The Halloweenish Mystery Thrill Ride is speeding up. Today my guest is Carmen Amato. Can't afford to go on a trip to Mexico? Pick up one of her books. Sure, you will have to deal with some murder and mayhem, but what's a vacation without a little mystery?
Lorne,
thanks so much for the invitation. My mystery series featuring Emilia Cruz, the
first and only female detective on the Acapulco police force, is set in Mexico.
One of the upcoming novels in the series, SHATTERED SIESTA, is built around the
notion of Santa Muerte, the cult figure that is known as the Skeleton Saint,
the Boney Lady, and the Death Saint.
And
what better time to talk about this strange and powerful cult figure—reported
by many to be the patron saint of the violent Mexican drug cartels—than the
season of Halloween and the Day of the Dead. Worship of Santa Muerte is one of
the fastest growing religious phenomena in the Western Hemisphere, despite the
Catholic Church’s condemnation of the practice. There is a set of rituals,
prayers, offerings, and colors connected with Santa Muerte, and spiritualism
and magic are woven into the worship as well.
But
instead of talking, let me share an excerpt from SHATTERED SIESTA, which will
be released in late 2015. It follows the first three novels in the series;
CLIFF DIVER, HAT DANCE, and DIABLO NIGHTS. All three books are available on
Amazon for Kindle and in paperback.
*****************************
“Young
guy,” Detective Emilia Cruz said. “His throat is slit.” She’d seen enough dead
bodies to know that the man in the tent had only been dead a few hours.
“Even
I can see that.” Senior detective Franco Silvio held open the tent flap to let
in the light and encourage the stink to float out as he squatted by the
entrance. The early October morning sun seemed to thicken the smell of death in
the fabric-bound space.
“He didn’t put up a fight.” Emilia held up her
latex-gloved hands as she knelt by the body to indicate that she’d found
nothing in the pockets. “No identification except the El Machete tattoo. No
signs of a struggle. Like he just laid there and let someone cut his throat.”
“He
was asleep,” Silvio said. “Or passed out.”
“Probably,”
Emilia agreed.
The
body lay on top of an old sleeping bag, clad in faded jeans and a black tee
shirt with some sort of logo on it. The feet were bare but looked to be the
same size as a pair of nearby cross trainers. The head was nearly severed from
the body and blood had pooled and then congealed under the body.
“Needle
tracks?” Silvio asked.
“I
can’t tell.” Emilia backed herself toward the tent flap and Silvio moved to the
side. The tent was small, just big enough for two people and their camping
gear. Or one dead body and a strange collection of souvenirs.
“Let’s
get him out.” Silvio took her place inside the tent, grabbed the bottom edge of
the sleeping bag and eased it out of the tent, the body sliding along as if on
a stretcher.
Seagulls
screamed overhead and the waves lapped at the shore only a few sandy yards away
as Silvio straightened up. Emilia stripped off her latex gloves, her palms
sweating despite the fact that it wasn’t that warm yet.
The
victim looked even worse in the bright sunlight, although neither detective saw
any indications he’d been a junkie. The break between the lolling head and the
supine body was a clean, deliberate slash. The distinctive design on the inside
of the right arm marking the man as a member of the El Machete gang was a good
quality tattoo with thick greenish lines. He would have been a powerful man;
even in death his arms were weighted with muscle and his hands looked powerful.
“Doesn’t
really look like a camper,” Emilia observed.
Silvio’s
cell phone rang and he punched a button and put the phone to his ear. The
senior detective was a big man with a face that betrayed his years as a boxer.
His hair was a gray crew cut and he wore his invariable uniform of white tee
shirt, jeans, and shoulder holster hidden by a khaki bomber jacket.
Emilia
took pictures of the face and body with her cell phone as Silvio gave the crime
scene techs directions from the run-down hotel near the road. When she’d snapped enough of the body, she
walked towards the water’s edge, then turned and snapped a few more pictures of
the tent and a grove of scrubby pines and rusty seagrass that separated the
beach from the road. The sand was rippled but there was nothing useful; an
overnight storm had scoured away the killer’s footsteps.
There
were a few makeshift tents further along the beach, a stretch of desolate sand
ringed with rocks on the inland side that made it less attractive to Acapulco’s
mainstream tourists. The surfers who’d called to report the body had been a
young gringo couple with bad Spanish
made worse by what Emilia was fairly sure was their own drug use. They’d
probably found the body in the tent while looking to score drugs from the
motley assortment of surfers, junkies, vagrants and penniless adventurers who
often camped out on this lonely strip of beach near Coyuca Lagoon, a few miles
northwest of Acapulco. There weren’t many actual residents, just a vagrant
population that would be hard to locate and question. They got all the
information they were likely to get out of the couple, warned them to stay in
the area and to call if they remembered anything else. They wouldn’t. Emilia
had encountered that sort of tourist before.
She
knew Silvio didn’t want the case and he had a point. Coyuca Lagoon was outside
what was normally the Acapulco police department’s jurisdiction. But the new
lieutenant now running the detectives squadroom had decided that they’d respond
to any and all calls that came in. This was despite the fact that they still
hadn’t replaced the two detectives lost a few months ago in a drug smuggling
bust. Emilia and Silvio had a dozen open cases already and hiking out to Coyuca
Lagoon wasn’t going to help them close any of them.
Silvio
pocketed his cell phone and clumped across the sand to Emilia. “Found the hotel
but couldn’t find the beach behind it,” he growled. “Like nobody’s ever been
out of the fucking city before.”
Emilia
glanced at her watch. They’d only been there about 40 minutes, which was a
relatively short time. The crime scene technicians often took an hour or more.
Or didn’t come at all, tying up detectives’ time waiting for a body to be
collected and the crime scene at least dusted for fingerprints. All the
detectives had learned to carry latex gloves and plastic zip-lock bags in their
pockets so they could handle any evidence they came across.
The
crime scene technicians weren’t lazy or incompetent. They were simply
overloaded with work.
They
had a shit job, Emilia reflected as she watched two men carrying heavy cases
approach the tent from the edge of the pine grove. Crime scene techs earned
little more than an ordinary beat cop—less than half what a detective
earned—and had to handle dead bodies all day, much of the time in the hot sun.
Yet they faced the same dangers as the rest of the cops in Mexico; all of them
lived as perpetual targets of drug cartels determined to break down civil
authority. Emilia often wondered which side was winning.
“Cleaner
than most,” the lead tech said appreciatively as he dumped his case down beside
the body lying on its blood-soaked sleeping bag.
“Looks
like a dead junkie,’ Silvio said. “Killed by some surfer for his stash. But it isn’t.”
“Why
not?” the tech asked.
Emilia
held open the flap. “You’ll see.”
She
crawled into the tent ahead of the tech, trying to keep from getting any more
sand in her loafers or embedded in the knees of her jeans. The tech came in
after her. He got all the way in before suddenly stopping and rearing back on
his heels.
“Madre de Dios,” he exclaimed, his face
working with fear.
“Tell
me about it,” Emilia said.
An
altar to the dead, similar to an ofrenda
commemorating the Day of the Dead, had been created against the tent wall
opposite the body. A plank as long as Emilia’s arm held the offerings. A
shriveled bouquet of marigolds, the traditional Day of the Dead flower, was
crushed next to a bottle of cheap tequila and a trio of thick white candles
wrapped in black gauze, the most deadly color in Santa Muerte’s arsenal of
ritual. A few peso coins were scattered across the plank as well and Emilia saw
a half-smoked cigar, long cold.
But
it was the frayed poster-sized banner decorated with the image of Santa Muerte
that caused a shiver to run down Emilia’s spine, the same as when she’d first
seen the image. It was pinned to the tent canvas and depicted the Death Saint
as a skeleton in a long black hooded robe. One bony hand held a scythe like a
religious Grim Reaper and the other held out a globe to indicate Santa Muerte’s
mastery over the earth.
“And
look at this.” Emilia nearly had to snap her fingers to get the tech’s
attention as he gazed, slack-jawed at the banner. “What do you make of all
these broken pieces?”
Several
muerto skeleton figurines, common
items on Day of the Dead altars, were nearly hidden under the wilted marigolds.
On a traditional ofrenda, the
figurines might represent something related to the deceased, like their
occupation, hobby, or pet.
But
these muertos were simple male
figures. Each was broken cleanly and deliberately in several places, with clean
slashes through the thick papier maché. The heads were all severed, with a red
substance like lipstick outlining the gash.
The
scene, with Santa Muerte leering down from the gently billowing canvas tent
wall, was a strange parody of a traditional ofrenda.
But a Day of the Dead altar was meant to attract and celebrate the spirits of
the deceased. This strange altar devoted to Santa Muerte was made to punish
them.
The
tech turned to Emilia, his eyes bulging in terror. Sweat dripped down his
forehead. “I’m not touching this shit,” he said. “Do what you want with it but
I’m not touching it.”
************************
Lorne, thanks so much for
hosting me and asking about the books. Your readers are invited to join my
mailing list to get updates on the Emilia Cruz series, as well as a free copy
of “The Beast,” the first story in MADE IN ACAPULCO: The Emilia Cruz Stories,
which is available on Amazon. “The Beast” explains how Emilia fought her way
into the detectives squadroom in the first place and introduces readers to the
whole series. Go to http://carmenamato.net/get-beast-free-story/ to sign up for the free
story and Happy Reading to all!
In addition to political thriller The
Hidden Light of Mexico City, Carmen Amato is the author of the Emilia
Cruz mystery series set in Acapulco, including Cliff Diver, Hat
Dance and the collection of short stories Made in Acapulco.
Originally from New York, Carmen’s experiences living in Mexico and Central
America drive the authenticity and drama of her thriller and mystery novels.
Her Emilia Cruz series pits the first and only female detective on the Acapulco
police force against Mexico’s drug war and culture of machismo.
See why Amazon Hall of Fame reviewer
Grady Harp wrote: “For pure entertainment and a gripping story likely resulting
in nail biting, read Carmen Amato's addictive prose. She knows this territory
like a jaguar!”
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