“It wasn’t right,” said the actress.
“Of course not. Anyone could see that. So you had to do something. But you were too smart to make a move without a solid alibi. Then along came Alejandra. When you learned about her father, and you realized she was really there to get proof against Arturo, you decided you had the perfect patsy. After all, she had every reason to hate him.”
Doña Elena smiled at that. It was a wicked thing to see, easily as evil as any atrocity I had seen in war, precisely because it was so beautiful.
I said, “You became Alejandra’s friend. You’re irresistible, after all. You probably told her that your husband was abusive. It would fit her preconceptions of Arturo’s nature and inspire sympathy for you. Or maybe you did it some other way. But somehow you gained her confidence, got her to tell you about her father’s disappearance and admit she was there to try to find proof that Arturo stole money from the disappeared. You said you sympathized. You wanted to help her prove the truth about Arturo’s role in the genocide. You said you would help her get justice for the disappeared of Guatemala. Am I right?”
“Not completely,” said the woman. “But you’re not a bad guesser.”
I stood with my weapon hanging at my side, hoping she might forget about it. I said, “Thank you. I’m just trying to think what an intelligent person would do in your position. I know how smart you are. I even think you managed it so Alejandra believed she was helping you come up with the plan. Maybe you even made it seem like the plan was all hers. One way or another, after you and Alejandra became partners against your husband, you came up with the fake kidnapping idea. How am I doing?”
“It’s a good story,” said Doña Elena from her hiding place behind Olivia. “But shouldn’t we get back to what a big strong man like you can do with a lonely girl like me and all that lovely money?”
“What about your husband?”
“He’s not here, silly. But you are.”
“Yes I am, and I want to hear all about how you tricked everyone.”
“Oh, that was easy,” she said. “I told that stupid Alejandra how we could make Arturo admit he had the money. I told her he would give it up for me. Alejandra was always talking about her husband, how he loved her and would do anything for her, so it wasn’t hard to make her believe Arturo would give up everything for me.”
Strapped to the ladder with her head still hanging down, Olivia rolled her eyes up to look at me through the tangled black curtain of her hair. There was more than pain in her eyes. There was something fierce and merciless.
Doña Elena said, “I told her all we had to do was tape some scenes and pretend I had been kidnapped, and Arturo would agree to pay the millions, and then we could expose him for the animal he was. So we came up here one morning and made a little set. It was like a play, with me as the helpless victim and Alejandra as the nasty terrorist. We giggled a lot when we were off camera. She said it was an honor to work with such a talented star, and I told her she should get an Oscar.”
“But you changed the script,” I said. “When it came time to make your ransom demands at the end of the last video, you dropped the amount and insisted your husband had to deliver it himself.”
“Of course,” said Doña Elena, adjusting her hold on the knife at Olivia’s throat. “To get that silly woman up here, I had to tell her we would force Arturo to try to wire ten million to a fake account, just so the authorities would see he had all that money. But I knew Arturo would never admit he had that much, not even for me, so I went off script in the last video and only asked for two hundred thousand.”
I said, “In that final video, Alejandra says, ‘You weren’t supposed—’ Then she’s cut off. She was saying you weren’t supposed to tell Arturo to bring the money, right? And you weren’t supposed to ask for just two hundred thousand?”
“Of course. She said two hundred thousand wasn’t nearly enough to make Arturo out to be the monster she thought he was. Oh, that stupid little woman. She actually thought all I ever planned to do was get Arturo to admit he had the money.” Doña Elena’s laughter had all the humor of a swarm of locusts.
The knife had drawn more blood from Olivia neck. Just another fraction of an inch, and the jugular would be severed. I had to say something to distract Doña Elena. All I could think of was the awful truth.
I said, “How did it go after that? Did you let Alejandra watch you torture Arturo until he told you where the money was? Did you let her see you kill him? Did you tell her you were going to put the blame on her while you marched her out, shot her in the head and rolled her into some deep hole up there in the rocks?”
Olivia let out a moan. It wasn’t a sound driven by pain. It was the first rumblings of volcanic rage.
Doña Elena didn’t understand. She said, “Shut up, or I’ll cut your hands some more.”
Olivia only moaned louder. She pressed her neck forward against the knife, forcing the blade to dig deeper. Blood began to trickle down. Doña Elena pulled back a fraction. “Oh, no, you don’t. Not until I know where you put the money.”
But Olivia didn’t stop. She pressed her head and neck forward and then pulled back and then pressed forward again, forcing Doña Elena to move with her to keep the knife pressed against her neck without slitting through her artery. Olivia cursed Doña Elena in Spanish, flinging filthy words at her, daring her to cut. Then Olivia screamed, “What are you waiting for! Shoot her! SHOOT HER!”
Doña Elena’s nostrils flared. I saw her lift her elbow to get leverage and knew what she was about to do. Although she was behind Olivia, and although I had only an inch or so for error, I knew I had to take the shot.
The bullet drove the madwoman back against the wall. The knife dropped harmlessly into the pool of blood at Olivia’s feet. Later I would learn from the police that Doña Elena fell in exactly the same place where they had found Toledo’s body seven years before.
50
I cut Olivia down and helped her to one of the cots, where she sat stoically while I did my best to tend to her hands and neck, staunching the blood flow with paper towels, which I secured in place with the same duct tape they had used to bind her to the ladder.
“She never meant to leave us,” said Olivia.
“No,” I said, “she never did.”
“She only wanted justice for her family.”
I said, “Yes.”
Olivia sat perfectly still as tears flowed from her eyes.
I wanted to hold her, but across the room, Medallion began to moan. I went to him. He had lost a lot of blood. There was no fight left in him, and very little hope. A gut wound like his had to be treated almost immediately, but there was no cell-phone service that high in the mountains, and no way for me to get him to a hospital in less than an hour. Still, I did my best, rolling him onto his side, cutting away his shirt, and using it to press into the ugly exit wound to try to stanch the blood. As I had with Olivia, I used the tape to hold the shirt in place. Since the entrance wound in front was barely bleeding, I spent no time on that.
I removed his wallet and found his DEA identification card. His name was Donald Ortiz. I searched his front pockets and found the keys to the Navigator. I also found the little computer chip he had removed from the patrol car, which contained the video of him and his partner murdering the two patrolmen.