The case in the desert

 

Rafael Becerra was working on an article about the impact of illegal border crossings on the cities on the Mexican side of the border, focussing on the surge in gangs trading in trafficking immigrants.

 

He was driving from the border to Acuña, when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a figure in the desert, a long way from where he was driving. For no good reason he stopped his car and took out his camera, which had a telephoto lens, to enable him to take a closer look. When asked later he couldn’t explain what instinct or inclination had caused him to stop, all he could think was that after days of driving to and fro across the desert he was used to its natural empty state and wanted to identify the stray dot.

 

Through the telephoto lens he was able to make out the man reasonably clearly. He was Mexican, about average height, and was fully engrossed digging a hole. There was no jeep or other vehicle in site, meaning that whoever the figure was had walked there, goodness knows where from, goodness knows how far.

 

Rafael watched the man for several minutes, during which time the man took a metallic case, buried it in the hole, and started to fill the hole in.

 

Rafael looked at his watch. He was due to meet a pollero, whose interview he hoped would form the core of his article. He couldn’t risk missing the appointment, besides, if he parked the car waiting there was a strong chance that the man would see him, in fact all he would have to do is look up. No, far better to drive off, to act as if he’d seen nothing and come back later, with a spade, to dig up the case and solve the mystery.

 

Rafael marked the spot where he had stopped his car, part burying a bottle in the sand by the side of the road, and taking GPS coordinates with his phone. He took a range of photos in the hope that this would help him find the spot where the case was buried, although the lack of features in the desert made it extremely hard to judge the angle and the distance at which the distant man was standing.

 

Later that day, Rafael phoned his editor and explained his plan, to come back in a few days’ time to dig up the case and see if there was a story. “It could be anything,” he said, “drugs, money, even body parts.”

 

His editor was dubious about the project, but agreed. “What the heck. It’s Mexico, your expenses will be cheap, even if you dig up an unwanted Christmas present it’s no great loss to me. But you have to have someone with you.”

 

“Why? I’m used to working alone. And if you’re thinking about danger, then my current assignment’s 1,000 times more dangerous than it would be to just dig up a case. I’ve just spent a week on my own, walking in the shadows of the law, digging up the dirt on some of the most dangerous narcos in the state, I’ve been a knife-edge from a knife-edge the whole time.”

 

“That’s why. It’s a safe case, if you’ll pardon the pun. I want you to take our new photographer along, break her in gently. It’ll be useful experience for her, seeing a side of life she’s not seen before, a chance to get to know Mexico. Take your time, spend a night in Acuña.

 

“Why, the case was just a couple of hours’ from the border. It’s a day-round trip.”

“Because, as I said, I want you to break her in. Show her life in Acuña, let her see the sights, the grotty hotels, the dark bars, drive through the streets, I want her to get a picture of what life is like there.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

 

“Only that Mexico is one big motherfucking powder keg of news waiting to burst. Drugs, illegal immigrants, organised crime, disease, everything America has to fear is sitting there, just a few miles from the border.  Anyone starting out in journalism needs to get to know Mexico, as a priority, and you’re the man to show her round.”

 

The planned trip didn’t happen for over a month, as a story broke in Spain, and as the only available Spanish speaker the paper had on their books Rafael had to fly to Europe for three weeks.

 

The photographer picked him up from his house, as his own car had been stolen while he was in Europe and his insurer was refusing to pay up for a replacement car due to some piece of small print which was almost certainly illegal, but he wasn’t going to get in debt throwing thousands of dollars at a lawyer in order to prove it.

 

She looked younger than he expected, barely out of school if his eyes were to believed. ‘Must take really good photos’ he thought to himself, only, of course, that’s not what he thought to himself at all, for Rafael was something of a cynical man.

 

“Hi,” she said, “I’m Sally.”

 

They shook hands and Rafael put his bag in her boot and a few of bottles of water on the floor in the front seat where he was sitting.

 

“You can never have too much water out there,” he said. “You ever been to Mexico?”

 

“No,” Sally said. “I’ve never left the States. Matt says I need to broaden my horizons if I’m going to make it in journalism.”

 

The drive took four hours, during which time Rafael and Sally talked, listened to the radio, drove in silence, and talked some more.

 

Eventually they approached the gps coordinates Rafael had given her.

“Drive real slow,” he said, “somewhere by the side of the road is a bottle.”

 

“You hope.”

 

“Yeah, it’s been a lot longer than I’d planned.”

 

In fact Rafael spotted the planted bottle at the first drive-past. They parked, took a shovel and cameras from the rear of the car, along with water, snacks and suncream in a rucksack.

 

They trudged off across the desert.

 

“It’s over here somewhere,” Rafael said. “About two and a quarter miles I’d say, though it could be more. It’s hard to judge distances out here.

 

It took them nearly two hours to find the hole, not counting a fifteen minute break for a picnic lunch.

 

“This must be it,” Rafael said, “you can see this ground has been dug recently.”

 

“Unless it’s a body.”

“Well, that happens, there’s a lot of gun crime this side of the border, crime’s one of the main industries around here, and rival gangs come to blows on a near daily basis. But chances of there being anything else buried near here ...” He gestured to the wide acreage of nothing surrounding them with a wild, sweeping gesture.

“Besides, it’s the wrong place. A body would be buried at night, nearer to the road, or during the day, a long, long way from the road. This spot makes no sense. That’s one of the reasons I was intrigued.”

 

Rafael started to dig, pausing every few seconds to pose for a shot, until Sally said she had enough for now.

 

“So what do you think’s in there?” she asked. This is the first time she’s sounded serious, thought Rafael, for Sally had indeed breezed through the day so far, even the slow trudge through the desert searching for the burial site.

 

“That’s what’s intriguing, it could be literally anything. There’s so much crime in this area, so many different crimes. It could be money, drugs, body parts, or it could be nothing, the guy might just have buried some trash – maybe it’s just an unwanted suitcase.”

 

“So it might not be a story. We could be wasting our time?”

 

“Ah, even then it’ll make a weekend magazine feature – the novelty items found buried by an overly sceptical old journalist.”

 

“Better get another shot of you then, one of you looking old and sweaty.”

 

“Thanks,” said Rafael, though he smiled for the picture.

 

It took another twenty minutes digging before Rafael retrieved the case.

 

Rafael had bought with him a crowbar, wirecutters in case the case wouldn’t unlock, but the case wasn’t locked and the lid lifted without so much as a squeak.

 

“So this is it,” Rafael said, “the moment of reckoning.”

 

He opened the case nervously, as if expecting something to jump out. Sally, he noticed through the corner of his eye, had taken a few steps back and was looking away, not the natural instinct of a great photographer, but understandable non the less.

 

Inside the case was – well, Rafael burst out laughing.

 

“It’s a record player,” he told Sally, who was looking puzzled at the contraption.

 

“A record player?”

 

“Yeah, vinyl, like pre-CDs. A wind-up record player. There’s even a record with it.”

 

“‘A wonderful world’.”

 

“Al Green. Perfect for the weekend story. Wonder if this thing still works.”

 

Rafael wound the mechanism, placed the record on the turntable and watched as the disc rotated.

“God I can’t remember the last time I heard vinyl.”

 

“Don’t think I ever have,” said Sally, making Rafael feel suddenly older, well, maybe just made him feel his age.

 

The song blared out across the desert and, spontaneously, taken over by the moment, Rafael took Sally in his arms and the two of them begun to dance. Then, when the record came to an end, while Rafael placed the needle back at the beginning of the record she set up her camera, to photograph the two of them dancing.

 

“This’ll set tongues wagging at the paper,” he said.

 

“They’ll probably just think I’m your secret love child,” Sally said, with a smirk, though ‘smirk’ was a word Rafael had never used once in his journalistic career, not in the thousands of articles he had written over his career, it was a word from the part of his lexicon that he recognised but would never use.

 

They danced and joked for half an hour before putting the record player back in the case.

 

It only when Rafael was aout to re-bury it that he noticed the second case.