A Girl Apart

by Russell Blake

  Still, she was a beautiful woman. The drugs and drink hadn’t affected that part of her life. At least, not yet. From what he knew, she’d cleaned up her act since her gangster boyfriend had gone to his reward, and he imagined himself calling her in a few days, offering solace in her time of grief – a mature, strong shoulder to cry on, someone to listen to her hopes and dreams and regrets…

  He shook his head. He already had enough woman problems without opening that can of worms. That she was less than half his age didn’t trouble him – more that he already had his hands full with his current roster of talent. His wife expressed no interest in his whereabouts on the three nights a week he had to work late, and he didn’t embarrass her by taking his young friends to the same restaurants he frequented with his family. He had no question that she knew about his philandering, but she tolerated it; it was almost expected for a man of a certain age who’d reached a plateau of comfortable wealth. She’d stayed home and raised their three children, and he’d provided for them. If he had dalliances, it wasn’t in her best interest to leave and break up a family that was more stable than most. After all, he didn’t hit her, didn’t drink to excess, didn’t gamble, and was a remarkable breadwinner. His wife was as pragmatic as the worldliest defense attorney, and she didn’t rock the boat.

  Arellano ran stubby fingers through his thinning hair and considered the sheaf of documents before him. Two amparos, motions to the court to halt construction of a factory on a property whose ownership was being challenged, a lawsuit against a cement company for supplying the city with product that was past its expiration date in order to engineer a healthy percentage of profit for itself, and a partnership agreement for an investment group that was going to fund mining efforts in environmental protection zones that happened to be rich in gold.

  He had no problem representing crooks. If he didn’t, he’d have no practice. Besides, the law was a flexible instrument used by the powerful to shield themselves from the poor, and if he wanted to be prosperous, he needed to be realistic about the source of his good fortune. Nobody’s hands were clean, so it was merely a question of the degree of his clients’ corruption, not whether or not they were dirty.

  He looked over at the French antique wall clock he’d received as a gift, and did a quick calculation. Carlita would be gone for at least an hour, and with his associates also at lunch, there was nobody to watch the store if he slipped out early. He sighed and took up his work again, resigned to plowing through it, checking the filings his subordinates had drafted to ensure they were accurate.

  The lobby door creaked, and Arellano looked up. Carlita must have forgotten something.

  “Carlita?” he called.

  No answer.

  He frowned and set down his Montblanc pen. “Carlita?”

  His door opened and a man stepped into his office. Arellano took in his dark clothes, and his eyes stopped at the scar that puckered half his face.

  “Can I help you?” Arellano asked.

  “Oh, I hope so,” the man said, approaching the desk.

  Arellano stood and extended his hand. “Arturo Arellano. And you are…?”

  “Lorenzo Aguilar,” the man said, shaking it.

  Arellano threw a glance at one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Please. Have a seat. What can I do for you?”

  Aguilar lowered himself into one of the upholstered seats and fixed the attorney with a conspiratorial stare. “I have a problem I’m hoping you can help me with.”

  “I’ve been known to do that,” Arellano said as he sat back down. “But how did you hear of me? Did one of my clients give you my name?”

  “Yes, in a way. León Sánchez.”

  Arellano blanched. “León? Is this some sort of…joke?”

  “I assure you it’s not,” Aguilar said, his eyes the color of lead. “Your time and mine are valuable, so I will get straight to the point. I require something from you, Señor Arellano. León Sánchez’s will. I must have a copy of it. I’m willing to pay handsomely for your cooperation.”

  Arellano half rose from behind the desk, his expression outraged. “Absolutely not. I’m afraid somebody misinformed you, sir. The will is confidential. I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

  Aguilar exhaled softly. A small pistol materialized in his right hand. “That’s a shame. I would have preferred to do this the easy way, but in the end, all roads lead to the same destination, do they not?”

  Arellano stared at the gun in disbelief, and then Aguilar was on his feet in a flash, the pistol streaking at the attorney’s face. The barrel caught his cheek with a thud, and Arellano cried out as he fell back into his chair.

  Aguilar leapt over the desk, knocking the papers to the floor, and leveled the gun at Arellano. “Where is it?”

  “I…I can’t.”

  Aguilar hit him again, and Arellano groaned as he slipped to the floor. Aguilar kicked the lawyer hard in the midsection, and he folded into a fetal position and struggled for breath.

  “Señor Arellano, you will give me what I want, either the easy way or the hard. It’s absolutely immaterial to me which; do you understand? But I’m not leaving until you tell me where it is. The only question is how much abuse it will take for you to surrender it.” Aguilar paused, waiting for the attorney to breathe. When he gasped like a drowning man, Aguilar smirked. “Look at me, Señor Arellano.”

  Arellano twisted his face toward his attacker, blood streaming from the gash on his cheek.

  Aguilar nodded. “Good. That is a fine start. Now, tell me where the will is, and we can avoid any further unpleasantness. If you don’t, you’ll be pushed around in a wheelchair for the rest of your miserable life. Do you believe me, Señor Arellano?”

  Ten minutes later Arellano had told him where to find the will, and Aguilar had the original stuffed in his waistband with his shirt pulled over it. He walked calmly to the reception desk and surveyed the room, checking for security cams a final time. Seeing none, he moved to Arellano’s office door and wiped the knob with a cloth handkerchief and then used it to blot the tiny droplets of blood that had peppered his face. He wiped them away and inspected his shirt – he’d need to change.

  Back in the attorney’s office, he eyed an antique globe in the corner of the room and walked over to it. He raised the top and the upper section lifted, revealing a host of bottles and a dozen glasses. He removed one and studied the label – forty-proof tequila.

  After dousing Arellano’s body and the furniture with alcohol, he wadded up the papers on Arellano’s desk and, for good measure, emptied the file cabinets of their documents and covered the floor with them. A final bottle of 151 rum soaked the paperwork, and then he leaned down and lit the mess with a lighter. The room was ablaze in less than a minute, and he turned and moved from the office, closing the door behind him so the smoke wouldn’t flood the lobby.

  At the front door, he unlocked the bolt and let himself out, the afternoon off to a fine start. His employers would be overjoyed that he’d gotten the will, and he knew from experience that the police were too inept to do anything but chalk the lawyer’s death up to either a regrettable office fire or, alternatively, organized crime involvement – a catchall for unexplained deaths in the area. Because of Arellano’s profile, they would go through the motions, but in the end they’d have nothing. Aguilar was a ghost, a professional killer with dozens of victims to his credit, and he had left nothing to chance. He’d come prepared to kill everyone in the office if necessary and had been surprised to find his target alone.

  Aguilar had briefly scanned the will, but he would leave the analysis to his employers. He’d take photos of the pages and let them sort through it. Aguilar wasn’t being paid to think, nor did he particularly care to beyond the operational challenges of the job. He would send off the images and resume his surveillance while his masters decided on their next move.

  He removed a slim cell phone from his windbreaker and clamped it to his ear as he left the building and walked unhurr
iedly up the street, unremarkable in every way in the sparse crowd.

  A voice answered on the third ring. “Si?”

  “I have it.”

  “Any difficulty?”

  “None that wasn’t expected. I’ll send it in a few minutes.”

  “Very good. Keep this line open.”

  Aguilar turned the corner and jaywalked, narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck. He ignored the screech of brakes and the klaxon of the vehicle’s horn and continued down the next block.

  “Always.”

  Chapter 15

  Leah and Uriel sat at a square table in a café near the town center, watching the street traffic as Pedro ordered for them. When the waiter had gone to fetch their drinks, he leaned forward in his chair.

  “You need to report the CRV as stolen,” he said to Uriel. “Probably won’t do much good, but it’s worth a try. Sometimes you get a lucky break.”

  “It’s probably in a hundred parts by now, being sold on eBay,” Uriel countered.

  “True, but you never know. Someone arrests a guy for possession, the car’s in his yard…it’s worth calling it in.”

  Their coffee arrived. They sipped at it, Uriel’s expression pensive. Leah stirred her drink, set her spoon on the table, and eyed Pedro.

  “You had enough time to think?”

  “What? Oh – sure.”

  “Care to share?”

  Pedro nodded. “I suspected León was working on something. It had sort of taken him over in the last few months. I mean, he was never exactly a social butterfly, but he became a recluse. We would get together every now and then for a drink or lunch, but the last couple of times he was preoccupied. I’ve known him long enough to figure out he was involved in something he didn’t want to talk about, and now…well, him reaching out to you about your article makes it pretty easy to figure out that it must have had something to do with the disappearances.”

  “But why would some file he had from the old days matter?” Leah asked.

  “I have no idea. Perhaps because of who it implicates? People in positions of power? It was always theorized that the disappearances were organized beyond the level of the street gangs and a few bus drivers that were convicted for some of the murders.”

  “Right, but why now? He sounded like he was agitated when we spoke. Hard to believe something so old could do that,” Leah countered.

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “He was paranoid. That it wasn’t safe to talk on the phone, we needed to meet in person. That nobody would break the story in Mexico.”

  Uriel shook his head. “He wasn’t paranoid. He knew he was in danger. That’s why he warned my mother.”

  Pedro chewed on his lower lip. “What did he tell her?”

  “To contact Leah if anything happened to him. He obviously thought he was going to hand the file off to her, or at least the information in it, so she would be his insurance. Only he never got to.”

  “And we know they didn’t kill him for it, or they wouldn’t have ransacked his house,” Leah said. “Which means it’s still out there.”

  Uriel frowned. “What about the safe deposit box? We should have a look at it as soon as possible. Maybe it has some kind of clue or, better yet, a copy of the file.”

  “With the lines at the border on a Friday afternoon, we won’t be able to make it to the bank before they close today,” Leah said. “It will have to be Monday.”

  “That’s not going to help my sister get out of jail anytime soon.”

  “Assuming there’s anything in it that would be helpful, Uriel. At this point it’s an unknown. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  Pedro took another noisy slurp of coffee and turned to Leah. “Tell me about this story you wrote. It must have impressed León considerably for him to contact you.”

  “It was mostly a rehash of the open questions about the old disappearances, coming at it from the angle that they’ve started again, so the original killers had probably gotten away with having the small fry take the fall for them.”

  “Which might have triggered something in him,” Pedro said. “Especially if he was investigating the new ones unofficially. I know it was an emotionally charged case for him. As it was for everyone involved. It stigmatized the city forever.”

  Uriel interrupted with an exasperated look at Pedro. “None of which will help my sister if they’re going to try to hang my father’s murder on her.”

  Leah shook her head. “Not necessarily. If we can figure out what it was that your father had learned or thought he could prove, that would supply a strong alternative motive for the defense. If there’s a powerful group behind the disappearances and we can expose them, then it will become clear that the cops are just prosecuting her to take the pressure off them.”

  “Right, but how do we establish the connection? Between them and my father?”

  “My apartment was broken into after I spoke with him,” she said. “The call to the police is on the record in El Paso. Your father’s house was broken into after he was killed. It’s pretty obvious someone is trying to find the file and was afraid it might have made it into my hands.”

  Uriel gave Pedro a glum look. “Seems like a long shot to me.”

  “Maybe,” Leah said. “But do you have a better alternative?”

  Pedro nodded. “She’s right. They’re connected, and clearly something in Leah’s article resonated with your father, which means she’s on the right track.” Pedro looked at her. “You said you were investigating the disappearances. How, exactly?”

  “That’s been one of the frustrations. Nobody will talk to me. I contacted one of the journalists who’s been covering the latest bunch, but he hasn’t returned my call. And I tried the mayor’s office, but he wouldn’t talk to me. I feel like I’m being stonewalled.”

  “The mayor? I know him.” Pedro looked at his watch. “On Fridays he always has lunch over at the country club. Like clockwork.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe I can get you in, and you can corner him.”

  “Won’t he have bodyguards?” Leah asked.

  “Maybe. But there aren’t a lot of Caucasian female assassins operating in Mexico, so if I can get you through the door, they won’t see you as a threat. Just don’t make any fast moves.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  Pedro smiled. “There’s an element of risk to everything. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

  “Does he speak English?”

  “Of course. You can’t run a border town without being bilingual. Most of the police and all the bureaucrats do. Our economy is too interlinked with that of the States not to.”

  Uriel finished his coffee. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to go check on my sister. I can meet Ortiz at the jail and see if we can get in to see her.”

  Pedro shook his head. “Doubtful. But maybe worth a shot. If Ortiz is on the ball, he can slip the right person a few pesos and get you a couple of minutes with her.” He hesitated. “But don’t forget that Montalbán is going to try to include you in his case. The man’s dangerous.”

  Uriel snorted. “He can’t prove something that’s untrue. I wasn’t anywhere near Juárez when he was killed.”

  “Right, but he can hypothesize that you were in on the scheme with your sister. Not that you pulled the trigger, but that you had substantial financial reason to want him dead. You didn’t get along with him, hadn’t even talked to him for years…it’s far-fetched, but if he believes you had a hand in it, he’s going to try to cobble together enough evidence to put you away, too.”

  “Because so many architecture professors are murderers,” Uriel said, the derision in his tone clear. “This is madness. There’s absolutely no evidence either one of us had anything to do with my father’s murder.”

  “Maybe not you,” Leah agreed. “But your sister’s police record and her boyfriend…”

  Uriel’s eyes flitted to her. “Now you’re on their side, too?”

  “Of course not. I’m jus
t saying I can see how it might look. What does she do for a living?”

  “I…I don’t know. I think she babysits, cleans houses, that kind of thing. I…I didn’t really pay attention when she told me.”

  “So she doesn’t have a steady job,” Pedro said. “And she’s gang related. A few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of inheritance would come in handy. The motive’s solid. If she has no alibi, that’s another nail in the coffin.”

  “Don’t they have to prove she did it, though? Or prove that she put someone up to it?” Leah asked.

  “Theoretically, yes. But this is Mexico. I wouldn’t put it past Montalbán to shake a confession out of some dirtbag in exchange for immunity.”

  “But that would be…”

  Pedro sighed again. “Corrupt. Yes. But it does happen. If all he’s missing is someone who might say she paid him to find a killer, I could see it.” Pedro slurped the last of his coffee and set the cup down. “Around here you can hire someone to kill whoever you want for a couple of hundred bucks. Life’s cheap in Juárez.”

  “Really?” Leah said.

  “There are many desperate people here and more guns than cars. It’s a bad situation.”

  “They can’t frame her. It won’t hold up,” Uriel said.

  Pedro nodded. “You’re probably right. It would eventually get thrown out. In the meantime, though, your sister would be in the system – and she’s got gang tattoos, which would make her a target for any of her boyfriend’s rivals. She probably wouldn’t survive until it was tossed.”

  “Which is why we need to get her out on bail.”

  “I don’t want to be overly negative, but with her arrests, they might not grant it,” Pedro said.

  Uriel sulked at Pedro’s words, and Leah slid back her chair and stood. “Let’s see if we can find the mayor. I still think that our best defense is a good offense. If we find out who’s behind the disappearances, that should go a long way to clearing Ana Maria.”