Ground Truth

by Rob Sangster

  Toby came on the line a minute later. “I have to get to the floor for a roll call vote, Jack, but I’ll always take a call from you. My secretary said something about the ‘final hundred meters,’ which means you must be under some kind of pressure. How can I help?”

  “Thanks Toby.” That’s the thing about old friends. They step up when you need something. “I want information about a company doing business in New Mexico, and I’m under enormous time pressure.”

  “I represent Wyoming. I’m not likely to know anything about—”

  “You sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you may know this one. It’s called D-TECH.”

  Several seconds passed before Toby said, “Why do you ask?” This time, his voice was wary.

  “Because it affects one of my clients, and I can’t find out anything about the company.”

  Toby lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “It’s what spooks call a ‘gray company.’ They operate behind smokescreens, doing things that no politician is going to vote for in public.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Toby, I didn’t ask for a civics lesson. I need specifics. This is serious.”

  “Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me. D-TECH works on Department of Defense Special Ops projects. Designing miniature nuclear weapons is one of them. Its Board includes Pentagon alums and associates of the Carlyn Foundation, so it’s wired into every administration.” He cleared his throat. “That’s as far as I can go.”

  Jack was stunned. D-TECH was such a heavy-hitter that even a U.S. senator was on eggshells.

  “Damn it, I’m calling on our friendship. I need more.” He heard the anger in his voice and knew he had to dial it back.

  “Jack, I’m up for election, and bad things happen to people who snoop into gray companies. Now I have to get to the floor for that vote.”

  He could keep pushing, but the tone in Toby’s voice told him he’d get nowhere.

  “If you change your mind, give me a call.” He broke the connection. Toby Baxter had lost the strength he’d had as stroke on the Stanford crew. Politics had turned another good man into a jellyfish.

  “That sounded like a dead end,” Debra said dryly. “So much for college friendships. Can we get back to the catastrophe we know is about to happen?”

  He massaged his forehead. She was right. “Yeah, but there’s one stop I have to make right now. While I’m gone, I hope you’ll start getting some essential information I need. I’ll drive you to the El Diablo.”

  “Drop me at the Blanco Bar & Grill near UTEP,” Gano replied and stood.

  “I’ll go with you, Jack,” Debra said.

  He shook his head. “I have to do this alone.”

  The stop he had to make was to be sure Ana-Maria was safe somewhere north of the border. Just in case she was still at the coyote’s house, he didn’t want Debra with him. Bringing the two of them together would be like filling his shorts with gunpowder and handing each of them a box of matches.

  Chapter 38

  July 8

  6:00 p.m.

  JACK PARKED DOWN the street from the dilapidated home of the coyote and walked past kids getting in some kickball before they lost the light. As before, the windows were covered with fabrics, and it took several raps on the metal grate before the same stout woman answered.

  “Buenas tardes. I came here four nights ago with a young woman. You know her cousin. We made arrangements—”

  “What you want?” she said through the grate.

  “Is my friend still here?”

  The woman shook her head ‘no,’ her mouth tight.

  That was a relief. Ana-Maria had crossed. “Your husband said he would call me when my friend was safe on the other side, but he didn’t.”

  She glared at him. “No money back.”

  “I don’t want any money back. What’s wrong?”

  “All week, the police attack the Muñoz cartel in Juarez. My husband can take no one across.”

  “She’s not across? Then where is she?”

  She looked over her shoulder and then she looked at him, as if deciding how much trouble he’d cause if she refused to answer.

  “While I was making lunch,” she said, “she found the back door unlocked and ran away. All afternoon, I hope she comes back, but no.”

  A feeling of foreboding swept over him. “I need to talk with your husband.”

  “Not here.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Quien sabe?” she muttered, meaning that her husband didn’t intend to be confronted by the gringo about the woman he was supposed to safeguard.

  “Look, I don’t want my money back. I need—”

  “Good-bye, señor.” She closed the door behind the grate. The lock clicked.

  Where was Ana-Maria? Was she afraid the delay had given Montana time to track her down? Was she so impatient that she’d try to get across on her own? No, she would have called him. What if she’d gone back to her house for some reason? That would be a crazy risk. Montana could have staked out her house, or bribed a neighbor to call him if she showed up. Uneasiness shot into alarm. If she was in Anapra, he had to get her out of there.

  LESS THAN HALF an hour later, he ran across the scraggly grass to Ana-Maria’s front door. There was no padlock, so she must be inside. Thank God, he’d found her. He knocked. She didn’t answer. The situation was eerily like standing at Juanita’s door a few days ago, except this time he hadn’t really expected anyone to be at home. There was no response to his knock, so he turned the handle. It wasn’t locked from the inside so he pushed it open and stepped in. The room seemed normal until he saw a cardboard suitcase on the bed, half-filled with clothes. Next to it was a thin stack of photographs, a little costume jewelry and a few personal treasures. Near the head of the bed was the dark blue dress and white sash she’d worn at the hotel.

  She must have gotten fed up with living in the same clothes for four days and made a dash home to get her own stuff. No, he realized, she’d come for the photographs and the ring from her mother. She wasn’t willing to leave Mexico without them. So why had she stopped her packing? Where was she?

  On impulse, he ran outside and around to the back of the house where they’d sat in the morning sun . . . and fell to his knees next to where she lay on her back. A small-caliber bullet had drilled a round hole in the center of her forehead. Blood, now dried and brown, had run in threadlike streams down both sides of her beautiful face.

  Hot July wind burned across his face, and tears filled his eyes. “Oh, no. Oh, God, no. Ana-Maria.”

  But maybe . . . he pressed his ear on her chest. No heartbeat. He reached for her hand, and then her neck. No pulse. Her skin was red from lying exposed for, how long, an hour? Five hours?

  He lifted her head and cradled her in his arms. He touched her face, caressed her hair. She’d been so full of life when she’d come to him in the El Presidente Suite.

  Then he saw blood clotted on her left palm. He looked more closely. She had raised her hand in a futile attempt to fend off the slug.

  As far as he could tell, she hadn’t been beaten or raped. She’d been assassinated. Montana, or whoever he had sent, had been bold enough to kill her out in the open to show they had the power to do whatever they wanted.

  When his tears finally dried, he gently laid her back on the ground and stood, bone-tired. He didn’t want to leave her on the ground, but if he moved her he’d be disturbing a crime scene, interfering with the police investigation. What a joke! Even if Montana had left his business card on her body, the cops would give him a pass.

  He tenderly scooped Ana-Maria up in his arms, carried her inside, and laid her on the bed. After sponging her face clean and covering her with a light bedspread, he kissed her on the cheek.

  He looked at a phot
ograph of her younger sisters in their village, loving and depending on her. He picked up the photos and slid the thin ring from her finger. They belonged to her sisters. He’d make sure they got them.

  Thinking of her family made him remember the money he’d given her. She wouldn’t have left it at the coyote’s house, so it must be here. He checked what she was wearing, then the blue dress, the suitcase, drawers, shoes, everywhere likely. It was gone. The murderer had come to kill, but was a common thief as well.

  He inspected her small home in hopes of finding anything that would identify her killer. There was nothing. He took the ring with two keys from Ana-Maria’s pocket to lock the door behind him, hoping that would keep anyone from disturbing her until the police got there.

  Time to go. He looked back at Ana-Maria on the bed. Without thinking, he swung his fist into the wall. It hurt like hell. He closed his eyes, but not from pain. He was breathing hard. He’d make Montana pay for what he’d done.

  He stood on the harsh gravel in front of her house, unable to walk away, and looked down the street at the shacks with bars on their windows where maquila workers fought to survive. A guy rolling slowly past on an old Harley gave him a look that said, “What are you doing in Anapra, gringo?” It took a moment to register that the biker was also a witness who could place a tall gringo at the scene of a murder.

  He waited until the biker was out of sight before going to his car. He had to report the murder, but didn’t want the cops to have his cell phone number, so he drove out of Anapra, past the city dump, and found a bar. His first stop was the pay phone. To convince the cop on the line that Ana-Maria was dead, he had to describe the wound and her condition. That hit him hard again, and his voice became hoarse. The cop demanded to know who was calling. He felt guilty and quickly hung up. He needed a drink badly.

  A wood chair scraped loudly as he pulled it back and sat at a corner table. A bartender set a bottle of Corona in front of him. Jack waved it away. He needed something a lot stronger. He ordered scotch.

  The bartender came back, poured a triple shot glass full to the rim and left the bottle on the table, obviously the custom in the place. The label read “Chivas Regal” but the label was so stained he knew the bottle had been refilled more than a few times. It went down rough, but it stayed down.

  He silently toasted Ana-Maria and refilled the triple shot glass. In just a couple of days, she’d helped guide his transition from the ivory tower to reality on the ground. The image of her ruined forehead filled his brain. He drained the glass, hoping it would dim the image. It didn’t. He’d tried to get her to safety and failed. She’d be buried in a pauper’s field, and there was nothing he could do about that now. When this was over he’d make sure she didn’t remain in this place she’d hated. He’d find her sisters and return Ana-Maria to her village for proper burial.

  As time passed, the bar got crowded and was filled with stinking billows of cigarette smoke, tinny mariachi music, and the shouts of small men angrily bumping chests like banties. Three men in T-shirts with cutoff sleeves eyed him openly, as if looking for an excuse to start trouble. He felt like a farm-raised chicken in a cock fight.

  He poured more scotch. When he set the bottle down, it landed hard on the rim of his glass and smashed it. Well, shit, he didn’t need a glass. He drank from the bottle. Ana-Maria had left her innocence behind when she came to Juarez, and he’d lost his, too.

  The bit of his brain still functioning warned him to get out of the bar before he got too drunk to defend himself. He paid and weaved his way to the door, hitting the frame hard with his shoulder. He found his car, but it wasn’t where he’d left it. Or maybe it was. After a little fumbling he got it started and pulled into the road.

  Damn it. Just when he had to get back to the motel, get some sleep, he couldn’t find a road to a bridge across the Rio Grande. Somehow he’d gotten into an industrial area, far from the river. A truck swerved and almost hit him. In his rearview mirror he saw a red traffic light. Had that been for him? The river must be to his right so he made a last-minute turn, swinging wide into the oncoming lane before straightening out.

  Hoo-wah, hoo-wah, hoo-wah.

  His reaction to the siren screaming right behind his car was visceral, taking him back to the violence outside Casa Lupo. He pulled over to get out of the police car’s way, scraping his tires on the curb. In his side mirror, he saw three cops erupt out of the cruiser’s doors.

  One pulled him out of his car. They all shouted at him. Another one shoved him in the chest and he stumbled backwards, lost his balance and fell hard.

  JACK’S BRAIN SWAM slowly back into consciousness. He was lying on his side on a rough concrete floor, but where? He squinted. Men around him. Uniforms. Oh my God. A jail cell. He vaguely remembered being dragged from his car. The alcohol still fogged his thoughts. He had to do something, so he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.

  The guardia’s boot crashed into his ribs, driving him sideways into the wall. He slid down the concrete block surface, pain searing his lungs as he tried to grab a breath. The guard stepped back, a broad smirk on his face.

  A squat man wearing gold braid on his shoulders strode into the cell, his officer’s hat tilted so far forward his face was a dark shadow. The guards edged quickly out of his path.

  “Hey, gringo, they say you claim you’re some big shot. You tell me, gringo, how big a shot are you now?”

  “Jack Strider,” he gasped. “I’m a lawyer. San Francisco.”

  “Hah! Bloody mess. Whiskey stink. You don’t look like no gringo lawyer I ever saw.”

  “I’ll give you a number in San Francisco. You have to call it. They’ll vouch for me.”

  The officer thumped his own chest with his fist. “Chief of Police, Ciudad Juarez. I don’t have to call San Francisco.”

  “Then call my room at the El Diablo Hotel in El Paso. Look, I’ll pay a fine, anything. I won’t say a word about what’s happened here.”

  A contemptuous snort told him what the Chief thought about Jack’s total lack of bargaining power.

  “But nothing happened here. You have no cuts. No broken teeth. You just fell on your ass in the street. My men hauled you in because they think you’re un común borracho, a common drunk. But maybe you’re worse, maybe you raped and killed las mujeres jóvenes que trabajan en las maquilas, the girls working in the maquilas. So I’ll keep you locked up.”

  “You’re crazy! You have no evidence.”

  The Chief’s eyes flashed at the insult. “If we need evidence, we’ll get it for sure. Don’t you worry.” He winked at his men and drew laughter.

  “I want a lawyer.” He started coughing.

  The Chief nodded at a guard who slammed his open palm across Jack’s right ear. Head ringing, Jack collapsed.

  The Chief leaned over him. “My men make sure you’re ready to tell me about the killings when I come back.” He walked away. The last guard following him flicked off the lights for Jack’s cell and the hallway. In the dark, Jack heard the sound of claws scurrying on concrete. Despite them, and the pain, he pressed his back into a corner and plunged into sleep.

  A moan from the next cell woke him into the blackness. He had no idea how much time had passed. He edged up, gritting his teeth. He heard voices and loud laughter from farther away. They sounded drunk, so they must be guards.

  If he survived the beating they planned, the Chief would pin a string of murders on him. He’d never get to trial. The Chief would kill him without ever knowing why he’d been drunk.

  He also saw that getting drunk in a sleazy bar, even because of grief, had dishonored Ana-Maria. Maybe she’d been killed because of her close friendship with Juanita, but there could have been more to it. Right after Montana assigned her to assist Jack, she’d stopped coming to the office. The thought of a connection between Ana-Maria and Jack would h
ave made Montana furious. And that connection had been Jack’s idea. He owed it to both women to stop the Palmer Industries’ gang.

  The hall light came on, followed by the heavy tread of guards heading toward his cell. He braced himself to handle what was coming. One guard stepped out of the group, unlocked the cell, and dragged Jack out of the cell by his arm. “El Jefe,” he said, and pointed down the hall.

  July 9

  2:30 a.m.

  JACK HAD ONLY a hazy memory of signing some papers and Debra hustling him out of the jail and into her rented Mustang. He ached all over—his head from alcohol, ribs and thighs from being kicked. Deep inside his ears there was a buzzing that wouldn’t stop.

  Without opening his eyes, he asked Debra, “How did you get me out?”

  “I was at the El Diablo, worried sick that you weren’t back. Then around midnight, three guys with Juarez Police Department badges showed up. One of them, acting like he was worried, said you’d been in an accident and wanted them to bring me to the Juarez central hospital. They described you perfectly. I went to Gano’s room to get him to come with me, but he was still out drinking. Instead of taking me to a hospital, they parked at the Juarez jail and took me to the Chief. He informed me that, and I quote, ‘Señor Strider is a serial killer, one of the worst criminals in the history of the state of Chihuahua.’”

  “I said there had to be a mistake. He sneered and said, ‘No mistake, but if I keep this man in jail for killing so many women, someone will kill him. Bad publicity. So I will let him out on bail until the trial.’”

  “I took it for granted,” she said, “that he didn’t expect you to come back, and he’d pocket the money.”

  “How much did he want?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  “Don’t tell me you—”

  “Not a chance. I came on like the late Johnny Cochran. I promised to make flaming meteors rain down on him and would produce witnesses to prove you were in Zanzibar on whatever dates they claimed the killings occurred. That’s when he decided that you were only a common drunk and could go home for a mere 2000 pesos. Cash only, of course.”