Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

Michael shook his head, violently so. “No. No. Your car is fine.”

“What then?”

“Mi Catalina.”

Tavio lowered his eyes and touched his mouth, signaling to his brother to be very, very quiet. “What about Catalina?” he asked in a whisper.

“She…” Michael stood in the dank light of a soggy early morning and started to cry. It was not a soft cry, but a guttural sound that Tavio thought would wake up everyone in Yakima.

“Stop!” he said, his voice growing louder than he’d wanted. “Do not cry! It cannot be so bad.”

Michael started shaking. He no longer looked up at his brother. It seemed he didn’t want to face him at all. The words, like the rain, like muddy footprints, would never be forgotten.

“You have to help me, Tavio. Catalina is dead. I killed her. I didn’t mean to. I am sorry. I thought she wanted me to make love to her.”

Tavio’s eyes widened to such a degree that it seemed it was very possible that they would pop out and fall to the floor. “What are you saying, Michael?”

“I’m saying the truth. I’m sorry. Do you want me to show you?”

Tavio was stunned. “This has to be a mistake!”

“No mistake. They will kill me. They will hang me. Cut off my head. Do something terrible. I did not mean to kill her. I loved her. You know that, right?”

Tavio nodded. He would have thought so, but killing someone was too hard to forgive.

“They will cut off my head,” Michael repeated.

Tavio shook his head. “No. No they will not.”

“There is no forgiveness in this country,” Michael said as he pulled on a dry pair of pants and a clean T-shirt.

“Bring those clothes,” Tavio said, not even sure why. “Let’s go. Show me.”

They drove mostly in silence. Tavio tried to get his brother to tell him exactly what had happened, but Michael was inconsolable by then. He managed to sputter out a few words as he directed Tavio to the turnoff by the river where he’d last seen Catalina. The ground was muddy and the sun had started to light the weeds with the morning light that would forever seem hideous instead of lovely.

Catalina Sanchez was sprawled out next to the riverbank. Her beautiful dark hair swirled in the mud and her brown eyes gazed upward into nothingness.

Tavio dropped to his knees and frantically began shaking her. It was a futile effort and he knew it. Her eyes confirmed what his brother had told him. She was dead.

“Who saw you tonight?” Tavio asked.

“Here?”

“Anywhere. Yes, here. Yes, the restaurant.”

Michael shook his head. “No one. We were alone.”

“The restaurant! Who saw you there?”

“We did not go to the restaurant. She brought tamales. She made. I think, I thought she liked me and wanted to be with me here.”

“Tell me, are you sure no one saw you?”

“No one. I know of no one.”

“Good.” Tavio got up from the body and looked around. “We have to hide her.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if we should.”

“Do you want your head cut off?”

He shook his head. “No. But shouldn’t I just tell the police what happened?”

Tavio looked down at the body. Catalina’s blouse was torn and her pretty blue and white skirt was pushed up in front. It was obvious what happened. The scratches on his brother’s face had made it so very clear. And yet, he had to ask one more time.

“No. Tell me. Tell me what happened.”

Michael slumped on the hood of the car.

“She let me kiss her. She did. She let me put my hand on her. She liked it. She did. She told me to keep going, to make love to her.”

He stopped for a moment as a car, out of view, passed by on the main road.

“What happened?”

Michael looked away. “I don’t know. She didn’t seem to want me anymore. I told her it wasn’t good for me to get all excited and not make love to her, but she laughed at me. She said that she didn’t want me. She wanted some other guy. I tried to kiss her some more and she slapped me… laughing at me. I told her, ‘No, don’t laugh. I love you.’ But she kept laughing so I grabbed her and well…”

“Did you rape her? Did you do that to her?” Tavio could scarcely believe that his brother could do such a thing to a woman, a girl. It was disgusting. Vile. Against everything that their parents had taught them.

Michael locked eyes with his brother. “I didn’t rape her. I made love to her. She just got so mad at me. So embarrassed.”

Tavio looked directly at the scratch marks on his brother’s face, but said nothing about them.

“How did she die, Michael? What did you do to her to kill her?”

“It was an accident. It was. I was making love to her and her head hit a rock and I didn’t know it. I thought she was just finally, you know, relaxing.”

There was something insane about what Michael was saying, but Tavio saw no way out of it. He did not want his brother’s head cut off

… or whatever they did in Washington.

“Let’s hide her now.”

Catalina weighed no more than ninety-five pounds, but her dead body felt like a ton. The Navarro brothers dragged her to the edge of the riverbank where there was a shallow pool-a place marked by candy wrappers and pop cans-where young kids liked to swim. The morning light had brightened considerably and anyone close by could easily see that they were not a couple of kids swimming, but two grown men and a dead girl. Tavio held her feet; Michael had hooked his hands under her armpits. Her head, at once bloody and pale, hung limply from her slender neck. With each step, it swung, like a bell counting off the moment of her final good-bye.

“I’m sorry, mi corazon,” Michael said.

Tavio just looked at his brother with disbelieving eyes. The words meant nothing. He meant nothing just then. It was hollow. Empty. Just words to soothe his own guilty heart.

Straddling the rocks, they waded out and gave the body a decisive shove, sending it down the lazy waters of the river to a place where someone would find it. Not soon, they hoped. But they didn’t want her to never be found. She was a girl from their village. She’d given up everything to start over in the United States.

She’d given her life.

Neither brother knew a thing about DNA right then. Later, they would wonder if the police who found her body would have thought to have taken a sample. If they did, would they somehow find Michael Navarro?

And if they did find him, would they cut off his head?

It was early the next afternoon, that time of day when nothing happens, the so-called dead shift. Snickers bar in hand from her trip to the employee vending machines, 911 dispatcher Luna Demetrio was barely in her chair when she picked the next call from the console that fed calls from all over Tacoma and Pierce County, one desperate caller at a time.

LUNA: What’s your emergency?

CALLER: I need to tell somebody something bad happened.

LUNA: All right, sir. Can you tell me your name?

CALLER: (muffled noise, no answer)

LUNA: You there? I hear you breathing, are you all right?

CALLER: I’m not going to give my name. I’m calling from a pay phone. I’m going to leave the second I’m done with you so don’t send someone.

LUNA: I can barely hear you. Please speak louder. What’s your emergency?

CALLER: I think, I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s a dead body by the river. I saw it.

LUNA: What river?

CALLER: I didn’t know we had more than one. The Puyallup. Off River Road. Over by the bridge there’s a gravel lot.

LUNA: Sir, please tell me your name.

CALLER: No. Good-bye.

The call ended one minute and twenty seconds after it started. Luna typed up a message that was transmitted to the first responders for calls of an urgent nature. Luna was a very thorough operator, one who’d been honored for her attention to detail with two Starbucks cards and a potted hibiscus from her manager.