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“The goat?” He shrugs and looks out over the neighborhood again. “I’ve lived here for decades. The biggest criminal I’ve seen is wasted potential. It’s everywhere you look.”
I feel oddly compelled to tell him he’s wrong. That my family was the victim of this mythical goat, whose reign extends well beyond this small town, and that I stumbled upon a curious portal in my own bedroom. Now’s not the time, though. I have far more to investigate before I begin throwing around accusations in this town. “And the stories? The murders? The families he’s terrorized?”
“Is that why you came here, Father? To deliver us all from the great white goat?” He scratches at his beard, and doesn’t prod when I don’t answer. “Every murder holds a truth. Some are more obvious than others. For the ones that aren’t, I suppose a mysterious goat who runs with dangerous criminals makes for a good story.”
I send a quick glance back toward the church, before returning my gaze. “Well, I don’t want to hold you up. I’m sure Father Javier is waiting for you.”
* * *
Iclick out of the website on my laptop, a discussion board I found on a subreddit from two years ago. Some guy posted a story aboutEl Cabro Blancoand how he came from Mexico to the US back in the early eighties, seeking asylum from a druglord, who apparently wanted to buy his wife. He refused, and managed to cross the border before he was captured by guards who’d been paid handsomely to turn him over to the druglord. The druglord then proceeded to rape his wife and murdered his daughter in front of him. He thought he’d murdered his son, as well, but the boy survived. The story went on to say thatEl Cabro Blancotook revenge years later by raping the druglord’s wife and teenage daughter, before setting them on fire. He then decapitated his young son and castrated the druglord, as a means of ending his bloodline. Others on the thread debate the story with their supposed facts, until it’s so damn convoluted, I have no idea what originally happened. Whether he originated in the US, or came from some small Mexican village.
None of the stories seem to derive from any credible source, either. Other than the urban legends, there are no pictures of him, no news stories. Surely, a man embedded that deep in the criminal world, with the reputation of that many kills, would have some history of arrest, embroiled in one of the many murder rumors that seem to involve his name.
I’m chasing a ghost.
As for Father Javier, he could fit the bill—I’d guess him to be somewhere in his fifties, which would make him quite young in the early eighties, but it’s plausible. As for him being a priest, well, I know better than anyone how easily one can hide in plain sight.
Setting my laptop aside, I climb out of bed and kneel down beside the nightstand. Opening the door brings me staring down into a black hole again. The entire inside of it has been hollowed out completely, leaving an empty shell of furniture that covers the gaping entrance to a tunnel. I reach for the same flashlight I used the night before, and peer into the hole, which must extend a good fifteen, or twenty, feet down. The smooth surface of the dirt, reinforced by concrete, shows great care in constructing the tunnel, and the ladder appears to be anchored into the earth.
Sliding the flashlight between my teeth, I set my foot onto one of the ladder rungs and push down on it to test its capacity. Through the cupboard door, my other foot joins the first, until I’m half in and half out of the nightstand. Ducking down, I step down another rung, and another, each time pressing down on the ladder to test its weight. In minutes, I’m fully inside the nightstand, what seems to be around halfway down ladder, and twisting around, I point the flashlight toward the darkness below me. More dirt. More tunnel.
With slow steps, I descend the ladder farther, occasionally glancing up to see the light from my bedroom diminishing, the deeper I go. When I reach the bottom, the air is cooler and feels damp at the back of my throat with every inhale.
I point the flashlight ahead of me to see the narrow tunnel extends far beyond the arc of light. Thousands of feet, I guess, beneath the border wall into Mexicali. It’s big enough that I can stand upright down here, and the air isn’t as thin as I expected. Perhaps because of ventilation systems installed throughout, which line the ceiling alongside electrical wires connected to the lamps. I’ve read about them in passing, state of the art tunnels designed to transport goods, but I always imagined some sketchy-looking abandoned joint being the entry, or exit, point. Certainly not a rectory, which makes it somewhat brilliant, in all honesty, if not a little unnerving.
I can’t imagine it stands useless, or unused, which means someone has access to my living space. Javier must have expected that, at some point, I’ll come face to face with an intruder.
Still scanning over the surroundings, I take a moment to imagine what that means for the other priests who’ve come and gone.
Pulling myself up the rungs of the ladder, I ascend the hole back up into my bedroom, where I crawl out of the nightstand and tumble onto the floor beside the bed. Flicking off the flashlight, I stare at the entrance, silently measuring the pros and cons of keeping this discovery to myself.
One thing is for certain, I can’t allow any trace of who I really am to remain at the rectory.
And should anyone come through that entrance while I’m here, I only hope they’ve made peace with God beforehand.
33
Ivy
The moon sits high in the sky, as I finish up the last of my smoke and head in for the night. Tomorrow, I plan to do a bit exploring throughout the city—at least go for a walk to shake off the boredom of living out of a small hotel room for the next three weeks.
A notification lights up my phone, and I stare down at an email address I recognize, before clicking it open to a message from my old boss in the medical records department. Perhaps the only person, besides Mamie, who happens to have access to my personal email.
A man came by looking for you today. Suit and tie, carrying an expensive-looking briefcase. Told him you didn’t work here anymore. He gave me his number in case I heard from you. 555-347-2991. Hope everything is well with you.
Barbara
Suit and tie, and expensive briefcase? Could’ve been an investigator, or worse. Hopefully, he won’t return there, and I won’t have to watch another news report of someone indirectly murdered because of me.
For kicks, I look up the number, which takes me to some law firm out of Los Angeles.
Law firm? With a frown, I scour my brain for any recollection of the place, and the only thing that comes to mind are the fees that shithead Calvin supposedly got waived for my grandmother. Perhaps this place got word of her death and wants to strap me with her debt.
Shaking my head, I delete all evidence of the phone number from my search, and the email Barb sent, to which I have no intentions of responding.
A noise from inside my room steels my muscles, and I push up from my chair, hidden outside the curtain of the door, and peer inside.
Damon stands at the entrance, emptying something from his wallet onto the dresser.
