by Carmen Amato
“I’ll pay you,” Emilia said above the din. “I’ll pay Pepe to be our guide.”
“How much?”
The whole house wasn’t worth the price of a pair of shoes. “Two hundred pesos,” Emilia said.
“Four hundred pesos,” the old man countered.
“Do you trust them?” Flores breathed.
Emilia glanced at him. He already had the money in his hand.
“Four hundred,” Emilia called. “A hundred now. The rest after Pepe has shown us where he found the fingers.”
“All right,” the old man said. He gave his son a shove. “Go.”
Pepe shuffled along the makeshift fence and pulled aside a heavy piece of corrugated metal. The dogs bolted through the opening and charged at the three people standing on the other side. The largest dog rushed up to Emilia. She froze as the dog barked wildly and stropped its front paws in the dirt. Its jaws were inches away from the crotch of her jeans.
“Emilia,” she heard Flores whisper.
“Don’t move,” Emilia said out of the corner of her mouth.
Pepe ignored them as he shuffled across the dirt. The dog left Emilia and loped after him. The other four dogs retreated to the father.
Gloria crossed her arms with an expression of resignation and made it clear she wasn’t walking any further.
“Come on,” Emilia said to Flores. She forced her feet to follow Pepe and his mongrel. Flores fell in behind her.
Despite his shuffling gait, Pepe moved easily over the track. He led them through a path cut through the sugar cane fields, the dog alternately walking by his side and dancing back to snap at Emilia and Flores.
The sugar cane was as tall as Emilia’s head. The path was little more than a car’s width and rutted with tire tracks. Emilia felt her feet grow heavier with every step and her tee shirt was soaked with sweat. Even so, she was loath to take off her jacket and expose her gun. Flores panted heavily behind her but also kept his jacket on.
The cane field ended at the base of a rocky hill dotted with scrub pines. They were closer to the ocean, now, and Emilia could smell the change in the air.
Pepe found tire tracks again and the going got worse, the land uneven and unforgiving. Emilia wondered at the vehicles which had made the tracks; driving the Suburban up the road would have been a nightmare. The ruts weren’t deep and Emilia guessed they’d been made in the dry season, so within the last few months. They would have been deeper if they’d been made in the last rainy season. After rains, tires sank into the mud and left deep prints that hardened into waves of clay. These tracks were less pronounced.
“How did you find this place, Pepe?” Emilia asked, trying not to sound out of breath.
“I like to walk,” he answered. “I walk all over to find things.”
“What sort of things?” Emilia walked faster to get closer but dropped back again when the dog lunged at her.
Flores gave a nervous gasp.
“Things other people leave behind,” Pepe answered, oblivious to the dog’s threatening behavior.
He kept up a mumbling prattle, most of which Emilia didn’t understand, as they continued to trudge through the rocky landscape, his voice competing with the constant whine of cicadas and the dog’s hoarse panting. The solitude and desolation were heavy and complete. They could have been alone on the moon if it wasn’t for the hard cobalt blue sky and the sun blazing down from a golden halo. Despite the whiff of salt, the air was full of particulate and Emilia sneezed again and again, the sound reverberating off the rocks around her. Flores fell behind as they climbed. Emilia pushed herself, unwilling to lose sight of Pepe.
At the top of a small hill, the tire tracks dissolved into a swirl of dirt where vehicles had turned around. Emilia thought she heard the crash of waves below.
The rise sloped away into a patchy field of rocks, stumpy pines and overturned earth, probably one of the few flat pieces of land this close to the coast. Pepe looked around happily, as if this was a familiar place. Quivering with excitement, the dog raced from spot to spot where the ground had been disturbed.
“Is this where you found the finger?” Emilia asked.
“This is the finger field. I found all of them here,” Pepe said proudly.
“You have to show me exactly where you found the fingers,” Emilia said. She felt lightheaded from the sun yet weighted by dread of what she guessed was hidden in the stark landscape.
Pepe shuffled into the field as the dog continued its frenzied exploration of the site, scrabbling at dirt with its front paws or barking and darting at Pepe before rushing off to examine another bit of overturned earth and loose rocks.
Emilia kept her distance so as not to alarm the already hyper dog. Pepe stopped and pointed down. “Here’s one of them,” he said. The dog sniffed the ground by his feet and started digging.
Emilia came forward. Sticking out of the dry dusty earth was part of a human hand. The thumb and palm, minus four fingers, was covered in dirt. If she hadn’t looked closely, she would never have realized what it was. The mangled hand swam in front of her eyes as the dog’s mouth closed over it.
Emilia looked away and willed her stomach not to heave. “Did you take the fingers?” she asked.
Pepe kicked at the dog and it shot away, leaving the hand where it was. The boy shuffled further away from the swirl of tire tracks. “Here’s another,” he called a moment later.
Emilia followed to see another hand sticking out of the ground in the same condition. “Did you take all the fingers?”
“Gloria bought one,” Pepe said.
“Who else bought one?”
He didn’t answer, just kept walking, following the dog’s excited howls. Emilia followed, passing a shoe, a baseball cap, part of a foot. Black hair half buried and coated with dirt.
Emilia stopped walking, acutely aware that she was standing in a sea of hasty graves. A place where bodies had been defiled and flung indiscriminately into even less than a pauper’s grave. A killing field.
She dug her phone out of her hip pocket, hands shaking badly. There was no signal and she managed to stuff it back in the pocket before the dog came bounding over to her, tongue lolling, muzzle coated in dirt from all of the sniffing, digging, and chewing.
“Did you hear them?” Emilia asked Pepe. Her throat was dry and constricted and the words had to force themselves out.
Pepe gestured at the ground. “They don’t talk.”
“No.” Emilia clenched her fists to keep herself from shaking apart. “The people who made the tire tracks.”
“They had trucks,” Pepe said.
“How many?”
He wandered away and the dog trotted with him.
“When?” Emilia felt close to the breaking point. “When did you take the fingers?”
Pepe pantomimed cutting with two fingers. “I did it like this.”
The dog dug up something a few feet away and locked its jaws into it. A few tugs, the animal’s entire body braced, and the dog pulled out a lump of dirty meat. The dog settled onto its haunches and began to gnaw.
Emilia felt hysteria rising, coming up from her gut, pushing through her core until she knew it was going to burst out of her like a primal scream. She wanted to run away from this place, run away from the broken earth and the rot of death and the lingering ghosts. Forget that she’d ever been there, ever followed this trail, ever heard of Padre Pro.
But she stayed, unable to take a step in any direction. Emilia didn’t know how long she stood there, listening to the dog’s slobbering grunts of satisfaction, afraid of what she might step on if she moved. She kept her chin tilted up towards the sky, trying to find fresh air, refusing to give in to the nausea that choked her. The bodies in their hastily shoveled graves had died violently. Emilia felt their panic, their fear, and the restlessness of their souls and she had no way to prevent all of it from overwhelming her like a storm surge eating up the shore.
“Emilia.” The voice was soft, almost lost
in the wind.
She forced herself to turn around, realizing that she’d all but forgotten Flores. He was a few feet away, streaked with dust and sweat. He had a cell phone in one hand and a thick stick in the other, presumably to keep the dog away.
“There’s no phone service,” Flores said, his voice choked with tears.
His face contorted and he abruptly threw up. His retching went on for a long time, punctuated by sobs.
Emilia wanted to say something to him, but it was all she could do not to break down herself.
“You have to pay my papi now,” Pepe said.
Chapter 23
Almost of its own accord the Suburban turned east on La Costura. Emilia knew she was driving too fast but it didn’t matter. It was nearly midnight on a weeknight. The streets were relatively quiet. The few cars on the road stayed to the right as she barreled past in the left lane.
Emilia drove on automatic the entire way and it wasn’t until she handed the vehicle to the valet parking attendant at the hotel entrance that she consciously realized where she was.
She never came to the Palacio Réal during the week and the place felt different than on weekends. Quieter. She could see that the big Pasodoble Bar was still open and background music carried through to the hotel lobby, but otherwise the luxury hotel felt asleep.
The only person on duty in the lobby was behind the long concierge counter. Emilia couldn’t recall ever seeing him before.
“May I help you?” he asked. Emilia had to give Kurt credit, the young man’s face curved in a hotel-worthy smile, never betraying the alarm he must have felt at seeing a distraught woman in filthy clothes and a bulge in her denim jacket under the left arm.
Emilia produced her key card. “I’m Emilia,” she said over her shoulder as she made her way to the elevators. “Going up to Señor Rucker’s apartment.”
“Shall I call and announce you, señora?” the young man called.
“Do whatever the hell you want,” Emilia said to the elevator door. She jabbed at the button. Her hand shook and she wondered if it had been shaking ever since the call to Silvio.
It seemed like a lifetime ago when she’d steered a still-sobbing Flores back down the track, away from the killing field and the dog and the simple-minded Pepe. By the time they got back to the car her cell phone showed one feeble bar of service. It had been enough.
She had no memory of what she’d actually said on the phone as Flores tried to collect himself and Gloria looked on stonily. But Emilia’s directions and sense of urgency had been sufficient to bring out both Silvio and Ibarra. Two hours later, an entire technical crew was there, with lights and cameras and radios. The federales—national police, as well as an army unit—arrived shortly after that.
The elevator doors slid open. Emilia charged inside and came face to face with Christine Boudreau.
The blonde woman pressed a hand to keep the elevator doors open and stepped over the threshold. “An unexpected visit, Detective?” Christine asked as she pointedly took in Emilia’s disheveled appearance. The blonde hotel concierge wasn’t wearing her usual hotel uniform but a short white sheath dress and high heeled sandals. She carried nothing more than a tiny wristlet.
“Is that a problem?” Emilia asked. Her voice came out a little too loud and with a belligerence she hadn’t intended.
She swiped her key card at the sensor and punched P for the penthouse. She had the satisfaction of seeing Christine look startled as the elevator doors closed in her face.
The carriage rose smoothly. Emilia again fought rising hysteria as images of the killing field competed with Christine’s smug attitude. It occurred to her that coming to the hotel on a Tuesday night might have been a huge mistake.
Her hands shook so badly that it took two tries to get her key card to open the penthouse door. The living room was dim as she walked in, the room illuminated only by the moonlight shining in from the uncurtained sliding doors. The expanse of glass looked out over the bay and reflected the moonlight rippling over the moving water.
The only other light was a thin glow from under the bedroom door.
Emilia let the door slam and dumped her shoulder bag on the floor.
“Hello?” Kurt’s voice came from the bedroom. “Is someone there?”
“It’s me.” Emilia shucked off her jacket and left it on top of the bag by the door.
“Em?” The bedroom door opened and Kurt came out, clad only in long neoprene swim trunks and flip flops. He had a tee shirt in one hand and a towel in the other.
“What are you doing dressed like that?” An invisible hand squeezed Emilia’s heart.
“Going for a swim.” He tossed shirt and towel on the back of the sofa, took her by the shoulders and kissed her. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Why didn’t you call and let me know you were coming?”
“No one goes for a swim at this hour.” Emilia ducked out of his grasp. “Were those just the first pants you could find?”
Kurt dropped his hands. “I had a 16 hour day and need to work off some energy.” He looked at her filthy pants. “What happened to you?”
“Never mind me.” Emilia felt her blood pressure rise like a rocket. Part of her was still in that field; fighting for control, fighting against the scream threatening to burst out of her. “You really want me to believe you’re going swimming at this hour of the night?”
“Yes, I expect you to believe what I tell you.” Kurt gave a step back as if he sensed she needed space. “What’s going on, Em? What are you doing here?”
“Apparently finding out what really happens in this hotel when I’m not here.”
Kurt folded his arms. Backlit by the moonlight, he was something out of a magazine. Golden hair, golden skin, a body made of power and promise. And she’d thought it had all belonged to her.
“Really?” he asked. “What do you think happens when you’re not here?”
“This . . . this . . . this,” Emilia sputtered as she waved a hand at his bare chest. Her voice was too shrill, too loud. “The little boy at the desk wants to call up here. Warn you, right? The elevator takes forever to come and when it does, who gets off? Christine. With her teeny dress and smirky expression, looking like she just rolled out of bed.”
Kurt’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you seriously—.”
“When I get here, you’re half naked,” Emilia finished, interrupting him.
To her utter surprise, Kurt laughed. “Em, you’re had a pretty bad day if you think there’s something going on between me and Christine.”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me!” Emilia shouted. She charged down the hall and into the bedroom. She stood in the doorway.
The bed was neatly made. A pair of khaki pants and a white dress shirt were on the end and a pair of loafers were kicked over by the dresser. Nothing else was out of place.
Of course, maybe they’d done it on the sofa.
She marched back to the living room. Kurt held up his hands, palms out. “Em, what’s going on?”
“I guess this is my fault for coming on a Tuesday.” It was as if Emilia had absorbed the fear and panic she’d felt from the restless souls at the killing field. Reason had fled, chased by adrenaline. “You keep saying that this is my home now. But obviously only on the weekends when Christine is otherwise occupied.”
Kurt’s face tightened. He turned around and headed for the kitchen, his flipflops making soft slapping sounds. “Tea or wine?”
“What?”
He didn’t turn around. “Hot tea or a glass of red wine?”
“Tea,” Emilia said. “No. Wait. Wine.” She grabbed up her jacket and shoulder bag. “No, nothing. I should go.”
This was all wrong. The penthouse wasn’t home. She didn’t live with this arrogant, cheating gringo.
Kurt stopped in the dining area. He poured something from one of the bottles on top of the buffet into a tumbler and added a little water from one of the snotty imported brands he liked. “Here.” He held the tumbler out to
Emilia as she stood in front of the door. “You look like you need this.”
Emilia shook her head.
Kurt set the glass down, came to Emilia, put an arm around her shoulders, and steered her into a chair at the dining table. She let her jacket and bag tumble to the floor as Kurt pressed the glass into her unresisting hand. He took the chair next to her.
“What is it?” Emilia asked, eyeing the glass.
“Scotch,” Kurt said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, then had a wrestling match with it.”
“I didn’t win,” Emilia said.
Kurt mimed drinking. “Slow sips,” he said.
The mellow flavor numbed her tongue and the cool fluid turned into warm fumes as it slipped down her throat. Emilia closed her eyes and took another swallow, then another.
“What happened, Em?” Kurt asked again.
Another swallow of amber fire and the words came, slowly at first. After a few more sips, the whole story flowed out.
She told him about finding Gloria, the trip to Gallo Pinto, the trek to find Pepe. How the man with the simple mind had led them through the hills to a cliff above the coast where they found the killing field. About the dog and Flores.
“The federales have taken over.” Emilia closed both hands around the tumbler of Scotch as she wound up. “They want me to come back tomorrow to talk to Pepe again.”
“Will you go?” Kurt asked. He’d been mostly silent as she talked, yet somehow had managed to coax it all out of her.
Emilia stared at him. “I have to. He might have seen something. Whoever did this. After all, how did he know to walk up there in the first place?” She gave a bitter laugh. “I didn’t even think to ask him tonight. I didn’t say anything useful.”
“You found the place, Em.” Kurt made a drink up motion again. “If you hadn’t kept looking for everyone who’d bought and sold that finger, probably no one would have found the bodies. You can ask all the smart questions tomorrow.”
“Maybe.” Emilia took a final sip of Scotch.