It was three days since the event until we received the fateful text message. I decided to go there with my fucking best impression of confidence: Dexter had taken care of the crime scene after all, or so I remembered.
When I arrived, I found somber faces all over the place.
"What happened?"
"It's LaGuerta", was all Masuka said. His voice trembled, and he looked like he was struggling to hold back tears. So did everybody else. No newborn is ugly and no dead person is bad. Sneaky politics, ass-kissing and all, she was still one of us.
I went into the container and, sure enough, there were Estrada's and LaGuerta's bodies, albeit in slightly different positions from that night. An unbearable sense of guilt washed over me. I covered my mouth and had to step outside the crime scene and sob.
Dexter ran beside me and touched my arm.
"It's gonna be o.k.", he said.
My first instinct was to yank my arm away, which I immediately regretted.
"I... I just need a moment. This is some fucked up shit, Dex."
"I know, I know."
Back at the container, I put on my "solemn grief" face and hoped it was believable enough. I asked one by one what they had found, and they all said the same: the evidence was consistent with a struggle and a mutual murder. They fought, ended up with each other's arms, LaGuerta stabbed Estrada, and he shot her dead just before dying himself. Dexter really knew how to create the narrative of a crime. I was impressed and kinda horrified at the same time. He never stopped looking at me and, for some reason, he looked to me like he was feeling the same way.
I saw somebody arguing with a couple of uniforms, begging them to let him in. It was Batista.
"He's one of us, let him in", I told the cops, and they did.
"Where's Maria? How's she?" Angel asked, and I realized he didn't really know what was going on. I looked at him and gave him a hug. He cried like a baby.
-00-
It was a closed casket funeral (her body was already in a stage of decomposition), with all the high honors that a highly ranked member of the Miami Metro Police and representative of the Cuban community deserved. I wondered if my brother, who was holding my hand, or me, would get to have that luxury whenever we died.
After the priest talked and before she was buried, the high honchos of Miami gave their speeches, even the major of the city. I was asked to give the eulogy myself but I declined, claiming I was too shocked by the event, and anyway, if someone had to give the eulogy, it was Angel Batista, since he was the closest thing she ever had to a family.
Angel spoke, and anyone who hadn't met LaGuerta before would have thought she was perfect by listening to his words. Assertive, loving, devoted to her community, a dotting wife and a great friend, who died in the pursuit of justice. Only he, who saw her through the lens of love, could have meant it.
A choir of kids sang as each of us put a white rose on the casket and then it went down under the ground. It was all designed to make us miss her; to remember what a big hole she let in this world and, above all, to remind us of what a motherfucking ass of a bastard her murderer was. Message received.