We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone

by Ronald Malfi

  The woman began forming words just as Santiago slid her into the Comet’s back seat. Hunching into the car himself, he planted one foot down on the business end of the shovel and the handle shot up and thudded against the roof of the car, startling him. Then he laughed nervously and pulled the tools from the car and set them against a tree. Muy estupido. It wasn’t the first time that had happened.

  Strewn out along the back seats, the woman brought a hand up to her face, her head. She was still moaning but was making no sense. Santiago knew he would have to be quick if it was to be easiest, and he leaned forward and proceeded to unbuckle her slacks. He tugged them off her hips, along with her underwear, and bent to remove her shoes—and saw that one of her shoes was missing. Surely she had been wearing both shoes when he carried her from the retreat, yes?

  Not now, he thought. Now is time for action, not thought. There will be plenty of time to think about things later.

  Yanking the remaining clothes from her body, Pablo Santiago remained poised and motionless above the woman, breathing deeply, his eyes creeping along her flesh. There was a sweetness to this act still, and that at least made it bearable, but there was also that goddamn drive, too, and that was now burning up inside him. Again, he could feel himself swelling inside his dungarees. The woman—her body was gorgeous and white and smooth and pink and perfect and firm and he could see the tiny faded scars along her blue-tinted flesh and the smattering of freckles and the fine white hairs covering her breasts and her belly, and the soft downy mat of dark hair between her thighs, and the gradual incline and receive of her legs and the way they bent and straightened and looked blue and white and perfect in the moonlight filtering through the dirty rear windshield.

  Breathing heavy, struggling now with his own pants, Pablo Santiago said, “You may consider a retreat for your personal gratification. We are not beyond compassion. God is love.” He had spoken these words many times before. “I recommend summoning the image of the great and mighty mule deer, dark and stunning and graceful and mysterious in nature.” He’d had time to rehearse these words. “The mule deer is a powerful animal and is capable of many great things, pero the mule deer is also a gentle and serene animal who favors nature and peace.”

  His zipper undone, Pablo Santiago separated his victim’s legs and forced himself between them. Beneath him, he felt the woman’s body go stiff and knew she was about to start screaming, but that didn’t matter out here. No one would hear her, not for miles. Just him. And God.

  He continued, “The mule deer of this habitat run with a series of distinct leaps and bounds. This is called ‘stotting,’ and,” he went on, his breathing labored now, his actions muddying his thoughts, “and...and this is significant because it is typical only of mule deer from...from...”

  The car began to hum beneath him and just as he felt his seed lurch from him, completing the act, the car’s radio came instantly to life, hissing and spitting with static. Eyes pressed closed, Santiago could hear nothing but that hissing shhh-shhh of static and the shrieks from the struggling woman pinned beneath his great weight. And he could feel nothing but the hum of the vehicle all around him and the wasted, shriveled sensation of release.

  The woman screamed.

  “What do you know?” Pablo Santiago shouted back. “Just tell me what you know!”

  He dragged her from the car. She was kicking and struggling and moaning now, but her struggles were without power. The two blows she’d received from the crowbar had knocked something loose in her head, Santiago assumed. That, too, had happened before.

  With little difficulty he carried her to the rear of the vehicle. The cold night air now felt good against Santiago’s skin, freezing the sweat on his body. The Comet’s trunk stood open. Santiago had not opened it. Sometimes this happened and sometimes it did not. It didn’t matter now, anyway.

  Santiago lifted the slumped and struggling woman up over the lip of the Comet’s trunk and let her fall into the gaping black maw. Again he was accosted with the ripe, fetid smell of the trunk’s interior. Maybe not all of them have died from heat or cold or starvation, Santiago thought now. Maybe at least one died from that smell.

  But there would be no dying this time. This time, there would be no failure. He would see. After seven days, he would see.

  Pablo Santiago slammed the trunk closed with the nude woman inside and remained with both his palms planted to the top of the trunk, motionless, for some time. Closing his eyes, he could still feel the vehicle humming beneath his palms, electrical currents juicing up his arms. He did not like to feel this, did not like to think of this. Instead, he thought of the river trout and the way they often swallowed lures and hooks and, most often, all the bait. There were nice size trout in the river, Santiago knew. He’d fished it for many years and the river had been kind to him and he, in turn, had remained true to the river.

  He righted himself, gathering his tools, and piled them in the back seat of the Comet. Then, sitting behind the steering wheel, he said, “This time, my Lord, will be the time. I make these promises,” he explained to the car, “because I know this to be true in el corazón.”

  The car did not respond. All Santiago could hear was the muffled sobs and relentless pounding coming from the Comet’s trunk. Such sounds hurt his ears. How at ease he would feel once his God was finally sated.

  This time, he promised himself now, this time. No more because it will be this time.

  * * *

  He knew what to expect upon returning to the abbey. There were two police cruisers outside, their lights flashing, and many policía inside the monastery. This did little to disturb the composure of Pablo Santiago, and only when a policeman spoke his name did he look up at all.

  “Pablo Santiago?” The policeman was young and hungry-looking, in the way most black bears get when they are late in hibernating and cannot find food. “Sir?”

  “Yes,” Santiago said, pausing just outside the circle of people in the lobby. He recognized the very white man among the policía and did not like the determined, frightened look on the pale man’s pale face.

  “I would like to have some words with you.”

  So this is how it ends? Santiago thought. He said, “What is this that has happened?”

  “There has been another abduction,” the officer said. “A young woman was attacked and taken from one of the rooms. I would like to discuss this matter with you.”

  “All right,” Santiago said amiably enough. “Would you like I wait in my room?”

  “You can wait here, please,” the officer said, and that was when the very white man began shouting, shouting and pointing, and all of the officers and many of the monks and patrons who had gathered in the lobby all turned to look, and their eyes all came to rest on Pablo Santiago. Devout groundskeeper Santiago.

  Although they all stared, no one—not even the police—seemed to understand what they were staring at until the very white man, in a hoarse and strained voice, shouted, “That shoe! That shoe! This is my Isabel’s shoe!”

  So Pablo Santiago followed their eyes and looked down and, sure enough, the woman’s missing shoe had somehow managed to hook itself into one of the many loops of Santiago’s work belt.

  “Well,” Santiago said, “I suppose you have found what you have found.”

  * * *

  Chief of Police Tomás Barrera, looking quite dark and young and upset, entered the interrogation room and sat down at the table opposite Pablo Santiago. Santiago, in cuffs, looked up from the tabletop and smiled at Tomás Barrera.

  “Your father and I,” Santiago said, “we grew up on this land together. Your father was a good man, Tomás. I miss him now that he is dead.”

  “Mr. Santiago,” Tomás Barrera began, “I have my men down at the car now. They have opened the trunk and they have started digging in the flats for the bodies. You have cooperated thus far, Mr. Santiago, and it may do you more good to cooperate further.”

  “I have told you,” Santiago said, “I
refuse to go back there. You have caught me and I have given up my God, but I cannot go back there and I will not show you the bodies. I have explained where they are buried and if your men are good diggers and hard workers, they will find them all.”

  “And how many will we find, Mr. Santiago?”

  “Seis.”

  “English, please,” said Tomás Barrera. “This is not Mexico.”

  “Six,” Santiago repeated. He did not tell the young officer that he was uncertain about the number.

  “Why did you do this?”

  “I have come to know things,” Santiago said. “That is why.”

  “What do you know?” Tomás Barrera said.

  “What I have found.”

  “And what have you found, Mr. Santiago?”

  “El Dios,” said Santiago. “God.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I have learned,” Santiago said, “that God is always looking for a way to speak with us, Tomás Barrera. There are many ways but most times, people do not listen. Maybe it is true that I happened to be listening one day, and there is His voice for me to hear. God, He comes in any form, from the burning bush to the modern automobile. We have to be aware, Tomás Barrera. That is all.”

  “You raped those women and locked them in the trunk,” the young officer said.

  “It was God’s will,” Santiago explained. “We are now in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ. He will return as before in the womb of a young woman, a union of human seed and human egg. You do not understand, Tomás Barrera, that it was my job to select all the pretty girls and offer my seed. If it is as it should be, God will take the girl in her pregnancy and raise her in one of the many depths of purgatory. After seven days, God will decide whether He approves of my selection, my donation. He may then take the girl or leave her to die.”

  “In the trunk of the car,” Tomás Barrera finished.

  “What is a trunk?” Santiago said. “What is a car?” Clearing his throat, he continued, “Unfortunately, He has yet to approve of my selections. But this last time...” Santiago’s voice rose a notch. “May I ask a question?”

  “What is it?”

  “When you opened the trunk tonight, what did you find?”

  “I think you know what we found.”

  “I do not,” said Santiago. “Do you not understand the words I’ve just spoken?”

  “Isabel Fitzgerald was in the trunk, Mr. Santiago,” Tomás Barrera said. “She was in the trunk dead and raped and half-frozen.”

  “Oh.” There was no expression on Santiago’s face. “She died quick. Was it the head injury?”

  “Asphyxiation. She suffocated in the trunk.”

  “Well,” Santiago said with mild interest, “that had never occurred to me.”

  Tomás Barrera stood and moved toward the door.

  “Wait,” Santiago said, and the young officer paused. “You must keep her in the trunk undisturbed for seven days. She is the one and the mission has been completed. You cannot remove her, or this will have to be done all over again.”

  “She has been removed,” Tomás Barrera said coldly. “Anything else?”

  “No,” Pablo Santiago said, looking back down at the table. “Except, this has been most ignoble for me. Sitting here like this with chains on my wrists...” Santiago’s eyes unfocused and for a moment it looked as though he had fallen into a deep sleep. Then, before Tomás Barrera could leave the room, Santiago said, “Yes, I think it would have been much better to go over the cliff like the black bear. Don’t you agree?”

  Tomás Barrera said nothing.

  * * *

  Cold, dark, late, and Chief of Police Tomás Barrera walked along the sandstone flat high above the canyon. Above him burned high-intensity fluorescent lights, stretching his shadow out along the scrub land and over the edge of the cliff. Around him, many men worked with high-powered drilling equipment to exhume Pablo Santiago’s victims.

  Finishing a cigarette, Barrera approached Officer Andy Lopez, who was crouched on his hams with a flashlight peering into one of the shallow graves.

  “How many we got so far?” Barrera asked.

  “Well, either Santiago was lying or just couldn’t remember, but we got about seventeen corpses so far. All young girls.”

  Barrera thought he misheard the man. “For serious?”

  “This summer only about three girls have gone missing, two of which were staying at the monastery. All these other girls—Christ, the guy must have been traveling and picking them up across the state.”

  “Seventeen?” Barrera heard himself repeat.

  “What a mess,” Officer Lopez muttered.

  Slipping his hands inside his nylon coat, Barrera trudged through the underbrush back toward the highway, breathing in the cool, crisp night air. The dark, swarthy shape of the Mercury Comet, half-hidden in a copse of firs, caught his attention, and he headed over to it. Ran two fingers across its hood. Tomorrow morning, he would have a truck sent from the city to haul the thing away. How in the world did you even get here? he wondered, moving around to the driver’s door. Cupping his hands about his face, he peered through the filthy glass into the car. With one hand he opened the door...and caught a whiff of ancient soil and blood and something stronger, more pungent, that reminded him of barnyards and cow shit.

  Carefully, delicately, Tomás Barrera entered the vehicle and situated himself behind the steering wheel. He fingered the steering column, the horn ring, ran his palm along the dusty lip of the dashboard. Looking down, he noticed the radio dial beside his right knee. He jiggled the knobs, turning them, spinning the dial. Smiled. His father used to have a car like this. Not a Comet, but an old Mustang. And weren’t all those old cars the same, anyway?

  Officer Lopez turned his flashlight on Barrera’s face. Wincing, Barrera waved him away.

  “You been in there for over an hour,” Lopez said. “Want me to call your wife and tell her you moved out?”

  “Over an hour?” Barrera muttered. “What time is it?”

  “After midnight.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Something wrong, Chief?”

  After a moment, Tomás Barrera shook his head and climbed out of the car. A weak sigh escaped him when Lopez slammed the door shut.

  “One hell of a mess,” Lopez said, hands on his hips. He was looking out over the darkened rim of the canyon. Below, the rush of the river was easily heard. “You want I should get a tow truck up here to take this piece of junk away?”

  “No,” Barrera said, and he thought the words came from his mouth too quickly. Unlike Andy Lopez, he could not take his eyes from the Comet. “Don’t worry about it,” he said finally. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Officer Andy Lopez shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, and headed through the ponderosa pines in the direction of the highway.

  The shelling started. It shook the ground and many men rolled in the muddy ditch between the flats and the giant stone wall. Some were all right. The wall was very large and looked strong but would not provide much protection against the shelling. Further ahead, pressed low in the grass, I could see Omar with his head down and his hands laced together at the back of his helmet. He looked very dark and small pressed into the grass. He did not move. I thought of the men that had gone down during the march, ambushed by soldiers pressed against the flanks of the high road, and I found I could not take my eyes away from Omar. Even when a shell exploded just several yards to my left, I could not take my eyes from him.

  Closing In

  The hotel room was small, colorless, practically nondescript. Collie Burgess entered in a huff, tossing his duffel bag on the single bed, and immediately bolted the door. The room was dark, sunlight at the single window across the room obscured by a swipe of heavy curtains. Collie flicked the light switch beside the door, but the lights did not come on.

  “Perfect.”

  Lifting up his sweatshirt, which reeked of sweat and was caked in hardening mud, he pulled
the Glock from his waistband, ejected the magazine, and popped the extra round from the chamber. Then he unzipped the duffel bag and retrieved from it fresh clothing: a folded pair of jeans, clean underwear and socks, a Miller Lite t-shirt, and a button-down chambray work shirt. He buried the Glock and the magazine in the duffel bag, covering the items up with a section of last week’s newspaper.

  Briefly, he stood in the center of the room, his hands on his hips, his breath rattling his lungs. He could smell the grime on his filthy flesh—the smell of topsoil, of muddy trenches and human degradation. A shower. He could use a good, long, hot shower.

  There was a television remote on the small table beneath the shaded window, resting beside an ancient rotary phone. Collie scooped up the remote and, aiming the device at the television set housed in a credenza facing the bed, prodded the power button repeatedly. Like the lights, the TV did not turn on.

  “Piece of shit.”

  Setting the remote back on the table, Collie pulled back the curtain and peered out the window at the industrial ramparts and fire-blackened tenements below. Beyond, the sky was the color of sawdust, the sun a dwindling red ember sinking below the crenellated outline of the city.

  Collie pulled the chair out from the table, banging it against the wall—the room was that small—and produced a slip of curled paper from the rear pocket of his dirt-caked jeans. Dropping down in the chair, Collie unfurled the paper and, picking up the telephone, dialed the number that had been scrawled in Maggio’s childish handwriting.