The Demands of the Dead (17 page)

The door opened, revealing a thin, big-eyed, wavy-haired, restless-handed girl whose expressive face expressed a long day in a lifetime of disappointments. Her big eyes were fixed on me like I was a novelty from the moon—or the United States of America.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” she said, but she let me in anyway, warning me that I could stay only a few hours. Diaz’s mother would be home and wouldn’t want to talk. It would be better if I’d leave by then. I asked: Why wasn’t she supposed to talk to me?

“Dona Diaz said we weren’t going to talk to anyone until the check comes.”I assumed the check was the compensation for Diaz’s death. I didn’t know what Mexico’s life insurance system was. Police probably didn’t get much alive. I doubted their families would get much when they were dead.

“Just to be sure, you're Diaz's girlfriend --”

“-- his wife. Mariana Diaz Torres.”

“His... wife? I thought he wasn’t married?”

“We were married a month ago. It was a private wedding.”

“And you moved in here? With his mother?”

“They were alone here. She was alone here. We... decided it would be better if I stayed here with her.”

Diaz's mother kept an organized and clean middle-class home with painted wooden furniture and a clean kitchen. Mariana got us orange Jarrito sodas and sat with me at the kitchen table.

“I’ve answered all these questions already,” she said like someone who wanted me to think she had better things to do but was holding out in the hope of being entertained.

“Many times, I bet.”

“Yes.”

“How recently was the last time?”

It was a risk asking her that. If I were a part of the investigation, wouldn’t I know?

“Your supervisors aren’t keeping you informed, are they? Maybe they sent you to the wrong place. Your co-worker was here this morning.”

“Chavez?”

She nodded.

I bought myself a second with a gulp of soda, and pressed on.

“Ah. Of course. I hadn’t heard from him because we were planning to meet at the end of the day, and sometimes we do the same interview twice just to... just to get a fresh perspective on things sometimes. You don’t mind, do you? I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience?”

She smiled. “You speak Spanish well.”

“Thanks. So what did you tell lieutenant Chavez, so I can avoid repeating questions?”

“I told him Hernan and I were married a month ago, and that I’m now a widow, so I must be taken care of.”

“Anything else?”

She squared her shoulders and held her chin high, defiant. “That I’m having Hernan’s child.”

“When?”

“In a few months.”

She wasn’t showing. But that explained the wedding. Private. Emergency was more like it.

“Anything else?”

“He asked me if Hernan ever talked about work. I told him no.”

“Was that true?”

She looked down and away, quiet. But she wanted to tell me something.

“Is it unfair of me to ask,” I pressed.

My guess was she wanted to give me something to spite the mother-in-law. Mrs. Diaz had made Mariana promise not to talk until they saw some money. That seemed to make Mariana want to spill to the first investigator who showed up.

She was waiting for something from me. She was going to give me something. But I had to make it okay first. She sat staring at me with her big innocent looking eyes. There was something around the eyes, the mouth. Something wanted to come out. I took a risk.

“Did Hernan ever tell you the stuff he was involved in?”

She broke and cried. Well, sobbed quietly at first, then louder. It was awkward. You weren’t supposed to just sit there while someone cried. You were supposed to offer human contact. But if you were a professional and they were being interrogated, if they were a widow and you had just pushed their buttons in order to get information, if you weren’t a friend but someone who could get them in a lot of trouble if you weren’t careful, if you weren’t going to be able to protect them, it was not necessarily more humane to offer human contact than to wait for them to stop crying.

The compromise solution was to get her a handkerchief. She caught her breath.

“They called here, after Chavez left. I was too scared to answer.” She got up and walked over to the phone. She had an old-fashioned answering machine. She cued it up and played it for me. It was a soft male voice, just above a whisper.

“Listen you bitches, we’re not fucking around, we know what he said to you, you’d better just forget it and not tell anyone, we’re going to make sure you don’t tell anyone, we can’t wait to get in there and start making sure, we don’t care, we’ll make sure of the old bitch first, and then the young one, and who knows, who knows what we’ll do about that unborn baby of yours? That’s what happens if you fuck with us. We can get your silence in all kinds of ways, you understand? We...”

She stopped the tape. She was crying again.

“Have they called before?”

She nodded.

“How did they know about the baby?” she asked me, “how did they know to call as soon as I closed the door on Chavez?”

“They’re watching the house, I guess. Mariana, you were too scared to answer the phone. But not too scared to let me in and talk to me. Why?”

Mariana looked at me through tears and defiance and the closed fists at her sides. Strong willed. The mother-in-law and Diaz must have both been pretty fearsome themselves to have limited her so much.

“I knew from your accent you were not Mexican. I know these are Mexicans. I wanted them to see you. I wanted them to know I talked to you.”

“Come back, sit down.” I invited her. “So, what is the guy on the tape talking about? What did Hernan tell you that you’re supposed to forget?”

Mariana sighed. “The truth is, he didn’t tell me a lot.”

“But he did tell you something, didn’t he?”

“You have to understand, mister... We didn’t talk or see very much of each other. When we did, he didn’t want to talk about work.”

“So what did you talk about?”

“The future. Our kids. Our life together. He promised me he’d get us a villa in Quintana Roo. He said I could finish my education then and be a teacher.”

“You were making retirement plans, so early on?”

“No. He wanted to do that next year—“

“So you’re saying Hernan talked like he was expecting to come into some big money?”

“Yes but it could have been just posing.”

“But then who are these people watching your house and calling you like this?”

Mariana looked shifty.

“Did you tell Chavez this?”

“No.”

Of course not. It was the phone threat that changed her. Made her defiant.

“Are you going to tell your mother-in-law?”

“Do you think I should?”

I thought so, yes. I told her as much.

Who else should she tell?

I gave her Raul’s church number. I would tell him myself. They had ways of assessing the merits of a claim. Let them assess. The church was minutes away. In fact Diaz's mother was probably going to be at Raul's mass. I told her to call Raul and tell him what happened, and to call him again if she was threatened.

I called Hoffman from a pay phone and got a machine. I told him about Mariana, and said as clearly and loudly as I could over the clear channel phone line, that she was under threat and needing protection. Then I called his beeper and let him know I left a message.

I wondered what Mariana had really told Chavez. Had he really been there this morning?

I drove back to the church, parked and walked around the white, battered, three-spire testament to Spanish colonialism. Formidable in its way. Raul said that every once in a while pro-government PRI supporters would come and shoot the place up. I looked for bullet holes. They were hard to tell from normal cracks and wear and tear.

If Mariana was telling the truth Chavez was in town. Which meant he wasn’t with the Garcias—unless they were in town too.

If Chavez was in town, interviewing Mariana, he was still trying to solve the case. It hadn’t ended with arresting the Garcias, for them. I remembered Chavez’s adversarial interview with Beltran, the fact that he hadn't reported in. Maybe Chavez was operating without Beltran’s sanction. That would explain the threat to Mariana too—Beltran’s people, trying to prevent her from talking to me or Chavez. Trying to prevent her from telling us... what, exactly?

That Diaz had been expecting a windfall when he died.

There weren’t too many ways for a cop to earn a windfall. There were just a few more ways in Chiapas than in most places. I had an idea what Diaz had died waiting for.

The church door opened a crack. Francois came out. He lit a cigarette and looked at me.

“Father Raul just started mass. You’re 45 minutes early.”

“I want to go to the police station,” I said.

He shrugged and puffed. “Let’s go, then.”

“You don’t mind missing service?”

He smiled. “I like the liberation part better than the theology part. Besides, we won't be long.”

We could be, if I talk to Chavez, I thought. But Francois didn't seem to think that likely.

The police station marked a different corner of the same town square, like it did most Mexican towns. Francois told me about the shootout here in the square in 1994.

“They died here. A lot of them.” He pointed down a road that led out of town. “They were supposed to blow a bridge so the army couldn’t come, but they missed their chance. Then the police here held them up for 12 hours. They took control of the town, and they threw a party, played music, announced the new revolutionary laws. Then the army crossed the bridge and came into town.

“The army brought heavy artillery and helicopter gunships, grenades. The army had orders to kill Zapatistas on sight. It was so vicious that some Mexican troops deserted and defected to the US. Of all places to defect to! Like moving from Acapulco to Cancun because you don’t like the beach.”

We walked across the market place. Francois pointed out sewers where rebels ducked into, neighbourhoods where they’d retreated, places where bodies were found the next day.

“One hundred fifty people were killed here in 3 days.”

I’d read about the battle of Ocosingo in Hoffman’s files, the worst fighting of the 1994 war.

I walked into the police station and Francois waited outside. I showed my ID and explained myself in a highly professional manner. I expressed the gravity of the situation and the importance and urgency of my talking to Chavez and the Garcias if they were present.

The clerk wasn’t impressed. He looked at me like I was the only person who’d asked him anything all day. Then he told me to get lost. But between the alert level, the low quality of the clerk at the front, and the lack of any bustle at the station, I knew what I needed to know.

The Garcias weren't here.

Chavez had not come to the police station today and was not working out of there. Strange behavior for a cop working on a case.

I went back to the church.

Francois was right. Somehow he knew Public Security would bounce me to the curb in enough time for us to catch the end of the service. Raul, a priest there, was not the pastor of Ocosingo, and so was not officiating. He stood behind the pastor, whose voice carried through a cathedral full of indigenas, their different ethnicities marked by traditional clothing, and modern mestizos. The pastor said:

“For we know that when we believe, we are not afraid. And though we may be imprisoned, we are free. Though we may be poor, we are rich. Go in peace, and forgive your enemies.”

I watched Raul's face for a reaction, but he wore a practiced priestly gaze.

Before dinner, I checked my messages. Hoffman had replied, ensuring that he would communicate the importance of protecting Mariana Diaz to our employers and our friends in Mexico. Maria had also replied on our secret channel:

“Found it. Cross-referencing now. Also, people from D.F. Are looking for you. H. told them you'd meet them in S.C. I don't think you can avoid it much longer. Also, miss and love you too.”

After re-reading the last line a few times, I closed the email and thought about work. The embassy still wanted me to meet with them. I would do it, but there were too many things to do first.

We ate a simple and excellent dinner. Tamales, tortillas, beans, cheese, tomatoes, and chicken.

Raul surprised us then.

“I think you two should move on, tonight.”

“I thought you were going to come with us—“

“I will be needed here for a few more days than I thought. Now the church has word of what happened. The bishop doesn’t need me in San Cristobal any more. I’ll stay. You two should go on to San Cristobal. If you keep moving tonight, you can miss the checkpoints.”

So we did. We said goodbye to Raul and Ocosingo, and got back on the 199, this time towards San Cristobal. Just outside Ocosingo, Francois pointed out some buildings off the highway.