The Coffin Makers Apprentice by Chris McGillion

Author:Chris McGillion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery. Timorese police investigator Vincintino Cordero is assigned the case of two youths, rival gang members, found a week apart with their throats slit and a betel quid placed in their mouths. The case distracts him from spending time with FBI Agent Sara Carter before she completes her INTERPOL assignment and heads home to Arizona. But Carter is facing distractions of her own as the US ambassador and INTERPOL’s director pressure her to stay in East Timor. When the fiancé of her friend, police officer Estefana dos Carvalho, goes missing, all signs point to his abduction by whoever is behind the murder of the gang members. That draws Carter into Cordero’s investigation where the stakes, like the dangers, rise. A gang war could be imminent like that which tore the new nation of East Timor apart eight years earlier. Or young Timorese could be acting out a cult leader’s prophecy that those who fought and died for the country’s independence will rise from their graves and win a more favourable victory if the right conditions are met. Which of these possibilities do the betel quids in the dead youths’ mouths signify or is it something more mysterious and even more sinister?
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2023-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Friday morning traffic was always especially heavy. Estefana stopped at the T-intersection of Rua de Mascarenhas and Avenido Bispo de Mederios and waited for a break in the tangle of cars, trucks, microlets, and motorcycles. Carter noticed a kiosk on the corner, tapped Estefana on the shoulder and asked her to pull over. At the kerb she dismounted the motorcycle, took off her helmet, and suggested Estefana ask the man in the kiosk if he had seen a truck with a decal of coffins on its side drive by on Wednesday. “It’s a long shot, I know, but occasionally long shots pay off,” she explained.

The man laughed when Estefana put the question to him. “You know how many trucks come by here each day?” he asked.

Estefana’s shoulders were slumped when she returned. “He didn’t see anything, mana.” She dangling her helmet by her side. “It’s now the third day Josinto’s been gone. It’s no good.”

“Don’t let those thoughts in, Estefana,” admonished Carter. “Now think. Is there anywhere Josinto goes­, you know, for coffee, gas, bite to eat when he’s working this part of town?”

Estefana thought. A truck passed belching black smoke and they both had to cough away the fumes and brush dust and soot from their clothes. Estefana refocused on the question.

“There is a gas station in Lecidere I know he goes to,” Estefana said. “He knows a boy who works there but I rang him yesterday and asked if he knew where Josinto was and he said no.”

“Perhaps you asked the wrong question,” Carter said. “It’s on the way to Bidau, right?”

“Yes, mana.”

“Right,” said Carter replacing her helmet. “Let’s see if Josinto made it that far.”

• • •

As Pepe had said, the files on Chiquito Santana and José Magno were thin but Cordero was surprised by just how thin. Chiquito’s file was two sheets of typed A4 paper. One held a brief profile: 34 years old, born in Baucau, finished primary school only, described as a member of a youth association, an official in a martial arts group, then leader of the gang Forsa. The second page listed charges and convictions. He’d been arrested twice in his mid-twenties for assault and once for robbery. Eight years ago he was cautioned for his role—undefined—in the riots of 2006. That was it. The usefulness of the file was close to zero.

José Magno’s file consisted of just one sheet of paper. He was twenty-eight, born in the western district of Ermera. That made Chiquito and José potential adversaries on regional lines: one from the western district and one from the eastern. Cordero recalled the graffiti, warning off Easterners in Perumnas, but he also knew a lot of that was simply for show and that gangs occasionally worked together despite the threats they liked to make to each other. Besides, Pepe had told him that Santana’s outfit was no longer made up exclusively of people from his region.

José Magno had a degree from the National University of Timor Leste in business administration and had worked for five years in the Ministry of Finance.

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