Cut Throat

by Sharon Sala

  The hinges on the door squeaked as she entered. The man behind the desk looked up, then stood. His uniform was rumpled, as was the small cot she could see through the open door to the next room. He’d probably slept here last night, which meant there was, most likely, someone in lockup. His gaze moved from Cat’s face to the baby in her arms, and he smiled.

  “Señora?”

  “Habla inglés?”

  “Yes…I speak English,” he said. “My name is Lieutenant Dominguez. How can I help you?”

  “My name is Cat Dupree. Last night I stopped on the side of the road to go to the bathroom and heard a baby crying. This baby. Her mother is dead. Her body is in the back of my car.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes. Snakebite, I think.”

  Dominguez’s smile disappeared. “Do you have a weapon?”

  Cat’s eyebrows knitted. “In the car. I have a permit.”

  “Show me the body,” he demanded.

  Cat looked down at the baby, then back up Dominguez.

  “Is there a doctor here? The baby…I’m not sure if she’s okay.”

  “No, no doctor,” he muttered, and pointed toward the door.

  “You show me the body now.”

  Cat backed up, then turned around and walked out. Dominguez was right on her heels.

  She pointed to the hatch.

  “She’s back there. She was covered with the blanket when I found her. Coyotes got to her before I got her loaded up.”

  The policeman’s eyes narrowed. He saw the bundle, and pointed.

  “This is hers?”

  “Yes. Everything’s there except one of the cans of milk she was carrying and some diapers. I changed the baby and used some of the milk to feed her after I found them.”

  The baby started to cry.

  “She’s wet and probably hungry again,” Cat said.

  “Tend to the child,” the policeman said, and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket.

  Cat laid the baby down on the backseat while she refilled the bottle and got a clean diaper, then headed for the office. At least there was something she could still do for the living.

  * * *

  Solomon had pulled over to the side of the road to piss. Even as he was unzipping his pants, he kept remembering Paloma’s curse that his man parts would rot and fall off. His hands were shaking as he pulled out his penis. To his relief, it still looked the same. When a stream of urine began splattering on the dusty ground, he breathed a bit easier. It was working the same, too. Maybe after he’d given her the money and left, she’d taken off the curse, like she’d promised.

  As he stood there, he happened to glance up. A lone buzzard was circling the skies to the south. He shuddered, then looked away, afraid it might be a bad omen. As soon as he finished pissing, he opened the trunk of his car and unzipped the duffel bag. He liked looking at all that money—his money. Then he zipped it back up, got a small sack from the trunk with his medicine in it and got back in the car.

  It was the last of his antibiotics. He washed them down with the last of the water in his bottle, tossed the empty out into the desert, and then got a tube of ointment from the console and began applying it to his burn scars.

  The skin was still fragile, and there were a couple of places on his neck that didn’t look right. As soon as he got to Chihuahua, he would find himself a doctor. With all the money he had now, he could afford a good one. He glanced into the mirror, frowning as he ran a hand over his head where hair used to be. He didn’t even recognize his own face anymore. He shoved the rearview mirror away from his line of vision, got a fresh bottle of water from the cooler in the seat beside him, then started the engine.

  He’d been to Chihuahua many times over the last ten years. It was one of his favorite places to take a little R & R. Now, with his newfound wealth, it would be the perfect place to retire. With one last glance up at the circling buzzard, he put the car in gear and drove away.

  * * *

  Wilson woke up with a knot in his belly the size of his fist. The last time he’d felt like this, his grandfather had died, so apparently accepting that Cat was as good as dead to him wasn’t going to be a walk in the park after all. Leaving that angry message on her answering machine had been a sign of weakness, but there wasn’t any way to take it back. So what? She knew he’d fallen for her. That was nothing new. So now she’d know he wasn’t over her yet. It couldn’t hurt any more than it already did.

  It took everything he had to get out of bed and go to work, but if he didn’t show, LaQueen would be calling, and then he would have a whole new kind of woman trouble.

  He turned on the television as he was making coffee, listening absently to the weather forecast, as well as the local news. Ironically, there was an update on Mark Presley, the man Cat had brought to justice for murdering her friend. He upped the volume, catching the last part of the broadcast.

  Mark Presley, who was found guilty of murdering his pregnant mistress just before Christmas of last year, was sentenced to death yesterday. Still, with the appeals process, it will most likely be years before the sentence is carried out, if ever. Presley’s wife was suspiciously absent from the proceedings, and it’s rumored that she’s already filed for divorce.

  “Sorry bastard,” Wilson muttered, then finished his breakfast and headed for the office.

  According to the weatherman, the day would be clear but cold. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was cold where Cat was. She had a tendency to go off half-cocked, and he hoped she’d taken the right kind of clothes. Then, the minute he thought it, he cursed himself. What the hell was he doing, wasting time worrying about her?

  God. Would he ever learn?

  And so his day began.

  * * *

  The baby was crying. Cat had fed her and diapered her and didn’t know what the hell was wrong. She was walking in circles inside the police station with the baby on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, little girl…if only you could talk,” Cat said, as she cradled the baby against her shoulder.

  Suddenly it was quiet. Cat had started to relax, but she’d jumped the gun. Apparently the baby had stopped only long enough to take a big breath. Another wail sounded, coupled with something that could only be called a shriek.

  Cat was panicked. This was horrible. Who knew that anything so little could be so loud?

  The baby kicked against Cat’s hands. Uncertain what to do next, Cat shifted the baby from her right shoulder to her left, and as she did, a sound came up and out of the baby’s mouth—a sound so loud and startling that Cat almost dropped her.

  It was a burp of magnificent proportions, and with it came silence. The little girl shifted a bit, fussing and rooting her nose against the curve of Cat’s neck, and then she settled. Cat could feel the tension in the baby’s body melting like butter on hot bread, and she smiled.

  “Was that it? Lord, honey, all you had to do was tell me it was a bellyache.”

  Then she laughed at herself for even talking out loud to someone who couldn’t talk back. Relieved that the mini-crisis had passed, she moved to the doorway and looked out.

  There were four men near the rear of her SUV. The body had been moved to the back of an old station wagon, and the policeman who’d ordered Cat into his office was inside with it. She could see that they’d unrolled the body, obviously making sure that the woman had died as Cat assumed, and that she hadn’t been murdered.

  Being a Good Samaritan was more difficult that one might imagine. It would have been just her luck to bring in a body and be blamed for the demise. Thank God it wasn’t the case.

  But there was still the baby to consider.

  Somewhere, there had to be family. There was no way to know why the mother had been out in the desert so far from anywhere with her baby, but surely to God there were people somewhere who loved her and were worried out of their minds as to where she and the child had gone.

  As she stood, Dominguez looked up, saw her in the doorway and mot
ioned her over.

  She got the blanket, covered the baby and then headed for the street.

  “Yes, señor?”

  The policeman was crawling out of the old station wagon as she approached.

  “It is as you said. The little mother suffered snakebite. The marks on her arms are from animals. It was God’s grace that led you to the baby or she would have died so, too.”

  Unconsciously, Cat’s arms tightened around the baby as she listened.

  “So what happens now?” Cat said.

  “Her name was Pilar Mendoza. She was carrying papers that make me believe she was meeting a coyote.”

  Cat frowned. “You’re talking about a man who smuggles illegals into the States?”

  “Yes. This is so. Most likely the coyote either turned her away because she brought a baby with her, or he just stole her money and never planned to take her.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, such things happen.”

  Cat’s stomach rolled.

  “You mean someone intentionally left her stranded in the middle of nowhere?”

  “It is possible,” he said, then pointed to the baby. “Unfortunately, the only witness to this tragedy does not talk.”

  “God,” Cat muttered.

  “No. It is not God’s work. It is the work of the devil.”

  Cat felt like a traitor. Her heart was already halfway to gone on this baby she’d known for less than twenty-four hours, and she was already dreading the moment when she would be giving her up.

  “So what’s going to happen to this baby?”

  Dominguez frowned. “According to the papers the woman was carrying, she was from Adobe Blanco. It is a little village about two and a half hours southwest of here. Maybe there is family. Maybe not. Who knows? We will take the child and turn her over to the authorities in Nuevo Laredo. We do not have the resources to deal with such things here.”

  Cat stared down at the baby, knowing full well the tangled chain of legalities that could permanently separate her from any blood family she had left.

  “No,” she said.

  Dominguez’s frown deepened.

  “What do you mean, no? You do not have the authority to—”

  “Don’t do this,” Cat said. “She will get lost in the system. I know. I’ve been there.”

  Dominguez sighed, sweeping his arms outward.

  “Look around. Do you see a hospital? Do you see a place for tending to lost children?”

  “I see houses. There have to be people in them,” Cat said. “Don’t tell me there’s not even one woman in Casa Rojo who would be willing to take care of a baby girl for a day.”

  “Why a day?” he said.

  “Because that’s about how long it will take me to drive to Adobe Blanco, find out if Pilar Mendoza had any family there and bring them back. Surely you would not refuse to give the baby to Pilar’s family?”

  “Well, I—”

  “I need gas. And some cans of gas to take with me. I’ll need some water, too. I don’t suppose you have ice?”

  He shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Will you do it? Will you give me until sundown to try and find Pilar Mendoza’s family?”

  Dominguez sighed. This American woman was pushy, but he had to admit her heart was in the right place.

  “Yes. But know this. If you don’t come back…”

  “Oh, I’ll be back,” Cat said. “With or without Pilar’s family, I will be back.” Then she laid her cheek against the baby’s dark, curly hair and closed her eyes, imprinting the soft, even sound of baby breaths in her heart. “I promise you that, little girl.”

  Dominguez looked at the body in the station wagon, then at Cat.

  “We have no funeral parlor here in this village.”

  “Just clean the damned ants off her and put her someplace cool. Her family will reclaim the body when they take the baby.”

  “So maybe we can—”

  Cat gave the baby one last kiss on the forehead, then handed her to Dominguez.

  “No maybes. You take good care of this baby until I get back, or I swear to God, I will make your life hell.”

  Dominguez was startled, then angered, as he took the baby.

  “Lady, you do not come into my town and threaten me or tell me what to do. This isn’t your country. It is mine.”

  Cat poked a finger against his chest.

  “That wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. If I’d been five minutes later, this baby would be in some coyote’s belly. Comprende?”

  Her passion deflated Dominguez’s anger. Suddenly he got it. The tough woman wasn’t so tough after all. The baby had gotten to her. Then he glanced down. The baby was a beauty. It was a shame about the mother. His shoulders slumped slightly as he looked up at Cat.

  “Go with Juan. He will help you get fuel and water. Do you have a map of my country?”

  She nodded.

  “Juan will show you where Adobe Blanco is located on the map. The baby will be here when you get back.”

  Cat nodded, then turned to the other men who’d been helping with the body.

  “Which one of you is Juan?”

  A short, swarthy man with a large mustache stepped forward.

  “Follow me, señorita.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sun had been up for hours. Cat had no idea how long she’d been driving on what most might consider a trip to nowhere. Looking for a family that might or might not exist, so they could claim the body of a dead woman and the baby she’d left behind, could easily be a lost cause. Cat knew she was playing against the odds in pulling this off. As for the baby, Cat didn’t know her name or how old she was—in fact, six hours ago, she’d been unaware of her existence.

  But leaving that baby behind in Casa Rojo had been difficult—more difficult than she would have imagined. From the moment she had lifted the baby out of the mother’s lifeless arms and realized she was alive, the child had become the most important thing in Cat’s life. Seeing that the infant was reunited with family meant more to her right now than finding out if Tutuola was still alive.

  She knew from experience what it was like to be a throwaway child. Witnessing the last of her family being murdered—and nearly dying herself in the process—had been a trauma from which she’d never recovered. Even though she was an adult in every sense of the word, an independent, even aggressive, woman, she was still a product of her past. Every day, when she looked in the mirror and saw the ragged necklace of scar tissue around her throat, she was reminded that she belonged to no one. If a wild ride through the Mexican desert was all it took to find a lost baby’s family, then it was the least she could do.

  * * *

  The speedometer was hovering between eighty-five and ninety miles an hour, and the rooster tail of dust Cat was leaving behind her was impressive. Her grip on the steering wheel had turned her knuckles white, matching the bloodless set of her lips.

  She wasn’t just mad, she was furious. And she was scared. Scared for a baby she didn’t know, and furious that the mother’s death could have been prevented. Granted, the immediate cause of her death was snakebite. But her presence in the desert, so far from anywhere, was suspicious. If it was true that she’d been abandoned to her fate by a coyote, Cat silently wished that man to hell and back once a day for the rest of his miserable life and then to hell for eternity when he died. But she couldn’t let her thoughts stray from the greater purpose, which was to get to Adobe Blanco.

  When Dominguez had told Cat that Adobe Blanco was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, he’d been right. The landmarks she’d been given to look for were obscure. Still, how many rusted-out 1955 Chevies with a giant saguaro behind them could there be? Once she found that marker, she was to take a sharp turn south and follow what amounted to a dirt road for thirty miles, at which point she would come to a fork in the road, marked by one ancient gasoline pump, what was left of two walls of a building and the skeleton of a roof. It was all that was left of an old gas stati
on that had been abandoned back in the thirties. From there, she would take the left fork and drive the last fifteen miles to reach Adobe Blanco.

  The farther she drove, the more afraid she was that she’d somehow missed her turn. When her cell phone suddenly rang, the sound was so startling that she almost ran off the road. Her hands were shaking and her heart was still pounding erratically by the time she got the SUV under control. By then, whoever was calling had either disconnected or left a message. Cat didn’t bother to look. Chances were it was either Art or Wilson and she had nothing to say to either one of them, so she kept on driving.

  At the point of fearing she’d somehow missed the landmark, she saw the old car and, directly behind it, the giant saguaro.

  “Yes!” she shouted, and tapped the brakes until she slowed enough to take the turn.

  Dust boiled upward as the thick, gritty cloud that had been trailing her caught up and engulfed the SUV. Moments later, Cat shot out of the morass on a southward route. The sun was on her left and in her eyes. She grabbed a pair of sunglasses and shoved them up her nose, then stomped the accelerator all the way to the floor.

  * * *

  Art Ball hung up the phone, then looked up at Wilson McKay and shrugged.

  “She don’t answer.”

  A muscle jerked at the corner of Wilson’s left eye as he pivoted angrily and headed for the door.

  “Hey, McKay! If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah…right,” Wilson said.

  The door banged shut behind him as he left the bail-bond office. It was hard for him to decide which made him the angriest. The fact that Cat still hadn’t checked in, or the fact that he was so damned weak-minded where she was concerned that he’d gone crawling to Art Ball for possible scraps of information.

  “Hell,” Wilson muttered, as he headed for his vehicle. The day was sunny, but the air was frigid. It matched the hard, cold knot in his gut.