On Hallowed Ground Read online

  Praise for the work of John Lantigua

  “ [In On Hallowed Ground], Lantigua’s gripping fourth novel featuring Miami PI Willie Cuesta . . . The fast-paced action is well matched by concise prose, making this a treat for Elmore Leonard devotees.” —Publishers Weekly

  “ The Lady from Buenos Aires is an extraordinary story that compels interest throughout. The historical background adds credibility to the plot, which itself is relentless. It is an exciting, frequently scary ride that Lantigua takes the reader on as Cuesta pursues his investigation. Reading this excellent mystery is time well spent.” —Mysterious Reviews

  “ Nonstop action and an exciting ending make this a good crime novel.” —Library Journal on The Lady from Buenos Aires

  “ Even though the story centers on a politically volatile period in recent history, Lantigua never forgets he's writing a mystery, not a polemic.” —Booklist on The Lady from Buenos Aires

  “ A solid story that moves briskly. Lantigua doesn’t just tap into Argentine history, he brings a new awareness to it.” —South Florida Sun-Sentinel on The Lady from Buenos Aires

  “A thrilling novel of betrayal, layered plots and horrific secrets.” —The Midwest Book Review on The Lady from Buenos Aires

  “ John’s Lantigua’s mystery thriller deals with people from Argentina, the land of the tango and, more relevantly, a ‘dirty war’ in the late 1960s and early 70s during which the military picked up civilians and made them ‘disappear’.” —PalmBeachPost.com on The Lady from Buenos Aires

  “ This is a thought-provoking book. Lantigua keeps most of his characters in check and then wraps up all loose ends quite neatly.” —MultiCultural Review on The Lady from Buenos Aires

  “A clear, forceful writer.” —The New York Times Book Review on Burn Season

  “ There’s trouble in Paradise—Paradise, West Texas—a small town beset by the oil bust, drug smugglers, and the Reverend Sam Dash. . . . Paradise becomes a real place in Lantigua’s hands, and the anger, fear, and faith that Dash creates in his downtrodden flock become palpable. Packs quite a wallop.” —Booklist on Twister

  “ Lantigua is a journalist who has covered Central America; his knowledge and awareness are put to good use here, in a narrative as timely as today’s headlines.” —Publishers Weekly on Heat Lightning

  “ Playing off the nightmare world of the illegal in an unfamiliar urban jungle against Cruz’s personal problems adds to the already gripping story. Cruz, in his flawed humanness, is a perfect hero for the 1980s and a worthy series character.” —Library Journal on Heat Lightning

  “ Lantigua knows the Caribbean and Miami the way Chandler knew Los Angeles.” —Paul Levine, author of Solomon vs. Lord and Kill All the Lawyers on The Ultimate Havana

  “Tough-minded, big hearted. A first-rate mystery.” —Laurence Shames, author of Virginia Heat and Mangrove Squeeze on Player’s Vendetta: A Little Havana Mystery

  “ Lean, wonderfully well-written. Lantigua brings you right inside his treacherous world of Latin America.” —T. Jefferson Parker, Edgar Award winner and author of Storm Runners on Burn Season

  On Hallowed Ground: A Willie Cuesta Mystery is funded in part by a grant from the city of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

  Recovering the past, creating the future

  Arte Público Press

  University of Houston

  452 Cullen Performance Hall

  Houston, Texas 77204-2004

  Cover design by Mora Des!gn

  Lantigua, John.

  On Hallowed Ground: A Willie Cuesta Mystery / by John Lantigua.

  p.  cm.

  ISBN 978-1-55885-695-0 (alk. paper)

  1. Private investigators—Florida—Key Biscayne—Fiction. 2. Rich people—Fiction. 3. Kidnapping—Fiction. 4. Key Biscayne (Fla.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3562.A57O5 2011

  813ʹ.54—dc22

  2010054265 CIP

  The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

  ©2011 by John Lantigua

  Imprinted in the United States of America

  11 12 13 14 15 16 17  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  On Hallowed Ground has many godfathers and godmothers. In Medellin, Colombia, they include: Victoria Ortiz and her brothers Juan Camilo and Alvaro, Police Subcommander Jorge Rodriguez, mayor’s office chief of staff Gustavo Villegas, as well as Jorge Perez, William Acevedo, Raul Uribe, and driver extraordinaire Jose Jaramillo.

  In Key Biscayne, Florida, I owe gratitude to David Adams, Ines Lozano, Juan and Rosemary Lopez, and Police Chief Charles Press. I would also like to thank Luz Nagle, Jane Bussey, Greg Aunapu, Irene Vilar, Nicole Witt, and E. A. Stepp, warden of the South Bay Correctional Facility, South Bay, Florida.

  In Houston, I am grateful for the efforts of everyone at Arte Público.

  This book is for Ella Wilson Lantigua and Lela LaBelle Lantigua

  PROLOGUE

  The moment the goons pulled up in that green van and the back door swung open, I should have known.

  There’s nothing else exactly the color of duct tape. I saw a small silver patch of it peeking from beneath a white towel on the seat, but didn’t think anything of it at the time. Maybe they had a ripped seat or a leaky hose. What did I know? Anyway, it didn’t register.

  At that moment, I was sitting in full daylight, with a clear view of heavy traffic speeding by on the Florida Turnpike. I was parked under a palm tree in a service plaza, not far from law-abiding members of the public who were pumping gas. You don’t think anything can happen to you in that congested a setting. Not usually anyway. I figured the biggest danger I faced was a coconut plummeting out of the tree and webbing my windshield.

  On top of that, I thought I knew my role in the drama and that they understood it too. I was the bag man. Nothing else. I was there to hand over the ransom and hightail it home for a drink. Finito.

  But then everything came apart. The goons were working from a different script.

  The man who climbed out of the car and came to my window wore a red baseball cap and a fiendishly grinning rubber mask.

  “Grab the money and get into the front seat of our vehicle,” he said.

  I did as I was told. That’s when I noticed the St. Christopher medal that hung from the rearview mirror. These were kidnappers protected by the saints. It was all too Colombian for words.

  The first fiend closed the door behind me and climbed into the back.

  “Hand me the backpacks,” he said.

  I handed them over the seat and heard him unzip them. Then I waited for him to say the magic words: “Okay, get back in your car and drive away. Don’t look back.”

  And go knock back a rum, Willie.

  But that didn’t happen. Next I heard the distinctive ripping sound of the duct tape. A split second later, two sets of hairy hands came over the seat. One clamped me around the shoulders, and the other grabbed me by the hair, snapped my head back, slapped the duct tape over my mouth and shoved the towel over my nose. It was soaked in a chemical that blistered my nostrils and scorched my windpipe.

  I squirmed, fought and flailed, all to no avail.

  The last thing I remember seeing was the St. Christopher medal I’d kicked swinging back and forth before my eyes like a hypnotist’s charm.

  Then . . . bye-bye.

  I was kidnapped.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a bit before ten a.m. on a clear, crisp morning in January when I roared over the last rise in the Rickenbacker Causeway, eased my foot off the gas and coasted onto cozy Key Biscayne. r />
  The windows were down, and a delicious breeze blew out of the Antilles. Deep blue Biscayne Bay, calm and collected on each side of me, sparkled with pure winter sunlight. It was a gorgeous sight.

  The Miami Seaquarium retreated in my rearview mirror. I left the Crandon Park marina behind as well, with its dense forest of masts. A lone sailboat headed out to sea—maybe to Martinique or St. Maartens or Maracaibo. Who knew? I wished them sweet sailing.

  Moments later, I passed the bayside golf course. On the putting green closest to me, an electric-green iguana lay soaking up the sun. He looked like a miniature dragon but wasn’t as fearsome as he appeared. When the next foursome arrived, he would go scrambling feverishly into the underbrush, ducking for cover. I called hello to him as well.

  I felt good. I had a new client.

  She had called early that a.m., before nine actually. My rattling cell phone, vibrating on the night table next to me, rousted me from sleep.

  “Is this Mr. Cuesta?”

  I wasn’t exactly sure who I was at that hour, but I answered in the affirmative.

  “My name is Carmen Vickers de Estrada. I’m calling you from Key Biscayne. I want to know if you can take on a task for me.”

  She was an elderly woman with extremely precise diction in Spanish.

  “That depends what type of task you’re speaking of, señora.”

  “I’m talking about providing protection for someone who may be in grave danger.”

  I reached over and eased an extra pillow under my head. It was much too early for grave danger, or any degree of peril, for that matter. But she was calling from Key Biscayne, and it was always good for the bottom line to have clients from the Key. It’s a posh part of town.

  “Well, yes, I may be able to help you,” I said. “Let me ask you a few questions.”

  She didn’t like that idea at all.

  “No, let’s not do that. Let’s meet at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on the Key. Just off the lobby is a sitting room. I’ll see you there at ten o’clock.”

  Despite the ungodly hour, the phone call was sounding better and better. The Ritz Carlton was the ritziest of hotels on the Key. I told her I’d be there and dragged my bones out of bed.

  Now I was passing the Key Biscayne tennis stadium where I had once watched Agassi and Sampras slam it out under the lights. That night, cheers and groans had echoed over the open water. At that moment, the gates were locked and the place was closed, but I could hear echoes of those cheers as if they were for me.

  As I said, the Key is one of the most affluent enclaves in all of Miami. The well-to-do residents have made their money all over the U.S. but also in Europe and, in particular, in the wealthier pockets of Latin America. I was driving into the good life.

  On the Key, taxes are high, and the authorities use the proceeds to protect the lives and largesse of the locals. The community has a reputation for super-tight security.

  They also spend big bucks on public beautification. Just a few weeks earlier, a late season hurricane of middling strength had come barreling out of the Caribbean giving Miami and the Key a good shaking.

  In some neighborhoods like my neck of the woods, you still saw the ragged effects. But on the Key, there was almost no sign of the storm. The roads were perfectly paved and clear of refuse, the roadside vegetation was as thick and lush as a jungle and any damage to the high-rise luxury condos, the seaside mansions and the pristine shopping plazas had been repaired. Across from a day spa, a power line sagged slightly, like a momentary variation on a stock market graph. But that was it.

  I reached the Key Biscayne Ritz Carlton and turned in. The curving two-lane drive was bordered by a colonnade of royal palms about sixty feet tall. They had been through a lot of hurricanes, those palms. But like most old-line natives of Miami, they tended to bend with the wind rather than break. They had survived the blow beautifully, and the manicured lawns around them were spotless. The rich aren’t like you and me. They weather the weather.

  I pulled up to a guard shack and a gate blocking the way. I told the young Latin attendant, dressed in solid white, that I was there to rendezvous with a local resident, one Señora Carmen Vickers de Estrada.

  The guard smiled at the name. “Ah, yes, Señora Estrada.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said.

  “She drove in just a while ago.”

  In Miami, you could always tell which Latin country was going through difficult times at any given moment. The security guards and parking valets tended to come out of the newest immigrant populations, the latest arrivals.

  In the sixties and seventies, you threw your keys to a Cuban. In the eighties, it was the Nicaraguans who navigated the valet lots. The Argentines arrived in the late nineties. These days, many were Colombians, and from his accent, I knew this was one of them. A carhop from Cartagena.

  The gate lifted. I proceeded around another curve and caught sight of the impressive Mediterranean palazzo some twenty stories high that was the Ritz Carlton. It was a particularly promising venue for a first meeting with a client.

  My late father, a sometime jazz musician, used to play an old favorite jazz record of his, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”:

  Where Rockefellers walk with sticks,

  or umbrellas in their mitts . . .

  Well today, they would do even better than a Rockefeller. They were getting Willie Cuesta.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The curving driveway swept me right up to the porte cochere.

  Both sides of the front entrance were planted with topiary, and the young valet who opened the door sported a fade haircut, possibly designed by the same landscaper who had shaped the shrubs. He took control of my old red LeBaron convertible.

  Less professional valets, many of whom could be found in Miami, sometimes sneered at my aging wheels. But that didn’t happen here. Maybe the Ritz Carlton marched its aspiring valets through used car lots until they acquired tolerance. However it was achieved, the Ritz had seemingly instilled its car jockeys with noblesse oblige.

  Another attendant opened the front double doors for me, and I entered the hotel.

  The lobby was about four stories high, with an enormous arched window, floor to ceiling, overlooking the back gardens. The view stretched all the way to the bay and encompassed more royal palms, large, round fountains with water cascading and stone lions’ heads with jets of water streaming from their mouths to fill limpid pools.

  During my days in the Intelligence Unit of the Miami PD, I had once been dispatched to Paris to pick up an extradited prisoner. A French detective had taken me on a brief visit to Versailles. This was a kind of flashback.

  Indoors, the motif was all white marble floors and walls, accented with pink roses. In fact, right in front of me stood a marble-topped table, and on it was a large metal vase colored with verdigris and stuffed with what had to be two hundred long-stemmed roses.

  I figured that many roses had to be fake, so as I walked by, I ran my finger over one of them and a real rose petal came off in my hand, as soft as flesh. I looked around to make sure no one had caught me and slipped it into my pocket. I couldn’t take me anywhere.

  Just off the lobby was a smaller sitting room with white brocade walls, a silver samovar on another marble table and a loveseat and chairs overlooking the gardens. It was there that I found Señora Carmen Vickers de Estrada.

  She was standing at the window when I walked in, and I saw that she was unusually tall, probably five ten. About sixty-five, she had dark red hair and large, lustrous brown eyes. Her dress was a dark green and was accented by a strand of pearls that appeared to be of the first water.

  She had apparently done little to avoid the sun over the years, and her face showed her age. But it was still an extremely attractive face. In fact, she looked to be a lady who had only grown more beautiful with time.

  She held out a long elegant hand to me. On one finger, she wore a gold ring mounted with an exquisite blue emerald. That was elegant too.

  “
Mr. Cuesta, thank you very much for coming,” she said and led me to the loveseat.

  As I had noted over the phone, her Spanish was particularly precise, but with a touch of an unspecified accent. It made me squint, and she noticed.

  “What you hear is mostly my homeland, Colombia, and also the English boarding school where I was sent by my father. My family, the Vickers, are descended from British seamen who came to the coast of Colombia in the eighteenth century. Some people say we are descended from pirates.”

  “Are you?”

  She shrugged. “My great grandfather took the secret to his grave. But I’ll say this, Mr. Cuesta. My family—and especially the family of my late husband, the Estradas—have done very well in Colombia. My husband’s ancestors built a fortune as cattle ranchers, coffee planters and bankers, and that, you might say, is the source of our troubles today.”

  To the lady, her loot may have been a problem. But to me, working on a day rate, the word “fortune” sounded just fine. I sat down next to her.

  As I did, a waiter approached and placed a drink in front of her.

  “One banana daiquiri,” he said.

  Given that it was ten o’clock in the morning and she was already on a rum concoction, maybe she did have pirate blood. She asked me if I wanted a drink, but I told her I’d wait a while. Like eight hours or so. But I did order a coffee. I needed it.

  I serve as chief of security at my brother Tommy’s nightclub, Caliente. It is—in my unbiased estimation—the hottest salsa venue in Miami. Most nights it goes very, very late. I had arrived home a little after four in the morning. When it rang that morning, the phone had at first sounded like a predatory bird coming at me out of the jungle canopy. Consequently, I was in need of caffeine.

  She waited for the waiter to return. Once he did, I quaffed my coffee, and she daintily sipped her daiquiri.

  “First I must give you a bit of background, Mr. Cuesta,” she said. “Two years ago, my husband, Mario Estrada, was killed at our hacienda outside Medellín when he resisted guerrilla kidnappers. He refused to become a commodity, a person who could be stolen and sold back to his family, and it cost him his life.”