I DON’T GO BY THE NAME MY PARENTS GAVE ME

I don’t go by the name they gave me when I was born, but my real name doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t care if that sounds odd to you. But before I get going with my story, let me introduce myself: I’m Paco to my relatives from Muros (my Aunt Castora, who’s over 90, still calls me Paquiño as if I were a little boy) and to my clients I’m Frank, Frank Soutelo. I added the Soutelo part because it sounds good and it’s also in honor of my father, who was from there, you know. It’s the village that’s famous for its bagpipe player. The truth is, and even if it’s too much information, they were both good friends when they were kids. That’s why I still have a one-of-a-kind platter that Avelino Cachafeiro recorded on Pontevedra Radio during the forties, because it was one of my father’s most treasured souvenirs. Getting back to my last name, I have to say I’m really tired of explaining how, in spite of the fact that it’s got quite a lilt to it, it’s not Italian. And oh, by the way, my closest friends call me Big Frank because I’ve got a hefty physique. But I’m not fat, of course.

         I’m a private detective and that’s how I’m listed in the phone book, on the mailbox and, of course, on the door to my office. Still, if I’m going to tell you the story of my adventures (that part about telling the story is just to make them sound more important, of course…), once in a while, just once in a while, I say I’m a personal rather than a private detective. That’s because my style and my cases could fall a little outside the norm for what you usually read about in all the novels and see in the movies. My office is in a big wide building, cold-looking, with red brick walls, built in the thirties and really in need of remodeling. I’m sure that won’t ever happen, though, because the real estate people never get around to it. The company is sneaky like that. The point is to get the tenants mad so they’ll stop getting in the way of their money-making plans. The lot alone is worth millions, but the company won’t even bother to make us a decent offer so we might consider vacating the premises.

         Now that I’ve told you all this, I suppose that you’re probably a bit confused. I can imagine you’re wondering what a guy like me is doing in a place like that. Don’t be impatient. I have my reasons.

         My old man was one of those guys who had no choice but to emigrate when the war broke out in 1936. He was actually one of the last who fled, because he tried to stick it out on the front at Teruel, where he’d quickly earned promotion to sergeant, because there were fewer and fewer men who were healthy enough to fight. It was hell. Once the war was lost, he left for Mexico after being forced to go through a French “welcome center” that sounds nice but is really just a euphemism to refer to something a lot worse: a concentration camp. It’s not a big deal, because he ran into a lot of things that confused him in Moctezuma’s country.

         He’d been in the Assault Guard, was a die-hard supporter of the democratically-elected Spanish Republic from before the Civil War, and he wasn’t very optimistic about the future being offered by President Cárdenas. It was possible that the excessive generosity of the Mexican leader had derived more from the huge amounts of money that the Spanish Republic had given him than out of a true desire to help those who’d been exiled. My father always insisted on his personal idea regarding the official version of the kindness shown by the followers of Cárdenas when we talked about those days, which we often did.

         In the end he slipped over the border into the United States carrying some smudged papers that certified him as an ex-guard and ex-soldier, things that implied respect for uniforms and people in authority, I guess. With the help of some influential countrymen of his, and after trying to find work in a shipping port as dock loader, he ended up joining the New York police force when he was just thirty. It was at a time when not many Hispanics were allowed in the force. His experience in the trenches and his former employment most likely stood him in good stead to get the job, along with the circumstances created by WWII, because a lot of men had been sent first to the European front and then to Asia, leaving a lot of empty spots for policemen.

         Later, my father married the daughter of a couple who’d emigrated from Muros, a village on the coast. She was a little younger than he was, and from that marriage came a daughter and a son. Until his retirement he was a foot patrol officer and was a very popular man, because in those days a policeman was more than just a policeman.

         I didn’t follow the saying “the shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot” and ended up joining the police too, although as soon as I could I requested to be transferred to Los Angeles. Part of what influenced my decision to head west was the warm California climate, which was easier on my lungs than New York’s humidity. Then, too, there was the strong fascination I’d felt for Hollywood since I was a boy. After a while I ended up leaving the police force – I’m not going to tell the story of how and why right now, but it was pretty traumatic and not my fault – and I took a chance on becoming a detective on my own.

         I think I’m pretty well adapted to life in L.A. and I have a lot of work, although now I only accept the cases that pay the best, except naturally, when times get tough, which they often do. Then you have to take what you can get. After all, I do have my expenses. Besides, I like to live well and I like women, if both of these things are good quality and don’t require a lot of effort. I’m in my fifties and guess I have a resemblance to William Holden when the actor was around my age. I think the comparison is a bit overdone, but I’m also not going to beat myself up trying to prove it. Maybe there’s a bit of a resemblance between Holden and me, because I have pretty good luck with women, can’t deny that. That’s why I don’t need to pay anything to… Well, you know what I mean.

         I’m proud of my paternal roots, as you might imagine. Plus, I think it’s good to be proud. I always remember Christmas time, when we’d get a simple card from Breogania (my father talked a lot about Breogán and I like to call his birthplace that to honor him), signed by all the relatives. I also remember the packages we sent them with clothing and toys, because we knew times were hard for them there. We were the “Americans,” but in our home, in a building beside the Hudson River, the conversation always centered on things from “back home.” We used the language spoken there. Especially my father, like I said. He had a small library with Galician books published in Argentina that I ended up inheriting, and he also spent a lot of time in the humble Unidad Gallega of New York. That’s where he’d go every day to play dominoes. (In fact, the heart attack that killed him, after he’d retired, happened right there, next to the dominoes.)

         That’s probably why I’m still in contact with my relatives there and if the job and my finances don’t get in the way, once in a while – perhaps less than I’d like – I get on a plane and land in Santiago de Compostela. Then I rent a car so I can drive along the roads and admire the countryside while stocking up on Galician literature and music that my cousins and their kids suggest I should get.

         Otherwise, when I’m working as a detective, I try to nourish body and spirit by sinking my teeth into the local dishes, and I go a lot to The Peirao, The Wharf (it’s pronounced just like that, Pay-rah-o, none of that native Peirao’s or the ridiculous Chez Peirao… ). It’s an expensive restaurant run by a fellow from Cambados who, like me, is the son of an exile from the Spanish Civil War of 36. Benito, or Beni to his friends (here they say something horrendous like Beni-tó), has a hell of a good place going on the outskirts of Santa Monica, and he tries hard to reproduce his family’s traditional dishes faithfully. He went back for a while to improve his cooking techniques and returned a very skilled chef. His customers include some of the most sophisticated people in this city, where the dollar flies like a greyhound in a race, and he tries to use top-quality ingredients, imported through Miami. And if he can’t get those, he uses something grown or caught on the California shore. He prepares a polbo á feira, a boiled octopus with salt and paprika sprinkled on top, in a copper pot that many Galician octopus vendors would give their eye teeth to have. He’s also one of the best at preparing meats, especially when it comes to stews.

         A number of weeks ago, an editor of pulp fiction, encouraged by a kind article they did on me for the Sunday supplement of the Los Angeles Times regarding a case I solved and that had the media buzzing, offered to publish my memoirs as a “man of action.” But at first I absolutely refused because I didn’t want to spend all those hours writing. Besides, I’m a professional who’s obsessed with saving on bullets, meaning I try to kill and wound as few as possible, even though sometimes violence is unavoidable.

         I couldn’t understand his interest in me, a detective who doesn’t shoot much, doesn’t smoke and gets off topic a lot talking about films and cheap literature. The editor kept insisting, though, until finally he got his way because he used the best trick in the book: he offered to pay me an amount I absolutely could not turn down, along with the helpful support of a “slave.” (I know the word is offensive, but that’s what they call a person who writes for others, don’t they?) That’s how they got me to tell about some of my most unusual cases. There are a lot of those, to be honest, because the U.S. is a real Pandora’s box.

         My job was just to tell about these cases by parking myself in front of a recorder for dozens of hours and then let the helper rummage through the folders in my filing cabinet. That way he could round out the plots with police reports, use real names and addresses, you know, the things you need to tell a good story and hook your readers. “Hook” is his word, the one the “slave” used. He also had access to my secretary and even some of the characters involved in the cases, I suppose for the same reason of documenting the stories. At one point it got to be a real pain in the ass answering all his questions and adding all the necessary details, but the story was finally done.

         They’re stories that’ll end up in the wastebasket of any train station when travelers get off at their stops. Or in the garbage can in an airport after a short flight. I did, however, ask the “slave” (who was, in fact, a mestizo, a mixed-blood from Comala) to keep my story in first person as much as he could. I think things sound more realistic when the main character tells the story. None of that fancy writing style. Straight to the point. If they didn’t agree to these conditions, I wouldn’t let it be published. In exchange, I had to agree to not veto anything even if it seemed offensive or iffy to me.

         Well, now that we’ve gotten this show on the road, I’ll start with what happened to me with the mythical Marilyn Monroe – that’s right, with the star of Niagara and so many other unforgettable movies. Actually, it wasn’t really with her, but she was definitely the one who set the ball rolling for the story even though she’d already been dead for a number of years. How’s that possible? Well, precisely because she was dead. Want to know more? Of course you do, but that’s where the suspense lies. You’ll find out. Ah! Thanks for buying my little story. Besides the advance I got from the editor, I’m also getting a small percentage from the book sales. That’s the way it should be, right?

1

THE BUSINESS OF CORPSE CONTRABAND

It was a special squad with a very special responsibility. They’d assigned it to a division trained in money matters, fiscal fraud and contraband, but what they did went far beyond the usual activities for these types of cases. This was a squad that dealt with dead people. Of course this is a bit unusual, in fact I should say it’s something entirely unique, although they didn’t deal with everyday cadavers. Instead, they handled very special ones – shall we say corpses with pedigrees?

         Let’s get things perfectly straight: the members of this squad were not gravediggers nor forensics nor anything of that sort. Their role was actually to keep the cadavers from moving around, from one spot to another, and there was not exactly a job description for that. Besides, if those dead bodies refused to travel in first class it wasn’t because they couldn’t pay the price of the ticket but simply because they were discreet. That’s why they preferred the holds of airplanes or, as a worst-case scenario, they’d travel in the holds of shipping vessels. There were also some that moved around in a van, but that depended on the distance and the circumstances. Still, this whole business certainly didn’t have anything to do with zombies. We all know that’s for B-rated movies. The most famous dead people usually traveled with somebody and if on the outside chance they had to travel alone, the sender’s address and the recipient were always indicated very clearly on the package. You know, just in case anything happened. Some people knew there were insurance companies that offered extremely expensive policies on the sly because they could make out like bandits doing that. If everything went as planned…

         Those men, carefully selected for the job, had as their one and only mission making sure everyone stayed in his or her place, and in this case it was clear those places were only supposed to be graves, niches or mausoleums. I really should point out that their work was not motivated by a simple Christian sense of charity, a sense of compassion, a desire for hygiene and cleanliness, or anything of that sort. They did it because they were professionals and because there was a lot of money floating around these cadavers that was not under the watchful eye of the Internal Revenue Service. That’s also why the squad existed, precisely since it was a business that involved millions of dollars that weren’t on the administration’s radar screen. Because the activity they were supposed to control was going on day in and day out, the feds were always trying to stop it. As a result, the squad’s work was by no means easy. Plus, the results weren’t always immediate.

         It operated throughout the country and had a close relationship with the FBI, the CIA, Interpol and other groups of that sort where this type of merchandise was in demand. For reasons that will be explained further on, the squad’s base was in Los Angeles, but the agents didn’t have their own building and they didn’t wear any visible badges that distinguished them from their comrades in the force. They occupied a floor in the old Beverly Hills Commissary and their identity as an operative unit was kept strictly confidential. In general their colleagues looked at them in a condescending manner because of the business they had to deal with. We mustn’t forget that corpses smell…

         One could say they suffered fewer risks than the other detectives because they dealt with dead bodies. Of course that’s not exactly a pleasant task, even though the dead don’t shoot. Nevertheless, the men and women of that special squad were passionate about their job. They didn’t have to put up with common delinquents and the persons they went after were rich, sometimes multimillionaires. They were bizarre folks who had a strange way of having fun. That’s why some of their best agents had been chosen. They were knowledgeable in the field of psychology, experts in pathology or forensic medicine and had nerves of steel. The least important requirement for these agents was their skill in using a weapon. Among the required activities, shooting was at the bottom of the list. They weren’t dealing with murderers at all. They were dealing with psychopaths and swanky perverts.

         Trafficking in dead bodies had been fairly rare up until recent years and was considered to be part of what went on in your run-of-the-mill contraband, but once it was discovered that there was a lucrative trade involving large sums of money and motivated by the availability of very unique cadavers, the decision was made to fight against it in an organized manner. Those specialists didn’t have to worry about the option of organs for transplants, fetuses used to make cosmetics or even clandestine comings and goings of deceased individuals in order to avoid a complicated and serious bureaucracy, when the only thing the families wanted to do was bury them. There were others who dealt with those things.

         Their biggest coup, their most spectacular success, was when they uncovered the business of Eva Perón’s corpse in an operation that had been internationally orchestrated. A cell of sentimental radicals had tried to get her body back to Argentina for their political benefit. Few people knew that it was hidden in that chalet on the outskirts of Madrid. So, acting quickly to intervene, the members of the squad kept it from being returned to its country of origin for a new purpose and saw that it got buried immediately. They were the only ones who knew the whole morbid story, the one about all the things that had been done to the mummified body of the mythical Evita. That’s a whole other topic, however.

         Even though they really had a lot on their plate dealing with two cases linked to Russia, lately they’d been concentrating on the high-paying sale of film stars, which had a lot of current activity and involved astronomical amounts of dollars, equivalent to the money generated by drug cartels. The Russian side of the operation, coordinated with the ever-controversial KGB, was studying the possibility that the growing Moscow mafia intended to sell Lenin’s mummy to a big oil boss from Africa. There was also the suspicion that some time back this same organization had placed Stalin’s remains in the hands of a collector of historical souvenirs somewhere in America. The point was, they’d confirmed that the bloody dictator was not in his tomb and that was a real can of worms.

         Fortunately, it turned out things had all fallen into place so the first case could be solved quickly. Of course this had to be done discreetly, which meant sacrificing the good publicity this would bring to the squad’s public image. The situation inside the country, with sectors of the old Communist regime putting pressure on Yeltsin’s tired administration, made it inadvisable to broadcast the affair. They were afraid news like that would cause an uncontrollable uproar, and would really upset a society that was already up in arms over the economic crisis, gangster activities, and the recent bloody mess with Chechnya.

         The point is that they had to use absolute discretion in all their investigations and for very understandable reasons. It obviously wasn’t much fun to be laid to eternal rest and then, because you’d been famous, having to end up wandering about, going from one place to another, being traded around as if you were a baseball card. On the other hand, it wasn’t fair that just because of cases like these the cemeteries might no longer be able to be public places and the graves were being turned into bunkers made of reinforced concrete.

         The squad was located in Los Angeles because this city was the center of the cadaver collectors’ operations. The collectors were a group of bold-faced liars and corporations working in the export business on an international level. Hollywood liked to brag about having as many stars in the ground as there were in the sky. Many of these stars, inaccessible during their lifetimes, were now within reach simply because they’d been laid to rest in cemeteries. Some graves had become real pilgrimage sites. Put a famous dead person in a cemetery and you’d have a money-maker for sure. Still, in spite of the abundant supply of what you might call slabs of cold meat, it wasn’t exactly easy for the members of the squad to get a grasp on the vague connections that would lead them to the providers and consumers of those delicatessen items.

         Memorial Park was considered to be one of the most coveted spots to carry out this disgusting yet very popular activity. There were other cemeteries as well, but they were more modest. Those didn’t have the same reputation, even if they had the good fortune of receiving other stars who hadn’t left orders for their remains to be cremated. Like the majority of film personalities, they’d been careful to have themselves embalmed, and so the guarantee that their bodies would remain intact heightened the public’s interest in them while at the same time increasing their monetary value. In fact, the squad had a price list – it was mind-boggling – they’d confiscated from one of these odd organizations. The amounts were staggering. You could pay up to a million dollars for a banged-up old skeleton, as long as it belonged to a famous, well-known individual.

         That third floor in Beverly Hills was not like the others in the building either as far as the access into its inner sanctum. It had the best communication technology and a small but sophisticated laboratory that allowed them to identify any remains that they’d confiscated in just a few hours. There was a computer that was ironically named Sky because of the data they kept in it regarding such celestial beings as the stars of Hollywood. It stored all their personal and clinical information along with the psychological profiles of dozens of personalities who’d earned their fame in Movie Land. Sky had a success rate of ninety-nine per cent.

         Recently the equipment had not been used much because several members of the squad had been working for several months on a suspected operation in Westwood Memorial Park. That operation seemed to have been successfully stymied, but the agents suspected that it was just the opposite. These smugglers in particular used highly advanced technology, and were offering huge amounts of money to achieve their goals. It wasn’t always easy to crack a case because the traders also had good legal covers, seeing’s how they were able to make use of the best and most contentious lawyers. Despite having kept them under surveillance for some time, the squad’s findings hadn’t achieved the desired results. They had clues and some evidence, but after that the investigations had stalled.

         Well, things were just about to change.

2

MARILYN ISN’T JUST A SLAB OF MEAT

Pat announced that there was a guy in the waiting area. I told her to stall him long enough so I could straighten up my room and pick up the pages of the file on a fraud case that I’d spread out over the table. It was a case I’d been looking at off and on for some weeks now, but hadn’t had much luck solving. The suspect was an employee of the company and they wanted to avoid a scandal. When I work, I avoid staging the scene. I just get comfortable and that’s that. But I also know that finding everything a mess makes a bad impression on clients. On the other hand, if you look all neat and tidy it gives the impression that you’re not doing anything and that affects your reputation, but most of all it affects your wallet. It doesn’t matter what you charge, they think it’s a bit strange if they see that your office is too tidy. In my line of work, small dance steps like this are important, you know, because you really need to keep track of everything. So I came to the office door dressed like I’d been working: shirtsleeves rolled up, collar unbuttoned, and the knot in my tie loosened.

         What I hadn’t expected in a million years was to see one of those chauffeurs you don’t run into very often nowadays, other than the ones who are paid by some fancy-schmantzy rich guy or who happen to be employed by one of the filthy rich families you can still find on the outskirts of the city. Not even the bigwigs in the film industry have chauffeurs dressed like that anymore. He was wearing patent leather boots halfway up his calf, a jersey uniform with jacket, pants and a flat-topped cap held in one immaculately white hand wearing immaculate silk gloves. He was a tall fellow and stood there stiffly. His face was just as rigid and he had a military haircut. It was obvious he was more than just a chauffeur. He had to be one of those who do everything, from running errands to serving as confidants to acting as thugs if the situation warrants it… He stood there, stiff and very straight, like a soldier, and I was tempted to bark, “At ease!”

         “Hello, please come in,” I pointed toward the interior of the office as I stepped to one side.

         “No, it’s not necessary. I’ve been sent here by Mrs. Tara Colbert, who requests that you kindly accompany me. She’s an elderly lady who’s in a wheelchair and begs your pardon for making this request.” He gave me a courteous smile while he delivered the message.

         I couldn’t let the fellow (he looked deader than a doornail) get the impression I’d go running to see this dame Colbert, even though it’d been a while since a fair wind had blown my way as far as money was concerned. So I coughed a bit, looked at my pocket watch, sighed in a resigned manner and told him “fine.” I indicated that I wasn’t in the habit of interrupting what I was working on, although I’d make an exception this time and would be glad to accompany him.

         I immediately ordered my secretary:

         “Pat, cancel all my afternoon appointments and reschedule them for later in the week…” I gave her the order to do it, using a professional tone I’d practiced. It took her a moment to catch on, judging from the first look on her face when she heard me. It didn’t seem to register with her right off that the client didn’t need to know the truth, namely that my schedule was empty. “I’ll get my jacket and be right out,” I told the big fellow, whom I didn’t like much, for some reason. When I looked at him I felt something unpleasant crawling on the back of my neck, the same as when somebody stuck a gun in my ribs.

         As a precaution I grabbed my piece, checked the clip and slipped the extra inside my sock. It was quite odd that an old woman with millions would be requesting to see me. These people could hire the services of an agency that was a lot more expensive, much more complicated, and a lot less efficient. Not that I’m bragging. Then again, every generation has its quirks and develops its own tics. Still, when somebody’s on the brink of death, like maybe this woman Tara was, getting involved with detectives will definitely make you think twice about a case.

         Off we went. My elevator was working this time. A Rolls was waiting at the door. It was one of those cars you can spot easily because they appear in magazines and multimillionaires love them. Its white paint dazzled in the California sun on that bright, pleasant summer afternoon. A treasure like that couldn’t just sit by the curb all by its lonesome and that’s probably why there was another guy next to it. He too was dressed impeccably and stood stiff as a board, but in contrast with the other fellow, this one’s hair was flattened down and had been slathered with hair cream. He looked like the butler in one of those movies from the forties. Trying to be friendly, but definitely not overdoing it, he greeted me with a gloomy “good afternoon” and liquor breath, then opened the rear door for me. The two of them occupied the front seats. Then, without saying a single word (there was a pane of glass separating us), they drove me down Sunset Boulevard, took the road to Stone Canyon and after that proceeded along well-kept streets that wound past luxurious homes. I recognized the one that belonged to the retired Ronald Reagan because it’d been on television dozens of times. Perhaps that’s why I thought the area had a decadent, run-down air about it, as if something were about to happen. After we’d driven for a good hour in the comfortable vehicle, we entered the grounds of a mansion. You’d say it was California Gothic. It was a place like the one in Psycho, but a lot fancier and bigger, with an odd gray trim, and ivy growing over it up to the second floor. Surrounding it was a lush garden with a rather mysterious air about it that reminded me of those Central European cemeteries that make such a strong impression on you when you walk through them.

         “We’re here,” said the butler after he’d lowered the glass that separated us. His comment was so obvious that I couldn’t help but remark, “Oh, I thought we were stopping to take a leak.” He looked a bit startled. He seemed to be making an effort to see the humor in my comment.

         “Come with me,” ordered the chauffeur with a stern face, after opening the door for me. The part about “if you’d be so kind” would probably be used on some other occasion.

         So that’s what I did. I felt overwhelmed by the heavy fragrance of some plant I couldn’t identify because I don’t know a damn thing about gardens. It doesn’t matter what it was, but I knew it wasn’t something you run into much in those parts. And I knew that for sure, because I still have a good sense of smell. I also could swear I heard a bark that sounded like something between a roar and birds singing. They were birds I couldn’t place either. Probably some weird exotic species. I took all this in without stopping, naturally. We were met at the main door by another fellow, although this one was not quite as shady-looking. A man with white hair and a sour look on his face, he’d probably been in the house as long as its owner, or close to it. There was another “good afternoon” and then a “come with me,” this time preceded by “please.”

         We went up some stairs that reminded me of the ones in the mansion in Gone With the Wind, and I felt like Vivien Leigh was going to appear at any moment. Then they led me to a room that was three times the size of my office. It had a kind of funeral-parlor air about it, because it was an old-fashioned room and very dimly lit. It was extremely clean, though. If we hadn’t been in California, I would have felt like I was in Louisiana in the home of a wealthy southern gentleman. There were a few portraits scattered around the walls, probably of long-gone ancestors. There were some dull mirrors whose gleam had dimmed but still in their lovely Baroque frames. An immense glass lamp with dozens of arms and light bulbs hung from the ceiling. There were some well-worn rugs covering most of the floor. Over-sized carved chairs with seats and backs upholstered in velvet. A table with curved legs that had been shaped by some expert woodworker without a name. A few small statues in two shades of marble. A big gold clock inside another case with carving on it. Two large windows. A large supply of curtains made of a kind of yellowish velour with a typical high-class smell that assaulted my pituitary to the point where it began to suffocate me. I couldn’t help thinking that there was so much junk in that room it’d take somebody a week to clean it.

         “Whiskey?” inquired the man with the white hair.

         “Yes, the best you’ve got.” Since everything around me was so formal and high class, you weren’t going to catch me asking for some cheap brand.

         “How do you like it?”

         “In a glass…”

         When he heard my answer, the guy looked as if he were going to forget how to be as polite as he’d been so far, so I added “with ice” without missing a beat.

         Only five minutes had gone by and I’d only managed to take a single swallow of that magnificent liquor, when the lady made her entrance, seated in an elaborate wheelchair. She was being pushed by the butler and was accompanied by the chauffeur, who was now wearing a grey suit topped off with a green bow tie. “Well, they sure are fast-change artists,” I thought at that point.

         You’d have to be an idiot not to be on your guard there. I remained calm, thinking it wasn’t anything personal, meaning that I was trying to convince myself this was just another case. Under different circumstances I might have said, “Thank you very much, but I’m not interested.” Of course, an old dog can always smell a stack of bills, and if I were the right one for the tricky job, I was pretty sure they were the ones who’d come out on the short end. Besides, I would be in charge of the operation. The woman’s raspy voice brought me back to reality.

         “Mr. Soutelo, thank you for coming. You can understand that my delicate state of health doesn’t allow me to get out much. I prefer these peaceful surroundings, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.” Her voice had such a mournful, rehearsed tone to it that needless to say it led me to put on a kind-hearted air.

         “That’s really no problem, Mrs. Colbert” was my very professional response as I struck my best pose.

         “Oh please! What’s this, calling me Mrs. Colbert!” she interrupted me, upset and a bit hysterical. “Ta-ra, Ta-ra!” She spit out her name as she rolled her eyes and looked at the man who stood next to her wheelchair.

         “Oh, I didn’t mean to upset you, I only thought that…” I tried to backpedal and patch things up just in case I’d put my foot in my mouth.

         “Boris!” she scolded the chauffeur, her voice now jangly. “You know how much I hate that. Ta-ra! Ta-ra! You must always introduce me as Ta-ra! Colbert is a thing of the past, I say!”

         Boris put up with the scolding without batting an eye. Such submissiveness was pathetic in a big lug like him. That fact reinforced the pessimism I felt toward those little darlings but at the same time I was beginning to suspect that I was standing in front of a trio right out of The Munsters.

         Once the incident had blown over and Tara had calmed down, she began to explain what she wanted me to do, meanwhile dragging on a cigarette set in a holder made of gold. She was easily around eighty years old and her face had more lines on it than the map of Los Angeles, although you could still see remnants of a beauty that must have been very striking when she was in her prime. She might have gone a little too heavy on the makeup, because she’d dabbed on too much rouge. It made her face look like a theater mask. First she offered me tea, but I refused her offer, showing her the whiskey in my hand. After that, they lifted her out of the chair and placed her on what looked like a very comfortable sofa, judging by the way she sank down into it. The rest of us remained standing. She began to tell her story in a slow, deep voice. It sounded like she was in pain.

         “As you must be aware, Norma Jean Baker, whom you probably know as Marilyn Monroe, died one night late Saturday or early Sunday morning on the 5th of August, 1962. You probably also know that a lot of lies have been circulating about the circumstances of her death and that before she died she made some phone calls. I was one of the few persons fortunate enough to receive one of those calls.” That revelation caught me a bit off guard. “I imagine, Mr. Soutelo – may I call you Frank?” I agreed, naturally. “You will understand that everything we discuss must stay between the two of us. It’s not really all that important, but you should know that I was among the small group of thirty friends and relatives who attended her funeral, at the request of Joe DiMaggio… Stupid idiots!” She snapped scornfully. I supposed she was addressing the persons who’d cut the poor star’s life short.

         The silence that came next seemed longer to me than it really was. After that, she went straight to the point.

         “The truth is that I promised to take care of her until I died. Joe never forgot her, and in fact for twenty years he ordered a bouquet of flowers placed on her grave every year, but I did all the rest, although DiMaggio never knew. Things were going fine until recently. It used to be that I was her guardian angel, but now Boris and my other people take care of things.” She turned to stare with a blank expression at the man she’d just scolded, who was still standing stiffly beside her, then looked at the other fellow. “They go regularly to see that there are always flowers on the grave and to keep it tidy. Hundreds of tourists visit her grave every week and that affects how it looks. I actually tried to get City Hall to set up some sort of protection for her, but visitors drop a lot of money in this city and I suppose they feel it’s not right to take one of their special enjoyments away from them. They want to get near the stars, even if they’re dead.” She stopped and made a gesture that looked to me like it was staged. “Anyway, a few days ago I got a message informing me that Marilyn’s grave was empty. I want you to find her body… “ At that point she fixed her gaze on me. Her eyes were like an ancient cobra’s. She then anxiously awaited my reaction.

         In nearly thirty years of dealing with messy situations, I’d never been asked to do anything like this. I didn’t think I scared easily, but you never know what’s going to turn up. This time I was being asked to locate a corpse, or more precisely, to locate a coffin with a pile of bones inside. But a body that had been so worked over during its lifetime as Marilyn’s had been? There was no way it would have survived intact.

         “You want me to find a slab of cold meat?” I asked, and the shiver I felt was real.

         “Please, Frank, you can stop with the smart remarks. Marilyn’s cadaver is not a slab of cold meat… Let’s cut the wisecracks.” She looked offended.

         “All right, I’ll work on it, but you can understand how surprised I am. It’s the first time anybody’s asked me to do anything like this,” I said in my defense, shrugging my shoulders and putting a dead-pan expression on my face.

         “I think you’re a professional who’s used to unorthodox jobs, so don’t play squeamish with me.” I was about to lose my temper, but then I resisted the temptation to tighten my hands around her throat. “If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have asked you to do it. I’ll compensate you well, unless you’re not comfortable with the fee. Twenty-five thousand now and twenty-five thousand when you complete the job. Boris!” she called to the man. “The envelope!… Here’s your advance.” She took it and tossed it calmly on the low table, without giving me a chance to say anything.

         I reacted immediately, grabbing it and looking sideways at the money without stopping to count it. I remembered something my father used to say: “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” There were the bills. They smelt like they’d just been printed, all crisp, and I could sure use them. I put them in my pocket. The deal was sealed.

         She told me how the matter stood at that point in the investigation. There wasn’t much to tell, although she was careful not to give me any information about the nature or identity of the informant who’d provided her with the facts about something so serious and supposedly so hard to discover as the disappearance of a corpse. Nor did I ask her because I knew I wouldn’t have said anything if I’d been in her shoes. She told me about the cemetery and what it was like, which was something new to me because I wasn’t in the habit of hanging around those sorts of places. Then she assigned Boris and the butler to me as my contacts. Our procedure would be to use the telephone to communicate because the lady seemed to want me around her property as little as possible. I figured that out from the wild return trip we made.

         My hosts, their lips zipped once again, and obviously trying to disorient me, took me through streets I could barely make out. Some of them looked like they’d only recently been laid out so people could travel to the developments with houses that all look alike, the way houses do in the suburbs. It took them more than two hours to get me back to my office. They didn’t bother to say goodbye. No manners whatsoever, just like all thugs.

3

TARA COLBERT

Tara Colbert knew she didn’t have long to live. She was actually waiting for death to arrive and felt no desperation or fear at its coming. However, it wasn’t because of her arthritis, which had almost completely paralyzed her, or her weak heart, which did make her feel somewhat bitter about life. Instead, it was because she’d felt close to death since she was a girl. The reason for that was her stepfather, a gravedigger who had the bizarre habit of taking her with him to the cemetery in the remote Midwest town where she’d been born. He wanted her to take part in all the activities that were part of an enthusiastic professional’s job. Or to put it another way – and not very nicely – he had a strange attraction for dead bodies.

         That man, who didn’t have good hygiene and was rather uncouth to boot, was always transformed whenever he entered the room with its naked walls that acted as a morgue where bodies were stored for two or three days until the paperwork for their burial could be completed. Those were the bodies of homeless persons or people who’d been in the poorhouse, or even people who’d met a violent end. Even though she was just a little girl, Tara kept returning over and over to the same gloomy place. Her stepfather didn’t bother trying to repress his dirty urges in front of her, especially if the corpses were women, regardless of their age. Naturally, if female corpses weren’t available and he felt the need, little Tara would end up serving as a substitute… It’s not strange at all that she’d ended up enjoying the things her stepfather had taught her.

         The years were stormy and dreary. The days were gray and the nights dark. The result was a pitiful childhood that, oddly enough, only seemed to change for Tara when she was inside the walls of the cemetery. The gravedigger’s sudden death brought those creepy activities to a halt, and that was when she decided it was time to grab her little wooden suitcase, fill it with the few belongings she had, and slam the door forever on a rickety little run-down house where her paralyzed mother lived. Tara didn’t feel anything at all for her. She knew full well that her mother would die a few hours after being abandoned because there was nobody to care for her, but she didn’t give a hoot about leaving the woman screaming and desperate. The only thing that Tara felt strongly about was being close to dead bodies. She had to satisfy her strange predilection for corpses.

         Because she was physically attractive, it was always easier for a woman like Tara to survive the rough times of the Depression, particularly the part about going hungry, as many did. And so at last, after having worked in a number of brothels and participated in countless lewd activities, not counting her secret visits to cemeteries just to cheer herself up when she was down, she arrived in Hollywood. At that time it was a small city growing up in the shadow of the burgeoning film industry where you could live the good life, no holds barred, twenty four hours a day.

         It’d been easy to break into the film business with those legs, those hips, and those breasts, which got massaged in the dark in the shadow of lifeless bodies. (Note that most of the hundreds of women like her who came seeking their fortune didn’t have all her attributes, which is why they ended up in any old bed for a few dollars together with false promises of future glory.) Tara didn’t usually play hard to get when someone with a lot of money wanted to enjoy her company. She wore the best clothes, ate in expensive restaurants and went to all the parties, thanks to the income her body provided. Then she started acting in movies, first as a understudy, then in roles with short spoken parts and later in roles as characters with two or three pages of lines. She preferred horror films, but still couldn’t forget about her corpses.

         Tara’s career, which was always second-rate if you compared hers to that of a true star, took off like a firecracker. That’s why she soon married a film producer by the name of Colbert. He was just as perverse as she was, although the only way he liked to be served a slab of dead meat was on a plate. In exchange for her constant willingness to satisfy his sexual needs, she’d inherited a large fortune when her consort died, which it didn’t take him long to do. It happened in quite a glorious way: on top of Tara in a wild session of love-making.

         Naturally there were those people who pointed their fingers at her, saying she’d been the cause of his death. The woman was too ambitious and impatient to let anybody or anything hold her back, they said. For quite a while there was a lot of gossip around the city, but that’s as far as it went because the dead man didn’t exactly have a lot of friends. What’s more, she’d already created a complex web of relationships. It was a tightly woven web thanks to the man who’d been her husband during that period. Of course it was also thanks to the special services she rendered, which she’d pretty much rendered to everyone, regardless of the sort of uniform they wore: expensive suits, purple priest’s robes or…

         Tara’s body continued to need certain vitamins she never stopped taking, even when she grew old and was in a wheelchair. Who knew how she managed? Flesh, always younger flesh, it didn’t matter what sex or race. If there were something in good supply in Hollywood and the surrounding areas, it was flesh. Tara would have given anything to have access to the coveted Marilyn, that woman who drove men and women wild, and who always turned her down when she tried to get her hands on her. She was so obsessed with the blonde star that had the world on its knees that Tara swore she’d possess her some day. Some day, no matter how, no matter when, no matter what the cost.

         Since she already had a large fortune to her name, Tara bought fresh meat for her bed and dead meat for other uses – not for the oven or stewpot like her former husband had preferred, which was a more logical manner of consumption. As far as dead meat was concerned, she definitely preferred cadavers of famous people. Expensive corpses. She got more serious about that specialty once she became a widow.

         She finally shut herself up for good in that mansion, which she decorated in a rather sinister style inside and out. That mansion, which she’d acquired through marriage, was surrounded by a nineteenth-century garden like those of the Romantic period. It was like she was trying to wall herself up inside a giant mausoleum. Except on rare occasions, she avoided visitors, and she rarely saw anybody. That’s why she kept a loyal infantry of half a dozen fellows at her service. She spent long hours with her collection while hatching a perfect plan, and that made her very happy. She realized her time was near, but she also knew that she couldn’t depart in the company of the Lady of Death without fulfilling her journey. She was desperate. It’d already cost her a huge fortune to collect her treasures, with all the competition surrounding the business. It was too much to leave the job half-finished. Only one traveler was missing, which prevented her from making the final voyage, and she had to achieve that goal come hell or high water.

         After the set was complete, her loyal Boris knew what he was supposed to do and would carry out her instructions. Starlight was a magnificent purifier, and undoubtedly the best tonic ever invented for traveling into eternity.

         There was only one way she could hurry the plan along: she had to hire a detective. There was no other option because things had gotten corrupt in the business and all her efforts had failed miserably now that the police were openly hindering the process. Ten or twenty years ago things could be done discreetly and fairly quickly, but times had changed and the people who were involved in these types of deals now had no scruples whatsoever. That’s why the plan had to be entrusted to a professional who was outside the larger circuit, a tough guy with resources, but one who also was in need of earning money so he wouldn’t turn and walk out the door he’d walked through as soon as he heard what the job was.

         It’d been easy to locate Frank Soutelo. His office was one of many in the telephone book since there were dozens of agencies operating in L.A., but Tara’s sources had assured her he fit the bill nicely. Moreover, when they gave her the information about Soutelo, they noted that he hadn’t resisted at all and he’d agreed to accept the deal without questioning when he heard the substantial sum involved. Plus, he had an office with very little furniture and they’d figured out that he’d welcome the dough. In the file they prepared on him for her, they insisted on that aspect as well as on the fact that he wasn’t “tainted” by the police or the competition. They guaranteed that Soutelo would accept her offer.

         Still, it was a delicate matter and Tara couldn’t take any risks: the efforts to reach her goal could not go beyond the strictly confidential manner in which she had operated up until then. She had to keep some of the details to herself when she told him what she wanted him to do. The detective was only supposed to discover where Marilyn’s body was and the rest would be taken care of by others. The bloodhound was the means, not the end. So she was relieved when Soutelo agreed to take the job without asking any questions. Apparently he’d swallowed the line about her friendship with the star and it was only a matter of waiting for him to get results. Tara felt she was going to be able to sleep a little better in the coming days, but the fewer the better, because her anxiousness about making the final voyage really had her on pins and needles.

         Nevertheless, Tara Colbert had definitely underestimated Soutelo’s abilities when she gauged him to be just a fellow who needed to make a living. She hadn’t figured that the detective might be able to put two and two together… The competition wasn’t going to be caught off guard either and it wasn’t going to just twiddle its thumbs while she walked off with Marilyn’s corpse, which was a real collector’s item.

4

SNOOPING AROUND MEMORIAL PARK

Twenty-five thousand bucks can bring happiness for a little while and if you don’t believe it, ask Pat, who flashed me her best smile in three months when I arrived at the office early and went to pay a few outstanding bills with the advance I’d gotten from Tara. I think she didn’t try to kiss me despite her enthusiasm because we weren’t going to do that ever again and the first occasion was now only a fond memory for both of us. Or at least that’s what I tried to tell myself. But life’s a bitch like that and, like Olympia Dukakis said to John Mahoney when he suggested they sleep together in the comedy Moonstruck, “Don’t shit where you eat!” It was bad enough that we’d broken that rule once.

         So that’s how it was. I was caught up in a job involving Marilyn’s corpse, and it was obviously a very disgusting assignment. Nevertheless, you have to remember something that’s a reality if you want to survive in this business: if you want to eat on a daily basis, you put up with everything that gets thrown at you. That means you have to rummage around in the garbage as often as necessary. Picky people who’re thinking of working in this business have another thing coming because they’re playing the wrong game. Take it from one who knows.

         Once I’d analyzed and reorganized all the information my client had given me and started going over various hypotheses, I decided the first thing I needed to do was go to Memorial Park, 1218 Glendon Avenue, in Westwood Village. That was because the case had started there because that’s where Marilyn’s corpse had supposedly gone missing. I’d do that the first thing next morning, as soon as it opened to the public, so as to avoid as far as possible nosy onlookers and the visits of tourists. I’d never been especially interested in going to Westwood Memorial Park, even though I have a real thing for films, because I always felt you shouldn’t disturb the dead when they are resting. I never stopped there when I had to go through the area. It was sandwiched between all the skyscrapers along the avenue, but I knew that some days there were hundreds of visitors because sometimes the news media did a piece as if it were actually newsworthy that you could see a continuous pilgrimage through the fourteen cemeteries in Los Angeles County. And it truly was surprising how interested people were in the dead that had been immortalized by the Hollywood screen.

         If you go to the cemetery without planning things beforehand, it’s a waste of time. You risk going around in circles like a top without getting where you want to go. It’s also useless to take a map if you’re not in the habit of hanging around cemeteries. The place has its own unique appeal: a well-manicured lawn, flowers in the nicest places and especially the oak trees and willows scattered about in no particular order. Of course there also had to be some cypresses, with their strangely perfect cone shapes, looking as if somebody’d insisted on pruning them all the time. There were other trees scattered about, but don’t ask me to tell you what kind they were. However, I did notice they had the same sweet scent that reminded me a bit of Tara’s mansion.

         There were a lot of vertical burial sites covered by a simple plaque sitting directly on the grass or on a chunk of granite or marble. There were also pantheons of various shapes and niches, lots of niches. I knew the gods and goddesses of Hollywood pretty much had their own area, but if I didn’t ask one of the employees who were there just to earn a paycheck, I’d waste too much time trying to find Marilyn’s eternal resting place. It didn’t matter that it was one of the most popular spots and so consequently would have a well-worn, clear path to it that’d been made by the feet of many visitors. So I asked the first employee I found, and after walking by the graves of Natalie Wood, Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin and a few other stars, I stopped in front of a white mausoleum that had a slab crowned by a bronze plate. The plate was framed by a thin border. On a dark background you could read the simple line “MARILYN MONROE” and, beneath it, “1926-1962.”

         That simplicity surprised me, when you think about the lack of good taste in Hollywood when they bury their big-name icons and want to transfer the glamour that surrounded them in life to their final resting places. Taking advantage of the absence of onlookers, and even though I’d spotted a camera set up to monitor the grave, I looked it all over and managed to scrape at it with a little penknife I keep handy. I needed to see up close if there’d been any fussing with the slab or if it’d been resealed. It would be interesting evidence if it contradicted Tara’s statements. It didn’t seem that anybody would be able to make off with Marilyn’s corpse without shifting the slab and digging some sort of hole or trench there.

         I was busy doing that, balancing on my heels and checking the edges of the slab, when I heard a voice behind me that startled me so much I lost my train of thought.

         “What’s up? Anything interesting?”

         “What’d you say…?” I pretended to be distracted when I heard the question and put the penknife away, trying to do it so the person speaking wouldn’t notice what was going on. It was a fellow dressed in what looked like a watchman’s uniform, but it wasn’t exactly like the uniforms of a security agency, which are always very elegant.

         “I said, are you looking for something…?” he insisted in a calm manner.

         “Ah! No. Just curious. I was surprised at how well tended the niches are and was just checking out the nice work. I bet dozens of curiosity seekers come by here to look, so I thought it was unusual that they’re so clean. I mean, those people touch things, kick up the dirt with their feet…” I was talking as if I were just any old passer-by and tried to look like I didn’t know much of anything.

         “Are you an investigator?”

         That direct question told me either the guy hadn’t swallowed my explanation or he was after something else.

         “Well, actually, I am… I’m a sports specialist and I’m working on Joe DiMaggio, you know, the baseball player who married Marilyn…” Once I’d changed my story I noticed how now he was nodding at what I was saying in a more relaxed manner, so I kept it up. “I wanted to see the grave of his dear wife as a way of understanding him more. You’re probably aware that he’s the one who paid for the funeral, even though they didn’t live together anymore…” I added, showing off a little.

         “I understand, of course, and actually I didn’t know anything about what you’ve just told me.” He didn’t seem to be really sincere when he said this, however. “Our responsibility is to keep an eye on the grounds, especially those that are part of “heaven,” as we like to call this area. You know what I mean? We call it that because of all the stars buried here. There are people who do more than just nose around and if they think they can take something, well, I kid you not, even the dead aren’t safe.” His voice wobbled and he paused briefly, which I think now was on purpose, as if he were sizing up my reaction. “Specifically, the plaque you were looking at already has a mould so we can cast a new one and up until just a little while ago it had to be replaced between eight and ten times a year. We have cameras in Memorial, but the souvenir hunters or whatever it is you can call these people, take advantage of when we change shifts and also work after dark. However, I can tell you that for the past six months it hasn’t been necessary to repair Marilyn’s…” He was bragging now about their success and looking more relaxed.

         It was a golden opportunity to further my interests, so I kept up the conversation for a bit longer while at the same time I headed in the direction of the exit. I told him how interesting that information would be for an article in the Sunday supplement and said I knew I could trust him if I needed to come back and ask more questions. He said his name was Tabasco. He was the son of Mexicans who’d emigrated to the country years before and apparently he’d been working in that place for some time. Then he informed me that he’d come to check me out when he’d seen me on the monitor that was connected to the camera I’d already spotted when I got there. I gave him one of my fake cards that said I was a freelance journalist. (It had my real telephone number on it, though.) Then I headed back to the office.

         On the trip back, I kept thinking about the fellow I’d just been talking to, because something about him didn’t quite jibe with his job. When you’ve been at this job for a few years, you develop a sixth sense because it can get you out of rough spots. An alarm goes off in your head that tells you something isn’t quite right, but this time I wouldn’t figure out what was off, at least for the moment.

         As far as the matter that had led me to Memorial, yes, somebody had definitely changed the position of the plaque on Marilyn’s grave.

5

TWO NECROPHILIACS AND A SURPRISE

One of my first lines of investigation was to get my head around the world of necrophilia and all the abnormal facets of this activity, the one most closely related to the urge to remove a dead body from its eternal place of rest. Nobody with any brains would get involved in stealing corpses, unless he were crazy or a total degenerate, a real loser. That was obvious. I wouldn’t waste a lot of time researching the topic because if I applied the same method to every job that came to my office, it would require spending a lot of hours in the library and maybe even other things.

         In this line of work you’re balancing the time needed to get the job done and the field work beforehand. It’s also a matter of instinct. I’m one of those who think you can achieve the same results by using street smarts. That means you don’t have the sophistication of books and theories, of course, but on the other hand it can be quite effective for getting you where you need to go. In addition to the money my client was paying me, the job of looking for Marilyn wasn’t much different than finding a deadbeat dad, verifying a case of adultery or foiling a blackmailer, but I must confess it wasn’t exactly thrilling.

         I invited an old colleague who was still active in the police force to meet me for lunch at The Peirao. He was a good guy who shared information on a regular basis. It’s something you run into a lot in this business where we all know a lot of stuff but nobody ever knows anything. I gave him a heads-up as to why I wanted to get together with him so he could bring me the material as well organized as possible and he asked me to give him a couple of days because the information I was asking for was probably tricky to obtain. Afterward I called the restaurant to reserve a table, because even though I was a regular customer and Beni and I were pretty tight, when it’s a working lunch and a serious matter I always ask for a table in an out-of-the-way corner where I can speak freely and not be overheard. There’s always someone there who recognizes you and you never know when that’ll turn out to be a problem.

         That day we had a conversation together with some small nécora crabs and a baked sea bass, washed down with a good Albariño wine paid for by the twenty-five thousand bucks Tara’d advanced me, because there were more coming from the same source. For dessert, there was fried custard – simply heavenly – and a coffee liqueur made by Beni himself according to a recipe from his grandmother in Cambados and served hush-hush only to special customers because the laws in this country are pretty strict about the production of homemade alcoholic beverages. But that liqueur always had guests eating out of my hand and was a great tool to help me get the lowdown I needed on suspects during these conversations. The menu was simple, although it was one of the most expensive because we were on the West Coast, where you never get anything for free. But it was also a good way to return favors and at the same time strengthen the friendship. True colleagues don’t do business with cash.

         While we were having our after-dinner drinks, after we’d talked about old times and little bits and pieces about my old job and the news that more directly affected me, that is to say intrigues, fallings-out or transfers, my former colleague slid a hefty file over to me. He’d deleted the references to the two-bit necrophiliacs from the data. You know, they’re the ones who go to morgues or hang out in cemeteries looking for fresh corpses to satisfy their secret vices. Judging from the amount of information, he was accurate in his analysis when I told him as much as I felt I needed to about the case I was working. That my necrophilia was very high class. “Most likely they’re necrophiliacs with wild imaginations, Big Frank, collectors who’ve got a lot of dough, very high-class loonies,” he suggested. At the same time, he warned me to be alert and keep my guard up, because those characters might be capable of anything if they felt they were being threatened.

         He’d brought a lot of information on half a dozen of these characters, although he suggested I put half of them aside. Those were the ones who were competent and had money enough to remain in the business but who had been “dormant” for a while now. He said I should concentrate on the other three. Two were easy to locate and then there was a third who hadn’t been updated in the police files. I didn’t tell him, but the last of these three, the one on whom there was very little current information but a lot of details about her past, was in fact my client, the one and only Tara Colbert. When I discovered that, I felt queasy, as you can well imagine. I’d suddenly found out that I’d been hired by a person who was suspected of necrophilia and my case became quite dicey.

         If those three names were in the police records, it was only in a passing sense, because they’d been mentioned by chance in an interrogation, or somebody had made some vague accusation or they’d shown up when the police were investigating other cases. Their activities were no secret, but they didn’t have criminal records, and that created something of a handicap for going after them directly. If they hadn’t been caught yet, there was a good chance that they weren’t the ones guilty of trafficking with Marilyn, even though paradoxically one of the three individuals had hired me to find her cadaver. I figured I couldn’t exactly focus on her, so I’d limit my investigation to the other two names that preceded hers on the list. It was a good starting point for my investigation.

         I was going to have to figure out what to do with Tara Colbert and I’d have to find out how she fit into the mess that had just been dropped into my lap.

Text © Miguel Anxo Fernández

Translation © Kathleen March

This title is available to read in English – see the page “Novels”.