Blood Daughters: A Romilia Chacon Novel

Chapter 8

32 Chapter 8 According to Agent Randall, the crime scene investigation in the desert was still in process. Since Nancy was driving, I asked, “Feel like checking it out?” “Afraid so.” 7 Karen was right about some things, such as me not being very enthused over visiting a crime scene, especially that of a dead thirteen-year-old girl. This, again, may have had something to do with age and the need to mete out my energy. One easy parameter: don’t get involved in other jurisdictions. Work on your own turf. That didn’t have anything to do with toeing the line; more, it had to do with wanting to go home at the end of the day. Which I hoped to do today. It was just past midnight now. If we planned this right, Nancy and I could check out the scene and ask the detectives who took the call what they thought. We wouldn’t get in their way, and I’d make sure to tell them that right off. I thought Nancy would head toward Tijuana, but she took another set of highways: the Eight Freeway to the 125, then onto the 94, which quickly turned into a state road. I had no idea which way was east. Nancy, however, knew these roads well, and not only the roads: she knew the underground roads too, literally underground. She knew the routes Tekún Umán had once taken, or at least his cocaine had taken, from Mexico into the U.S. As his FBI mole, Nancy knew everything about his business, and could keep the Feds from finding it. Marcos M. Villatoro ~ 33 That information came in handy today. “Ninety-four will take us all the way to Tecate,” she said, “which is close to the scene.” We passed through small, sleeping towns named Potrero and Dulzura. Not even the Taco Bells were open, which meant it was past midnight. Soon we were near Tecate, which was on the other side of the border. Guards stood at a guard post, not as many of them as at the border with Tijuana, but enough to stop the small flow of traffic. Nancy didn’t drive toward the crossing. The body was on this side of the world. A twelve-foot-high sheet of metal fencing separated the two countries. The fence ran all the way from Imperial Beach in San Diego out to here, then stopped in the open desert. It had yet to become our Berlin Wall, petering out just fifteen miles inland from the ocean. The authorities figured the desert was enough to keep people from passing through here. They were partly correct: many Mexicans and Central Americans chose not to come to the States because of the desert. Many others did, and died out here from heat exhaustion. Still others made it, somehow. My mother had made it, thirty-six years ago. Carrying my sister Catalina. They had crossed through the desert, along with my father. No doubt somewhere nearby. Though I’ve never asked my mother about it. We had to circle around some small roads in order to find the crime scene. It was just beyond where the metal fence abruptly dropped off. “This is near Colonia Nido de Las águilas,” said Nancy. “That dried-out riverbed over there? That’s the border.” “Looks easy to cross here,” I said. “Sure. Right into four hundred square miles of pure U.S. desert.” Her headlights slapped up against the yellow ribbons. “There’s the girl.” She parked. We got out. I shined a flashlight, more as a heads-up to the San Diego detectives already here. Nancy called out our credentials. I held up my badge. In the moonlight, upon a hill, stood the outline of a large cross, a good twenty feet tall. We introduced ourselves, shook hands with the two detectives, whose names at first I did not remember. One was Latino, the other white. That should have been a sign, right there, about my drinking: I always remember the names of people present at crime scenes, memorizing them on the spot, a demonstration of clear thinking and control. It keeps me alert and welds my thoughts to the place. It shows that I care, whether I do or not. 34 ~ Blood Daughters But here was a body. A little body. You can’t help but care about that...