Smaller and Smaller Circles (5 page)

Saenz doesn't want to have to say this, but he has no choice. “I'm afraid we may need to dig all the way down to blotter level, sir.”

It's an unpleasant prospect, but Valdes and the director know as soon as Saenz says it that it's necessary. Crime statistics are chronically underreported or misreported across the country, as law enforcement officials at every level try to massage the numbers to create the illusion of better performance. Discrepancies have been estimated in as many as 60 percent of crime incidents, with some station commanders seemingly more interested in staying in office or snagging promotions than in presenting a true picture of criminal activity in their areas of responsibility. Discrepancies also arise when authorities at the level of the
barangay
—the country's smallest administrative unit—neglect to submit incident reports, or submit selective or whitewashed reports. So Saenz doesn't trust the completeness of police reports at the station level.

Arcinas stands. “I don't know about you, but I don't have the time to dig through blotters.”

“Sit down, Ben.”

“What he's asking us to do is—”

“Sit down.”
Director Lastimosa is not usually one to bark at his subordinates, but it's obvious to Saenz that Arcinas is working on his last nerve here. “We won't take shortcuts here. These children are just as important as your celebrities and politicians and bankers. This case falls within your purview, so I expect you to do what needs to be done.”

Arcinas slides back into his chair, sulking. “You can't even be sure you'll get the police or
barangay
to cooperate.”

“We'll find a way.” Valdes turns to Saenz. “I've had those files photocopied for you. I'll arrange for Rustia to come and see you before you leave this morning. And we'll let you know soon how we're progressing on the blotters.”

“Thank you.”

Arcinas looks around at everyone. “So we're done here? I can go?”

Director Lastimosa waves his hand to dismiss Arcinas. The director seems very tired now; Saenz notes the lines of strain on his forehead, around his eyes and mouth, the ashen tinge of his skin. Arcinas forcefully pushes his chair out from underneath him, its legs scraping loudly on the cement floor. He leaves the room, allowing the door to bang shut behind him.

Valdes studies the director's face closely, plainly worried. “Are you all right, sir? You don't look well.”

The director waves again. “I'm fine. Being in the same room as Ben saps me.” He gives them both a tight, forced smile. “Don't tell me you don't feel the same way.” He stands. “Father? You're good with this so far?”

“Yes, sir.” Saenz's brow is creased with concern. “Director Valdes is right. You don't look well.”

“Nothing that a cup of coffee and some peace and quiet in my office won't cure.” He walks to the door. “I'll see you later in the week then, Father?”

“Yes, sir.”

His footsteps recede down the hall. “Is he going to be okay?” Saenz asks.

“He's had a tough week. He'll be fine.” But even Valdes doesn't look convinced by the words coming out of his own mouth.

That night, Saenz
writes an email to Jerome, now in Chicago for his conference. He gives him the broad outlines of the two murders and asks if he might be able to help, as he has done with several prior cases. He sends off the email and then reads other emails for about a quarter of an hour.

He is about to log off and get ready for bed when he hears the familiar ping of the chat program running in the background of his computer. He clicks on the window.

JLucero: Knock knock.

JLucero: Anybody home?

Saenz1911: Hey. When did you get in?

JLucero: Yesterday morning.

JLucero: Got your email. Sounds urgent.

Saenz1911: It is.

JLucero:
This why Lastimosa came by to see you last week?

JLucero: You didn't say anything that evening. Didn't want to pry.

Saenz1911: I had a lot on my mind.

Saenz1911: So when are you back? I've forgotten.

JLucero: In about two weeks. Conference is on all week, then still have two lectures to deliver.

Saenz1911: Can't be helped then. Ok to bug you with this when you get here? Might be tough going.

JLucero: When have I ever said no? :-)

JLucero: But you okay on your own for a while?

Saenz1911: Thanks.

Saenz1911: Yes, yes. Could take a while to get the paperwork moving anyway.

JLucero: Heh. Not surprised. Keep me posted?

Saenz1911: Of course.

JLucero: Okay. Gotta run. Keynote starts in about an hour. Bus coming to pick us up.

Saenz1911: Go, go. Knock 'em dead.

JLucero: I will if I don't take a shower first.

Saenz1911: You know, I really didn't have to know that.

JLucero: :-)

JLucero: It's for your edification.

JLucero: Go to sleep. Talk soon!

Saenz logs off.

5

The rest of
the week comes and goes, and it's Monday when Saenz gets the call from Valdes. When he arrives, he's escorted once more to the drab, stuffy room where they last met. This time, the table at the center of the room is stacked with folders. Valdes is waiting for him, looking glum. Behind him are two young men, perhaps in their mid-to-late twenties.

“Borja and Estrella helped sort through these, Father.”

The two give him small bows of respect, whisper “Father” in greeting. He smiles at them, asks for their first names.

“I'm Ed,” says the taller of the two. “This is Norman.”

Saenz shakes their hands, then picks up one of the folders. The papers inside are photocopies; he guesses that the precincts did not want to relinquish the originals. He asks Valdes,
“Did you have a hard time getting your hands on these?”

“Hard enough,” Valdes says. “They thought it was an audit.”

“Which it kind of is.”

“Well, we couldn't tell them that or else we'd never get anywhere. The last official audit got three station commanders sacked.”

Same old story
, Saenz thinks to himself. “Find anything?”

The three other men look at one another and hesitate, and Saenz knows immediately from their body language, from the small, strangled sounds that they make in their throats, that it can't be good.

Valdes nods in the direction of two folders lying on the table, separate from the rest of the stacks. “Two other bodies
with similar mutilations. Both found in the dumpsite.” He watches as Saenz reaches for the folders, flips rapidly through their contents. “One found in March, the other found in April.”

“Where are they now?”

“You might want to sit down for this. The police and the
barangay
couldn't get any leads on either the identities or the
possible killers. When nobody turned up to identify and claim the bodies, they were carted off to the nearest paupers' cemetery.”

Saenz tries to study the papers again, but he's so angry that he can't concentrate. “That's it? Just like that?” He feels a throbbing behind his left eye that radiates out to his temple.

“Are you surprised?”

“Maybe not surprised. But certainly disgusted.”

“We see this all the time,” says Ed. “When local police hit a dead end, the remains are simply taken and buried somewhere. Not enough space to hold them for very long.”

Saenz says to Valdes, “We have to find those bodies.”

“I'm already on it.”

“And Ading Rustia? Did he find anything new at the site where the second boy was found?”

“That's the one piece of good news we've got for you, Father.” Norman steps forward with another folder. “He said he found a tattered shirt of a fabric similar to fibers found on the body.” He hands the folder to Saenz.

Saenz takes it and opens it to skim the first page. “It's not much, but it's something.”

Valdes's cell phone goes off, and he tugs it free from the holder attached to his belt. He checks the screen. “Sorry, Father, I've got to run. You all right here?”

“I'll be studying these for a while, thank you.”

“Okay. Ed's coming with me, but if you need anything, Norman here will help.”

Valdes leaves with Ed, and Norman pulls up a chair to sit beside Saenz.

“You think those other two were killed by the same person?”

Saenz sighs. “Can't be sure until I've had a chance to examine the remains. But if these reports have recorded the injuries correctly”—he taps the folders on the desk in front of him—“the similarities are impossible to ignore.”

W

About an hour
later, Norman offers to get coffee for both of them. A few minutes later, somebody knocks on the door and opens it a crack.

“Father.”

Saenz smiles when he recognizes the face and the voice. “Ading.”

The door opens fully, and Fernando Rustia walks in. They shake hands. He's a tiny man, the merest fraction of an inch over five feet, in his midforties, extremely neat, with round, sad, deep-set eyes and large ears that stick out of the sides of his small head.

Rustia surveys the room with some distaste. “I see they chose the best possible room available for you.”

Saenz chuckles. “All the other rooms were taken.”

“Heh,” Rustia replies, and that's about as much as he's going to say. He reminds Saenz of a tarsier, particularly in the way he swings his head swiftly to look at his interlocutor during a conversation, always seeming to miss his mark by an inch or two. Some people find it uncomfortable to speak with him since he seems constantly to be looking at them from out of the corner of his eye. And because almost everyone at the bureau is taller than he is, the situation is aggravated by the upward tilt of his head—it's rather like being assessed by a furtive hobbit.

Saenz, whose mind observes and collects people's odd mannerisms, finds this quite endearing. His association with Rustia goes back several years, and he knows him to be the finest crime scene investigator in the bureau—perhaps in the whole country.

“Excellent work on the site where the second boy's body was found,” Saenz says.

“Thanks. You've seen my report?”

Saenz nods. “Yes, I was just reading it. You were fast.”

Rustia shrugs. “Would have been faster if I weren't swamped with work. But the director said this was a priority, so
. . .
”

“Thanks, Ading. I appreciate this.”

“Been getting a lot of work since he came on board. Good on one hand, but too much work and I could make mistakes.”

“Have you told him?”

“You don't want to be the complainer, you know?”

Saenz shakes his head. “You should tell him. I think he'll listen.”

Rustia gives him the weary look of the perpetually disappointed. “Every director listens, Father. I've yet to meet one that's actually done something to change things here.”

The door opens again. It's Norman, bearing a paper cup of scalding hot vending machine coffee in each hand. When he sees Rustia, he gives him a quick nod of greeting.

“'Ding. Coffee?” he offers, carefully setting both cups down on the table within Saenz's reach.

“No, thanks. Had too much coffee for one day. Thanks for giving Father Saenz here my report.”

“No problem.”

Saenz takes a sip of coffee and finds it exceedingly bad—completely lacking in richness and aroma and dominated by a flavor akin to burnt tobacco. He sets it aside, careful not to allow his face to register displeasure, but Norman notices anyway. “We've got sugar, Father. You want some sugar?”

Not all the sugar in the archipelago can improve this coffee, my boy
, Saenz thinks. “No, it's fine. I'll just wait for it to cool a bit.” He turns back to Rustia's report. “Think we can use this information to get an ID on the boy?” he asks both men. “Maybe someone's looking for their son. Maybe they'll recognize the shirt fabric.”

Rustia doesn't look too hopeful. “There aren't many missing persons reports from the area, Father. It's a transient population. People come and go all the time, and kids or teenagers who disappear from their families are often presumed to have run away.”

Norman, however, is a little more upbeat. “We'll be contacting those who've come forward to ask for help. Who knows? We might get a hit.”

Saenz1911: Ding dong.

Saenz1911: Anybody home?

Saenz1911: There are two more bodies. NBI's trying to get them exhumed.

Saenz1911: Anyway. Hope first lecture went well.

Saenz1911: Try to catch you tomorrow.

Saenz1911: Night.

JLucero: Wait wait.

JLucero: Am here. Two more?

JLucero: You still there?

Saenz1911: Sorry, brushed teeth.

Saenz1911: Yes, two more, similar injuries.

JLucero: And nobody raised a stink about them?

Saenz1911: There was a cursory investigation, but no results. So the barangay authorities decided to get the bodies buried quickly.

JLucero: They went on the blotters, surely?

JLucero: Otherwise how would you have first known about the injuries?

Saenz1911: Blottered, yes. But not transmitted to higher levels.

JLucero: ???!!

Saenz1911: Was that the sound of your jaw dropping?

JLucero: I really shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain.

JLucero: But I sure feel like it.

Saenz1911:
After you take it in vain please lend it to me

Saenz1911: I promise to give it back to Him when I'm done

JLucero: But why? I don't understand.

Saenz1911: Apparently the excuse was that there was
no room at the nearest morgues to hold them.

Saenz1911: If you ask me, it was sheer laziness and expediency.

JLucero: Shameful.

Saenz1911: Hang on. Phone.

Saenz picks up the ringing phone on his desk. “Saenz.”

“Not asleep yet, are you?” It's Rustia; he's never been one for niceties.

“No, working. What's up?”

“Sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I think you might want to come over.”

Saenz glances at his wristwatch. “Now?”

“Now. I think we've got an identification on the second boy.”

“The one with the tattered shirt?”

“That's him.”

“Be there as soon as I can.”

When Rustia hangs up, Saenz returns to the chat with Jerome.

Saenz1911: Have to run.

Saenz1911: Ading thinks the second boy can be identified.

JLucero: Go, go! Keep me posted.

Saenz1911: Will do.

Saenz finds Rustia
leaning against a doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. He is watching Jake Valdes trying to console a visibly agitated couple. They are standing some distance away in the middle of the corridor, and the woman is distraught, almost hysterical. Saenz stands beside Rustia, taps him lightly on the shoulder.

Rustia looks up. “Father.”

“Ading.” Saenz glances at the couple. “Are those the parents?” he whispers.

Rustia nods. “Boy's name was John David Mendoza.”

“Absolutely sure?”

“They identified the shirt material. And from photographs, they found a birthmark on his left arm, just inside the crook of the elbow. Mother hasn't been able to sit still since.”

The father stamps his foot in anguish and frustration. Valdes is trying to placate him. But then the mother begins to wail, and the father loses it completely; he's shouting at Valdes now, demanding to know why they haven't put the boy's killer behind bars yet. His voice bounces off the hard walls, rings in their ears.

Instead of meeting the man's anger head-on, Valdes maintains a respectful silence. Saenz recognizes in the deputy director's face and body language—the way his features relax into calm concern, the way he holds his body straight yet loose—a kind of mental distancing, allowing him to absorb the man's rage without taking it personally or feeling compelled to respond in kind.

Saenz turns to Rustia. “Probably doesn't feel like it right now, but good work, Ading.”

He shrugs. “We were lucky with the shirt and the birthmark. Next time, maybe not so lucky.”

Saenz pauses, then asks, “What about DNA? The bureau has new equipment, right?”

Rustia smirks. “We got it last year. But you remember what they kept telling you then? ‘We can't carry out DNA testing just yet because we're still building our database.' Plus, with no guidelines on collection and storage of samples at local police and health units—well, you get the picture, no?”

Yes, I get the picture.
The priest sighs. “Hey. You think Director Valdes will let me talk to the parents?”

“No harm in asking him.” Rustia stops to listen to the father's continuing tirade. “But—maybe not tonight.”