A Girl Apart

by Russell Blake

  Leah stopped at a convenience store for a cup of coffee and stood impatiently in a line that was a microcosm of El Paso charm – a rail-thin man in his thirties with a Stetson, oversized belt buckle, and straight leg jeans who’d never been near a horse in his life; a pair of yard workers cradling jumbo bottles of full tilt Coke and speaking softly to each other in Spanish; a crone shuffling forward in sweat pants and a stained T-shirt to buy a pack of menthol cigarettes; a woman standing by the register with a meth twitch and furtive eyes.

  How had Leah wound up back in a place she’d spent her entire life escaping? It was worse than any punishment she could have engineered. She’d aced her exams and won a scholarship to Columbia University, majored in journalism, and come back from New York to spend two years in El Paso plying her trade before her mentor at school had suggested her to the New York Herald as a promising recruit.

  The day she’d gotten the call from the Herald had been the best of her life – the beginning of her ascent to a higher level in her chosen profession and her ticket out of El Paso. Her mother had passed away five years earlier, and her father had sold his hardware store shortly thereafter and moved to Argentina to live the good life at the base of the Andes, so there had been nothing to return to – not that she’d ever planned on doing so, after living in the Big Apple for three years, a rising star in a dream job that had exceeded her wildest aspirations.

  Leah’s ruminations were cut short when the cowboy bumped her with his elbow as he reached for his wallet, and a sluice of coffee splashed from a slot in the lid and christened her shirt. She gasped at the burn, but he didn’t even notice, too busy buying a fistful of lottery tickets and a pack of Marlboros, unaware he’d just ruined her blouse.

  A glance at a mirror mounted on a rack of cheap sunglasses confirmed that the stain would be noticeable, and she frowned at her reflection – hazel eyes artificially small behind thick glasses, a face that her mother had described as cute or pretty, but never beautiful, the cheeks a tad too round for her liking, as were her curves. Leah was always twenty pounds from what she considered her fighting weight, but could never bring herself to push for the final stretch, seeing little point, especially now that she was back living in Purgatory.

  As the cowboy sauntered off like a B-movie extra, Leah shuffled forward with her coffee, resisting the urge to check her watch every thirty seconds. She tossed a fistful of coins on the counter, shifting foot to foot as the clerk counted them with agonizing slowness, and then bolted for the exit, the coil of anxiety in her stomach tightening with each passing moment.

  The remainder of the drive to the squat two-story building that housed the offices of the El Paso Examiner was the typical morning stop-and-go misery. Other drivers were aggressive for no apparent reason, their tailgating a symptom of a pressure-cooker society. One particularly domineering SUV stuck to her bumper for the final stretch like she’d stolen the driver’s wallet, and she took perverse delight in keeping to the speed limit even though she was beyond late for work now.

  She pulled into the Examiner lot to an angry roar of exhaust from the lifted truck and smiled as she found a spot near the building – no point in getting an ulcer over what was already done if the driver was willing to do it for them both.

  Leah bustled past the receptionist and took the stairs two at a time while debating stopping at the restroom to do some damage control on the coffee stain – but decided to wait until she’d checked her messages – it had dried in the car’s air conditioning, so there was no hurry.

  She was halfway to her desk in the corner of the newsroom when a woman’s voice called out from behind her with a tinkling laugh.

  “Mason! Finally decided to grace us with your presence?”

  Leah swallowed a knot and stopped, reminding herself to play nice, given that she badly needed the job.

  “Good morning, Margaret,” she said, turning with a half-smile in place.

  “Got stuck in traffic, I suppose?” her supervisor said as she made her way toward Leah. “I guess you haven’t quite figured out the timing from your new apartment, but…” Her voice trailed off as she stared expectantly at Leah, obviously waiting for an apology.

  “Well, I was here until eleven last night,” Leah said innocently. “You wouldn’t know, of course, since you left at five.”

  “Well, nobody asked you to stay till all hours. That’s always your choice if you don’t finish your work. But I have an assignment for you, and not being sure if you were coming in today, or when, I was scrambling to find a replacement.”

  “An assignment?” Leah asked suspiciously. Assignments from her supervisor were rarely good and inevitably tedious and demeaning.

  Margaret did a poor job of trying to hide her dislike for Leah, possibly borne from jealousy when Leah had landed the plum job in NY and left the paper. Now that she was back, Margaret seemed to enjoy subtly reminding Leah of the pecking order by delegating countless menial jobs to her and keeping her busy with stories Leah judged to be nonsense. Either that, or Margaret really did believe her constant exhortations to “find the extraordinary in the ordinary” – something Leah had a difficult time buying into.

  That Leah had just broken the first installment in a story that had caused a local sensation and been picked up by the wire services didn’t alter Margaret’s treatment of her; if anything, it made the jealousy worse and Margaret more determined to teach Leah her place.

  Margaret’s face broke into a brittle smile. “That’s right. A new strip mall at East 3rd, down by the border. They’re having a grand opening. We want a thousand words on it by the close of business today.”

  “A mall opening. Are you serious?” Leah said, her voice flat. “How about I write it now and skip driving over there?”

  Margaret’s smile hardened. “No, I want you to go down and talk to some of the shop owners. Get some local color to sprinkle through the piece. How excited they are, that sort of thing. I don’t know how things operate in New York, but here what sells papers is local color. Personal interest. People like to read about themselves and the places they go. You may feel it’s beneath you, but we know our market.”

  Leah had two options: she could refuse and go to Ridley Talbert, the editor, to protest being handed an assignment that was a complete waste of her time; or comply, keeping the fragile peace with Margaret but flushing her day and the research she’d hoped to continue on the series she’d started with such a bang.

  She opted for the safe route. She could always work late again after the mall event. The Internet never slept, even if she had to occasionally.

  “Sure…you’re right, of course. Let me check my messages, clear my desk, and I’m all over it, Margaret.”

  Margaret’s eyes swept over Leah’s ensemble. “You might consider wearing clean clothes to work so you’re presentable.”

  Leah looked down at the coffee stain. “Some jerk spilled on me at the store on the way in. I can always go back home to change if you think it’s important.”

  Margaret didn’t take the bait. “No, no, there wouldn’t be time now. Just try to get the worst of the coffee out of it and head to the mall.”

  “Do you want me to take photos?”

  Margaret shook her head. “We’ll use some of the stock ones they sent us.” She gave Leah a final look that managed to convey annoyance and superiority in a single glance, and then turned on her heel, leaving Leah almost trembling with anger.

  Leah was used to the woman’s arrogance, but that didn’t help with her frustration over the incessant undermining, which sometimes bordered on sabotage ever since her big story had broken and Talbert had commended Leah on a job well done. Leah should have expected it – she’d known Margaret for years and was more than aware that she despised her own situation, working as an associate editor for a third-string rag in a dusty backwater with no future. She had the personality of a weasel and, like most petty bureaucrats, took out her feelings of inadequacy on her staff, particularly someone like
Leah who had dared to achieve something she never would.

  Leah plopped down in a worn swivel chair behind a cheap metal desk and eyed her computer screen as her system booted up. The PC was older than her degree and took forever to do even the simplest of tasks. She’d been spoiled at the Herald, where everyone had state-of-the-art equipment, and she’d gotten used to the fastest systems money could buy. Here at the Examiner, everything associated with the business was a relic, from the phone system to the furniture, which was to be expected, as circulation revenues had shrunk in the wake of the Internet. Talbert had been a cheapskate even when times had been relatively good, and now that they were lean and headed worse, she was grateful that the Examiner still supplied toilet paper and meager air conditioning for its underpaid staff.

  Leah’s eyes were drawn to her telephone and its blinking message light. She lifted the handset to her ear and entered her passcode, and the system informed her that she had one new voicemail. A male Hispanic voice, heavily accented and gravelly, spoke slowly, as though unsure of how to proceed.

  “Miss Mason? Leah Mason? This…my name is León Sánchez. Congratulations on your article about the killings of the factory workers in Ciudad Juárez. It attracted my attention, and I wanted to call…and…here is my number. I would like to meet with you as soon as possible. I can’t say much on the telephone, but it will be worth your while to talk.”

  Leah groped amidst the clutter on her desk, found a pen, and scrawled the Juárez phone number on a scrap of paper before the message stopped with a beep. She rewound it and listened to it again, and then depressed a button to check the time stamp. Only twenty minutes ago.

  Leah had written a four-thousand-word think piece on the infamous Juárez murders of the nineties, when hundreds of young female workers had disappeared, later turning up in mass graves. A number of perps had been prosecuted after an almost decade-long investigation, but even after a series of convictions, some believed the entire proceedings had been a cover-up. She’d penned an exposé that highlighted the fact that the disappearances had never really stopped until two years after the convictions and, more ominously, had recently started again, with six women gone missing over the past four months – the latest only a few days before. The end of the piece had speculated that the killers might have never been apprehended, and promised follow-ups that would pursue the cases until the truth was revealed.

  The article had been sufficiently lurid to catch the imagination on a slow national news day, and her words had gone viral after several papers on the coasts picked it up, making her a minor sensation for the second time in her life.

  She shook her head to clear it, trying not to think about the first time.

  That hadn’t ended well.

  Leah checked her email and saw nothing urgent and, after a final scan of her desk, gathered her purse and messenger bag again and made for the door, tossing a salute to Talbert through his office window as he berated some unfortunate over the phone, her mind replaying the unusual message and wondering what could be so sensitive that Sánchez needed to discuss it with her in person.

  Chapter 3

  Leah arrived at the mall as the local high school marching band was finishing its performance in the relentless broil of the late summer morning, the sun a blinding orb in an azure sky devoid of clouds. A new parking lot with thirty or so vehicles scattered around the periphery shimmered from the heat, and a handful of minor dignitaries stood by a ribbon, looking like they’d rather be anywhere else on the planet.

  She killed the engine and stepped from the car. The swelter assaulted her as she made her way to the gathering. The toot of a tuba and snap of a snare drum signaled the end of an uninspired rendition of The Yellow Rose of Texas played to a crowd of largely bored unemployed laborers, taking advantage of free lemonade and snacks, plus a huddle of beaming band member parents who clapped like they were attending a Broadway premiere.

  The mayor offered a smattering of applause before stepping to the ribbon, accompanied by a local beauty queen in a ball gown wholly inappropriate for the outdoor event, and what Leah guessed was the developer – a lanky, tanned man with the look of a golf pro who dabbled in real estate between tournaments. The man grinned at the gathering, displaying a full set of blindingly white teeth that would have been the envy of a Kardashian, and launched into a speech about community, diversity, opportunity, ultimately finishing with a rousing plea to the Almighty to bless this proud undertaking. Leah had to bite her lip to keep from rolling her eyes. It was a frigging strip mall, not the Sistine Chapel, but to hear his oration it was the eighth wonder of the world.

  The mayor, his brow beaded with sweat, his suit inadvisable given the temperature, went next, and his speech was thankfully short. When he was done, Miss Armadillo or whatever handed him a pair of oversized scissors and he cut the ribbon strung across the doors of the grocery store that was the anchor tenant, and more applause signaled that the festivities had reached their dizzy crescendo.

  Leah circulated among the few shop owners who stood beside their storefronts like dazed night creatures exposed to light, waiting with banners announcing grand opening sales and promising unbelievable discounts. She made small talk and got a few obligatory quotes she could have invented while in the john, and after taking down their names, put away her notepad and felt for her cell phone.

  The Mexican line carried a hum of static, and the ringing warbled tremulously in her ear. It was answered by the same voice that had left the message for her, a scratchy baritone that sounded challenging with just a single syllable.

  “Si?”

  “Mr. Sánchez? León Sánchez?”

  “Yes,” Sánchez said, switching to English.

  “This is Leah Mason. You left a message for me earlier?”

  “Ah, Miss Mason. Of course. Thank you for calling me back.”

  Leah waited, hoping he would get to the point before she melted in the sun. She cleared her throat expectantly. “Sure.”

  “As I said, I read your article with great interest. It presented many of the questions we’ve all had about the case of the missing girls,” Sánchez said, his English oddly formal. “I was instrumental in the investigations that led to the prosecutions being brought, but was never satisfied with the resolution.”

  Leah’s ears perked up. “You were with the police?”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “You mentioned that you’d like to meet?”

  There was a long pause, and Leah felt a bead of sweat trickle from her hairline and work its way down her spine.

  “If you can, yes. I have information…I can’t discuss it on the phone, but if we can meet somewhere today…I have a file you must see.”

  “A file?”

  “That’s all I can say.”

  “Why me? Why don’t you take it to one of the papers down there?”

  “No one cares. They are all corrupt. Nobody here would print this story. It would be killed immediately.”

  Leah considered his words, her curiosity piqued. “Can you come to the U.S.?”

  “That would be difficult for me. It would be better if you could come to Juárez.”

  The thought of crossing the border didn’t thrill Leah. She’d been enough times to hate the place, and hadn’t been back in years. Bad as she thought El Paso was, Ciudad Juárez was a whole different level of despair and poverty, and she had little interest in subjecting herself to it if she could avoid it.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Sánchez. I have a pretty full day,” she said, eyeing the throng in front of the grocery store dispersing now that the free show was over.

  “I can assure you it would be worth the effort. This…it is the story of a lifetime. No exaggeration.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  Another long pause. The faint humming on the line buzzed in her ear. A jet soared overhead on takeoff, and she winced and jammed a finger in her other ear, straining to hear the Mexican’s response.

  “It is
not safe to talk over the phone.”

  Leah sighed. Fine. Part of her job involved melodrama, and this guy was pouring it on thick. But there was something in his voice and his cautious words that commanded attention. He didn’t sound like a kook. She’d spoken to her share of nut jobs, and this was…different. Serious.

  “I can be there in an hour and a half, tops. I have to get my passport, and I’d rather walk across than take my car and hassle with insurance. Is there someplace near the border we can meet?”

  She could hear his breathing. “Yes. A cantina. Mi Ranchito. It is in the town center. Any taxi here can take you. They will all know the place.”

  “Mi Ranchito,” she repeated. “Too far to walk from the bridge?”

  “I’m afraid so. But a short ride.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Want to say…one thirty?”

  “Or two. I must get the file.”

  “Fine. I’ll see you at two. How will I recognize you?”

  “You won’t have to. I have seen your picture on the Internet.”

  Leah disconnected and stared doubtfully at her phone. Going to Juárez when she was supposed to be covering the mall shindig was crazy, but her gut said that Señor Sánchez was the real deal. When he’d said that he had the story of a lifetime, she’d actually shivered. If he was pulling her leg, he deserved an Oscar, because she believed him. And if he’d been part of the original investigation of the girls, the mystery file might hold the key to breaking the story wide open.

  God knew she needed a break – one big bombshell that could put her back on the industry radar rather than spending a career covering minor celebrity weddings and missing pets, tormented by the Wicked Witch of the Southwest.