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The Miracle of Saint Lazarus. Uva de Aragón
Читать онлайн.Название The Miracle of Saint Lazarus
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781642501254
Автор произведения Uva de Aragón
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Издательство Ingram
Once he had recovered, he got up and looked at Maria with a mischievous smile.
“How about a drink? That’s the best cure for a cough.”
She was surprised by the English pub-style bar and the elegant music that was coming from the piano. A woman with a pronounced mouth moved her agile fingers over the keys from which one could hear notes from an ample repertoire, ranging from jazz to old boleros.
“She’s really good. I’ll introduce you later on,” Don Joaquin promised, as he noticed Maria watching her intently.
“I always have a Scotch at this time of the day. I take mine neat. What you would like?”
“The same, but on the rocks.”
They sipped their drinks in silence. This “old codger”—as Don Joaquin had referred to himself—stirred up Detective Duquesne’s curiosity, admiration, and a certain sadness that she hoped wasn’t going to turn into pity. It was a feeling that she preferred to reserve for innocent victims of so many crimes.
“So where were we?”
“You had agreed to be the sponsor for Alberto Gonzalez, and you had gotten him out of Tamiami…”
“Oh yes. Well, that led me to buy a small house, but one in a nice neighborhood…they call it West Gables…on Tangier Street. Are you familiar with the area?”
“Of course I am. It’s very nice.”
“While Alberto was studying English, I made arrangements to get a license and start a company selling alarms. In those days there were some incidents involving the boatlift people, or the ‘Marielitos’ as people called them. There weren’t a lot. The majority turned out to be decent people, but simply put, people were scared and there was a lot of demand for alarms. The business took off. Alberto learned very quickly. I thought we should find a lawyer that could help take care of his status in the United States, but that was the only thing that he was never very clear about… He kept telling me that a friend of his had a lawyer who was going to fix everything, and that he had already taken care of the paperwork. The truth is that I should have been more on top of things. I’ve always respected the law. He gave me his social security number. I paid him through the payroll, and I seldom thought about it.”
“Excuse me. The name on the social security, it was Alberto Gonzalez?”
“No. It was Raimundo Lazo. He explained that Raimundo Alberto was his given name and Lazo his maternal name, and that in filling out the forms the Alberto and the Gonzalez names had both somehow been deleted. These things happen in the United States all the time, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.”
Maria felt that her cellphone kept vibrating nonstop. She peeked at it and saw that it was Bill, her ex-husband. Fearful that something might have happened to Patrick, she excused herself and went to the bathroom where it was quieter and she could talk. She was relieved to find out that her son was fine. Bill had called just to complain about the expenses that had piled up with the beginning of Patrick’s second year in college. She let him know abruptly that she was working and that they’d talk later.
When she returned, Don Joaquin was standing and waiting for her.
“They just called for dinner. I would invite you, but eating here twice in one day would be too much of a sacrifice for such a beautiful young woman as you…”
Maria could feel herself blush. Despite his years, Don Joaquin had not forgotten how to flirt with women.
Day 3—Wednesday, November 4, 2015
The conversation with Bill couldn’t have been more unpleasant. He had a good job as a company executive and made a lucrative salary, but he was an incredible cheapskate when it came to her and their son. All she had asked for was half the house in the divorce, and he had only agreed to pay the minimum court-ordered child support for Patrick until he finished high school, exactly one week after he turned eighteen. Nevertheless, their son’s expenses continued… Fortunately, his grandfather had prepaid his tuition for any public university in Florida, and Patrick had worked a few hours a week to cover his personal expenses: phone bill, gas, gym membership, and dating. Maria didn’t want him to graduate with the burden of student loans and insisted that she and Bill pay his rent and his car insurance and that they send him money for books and food. Once in a while, he had additional expenses like some car repairs or when he needed his wisdom teeth out—which were impacted—and, even worse, the health insurance didn’t cover all the costs. Bill wound up paying half, but not without kicking and screaming. Each conversation between the two of them was always the same. Undoubtedly, as an American, his concept of family was different from the Hispanic one.
Although these conversations put her in a bad mood, Maria took comfort in the fact that at least she had the strength to go through with the divorce and, as time went by, she had to deal with him less often. At times, she couldn’t understand how she’d been able to fall in love with a man like that. Had she just been blind or had Bill changed?
She wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody, so she decided to put on an old Orson Wells movie and was in bed by eleven o’clock.
Day 4—Thursday, November 5, 2015
She didn’t sleep well. She had a nightmare in which she saw a man drowning in the sea whose remains then split into two identical parts that floated in the water.
As soon as she got to the office, she called Leo Adams to ask for an appointment to see him. Leo was a Cuban American lawyer who specialized in immigration cases. He was always busy but tended to see her immediately whenever she called. In exchange, she would cut through any red tape he might need in the Police Department.
Leo’s office was on Flagler just in front of the courthouse, commonly called Cielito Lindo. According to her father, everyone referred to it by its nickname because there was a jail on the twenty-fourth floor and from there the prisoners could see the sky. She arrived an hour late. Traffic was getting worse all the time. She thought that the highest point on the Highway 836 bridge offered one of the prettiest views of the Miami. It was too bad she couldn’t stop and enjoy it.
Leo didn’t make her wait long, but he did interrupt their meeting a few times to answer the phone. His desk was covered with folders, papers, yellow sticky notes, and cigarette butts. Maria had already given up trying to convince him to quit smoking. Adams’s secret for keeping so many clients with so few resources was to work on four or five things at a time with only one assistant.
Maria got him up to speed on the case:
“Supposedly, Alberto Gonzalez came on the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. He said he was from Cardenas, but I haven’t confirmed that. He stole the identity of an American, named Ray Bow, who died that same year. He worked until 1992 as Raimundo Lazo using Bow’s social security number. He died in ’92. The car that he was driving fell into a canal. They never found the body of his young daughter, who was just a few weeks old. New evidence suggests that the subject might’ve been murdered. For starters, I don’t know who he was. Can you help me?”
Leo lifted his eyes from his papers and looked at her.
“Do you know the exact date when he arrived, if he was in some kind of refugee camp, and if so who was his sponsor? Do you have a picture?”
“I don’t know the exact date when he arrived, but maybe I can find out. I know that he was in Tamiami Park, and Joaquin de Roble was his sponsor. Here’s Roble’s past address and his current one. And here’s a picture of the subject.”
“You know, El Nuevo Herald has a database that can be accessed online, although if you don’t know the exact name it can be tricky. I don’t have enough staff to help you, but maybe someone in your department can do the search for you. However, if you want to