Border Crossings

by Michael Lee Weems

  They made a curve around a bend, cutting off her view of the highway, and after a few minutes Yesenia began to breathe normal again as they put more miles behind them. What have I done? She asked herself. How did I let myself end up with these people? It all seemed to keep going from bad to worse.

  Ten hours. That’s the approximate time it took for all hell to break loose in Cancun. It was like an avalanche that began rolling down the hill that morning, Univision, the Hispanic television channel, broke the story in the United States on their morning news channel, followed by KHOU 13 in Houston. Other students on vacation in the hotel had found out what had happened and via Twitter, Facebook, and a barrage of cell phone calls, the news spread like a wildfire . . . the snowball grew bigger and bigger until finally half the mountain gave way to its weight.

  By early afternoon Nancy Grace was on the case, tossing accusations around like cheap beads at Mardi Gras and comparing events with similar cases of years past. She had some poor clueless official on her program via satellite ripping him a new one for the incompetence of the local police, barraging him with insults while he stood and gave his approved answers in short, apologetic replies. The tourist strip in Cancun was now littered with associated press vehicles and famous newscasters stood outside of the Dady’O recounting the last hours leading up to Kelly ’s disappearance. By that afternoon, less than twenty-four hours, it was worldwide. Parents all over the United States were calling their children in Cancun for spring break ordering their immediate return. The bars and restaurants were at half yesterday’s occupancy. People were staying in their hotels and the markets were quiet.

  Jim and Amy Woodall were sitting at a conference table at the Hilton Cancun. Jim was tall with graying thin brown hair and tanned skin from weekend golfing. He was forty-eight but now looked more like sixty-eight under the stress and lack of sleep.

  Amy was four years younger, though looked much the same. Her hair was pulled back in a quick ponytail and she wore no makeup. She sat in a chair in a pair of shorts that had been close by when they got the call and a UT orange T-shirt she’d gotten on a recent visit to Kelly’s school. She had sandy blond hair, crisp green eyes like her daughter, and a similar complexion to Jim, who she often joined on the weekends.

  The hotel’s Miramar Ballroom was now ground zero for the search for Kelly Woodall. It had 9,652 square feet which could be broken up into four separate areas and could hold up to 1,000 people. It was quickly being converted and at the moment police were working with hotel security on who could cross the large wooden double doors on either side of the room. Barriers and tables were being erected upon its red and tan carpet while a separate press area was being cordoned off for when officials were ready to make statements. Soon it would be partitioned into three areas, one-half for hotel operations, and the other two quarters two set aside for the Kelly Woodall kidnapping. The hotel and its staff were still in shock that the event occurred right outside their doors and the hotel chain’s company in the U.S. had pledged its unequivocal support. Inside, the conference room bustled with activity while outside, a single palm tree stood back-dropped by the azure ocean in picturesque view.

  Across from Woodalls was sitting senior officer Juan Ramirez and his partner Hernando Vargas of the QuintanaRoo anti-kidnapping unit. Ramirez was about 5’8” with a thin mustache and hair that was plastered into place by years of disciplining it with a sturdy comb. His eyes seemed sharp and he spoke English effortlessly. He was dressed in gray slacks with a white button down shirt and plain navy blue tie. Vargas was slightly older, his dark brown hair accented by gray that began in the part in his hair and slowly worked its way down like spilled paint. He wore a blue suit with a gold and blue tie.

  In his hand Ramirez held an artist’s rendering that Kendra had given only hours before. She’d given them enough to create a strikingly accurate picture of the man named Martin. “We have circulated this photo to all the departments in and around Cancun,” he was explaining to the Woodalls. On the table sat a picture of Kelly, one she had just taken before the trip for graduation where she wore her cap and gown. “We’ve also sent both pictures to every police man, gas station, and hotel in and around the district.” He tapped the sketch with his index finger, “If this man shows his face anywhere in public, we will know. We will have his picture placed in every newspaper and in every shop window by this time tomorrow.” It was already on every television channel in Mexico and the U.S.

  Unfortunately, his words weren’t comforting anyone, including himself. Everyone in the room was thinking that if they didn’t have Kelly back by this time tomorrow, she probably wouldn’t be coming back, at least not alive.

  “Why haven’t they asked for a ransom?” asked Amy Woodall. It was the thought that worried her most. Why wasn’t there a money demand? If someone had kidnapped her, and they didn’t take her for ransom, then what did they take her for? She shook in fear to think of it. At first she was terrified of the idea of a ransom call, but now she was praying for one. Just some news that Kelly was still alive, some hope that she could get her back.

  Ramirez had wondered the same thing about the ransom, and the only answer that fit didn’t bode well. But it was not something he was prepared to explain to the girl’s parents. He knew the helpless feeling and the fear they suffered. He had worked many disappearances of young women during his time as an officer in Mexico City and then a detective in Chihuahua State. Usually, they never found the girl, or if they did, it was a body out in the desert. Many of the young women in Ciudad Juarez were forced to travel long ways for the jobs they found, either by bus or often walking across the barren landscape for hours. Hundreds of such women had gone missing, many turning up raped and killed. He’d seen the look in their mother’s eyes when they learned what’d happened. He wondered if he’d be giving the news to Mrs. Woodall that her daughter’s body had turned up in the desert in the near future. He hoped not but the more time that went by without a ransom, the more likely the prospect.

  Ramirez had worked in a department called Unidad de Atención a Víctimas de Delitos Sexuales y Contra de la Familia, or the Unit for the Care of Victims of Sexual Offences and Offences against the Family, for three years before being put in charge of a search commission, set up at the behest of Amnesty International and former President Vicente Fox. He was all too familiar with looking into worried family members’ eyes and telling them “We’re doing everything we can,” which is what he said now to Kelly’s mother. “I can’t say why there has not been a ransom demand.”

  She wasn’t satisfied. “But that’s what they do, right? These people? They kidnap Americans or the wealthy people in the city and then demand a ransom, right? I’ve heard about this before. They keep them alive, in a small house in the country or something, sometimes for months! Right? Right!?”

  “It is very possible, senora,” Vargas told her. “Such things happen occasionally in this part of the world.” Off to his right stood an official from the governor’s office that shadowed Ramirez and Vargas, then reported back to his superiors. He cringed with Vargas’ words.

  “Why don’t they have better security?” asked Mr. Woodall. “I thought the kidnapping problem you had down here was in Mexico City or the more central parts of Mexico. We would never have let Kelly come here if we knew you had a kidnapping problem here.”

  “Actually, it is unusual that the victim in this case is a tourist. Normally, what you have said is true,” said Ramirez. “This is the first time we’ve had an American tourist kidnapped in this way from the boulevard.”

  “We have one of the largest police forces in the world,” said the official who now stepped forward. “We take our security very serious. We will not rest until we have found your daughter and brought these criminals to a swift justice.”

  This seemed to placate Mrs. Woodall, at least for the moment. She grabbed her husband’s hand. “I feel so helpless,” she told him. “We’re sitting here, just talking and talking, and she’s out t
here, God knows where.” She pictured Kelly, lying in the gutter, bleeding and beaten, gasping for air, calling for her parents, and yet here they were, still talking after two days. Or maybe she was in a dark room somewhere, tied to a chair with a blindfold and gag in her mouth. This image didn’t seem a much better alternative. To keep from descending into madness, she concentrated on reminding herself what she’d heard about these sorts of things. The kidnappers usually just wanted money and if they weren’t likely to hurt Kelly because they wouldn’t get what they want without her. Kelly was alive somewhere, uncomfortable and scared, maybe, but alive. She made herself believe that a call would come and they’d get her back.

  But the afternoon wore on with no demand, only what the Woodalls were quickly summing up as pointless assurances with no tangible progress. Finally, Jim Woodall couldn’t take it anymore. He whispered to his wife “Well, I’m not just going to sit here and do nothing. These people obviously aren’t getting anywhere.” He picked up his cell phone and stood up to leave the room.

  “Where are you going?” She asked.

  “To call an old friend,” he said, “someone who can actually get something done.”

  In a posh office in Dallas, a receptionist sat at a large oak desk answering the phone. “Hello, and thank you for calling the Law offices of Catherine James, how may I direct your call?”

  “Hi, is Catherine in?”

  “May I tell her who’s calling?”

  “Jim Woodall.”

  “Just a moment, sir.”

  She transferred the call to a phone sitting atop a matching oak desk where Catherine James sat peering over papers, her black her pulled neatly back and her blue eyes moving quickly over the pages. She’d just settled a large lawsuit based on an oil pipeline’s leak and subsequent environmental damage, garnering her client a more than fair deal by having the supplier of the sealant used kick in half the damages via their insurance carrier. She was no putting the finishing touches on Mr. Stein’s release.

  Behind her two posters adorned the wall, one of Mukhtar Mai and one of Neda Agha-Soltan, as well as a Rice University bachelor’s degree, a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Texas, and an enormous world map intricately detailed. When her secretary told her who was on the phone she picked it up with a pleasant voice. “Jim?”

  “Hi, Catherine.”

  “It’s good to hear from you. How are you?” It was a nice surprise to hear from Jim. She hadn’t talked to him in almost a year. The annual Christmas card was their usual means of communication these days, though she had sent Jim’s daughter a graduation card the year before.

  He answered in a tired and strained voice. “Catherine, I have a problem. A big problem.” She could hear his voice shaking. “Have you heard the news?”

  Catherine had been working on her deal for a while now and while the news about what had happened in Cancun had been airing all day on the television, she’d been so focused on the task at hand that she’d paid no attention. “Kelly’s been kidnapped.”

  Catherine’s tone instantly changed. “What!? When!?” She grabbed her pen and a legal pad from her desk drawer as Jim talked. “Wait, wait,” she said, trying to get her mind around what he was saying, “Tell me everything from the beginning.”

  Forty minutes later she burst out her office door. “Get me a flight to Cancun,” she told her secretary. “First one you can . . . doesn’t matter what time. I’m going home to pack now.”

  “Now?” her secretary asked, baffled. “But you have an early meeting . . . “

  “Cancel it.”

  Bewildered but ever efficient, her secretary immediately started dialing, “Is everything okay?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Catherine said. “But I’ll have to explain later.”

  She briskly walked into another office where a young man was busy browsing the internet, doing his best to appear busy while doing so. When she entered, he was halfway through the entertainment section of CNN and looked up, alarmed, to see his boss standing before him. “Teddy, I need you to finish the settlement docs,” she told him.

  Flabbergasted, the young man looked at her in disbelief. “Me? Um, sure, yeah.” He eyed her for a moment wondering if she was about to say Gotcha! with a big grin, but she looked anything but joking at the moment. “Yeah, Catherine, you bet. That’d be great! I’ll get right on it.” As one of three associates, he’d never been asked to finalize anything . . . Catherine always saw the big cases through herself. She handed him the folder, hoping he was up to the task. He was bright eyed and willing enough, which wasn’t entirely comforting. “Jennifer can fill you in on any points you’re missing, but I have to go out of town on an emergency. I really need you to be on top of this, Teddy. It’s important.”

  “I got you, no problem,” he said, holding the folder as though he’d just been handed his first driver’s license.

  Before she left she told her secretary, Jennifer, who was on hold with an online travel agent, “Call me on my cell when you get the confirmation.” Then she whispered, “And make sure Teddy doesn’t screw up.”

  Julio and Juan scrambled over the wall of the cemetery, two wiry young boys, one with big ears who moved clumsily and with eyes darting warily on the lookout for police, the other with sharp eyes who moved stealthy and sure. Juan, the clumsier of the two, lost his grip while climbing down and let out “Chinga!” before hitting the ground with a thud.

  “Shhhh,” demanded Julio. “You’re going to get us caught.” Juan held his hand up apologetically. “Hurry up.”

  They walked through the monuments, tombs, and headstones, headed to a place they’d been before. It was an open tomb, with three walls and a roof, but open on one side. It made an excellent shelter where the two homeless boys could sleep.

  “I don’t know why we have to sleep in the cemetery,” said Juan. “The dead don’t like it. It’s bad to sleep where they sleep. What if they curse us for it?”

  “Don’t be so superstitious,” said Julio. “As long as we’re respectful, they won’t bother us.” Juan didn’t look convinced. “Besides, it’s safer here at night than in the street.”

  “Ghosts walk here at night,” said Juan.

  “They do not,” said Julio. “They sleep. They don’t care if we’re here.” The homeless problem in Mexico had been worsening, and it was Julio who discovered it was easier to find a safe place to sleep in the cemetery rather than try to fight for a bed in a shelter or crouch down in an alley. “Besides, we don’t have to worry about being beat up here,” he told Juan. It was true. The older homeless boys or adults rarely tried to sleep in the cemetery. They were too afraid of angering a spirit that might curse them.

  As they walked Juan suddenly stopped. “What was that?”

  Julio stopped and listened for a moment, “What?” he asked.

  “I heard something.”

  Julio stood quiet and listened, but he didn’t hear anything. “It’s nothing, a dog or something.”

  “Are you sure? What if they have someone watching at night?”

  “Nobody’s watching. How many times have we slept here? And have we ever seen anyone? No. Nobody stays here at night.” Julio went through this with Juan every time they slept at the cemetery. “Just follow me and don’t worry so much.”

  Julio kept walking and Juan cautiously followed, but then he suddenly ducked quickly. “What are you doing?” asked Julio.

  “I saw someone!” he said in a whisper.

  “You did not. There’s nobody here. We’re almost there, so come on.”

  “No, I did, I swear. I think it was a ghost. I told you they walk here at night!”

  “There’s no ghosts,” said Julio. But in truth he was a little frightened. He’d often seen shadows in the night that scared him, and if he walked the streets alone, he probably wouldn’t stay here. It was easier for him to put on a brave face for Juan, because Juan’s cowardice always made him feel braver. And it was never safe on the streets alone. Whil
e the cemetery was normally empty, Julio had long learned that around every corner there might always be thugs who were more than ready to beat him up for whatever he might have in his pocket. Even if he had nothing in his pocket, they still might beat him up, worse even for having nothing to give them. The streets were a dangerous place, and those who were smaller or not in a gang always had to be on the lookout. Some homeless kids turned up beaten to death, robbed by thugs or beaten by who knows who. They’d even heard rumors that the police sometimes snatched street kids and they were never seen again. The boys trusted no one. They were like small fish swimming with sharks. Any fish bigger than them might decide to eat them at any moment.