by Ian Ballard
“It seems . . . authentic,” I say.
“It's one of our regular haunts,” Montalvo says. “If you're going to be down here a while, helping us out, you'll probably become a regular.”
“That's habanero sauce you were dousing your tacos with. I'm surprised an FBI guy from way up in DC can cope,” Luna says.
“I may be genetically predisposed,” I say. “Got a little Mexican heritage.”
Montalvo studies me. “I was telling myself, that guy doesn't look a hundred percent guero.”
“If that Mexican blood makes your stomach as tough as your taste buds,” Luna says, “you'll be well served.”
I crack a smile.
Silva flags down the waitress and orders us a round of mezcal, which I've never had before.
Little by little, the banter and the effect of the alcohol loosens the stranglehold the day's events have had on my mind. Despite the late hour, traffic still bustles on the four-lane thoroughfare in front of the restaurant. Through the window, I see cars, mopeds, bicycles, and pedestrians. Somewhere in the distance, beneath the din of honking traffic and the murmur of customers, a mariachi band is playing.
Just across the street, next to a Catholic church, there's a public park with a huge dilapidated fountain. The stonework is cracked and snaky vines grow all over it. Statuary rises up from a deep, dry basin that resembles an empty swimming pool. Around the fountain's edge, there's a low stone wall, maybe three or four feet high. It looks like it might have been erected to keep people from jumping in the water back in the fountain's wetter days. In the intersection in front of the park, a green street sign hangs below the traffic light. It says “Avenida Los Lagartos” in yellow letters. That last word, if I recall correctly, means “alligators.”
“Why do they call it Alligator Street?” I ask. “I haven't noticed any giant reptiles wandering around.”
Luna repeats the word “La-gar-tos,” slowly, letting the rolled “r” trill on his tongue.
Silva gives his mustache a pensive tweak. “I know that story. It's a pretty good one. Dates back to when I was a little kid.”
“Are all three of you from around here?” I ask, curious if they've all heard whatever tale Silva is set to regale us with.
Luna and Montalvo nod.
“Not me,” says Silva, shaking his head. “I'm from the other side of the river. El Paso. But my family visited Juárez all the time.”
“I was gonna mention that,” I say. “With that Texas twang you've got, you sound like more of a Gringo than me.”
“My father was Anglo. Rest his soul. An Irishman.” Silva points to a patch of hair near his temple with a slightly red hue.
“So what's the story with Alligator Avenue?” I say.
Silva repositions himself in his chair and leans toward us. “Now, this very first part I can't personally vouch for. But according to my sources, it all started like this. A long time ago—it must have been just over twenty-five years back—someone let three baby alligators go in that fountain across the street. . . . Do you guys remember this?” Silva asks the other two.
“It's been a while,” Montalvo says.
Luna scratches his head. “Not sure—where did the alligators come from?”
“I never heard,” Silva says. “I think one day they were just swimming around there in the basin, as if someone had thrown them in. With the wall around it, they couldn't get out.”
More mezcal shots have materialized in front of us. My new colleagues encourage me to dispense with mine—which I do—while they require no encouragement. The taste really isn't bad, but I give a wince for the sake of camaraderie.
Silva clears his throat to announce that his tale will resume. “At first, everyone took a liking to the baby gators. It became the pastime to feed them with whatever was on hand. Bits of taco, fish—”
“Stray cats and dogs,” Luna says, with a chuckle.
“I wouldn't be surprised,” says Silva. “At any rate, they were well fed and they grew and grew and before long they were full-sized gators, eight or ten feet long.”
“Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen,” I say.
“The city's infatuation with these critters didn't last forever,” Silva says, glancing over at the fountain. “The tide finally turned one day, when a traveling circus came to town.”
I see a skeptical look on Montalvo's face.
“It was the old-timey kind,” Silva continues, “with fire swallowers and strong men. There's a park behind the fountain and that's where they used to always set up their tents. One night after the show, the performers and the acrobats all went drinking at a local cantina. They were out late and must have gotten pretty sauced. As they headed home for the night, they passed by the fountain. Someone dared the tightrope walker to pitch his high-wire above the basin and walk across with the alligators beneath him.”
“Los lagartos y el tequila es una combinación mala,” Luna mutters.
“The tightrope walker took the dare and carefully tied one end of his rope to a tree and the other end to a statue on top of the fountain. A crowd gathered to watch.”
Montalvo turns to me, confidentially. “I haven't heard the story, but I think I know where it's headed.”
“When the tightrope walker was halfway across, someone in the crowd, a woman, called out to him, ten cuidado, mi amor. The tightrope walker seemed to recognize her voice—who knows who it was—maybe someone he knew from long ago. Maybe someone he'd fallen for. Whoever she was, the tightrope walker turned his head toward the sound and looked out into the darkened crowd. When he did, he made a single misstep, a grave mistake in that line of work. He fell headlong into the water and the three adult alligators made quick work of him before the crowd of shrieking onlookers. The next day, the mayor got wind of it and gave the alligators the boot. But the street kept its name.”
Luna, Montalvo, and I all sit smiling.
“That sounds like a tall tale,” I say.
“I don't know, Jake," Silva says. "Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction."
“It didn't really happen, did it?” Luna asks.
“Every word, just like I said.”
“How would you know?” Montalvo asks.
“Well, how do you think?” Silva gives a wry smile. “I was there.”
We all stare at Silva for a moment—trying to figure out if he's joking—then we turn and look awkwardly at one another.
After a long silence, Luna bursts out laughing. Montalvo instantly follows suit. Finally, a smile crosses Silva's face as well.
“You're such a bullshitter,” says Luna.
Montalvo nods. “One of the worst of all time.”
Silva's still laughing. “Runs in my family.”
“Well, you've got to finish your story,” I say. “What happened to the alligators?”
The guffaws taper off as we all look to Silva and await his response.
“The alligators,” he finally says. “You want to know what happened to them? Well, they're right here.”
Silva looks around the table and makes eye contact with each of us. Then, in a sudden burst of movement, he slides his legs out from under the table and yanks up his pant leg to reveal the maroon reptile leather of his boots. “They're right here.”
The table surrenders again to another round of guffaws.
Luna turns to the waitress and orders another round of mezcal. In no time flat, we're throwing them back, and wincing and clinking down a quartet of empty shot glasses. Unfortunately, this proves to be the beginning and not the end of the night's reveries. After several half-hearted attempts to leave—which my new colleagues firmly veto—I finally accept things and submit to the festivities. By the early morning hours, we four and a bottle of mezcal are like five old friends and my worries about the ledger and the bodies in the dune have receded far from my mind.
Sometime after five a.m., the three esteemed detectives insist on walking me back to the hotel I've reserved—which is roughly midway betwee
n the taqueria and the District C station. We stumble along the sidewalk like drunken sailors. Things are a little blurry, and our path is a bit longer than it should be on account of the weaving. They're serenading me with an old Mexican ballad when the door of my hotel lobby closes behind me and leaves them silently waving on the sidewalk.
11
Mexico
A phone ringing. I can feel the hangover before I'm even awake. I fumble for the receiver, almost drop it, and finally manage to bring it to my ear.
“Hello,” I say, groggily.
I catch a whiff of something putrid coming from the bathroom. Jesus, did I throw up last night?
It's Silva on the phone. He's asking if I want to grab a coffee before the meeting. Meeting? For a moment my mind's a blank, but then I vaguely recall something about us all getting together to go over the new evidence. “What time's the meeting?” I ask.
“Eleven.”
“What time is it now?”
“Ten forty-five.”
“Doesn't leave much time for coffee.”
“Yeah, I figured you'd overslept. I was just trying to be diplomatic.”
“Nice try.”
I tell him I'll meet him at the station in a few and hang up.
My head's pounding. I haven't drunk that much . . . certainly not since college, maybe ever. Showing up hungover to my first meeting with Juárez PD probably won't create the best impression, but it's still a better option than not showing up at all.
I get dressed and walk up Avenida Los Lagartos, wearily traversing the three blocks that separate the Molina del Rey hotel from Juárez District C. The sky’s a smoggy gray and the street bustles with a symphony of honks, peanut vendor pushcarts, and barefoot, sooty-faced children selling flowers and Chiclets.
As I walk along, my thoughts return to the names in the ledger and the burns on the bodies. While last night's shenanigans may have momentarily diverted my attention, the subject has clearly rattled me on the deepest levels. But perhaps that's as it should be. Perhaps the implications of these coincidences, were I to spell them out, would merit far more apprehension than I’ve allowed myself to feel. The thought I’ve been so diligently censuring is that I'm connected to these deaths. That something personal to me lies behind what was orchestrated in that dune.
So there it is.
Hopefully, down the road I’ll be able to look back and laugh at my paranoia. But for the moment, it’s on the table.
At the entrance to the station, I pass through the revolving door and display my visitor ID and FBI badge to the watchman on duty. He's got old acne scars on his cheeks and a tattoo of a spider on his forearm. A Doberman pinscher with a chain around its neck raises its head and looks at me with world-weary eyes.
The walls of the lobby are plastered with photos of missing persons. Mostly women, but plenty of men and children as well. All have the same lusterless look, as if they'd been tipped off to the fact they were fated to die and had resignedly agreed to pose for their own missing persons’ photos. I'd bet more than a few of these faces cast their last looks on the same man. The face of our friend Ropes. And now they're gathered here, guarding the secret that only the dead can know, members of some profane and twisted victims' club.
I pass through the metal detector and a second security guard signals for me to remove my piece from the shoulder holster under my coat. The guard carefully inspects the weapon and hands it back. I tell him I'm here for a meeting about the dune case. He thinks it over and mumbles something to another guard who escorts me through a series of hallways and double doors—past officers, orderlies, and handcuffed arrestees into the building’s inner sanctum. The layout's like a hospital with the white floors and the lines of fluorescent lights.
It's five minutes after eleven when the guard stops in front of a door labeled sala de conferencia 213 and tells me this is where I need to be. I cautiously open the door and see that the meeting is already underway. The room's set up like a high school classroom. Twenty or more officers and detectives are seated in small wooden desks attentively taking notes, while a gray-haired detective I met briefly last night at the dune—I think his name might be Ochoa—stands at a lectern addressing the group. A projector shines an image of a severed foot on a white screen behind him.
I mumble an apology for my tardiness to no one in particular and make my way toward an empty desk in the back row. As I scan the crowd, I see Silva and Luna near the front and Montalvo somewhere in the middle. Detective Ochoa recognizes me and introduces me to the group, saying how fortunate District C is to have the FBI's cooperation in this matter. I give a meek wave, hoping neither my aroma nor my disheveled appearance too blatantly betrays last night's excesses. A sprinkling of bienvenidos and other greetings as I take my seat. Silva glances back at me and gives a nod as Ochoa resumes his presentation.
“There doesn't appear to be an across-the-board pattern as to where the victims were from, except that they are all from Northern Mexico.” The image of the foot vanishes, replaced by a map of Mexico. “Two of the men were from Ciudad Juárez, two from Matamoros, and two from Morelia.”
A hand goes up near the front of the room. “Is there any significance to the fact we have two victims from each city?”
“Most likely there is,” Ochoa responds, “but we don't yet know what. So far, we've been able to get in contact with the families of three of the victims. We've learned that the individuals from Morelia were acquainted with one another. They'd been friends since the time of their youth.”
“Anything yet on the circumstances of the disappearances?” asks a plainclothes officer on the front row.
“Five of the six had been reported missing. The time frame for the disappearances was between two days and two weeks ago. Preliminary information suggests that three of the men were forcibly abducted. With two of them, we don't yet know the circumstances, and one of the victims wasn’t reported missing at all.”
“Do we know how the abductions were carried out? Were there witnesses?” asks a detective seated to my right.
“All three were taken from their homes between late evening and early morning. In each case, there were signs of a break-in and a struggle. In one instance, a family member witnessed the tail end of the abduction.” Ochoa takes a sip of water from a glass on the table beside him. “In what may be our most promising new lead, the victim's wife, though she didn't see the assailant, apparently saw his vehicle. A red, late-model Ford truck.”
A legion of pencils busily scribbles down this detail.
“How did the wife not observe the perpetrator?” A deep voice front and center asks.
“She was struck over the head while she was sleeping. When she came to, she saw the vehicle pulling away.”
Detective Luna raises his hand. “My understanding was that the victims were alive when they were left at the dune and that they died of blood loss at the scene. So, are we assuming the perpetrator held some of the victims for an extended period beforehand?”
“Yes, that's our current take on it.”
Luna again. “This seems like a pretty big undertaking. Any evidence of an accomplice or other parties?”
“No,” Ochoa replies, though with a hint of uncertainty in his tone. “There's no evidence that more than one person was involved in the commission of these crimes—which is consistent with Ropes' MO in the past.”
“Any new evidence at the scene regarding the perpetrator himself?” This time it's Silva asking the question.
“New evidence—no,” says Ochoa. “We have repeats of two indicators we've seen before. Footprints from a size twelve-and-a-half Timberland work boot and the tread of a forty-six-inch Firestone sand tire.”
“Is it possible,” Silva asks in follow-up, “that the sand tires belong to the red Ford, or are we assuming the use of two vehicles?”
“We don't know, but I'm inclined to believe we're talking about one vehicle.”
Someone in the second row. “Have we learned anything m
ore about the missing girl?”
“Not much. We have her belongings and a portion of her lower extremities, but no wallet or any identification. We do, however, make much of the fact that the killer apparently visited the scene a second time to remove her remains. It seems to signal a willingness to take risks, potentially for the purpose of taunting investigators. It also may mean he's following things pretty close. Expect to see immediate changes in our apprehension strategies to reflect this new dimension. And obviously, we'll be keeping close tabs on the dune itself.”
An officer just in front of me. “Have any other similarities been established between the victims?”
“Just what's been mentioned so far. The focus of the next twenty-four hours will be interviewing family and friends of the victims to get a better bird's-eye view of things. To see if there's any reason these six were picked. At the end of this meeting, you'll all be given assignments consistent with that priority. The next day is going to give us the best chance we've had of catching this guy. I want to see each and every one of you out there busting your ass.” Detective Ochoa gathers up his notes from the lectern. “At this point, I'd like to turn the discussion over to Detective Silva who's going to go over a suspect roster in light of our most current information.”
Ochoa takes a seat amid an energized murmur from the audience. A moment later, Silva's tall figure rises from the third row and approaches the lectern. He looks surprisingly well rested considering the number of mezcals he consumed last night.
In his slow, deliberate cadence, Silva leads us through a series of slides reviewing the top seven suspects in the case. I'm familiar with most of them from my prior contact with the case file. Two of the seven, Silva says, can now be eliminated as a consequence of their being incarcerated at the time of the dune killings. Of the remaining five, two have corroborated alibis for the night in question—though, admittedly, the duration of the victims' captivity makes it a bit unclear whether the alibis truly preclude involvement. Nonetheless, Silva focuses his discussion on the three remaining individuals, referring to them as possibles. All three have appeared on the suspect roster for at least one year, as past evidence has neither fully incriminated any of them, nor allowed any of them to be cleared of the crimes.