17 Stone Angels (7 page)

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She handed it back to him.

“My cousin in Los Angeles sent it to me,” he said as he returned it to the case, then he shook his head in misty wonderment. “They stuff themselves
with silver there!” The face of the literary enthusiast fell away, leaving that of the cool professional. “I'm familiar with the case you're working on.”

“The Waterbury case?”

“Sí, Doctora. I work principally with Narcotics and Vice, but in a case like this, where a commercial quantity of drugs is found at a murder scene, Narcotics will often work with Homicide, to try to combine forces, so to speak.”

“You were one of the investigators?”

“Yes, Doctora.”

“I didn't see your name on the
expediente
.”

“I was working more as an intellectual author of the investigation. Others filled out the papers.”

“Ah.” She frowned thoughtfully. “The intellectual author.” She couldn't help but be amused by his pompousness. “Do you have some sort of theory?”

“Yes.” He sat down across from her. “You've read the
expediente
.”

“Part of it. It's very long.”

“They all are. But you saw from the surgeon's report that Waterbury seems to have been beaten, then shot several times with the same gun, and then executed with a mercy shot to the head with a second gun.”

The brutal sentence washed over her. “Yes.”

He continued in a monotone, his face taut. “The theory is thus: Señor Waterbury was killed in a settling of accounts.”

“That's what Comisario Fortunato said.”

“And with good reason. But I have a way of seeing this murder that perhaps the Comisario doesn't have, another perspective, one might say.” He leaned forward, and she could feel a strange intimacy come over the room, the first whiff of intrigue that she had always associated with Buenos Aires, with rainy streets and trench coats and German submarines. Fabian narrowed his eyes. “We must look at this investigation from the point of view of a detective novel.”

She didn't have time to register her disbelief before he continued, his face transfixed by a dramatic squint.

“Our story begins at the theater of the crime. We can imagine Comisario Fortunato before the smoking automobile. A man is dead. The fabric of society has been torn, and only the Comisario can repair this damage by bringing the killer to justice. He examines the clues and tries to re-enact the crime in his head. In the case of Waterbury we have a body containing
three .32 caliber bullets. All are haphazard: the thigh, the hand—a defensive wound, probably—the thorax and the groin. All at extremely close range, what we call “clothes-burning” range, undoubtedly fired by someone sitting beside the victim. Then, the final authoritative shot of the 9mm, perhaps a disposition of the case by whoever was in charge. I see a chaotic situation. A struggle. Unexpected, because it's very dangerous to go shooting a gun in the back seat of a car. If you want to execute someone, the classic way is to take them out of the car and put them on their knees, or lay them on the ground. That way, you're shooting down, and the bullet won't go flying off and hit someone else. No, this was something more panicked. Unplanned. Maybe it was a deal that went bad. Or maybe the intent was to intimidate him, and somehow it got out of control.”

He cocked his head. “If I was writing this particular detective story, that would be my theory. Waterbury was killed without intention.” He flipped his hands to the side as if he'd stumbled across a brilliant solution. “You should come out with me! I can tell you
many
interesting things! I can show you a bit of Buenos Aires. For example, have you been to San Telmo? It's a very special barrio, with many night clubs and a lot of music.”

“Fabian—”

He lowered his voice, his rooster grin turning secretive. “And when we get to know each other better, perhaps I can tell you what my police story is about.”

She let a touch of annoyance into her voice. “Forget it. It's not going to happen, Fabian.”

He dropped his head, his fingers to his brow. “What a beast I am!” Looking up at her, his smile shining out from his cloud of contrition. “I'm sorry, Doctora. You're exotic here, and it made me step out of my routine. It's not every day that a beautiful police woman from the United States shows up here in the provinces of Buenos Aires. Please forget what I said.”

“It's fine, Fabian.”

Fortunato came in without knocking, and Fabian looked embarrassed. “Ah! Inspector Diaz!”

“Yes.” Fabian reached nervously for the knot of his tie. “We were just going over the
expediente
. I was telling her that the crime looks chaotic. Not like a calculated execution. Because of the pattern of the wounds from the .32.”

Fortunato didn't move or speak, merely pursed his lips and looked absently at Fabian, before turning to Athena. “That was something I wanted to go into tomorrow. First, you should review the
expediente
without any preconceptions and then we can start considering theories.” He looked disapprovingly at Fabian. “But I see that Romeo has run ahead of us.”

The young officer crumpled like a napkin, and Athena felt sorry for him. Fortunato said, “If you are finished for the day, Doctora, I can drive you to your hotel.”

“Why did you call him
Romeo?” she asked in his car.

Fortunato spoke diplomatically, in that reassuringly calm way that she'd grown to like. “Inspector Diaz has a certain taste for women. He has a pretty face and dresses well, as you can see. That's why we call him Romeo. It's
okay
. But, from time to time, Fabian confuses his role of policeman with his role of conquistador.”

“Don't worry; it's nothing I can't handle. Do you think he's really working on a police story to sell to Hollywood?”

Now Fortunato's worn face turned to a grandfatherly smile. “I'm surprised he didn't tell you he's training to be the first Argentine astronaut.” He shrugged. “It could be. If he wrote a story about the hippodrome, or the football stadium, now
there
he has a great deal of expertise!” She laughed and Fortunato went on. “One thing you have to understand about the Porteño, the man of Buenos Aires. He's an actor. And to be a good policeman, you have to be a good actor. Because people want to see that policeman face.” They were stopped at a light and Fortunato turned to her to show her his
cara de policia
. He raised his chin and frowned, transforming himself into a picture of implacable authority as he beckoned with his fingers. “You! Come here!” He glared behind the cold Fascist mask for a moment, and then broke into a smile. “Thus it is, youngster.”

The eerie flicker of identities hung in the car before dissipating in the sunny autumn afternoon. “So did Fabian work as an investigator on the case before?”

“Perhaps a little. Investigations are fluid. One works, one shares information. The truth is that the Waterbury investigation didn't go far because of the lack of an initial clue. This isn't the United States. Here, lamentably,
there is a great lack of resources. We concentrate on the cases we have the best chance to solve. We can go to the judge's office and you'll see a heap of
expedientes
higher than Aconcagua.”

“I understand.”

“The
muchachos
tried. The vehicle was a stolen car with false papers. When they found the owner he had nothing to do with it.”

“But that didn't stop you from processing him for a traffic infraction.”

A sleepy irony came across the Comisario's face. “Thus is justice. We're all guilty. Even Jesus Christ was processed for disorderly conduct.”

She couldn't help laughing and a rare smile opened up below his mustache. When they arrived at the Sheraton he turned to her.

“Look, Doctora Fowler. Perhaps you are tired, but often on the weekends I go to listen to tango at a particular place in La Boca. It's very typical of Buenos Aires. Not for tourists. It's called 17 Stone Angels. If you like, I can look for you tonight at your hotel.”

She beamed at him. “It would be a pleasure.” She started to walk away from the car then turned back and bent toward the driver's window. “One last little favor, Comisario.” He looked up at her attentively. “I'd like to meet the judge who is directing this investigation.”

Fortunato's agreeable nod seemed to approve of her stratagem. “At your orders, Doctora.”

She stood back and waited for him to disappear into traffic, paused another minute to be sure, and then summoned a taxi from the afternoon crush. She gave a reflexive glance behind her before getting in. Her next appointment was not on the official agenda.

CHAPTER
FIVE

A
thena glanced around the waiting room of the Instituto Contra la Represion Policial. In the dispiriting yellow light of a cheap floor lamp, ponderous leather volumes of the
Revista Juridica Argentina
traced the law back to 1936, along with somber gold-embossed walls of
Derecho Constitucional, Ley de la Republica Argentina
and other hopeful compendia of legal redress. A magazine on a coffee table featured a cover photo of two mostly nude women laughing with a handsome man. “The Summer in Punta,” it proclaimed. “Sand, Sex and Silver.” Several people sat alongside Athena, dressed in clean, cheap button-down shirts and with the rounder Andean features that typically belonged to the lower class. From their hushed sentences she gathered that they had enlisted the services of the Instituto in suing the policemen who had murdered their brother.

She'd heard about the Anti-Police Repression Institute from her mentor, a professor of Latin American studies at Georgetown. “It's a setup,” he told her cheerfully when she'd called him with the news of her assignment. “The local police will give you the runaround and the embassy will brush you off as politely as possible. Once you go down there and fail, everyone's done their duty and Senator Braden has to shut up about it and move the Free Trade package.” He relented from the cynical discourse. “Go, listen, observe. When you get your feet on the ground, call these people. They're a
group of lawyers that prosecute the police for civil rights violations. If you can interest them in the case, they might be able to get something going.”

His assessment had irritated her, but it seemed to be playing out just as he'd predicted. The FBI had been elusive, canceling her appointment and promising to call back when they had “a break in the schedule.” Her contact with the Argentine Ministry of Justice was an assistant to an assistant, and there was the insubstantial Wilbert Small, from the embassy. She'd be an idiot to think they took her seriously. Anger rose to her throat, then dissipated as she thought of the family sitting across from her. These were people with a
real
grievance. Naomi Waterbury had a real grievance.

The current edition of the newspaper lay on the table and she noticed that Carlo Pelegrini had again staked out a place in the headlines.
Pelegrini says I'm a Simple Mailman
. Pelegrini seemed to be a wealthy businessman who operated a private courier system. The previous winter, he'd been caught paying a bribe of more than twelve million dollars to government officials in exchange for an exclusive right to carry the national mails. Now, other businesses were coming to light. The article alluded to a network of ventures, worth billions of dollars, held by dummy corporations and off-shore investment groups. Pelegrini denied owning these businesses, denied that he received income from them, denied exerting an unsavory influence over politicians in the intimate circles of the President of the Republic. He was a simple mailman.

She scanned further down the page to a sidebar, headlined
The Gringos get in Line
. RapidMail, the American colossus of worldwide package delivery, was also said to be summoning its allies for their own move on the Argentine postal service, fronted by the Grupo Capital AmiBank.

The receptionist guided Athena to
the office of Carmen Amado de los Santos. A tight little clutter of office furniture was stamped with the usual diplomas and an award from Amnesty International for service in the protection of human rights. Carmen Amado herself had long black hair and little round glasses, a slim woman of perhaps forty who, despite her professional gravity, could not resist wearing a skirt cut above the knees. She adorned her rich brown skin with a sliver of blue eye shadow and a tinge of rouge but, despite these feminine touches, all sense of coquetry dropped away when she began to speak.

“Doctor Fowler,” she said in a perfect, steely English, “you've come to Buenos Aires to investigate the murder of a United States citizen.”