Murder With A Splash Of Rum: A Puerto Rican Thriller Read online

  Murder

  With A Splash Of

  RUM

  A Puerto Rican Thriller

  C.E. Marion

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  MURDER WITH A SPLASH OF RUM

  Copyright © 2017 by C.E. Marion

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 as amended, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the written permission of the author and publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. For information address:

  C.E. Marion

  P.O. Box 16408

  San Juan, PR 00908

  cemarion.com

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Patio de Lila, located in La Placita and Ely’s Place, Kiosk #10 in Luquillo, Puerto Rico. The proprietors graciously permitted the use of the names of their establishments for the setting of this book, for which the author is very grateful. The names of all individuals in the book, including the staff and owners of Ely’s and Lila’s, are fictional.

  Special thanks to Adria Rose for inspiring the cover.

  Barry Finch spent many hours editing the final version of this book.

  This book is set on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. I am very lucky to call the island my home. For good or bad, this fictional work is grounded in certain truths. The issues Puerto Rico faces, as well as the splendor of this enchanted island, are presented for your enjoyment. It is by happenstance that the characters and events themselves are fictional.

  A serial killer did actually target gay men in Puerto Rico in the 1980’s. I purposefully avoided reading about those events to prevent them from influencing the development of this book.

  -C.E. Marion

  To Barry Finch

  ‹1›

  The spits of land between Colombia and Florida have been littered with corpses for as long as the U.S. drug trade has existed. The dozens of small tropical islands which form the Antilles are some of the world’s most scenic vistas - and some of its deadliest.

  The decades-old story begins, unfolds, and ends with the same storyline, year in and year out. Cocaine and heroin are harvested or produced in the fields of South America, loaded for transport, and dropped off at a halfway point in the Caribbean. The bundles are retrieved and disseminated to eager law-abiding citizens in the United States. Housewives, executives, lawyers, and even clergy, dole out hard-earned cash in eager anticipation of a brief respite from their harsh nine-to-five lives. The supplier is paid, the product consumed, and the customer is numbed from the grinding pain of living the American dream.

  Meanwhile, as these law-abiding citizens return to their cubicles and pulpits, the opiate express train begins its trek anew. The beautiful tropical beaches of Puerto Rico are mere stopping off points, waystations for the unstoppable engine of greed. That engine and its cargo are as ancient as the gold and slaves of the Conquistadors or the Aztecs. But while the cargo has changed, the method of payment has not. The Aztec sacrifices of centuries past are modernized and retooled to accommodate the age of flight and freeways. Those same gods who demanded blood for prosperity still require the same crimson offerings to grease the wheels of commerce and empire.

  Loiza, Puerto Rico is one of these new age blood altars. Many of the drug shipments destined north enter through the Piňones/Loiza channel. Loiza is also conveniently the center of afro-caribbean culture in Puerto Rico. The age-old story of ethnic persecution and economic enslavement defines the history of Loiza and its residents as it has much of the western hemisphere. The confluence of ethnicity, drugs, and hardship have turned these miles of beach into Puerto Rico’s corridor of death.

  Colonel Reynaldo Garcia had long ago become accustomed to finding bullet ridden bodies along this particular coastline. The sight before him was something new. The dozens of corpses he'd encountered before looked the same. They were always young, always male, and their deaths were always drug related.

  The body before him bore none of the ordinary markers. Instead of being an ill-clothed local teenager, the decomposing body before him was of a man in his sixties, well dressed, wearing expensive shoes. A white polyester cord was tied around his throat and his engorged tongue protruded from his half open mouth. His eyes were frozen with a look of horror.

  His fly was open and his shriveled penis poked flaccidly through the opening.

  Garcia shook his head and spoke into his transceiver. “Looks like another fag. He’s been here a few days.”

  Garcia turned to the patrol officer on scene and nodded, flipping his hand in the air. That simple gesture was clearly understood in this police unit. Among Puerto Rico's corrupt and inefficient police force, Garcia’s unit was a model of corruption. Garcia’s gesture was a simple order: “John Doe, ship the body to the morgue, do a quick report and file it in a drawer in case it's ever needed, then close the case.”

  Alexandra Vargas observed the interaction from the corner of her eye. She was well-aware of what would happen next. The body would be shipped to the morgue and no investigation would be conducted. The murderer would never come to justice, and a family somewhere in Puerto Rico would mourn the death quietly after Garcia informed them of the circumstances. To Alexandra, it appeared that Garcia took a ghoulish delight on the few occasions where he was tasked with informing a family that their loved one had been found in an area known for homosexual activity.

  Alexandra Vargas had trained as a police officer in New York City before returning to Puerto Rico to care her for ailing mother. She had scored top of her class at the academy and seemed destined to be a sergeant by the time she was 30. Three days after graduating, she had received a call from her mother. Cancer. Alexandra dutifully returned to her family home in Canovanas, Puerto Rico and sat vigil at her mother’s beside. It took a painful eight months for the elderly woman to finally succumb. Rather than return to Brooklyn, Alexandra stayed behind to watch over her distraught father. Now, three years later, her father still rose at day break to bring home fresh bread and fruit from the local colmado, just as he had done for the 47 years of marriage to his beloved Maya.

  When Alexandra informed him a year ago that she wanted to apply to the Puerto Rico Police Department, her father had scoffed. “Crooked cops. Why Alexandra? You were raised better than that.” Nevertheless, Alexandra had submitted her application with its impressive credentials. Somehow, probably due to a call from her father to his cousin Felix Arroyo, the Mayor of Carolina, she had gotten her first badge.

  “That poor family”, thought Alexandra. She approached the body to assist with cataloguing and removal.

  The body was neatly propped against the hollow of a banyan tree. The tree’s roots seeming to embrace the man during his last moments on earth, as if to wish him well on his upcoming journey.

  This man was not Puerto Rican. Alexandra's trained eye immediately picked up the clues. The dead male was wearing a pleated pants. Pleated pants are English. No Puerto Rican would ever wear pleats – it makes a person look fat. Further, the corpse had feathery light hair and Northern European features.

  Also, the tan was all wrong. It bore a reddish hue associated with
sunburn. Puerto Ricans live in sunshine 12 months out of the year. Puerto Ricans don't burn. Only tourists got sunburned.

  Finally, there was the man's wallet. Alexandra had spotted the wallet a few yards from the body and quickly opened it. The wallet was empty of money and identification. The wallet itself, however, immediately grabbed her attention. It was brown leather, supple, and obviously very expensive. The inside fold bore the letters “Ettinger”, and below that was printed “London”.

  Puerto Rican is a former Spanish colony. Puerto Ricans have no cultural, linguistic or business ties to England. Puerto Ricans simply do not travel to England, much less purchase and wear English products.

  The nameless man before Alexandra Vargas was either European or American. Colonel Garcia was about to commit a fatal error: allowing a tourist's death to go uninvestigated. He needed to be warned.

  But herein was the problem. Colonel Garcia didn't just have an issue with gays. He was an unapologetic bigot. More than any other of his personal dislikes, Garcia hated working with female police officers. He used every opportunity to berate any woman wearing a badge. Nothing stood in his way. Puerto Rico State Police function without any significant oversight. The choice for female officers was to grin and bear it, or quit.

  In Alexandra's case, the degrading language was accompanied by incessant sexually tinged comments. In the instances where Alexandra was unable to avoid spending time alone with Garcia, his portly digits inevitably found their way across her bosom. Three weeks ago, a hand had “slipped” down to her crotch. That action had resulted in an involuntary (and quite forceful) slap to the Colonel's corpulent face. The two had not spoken to each other since, resulting in an extremely awkward working environment.

  Alexandra knew that she now had to not only deal with his seething hatred of her, but would also need to criticize Garcia's professional decisions as well. Alexandra's stomach clenched and her chest tightened under the heavy feeling of dread.

  She was a police officer. Regardless of anything else, she had an obligation to address this wrong before it happened.

  Alexandra took a deep breath and approached the Colonel.

  A few yards away, unnoticed by anyone, lay a white square of cloth fluttering and caught in the roots of another tree. As Alexandra approached Garcia the square white handkerchief caught her sight. She retrieved it and placed it in an evidence bag, taking time to methodically mark the plastic bag.

  “No more delays”, murmured Alexandra to her herself. It was time to get this over with.

  ‹2›

  Every country in the world has something special about it, its own unique gift to humanity. The Americans have Hollywood. Italy has fashion. Germany’s engineering prowess is undisputed.

  Puerto Rico’s gift is music. Music is the lifeblood of the tiny island. Puerto Rican music can be heard from the tiniest villages of Eastern Europe to crowded markets in China. Puerto Rico has influenced world music for more than a century.

  Music is nothing without dancing. Puerto Rican toddlers don’t learn to walk, they learn to salsa. And there is no place to salsa like La Placita in San Juan. It is the island’s equivalent of Times Square. La Placita, or “El Mercado” as it is known during daytime, is a hodgepodge of restaurants and bars circled around a farmer’s market in Barrio Santurce. At around 6 p.m., the sleepy plaza opens its eyes and wakes the world up to the sounds of music and laughter. Those sounds continue until the wee hours of the morning.

  For gay Puerto Ricans, the party is at Patio de Lila, a gay bar and restaurant located on La Placita’s main thoroughfare. Patio de Lila is mostly a thirty and forty-something professional crowd except on weekends when the twenty-year olds take over. It also attracts straight people, men, women, the old and the young. At Lila’s pretty much every gets along. Make no mistake, however. A good amount of cruising goes on at Lila’s. For men who love men, La Placita is ground zero for hooking up with straight guys. Puerto Rico is a nation of hot-blooded latinos. Latinos, as a general rule, are far less prudish about sexual experimentation than their American counterparts. In Puerto Rico, some men are available for a price. For others, all it takes is a few “Medallas”, the island nation’s signature beer.

  At La Placita, cruising is the next most popular activity after dancing. Before Lila’s arrived, the “aguacates” or avocados , on the other side of the market from Lila’s, marked the area where most of the cruising occurred. Men still cruise women (and other men) there, but these days Lila’s has become the place for day to day day, gay to gay dalliance.

  Cruising was exactly what Fernando Amado Miranda had in mind for tonight. It was early winter and the Caribbean air was laden with the gentle fragrances of flowering tropical trees. The summer rains had passed, and Puerto Rico would soon welcome the cooler dry months of January. It was the beginning of tourist season in Puerto Rico. Low humidity and temperatures in the low eighties would soon draw cascades of snowbirds from New York and New England to the island’s Tourist Zone. La Placita, just across the highway from the tourist enclave of Condado, is composed of mostly outdoor patios and sidewalks. La Placita would be perfect for Fernando’s plans this evening.

  Fernando was one of the new faces of Puerto Rico. He had just landed a new job in an auto supply warehouse as an assistant manager. This was something of a miracle. Instead of moving to the mainland U.S., as more than half of his high school class had done, he had managed to finagle a full-time job on the island.

  Puerto Rico was once larger than life. The economy had been strong, it was an American protectorate, and its location in the heart of the Caribbean had made it into the premiere tropical getaway for generations of Canadians and Americas

  Then, in one generation, everything turned to shit.

  To be only twenty-four years old and to have a title of 'manager' was a big deal in Fernando’s family. Particularly since the vast majority of his classmates who had stayed behind in Puerto Rico were either selling drugs or on welfare. He’d only started the new job a month ago, but his mother still practically beamed with pride each day as he arrived home after work. His father had even begrudgingly complimented Fernando on his new position. For the first time in his life, Fernando actually knew that the stubborn 45-year-old was proud of him.

  Fernando’s first paycheck had gone into new clothing, at his mother’s suggestion. “Dress well, behave well” was his mother’s advice. Like most women in Latin countries, she dressed to the nines anytime she stepped out of the house. She even applied makeup and put on a dress when she went to pick up bread each morning before breakfast. “Check the mirror before you leave the house”, she would say. “People will think you come from a bad family otherwise.”

  This was one instruction from his mother that Fernando actually enjoyed following. Last week he had spent hours in the mall looking through racks of clothes and trying them on. He had eventually settled on a standard fare of khakis and oxford button down shirts. Fernando also noted the location of all of the shirts and pants he wished he could take with them, but would not be suitable for work. In the end, though, he couldn't resist treating himself to one ensemble that would never be worn to the warehouse: a shiny metallic shirt and skin-tight shredded jeans. These would be his party clothes. They were perfect for La Placita.

  His mother, who was affectionately called “Titi” by friends and neighbors, was aghast when Fernando entered the living room earlier in the day sporting his new jeans, with the price tag still attached. Titi had grabbed the tag before Fernando realized he’d forgotten to remove it. When she discovered what her son had actually paid for ripped and faded jeans she exclaimed: “I will tatter your jeans myself next time. Give me the jeans, pay me instead. And then I will take the paddle to the jeans like I should to your rear-end for wasting money on those rags!”

  Since it was Saturday, the entire extended family had been present for the weekly family barbeque. They were all able to witness Fernando’s entrance, his ripped jeans, and Titi’s gentle scol
ding. As Fernando's sister, father, and the other relatives guffawed at Titi's theatrical deliverance, Fernando's extravagant purchase immediately became a source of humor that he knew would repeat itself at family gatherings for weeks to come.

  As the laughter subsided, the conversation changed to gossip and other important matters, Fernando retreated to his bedroom. He hadn’t told his family that these weren’t his work clothes. Fernando tugged the waistline down and twirled in front of his full-length bedroom mirror. The jeans framed his round ass cheeks perfectly. He adjusted the front of the jeans again, this time tugging them up. The jeans and shirt would be worn later tonight. These would be Fernando's party clothes at La Placita. Fernando had discovered Lila’s a while back. He had been strolling through La Placita on a Friday night when he noticed a crowd of attractive young men gathered around table outside of a new bar. They were dancing, chatting, laughing….and obviously gay.

  Fernando struggled with being gay in his teens. Like most young Puerto Rican men, he had played around with other guys starting in grade school. However, unlike his friends, he hadn't grown out of his youthful curiosity with male genitalia. While his friends eagerly transitioned from boyhood experimentation to dating women, Fernando still preferred masturbating with male friends from the neighborhood. Many of his friends still indulged him.

  He still maintained a façade of machismo. Nevertheless, it was a fast-fading façade. While his friends gloried in making lewd comments about women’s private parts, Fernando would use the opportunity to brag about his eight-inch cock and how women loved big dicks. More often than not, if it was only he and one other person present, he could turn the playful banter into a reason to pull out his cock. That would usually lead to another jerk-off session. Puerto Rico is known as “bi-island” for a reason. Few Puerto Rican men are ever completely off limits.