Part Eight: What the Investigation Found
The investigation took sixteen days.
The private investigator Cristóbal retained was a woman named Adriana Soto, who had spent eleven years in financial crimes investigation before going private, and who approached the case with the specific efficiency of someone who found the work genuinely interesting.
What she found:
The man in the expensive shirt was named Marco Fuentes. He was thirty-eight years old, the son of a hotel developer in Guadalajara, with a biography that was largely ordinary until four years ago, when a debt restructuring had left his family’s company significantly exposed. He had been introduced to Valeria at a charity event twenty-two months earlier, according to the social media archaeology of mutual acquaintances.
The relationship had begun approximately twenty months ago.
The insurance policy — twenty million dollars, American, on Santiago’s life — had been taken out nineteen months ago. Valeria had initiated it. Santiago had been told it was standard estate planning. He had signed the documents during a period when he was managing a significant acquisition and had, as was his habit during high-pressure periods, signed things his legal team approved without detailed review.
The shell company registered to Hector Villanueva had been capitalized with a transfer from an account in Valeria’s name fourteen months ago.
Hector Villanueva himself was a former driver for a private security company, dismissed three years earlier for undisclosed reasons. He had two prior arrests on unrelated charges, neither resulting in conviction.
Adriana presented all of this to Santiago and Cristóbal on a Tuesday afternoon in a conference room in Cristóbal’s office, laying documents across the table with the quiet care of someone building an argument.
Santiago sat across from the documents and looked at them.
Nineteen months. The insurance policy had been taken out nineteen months ago. In the period nineteen months ago, he could recall: a dinner at a restaurant in Polanco where Valeria had been particularly warm. A weekend trip to Valle de Bravo that she had organized. She had been attentive in those months, which he had attributed to — he could not now say what he had attributed it to. He had been in the middle of the acquisition. He had been, as usual, not paying attention to the routine.
He had the recording from Abril’s phone. Cristóbal had worked with a forensic audio specialist to verify it and enhance the clarity.
He had the testimony that Abril had agreed, with Tomás present, to provide in writing.
He had everything.
“How long before we can move?” Santiago said.
“Carefully handled, we can be in front of a judge within ten days,” Cristóbal said. “We present the recording, the financial trail, the vehicle registration. The car by itself is conspiracy. The shell company is conspiracy. The recording—” He paused. “The recording is the center of it.”
“She knew I always walked looking at my phone,” Santiago said.
“Yes.”
“She planned for the thing that she knew about me.” He looked at the table. “She knew me well enough to plan for the specific way I stopped noticing.”
No one said anything.
“Make the arrangements,” he said. “Ten days.”
