Total Victim Theory (8 page)

“So this is just their personal stuff?” I ask.

“Yeah,” says Silva. “Probably what they were wearing and carrying with them when they were abducted.”

We step up to the heap. My head tilts to the side and my eyes rove over the grim display. “He's never done this, has he?” I ask.

“No,” Silva says. “He's always put the victim’s things in a plastic bag and buried it alongside the body.”

The heap contains shirts and glasses and shoes and cell phones, a couple of knapsacks, a fishing rod, and I belatedly observe—as if my mind were trying to censure the fact—severed human feet.

Now that I perceive them, they seem quite obvious, sticking out at rakish and lurid angles, like a troop of sore thumbs. Most are brown with thick callouses on the bottoms and yellowed toenails—about how I would have expected the missing extremities of the six victims to appear. There must be twelve of them in all. As I'm doing a rough tally, I notice the smaller, paler left foot of a female at the bottom of the heap. Its toenails are painted pink and it's sticking out of a green, overturned fedora, in an image that seems appropriated from a gallery of surrealist art.

The sight provokes further uneasiness. Unleashes a distant echo somewhere inside me. The echo of an echo of an echo, diminished to a sound so soft you aren't sure you heard it. I squat down to get a closer look at this out-of-place female appendage.

Then I realize what's caught my attention. That shade of pink polish on the toenails feels familiar. . . . I don't know if this pink is maybe just the industry standard, but I'm pretty sure this is the same color Lisa used to wear. Lisa being a girl I fell pretty hard for
many moons ago. My second old flame, if you will.

In reality, it's probably not the same color at all, but my mind tends to find nostalgic traces of her everywhere—though this has to be the most untimely of these forced marches down memory lane. I weather a weird shudder and then shake it off, pretending the thought never happened.

“Did your guys sort through any of this stuff yet?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at Silva.

“We did. There are clothes and shoes for each of them.”

“Including the girl?”

“Yeah, except we only found one of her sandals . . . but the pile yielded one more biggie. I was kind of saving it as a surprise.”

I want to say I've had enough surprises for one day. But “Do tell,” is what comes out instead.

“The killer left a wallet in the back pocket of each pair of pants. Wallets with IDs.” Silva smiles. “We don't have anything on the girl, but we've already got all six of the men matched with names.”

“Holy shit,” I say. “That ought to put this one on the fast track.”

“Almost seems like he's daring us to catch him.”

“He's been at it a long time,” I say. “Maybe he's ready to hang up his spurs.”

“You mean his ax,” Silva says.

I give a half-hearted laugh, glancing around at the bodies. “What have you found out about the six? Do we have anything on the disappearances?”

“We didn't find the wallets till a few hours ago. A couple of detectives are making calls as we speak. We should know more by tomorrow morning.”

I keep thinking about the burns on the bodies and about my own burns. And about who these people are. And then, right then, a strange thought wedges its way into my brain. “Do you have those IDs handy?” I ask Silva.

He wrinkles his brow. “I think Detective Montalvo is following up on them. Why? What is it?”

“Just had a thought,” I say. “An idea I wanted to test out.”

“Gimme a sec,” Silva says and walks over to one of the other detectives who's standing on the far side of the heap. Silva and the other man exchange a few words, and then the man hands Silva a yellow legal pad, which he'd been holding under his arm.

A moment later Silva returns. “I’m not sure if you need to see the IDs themselves,” he says, holding out the pad, “but here’s a list of the names and addresses for the six of them. Will that work?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I just want to see their names.”

He hands me the pad and I look it over. I run my finger down the yellow sheet, reading the list of first and last names slowly, syllable by syllable, in my head:

Marcos Villarreal
Miguel Robles
Juan Estrada
Carlos Jimenez
Gregorio Soto
Mateo Marquez


After reaching the end of the list, for a moment I don’t react. An inner voice assures me what I'm seeing's impossible—that I must have misperceived or misread something. These denials work to head off any hysterical impulses I might have otherwise felt. Again, I read over the list, as if expecting the words to recant themselves.

“What is it, Jake?” Silva asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think maybe I've seen six of them,” I reply.

Silva frowns and waits for me to explain.

I hesitate. My intestines have curled themselves into a question mark. Sure, what I want to tell him is just an observation, and strictly speaking, it's a fact, but it's not the kind of thing an agent typically blurts out at a crime scene—at least no agent who wants to be taken seriously by his colleagues. It’s a notion that smacks of something unsavory. The metaphysical or the occult. At the very least, it signals the complete abandonment of the scientific method.

Then again, Silva's a friend of mine and if my thoughts later prove demonstrably insane, I'll no doubt be extended some friendly latitude.

“What’s going on, Jake?” Silva repeats.

I draw a deep breath, hold it in for a long time, and let it out. “You remember how I told you about that ledger—that one that showed up on my doorstep a few months back?” I ask.

“Of course I remember. You went on and on about it.” Silva
studies me. “What does the ledger have to do with
this
?” he asks, waving an arm at the crime scene around us.

“Probably nothing,” I say. “But it seems like today's given itself over to weird coincidences . . . and we've just stumbled on another one.”

“Meaning what?”

“On the last two pages of the ledger—the pages that had the blood drops on them—there were twelve first names listed. Do you remember?”

“Sure. They all had the last names cut out with a razor blade.”

“Right . . . well, all six of the first names on this list here,” I gesture at the paper in my hand, “were also on the last two pages of the ledger.”

10

Mexico

The coincidence of the burns and the ledger names leaves me stunned. The fact seems to flutter about within me, as incongruous as a pigeon that flew into someone’s living room. The idea that this is merely a coincidence, apropos of nothing, seems unthinkable. But more unthinkable still is the notion there may be something behind it. But I resolve not to let that second option run rampant in my brain. Speculation, knowing as little as we do at this point, will do nothing but further unnerve me.

And yet, there are one or two bleak hypotheses which, though they don’t bear repeating, I can't quite keep a muzzle on. In fact, I'm more flustered than I want to admit, and I keep catching myself scratching away at my scars or repeating the names from the last pages of the ledger as if they were some morbid mantra.

But I can handle it. Everything’s under control.

We remain in the dune about an hour longer. Silva and I briefly discuss the coincidence in hushed tones out of earshot of the other detectives. His demeanor suggests a generally skeptical stance on the topic and a reluctance to entertain conjecture without more facts. This muted response is, no doubt, the more prudent one and helps me to keep things in perspective and to steady my nerves.

After the six bodies are loaded into a black paddy wagon and the other evidence is packed up, we adjourn from the dune for the night. Silva drives me and two other District C detectives back to Juárez. They're names are Montalvo and Luna. I ride shotgun with the two of them behind me in the backseat.

Luna points out that they haven't eaten since arriving at the scene before noon and suggests we grab a bite and unwind before turning in. A rumble from my belly region shows my stomach to be in favor of the idea. Neither Silva nor I mentions the matching first names in front of the other detectives, thus establishing a tacit agreement to keep the matter between ourselves. I'm gradually feeling calmer, although I never manage to completely evict the matter from my mind.

The restaurant where we end up, Diego's Taqueria, is the shape of a shoebox and not much bigger than one. It’s two blocks from the District C station at a giant, congested intersection. The only light comes from a few small windows looking out on the street and from the flickering candles in red jars on the tables. The air's humid with the smell of grilled meat, and onions, and cigarettes. The place is dirty, and I would bet there's a rat or two scurrying around in the corners, twitching inquisitive whiskers at scraps of fallen food and, occasionally, brushing past a patron’s unsuspecting ankle.

Within minutes of ordering, our turnip-shaped waitress with runny mascara plops down four still-sizzling plates before us. We don't talk much as we inhale our
tacos al carbon
. Soon we've demolished the once-plentiful contents of our plates, and all that's left are bits of
pico de gallo
and smears of guacamole, like the carnage of some culinary battlefield.

“Don't look so serious, Jake,” Silva says. “It's only your first day.”

I glance up at Silva, dismayed to learn my face has betrayed my gloomy mood.

Luna nods. “You've got to pace yourself,
Wey
. Learn to unwind. You're gonna see some raunchy stuff on this case. You can't let it get to you. I remember my first Ropes’ crime scene. There was this girl who—”

Montalvo interrupts him. “And we've found it's good for digestion not to talk about Ropes at the table.”

“I second that motion,” Silva says.

“Fair enough.” Luna wipes his face with a napkin, wads it up, and sets in the middle of his empty plate. “So what do you think of this little hole in the wall, Radley?”

“It seems . . . authentic,” I say.

“It's one of our regular haunts,” Montalvo says. “If you're going
to be down here a while, helping us out, you'll probably become a regular.”

“That's habanero sauce you were dousing your tacos with. I'm surprised an FBI guy from way up in DC can cope,” Luna says.

“I may be genetically predisposed,” I say. “Got a little Mexican heritage.”

Montalvo studies me. “I was telling myself, that guy doesn't look a hundred percent
guero
.”

“If that Mexican blood makes your stomach as tough as your taste buds,” Luna says, “you'll be well served.”

I crack a smile.

Silva flags down the waitress and orders us a round of mezcal, which I've never had before.

Little by little, the banter and the effect of the alcohol loosens the stranglehold the day's events have had on my mind. Despite the late hour, traffic still bustles on the four-lane thoroughfare in front of the restaurant. Through the window, I see cars, mopeds, bicycles, and pedestrians. Somewhere in the distance, beneath the din of honking traffic and the murmur of customers, a mariachi band is playing.

Just across the street, next to a Catholic church, there's a public park with a huge dilapidated fountain. The stonework is cracked and snaky vines grow all over it. Statuary rises up from a deep, dry basin that resembles an empty swimming pool. Around the fountain's edge, there's a low stone wall, maybe three or four feet high. It looks like it might have been erected to keep people from jumping in the water back in the fountain's wetter days. In the intersection in front of the park, a green street sign hangs below the traffic light. It says “
Avenida Los Lagartos”
in yellow letters. That last word, if I recall correctly, means “alligators.”

“Why do they call it Alligator Street?” I ask. “I haven't noticed any giant reptiles wandering around.”

Luna repeats the word “La-gar-tos,” slowly, letting the rolled “r” trill on his tongue.

Silva gives his mustache a pensive tweak. “I know that story. It's a pretty good one. Dates back to when I was a little kid.”

“Are all three of you from around here?” I ask, curious if they've all heard whatever tale Silva is set to regale us with.

Luna and Montalvo nod.

“Not me,” says Silva, shaking his head. “I'm from the other side of the river. El Paso. But my family visited Juárez all the time.”

“I was gonna mention that,” I say. “With that Texas twang you've got, you sound like more of a Gringo than me.”

“My father was Anglo. Rest his soul. An Irishman.” Silva points to a patch of hair near his temple with a slightly red hue.

“So what's the story with Alligator Avenue?” I say.

Silva repositions himself in his chair and leans toward us. “Now, this very first part I can't personally vouch for. But according to my sources, it all started like this. A long time ago—it must have been just over twenty-five years back—someone let three baby alligators go in that fountain across the street. . . . Do you guys remember this?” Silva asks the other two.

“It's been a while,” Montalvo says.

Luna scratches his head. “Not sure—where did the alligators come from?”

“I never heard,” Silva says. “I think one day they were just swimming around there in the basin, as if someone had thrown them in. With the wall around it, they couldn't get out.”

More mezcal shots have materialized in front of us. My new colleagues encourage me to dispense with mine—which I do—while they require no encouragement. The taste really isn't bad, but I give a wince for the sake of camaraderie.

Silva clears his throat to announce that his tale will resume. “At first, everyone took a liking to the baby gators. It became the pastime to feed them with whatever was on hand. Bits of taco, fish—”

“Stray cats and dogs,” Luna says, with a chuckle.

“I wouldn't be surprised,” says Silva. “At any rate, they were well fed and they grew and grew and before long they were full-sized gators, eight or ten feet long.”

“Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen,” I say.