BOLA Ň O, Roberto

2666

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On December 19, on some land near Colonia Kino, a few miles from the Gavilanes del Norte farming cooperative, the remains of a woman were found in a plastic bag. According to the police statement, she was another victim of the Bisontes gang. According to the medical examiners, the victim was between fifteen and sixteen years old, five foot two or five foot three, and it had been approximately a year since she’d been killed.

In the bag were a pair of cheap navy blue pants, like the kind women wore to work at the maquiladoras, a shirt, and a black plastic belt with a big plastic buckle, of the decorative variety.

The case was handled by Inspector Marcos Arana, recently transferred from Hermosillo, where he was attached to the narcotics squad, but on the first day Inspector Angel Fernandez and Inspector Juan de Dios Martinez showed up at the scene. The latter, when told to leave the case to Arana because they wanted to break him in, took a stroll around the area until he came to the gates of the Gavilanes del Norte farming cooperative. The main house still had its roof and windows, but the other buildings looked as if they’d been flattened by a hurricane.

For a while, Juan de Dios wandered around the ghost farm, to see if he could at least find a farmworker or a child or a dog, if nothing else, but even the dogs were gone.
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Translation: Natasha WIMMER