An excerpt from BARRACUDA BAY, the next Detective Emilia Cruz
mystery. (Release date coming soon!)
~
Emilia jammed her hands in the pocket of Prade’s lab coat and idled her way across the parking lot. She wondered what Carlota and Obregon had thought of the morgue and the stacks
of bodies in the hall. Or maybe they were too focused on the horrible task of identifying Monica Montoya to notice.
One of the elderly cleaning ladies perpetually mopping morgue linoleum was seated at a round cement picnic table. In her blue cotton smock uniform and still smelling strongly of decay and purple Fabuloso, she was scooping rice and chicken into her mouth from a plastic container using a
torn piece of tortilla as a spoon.
“Buen’ noches,” the woman mumbled, eyeing the lab coat. “You new here?”
“Police.” Emilia showed her badge.
“Came with Carlota?” The woman licked her
fingers.
“Yes.” Emilia sank onto the opposite bench, suddenly too tired to stay upright.
The woman offered the plastic container to Emilia with a smile that revealed two missing teeth. “There’s plenty if you’re hungry.”
A noxious combination of arroz con pollo, death and lavender caused Emilia’s stomach to flip inside out. “That’s very kind,” she managed, “but no thanks.”
“Did you see what the mayor was wearing?” The woman stuffed in another bite as she spoke. “Must be a real bad situation. Is that why you’re here?”
“Hard times,” Emilia said noncommittally.
“Not that I’m complaining.” The woman dug in her pocket. “She gave us each a propina. Five hundred pesos. Imagine!”
Emilia blinked. That was probably more than the woman made in a week.
“Look at that!” The cleaner slapped a banknote on the rough cement. Colored blocks with the number 500 crowded the corners while Diego Rivera’s jowly face and squared glasses peered out from the center.
Kurt once said that the drawing on the bill looked like Chairman Mao, a reference Emilia didn’t understand but was too
afraid of seeming ignorant to ask for an explanation.
“Well, it was that boy of hers,” the cleaner went on. “He tipped all of us that much.”
Emilia didn’t have to work hard to imagine Santibañez doling out high octane bills like a king bestowing chickens on the peasantry, while reminding them with a
crocodile tear in his eye how much the queen loved them.
And completely ignoring the bodies stacked like sardines in triple decker trolleys because the morgue freezers were full.
The phone in Emilia’s pocket buzzed. Prade was ready to start the autopsy.
“I expect I’ll have to vote for Carlota now,” the cleaner said thoughtfully.
~
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