Murder in Havana Read online

  Weinert straightened and said something in German.

  “One bad move, Nazi, and you’re dead,” Pauling said, coming around in front of him and grabbing him by the lapels with his left hand, the right continuing to hold the weapon inches from the German’s face. He saw fear and confusion in Weinert’s eyes, as well as anger.

  “What do you want?” Weinert asked in English.

  Pauling’s answer was to raise the Glock in his right hand to bring it down across Weinert’s nose. But before Pauling could reverse its arc, Weinert brought up one of his hands with surprising speed, grasped Pauling’s right hand, and twisted it. Simultaneously, despite his sitting position, he brought a leg up into Pauling’s groin, literally lifting him an inch off the ground. Pauling grunted but hung on to Weinert’s jacket. He managed to pull him off the bench to his knees on the dirt path, and pulled his own right knee up under Weinert’s chin, snapping his head back and loosening his grip. Pauling kneed him again, this time in the face, wrenched his right hand free, and brought it and the Glock down on Weinert’s neck. The big German slumped to the ground at Pauling’s feet. Pauling didn’t take any chances. He struck the back of Weinert’s neck again and heard all the air come out of him. He was unconscious.

  Panting, Pauling pondered his next move. He went to where he’d entered the park through a break in the bushes, intending to leave Blondie out cold on the ground. But the sight of a cacharro, a 1950s vintage Hudson parked at the curb, its driver smoking, triggered a thought. The driver, who was leaning against the vehicle’s right front fender, asked in English whether Pauling needed a taxi.

  “You have any rope or tape?” Pauling asked.

  The driver didn’t comprehend, so Pauling demonstrated, then spotted a small section of the Hudson’s right front fender that had been patched with gray duct tape. He touched it. The driver’s face lit up and he produced a roll from the front passenger seat. Pauling pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, handed it to the driver, and said, “Uno momento, señor.” He disappeared back into the park where Weinert was now sitting up, a hand to his head.

  “Sorry,” Pauling said, hitting him on the right cheek with his fist, sending him to the ground again. He worked quickly, binding his ankles with tape, doing the same with his wrists behind the back. A protest from Weinert was muffled by tape across his mouth.

  Pauling yanked Weinert to his knees and dragged him through the bushes to the Hudson, whose driver was now behind the wheel, the motor running. As Pauling shoved Weinert into the spacious, leather-covered rear seat, raised eyebrows were the driver’s only sign of curiosity or concern. Twenty dollars bought a lot of tact and cooperation.

  Pauling got in and slammed the door. Weinert moved against the tape that bound him, but Pauling pressed the Glock against his temple, and he stopped. Pauling dug through pockets in his vest until he found the business card given him by Policía Nacional Revolucionaria senior detective Francisco Muñoz. He handed the card to the driver. “Take me to that address,” Pauling said.

  “Policía?” the driver said, his voice full of concern.

  Pauling reached over the back of the driver’s seat and handed him another twenty.

  “Sí, señor,” the driver said, slipping the gearshift into DRIVE and pulling away.

  Pauling took a small pad and a pen from his vest and wrote: “This man killed Kurt Grünewald of Strauss-Lochner Resources.” He shoved it into the breast pocket of Weinert’s suit jacket, making sure enough of the paper showed.

  When they’d reached the street on which the police station was located, he instructed the driver to pass it and go around the corner. He told him to stop and make a U-turn. “I want you to drive past the police station again, and go fast. Comprende?”

  “I understand.”

  “And then just keep going. Don’t worry about what I’m doing. Just keep driving and take me to the Hotel Habana Riviera. Okay?”

  “Okay,” replied the driver.

  Pauling pushed Weinert up into a sitting position, reached past him, and put his hand on the door handle. The driver made the U-turn, rounded the corner again, and accelerated. When they were twenty feet from the front door of the police station, Pauling pushed open the door and shoved Weinert through it, wincing as he watched the German leave the car and tumble head over heels, coming to a bloody rest at the foot of the steps leading up to the station.

  At the Hotel Habana Riviera, he paid the driver an extra ten dollars, told him to forget what he’d just seen, and entered the hotel.

  “Any messages for me?” he asked the desk clerk.

  “No, señor.”

  “Good,” Pauling said. He looked at the clock behind the desk: 10:15. “I’m expecting an important call in a few minutes. I’ll be in my room.”

  The call came at precisely ten-thirty.

  “Max, it’s Celia. Can you come here now?”

  “The apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are we doing? Is Nico there?”

  “No, but I can fill you in when you arrive.”

  “Celia, I want this over. I’ve got to get out of Cuba.”

  “You make it sound as though I’m keeping you.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “What would you have me do, Max, break into the Health Ministry myself? I’ve put you in touch with the right person. He’ll come through. Now, are you coming or not?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “I was so relieved when I saw you, knew you were all right,” Annabel Lee-Smith said to Mac when he called. “Wasn’t that lucky?” she added, relief still in her voice. They’d had a very brief conversation between the time the McCullough delegation was released, and dinner and the ballet, just long enough to assure her he was okay. Now there was time to talk without feeling rushed.

  “I’m glad everyone’s all right, Annie. It was a tense couple of minutes in that plaza.”

  “Did you see the gunman?”

  “Yeah, but only for a second. A scruffy-looking guy, lots of hair, wearing one of those white shirts everyone seems to like here. I was thinking of buying one.”

  “CNN aired some footage of the attack, although they never showed the gunman. What happened after they took him into custody?”

  “With me?”

  “Yes, you and Price and the others.”

  “They herded us into a room here at the hotel and gave us a lecture on how to respond to any questions that might be asked of us.”

  “What did they tell you to say?”

  “To say nothing, basically, except to express concern, and gratitude that Castro wasn’t harmed.”

  “In other words, speak from the heart.”

  He chuckled. “Something like that.”

  “Price came off well on TV.”

  “No surprise. You don’t win five terms in the Senate without being good in front of a camera.”

  “Is he still eyeing all the pretty señoritas?”

  “As a matter of fact, he is. And some are eyeing back. Speaking of señoritas, spectacularly lovely ones, how are things there with you?”

  “Fine, but I miss you.”

  “Home in two days.”

  “Did you ever hear from Max Pauling, Jessica’s fellow?”

  “No. But I think I saw him in the plaza, at the party.”

  “Really? Sure?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me about the ballet. I didn’t think you liked ballet.”

  “I’m not sure I do, but since our gracious hosts arranged for us to attend—it was the Cuban national troupe—I thought it was a good opportunity to broaden my cultural base.”

  “That’s nice,” she said. “Putting it that way. Well, don’t let your base get too broad or you’ll have to go on a diet. I can’t wait for you to get home.”

  “The feeling is entirely mutual.”

  Senior Detective Francisco Muñoz stood in a treatment bay at Havana’s Hermanos Amerijeiras Hospital. Two nurses and a physician had just com
pleted their initial evaluation of E. Weinert, who was draped in a sheet and lying on an examination table. The man’s face was a mess, raw and red; the skin on one side had been shredded. There were gashes in his head; the doctor suspected multiple broken bones and wanted the patient to have X rays immediately. His knuckles were bruised; he had done some hitting, too, though with less effect.

  “Just a few minutes with him?” the detective asked.

  “Just a few.”

  Muñoz moved to the side of the table and looked down. “I am Senior Detective Muñoz,” he said, “Policía Nacional Revolucionaria.”

  Weinert mumbled something through puffy, split lips.

  “Who did this to you?”

  Weinert said something unintelligible. Muñoz put his ear close to the patient’s lips and heard what he thought was “pulling.”

  “Pulling?”

  Weinert shook his head, groaning at the pain it caused. “Pauling!”

  Muñoz straightened and said under his breath, “Max Pauling.” He came close again and held up the piece of paper found stuffed in Weinert’s jacket pocket. “What does this mean?” he asked. “Pauling wrote this?”

  A painful nod.

  “Is it true?” Muñoz asked.

  The doctor tapped the detective on the shoulder. “This will have to be continued at another time, Detective,” he said. “There may be internal injuries. I want him in X ray now!”

  “Of course,” Muñoz said.

  He left the small treatment room and went to the ER’s admitting desk where two uniformed officers waited for their boss. The two had accompanied Muñoz and Weinert to the hospital after finding the German sprawled on their doorstep. “I will instruct the staff here that he is a suspect in a murder case and is not to be released without my permission,” Muñoz told them. “I want you here around the clock to make sure that order is followed. Keep me informed at all times.”

  He returned to police headquarters and instructed another officer to put out an all points bulletin on the American named Maxwell Pauling.

  He didn’t waste any time getting to Celia’s apartment.

  Pauling took a taxi from his hotel to the solar and made his way down the alley. It had started to rain in the past twenty minutes, not hard, more a mist, but enough to have sent the alley dwellers indoors. He opened the ground-floor door and looked up the stairs. Celia’s door was closed, but a small shaft of light squeezed beneath it and spilled onto the landing.

  He climbed the steps, paused, and knocked. By now, he knew she always left the door unlocked, but was reluctant to simply walk in. She said there would be someone with her—or had she? She originally said she was preparing to receive a visitor, someone she claimed could help him. But when she’d called him at the hotel, she hadn’t mentioned anyone.

  He knocked again. Still no response. He raised his hand for another try but dropped it to the doorknob and turned it. As expected, the door was unlocked and opened easily.

  “Celia?” he called through the opening. “It’s Max.”

  He pushed the door open a little farther, stopped, and cocked his head. There was no sound coming from inside the apartment. He opened the door to its fullest extension and surveyed what he could see of the main room from where he stood on the landing. He saw that lights were on in the kitchen and bathroom, although he couldn’t see into the rooms themselves.

  He called her name one more time before stepping through the doorway. He looked at the white curtains; they were tied back. He approached the partly opened door to the bathroom and felt a solid presence behind it. Whoever was in there had chosen not to respond.

  He placed his fingertips against the door, and pushed it fully open. What he saw hit him with the force of a physical blow to his stomach. The toilet lid was down. Slumped on it was Price McCullough. His white dress shirt was mostly unbuttoned. A tie hung over the chain-pull toilet tank. He wore trousers but his shoes were lined up just outside the shower. His feet were bare. His wide-open eyes testified to the incredulity of the last thing they’d seen, someone with a weapon who had sent a single bullet into his chest. The front of his shirt was stained red, and blood had pooled on his lap.

  Pauling stood frozen. He made a tentative move to close the gap between his position and the body but restrained himself. Instead, he backed into the living room and turned in a slow, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, looking for an answer, a reason for what he’d seen in the bathroom, and maybe its author. He went to the clothes closet. It was empty. So were the dresser drawers. The counter in the kitchen was clear of objects; only the cordial glass remained in the sink.

  He returned to the living room and saw that the pile of papers on the small table just inside the door was gone. Everything was gone. It was as though no one had lived there.

  The ringing phone startled him. He went to the small desk and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Celia? Is Celia there?”

  Pauling recognized the voice. “Nico?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s me, your pilot.”

  “Oh, hello, Max.”

  “Celia isn’t here,” Max said.

  “When will she be back?”

  “Ah—not for a while. She told me to be here for your call. Are we all set?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow night. I have the documents you need.”

  “Good. Where will we meet up?”

  “Cojímar. It is a fishing village sixteen kilometers from Havana. There is a small motel by the sea, Casa de Mar y Sol.”

  “What time?”

  “Midnight.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You will have the money for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And we will leave together.”

  “That’s the deal.”

  “Celia will be with you?”

  “I don’t know. Yes, I’m sure she will.”

  “Good. Until tomorrow.”

  “Right. Until tomorrow.”

  He hung up and took another look at McCullough, who now listed sideways, his head resting on the wall immediately next to the toilet. Pauling considered wiping his prints but they’d be everywhere—no time. He left the apartment, closing the door behind him, went down the stairs to the alley, and headed in the direction of the larger street at its open end. He was within six feet of it when he heard the police sirens, then saw two marked PNR cruisers come around the corner at breakneck speed. Pauling pressed himself into a doorway. The vehicles slid to a stop across the entrance to the alley and uniformed and plainclothes cops spilled through the doors and ran down the alley, guns drawn, orders shouted.

  Everyone from the cars had headed down the alley, leaving no one to observe Pauling as he stepped from the shadowy cover of the doorway and went to the street. He took one final look back to see them pouring through the downstairs door leading to the apartment where McCullough’s body waited for them. The reality was blatantly obvious. Someone had tipped them to the murder of a former senator. That someone had to be …

  That unpleasant certainty flipped Pauling’s stomach as he walked away. But what really brought bile to his throat and mouth was the additional reality that she’d called the police to coincide with his arrival at the apartment.

  She’d set him up.

  Francisco Muñoz sat in his office at the precinct. A subordinate who’d been with the initial contingent at the apartment, and who had recognized the murder victim as the United States senator, had summoned the senior detective. Once there, Muñoz took over the investigation, including a thorough search of the apartment. McCullough’s wallet, which seemed to be intact, confirmed his identity, prompting Muñoz to call a superior at the Ministry of Interior, who put into motion the necessary notifications to other government officials, including Fidel Castro. Bobby Jo Brown, chief of section at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, had been awakened at his apartment. He contacted his supervisor at Langley, Virginia, who phoned President Walden’s national security a
dvisor, who informed the president.

  Muñoz looked down at items on his desk taken from the apartment. An officer had found a business card beneath a chair: MAXWELL PAULING, PILOT, CALI FORWARDING, CALI, COLOMBIA. The only other potential piece of seized evidence was the cordial glass found in the kitchen sink. It had been dusted for prints, as had numerous surfaces in the apartment—the phone, doorknobs, kitchen counter surfaces, the bathroom mirror, and the metal toothbrush holder. Muñoz leaned closer to the glass to better see the brown whorls indicating where fingers had touched it. PNR’s budget had been drastically cut after the Special Period began. Expensive imported fingerprint powder had been replaced with the less sensitive brown powder produced locally from charred palm fronds.

  “Pauling,” he muttered. How convenient that he’d left his calling card at the scene.

  He opened a file folder bearing Pauling’s name. It had been started when he’d landed at the airport and unloaded the medical supplies from Colombia. The dispatcher there, after handling Pauling’s paperwork and calling a taxi for him, had made the call expected of him to the official at Minint responsible for collecting information on airport arrivals other than passengers on scheduled airlines.

  An officer had been assigned to keep tabs on Pauling’s movements while the American was in Havana, although it was not a priority. The man’s credentials were in order, his reason for being there an acceptable one. There had been few notes in the file until the death of the German, Grünewald, and the questioning of Pauling regarding that death. There had been no reason to hold Pauling. Muñoz could have detained him, or even ordered him out of the country, but he’d declined to take either action. There were others in his position who took every opportunity, grabbed every excuse to harass foreigners, drill them with Cuban Communist doctrine, and embarrass them by booting them out of the country. Muñoz knew those colleagues acted out of frustration at the situation in which Cuba had found itself under the Special Period. He also knew that many of them were not happy with Castro’s Communist government. Nor was he. But you did what you had to do to keep your job and avoid censure. Surviving in Communist Cuba was the ultimate test of pragmatism.