Total Victim Theory (23 page)

For a second she couldn't think of a response. “I must have forgotten why I went in there,” she finally said.

“You’re way too young to be getting senile on me.” His smile looked fake now. It made her want to get the hell out of there.

“I'm going to bed now,” she said and pretended to yawn.

“I’m ready to hit the hay myself. Long day.” He picked up the envelopes off the TV stand. In a flash of light from the TV, she glimpsed that there were names and addresses written on them in black ink—though she was too far away to make out the words.

“Sleep well,” she said.

“Same to you.” With that, Gary turned, as though to head down the hall to his room. But then he doubled back. “Oh, Emilia, if you aren’t too tired, would you mind making me a cup of tea before you go to bed? I’ve got a tickle in my throat and that might be just the thing.”

“
Claro
.” She turned off the TV and rose to her feet.

Gary disappeared into the study, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Emilia put a kettle on and waited for the water to boil. She listened intently for any sounds from the study that might reveal what Gary was up to in there. A moment later, she heard a metal-on-metal grating. The track of a desk drawer. The bottom right one, if she had to guess.

The kettle began to whistle. Emilia placed a packet of black tea in a mug and poured the steaming water over it. Just then, Gary emerged from the study, flipped out the light, and closed the door behind him. He walked past Emilia and hung his keys on the little key rack attached to the refrigerator door. The rack had a row of plastic prongs from which dangled perhaps a dozen sets of keys—most of which were to equipment and barns around the ranch. Gary’s key chain with its Corona bottle opener now hung swaying from the second-to-last prong.

Gary turned to Emilia and glanced at the cup of tea on the countertop. “Thanks for doing that for me.”

“
De nada
,” she said and handed it to him. Her hand trembled ever so slightly. It made the liquid in the cup ripple. She wondered if he noticed.

He was close to her now, and suddenly she was aware of an odor on him. Emilia always liked his raw masculine scent, but this smell repulsed her. It was sweat mixed with something else. She
couldn't have said what. There were a lot of bad-smelling things on that ranch. She turned her head to keep from breathing it in. Gary took a half-step back, as if aware of her disgust. He then brought the cup up to his lips and took a sip. All she wanted was to get away from him. To get that sickening scent out of her lungs. But she waited patiently for him to finish his tea.

Finally, Gary put the empty cup down on the counter top. It made a crisp clink. “
Hasta manaña,
” he said.

“
Que duermas bien
,” she said.

Gary gave her a wink. Then he went into his bedroom and closed the door. After he was gone, Emilia rinsed out his cup and put it in the dishwasher. But before she left the kitchen, she lingered for a few seconds in front of the refrigerator. Staring fixedly at the Corona bottle opener and that second-to-last set of keys.

*

The dirt road Raul and his father followed ran alongside a crowded feed lot. The moon had slipped behind a bank of clouds, and it was darker now. The cattle huddled together in dim mobs, sleeping while they stood. The animals seemed aware of the men’s presence and shifted anxiously about, emitting a few fearful sniffles and moos. Though there was much to say, they rarely spoke, as if their voices might alert some creature lurking up ahead in the darkness. Raul tried to step lightly, to keep the sand from crunching underfoot.

Before they'd left the bunkhouse, his father had pulled his yellow toolbox out from under the bed and taken two items from it—a flashlight, which he asked Raul to carry, and a hammer, which he slipped beneath his own belt. He told Raul not to turn on the flashlight until he said so. Until they were far enough from the main house that no one could see the beam. As for why the hammer was needed, his father offered no explanation and Raul asked for none. Soon they reached the hill over which the Ford and its human cargo had vanished a few hours before. They crested it and headed deeper into the ranch toward the northwest corner.

“That barn's not too far from here, is it—the one no one uses?” his father asked.

“It's just up ahead. Not far from the back fence.”

“You can turn the flashlight on. They can’t see us from here.”

Raul switched it on and directed a cone of light along the sandy path in front of them. Soon they passed over a second hill. From that point on, the ground maintained a constant downward grade.

“I can see it up ahead,
Papi
.” Raul pointed to the barn's dark outline, barely discernible against the night sky.

Raul had only been to this side of the ranch a few times. The ground was damper here and not much good for grazing, so the work tended to take place elsewhere on the ranch. It was just about here, Raul recalled, that the cow had met its perplexing and bloody end. Raul had never been inside the imposing structure and didn't know what, if anything, it was used for.

Soon the flashlight revealed a set of tire tracks in the damp sand. Raul held the beam steady, while his father examined the tread. They ran straight on in the direction of the barn.

“These are from the Ford,” his father said. “They're fresh.”

As they followed the tracks, a breeze picked up, blowing brush and brambles about. There was the sound of dust and rock scuttling across the ground. Up ahead the barn loomed before them. Both its size and menace seemed to grow with each approaching step. Two stories tall and fifty feet wide, the structure looked to be made of sturdy metal. When they finally reached it, his father examined the door. It had thick metal hinges and was secured by a large lock built into the door frame. The older man pried his fingers into the seam along the right edge and gave a forceful pull, but the door refused to budge.

Raul pointed the beam at the side of the barn. It was constructed of metal panels welded flush with one another, between which not even the tiniest glimpse was afforded. His father tried again to force the door open, again with no result. At this point a crisp crunch resounded underfoot. Raul directed the flashlight toward the noise. A piece of something thin and metallic gleamed near his father's feet. It was half-buried in the dirt. His father squatted down and carefully dug the object up with his fingers.

“What is it?” Raul asked.

“I don't know,” his father said, holding it up so Raul could see.

Raul felt a chill, as he recognized what it was. “
Es de Esteban
.”

It was the silver wiring of Esteban’s retainer. The shiny device had been a fixture of the young man's smile for the six weeks Raul had known him. For a moment, Raul could only stare.

This had all seemed impossible just an hour ago. It was one thing to be suspicious, but quite another to believe that Gary had actually harmed those two men. Seeing the retainer changed all that. It was real. An object you could hold in your hand that spoke of something terrible happening.

His father turned the retainer over in his hand, then put it in his pocket. “We've got to get in there,” he said, mostly to himself. Then he rose and took a few steps forward. “Shine the light on the door,” he told Raul.

Raul did so and his father began examining the hinges on the left side. The older man then pulled out the hammer he'd tucked into his belt and took several swings at the upper hinge. The sound reverberated through the dark, but the hinge appeared unfazed. Arturo then tried wedging the claw end of the hammer beneath the hinge where door met door frame. At first he wasn't able to do it, but after several attempts he found a spot where it fit. Leveraging all his strength, he pulled the shaft of the hammer back. A sharp pop resounded and Raul saw that a tiny rift had opened up between the hinge and the doorframe. Several rivets had been uprooted and ripped from the hinge.

“It's working,” Arturo said. “Keep the light right on it.”

His father repeated the action several times and each time more rivets leapt off. Soon the hinge gave way completely and dropped to the ground. His father looked pleased and started in on the lower hinge. A moment later, it too fell to the ground with a moist thud. A two-inch gap had formed on the left side of the door.

“Help me,” his father said. “Get a grip and we'll pull at the same time.”

Setting the flashlight down, Raul took hold just below where his father had placed his own hands. On the count of three, they both yanked back as hard as they could. The lock on the right-hand side gave a metallic shriek, even as yielded to their combined strength. Together they pried back the broken door, until the small gap had widened to several feet. Finally, they released their hold and stood panting.

A blank, black space peered out at them through the mangled doorway. Raul felt a current of humid air waft against his cheek. A faint odor of dankness, like the inside of a cave. Then his father turned and picked up the flashlight. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward and shone the beam inside.

29

Mustang

I wrap up the search of Lisa's apartment and slip out without incident. Heading back to the hotel, the birthday card figures prominently in my thoughts. And it's not tough to do the mental math on this one. If Danielle, the child in the photo, just had her tenth birthday, and if it turns out she's Lisa's child, then she'd be just about the age you'd expect the child to be if—

But I don't want to get too invested in this. Lately, hopeful outcomes seem to go against the grain of the universe. When something positive does occur, I start to feel like I’m being set up for some really cruel joke. And so I try to suppress all optimistic inclinations. Yet, as I'm falling asleep, I find that a little renegade smile has commandeered my lips.

The next morning I wake up early and call Jaci Walters, Lisa's mother, from the phone in my hotel room. I got her number off the luggage tag on her daughter's suitcase. My hope is that Jaci can tell me who Danielle is—and if it turns out she's Lisa's daughter—explain why Lisa had never met her, as the birthday card suggested. It's also possible that Jaci may know details about her daughter's life, which, though they didn't make it into the Mustang Police report, might shed light on the circumstances of the abduction.

Before calling, I debate the best way to deal with the issue of my identity. Since no one except Silva knows I'm here, calling myself Jake Radley could, if the Bureau got wind of it, tip them off to my unauthorized activities. What's more, Jaci doesn't yet know about Lisa's murder. That news will cause a big enough strain,
without me throwing in the bewildering (and largely irrelevant) fact that I, the messenger, am also her daughter's ex-boyfriend.

I place the call and Jaci picks up on the third ring. I introduce myself as Agent Howard Jordan, a slight variation of the Howard Johnson hotel chain and the first name that pops in my head. Within two minutes I've broken the news—your daughter is dead and the death was a
homicide
. I didn't want to use that word, but it just came out, I suppose out of a wish to shield both Jaci and myself from the crueler alternative,
murder
.

For a long time, the only sound on the line is her weeping and the few words, prayers, and pleadings she utters amid her sobs—words like
why
and
how could it happen
and
my baby girl
. She's not talking to me, but to the world at large, and so I say nothing in response. I think about whether I have it in me to tell her what was really done to her daughter. She'll find out eventually, of course, if not from me, then from someone else whenever the Bureau or the Juárez PD formally identifies Lisa's body. But I still don't know if I can be the one to relay the details, knowing what those details put me through.

I met Jaci twice during the time when Lisa and I were together eleven years ago. The first time, the three of us ate together at a colossal Mexican restaurant called Casa Bonita. The ceiling was so implausibly high they were able to build a giant waterfall complete with cliff divers in the main dining room. The second time I met Jaci was over brunch at her place. It was me and Lisa and Jaci and a disbarred attorney named Kip who Jaci was dating. That was, incidentally, the day Lisa left me or ran away or however you want to put it. The last day I saw her alive.

The truth is I don't know Jaci that well. I can't claim we ever even had a real, substantive conversation. But as I'm listening to her, I realize what a huge thing we have in common now. And for all that I went through, I have to concede that her grief is of a different order of magnitude than my own. You can hear it in her voice. Unfathomable and inconsolable. To lose your child must be a sorrow that leaves all others in the dust.

The sobbing slows and finally stops altogether. For a moment, only the sound of breathing.

“How did it happen?” Jaci finally asks, her voice a whisper.

I think how to answer. I should have thought all this out
before. “I’m sorry, Ms. Walters, we're not allowed to release that—”

“You don’t need to tell me anything else about it. I don’t want to know. But just tell me how my baby died.”

“Because this is an ongoing investigation, I'm not permitted—”

“You’ve got to tell me. I’m her mother, sir. Be a little decent. That’s the only way I’m gonna get through this.”

I shudder. Some of what Lisa must have gone through in the last hours of her life flashes through my mind—the cold nighttime sand beneath her. Her empty sockets hopelessly scanning the darkness, as the pain coursed through her. As it radiated out from the parts of her that were no longer there, like a phantom moan. What were her thoughts, when, in that anguish and incomprehension and darkness, she gathered up her strength and began to crawl?

“What happened to my daughter, Agent Johnson?” she presses.

I know I should just tell the truth. That's the right thing to do. And that's what Jaci deserves. But I just can't. . . . “Your daughter was shot in the head,” I finally say. “She died instantly.”