Ground Truth

by Rob Sangster

  She was silent for a minute, then continued, “The fat police chief says, ‘This one went back to her village; that one went across the border.’ For a while, the police blamed the murders on local bus drivers, then on bad men from El Paso. But they don’t really want to know. They’re afraid they might catch someone from the cartels they don’t want to catch. So every case is ‘unsolved.’ You know those white crosses along the road from the Hotel Rialto? Some father or brother drove each cross into the ground to mark the place where a dead daughter or sister was found. You saw those crosses but you didn’t understand.

  “In my village, I taught English and history in a small school, but I could barely live on what they paid. So I came here. By God’s will, I have no children. When mothers go to the border, children stay with relatives or wind up in places that are like orphanages. Some disappear. People say they are kidnapped or even sold.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I hate Juarez, but I have to stay.”

  Jack had seen poverty in many cities around the world, cities filled with people who were desperate but not defeated, who endured. But the fact that Anapra was only a few hundred yards from the United States made it more shocking. But it was her words “kidnapped” and “sold” that cut deepest. In his gut, he suspected that some of those missing children had been taken from Salina Cruz aboard Pacific Dawn. In a flash it all came back: Peck’s brains splattered on the law books, Calder’s fury in the horse arena, the shame he felt.

  To break out of the foul memories, he pointed at the maze of electric wires crossing over each other to connect the houses. He imagined a new arrival climbing on top of a truck after dark to hook his house into any wire he could reach. As they passed, one of the junctions sparked and popped.

  She heard it too. “Sometimes a line breaks and burns a child. The city people say, ‘Nobody pays, so we don’t care.’”

  We don’t care. Those words summed up so much. He gripped the steering wheel tighter as he drove slowly down the main road that cut Anapra in half. No trees. Nothing green. Summer heat radiating from the tin roofs and barren hillsides.

  “At least the city provides water, doesn’t it?”

  “Water is supposed to come free from city trucks, but if you don’t pay morditas, bribes, the drivers won’t stop at your house. They’re supposed to come once a week but they don’t come that often. In summer, when we need water the most, they don’t come at all.”

  “What do you do?”

  “In Anapra, four families own everything, even the land under our houses. One of their businesses is selling water. Drivers who work for the four families charge much more to fill the pileta.”

  “Pileta?”

  “See those old 55-gallon drums? They come from the dump, so they don’t have tops. That’s what we use to store water.”

  “Aren’t there any wells here?”

  “The old wells dried up, and there’s no money to drill new ones. Everyone has diarrhea. Some kids die from it. Father Alarcone at Santa Lucia Church prays, but that’s all he does. Look.” She pointed up the street. “Here comes one of the family’s water trucks.”

  The truck pulled to the curb and the driver swung down from the cab, flipped the switch on a pump, and hauled a hose toward a shack covered in flaking yellow stucco. He wore greasy black trousers and no shirt. Sweat soaked his hairy shoulders. He shouted in the direction of the doorway covered with a length of faded green fabric.

  “He won’t pump until he gets his money,” Ana-Maria told him.

  A woman in her early twenties stepped out, one little girl on her hip, another at her side. Jack couldn’t hear what she said, but the driver shouted and shook his fist at her. She offered the man a handful of pesos. He stuffed them into his pants pocket, but instead of filling the drum he stomped back to the truck and started shoving the hose into its storage space. The woman ran to his side, crying and pointing to her children, obviously begging.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Her children are sick and must have water. He took the money she had but says it’s not enough. He’s going to keep her money and sell the water to someone else.”

  Jack was out of the Town Car in a second. A few long strides took him to the truck driver.

  “Fill it up.” He pointed to the metal drum. “I’ll pay the rest.” When he repeated that in Spanish, the driver began yelling and gave him the finger, pumping his right fist up and down.

  Ana-Maria ran up. “We need to get out of here. Can’t you see he’s high?” She pulled hard at his arm.

  He hadn’t recognized that the man was stoked on something, but there was no backing down. “I want that water delivered. Tell him I’ll pay.”

  Frowning, Ana-Maria did as he asked.

  The man wiped his hand across his forehead, whipped the sweat into Ana-Maria’s face, and swung a beefy roundhouse right that landed like a club on Jack’s shoulder. Jack stumbled sideways, got his feet tangled and fell heavily on his butt. He rolled to his right and up. The driver came at him with a bellow, paws widespread like a grizzly intending to wrestle him to the ground. Jack moved quickly to the side, grabbed a fistful of the man’s mat of hair and hurled him forward, driving him face first into the rough gravel. The burly man got to all fours, then slowly onto his feet, shaking his head side-to-side. He wiped blood and grit from his face and backed away, both hands raised, palms out. He was done.

  Jack pointed to the drum. The driver snarled, but filled it. As the water level reached the top, Jack saw dead cockroaches floating.

  Swallowing hard, he asked Ana-Maria, “How much?”

  She told him. He was tempted to throw the money on the ground, but held it out instead. The driver snatched it, climbed into the cab of his truck and rolled away.

  Jack had acted fast, without thought. No negotiations. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. Damn, that felt good.

  Hands on her hips Ana-Maria said, “You’re a fool. That man could have killed you. Over what? And next week he’ll take it out on that woman. You don’t understand this place. You can’t fix everything.”

  That was a tough message to accept. He was programmed to fix things.

  “Listen, I have an idea. You mentioned Father Alarcone. Will you take me to meet him?”

  She nodded and they climbed back into the car.

  The church, with narrow rectangular windows and an arched bell tower, was an attempt to imitate a Spanish adobe mission. The thick stucco that covered the two-story building had a fresh coat of white paint. The fenced-in courtyard was immaculate. It made a statement. Even if the church couldn’t reverse poverty, it wouldn’t yield to it.

  A man with bony, hooked shoulders and a fringe of hair around his bald pate like a Franciscan friar stood in the courtyard listening to an animated conversation among several women.

  “Padre Alarcone,” Ana-Maria called. The priest turned away from the group. “This is Señor Strider. Americano,” she said and stepped back, not-so-subtly distancing herself.

  “Good evening, Father. I asked Señorita Archuletta to introduce us because I understand the water in Anapra isn’t safe to drink.”

  The priest nodded. “When the children are sick, they can’t study. They don’t grow strong and tall like you.” He looked down at his clasped hands.

  Jack’s irrepressible fix-it gene triggered itself. “I’ll come back with a water purifier later this evening. When people bring their water here and run it through the purifier it will be clean.”

  “My poor church could never afford such a thing. I’m sorry.”

  “No, no. It’s a gift. And it costs almost nothing to operate, just a little electricity. It’s so simple it won’t break down. We’ll set it up right here in this courtyard.”

  The priest glanced at Ana-Maria and took a deep breath. “Maybe outside the post offi
ce would be better.”

  “But you’re open much longer hours than the post office.”

  Padre Alarcone spoke rapidly with Ana-Maria. Then with a slight bow to Jack he said, “You are right. It is our responsibility. When you return, you will have help to set up your machine.” He walked into the church.

  As Jack drove, Ana-Maria talked but he heard nothing. He wanted to strike at those who had created Anapra, whose greed kept it as it was. He’d taught that helping people in need gave meaning to the practice of law. That was one reason why his father’s debauchery had hit him so hard. Until now, he’d been angry with Arthur Palmer and Montana on principle. Coming face-to-face with people who were their victims made it personal.

  “What are you thinking?” Ana-Maria asked quietly.

  “About what I just saw.”

  “This afternoon I learned that you are a good man, and I would like to help you. But some people at the plant are too dangerous so—” She put her hand on his arm. “—I’m afraid to tell you anything. And I think you should be afraid too.”

  Chapter 22

  July 2

  7:30 p.m.

  “TWELVE HUNDRED dollars for this water purifier? That’s steep,” Jack said.

  The clerk behind the counter at El Paso Plumbing Supplies looked bored. “Supply and demand. Price goes up as long as water quality goes down.” He clearly didn’t give a damn what Jack thought.

  What the clerk didn’t know was that Jack would have paid more, if necessary. Providing potable water in Anapra was worthwhile, but it was also his best shot at changing Ana-Maria’s mind. The clock was ticking. The moment Montana got back in town she’d clam up for good.

  When he crossed back into Mexico and held up his passport, the man waved him through with no interest in the equipment lashed into the wide-open trunk. He found his way back to Santa Lucia Church. Two men ambled up and spoke in rapid Spanish, realized he couldn’t keep up, and pantomimed that they’d been instructed to help. After examining the purifier, they seemed confident they knew enough to hook it up so water would flow into it from the church’s large water tank.

  A crowd formed outside the courtyard fence, talking and pointing, obviously puzzled about what the tall gringo was up to. He wished Padre Alarcone had stayed around to explain that what he was doing would make their lives better.

  When the system was ready, he opened the inflow valve and ran contaminated water from the church tank through the purifier. After a couple of minutes, he got an empty Fanta can from his car and filled it from the outflow faucet at the end of the unit. With a bit of theatrics, he lifted it to the crowd, as if in a toast, then gulped every drop. He waited for a reaction from the crowd—alarm, excitement, something. There was nothing. Of course there wouldn’t be. They drank water out of this church water tank all the time. To them, what he’d done was nothing unusual, just crazy for a gringo who didn’t have to drink it.

  He was about to leave when a teenage boy walked up to the rear of the bystanders. He and an old woman whispered back and forth, and then the boy moved gently through the crowd.

  “Pardon me, señor. I am Rafael. Everyone wonders what you’re doing. If you tell me, I’ll tell them.”

  “If you drink the water in that tank, you’ll get sick.”

  “Yes.” His shrug said it all. Life in Anapra.

  “With this unit, it’s safe to drink,” he told Rafael. “People can bring water from their own pietas, and this machine will purify that too.”

  Rafael frowned. “But señor, how much will it cost?”

  “Nothing. It runs on about as much electricity as a light bulb. You pay nothing.”

  Rafael spoke to the crowd, ending with, “Nada, nada.” This time there was excitement, especially among the women.

  Then an old man at the rear called out something in a raspy voice. He was too far away for Jack to hear, but his words were repeated through the crowd. People began to murmur and drift away, the two workmen among them.

  He was left alone with Rafael. “What’s going on? What did that old man say?”

  “He scared them.”

  July 3

  8:30 a.m.

  AS SOON AS HE rolled out of bed and headed for the shower, Santa Lucia Church was on his mind. He was eager to get back to Anapra and see the water purifier in operation. He’d seen poverty in Rio and Johannesburg and many other places, but this time he could make a difference. Why stop with one unit? He’d buy more.

  The drive to Anapra was much quicker this time because he accepted bone-jarring jolts from the potholes without slowing down. Haze over the sprawling slum was worse, and there was an acrid smell that hadn’t been there the day before. A couple of blocks from the church, the scorched rubber smell was potent. He’d stay just long enough to talk with Padre Alarcone and make sure the decontamination unit was operating perfectly. Then he’d follow the directions Ana-Maria had given him to her house.

  He turned left onto the side street to Santa Lucia, expecting to see people lined up with buckets of water to be purified. When he pulled up near the church, he couldn’t make sense of what he saw.

  The church looked like the mortar-blasted rubble in photos of Baghdad. The face of the house of God had been ripped off. Its insides lay exposed. The planks of the altar smoldered.

  He walked slowly through the somber crowd, picking his way among shattered debris, speechless at the gut-wrenching sight.

  The big church water tank lay on its side, mangled, its precious contents a muddy blotch on the gravelly dirt. No fire could have done so much damage. There must have been an explosion that disintegrated the water purifier and set fire to everything around it.

  A man wearing a black and red jacket, face distorted by anger, pointed at Jack and screamed, “Son of a bitch.” Everyone turned to look at him. Some shouted and shook their fists at Jack. An old woman picked up a rock and threw it. Jack twisted away and it missed.

  “Señor, you must get out.” Rafael appeared at his side, guided him quickly past the edge of the crowd and hurried him to the gold Town Car.

  “What happened?” he asked Rafael through the window as he started the engine.

  “Big bomb in the middle of the night. All of Anapra was afraid.”

  “Why are they mad at me?”

  “The four families make money selling water. Your machine made them mad. Now we have no church.”

  A rock smashed the passenger-side window. A bigger one slammed into the trunk so hard it shook the car. A teenager wrenched the passenger’s door open and lunged for the keys in the ignition. Jack shifted into drive and hit the gas, throwing the boy to the ground. He hunched over the wheel and didn’t look back. His heart was pounding.

  Damn! It had all gone wrong. No water. No church. He could have been killed. He was shaken by the sudden twist. Then he thought about Ana-Maria. She’d be in no mood to sympathize, let alone help him. In fact, she’d be mad as hell.

  Chapter 23

  July 3

  9:30 a.m.

  ANA-MARIA JERKED the door open so quickly she must have been watching for him out the window. Her tears and red-rimmed eyes made it obvious she’d heard what happened at Santa Lucia.

  She didn’t invite Jack inside, just gestured for him to follow her. Behind the house they sat a couple of feet apart in blue plastic lawn chairs.

  “I feel awful about the church,” he said.

  “You want me to tell you it’s all right? It’s not all right.”

  “I thought I was—”

  “You thought, you thought,” she interrupted angrily. “Maybe you know your courtroom. You know nothing about the street.” She wiped her eyes. “But I haven’t been crying about the church.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s my friend, Juanita. She was supposed to be here
at eight for coffee. She didn’t come. She would never do that without calling. So I called her over and over on the phone her boss makes her carry everywhere. No answer.”

  “Maybe she’s sick.”

  “No, something bad happened. I feel it.” She covered her face with her hands and wept.

  “Let’s go to her house.” He stood.

  Ana-Maria looked up at him, eyes brimming. “You would do that? After the mean things I said?”

  “Come on, let’s find out.”

  She reached out and squeezed his hand, then ran to the Town Car. Ruts and potholes punished the car as he drove as fast as he could. Maybe because she’d lost her usual bravado, Ana-Maria seemed smaller as she sat next to him.

  She pointed. “That’s her place.”

  Juanita’s house was made of four-by-eight sheets of much-used plywood forming a 12 by 16 foot box. A battered 55-gallon drum stood near one corner. The windows, each barred with a heavy grate, were covered by striped yellow drapes. The only paint was on the front wall, a garish greenish-yellow, a bold attempt at cheerfulness. The small private space in front had been raked smooth. Juanita had done her best to make it a home. A dry wind swirled dust devils around them as they walked toward the front door.

  “Oh, God, there’s no padlock,” Ana-Maria said.

  “So?”

  “She never leaves her house without locking the door behind her. We all do that.”

  “Maybe she’s inside.”

  “If she is, the door will be locked from inside.”

  He motioned for her to step to one side. He looked at the door handle and swiped a sweaty palm against his pants leg. If the door wasn’t locked, there could be a body inside—and maybe a killer. He tried to look casual, but the violence he’d already experienced in Juarez made his heart pick up speed. He grabbed the handle, and it turned freely. Instead of opening the door, he banged on it. No response. He pushed the door open and stepped back.