Chapter 8: The Inspector's Table
Inspectora Claudia Bernal was forty-four, wore no jewelry, and arrived at the café before I did.
She had already ordered two coffees.
She pushed one toward me when I sat down.
"You're not surprised I contacted you," she said.
"I'm cautious," I said.
"There's a difference."
She nodded once, as if that was the correct answer.
She opened a folder on the table between us — not dramatically, just efficiently, the way someone does when they've had this conversation before and know which part matters.
"Rodrigo Alcázar came to us fourteen months before he died.
He had documentation showing that Alcázar Corporation had participated in a contract-laundering structure worth approximately forty million dollars over four years.
The contracts were tied to public infrastructure projects in Nuevo León.
The money moved through three companies, one of which is connected to an individual named Castellano-Vega."
"I know that name."
She looked at me steadily.
"How?"
"My attorney made inquiries last night."
"Your attorney should be careful about who he asks." She said it without heat, just as information.
"Rodrigo gave us an initial package of documents.
He was preparing a second, more complete package.
He died before he could deliver it."
"And the first package?"
"Enough to open an investigation.
Not enough to prosecute." She folded her hands.
"The second package is what we need.
Rodrigo told his contact that the full documentation was stored somewhere his brother couldn't access and his father didn't know about."
"Renata," I said.
She didn't confirm it.
She didn't deny it.
She simply waited.
"You think Rodrigo gave the documents to Renata."
"We think it's possible.
We have not been able to approach her directly.
She has been — managed — very carefully since Rodrigo's death."
"By Santiago."
"By Santiago and, we believe, by individuals connected to Castellano-Vega who are monitoring her movements." She picked up her coffee.
"Your situation has created an opening we didn't have before."
"My wedding falling apart is useful to a federal investigation."
"The video of what happened in that ballroom has made Santiago's position very public and very unstable.
People who were staying quiet are reconsidering.
Including—" She paused.
"Including one person who contacted us this morning."
"Who?"
She turned a page in the folder and slid a single photograph across the table.
I looked at it.
Teresa Alcázar.
Santiago's mother.
"She called us," I said.
"She came in person.
She sat in that chair for two hours." Bernal tapped the folder.
"She says she has been aware of her husband's involvement in the contract structure for three years.
She says she tried to make Ernesto stop.
She says Rodrigo found out and came to her first, before he went to us, and she told him to let it go." Her voice was flat.
"She has been living with that since he died."
The café noise continued around us.
Cups, voices, the hiss of a milk steamer.
"She thinks her husband had something to do with Rodrigo's death," I said.
"She doesn't know.
She's afraid to know.
But she's more afraid of what happens if Castellano-Vega decides the Alcázar family is a liability now that the video is public and the financial exposure is visible." Bernal looked at me directly.
"She wants protection.
In exchange for full cooperation."
"And Ernesto?"
"Ernesto does not know she came to us."
I sat with that for a moment.
"What do you need from me?"
"Access to Renata.
She won't speak to us.
She doesn't trust law enforcement — Ernesto has spent years making sure of that.
But she has no reason yet to distrust you."
"I humiliated her in front of two hundred people yesterday."
"You asked a question she didn't want asked.
That's different from being her enemy." Bernal closed the folder.
"She is carrying a child and sitting inside a situation that is becoming dangerous very quickly.
She may be more willing to talk than you think."
I looked at the photograph of Teresa still on the table.
A woman who had watched her son die and stayed silent because she was afraid.
I thought about what my grandfather had said to Dolores Vásquez-Prim.
*There are people who will try to take from you the moment I'm not there to stop them.*
He had meant the Alcázars.
But Rodrigo had tried to stop them too.
And no one had protected him.
"I'll speak to Renata," I said.
"But I need something from you first."
"What?"
"I need to know whether you believe Rodrigo's death was a heart attack."
Inspectora Bernal looked at me for a long moment.
May you like
"No," she said.
"I don't."
