The Pensión Paraíso was a decrepit two-story bunker made of plaster-covered brick, once white, but long since aged to the color of cigar smoke. Broken roof tiles, dirty windows, off-angle shutters, retractable metal grille on the front door. Paradise.
Another guard. More ID.
The hotel interior was exactly as promised by its exterior. Threadbare carpet with yellowed plastic runner, linoleum-covered counter, wooden grid for keys and letters, cracked plaster walls. The air smelled of mold, dust, and years of cigarette smoke and sweat.
I followed Galiano across a deserted lobby, down a narrow corridor, and out a rear door to a yard that saw little sunlight and even less care. Ceramic pots with withered vegetation. Rusted kitchen chairs with split vinyl seats. Plastic lawn furniture, green with mold. An upended wheelbarrow. Bare earth. A lone tree.
An upholstered sofa missing one leg leaned against the back of the pension, and shards of plaster, fallen bricks, dead leaves, cellophane wrappers, and aluminum pop-tops littered its foundation. The bright yellow backhoe was the only spot of color in the dreary setting. Beside the shovel I could see freshly turned soil, and the concrete lid removed, then hastily replaced by Señor Serano and his son.
I took account of those present. Juan-Carlos Xicay was conversing with a man in a dark blue jumpsuit identical to his own. A driver sat behind the wheel of the backhoe. A uniformed policeman guarded the back entrance to the property. Antonio Díaz hovered alone on its far side, rose-tinted glasses hiding his eyes.
I smiled and raised a hand. The DA did not reply, did not look away.
Happy day.
Pascual Hernández stood with a wiry, rat-faced man wearing sandals, jeans, and a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt. A sturdy woman flanked the rat, plastic bracelets on her wrists, breasts hanging heavy inside an embroidered black dress.
Galiano and I crossed to his partner, and Hernández introduced the innkeepers. Up close I noticed that Señora Serano had one brown eye and one blue one, giving her face an odd, unbalanced look. When she gazed at me I found it hard to decide into which eye I should look.
I also noticed that Señora Serano’s lower lip was swollen and cracked, and I wondered if the rat had struck her.
“And these folks are going to be as helpful as Scouts at a jamboree.” Hernández drilled the rat with a look. “Even with the hard stuff.”
“I have no secrets.” Serano held his hands palms up, fingers splayed. He was so agitated I could barely follow the Spanish. “I know nothing.”
“You just happen to have a body in your tank.”
“I don’t know how it got there.” Serano’s eyes flicked from face to face.
Galiano turned the shades on Serano.
“What else don’t you know, señor?”
“Nada.” Nothing. The rat eyes darted like a sparrow seeking a safe perch.
Galiano drew a bored breath. “I have no time for games, Señor Serano. But take this to the bank.” He tapped a finger on the big blue “C” in Cowboys. “When we’re finished here, you and I are gonna have a real heart-to-heart.”
Serano shook his head but said nothing.
The Darth Vader lenses shifted to the backhoe.
“All set?” Galiano shouted.
Xicay spoke to the driver, gave a thumbs-up. He pointed to me, then to a jumble of equipment near the uniformed guard. A zipping gesture on his chest indicated that I should suit up. I raised my thumb.
Galiano turned back to the Seranos.
“Your job today is to do nothing,” he said levelly. “You will do it seated there.” He jabbed a finger at the lopsided sofa. “And you will do it without comment.”
Galiano made a circular gesture in the air above his head.
“Vámonos.”
I hurried to the equipment locker. Behind me, the backhoe rumbled to life.
As I pulled on a Tyvek jumpsuit and knee-high rubber boots, the driver shifted gears and maneuvered into position. Metal squawked, the bucket dropped with a thunk, scraped the ground, scooped the exposed lid, swung left, and laid it aside. The smell of wet soil drifted on the morning air.
Digging a recorder from my pack, I walked to the edge of the tank.
One look, and my stomach rolled in on itself.
The chambers were brimming with a hideous dark liquid topped by a layer of organic scum. A million cockroaches scuttled across the gelatinous mass.
Galiano and Hernández joined me.
“Cerote.” Hernández backhanded his mouth.
Galiano said nothing.
Swallowing hard, I began to dictate. Date. Time. Location. Persons present.
The bucket rattled, dropped again. Serrated teeth bit into the ground, swung free, returned. A second concrete lid appeared, was displaced. A third. A fifth. The odor of putrefaction overpowered the smell of damp earth.
As items were revealed, I dictated description and location. Xicay shot pictures.
By mid-morning eight concrete lids lay in a heap, and the tank was fully exposed. I’d spotted an arm bone lodged against the entrance drain on the west side, fabric in the southeast corner, and a blue plastic object and several hand bones embedded in the scum.
“Cue the truck?” Galiano asked when I’d finished my last entry.
“Have it driven into position. But first I have to remove what’s visible and search the top layer.”
Turning to Xicay, I indicated that I was ready for a body bag. Then I crossed to the equipment locker and dug out the respirator mask and heavy rubber gloves. Using duct tape, I sealed the top of the boots to the legs of my jumpsuit.
“How?” asked Galiano when I returned to the tank.
I pulled the gloves to my elbows and handed him the duct tape.
“Dios mío.” Hernández.
“Need help?” Galiano asked without enthusiasm as he sealed the gloves to my sleeves.
I looked at his suit, tie, and crisp white shirt.
“You’re underdressed.”
“Shout when you need me.” Hernández walked to the equipment locker, removed his jacket, and draped it over the open lid. Though the day wasn’t hot, his shirt was damp against his chest. I could see the outline of a sleeveless T-shirt through the thin cotton.
Galiano and I circled to the west end of the tank.
Señor Serano watched from the sofa, rat eyes bright and intent. His wife sucked on a strand of hair.
Xicay’s assistant joined us, body bag in hand. I asked his name. Mario Colom. I told Mario to lay the bag on the ground behind me, opened and lined with a clean white sheet. Then I told him to glove and mask.
Handing Galiano my Dictaphone, I secured my own mask over my face. When I squatted and leaned into the tank, my stomach went into a granny knot. I tasted bile and felt a tremor below my tongue.
Breathing shallowly, I plunged in a hand and drew the arm bone from the decomposing waste. Two roaches scuttled up my glove. Inside the rubber, I felt furtive legs, feathery antennae. My arm jerked and I let out a squeal. Behind me, Galiano shifted.
Stop it, Brennan. You’re gloved.
Swallowing, I flicked the insects, watched them right themselves and scurry away.
Swallowing again, I curled my fingers and slid the ulna through them. Muck peeled off its surface and dropped to the ground in slimy globs. I laid the bone on the sheet.
Working my way around the tank, I collected everything I could see. Xicay shot stills. When I’d finished, the ulna, two hand bones, one foot bone, three ribs, and the bow from a pair of glasses lay on the sheet.
After instructing Mario, I returned to the southeast corner and began working my way down the south side of the tank, systematically palpating every millimeter of floating scum as far out as I could reach. Opposite me, Mario mirrored my efforts.
In forty minutes we’d searched the entire top layer. Two ribs and one kneecap had been added to the sheet.
The sun was straight up in the sky when Mario and I finished. Consensus: no one wanted lunch. Xicay went f
or the vacuum truck, and in moments it pulled through the opening in the back fence.
As the operator arranged equipment, I glanced over my shoulder at Díaz. The DA maintained his vigil, lenses pink diamonds in the mottled sunlight. He did not approach.
Five minutes later Xicay shouted.
“Ready?”
“Go.”
Another motor sputtered to life. I heard sucking, saw bubbles in the murky, black liquid.
Galiano stood at my side, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the tank. Hernández observed from the safety of the locker. The Seranos watched from their couch, faces the color of oatmeal.
Slowly, the liquid subsided. One inch, three, seven.
Approximately two feet from the tank’s bottom, a layer of sludge appeared, its surface lumpy with debris. The pump fell silent and the operator looked at me.
I showed Mario how to work a long-handled net. Scoop by scoop, he dredged muck and laid muddy globs at my feet. I swabbed and untangled the booty from each.
A floral shirt containing ribs, vertebrae, a sternum. Foot bones inside socks inside shoes. Femora. A humerus. A radius. A pelvis. Every bone was covered with putrid tissue and organic waste.
Fighting back nausea, I scraped and arranged everything on the sheet. Xicay recorded the process on film. Feeling too ill for close inspection, I simply entered the bones into a skeletal inventory. I would conduct a full evaluation after cleaning.
When Mario had netted what he could, I walked to the edge of the tank and sat. Galiano came up behind me.
“You’re going in there?” It wasn’t really a question.
I nodded.
“Can’t we just blast the remaining crap with a pressure hose and suck everything up?”
I pushed aside my mask to speak.
“After I find the skull.”
I repositioned the mask, rolled to my stomach, and lowered myself over the side. My soles hit the muck with a soft slap. Slime crept up my shins. Odor enveloped me.
Moving felt like slogging through exactly what it was, a stew of human feces and microbial dung. I felt more tremors under my tongue, again tasted bile.
At the southeast corner, I reached up and Mario handed me a long, slender pole. Breathing as shallowly as possible, I began a systematic survey of the tank, inching sideways, probing, inching, probing. Four sets of eyes followed my progress.
On the fourth sweep, I tapped something lodged in the same drain that had held the jeans. Handing up the pole, I swallowed, took a deep breath, and slid my hands into the muck.
The object was roughly the size and shape of a volleyball. It rested on the tanks’ bottom, its top one foot below the surface of the sludge. Despite the queasiness, my pulse ratcheted up a notch.
Gingerly, I explored my find, gloved fingers reading the anatomical Braille.
Ovoid globe. Hollows separated by a tented bridge. Rigid bands winging outward beside an oblong aperture.
The skull!
Careful, Brennan.
Ignoring my roiling innards, I bent at the waist, grasped the brain case in both hands, and tugged. The muck refused to yield its booty.
Frustrated, I scooped away handfuls of slime. When I could see a patch of parietal, I rewrapped my fingers around the cranium and applied alternating pressure.
Nothing budged.
Damn!
Barely resisting the urge to yank, I continued the gentle twisting motion. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. Clockwise. Inside my jumpsuit, I felt hot perspiration roll down my sides.
Two more twists. The seal broke, and the skull shifted.
I cleared what path the sludge would allow, repositioned my fingers, and teased the skull upward. It rose slowly, emerged with a soft sucking sound. Heart thudding, I cradled it in both hands. Slick brown goo filled the orbits and coated the features.
But I saw enough.
Wordlessly, I handed the skull to Mario, accepted his gloved hand, and climbed from the tank. Mario placed the skull on the body bag, and picked up the first of the two pressure tanks. After spraying me with bleach solution, he sprayed me again with clear water.
“Ty-D-Bol called with a job offer.” Galiano.
I lowered my mask.
“Whoa, nice skin tone. Bilious green.”
Walking to the equipment locker for a clean jumpsuit, I realized I was trembling.
Next we did as Galiano had suggested. A pressure hose blasted the sludge into suspension, and the tanker truck evacuated the liquid. Then the pump was reversed, and we began straining 3,500 gallons of liquid through a quarter-inch screen. Mario broke up clumps and plucked out roaches. I examined every fragment and scrap of debris.
Somewhere during that process, Díaz bailed. Though I didn’t see him leave, at one point I glanced up and the pink lenses were gone.
* * *
Daylight was fading to dusk as the last of the liquid poured through the screen. The blouse, shoes, socks, undergarments, and plastic bow were bagged beside the equipment locker. A skeleton lay on the white sheet, complete except for the hyoid, one tibia, some hand and foot bones, two vertebrae, and four ribs. The skull and mandible lacked eight of the front teeth.
I’d identified, sorted left from right, and recorded every bone, confirming that we had only one individual, and ascertained what was missing. I’d felt too ill to perform further analysis. Though my brief glance at the skull made me uneasy, I’d decided to say nothing to Galiano until I was certain.
I was inventorying a rib when Díaz reappeared, followed by a man in a beige suit. He had greasy blond hair, a bad complexion, and weighed less than I did.
Díaz and his companion scanned the yard, conferred, then crossed to Galiano.
The new arrival spoke.
“I am here on behalf of the district attorney.” The guy was knobby-joint skinny and looked like a kid in adult clothing.
“And you are?” Galiano removed and folded his shades.
“Dr. Hector Lucas. I am taking possession of the remains found at this site.”
“Like hell you are,” Galiano replied.
Lucas looked at his watch, then at Díaz.
Díaz produced a paper from a zipper case.
“This warrant says he is,” said Díaz. “Pack everything for transport to the central morgue.”
Not a synapse fired in any muscle in Galiano’s body.
Díaz raised the warrant to eye level. Galiano ignored it.
Díaz pressed tinted glasses to nose. Everyone else remained frozen in place. Behind me I heard movement, then the pump cut off.
“Now, Detective.” Díaz’s voice sounded loud in the sudden stillness.
A second went by. Ten. A full minute.
Galiano was still staring when his cell phone shrilled. He clicked on after four rings, never taking his eyes from Díaz.
“Galiano.”
He listened, jaw clenched, then said one thing.
“¡Eso es una mierda!” Bullshit.
Galiano shoved the phone into his pocket and turned to Díaz.
“Be careful, señor. Be very careful,” he hissed with a low, steady venting of air from his diaphragm. “¡No me jodas!” Don’t fuck around with me.
With a jerk of his hand, Galiano gestured me from the body bag. I pushed to my feet and started to step back, reversed myself, knelt next to the skeleton, and peered intently at the skull. Díaz took half a step and started to speak, then bit off whatever he had intended to say and waited until I arose again.
Lucas approached and glanced at the array in the body bag. Satisfied, he pulled gloves from his pocket, tucked the sheet inside, and ran the zipper. Then he stood, a look of uncertainty on his face.
Díaz strode from the yard, returned with two men in gray coveralls, “Morgue del Organismo Judicial” stenciled on their backs. Between them they carried a gurney, legs collapsed beneath.
Under Lucas’s direction, the morgue attendants lifted the pouch by its corners, placed it on the gurney, and disappeared in the direction
from which they’d come.
Díaz tried once more to deliver the warrant. Galiano’s arms remained crossed on his chest.
Díaz circled to me, eyes fastidiously avoiding the tank. Sighing, he offered the document.
As I reached to accept the paper, my eyes met Galiano’s. His lower lids crimped, and his chin raised almost imperceptibly. I understood.
Without another word, Díaz and Lucas hurried from the yard.
Galiano looked at his partner. Hernández was already gathering the bagged clothing.
“How much is left in there?” Galiano tipped his head at the tanker truck.
The operator shrugged, waggled a hand. “Ten, maybe twenty gallons.”
“Finish it.”
Nothing else showed up in the screen. I was squeezing the last of the muck through my fingers when Galiano joined me.
“Bad day for the good guys.”
“Isn’t the DA supposed to be a good guy?”
“Stupid little rodent didn’t even think of clothing.”
I felt too ill to reply.
“Does it fit the profile?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“The skeleton. Does it fit the description of one of our missing girls?”
I hesitated, furious with myself for not thoroughly examining the bones, furious with Galiano for allowing them to be taken.
“Yes and no.”
“You’ll know when you’ve examined it.”
“Will I be doing that?”
“I will come out the winner,” he said, gazing at the empty tank.
I wondered who the loser would be.
5
THAT NIGHT I BATHED IN TAHITIAN VANILLA BUBBLES for almost an hour. Then I warmed pizza slices in the microwave and dug an orange soda from the mini-fridge. Snickers and an apple for dessert. Hotel room gourmet.
As I ate, the curtains breathed in and out the window on a halfhearted breeze. The metal pull chain clicked against the frame. Three floors below, traffic honked and rumbled. Overhead, a ceiling fan whirred. On the screen inside my skull, the day’s events shifted in and out of focus like a bad home movie.
After clearing wrappers, one paper plate, one plastic fork, and the empty soda can, I phoned Mateo. He told me that Molly remained comatose.