Total Victim Theory

by Ian Ballard

  He and his father sat in silence for a long time, watching the fire grow dimmer and dimmer.

  “I can see it in your eyes, you're worried, mi hijo,” his father said with a slight smile. “But worried about what?”

  Raul looked away from his father’s gaze. “Remember what happened with Gustavo?”

  Gustavo and Hugo were two laborers who left the ranch about a month back. They left on the last day of their three months and their beds were soon filled by the next pair of hands. About two weeks after they'd gone, Raul noticed that Tad, Gary’s older son, was wearing a belt that had belonged to Gustavo. It was made out of rattlesnake skin and had a big silver buckle with the emblem of a snake engraved on it. The mouth was open wide, just like what a rabbit might see a split-second before it felt the fangs.

  Raul remembered how Gustavo would brag about the belt, saying his father had killed the snake in the desert near Juárez long ago and had given it to him just before he died of cancer. Gustavo, still eighteen, vowed to pass it down to his own son, when he had one. One day Raul asked Tad how he came by that belt that Gustavo had valued so highly. Tad said his father had bought it off Gustavo for fifty bucks and given it to him as a gift. Raul never brought it up again, but there was always something he distrusted about that explanation. Doubts had always lingered in his mind.

  After Raul had finished recounting the episode, his father smiled. “But what other explanation do you need, mi hijo?” his father asked. “Fifty bucks is fifty bucks.”

  “But the truck was headed to the back corner. . . .” Raul trailed off.

  “And what if it was?”

  Raul spoke softly. “That's where the red barn is.”

  “So what if it is?”

  “Remember what happened over there?”

  Raul had to admit the incident had no clear connection to the Ford's wrong turn or to his vague apprehensions about Fernando and Esteban. Nonetheless, the event was so strange, Raul felt compelled to bring it up—as if it spread a general suspicion over all the ranch and everything that happened afterward.

  “Of course I remember. But. . . .” His father trailed off, and in the silence, it seemed they both were thinking things neither was yet prepared to speak.

  It had happened about six weeks ago, not long after their arrival at the ranch. Raul and his father were with Gary and a couple of the other hands near the back corner not far from the red barn. They were all on horseback trying to round up about twenty head that had wandered away from the feeders. As they approached the stray animals, Raul saw that a cloud of dust had been kicked up in the air. Up ahead something, a cow he assumed, was writhing about on the ground. The other cattle stood around making hysterical cries, an almost human agitation in their voices.

  Raul's first thought was that the animal had collapsed and was having a fit or suffering a bout of heat exhaustion. However, when they'd drawn closer and seen the blood all around in the dirt, it seemed to rule out these explanations. Frightened, Raul glanced over at his father, just in time to see a cigarette slip from his mouth.

  And yet, amid the dust and tumult, what was happening still wasn't clear. The cow was dying, thrashing about in the dirt, gushing blood, its legs and face and throat ripped open with wounds so wide it made the animal hard to recognize, like a newborn coated with afterbirth.

  Then Raul saw it.

  Clinging to the downed animal’s throat was what he instantly recognized as an alligator. It looked littler than the ones he’d once seen in a zoo in Zacatecas, perhaps some smaller breed, or maybe a younger one.

  The animal’s long jaws were clamped to the cow's throat, its reptile eyes staring out, runny like uncooked eggs. The cow howled and snorted terribly, red saliva and mucus flowing out in thick strands from its nose and mouth. In its effort to escape the lethal hold, the cow flopped over from side to side, while the alligator held on unperturbed.

  Then, in a final, last-ditch effort to survive, the cow managed to rise to its feet, the predator still fast at its throat. A moment later the cow wobbled and collapsed in the dust. It lay on its side kicking weakly, propelling itself in a hopeless circle and leaving a wide red arc in its wake.

  Gary drew his horse close to the green creature, which was focused on finishing off its prey and appeared to take no note of the approach. The horse whinnied its disapproval of the errand, stepping forward only with great reluctance. He nudged the horse still closer to within a foot or so of the fray.

  Then he raised his shotgun. He was close enough to rest the weapon against the alligator’s tough green head, placing the barrel on a spot a couple of inches behind the eyes. He pulled the trigger and the head exploded in a thick cloud of red and green.

  The alligator slid off the dying cow and flopped motionless onto its back, revealing a lined scaly belly and four small clawed feet. The cow’s eyes were closed, and it was silent except for its breathing. Its nose and face were freckled with pellet wounds from the shotgun blast. It lay completely still, except for the swish of its tail, which moved slowly back and forth like the flag of a surrendering soldier.

  Gary slid a second cartridge into the gun and snapped the chamber shut. He placed the barrel on the doomed cow’s forehead. A second shot rang out, and the tail fell limply to the ground.

  None of the laborers who witnessed the episode ever put forth a reasonable explanation for how an alligator wound up in the middle of that cattle ranch, at least not that Raul ever heard. Nor did tight-lipped Gary share any insights he might have had on the matter. Many among them were suspicious and spoke of the event in hushed voices. But suspicious of what? No one ever really spelled that out. In the end the group seemed to regard the occurrence with a fearful, almost religious reverence. As a sign or a revelation perhaps. But a revelation of what? Raul had heard them say many vague or superstitious things that he regarded as nonsense. And yet, not being able to explain it, hardly removed it from his thoughts.

  The fire slowly died. His father sat for a while thinking. Then he shook his head as if annoyed. “Come on,” he said. “Let's go to bed and stop thinking about these things.”

  They walked over to the bunkhouse in silence. In the doorway his father stopped and looked at Raul as if he were about to speak. There was a small bulb above the door where gnats swarmed in frantic circles. His father's worried face was cast in yellow light.

  “You would put such strange thoughts in my head, mi hijo,” his father said. “So they went the other way. What are we supposed to do about that?”

  Raul spoke in a whisper. “What if they need our help, Papi? What if they're in danger?”

  His father sighed. “What if, what if, what if?” Then for a moment he didn't speak. He just looked into Raul's eyes. “And why would they need our help when they were with Gary?” Then he looked away. “And what danger could there be?”

  25

  Mexico

  Doing my damnedest to keep up appearances. To act like this is just a routine investigation. Like I'm just a disinterested agent. Maybe if I'd done more undercover work it would be easier for me. Easier to remember what I am and am not supposed to know yet. Easier for me to keep my emotions under wraps. I've slipped a few times already—said something stupid in front of the other detectives. This might have been my undoing, had Silva not stepped in with a quick word of explanation to square my blunder with the facts. He's got a real knack for that sort of thing.

  There is, however, one secret where I'm on my own.

  I didn't tell Silva about the autopsy report—that is to say, I didn’t express to him my concerns about the paternity of Lisa’s child.

  I don't know why I didn't exactly.

  Maybe because this new wrinkle puts my level of personal bias off the charts. Takes away any straight-faced claim I might want to make about being objective. The other possibility is that I didn't tell him because I was afraid to. Afraid he'll see through me and know I'm hoping what I hope. It puts you in a vulnerable position to want something that may n
ot have the slightest chance of being true.

  The truth is that I fully intend to tell him—just not yet.

  On more official fronts, the case has seen several notable developments in the last twelve hours. Rehan Abdullah, the second Ropes suspect, was in Egypt on the night of the dune murders and for two weeks prior. Silva and I interviewed him this morning, at which time he produced various proofs supporting his alibi, including his airline ticket and e-mails sent from Egyptian IP addresses. Abdullah has thus been eliminated as a suspect in the investigation.

  Crossing off Gonzalez and Abdullah leaves us with a single possible from Silva’s original roster, Adrian Caiman, a suspect who is, in my opinion, not particularly promising, being that no one's heard from him since his 1998 prison release. The working assumption is that he either left the area, died, or assumed a false identity. While his earlier crimes did show strong parallels to the Ropes' killings, the passage of nearly a decade and a half without any evidence that he resumed his prior pattern makes his candidacy tenuous at best.

  One fact, however, keeps sticking in my head. It relates to the eyes. We know Caiman collected them from his victims. In the Ropes killings, the victims' heads had always been missing. That is, until Lisa—whose head was spared, but whose eyes were removed. Missing eyes are such a peculiar and telling detail. If Caiman was Ropes, and keeping the eyes was an essential part of his crimes, perhaps he started cutting off the heads to keep police from connecting the dots. Either way, it's a moot point at present since we have zero leads on Caiman's current whereabouts. But, it's an interesting thought.

  In contrast to our dead-end suspect pool, Luna and Montalvo’s branch of the investigation appears to be yielding more fruit. They spent yesterday interviewing contacts of the six identified victims. As a result, three new facts have come to light addressing the question of what the men had in common. First, the victims that came from the same cities (two from Morelia, two from Juárez, and two from Matamoros) were unrelated, but had known one another since their youth. Second, all of the victims had, on at least one occasion, worked illegally in Texas, California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, or some combination thereof. Third, when asked about the burns on the victims' bodies, the detectives’ contacts reported—almost without exception—that the injuries occurred while the individual was working in the US.

  The facts regarding these fires were hard to pin down and inconsistently recollected. However, more than half of those interviewed attested that the burns were suffered while the victim was in Texas. If the dead men were indeed injured in the same fire, identifying when and where that fire took place could amount to a very promising lead—since the killer himself may have been in close proximity to that event.

  As of today, I've also begun my off-the-record investigation into Lisa's disappearance. The Bureau's NCIC crime database indicates that Lisa was reported missing in Mustang, Oklahoma, on January 2nd. This fact seems to imply that the killer or an accomplice somehow managed to transport a kidnapped and living person across the border without it coming to the attention of authorities.

  It’s hard to remain the detached, impartial investigator when encountering facts like these. Lisa was that kidnapped and living person, and she was in Ropes' captivity from January 2nd until her death on the morning of January 16th. She was with him for fifteen days. I'll spare myself imagining all she might have suffered during that time, if only for the sake of self-preservation. One of the things I owe her now is not to unravel.

  I discuss with Silva what I've learned about Lisa. I can't access the original police report or learn who the witnesses are since none of that information is available on the database. It might be advisable, I suggest, for me to do some follow-up in Mustang. There's a lot of potential for new leads, and if there were witnesses, there might even be a physical description.

  As I'm talking to Silva, it crosses my mind that I'm trying to sell him on the notion that this visit is needed. Of course, the excursion will let me follow up not only Lisa’s murder, but on my more personal stake in the matter as well. I just wonder how I'm skewing the facts and embellishing the details to make it come out the way I need it to. But convincing myself of my objectivity is already low on the pecking order of priorities—not to mention, a task increasingly difficult to undertake with a straight face. The pricks of conscience are like the drumming of rain on a roof—when the storm starts, you hear it loud and clear, but as it goes on, there comes a point where you don't even notice it anymore.

  But the moment's not ripe for ponderous soul searching. Silva's convinced without much convincing, and it seems as if he might have suggested it himself, had I not beaten him to it. We decide that it makes the most sense for me to leave tomorrow morning and spend up to a week pounding the pavement in Mustang, finding out all there is to know.

  It goes without saying that neither the Bureau nor the Juárez PD can know about this side excursion. But that necessity will be easily accomplished. The Feds will assume I'm in Juárez, and Juárez PD will be led to believe I'm back in El Paso tending to another case. Silva, who'll stay behind and work on the official investigation, will cover my ass on both ends.

  26

  El Paso, 1992

  Even in the shower, Emilia was thinking about those red tail lights. The boy was right—the truck had gone the wrong way. The riddle persisted in her thoughts, testy as a hangnail. If she could have thought of even one half-convincing reason for it, she could put the matter to rest. But she couldn't explain it.

  She put on her nightgown and did some ironing in her room. Every few minutes she'd wedge her fingers between the mini-blinds and peer out into the darkness. She was alone in the house. Gary had taken Tad and Luke with him. That was another odd detail. If Gary was just running the men across the border to Juárez, what was the point of taking two kids along—and late at night, for that matter? Finally, she raised the blinds all the way up so she could keep a more constant vigil for the red Ford.

  Emilia had been living there for over a year. Like the other workers, Gary had smuggled her over in the Ford’s hidden compartment, but unlike the others, who always arrived in pairs, Emilia had come alone. Gary had nicknamed her “Smurfette” because she was the only female on the ranch. Her duties were strictly domestic—she cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and served as a nanny for Luke, the younger boy. And while the others were never allowed to stay on more than three months, Emilia’s employment was open ended.

  But there was another important distinction between Emilia and the rest. In a word, she had feelings for Gary—though in the solitude of her thoughts she might have used a stronger word. A word that started with an “L." Because what can that term mean other than wanting to be with someone forever? And the truth was, that’s how she felt, even if it was sometimes tough justifying it to herself.

  True, Gary wasn’t the best-looking guy in the world. And true, he apparently didn’t share her feelings and insisted on treating her like a domestic servant—well, she was a domestic servant. And true, he was abrasive, sometimes even abusive. And true, he was a lot older than her. True. True. True.

  And yet, what a man he was.

  A type of man seldom seen south of the border. A real man who could do things with his hands—kick someone’s ass, shoot a gun, and probably wrestle an alligator if it came down to it. And those hands could be gentle too—when there was the need. Part of her feelings were based on attraction. But isn’t that always the case? There was something about the way he smelled—something dangerous and potent and animal—that had drawn her to him from the beginning. Like a moth to a flame.

  They’d met at the dog races in Juárez where she was working as a cocktail waitress. She'd never wanted to sleep with a man the first time she saw him, but with Gary the thought popped up twice before she'd had time to blush. He had a kind of charm that worked almost like witchcraft. The third time he came in, he asked her out. She’d always liked gringos, and he had a way of putting things where she just couldn't th
ink of a way to say no.

  A week later, he took her to dinner. Afterwards, he’d kissed her in his truck. Then he'd driven her out deep into the desert and made love to her on the hood of his Ford beneath the stars. She’d only been with one man before that, and she couldn’t believe she let him, but when she felt him inside her, she had to admit she was damn glad she did. The next time she saw him, he asked if she wanted to get out of Juárez—to come work across the river on his ranch. In the past she’d been a pretty level-headed girl, and she was shocked when she heard herself accept. Two weeks later she'd moved into Gary's spare bedroom and was a resident of Glattmann ranch.

  That was already a year ago.

  Her fondness for him had only grown over time—even though he’d made it clear early on that her role was nanny and not girlfriend. Girlfriends had a way of turning into wives, he said, and he’d had enough wives for one lifetime. But, of course, that disclaimer had done little to curb her hopes, and whenever he’d repeat the proposition that she was just an employee of the ranch—albeit one with whom he had an ongoing sexual relationship—it hurt like a knife in the heart.

  But the problem with love is that it makes it hard to see the bad parts. Sure, she'd witnessed some questionable stuff on the ranch, but most of the truly bizarre things related to the kids—mostly Tad. However, tonight—when she saw the truck go the other way—she realized the extent of her blind spot. Perhaps she was in the habit of overlooking things that she shouldn’t. Dismissing as harmless events that might not have been entirely so. While she wasn’t convinced that right-hand turn meant anything, from now on she needed to keep her eyes open.

  The whole train of thought left her restless and edgy. She went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. Then she turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, but this did little to calm her nerves. It was then she noticed that the light in Gary’s study had been left on and that the door was slightly open. That was unusual. Gary was very protective of that room. He’d instructed her never to clean it or go in there, and the kids were, likewise, forbidden to enter. The thing was, was that Gary was very particular, almost uptight about records and documents. He didn’t want anyone touching his papers or getting them out of order. She’d noticed he always kept one drawer of his desk locked. The bottom drawer on the right-hand side. She’d seen him unfasten the lock once or twice with one of the keys on his key ring.