The Foreign Girls

by Sergio Olguin

  He was fooling himself. What he really wanted was to be important in Verónica’s life, in whatever way he could. He wanted her to feel safe at his side. To be her personal hero. It was a kind of madness, although this was not the first time he had done something mad for Verónica. He thought of calling her, but he would rather do that once he was in Yacanto del Valle and had a clearer picture of what had happened.

  Aarón called Federico while he was arranging the car hire. Verónica’s father had already spoken to Judge Arturo Amalfi and to District Attorney Raúl Decaux. He was worried; not only because his daughter had been travelling with the murdered girls, but also because Verónica and the two victims had been invited by a cousin of Severo’s wife to a party, and that was where the tourists had last been seen alive.

  “Severo was always a bit dopey. He got appointed as a judge in Tucumán partly thanks to Cristina’s father and to my friendship with the Hileret family,” Aarón told him, adding with a certain weariness or irritation, “and that’s not all. The party took place on the estate belonging to Menéndez Berti. Anselmo Menéndez Berti was a colleague of my brother David in the 1980s, on a forestation project in Uruguay. We used to go on fishing trips together in Corrientes a few decades ago. I think these days the estate is run by his son Nicolás, an awkward boy with political aspirations. I’d like you to provide assistance, professional and personal, to all of them.”

  A minute after the call Federico received a text message from the Rosenthal and Associates secretary with the telephone numbers of Judge Amalfi, District Attorney Decaux, Nicolás Menéndez Berti and Ramiro. He called the DA and told him he was on his way to Yacanto del Valle. There was no need to say much else. Decaux said, almost apologetically, that he wanted to take a statement from Verónica. Federico said that would be fine so long as she was in the right state of mind. “Of course,” replied Decaux quickly.

  Federico planned to visit Nicolás at home. He wanted to get some idea of what might have happened at the party, see the place. He called Ramiro, cousin of the Witch, as Daniela and Leticia referred to her. He explained that he was from the Rosenthal law firm, that he was ringing to let him know he was on his way to Yacanto del Valle. Ramiro explained that he had been the one to break the news to Verónica that morning, by phone.

  “Isn’t she in Yacanto?” Federico asked.

  “She was in Cafayate and she’s coming here now.”

  Federico asked if he knew when Verónica had last seen the foreign girls.

  “I think it was at the party. Verónica spent the night with me. She was tired of the others and decided to continue the journey on her own.”

  Federico began to understand who it was on the other end of the line.

  As he neared Yacanto del Valle he called Decaux again to arrange a meeting. The DA told him that he was en route to the hospital morgue in Coronel Berti. They could meet there in an hour.

  He left the road and pulled over in a place the car wouldn’t easily be seen. He got out of the car and fished the Blaser R8 out of the back. Then he took it out of its case, assembled it and loaded it. He didn’t want to arrive with his rifle in bits if Danilo Peratta might be there. The weapon was too visible to be carried in the front seat, so he put it in the back again, ready to be used.

  Arriving ahead of time, he drove around Coronel Berti before parking in front of the hospital, where he waited for the district attorney. He wasn’t expecting to see Verónica come out of the building. She wasn’t expecting him either and stopped, stock-still. Federico had seen her in all kinds of states, but this was the first time her appearance had scared him. He walked towards her. He thought, when he put his arms around her, that Verónica was going to faint. He tried to soothe her, but she needed to weep and to cling to him.

  It wasn’t the best moment for introductions; all the same, he made himself known to Decaux, and to Ramiro, who invited them both to his house. Federico postponed his meeting with Decaux until the afternoon. Ramiro himself suggested that Federico take Verónica back to the hotel in his car while he stayed on a for a few minutes to talk to the DA.

  “Did my dad send you?” Verónica asked once they were on the road.

  “I would have come anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Vero, you have to go back to Buenos Aires.”

  “My dad sent you to fetch me back?”

  “No, that’s my own opinion.”

  “I’ve just seen the girls. They’ve been beaten, attacked. How could someone do something like that? What kind of animal does this?”

  No – Verónica wasn’t going to leave until she had found out what kind of person raped and killed women in Yacanto del Valle. Federico didn’t want to say anything about Peratta. He didn’t want to scare her. Or worse: spur her on to look for Peratta herself.

  Verónica showed him how to get to Ramiro’s house, where a maid opened the door and led them into the living room. Ramiro arrived about fifteen minutes later. When Verónica asked him what he knew, he gave the same information the news outlets had been repeating since early that morning.

  “Between the party, which was the last time they were seen alive, and the appearance of the bodies, three days went by. So why is everyone linking the deaths to the party?” Verónica asked.

  “The owners of the hotel reported the girls missing yesterday morning,” Ramiro explained.

  “I shouldn’t have gone. I should never have left them alone.”

  “Nobody could have imagined something like this would happen.”

  Verónica remembered she had left her car beside the road into Yacanto del Valle. Ramiro told her not to worry, that he could send someone to pick it up. That they should stay, Federico and her, in the house. To Federico’s surprise, Verónica didn’t want to stay there. If there were rooms available, she would rather go to the Posada de Don Humberto. Ramiro didn’t press the point and called the hotel to reserve two rooms. Verónica asked Federico to drive her to the car she had left at the roadside.

  “Fede, I’m really grateful you came,” she said, when they were alone, “but it will be better if you go.”

  “One Rosenthal giving me orders is enough.”

  “Seriously. I’m going to stay here as long as necessary.”

  “Necessary for what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Your dad sent me here for other reasons, too. He wants me to follow the case from close quarters. Because of the Elizaldes and the owner of the house.”

  “And what has my old man got to do with Nicolás?”

  “He’s a friend of the father.”

  “All the same, I don’t understand what you can contribute.”

  “Vero, it doesn’t matter. Your dad wants me to be here. It’s better than being in Buenos Aires. I promise not to be a pain or stick my nose into your business.”

  When they arrived at the hotel, the man on reception greeted Verónica with a look of concern and told her that a little over an hour ago a journalist had been there asking after her. Verónica brushed the news aside and went straight to her room. Federico took the opportunity to ask more about the supposed journalist and showed the receptionist a photograph of Peratta.

  “Yes, that’s the man,” said the receptionist, adding, with a tone of complicity, “He’s not a journalist, is he?”

  “No.”

  “I thought as much. Is he dangerous?”

  “Yes. And I’d ask you not to say anything about this to Verónica, Señor…?”

  “Please, call me Mariano. And I won’t say anything to her. What shall I do if he shows up here again?”

  “Let me know, or go straight to the police.”

  Federico walked out of the front door, looking all around him. Peratta must be nearby. In the bar on the corner, in the grill opposite, crouching behind a tree. They didn’t have much intel on Peratta. He had few entries on the police database, and it was likely that he had never been prosecuted for most of his crimes. But Federico knew how professional ass
assins operated in Argentina: they killed at close range. From a motorbike or a car, or walking alongside the victim. Always firing from inches away. They weren’t like Americans. Federico was sure that, wherever Peratta was, he wasn’t using a sniper rifle.

  The hunt begins, Federico said to himself. He had to catch Peratta before he got too close to Verónica.

  7 A Man of No Importance

  I

  Verónica’s statement to the district attorney was a fiasco, at least from her point of view. All the DA did was ask a few general questions. He didn’t even try to establish why she had left on her own when the women had decided to travel together, why she hadn’t checked that they had returned to their room the following morning, why for several days afterwards she had not been at all worried about the girls’ fate. She would have been able to provide answers to all those questions and – even if they hadn’t contributed anything new – at least she would have felt that the law was in pursuit of the criminals. And if they weren’t bothering to give one of the last people who had seen the girls alive a grilling, how many other suspects were being ignored altogether? She hadn’t killed them, but the DA shouldn’t take that for granted. Then again, if she hadn’t taken them to Yacanto del Valle, if she hadn’t insisted on going to the party, if she hadn’t abandoned them in a place they didn’t know, with strangers, exposed to dangers she ought to have foreseen, if she hadn’t got everything wrong, Frida and Petra would still be alive.

  Verónica didn’t say that to the district attorney but to Mariano and Luca, who listened in silence. The DA’s interview had taken place in the hotel, in Mariano’s office and, when Decaux left, they appeared. Verónica looked grave, strangely still, and Mariano took her hands, perhaps to check there was still a pulse. That was when Verónica began talking and didn’t stop for an hour. She told them how she had met the foreign girls, about the time they had spent together at the house in Cerro San Javier, the back and forth with Frida, their arrival in Yacanto and the party. She told them how she had left the girls on their own.

  “Guilt is a very unkind invention,” said Luca, quoting an Andrés Calamaro song.

  “You’re not guilty of anything at all, and that’s all there is to it,” Mariano added.

  “There are other people responsible, love. Murderers, rapists who are right here, in our midst.”

  “I’m not leaving this town until those bastards pay for what they did.”

  “Then get ready for a long stay.”

  They told her how they had worried about the girls’ absence, how they had reported them missing and been asked to identify the bodies. How, early that morning, the police had taken the girls’ things for analysis. Verónica said she wanted to go to the place where the bodies had been found. Luca offered to take her there.

  In Luca’s car, a Peugeot that was at least twenty years old, they travelled a few miles along a back road that began after the entrance to the Menéndez Berti estate. As they drove past, Verónica tried to glimpse inside, but could see only the gate, the fence and the trees flashing past.

  A police car parked across the road prevented access beyond a certain point. An impromptu car park had sprung up there with several cars already in it. The police officer on duty wouldn’t let them through. Verónica searched in her bag for her Nuestro Tiempo ID which bore her photograph, the words Prensa/Press and a request for the authorities to cooperate.

  “Press,” said Verónica. The policeman looked at her pass and waved them through.

  They had to walk half a mile along a slowly ascending road. The area where the bodies had been found was cordoned off with police tape. Beyond it they could see people working who must be forensics. But there were a lot of other people milling around too, chatting to one another as though waiting for a show to start. There was only one mobile broadcasting unit, from a Tucumanian channel. The Buenos Aires channels would surely arrive any time soon. Luca recognized Officer Benítez and a man in a suit.

  “That’s Chief Superintendent Suárez, chief of police in Yacanto del Valle.”

  When Benítez saw them he walked up to Suárez and said something to him. The chief superintendent came over to them.

  “You must be the person who was travelling with the young women. My condolences.”

  “May I have a look at the place where the bodies were found?”

  “That won’t be possible, unless Judge Amalfi authorizes it.” And he pointed to a man talking to three others, all of them wearing suits despite the afternoon heat.

  Verónica walked over to the group. “Excuse me, your Excellency,” she said, and the judge gave her a stern look, calculated to intimidate. “I’m Verónica Rosenthal.”

  “Daughter of Aarón?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  The judge’s expression softened; he shook her hand and squeezed her arm in a gesture of condolence. “Let me introduce you, dear. Doctor Ruiz, director of security in the province; Señor Ferro, director of investigations, and retired brigadier Pacenti, director of criminology. This young lady is the daughter of Doctor Rosenthal, an old friend.”

  Verónica shook hands with the three men. She didn’t believe her father and the judge were friends, but she certainly wasn’t going to choose that moment to doubt it.

  “As well as knowing the victims, I’m a journalist. I’d be interested to see the crime scene.”

  “Of course, come this way. I’ll go with you.” The judge took his leave of the other men and called over Chief Superintendent Suárez, who was still standing with Luca. “That man standing further up, as though observing everything from above,” said the judge, pointing, “is the secretary for security in the province. As far as they’re concerned I should be arresting someone in the next half hour.”

  Chief Superintendent Suárez caught up with them as they reached the crime scene. They looked at the area without crossing the police tape: two sets of trousers and T-shirts occupied the space left by the bodies.

  “We wanted to use mannequins, but there was a technical hitch,” the chief superintendent explained.

  The scraps of material thrown down among weeds and shrubs gave the impression of clothes tossed about in a storm.

  “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to see all this,” Judge Amalfi said to her. “It’s not a pleasant sight for a young woman, especially not if you knew the victims.”

  “Doctor, I assure you it doesn’t affect me,” she lied. “I want to know what happened.”

  “You journalists…” said the judge, without completing his observation. “Chief Superintendent, please be so kind as to bring my young friend up to date.”

  “The bodies were found at around 1800 hours by a young girl from the vicinity. They were lying on the ground, one face down and one on her side. Both the deceased were semi-naked, with evidence of blunt force trauma and possible sexual aggression. Both bodies had bullet entry and exit holes. There’s evidence that they were killed here. Or rather, that they were brought here alive. There were also some garments scattered around them. The autopsy will confirm whether or not there was a sexual assault and if there are DNA traces from other people, either in the presence of semen or skin under the nails, or hair on victims’ bodies.”

  “Who’s going to perform the autopsy?” Verónica asked.

  “This morning the director of the medical forensic team was here, with a biochemist. She’s the one who’ll be carrying out the tests.”

  “And when will the results be available?”

  “Some by tomorrow. We’ll know then if there was a sexual assault, and if death occurred as a result of injury caused by a firearm or by blunt force trauma. Also the exact time of death, although the state of the bodies suggests it was at least a day before they were found. Other investigations, like DNA samples, take longer. The forensics are also working towards a confirmation of where they died, if they were brought here dead, and how many assailants there were.”

  To one side of the area where the clothing lay
there were some burned-out candles and a dead animal, perhaps a chicken. There were flies around it and a line of ants leading to the remains.

  “What’s that?” Verónica asked.

  “An Umbanda offering,” said the superintendent.

  “A what?”

  “What’s left of some kind of black magic ritual. There were some marks on the body, separate from the contusions. Cuts that appeared to be ritual markings.”

  Verónica looked at the judge, who shrugged. “We can’t rule anything out,” he said, without much conviction.

  She pictured Petra and Frida’s bodies treated like dolls to be mutilated, broken, thrown away. She felt dizzy.

  “Are you all right?” Luca had walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. Verónica nodded. She felt a cold sweat and cramps in her stomach.

  “We should go,” said Luca, and Verónica let him lead her away. They had walked just a few yards when a familiar face emerged from a little group that had been chatting as though at a private view. The expressions of surprise were mutual.

  Álex Vilna walked over to her with a smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask the same thing.”

  “I’m here because your boss sent me. Weren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

  “Hang on – Patricia sent you here to write a piece?”

  “I came to Tucumán to write about the narco police, and I got roped into covering these fucking murders.”

  “What narco police?”

  “Come on, Verónica, are you stoned or something? The narco cops, the police chiefs who were found with fifty kilos of coke.”

  “Aren’t you a political editor? What are you doing covering crime stories?”