Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller (16 page)

Over the next few days men came and went.  Yesenia had every intention of running away, but each time either the other girls would talk her out of it or the fear that Miss Lydia would hand her over to someone worse than the meth-head mechanic was enough to scare her from trying. 
I need somewhere to go,
she thought to herself. 
And some way to get there.

He’d come back again, the mechanic, though it
hadn't been as bad as the first time.  He seemed bored with her now.  She’d learned from the other girls that it was the fight he wanted, so she refused to give it to him.  She just lay with her eyes closed or her face turned off to the side, doing her best to show no emotion, which frustrated him immensely until finally he finished and told her, “Lost your fight, huh?  You’re just like a limp little fish, now.  You ain’t no fun.”  He told Miss Lydia to call him when she had someone more interesting and sped out of the little compound with a roar of his truck.

Jose had come for her the next night, and it was a night, like the first time with the mechanic, that made her sick to think about.  He hadn’t cried like she’d been told he sometimes did, but he was rough and let fly a laundry list of insults for no apparent reason.

Their little compound, she learned, was located about forty miles northwest of Dallas.  Miss Lydia had been running it for nearly two decades, always with illegal immigrants for prostitutes.  Her deal with Ortiz back in Mexico City made it easy for her to get a supply of pretty young girls over whom she could exercise complete control.  She’d work them until they weren’t earning enough to appease Miss Lydia, then most were told their debt was paid and they could leave, although it usually took years before a girl was actually allowed to go.  There had been two over the years who weren’t so lucky.  Miss Lydia thought they were a particular risk if set free, so the others were told the girls had paid their debt and were now free to pursue their own interests, but in truth those two girls just disappeared.  The first was found floating in a river five years ago, never identified.  The second one Jose crudely cremated and buried in the woods not far from the compound.  Neither Hector, Arnulfo, nor any of the other girls, past or present, ever knew about the two who Miss Lydia had ordered gone for good.  It was something she’d forced Jose to handle quietly.

The prices were anywhere from forty to a hundred and fifty dollars, of which the girls got only twenty-five percent towards their debt, not that it mattered. Some girls had their debts paid off long before they were allowed to leave, but they were too afraid to contact the authorities.  Miss Lydia made them believe they’d be deported back to Mexico where friends of hers would deal with them.  “My good friend Ortiz saves all your information,” she reminded them.  “And all I have to do is pick up a phone and I can get to you or your families any time I want.”  The threat worked.  The girls were prisoners without bars.

Yesenia knew she could not live this way much longer.  With each man she imagined her Papa looking down upon her, his heart breaking and hers echoing.  She knew she had to find a way to escape this life.  That’s when she got the idea for using Armando.

He was a young Hispanic man who had arrived one night in his old Chevy pickup truck, and he absolutely worshipped Yesenia from the first time he laid eyes on her.  “I’ve never done anything like this,” he told Miss Lydia while the girls all lined up in the courtyard area.

“Oh, there’s nothing to be concerned about,” she told him.  “My girls are all clean and very pretty, as you can see.”  Immediately he locked on to Yesenia.  “Do you like her?” asked Miss Lydia.  He nodded.  “Well, I think she’s going to like you, too.  Come now, let’s see if we can work something out.”  She had led him to her place of business and that was the first night he slept with Yesenia.

He came back the very next night.  “You’re so beautiful,” he told her in Spanish as he lay on top of her, kissing her neck, her ears, and her breasts.  His touch was gentle, almost comforting.  “You shouldn’t be a prostitute.  You could be a model or an actress or something,” he told her.

It was just the break she needed.  Until now, none of the other men she was presented to, save one who seemed too friendly with Miss Lydia for Yesenia to trust, spoke Spanish.  Miss Lydia had seen to it to keep Yesenia away from the Hispanic clients.  Her sob story might fall on sympathetic ears.  But Miss Lydia had let her guard down.  Yesenia had been obedient of late and Miss Lydia had begun to think the girl was finally broken in, instead of just biding her time.  And Armando was a good mark for a potential opportunity.  He didn’t know Miss Lydia, and best of all, she didn’t know him.  He wasn’t a regular that she might have information on.  If Yesenia stole away with him, she thought it very unlikely Miss Lydia would have the slightest idea of where to look for her.  On that second night she began to formulate a plot.

When Armando returned again for the third time a week later, she tested the water.  After he reached his climax and lay on top of her panting in deep breaths, kissing her as he had done before, she asked him, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

He kissed her lips as if half dreaming.  “Hmmm?”

“A girlfriend.  Do you have a girlfriend somewhere?” she asked.

“No,” he told her.  “No girlfriend.”

“How come?  You seem like a nice guy.  Not like the others.”

He ran his fingers through her hair.  “I don’t know.  I guess I’m not that great with most girls.  I don’t make a lot of money or drive a fancy car.  Hell, I really can’t afford to keep coming here, but I can’t help myself.  You’re just so amazing.”

“What do you do?”

“I work at a big car dealership, washing cars and stuff.  It’s not very interesting, but it pays the bills . . . well, sort of.  I’m going to school, too, though,” he added quickly.  “At night, I take some college classes.  I’m working on a business degree so I can get a real job.  You know, one with benefits and all that so I can really take care of us.”

“Us?” she asked.

“Yeah, my brother and me. I look after him.”

“Is the school hard?”  Yesenia had daydreamed about attending college in the U.S. one day.  That now seemed an impossible fantasy.

“No, just time-consuming and expensive.  They give grants and financial aid, but it still costs so much money you wouldn’t believe it.”

“You don’t live with your family?”

“No, just me and my little brother.  Our parents weren’t very responsible, if you know what I mean.”

“How so?”

It wasn’t something he was accustomed to talking about, but he felt at ease with Yesenia.  “Our dad took off when we were young and my mom’s kind of a screw up.  She doesn’t live far from us, but my brother and I just couldn’t live with her anymore.  She’s into too much shit.  My brother works with me so we saved up and got our own place.  Just a little house we rent, about like this,” he gestured around the mobile home.  “It isn’t much, but it works for now.”

“What about you?” he asked.  “Where’s your folks?”

Yesenia leaned against him.  At one time the girl she was would have felt bad playing on his sympathies like she was about to do, but that girl had been replaced by a tougher Yesenia, one who was willing to do what she needed to do to survive and escape her hellhole.  Men were using her.  It was her turn.  “They’re back in Mexico.  They’ve no idea what’s become of me.  None of this was supposed to happen.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She looked deep into his eyes and tried to find the words that would make him help her.  “This place.  These people.  They tricked me,” she told him in a whisper, “all the girls here.”

“They tricked you?  How?”

And there she saw it.  In the glint of his eye and the way he caressed her as though he cared for her, she saw her chance.  “If I tell you, you mustn’t speak a word to anyone else.  If they find out, they might hurt us both.  They’re bad people.”

He shifted his body weight and pulled her close.  “Who are bad people?”

“Miss Lydia and the men here.  You don’t know how bad they are.”  She held his arm and pressed her head against his cheek.  “It all started back in Mexico City . . . “ she began.  She told Armando about meeting Ortiz and about the man that came to the apartment with her bus ticket in his hand, about crossing the river with the marijuana, the truck ride, and what happened when she got to the compound.  She left out a lot of things, in particular what had happened to the state Trooper, and she was able to quickly summarize events.

“Oh, my God,” he said.  “Well, you have to get away,” he told her.

“I want to run away,” she whispered, “but I’ve no place to go.”

“You can stay with me.”

She rolled over on his chest, “Really?  Would you actually do that for me?”

“Yes,” he told her.  “I’m serious.  You can’t stay here, not after what you just told me.
  You can stay with me and we’ll call your family back in Mexico.”

And that was how it happened.
  She knew he had no idea just how serious a danger he was agreeing to face, and she didn’t want the young man to get hurt because of her, but she had to get away and he was her best chance.  She knew there’d be consequences, but her desperation was far more potent than her reason at this point.  She was ready to accept any risk on her own, but she would have to warn her family immediately upon her escape.  She refused to stay a slave in the compound and accept this new horrific life, and exactly what they were all going to do afterward she didn’t yet know, but anywhere had to be better than here.

The very next morning, Yesenia felt as though God smiled upon her when she looked out the window and saw rain.  She walked as a shadow to the fence, holding her breath the entire way in fear the dogs would raise the alarm, but luckily they had retreated to the hot box for shelter and the rain masked the sound of her steps.  She could have simply run down the beaten trail to the fence, but she was too frightened of being seen or heard, so she had snuck through the barbed wire fence in the back and now circled around through the brush.

When she reached the road, Armando was parked in his old pickup truck waiting for her. 
Thank God he’s here. 
She smiled with exuberance.  She felt luck was with her and that her escape was meant to be.  She ran to the truck and knocked on the passenger window.  Inside, Armando jumped.  He unlocked the door and opened it.  “You scared the hell out of me,” he told her.

“Has anyone seen you?” she asked.

“Not that I know.  Get in, get in.  Let’s get out of here.”

Yesenia crawled inside and the truck pulled
away and headed down the lonely county road.  She looked back, worrying that the Suburban might suddenly dart out from the little compound, but no lights came.  It was 5:20 in the morning.  As most of the brothel’s traffic was at night, she knew everyone would have gone to sleep just a couple of hours ago.

As she looked back, she thought about Silvia.  She didn’t want to leave her, but she couldn’t risk Silvia revealing her plans in fear.  Miss Lydia’s threats and violence had subdued Silvia from the start.  Yesenia knew Silvia was far too afraid to risk their captors’ wrath after all they’d seen.  She’d accepted that she was now the property of Miss Lydia, something Yesenia would and could never accept. 
I’ll send help back to them,
she thought. 
But first I have to warn Ceci in case Miss Lydia calls Ortiz. 
She had to make sure her sister’s family was safe.

Funeral services for Taylor Woodall were held the following weekend in Taylor’s hometown of Katy, Texas.  Police formed a perimeter around Anders Funeral Home keeping the reporters and curious onlookers back.  Flowers, stuffed animals, and cards were piled high at the driveway entrance.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were there.  The Governor also attended the funeral after asking if it would be all right with the family, as did most of Taylor’s old classmates from high school and new friends from the University of Texas.  Also in attendance was Jamie.  The bullet had broken her collar bone, ripping through muscle and tendon, but she’d survived . . . thanks to a quick medical response by the hotel staff and of course Taylor’s brave last actions.  She was looking at a long road ahead of physical therapy, and probably severe arthritis for the rest of her life, but she was able to attend the services of her friend who’d saved her life.

“I’ve never seen so many,” said one of the funeral home directors as he looked out at the sea of mourners that were lined up outside their gates.

“It’s big news,” said the other.  “Did you hear what Shelly said?  About the body, I mean?”  Shelly was the embalmer.

“No, what?”

“She said that girl got assaulted, had marks around her ankles, wrists, and neck.  All that b.s. about a gunshot, Shelly said that came after . . . says the girl was tied down and assaulted, then they shot her.”

“Jesus,” said the other.

“Makes you wonder about the rest of the young folks going down there every year for spring break, doesn’t it?”

The other shook his head, “Whole damn place is going to hell in a
hand basket.  Used to just be the border was a fun place to go shopping or out for some drinking, now look at it.  People getting their heads cut off for no reason, kidnappings, murders all over the place.”

“Scary.”

The other nodded in agreement.

After the services Catherine met the Woodalls at their home, along with other close friends and family.  She was already packed and ready to return to Cancun, though she hadn’t yet told Jim and Amy.  There were a lot of things she hadn’t told them yet, and she wasn’t looking forward to having to be the one to break even more bad news to them. 
As if losing Taylor weren’t enough to bear,
she thought.

The hours ticked away and the visitors thinned out, until finally it was just Taylor’s maternal grandparents and Catherine.  She was sitting in Jim’s study with an old bottle of Chivas Regal, which had sat for years in his cabinet until now, a large glass full of ice, and two smaller glasses, watching CNN on a small flat-screen television in the corner when Jim finally came in and closed the door.  She was listening to the reporter nervously.  She had hoped it wouldn’t be on the news so fast as she had wanted to warn them first and prepare them, but there was no good way to try to explain what he was sure to soon hear, so she just prepared herself for the worst.

“Officials released a preliminary report this morning on the murder investigation of Taylor Woodall that has many stunned,” said the reporter.  “One anonymous official said a large amount of cocaine and other drugs were found in the girl’s system, alluding that her death may have been drug related.”

Jim’s face turned white as he stared at the television.  “Bullshit,” he said.  “Did they just say what I think they said?”  He turned and glared at Catherine, “Did you hear that?”

Catherine clicked the remote and turned the TV off.  “That anonymous official was probably Fuentes.  If not, then it was probably an intentional leak to the press.  His office has been trying to spin this from the moment we found her.”

Jim looked shell-shocked before he saw something he recognized in Catherine’s demeanor.  “You knew,” he said accusingly.  “You’ve already heard this and didn’t tell me, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she told him softly, “I heard.  I wanted to tell you privately so you could decide how to approach the subject with Amy.  I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.  We just haven’t had time to talk.  They just started reporting this earlier today.”

“Oh, God, when Amy hears this crap . . . I’m not sure how much more she can take.  I ought to sue those bastards for slander.  How could they say that?”

“They’re looking for any excuse to rationalize that it wasn’t the random act of violence it was,” she told him.  “They want everyone to think Taylor was culpable in some way, but we all know it’s crap.  The truth will come out.  You’ll see.”  Catherine had already heard that Taylor’s toxicology report had revealed that she had amphetamines in her system.  How it got there, though, was the real question, assuming the report was even accurate.  She decided not to get into it at the moment and instead changed the subject.  “How is Amy?”  She hadn’t really talked to Amy since she broke the news to them of Taylor’s death a week ago.

Jim was still lost in his own contemplation of what he’d just heard, but he managed to bring his thoughts back to answer, “She’s holding up.  The doctor has her on Ambien, so at least she can sleep.  She’s upstairs resting now.”

“And you?  Are you sleeping?”  Catherine filled the glasses and handed one to Jim.

He took it and slumped in his chair behind his desk.  “Not really.  But I’m fine without it.  I don’t want to sleep.  Every time I close my eyes, I see her.”  He gulped down his drink and got up to refill it.  “I see her like that day in the morgue on the computer screen.  I hardly recognized my own daughter,” his voice broke and he took a drink from his glass to keep his composure.  She was glad he hadn’t seen her the way she had.  He’d been the one to make the positive identification formally, but at least they’d managed to clean her up a bit before he saw her.  “I can’t get the image out of my head.”  Catherine, meanwhile, drank from her glass a little slower, but she wasn’t being bashful, either.  Both intended on getting drunk.  Both needed it.  His tears having ebbed, Jim asked, “Have you heard anything?”

“Not much you don’t already know,” said Catherine.  “Except of course this,” she said, pointing to the now blank television.

Jim stared blankly off into the distance, “That Fuentes . . . what a little snake.  Kissing our ass and then pulling this shit behind our back.  Well, they’re not going to get away with it.  I’m not going to let them turn her into something she wasn’t, just so they can tell the world it wasn’t their fault and pretend like it didn’t happen.”

“No, we won’t let them,” she agreed.  “This isn’t over, Jim.  We’ve still got a lot more searching to do.”

Jim nodded.  “What about that boy you found?  How’s he doing?”

“He’s getting better.  Luckily, the bullet missed all the tendons and arteries.  He really needed to go to the hospital but I couldn’t convince him.  I can’t say as though I blame him.  He’ll have a nice little scar, but I expect he’ll be good as new otherwise.”

“You didn’t leave him alone down there, did you?”

“No, of course not.  He’s with a friend.”

“Have you found out yet who was after you in the market?”

“Well, I still think they were after the boy more than me, but of course the police down there aren’t much help.  That guy Vargas wrote it off as a carjacking, which is beyond stupid.  I really don’t think he could be that big of an idiot.  He’s shady. ”

“You don’t think we can trust him?”

“Oh, I know we can’t,” she said.  “I’m just wondering how untrustworthy the guy is.  Let’s just say I won’t be walking down any alleys with my back to him.”

“Well, you don’t think he’s in with any of the drug people, do you?  I mean, just that he’s looking out for Cancun’s interest more than us, right?”

“No,” she told him, “I mean he’s shady in the worst possible way.  I don’t know it for sure, but I’m getting a distinctly bad vibe from the guy.  And then there’s this thing with him being the last person the missing kid was with.  That’s just setting alarm bells off in my head.  I don’t think we need to have anything to do with that guy and we should probably ask that he not be involved in any further investigation.  I don’t have any proof he’s done anything wrong but there’s just too many bells ringing in my ears telling me the guy’s bad.  You wouldn’t believe the level of corruption down there, Jim.  The former Chief of Police for Cancun, Francisco Velasco Delgado, was arrested for ties to the cartel and listed as a suspect in the torture and murder of the newly appointed chief of the drug task force.”

“You’re kidding,” said Jim.

“No, I’m sorry to say that I’m not.  And he was the Chief of Police.  You can just imagine how many more of those cops are working for the cartel.  Law enforcement is a for-profit business down there.  And it gets even worse.  One mayor they had, who had taken leave of absence to run for governor of Quintana Roo, by the way, was arrested for aiding and protecting the cartel.  And that’s just a few samples of the things that go on down there.  You have got college kids tanning themselves on the beach while cartels behead people in the streets.  Makes you wonder if the whole damn country isn’t run by the cartels these days.  There’s kind of been an unspoken rule about tourists, though.  They bring in the money so traditionally they have been off limits, but obviously that’s starting to not be the case.  More and more you’re seeing kidnappings and ransom on the border.  Hell, a top U.S. anti-kidnapping expert who worked to free victims was in Mexico a while back for a speech.  He went out to eat with some colleagues, stepped outside for a phone call, and disappeared into thin air . . . kidnapped.”

“What happened to him?”

“Felix Batista,” she recalled.  “That was his name.  Nobody knows.  There was never a demand.  He just disappeared.”

“That’s what would have happened here, if not for you.  At least we know,” he added, his voice choking a bit.  He cleared his throat forcefully and then asked angrily, “Jesus, how in the hell can they all be corrupt?  I mean who the hell can we trust?”  The information Jim was hearing was infuriating.  He’d always heard about the problems in Juarez or Mexico City, but he never paid attention to Cancun.  It was always advertised as a beautiful getaway.  Only now, after it was too late, was he hearing what really went on there.  “Can we even trust that Detective Ramirez guy, or any of these people for that matter?  They keep telling us how they’re going to find out what happened and do all they can, but then I turn on the TV and hear this bullshit.  Lies, lies,
damn lies.  That’s all we’re getting.  We wouldn’t have ever found her if you hadn’t stepped in.”

She tried to think about things from Jim’s perspective and understood his skepticism completely.  She shared his sentiment for the most part, but the jury was still out on Ramirez.  “Ramirez seems okay so far.  He cares, I think.  There are a lot of good people who love their county and who risk their lives on a daily basis trying to get rid of the corruption and crime of the cartels, but it’s a hell of a tough fight.  I’m hoping Ramirez is on the right side of that fight, but even if he is, he has people pulling his strings.  Hence, the kind of stuff we just heard.”

“Well,” said Jim.  “I’ve got a fix for that.  I’ve got the news camping out on my front lawn.  I’m going to go out there and tell them what’s what.  There’s no way in hell this was drug related.  Taylor would never be into that kind of thing.  And I’m going to tell everyone just what I think of this smear campaign they got running against the victim in this case, my little girl.  Let’s see how many people I get to cancel their summer plans in Mexico then.”  And he was so moved by his anger that he put his glass down and made to get up and go right outside then and there.

“No,” said Catherine.  “Look,” she told him.  “There are still a lot of questions that need answering before you do that.”

“Like what?” he asked, seating himself back down angrily.  Catherine paused to gather her thoughts and he grew frustrated, “What else could you possibly not be telling me?”

“There are some things the law enforcement down there hasn’t released to the public, certain ugly facts about Taylor’s remains.  Things they don’t want to get out.  And I think it might hurt our chances of finding these people if the details did get out.”

“Such as?” asked Jim.  He’d been told where Taylor was found, and that she had been shot.  He also knew her face looked abnormally swollen and bruised when he made the identification, but he didn’t know if it was just part of the decomposition that had caused the abnormal appearance or if there was another explanation.  After being told she’d been shot he didn’t think to ask what else might have happened.  Part of him suspected, but didn’t really want to know for sure.

Catherine breathed heavily.  “I’m not sure how much to tell you, Jim.  Knowing all the details won’t bring her back.”

Jim looked over his shoulder, drank a heavy gulp from the glass, refilled it, and said, “Just tell me.  I deserve better than to be left in the dark like this with everyone else knowing things that I have to find out from the news.”

“Her clothes were gone,” started Catherine.  Jim gave no reaction, and that worried Catherine even more.

“And?” asked Jim.  Catherine stared at him, trying to decide what to do.  Jim looked up from his glass at her.  “Goddamn it, Catherine.  That was my child.  I deserve to know how she left this world.”

Catherine killed her drink.  She was visibly upset. 
He already knows part of it,
she thought
.  Why does he want to hear it? 
“I’m your friend, Jim.  And as such I’m not sure you do need to know.  At least not right now.  Let me put some more pieces together first.”