The Dead Women of Juárez by Sam Hawken

Author:Sam Hawken
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
Published: 2011-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

FOUR

HE DIDN’T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT the way to Kelly’s apartment; he’d driven it many times over the years for his unexpected visits. Not to roust Kelly, but to talk and put a little pressure on, chat by chat. Droplets of water could cut through a boulder, and so it was when it came to cultivating informants. Sevilla hoped Kelly would give one day, because a man like Estéban would never succumb. He was too far inside, while Kelly was always going to be on the outside no matter what else he might aspire to.

Sevilla only had to look at the neighborhood where Kelly settled to know something about him. This place, with its flat-roofed and unremarkable blocks of apartments and little businesses catering to the working poor, was far better than many around Juárez. A neighborhood like this spoke of hope and hanging on to a modest sort of success that the desolation of the colonias had abandoned long ago. Kelly could have gone headfirst into the sewage that streamed constantly from the clubs and bars and brothels, but he chose here instead.

The street was still when Sevilla parked and even the traffic sounds of the city seemed distant when he got out. He did not feel eyes on him because there were no eyes to feel; people minded their own business in a neighborhood like this one. And when there was nothing to hide, strangers weren’t a worry.

He mounted the steps one at a time. He felt heavy, and not just because temperatures were on the rise. When he got to Kelly’s door there would be no one home, and what was left behind was the terrible scene in El Cereso. What he did, Sevilla did for Kelly’s good, but that did not make the burden any lighter.

In America the police might have sealed Kelly’s door with bright yellow tape, but there were no such markers here. Sevilla paused by the railing and looked north. It was possible to see Texas from this spot, though the demarcation between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso was not a prominent one. From this perspective it all seemed washed together along the banks of the Rio Grande in the wake of a flood, with only luck determining who came to rest in the land of opportunity and who was left in Mexico.

Sevilla had a key for Kelly’s apartment. Sevilla paid the apartment manager for it with the idea that he could slip in for a search from time to time. This was how he knew Kelly was clean — except for the motivosa, of course — and how he came to know Kelly better through the evidence Kelly left when he felt no one was paying attention.

Inside, the police had turned Kelly’s home into a scattered mess. Even the few dishes were broken as the cabinets were cleared, dismantled and searched. Sevilla paused in the door, once again taken aback by the spiteful chaos, and then he went in.

He didn’t think to find anything the other police had missed.

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