THE BODY

The Curandera

The next morning I woke up early still with the case in my head. I moped around the house (I'm guessing) until I couldn't stand it any more.  I got dressed and called my supervisor and told him some lie about getting a new lead in the case and he approved the over time (sucker). I just couldn't stand not working the case. I called Danny and told him to meet me at the PD. "I'm outside", he said. I looked out the window and saw him parked outside. "How long?", I asked. "Well, your burritos are cold", he said. I told you he has real good instincts. We dumped the burritos. I don't eat cold burritos. 

I jumped in and we headed to the office for the file. We then took a trip down Highway 281 and drove by the city landfill. It was the closest most logical place to hide a body. If you placed it just right there would be tons of trash piled on it daily. But we had no idea where to start. We drove around the piles of stench. I had never been to the dump before. There was a guard on duty and no one else around, unless you count the dogs looking for a meal and the hawks diving for rats. The area was huge and we had no way of knowing where to start. We headed for Jo Ana's house. Surprise visit time. I love surprise visits. If you're an investigator, and you don't do a surprise visit, then you are not doing enough, or having any fun either. You need to catch people off guard if you want to find any answers. Don't let them know your're coming and they won't be as ready to lie to you. 

We pulled up to the house. Several cars were parked along the street and in the yard. Family and friends had gathered for prayer vigils and search meetings. They had made posters and fliers and had spread them out all over town. They needed each other. I saw the father sitting out on the porch. He was different already from yesterday. Overnight his hair went from salt and pepper to almost just salt. A lady walked out of the house followed by an entourage of people. She was an older woman, slouched and slow with a cane. A young woman held her other arm as they walked down the steps. The older lady held a rosary in her hand. 

I told Danny to get down and ask questions. The questions didn't really matter. We were there because we had nowhere else to go. I sat in the car and watched for a bit. The older lady slowly walked around the mobile home waving her hands and sprinkling something on the ground. She was a curandera. A good witch.  Judging by her entourage, an important one. Obviously that family called her for help in finding Jo Ana.  After she was done her people loaded her into a van and then piled in with her and left. Family members and friends stayed behind watching her leave. They seemed different than yesterday, smaller. I knew I was running out of time. After almost a week of her missing, the scenery had just changed for them. 

Danny came back to the car. "I know where the body is", he said. "Near a body of water, I imagine", I said sarcastically. It's always near a body of water. And sure enough it will be true when we find her. She will be near a body of water. Some canal, lake, pond, swimming pool, or bucket of water will be near by and the prediction will be true. I wondered how much they had paid this curandera. Danny went on, "Well, no, she's in the water, and get this, she's wrapped up in sheet, rolled up into a ball. Under a pile of things. Oh yeah, and something is in her throat." Well, okay then, that's different.

The family had paid the curandera 1,000 dollars to tell them that their daughter was dead. I guess I was glad for that. They needed to hear that and if I had told them they would have not believed it. They would have asked me for proof. You don't need proof from a curandera or you would have not gone to one. Of course she could not tell them exactly where the body was, but that was okay. They were beginning to accept the truth. I wondered if for maybe another 500 she could of told them that Jose did it. Probably not.

That wasn't the first time a curandera got involved in a case I worked. Several years ago the family of a gang member I had arrested several times paid a curandera 2,000 dollars to come over from Mexico and put a death curse on me. She was supposed to come over and kill a chicken and pour the blood over something I had touched (they had a stack of my business cards collected over the years I'm sure). I would be dead within a few days after that. The only problem was that the curandera died of a massive heart attack the moment she crossed the Hidalgo International bridge. Just up and died 2 seconds after she touched the dividing line on the bridge over the Rio Grande River. Word was that whatever curandera taking care of me over here on this side was much more powerful than the witch they had sent. They tried to hire other witches but none would take the job after hearing of the first witch's death.  I don't know if any of that was true, but it's a cool story told to me by one of the family members. Well, maybe not a cool story for the witch. 

Jose had been there during the curanderas reading. He heard her words. He was running out of time, and so was I. I didn't think Jose was some psychopath who could take all this pressure around him. He killed her. I knew that much. But it could have well been accidental. It could have been something that just went totally wrong. I don't know. I needed something more than what I had to ensure a confession.