Before leaving the offices of The Cumberland Journal, I used one of the front desk phones to call Doc.
“I’m sorry to bother you in the middle of your work.”
“That’s fine. I can talk,” he said. The flat echo of his voice made it clear he spoke into a speaker phone. An assistant made periodic comments in the background.
“Did you find a notebook on Sáenz? Perhaps in his shirt pocket?”
“Nope. Nothing.”
“Really?”
“It surprised me, too, considering he was a reporter.”
“What about a pen?”
“Oh, yes. A Mont Blanc. I always wanted to have one of those. But no notebook. If he had one, looks like your killer lifted it.”
“So you’re thinking it’s a homicide now?” I asked. This surprised me, as I had yet to tell Doc what else I had found after he left the crime scene.
“Yes, I’m a believer. Remember those blotches on his hand that you pointed out to me? Sáenz’s right hand was bruised. The back of it. There are marks all around, under his knuckles. Also slight bruising over the central phalanges of his middle, ring, and pinky fingers. Good work, Romilia.”
“Damn.” The image became clear immediately in my head of how Sáenz had died. “So somebody grabbed his hand while Sáenz held the gun?”
“Yep. Then they forced it under his own throat and had his finger pull the trigger.”
“The perp overpowered him.”
“I’d say. Your killer is strong. Looks like Sáenz’s hand was in a large vise grip.”
“I take it there were burn marks around the entry wound.”
“Indeed. He was shot up close. The barrel was pushed up hard against his skin.”
The image crystalized, all except for the face of the killer. The murderer somehow got close enough to Sáenz to restrain him, grab the gun in the reporter’s hand, and force Sáenz’s hand and pistol up under his head, then squeezed his fingers enough to have the gun go off.
With the image, questions came to mind. Was Sáenz aiming the gun at the killer? If so, how could the killer be so quick as to grab Sáenz’s hand? Did he come from behind or in front? Why was a news reporter carrying a gun?
“This brings up a lot of stuff, Doc,” I said. “I’d like to come over and visit you sometime today, after I check on this Nolensville Road lead.”
“Mi casa es su casa,” he said through a horribly accented Spanish. Then he laughed.
Though a fairly large southern city, Nashville was not Atlanta. Even in the early-morning hours Atlanta can offer some movement, even if it is only composed of drunks and the homeless. At seven a.m. there was very little happening down Nashville’s Nolensville Road. The four-lane highway that pointed north and south from the center of town to its edges was desolate. Few cars drove by. Nolensville collected Nashville poverty. Numerous old businesses lined the roads, used cars, a tire shop, ubiquitous pawn shops, a very old McDonald’s that still had the original neon “M” that showed the lightbulb tube running through its yellow background. There was no gas station here, nor parks, nor churches. And, of course, no banks. The pawn shops had control over any loan and investment transaction. Toppled trash cans on the sidewalks spilled out several days’ worth of garbage. This scene was a lifetime away from the streets of Bellevue in the west or the little town of Franklin just to the south, where the real moneychangers lived. The only similarity between Nolensville and those two posh communities was that it was now shrouded in the calm of early morning, and seemed as tranquil as the most peaceful place on earth.
It took a few minutes of driving before I saw something that offered me a possibility. A sign upon the wall of an old wooden building said “Taquería,” with an arrow pointing up a side street. It was not a large sign, perhaps the size of a small windshield. It had few adornments on it save the colors of the Mexican flag: red, white, and green. Taquería was not a word that a Latino would use in order to cultivate a gringo clientele. This small sign was obviously meant to attract local raza.
I took the side street and pulled away from Nolensville Road. One half block away, a light burned through a fairly large picture window. A crack ran down one of its corners. A woman moved around inside. Though passing the window only once, I could tell she was older, perhaps in her mid-fifties. She moved around, placing objects upon shelves.
I parked the car and walked to the front door. A streetlight that offered no glow buzzed above me, its constant electric crackle cutting through the silence of early day. The sign hanging in the window of the door said “cerrado.” I knocked.
The woman turned and looked at me, a certain harshness penetrating her stare. Undoubtedly, a number of her children and grandchildren had been on the receiving end of such a stare whenever having done something wrong. What I now did wrong, most assuredly, was break the rhythm of her early morning, taking her from the first moments of a workday.
She moved to the door. Perhaps my being a woman allowed her to do that. Yet she did not open it until asking in thickly accented English who I was. I introduced myself in Spanish, saying I was with the police and showing her my badge and ID. She stared at it, then with no hesitation unlocked the door and opened it wide. The cold air rushed in, making her show me a curt courtesy, “Pásese, por favor, pase adelante.”
I thanked her and walked in. The odor of a hundred bags of masa harina, the flour used for tortillas, tamales, pupusas, flautas, and every other corn-based food, whipped into my nose. That had not happened since Mamá and I had left Atlanta. This woman’s shelves held a cornucopia of Latin foods: cans of processed refried beans, both pinto and black; red cascabel peppers, dried and packaged in crinkly plastic sacks; bags of sweet breads piled high in a wooden trough; three troughs filled with tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, serrano peppers, banana peppers, green tomatillos in their husks, cilantro, onions, garlic. A trough to one side displayed at least one hundred CDs and cassettes of rancheras, corridos, cumbias, Gloria Estefan, Selena, Los Tigres del Norte, Los Bukis. Another wooden trough held a legion of video cassettes. A large refrigerator with glass doors displayed pounds of cheeses from both cow and goat milks. Bags of premade tortillas were also stacked in there, waiting for a working mother to come by before rushing home to make dinner for a hungry family. Posters lined the walls: Selena standing beautiful and voluptuous, a photo taken just weeks before her murder; another of a Latina woman whom I did not know, but who stood in a pose that barely allowed for her arms and thighs to cover her nude breasts and pubis; right next to her an old, large poster of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Below the posters, upon rough wooden shelves, sat two huge stereo speakers. She had yet to turn them on. They sat like fat, black mouths, ready to belt out a round of sad corridos.
This place was different from Nolensville Road. Out there, on the street and during the day, most assuredly the population was predominantly African American and White. That street really had yet to begin to speak two languages. Yet here, just a half block away from the daily rush of Nolensville, stood an almost breathing edifice of raza. I had found the pulsing heart of a very small yet growing Nashville Latino barrio.
“What can I do for you?” she asked in Spanish, though her eyes looked me up and down. She was about ten inches shorter than I. “You’re a cop, you say?”
Chota was the word she used for cop. Mexican. I shook my head at the not-flattering term. I offered my hand and gave her my name, but did not tell her yet that I was with homicide. She gave me her one hand, but in the other she held a sack of white onions. She held them in a way that requested I get to my point. Yet I waited for her to introduce herself. She did not. “And you are …?”
“Marina. Doña Marina Osegueda, at your service.” The courteous words came out automatically. I doubted them. She just stared at me, waiting. Her dress was simple enough, a pattern that looked as if she had bought the material at a sewing store and had sewn it herself. She had tied her steely hair into a bun to keep it out of her face. Her aging eyes were quick to dart about. They had been darting ever since she spotted me through the window of the door. “What do you need?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“What’s his name?”
“They call him Gato Negro.”
Marina’s piercing eyes quit piercing me. They rolled upwards as she turned and carried the bag of white onions to a bin. “What’s Nelson done now?” she asked, placing the onions carefully into the bin.
“That’s his name? Nelson?”
“Yes. Nelson García. But he likes to be called Gato Negro.”
“Why? Does it mean something, like a gang thing, or …”
“Because he hates the name Nelson. Thinks it sounds like a queer gringo.”
I shook my head at this logic. No doubt Doña Marina, the local distributor of Latino food, was also the conduit of local gossip.
“So you’re finally coming around to make him stop busting out those streetlights?” she asked, motioning her face toward the window and the pole outside.
“Well, no … did Nelson do that?”
“Yes, when he was fifteen. About four years ago. I called the police, but you never came.”
“I see. No, I’m here on other business. Do you know Nelson well? Is he a relative?” I asked that to see if she would be calling Nelson’s home after I took off in my car.
“No. He and his family came here just a few years ago. When he and his sisters were just kids. Nice family. But Nelson is a little wild.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
She walked over to the window. I followed behind. She pointed beyond my car toward a house that sat alone in a patch of yard. A couple of bicycles lay in the dry grass. A dark blue pickup truck in relatively good condition was parked just in front of the house.
“Right there. But they’re all asleep right now. Hey, what’s this all about? You don’t look like a regular cop, hija.”
She called me ‘daughter,’ which made me feel the mother in her. It made me want to ask more about herself, her own children and grandchildren, how long she had lived here and what had brought her to Nashville, a Latino-less town, in the first place. I wanted to introduce my son to her, just to hear her go on about how cute he was. All that would have to wait, I hoped, until another visit, one during off hours. But most assuredly I would be telling Mamá about this place. Marina’s store would make my own mother feel more at home. Perhaps it would help her insomnia.
“Oh, it’s nothing really. I’m working on a case. I think Gato Negro could help me out on it.” I smiled, hoping to disengage suspicions.
“Is it because of drugs?” she asked too suddenly.
“What about drugs?”
“Oh, that boy. I hear he’s been smoking that stuff. The grassy stuff, you know.” She did not have any sense of the lingo in either language. “But he really is a good boy, officer. I’ve known him since he was just a little chamaco.”
“Don’t worry, Doña Marina, I don’t think he’s in any real trouble yet.”
She heard my hasta el momento, my ‘yet.’ She looked at me.
“You know,” she said, “I’ve never met a chota latina in this town before.” She kept looking at me. I could not tell, from her forced stance of neutrality, whether she gazed at me with respect or with a necessary distance.
I tried to break her eye lock. “You have a wonderful store here,” I said. “I would like to come by during the day and pick up some things for my mother.”
The compliment—as well as the reference to mamá (yes, I was actually born unto this world, not hatched in the Chota Department)—seemed to lighten her demeanor. She actually smiled. “You like it? I built it seven years ago. Well, my boys built it for me. At first there was very little business. But now I can’t keep up with the demand. I even have gringos and negros come in here and buy food!”
We chatted a few minutes longer. Yet I was anxious, now having a real name to follow up on. I wanted to wander over to that house and get a chance to talk with the boy. I hoped that, arriving at this early-morning hour, I could catch him sleeping, which would help get more honest, crude answers from him. But I said none of this to Doña Marina, wanting to keep her from picking up the phone or walking over to the García home to warn them. Perhaps she would not. Then again, how much appeasing could I do, given the fact that I was out so early in the morning looking for a guy named Black Cat?
I cordially said goodbye and walked out. Her eyes pushed through the window and lay upon my back. I turned and smiled one last time. Doña Marina slapped a quick smile upon her own face and waved back. I pulled away from the curb, certain that her smile lasted for a very short while.
Instead of walking up to Gato Negro’s house, I drove the half block away from Doña Marina’s store. It was a last-ditch attempt to have her stop looking at me. Maybe she would believe I had left the neighborhood, and thus would return to preparing her store for the day.
I walked up to the faux-brick-covered building. Some of the façade had begun to peel. The roof shingles were uneven. Though poor, the porch and small yard were kept tidy.
A woman in her mid-forties answered my knock. She had obviously been up for a little while. “Yes?” she asked in clear English. It was clipped with a Mexican accent.
I introduced myself, showing my badge. “Is Nelson García around?” I asked in Spanish.
She hesitated, then said in Spanish, “No, he’s not here now. He comes in later.”
“Oh. From work?”
“What time do you expect him?”
“I, I am not sure. He comes in at different times.”
“I see. Where does he work?”
A quick lie could not come to her. What place would be open this early in the morning where he could be working? A place where a cop wouldn’t take the time to check out?
“I am not sure. He has changed jobs.”
“I see. You his mother?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know where he works?”
She said nothing, only looked down at the doorframe.
I sighed testily. “Look. I just need to ask him some questions. Something’s happened to a friend of his named Diego Sáenz. I was wondering if Gato could help us find out what occurred.”
“Something has happened to Diego?” she blurted out the question. “What?”
“He’s dead.” I said nothing more, excused myself from the home, and left, planning when my next surprise visit would be. Again, I felt a set of eyes upon me and my Taurus, fearful eyes, ones that had just learned that someone she knew had passed away, yet ones that scrambled to find reasoning within the chaos of such news.
Right as I pulled away, I felt and heard something hit the side of my car. In the rearview mirror I saw a young man who had looked as if he had just bolted awake. He stared at me in the mirror, then made his way to my door. I rolled down the window.
“I’m Gato Negro, man,” he said. “Nelson.” Though he spoke in English, his accent was strange. It was not Mexican. He did not give me a chance to say anything. “What you mean Diego’s dead? What happened?”
“We found him murdered last night.”
I thought Gato was turning to throw up. But all he did was whirl about one time with the news. He cursed lowly. Tears started to punch out from his eyes.
“Why did your mother lie for you, Gato?” I asked, getting out of the car.
“I don’t know. She sees cops, she automatically lies, know what I’m saying? Shit, I’m not even on probation anymore.”
“But you were?”
“Yeah, for a shoplifting bust. But I’m clean now, officer … what’s your name?”
I introduced myself.
“So you are raza. And a cop. Damn.”
I got out of the car. “Why did you run out to stop me?” I asked.
“Diego’s my friend. My mamá ran back and told me. I jumped out of bed. Dang, I can’t believe he’s dead …”
It was then that I could pin his accent down. Dang. Though he spoke in both languages, his English was most definitely southern. It seemed strange, having such a twang come out of a Mexican American’s mouth.
“So who do you think would want Diego dead, Gato?”
His watery eyes glanced at me a couple of times. His black hair, still matted from a night of sleep, hung halfway over his left eye. “Is it worth anything?”
I pulled a twenty-dollar bill from my purse. I held it until he spoke.
He looked left and right down the street before saying, “You ever hear of a guy called Tekún Umán?”
The name was familiar to me. But not here. Its memory wove back to my days of living in Atlanta. I said this to Gato.
“Yeah, well, he ain’t livin’ in Atlanta now. He’s set up shop here.”
“What kind of shop?”
He lowered his head, obviously avoiding my question.
“Come on, Gato, what do you know about his business?”
“You’re homicide, right? So I guess you don’t keep up as much with narcotics.”
Not only was Gato street-smart, but he also knew the basic ins and outs of the police department. “So Tekún Umán is involved in drugs?”
Gato started to walk away. “I don’t know much. But I got approached on the street a few weeks back, with a good offer. They said this guy was good, he’d take care of you if you took care of the street market for him. I told ‘em no. Like I said, I’m clean.” He made sure I heard that a couple of times. “Read the papers, man. You’ll learn about him.”
I wanted to stop him, but I knew I had no real reason to. Then an obvious question came to mind, “Hey, wait a minute. What kind of name is Tekún Umán? What’s his real name?”
He was already at the doorstep of his home when he answered me. “That’s some Indian name from Central America. I think his real name’s Murillo.” That was all he would tell me. His door was now closed.