Down Among the Dead Men Read online

  Down at the far end of the hall, a man in a bathrobe and pj’s stood at the pay phone, speaking quietly into the receiver.

  That was a first. But then it was her experience that just about anything can happen in a police station.

  As she approached, the man hung up and moved past her, nodding and smiling as he went.

  Beth didn’t return the smile. The anvil being hammered inside her head made it too difficult to think, let alone respond.

  She stepped up to the phone on the wall and picked up the receiver. She was about to reach into her purse for some change when she remembered it had been stolen.

  Wonderful. Now what?

  Then she realized she could hear a buzzing sound, a dial tone coming from the receiver. Maybe this wasn’t a pay phone, after all, but the Mexican policia’ s version of a courtesy phone. That didn’t explain the coin slot, but Beth wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  Putting the receiver to her ear, she dialed 0 and, to her surprise, got a live operator instead of a recording. One who actually spoke English.

  The operator asked for a number and Beth gave her Peter’s cell phone from memory.

  It was a long-distance call from here, but the operator didn’t seem concerned, and a moment later the line began to ring.

  On the third one, a familiar voice answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Peter, it’s Beth.”

  There was silence on the line. And it went on too long.

  “Peter?”

  “I’m here. What do you want?”

  She wasn’t sure where to start. Over the past several months, things had become so strained between them, even a simple conversation was difficult. Her resentment toward him had been too hard to disguise.

  But could anyone blame her?

  It’s a unique feeling to discover that you’ve been cheated on. A mix of hurt and rage and complete inadequacy. You feel as if you’ve somehow failed the relationship, you wonder about your ability to satisfy your mate both emotionally and physically, and every good memory you have of the two of you together is now tainted, filtered through a nightmare of stained sheets and writhing bodies.

  You have been betrayed. The trust is gone.

  And in Beth and Peter’s case, that trust was irretrievable.

  So, whenever they spoke, her resentment was clear. But she had to tuck it away for now. There were more pressing things to think about, and her head was pounding so hard that she thought she might pass out before she finished telling him what was going on.

  “Peter,” she said. “I’m down in Mexico. Baja Norte. Jen and I took a cruise, and after we docked in Playa Azul she disappeared.” Beth started to cry now. “She’s gone, Peter. I don’t know where she went, but I need your-”

  “Beth, stop.”

  His voice was a slap to the face.

  “What?”

  “You have to stop calling me like this.”

  “What are you talking about? I hardly ever-”

  “You’re up to twice a week now. Do you realize that?” A pause. “Of course you don’t.”

  Beth was at a loss. He wasn’t making any sense. Other than curt hellos in the office-which was thankfully big enough for some distance-they hadn’t spoken in over a month.

  “Peter, listen to me. This isn’t about us. It’s Jen. I think someone may have-”

  “Jen’s dead, Beth.”

  Another slap. Followed by a rolling wave of nausea.

  “She’s been missing for almost a year,” he said. “And we all know what that means.”

  “How can you say something like that? That’s crazy.”

  “Listen to me. Take a look around you. What do you see?”

  “I-”

  “Just do it, Beth. Look around.”

  Thoroughly confused now, her migraine going into overdrive, Beth looked around the hallway, but it was the same as before. Clean, well lit Wait. No. Not the same.

  Through doubling vision, she could see that on the far side of the corridor was what looked like a…

  …a nurses’ station.

  What the hell?

  How could she have missed that?

  Turning back to the phone, she discovered that it wasn’t a pay phone at all. Just a small black box mounted on the wall, with no coin slot. A sign next to it read: PATIENT USE ONLY.

  And when she glanced down at her clothes, she realized that she, too, was wearing a robe.

  She started to tremble.

  “Peter, what…?”

  “You’re not in Mexico, Beth. You’re in a private rehabilitation clinic in Los Angeles. Jen disappeared almost a year ago and is presumed dead.”

  “What?” Beth cried. “That’s impossible. I just saw her-”

  “No. You need to focus. Concentrate on the here and now.”

  “What are you talking about? Peter, what’s going on?”

  “You’re hallucinating,” he said.

  “How can that be? That’s crazy.”

  Then all at once she realized that it wasn’t so crazy after all, as the corridor around her came into sharp focus, Playa Azul and the police station and the cruise ship and Jen all sliding down a dark memory hole.

  And all she could hear was Peter:

  “Someone shot you, Beth. Someone shot you in the head.”

  Patient’s Journal

  Day 58?

  10:20 A.M.

  I don’t remember the shooting, but I’ll never forget the pain.

  That’s what I wrote two days ago.

  But I was wrong. I do forget.

  And not just the pain, but about where I am. Why I’m here.

  Thanks to the bullet fragments lodged in my brain, and the damage to the surrounding tissue, to the three hemorrhagic strokes that I’m lucky to have survived, I’m often whisked away to another place and time. A hallucination so real that I actually believe I’m living it.

  Or re living it.

  Those two days with Jen did happen.

  I know that. They will forever be a part of me.

  But for some reason, I can’t seem to get beyond them. I live them over and over, each time as vivid as the last, and the only thing keeping me sane are these few lucid moments when I look around me and see a hospital room. When I can stare down at these words I’ve written and know that there is a part of me fighting this thing, struggling to push through the membrane, to move beyond the darkness into the light.

  And while I can remember the pain at these moments, the spiked-heel, hot white pain in my head and the fire in my chest as I lay on wet pavement listening to a distant radio, I can’t for the life of me remember how I got there.

  Or how I wound up here.

  The last real, fully formed memory I have is of standing in that Mexican police station, nearly a year ago, feeling hurt and frustrated and angry.

  But most of all worried.

  About a girl I grew up with. A girl I took care of during the worst moments of our lives.

  A girl I failed at the most crucial moment of all.

  She wasn’t perfect, but neither am I. She was family. The only family I had. And despite our differences, I loved her. I still love her.

  And each time I learn that she’s gone is as potent and as heartbreaking as the last.

  The doctors tell me that their science is imperfect. That the study of the brain is still a work in progress and they can’t be sure that I’ll ever again be whole. Or that the nightmare I keep reliving will ever stop.

  I am trapped, it seems, in my own private hell.

  Alone.

  Afraid.

  And wanting to die.

  PART TWO

  La Santisima

  44

  Vargas

  Vargas breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Blister put the flashlight away.

  He’d had visions of joining Harmon and the Ainsworths on the ground, but Mr. Blister seemed to have either forgotten his suspicions or simply dismissed them, and went about cleaning
up his mess.

  Taking hold of Harmon’s arms, Mr. Blister dragged him out of view behind the cars, then reappeared on the steps, dropping him inside the house.

  A moment later, he returned for Junior, then Ainsworth. After dragging them into the living room, he came back outside, climbed into Harmon’s cruiser, and started it, driving around toward the back of the house.

  A good strategy, Vargas thought. Hide the bodies, get the cop’s car out of sight, and the chances of anyone finding them within the next couple days were pretty remote. This egg ranch had obviously long been out of business, and while Harmon’s disappearance would eventually trigger a search, Vargas figured it would be a while before they thought of Ainsworth. Plenty enough time for Mr. Blister and whoever he worked for to finish covering their tracks-which probably wouldn’t be all that difficult.

  What Vargas had learned in his years as a reporter was that nearly 40 percent of all crimes go unsolved in this country. And in a border town, cop murder or not, the percentages grow even higher.

  The moment Harmon’s cruiser rolled out of view, Vargas jumped to his feet, scrambled through the warehouse doorway and around the side of the building. A precautionary measure, just in case Mr. Blister got suspicious again and decided to use his flashlight.

  Vargas waited there for several minutes before he heard shuffling sounds in the yard, then the slam of a trunk lid. A moment later, an engine roared to life.

  Chancing a peek around the corner, he saw the Town Car back up, then lurch forward down the drive toward the dirt road.

  His first instinct was to follow the story. Wait for Mr. Blister to reach the main drag, then sprint toward the construction site, jump into his Corolla, and tail the guy.

  But who was he kidding? He’d never get there in time. And he’d probably collapse of exhaustion before he even reached his car.

  Besides, there was another part of the puzzle he needed. The real story.

  And it was inside that house.

  When the Town Car was gone, he crossed to the steps and went in through the front door.

  Mr. Blister had doused the lights, but Vargas could see the dark shapes of the bodies in the moonlight, laid out in a neat row, all three of the men well beyond help.

  Looking down at Ainsworth and Junior, he thought about what they’d done to him, and despite this, he felt sorry for them. They’d gotten caught up in something over their heads and he’d been the unfortunate victim of it. Junior, most of all, hadn’t deserved to die this way. He’d been little more than a child in a man’s body.

  Harmon, however, was another story altogether. In Vargas’s view, there was nothing worse than a corrupt cop-especially a border cop-and Harmon had obviously been a willing accessory to drug smugglers. Still, that didn’t mean the punishment he’d received was justified.

  Crouching next to Junior, Vargas unbuttoned the kid’s shirt and found a thin rawhide string tied loosely around his neck.

  I got her necklace, he’d said. I’m wearin’ it right now.

  Hanging from the string was a small, cheap ring. The kind you’d find at one of the street-side jewelry stands down in Juarez or at various tourist spots around Mexico. This one was a crude black and silver carving of a hooded skull.

  La Santisima.

  Holy Death.

  Vargas untied the string and moved to a lamp, flicking it on. He studied the ring more closely, but there was no sign of engraving. Nothing that might clue him in to the identity of the American woman.

  Pocketing the ring, he turned off the light, then found the stairs and climbed to the second floor. At the top of the landing were three open doorways.

  Moving from one to the next, he flicked on the overhead light in each.

  Two bedrooms and a TV room.

  Figuring the one with posters of Elvis on the wall must be Junior’s, he went inside.

  I got her picture, too. I keep it in my drawer.

  There was a three-drawer dresser in the corner, Jailhouse Rock Elvis pinned to the wall above it.

  Vargas pulled open the top drawer. Socks and underwear.

  He dug around a bit but found nothing else.

  He closed it, then moved on to the second drawer. T-shirts and jeans. Digging around again, he found a small metal box near the back.

  Bingo.

  He pulled it out, lifted the lid.

  There wasn’t much inside. Just a few childhood treasures: a small, sand-worn stone, a faded Elvis Aaron Presley baseball card, a wooden, dirt-encrusted baby rattle, several Mexican coins, a tarnished silver bracelet — and a photo of a young white woman.

  Vargas removed the photo from the box, studied it more closely, and realized it had been torn from a passport. No name, just an official seal and the image: a strikingly beautiful woman in her mid-to-late twenties.

  Was she the one? The one they’d found?

  Angie?

  If Vargas were a betting man, he’d put money on it. It was her, all right. But what had she been doing in that abandoned desert house? And how was she related to the people who had threatened him?

  There was only one way to find out. He’d have to return to Juarez and talk to the Mexican homicide investigator, Rojas. The one who had sanitized the murder file.

  Ainsworth may have been right, that they were simply avoiding an international headache, but that didn’t keep Vargas from wanting to know what had happened to this woman. If she was alive when they found her, had she survived?

  And if she had, where was she now?

  Confronting Rojas might be risky. For all Vargas knew, he could be part of all this.

  But things were different now.

  Too many people were dead.

  A couple hours ago, Vargas had almost turned tail and run. But now, this was more than an itch. More than curiosity. More than an attempt to suppress his shame.

  And the only way you’d stop him from seeking out the truth…

  …was with a well-placed bullet.

  45

  He spent the rest of the night in his car.

  After leaving Ainsworth’s ranch, he’d started to feel a little woozy, so he drove out of Montoya and found a nearly deserted Walmart parking lot in a neighboring suburb.

  He pulled into a spot near a brick wall, put his suitcase in the trunk (hesitating only slightly before lifting the lid), then curled up in the Toyota’s backseat and shut his eyes.

  By the time he opened them again, the sun was shining and the lot was full.

  Vargas went into Walmart and bought himself an Egg McMuffin at the McDonald’s inside. Around about his third bite, however, he started thinking about eggs and Ainsworth and the bodies in that living room, and felt a little queasy.

  Before leaving Ainsworth’s house, he had picked up the phone, dialed 911, then left the receiver off the hook.

  He knew he should have done more, but that would only have resulted in a lot of questions from a lot of angry cops, and that wasn’t a battle he could afford to get into. At least the bodies would be found a lot sooner than Mr. Blister and his buddies had planned.

  Tossing the McMuffin in the trash can, Vargas went into the restroom and washed his face. The bandage on his head was getting bloody, so he removed it, soaked up some of the remaining blood with a few paper towels, then found the health and beauty section of the store and picked up some gauze and tape.

  Before he hit the register, he searched the sporting-goods section for a hat to cover the wound and settled on a gray and red Texas Rangers baseball cap.

  Back in his car, he did his best to tape himself up again, including a fresh new bandage on his hand, then pulled the Rangers cap down tight, started the engine, and drove.

  Heading back up to Las Cruces, he took the 10, driving 270 miles to Tucson, Arizona, before cutting down through Green Valley and rolling on into Nogales.

  He could probably have entered Mexico through El Paso again but figured the farther away he stayed from that particular border station, the better off he
’d be. There was no telling who might be working for Mr. Blister’s friends, and-assuming they were still alive-Vargas figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

  He was, after all, the scared little bunny. And the longer Mr. Blister believed that, the better off Vargas would be.

  He was just about five miles out of Nogales when he heard a news report on his radio:

  “Sources say a high-ranking Border Patrol agent and two unidentified men were found dead on a ranch in El Paso, Texas, this morning. Police are investigating, and the source tells Eyewitness News that a motive for the crime has yet to be established.”

  Vargas felt another wave of nausea as he listened. If he didn’t know before just how lucky he was that they’d let him go, he certainly knew it now.

  Getting through the border station in Nogales was an effortless enterprise. Nobody cares if you go into Mexico. The more money you spend, the more they’ll love you. It’s the reverse trip that creates all the headaches. America’s racist paranoia clearly broadcast 24/7.

  Once he was across, he found a motel and checked in for the rest of the day. He was feeling woozy again and needed to sleep. He bought a couple of quesadillas at a lunch wagon parked outside the motel and washed them down with a bottle of lime Jarritos.

  Then he crawled into bed, staring up at the rotating blades of the ceiling fan. Today was even hotter than yesterday, and he wondered if this heat wave would ever pass.

  As he lay there, thinking about the house in the desert, he took the passport photo from his back pocket and studied it.

  This American woman, whoever she was, had mischievous eyes and a million-dollar smile. The kind of woman men get in bar fights over. The kind who makes you regret you ever got involved with her in the first place, no matter how good she is in bed.

  Maybe that’s why she was in that house with a bullet in her chest.

  Maybe she’d pushed someone too far.

  Tomorrow morning-Monday-Vargas would get up well before dawn and take Highway 2 back into Ciudad Juarez. By the time he got there, the state police station would be open and Rojas was bound to be in his office.