Authors: Roberto Bolaño
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary Collections, #Mystery & Detective, #Mexico, #Caribbean & Latin American, #Cold Cases (Criminal Investigation), #Crime, #Literary, #Young Women, #Missing Persons, #General, #Women
Sitting
stiffly next to Haas and looking straight ahead, as if images of a rape were
passing through her head, was his lawyer, and gathered around them were
reporters from the three local papers,
El
Heraldo del Norte, La Voz de Sonora,
and
La Tribuna de Santa Teresa,
as well as reporters from
El Independiente de Phoenix, El Sonorense de
Hermosillo,
and
La Raza de Green
Valley,
a small weekly (sometimes biweekly or monthly) paper that got by
with almost no advertising on the subscriptions of some lower-middle-class
Chicanos from the area between Green Valley and Sierra Vista, old farmworkers
settled in Rio Rico, Carmen, Tubac, Sonoita, Amado, Sahuarita, Patagonia, San
Xavier, a paper that published nothing but crime stories, the more gruesome the
better.
La Voz de Sonora
had only
sent a photographer, Chuy Pimentel, who stood just behind the circle of
reporters. Every so often the door would open and a guard would come in and
glance at Haas or his lawyer, as if to inquire whether they needed anything. At
one point the lawyer asked the guard to bring water. The guard nodded and said
right away and disappeared. After a while he showed up with two bottles of
water and several cans of cold soda. The reporters thanked him and almost all
of them took sodas, except for Haas and his lawyer, who preferred to drink
water. For a few minutes no one said anything, not a word, and everyone drank.
In July, the body of a woman
was found in a sewage ditch to the east of Colonia Maytorena, not far from a
dirt track and some high-voltage electrical towers. The woman was somewhere
between twenty and twenty-five, and according to the forensic team she had been
dead for at least three months. Her hands were tied behind her back with
plastic cord, the kind used to tie up big packages. On her left hand she was
wearing a long black glove that reached halfway up her arm. It wasn't a cheap
glove either, but a velvet one, like the kind used by the highest-class exotic
dancers. When the glove was removed they found two rings, one on the middle
finger, of real silver, and the other on the ring finger, worked in the shape
of a snake. On her right foot she was wearing a man's sock, brand name
of all: tied around her head, like a strange but not entirely implausible hat,
was an expensive black bra. Otherwise the woman was naked and had no
identification on her. After the necessary procedures, the case was shelved and
her body was tossed into the public grave in the Santa Teresa cemetery.
•
At
the end of July, the Santa Teresa authorities, in collaboration with
invited the investigator Albert Kessler to the city. When the news was made
public some reporters, especially from
City
the hiring of the former FBI agent was a tacit acknowledgment that the Mexican
police had failed. De las Heras replied that it wasn't, not at all, that Mr.
Kessler was coming to Santa Teresa to give a fifteen-hour professional training
course to a select group of students chosen from among Sonora's best officers
and that Santa Teresa had been picked as the site for this course— over
Hermosillo, for example—for its status as an industrial powerhouse as well as
its sad record of serial killings, a blight previously unheard-of or almost
unheard-of in Mexico, that they, the country's top officials, wanted to halt in
time, and what better way to eliminate a blight than by forming a police corps
with expertise in the matter? I'm going to tell you who killed Estrella Ruiz
Sandoval, of whose death I've been unjustly accused, said Haas. It's the same
people who've killed at least thirty of this city's young women. Haas's lawyer
bowed her head. Chuy Pimentel took his first picture. It shows the faces of the
reporters, who look at Haas or consult their notebooks with no excitement, no
enthusiasm.
In September, the body of Ana
Mufloz Sanjuan was found behind some trash cans on Calle Javier Paredes,
between Colonia Felix Gomez and Colonia Centra. The body was completely naked
and showed evidence of strangulation and rape, which would later be confirmed
by the medical examiner. After an initial investigation her identity was
determined. The victim's name was Ana Munoz Sanjuan and she was eighteen. She
lived on Calle Maestro Caicedo in Colonia Ruben Dario, where she shared a house
with three other women, and she worked as a waitress at El Gran Chaparral, a
coffee shop in the historic district of Santa Teresa. Her disappearance hadn't
been reported to the police. The last people she was seen with were three men
known as El Mono, El Tamaulipas, and La Vieja. The police tried to find them,
but it was as if the earth had swallowed them up. The case was shelved.
Haas said: I've been
investigating. He said: I've gotten tips. He said: nothing's secret in prison.
He said: friends of friends are your friends and they tell you things. He said:
friends of friends of friends get around and do you favors. No one laughed.
Chuy Pimentel kept taking pictures. They show the lawyer, who seems about to
shed a few tears. Of rage. The reporters have the gaze of reptiles: they watch
Haas, who stares at the gray walls as if his lines are written on the crumbling
cement. The name, said one of the reporters, whispering, but loudly enough for
everyone to hear. Haas stopped staring at the wall and contemplated the person
who had spoken. Instead of answering directly, he explained once more that he
was innocent of the murder of Estrella Ruiz Sandoval. I didn't know her, he
said. Then he covered his face with his hands. A lovely girl, he said. I wish I
had known her. He feels sick. He imagines a street full of people, at sunset, a
street that slowly empties until there's no one to be seen, just a car parked
on a corner. Then night falls and Haas feels the lawyer's fingers on his hand.
Fingers that are too thick, too short. The name, says another reporter, we
won't get anywhere without the name.
Who's bringing in Albert
Kessler? asked the reporters. Who's going to pay for Mr. Kessler's services?
And how much? The city of
state of
Where will the money come from for Mr. Kessler's fees? From the
the state police? Will private sources be part of it? Is there some benefactor
behind the visit of the eminent American investigator? And why now, why bring
in a serial killer expert precisely now and not sooner? And also, aren't there
any Mexican criminologists capable of collaborating with the police? Professor
Silverio Garcia Correa, for example, isn't he good enough? Wasn't he the best
psychologist of his year at UNAM? Didn't he get a master's in criminology from
NYU and another master's from Stanford? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to hire
Professor Garcia Correa? Wouldn't it have been more patriotic to entrust a
Mexican affair to a Mexican, rather than an American? And, incidentally, does
Albert Kessler speak Spanish? And if he doesn't, who'll interpret for him? Is
he bringing his own interpreter, or will he be supplied one from here?
In
September, on an empty lot in Colonia Sur, wrapped in a quilt and black plastic
bags, the naked body of Maria Estela Ramos was found. Her feet were bound with
a cord and she showed signs of having been tortured. Inspector Juan de Dios
and he determined that the body had been dumped between midnight and one-thirty
on Saturday, since the rest of the time the field had been used as a meeting
point for drug dealers and their clients and packs of teenagers who came there
to listen to music. After comparing various statements, it was established
that, for one reason or another, no one had been there between twelve and
one-thirty. Maria Estela Ramos lived in Colonia
haunts. She was twenty-three and she had a four-year-old son and she shared a
house with two fellow workers at the maquiladora, one of them unemployed at the
time, since, as the woman told Juan de Dios, she had tried to organize a union.
What
do
you think of that? she asked. They kicked me out for demanding my rights. The
inspector shrugged his shoulders. He asked her who would take charge of Maria
Estela's son. Me, said the thwarted union organizer. Isn't there any family,
doesn't the boy have grandparents? I don't think so, said the woman, but we'll
try to find out. According to the medical examiner, the cause of death had been
blunt trauma to the head, although the victim also had five broken ribs and
superficial cuts on her arms. She had been raped. And the killing had taken
place at least four days before the drug addicts found her among the trash and
weeds of the vacant lot in Colonia
Maria Estela had or had had a boyfriend, called El
did know where he worked. Juan de Dios went to look for him at a hardware store
in Colonia Serafin Garabito. He asked for El Chino and they told him they
didn't know anyone by that name. He described El Chino as he had been described
by Maria Estela's friends, but the response was the same: no one who answered
to that name or fit that description had ever worked there, at the counter or
in the back. He sent out his informants and for a few days he did nothing but
search. But it was like looking for a phantom.
Mr.
Albert Kessler is a highly qualified professional, said Professor Garcia
Correa. Mr. Kessler, according to what I'm told, was one of the first to draw
up psychological profiles of serial killers. I understand that he's worked for
the FBI and before that he worked for the
army intelligence, which is almost an oxymoron, since the word
intelligence
rarely sits comfortably
with the word
army,
said Professor
Garcia Correa. No, I don't feel offended or supplanted because I wasn't given
the job. The
said Professor Garcia Correa. In
little to dazzle us. It makes me cringe when I see or hear or read certain
adjectives in the press, certain praise that seems to have been spouted by a
tribe of deranged monkeys, but there's nothing to be done, that's
Being a criminologist in this country is like being a cryptographer at the
North Pole. It's like being a child in a cell block of pedophiles. It's like
being a beggar in the country of the deaf. It's like being a condom in the
realm of the Amazons, said Professor Garcia Correa. If you're mistreated, you
get used to it. If you're snubbed, you get used to it. If your life savings
vanish, the money you were putting aside for retirement, you get used to it. If
your son swindles you, you get used to it. If you have to keep working when by
law you should be doing whatever you please, you get used to it. If on top of
that your salary is cut, you get used to it. If you have to work for crooked
lawyers and corrupt detectives to supplement your pay, you get used to it. But
you'd better not put any of this in your articles, boys, because if you do, my
job will be on the line, said Professor Garcia Correa. Mr. Albert Kessler, as I
was saying, is a highly qualified investigator. As I understand it, he works
with computers. Interesting work. He's also a consultant or adviser on some
action movies. I haven't seen any of them, because it's been a long time since
I went to the movies and
puts me to sleep. But according to my grandson, they're plenty of fun and the
good guys always win, said Professor Garcia Correa.
•
The
name, said the reporter. Antonio Uribe, said Haas. The reporters exchanged glances,
to see whether any of them recognized it, but they all shrugged their
shoulders. Antonio Uribe, said Haas, that's the name of the killer of women in
Santa Teresa. After a silence, he added: and the surrounding area. And the
surrounding area? asked one of the reporters. The killer of women in Santa
Teresa, said Haas, and also of the dead women who've turned up just outside the
city. And do you know this Uribe? asked one of the reporters. I met him once,
just once, said Haas. Then he took a breath, as if he were about to tell a long
story, and Chuy Pimentel chose that moment to take a picture of him. In it,
because of the light and the angle, Haas looks much thinner, his neck long like
a turkey's, though not just any turkey but a singing turkey or a turkey about
to
break into song,
not just sing,
but
break into song,
a piercing song,
a grating song, a song of shattered glass, but of glass bearing a strong
resemblance to crystal, that is, to purity, to self-abnegation, to a total lack
of deceitfulness.
On October
7,
the body of a girl somewhere
between the ages of fourteen and sixteen was discovered thirty yards from the
railroad tracks, in the bushes bordering some baseball fields. She showed clear
signs of torture. Her arms, chest, and legs were covered with bruises and stab
wounds (a policeman set out to count them and got bored when he reached
thirty-five), none of which, however, had injured or pierced any vital organ.
The victim wasn't carrying identification. According to the medical examiner,
the cause of death was strangulation. There were bite marks on the left nipple
and it was half torn off, attached by just a few strands of tissue. Another
piece of information supplied by the medical examiner: one of the victim's legs
was shorter than the other, which at first seemed likely to speed the
identification process,
though this
turned out not to be the case, since none of the women reported missing in
Santa Teresa fit the description. The day the body was discovered (by a group
of teenage baseball players), Epifanio and Lalo Cura paid a visit to the scene.
The place was crawling with cops. There were inspectors, city policemen, crime
scene technicians, the Red Cross, reporters. Epifanio and Lalo Cura took a
stroll around until they came to the exact spot where the body still lay. The
girl wasn't short. She was at least five foot six. She was naked except for a
white bra and a white blouse covered with smudges of dirt and bloodstains. As
they walked away, Epifanio asked Lalo Cura what he thought. About the dead
woman? asked Lalo. No, the crime scene, said Epifanio, lighting a cigarette.
There is no crime scene, said Lalo.
It's
been deliberately wiped clean.
Epifanio
started the car. Not deliberately, he said, stupidly, but it doesn't matter.
It's been wiped clean.