Free Cuba Blue by Robert W. Walker

equipment, outdated materials, and overworked people, but for you, I’ll make it my priority.”
    Even as he grumbled, she knew he ran the best-equipped, most-efficient police lab in all of Cuba, but Qui didn’t challenge him, allowing him instead to itemize his litany of complaints.
    “Thank you, Dr. Benilo, for putting this at the top of your agenda.” Hesitating, Qui added, “And my colonel thanks you.”
    “Yes, I know your colonel well.”
    She suspected that a single word from Benilo could get her removed from this case. “Frankly, I’m convinced that Colonel Gutierrez wants to see me fail,” she confided, “but I’ll prove him wrong, especially now…with your help.”
    “A distinct possibility.” He paused before adding, “How like your mother you are.”
    This silenced her. She knew few people who’d known her mother. Part of her wanted to know all that he held in his memory of Rafaela, the great unknown in Qui’s life. A voice from deep within whispered, Listen now to Arturo…he means you well. The ghost of her mother insisted she pay attention; odd, Qui thought, after all these years of telling her father to stop talking to ghosts, to hear one herself.
    “A warning, Quiana,” Benilo said. “You understand this case will either make your career or put you into the uniform of a tourist cop? Grief will come at you from all directions. This moment decide: fold or play your hand.”
    “I’m going nowhere, Doctor, so just tell me what you need from me.”
     
    “Allow me to do my job.”
     
    “I won’t stand in your way.”
     
    “No matter where the evidence leads—no lies, no evasions, no euphemisms, no cha-cha-cha around the truth?”
    “That’s for politicians.”
     
    “Then it’ll be up to us, Quiana, to uncover the truth of these three deaths.”
     
    “God willing, yes.”
     
    “If we can do so before we’re made invisible—two more ‘ disappeareds’ just for doing our jobs.”
    “You think you can shock me, don’t you, Doctor?” She ripped away her glove and extended a hand to him.
     
    Refusing her hand, Benilo instead looked about. “Too many eyes,” he whispered.
     
    She nodded, instantly realizing that it’d be best that no one think them closer than two professionals.
     
    No paranoia in Cuba , she thought sadly . It’s just a way of life.
    Music wafted over the marina from other boats, from radios in windows, all the music competing with wild African rhythms and jumping musical notes like hard rain. But one melody came clearer, overpowering, pointed: the haunting sounds of music from the nearby Hotel Valencia street café and bar, a familiar tune all over Cuba —‘I got it bad, and that ain’t good’— a strangely evocative leftover from the big band era before the revolution, a tune that made her imagine moments of peace and passion and warmth and love even as the lyrics proved ironic—in sharp contrast to her case.
    The last time I heard that tune, she recalled , I lay in the arms of Montoya.
    A part of her wished that she were there now, wrapped in the arms of her on-again, off-again lover, Dr. Estaban Montoya. Enraptured by his eyes, his Antonio Banderos voice in her ear, telling her, “All you need is me. We can find bliss as Dr. and Mrs. Montoya. But, only when you abandon this foolish career and make a family.” Another part of her wished for the power to turn back time. She sensed in every fiber that Estrada’s cache of death had already changed her life forever. It could so easily destroy her career as a detective, which in itself frightened her. If Dr. Benilo were right, it could also cause a hailstorm to rain down over all those she loved and cared about, or it could end in her disappearance or death. No one in Cuba was absolutely untouchable except Fidel himself.
    A cool breeze swept in, chilling her, even more than these thoughts. Benilo abruptly interrupted her reverie. “Ehhh, Quiana, time you go do your