I thought running the mile back to the Mamita would be difficult for Barbara, but our only problem was the hard time I had keeping up with her. I kept looking back, but no one was behind us. Samuels must not have discovered Pedro and Tomas yet, and the Mamita looked undisturbed anchored in the cove.
We stood in the shallow water and mud on either side of the dinghy, the moon low in the sky. “Are you up to leaving now?” I asked Barbara. “We can take a rest for an hour or so before we set out.”
The truth was, I couldn’t wait to put Cuba behind me, but I was worried about Barbara’s condition. She was pushing her pregnant body too hard, and her face was haggard and sweaty.
“No, no, we’ll go now,” she answered. She looked down at her bloody skirt and then up at me shamefully. “Lupe, I just want you to know, I’ve never done anything like that before. Those two men—I was scared, scared for my baby.”
“I understand,” I said as we pulled the dinghy into the water and boarded. I didn’t understand, not really, but then I never was a mother. Perhaps Pedro and Tomas had the bad luck to get between a mama bear and her unborn cub—I didn’t know. Killing is something I’ve never understood.
We rowed slowly toward the Mamita, and my tension evaporated into a kind of languor. Disappointment set in: I was leaving without finding Michelle’s birth mother. I knew nothing more about the adoption scheme than before, except that Samuels was in Cuba, and I had no idea how to even find any of the mothers. When we returned to Miami, nothing would have changed—Betancourt might be waiting for us, little Michelle would still be sick.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Barbara said as she pulled the oar through the shallow water. “Forget it. We’ve pushed our luck enough, and there’s no way I’m going to stay and find that woman. I’ve killed two men. I want to go home, pack up, and get the hell out of Cuba.”
I didn’t answer her, and a minute later I tied up alongside the boat and waited for Barbara to board first, helping her up. Her movements were slow and labored.
When I climbed up to join her, I found her leaning against the steering wheel, her eyes closed. “Go below and lie down,” I said. “I’ll get the Mamita ready to sail. I can even drive the boat if I have to.”
She didn’t object, which made me realize how exhausted she must have been. Alone on the deck, I started the engines and checked all the pressure gauges and charts. The boat hadn’t been tampered with in the slightest. All I had to do was lift anchor and we would be on our way home.
I went below to see if she would at least be able to help me navigate the waters. The main cabin was empty, so I opened the door to the forward cabin. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the gloom inside the barely lit space. Barbara sat on the bunk, speechless and terrified.
I approached her. It had to be the baby. “What’s wrong, Barbara? Are you sick?”
Her eyes widened as I moved toward her. She shook her head and mouthed the word “no.” I couldn’t understand what she meant. Then everything became clear.
“What your friend is trying to tell you, Miss Solano, is not to come in any closer. But it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
I felt the unmistakable poke of a gun barrel pressing into the small of my back. In the mirror facing me I saw the smiling face of Dr. Allen Samuels close behind me. In an instant I mentally stripped away his beard and long, unwashed hair. I saw the grinning doctor surrounded by nurses at his bittersweet going-away party.
“I was just thanking Barbara for getting rid of Pedro and Tomas for me,” he said to my reflection. His voice was deep and rich, a good doctor’s voice. “They were getting too greedy for their own good, which leads to carelessness. And they were chivatos, so the payoffs cut into my own profits.”
“He set us up,” Barbara said, a hint of wonder in her voice.
“I drugged their rum,” Samuels said, obviously pleased with himself. “I didn’t think you would go to such lengths to escape, since you could have just walked out the front door. I saw Barbara here put that machete in her skirt when we first picked you up, so I assumed she knew how to use it.”
“Why didn’t you just kill them yourself?” I asked.
Samuels looked as though I’d asked him to carry a tray of urine samples. “They were dangerous men, Miss Solano, even drugged. You don’t live to a ripe old age by taking chances like that.”
I’d had guns pointed at me before, which helped. I didn’t panic. He hadn’t shot me the second I walked in, which meant he didn’t really want to kill me. He might eventually, but it was against his nature. My Beretta was tucked inside my holster, and it would take me a few seconds to get to it. For now, I had to keep the conversation going. Who would have thought that years of parties and dinners would come in handy in a situation like this?
“Dr. Samuels, I know a little about you,” I said. “You were in obstetrics for years at Jackson Memorial. How on earth did you end up in Isabela de Sagua?”
Rule number one when dealing with a man you want something from: Keep him talking about himself. It worked. Samuels motioned for me to turn around, keeping several feet between us and the gun trained straight ahead. He could still shoot both of us before we could do anything to stop him.
“My record at Jackson was spotless,” he said, the edge of malice gone from his voice. “But about four or five years ago I was caught in a minor impropriety and the administration overreacted. They were counting on a penny tax increase for funding and were scared to death of any scandal developing. So they offered me early retirement instead of a public inquiry.”
The fore cabin was hot and nearly airless, and we were all beginning to perspire. A thin line of sweat trickled from Samuels’s neck down into his peasant’s shirt. I moved around the cabin table and lowered myself at the far end of Barbara’s bunk while Samuels spoke. He didn’t object.
“I’m glad I’m not in America now, actually, with all the political pressures on doctors.” The gun was still on us, but his mind was wandering. How long had it been since he aired his old grievances? I wondered. “The Jackson board even made me resign from the AMA. And after all the years I busted my ass, delivering babies in the middle of the night, working weekends. They created this situation, actually, by making it impossible for me to make a living legally.”
Samuels had started waving his gun to punctuate his speech. He looked and acted like a man stuck on a desert island for years, with no one to talk to. I took a chance and nudged Barbara, staring pointedly at my right thigh. I saw recognition in her eyes.
“What about Elio Betancourt?” I asked politely, like a student in class. “How would a reputable doctor like you end up associated with someone like him?”
“I know what you mean,” he said, leaning against the table. He held the gun lower. “What a terrible man.”
“The worst,” I said agreeably.
“You see, I delivered his daughter. His wife was a patient of mine for fifteen years—since I was in private practice. She had a hard time getting pregnant, and I recommended specialists for her. Elio and I had a lot of conversations during that time. It was hard on them both.”
Samuels smiled and chuckled, shaking his head. “At one point they even considered adopting. Elio joked with me, saying how great it would be if someone just started selling babies, bypassing all the legal formalities. He said he could even make it happen, if he wanted to. When I left Jackson a few years later, I remembered all this and gave him a call.”
“So you made a deal with the devil,” I said, trying to sound understanding. “You were backed into a corner.”
“I’m not sure what I expected,” Samuels said. He seemed to remember the gun in his hand, and raised it a fraction. “I knew Elio had a lot of criminal connections—he was always making little jokes.”
“And he knew wealthy Cuban couples would be perfect customers for Cuban babies.” Now I was fishing, but I also hoped Samuels was a normal person underneath it all and not a sociopath: if we talked long enough it would humanize me, making it harder for him to shoot me.
“The plan wasn’t that elaborate at first,” he said. “I thought we could deliver babies in Dade County and buy them from their mothers. But Elio had gone to Havana a year before for a legal convention and had an affair with a prostitute from Sagua la Grande. She told him about all the poor young girls from her town who ended up in Havana prostituting themselves with foreign tourists and getting pregnant.”
I glanced at Barbara. She was watching Samuels intently.
His attention was focused on me, and he droned on as though he were giving a medical case study. “It’s terrible, you know. A lot of them die from botched abortions.” His brow wrinkled in disgust. “And if they decide to have the babies, the families are shamed, and they don’t have the resources to feed themselves, much less another addition.”
Barbara’s hand inched toward my leg. “So these girls are trapped,” I offered, as though pondering what he said. I glanced at Barbara and she nodded, almost imperceptibly.
I cried out. “Barbara, what is it? Are you all right? Is it the baby?” She looked confused for an instant but recovered, grabbing her belly and grimacing in pain.
Samuels’s instincts as a doctor took over, and his face filled with concern. The gun forgotten for an instant, he moved close to Barbara and reached out for her.
She kicked Samuels in the groin with enough force to double him over in outraged shock and pain, his eyes wide and full of tears as he dropped the gun. I reached into my shorts, pulled out the Beretta, and held it to his head. I was amazed how steady my hand was. To this day I think I could have fired the gun without hesitation.
“If you shoot me, you’ll never get to the girl,” Samuels said, kneeling with his hands covering his crotch. “You know who I’m talking about, the whore with the birthmark. The one you need to save the little girl’s life.”
“How do you know about that?” I asked. I tried hard to concentrate, to keep the cold edge within myself that emerged when I first pressed the gun to his head.
“Alberto Cruz told Betancourt you were looking for the mother of the little girl with the birthmark,” Samuels said. He looked small and old, his ashen face cast down to the floor. “Betancourt keeps records. It wasn’t hard to look into the situation.”
Barbara moved forward on the bunk, leaning over Samuels. “Who killed Alberto?”
Samuels said nothing.
A quiver passed over Barbara’s wide mouth. “Who killed him?” she repeated.
Samuels looked up at her despairingly, obviously unsure how to save himself from Barbara’s increasing anger. He knew what she was capable of, and he began to stammer when she rose violently from the bunk, taking his dropped gun from the floor, and strode off into the main cabin. She returned seconds later brandishing a long fishing knife. Samuels and I both stared aghast at the long serrated edge.
“Wait, wait,” Samuels said, but Barbara moved with chilling efficiency. She pulled him toward the table, grabbing his hand and holding it to the varnished wood surface. With a quick slice she cut across his knuckles.
All three of us watched in fascination as a thin red line emerged at the base of his almost severed fingers. Blood dripped quickly from the wound, spilling over the table and running onto the floor. Samuels watched, mesmerized, as though it were happening to someone else.
I took a step away from them and tightened my grip on the Beretta.
“Who killed Alberto?” she asked again.
This time there was no hesitation. “Betancourt. Elio did it himself. He said too many people were involved already.”
Samuels seemed far away, his eyes focused in the distance. “What about Regina Larrea?” I asked.
He turned to me, suddenly showing pain. “Betancourt. Elio killed her, too. She went to North Carolina to find me. She got curious when you came asking about me, and she wanted to find the real reason I left Jackson. I don’t know what she found, but she called Elio from Raleigh because his name came up in connection with mine. She was innocent, really. But Elio is frightened.”
Samuels swayed on his knees, his blood dripping to the floor in the stifling hot cabin. He made no attempt to stanch the bleeding.
Barbara sat down on the bunk again with a heavy sigh, the bloody knife on her lap. She stared at Samuels with an odd combination of hatred and sadness.
“Dr. Samuels, where is the girl?” I asked. “The mother with the birthmark—do you know where I can find her?”
He answered instantly. “In Sagua la Grande. They’re all from around there. But she wouldn’t go back with you to Miami. You’re wasting your time.”
“How do you know that? What makes you so certain?” I asked. He fell back to lean against the bulkhead, saying nothing, and Barbara gripped the knife in her hand. Samuels didn’t even try to pull away when she slashed him again, this time across his wrist. His bleeding became worse.
I knew what Barbara was doing, symbolically: avenging Alberto. Where she came from, a man without the use of his hands was no longer a man. Samuels leaned back, his spirit completely gone, as though the weight of all he had done pressed on him for the last time. I wished Barbara would stop, but I was too frightened to try to intervene.
Samuels grimaced and looked at me with something approaching admiration. “You’re the really tough one, tougher than you look. A girl from a nice Cocoplum family! Who’d have known?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. I felt a tide of panic within me. It seemed that violence covered me like a shroud.
“Betancourt tried to scare you off the case,” he said. “But you didn’t fall for it, did you?”
Blood was everywhere. Samuels stared at his wounds but still made no move to stanch them. He was a doctor, he knew what was happening to him, but he did nothing.
“How did he try to scare me off?” I asked. Though I had a sickening sense that I was watching him die, I needed answers.
“With the cigarettes, you idiot!” Samuels said, chuckling.
“I … I don’t get it.” It felt as though my brain were shutting itself off. The heat, the stench, the sleeplessness, all combined horribly, making my mind feel sluggish and dead.
“Alberto Cruz told Elio you were sniffing that smoky apartment of his when you first came to see him,” Samuels said in a distant singsong voice. “You were too polite to say anything, but Alberto could tell you were thinking about it. Not that I disagree. That man’s apartment was like a smokehouse.”
I listened in shock. True, I was preoccupied for a moment with Gauloises cigarettes in Albert’s apartment, but I thought I hid it well. Apparently, I had fooled only myself.
“Alberto watched you walk back to your car. You were smelling your hair and your clothes the whole way.” Samuels took a deep, labored breath.
“That’s why you and Betancourt sent him to break into my apartment,” I said. “So I would smell the smoke and know Alberto had been there? And the butts outside my office—they were just a sign to frighten me?”
“Sure,” Samuels said. “Even Elio isn’t a complete barbarian. He figured you would give in once you were frightened.”
I shook my head, amazed with myself. I didn’t think I had the energy to get so angry. “Well, you screwed up,” I said. “All you did was convince me I had to break the case.”
Samuels didn’t answer. Behind me, Barbara had lain down on one of the berths, listening silently, her face covered with a sheen of sweat. It must have been a hundred degrees in the cabin, and there was no ventilation. Three adults—one pregnant, one very wounded, and one sort of all right—all breathed each other’s carbon dioxide. Samuels looked terrible, but I had to depend on him for the truth.
“If you knew why we were coming to Cuba,” I asked, “why didn’t you try to stop us?”
“I agreed with Elio,” Samuels said in a slurred voice. “The game was up soon with you asking so much, but we had to be rid of you first. When we knew you were coming here, it was perfect. There would be no official record of your entry, and the Cuban government would never cooperate with an American murder investigation. When I saw you came armed, I saw a chance to be rid of the chivatos as well.”
Barbara had cut into a major artery, it was obvious, and Samuels had turned completely pallid. I saw with chilling clarity, in his vacant eyes and slouched posture, that the man now wanted to die.
“How did you know it was us coming?” I asked. “And where in Sagua la Grande is the birth mother? What’s her name?”
“Lupe, he’s not going to tell us anything,” Barbara said, staring at his inert form without concern.
“I’ll get a shirt to use as a tourniquet,” I said. “We can stop the bleeding and take him to the police in Miami.”
Samuels let out a low moan: “No.” He sank all the way to the floor, staring up at the ceiling. With a long final exhalation, he died.
“He’s staining the wood,” Barbara said, putting down the knife. “I’ll get some trash bags to put him in. I don’t want him smelling up the place.”
She rummaged efficiently in the closet for large plastic bags while I stood in shock. Within a minute, she had stuffed his body into them, taping them shut. She was right. He was beginning to smell up the cabin.
“What do we do with him now?” she asked. “We can’t leave him out in this heat.”
I stared at the body. In his last moment, he’d said no to me. He didn’t want to be taken to jail. I hoped God would forgive me for allowing his wish to be granted.
“The fish locker,” I said. “There’s probably ice left in there from the supplies you stored.”
Ten minutes later, Dr. Allen Samuels, his life’s journey taking him from Florida to North Carolina to living out the rest of his life in self-imposed exile in Cuba, was slowly cooling off for his trip to the Florida Straits. His life and crimes were no longer mine to judge.