Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller (13 page)

Vargas shrugged.  “Probably been asking the wrong people the wrong questions,” he offered.

More likely the right people the right questions,
Ramirez thought.  And he suddenly had a very uncomfortable chill sitting next to his partner.

An hour later Catherine returned to the hotel with a fresh set of rental car keys in her pants pocket.  She hadn’t bothered calling the other car company to fill them in on what happened to the first rental.  She figured they’d find out sooner or later.  She’d also used her company card for the new rental, hoping it would leave a less obvious trail for anyone so inclined to look.  She knocked on the door in the prearranged rhythm and was relieved to find Julio safe and sound.  She sat down on the bed and said, “Okay, Julio
, I need to talk to you.“

“Okay.”

“Can you tell me what you and Juan saw that has these men chasing you?”

The day’s events had erased any doubts the boy had about Ms. Catherine James.  Julio was ready to tell her anything she wanted to know.  “We saw two men in the cemetery.  They had a woman, the American, I think, and they buried her in someone’s grave.”

“Can you show me where?”  Julio nodded.  “Okay, let’s go.”

“Now?” he asked.

“Right now.”

As they drove to the cemetery Julio gazed out the window apparently lost in thought.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Julio shrugged.

“I’m sorry about your friend.  How close were you?”

“We were family,” said Julio.  “Some people made fun of him because he had big ears and he sometimes wasn’t too smart, but he was my best friend.  He was a good friend.”  Catherine nodded sympathetically.  “He just trusted too easily.”  He rubbed his hurt leg.  “He trusted the police even though I told him what would happen.  I told him exactly what would happen.  I told him the gangsters would be looking for us and would find us if we talked to the police, but he didn’t believe me, I guess.”  That was something weighing on Catherine’s mind as well.  Someone was playing both sides and had tipped off where Julio might be found.  She just hoped Ramirez wasn’t corrupted as well.  But she certainly wasn’t going to risk Julio’s life in finding out.
  “What about your friend?” he asked her.  “What was she like?”

“Who?
" asked Catherine.

“The girl
, the American everyone is looking for.”

“Oh.  She was very beautiful,” Catherine told him, “and very kind and intelligent, from what little I know about her.  You would have liked her, I think.”  She smiled at Julio, “And she would have liked you.”  She wished she knew Taylor Woodall better, now. 
How am I going to tell Jim and Amy what’s happened to their baby?

They turned down a side street and pulled up to the cemetery.

“What were you doing here that night?” asked Catherine.

“Juan and I sleep here sometimes.  He didn’t like it, though.  He was afraid of ghosts.”

“You aren’t?”  She just wanted to keep the conversation going so Julio wouldn’t feel so frightened about being back at the graveyard.  She was on edge herself, her hand making sure it knew where her gun rested.  It wasn’t at all outside of the realm of possibility that someone was now watching this place.

“I didn’t think any ghosts would care.  Nobody else pays us much attention.  Why would the dead?”

Sharp kid,
she thought,
tough life. 
Julio led her to the grave.  “They put her in here,” he said.  The name on the grave was Eduardo Villanueva, born in 1938 and died two weeks ago.  “They put her in with the dead man.”

Catherine eyed the grave.  The dirt looked settled at first, but then she saw that it had actually been compacted more recently than two weeks.  She stared at it, wondering if Taylor Woodall was really right there in front of her, hidden beneath the dirt.  She had no reason to doubt Julio at this point, but the idea of the girl being so near was surreal nonetheless.  She looked around, her hand never far from her gun; thankful Ramirez had given it back.  That was something in his favor regarding her opinion about him.  “Okay,” she told Julio.  “Let’s go back to the hotel.  I’ll come back with the police.”

Catherine felt she had little choice but to contact the authorities.  She wasn’t ready to tell Jim and Amy what was happening, though. 
Not until we know for sure. 
Within the hour four men were digging.  Ramirez, Vargas, and Fuentes stood by and watched with Catherine.  A pair from the morgue stood near, prepared with a body bag and gurney they’d rolled out to the scene.  Ramirez was directing the progress.  After 10 tense minutes, the casket was once again revealed.  The diggers stepped out of the hole and Ramirez jumped in.  He finished wiping the dirt away and placed his fingers under the lip of the lid.  As the casket opened a patch of blond hair and white skin appeared.  Catherine winced as her heart sank.  She knew immediately that they had located Taylor Woodall.  She was glad they’d found her at last, but now her death was solidified.  She’d have to go back to the Hutton and tell Jim and Amy the news; something she knew would break their hearts.

An assistant took pictures at Ramirez’s request, and then he turned the body over and brushed the hair from her face.  As Taylor’s face, swollen and misshapen, was revealed, most of the group began to cross themselves and mutter hasty prayers sotto voce.

“What are the pictures for?” asked Fuentes.

“We need them for the investigation,” said Ramirez.

“Then you take them,” ordered Fuentes.

The assistant shrugged and handed Ramirez the camera.

“And I want it made clear to you and your people that no one is to speak of this to anyone else.  Anyone who talks to the media will be fired and subject to prosecution,” Fuentes continued.

Ramirez hated having to take orders from this government weasel, but he was under fire enough as it was and didn’t want to complicate things worse than they already were.  “Yes, sir.”

Fuentes looked at Catherine as if though he was about to ask her to leave, but Catherine merely looked at him and said, “I won’t talk to the media but I’m staying.”  Fuentes did not argue.

Taylor was laid out on top of the corpse of an old man.  Her body was bloated with gases but otherwise not far along in decomposition.

Catherine leaned over the grave and looked down at Taylor.  “What’s the cause of death?”

Ramirez looked closer while taking further photographs.  He saw bruising on her neck, wrists, and ankles.  “I’m not positive but there appear to be ligature marks around the neck.  I think she was
choked.”  Catherine grimaced and looked away.

As the body was removed from the grave, Ramirez noticed something else, a glob of dried blood in Taylor’s hair on the back of her head.  He stopped the morticians from moving the stretcher and examined it.  Catherine stayed back, but asked, “What is it?”

“Not sure,” said Ramirez.  “Could be a bullet wound.”  He snapped a photo.

“She was strangled and then shot?”

“Maybe,” said Ramirez, eyeing the bruises again and trying to put the pieces together.  “Looks that way.”

Catherine walked forward and examined the wounds around her neck.  “Someone definitely choked her.”  The eyes were closed but Catherine imagined once opened during the autopsy they’d show to be full of broken blood vessels.  She sighed and grabbed a pen from Ramirez’s shirt pocket, pointing towards the blood-matted area of the hairline, “May I?”  Ramirez nodded.  Catherine proceeded to part the hair revealing the bullet entry wound.
  “It’s small,” she commented.  She’d never examined a corpse before, but she held herself fast knowing that it was a necessary evil.  She was the eyes and ears for this girl now and couldn’t trust anyone else to either miss or intentionally hide evidence.  She decided that she had to get as much information as possible to ensure it wasn’t swept under the rug later.

“.22 caliber, maybe,” Ramirez suggested.

“So maybe they strangled her, but then shot her in the back of the head afterward to make sure she was dead.”  Ramirez nodded in agreement.

“Well, let’s not jump to conclusions,” said Fuentes next to them.

“I’m not jumping to anything,” said Catherine.  “It is what it is.”  She backed away and began slowly walking back towards her car, fighting to keep from crying in front of the others.  Ramirez watched her go with a pang in his gut.  He suddenly felt very useless, a feeling he’d come to know a time or two and didn’t like feeling at all.

Fuentes walked forward and told him quietly, “Remember, nobody talks to the press yet.  Not until we’ve had time to make a formal public statement.”  His eyes trailed to Catherine as she got back in her car and drove away.  “That includes her.”

“I’m not sure how I can stop her if she decides to talk,” said Ramirez.

“If she wants to stay involved, it’s on our terms,” said Fuentes.  “You’re the head of this investigation.  That makes you accountable.”  He walked off, looking to Ramirez far less in control of things than he’d like people to believe.  He wondered how Fuentes planned on spinning this outcome.  There was no way the world wasn’t going to hear what had happened to Taylor Woodall.  He looked up to the sky; as blue and beautiful as it was, he knew a storm was coming.

Ramirez returned to the Hutton to inform the parents, if Catherine James hadn’t already, and was surprised to see her still standing in the lobby.  Reporters and cameramen still stood about and talked.  They’d been low-key enough in the cemetery that nobody was any the wiser for the moment.  It was amazing to Catherine as she stood there watching them all that in just a few short minutes they’d be clamoring like an angry nest of fire ants someone stepped on.  “I’m sorry about the girl,” said Ramirez as he stopped next to her.

“So am I,” said Catherine.  She tried to suppress her emotions but it was difficult, “I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard.  That poor girl.”

“It’s never easy,” added Ramirez.  “We try so hard to find the victims, but then when you do it’s always terrible.  And now comes the hardest part of it all.  I have had this conversation several times in my career and it’s always horrible.  I will tell her parents if you wish.  There’s no reason for you to have to be the one.”

She turned and looked at him.  “No, it’d be better if I told them.”

Ramirez nodded.  Catherine was a friend to the family.  He understood.  “I’ll wait downstairs in the conference room.  Just come find me after you’ve spoken to them.  I’m ready to answer any questions they may have at this point.”  He went to put his hand on her shoulder, but held it.  “You have my condolences.  As does her family.”

Catherine said she’d come find him later and went upstairs.  The Woodalls were staying in a suite that was being provided gratis by the hotel.  With the sudden recent drop in tourism, they were the only hotel in town to still be sold out.  Catherine knocked on the door and Jim answered.  She walked inside and glanced at
Amy, who was sitting on the bed, her arms folded.

“I have some news,” she began.  Amy looked up at her with hope in her strained eyes.  “It isn’t good.”

She needn’t say more.  Jim sat down next to his wife and before Catherine said another word, they knew.  “No,” said Amy softly, stepping off the cliff straight into the abyss.

“I’m sorry,” said Catherine.  “We found her.”

Later that night Catherine sat in her room deep in thought while Julio slept soundly, probably the first time he’d slept well in ages.  She’d found Taylor Woodall, but the outcome had been what everyone feared most.  Now she had to make a decision.  Did she return to Dallas and leave to Ramirez and the local authorities finding Taylor’s killers?  If not, what was the alternative?  Could she really stalk the streets asking about the girl’s murder?  If she did find anything she was likely to end up a victim herself.  Still, she couldn’t leave like this.  There had to be something more she could do.  She looked at Julio, wrapped up beneath his covers and snoring softly. 
And what about him? 
The proper thing would be to let Ramirez handle it from here, but her mind kept going back to what Julio had said in the market. 
Juan had trusted the police and it got him killed.

Again, she felt overwhelmed by the weight of the circumstances.  This was much more than she had ever expected.  More than
even she could have imagined.  Killer thugs with machine guns had tried to murder her and the boy in broad daylight.  An innocent street kid had been murdered, his body still missing and unlikely ever to be found.  And then there was Taylor’s murder itself, the brutality of the kidnapping and its motives still unclear. 
I’m out of my league,
she admitted to herself.  She began wracking her brain, trying to figure out what to do.  She knew a few people in Mexico, but they were executives and lawyers, mostly.  They might be able to make a few phone calls on her behalf and pull strings here and there, but they wouldn’t be much help in finding Taylor’s killers.  She took out one of the small bottles of whisky from the mini-bar and poured it into a glass.  When she finished that one, she poured another. 
There is someone I could call,
she thought. 
Would he even help?  It’d been years now. 
She swirled the Jack Daniels around. 
Yes, of course he would.  That was a stupid question.  It’s Matt, after all.  He’d help even if he didn’t owe me one.  And this is the sort of thing he knows better than anyone. 
She thought about what it would mean to call him after all this time.  There was a reason it’d been so long.  Was she sure this was a good idea? 
I need him,
she finally decided.  Their past would just have to be a separate issue, one that couldn’t interfere with what needed to be done.  She wondered where he was these days, probably Iraq or Afghanistan. 
God, what if he’s married?  How awkward would that conversation be? 
She doubted her chances of even reaching him, let alone that he’d be able to get away from whatever he was doing wherever he was in the world.  But still, she had to try.

She put the glass down and called Jennifer, her legal assistant and long-time confidant, at home.  “Catherine?  Is that you?” said a voice, obviously pulled from sleep.

“Yeah, it’s me.  I’m sorry to call so late.”

“No, it’s fine.  I’ve been worried about you.  We heard the news earlier.  I was waiting for your call but figured you were busy.”

“Yeah, not the way we hoped it would turn out.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes, actually.  Do you have your laptop nearby?  I need a phone number.  Things here are even messier than the news is letting on.”  She quickly filled her in on everything that’d happened so far.

“Oh, my God, Catherine.  Are you serious?”  Her friend was now wide awake.  “Did they catch the driver!?”

“No, they’ve got nothing on him so far.  Everything’s gone crazy down here and I’m in over my head.”

“What are you going to do?” her friend asked.

“I’m going to see it through.”

There was a long pause on the phone.  “Catherine, you need to come back.  At least for a few days, let things calm down and then look at this fresh.”

“I can’t right now,” she told her.  “I couldn’t live with myself if I just walked away now.”

Her friend sighed heavily, “Catherine, you’re going to get yourself killed.  Please, just think about this a second.  You know how much I respect you.  You’re as tough as they come but you’re not in law enforcement.  And you’re not a vigilante.  You’ve done what you can for these folks.  You found their daughter, for Christ’s sake.  Let the authorities take it from here.”

Catherine had somewhat expected this.  “I am coming back for the funeral, which I expect will be soon.  But then I have to come back down here and do what I can.  I know what I’m doing.”

“I know you do.  I’m just worried about you is all.  Well, we’ll talk more when you’re here.  Now, whose number do you need?”

“Titansteel,” she said.  It was a strange name for a company, but after the fall of Black Water, those companies still left in the private security sector opted for less sinister names these days.  She doubted he was still with their outfit, but it was the only place to start looking if she hoped to find him.