by Sam Hawken
‘Okay, I will.’
Lidia broke the connection and Jack stepped closer to Bernardo. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Hey, hey, look at me. Email me that picture of Patricia. Then we have to find a printing place. Somewhere with computers. Do you know where we can find somewhere like that?’
Bernardo nodded. ‘I do.’
‘Show me.’
They got in the truck and Bernardo directed him listlessly from his seat. Jack wanted to shake him, tell him to listen to the police and keep himself together, but they were driving. Eventually they came to a little storefront sandwiched between a small grocery and a shoe shop. Jack parked the truck in front of a fire hydrant.
Inside there were a trio of elderly looking computers at desks and a narrow counter beyond which were copying machines and printers arranged on metal racks. A sign said the computers were for rent, 30 pesos for 15 minutes. The man behind the counter put down a magazine and took Jack’s payment in dollars.
The computers were old, but they still accessed the internet. Jack navigated to his online mail and found the pictures waiting for him there. ‘Can I print from here?’ he asked the man behind the counter.
‘One peso per page.’
‘I need to print in color.’
‘Two pesos, then.’
The man told him which printer to send the pictures to and when they were finished Jack closed his email and paid for the papers. He looked at them. Lidia’s image was candid, with Marina partly turned from the camera seeming thoughtful. Patricia’s picture was full of smiles and life. ‘Gracias,’ Jack told the man behind the counter, and then he went outside.
‘What do we do now?’ Bernardo asked.
‘I’m going to take you home. I’ll go to the US consulate first and then back to the police. We’ll get the pictures out there.’
‘I’m afraid, Jack.’
‘I know. But we’re doing the right thing. As soon as they get these pictures, they can spread them around. Somebody has to have seen something. It’s like the man said: by this time tomorrow—’
Bernardo gripped Jack’s arm with sudden strength. His face was tight. ‘We have to find them!’
‘We’re going to find them. Get in the truck.’
Bernardo was quiet on the drive back and Jack did not look at him. Once he thought he might have heard the shudder of a hidden cry, barely audible above the blast of the air conditioning, but he could not be sure. By the time they reached Bernardo’s house, the man’s eyes were more red-rimmed than before. Jack could not be near him anymore. He pulled up to the gate and let the truck idle there, willing Bernardo out.
‘Jack, I’m sorry,’ Bernardo said, and this time his voice was calm.
‘I’ll call you when I’m done,’ Jack replied. ‘Until then just do what the cop said: call Patricia’s friends. Try her phone. If you hear anything before I’m finished, you have my number.’
‘Buena suerte.’
‘It’s going to be all right,’ Jack told Bernardo. ‘Go be with your family.’
Bernardo climbed down from the truck and slammed the door lightly. Jack waited until he had gone through the gate before he pulled away, checking only once in the rear-view mirror to see if Bernardo reappeared. He did not.
He had put his phone in the cup holder and now he picked it up. He dialed Marina. The phone rang five times and then it went to voicemail. Jack listened to her voice. ‘Marina, it’s me,’ he said after the tone. ‘I’m coming to find you, honey. Wherever you are, just stay safe and I’ll be there.’
Jack killed the connection and put the phone back in the cup holder where he could see it. No one called back.
FIVE
JACK DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT from the United States consulate, but he nearly missed it the first time he passed by. It was a plain white building with windows and a ceramic-tiled red roof over the sidewalk. An enclosed parking lot to one side had walls topped with barbed wire, but he saw no guards at the gate or at the entrance to the structure. All the curbside along the front of the building was marked red for no parking. As Jack found a space half a block away, he saw a Mexican army vehicle trundle slowly down the road, the man behind the turreted machine gun watching from behind a black mask.
He had the police report and the pictures in hand when he came to the main doors. A camera watched from above and the glass was heavily reinforced on the inside by strips of steel. An intercom was set into the wall to one side, with a sign in Spanish and English that read PRESS BUTTON TO ENTER. Jack pressed the button.
The intercom came alive. ‘¿Puedo ayudarle?’ said a woman’s voice.
‘I’m an American. My stepdaughter is missing. I just came from the police. They told me to come here.’
‘One moment,’ the woman said in English.
An electric lock buzzed and then Jack was able to open the door. He stepped inside into cool air. The lobby of the consulate was not large, with most of the light coming through the metal-lined windows. A woman in a red blouse sat behind a semicircular desk with a computer and a phone. Double doors led farther into the building, but a man in a black shirt and pants wearing body armor and carrying an M4 carbine guarded these. The man watched Jack closely, his body half-turned. The carbine could be brought up in an instant.
‘Welcome,’ the woman said. ‘You said you just came from the police?’
Jack went to the desk. ‘Yes. My name is Jack Searle. My step-daughter’s name is Marina Cobos. She was in Nuevo Laredo last night and didn’t come home.’
‘I’m sure I can find someone to help you. Do you have ID?’
‘Sure. Here.’
The woman looked at Jack’s passport. ‘You live in Laredo?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you called the Laredo police yet?’
‘No, I didn’t think I needed to. Like I said, she was in the city last night.’
‘You really should file a report with your local police, too, just in case.’
‘Can I see someone here first?’
‘Of course. Just sit down over there. It won’t be long.’
Fifteen minutes passed. The man with the gun was still watching him. Jack started to feel cold and his arms prickled. The woman had been on the phone for a little while, but now she spoke to no one. She clicked at her computer’s mouse. He could not see what she was doing.
He caught movement in the hallway beyond the armed guard. A man in shirtsleeves and a tie reached the doors and swiped the magnetic card hanging from around his neck to open another electric lock. He passed the armed man without glancing in his direction and came to Jack. ‘Mr Seal? I’m Ted DiMatteo.’
Jack got up. They shook hands. ‘It’s Searle,’ he said. ‘Jack Searle.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Searle. Like you don’t have enough problems today. Do you want to come with me? My office is in the back of the building.’
The guard stepped aside. DiMatteo had to swipe his card again to reenter the hallway and he held the door for Jack. Together they followed the main corridor back into the heart of the building and then made a series of turns down smaller, shorter halls, all lined with offices. The consulate was like a warren, with many places to hide.
DiMatteo’s office was small. His workspace was crowded with papers and multicolored folders. A framed degree hung on the wall, along with some pictures of DiMatteo with a woman who must be his wife and a pair of young children. He had a corkboard festooned with notices.
‘Try to make yourself comfortable if you can.’
Jack sat. His knees pressed against the front of DiMatteo’s desk. He tried shifting around in the little chair until he found a way to free one leg. ‘I have a police report,’ he said. ‘And a picture of my stepdaughter.’
DiMatteo got behind his desk. ‘Right, right. We’ll get to that. Let me just call up the right screen. There we go. They said at the front that your daughter went missing last night?’
‘My stepdaughter. Yes, she was in the city to see a concert.’
&nb
sp; ‘Is that something she does often?’
‘No, this was the first time.’
‘And you’re sure she’s not just off somewhere you can’t reach her?’
‘Pretty sure, yeah.’
‘Let me get some basic information from you and we’ll go from there.’
DiMatteo asked questions and Jack answered them. They were not much different from the ones the police asked, only DiMatteo was able to pull up Marina’s records on his own. Jack saw Marina staring out of the monitor in the corner of DiMatteo’s screen as he worked. He found himself uncomfortable again, but no amount of changing positions could help.
‘It says here that Marina is a minor,’ DiMatteo said.
‘Yes. She’s seventeen.’
‘She had permission from you to cross the border? What about her mother?’
‘Her mother is passed. I’m all she has. Just her and her sister.’
‘Do you know there’s a traveler’s advisory warning Americans against cross-border travel. Especially at night. There’s a serious safety problem in Nuevo Laredo at night.’
Jack felt his face get hot. ‘We come into the city a lot. My girls have family here. We’ve never had a problem before.’
‘Well, you have a problem now.’
‘I know that.’
‘You said you’ve been to the police. May I see the report they filed?’
Jack turned it over. ‘They said they’d get right on it.’
‘They would say that. Chances are good they put it on a pile and forgot about it the minute you walked out the door.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean they’re overloaded with cases related to drug crimes. Something like this hardly rates at all. It’s a good thing you came to us because we can file a direct petition with law enforcement for priority status. If they know someone’s watching, they work a little harder. Listen: how well do you know this girl your stepdaughter was with?’
‘She’s her cousin,’ Jack said. ‘They do all kinds of stuff together.’
‘Including going out for a night on the town?’
‘No, that’s new. But they’ve gone on shopping trips, day trips, and things like that. I’m telling you, there’s never been a problem.’
‘Mr Searle, Nuevo Laredo is like every other border town in Mexico: there’s nowhere truly safe.’
‘She was going to a concert, for Christ’s sake. There were going to be cops around and plenty of people.’
DiMatteo was silent a moment before he said, ‘I understand what you’re going through. I don’t want to make this any worse than it already is. I’m just trying to explain what we’re dealing with here.’
‘What are you saying exactly?’
‘I’m saying that something may have happened and it could have happened despite there being police around and despite there being people everywhere. I’m going to go make copies of this report and then I’ll be back.’
‘I have her picture here, and a picture of her cousin.’
‘I’ll make copies of those, too. Just wait here.’
DiMatteo left him. Jack listened to the hum of work coming from other offices, the faint snatches of a radio tuned to an American station, the sudden upraised voice of someone calling to someone else. He felt exposed in his little chair. He wanted to get up and walk around, but there was nowhere to go.
Finally DiMatteo returned. He gave Jack the pictures and the police report. The copies went on top of a stack beside the man’s computer. ‘Okay,’ he said.
‘What are you going to do?’ Jack asked.
‘The first thing we’re going to do is send this information to the State Department so that action can be taken. In the meanwhile, you’re going to go home and wait for your step-daughter to either call you on the phone or show up.’
‘You said you could contact the police and tell them to give this higher priority,’ Jack said.
‘That’ll happen in about a day. I can’t do anything without permission from higher up. But rest assured that we are going to get on it and we will pressure the Mexican authorities for results. That’s assuming the problem doesn’t just resolve itself.’
‘I know my stepdaughter,’ Jack said. ‘She wouldn’t just go off on her own.’
‘She’s a teenager, Mr Searle. Sometimes teenagers do things we can’t even begin to understand. I have a teenaged niece and she gets away with things I never could at her age.’
‘Marina knows better.’
‘Look, I’m not telling you not to worry. I’m a parent myself and if this were one of my kids I would be going out my mind. You’re doing the right things, though. I wish I could move faster, but everything takes time. Here’s my card. If you have questions that you forgot to ask, call me. Even if you just want to get an update, call me. I want to find Marina as much as you do.’
Jack looked at the card DiMatteo held out to him. It had the State Department seal on it, glossy and embossed. He took it. ‘I am going to call,’ he said. ‘Every day if I have to.’
‘I’ll show you out.’
DiMatteo led him away from the office and out through the maze of hallways to the lobby, where the armed guard still stood watch. Jack thought that US Marines were supposed to guard American diplomats, but the man had no uniform. His face was stone, but the woman at the desk looked sorrowful and tried to smile for Jack when he looked at her.
‘You’ll call the police tomorrow?’ Jack asked DiMatteo.
‘Tomorrow,’ DiMatteo said.
‘I’ll be on the phone with you first thing in the morning.’
‘Whenever you want to talk to me is fine. Just… try to keep your chin up.’
‘Keep my chin up,’ Jack repeated.
‘Yeah.’
‘Goodbye, Mr DiMatteo.’
‘Goodbye.’
SIX
GONZALO WAS JUST FINISHING A SANDWICH he bought from the little vendor on the corner when he saw Jack again. The man filled the doorway at the front of the station, momentarily blocking out the sun from outside, his features blotted out in shadow, and then he was in the common area with papers in his hands, concern written deeply on his face. Gonzalo went to him. ‘Sr Searle. Welcome back. Come to my desk.’
They took only a few steps before Jack Searle shoved two color printouts at Gonzalo. ‘I got the pictures you wanted,’ he said. ‘Here.’
‘This is good. Excellent. Please come and sit down. If you’re thirsty there’s a soft drink machine in the back you can use. Or there’s water.’
‘I don’t need anything.’
Jack sat down in front of Gonzalo’s desk and Gonzalo took his seat. He looked at the pictures. The girls were young and pretty. He could see them turning heads. ‘Which one is which, please?’ he asked.
‘That’s my stepdaughter. The other is her cousin.’
‘I take it Sr Sigala is at home now?’
‘Yes. He’s calling all his daughter’s friends, just like you said he should.’
‘That’s good. And you? Have you tried calling your daughter’s friends?’
He saw Jack hesitate and a haze of darkness pass over his expression. ‘I don’t know them,’ Jack said. ‘There’s a list, but…’
Gonzalo spoke quickly: ‘It’s all right. Soon they will call you, won’t they? All it takes is one looking for your stepdaughter and you can contact them all.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Did you go to the consulate?’
‘I did.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They said you have better things to do than tracking down missing girls,’ Jack said, and he looked squarely at Gonzalo then.
Now it was Gonzalo’s turn to hesitate. He was not angry, but he knew it would sound that way to Jack’s ears. Gonzalo took a breath and let it go. ‘I am not surprised that they would say this,’ he said at last.
‘Is it true?’
‘No, it’s not true. And even if it might be true of some officers, it is not true of me
.’
‘Have you looked for missing people before?’
‘I have. It doesn’t make me proud to say this, but kidnapping is not unknown in our city, though most of the time it isn’t something so serious.’
Jack nodded. ‘The man at the consulate told me Nuevo Laredo isn’t safe for Americans. I guess that means it’s not safe for anybody.’
‘There’s some truth to that. But we are not just a city of violence, Sr Searle. If we were, would you have allowed your stepdaughter to come here alone? Would you cross the border yourself?’
‘No.’
‘They want to make you feel guilty for what’s happened,’ Gonzalo said, ‘but it’s not your fault. Our city is a beautiful one full of wonderful people. Yes, there is crime, but that is why we are here.’
‘What will you do now?’ Jack asked.
‘I will make copies of these photographs and distribute them to all of our officers on patrol. While you were gone I distributed a description of your stepdaughter’s vehicle and her license plate number to both municipal and federal police officers in the city. Everyone is on the lookout for her now. These pictures will help.’
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait while you do that,’ Jack said.
‘Whatever you like.’
Gonzalo left Jack and went back to the copying machines. He ran off thirty duplicates and left a pair on Amando Armas’ desk. The rest he took to the duty officer with instructions to issue them to all policemen headed out of the building. Twice he looked back to see Jack Searle waiting in his seat, one knee bobbing quickly in time with his thoughts.
When he was done he came back to the desk. ‘It’s done,’ he said. ‘Here are your originals in case you need them again.’
‘How long will it take everyone to get their pictures?’
‘Officers are in and out of the station throughout the shift. By tomorrow morning we should have full coverage. You don’t have to worry.’