An Inconsequential Murder (23 page)

As
Senator Elizondo stood grinning down at the body, the other man came up behind him and put a bullet into his head. The glass fell from his hand as he slid into the grave beside the young man he had hired to kill Senator Romero. The two men fired several more bullets into both bodies.

One of the men flipped his phone open and punched in a number. Alfonso Echeverría, the President’s cousin answered, “Yes?”

“
It’s done,” said the man simply.

“
Both of them?”

“
Yes,” said the man.

“
OK, so now…”

“
Now we leave. Please deposit the money as agreed. We don’t want to have to come back, OK?”

“
Yes, the money will be there tomorrow.”

The man snapped the cell phone shut, took out the battery, and threw both items into the grave. They then shoveled the dirt back in, tamped it down with the shovels and put the shovels into the cargo space of the SUV.

The black SUV went back to the highway where it turned south, toward Cuernavaca. There a private plane was waiting for the two men at the airport. It would fly them to Miami where they would take the late evening flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Chapte
r 26: A Visit with the Dean

Lombardo went directly to Dean Herrera’s home. He did not phone to announce his visit; he wanted to make sure the Dean would be home.

Lombardo rang the door bell and an old woman, whom Lombardo assumed was the Dean’s housekeeper, opened the door.

“
Yes?”

“
I’d like to see Dean Herrera, please,” said Lombardo taking off his hat.

“
I am not sure the Dean is home,” she said, visibly annoyed at Lombardo’s brashness.

“
I am,” said Lombardo. “Please tell him Captain Lombardo of the Public Ministry’s Investigations Department is here and that I would like to speak to him.”

The Dean appeared at the banister thus sparing the old lady from having to go up the grand marble staircase that led from the open, courtyard-like first floor to the second floor, to fetch the Dean. He asked, “What is it, Ponciana?”

“
This man says he is a police Captain and he wants to see you.”

“
I will be down as soon as I change,” said the Dean who was wearing a dressing gown.

When the Dean opened the door to the room from where he had emerged, Lombardo heard the voice of a man asking, “What is it? Who’s down there?” He didn’t hear the Dean’s reply because the door closed behind him.

Lombardo turned to Ponciana and said, “I hope I am not disturbing the family.”

Ponciana looked at him with a face dripping with disapproval. “There is no family to disturb,
señor
. The Dean is not married.”

“
Oh, I thought I had heard someone…”

“
That is a close
friend
of the Dean’s,” she said and
walked away. The manner in which she had pronounced the word “friend” spoke volumes.

When the Dean came down, Lombardo introduced himself and the Dean politely asked, “How can I be of service to you, Captain?”

“
I’d like to talk to you about a young man who was murdered a few of days ago—he worked in the University’s Computer Center, you know.”

“
Yes, I know, Captain,” said the Dean, apparently undisturbed by Lombardo’s ironic tone. “But I thought you had already talked to people at the University about him. Weren’t they helpful?”

“
Yes, they were, but, you see, I’ve learned a lot more things about this remarkable young man since I talked to your people.”

“
Oh?” said the Dean. “Do you mind if we sit down while you tell me all about what you have learned? Would you like something to drink?”

He took Lombardo by the elbow and led him to a pair of sitting room chairs that were in the large niche under the staircase. From a small, roll-top desk that stood between the two chairs he took out a bottle of whiskey and glasses. “Do you want ice or sparkling water?”

“
Neither,” said Lombardo.

After they both had taken
a sip of their drink, the Dean took a gold lighter and a pack of cigarettes from the pockets of his cardigan sweater. He offered Lombardo a cigarette.

“
No, thanks,” said Lombardo, “I have my own.”

Lombardo lit his cigarette and said to the Dean,” You are going to great lengths to show me you are not that interested in what I have to say or what I am going to ask.”

“
Not at all, Captain; I am very interested. But I also believe that there is no circumstance which calls for abandoning civility.”

“
Too bad that the people who killed Victor didn’t think the same way.”

“
Yes,” agreed the Dean, “that poor, unfortunate boy—I am very sorry about what happened to him.”

Lombardo finished his drink and poured himself another. “Exactly what do you think happened to him?”

“
I am sure you know more about that than I do,” answered the Dean coyly.

“
I am not talking about the circumstances of his murder. I already know all the details of that.” Lombardo made a pause and as if accusing the Dean of something, he looked at him with hard, cold eyes. “Three men abducted him shortly after he left the Computer Center; they took him to the edge of a reservoir outside of town, beat him, and then, to wake him up after he had fainted, they stuck his head into the reservoir’s water. He aspirated water and dirt and ashes, and something else, and he asphyxiated. The something else he aspirated was a piece of paper, Dean Herrera. He probably had that piece of paper in his mouth because it was recovered from his trachea by the forensic medical staff.”

Lombardo stopped talking and the Dean waited, anxiously swirling his whiskey until he had to ask the obvious question, “What was on the paper, Captain?”

“
It was a long series of numbers and letters. I had a friend look at it—a friend who knows a lot about computers. He told me it was one of a pair of what he called ‘encryption keys.’” Lombardo took from his pocket the paper Victor’s widow had given him. “This is the other half of the pair,” he said showing it to the Dean. “As you can see, it says you were supposed to have the other half, the one that matched the key that ended up in his trachea.”

“
But, I never…,” the Dean started to protest.

“
I know, I know,” said Lombardo. “You don’t have to tell me you never got the private part of the pair. He didn’t live long enough to give it to you.”

“
Where did you get the private key, Captain?”

Lombardo ignored the question and said, “The important question is, why was he sending
you
the private key?”

“
I assure you I…,” the Dean started to say, his cool composure and his ‘civility,’ now having vanished.

“
Don’t assure me anything, Dean Herrera; I am not interested in you. Although, God knows someone
should
take an interest in you.” Lombardo put his glass down and said slowly. “I have read some of the documents that Victor encrypted before he died. I have an idea of what was going on but I would like for you to fill in some of the details. I want to know the whole story.”

“
And, what will you do when you have ‘the whole story,’ as you put it?”

“
I am not going to run to anyone to denounce anybody, if that’s what’s worrying you. I am certainly not going to my boss because I have a feeling he has recently shifted sides in this little war you people are fighting. I am just interested in catching up with whoever killed Victor.”

“
Why?” asked the Dean.

“
Because I’m a cop, that’s what I do,” said Lombardo. “But, never mind that. Tell me how you are involved in this and why.”

It was now the Dean’s turn to pour himself a large drink. “I became involved, in a way, years ago, before I was named Dean of the University. You see, my doctorate was on demographic research. As head of the School of Social Sciences, I did a lot of work for the PLR.”

“
What kind of work?”

“
It was all pretty innocent stuff. They wanted to know voter tendencies, what undecided voters were thinking, what issues rankled voters most—the usual pre-election stuff. They also had me test ‘pre-candidates’ for local, state, and federal offices—you know, to see how they were perceived by the voters.

“
Governor Sanchez was then the party’s secretary for political action. He was the one who approached me to use the school’s computing resources to crunch the numbers, as it were, and apply my knowledge of predictive statistics to the information. We developed, if not a close friendship, at least a close working relationship, so, when he became Governor of the state, he named me Dean of the University.

“
When this drug problem started getting out of hand, with the Cartels fighting each other, and practically every institution of the country being corrupted with drug money, people not only in the government, but in the private sector, started to worry about Mexico being turned into another Colombia.

“
A lot of talk revolved around the fact that Mexico was suffering because of the insatiable demand of the United States for drugs. ‘Why should we suffer so much violence and corruption,’ they said, ‘just because the damned gringos want to consume tons of junk.’

“
A lot of people were angry that the United States kept pointing the finger at Mexico, calling us corrupt and so on, while they did nothing about consumption. They pressured us into a ‘War on Drugs’ but where was
their
‘War on Drugs’? And, if you want to talk about corruption, if tons of the stuff were getting into the United States, what does that say about corruption on
their
side?

“
Anyway, people in the Party started discussing the idea of legalizing drugs, or at least some drugs. We knew that the United States, especially the more conservative elements, would be violently opposed to it, so when the PLR’s presidential candidate was named, and he seemed
agreeable to considering legalizing drugs, the Governor asked me to conduct some demographic research. They wanted to know how the people in Mexico would react to a presidential candidate proposing the legalization of drugs or usage of drugs, and so on.”

Lombardo said,
“But, it seems to me, having read some of the emails and other documents, that it was not only the gringos who were opposed to the idea of a future President, or shall I say potentially future President, supporting the legalization of drugs.”

“
No, of course not,” agreed the Dean. “The party has never been monolithic. It has left-wing factions, conservatives, center-right and center-left groups, Unionists, and what have you. A strong, conservative faction that is controlled by several ex-Presidents is strongly opposed to what we are trying to do. And, of course, they get money and support from the conservative elements in the U.S.”

“
Was Senator Romero, who was recently assassinated in Mexico City, part of the group that opposed you?”

“
Yes, he was one of the leaders of the group that opposed us,” said the Dean, “at least the visible leader—there were a lot of powerful men, both from the public as well as the private sector, behind him.”

“
Some of the emails I read mentioned that a certain Senator from Coahuila was entrusted with keeping an eye on him.”

“
Yes, I remember reading something about that,” said the Dean in an obviously nervous tone, “but I thought it best not to make it my business, understand?”

“
Yes. What is the good Senator from Coahuila up to now? Do you know?”

“
No, certainly not, and I don’t want anything to do with that man. He is dangerous.”

“
What do you mean by ‘dangerous’?”

“
He’s the kind that will do anything, anything, to get ahead, and to, uh, gain the favor of the powerful, do you understand?”

“
Yes, yes, I do,” said Lombardo. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything else you think I should know? Something that might help me to find whoever killed Victor?”