The Queen of the Northwest Page 2

  He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, offering one to her; He put it away again. They smoked in silence. When they finished, they dropped their butts on the floor. Despite her young age, Maria was already an expert smoker, kissing didn’t hurt her either, according to Abel, after having stolen the initiative, the girl kissed the boy. It was a magic kiss, with tongue included, capable of taming the beasts. Abel took advantage of the moment to try to caress her chest over the sweater, but she took away his hand gently; they barely knew each other, they should be cautious.

  —Next Sunday I'm going to Viana with a friend. I'll call you from there, I promise, said Maria

  Though he wasn’t attracted to the idea of ​​not seeing her again until next week, and of her going out with other boys, Abel tried not to let it show.

  —Have fun and don’t forget to call me!

  Later they returned to the disco, it was night and Maria was to return home, not without first saying goodbye to her boy with another long and wet kiss.

  The following Sunday afternoon, just a few hours before her death, Maria Guzman called him from her cell phone while the rain fell incessantly on his hair. At that moment Abel was with Eliseus in his car.

  —Hi, I'm here in Viana with Julián. Her sensual voice suddenly flooded the receiver.

  —What are you doing? Abel asked.

  —We are partying with the Boteiros celebrating the carnival, Julian calls them Moteiros, It is more likeable!

  On the radio of the car, the song by the group from Madrid M Men G "Suffer, give me back to my girl." Abel imagined Julian's crushed face against the windshield of his car. Containing his jealousy, he talked with her for a while and then said goodbye sending her a kiss.

  The windshield wipers shook the water from the glassy screen of the car with force.

  In the time that they were together, according to what Eliseus told them, after talking with Maria, Abel didn’t stop complaining about her behaviour.

  —Now it is OK! She doesn’t know me, she's going to find out who I am. I'm going to fix that guy. Who the fuck is that Julian? What is he doing in Viana with my girl without my authorization? —Eliseus tried to calm him, begging him to behave with her properly.

  Abel promised to do it, just jealousy sometimes dominated him. Then they went away together to a football game.

  At the end of the match, to his surprise Maria phoned him again: she was already in Montederramo, it was raining a lot and she decided to go back home.

  —Can we see each other now, if you want? —Asked Maria.

  —Wait for me in the park, I'll be there soon, Abel said.

  Eliseus confessed to seeing him very happy, when he left him at eight o'clock in the afternoon with Maria. What happened next between them, Eliseus didn’t know. At this point the story of Eliseus Perfecto was lost in vagueness too unfinished and uninteresting. Corporal Nicholás Gallardo thanked him for his time. They said goodbye to Eliseus with a strong handshake.

  —Eliseus, may I ask one last question.

  —Shoot Sergeant.

  —Do you think Abel did it?

  —I'm not the one to say anything, but the truth is that I've known him for some time, and now that you are saying it, he's always been a troublesome boy, though I never imagined he would go to such lengths. Is he a murderer or not? You will have to find out.

  While they ate at a well-known restaurant in the area two menus of the day, they tried to put the puzzle in order all that was shown to them, until now all the combinations indicated that the motive of the murder had been the jealousy. Just a few hours before her death, Maria Guzman was walking around Viana do Bolo with her cousin and a stranger named Julian.

  Yesterday when with Maria: Abel Piñeiro, moved by his possessive and violent character, possibly, that fact that he would not have accepted willingly the behaviour of his girl. He convinced her after a long discussion to meet at six o'clock in the morning at a place outside the town where no one could see them.

  It was possible that they would discuss it again and for some time during the discussion, Abel would lose all his nerves and try to be more affectionate with her than the guidelines of the Sacred Catechism indicate as recommendable. Faced with her refusal to participate in the game, he would have been raged even more, completely losing control. After raping her, perhaps he was afraid that she would betray him and decided to take her life by strangling her. Or perhaps he killed her before raping her, committing necrophilia; In one form or another, the coroner's analysis would soon betray him. These were the hypotheses Nicholás so naively stated in his report, trying to earn points before Major Ferreira in the face of a possible promotion.

  "Case closed," thought Corporal Nicolas, as he imagined the headlines of the following day: "Skilful Civil Guard agent, after a laborious investigation, detains a young man as the principal suspect of a horrible murder." After drinking coffee, Corporal Nicolás and the cadet Guillermo Troutia said goodbye until the following day. His work for that day was over.

  Early in the morning the fax from the barracks spat out several scrolls, with the reports of the results of the forensic and scientific analyses, apparently they found no semen remains in the victim's vagina, nor any sign that she was forced; Everything indicated that the various tears, as well as other internal injuries, had been caused by a white weapon. The traces taken from the body of the victim belonged to two different people. By the size and shape everything indicated that the killers were female, that exonerated Abel Piñeiro of the crime.

  —In the end, said Corporal Nicolas, addressing to his assistant Guillermo Troutia, I'm glad it wasn’t him. He looked like a good boy despite what her thug cousin told us.

  —What hurts me the most, said Troutia, is that we have been deceived by a suspicious mother, who has led us to a dead end, forgetting the most important thing.

  —You dazzle me, Troutia. What is it so important?

  — The most important of a crime and the centre of it is not to look for the culprit among a huge list of possible executors, but to analyse the core of the crime.

  —Yes, but what is the core of the crime? —Nicolas was impatient.

  —The really important part of a crime is the victim. You see, yesterday afternoon not happy with what we had advanced in the investigation, I decided to do overtime. I approached the city to take a look at the Police files. My surprise was overwhelming to see that our dear girl, despite her young age, had already been detained a couple of times to be questioned by the narcotics brigade. Then I asked myself: Why did her beloved mother not tell us that her daughter had a history as a trafficker?

  —Fucking hell! —Exclaimed Corporal Nicolas—. Don’t fuck with me Guillermo!, she’s only a girl.

  —Yes, a girl, my corporal, who earned an executive salary, distributing weed, hashish, and powder all over the Montederramo school group.

  — Who was her supplier?

  —Take a guess!

  —I have no idea Guillermo.

  —Lucía Marquez, the famous narcos best known as The Queen. At the moment, she is pending an eight-year prison sentence. Do you know her, my corporal? —Insisted Guillermo.

  —I've never actually seen photos of her. Only by hearing. They say she's very pretty.

  —A colleague who works on narcotics had seen her police file and told me she was beautiful. So far, she has never been photographed in public. That's why the only photos that exist of her, that we know of, are those of the police station. After her relationship with the politician Carpintero, the magazines fight for an exclusive session with her.

  —Yes, but those people are not interested in going out in the press, Guillermo, because the police have a much harder time finding them.

  The footprints of the girls who committed the crime were not in the files of the police; which on the other hand didn’t tend to show too much interest in these cases. It closed two months later for lack of evidence and went on to fill a long list of unresolved cases, most of which belon
ged to account adjustments between drug traffickers and similar calibre brawls.

  2—Who is the culprit?

  It was her last day in the city, he had only twenty-four hours to enter the prison of Pereiro de Aguiar. Lucia couldn’t help but think of which of her contacts or friends had whistled the blow: It might have been Diego Suances, better known as the Swede by his air of albino cock, his disgusting arms, tattooed with two huge imperial eagles, looking at him all the time with those airs of superiority, stuffing himself with his junk food guys in a crappy Burger King. Smelling like cheap tobacco and chewing sugar-free Trex chewing gum with that James Dean rebellious look. However, the Swede made too much easy money with her. Why would he? Besides, he and his men were plover heads, they lacked ambition to betray her.

  "No, he could not be ..." Lucia thought. He was too naive to betray her. "Who would be the real culprit?" she asked herself in front of the mirror, which returned her self-absorbed image. "You are the only culprit, presumptuous arrogant, with your mania to annoy, to trust in all of them; Instead of looking for another kind of life, away from drug trafficking, because you're a cynic. You believed you were the owner of the city, you had everything controlled. Suddenly, Puff!!! You have taken your due, you have had many opportunities to get ahead and you have chosen the easiest way. "

  Now the mirror of her conscience tortured her by her past, aiming at the revolver of destiny to her temple, Lucia approached furiously her own image to put makeup with greed. After all, this would be her only night out in the next eight years, she should enjoy it instead of tormenting herself with stupid conjectures. She finished painting herself with the lipstick chalk with a jail flavour. She wore panties, a black miniskirt, and a suede jacket, whose long shadow was lost in front of the bidet cup.

  She left the bathroom muttering curses, not before snorting a last line of white powder without blanks. She wasn’t an addict, she didn’t usually consume the merchandise with which she trafficked; But that night was so blinded by fear ... All would be worth it so as not to think about the powerful storm that was coming.

  Lucia went out into the street. The traffic seemed to move eight years ahead of her shadow, as if after being locked up in jail, that was her first day of freedom, but in fact she had not even been in prison yet. "It would have been better to have committed a murder," her lawyer had told her. "You'd go out on parole earlier." She felt that his luck was over.

  She met with Mireia, her old friend, journalist in the Alaska cafeteria: they hadn’t seen each other for months. They merged into a deep, moist embrace, filled with melancholy allusions to a distant past anchored in childhood. Like a howitzer, a configuration of sensations seemed to traverse them from top to bottom. Life had seen them grow together, Mireia had chosen the most difficult path, but the right one, based on constant and daily work with honesty by flag, while Lucia would have opted for the easiest, that of corruption and violence.

  —I warned you that you should change your life, we all told you."

  —I was going to do it, I swear, Mireia, —Lucia said—. But I had some business pending, I decided to wait to collect enough money, then somebody whistled the blow and puff!! I was hunted.

  They sat, remembering better times, facing each other, their faces reflecting in the black coffee and the lost looks in an old watercolour of Zumel that hung from the wall of the place. It was a dark landscape painted in exile: an old boat with no oars was swinging adrift, half-way across a serpentine sea and raging with a furious wind; the aggressive surf seemed to remove the pigments, mixing them up, gave the sensation of confusion and disorder. Lucia came to the conclusion that the artist must have a very convulsive inner world, just like hers at that time. She stood for a long time looking at the boat, it was so narrow it looked like a canoe; In the barely readable helmet, a name was intuited: "Freedom". Lucia imagined for a moment sailing over it, seemed dizzy by the strong surf. Everything around her seemed to move, as she disappeared into the sea, perhaps dragged by her long condemnation. In the distance, on the horizon, the light of a lighthouse could be seen.

  —Are you okay? —Mireia asked.

  —Yes. It's just a dizziness. They say that whoever looks at that painting feels as if the sea is taking them away.

  It could be the story of a prisoner, trying to flee in a small boat called "Freedom", that an unexpected sea blow dragged him to the bottom of the ocean, leaving the boat abandoned adrift, on a sea of ​​lugubrious tones, described by Zumel with black and greenish strokes. It is undoubtedly a melancholy sea, tense, enraged with those who have deviated from the right way, as the wrath of God. Lucia was submerged in these waters, dragged by the underwater currents into the depths of the ocean. Any place seemed better than jail, she preferred to stir restlessly in those waters, diving between corals and tiny fish in the penumbra of a cell.

  Above, on the surface, the light of the lighthouse made indescribable winks to him, like flashes throwing signals in Morse code, with the same repetitive message, time and time again: "Flee, leave". But running away was what she'd done all her life. To flee from herself, from her own tragedy. It was time to catch the bull of destiny by the horns and look him straight in the eyes and talk to him. But on the other hand, she was scared. She could not stop thinking about what lay behind those long steel bars.

  —I'm going to leave the city, too, —Mireia said.

  —But why, if you do well at the paper?

  —I'm tired of being a journalist; I also need fresh air. I'll go somewhere quieter to do what I like best: write a novel.

  —I'm glad for you, —Lucia said.

  —I'm still not clear where I'm going, I'm comparing several options. When I find out something, I'm going to visit the jail.

  —No, don’t come, damn it! Never come, I don’t want you to see me in that den, with a damn striped suit. I want you to remind me free. If I ever see you there I will never forgive you, do you hear me?

  Mireia nodded.

  —You have to promise me. Someday I'll go out, then I'll find you. In the meantime you'll keep away. You are my best friend and I love you with all my soul; but if I want to survive in prison I must live my life, day by day, minute by minute, mechanically, without harbouring any kind of hope. I will never look at the clock nor think about the time of sentence I have yet to complete. There I have no friends, I will be unprotected, more alone than ever. Surely the bloodthirsty will try to beat me, even rape me, but I will seek respect. I will look for some forgotten prisoner, lonely, without friends, who doesn’t belong to any gang. A poor innocent convicted of a misdemeanour, someone of small size. I'll wait for her hiding by the sinks, I'll wait for her to come in. Then I'll bolt and beat her hard. No one will recognize her when we leave. So the rest of the inmates will know that yes, I am alone, but also crazy, and they will leave me alone or offer me to join one of their gangs. That way I will get respect and protection. In all prisons there is someone who in exchange for money gets you what you want, that's why I need a contact outside.

  —I could help you, —Mireia offered.

  —No, Mireia. You are clean and you are a girl with a great future. I want you out of all this. Anyway I have decided to leave this job forever. Maybe when I go out I don’t feel like living anymore.

  —Don’t say that, Lucia for God, you're still very young.

  —My father will be my contact outside. He's the only person I trust for the moment. The truth is I'm scared shit, damn it! Your friends the Amoebas will be happy, they never supported me. I think Susana will be especially happy, she always wanted to see me behind bars. I read some of her articles in the newspaper, you could tell she enjoyed tearing me apart during the trial. Maybe you'll write a book about my life and finally get the Pulitzer you want.

  —You should flee, that would give me a reason to keep writing, —Mireia said.

  —They would hunt me for sure.

  —I don’t imagine you dressed in grey. You'll be very sexy, —Mireia said, trying to cheer her up
.

  —I don’t know.

  Lucia had the strange presentiment that her father might convince her at the last moment to flee tomorrow when he would pick her up in his car to carry her to prison.

  Run away. Fleeing nowhere. Escape from herself. Run from the past.

  Either that, or the jail. And she still had a third option. That was the most dismal, but surely it would be the most dignified: self-eliminating. After all, she was responsible for the misfortune of thousands of drug addicts. Although, now that she was erased from the map, surely soon another would occupy her throne in the underworld of drugs. That didn’t comfort her, she looked at the picture of Zumel for the last time, the sea was more enraged than ever. The canoe was about to overturn. The wind howled with the force of a jaguar in a thick asphalt jungle. It was the sound of Alberto's horn and not that of the wind, she was listening to. She would have been picked up at five o'clock, and it was already four minutes past five o'clock. They thought that he wouldn’t appear but no, there he was with its half mane, half smile, its half orange. Lucia threw herself into his arms, poor fellow, more frightened than herself.

  —You don’t have to go, —he said.

  — But I will, it is my duty.

  Lucia no longer trusted him. When the brigade entered her apartment, a sergeant beast had kicked the door down. He came with a warrant, blah, blah. He got tired of ringing the bell. As no one answered, he acted off the books, because according to him, he knew what he was looking for and where to find it, and he was. He found the cocaine hidden in the wrist of rag and cardboard at the bottom of the last drawer of the dresser. "It would it have been him? Who else knew? " But why? She kept him, gave him an easy life for nothing, she didn’t understand. Something didn’t fit into that puzzle of suspicion.