Border Crossings

by Michael Lee Weems

  Ramirez turned and sized up his partner. “You think so?” he asked. “I wonder how she’s managed that in such a short time.”

  Vargas shrugged. “Probably been asking the wrong people the wrong questions,” he offered.

  More like the right people the right questions, Ramirez thought.

  An hour later Catherine returned to the hotel with a fresh set of rental car keys in her pants pocket. She hadn’t bothered calling in what happened to the other company. She figured they’d find out sooner or later but it wasn’t exactly a priority at the moment. She’d also used her company card for the new rental hoping it would leave a less obvious trail for anyone so inclined to look. She gave the door her signature knocks and was relieved to find Julio safe and sound. She then sat herself down on the bed and said, “Okay, Julio. I need to talk to you. “

  “Okay.”

  “Can you tell me what you and Juan saw that has these men chasing you?”

  The day’s events had erased any doubts the boy had about Ms. Catherine James. Julio was ready to tell her anything she wanted to know. “I saw two men in the cemetery. They had a woman, the American, I think, and they buried her.”

  “Can you show me where?” Julio nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Right now.”

  As they drove to the cemetery Julio looked out the window apparently lost in thought.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Julio shrugged.

  “I’m sorry about your friend. How close were you?”

  “We were family,” said Julio. “Some people made fun of him because he had big ears and sometimes wasn’t too smart, but he was my best friend. He was a good friend.” Catherine nodded sympathetically. “He just trusts too easily.” He rubbed his hurt leg. “He trusted the police even though I told him what would happen. I told him exactly what would happen. I told him the gangsters would be looking for us and would find us if we talked to the police, but he didn’t believe me, I guess.” That was something weighing on Catherine’s mind as well. Someone was dirty and she certainly had an idea who. She just hoped Ramirez wasn’t corrupted as well. But she certainly wasn’t going to risk Julio’s life in finding out. “What about your friend?” he asked her. “What was she like?”

  “Who?’ asked Catherine.

  “The girl. The American everyone is looking for.”

  “Oh. She was very beautiful,” Catherine told him, “and very kind and intelligent from what little I know about her. You would have liked her, I think.” She smiled at Julio, “And she would have liked you.” She wished she knew Kelly Woodall better, now. How am I going to tell Jim and Amy what’s happened to their baby?

  The car turned down a street and pulled alongside the cemetery.

  “What were you doing here that night?” asked Catherine.

  “Juan and I sleep here sometimes. He didn’t like it, though. He was afraid of ghosts.”

  “You aren’t?” She just wanted to keep the conversation going so Julio wouldn’t feel so frightened about being back at the graveyard. She was on edge herself, her hand making sure it knew where her gun rest. It wasn’t at all outside of the realm of possibility someone was now watching this place.

  “I don’t guess ghosts would bother us. Nobody else pays us much attention. Why would the dead?”

  Sharp kid, she thought. Tough life. Julio led her to the grave. “They put her in here,” he said. The name on the grave was Hernando Villanueva, born 1938 and died two weeks before. “They put her in with the dead man.”

  Catherine eyed the grave. The dirt looked settled at first, but then she saw that it had actually been compacted more recently than two weeks. She stared at it, wondering if Kelly Woodall was really right there in front of her, hidden beneath the dirt. She had no reason to doubt Julio at this point, but the idea of her being so near was surreal nonetheless. She looked around, her hand never far from her gun; thankful Ramirez hadn’t asked her to give it over. “Okay,” she told Julio. “Let’s go back to the hotel. I’ll come back with the police.”

  Catherine felt she had little choice but to contact the authorities. She wasn’t ready to tell Jim and Amy what was happening, though. Not until we know for sure. Within the hour four men were digging. Catherine, Ramirez, and Vargas stood by and watched along with Fuentes, the government official who stood stoic in the background. A pair from the morgue stood on stand-by prepared with a body bag and gurney they’d rolled out to the scene. Ramirez was directing the progress. After only ten tense minutes, the casket was once again revealed. The diggers stepped out of the hole and Ramirez jumped in. He finished wiping the dirt away and placed his fingers under the lip of the lid. As the casket opened a patch of blond hair and white skin met the galley. Catherine winced as her heart sank. She knew immediately it was her. She was glad they’d found her at last, but now her death was solidified. She’d have to go back to the Hilton and tell Jim and Amy the news; something she knew would break their heart.

  An assistant took pictures at Ramirez’s request, and then he turned the body over and brushed the hair from her face. As everyone already knew at this point, Kelly’s face, battered, bruised, and swollen, was revealed.

  “What are the pictures for?” asked Fuentes.

  “We need them for the investigation,” said Ramirez.

  “Then you take them,” ordered Fuentes. “No other cameras.” Fuentes had been pacing ever since they began raising the casket; worried sick that mob of media would roll up at any second and begin filming everything.

  The assistant shrugged and handed Ramirez the camera.

  Catherine said nothing, but her eyes narrowed and she clasped her hands together so hard her fingers went white. Kelly Woodall had been brutally attacked. It was more than just an assault. She looked as though she’d been tortured.

  “And I want it made clear to you and your people that no one is to speak of this to anyone else. Anyone who talks to the media will be fired and subject to prosecution,” Fuentes continued.

  Ramirez hated having to take orders from this government weasel, but he was under fire enough as it was and didn’t want to complicate things worse than they already were. “Yes, sir.”

  Fuentes looked at Catherine as if though he was about to ask her to leave, but Catherine merely looked at him and said, “I won’t talk to the media but I’m staying.” Fuentes did not argue.

  Kelly was laid out on top of the corpse of an old man. She was bloated with gases but otherwise not far along in decomposition. She was nude but for numerable wounds that littered her body. Her breasts were covered in strange circular burn marks. Ramirez knew immediately she’d been sexually assaulted. Black, blue, purple, and yellowish bruises covered her from her toes to the top of her head. “She was beaten terribly,” Ramirez said to no one in particular. This was overkill. Someone has a real sick streak.

  Catherine leaned over the grave and looked down at Kelly. “Was that the cause of death?”

  Ramirez looked closer while taking further photographs. He saw bruising on her neck, wrists, and ankles. “I’m not positive but there are ligature marks around the neck. I think she was strangled.” Catherine grimaced and looked away.

  As the body was removed from the grave, Ramirez noticed something else, a glob of dried blood in Kelly’s hair on the back of her head. He stopped the morticians from moving the stretcher and examined it. Catherine stayed back, but asked, “What is it?”

  “Bullet wound,” said Ramirez, snapping a photo.

  “She was strangled and then shot?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Ramirez, eyeing the bruises again and trying to put the pieces together. “Looks that way.”

  Catherine walked forward and examined the wounds around her neck. “Someone definitely choked her.” She opened her eyes and they were full of broken blood vessels. “Yes, she was strangled first. Then they shot her.” She sighed and parted Kelly ’s hair near the bullet wound with a pen she grabbed
from Ramirez’s shirt pocket. “It’s small.” She’d never examined a corpse before but she held herself fast that it was a necessary evil. She was the eyes and ears for this girl now and couldn’t trust anyone else to either miss or intentionally hide evidence. She decided that she had to get as much information as possible to ensure it wasn’t shoveled under the rug later.

  “.22 caliber,” Ramirez suggested.

  “So they strangled her, and then shot her in the back of the head in an execution to make sure she was dead.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said Fuentes.

  “I’m not jumping to anything,” said Catherine. “It is what it is.” She backed away and began slowly walking back towards her car, fighting to keep from crying in front of the others.

  Ramirez was surprised at the brutality of the crime. He hadn’t expected this, nor did he feel prepared for it. When he’d first been called on the search he had been thinking that perhaps drunken partygoers had abducted Kelly Woodall. A sexual assault had almost been expected, but not like this. And after the shooting in the market, he wasn’t sure what was going on but suspected there may be a drug connection. But this? And to find her here? Whoever it was had had the wherewithal, and downright balls, to break into the cemetery and hide the girl in a fresh grave right in the heart of the city. Add to that the attack in the market and it all had his brain churning. This was more than just a random assault. And if it had been a gang kidnapping for ransom, then something went terribly wrong. It just wasn’t adding up.

  Fuentes walked forward and told him quietly, “Remember, nobody talks to the press yet. Not until we’ve had time to make a formal public statement.” His eyes trailed to Catherine as she got back in her car and drove away. “That includes her.”

  “I’m not sure how I can stop her,” said Ramirez.

  “If she wants to stay involved, it’s on our terms,” said Fuentes. “You’re the head of this investigation. You’re accountable.” He walked off, an impotent figure trying to stop the tide. Ramirez wondered how Fuentes planned on spinning this outcome. There was no way the world wasn’t going to hear what had happened to Kelly Woodall.

  Ramirez returned to the Hilton to tell the parents if Catherine James hadn’t already and was surprised to see her still standing in the lobby. Reporters and cameramen still stood and talked about. They’d been low-key enough in the cemetery that nobody was any the wiser for the moment. It was amazing to Catherine as she stood there watching them all that in just a few short minutes they’d be clamoring like an angered fire ant mound. “I’m sorry about the girl,” said Ramirez as he stopped next to her.

  “So am I,” said Catherine. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so bad . . . . to find her so, so . . . ” she couldn’t say it.

  “Nor was I,” added Ramirez. “I’ve seen a lot of terrible things over the years, but I wasn’t prepared for this, either.”

  She turned and looked at him. “It’d be better if I told them alone.”

  Ramirez was glad not to have to break the news. It was the worst part of his job, and believed Catherine was probably right. “I’ll wait downstairs in the conference room. Just come find me after you’ve spoken to them.”

  Catherine said she would and went up to the room. The Woodalls were staying in a suite that was being provided gratis by the hotel. It was the least they could do, as the rest of the hotel was booked solid with news crews. Given the sudden drop in tourism, they were the only hotel to still be sold out. Catherine knocked on the door and it was Jim who answered. She walked inside and Amy was sitting on the bed, her arms folded.

  “I have some news,” she began. Amy looked up at her surprised. “It isn’t good.”

  She needn’t say more. Jim sat down next to his wife and before Catherine said another word, they knew. “No,” said Amy softly, stepping off the cliff straight into the abyss.

  “I’m sorry,” said Catherine. “We found her.”

  Later that night Catherine sat in her room deep in thought while Julio slept soundly, probably the first time he’d slept so well in ages. She’d found Kelly Woodall, but the outcome and been what everyone feared most. Now she had to make a decision. Did she return to Dallas and leave finding Kelly’s killers to Ramirez and the local authorities? If not, what was the alternative? Could she really stalk the streets asking about the girl’s murder? If she did find anything she was likely to end up a victim herself. Still, she couldn’t leave like this. There had to be something more she could do. She looked at Julio, wrapped beneath his covers and snoring softly. And what about him? The proper thing would be to let Ramirez handle it from here, but her mind kept going back to what Julio had said in the market. Juan had trusted the police and it got him killed.

  Again, she felt overwhelmed by the weight of the circumstances. This was much more than she had ever expected. More than she even could have imagined. Killer thugs with machine guns had tried to murder her and the boy in broad daylight. An innocent street kid had been murdered, his body still missing and unlikely ever to be found. And then there was Kelly’s murder itself, brutal beyond any logical reasoning. I’m out of my league, she admitted to herself. She began wracking her brain for what to do. She knew a few people in Mexico, but they were executives and lawyers, mostly. They might be able to make a few phone calls on her behalf and pull string here and there, but they wouldn’t be much help in finding Kelly’s killers. She took out one of the small bottles of whisky from the mini-fridge and poured it into a glass. When she finished that one, she filled it again. There is someone I could call, she thought. Would he even help? It’d been years now. She swirled the Jack Daniels around. Yes, of course he would. That was a stupid question. It’s Matt, after all. He’d help even if he didn’t owe me one. And this is the sort of thing he knows better than anyone. She thought about what it would mean to call him after all this time. There was a reason it’d been so long. Was she sure this was a good idea? I need him, she finally decided. Their past would just have to be a separate issue, one that couldn’t interfere with what needed to be done. She wondered where he was these days, probably Iraq or Afghanistan. She doubted her chances she’d even be able to get a hold of him, let along that he’d be able to get away from whatever he was going somewhere in the world. But still, she had to try.

  She put the glass down and called her secretary, Jennifer, at home, a woman who’d been a long-time confidant. “Catherine? Is that you?” said a voice, obviously pulled from sleep.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I’m sorry to call so late.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ve been worried about you. We saw it on the news earlier. I was waiting for your call but figured you were busy.”

  “Yeah, not the way we hoped it turn out.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes, actually. Do you have your laptop on you? I need a phone number. Things are even messier than the news is letting on.” She filled her secretary in on everything that’d happened so far.

  “Oh, my God, Catherine. Are you serious?” Her friend was now wide-awake. “Did they catch the driver!?”

  “No, they’ve got nothing on that so far. Everything’s gone crazy down here and I’m over my head.”

  “What are you going to do?” her friend asked.

  “I’m going to see it through.”

  There was a long pause on the phone. “Catherine, you need to come back. At least for a few days, let things calm down and then look at this fresh.”

  “I can’t right now,” she told her. “I couldn’t live with myself if I just walked away now.”

  Her friend sighed heavily, “Catherine, you’re going to get yourself killed. Please, just think about this a second. You know how much I respect you. You’re as tough as they come but you’re not in law enforcement. And you’re not a vigilante. You’ve done what you can for these folks. You found their daughter, for Christ’s sake. Let the authorities take it from here.”