“Cleaning crews usually aren’t that detailed. I can send a team and—”
“I don’t think you’re hearing me. The place was clean. And not by any maid service. More like a forensics expert.”
“A professional,” Keller said. It was consistent with the staged crime scene, the wiped phones.
Escobar said, “Makes sense.”
“CCTV cameras in the area?” Keller knew the answer, but had to ask.
“I’m sorry. But this isn’t Manhattan, Agent Keller.”
“Is there anything—anything at all—that will help us ID the guy?” Keller knew the answer to this as well.
Escobar paused, then said, “I feel like Gutierrez knows something. It’s a pretty corrupt force.”
“The cop who gave us trouble releasing the bodies? The one who threatened Matt Pine.”
“Sí.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I tried, but he refuses to speak with me.”
Keller worked through this. She couldn’t force a foreign municipal police officer to cooperate with them. And Carlita Escobar was the person the State Department said had the best chance of dealing with the Tulum force. Now even she was getting stonewalled. “I’m open to ideas,” Keller said.
After another long silence, Escobar said, “There may be a way to get Gutierrez to tell us what he knows.”
Keller wasn’t sure what she meant by that. The way Escobar said it made Keller wary.
“What do you mean?”
“He won’t answer my questions. He knows I’m constrained by American interview techniques.…”
Keller tried to digest where Escobar was going with this, and didn’t like it.
“But I’m family friends with a state senator. He holds sway with the Mexican federal police. And I’m sure he could get them to question Gutierrez.”
Keller was starting to wonder whether, despite her protests to the contrary, Escobar was in fact related to Pablo. She imagined the local cop in a basement that had a drain in the middle of the floor.
Escobar said, “Of course I would never ask them to do that. But if the senator knew Gutierrez was making the US State Department unhappy, he might take the matter into his own hands.…”
Keller wanted the man with the cleft lip. He was now linked to the disappearance of Joey Grace and death of the Pines. But she wouldn’t break the law. “Let’s call that Plan B,” Keller said.
“Of course, I wasn’t suggesting—”
“Did you find anything else?” Keller said, sparing Escobar the false denial.
“One more thing,” Escobar said. “The bartender where the girl worked. He said he’d seen her with a man who fits the description. Just one time. But he remembered because Joey Grace made the bartender an unusual offer.”
Keller felt a flutter of excitement again. “What was it?”
“She paid the bartender four thousand pesos to call a cell phone number if anyone came to the bar looking for an American girl.”
“Did he ever make that call?
“Sí. He said a man, an American, showed up at the bar one night looking for a girl.”
“Evan Pine,” Keller said.
“Sí. I showed the bartender a photo, and he confirmed.”
Keller played this out in her mind. The man with the cleft lip scar hired a local party girl to pose in a video as Charlotte to make a deepfake and lure Evan Pine to Tulum, perhaps making it easy for Evan to trace her to the particular club. Then he paid the bartender there to call him when Evan arrived and started asking questions.
This had to be a professional.
“Thank you for all your hard work on this,” Keller said.
“My pleasure.” Then, in a matter-of-fact tone that sent a chill down Keller’s back, Escobar said, “I’ll contact you when we find the girl’s body.”
CHAPTER 52
MAGGIE PINE
BEFORE
Maggie and her father walked side by side along the dirt pathway at the Mayan ruins in Tulum, the afternoon sun beating down on them. Mom was chasing after Tommy, who’d run ahead. The ruins were somewhat disappointing, Maggie thought. Too many tourists. Not so many ruins. There was even a Starbucks, for goodness’ sake. It reminded Maggie of an ancient college campus made of crumbling stone. The centerpiece was a tall temple facing an open field, with smaller buildings at the perimeter. The area wasn’t in a jungle, like in the old Indiana Jones movies Matt used to watch over and over, but atop a cliff overlooking the ocean.