Kathy Reichs: Grave Secrets

The others huddled for mutual support, exchanging an occasional word or embrace. Cars flashed by with faces pointed in our direction, curious but unwilling to be drawn into whatever drama was unfolding on the road to Sololá.

Molly’s face looked ghostly. Her lips were blue around the edges. I noticed that she wore a gold chain, a tiny cross, a wristwatch. The hands said eight twenty-one. I looked for the cell phone, but didn’t see it.

As suddenly as it started, the rain stopped. A dog howled and another answered. A night bird gave a tentative peep, repeated itself.

At long last I spotted a red light far up the highway.

“They’re here,” I crooned into Molly’s ear. “Stay tough, girl. You’re going to be fine.” Blood and sweat felt slick between my fingers and her skin.

The red light drew nearer and separated into two. Minutes later an ambulance and police cruiser screamed onto the shoulder, blasting us with gravel and hot air. Red pulsed off glistening blacktop, rain-glazed vehicles, pale faces.

Molly and Carlos were administered emergency care by the paramedics, transferred to the ambulance, and raced toward the hospital in Sololá. Elena and Luis followed to oversee their admittance. After giving brief statements, the rest of us were permitted to return to Panajachel, where we were staying, while Mateo made the trip to police headquarters in Sololá.

The team was quartered at the Hospedaje Santa Rosa, a budget hotel hidden in an alleyway off Avenida el Frutal. Upon entering my room I stripped, heaped my filthy clothes in a corner, and showered, thankful that the FAFG had paid the extra quetzals for hot water. Though I’d eaten nothing since a cheese sandwich and apple at noon, fear and exhaustion squelched all desire for food. I fell into bed, despondent over the victims in the well at Chupan Ya, terrified for Molly and Carlos.

I slept badly that night, troubled by ugly dreams. Shards of infant skull. Sightless sockets. Arm bones sheathed in a rotting güipil. A tissue-spattered truck.

It seemed there was no escape from violent death, day or night, past or present.

I awoke to screeching parrots and soft, gray dawn seeping through my shutters. Something was terribly wrong. What?

Memories of the previous night hit me like a cold, numbing wave. I drew knees to chest and lay several minutes, dreading the news but needing to know.

Flinging back the quilt, I went through my abbreviated morning ritual, then threw on jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, and cap.

Mateo and Elena were sipping coffee at a courtyard table, their figures backlit by salmon-pink walls. I joined them, and Señora Samines placed coffee in front of me, and served plates of huevos rancheros, black beans, potatoes, and cheese to the others.

“¿Desayuno?” she asked. Breakfast?

“Sí, gracias.”

I added cream, looked at Mateo.

He spoke in English.

“Carlos took a bullet in the head, another in the neck. He’s dead.”

The coffee turned to acid in my mouth.

“Molly was hit twice in the chest. She survived the surgery, but she’s in a coma.”

I glanced at Elena. Her eyes were rimmed by lavender circles, the whites watery red.

“How?” I asked, turning back to Mateo.

“They think Carlos resisted. He was shot at close range outside the truck.”

“Will an autopsy be performed?”

Mateo’s eyes met mine, but he said nothing.

“Motive?”

“Robbery.”

“Robbery?”

“Bandits are a problem along that stretch.”

“Molly told me they’d been followed from Guatemala City.”

“I pointed that out.”

“And?”

“Molly has light brown hair, fair skin. She’s clearly gringo. The cops think they were probably targeted as a tourist couple in G City, then tailed until the truck hit a suitable ambush site.”

“In plain view along a major highway?”

Mateo said nothing.

“Molly was still wearing jewelry and a wristwatch,” I said.

“The police couldn’t find their passports or wallets.”

“Let me get this straight. Thieves followed them for over two hours, then took their wallets and left their jewelry?”

“Sí.” He lapsed into Spanish.

“Is that typical for highway robbery?”

He hesitated before responding.

“They might have been scared off.”

Señora Samines arrived with my eggs. I poked at them, speared a potato. Carlos and Molly had been shot for money?

I had come to Guatemala fearing government bureaucracy, intestinal bacteria, dishonest taxi drivers, pickpockets. Why was I shocked at the thought of armed robbery?

America is the leading producer of gunshot homicides. Our streets and workplaces are killing fields. Teens are shot for their Air Jordans, wives for serving the pot roast late, students for eating lunch in the high school cafeteria.

Annually, over thirty thousand Americans are killed by bullets. Seventy percent of all murders are committed with firearms. Each year the NRA spoons up propaganda, and America swallows it. Guns proliferate, and the slaughter goes on. Law enforcement no longer has an advantage in carrying arms. It only brings the officers up to even.

But Guatemala?

The potato tasted like pressed wood. I laid down my fork and reached for my coffee.

“They think Carlos got out?” I asked.

Mateo nodded.

“Why take the trouble to shove him back into the truck?”

“A disabled vehicle would draw less interest than a body on the ground.”

“Does a robbery scenario sound reasonable to you?”

Mateo’s jaw muscles bulged, relaxed, bulged again.

“It happens.”

Elena made a sound in her throat, but said nothing.

“Now what?”

“Today Elena will keep watch at the hospital while we continue at Chupan Ya.” He tossed coffee dregs onto the grass. “And we all pray.”

My grandmother used to say that God’s tonic for sorrow was physical labor. She also felt toads caused infertility, but that was another issue.

For the next six days the team ingested megadoses of Gran’s elixir. We worked at the well from sunrise until sunset, hauling equipment up and down the valley, troweling, hoisting buckets, shaking screens.

In the evenings we dragged ourselves from our hospedaje to one of the restaurants lining Lake Atitlán. I enjoyed these brief respites from death. Though darkness obscured the water and the ancient volcanoes on the far shore, I could smell fish and kelp and hear waves lapping against rickety wooden piers. Tourists and locals wandered the shore. Mayan women passed with impossible bundles on their heads. Notes drifted from distant xylophones. Life continued.

Some nights we ate in silence, too exhausted for conversation. On others we talked of the project, of Molly and Carlos, of the town in which we were temporary residents.

The history of Panajachel is as colorful as the textiles sold on its streets. In another age, the place was a K’akchiquel Mayan village settled by ancestors of the current citizens when a force of rival Tzutujil warriors was defeated by the Spanish. Later, the Franciscans established a church and monastery at “Pana,” and used the village as a base for missionary operations.

Darwin was right. Life is opportunity. One group’s loss is another’s gain.

In the sixties and seventies the town became a haven for gringo gurus, hippies, and dropouts. Rumors that Lake Atitlán was one of the world’s few “vortex energy fields” led to an influx of cosmic healers and crystal watchers.

Today Panajachel is a blend of traditional Mayan, contemporary Guatemalan, and nondescript Western. It is luxury hotels and hospedajes; European cafés and comedores; ATMs and outdoor markets; güipils and tank tops; mariachis and Madonna; Mayan brujos and Catholic priests.