The River Killings (8 page)

Nostrils flaring, Susan let go of my arm and sat on the edge of the bench, poised to take off. The old woman released the carriage, but not my arm. We sat in tense silence for a moment until the priest who’d walked by moments ago emerged from the dogwood hedges behind us. Elderly and stocky, he walked with a stride too limber for his age and girth, and he perched on the edge of a concrete planter beside our bench.

“Ms. Hayes. Mrs. Cummings.” He called our names as if starting a meeting. As he spoke, the rest of the park seemed to fade away, leaving only the four of us under the shady limbs of an oak.

“Father Joseph Xavier,” the priest introduced himself. “This is Sonia Vlosnick.” The old woman nodded, smiling sweetly, her hand still on my arm.

“We had no intention of startling you. We merely wish to talk.”

“Then tell Ms. Vlasic to let go of my friend.”

“Vlosnick,” Sonia corrected. “Vlasic’s the pickles. But please, dear, call me Sonia.”

“Let her go, Sonia.”

“Let me go, Sonia.” Susan and I spoke together, a fuming duet. The priest said something to Sonia in a language I didn’t recognize.
Sonia released me, leaving an angry red handprint above my wrist.

“I’m so sorry if I hurt you, dear.” She patted the red marks. “But I had to make sure you wouldn’t run off before Father Joseph determined that we were safe here.”

“Who the hell are you?” Susan was more than ready to run off anyway.

“Let me explain,” the priest said. “I work unofficially with an immigration organization based in northeast philadelphia. Sonia represents a coalition of citizens concerned with illegal immigrants.”

“What organization? What coalition?” I tried to sound authoritative. Who were these people? The priest paused, gazing across the park.

“Actually, there are several. The pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition.” The woman smiled. “And the Archdiocese and the Nationalities Service Center, and—”

“We’ve come about the young ladies,” the priest interrupted. “The ones you found.”

“We hope you can help us.” Sonia’s voice was high and birdlike. She began to roll the carriage back and forth as if rocking a baby to sleep. I rubbed my arm.

“It’s terribly important that we learn everything we can about the women. What you saw. What condition the bodies were in. Who else was on the scene. And what was in the water with them.”

Why? Who were these people that they should want to know about nineteen dead women? I leaned closer to Susan, jabbing her lightly with my elbow, hoping she’d take my cue and run with me screaming out of the park. But Susan didn’t notice my jab. I leaned forward, trying to catch her eye, but she didn’t look at me.

“We’ve already given statements to the police,” she said. “We don’t know anything else. There were a bunch of them and they were all dead; that’s all we know.”

“Not quite all, dear.”

The priest looked over Sonia’s shoulder, scanning trees and
rooftops. His gaze never rested in one place. When he spoke, his voice was soft and gritty, like pouring sand. “pardon my lack of eye contact. What Sonia and I do is quite dangerous. We have to be aware of who’s around at all times.”

Sonia nodded. “We’re dressed this way to conceal our identities.” She leaned close, whispering. “Father’s mustache isn’t real.”

“Sonia—” The priest scowled and muttered foreign syllables.

“My bosom isn’t either,” Sonia continued undeterred. I looked at her more closely. A fine cloth seam peeked out along her hairline; her gray twisted bun was a wig. Oh, Lord. Who were these people? I clutched the phone, ready to speed-dial the police.

“Our work is risky, so we need to keep our relationship confidential—”

Relationship? We had a relationship?

“He’s right, dears. You mustn’t tell anyone about us.” Sonia looked at me. “Even your policeman friend.”

They knew about Nick? How? I examined their faces, wondering what about them, if anything, was real. Their noses? The color of their eyes? Would Susan or I be able to recognize them if we saw them again?

The priest turned and faced the park, looking around, smiling at the nanny by the swings. “My group is dedicated to rescuing the captives and destroying the traffickers. Sonia’s assists those who’ve been rescued or who’ve managed to escape.”

Susan squinted, suspicious and angry, maybe about to explode.

“Well, I don’t see what we can do for you.” I spoke so Susan wouldn’t. “The women we found were beyond saving.”

Father Joseph Xavier watched a little boy careen down the slide. “Let me clarify. The women you found were but a small part of a much larger shipment by a particular dealer. That dealer handles dozens of such deliveries each year. philadelphia’s a transit point for their northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.”

The slave trade was divided into regions. Like soft-drink distribution and automobile dealerships. In this century. In America.

“And the authorities don’t stop them, dears—”

“Sonia, be quiet. Let me finish.” The priest spoke firmly, clasping his rough, unpriestlike hands. “The INS, the FBI, the police— all the authorities who are supposed to apprehend these criminals are completely inept. Useless. In fact, we know for certain that several of those agencies have been infiltrated by the cartels. Others—like the Archdiocese, the Farmworkers and so on—they try to help, but they’re limited legally and financially. So, Sonia and I have come to represent a different group . . . less restrained than formal organizations. We conduct discreet rescue missions. We free captives and destroy traffickers by any means necessary, without regard to bureaucracy.”

Oh dear. Sonia and Father Joseph looked elderly and harmless. Apparently, though, they were neither. Who were they? Who funded them? Who provided their information? Susan’s brow was furrowed.

“But really, we don’t know anything,” I repeated.

“Just tell us exactly what you told the police,” Sonia said.

“No. We’re not telling them a damned thing, Zoe,” Susan snapped. “Why should we? Who the hell are they? We’re going to confide in strangers wearing disguises? Please. I’m not talking to some clown in a costume. This is bullshit.”

Oh, excellent. Here we go, I thought. Susan was openly defying, even insulting them. Two disguised potential hit men with a possible bomb in their buggy had all but abducted us, and Susan was challenging their authority to ask us questions.

The priest’s eyes darted around. “I advise you to keep your voice down, Mrs. Cummings.”

“Look, dears. We have reason to believe that the cartel is in an uproar, and not just because of the loss of those poor women. Apparently, other materials were lost as well. Materials that contain critical information—”

The priest interrupted, blinking rapidly, urgent. “Just tell us one thing. Did you find anything—anything at all—in the water besides bodies?”

Susan and I exchanged silent glances.

“Do try to trust us, dears,” Sonia cooed. When she reached into her diaper bag I thought she was going to pull out a gun. Instead, she took out two business cards and handed one to each of us. “This is the phone number where you can reach us. Day or night. Sometimes, the smallest detail can be important. Things they wore, like lockets or rings, can help us identify them. Or things they held on to, like photographs. Or things floating in the water with them—”

Like a Humberton hat? No, Sonia couldn’t have known about that. Nick said nobody knew.

“Or marks on their bodies. Some of the larger cartels mark their people with logos.”

I swallowed and said nothing, recalling what Nick had told me that three wavy lines had been tattooed on each woman’s shoulder.

“They brand them,” Sonia explained, “so, if one escapes, she’ll be identified and returned to the cartel.”

“We didn’t see anything like that.” Susan was adamant.

The priest took out his handkerchief and wiped sweat from his forehead. In the heat, his dark, collared costume must have been unbearable.

Sonia rocked the carriage back and forth. “Well, it gets quite grisly, dears. More so than you want to know.”

“You’re right. We don’t know and we don’t want to know—”

“How callous of you, Mrs. Cummings.” The priest’s voice was raspy and cold. “They were poor and helpless. Uneducated. Desperate. Risking everything to come here in hopes of jobs or marriage or just chances at survival. Instead, they were brutalized, taken into slavery. They lived in fear of the cartels and the INS. Fear that their families would be punished or killed. Fear of being deported home and imprisoned, tortured or killed. Fear ruled their lives, so they’d become quite docile.”

Susan’s eyes fired up and she shook her head. I knew she was girding for a debate. “It’s hard for us to imagine,” I blurted, swinging my leg and kicking Susan to shut her up.

“Ouch,” Susan yelped.

“Shush,” I whispered.

Sonia conferred with the priest in their tongue. “Why’d you kick me?” Susan rubbed her leg, irked. “So you’d be quiet.”

“Really. Didn’t it occur to you to say ‘Be quiet’? Or did you see no alternative to breaking my leg?”

“Please, Susan. I didn’t kick you that hard.” “I’ll be limping for a week.”

“Okay,” Father Joseph said. “Since you apparently have trouble accepting what we’re telling you, we’re going to show you. If these women are seen talking to the police or the government, or trying to run away, they are tortured and disfigured, maybe killed. By the time they get here, they know this. They’ve seen what their captors will do.” The priest’s eyes had hardened to shining steel. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and held it out to us. “Look. See for yourself.”

Neither of us reached for the envelope, so he opened it and took out some photographs. I looked away, but not before seeing shiny globs of red and black. Oh, Lord. Charred flesh?

“You can see why it’s important, dears,” Sonia urged. “Tell us everything you saw. Even the FBI might not know what to make of the information, but we will. Tell us, for your own good.” So-nia’s voice was soft and melodic, but her words sounded chilling.

“We have nothing to tell you.” Susan shoved the pictures back at the priest.

My cell phone began to ring. Maybe it was Nick calling back. Or Molly with a problem at school. Or the FBI agent warning that two psychos might ambush us in the park. I began to reach for it, but Sonia intervened, pushing my hand away, shaking her head, no. The priest was still talking, looking grave.

“. . . And, in that case, you’ll need our help.”

In what case?

“This is an international multibillion-dollar, multitiered enterprise involving millions of women. Its tentacles reach everywhere— into governments, into law enforcement, into communities—”

“He’s right, dears. And you can’t count on the authorities; they may have been compromised. So don’t talk to them—especially about us.”

“Mrs. Cummings, Ms. Hayes.” Father Joseph’s eyes remained focused on the playground. “The people who run this operation …human life is nothing to them. They don’t care if you really know anything about them or not. It’s enough for them that you might. If they suspect that you might give a tidbit of information to the authorities or to us, they won’t risk it. They’ll eliminate you without hesitation.”

“They’re very violent, dears. You’ve seen just a few of their victims.” She nodded at the photos in the priest’s envelope. “We’ve dealt with many, many more. Believe me, by comparison, the young women you found were lucky.”

“I think these people are trying to scare us, Zoe.” Susan frowned. “Let’s go.” She started to stand.

“You should be scared.” The priest blocked her way. “The local traffickers bungled their work. They not only lost a valuable cargo, but they also lost incriminating materials and exposed the slave trade to the public eye. Heads will roll for that. But, that aside, you and your friend found their property, and the traders don’t know how much you saw or what you might have found or know—”

“So, even if we don’t actually know anything, we’re still in danger?” My mouth was dry; I had trouble forming the words.

“Ridiculous,” Susan said. “All we did was bump into some floaters. We don’t know a damned thing, and nobody in their right minds would think we did.” She stood. My legs felt weak as I followed.

Sonia rearranged the empty baby blankets. “Nobody said these people are in their right minds, dears. They might send someone to question you, to find out what you know. Or they might dispense with the questions and just omit the risk. You know, dears. Snuff you out.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Susan turned to go.

The priest put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re not here just to ask questions, Mrs. Cummings.” He looked away, scanning the trees at the edge of the park. “We’re here to warn you about what you’re dealing with. You’ve stumbled into a snake pit. Watch your steps.”

“Well, thanks for your opinion,” Susan said. “Guys, it’s been fun, really. We’re done here, Zoe.” She began to walk.

Dazed, I managed to join her, with each step expecting bullets to rip our backs. But we passed kids on the jungle gym, nannies and young mothers chatting on a bench without getting shot.

“What the hell was that?” I whispered near the merry-go-round.

“Keep walking,” she said.

We went on through the park, hearing the laughter of children as if it were miles away. When we’d made it to the exit gate, I looked back but saw no grandmother with a pram, no priest. The bench where we’d left them was empty. And they weren’t anywhere nearby.

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. Lord, it was hot. I kept looking around, searching for people who might be the priest or Sonia out of disguise. A pair of teenage girls strolled by in skimpy shorts and halter tops that exposed belly rings and shoulder tattoos. A young man with an aqua Mohawk, arm in arm with his magenta-haired girlfriend, both with rows of piercings in their eyebrows, nostrils and lips. A young woman with a ponytail in spandex jogging clothes.