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By Root 1106 0

he knew well could text him at such a late hour. All around him the city was sleeping in complete darkness. In the last week, partial electricity rationing had turned into total blackout. In the meantime, converters were beginning to die and his own was soon to be part of the group. Owners of generators and solar panels were the last to enjoy the coveted energy. The inspector had to resort to charging his cell in his office to save a little electricity. But there was no way he was going to give up listening to his boleros once he was in bed. The boleros had the triple function of helping him untangle the threads of a current case, taking him back to his childhood, and coaxing him to sleep. And the last had become more and more of a problem. Instinctively, Zagribay turned down the music before he grabbed the phone. He might have even been waiting for that message on some level, as he hadn’t even bothered to get undressed before going to bed. The sender’s number, then the message, appeared on the screen. The inspector got up, picked up his service revolver, and stepped out into the heart of the night.

The car started right away and he pulled out into the street. The thick darkness reduced visibility to the immediate range of the headlights. The inspector turned right, drove a few hundred yards further, and when he reached the precinct— which was also shrouded in complete darkness—and the Baptist church, he turned left. At this hour, he could take Delmas, the long artery to Pétionville, without fear of getting caught in traffic jams. He would reach the meeting place soon after that. Though he was reluctant to inform too many people, he took the precaution of waking up a young colleague—who didn’t seem particularly happy about this show of trust—and asked to meet him at Place Boyer. After he hung up, he pushed the button of the CD player. Ibrahim Ferrer’s voice filled the car, leaving a melodious trail in the silent night that blended with the barking of roaming dogs and the buzz of the generators he passed.

Duermen en mi jardín

las blancas azucenas, los nardos y las rosas …

Inspector Zagribay’s mind began racing as he drove down the bumpy road. He was getting close, he was sure of it. He had managed to gather almost all the pieces of the puzzle. Another one or two pieces—which his informer and hopefully a search warrant would soon provide—and the case would be closed. When his boss had entrusted him with the assignment, he never would have thought a story of humans transformed into cattle would take him so far. To tell the truth, neither would his boss, who knew his quixotic nature and gave him only minor jobs. But as the weeks went by, the case kept expanding. Recently, he had reached the stage of “friendly” warnings. Which proved that he was on to something big. All those warnings came from people who claimed to wish him well: his boss, colleagues at the office, his childhood friend Fanfan (who he hadn’t even told anything to). Even that Maria Luz, an NGO executive he’d met at the Canadian embassy, thought she should warn him too. Far from dissuading him, all this advice had actually stimulated him. It would be such a waste to stop when things looked so good. Stopping meant being subjected to his colleagues’ sarcasm and the neighborhood kids taunting him. Hey Zagribay, how about solving the mystery of that radio journalist Jean Dominique’s murder? Also, at some point you had to show people that there was justice in this damned country. That nobody could come here and just do whatever, whenever. As if it were a jungle.

The inspector remembered exactly when the case had started to turn into something serious and go way beyond him and his boss. It was a month and half ago. He was just emerging from his sleep when his cell rang. It was close to five a.m. The everpresent crowing of roosters, the voices of early risers mixed with the sounds of a few cars backfiring, filled the air. As it did every day, the early-morning smell of coffee had jumped over the fence to tickle his nostrils. That smell was enough to justify his