The Dead Women of Juarez (25 page)

Sometimes when it was quiet and Estéban had no demands except to lie on his bunk and be alone, his talks with Kelly roved far and wide. Sometimes they were fanciful. He imagined there was a wedding in Kelly’s future, and though it seemed a womanly thing to do, they talked about who would be there and where the honeymoon would be and then, when all the pageantry was over, when the children would come.

“I’ll be a good uncle,” Estéban said. “I’ll spoil them terrible. ‘
¡Tío Estéban, Tío Estéban! ¿Qué tú nos trajó?
’ And I’ll give them candy and all kinds of shit. That’s what uncles do.”

Kelly agreed that was what uncles do. They gave knee rides and brought puppies as surprise birthday gifts. They took nephews fishing and sometimes for their first, secret beer. These were the things Estéban looked forward to doing when Kelly and Paloma were married.

In the mess hall Estéban sat with the other invalids and ate his food. He stared past the tray and past the scratched metal surface of the table and to a winding, sun-soaked road leading south toward warm water and beaches and Mazatlán. Sometimes he saw cliff divers when he got there and tourists parasailed behind speedboats among great rocks that looked like sailing ships on the high seas.

You want another beer?
Kelly asked Estéban. Of course he did.

The beer was bright and refreshing and perfect. Heat waves rose from the concrete ponds of Parque Xtremo. The skaters were still at their avocation despite the heat. They lipped the ponds and turned
in the air as if gravity was temporarily of no concern and then down again out of sight.

Estéban put his hand on Kelly’s shoulder and squeezed it.

What’s wrong?

“I wanted to make sure you were still here,” Estéban said. “Sometimes… sometimes I feel like this is all a dream. I don’t want to wake up,
carnal
. This is where I want to be.”

They had Sunday lunch together at the house. Paloma served them while wearing her light dress that caught the sun. Today Estéban chose not to smoke afterward and the three of them sat talking in the front room within sight of their painting of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Seeing it used to make Estéban uncomfortable, but he wasn’t bothered by it anymore. Not now. Now it meant he was home and not somewhere dark and filthy and terrible.

Two men raised voices to each other at another table. The benches and the tables themselves were fixed to the floor and the flatware was made of flimsy plastic, so they used the trays as weapons and then their feet and fists. A pair became a quartet and then a dozen. Food splattered and was trod underfoot. Imbalances left long unaddressed were suddenly and violently corrected. Estéban saw none of this.

“I knew you were the kind of man I could count on,” Estéban told Kelly in the Parque Xtremo. “I knew it from the first time, you know?”

They sat on the little couch in the front room. Paloma had
limonada
set out already. Estéban could hear her in the kitchen with the pots and the dishes.

“I’m glad you’re getting married to my sister. I’m glad we’re brothers. I always wanted a brother like you.”

He wanted to hug Kelly, but that was too much emotion for two men. They bumped knuckles. Estéban had some of the lemonade. It tasted like beer.

“I think we should all go down to Mazatlán together,” Estéban said.

Around him the invalids were up and the guards waded among warring bodies with clubs and shouts. Estéban sat sightless and deaf even as a prisoner stabbed him through the neck with a sharp piece of steel. He toppled to the floor and didn’t see the blood pooling around him; only the house fading and Paloma coming from the kitchen to be with them and Kelly smiling in the sun until the sun went black.

T
HE CHURCH WAS CALLED
I
GLESIA
del Anuncio, the Church of the Annunciation, and it was not the ugliest such building he had ever seen, though it was close. The neighborhood around it was crumbling into sun-scorched dust and so was the sanctuary inside and out. Frescoes were faded and even the great crucifix above the altar was chipping and flaking. When there was not money or manpower enough to tend to Christ, Sevilla mused, a church was ready to die.

He sat away from Ella Arellano though he saw her well enough. She wore black like the cluster of women around her. They assembled before the church at the appointed time. Sevilla didn’t approach them, but he knew Ella was aware of his presence.

The battered old confessional was near Sevilla and during the long service his eyes were drawn to it. He hadn’t been inside one since Liliana passed, and it was just as well. When he needed to confess, he confessed to her. If his sins were too much for Liliana, then no priest could hope to understand.

Out of habit he said the prayers and from memory he sang the hymns. When it was time for Communion he stayed in his pew, though he put two hundred pesos in the plate as an offering. Afterward he lit a candle for Estéban Salazar. The old church made him feel sad because it was unloved. Half the place was empty and the other half was growing irrevocably aged.

When the mass was all done, Sevilla trailed outside behind Ella and the women. Ella came to him in the narthex while the women
greeted the priest in turn. She wore a veil like the others and seemed much older than Sevilla remembered her being. “Thank you,” she said.

“There’s no need to thank me,” replied Sevilla. “I wanted to see you.”

“Do you have a car?” Ella asked.

“Yes.”

“Meet us. We’ll go on foot.”

She gave Sevilla an address and he wrote it down. He didn’t know the street, but he knew he could find it.

“Who are they?” Sevilla asked of the women in black.

“They’re like you,” Ella said. She went back to them.

Sevilla left the church and went back to his car. He made two wrong turns finding the address, but he got there before Ella and the women in black. Sitting behind the wheel on the sleepy Sunday avenue he felt stupid and exposed, but there was no one watching him.

Eventually he saw them coming, a little processional for some cause or saint unspecified. When he left his car he saw them hesitate as a group, like a horse shied from sudden movement on the ground, but Ella calmed them. “Come inside,” she told Sevilla.

The house was small and poor like the others around it. There was barely enough room for all of them, but they moved as if they had long practice doing so. Only Sevilla was out of place. He was always excusing himself and moving here and there because he was forever in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

After some time there was food and drink and the women settled. Before they talked about the things poor women talked about: families and money and the news of the neighborhood that would make no difference to anyone from the outside. This was something Sevilla was not a part of, but now they looked to him as if his next words meant everything.

“You left your home,” said Sevilla to Ella.

“They’re watching.”

“Who?”

“The men with the black truck. The ones who took Paloma away.”

Sevilla was stung coldly. He fumbled for his notepad and it seemed a long time before he had it firmly in his hands. “You saw someone take her?”

“Yes.”

Ella told Sevilla the story, about the mothers of the missing, about Paloma and how the men in the black pick-up came. She showed Sevilla the last of her fading bruises. All the while the mothers listened in silence like stones bearing witness.

“Did they say names?” Sevilla asked. “Did they talk to each other?”

“No names.”

“Did you see a man, he’s called Ortíz.” Sevilla described him, but the mothers shook their heads no.

“Three men,” Ella said. “Big. Strong.”

“They are cowards,” said one of the mothers. “Who else but a coward can beat a woman?”

Sevilla pressed, “Have you ever seen this man I’m talking about? What about the license on the truck? Did any of you get it?”

Another one of the mothers raised her hand slightly. It was a schoolgirlish thing to do, but she was no longer young. “I’ve seen him.”

“You have? Where?”

“Not for a long time,” the woman said. “But years ago he used to come and talk to the local girls about going to parties. We knew this was just a story, that he was taking girls to the brothels, but some still went with him.”

His heart beat quicker, but his hands were steady. Sevilla realized he was not thirsty for a drink. His head was clear. “How long ago was this? Did he always come alone? Tell me everything you can remember.”

The woman did, but it was very little. When the subject turned
back to the black pick-up truck and the big, strong men there was nothing else to add. The men struck like lightning and were gone just as quickly.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

Ella shook her head. “We did.”

“What? You did?”

“Yes. We went to the police right away and they made us give a report. All of us here told the story.”

They gave Sevilla the station number. He knew it, and had even passed it on the way to the church. It was a small place with only a handful of policemen assigned to it for a neighborhood as heavily populated as any near the city center, but the poor paid little tax.

“I don’t understand.
All
of you made statements on the day?”

“Yes. But the police don’t listen. They never listen. Even before the drug wars they wouldn’t listen to women. Women have no voices.”

Sevilla sat back in the little upright chair he’d been given. He rubbed his eyes for a moment to think, to hide behind the action and let his mind catch up. When he looked again, the mothers of the missing were as sober as they had been before, though he sensed their anger.

“I saw no report,” Sevilla said. “But I’m a state policeman.”

“Then you can do nothing?” asked one of the mothers.

“I’m not powerless. I know a man in the city police and he can ask questions. Understand me now: with the drugs wars, everything else is pushed to the side. They have suspects and they have a confession. This isn’t something anyone will want to reopen.”

Ella shook her head and frowned. “Those men were not American and Paloma’s brother was not one of them.”

“I know that,” Sevilla said. “But it is different to know something than it is to prove it.”

“Then prove it,” Ella said. “We are all witnesses! We saw it happen!”

Sevilla put his hand on Ella’s hand and she didn’t push it away.
He used his voice in the way he’d been taught a long time ago. Some things never changed. “I will find out. I promise you I will not stop asking questions. Someone must know the answers. I will find them.”

“Don’t promise what you can’t do,” Ella said.

“I’m not. This I can do. When the time comes I’ll be sure you have a voice. You’ll tell everyone. They will listen.”

“H
AVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?
”
Enrique asked Sevilla when they were together in the living room and sure no one was watching through the window. Sevilla pulled the drapes. He had felt eyes all day when there were none around. Coming home he drove around his block three times, and though he felt foolish doing it, he could not help himself.

“Not at all,” answered Sevilla truthfully.

They sat at opposite ends of a little coffee table with brightly painted legs and a worn top made of old flooring. It was one of Liliana’s finds. Sevilla thought of it as charmingly ugly. His notes were strewn across it now.

“There is no report,” Enrique said. “I made three calls. Too many calls. Someone will know I was asking, but I wanted to know. There is no report.”

“Those women did not lie to me, Enrique.”

“I’m not saying they did. I am saying there is
no report
.”

“The truck. The man. Ortíz. He’s the one,” Sevilla said.

Enrique sorted the pages of Sevilla’s notes like cards, as if searching for a hidden picture that would appear if only they were placed in the right order. His brow creased and his frown threatened to break the corners of his mouth. To Sevilla he looked like a real policeman. “And there’s Madrigal.”

“Rafa Madrigal is not a criminal,” Sevilla said. “I met him once in Mexico City. It was an event for a police charity. We spoke for
several minutes. He’s a rancher, he owns two
maquilas
. What would he want with someone like Ortíz?”

“That is what I asked myself. What
would
he want with someone like Ortíz. You didn’t see Los Campos, but I did; men like him do not get to go inside unless they are invited. Neither you nor I could go.”

“His elder son died of a drug overdose across the border in Texas, I think,” Sevilla said. “He has no interest in crooks. You said it yourself: at best the man is a gambler and a boxing manager. At worst he’s a pimp.”

“Then why did he go there? How did he get in? Think, Señor Sevilla.”

Sevilla slumped in his chair. Half-formed ideas and thoughts swirled, but one was steadily settling that he did not want to entertain and for the first time all day he wanted the drink he hadn’t wanted before. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You
do
know.”

He looked at his notes. Text was boxed and underlined and marked with arrows. He had written five pages with Ella Arellano and the mothers of the missing. Twice he drove past the little station where they made their report, both times with the same thought nagging at the back of his mind and slowly pushing itself forward.

“Ortíz could not make a police report disappear.”

“No,” Sevilla agreed.

“But he knows Garcia. If there’s anyone with experience of making evidence vanish, he’s the one.”

“Captain Garcia doesn’t do favors for just anyone,” Enrique said. “I’ve been with him for two years. I’m La Bestia’s servant. I would know.”

“That’s wrong,” Sevilla said. He straightened. The thought was nearly there if only he could speak it.

“What is?”

“You’re not his servant. If you were, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t ask these questions.
That
I know for certain.”