LITMIR.BIZ

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prematurely, I don’t know why, but thank God she weighed enough and was healthy. I recovered the positive outlook on life I had before the trauma caused by my father’s death.”

      She took a sip of water and continued:

      “Then Hurricane Andrew came. We hadn’t even been here for a year. Little Gladys was a newborn. She cried constantly. She was colicky. Then we lost power. You wouldn’t believe how hard that was with a newborn. Our neighbors, who had a generator, let us keep the baby bottles in their refrigerator. I couldn’t nurse her because my milk dried up. It must have been nerves. The heat was unbearable. I don’t know how long I went without sleeping. I was exhausted. A few days later, we got a message from my mother that her phone was out but at least she had electricity, and that we should go over there. I didn’t have enough energy. That’s when the lights came back on. Ray suggested that he take the baby to my mother’s so that I could rest. I packed the diaper bag with bottles, formula, diapers, the dirty laundry that needed washed, and whatever clean clothes I had for the baby… Finally, he put her in the car seat and drove off; I laid down and slept for ten hours.”

      “When did you learn of the accident?”

      “Since neither my mother nor I had a phone, she thought that we had a change of plans, and I thought that she had the baby and that Ray was out working. The next morning, a police officer knocked on the door. Someone had seen the car in the canal and when they recovered it they found Ray.”

      “But not the baby?”

      “No…never.”

      “Do you think that the current could’ve dragged her off?”

      “That’s what I thought for a while. It drove me crazy. You have no idea how depressed I became afterwards.”

      “What made you change your mind?”

      “Detective Duquesne, because two years later they found human remains and thought they were hers.”

      “Yes, I read that.”

      “Since the police contacted me again, I asked to see the photos of the accident for the first time.”

      “And?”

      “The photos were a bit blurry, but I could see clearly that Gladys’s seatbelt was unfastened. All the windows were closed when they took the car out of the water. Only the passenger-side window was cracked open a bit. Where could the baby have gone? And they didn’t even find the diaper bag that was placed beside her. Someone took my baby out of the car before it crashed into the canal.”

      She calmly placed her hand on her chest to emphasize her conviction.

      “I know that she’s still alive. I know it in my heart.”

Chapter 4

      Day 2—Tuesday, November 3, 2015

      There’s nothing like a hot cup of Cuban coffee from any local café to start the day. The coffee she made at home just wasn’t the same. Additionally, she liked how the waiters would call her “mi amor” and “mi vida.” And to think that when I was a kid that affectionate treatment annoyed me! You’ve become soft in your old age, she said to herself while enjoying the last sip of her strong, sweet coffee.

      The night before she had gone to her dad’s house for a beer on her way home, had exchanged texts with Patrick who assured her that the semester was off to a good start, and had put together a salad for dinner. She really couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was that worried her, but she couldn’t fall asleep. Even when she felt like she was sleeping, she kept thinking about the case.

      The previous afternoon, she had finished the conversation in the house in Hialeah when she noticed Gladys Elena looking at her watch constantly. Finally, she said:

      “It’s just that my husband and son are supposed to get in. Elena understands but they, being men, think that I need to accept what happened and that I’m in denial…”

      There were things that now I regret not having asked her, but there will be another time to talk with her.

      When she got to her office, the atmosphere was more somber than the day before, but this time she immediately knew the cause. Robert Parker, ex-director of the Miami-Dade County Police, who had been retired for six years, had been found dead in his house at age sixty-two. There was talk of suicide but no one was convinced. There was no rationale for it, and he hadn’t left a note. She immediately called her father, who had already heard.

      “He was a career man with more than thirty years of service. The first African American to occupy the position. He had a beautiful family. It’s impossible that he could’ve committed suicide.”

      “Take it easy Papi. I’ll keep you updated and come over later, but right now I need to get back to work.”

      The first thing she did was look for everything she could about Raimundo Alberto Lazo. She didn’t find anything: no criminal record, no credit score, no tax returns for the ten years prior to the accident. It took her a couple of hours, but she finally discovered that his social security number really belonged to one Ray Bow who had died in January 1980.

      So, Raimundo had stolen the identity of a dead man… Ray Bow. Raimundo Lazo. Without a doubt, it was a false name too. But why? What was he hiding? What was he running from? Who was the man who crashed in the canal in 1992? Was it really an accident or was there another cause of death?

      Maria put the files in her briefcase and headed for the morgue. She knew it would be odd not to find Dr. John Erwin there. They knew her well in the building on 10th Avenue, and they let her come and go as she pleased. Early on in her career, she learned the importance of making friends all over the place. She cultivated her contacts. She remembered the names of their family members, from time to time brought them Cuban coffee or a box of donuts, went to all the birthday parties she was invited to, and attended the funerals of their relatives. She attempted to maintain a balance that let her establish a personal relationship without coming off as a suck-up, or, as her dad would say, a “kiss-ass.”

      She found the old medical examiner performing an autopsy. It had taken Maria a long time to watch this part of the investigative process with ease, but the eight years that she worked in the homicide department had cured her of all apprehensions. She shared some of the details of the case with Dr. Erwin.

      The doctor finally finished the autopsy. She kept quiet while he finished writing up the report and giving instructions to his assistants to take the cadaver to the freezer.

      “So, Maria, what can I do for you?”

      “Well, two things. First I need you to look at this forensic report and tell me if there’s any possibility that this man could’ve been killed instead of dying in an accident.”

      Erwin took off his gloves, washed his hands, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a paper towel. He was always sweating despite the cold temperature in the morgue. He was a stocky man with chubby fingers that somehow treated the bodies with astonishing delicacy. He then took the papers that Maria held in her hands and read them for two minutes before declaring:

      “Yes…”

      “Yes?”

      “Yes, it could’ve been a murder. See, he had water in his lungs which tells us that he was still alive when he crashed into the water. You can only see a small portion of the window open in the photo. It’s strange because if he were conscious the logical thing to do would’ve been to open the window more. Additionally, the autopsy says that he had sustained trauma to the head. They attributed it to the impact of the accident, and that could be, but it also could’ve been that someone hit him, leaving him unconscious, and then pushed the car into the canal. Now what was your other question?”

      “This man wasn’t actually who his driver’s license or death certificate said he was. What do you think would be the best way to go about identifying him?”

      “Certainly

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