The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb (13 page)

“Well, I was rather hoping you could tell me some more about Margarita and the crime scene. I'd like to get a better idea of where it all happened
.” I'd really like to know if there is a back entrance to Margarita's store, through which someone could have entered and exited without anyone, me included, seeing them from the street
, was what I wanted to say, but I couldn't, because Al “knew” that Bud had done it, so the logistics of the crime scene were of no interest to him, and weren't supposed to be of any interest to me.

“Okay, but let's go inside. I'm starting to get cold,” replied Al.

Personally, I was relishing the still-warm evening and the chance to be comfortable and not sweaty. I reminded myself that the evening might feel delightful to me, but for someone who was used to much higher temperatures, it might feel a bit chilly.

“Okay,” I agreed, and I walked in through the heavy wooden door at the police station end of the building that Al had pushed open for me.

As I peered into the gloom, I could only make out vague shapes. Al threw some switches and the whole building lit up. To my right, someone gasped, and I turned, startled.

There, inside a cage made from thick iron bars, was Bud, lying on the floor on a dirty mattress that looked as though it were made of straw.

“Oh, Bud . . .” was out before I could stop myself.
Damn and blast!
“Oh, but . . . is that
him
?” I added, as quickly as my heart was beating.
Will Al work out that I blurted out a name, or did I cover my mistake?

“Yes, that's him alright,” replied Al. “Nasty looking beggar. Could be from anywhere, couldn't he? What do
you
think?” His tone made me feel he hadn't noticed my blunder.
Phew!

I looked across at the man I loved and hoped I was managing the micro-expressions on my face well enough that Al wouldn't be able to work out what was spiraling through my brain.

Bud was in long gray pants and a white, short-sleeved shirt:
that's a spare police uniform.
They must have stripped him to preserve forensic evidence. A metal plate and mug were on the floor:
they have fed him and given him something to drink.
He showed no signs of having been beaten—Al didn't strike me as that kind of cop, in any case. Bud seemed to have been cleaned of blood:
that's odd, but maybe with the heat, and the flies, it's best. They've probably got a load of photographs of the blood spatter that I saw covering him.
He'd been lying in the dark, and I know him well enough to know that he'd actually dropped off
—he's got that look about him. That's a good sign.
Bud blinked in the light:
good, that's giving him a chance to hide his surprise at seeing me. Oh, poor Bud, I love you, and I'm here to do all I can to rescue you!

“What do I think?” I said aloud, in response to Al's question. “I think you've got yourself a killer in a cage, and we'd better work out exactly who he is before you hand him over to the Federales the day after tomorrow. Of course, if I can work out why Margarita was killed, that'll give us the best chance of establishing who this fellow is. You didn't say whether you'd circulated a photo of him—have you?” Al shook his head. “Okay, let's keep it that way. If the Federales know who he is before you hand him over and tell them you've worked it out for yourself, it won't look as good for your career,” I added.

Al nodded, then said quietly, “Come on. I don't know if he speaks English or not, but I don't want us to talk in front of him. Let's go to my office. Follow me.” He spoke surprisingly sharply.

“Lead on,” I said, risking a backward glance at Bud once Al had turned away. In that one look I tried to condense all the love, pity, hope, and determination that I felt. I had no idea whether Bud would pick up on such a complex message, in a flicker of an eye, but I'd done all I could to communicate the situation and my plan to him in a couple of sentences. I couldn't risk trying to tell him that I'd been in touch with Jack, or that Jack was sick. Maybe I'd find a way to do that too, eventually. I followed the jailer of my loved one to his office, and wondered how best to move my investigation forward. I looked at my watch. It had just passed 7:00
PM
. I might be in for a long evening. I hoped it would be productive.

IT FELT VERY STRANGE TO
be so close to Bud, and yet for him to be so utterly beyond my reach. I followed Al into his office, but I didn't close the door on the off chance that Bud might be able to hear something comforting.

The office was neat and tidy, and each wall was lined with tall, old-fashioned wooden filing cabinets. It was a small room, but the ceiling was high. It had the same polished hardwood floors that the entire building seemed to have, as well as a similar ceiling. It was a bit oppressive. Not even the white walls helped. Al had turned on three fans, one in each of three corners, and the cross-draft they created pulled in some cool air from the open barred windows.

I sat in a worn leather-covered swivel seat. I tried to stop it spinning, but it seemed to have a mind of its own.

“It does that,” said Al, pulling a folder from a drawer. “Miguel says it's a haunted chair.”

“And why would ‘Miguel' say that?” I asked.

Al picked up on my double query. “Miguel is my right-hand man. Well, he's my only man, actually. Just the two of us. And he works the short hours.”

“Does he live here too?”

Al smiled. “No, he doesn't, thank heavens. I don't say that because I dislike him. Poor Miguel is a good man, but there isn't
just
him. He, his wife, his four daughters, his mother,
and
his brother all live together.” Al sighed. “Poor guy, lost his eldest last year. It's been really tough for him.”

“What happened?” He seemed to want to tell me.

Al looked at the file in his hand and laid it on his desk. He sighed again and rubbed his hands over his face. “It was November 1 last year, el Día de los Muertos. A big deal around here. The Day of the Dead. It's nothing like most foreigners think. It's nothing like Halloween. It's a family day, a day for remembering our ancestors. Miguel's eldest, Angélica Rosa, was supposed to be with her family that night, but she never arrived. I mentioned a local restaurant earlier, where Serena's sisters help out?” I nodded. “Well, Rutilio is Miguel's brother, and his restaurant is directly behind the crime scene—it's near the Rocas Hermosas Resort; the front side faces the sea. Miguel's daughter was helping at her uncle Rutilio's restaurant back then. At that time, Rutilio wasn't living with his brother. Angélica Rosa said she'd walk home after they closed up. It wasn't unusual. She was eighteen, and it was a busy evening, with people traveling to and from family gatherings, but she never made it to her father's house. Of course, Miguel was annoyed at first. He thought she'd gone off to have some fun with her friends instead of being with her family. We soon realized she wasn't with any of her friends, so we did what we could locally, but we also called it in to the Federales.”

“Did they find her quickly?” I asked.

“It took them three days. She was laid out, wrapped in white sheeting, hands folded in prayer, on a bank near the edge of a side road about fifty miles from here. No interference, thank heavens. Miguel was still overwhelmed. And, if that wasn't bad enough, when he went to Guadalajara to identify her body, they kept him there. Locked him up. The questions went on for days. Terrible. It nearly broke him. By the time they worked out when she'd been killed, and that he probably couldn't have done it, because he really
was
with his family that night, he was a mess. They allowed him to come home to his family, but he needed weeks off work, and the Federales kept buzzing around Punta de las Rocas, asking questions about him. There was another killing. Same
MO
. Luckily for Miguel, he was well and truly out of the frame for that one because he had a watertight alibi. They were able to work out pretty much exactly when the second girl was dumped on the roadside, and they knew it would have been impossible for Miguel to have made it from the dump site in time to be on his knees in front of the altar at Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Puerto Vallarta, saying a Requiem Mass for his dead daughter. It was a big deal around here: he and his family carried out a simultaneous crucifix of Requiem Masses. Miguel's mother went to her old hometown in the south, his wife to hers in the north, and his brother, Rutilio, was here in Punta de las Rocas, to the west. That sort of thing doesn't happen too often. It's one of the old ways of this area. Everyone who lives here went to one of the services; most stayed in Punta de las Rocas with Rutilio, but I know that Margarita went with Miguel to
PV
. So the heat was off him, at last, and he recovered enough to return to work.”

“It sounds awful to say, but he was lucky there was a second killing, in a way,” I said.

A wry smile crossed Al's face. “I know what you mean. And what you say is sad, but true. There's been another murder, by the same killer, every month since. Not
exactly
every month, just over the four-week mark each time, it seems. In fact, if the ‘Rose Killer' keeps to his schedule, there'll be another dead teenager within the next few days.”

“The
Rose Killer
?”

“Miguel's daughter's name was Angélica Rosa, and the serial killer, because that's what we now know him to be, puts two red roses in his victims' hands, between their praying palms. Seven of them to date. State-wide. Gone.” He shook his head. “But enough of this. It's not a case that I can do anything about. The Federales are the ones charged with finding this monster who somehow convinces girls not known to be off the rails in any way to drink themselves to death, before he lays them out on the side of the road, far, far away from their homes and their distraught families.”

“They die from alcohol poisoning?” I was puzzled. “That's
very
unusual. You have to drink a great deal of the stuff to die from it, and, even then, it's hardly what you'd call a dependable way of killing someone.”

“You're not wrong,” said Al. “Unusual, horrible, and depressing. The theory is that, although there's no sexual involvement, he likes to watch them get drunk and then die. They found some evidence in the case of the second girl that the killer had force-fed her the alcohol, bringing her round out of unconsciousness several times, making her drink, then waiting until she could drink more, and that he drugged her too. Evil. I only know about the first two cases because, as I said, after that there was no reason for any information to be given to Miguel, and there was
never
any reason for me to be informed. I only knew what I did from my grieving colleague. Like I said, poor Miguel. It struck so close to home. Just as close as Margarita's death. Here's the file, Cait. I can't see any reason why you can't have a look at it. After all, we're on the same side. Right?”

“Absolutely,” I said and reached for the folder.

“How about I get us a cold beer from the official intendente's refrigerator, in my apartment, while you settle down with that?”

I nodded, and he was gone. I flicked through the file to see what it contained: some notes, crime scene photographs, that was it. No autopsy report. Not much. I looked at the photographs—the ones showing Bud, covered with blood, were the hardest to take. The ones of Margarita with her throat clearly cut from ear to ear weren't pleasant to see either, of course, but they were more informative. The notes were in Spanish. I could only just about read them, not because my Spanish abilities were lacking, but because Al's handwriting was appalling. As Al entered the room again, I had to make a big decision. I did.

“How are you doing?” he asked, putting a well-chilled bottle of Pacifico on the table in front of me. I couldn't resist and took several big gulps. By the time I relinquished my grip on the bottle, there was only about a quarter of the beer left.

“Thirsty?” asked Al, smiling and still holding his full bottle.

I smiled back. “Just a bit! These notes—are they written by you? It's hard for me to tell.”

“Spanish not up to it?” he asked.

“I
could
do with some help,” I replied truthfully.
I didn't go so far as to lie by saying I couldn't understand Spanish. He inferred it. Not my fault.

“Most of my notes are about the crime scene, Margarita, and the suspect, as you'd expect. Pass them over and I'll go through them.” He held out his hand and took back the folder.

I sat back in my rickety chair and sipped my remaining beer as he spoke.

“Margarita Rosa García Martinez, age thirty-three, height five feet three inches, weight approximately one hundred and ten pounds, of Hacienda García, Punta de las Rocas, Nayarit. Found expired at her flower shop, Margarita Flores, Rocas Hermosas Resort, Punta de las Rocas. Throat slashed, displaying a deep, ear-to-ear wound. Suspect found on site, with hands around the victim's throat. Suspect's name, not known; country of origin, not known. Body and suspect found in situ by Serena Marquez García, of Spa Serena. The suspect had been encountered by Roberto and Maria Guitterez, owners of Bob's Bodega, when he went into their store to purchase supplies. He spoke a little Spanish to them and paid in cash. They directed him to Margarita Flores as a place where he could purchase roses.” Al paused and looked up at me. “I wondered why he wanted to buy roses. Maybe it was just a ruse, to have an excuse to enter the flower shop? What do you think?”

I gave some careful thought to my reply. “Yes, that's interesting. Why didn't he just buy flowers at the bodega?”

Al smiled. “That's easy. I know that Margarita had often told Roberto that she promised to not sell beer if he promised to not sell flowers. It was their little joke.” The smile faded on his face. “She didn't like it that Rutilio literally gives them away at his place of course . . .”