“Is that your suitcase?” he asked.
“Yes” Kim responded.
“Did you pack it?” he continued.
Kim nodded.
“Please answer Miss Brown” he demanded sternly.
“Yes” she stammered.
He picked it up and put it on the table. Then he opened it
and looked inside. Again he began to pull stuff out and laid it
out on display as he had with the backpack. When he got to the
box he studied it intently.
“What‟s in the box?” he asked.
“A surprise” she said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife.
In one fluent motion he opened the knife up and started to open
the box. Kim protested not wanting to disappoint Jake by having
the surprise spoiled. The officer stopped and gave her a puzzled
look and stared at her for a few seconds keeping the knife in
place on the duct tape of the box. Kim slumped down knowing that
protesting would be futile. The officer focused on the box again
and continued cutting it open. He opened the flaps of the box
and pulled out a sealed plastic bag. To her horror the bag was
filled with white powder and she recognized it immediately. It
was the same white powder she had been snorting up a little more
than six months ago to forget about the rape. “Cocaine” she
thought.
The bag was a lot bigger than the bag Jake had given her
after the rape; it looked to be a couple of pounds. The officer
studied it and opened the bag to stick a finger in it. Then he
put the finger in his mouth and immediately spit it out. He
smiled, closed the bag and showed it to the camera. Then he put
it on the table and walked to the corner of the room where a
phone was hanging on the wall. A conversation ensued in Spanish
that she didn‟t understand. Kim started to become really uneasy.
What did this all mean? How did the drugs get there? Surely Jake
hadn‟t risked her crossing the border with drugs. And how did
they know it was there? They had singled her out. There had been
hundreds of people in the terminal and they had picked her out.
That couldn‟t have been a coincidence. The officer got off the
phone and walked toward her.
“I‟m sorry Miss Brown but we are going to have to arrest
you for smuggling. This is a very large amount of cocaine and we
have strict laws about this here.”
Kim shuddered.
“That isn‟t mine” she argued, “A friend had asked me to
bring it with for him, I didn‟t even know what was in it.”
“Forgive me when I say that we hear that excuse a lot” he
said in a calm tone.
“We will investigate and you will be offered a fair trial”
he continued.
“Trial?” she thought.
This couldn‟t be happening. She hadn‟t done anything wrong.
She needed to be on that plane, that plane that was going to
bring her to her new life. All the misery was supposed to be
over. Her brain started to overload again and she started to
have trouble thinking.
“Please let me go, I need to catch my plane” she begged not
coming to terms with the gravity of it all.
“I‟m sorry but that will not be an option” the officer
said.
Then there was a knock on the door and he walked over to it
and looked through the crack. When he saw who was there he
opened the door completely. Another even more important looking
man in uniform walked in with a group of photographers in his
wake. The drugs were rearranged and the two officers stood next
to it with Kim looking shocked and defeated in the background.
She was being posed with. It was almost like a circus and she
was the main attraction of the freak show and the officers where
posing as the discoverers of it.
Chapter 19:
The next couple of hours were a haze. In a weird way she
was the center of attention but nobody was regarding her. It was
a strange situation, almost like she was an attraction that
people posed with. Like the statue of the Fonz from „Happy
Days‟that had been in Milwaukee on the boardwalk that people
would get their picture taken with. There was a party going on
around her and she was the most miserable guest of honor ever.
She couldn‟t even understand what was being said as everything
was in Spanish.
All she could think about was how she needed to call Jake.
He would know what was going on and he would be able to fix it.
Now he would end up waiting for her at the airport not knowing
where she was. As the parade through the room started to slow
down the officer was starting to direct people out the door.
When the last one was gone other than the two armed policemen
she finally heard some English again.
“We will transport you to the police station in a few
minutes” he said.
“Really, I haven‟t done anything. I didn‟t know what was in
the box” she pleaded.
“I‟m sorry that is now for the agente to decide” he said.
“What is going to happen now?” she asked fearfully.
“We will transport you to the police station where you will
be asked to make a statement. Then the agente will take over and
let you know what is going to happen then” he continued.
“Agente?” she asked.
The officer nodded “like a district attorney” he said.
There was a knock on the door and he stepped towards it.
Two more police officers were at the door and he let them in.
They talked in Spanish for a few minutes and then the officer
told her they were here to take her to the police station. The
officers put her in handcuffs and led her outside.
“My stuff” she protested.
“We will take care of that” the officer told her, “It is
evidence now”.
When they arrived outside on a secluded edge of the airport
she was pushed into a van and one officer sat with her in the
back while the other got into the driver seat and started the
van. The ride was bumpy and rough and lasted about twenty
minute. It was hard to sit on the bench with her hands behind
her back unable to hold on to anything or to use them to brace
herself. It almost seemed like it was a videogame to the driver
in which the goal was to get the prisoner to fall off the bench.
She protested but there was no response. The driver said
something in Spanish to the officer in the back and they both
laughed. When the van stopped with hard braking she almost flew
against the divider wall that separated the back of the van from
the front. She had managed to stay on the bench during the ride
but it had been hard to brace herself with her legs and she had
been shaken around pretty good. Everything hurt by the time they
motioned for her to stand up and get out of the van. She
couldn‟t get up and the officer pulled her up. She protested
about how rough he was but either he didn‟t understand or
pretended not to understand.
The van had stopped in front of a large building with a
sign that said “Policia La Paz”. The building was older and in
dire need of some fresh paint. She looked around and was
immediately pushed from behind in an effort to herd her to the
entrance. She almost lost her balance but managed to gain her
footing at the last moment. When she got inside they put her in
a small interrogation room and left her there by herself. She
looked around and thought about her situation. All the misery
should have been over. She should be on her way to her new house
and her new life with Jake. Hadn‟t she suffered enough? Tears
started rolling down her cheeks and she sat and sobbed. Now
what? She just wanted to go home. She just wanted to turn back
the time to her seventeenth birthday when life had been so
simple. How could she have gotten herself in so much trouble?
After sitting by herself for what seemed like a good hour
or so an officer came in with a laptop and a box. Without saying
anything to her he sat down across from her and opened his
laptop. Then he put her passport next to the laptop and began
typing every now and then looking at the passport. Finally he
closed the laptop and opened the box. Out of it he took a piece
of paper and an ink cushion. He took the handcuffs off and Kim
rubbed her sore wrists. Then he took her right hand and
proceeded to take finger prints, after that he also did the left
hand and scribbled something on the paper carefully not to
smudge the prints. When he was done he put everything back in
the box and closed it, then he collected the laptop and left the
room again without ever speaking a single word. This all did not
make her any more comfortable and made her realize that they
weren‟t kidding around; this was serious. They weren‟t just
going to send her on her way or they would have already.
Another hour passed and by now she really had to go to the
bathroom. She banged on the door and tried the handle, it was
locked. Then she paced around trying to take her mind off her
bladder. After fifteen more minutes she was about to pee her
pants and sat down with her legs crossed as tight as she could.
A male and female officer came and she was led to the bathroom.
The male officer stayed outside by the door and the female
officer went inside with her. Then she was handed a plastic
container and the officer pointed to one of the stalls. She went
in and tried to close the door but the officer blocked it and
said “Abierto” in a stern voice which she understood to mean the
door should stay open. Uncomfortable with the officer watching
she dropped her pants and filled the cup which the officer took
with a gloved hand and sealed with a lid. When she was finished
she was led back to the interrogation room and was left alone
again.
Another thirty minutes later another officer came in and he
asked her to sit down in English.
“I need to take a statement from you” he said, “You are
allowed a lawyer if you want but it would be in the best
interest that you cooperate and help us round this up as soon as
possible. Getting a lawyer here will take a long time and will
delay us sending you on your way.”
He seemed pushy to get this done and she had no idea on
what was going on or how to even get a lawyer. Cooperation might
help get on their good side and she agreed to continue without
legal representation.
“Please tell me in your words what happened” he said as he
put a pen to paper.
She told him the whole story about how she had come to
Mexico on vacation and how her fiancé had had to leave earlier
and had asked if she could bring the package for him because he
had forgotten it. Then at the airport it had appeared to have
contained some kind of drugs that she knew nothing about. The
officer wrote as she told her account. Then when he was done he
read it over and looked very pleased with his work. He pushed
the paper in front of her and handed her the pen.
“Please sign” he said.
She looked at the piece of paper and noticed it was in
Spanish.
She couldn‟t read anything and said “I can‟t read this.”
The officer looked at her annoyed and said “It‟s exactly
what you told me, your statement. Please sign” and he pushed the
paper closer to her.
It seemed so short for what she had told him.
“I‟m not sure I should sign something I can‟t understand”
she said with a stammer.
He got up and picked up the paper and headed for the door.
“Fine” he said irritated, “If you don‟t want to sign this
than I can‟t help get you out of here.”
“Wait” she said, “I‟ll sign it.”
At this moment she would do anything to get out of there.
She signed her name and the officer smiled and thanked her. Then
he opened the door.
“When can I go?” she asked.
He didn‟t answer and just continued. She sat in the small
room by herself for another hour or so when another man walked
in. He wasn‟t dressed as an officer and introduced himself as
„agente‟ or district attorney as they said in the United States.
“What is going to on? When can I go?” she asked hoping to
finally get a straight answer.
The man sat down across from her and folded his hands.
“Miss Brown, you are under arrest for attempting to smuggle
a large amount of cocaine. Two pounds to be exact” he said.
“You will have to be tried by a judge and the judge will
decide if you are guilty or innocent. If you are found guilty
you could face life in prison. She shuddered at the thought.
“But the officer said I would be on my way soon” she
objected.
He shook his head and said “That‟s for the judge to decide.
Now since you are an American we will put you in contact with
your consulate if you want us to.”
She nodded with her head down.
“We will move you to a holding cell until tomorrow. Then we
will have you transferred to a cell in Mexico City where a
representative of the consulate will visit you” he said as he
got up.
Then he left and closed the door behind her. She wept and
ten minutes later another two officers came and led her to the
basement where the holding cells were. She was put in a cell
with another woman. The only furniture was a bunk bed that
didn‟t look very inviting and a steel toilet with no seat that
was mounted on the wall. She said hi to the woman but the woman
lay on the bottom bunk and just turned away. Kim climbed on the
top bunk and lay down as well. It was as uncomfortable as it had
looked and her body still hurt from the ride in the van.
There were five holding cells in the block with two beds
each. In total only two were taken and it was relatively quiet
in the block but further down the hall it was louder. That
sounded like the men‟s area. None of the women in her area
attempted to speak to her and she just lay there trying to
figure it all out. Several hours later two steel plates and two
steel cups were pushed into the cell and the guard yelled “Hora
de cenar” as she walked away. The woman on the bottom bed
immediately scoped up the better looking plate and gave her a
threatening look. Kim picked up the other plate. She was hungry
but the food did not look very appealing. She picked a bit at
the beans and unidentified meat and tried to wash it down with
the water from the cup. Then she handed the plate to her cell
mate who accepted it suspiciously.
She lay in the bed as the sun outside began to set through
a small two square foot barred window. Her mind clouded with too
many thoughts again as she finally fell asleep many hours and
tears later.
Chapter 20:
Morning came early and breakfast had been no better than