The Dead Women of Juarez

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.”

TWO

“HAVE 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. Ortiz. 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 Ortiz?”

“That is what I asked myself. What would he want with someone like Ortiz. 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, Senor 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.

“Ortiz 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.”

“Then you know—”

“Don’t say it,” Sevilla interrupted.

“Someone has to.”

“You said it yourself, Enrique: neither you nor I would see the home of someone like Rafa Madrigal. And if not us, then certainly not La Bestia. Ortiz is the go-between, the cut-out. If he speaks to Garcia, no one raises an eyebrow. No one even pays attention because who cares? We have narcos killing narcos in the streets. The goddamned chief of police was murdered. What’s two men having lunch together?”

“What’s one missing report?” Enrique added.

When Sevilla looked at the pages of his notes again, he saw the picture and it made him tremble. He squeezed his hands into fists and let them go. The skin on the backs of his knuckles was old. He was old and he felt his age.

“What are you thinking?” Enrique asked.

“I think you will follow Ortiz again. And I will do something stupid.”

THREE