“The sender wants us to be aware of his power.”
“Or her power. Why do women always assume that evil is masculine?”
She gives him her best get real face.
“Yeah. Okay. He may have wanted you to know generally of his clout, but I don’t think he meant for you to find out where he was clouting from.”
Sara feels her heart rate pick up. “So you found out where it came from?”
“Not precisely. But Tovar, one of our best Jaqueros, recognized the encryption method from a corruption case he investigated a few years back. The same foreign bounce points used to hide the source of those e-mails were used with this one.”
“What kind of case?”
Ernesto lowers his voice and glances at the door. “He was investigating some e-mails from cartel members, and he found communications between the cartel and the State Police.”
“The State Police?” Sara sits down. She remembers the State Police officer telling Mrs. Fuentes that Linda was probably having a drink with a boy. The lack of sympathy, the repugnant smirk on his face. How many times has she gone to the State Police headquarters to ask if they have any news about Linda, only to wait for hours on those hard orange chairs while officers come and go? They laugh and talk about where to go for lunch, not giving a damn about the missing girls. Their unconcern is one thing, but this direct involvement is quite another. It is the worst fear of the mothers of missing girls coming true.
She thinks. “There’s no way of finding out who in the State Police is involved exactly? Or where?”
“These people are good, technologically speaking. Tovar thinks someone detected his search this morning.”
“Oh. Is that dangerous?”
“They’re good, but we’re better. The thing is, these people are very bad people. You should see some of the e-mails they’ve sent the Jaqueros.”
“So you’ve taken this as far as it can go,” Sara says.
“We’ll keep going if you want us to,” Ernesto answers. “But the more we dig, the more you and your family are in danger. This is not your run-of-the-mill threat. They already know we’re up to something, and soon they’ll figure out you’re with us. We’ll stop if you tell us.”
“Thank you,” Sara manages to say. She stands and walks back to the newsroom, dazed. If Ernesto can find the source of the e-mail, that might lead to an actual person involved in the abduction of the girls. Investigating that person might take them to Linda. She finally has a lead on the people responsible for the Desaparecidas and maybe even on Linda’s whereabouts. It’s a tenuous lead, but a lead nevertheless.
She sits at her desk and takes out the picture of Linda that she keeps in the middle drawer. Linda was beautiful. Five feet seven, slim, long black hair, big hazel eyes. But more than that, she had a pulsating sun of happiness inside her that shone day or night. Sara doesn’t remember ever seeing her sad or moody. In the picture, she’s laughing, reaching out for the dangling string of a purple helium balloon that has just escaped her grasp.
Sara goes over Ernesto’s words. There’s no doubt that they are dealing with people who would kill her in the blink of an eye. She’s done too many stories about dead girls not to be afraid, not to know what these people are capable of doing. But this is Linda. Her best friend. And even if she wasn’t Sara’s best friend, she’s a human being. Sara thinks of all the suffering people who pray that they are not forgotten, that there are others brave enough to keep believing every human life matters.
She opens a new e-mail and directs it to Ernesto. Then she types “Linda Fuentes” on the subject line. Below that she writes:
Proceed.
Emiliano takes Calle Ignacio Mejía toward Zaragoza Boulevard. The sky is pale blue and cloudless. It’s perfect weather to bike the twenty or so miles he’ll need to cover today. He rings the bell on the old bike a couple of times and waves at Cristobal, who is coming back from the corner store with a soda.
“I’ll take good care of Perlita,” Cristobal yells after him.
Emiliano picks up speed going downhill and a cool breeze brushes his face. He’s got to hurry if he wants to get to Taurus in time to see Armando. He could head there first, but Javier’s neighborhood is closer. Javier will have at least three piñatas. Maybe his sister Rosario will have made something like the mask she made last week. But it is Doña Pepa’s beaded purse that will bring in the big money today. The last time she made one, he got nine hundred pesos for her.
He turns right on Avenida Juárez, staying as close to the side of the road as he can. Even so, he can feel the cars whizzing by, inches away from him. Some sick people think it’s fun to come as close as they can to his trailer and bike. He ignores them. Life’s too short to waste valuable energy on imbeciles. Anger is energy, and energy needs to be carefully preserved, like water on a three-day desert hike. He slows down. Of all the things he’s learned from the desert, knowing how to pace himself is probably the most important one. “Slow and steady, lads,” as Brother Patricio likes to say. “Do not haste but do not waste.”
Emiliano prefers to go to Javier’s house in the early morning when most of the residents are sleeping. Last month, two guys about Sara’s age stopped him on the dirt road and pointed pistols at him. He’s alive only because he had cash to give them and they were in a rush to get their next fix. But what can he do? Javier is one of the best contributors to Emiliano’s business. The smaller the papier-mâché object, the harder it is to make, and Javier’s miniature piñatas are incredibly popular with American buyers. Lalo sells them to airport shops in Houston and Austin.
Emiliano dismounts his bike to climb the hill to Javier’s house. He maneuvers around the potholes that fill the dirt street and holds his breath when the smell of a sewer becomes unbearable. Javier’s house, like most of the dwellings in this barrio, is really more of a shack, made from discarded construction materials like chipped cinder blocks and cracked bricks, as well as rusty pieces of tin and used plywood. Despite this, it’s still one of the most carefully constructed houses in the whole place. Where most of them look as if a desert wind will blow them down, Javier’s home is sturdy, built with the same care as his piñatas.
Emiliano knocks gently on the plywood board that serves as a door. The littlest girl, Nieves, sticks her head out and smiles shyly.
“Is your brother home?”
She shakes her head. The door opens fully. “Emiliano! Come in, come in!” says Mrs. Robles, her face lighting up. She would look not much older than Sara if it weren’t for the tired, dark circles under her eyes and the white streaks in her hair. “Javier had to go to the store to buy supplies. He left three piñatas for you. Come in.”
“Thank you, but I have to get going. I got a late start today.”
“Still, sit down for a moment. Have a glass of water. You look hot. The girls want to show you something.” Emiliano steps inside. It took him thirty-five minutes of pedaling and breathing diesel smoke to get here, not to mention the climb up the hill. He can sit for a moment. “Rosario, can you put the fan on for Emiliano?”
Rosario, Javier’s older sister, rises slowly from a cot in the corner where she’s been sitting. “Hello, Emiliano,” she says warmly. “I made something for you.” She bends down to get something from under the cot.