The Foreign Girls

by Sergio Olguin

  “I was counting on the element of surprise. He didn’t kill me. I didn’t kill him either. He got away with a gunshot wound.”

  “So he’s still a threat. Why didn’t you tell the police?”

  “I don’t know the police round here and I don’t trust police I don’t know. Now that I’ve found him, and he’s injured, I’ve informed the gendarmerie. It’s a special body that works with the Penitentiary Service.”

  “But how will they find him? He escaped, right?”

  “Look, it’s highly likely he’s already dead. He lost a lot of blood. He got into the car he’d stolen and abandoned it six miles further on, in the foothills. If I could find the car – which I can tell you was awash with blood – I imagine the border patrol will get to it in a few hours.”

  “Fede, you shot him. You’re going to have to explain that to the police.”

  Federico took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at her.

  “OK, maybe you won’t have to explain. But what you did was still madness. Where did you get the gun, when did you learn how to shoot?”

  “Vero, if you paid me more attention, you’d know things about me.”

  “You can be a real asshole sometimes.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Now I understand why you called me.”

  “It was also because I wanted to hear your voice.”

  Federico had managed to throw her off balance. All those days she had been in danger without knowing it while he had been the perfect minder, keeping her safe. It was impossible to imagine him wielding a gun. She couldn’t even imagine him confronting someone in any other place than a court of law. He was right: there were things she didn’t know, to which she hadn’t paid attention. She had never asked herself the question before but now it was compelling. What was Federico capable of? How far would he go for her?

  III

  If the crime scene had been busy the day before, now it was more crowded than ever. There were radio and television units, broadcasting live. At the centre of it all, standing near the makeshift mannequins, was District Attorney Decaux, surrounded by microphones. He appeared to be giving a press conference.

  Verónica went to look for Chief Superintendent Suárez and found him standing alone beside a police car. He had already been informed that they wanted to go to the witness’s house and pointed out the way: they had to follow the path up to the second property. Verónica thanked him and, as she was about to leave, Suárez said to her:

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you a question since yesterday. You travelled to Yacanto del Valle with the two deceased, you all went to the party, and that was where you parted company.”

  “Yes.”

  “According to the hotel owners’ statement, it seemed that the three of you were going to stay several days and that you changed your mind. You were in such a hurry that you left around dawn.”

  “Early in the morning, yes.”

  “So the question I want to ask is this: how have you avoided being considered a suspect by either the district attorney or the investigating judge?”

  “I’d be asking myself the same question in your shoes.”

  “Well, I’d like to hear your answer.”

  “I’m sorry, Chief Superintendent, you’d have to ask them, not me.”

  “Fair enough. And don’t worry, I will.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look at the autopsy report, but everything points to more than two men being involved.”

  “Yes, of course. I don’t see you killing anyone. But you should be investigated all the same. You could have been the procurer. You took the girls to the party, left them there and disappeared.”

  “I imagine it’s no use me telling you I didn’t do what you think I did.”

  “Listen, Señorita: don’t attempt to intimidate the witnesses or pervert the course of justice. No matter how many friends you have in the court system, I can guarantee you won’t succeed in that.”

  Verónica walked away feeling that, of all the people investigating this crime, Chief Superintendent Suárez was the only one she could trust. She thought of mentioning this to Federico as they walked up the road leading to Mercedes’s house, but decided to say nothing.

  They arrived at the house, an adobe hut with a straw roof. A wire fence and a broken gate marked the limits of the property, at the back of which was a chicken coop with a vegetable patch to one side, as well as a brick room separate from the house. A black dog you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of ran out barking, a dachshund waddling behind. Verónica didn’t need to clap her hands to get attention, because an older woman had already come out of the house and was walking towards them with a look of suspicion. She asked them what they needed.

  “Mechi isn’t here. My granddaughter is working.” She asked who they were.

  “I was a friend of the girls who died,” Verónica said.

  Mechi would be home in a bit. They asked permission to wait for her outside and the grandmother said they could do as they pleased. Verónica and Federico walked a few yards away and sat under a tree. The dogs quietened down and the big one wandered off, but the dachshund stayed, watching them.

  “I think it might be easier if she talks to me on my own. She may be intimidated if there’s a man there.”

  “Whatever you think. I’m happy just to sit and wait for you here.”

  An hour later the girl arrived. She came walking slowly up the path, as though delaying the moment of arrival. A typical teenager in jeans and a vest, giving them the same wary look as the old lady. Verónica stood up and walked towards her.

  “Hello, Mechi, my name is Verónica. I’m … I was a friend of the girls you found. I’d like to talk to you.”

  Mechi peered behind Verónica to where Federico was sitting. “I’ve already told the police and the judge everything I know,” she said.

  “Yes, I know. But I need you to tell me as well.”

  “What for?”

  “To help with the investigation. As well as being a friend of the girls, I’m a journalist.”

  “It won’t make any difference anyway.”

  At that moment the old woman reappeared. “Mechi, don’t be rude. Come in, Señora, I also saw the bodies of those poor girls. Come in, please.” Verónica stepped through the broken gate and Mechi followed, looking sullen.

  This time the dogs kept quiet as she entered the property, only approaching to give her a sniff. Inside, the house was dark and smelled of vegetable soup and burning wood. A pot was boiling on an old range. The floor was made of trodden earth. Mechi’s grandmother shook a chair, as though to dislodge crumbs, and invited Verónica to sit down. She repeated the action with a rubber-backed tablecloth, although there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere in the room.

  As Verónica entered the house, three dachshund puppies launched themselves at her. She sat down but couldn’t shake off the puppies, who were biting her sneakers. At least she wasn’t wearing sandals. Mechi smiled at the puppies like a mother amused by her children’s antics. Or perhaps she smiled because they were mistreating Verónica, as she herself would like to do. Her grandmother told Mechi to get the animals out of the house. Huffily, she picked them up and took them outside.

  When she came back in, Mechi sat in the other chair while the older woman remained standing, as though ready to correct her granddaughter if she put a foot wrong. Mechi told Verónica how she had left the path and seen the two bodies lying on the ground. She had been frightened and had run to tell her grandmother.

  “I thought she was seeing visions. The girl’s had nightmares ever since Bibi died.”

  “So you also saw the bodies on the ground.”

  “Poor things, they were all exposed. I tried to cover them up as best I could. I didn’t want the police to see them like that.”

  “I told my grandmother not to touch anything, that we might get the blame, but she ignored me.”

  “Apart from the bodies, did you s
ee anything else?”

  “I didn’t want to look,” Mechi said.

  “There was that awful monstrosity,” said the grandmother.

  “What monstrosity?”

  “The macumba they put together there.”

  “You think this was to do with witchcraft?”

  “Witchcraft? More like mockery.”

  “Mockery? Why?”

  “A white cockerel in macumba? Who’s ever seen such a thing?”

  “You don’t use a white cockerel in macumba?”

  “No, Señora, a black cockerel or nothing.”

  “So…?”

  “Some idiot wanted to make a macumba ritual but got it wrong. They’re not just murderers, they’re ignorant brutes.”

  Mechi was looking down.

  “How old are you, Mechi?”

  “Seventeen.”

  Verónica thought that if her mother had started talking to a stranger when she was seventeen, she too would have bowed her head and asked the earth to swallow her up.

  Mechi looked up then, and asked her, “Were they raped? Were the girls raped?”

  “Mechi,” her grandmother began, reprovingly.

  “Yes.”

  The teenager started to cry. Her grandmother shook her head and turned to the range to stir the contents of the pan. Verónica reached over to touch Mechi’s head, to calm her.

  “Bibi was, too.”

  “Who is Bibi?” Verónica asked her.

  “My sister. They raped her too, before they killed her. And nobody ever went to prison.”

  IV

  Verónica felt the kind of internal jolt that told her she had made a breakthrough in her investigation. Her pulse quickened and her senses sharpened, like a cat sensing danger.

  “What happened to your sister?”

  “I just told you: she was raped and murdered.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “I don’t know. A long time ago.”

  “Six years ago,” said her grandmother. “Mechi was very little.”

  “But I remember.”

  “How did it happen?”

  The grandmother went to sit down in a chair.

  “Bibi was very pretty. She had lots of suitors, but she was very stubborn. She didn’t want to go out with anyone from the town. She wanted to move to San Miguel, but I wouldn’t let her. When the girls’ mother died, I promised to look after them, and I wasn’t going to leave her alone in the city.”

  Verónica saw how the old woman’s body bent further over; she felt guilty, and guilt weighs heavy. Verónica knew that.

  “She liked to go dancing. She used to go with friends. That night she got all dressed up and off she went.”

  “Had she gone out with these friends?”

  “Yes, but none of them could say what had happened.”

  “They lied because they were afraid, or because somebody paid them off,” said Mechi.

  “I did everything I could, my dear. I even paid for a lawyer, but they couldn’t find anything.”

  “Where was the body found?”

  “Just past Coronel Berti. They threw her on the side of the road. A week after they had killed her.”

  “And nobody was arrested?”

  “Nobody.”

  “We all know who it was. El Gringo Aráoz,” said Mechi, and her grandmother nodded.

  “But he didn’t get arrested?”

  “El Gringo Aráoz is from a wealthy local family. They said all kinds of things about my granddaughter. They dragged my poor girl’s name through the mud just to save that man.”

  Verónica left Mechi’s house with a list of things she planned to confirm in the coming days: Bibi’s full name, along with that of the possible culprit and of the lawyer who had defended the family. She also swapped numbers with Mechi. The girl’s attitude had changed during her visit, and now she seemed interested in what Verónica was doing.

  “I’m going to need your help,” she said to Federico as they were driving back to the hotel. “First of all, what is the statute of limitations for a crime?”

  “It depends what crime it is.”

  “Murder and rape.”

  “Between twelve and fifteen years, depending on what kind of homicide it is.”

  “Six years ago Mechi’s sister was murdered in circumstances very similar to Petra and Frida. And nobody was ever charged.”

  “Do you think it could be the same person?”

  “Nothing like an unpunished crime to stir up the spirit of recidivism.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And what if there are more crimes? What if, as soon as you start investigating one, you stumble across another? Couldn’t there be more?”

  V

  He hadn’t thought the other man would shoot, and that was a mistake. A basic principle of survival is always to assume that, if another person has a weapon, they will use it. He didn’t realize until the guy lifted his rifle. He did manage to jump to the side, but the bullet was faster and caught him just below the right nipple. If he hadn’t moved, it would have found his heart. The resulting rush of adrenaline helped him reach his car. He was in no state to return fire. A second shot shattered the rear window, but didn’t hit him. He started the car and got out of there. The other man was either too slow or decided not to follow him, because he didn’t see his assailant’s car behind him again. Who was he, though? And who had told him to throw away the phone? They had found him anyway. He had behaved like an amateur.

  Peratta took the main highway but, as soon as he could, turned off onto a minor road, drove two hundred yards down it then pulled over, still keeping an eye on the road behind him. He searched in the glove box for some sort of material, found a chamois cloth and pressed it hard against the wound. It was incredibly painful, but he couldn’t let his guard down yet. He started the car again and drove on a couple of miles, even though the wound made driving almost impossible. He reached a junction and left the car at the side of the road. It wouldn’t take long for them to find it there. He must act fast or it would be game over. Coming towards him down the road was one of those dilapidated old vans you only ever see in small towns. He signalled to it and the driver stopped with the intention of helping him. He surely didn’t expect to see a blood-soaked man pointing a gun at him.

  Danilo Peratta climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  The man was a farmhand with weather-beaten skin. He couldn’t have been more than forty and he was wearing tattered overalls.

  “In Los Altos del Paso.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “About six miles from here.”

  “Who do you live with?”

  “My missus.”

  “Who else?”

  “No one else.”

  “Take me there.”

  The man turned the van around, retracing his steps.

  “You need a doctor, my friend.”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  Peratta felt dizzy. He had to fight not to close his eyes and to keep his gun pointing at the farmhand.

  Altos del Paso was a village with a few dwellings separated by small fields. The man drove into one of these fields and parked in front of a modest house which was either still under construction or having some new rooms added to it.

  They got out of the van and went inside. Peratta was still using the chamois to keep pressure on his wound. In his other hand he held the gun and kept it pointed at the man. His wife, who was in the kitchen, put her head round the door to greet her husband and stifled a scream when she saw the gun pointing at him. Danilo silenced her. The man gestured at her to keep calm, and the three of them went into a small living room.

  “Is there a pharmacy near here?”

  “The nearest one is twelve miles away.”

  “You’re going to go to the pharmacy and buy what I tell you. Get a pen and some paper.”

  The man took a pen out of the cupboard and a block of paper.


  “You’re going to buy two packets of bandages, gauze, some lidocaine spray, tramadol tablets and Celox – starts with a ‘c’, ends with an ‘x’. If you take more than an hour, I’ll kill your wife. If you come back with someone, I’ll kill your wife. Understood?”

  The man hurried off. Peratta asked the woman for a towel. Without removing the chamois, now a ball of blood, he pressed down with the towel, which very soon began to turn red. He asked for some water and the woman poured him a glass. He asked for more. Peratta drank the second glass. He made her sit on a small couch opposite him. The woman obeyed without speaking. Peratta put his gun down beside him. He knew the woman wasn’t going to try anything.

  It was about fifty minutes before the man returned with all the things he had been asked to get. Peratta wanted to know if they had asked any questions in the pharmacy, but there had been no trouble.

  He made the man sit on the same couch as his wife and asked her to open the two sachets of Celox. He made her bring a glass of water, take out two tramadol tablets and open the lidocaine spray. Peratta took the two tablets and removed the towel and chamois from his wound, which was hardly bleeding now but was red and raw. He leaned back, trying to get more comfortable in the chair, then ordered the woman to pour the Celox granules onto his wound and to spray the surrounding area with the lidocaine. She was shaking but still managed to do exactly as he asked. Then Peratta told her how to wrap the bandages around his chest. His shirt, the chamois and towel were left on the floor, all soaked in blood.

  Half an hour later Peratta still felt rough, despite the tranquillizers. He needed something stronger, but he wasn’t going to be able to get hold of that in a pharmacy without a prescription. Besides, the wound was going to get infected. The precautions he had taken weren’t enough. He needed to see a doctor or he would die.

  He didn’t want to do this, but there was no choice: he asked for a telephone and the man handed over his mobile. He called Five.

  “I’m fucked. Here in Tucumán. I’ve been wounded. Tell Doctor Zero I need his help.”

  “The Doctor said you were on your own with this one.”