateful that the Bonaerense had agreed to indulge the family in one last attempt to put the case to rest.

  “It’s a tragedy,” the Comisario said. “I’ll do everything possible.”

  He and Wilbert Small chatted lightly about Argentina and the United States for a few minutes until the diplomat left them to attend an important reunion of the Anglo-Argentine Cultural Society. Fortunato shut the door after him and sat down alone with La Doctora. He wanted to find out what suspicions she entertained about the case.

  “Doctora Fowler,” he began, “something I want to say from the start. I know that your training is in human rights, and, while I know that those issues are extremely important, especially with our recent history here in Argentina, I don’t feel that we’re dealing here with a human rights violation. Our indications are that this is a simple criminal case. Is there something that makes you think otherwise?”

  “I think it’s always better to begin without preconceptions,” she said a little too crisply. She seemed to regret her brusqueness and flashed an apologetic smile, then opened a notebook and glanced quickly at a few pages of notes. “I’d like to go over briefly some of the details of the case, Comisario Fortunato. When the family was contacted by the US consulate it was told that Waterbury’s death was considered a suicide.”

  “I think that was a confusion, perhaps because the cause of death was identified by the mortuary as a shot to the head. I remind you that it happened on a weekend, when I have my days off, and I think that Sub-Comisario Alper, who was on duty at that time, unfortunately didn’t communicate clearly.”

  She pursued the theme. “I was told the body had several other bullet wounds and was discovered in a burning car. It seems a little bit demanding of Sub-Comisario Alper to expect a man to shoot himself several times, get out of his car, set it on fire, then get back in, put on handcuffs and shoot himself in the head with a second gun.” She softened the implications with a little shrug. “Wouldn’t you say so?”

  Her attack on the most obvious flaw in the investigation unsettled Fortunato a bit, but could not disturb his tranquil exterior. “Doctora Fowler, of course the confusion of suicide was an error in communication either on the part of Sub-Comisario Alper or by the embassy staff, and I apologize for the anguish that must have added for the family.”

  She reached absently for her gold necklace and twined it between her fingers for a moment. “After that, at the family’s request, the embassy made some inquiries and was told that it was a suspected drug-related homicide. Even though the family informed them that Robert Waterbury had no criminal record and no history of drug use.” Her voice became at once accusatory and tentative. “Why did the investigation stop with that conclusion?”

  Fortunato cleared his throat. He meant to say that it would be logical for a man to conceal drug use from his family, but the inquisition of La Doctora’s silence sent him off track. He remembered Domingo sprinkling the chalks in the back seat and Vasquez, with his goatee and his earrings, cursing at Waterbury’s twitching body. The victim’s last silent plea for help. “It seems …” A few seconds passed, but the room—usually so fertile with such answers—was still empty. “Forgive me, Doctora Fowler. At the time of this investigation my wife was dying of cancer and perhaps I delegated more than I should have. I am to blame.” Fortunato hadn’t expected to use that excuse; it had floated up by itself, out of character, but its effect wrote itself instantly on Athena Fowler’s face. Her features softened and she seemed lost for a moment. “I’m very sorry, Comisario Fortunato. When did she pass away?”

  “Three weeks ago.” He looked away from her. So strange to confess it to her like this. He barely mentioned Marcela’s death to anyone else. Her next words caught him off guard.

  “I know how difficult it is. My father died six weeks ago of cancer.” She pulled the chain from beneath her blouse and showed him a gold wedding band. “This was his.”

  They sat in the altered silence for a moment. Fortunato felt off balance, resisting the urge to talk with her about watching Marcela wither away before the ferocious onslaught of the cancer. The sub-inspector knocked on the door with the coffees and a few slender paper tubes filled with sugar. He distributed them and left, and they uttered a few nonsense phrases while they put sugar in the cups. Wilbert Small’s abandoned cortado sat cooling on the tray.

  He cleared his throat, returning to the task at hand. “As to the matter of drugs: you’re aware that several chalks of chlorhydrate of cocaine were discovered in the automobile?”

  He could tell the news surprised her. “No.” She hesitated, embarrassed. “What do you mean by a “chalk” of cocaine?”

  Fortunato grimaced, reluctant at having to deliver such inauspicious details. “A chalk is a little cylinder that the traffickers compress the cocaine into for smuggling. One of the traffickers” methods is to stuff the drug into a rubber balloon and have the accomplice swallow many of these balloons. When we find a chalk, it’s almost always in a concentrated form and involves someone who is distributing the drug as a business.”

  “That doesn’t match anything I was told about Robert Waterbury.”

  “This is how I hoped you could help me, Doctora Fowler. It’s very difficult to investigate a case like this solely on the forensic evidence. To understand it better, I need to know more about the victim. Why did Señor Waterbury come to Buenos Aires? What was he doing here?”

  “As I told you, Robert Waterbury was a writer, and he came here to research a book he hoped to write. His wife said it was supposed to be some kind of detective novel set here, a thriller.”

  “And why Buenos Aires?”

  “I believe he thought it would make an exotic setting for his book. He lived down here for several years about ten years ago. He was working for AmiBank.”

  Fortunato smiled and indulged himself, guessing that his words would resonate with a woman involved with human rights. “AmiBank!” he said brightly. “The famous money launderers! If he worked for them ten years ago, he had a front row seat to the most predatory of the privatizations and debt re-financing.”

  He’d hit it right on. The gringa couldn’t suppress the trace of enthusiasm that broke through her gray professionalism. “You know about AmiBank?”

  “Señorita,” he cocked his eyebrows slyly, “here I apprehend those miserable chorros that grab a moto or rob a house. Of the experts, I can only read in the newspaper!” He held up his finger. “If I remember well, AmiBank was involved in the Aerolíneas privatization. Of the demonstration we saw yesterday?”

  She was conspiratorial now. “In the United States all you
see are commercials with friendly employees helping young couples buy a house.”

  “Thus the machine,” Fortunato said.

  Fortunato knew that in a real investigation he would exhume Waterbury’s former contacts at AmiBank, search through his address book, subpoena his hotel’s telephone records and try to trace every movement he’d made since landing at Ezeiza. Instead, he crunched his brows together. “But you were telling me about Robert Waterbury. You said he was a writer. Writers are famous for their problems with money. What was Señor Waterbury’s economic situation before he came here?”

  He could see La Doctora considering the possibility. “It was a bit difficult, according to his wife.”

  “Did he have many debts?” Fortunato asked gently.

  “I think he did. Yes. His wife said he wanted to write something more commercial, that he could do quickly.”

  “So,” Fortunato nodded, allowing just a trace of self-righteousness to enter his voice, “he did have money problems. And so we could say that the Homicide investigators who worked on the case, Inspectors Velez and Braun, were not completely unjustified in thinking that the presence of the chlorhydrate of cocaine might indicate some sort of settling of accounts by colleagues within the drug business, or perhaps a deal that went bad. When people have large debts, Doctora, they are inclined to do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

  Her protest sounded hopelessly innocent. “But it seems completely out of character!”

  He put on his Good Cop face. “Doctora Fowler, we live in a world of appearances. It’s quite logical that Robert Waterbury might want to conceal some aspects of his character, or even that his wife might prefer not to cloud his memory. We all want others to believe in the image that we create for them, because it helps us to believe it ourselves. But me, after thirty-seven years as a policeman,” shaking his head gently, “I have lost interest in appearances.” A strange shudder passed over him as he said it, a sensation of detachment from himself. He didn’t know why things were going so far off course. “Perhaps this is a good time to examine the expediente,” he suggested, indicating the judicial archives of the case. “In an investigation like this, one should always begin with the facts.”

  He felt his cell phone chirping in his pocket and held up his hand toward Doctora Fowler as he answered it. His investigator had just taken the cuffs off the grocery store owner and turned him out of the car. They’d gotten six thousand from him.

  The expediente of a crime in Buenos Aires is as baroque and ostentatious as the city itself. The investigation is directed by a lawyer working for the judicial system and called an On-Duty judge. The judge decides what steps to take and the police carry them out. As evidence and testimonies are gathered, the judge issues new directives and the police diligently respond. This vast inquiry unfolds across hundreds of pages contributed by the Departmento of this, the Ministerio of that, by police stations and laboratories and morgues. Judge’s orders go out lathered with seals and signatures and are answered with the dignified medallions of the comisarios and their clerks. Dozens of declaraciónes unwind in a tone of cool detachment, and a parade of photographs bolsters these testaments with shots of bullet-riddled cars and sequestered evidence. At last come the portraits of the unfortunate dead, sheathed with blood, shirttails untucked, captured at the most inopportune moment of their lives. An aura of absolute fact prevails—the perfect setting for absolute fiction.

  Fortunato drew the folder out of a scratched metal filing cabinet.

  The packet had the thickness of a small-town telephone book, cluttered with papers that shimmied out at the top and sides. He led Athena into a conference room with a scarred wooden table and motioned to a seat opposite himself.

  “I can only show you the photocopies,” he said. “The original is at the Judicial Deposit.”

  The first declaration described the arrival on the scene. Fortunato could imagine the clerk’s disinterested typing as the officer related his name, parents’ names, rank, age and civil status. After a half page of such preamble, the story began:

  At approximately 01:38 the declarant was directed by radio dispatch of Comisaria #35 of San Justo to report to the 1400 block of Avenida Santana, district of La Matanza, at the crossing of Calle Avellaneda.

  A narrow lot between two abandoned factories, their long empty walls closing off the view. Broken glass and a few burnt-out cars left by dismantlers, lit only by the pink glow of the city lights against the thick mist. Fortunato had known the place because his brigada used to provide “security” for the factories until Chinese imports had driven them out of business. He had chosen it with the same care with which he’d conducted the surveillance and planned the abduction.

  He and Domingo had watched Waterbury for five days, noting his movements and his habitual places. Waterbury went around with a pretty woman who frequented the Bar Azul, some sort of tango dancer. He had a friend who worked at Grupo AmiBank in the financial district, someone high enough in the hierarchy to have a car waiting for him after work each day. Another day Waterbury was visited by a woman who arrived in a limousine and carried a cardboard portfolio, returning twenty minutes later without it. A curious assortment. With more time and more men he would have found out everything about the target and his associates, but this was only a squeeze, so they did the minimum and marked out the night.

  Waterbury had gone to dinner at his habitual restaurant and Onda, the lookout, advised them on the radio when he paid the bill. He came strolling toward the entrance to his pension seventeen minutes after midnight. The building on the corner was getting a new facade, and Fortunato approached him behind a large container full of construction debris.

  “Señor Waterbury,” he’d said, addressing him like an acquaintance.

  Waterbury stopped short. Maybe he’d already been jumpy, or perhaps he sensed Domingo and Vasquez approaching ten meters behind him. Maybe he realized that the scaffolding and debris concealed him from the street.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Fortunato had said, appealing to his ego. “May I chat with you for a few minutes?”

  “About what?”

  He shrugged. “Not about big things. Just to chat.”

  “Who are you?”

  By then Domingo and Vasquez had caught up with Waterbury, and as he heard their brisk footsteps among the crumpled papers he turned. Domingo had the stun gun out. “Excuse me,” Domingo said in a friendly voice. “Is there a problem here?” This confused Waterbury for just the amount of time necessary for Domingo to close in and hit him with fifty thousand volts. Waterbury went down and in less than ten seconds they had him cuffed and in the car. Domingo pushed him to the floor. “Tell Onda to follow us closely,” Fortunato told Vasquez. When they drove off Waterbury was still disoriented, indignantly demanding answers from below. Domingo said admiringly “They’re very good, these little machines, no? In the old days, you’d have to split their heads open to be sure they were down.” Only thirty, Domingo referred to the days of the Dictatorship like a golden era. That puffy dark smile in the rear-view mirror. Fortunato said nothing.

  There the declarant found an auto Ford Falcon, sedan, color metalized gray, interior color light brown, serial #A287-56682-306-1986, with the front doors closed and the rear doors open. The auto was burning, with most of the damage being in the front section, around the motor. Both rear doors were open, and the deceased could be seen on the rear seat, stained with a substance that resembled human blood, apparently dead. The firemen of Cuartel de Bomberos de San Justo arrived at approximately 01:40 and rapidly controlled the fire.

  Waterbury’s voice came up from below the seat. “What is this about?” Domingo had his foot on Waterbury’s head so that he couldn’t rise, and Fortunato saw Domingo shift positions as he shoved the gringo’s face into the thin carpet. “Don’t be clever,” Domingo snarled at him. “You know why you’re here.”

  “If you move I’ll blow your balls off!” Vasquez added. His nose was running and his gr
easy auburn hair flopped across his forehead as he looked down at the gringo. The gold hoops glinted in his ear.

  “Is this Carlo?” the writer had asked in a muffled voice. “Did Carlo send you? Tell him he’s made a mistake!”

  None of them answered. Carlo who? They let the silence work on Waterbury as they crossed into the exurbs of La Matanza.

  “Tell Don Carlo that he has nothing to worry about,” Waterbury said from the floor and then yelped, which told Fortunato that Domingo had kicked him in the head again.

  “Tranquilo,” Fortunato said in his calmest voice.

  Waterbury spoke again after a few minutes, sounding more frustrated than fearful. “I didn’t do anything! You understand? You have to tell him that. Or better, I’ll tell him. Take me to him right now and I’ll explain the whole thing myself.”

  “Of course,” Domingo laughed. “But no one needs your explanation.”

  Fortunato sensed that even now Waterbury retained a certain amount of composure. Still banking on his passport. He probably thought that things like this didn’t happen to people like him.

  “Listen, tell Señor Pelegrini that all I want to do is go home to my wife and daughter and forget all about this. I know nothing and I care about nothing. Understand?”

  Carlo Pelegrini. The vaguely familiar name made Fortunato uneasy, but then Domingo kicked another yelp out of the gringo. “Shut up, faggot! Nobody wants to hear your lies!” Fortunato took a breath and reassured himself. Waterbury was a blackmailer and he had to learn the hard way. It was a necessary part of the operation.

  They’d reached the poorer streets where the houses became scabbed with tar paper and corrugated tin. Weedy lawns languished beside vacant lots. Onda’s headlights in the rear view mirror. The Northamerican couldn’t see anything, but maybe he sensed that he had reached his ultimate destination. Fortunato could hear a new timbre in his voice. Now he was truly afraid. “This is Renssaelaer, isn’t it? Renssaelaer sent you.”

  The sound of the gringo name puzzled the Comisario. Renssaelaer … and Pelegrini … What was this?