Total Victim Theory (20 page)

He didn't know why his father was so slow to catch on. The red Ford had just disappeared over the western hill. The red Ford with Gary behind the wheel and Fernando and Esteban stowed away in the hidden compartment.

Raul knew Gary was supposed to be driving them across the border and dropping them off in Juárez. If that's where they were going, the truck needed to turn left and exit at the main gate. But where the dirt road forked, the truck had turned right. That route would only lead them to the back corner of the ranch, where there was nothing but vacant pastureland and a red barn no one ever used. Since the property was surrounded by barbed wire fences on all sides and the gate was the only way in and out, Fernando and Esteban weren't getting to Juárez unless the truck doubled back.

His father's doubtful expression showed that he didn't share his son's concern over the wrong turn. Raul was about to press the issue when suddenly, he realized they were not alone.

Behind them, not far away, stood a dim silhouette. A woman. It had to be Emilia, Gary's live-in housekeeper. She was the only woman living on the ranch. Raul didn't know her well, but he'd heard she was from Juárez, an illegal like themselves. In her hands she held a basket of laundry. She must have just pulled it off the line and been passing by. But something had made her stop. Raul saw that she, too, was gazing at the horizon right about where the truck had disappeared. She must have overheard what he just said to his father. For a moment the three of them shared an awkward silence, watching the empty skyline.

In the near darkness, Raul couldn't make out the expression on Emilia's face. Then, without a word, she turned and headed off toward the main house.

When she was out of earshot, his father spoke. “
Mi hijo
, you worry too much. You think everything you can't explain is out to get you.”

Raul said nothing, not wishing to argue with his father. But the bad feeling in his gut persisted. And the more he turned things over in his mind, the worse that feeling got. . . .

He understood pretty well how things worked around the ranch. Laborers, he and his father included, were smuggled across the border in the hidden compartment beneath the flatbed of Gary's truck. The compartment could only hold two people, so
workers arrived in pairs, the ride over being part of the deal. Raul's father said the pay wasn’t great, but it was fair. Fifteen hundred bucks paid in cash the day your three-month stint was through. The same deal for everybody and when the ninety days were up, the workers left, two by two, either heading back to Mexico or moving on to look for higher wages elsewhere in the States.

Today had been the end of Fernando’s and Esteban’s ninety days. Their last day on the ranch—one of the facts that wasn't sitting well with Raul. Earlier in the afternoon, the two men had said their good-byes to the other workers and hiked down with all their things to the main house. They’d then spent an hour or two helping Gary put up drywall in the garage, so none of the other workers were on hand when they departed. It was just by chance, or perhaps because he was always a little bit wary of things, that Raul had even noticed.

He and his father sat in silence for a long time, watching the fire grow dimmer and dimmer.

“I can see it in your eyes, you're worried,
mi hijo
,” his father said with a slight smile. “But worried about what?”

Raul looked away from his father’s gaze. “Remember what happened with Gustavo?”

Gustavo and Hugo were two laborers who left the ranch about a month back. They left on the last day of their three months and their beds were soon filled by the next pair of hands. About two weeks after they'd gone, Raul noticed that Tad, Gary’s older son, was wearing a belt that had belonged to Gustavo. It was made out of rattlesnake skin and had a big silver buckle with the emblem of a snake engraved on it. The mouth was open wide, just like what a rabbit might see a split-second before it felt the fangs.

Raul remembered how Gustavo would brag about the belt, saying his father had killed the snake in the desert near Juárez long ago and had given it to him just before he died of cancer. Gustavo, still eighteen, vowed to pass it down to his own son, when he had one. One day Raul asked Tad how he came by that belt that Gustavo had valued so highly. Tad said his father had bought it off Gustavo for fifty bucks and given it to him as a gift. Raul never brought it up again, but there was always something he distrusted about that explanation. Doubts had always lingered in his mind.

After Raul had finished recounting the episode, his father
smiled. “But what other explanation do you need,
mi hijo
?” his father asked. “Fifty bucks is fifty bucks.”

“But the truck was headed to the back corner. . . .” Raul trailed off.

“And what if it was?”

Raul spoke softly. “That's where the red barn is.”

“So what if it is?”

“Remember what happened over there?”

Raul had to admit the incident had no clear connection to the Ford's wrong turn or to his vague apprehensions about Fernando and Esteban. Nonetheless, the event was so strange, Raul felt compelled to bring it up—as if it spread a general suspicion over all the ranch and everything that happened afterward.

“Of course I remember. But. . . .” His father trailed off, and in the silence, it seemed they both were thinking things neither was yet prepared to speak.

It had happened about six weeks ago, not long after their arrival at the ranch. Raul and his father were with Gary and a couple of the other hands near the back corner not far from the red barn. They were all on horseback trying to round up about twenty head that had wandered away from the feeders. As they approached the stray animals, Raul saw that a cloud of dust had been kicked up in the air. Up ahead something, a cow he assumed, was writhing about on the ground. The other cattle stood around making hysterical cries, an almost human agitation in their voices.

Raul's first thought was that the animal had collapsed and was having a fit or suffering a bout of heat exhaustion. However, when they'd drawn closer and seen the blood all around in the dirt, it seemed to rule out these explanations. Frightened, Raul glanced over at his father, just in time to see a cigarette slip from his mouth.

And yet, amid the dust and tumult, what was happening still wasn't clear. The cow was dying, thrashing about in the dirt, gushing blood, its legs and face and throat ripped open with wounds so wide it made the animal hard to recognize, like a newborn coated with afterbirth.

Then Raul saw it.

Clinging to the downed animal’s throat was what he instantly recognized as an alligator. It looked littler than the ones he’d once
seen in a zoo in Zacatecas, perhaps some smaller breed, or maybe a younger one.

The animal’s long jaws were clamped to the cow's throat, its reptile eyes staring out, runny like uncooked eggs. The cow howled and snorted terribly, red saliva and mucus flowing out in thick strands from its nose and mouth. In its effort to escape the lethal hold, the cow flopped over from side to side, while the alligator held on unperturbed.

Then, in a final, last-ditch effort to survive, the cow managed to rise to its feet, the predator still fast at its throat. A moment later the cow wobbled and collapsed in the dust. It lay on its side kicking weakly, propelling itself in a hopeless circle and leaving a wide red arc in its wake.

Gary drew his horse close to the green creature, which was focused on finishing off its prey and appeared to take no note of the approach. The horse whinnied its disapproval of the errand, stepping forward only with great reluctance. He nudged the horse still closer to within a foot or so of the fray.

Then he raised his shotgun. He was close enough to rest the weapon against the alligator’s tough green head, placing the barrel on a spot a couple of inches behind the eyes. He pulled the trigger and the head exploded in a thick cloud of red and green.

The alligator slid off the dying cow and flopped motionless onto its back, revealing a lined scaly belly and four small clawed feet. The cow’s eyes were closed, and it was silent except for its breathing. Its nose and face were freckled with pellet wounds from the shotgun blast. It lay completely still, except for the swish of its tail, which moved slowly back and forth like the flag of a surrendering soldier.

Gary slid a second cartridge into the gun and snapped the chamber shut. He placed the barrel on the doomed cow’s forehead. A second shot rang out, and the tail fell limply to the ground.

None of the laborers who witnessed the episode ever put forth a reasonable explanation for how an alligator wound up in the middle of that cattle ranch, at least not that Raul ever heard. Nor did tight-lipped Gary share any insights he might have had on the matter. Many among them were suspicious and spoke of the event in hushed voices. But suspicious of what? No one ever really spelled that out. In the end the group seemed to regard the
occurrence with a fearful, almost religious reverence. As a sign or a revelation perhaps. But a revelation of what? Raul had heard them say many vague or superstitious things that he regarded as nonsense. And yet, not being able to explain it, hardly removed it from his thoughts.

The fire slowly died. His father sat for a while thinking. Then he shook his head as if annoyed. “Come on,” he said. “Let's go to bed and stop thinking about these things.”

They walked over to the bunkhouse in silence. In the doorway his father stopped and looked at Raul as if he were about to speak. There was a small bulb above the door where gnats swarmed in frantic circles. His father's worried face was cast in yellow light.

“You would put such strange thoughts in my head,
mi hijo
,” his father said. “So they went the other way. What are we supposed to do about that?”

Raul spoke in a whisper. “What if they need our help,
Papi
? What if they're in danger?”

His father sighed. “What if, what if, what if?” Then for a moment he didn't speak. He just looked into Raul's eyes. “And why would they need our help when they were with Gary?” Then he looked away. “And what danger could there be?”

25

Mexico

Doing my damnedest to keep up appearances. To act like this is just a routine investigation. Like I'm just a disinterested agent. Maybe if I'd done more undercover work it would be easier for me. Easier to remember what I am and am not supposed to know yet. Easier for me to keep my emotions under wraps. I've slipped a few times already—said something stupid in front of the other detectives. This might have been my undoing, had Silva not stepped in with a quick word of explanation to square my blunder with the facts. He's got a real knack for that sort of thing.

There is, however, one secret where I'm on my own.

I didn't tell Silva about the autopsy report—that is to say, I didn’t express to him my concerns about the paternity of Lisa’s child.

I don't know why I didn't exactly.

Maybe because this new wrinkle puts my level of personal bias off the charts. Takes away any straight-faced claim I might want to make about being objective. The other possibility is that I didn't tell him because I was afraid to. Afraid he'll see through me and know I'm hoping what I hope. It puts you in a vulnerable position to want something that may not have the slightest chance of being true.

The truth is that I fully intend to tell him—just not yet.

On more official fronts, the case has seen several notable developments in the last twelve hours. Rehan Abdullah, the second Ropes suspect, was in Egypt on the night of the dune murders and for two weeks prior. Silva and I interviewed him this
morning, at which time he produced various proofs supporting his alibi, including his airline ticket and e-mails sent from Egyptian IP addresses. Abdullah has thus been eliminated as a suspect in the investigation.

Crossing off Gonzalez and Abdullah leaves us with a single
possible
from Silva’s original roster, Adrian Caiman, a suspect who is, in my opinion, not particularly promising, being that no one's heard from him since his 1998 prison release. The working assumption is that he either left the area, died, or assumed a false identity. While his earlier crimes did show strong parallels to the Ropes' killings, the passage of nearly a decade and a half without any evidence that he resumed his prior pattern makes his candidacy tenuous at best.

One fact, however, keeps sticking in my head. It relates to the eyes. We know Caiman collected them from his victims. In the Ropes killings, the victims' heads had always been missing. That is, until Lisa—whose head was spared, but whose eyes were removed. Missing eyes are such a peculiar and telling detail. If Caiman was Ropes, and keeping the eyes was an essential part of his crimes, perhaps he started cutting off the heads to keep police from connecting the dots. Either way, it's a moot point at present since we have zero leads on Caiman's current whereabouts. But, it's an interesting thought.

In contrast to our dead-end suspect pool, Luna and Montalvo’s branch of the investigation appears to be yielding more fruit. They spent yesterday interviewing contacts of the six identified victims. As a result, three new facts have come to light addressing the question of what the men had in common. First, the victims that came from the same cities (two from Morelia, two from Juárez, and two from Matamoros) were unrelated, but had known one another since their youth. Second, all of the victims had, on at least one occasion, worked illegally in Texas, California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, or some combination thereof. Third, when asked about the burns on the victims' bodies, the detectives’ contacts reported—almost without exception—that the injuries occurred while the individual was working in the US.

The facts regarding these fires were hard to pin down and inconsistently recollected. However, more than half of those interviewed attested that the burns were suffered while the victim
was in Texas. If the dead men were indeed injured in the same fire, identifying when and where that fire took place could amount to a very promising lead—since the killer himself may have been in close proximity to that event.