His words tipped a delicate balance. I was no longer merely exhausted. Suddenly I just wanted to lie on the bed, bury my face in the pillow, and cry. I felt overwhelmed by sorrow and worry for my friend.
Instead, I shifted topics.
Mateo was outraged when I told him about Díaz, and insisted I continue with the case. I agreed but promised to be at his lab on Saturday.
I spent the next twenty minutes jotting on paper a detailed chronology of what had happened at the Paraíso. Then I washed panties in the bathroom sink.
Teeth. Hand cream. Oil of Olay. Sit-ups.
I turned on CNN. A grim-faced commentator moved through soccer, an earthquake, the world market. Locally, a bus had crashed into a ravine, killing seventeen and hospitalizing a score of others.
It was no go. My mind looped from a septic tank, to an intensive care unit, to a well, and back again.
I pictured the skull, slick with human waste. Why hadn’t I done a more thorough exam? Why did I permit people to intimidate me and prevent me from doing what I knew should be done?
I pictured Molly, tubes running from nose, mouth, and arm.
My emotional equilibrium finally collapsed as I was plugging my cell phone into its charger.
In Charlotte, Birdie would be sound asleep. In Charlottesville, Katy would be studying for finals. Or partying with friends. Or washing her hair.
My chest gave a tiny heave.
My daughter was a continent away, and I had no idea what she was doing.
Stop sniveling. You’ve been alone before.
Killing the lights and TV, I slipped between the sheets.
My mind circled the same holding pattern.
In Montreal, it would be close to midnight. Ryan would be . . .
What?
I had no idea what Ryan would be doing.
Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan, Section des Crimes Contre la Personne, Sûreté du Québec. Tall, craggy, with all the crags in the right places. Eyes bluer than a Bahamian lagoon.
My stomach did that weird little flip.
No nausea there.
Ryan worked homicide for the provincial police, and for a decade our paths had crossed and recrossed as we investigated cases of unnatural death. Always distant, always professional. Then, two years ago, my marriage imploded, and Ryan turned his legendary charm my way.
To say our history since had been rocky would be like saying Atlantis had a water problem.
Suddenly single after a twenty-year hitch, I’d had little knowledge of the dating game, and only one maxim: no office romance. Ryan ignored it.
Though tempted, I kept him at arm’s length, partly because we worked together, partly because of his reputation. I knew of Ryan’s past as a wild-child turned cop, and of his present as the squad room stallion. Both personae were more than I wanted to take on.
But Détective Lothario never eased up, and a year back I’d agreed to a Chinese dinner. Before our first social outing, Ryan vanished undercover, not to resurface for many months.
Last fall, following an epiphany concerning my estranged husband, I’d decided to consider Ryan again. Though still cautious, I was finding Ryan thoughtful, funny, and one of the most annoying men I’d ever encountered.
And one of the sexiest.
Flip.
Though that runner was still in the blocks, the gun was loaded and ready to fire.
I glanced at my phone. I could be talking to Ryan in seconds.
Something in my brain said “bad idea.”
Why?
You’d look like a wimp, the something answered.
I’d look like I care.
You’d look like a grade-B heroine mooning for a shoulder to cry on.
I’d look like I miss him.
Suit yourself.
“What the hell,” I said aloud.
Throwing back the quilt, I grabbed the phone and hit autodial 5. The miracle of modern communication.
A hundred miles north of the forty-ninth parallel, a phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
I was about to disconnect when a machine answered. Ryan’s voice invited a message in French then English.
Satisfied? The cerebral something smirked.
My thumb moved toward the “end” button, hesitated.
What the hell.
“Hi. It’s Temp—”
“Bonsoir, Madame la Docteure,” Ryan’s voice cut in.
“Did I wake you?”
“I screen all calls.”
“Oh?”
“Cruise and Kidman split. It’s just a matter of time until Nicole starts ringing.”
“You wish, Ryan.”
“How’s it going on the mudflats?”
“We were in the highlands.”
“Were?”
“We’ve finished digging. Everything’s at the lab in Guatemala City.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-three. Looks like mostly women and kids.”
“Rough.”
“It gets rougher.”
“I’m listening.”
I told him about Carlos and Molly.
“Jesus, Brennan. Watch your butt down there.”
“It gets rougher still.”
“Go on.” I heard the sound of a match, then exhaled air.
“The local gendarmerie think they have a serial operating in Guatemala City. They requested my help with a recovery.”
“There’s no local talent?”
“The remains were in a septic tank.”
“La spécialité du chef.”
“I’ve done one or two.”
“How did that pearl float to Central America?”
“I am not unknown on the world stage, Ryan.”
“Curriculum vitae posted on the Web?”
Could I tell him about the ambassador’s missing daughter? No. I’d promised Galiano full confidentiality.
“A detective saw one of my JFS articles. This may come as a surprise to you, but some cops do read publications unadorned by pictures that fold in the middle.”
A long exhalation. I pictured smoke blasting from his nostrils like steam from a fun-house dragon.
“Besides, there’s the possibility of a Canadian connection.”
As usual, I felt I was justifying my actions to Ryan. As usual it was making me churlish.
“And?”
“And today we recovered a skeleton.”
“And?”
“I’m not sure.”
He picked up on something in my voice.
“What’s eating you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Does the vic fit their profile?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Didn’t you do a prelim on site?”
How could I explain? My tummy was upset?
“No.” Again, the burning guilt. “And I probably never will.”
“Oh?”
“The DA confiscated the bones.”
“Let me get this straight. These yokels ask you to do the leprous slog, then the DA lays paper and boogies with the goods?”
“The cops were given no choice.”
“Didn’t they have their own paper?”
“It’s a different legal system. I didn’t inquire.” My voice dripped icicles.
“It’s probably a minor glitch. The coroner will be calling you first thing tomorrow.”
“Doubtful.”
“Why?”
I searched for a tactful way to explain Díaz. “Let’s just say there’s resistance to the idea of outside help.”
“What about the Canadian connection?”
I pictured the skull.
“Dubious. But I’m not certain.”
“Jesus, Brennan—”
“Don’t say it.”
He did.
“How do you get yourself into these things?”
“They asked me to recover bones from a tank,” I spat. “I did that.”
“What moron was in ch
arge?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I may nominate the guy for dumb-ass of the year.”
“Sergeant-detective Bartolomé Galiano.”
“SICA?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
“Face like a bulldog, eyes like a Guernsey?”
“They’re brown.”
“The Bat.” It was almost a whoop.
“What bat?”
“I haven’t thought of the Bat in years.”
“You’re making no sense, Ryan.”
“Bat Galiano.”
Galiano said he’d spent time in Canada.
“You know Galiano?”
“I went to school with him.”
“Galiano went to St-F.X.?”
St-Francis Xavier, Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The small university town was the scene of many of Ryan’s more colorful performances. Then a cokehead biker opened his carotid with the shattered neck of a twelve-ounce Bud. Following serious stitching and introspection, Ryan changed sides. His allegiance shifted from booze and bars to the boys in blue, and he never looked back.
“Bat lived across the hall my senior year. I graduated, joined the SQ. He wrapped up a semester later, returned to Guatemala to become a cop. I haven’t spoken to him in ages.”
“Why ‘Bat?’”
“Never mind. But clear your calendar. You’ll be looking at bones before the week is out.”
“I should have refused to hand them over.”
“A gringo intermeddler bucking local authority in a system known for massacring dissidents. There’s good thinking.”
“I should have examined them on site.”
“Wasn’t everything coated in shit?”
“I could have cleaned it.”
“And possibly done more damage than good. I wouldn’t lose sleep over this one. Besides, you’re down there for another reason.”
But lose sleep I did, tossing and turning, captive to uninvited images from the day. Downstairs, traffic receded to a hum, then to the sound of individual cars. Next door, a TV went from the muted cadence of baseball, to a talk show, to silence.
Over and over I chastised myself for failing to examine the bones. Was my initial impression of the skull correct? Would Xicay’s photos be adequate for establishing a biological profile? Would I ever see the bones again? What was behind Díaz’s hostility?
I was troubled by thoughts of how far from home I was, geographically and culturally. While I had some understanding of the Guatemalan legal system, I knew nothing of the jurisdictional rivalries and personal histories that can impede an investigation. I knew the stage, but not the players.
My misgivings went beyond the complications of policework. I was an outsider in Guatemala, with a superficial grasp of its inner soul. I knew little of the people, their preferences in cars, jobs, neighborhoods, toothpaste. Their views toward law and authority. I was a stranger to their likes, their dislikes, their trusts, their lusts. Their reasons for murder.
Their nicknames.
Bat? Bartolomé Galiano? Bat Galiano? Bat Guano?
On that note I finally drifted off.
* * *
Saturday morning began as a replay of the day before. Galiano picked me up, shaded and bearing coffee, and we drove in silence to police headquarters. This time he led me to a second-floor office. Though larger, it was decorated in the same style as Thursday’s conference room. Mucous-gray walls. Bile-green floor. Fluorescent lighting. Engraved wooden desks. Duct-taped pipes. Institutional folding tables. Nouveau cop.
Hernández was removing boxes from stacks at the back of the room and placing them on a dolly. Two men were stapling items onto bulletin boards on the left-hand wall. One was slight, with curly black hair that shone with oil. The other stood six foot six and had a shoulder span the size of Belize. Both turned when we entered.
Galiano introduced the pair.
Two faces scanned me, as though worked by one puppeteer. Neither looked thrilled with what it saw.
What did they see? An outsider cop? An American? A woman?
Screw it. I would make no effort to win them over.
I nodded.
They nodded.
“Pics here yet?” Galiano asked.
“Xicay says they’ll be ready by ten,” Hernández said, tipping the dolly and pushing it toward us.
“Taking these to the basement,” he puffed, steadying the load with his right hand. “You want the bags?”
“Yeah.”
Hernández wheeled past us, face raspberry, shirt damp as at the septic tank.
“The space was being used for storage,” Galiano said to me. “I’m having it cleared.”
“Task force?”
“Not exactly.” He gestured to one of the desks. “What do you need?”
“The skeleton,” I said, tossing my pack onto the blotter.
“Right.”
The men finished at the first board, shifted to the next. Galiano and I moved in. In front of us was a map of Guatemala City. Galiano touched a point in the southeastern quadrant.
“Number one. Claudia de la Alda lived here.”
He shook a red-tipped pin from a box on the board’s ledge, pushed it into the map, and added a yellow pin beside it.
“De la Alda was eighteen. No police record, no history of drugs, doesn’t profile as a runaway. Spent a lot of time working with handicapped kids and helping out at her church. She left the family home for work last July fourteenth, and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Boyfriend?” I asked.
“Alibies out. Not a suspect.”
He pushed a blue pin into the map.
“Claudia worked at the Museo Ixchel.”
The Ixchel is a privately owned museum dedicated to Mayan culture. I’d been there, remembered it looked vaguely like a Mayan temple.
“Number two. Lucy Gerardi, age seventeen, was a student at San Carlos University.”
He added a second blue pin.
“Gerardi also had no prior arrests, also lived with her family. Good student. Aside from a lousy social life, she appears to have been a normal college kid.”
“Why no friends?”
“Father kept a tight rein.”
His finger moved to a small street halfway between the Ixchel and the American embassy.
“Lucy lived here.”
He added a second red pin.
“She was last seen in the Botanical Gardens—”
He inserted a yellow pin in a green-shaded space at the intersection of Ruta 6 and Avenida la Reforma.
“—on January fifth.”
Galiano’s finger hopped to Calle 10 at Avenida la Reforma 3.
“Familiar with the Zona Viva?”
A stab of pain. Molly and I had eaten at a café in the Zona Viva the day before I left for Chupan Ya.
Focus, Brennan.
“It’s a small enclave of upmarket hotels, restaurants, and night clubs.”
“Right. Number three. Patricia Eduardo, age nineteen, lived just a few blocks away.”
Red pin number three.
“Eduardo left friends at the Café San Felipe on the night of October twenty-ninth, never made it home.”
Yellow pin.
“She worked at the Hospital Centro Médico.”
A blue pin went in at Avenida 6 and Calle 9, just a few blocks from the Ixchel Museum.
“Same story, clean liver, boyfriend a candidate for canonization. Spent most of her free time with her horses. Was quite an equestrian.”
Galiano pointed to a spot equidistant between the Lucy Gerardi and Patricia Eduardo residences.
“Missing person number four, Chantale Specter, lived here.”
Red pin.
“Chantale went to a private girls’ school—”
Blue pin.
“—but she’d just returned from an extended stay in Canada.”
“What was she doing?”
He
hesitated a moment. “Some sort of special course. Chantale was last seen at home.”
“By?”
“The mother.”
“Both parents check out?”
He took a long breath through his nostrils, let it out slowly.
“Hard to investigate a foreign diplomat.”
“Any reason for suspicion?”
“None that we’ve found. So. We know where each young woman lived.”
Galiano tapped the red pins.
“We know where each worked or went to school.”
Blue pins.
“We know where each was last seen.”
Yellow pins.
I stared at the pattern, realizing the answer to at least one question. I knew Guatemala City well enough to know that Claudia de la Alda, Lucy Gerardi, Patricia Eduardo, and Chantale Specter came from the affluent side of the tracks. Theirs was a world of quiet streets and mowed lawns, not one of drugs and peddled flesh. Unlike the poor and homeless, unlike the victims at Chupan Ya or the addict orphans in Parque Concordia, these women were not without power. They were missed by families that had a voice, and everything possible was being done to find them.
But why such interest in remains uncovered at a slum hotel?
“Why the Paraíso?” I asked.
Again, that hitch of hesitation. Then, “No stone unturned.”
I turned from the map to Galiano. His face was expressionless. I waited. He offered nothing.
“Are you going to level with me, or do we have to go through some elaborate pas de deux?”
“What do you mean?”
“Suit yourself, Bat.” I turned to go.
Galiano looked at me sharply but said nothing. Then his hand closed around my upper arm.
“All right. But nothing leaves this room.”
“Normally I like to float my cases in a chat room, get a consensus of who’s thinking what.”
He released his grip and ran a hand backward through his hair. Then the Guernsey eyes locked onto mine.
“Eighteen months ago Chantale Specter was arrested for cocaine possession.”
“Was she using?”
“That was unclear. She dropped a dime and was released without testing. But her buddies came up positive.”
“Selling?”
“Probably not. Last summer she was busted again. Same story. Police raided a candy party in a low-rent hotel. Chantale turned up in the net. Shortly after, Papa shipped her off to rehab—that spell in Canada. She reappeared at Christmas, started school in January, vanished a week into the term. The ambassador tried searching on his own, finally gave up and reported her missing.”