The Demands of the Dead (20 page)

“I hope you did not come all the way to prison to see me, Chief Saltillo,” I said.

He smiled, but didn't laugh. “No, Mr. Brown. I was meeting with the warden anyway. Then, by coincidence, I heard you were here, so we thought I would invite you.”

“Very sorry I can't offer you a chair,” the warden said.

Sure you are.
“I am flattered to have been invited, of course. What can I help you with?”

Saltillo nodded and the door closed behind me. The warden picked up his phone. Saltillo spoke over the warden's quiet phone voice.

“Have you had full cooperation with your investigations?” Saltillo asked.

“Of course. Everyone in Public Security has been very helpful.”

“And you have spoken with the unfortunate indigenous men, who were picked up in Hatuey?”

“No. They are here, though.”

The door opened again. I turned around. A prison guard with a tray carried 3 plastic bottles of soda water. Tehuacan. He left them on the desk, then stood directly behind me, the metal tray in his hand. I watched Saltillo and the warden. Neither made a move for the drinks, so neither did I.

“We are working in a very difficult context, Mr. Brown. Do you know we are accused of human rights violations all the time? Unfortunately some of these are even true. Sometimes, police officers become overzealous in trying to extract confessions. Prisoners, even in this prison – even though the warden here, and my own police, we are doing our best to work against it – even then, there have been prisoners who have reported being beaten, having their families threatened, even having this Tehuacan poured up their noses, into their throats.”

I looked down at him, as he sat in his chair.
Coded message sent and received
. By sitting, by placing a big guy behind me, by the sheer awkwardness of me standing surrounded on three sides, he had neutralized all my psychological advantages. He was threatening the Garcias, and threatening me. But I wasn't new to these games. “Very glad that you are working against it. If this kind of thing were to happen to the witnesses of an internationally important investigation --”

“-- Who knows the damage that could be done,” Saltillo finished my sentence. “My point exactly, exactly. But I won't be here forever,” he said.

I waited. The soda bottles had come out of a fridge, and they were sweating on the table.

“I can't watch everything personally,” he said.

“Of course, which is why we want to do what we can to help.” I was trying not to let my frustration leak.
What did the man want?

“No no, it is we who must help you, Mr. Brown. In that sense, I wanted to apologize to you.”

“Apologize?”

“Yes. It seems to me that Lt. Chavez was the wrong man for the job. He has not communicated with anyone on his or your progress in the case, and he has not even reported for duty as expected. Has he communicated with you? Do you know where he is?”

This was all about
Chavez?

“Er... well, yes. He... we agreed that we would work on separate aspects of the case early on, and we haven't communicated since then.”

“So you don't know his whereabouts.”

“No.”

“You see, this is what I feared. How can you do an investigation without an investigator? I have placed him on leave and removed him from the case. I will think about a replacement for him for you to work with.”

“Understood. But I should debrief him at least once before I leave Mexico. When he turns up, can you arrange it?”

Saltillo stood up, made to shake my hand. “Of course. I will be leaving now. If you have further business here --”

“--no no, let's leave together,” I said.

The guard behind me stepped closer. But they couldn't disappear me from this meeting – it was in too many people's calendars. Once I left here, though, accidents could happen.

“Chief Saltillo, I don't really need a new partner in any case. I am almost finished with my investigations and as soon as I've reported to my Embassy, who are waiting for my report, I will also report to your agency.”

Saltillo knew I was bluffing, but what could he say? I had dropped the magic words (“my Embassy”) in the hopes that it would protect the Garcias. Other than solving the case, I could do no more for them now.

I shook Saltillo's hand and stuck close to him all the way out, all the way until I was back in the parking lot, accepting his apology for not being able to drive me somewhere because he had an urgent meeting to get to.

Evelyn's Civic was gone. I would need to get a taxi, I thought, as I tried to work through what Saltillo's interview meant.

Clearly it was not just Beltran I needed to fear. As of now, I had no friends in the Mexican police. And I needed to stay away from La Migra: Mexico's Immigration Services would deport me if they caught me. And until I could talk to the US Embassy, it would probably be best if Hoffman didn't answer his phone. If the Mexicans fired us before I could solve the case, the game was up. But if I could solve the case before we got caught, we could get the government to keep its deal with us by threatening to release the report whether they signed onto it or not.

They also were probably going to try to kill Chavez. If Mariana was telling the truth, he was still trying to solve the case. Now his life was in danger and he was probably hiding. If I searched for him, I'd probably be putting him in additional danger. If he wanted to find me, he could go through Hoffman.

I had to find Evelyn too, to tell her I was still alive. Would she go to the same hotel? I would try her there.

But later. Going to a hotel was predictable. Trying to find Chavez was predictable.

What would be unpredictable?

I decided to keep working.

I had the taxi take me to Gonzalez's family home. The doors were locked, the lights were off, and I felt, without seeing, eyes on me. All I'd really wanted to do was compare their experience to Mariana's. But I had a guess theirs was different. I also suspected Chavez had beaten me to them and told them to lay low for a while too.

Then the taxi sped off. And I was in trouble again.

Specifically, I was in a residential street in Tuxtla, quite a bit west of downtown, no taxi, and nothing but locked gates and walls all around. The taxista must have been working with Public Security, which meant something was coming. Maybe not on this street, but there were people who knew I was here right now, and they were people who weren't after my best interests.

I needed to get off the street. I started walking south and east, turning randomly, seeing if I was being followed. The streets were empty. Anyone pursuing me would be obvious, but if they pulled up alongside me in a car, I would have no moves at all.

I passed an elementary school. No help there. After about twenty minutes, I got to a pay phone. I called Evelyn and told her I was east of downtown and would meet her at her hotel in two hours. Still no taxis.

My biggest fear was of a car with Public Security, in or out of uniform, pulling up alongside as I walked. So I decided to get into a car first. The first one that passed by was a silver four-door VW station wagon being driven by a smart, short-haired forty-year old woman. I affected a much thicker American accent than I actually had:

“I am very sorry ma'am, but I seem to have gotten lost looking for the Pharmacy...”

“Farmacia Esquival?”
“Exactly, yes.”

She started to give me directions, and I said: “I cannot find a taxi, could I pay you fifty dollars?” I held it out for her to take. She looked at it, then took it and drove me there.

I dropped in at the Farmacia and bought some aspirin. I asked the pharmacist whether aspirin was the best for muscle pain, and asked him if he could call me a taxi, not wanting to walk in pain.

I optimistically figured that I had behaved unpredictably enough to be lost to Public Security and their smart taxista. I went to a VIPs restaurant and called Evelyn from there, told her to meet me here instead of the hotel – and, oh, yes, could she clear the room out and bring all her stuff - and settled down to wait for her while watching the door.

When she came in, driving her car, I got up - and we went straight back to San Cristobal. Risky, and premature, but there was nothing more to do here, and I needed to get to the Cafe Historia despite the risks.

Chapter 9

That night, when we got in, I used Evelyn's laptop, in the living room. Here, at least, there was a couch I could crash on.

Two messages from Maria. Single encrypted, now, no more elaborate disguises of the information in personal emails – we were relying entirely on our public key encryption. The first was a simple message from earlier today: “The Embassy people will be in San Cristobal tomorrow and insist on a meeting. Call them tomorrow at the latest.” And second: “Here's what I figured out from the files. The Trainer uses that codename in his comms with Salant because he trained them on a sharpshooting course. That course is where they met up for the first time. The Trainer used the course to recruit police to be part time enforcers for the mob, and he recruited Rossi and Salant. The mob's supply source was a Mexican cartel. One of the kids Shawn was trying to help was being pressured to take the fall for a murder and disappearance of a low level dealer that police committed for The Trainer. The kid got killed in jail. Shawn was gathering information on The Trainer and his whole operation when they killed him. There's nothing direct, but there is indirect information in emails between The Trainer and Salant that refer to Shawn's murder. I still don't have a name for The Trainer, but Shawn has a picture I will attach.”

I wrote her back: “Got it. Thank you. I'll await the pictures. Be careful – show no signs of this stuff in case The Trainer is in NY. Love you.”

I wrote unencrypted to Hoffman: “I mostly have what I need, although if you could clarify the status of our relationship with Public Security it would be appreciated. Tell the Embassy I'll call them tomorrow.”

Evelyn came to the living room, in a t-shirt and – thankfully – pajama pants.

“How dangerous is it here?” I asked. “How quickly should I get out of San Cris?”

“They know that this house is an NGO house. They might know that you have stayed here sometimes, so they might be watching it. If you go to the Cafe Historia or the civil defense network office, they'll pick you up again if they were after you.”

“And what are the dangers?”

“Snatch squads,” she said. “They're not going to shoot you down in the street, not with the potential for so much publicity. They'll probably grab you and then deport you, say that you were violating your visa terms. That's why we all run from La Migra.”

“Strange to be an American running from La Migra in Mexico.”

“My advice? This town is where you'll be surveilled more than anywhere else. If they pick up signs of you, you'll be hard-pressed to dump them. Whatever you need here, try to get it today and get out, before they can organize a response.”

She was right. The last thing they knew I was in Tuxtla, but if they were watching the usual spots, they would know soon that I was here. Still, I had to take the risk.

The next morning, I walked around the perimeter of the café historia, rebel coffee in hand, looking at exhibit photos: black-and-whites of indigenas in the villages, the pictures of adults without masks guaranteeing that the objects were not Zapatistas.

I had waited less than twenty minutes before Luis and Susana came in together, starting to touch each other's hands as soon as the door closed behind them. By now, though I had only ever spoken to Susana, I had so much second-hand information on Luis that he was familiar enough. And, since they knew Tourelle, Father Raul, Evelyn, and Walter, by now they probably knew me too. I walked right up to their table and sat down.

"So you're back," I said to Susana, kissing her cheek. "What's going on now?"

"I just got back. I made my report." At the Defense Network, she meant. "Now they know our friends are safe"-- meaning Antonio and Rodolfo, the Garcias-- "they've started a vigil. We're organizing something here too, for tomorrow."

That was how people talked in San Cristobal. Even at the 'people's café' it made sense not to name names if you could help it.

"What about you," Luis asked, pushing up his glasses along his nose. "Did you solve your problem yet?"

"No," I said. "But there's another friend I am concerned about."

Susana looked around. "Maybe we could move to the other room?" She got up and went to the cashier.

I hadn't even known it was there: an empty, soundproof almost-secret room off to the side used for film screenings, seminars, and, presumably, confidential conversation.

“We can talk here?” I asked.

“It's secure,” Susana said, using the expression
de confianza
.

"Has he reported from Oaxaca?" I asked Susana.

Susana, and Luis held a nonverbal conference as I watched, in which Susana asked whether to tell me, Luis argued to tell me, Susana accepted, and Luis was appointed spokesperson.

“He hasn't reported,” he said.

“Should he have, by now?”

“
He
hasn't reported. But our people in Oaxaca have. Jhon has been captured.”