Scratchgravel Road: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  “Disaster and politics,” said Otto. “Where do you come up with the money to plan for the hundred-year flood when you can barely pay the phone bill?”

  * * *

  Josie and Otto found Marta standing in front of her desk talking on the telephone. Worry lines formed a V in between Marta’s eyes and her face was red and splotchy. Josie thought she looked as if she had aged ten years.

  Marta hung up the phone and faced them. “One of her friends’ mothers called back. Her daughter finally let loose. Teresa left last night while I was at work. Got a ride from her friend Angela to the bus station in Presidio. Then took the bus across the border before they closed the bridge into Ojinaga. That’s where her father lives.” She paused, her face haggard. “I came home last night and glanced in her room. I thought she was in bed. She’d piled pillows up to look as if she was asleep. Any other night, I would have kissed her goodnight. Last night, I was still too angry.”

  Otto pulled a chair out at the conference table and stood behind it. “Come sit,” he said to Marta. “Tell us everything you know.”

  Josie grabbed three mugs from the back of the office and carried the coffeepot to the table. She poured them each a cup and sat.

  “So she took a thirty-minute bus ride to Presidio, then crossed the International Bridge to stay with her dad in Ojinaga?” Josie asked.

  Marta nodded. “Now the bridge has closed and the forecast says the rain won’t stop. But I have to find her.”

  “What about driving to El Paso? They haven’t had the rain we have. You could still cross there,” Otto said.

  “No. It’s almost four hours to El Paso. Then I have to go through customs. Then drive all the way back to Ojinaga. It’s twelve thirty now. It would be ten o’clock tonight before I got to town.” She closed her eyes and made fists with her hands on the table. “I can’t leave her there. Her dad’s a drunk. If he’s off the whiskey she’ll be fine. If he’s on it, he could stay passed out for days. Who knows if he’s even home. It’s not a safe neighborhood in broad daylight. And, God forbid, if she hasn’t made it to his house by nightfall I can’t even begin to think what could happen to her.”

  “Have you called?”

  “He doesn’t have a phone. I took Teresa’s cell away from her last week. She’s grounded from it. I have no way of getting hold of her. I tried Javier’s father’s store but no one answered.”

  Josie hesitated. “With the river flooded, the only way across is out by Ellis’s house. There’s a footbridge over the Rio that Border Patrol hasn’t shut down yet.”

  “Can you get me there?” Marta asked.

  “If Border Patrol catches us you’ll be in some serious trouble, Josie.” Otto was staring at her. He knew where she was headed.

  “I’ve already called Sergio,” Marta said. “He’s offered to help any way he can. If I can get across the footbridge I’m sure he’ll drive me to Javier’s house and get us back across the border in the morning. Hopefully the bridge will be open again and we can drive.”

  Sergio Pando was a Federales who lived in Piedra Labrada, just across the river. He was also a childhood friend of Marta’s. Josie respected him as a person and as an honest Mexican law-enforcement contact whom they relied on frequently.

  “Can’t he just get Teresa and bring her to the footbridge? Or, if you trust him, take her to his home until morning?” Otto asked.

  “He would never do that. Javier’s a drunk, but he’s a Curandero. He still commands respect. Sergio would never enter his house and take his daughter.” Marta frowned and shook her head.

  “I’ll cross by myself. I won’t take you with me.” Josie stared hard at Marta, who she knew would fight the decision.

  “Absolutely not. Teresa’s my daughter. I hate to even drag you into this, but—”

  Josie broke in. “I won’t talk about it. The river’s at flood level. What if something happens to you? You think Teresa has problems now? What happens to her with no mother?”

  Marta was quiet, her face in anguish.

  Josie said, “I’ll meet you out at Ellis’s trailer. I’ll call and let him know what’s going on. If the bridge doesn’t look safe, we call it off.”

  * * *

  Josie and Otto came up with a list of items that Otto would work on for the Santiago case in her absence. His first priority was a meeting with Skip Bradford at the coroner’s office to get a positive ID on the body.

  Next, she called and talked to Ellis Burns about the strength of the footbridge. He said he had used the bridge four days ago to cross on foot, and it was in good shape, but he didn’t know what the rain might have done to it. He said he would walk down and check it out.

  Josie had known Ellis for years and would trust his judgment on the safety of the bridge. Ellis dated a woman who lived in Mexico, about a half mile from the river. He crossed the bridge weekly and the local law enforcement, including Josie, turned a blind eye. Ellis was a Vietnam vet in his sixties who had no intention of moving to Mexico at this point in his life. His girlfriend ran a successful horse ranch in Mexico, and felt the same way: she would not leave her country for America. They used the bridge to conduct an illegal cross-country romance that suited them both just fine.

  On the drive home to pack a quick change of clothes, Josie pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and held it before dialing Dillon’s number. She dreaded the call. He would give her grief about the trip, she would get angry, he would say something ridiculous like “you can’t go,” and she would hang up wishing she hadn’t told him.

  When she finally called, she gave him the basics, and he stuck to her predicted script.

  “You can’t do that, Josie. It’s suicide!”

  “What happens when you tell me I can’t do something?”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “I’m asking you to be reasonable. There are men in Mexico who would murder you for bragging rights.”

  “This isn’t negotiable. Marta can’t go. Otto can’t go.”

  “It isn’t your fight. You can’t even carry a weapon across the border for protection!”

  “Dillon. I promise you that I will take every precaution. I will be with Sergio as soon as I cross the river. He’ll take me to Teresa and I’ll bring her home. Simple.”

  The argument finally ended in an unhappy stalemate. She promised to call him at the first opportunity, and she hung up glad for his concern, but slightly annoyed all the same.

  * * *

  Once she had a few things stored in a light backpack she could carry across the bridge, she loaded Chester in her jeep and drove back to Dell’s place. He walked out on his front porch in jeans and a plaid shirt with a cigar dangling from the corner of his lips, and a shotgun broken open over his arm.

  Josie got out of her jeep grinning. “What’s up?”

  “Cleaning my guns.” He watched Josie open the back door of her jeep, and he patted Chester on the back when he loped onto the porch. “What’s up with you?”

  “I’m headed to Mexico for the night. Wondered if you’d keep Chester at your place.”

  Chester pawed at the top of an old ammunitions box beside the front door that Dell kept filled with dog treats.

  “That doesn’t sound like a very good idea,” he said.

  She shrugged. “It’ll be a quick trip.”

  “Work-related?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Not going to fill me in, are you?”

  She smiled. “Nope. You’d follow me with your arsenal. We’d both end up in a Mexican prison. And who’d take care of Chester?”

  * * *

  By the time Josie met up with Ellis and Marta at the entrance to the foot crossing it was after three o’clock. There was a light rain, but the forecast showed a break in the activity later that afternoon through midnight.

  Ellis wore rugged brown sandals, jean shorts, and a brown T-shirt that perfectly blended with his surroundings. He looked as if he had recen
tly buzzed his own hair with a pair of clippers. He stared down at the bridge and the rushing water about six feet below it. “It’s made it through worse than this,” he said. But Josie couldn’t remember seeing the water any higher than it currently was.

  Across the bridge was the expansive Chihuahuan Desert with low-lying mountains, cactus, and scrub brush that was already turning green with the recent rain. The river cut through the east end of a canyon that traveled through Artemis. The opening of the canyon was relatively shallow, with twenty-foot-high walls. The bridge was attached to the sides, on either side of the river, about five feet down from the ledge. The canyon rim was a rocky slope down to the bridge, hiding it from the road, but making the entrance accessible. The crossing was only visible from within the canyon walls so there was no cartel traffic, just an occasional local wanting quick access, usually to family members.

  The muddy brown river had reached the banks, flowing fast and dragging debris. Josie knew if she fell in, or the bridge gave out, she would almost surely drown. She hated the water and was not a good swimmer, although the current was flowing so fast that swimming would be a moot point. If the water didn’t kill her, the trees and limbs floating down the river would.

  The rope bridge spanned twenty feet, with three-foot-wide wooden slats, and was surprisingly taut across the water. Josie had crossed it easily with Ellis several years ago just to check out what was on the other side. Desert scrub, it turned out, and a cattle road heading south from Piedra Labrada into Ojinaga, Mexico.

  Marta had called Sergio back after they had formed a plan and he had agreed to drive Josie into town. Unless the road was severely washed out from flooding, she figured the drive would take about ninety minutes.

  Josie wore blue jeans, hiking boots, a long-sleeved navy T-shirt, and carried her Artemis badge and passport in a black backpack. Her hair was in a tight ponytail and she carried the backpack secured tightly to her back. She didn’t carry a weapon of any kind. Federales escort or not, she was still entering the country illegally.

  She stepped onto the bridge gingerly and took several steps out. The water was pushing at the metal supports and the bridge dipped under her weight, but felt secure. She walked several feet out and came back to the edge where Marta and Ellis stood, looking on in concern.

  “I think it’s fine. I don’t feel comfortable bringing Teresa back across it, though.”

  Marta nodded. “Sergio said he would reserve a room at a little motel downtown. It’s safe. You can stay until morning. Sergio said the closing was precautionary. He’s predicting the International Bridge will open again in the morning.”

  Josie frowned. The idea of staying overnight in a motel room with Marta’s sixteen-year-old daughter worried her worse than the water. And Josie wasn’t as convinced as Sergio that the bridge would be open again that soon.

  “What if we can’t cross in the morning?” she asked.

  Marta’s expression froze at the question and Josie regretted it instantly. She reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

  “You can’t imagine how much I appreciate you,” Marta said. Her eyes carried worry for her boss, but Josie could see the deeper fear of a mother desperate for her daughter’s safe return. “I don’t know how I will ever repay you for this.”

  “Marta, friends don’t require payment. I’m helping you because I care about you and Teresa.”

  Marta hugged Josie tightly, tears streaming down her face. She pulled her cross from under her blouse and clutched it in her fist. “I will pray nonstop for your safe return.”

  Several minutes later a small dark blue car with the words POLICIA FEDERAL painted in large white letters across its side pulled to a stop across the river and a stocky gray-haired man got out. He was wearing street clothes, a white T-shirt tucked into jeans and running shoes. He waved and the three did likewise. Josie agreed to call Marta as soon as they’d found Teresa and then stepped back onto the bridge.

  Two-inch-thick rope handrails ran down either side of the bridge, and Josie had to bend awkwardly to reach them. She wondered if Ellis had helped construct the bridge—if so, he had seriously miscalculated the design. Her five-foot-seven-inch frame felt off balance on the narrow boards.

  About three feet in, she stopped and stood still, focusing on the slats under her feet, not the churning brown water below her. Once she steadied herself, and accustomed her eyes to the rushing water under the bridge, she gained some confidence. She took slow six-inch steps, rubbing the skin off her palms as she slid her hands down the rope rails.

  By the middle of the bridge, the feeling that it was ready to flip, dropping her into the churning water below, was almost unbearable. Not daring to let go of the railing, she forced her muscles to relax slightly and took smaller steps, carefully sliding each foot across the slippery wet slats. She kept her focus on the wood so she wouldn’t trip. After a five-minute walk that seemed to take hours, she made it onto the other side to the applause of Sergio, who’d just allowed her access into his country illegally, now smiling as if Josie were the prodigal daughter come home to stay.

  ELEVEN

  “Well done, my friend. Well done!” Sergio hugged Josie and patted her back, laughing into her ear. Josie stood about six inches taller, but Sergio was powerfully built. He had the kind eyes and smile of an old-world gentleman, and a demeanor that put everyone around him at ease.

  Marta had grown up with Sergio in Mexico and had been gently pushing away his advances for many years. Josie thought the two loved each other, or at least deeply cared for one another, and couldn’t understand why Marta accepted only his friendship.

  The landscape was rocky, with mountainous desert sprawling south into Mexico. The hour-and-a-half-long drive back to Ojinaga took them along a canyon road high enough to avoid most of the flooding. One small detour took them around a tributary that flowed into the flooded Conchos River. Sergio said that at least twenty residents had drowned in the Conchos after they refused to evacuate their homes along the river. Sergio said the International Bridge wasn’t flooded, it was the street in Ojinaga that the bridge fed into that was currently underwater. He expected the water to recede within the next several hours, and for the bridge to reopen by daybreak.

  Sergio spoke fluent English, occasionally mixing the two languages, but Josie had no trouble understanding him as he filled her in on the local feuds and battles that sounded identical to stories she heard about Presidio, the city across the border from Ojinaga and just to the south of Artemis. Mostly though, Sergio talked about Marta, and their childhood growing up together.

  “As small children we lived in Barrio Montoyam, along the canyon. We spent our childhood in the river, scrabbling up and down the rocks and valleys. Thirteen kids between our two families. It was a good life. Then both our fathers took jobs in Ojinaga at the new maquiladora. That’s when Marta met Javier.” Sergio looked at Josie and smiled, shrugged, giving a look that said, What can you do?

  “Was Javier always trouble?”

  Sergio hesitated. “Marta was always spiritual, even as a child. She looked to the angels and the saints in place of her mother. I used to tell her, ‘Marta, your home is here. Make better use of your time here, instead of wishing away for something you can’t know.’ When we settled in Ojinaga we were both sixteen. I was in love with her, but too proud to risk the truth of her knowing. Then, she met the Lazoyas and I lost her to Javier. His father was a curandero, a spiritual healer. Very respected in the region. Javier has the gift as well, but he never grew comfortable with his sight.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He was afraid of the responsibility. He was a coward, and I told Marta. It just made her angry with me. She thought she could fix him. That’s always been Marta’s goal in life, fixing up people. She says that’s why she could never love me. Nothing to fix.”

  Sergio glanced at Josie and smiled sadly. “Marta was too kind to give me the truth, but I knew. Her heart was with Javier.”

  Josie sat quie
tly a moment, watching the waterlogged desert pass by them, thinking about Marta’s life growing up along the river. “Would Javier have been considered a priest?” Josie asked, not entirely certain she understood Sergio’s explanation.

  Sergio laughed. “No, no. The curanderos learn their art from the Indian shamans of hundreds of years ago. A gift passed down, an understanding of the spirit world. Javier’s father was consulted when the brujas, or the witches, brought harm or mischief to families. He heals with herbs and potions. People still seek out his remedies, but he’s old and tired. Javier is a great disappointment to the family.”

  “What kind of healing?”

  Sergio lit a cigarillo as he drove and rolled his window down to the warm evening outside. “Curanderos say prayers to bring you luck in bingo, to help you find your lost husband, to get rid of warts and cancer and diarrhea. You think of it, they have a saint and a prayer to help you through the problem.”

  As they approached the city the sun had fallen enough to cut the harsh glare from above, and the city’s edges were not so rough. It was 6 P.M. and Josie hoped there were enough daylight hours left to find Teresa and get her in a safe place for the night. However, the daylight also left Josie more exposed. As an American police officer in the country illegally, she was very cognizant of her situation.

  Josie had only visited Ojinaga a few times, and was always struck by the angular shapes: the buildings were cubes with square windows and rectangular doorways stacked atop each other like kids’ building blocks. The stucco and arches she associated with Mexico were not found in these neighborhoods, but the brightly painted blues, reds, and oranges turned the streets into a kaleidoscope.

  Sergio pointed out a small Catholic church with rooms to rent and said a room had been prepared with two twin beds. A tall stone wall encircled the church for protection. Josie thanked him for the arrangements and hoped she and Teresa were inside their room by sundown.

  Javier’s house was in a tumbled row of flats with power lines draped precariously along the rooftops, dangling almost to street level in between. The street had a dusty, slapdash feel to it, but Josie noted how clean of debris the area was. Sergio pointed to a small brown apartment, no more than a box perched atop a bright blue building with a large advertisement painted in yellow and red across the storefront: AGUA CHILI!