The Dead Women of Juarez (34 page)

Behind the wheel, he steered himself to the Hospital General. He signed in at the front desk and went to Kelly’s room. It was empty.

Sevilla went to the nurse’s station. “Excuse me, I came to visit Kelly Courter. He was in that room just there.”

The nurse furrowed her brow. “Who?”

“Kelly Courter. He was being cared for here. Just there. That room.”

“You mean the American?”

“Yes, the American. Kelly Courter. Where has he gone?”

“One moment,
señor
.” The nurse used the phone. She spoke with her back to Sevilla and glanced once over her shoulder at him in a way Sevilla did not like. When she returned she was polite. “Please wait for Señora Garza. She is the head nurse.”

Sevilla looked into Kelly’s room again as if he might be there again and it would all be a mistake, but the bed was empty and the sheets fitted tightly. The quiet machines that ensured his breathing and monitored his pulse and kept track of the functions of his body were all gone. The room seemed emptier still than just of life.

“
¿Señor
? Pardon me.”

He turned away from the room. The head nurse was there in her whites.

“I’m looking for Kelly Courter. He was in this room.”

“He’s been moved.”

Sevilla could not describe the sensation that rushed through him. It was more than relief or happiness but something akin to both that made his face flush and his skin tingle. He gripped Señora Garza on the arm and felt himself nearly cry. “Is he all right?”

“Yes. He’s been moved to a bed in chronic care. Follow me.”

They went away from the intensive care unit to the third floor. Kelly was held in a long room with many other beds, some occupied and some empty, the only real division between them being curtains hung from sliding tracks in the ceiling. Kelly seemed smaller here, lighter and paler, but he was real and he was alive.

“Thank you,
señora
,” Sevilla told the head nurse. She left them there.

He could not sit far away from Kelly here, but was so close that his leg touched the bed. This close he could hear Kelly breathing on his own, see the stubble of beard that the hospital staff kept down with trimmers and smell the odor of a man bathed every other day with a sponge as he lay motionless.

How to begin?

“Kelly,” Sevilla said. “I came to… I wanted you to know.”

There was no reason for him to hesitate. Things were no different between them, though Sevilla felt changed. It was the place, open enough that anyone could hear Sevilla talking and draw judgments that only Kelly was qualified to make. Sevilla did not want to speak here, to tell the things he knew and what he’d seen.

Sevilla put his hand on Kelly’s. It was surprisingly warm and soft the way boxers’ hands were always soft, steamed inside tape
and gloves for long sessions before the bag. His own hand trembled and then his whole body shook, his breaths shuddery and his eyes suddenly filled with stinging tears. He held onto Kelly and cried until the urge was passed and then he rubbed his eyes with the edge of his sleeve.

“It’s all right now, Kelly,” Sevilla said. “It’s all right now.”

T
HE
D
EAD
W
OMEN OF
J
UÁREZ
IS A
work of fiction and the Ciudad Juárez of the novel has been semi-fictionalized to fit my purposes as a storyteller. That said, the problem of the
feminicidios
, the “female homicides” of the
real
Ciudad Juárez, is not some feat of morbid imagination.

Since 1993 more than four hundred women have gone missing in the city or been found raped and murdered. A handful of the cases have been tried in court, but to a one the suspects have complained of fabricated evidence, torture, forced confessions. For a recent (and excellent) examination of the facts, I refer you to
The Daughters of Juárez
, written by Teresa Rodriguez with assistance from Diana Montané and Lisa Pulitzer.

In recent years the
feminicidios
have been overshadowed by an outrageously violent war between drug cartels that has plagued the state of Chihuahua and the city of Juárez in particular. This doesn’t mean the problem has gone away. If anything the situation is worse because the attention groups like Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights managed to direct to these women has now been taken away. The drug war trumps all.

It is my hope that this novel can in some small way shine a light on the femicides. Many dozens of families hope daily for
justicia
. Some would be happy just for the opportunity to bury their dead. Until the police and the government of Mexico do something substantial, that will never happen.

The group Mujeres Sin Voces in the novel is inspired by the real-life organizations Voces Sin Eco (Voices without Echo) and Las Mujeres De Negro (the Women in Black). I urge you to get involved with the issue through Amnesty International. In the end, this problem will be solved not with a bullet, but by bringing all those responsible for the abuse and murder of Juárez’s daughters to judgment before the law.

—Sam Hawken

R
EGARDLESS OF WHAT IT SAYS ON
the cover, every book is a team effort. With that in mind, I must thank Dave Zeltserman and my agent, Svetlana Pironko, for championing my work when even I had my doubts. Thanks also go to Pete Ayrton and John Williams of Serpent’s Tail for taking a chance on me.

Most of all I thank my wife, Mariann, for allowing me the opportunity to pursue a career as a writer, for being my first reader and prime defense against bad writing, and for being the cornerstone of our family. Without her, there would be no novel for you to read.

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A complete catalogue record for this book can be
obtained from the British Library on request

The right of Sam Hawken to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Copyright © 2011 Sam Hawken

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real
persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2011 by Serpent’s Tail,

an imprint of Profile Books Ltd

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