by Neal Griffin
The promise of a life beyond the hard work of a dirt farm had lured Angelica away, but it had all been lies. Now this was her life and everything else was fading away.
Angelica thought back to the woman she thought of as “the bold one.” The one who had fought. Who had resisted. That one would never find herself in such a place as this. Even now Angelica could see her eyes. She could feel the strength of the woman’s grip on her foot, pulling her to safety. Angelica remembered the warmth of her hand. Even now, Angelica heard the bold one call out, Come to me. But then she was gone.
The hard smack of a man’s hand against the side of Angelica’s face brought her back to this place of dehumanization. His words were unintelligible to her, but she understood the threat they carried all too well.
The old man moved closer and Angelica reached out, taking him in her hand. She leaned in, closing her eyes in silent recognition of her station in life: a puta girl. I coveted a world not intended for me, she thought. I disobeyed my Almighty Father. I shamed my family. I deserted my country. And now I must take my place in hell.
ACT II
FOURTEEN
Inside Newberg PD, Tia tucked her head and took the stairs two at a time, holding a twenty-ounce Starbucks at arm’s length. At the sound of laughter, she looked up just in time to try to avoid a collision with a group of uniformed officers headed the opposite way. Tia managed to maneuver past the first two but ran smack into the third. Despite her best efforts, a good amount of hot coffee sloshed over the top of the cup and onto the cop’s black uniform trousers.
“Damn, Suarez. What the hell? I’m not even five minutes into my shift.”
“Sorry, Jimmy.” Tia bent down, swiping at the cop’s pants with the back of her hand, just missing the crotch area.
“Damn, girl. Back off from my junk.”
“There,” Tia said, standing up. “Can’t even see it. The coffee, that is. Put the dry-cleaning bill on my desk, all right? I’m really sorry.”
Of course it had to be Jimmy Youngblood, a five-year patrol officer well known for his good ole boy ideology and his belief that women just don’t belong in police work. Jimmy had been in the courtroom when Tia had her episode. In fact, he’d been the only other cop there, which made him the prime witness, a role he’d played to the hilt.
Not only had he provided all the ugly details for the official investigation; he also even came up with his own artistic re-creation that he practically turned into a stand-up routine. Rumor had it that Youngblood had taken the show on the locker-room circuit and he was a hit.
“Yeah, whatever.” Jimmy grabbed his crotch as he walked away. The three male officers continued down the steps, probably headed for the day-shift briefing. Though they spoke quietly, Tia heard their hushed comments and a reference to “another major meltdown.” She could only wonder what the latest rumor was; she knew a mangled version of the Milwaukee detail had gone around. She resisted the temptation to run down the steps, catch up with the group, and set straight any bullshit. You’ll only make it worse, she thought. It’s all your own doing.
Tia looked at her watch. Twenty minutes late. She rolled her eyes at the thought of the chewing out coming her way. Half-jogging down the short hallway, she blew a breath into her palm and breathed it back in. A pretty good whiff of burnt coffee was all she got, but she wondered if the patrol dogs had picked up anything else. She’d done pretty well all week, but last night Connor had had to work an overtime shift at the market and Tia had been home alone. Well, not really alone, she thought.
That’s the damn problem. Spending entire days stuck at a desk on light-duty work was frustrating enough, but being cut off from meds and booze at home was more than she could take. When that tiny voice began to cry for her attention, Tia knew there was only one way to silence it. She ended up hitting the bottle pretty hard and now she was paying for it. She hadn’t taken any pills but hadn’t been able to resist swinging by the liquor store on the way home last night.
It’s this damn light-duty bullshit, she thought to herself. Not to mention Gage and his testing schedule. Tia knew she had less than four hours to sweat out a fifth of tequila or there would be hell to pay.
She took a last sip of the rancid brew that had cost her four bucks at a drive-thru before dumping it in the hallway trash can in disgust. How do people drink this shit?
Tia’s normal routine was to stop every morning at Books and Java, Newberg’s one and only indie coffeehouse. But in addition to being a good friend, Alex was also the wife of the chief of police. No reason for Tia to put the woman in a tough spot by showing up in her store hungover and on her way to work.
Tia slipped into the bullpen she shared with three other detectives and was relieved to find it empty. First break of the day, she thought. She slid behind her desk, piled high with pawn slips and burglary reports. Her light-duty assignment had her acting as nothing more than a glorified file clerk, comparing the stolen property listed in local burgs to what was taken in by the half-dozen pawnshops in the area surrounding Newberg. The duty normally went to a senior citizen volunteer.
And here I sit, Tia thought. This would drive any cop to drink.
Tia rubbed hard on her temples, thinking she should have kept the lousy mermaid sludge. Her head throbbed and a tide of liquor rolled in her stomach. She rummaged through the desk, scrounging for an old energy bar or something she could munch on to soak up the booze. Nothing but a three-week-old banana that was more gray than black and in a gelatinous sort of state. She left the banana where it was and slammed the desk drawer in frustration, smashing her thumb in the process.
“God damn it!” she shouted, looking at her broken nail.
“Where you been, Suarez?” Tia looked up and saw Travis Jackson staring back at her with nothing short of contempt. “You missed the weekly crime update.”
“Oh, hey, Sarge.” Still shaking her hand in pain, Tia was in no mood to take a lot of grief from her boss. Her voice was way less than sincere. “Sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Until it does.”
Shit. He knows, she thought. Tia half-expected him to pull out a Breathalyzer, but she was angry enough to not really care. In Tia’s mind, Jackson had caused a good amount of the bullshit she was dealing with. He could have stood up to the attorney. He could have done more to support Tia with Sawyer. He could have done his fricking job, but instead he took the easy way and left her twisting in the wind.
She pushed back. “Is it really a big deal, Travis?” She motioned to the pile on her desk and tried to downplay her offense. “You’ve got me going through pawn slips and patrol field interview cards. So I’m a few minutes late, so what? The last thing I need is to sit in on a crime update.”
Travis stared back, stoic and quiet in a way that left Tia unnerved. He closed in and Tia picked up on that way cops looked at a drunk. He spoke in a low voice and Tia could hear frustration mixed with what she thought might be genuine concern.
“Look, Tia. This sucks for you. I get that, but if you want to get back on full duty, you’ve got to go with the program. If Chief Sawyer finds out you’re coming in late, not to mention half in the bag, he’s gonna have both our asses.”
Tia took on a level of indignation normally reserved for guilty people. “Half in the bag? Come on, TJ. I had a couple of drinks last night. So what? I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Oh yeah, you’re here. Late for the third time this week and no doubt you plan on sliding out an hour early.”
Tia knew he was right and had every right to jump her shit about it. “All right, I’m sorry I was late. Just cover me this one last time, okay? I’ll get all these pawn slips filed today. I won’t go home until it’s done.”
TJ shook his head. “Wish I could help you, but Sawyer’s waiting for you in his office. Told me to send you over as soon as you got in. That was almost a half hour ago.”
“Oh, shit.” Tia felt the blood run from her face, thinking back to her blowout with Dr. Gage two da
ys ago. “What’s he want? Do you know?”
Travis shrugged. “I have no idea, but he looked serious. Better get over there.”
Tia stared into space. If Ben had talked with Gage, anything was possible. Her mind reeled until TJ pulled her back in.
“And splash some water on your face.” His voice was a mixture of disgust and pity. “Rinse your mouth with that Listerine you keep in your desk. You smell like a jail cell.”
Tia stared back, embarrassed. “Yeah. Okay, Travis. Sorry if I put you in a bad spot.”
Travis turned to leave shaking his head. “You need to pull your head out of your ass, Suarez.”
Tia stared at the empty doorway, her head cluttered with shame, alcohol, and fear of what might be in store. She pulled herself to her feet and headed down the hall. Ducking into the women’s locker room, she went to the sink and doused her face and the back of her neck in cold water, following TJ’s advice. Her hands shook with a mixture of nervous tension and the effects of detoxing. The panic attack was sudden and quick. Thoughts of what might be coming gripped her mind.
I’m finished. This is it.
Her stomach began to heave. She turned from the sink and pushed into a stall. She felt a hard, blunt pain when her knees hit the cement and her chest thudded against the porcelain. She hung her head over the opening just in time to project pints of a chunky yellowish-brown concoction into the bowl. A good deal of splashback struck her face and her throat burned with a mixture of tequila, bitter coffee, and bile. A second wave of nausea arched her back, not as violent as the first but still enough to make her eyes water. Her body shuddered in revulsion at the sour odor, but she found some comfort from the fact that her stomach was suddenly empty and quiet.
When she was certain it was over, Tia used her forearms to push off against the rim of the toilet and stood on quaking legs. She pulled off a length of toilet paper and swiped at the long strands of thick spit hanging from her lips, then tossed it into the bowl and wiped her hands on her jeans. She boot flushed the toilet and backed out, slowly turning to the mirror. An unfamiliar face stared back. Tia was disoriented, as if seeing someone she should know but whose name escaped her. Then it hit her.
Holy shit, Suarez.
Red glassy eyes rimmed in dark circles stared out from the mirror. Her pasty skin was specked by the vomit plastered against her cheeks and chin. A few chunks had gotten in her hair—which she suddenly realized hadn’t been combed since she’d rolled out of bed not quite an hour ago. Nearly a minute passed as she stood frozen, returning her own stare. Then her chin began to quiver and heavy tears of shame rolled down her cheeks. She wanted to sob out loud. She wanted to curl up on the bathroom floor and wait for someone to find her. They’d probably throw her into a detox facility. Fine. At least it would be over. No more games. No more pretending. No more living a lie.
Is that really what you want? To quit? Give up?
This has got to stop, she told herself. If I somehow survive today, she vowed, this shit has absolutely got to stop.
Tia washed her face and rinsed her mouth in the sink. She lingered, fighting for her composure, then turned off the water and stepped back. She went to her locker, combed her hair, and put on some light makeup. She squeezed an inch of toothpaste onto her finger and rubbed it across her teeth.
Tia walked out of the locker room and headed down the hall. The liquor and vomit had sucked nearly all the moisture from her body, so she bent over the fountain for one last drink of cool water, doing all she could to calm her nerves. She finished the walk like a condemned woman headed to the gallows. How did this happen? she wondered. How did I go from being on the top of the heap to, well, being the heap?
Gage had to have talked to Sawyer; Tia was certain of it. No doubt Gage jazzed the story up pretty good, but thinking back on it, she knew he did not need to embellish very much. Tia figured the decision had already been made. With any luck, Sawyer would let her go out on physical disability. Make up some bullshit about complications from her not-so-old injuries. That would fool the people at a distance—civilians or maybe even a few prospective, non–law enforcement, employers. But the real story would be well known throughout the cop world. Tia Suarez went out “51-50.”
Tia stopped and took in a deep breath through her nose. A cascade of proud moments flashed through her mind. The academy. Major arrests. Returning to work after the shooting. Making detective. Good times with the Sawyers. She forced herself back into the moment at hand, put her shoulders back, and walked into the chief’s reception area. She did all she could to sound at ease. “Hey, Caroline. Sergeant Jackson tells me the Chief asked to see me.”
Caroline, already picking up the phone, smiled, but Tia picked up on the pity in her voice when she said, “Have a seat, Tia. I’ll let the chief know you’re here.”
Caroline no more than put the phone down when the office door swung open and there stood Ben Sawyer, his face somber but impossible to read.
“Hey, Suarez. Get in here.”
FIFTEEN
Angelica moved her palm lightly across the dirt surface beneath her, back and forth, tiny pebbles rough against her skin. The feeling of the earth was familiar to her. It was the stuff of a farm, and in her seventeen years Angelica Mendez-Ruiz had memory of little else. Sure, there had been occasional celebrations in the local plaza, with her mother always nearby, monitoring Angelica’s every breath. There was the pilgrimage to Mexico City when she was seven, an event heavy on suffering and piety by design. But save those few worldly adventures, most of Angelica’s earthly experiences were drawn from the clay of the earth. Honest work. Hard work. Even God’s work. She understood all of that, but it hadn’t seemed wrong or evil to hope for something more.
She lay flat and unmoving so that the cool dirt of the floor could offer some minor relief to the pain in her breast and stomach, to the searing burn between her legs. Where her cheek was pressed against the ground, a thin line of light snuck down through the outline of the trapdoor above her head. Beyond that there was only black. There were stretches of time when even that strip of light was gone—Angelica assumed those were the nights. She had come to welcome the blackness, thinking that perhaps it meant death was near. But it never came and Angelica realized she wouldn’t be allowed to die. That she would be kept alive in this place. This place that she had become convinced was hell.
She was in an underground pit of some sort, with dirt walls supported by thick wooden beams. Far above her head was a wooden door that led to the world outside. There was nothing like this place on the farm in Michoacán where she had lived her entire life, not even the graves where her ancestors had been buried for almost three hundred years. Graves didn’t have doors.
She thought again how wonderful it would be to just die, to have a grave, but she knew this was not death. This was hell and people didn’t die in hell. They suffered. Suffered for their sins. Hell was a grave without the benefit of death.
Angelica was certain she was no longer near the place of her crossing. How long had it been since she’d made that trip? She had started her journey on foot, heading for the train called La Bestia. She and hundreds, even thousands, of others from all over Mexico and Central America, clinging to all parts of the train, had ridden for days until the tall fences of El Norte could be seen on the horizon. From there, the long walk began. Always at night, hiding during the day. No food and almost nothing to drink. Every day more people would fall from thirst and exhaustion, left behind to die in the desert sun. The coyotes led the survivors to a house that stood alone in an arid wasteland that left Angelica regretting her decision to come to this godforsaken country. There they stayed for many nights. She slept in a room with a dozen other women and children, locked inside as if they were prisoners. Every night the coyotes would come and take away another woman, sometimes even a child. Some returned. Others did not.
Then he came. The one called Tanner. And the other. The man with the terrible smell and a long beard that was the re
d color of Mexican dirt. Angelica had seen them standing in the doorway, pointing at her. She saw the exchange of money. Even now, she cursed her foolishness. To have gone with them. To believe that men who reeked of evil would want her for anything other than their own devilish pleasure.
The days after that fell into a miserable pattern. They would drive for hours, then stop and take her into a dingy posada. There would be a bed and little else. Men would come. One after another. She could hear them outside the door, waiting, even while one was on top of her. Then it was back to the van, hours of driving, another room. After many days—she didn’t know how many—the rooms vanished. Now they took her in the fields. Day after day. Field after field.
If only she had listened to Antonio. Her oldest brother had been to America and he thanked God every day he had been able to return safely home. He had warned her. He had refused to even consider allowing her to take the journey that had killed their father. That had nearly killed him. Antonio spoke of a wall that rose up from the ground. Of helicopters and soldiers. Government agents along with vigilantes, all of them armed and eager to use their guns. Full of hate for the people of Mexico. He spoke of a crossing that covered hundreds of miles of arid wasteland. A desert riddled with the bones of people from all over Mexico and beyond. People who, like their father, had believed in the lies up until the time they lay down in the sand to die.
Antonio chastised her, calling it a sin to have such a pasión de viajar. Angelica preferred the English translation. Her wanderlust. It was a lust. She had inherited it from her father, who, like her, had felt a desire he could not ignore, to see the world beyond their farm. But she had not intended to desert her family. She had heard the stories of girls who disappeared and were never heard from again, but she knew it would be different for her. She would be smarter.
