Down Among the Dead Men

89

They had to dodge the parade and an outdoor food fair to get to the church.

With each new block, they drew closer to the cliffs, as the buildings and houses and roads grew more and more decrepit, reflecting an even older Mexico that hadn’t kept up with the times.

There wasn’t much celebrating going on in this part of town. Some of the houses had makeshift altars in their windows, with burning candles, offerings of fruit, and photos of their dead loved ones. But most of the houses were silent and empty.

After a while, they came to a short dirt road with a battered sign that read: IGLESIA DEL SAGRADO CORAZON. At the end of the road stood a large, rustic adobe structure with a leaning bell tower that looked as if it might topple at any moment.

Church of the Sacred Heart.

They stood at the mouth of the road, gaping at it.

“You sure this is the right one?” Vargas asked.

Ortiz checked his map. “This is it, pocho. ”

“Maybe there’s more than one Church of the Sacred-”

“La iglesia esta cerrada,” a voice said.

They turned to find an old woman on a bicycle staring at them from across the street. A plastic sack full of conchas — Mexican sweet breads-hung from the handlebars.

“La iglesia esta cerrada,” she repeated. The church is closed.

Vargas asked her for how long.

“Many weeks,” she said in Spanish. “After Father Gerard left.”

Ortiz’s eyebrows went up. “The priest is gone?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “One day the police came to speak to him; the next day, no more Gerard.”

Ortiz and Vargas exchanged looks and Vargas turned to translate for Beth.

But Beth wasn’t paying any attention to them, her gaze fixed on the church.

“Go home,” the old woman said. “There is nothing to see here.”

Then she turned her bike around and rode away, the sack of conchas swinging from the handlebars.

Ortiz watched her. “That was weird.”

Vargas nodded. “She came all the way out here with those sweet breads. I wonder who they were for.”

Ortiz shrugged. “Maybe she was selling them.”

Vargas turned to Beth again, but she was still staring at the church. Seemed transfixed.

“We need to come up with another game plan,” he told her. “The old woman says the priest is gone.”

“I know this place,” Beth said, then started up the road toward it.

Beth approached the entrance to the church, a jumble of half-memories swirling through her mind, trying to break through.

She did know this place. She was sure she’d been here before.

Moving up to the double doors, she ran a hand across their warped wooden surface.

It felt familiar to her.

There was a chain and padlock on the door handles, but when Beth pulled on the lock it sprang free in her hand. It hadn’t been fastened properly.

Unwinding the chain, she dropped it aside and pushed the doors open, the old hinges groaning.

Inside was a cavernous room with at least a dozen rows of pews, all facing an altar that featured a larger than life-size figure of Jesus on the cross. Sunlight slanted in from a skylight above and through stained-glass windows high along each side.

Beth had never been religious, but as she moved down the aisle there was no denying the power here. The feeling that you were in the presence of something larger than you. Greater.

She stopped in front of the altar, stared up at the watchful eyes of Christ.

“Beth, what is it?”

She turned. Vargas and Ortiz were standing in the doorway.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “There’s something about this place. I-”

She heard a shuffling sound from above and stopped herself, shifting her gaze to the balcony over the doorway.

To her surprise, a boy stood near the rail, staring down at her. Wide-eyed.

He couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old, a Mexican child wearing only a dark pair of pants. There were burn scars on the right side of his neck and down his arm.

He stared at Beth intently, then broke into a smile. “Elizabeth?”

Startled by the sound of her name, Beth stepped backward. The boy suddenly turned and ran, disappearing from sight, his footsteps clattering on the stairs.

And as Vargas and Ortiz stepped inside to see what the commotion was, the boy emerged at a full sprint and shot past them, coming straight toward Beth-the smile even wider now, a smile of joy as he threw his arms around her and hugged her.

“You came back for us,” he said. “I tell the others you would, but they don’t believe.”

He squeezed her tighter.

“You came back, Elizabeth. You came back.”