“Here’s another one for you,” said the EMT.
“Is he in bad shape?”
“Terrible,” he smiled. “A real mess. We picked him up over there, in the park. Well, see you tomorrow.”
“Wait,” said Dr. Elizondo, “I haven’t signed anything.”
“You don’t have to sign for this one. He’s a gift.” The EMT smiled again and made his exit.
As soon as she was alone, Silvia Elizondo, known as Dr. Ugly among her many admirers, walked over to the gurney, her long, silky mane swishing behind her. When she was about two steps away, she heard a groan that was meant to be scary coming from under the sheet.
“Very funny,” she said. “But I’ve heard this one a hundred times.”
She pulled back the sheet that covered the new arrival. The sight of Treviño wiped the smile right off her face.
“What are you doing here? Don’t you know Margarito’s looking for you?”
“I need your help.”
The doctor looked at her watch.
“A fine hour for a visit. This can’t be on the up-and-up. Get down from there.”
The head of the forensics unit locked the door and turned back around. Treviño hopped down from the gurney.
“Very pedestrian. You used to be more creative.”
“Let’s just say this is an emergency house call.”
The doctor gathered her hair with a distracted movement of her hand and peered at her visitor. They studied one another motionlessly until the woman spoke.
“So, you’re not dead?”
“Officially, I am.”
“Well, you’re in good shape for a corpse. Would you like some coffee?”
“I’d love some, but I don’t have time. Will you let me see the latest arrivals?”
“Getting right down to business, as usual. Everything else can wait. What are you looking for? Men, women?”
“Men and women.”
“Make yourself at home,” she said, gesturing toward the metal drawers filled with bodies that covered the far wall.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
The detective opened the first drawer and shook his head.
“Poor woman.”
“Which one?”
“The one with the exit wound in her forehead. Stray bullet?”
“Exactly.”
“Poor thing. But I’m looking for someone a bit younger.”
“Look over there, then. Those are the last ones to come in. You still roughing it? I can’t imagine you’ve gone back to the police force.”
“No, of course not. Sometimes I do detective work, if the case is interesting. And I bought a hotel. A little one, on the beach in Veracruz. You should visit.”
“Hey, do you remember that white Maverick I used to have? The one we used to drive down along the river in?”
“The one you described as the mirror of your soul? I have nothing but bad memories of that thing. Why?”
“I’ve got another one just like it now.”
“I hope it brings you better luck. Don’t forget how that all turned out.”
Treviño smiled.
“It’s not a good idea for you to be out in public around here,” she insisted. “Margarito’s not the type to forgive and forget, and he’s got it in for you. This afternoon he sent around a memo putting us all on alert. He says you’re in the trade.”
“In his dreams. Anyway, look who’s talking. If anyone’s in the trade …”
“I know. So, how’s your wife?”
“She’s great, very happy. And my daughter, she’s two and already walking.”
“You have a daughter?”
The young woman’s face lit up and darkened in two quick flashes. Then she shook her head as though she’d just taken a sip of bad tequila. Treviño felt like a total idiot.
“I’m happy for you. All right, take a look at this, maybe it’ll get you out of here faster,” she said, opening a folder in her cell phone and handing him the device.
The screen displayed a series of faces: older men’s and women’s and every now and then a child’s. Treviño pored over them until he saw one of a young man—and then another and then another, all with tattoos on their necks. They were all around twenty years old, and all of them looked as if they’d been cleaned up before their photos were taken. Two had a big red spot on their parietal lobes, and it was hard to make out the features of the third: he’d been forced to kneel and took the blast to the crown of his head.
“When did these last three arrive, the ones with the tattoos?”
“Two shifts ago, the night before last. They came in together, the Three Amigos.” Missing a few locks that refused to leave her forehead, Dr. Ugly wove her hair into a loose braid. “They brought them in the night before last and I examined them yesterday morning. So many people come in looking for their family members, and since the precinct has a habit of losing information, I’ve gotten used to taking pictures of my cases. Other people document fancy meals or their vacations, but with me it’s just work, work, work.”
The detective listened to her carefully. When she’d finished speaking, he asked, “So there wasn’t a girl with them?”
The doctor sighed.
“No, no girls. Just women between fifty and sixty.”
“But no teenager, a blonde, green eyes, around sixteen years old?”
“No. You looking for a girlfriend or what?”
Treviño handed back her phone and surveyed the room.
“I see you’ve gotten more storage. Are things that bad?”
“The city isn’t the place you used to know, Carlitos. The people are different.”
“Tell me.”
Treviño watched her settle into the only seat in the room, as lithe as a gymnast, and pull her knees up to her chest. A slender woman, angry with the world, who wore high-heeled cowboy boots and her hair down to her waist.
“A year ago, when I was still teaching at the elementary school, a representative from the ministry of education came to see us, supposedly for a course in classroom safety.”
As long as he’d known her, Dr. Ugly had taught science at a private school in La Eternidad in the mornings before shutting herself up in the morgue in the afternoons. It was how she stayed psychologically and financially stable.
“He looked and acted like a bodyguard. If this guy has a fourth-grade diploma, it’s because he bought it. I doubt whoever sent him made it through elementary school, either. We’ve been seeing strange things these past few months: military checkpoints at the entrance to the city, charred vehicles on the avenues, storefronts set on fire or all shot up, shell casings on the ground. We knew something was going on, but they hid the truth from us. Until the truth got so big that we were the ones who had to hide. One day the principal sent around a memo asking us all to stay late for an emergency training session. Long story short, she introduces this guy, and the rat explains how violence is terrible in the area, and it’s going to get worse. I couldn’t believe what he did next. It’s inhuman.
“He told us if shots were fired in the school that we should make sure all the students drop immediately to the floor and keep their heads down.” As she spoke her voice grew thin, like a sheet of ice about to break. “And if an armed assailant came looking for one of the children, we should point out who it was he wanted to take. I stood up and said, ‘Who gave you the right to come here and ask us to do something like that? Who designed this “course”? Your boss in the government? The teachers’ union? You have no right. How can you ask us to do something like that, when we’re the ones responsible for these children?’ I yelled at him, just like that. And you know what he said to me? ‘That’s just the way things are, ma’am.’ By that time, we were all crying in pain and anger. Our ambitious snake of a principal wasn’t even there, probably to avoid having to intervene on our behalf. All she cares about is getting ahead. Miss Charito, who always speaks her mind, the only teacher there with a degree, said, ‘How can you ask us to do that? Whoever gave this order has no clue about the bond between a teacher and a student. What you’re asking is wrong, we can’t do it.’ The bodyguard interrupted her and said that he wasn’t asking. It was an order and whoever didn’t like the idea was free to go. They gave him hell.
“Miss Charito asked us to quiet down and said, ‘The president, the governor, or our union leader might be able to give that order, but can you imagine a teacher actually sending students to their death? We get up early every morning, take our kids to school, and then go teach other people’s children. We do all we can to help them learn and treat them the way we hope someone else is treating our own kids at that moment. How could you think a human being would obey that order? Whoever complied, how could they go on being teachers?’ When she finished, we all started yelling. He was angry but had to swallow it. He probably wasn’t used to being treated like an idiot by a bunch of teachers, and we were really giving him hell, so, making a serious effort, he told us in a more or less conciliatory tone that even if the order didn’t seem to make sense, when an armed crew enters a school looking for one child in particular, the child’s classmates refuse to give him or her up. And that could be dangerous, because these guys could injure or kill several children before finding the one they’re after, which is why they felt compelled to give this course to reduce the number of potential victims and why they were asking the teachers to do their part.
“Then one of the other teachers said, ‘Don’t you all have any other solutions, like finally ending the violence or setting up better security at our schools?’ The guy said he was sorry but the class was over and that the guidelines he’d laid out were not advice but rather a direct order and we could either follow them or quit. We looked at one another and someone said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we won’t do it. We’ll think of something, but what you’re asking just isn’t an option. We’re here to give these kids an education, not be accessories to a crime. What you’re asking is that we collude with the criminals and the morons who are supposed to be governing this country.’ To which he responded, ‘Your call.’
“Then he looked at our ambitious snake of a principal, who was standing in the doorway pretending to be distracted by the religious pendants on her necklace. And what do you think happened next? One month later, that bitch fired every one of us who’d complained. You know what else? Every time I turn on the television, I see the leaders of the teachers’ union or our cretin of a principal, who has an important job with the ministry of education now. Just goes to show what a total asshole she is.”
The young woman let her hair down and deftly redid her braid, as if she were trying to shake off what she’d just remembered. Treviño knew that if asked directly she’d never say why an incredible woman like her had dedicated her life to doing autopsies or why she was still here, in this city, doing them. You’d have to know her for months or even years before she’d bring up the subject herself, saying, “Three days. My father spent three days lying in the weeds before they went to pick him up. No one wanted to claim the body because everyone was afraid the killers would retaliate. I was the one who had to identify him.”
The detective looked at the woman, aware of how deeply she was suffering, and felt like an idiot for not having anything to say but, “I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. They fired me, remember? I don’t work there anymore.”
A moment later, Treviño asked, “Hey, did you ever have Cristina de León in one of your classes?”
“Rafael de León’s daughter? Yeah, she was my student before they sent her to Switzerland. Very smart girl, very bold. She’s got a bright future ahead of her.”
“Did she have many boyfriends?”
The blood drained from the teacher’s face.
“Why are you using the past tense? Did something happen to her?”
The detective cleared his throat. “They stole her car, and the family hired me to find it. They say it could have been one of her boyfriends. What do you think?”
“One of her boyfriends? That doesn’t make any sense. She’s only had one, for as long as I’ve known her: Mr. Perkins’s son, a laid-back, handsome kid. He plays, or played, on the school volleyball team. A good reader, too: he went through Little Women and all of Louisa May Alcott’s other novels the year they were in my class. That kid couldn’t steal a thing, not that he needs to. He comes from a lot of money.”
“What about other boys?”
“I mean, she’s had plenty of suitors. But he’s been her only boyfriend.”
“Got it. And do you know a boy, around twenty, who goes by El Tiburón?”
“The one who was in the papers a few weeks ago for tearing it up in a bar?”
“That’s the one.”
“Haven’t had the pleasure. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he came here to retire. They say he sells pills.”
Treviño thought of Cornelio.
“What else do you know about him?”
“That he’s not from here, he’s from a ranch near the state line I think. He just comes here for kicks. He has a bad reputation, but his parents are good people.” The doctor went back to rebraiding her hair. “Maybe it’s just the paranoia talking. What’s going on here can be summed up in three rules.” She counted them off on her fingers. “Keep your mouth shut. Suspect everyone. Cut off ties. No one reports violence to the police anymore. Why would they? You and I both know there’s no point. People are convinced that if they report murders or other crimes, and we’re not even talking about drug deals, on social media, then the bad guys are going to come for them like they did with the women tweeting from Nuevo Laredo. And if the bad guys don’t get you, then it’s the government accusing you of terrorism. The mayors and governors around here all sat down and agreed that anyone who spreads ‘alarm’ is a terrorist.”
“Jesus.”
“Right? And if they kidnap or blackmail or kill your best friend, your childhood neighbor, your favorite teacher, the doctor who saved your life, Mother Teresa, the pope, whoever, you have to cut off ties with them immediately. Because they were probably involved in organized crime, despite a total lack of any evidence against them, despite the fact they died for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s how people think these days. What’s your take on it, Carlos? We’ve never been more paranoid, right?”
Dr. Ugly played with the end of her braid.
“We used to be the most peaceful little corner of the world. For as long as I can remember, everyone who visited would leave saying how lovely the people of La Eternidad were. We were known for making fair deals, always lending a hand, and being fun at parties. And for being tough: we can work like machines, even in the heat and rough weather. But for a while now, there’s been nothing but slander: ‘Don’t go to the coast. They’re thieves and murderers there.’ As if we were all criminals.”
Treviño sat across from the woman and watched her continue to play with her braid. When she twisted the elastic around the end of it for the umpteenth time, she said, “I’m not kicking you out or anything, but didn’t you see all the squad cars out front? How are you going to get out of here?”
“Do you still park your car in the basement of the building?”
“Oh no you don’t, asshole,” said the doctor. “You’re not dragging me into this.”
“I’m just kidding. They’re on their way.” He said, scrolling through his text messages. “Actually, they’re already here.”
Three knocks sounded on the door, and Treviño walked over to it.
“Don’t open it.” The doctor tried to stop him.
“Don’t worry. If I’m brought in on a gurney again, check twice before you take out my stuffing.”
The woman looked at Treviño but didn’t respond. Treviño opened the door for Don Williams and his driver.
“We don’t have much time, Treviño.”
“Allow me to introduce you. Doctor, do you know the consul to the United States?”