by Sam Hawken
Jack levered himself out of the car. Bernardo stood near the trunk, his face dark. Gonzalo went back to him. ‘Did you know that your daughter had been arrested, Sr Sigala?’ he asked.
‘What? Arrested? When?’
‘A year ago she was arrested for shoplifting at a store in El Centro. She was released after booking, but her fingerprints are in the system. We’re going to use them to compare with the fingerprints in the vehicle to confirm that she was in the car.’
‘What about Marina’s fingerprints?’ Jack asked.
‘We don’t have a record of those. And it will take a few days for my request to go through. As you can imagine, our forensic teams are quite busy. Do you have your stepdaughter’s prints somewhere? I understand that in America parents sometimes have their children fingerprinted in case they are lost or need to be identified.’
‘That’s for little kids,’ Jack said. ‘Marina’s grown.’
‘I only ask because it would assist my investigation.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t help you.’
‘Está bien. You’ve been a help already, Sr Searle.’
Jack looked to Bernardo. ‘I’ve got a spare key for the car. Can you bring it back to your place? I won’t leave it there for too long. I just want to get it out of here.’
Bernardo nodded without speaking. Jack peeled the right key off his ring and handed it over.
‘May I speak with you a moment alone, señor?’ Gonzalo asked Jack.
‘Of course.’
They walked a short way into a stand of tall grass. Jack saw Bernardo get into the car and start the engine. The air conditioner would be blowing hard. Marina always liked the air conditioner on full blast.
‘I know you must be disappointed,’ Gonzalo said.
‘I won’t lie and say I’m not.’
‘I want you to know, and I hope you can explain this to your cuñado, that considering how little time has passed, we are making excellent progress. I can trace your stepdaughter’s movements up to a certain time and a certain place and it won’t be long before I know more. We have local patrols that pass through the area and I haven’t yet spoken to the Federal Police about their agents. Someone will have seen them. Nuevo Laredo is not so big a city.’
‘How long until we know more?’ Jack asked.
‘That’s impossible to say. It could be tomorrow, it could be a week from now.’
‘The longer they’re missing, the more likely something bad has happened to them,’ Jack said.
‘Not necessarily. I haven’t given up hope that there is a reasonable explanation for this.’
‘Oh, come on! You found the car abandoned! Why would they leave the car somewhere in the middle of the night? The engine’s working, there’s gas in the tank.’
Gonzalo looked solemn. ‘I understand your frustration.’
‘Do you?’
‘Perhaps I can help you to understand. This is a city at war with itself. The Municipal Police, the Federal Police, the army… we are all just players in the larger scheme of things. We have the Zetas and the Golfos to contend with and things happen in this city that are terrible beyond description. But that does not mean there is no chance of success. It means only that we must address our problems with patience and determination. But mostly patience.’
‘But—’
‘Please, Sr Searle, let me finish. In just two days we have learned a great deal. When the fingerprint report comes back from our forensic technicians we will know still more.’
‘Just promise me you’ll keep me in the loop.’
‘I will promise you,’ Gonzalo said. ‘Everything is on the table with regard to this investigation. If I have to, I will pull in one of my colleagues to help chase down leads. You can trust me.’
Gonzalo offered Jack his hand and Jack shook it, though his palms were sweating and dirty. He spared a glance toward Bernardo and the car. Bernardo was hunched over the wheel, but at least he was not weeping.
‘If there’s anything more I can do,’ Jack said, ‘you just ask. Anything at all. There’s nothing more important to me than this.’
‘Take your stepdaughter’s car. Console your brother-in-law. Stay by the phone.’
‘All right.’
TWELVE
IN THE END IT TOOK MOST OF A WEEK FOR the forensics team to render up results. Gonzalo found them in a folder on his desk when he arrived for his shift, a sticky note affixed to the front saying FOR YOU, as if it were a box of chocolates.
He did not look into the folder right away, but cleared his desk of other pending items before turning to it. There was little to expect: a confirmation that Patricia Sigala was in the car, but not much else. The case would not hinge on the fingerprints lifted from the car.
Gonzalo would have rather gotten some lead elsewhere. A telephone call would have helped, or a new witness, but these things had dried up quickly. He spent time tracking down both bands that had played on the night in question, quizzing them about the girls, but the best he had been able to come up with was what he already knew: they were drunk and noisy and trying their best to come on to the performers, but in the end they left of their own accord. It occurred to Gonzalo that one or more of them might be covering up having sexual relations with a minor, but their story dovetailed neatly with that of the security crew. There was nothing to it.
Though it gave him no pleasure to do it, Gonzalo called Bernardo Sigala every day. He hoped for some news that would make the search moot, but it did not come. Four days into the investigation Gonzalo was drawn into a double homicide at a fast-food restaurant and he was derailed completely. It forced him to put a positive light on the stone wall that faced him. Still, he could not tell Bernardo that there was no movement on the case. The man sounded fragile on the phone and Gonzalo knew the wrong word would break him.
The fingerprints would give him some good news to report. Gonzalo opened the folder and perused the first page. Patricia Sigala’s prints matched those found on the passenger side of the car, the dashboard and the armrest. On the second page were a variety of unidentifiable fingerprints, but these were pulled from the steering wheel and other places the driver would touch. These were Marina Cobos’s.
There was a third page. Gonzalo turned to it. More sets of identifiable prints, including those of a municipal tow-truck driver and other impound personnel. These last were lifted from the roof and the doorframe on the driver’s side. Gonzalo scanned down to the name: Eliseo Guadalupe. The report even provided a photograph. It showed a man in a police uniform.
Gonzalo dropped the folder on the desk and reached for the phone. He misdialed the first time, but got it right on the second try. Eduardo Telles answered the call. ‘It’s Gonzalo,’ Gonzalo told him. ‘I have your fingerprint report on my desk.’
‘Which one?’
‘The missing girls.’
‘Oh, okay. Is there something wrong?’
‘You pulled a set of prints from the car matching a local policeman. How did you identify them?’
‘We have one of those new computers from the States. The whole system’s being computerized now, thanks to those American grants. Government employees were the first ones input for testing purposes. You say it was a cop? I don’t remember.’
‘Eliseo Guadalupe. I don’t know him.’
‘His name doesn’t ring any bells for me, either.’
‘Listen, can you run the prints again, just to be sure?’
‘I can, but if the computer made a match then you can be sure it was accurate. These new machines are terrific.’
‘Pull his print card and double-check them by hand,’ Gonzalo said.
‘That will take a while.’
‘How long?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘How about this afternoon? We have two girls who’ve been gone for a week. The longer we wait, the more trouble they could be in. Put a rush on it for me.’
Telles paused. ‘I have a lot of work here, Gonzalo.’
&
nbsp; ‘For me. Please. A favor.’
‘All right. For you. I’ll call you by five. Or is that not soon enough for you?’
‘It will do. Don’t forget, Lalo!’
‘I won’t.’
Gonzalo hung up the phone and examined the report again. A generic diagram of a four-door car was used to illustrate the vehicle and the exact spot Guadalupe’s fingerprints were taken from was circled in red pen. Clearly on the outside of the car and right on the doorframe. A perfect thumb and forefinger. Even a machine could not mistake them for anyone else’s prints, Gonzalo knew, but he wanted to be certain.
Gonzalo keyed up Eliseo Guadalupe’s records. Guadalupe was thirty-seven years old, a fifteen-year veteran of the Municipal Police. He had been decorated once for distinguished service, but his career rise had stalled out long ago and he remained exactly where he was: behind the wheel of a patrol vehicle. When Gonzalo searched for disciplinary actions or other black marks, he found three, all for suspicion of receiving bribes. There was no indication of what had followed from the accusations, but he was still on the force, so assumptions could be made. Guadalupe had once shown promise, but after the charges he had settled into a life without exceptionalism.
His partner’s name was Darío Fregoso. This Fregoso had no distinctions on his record, but he had only five years to his service. Gonzalo printed off color pictures of Guadalupe and Fregoso so he would recognize them when he saw them. He pinned them together with a paperclip.
Armas was at his desk. ‘Amando,’ Gonzalo told him, ‘have you ever heard of a uniformed officer named Guadalupe?’
‘Guadalupe? Maybe.’
Gonzalo showed him the picture.
‘Oh, yeah, sure, I know him. He works out of a substation, but I’ve run into him a couple of times.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘I don’t know. Likable enough. Seems to know his job. Why do you ask?’
‘I can’t say. His name came up in connection to one of my cases. Do you think Ahumada might know him?’
‘It’s worth asking. Sergeant Ahumada knows everybody.’
Gonzalo sought out Ahumada in his office. The man was reading a newspaper, a stack of unattended reports waiting for his attention. He barely glanced up when Gonzalo came in. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘Eliseo Guadalupe. He’s a uniform who works out of—’
‘I know where he works out of. He’s not my problem.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean if he’s done something wrong I don’t want to hear about it. Take it up with his boss.’
Gonzalo came closer. Ahumada glared at him over the top of his newspaper, then folded it with a frustrated sound. ‘Does Guadalupe get in trouble a lot?’ Gonzalo asked.
‘Are you asking if he is as sparkling white as you are? Because the answer is no. He’s like every other uniform in this city: he gets by.’
‘He’s taking?’
‘I didn’t say that. Why would I say something like that?’
‘You just said—’
‘I said he gets by. You don’t remember what it was like to wear the uniform, so you can pass judgment all you want. It’s hard out there for a cop. Caught between the PF and the army. You can’t even breathe without someone jerking your leash.’
‘I work with the PF all the time.’
‘But it’s different for you. You wear a jacket and a tie.’
‘Look, if this is some kind of complaint about inspectors and uniform cops not getting along, I’ll tell you about a dozen uniformed officers who are glad to work with me.’
Ahumada unfolded his paper and made a show of shaking it out. ‘In that case, I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about.’
‘Damn it, I came here to find out something about one of our officers and you’re twisting it up!’
‘If you want to find out about Eliseo Guadalupe, I’m not the person to ask.’
‘Then I’ll ask the right person.’
‘You do that.’
Gonzalo turned sharply and left the office. He felt a pain in his ear and realized he was gritting his back teeth. The fingerprint report was clutched in his hands.
THIRTEEN
HE WATCHED DARÍO FREGOSO DIRECTING traffic from the curb where he had parked for half an hour. It was a busy intersection and Fregoso was good at keeping the cars flowing. Gonzalo could not remember the last time he’d blown a police whistle, let alone signaled cars and trucks on their way.
From time to time Gonzalo let his eye flick over toward Guadalupe’s vehicle, a white pick-up truck with POLICÍA MUNICIPAL emblazoned on the side. The shadowy figure of Guadalupe sat inside doing nothing. With the late afternoon heat and the sun, Gonzalo knew which officer had the easier time of it.
Gonzalo’s phone rang. ‘Soler,’ he said.
‘Gonzalo, it’s Lalo.’
Gonzalo sat up straighter. ‘What do you have for me?’
‘I pulled Guadalupe’s card and did a side-by-side comparison with the prints taken from that abandoned vehicle. It’s a match. I told you the computer is never wrong about these things.’
‘You’re absolutely certain?’
‘What did I just say? I checked it myself.’
‘Thanks a lot, Lalo. You’re a true friend.’
‘You owe me a favor now.’
‘Consider it owed. I have to go.’
Gonzalo hung up on Telles. His hand strayed to the folder with the fingerprint report inside, sitting in the empty passenger seat of his car. He debated taking it with him, but finally left it, getting out into the full glare of the day. The sun blazed at a precise angle to blind as Gonzalo approached the intersection on foot. He waited until Fregoso paused oncoming traffic before he left the sidewalk.
‘Señor, señor! Get out of the street!’ Fregoso called to him.
‘I’m a police officer,’ Gonzalo said and he held up his identification.
Fregoso was distracted and two overloaded trucks almost collided with each other. The man blew hard on his whistle and gestured sharply to the drivers. The snarl cleared.
Gonzalo came up to the truck and Guadalupe. ‘You’re disrupting traffic,’ Guadalupe told Gonzalo.
‘Do you have a couple of minutes?’ Gonzalo asked.
‘Can it wait?’
‘Not really. I’m working on a case where time is of the essence.’
Guadalupe regarded him. They were not so far apart in age, but the uniformed officer looked older, his hair heavily streaked with gray. He got out of the truck. ‘What brings an inspector out to see me today?’ he asked.
Gonzalo produced pictures of Patricia Sigala and Marina Cobos. ‘Have you seen these two girls before?’
Guadalupe examined the photos. Gonzalo watched his face, but there was no moment of recognition. ‘I’ve never seen them,’ Guadalupe said. ‘Why?’
‘Last Friday night you were patrolling the neighborhood near the Town & Country? You know the place?’
‘Sure, I know it. We patrol by there all the time. Get a lot of calls, too. Drunken patrons and fights. That kind of thing.’
‘You were on patrol all that night,’ Gonzalo said. ‘I spoke to your duty sergeant. I wonder if you saw a white car with Texas plates.’
‘Should I have?’
‘It was found abandoned in your area. The driver was this girl. This girl was the passenger. The driver was American.’
‘Was she? I definitely would have remembered that.’
Gonzalo looked at Guadalupe’s face, but still he saw nothing. The man stared back at him with a blank expression, waiting for Gonzalo to say more, not willing to fill the space with needless words of his own. Suddenly Gonzalo regretted not bringing out the fingerprint report. These belong to you, he would say. How do you explain that?
‘Did something happen to those girls?’ Guadalupe asked.
‘We don’t know,’ Gonzalo replied. ‘They are missing.’
‘Missing? That’s no good.’
There was a sudden blare of horns and the screech of rubber. Gonzalo looked and saw a car and a truck nearly nose to nose, directed against each other by Fregoso. The young officer ran over to them and waved them off, shouting and blowing his whistle.
‘I hope you find them,’ Guadalupe said, ‘but I think my partner needs some help.’
‘Of course. But before you go: are you sure you’ve never seen either of these girls? They are nineteen and seventeen. They were in a car with Texas plates. That has to be unusual for that time of night in that area.’
Gonzalo held up the pictures again, but Guadalupe barely glanced at them. ‘I’m sure of it,’ he said. ‘Now if you don’t mind?’
‘We’re done,’ Gonzalo said.
Guadalupe went, blowing his own whistle and bringing all traffic to a halt. Fregoso struggled to get the opposing vehicles out of each other’s way. Gonzalo stood and watched them work, waving and signaling, while he held the pictures of Patricia and Marina in his hands.
When it was safe, he crossed the street and walked the distance to his car. Behind the wheel he saw the intersection smooth itself out, the to-ing and fro-ing of cars and trucks under the guidance of Guadalupe. Fregoso did nothing but stand there.
Gonzalo turned the key in the ignition and edged out. He waited until his lane was waved through and raised a hand to both policemen as he passed. They did not return the gesture.
He saw them for a while in his rear-view mirror and then they were swallowed up by traffic.
FOURTEEN
EVERY MORNING JACK PAUSED BY Marina’s bedroom and listened for her breathing, but she was never there. The days were counting down toward the school year and Jack insisted that Lidia go out and see friends even if she would rather linger at home. There was no sense in the two of them living the lives of recluses.
She was gone that evening, staying out for dinner. Jack left the house and made his way to the bridge into Nuevo Laredo. The thought occurred to him to call Lidia and tell her he would be gone a while, but he knew she would only want to come along and for this trip he wanted to go alone.
