An Inconsequential Murder (38 page)

“
I understand you were to finish your investigation reports today and ready them to be handed over to the Public Ministry and the judge today. Are they ready?”

“
Yes, they are.”

“
As you know, the ex-Dean of the University turned himself in to the authorities last Thursday. Is his case relevant to the one your handling?”

“
No, not really,” said Lombardo dryly. He didn’t want to say more than was necessary until he knew where the Director was going with his questions.

“
But you said that the information that the victim’s killers were after was stored in the University’s computers and that the victim was acting under orders of the ex-Dean when he was killed.”

“
Yes, but I also mentioned that Victor Delgado acted on his own when he encrypted the information, not under orders by the ex-Dean. Delgado meant to give the Dean the key to decrypt the information as needed but he never had the chance. He died before he could inform the ex-Dean and give him the key.”

“
Hmm, all right, so bring me the file and I’ll look it over before I send it to the Public Ministry and the judge,” said the Director in a tone that implied that the conversation was over.

“
You’ll have to ask the Files supervisor for it. I just asked her to check the file in.”

“
Mm,” said the Director.

“
There is one more thing I would like to mention about my investigation,” said Lombardo.

Lombardo’s words finally made the Director look up. “What’s that?”

“
Reading those emails and knowing the persons behind the men who killed Victor Delgado, it would seem to me that there is another person who should know about this, because I fear he might also be in danger.”

“
Who’s that?”

“
Leobardo Contreras, candidate to the Presidency.”

The Director laughed in a forced, artificial way. “Are you crazy? You should be careful about starting rumors like that.”

“
I am not starting a rumor. I am stating that the evidence in this case and the people that are involved lead me to believe that the candidate could be a possible target for them.”

“
And what do you think I should do about your speculations?”

“
I think that the candidate should be warned or at least informed.”

“
Are you mad? Do you want me to call him up and say, ‘Mr. Contreras, one of my investigators thinks your life is in danger?’ Do you know what he will say? ‘My fuckin’ life is always in danger! It comes with the territory!’”

“
That’s true, but in this case we know the source of the possible danger. We know who has a great interest in his never getting elected President.”

“
Who? The hard-line conservatives of the PAC? The DEA and other Americans? That is no secret, my friend. Everyone knows they have always opposed the liberal party’s ideas and politics.”

“
That might be the case, but this time they are willing to go to extremes. They have already committed one murder, and I suspect that they were involved in a couple others.”

“
Look, just tell them to bring me the case file. You can submit an addendum with your suspicions and speculations with it and I’ll see that it gets sent to the right people, ok?”

Now the interview was really over. The Director went back to reading the file on his desk and Lombardo shrugged and left the office.

When he got
back to his desk, there was an envelope addressed to him. It was official stationery of the Public Ministry.

Lombardo read:

“
According to our records…
”

They were being ‘nice’ enough to recognize the time he had been on the Guadalajara Judicial Police Force as part of the time he had been a public servant, therefore, according to their records, he was eligible for early retirement. It was strongly recommended that he accept that option since the difference in retirement pay and benefits was negligible if he chose to stay until the mandatory retirement age of 65. The memo went on to say that this would also benefit the Department since it would create vacancies to be filled by recent graduates of the Judicial Police Force Academy.

“
Meat for the grinder,” said Lombardo to no one in particular.

There
was a handwritten note by the Director: “I have asked the HR Department to have your paperwork ready for you to sign by tomorrow. If you decide not to sign, I have also asked them to prepare your transfer to the Judicial Police in Ciudad Juarez or Tijuana.”

The warning that he might be transferred if he did not retire was like a death threat: Judicial Police cops had an average life span of 6 months in those two cities.

Chapter 4
3: Signing Away the Past, Arranging a New Future

The
following day Lombardo signed accepting his early retirement. Since it would become official on the last day of the month, Lombardo went to see Victor Delgado’s widow. He wanted to tell her about her husband and about the “justice” that had been meted to his killers, but he wanted to do this while he was still a cop, not just some retiree recounting his last case.

He called her and asked if he could come to see her and she said she would be available in the afternoon. She explained that she had a job interview in the morning and that she would be home at 2 p.m. after she had picked up her son from the Social Security Day Care Center.

She told Lombardo that he could come by at 4 p.m., after she had fed the boy and he was having his afternoon nap.

Lombardo cleaned out his desk and turned in the pieces of evidence for this last case, and some from other cases that he found in the drawers and the cardboard boxes that he’d stacked on top of the filing cabinets.

The Director’s secretary came to his desk and told him that the Director had asked that he remain available in case the judge considering the case wanted to question him about it.

Lombardo said that he would be. “You have my home phone number, sweetheart; call me any time you want—day or night.” He winked at her.

“
That’ll be the day,” she said and walked away loudly clacking her heels on the tiled floor.

Lombardo smiled. He loved annoying her.

He doubted he would ever be called to testify. There was now no political motivation to push it forward. It would vanish into the dead file archives of the judicial system in no time.

Victor De
lgado was dead, two senators were dead, and three foreign agents, too—yet the world, the country, the city, or the system was neither the wiser nor the better for his having “solved” the case. Political power struggles would continue to grind people up, the drug trade would continue to produce dozens of deaths a month, and little people caught between the factions fighting for power and money would continue to get hurt and killed.

He looked down at his empty, battered desk. It was ready for the next guy to come and sit here and receive the phone calls that would take him out to see the dead, and the crimes, and the mayhem of a society spinning out of control. And he or she would be just as powerless as he was to do anything about it.

“
Twenty-five years,” he said aloud. “What a colossal waste of time.”

Lombardo walked out of the Investigations Department for the last time.

Lombardo went home and had lunch while watching an old movie in which Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were gliding smoothly over a dance floor to Irving Berlin’s music.

Lombardo liked old movies; he thought they were the only thing worth watching on television. He fell asleep to the strains of
“Cheek to Cheek” and dreamt he was in a theater watching the movie and that people were complaining that it was in black and white and not in color so he had to stand up and tell them to shut up and let him watch the movie, but a car horn kept blaring: blat! blat! blat!

He woke up—the intermittent sound was the alarm clock he had set to go off at 3:30 p.m.

He washed his face and brushed his teeth quick
ly, then brushed his hair down as best he could. He threw off this wrinkled long-sleeved shirt and tie and put on a polo shirt. As he walked out of the house and to the avenue to look for a taxi, he felt almost naked without a suit on—and without a gun. It had been a long time since he had been without them on a weekday.

As he walked up to the door of the house he looked at his watch
; it was precisely 4 p.m. He felt strangely uneasy, like a teenager going to pick up a date for the first time. He was angry with himself for feeling like that and even angrier that he had not worn his coat and tie and hat. It would have made things look more formal, not like a social visit.

“
I’m a moron,” he said, despairing at the lack of understanding for the feelings and ideas he was experiencing.

He rang the doorbell and since the door was not opened right away, he thought of walking away and calling later. “Perhaps I missed you or maybe you were having a nap,” he would say. But before he could turn away the door opened.

Lombardo was so astonished by what he saw that he blinked and said nothing for a few seconds
. There was Mrs. Delgado, in a light yellow, sleeveless dress, with one strap over her left shoulder and the other hanging down over her right arm; a large, yellow pin held her hair into a knot, leaving her light brown shoulders and neck visible. She was the most beautiful woman Lombardo had ever seen.

“
I’m sorry I took so long to answer the door,” she said. “I was in the back washing some things.” She wiped her hands with a small towel before she extended one to greet him.

“
I’m sorry, I, uh, could come back if you’re busy,” he said apologetically.

“
No, no, please come in, Captain.”

They sat down in the small living room. She sat in a
n easy chair and busied herself folding the towel neatly; Lombardo sat on the small sofa opposite. He wished he could smoke. For some reason, he felt nervous.

“
You said you had some news about my husband’s case,” she said when she saw he would not start the conversation.

“
Yes, yes, I do.” He leaned back to try to appear a bit more comfortable and said, “I found the three men who, uh, who were responsible for your husband’s, uh, tragic…”

“
Have you arrested them, Captain?”

“
No, I’m afraid that that is impossible; you see, all three are now dead.”

She sat quietly looking at him without a trace of emotion before she said, “How did they die?”

“
You might have heard in the news about three foreigners, two Americans and one Canadian, who tried to, uh, well, they did not stop when signaled to do so at a roadblock the Army had set up somewhere in the border between Jalisco and Zacatecas. According to reports, they fired at the soldiers and the soldiers fired back, killing all three men.”

“
That’s horrible,” she said looking down, “and very strange.”

“
I would add convenient,” Lombardo commented.

“
Why do you say that, Captain?”

“
Because they belonged, or at least they were hired, by a law enforcement organization in the United States. It would have been very embarrassing to them if I had arrested these men and charges had been brought against them.”

“
So, you think they were killed for that?”

“
Well, according to the Army report, there were drugs in the car, which might have been the reason they tried to run the roadblock.”

“
Do you believe that?”

“
No, I don’t. But I have no way of proving otherwise.”

She looked at him steadily with a gaze that seemed to say she wanted to hear the truth of her next question: “Why did they kill my husband? Do you know?”

“
Yes, I do.” He wished more than ever that he could smoke. “I think it was an accident.”

“
How was it an accident?” she said with a trace of annoyance in her voice.

“
You see, Victor was helping a group of people, politicians and businessmen who wanted the government to legalize drugs. He wasn’t doing anything wrong or illegal; he was just keeping
their information safe, you see.” He was trying to find words that made the stupidity of her husband’s horrible death as understandable as possible.