The Little Spanish Girl

by Ales Matko

  ''Marcus probably discovered the body and ran to tell señor Elsa.''

  ''I was thinking the same thing,'' Klauder replied with a shaky voice, unable to take his eyes off the grisly sight.

  But before they could consider their next move, they heard the screams of a man coming from the direction of the guards' settlement. Without a word, Klauder and Beatra headed off in the snow towards the shanty town, following the sound.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The last time the investigators had been here, there were children laughing and playing. Now the place was deserted, the streets empty, the children safely under lock and key at home.

  The screaming grew louder.

  ''Down here, detective!''

  Running along the inhospitable streets, they could see the grim, unwashed faces of the women and children looking out from the windows. Most of the men, no doubt, were on duty.

  Klauder and Beatra finally reached a dead end, where they were confronted with yet another grusome sight: the body of another girl, her shredded dress soaked in blood. The wailing had been coming from one of the guards, apparently the girl's father.

  ''¿Señor?''

  Klauder did not know what to say, and the man scarcely acknowledged him.

  ''Stabbed to death, from the look of it,'' Beatra muttered.

  And on the rotting wood of a nearby wall, another message just like the others, but with one very significant difference: this one was not written in blood.

  Kasturaahi, niece of pain, awakens. All the

  detectives in the world can’t save you now.

  ''This is clearly about you, señor Klauder,'' Beatra said as he closed in on the writing, examining it carefully. ''It looks as if it was written with dirt.'' He looked down at the ground. ''Yes, this is our ‘ink’ all right. I can see signs of fingers in the mud.''

  ''Inspector, is it just me, or do the letters look kind of sloppy? The ... Well, for lack of a better word, the penmanship in the first two messages was much more elegant than this. It seems to have been done in a hurry.''

  Again they tried to establish communication with the distraught father to find out when and how the girl was found and whether anyone had noticed anything suspicious. But the man was still in shock and unable to answer any of their questions, so they let him be.

  ''Two more murders,'' Klauder said. ''Estamos tratando con un monstruo.''

  ''A blind alley in a desolate location. The killer had a good chance of not getting caught.''

  ''Looks like it. Think about it, inspector. The second set of footprints we found by the blonde girl were coming from here. The culprit must have been here first and killed the other girl on his – or her – way back to the mansion.''

  Just then, a loud, all-terrain vehicle pulled up. The door opened and, to no one's surprise, Elsa and Marcus climbed out.

  The gangster did not even look at the investigators. He just walked over to the weeping father and knelt down, his knees in the mud and his hand on the man's shoulder, speaking to him in a low voice. Moments later, the father slowly stood up, took his daughter's corpse in his arms, and carried it away.

  ''She was his daughter,'' Elsa said, as if anyone needed to be told. Then his tone of voice changed. ''Gentlemen, we need to talk.''

  What followed caught the investigators completely by surprise. They were expecting more threats, or maybe even an early execution if Elsa had changed his mind about waiting till evening. But the gangster's demeanor was anything but threatening. For the first time since Klauder and Beatra had arrived at this grey settlement in the middle of the swamp, Gustav Elsa seemed positively rueful.

  ''I would like to apologize to you both for my behavior. I realize you are doing everything you possibly can to find my daughter and bring her back alive, and for this I am exceedingly grateful.''

  Klauder was having none of it. ''May I remind you,'' he retorted, ''that you've ordered us shot if we don’t succeed by this evening?''

  ''I would have never gone through with it!'' Elsa exclaimed, as if on the verge of a breakdown. ''Believe me, I was just trying to light a fire under you! My daughter is gone, my mother is dead, and this evil, whatever it is, keeps twisting and tightening around me and I fear the worst. I fear that my Ana-Maria is already dead and it's just a matter of time before we find her remains – if we're lucky.''

  His intimidating aura had faded completely. In this moment he no longer even resembled a ruthless gangster, but was just an ordinary man: vulnerable, fragile, small.

  ''I just want her back!'' he wailed. ''I can't bear for this to end the way it has for the others. For me to have to weep over her like I did over my mother!''

  ''Calma, señor, por favor,'' said the flustered Klauder. ''Of course we have been doing, and shall continue to do, everything within our power to bring this case to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible.''

  Elsa wiped the tears from his face.

  ''But we need you to be completely forthcoming with us about certain things.''

  ''Of course. Ask me anything. A million questions and I will answer every one of them truthfully, I swear to God!''

  ''Forget the million questions,'' Klauder said. ''I only have one. I want to know about Ana-Maria – where she came from and how she got here. The inspector and I have heard rumors ...''

  Elsa took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  ''All right, I'll tell you,'' he said. ''Beatrice and I were never able to have a child of our own. She was unable to conceive. Three and a half years ago, we were on a trip down south visiting the town of Vadamella. It was the beginning of summer, and Beatrice needed a holiday, what with her nerves constantly on end even back then. While we were there she encountered a local woman with a baby on one of her morning strolls. I wasn’t with her at the time, but she later explained to me that, looking at that, to use her words, sweet little innocent thing in the baby carriage, she suddently lost her mind entirely.''

  Elsa’s face clouded over.

  ''She was overcome with jealousy and literally assaulted the woman, hitting and kicking her before taking the child, in broad day light, and running. She literally kidnapped the woman's daughter. She then returned to our apartment and told me what she'd just done. Naturally I wanted to take the child back, but Beatrice threatened suicide if I did. She was manic. She would have done it, no question.''

  ''So she stole the baby right there on the street?'' Beatra asked rhetorically, trying to stem the flow of new information long enough for him to process what he'd already heard.

  ''That's correct,'' Elsa nodded. ''She was positively obsessed with the idea of having a child.''

  ''Por el amor de Dios,'' Klauder sighed. ''Why not simply adopt one? Why do such an awful thing to a stranger?''

  ''Alas, that was my fault,'' Elsa lamented. ''I also wanted a child, but I wanted it to be my own.'' His throat tightened, making it difficult to speak. ''So I rejected adoption as a possibility, and Beatrice took matters into her own hands.''

  A weak smile flashed across his face. ''What I never suspected was that the girl would grow on me as she did. We named her Ana-Maria and over time I managed to forget all about how we got her. I actually came to love her as if she were my own. We developed an indescribable bond. I never knew I could feel the things I felt for her. She means everything to me now, and I would sacrifice my life to have her back alive and unharmed.''

  His soliloquy was so dramatic even Marcus felt something arise in him somewhere deep inside, although he was too unfamiliar with empathy to recognize it.

  Klauder thought for a moment. ''Forgive me for saying so, but your wife doesn't seem quite as keen as you are to have Ana-Maria back.''

  ''Yes, señor Klauder,'' Elsa sighed. ''Beatrice got tired of the girl after the first few months. A woman, I suspect, cannot easily love a child not her own. I don’t know, maybe I'm not smart enough to understand these things. In any case, she actually got pregnant some time later but lost the child to a miscarriage, and this le
d to a severe decline in her mental state. After that, she was barely a shadow of the woman I married. She became miserable and morbid, and fell victim to drugs and alcohol.''

  He put his hands together as if he were praying, although he wasn't. ''I fear we've been cursed for kidnapping Ana-Maria and much of the reason I've established such rigorous security measures in recent years has been, not to protect my operation, but to prevent anything happening to her. I fear there's been something demonic and sinister haunting us ever since Vadamella, and now it's letting loose with full fury.''

  ''And you decided to meet it half way?'' Klauder chimed in sarcastically. ''By becoming a man of dark reputation yourself, a wielder of satanic forces, so to speak?''

  Elsa forced a smile.

  ''You mean about what happened in the city? All of that took place more than ten years ago, long before Ana-Maria was here. And there was nothing supernatural about it. It was just chemistry.''

  For a few moments, Elsa went silent. Somehow he appeared even smaller than he was, as if he had literally shrunk from worry. ''Don’t judge me too harshly for this, detective. A man has to make a living and I'm simply in a profession that requires people to fear me. I actually got the idea for all that demonic mumbo-jumbo from my sister. She'd been into rituals of various kinds from an early age and I figured it was a good way to scare some respect into people, at least the ones who couldn't be bribed or threatened by the usual methods.''

  ''Hold on a moment, señor,'' Beatra interrupted. ''Are you saying that your sister is involved in satanism?''

  ''I know what you're thinking, but it's not like that. She could never have harmed Ana-Maria. She loves her almost as much as I do, and having talked very directly to her myself, I can assure you she had nothing to do with any of this.''

  Before Beatra could get another question in, he looked up to find several of Elsa's senior guards approaching. Elsa begged the investigators once more to find the girl, then hastily left to join them.

  ''I wish he hadn't withheld all this information until now,'' Klauder said once the gangster was out of earshot. ''Who does that, though? Who just kidnaps an innocent child, only to abandon it a little while later?''

  ''Elsa and his wife are two peas in a pod if you ask me,'' Beatra mused. ''Both are reckless and sinister and neither thinks twice about resorting to violence to get their way. Did you hear how easily he justified mass poisoning? And that's not even the half of it. His violence and intimidation are legendary. The incident with the ‘demonic curse’ was just the icing on the cake. Don't let his newfound sincerity fool you, detective. The man is a hardened drug dealer and gun runner and always will be.''

  Klauder was again absorbed in thought, and hardly seemed to be listening.

  ''What does all of this mean for us?'' Beatra asked, trying unsuccessfully to rouse the detective from his reverie. ''And where do you want to go from here? I mean, does the fact that Ana-Maria was taken from her real family years ago change the way we ... Señor Klauder?''

  The detective offered no response. Instead he turned away from Beatra, walked past the large group of guards who were now exchanging angry words with Elsa, and headed towards the other end of the dirty street. And there, peeking out through one of several large fissures in an otherwise windowless shack, he glimpsed the face of a child.

  Klauder paused for a moment, then gently knocked on the cold wood. The door opened and a little boy dressed in dirty clothes peeped out into the grey, icy day.

  ''Buenos días,'' Klauder greeted him with a warm smile. ''How are we doing today?''

  ''My mama told me not to talk to strangers!'' the boy said in a thin but determined voice.

  ''Your mother sounds like a smart woman. But I'm hardly a stranger. You may have heard of me. My name is detective Emmanuel Klauder and I'm rather well-known around here.''

  Beatra came up behind him but kept his distance so as not to spook the boy.

  ''I'm looking for a missing person and trying to find out who is behind all these terrible ...''

  ''I know Ana-Maria – we're friends.'' The boy leaned a bit futher out. ''Where is she?''

  ''Someone took her,'' Klauder replied gingerly. ''And I want to find out who. Will you help me?''

  The boy nodded his head vigorously.

  ''Wonderful! So then tell me. Were you here in this hideout of yours a little while ago?''

  ''No,'' the boy said, shaking his head.

  ''Oh. Well that's too bad. I thought maybe you saw something through the ...''

  ''But I did see who wrote the message.''

  Klauder's eyes widened.

  ''You did? And could you tell me who that was?''

  ''It was a woman. She was wearing a hood.''

  ''¿Una mujer? A hood? Are you sure? Can you remember anything else about her?''

  The child thought for a few moments.

  ''I didn’t see her face, but she had a black coat. And she was in a hurry. After she wrote the message she ran away.''

  ''And did you happen to catch ...''

  ''Hey, you!'' an angry voice suddenly shouted from behind. ''Get away from my son!''

  Klauder turned and saw one of the guards marching towards him, pointing his assault rifle.

  The detective put his hands up. ''Don’t shoot! I was just trying to find out if ...''

  ''I'll kill you, you hear me? All of this is your fault! Ever since you and that cop showed up, all hell's broken lose!''

  Elsa approached cautiously from behind.

  ''Let’s not do anything rash now, Esteban!''

  ''He was trying to kidnap my boy!''

  ''Por el amor de Dios, señor, I am trying to solve this case and bring down whomever is responsible! Put your gun down, por favor!''

  But the man did not lower his weapon. Instead the other guards almost instinctively came rushing to his aid. Some had their rifles trained on Klauder, and the rest made sure Beatra stayed where he was.

  ''Men, please! Baja sus armas!''

  But for the first time, Elsa's order went unheeded. ''Did you not hear me? I said put your guns down!''

  He was starting to look more and more like his old self, a menacing gangster with a short fuse. But still there was no reaction from his men.

  The ever-loyal Marcus had his rifle out as well, but he was aiming, not at Klauder or Beatra, but at his own compatriots.

  By this time, Elsa's face had turned a subtle crimson, and he began hurling a volatile mixture of orders and insults at his men with such intensity that foam was spraying from his mouth. But not one of his men backed off. They were locked in a standoff. Elsa, for the moment at least, was powerless.

  ''Detective, inspector – back off slowly and head back to the mansion while I talk some sense back into these men.''

  ''Are you sure?'' Beatra said, not sure whether retreating was the best idea just now.

  Klauder, on the other hand, did not argue. His heart pounding in his chest, he slowly started backing up towards his partner, and when he reached him, they both turned around very slowly and began walking away, gradually increasing their speed until they finally turned the corner and left the alley behind them.

  Then they broke into a run.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The investigators only stopped once they reached the demolished factory, which was now abandoned. Beatra could have gone on running, but Klauder looked as if he were going to release his soul into the cloudy sky at any moment.

  ''Rest ... I need to rest,'' he puffed, wheezing and leaning with his hands on his knees.

  ''Did you see that, detective?'' Beatra said in amazement. ''The insubordination of Elsa's men? He appears to have lost control of them entirely! A band of rebelious thugs, armed to the teeth and very pissed off. Now that's a recipe for disaster!''

  Klauder was still trying to catch his breath.

  ''Their reaction ... is understandable ... Their children are being killed ... The overall situation appears to be out of control, and ... it all looks li
ke a ... like a series of demonic rituals.'' He paused to wipe the saliva off his chin. ''But who is the only person here ... known for black magic? Elsa! They must blame him ... for everything.''

  ''What about his sister? You heard what he told us. It was Elizabeth that suggested he put up a demonic facade to begin with. Apparently, she's the real deal, the real witch, so to speak!''

  Klauder winced but retorted only after he had caught his breath.

  ''What is this, the Middle Ages? Don’t say things like that, inspector, please. There are no witches here, only women with dark motives! Listen to this - the boy, an eyewitness, saw a woman write that message on the wooden wall. He said that she was wearing a hood and quickly rushed off after.''

  ''So it could wery well be Elizabeth, then! It all fits! And remember the earring? Even if Elsa trusts her and doesn’t think she may be the culprit. Of course he isn’t going to torture his own sister but rather take her word for it!''

  ''Well, we will certainly pay her a visit, and the sooner the better. I have a feeling shit is about to hit the fan very soon if we don’t quickly put an end to all of this.''

  Klauder paused for a moment and looked from afar at what remained of the factory. He directed his attention to the sludge-covered road on the other side of the facility, which the guards presumably took as they were transporting those crates of weapons and whatever else was in there to safety.

  He suggested they follow it, but as it turned out, the road quickly took a time-consuming turn through a thick pine forest, so what should have been a twenty-minute walk to the parking lot took them an hour.

  ''Now that was a waste of time,'' Beatra muttered, rubbing his frozen hands together.

  Klauder ignored his remark and began examining the parked cars, mostly the all-terrain vehicles that had been only recently used by Elsa's men. Beatra followed his lead, not really knowing what they were looking for.