Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Poltergeist or Cannibal?

Felipe Altamirano Alvarez Espadachín

By 7:30 p.m that day I was back in my office. During the time in his shop, Rudolfo Basajuan - the old man at Basajuan Motors and Repair Shop - told us a lot about Sergio and Eduardo. Sergio was a former soldier in the Bolivian army with Eduardo Rodriguez. Both of them were diligent soldiers until a woman made a false accusation against both of them. That incident destroyed their careers and forced them to do minor jobs in Roboré. Eduardo Rodriguez sold drugs, while Sergio did something that Rudolfo couldn't recollect. Rudolfo told me that he saw Eduardo Rodriguez regularly in Roboré ever since Eduardo and Sergio were discharged from the army, while Sergio's appearance in Roboré was a rare occurrence.

Luismar had left for Santa Cruz De La Sierra an hour before I reached my office, to meet up with Claire Dakota from Wolfgang Academy who was deputized by Miss Longhorn. Luismar had gone there to be in the city before Dakota's arrival.

My office's whiteboard was filled with notes from different cases. From my conversations with Miss Longhorn, I learned that Wolfgang Academy didn't know who the camp-keeper was. They dealt with the camp keeper (who might have been Sergio Abrigo) through an agency that operated in Santa Cruz De La Sierra. Miss Longhorn told me that she trusted Mr. Gallahger to make the necessary arrangements, so she didn't interfere with the organization of the field trip. All she knew was that Mr. Gallagher met the agent who assigned the children's camp keeper on Lonely Planet: the travel website. Even though we suspected that Sergio Abrigo was the camp keeper, we couldn't confirm that he was the camp keeper until we got a statement from the agency Miss. Longhorn told me about. We believed that Sergio Abrigo was the driver who was killed at the site of the Incasisi accident because one of the phones discovered at the accident site belonged to him. Moreover, Eduardo Rodriguez couldn't be the person in the jeep because he was murdered near Roboré on the day the rainstorm began.

I wrote my notes on the Incasisi accident in my journal before turning to the part of the journal bookmarked as 'Rina, and Kantuta'. I have a habit of keeping a personal journal because it helps me stay organized while I deal with many cases. Next to 7:55 p.m, I wrote the words "Call Adalberto Oliveira". Adalberto Oliveira was a friend of mine who worked at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru. We were classmates and close friends until Oliveira moved to Spain to complete his higher education at the Complutense University of Madrid. We were still friends after he moved to Spain and then to Peru, but we weren't as close as how we were before he went to Spain. Distance always works its decay on friendship. He used to be my neighbor in El Triunfo: a small town I grew up in. I used to be the athletic kid, while he used to be the bookworm. Despite our differences, we got along pretty well. We used to do everything together as best friends do: playing football; watching T.V; and, going to the city to watch a new film. While I became a cop after graduating from High School, he became an academic. His field of study was 'Latin America Studies: Legends and Myths'. It was because of the aforementioned qualification, I decided to contact him. I knew that he could tell me more about Chiy'ara Nayra or La Negra.

Looking at the clock, I figured out that calling him then was ideal as it was nearly 6:55 p.m in Peru. Peruvian time was always one hour behind Bolivian time. By then he would have reached home after grabbing a cup of Starbucks, on his way from his University. I lifted my Nokia 7 Plus smartphone, tapped on the contacts icon and searched for "Adalberto Oliveira". I found his contact and clicked on it, and then clicked on the 'Call Using Sim 2' option. The call was going. After two seconds I heard the ringing sound.

"Hello? This is Professor Adalberto Oliveira."

"Hombre, this is your friend Felipe. Remember? We were neighbors who used to play football back in El Triunfo?"

"Ahh, Felipe. How are you? It's been a long time since we've met! How are you? How are things?"

"Things are fine. Nacho's grown up now. He's going to 10th grade after the summer vacation. How is the weather back there in Peru?"

"Oh man, it's very hot. The heat is driving everybody crazy here. How is everything back there? I heard that there was a lot of disasters."

"There's a lot of cases, Adalberto. A lot of cases popped up after the storm: people missing, people dead and people kidnapped. Speaking of which, I wanted to ask you if you know about something"

"What do you want to know, my friend?"

"Tell me more about this Chiy'ara Nayra. The one people call La Negra?"

"Why do you want to know this? 😂 Are you superstitious?"

"No no. I don't believe in this superstitious nonsense. It's just for a case, Adalberto."

"Do you have a computer next to you?"

"Yes?"

"I want you to pull up Google Maps"

"Okay." I closed three tabs on Google Chrome and typed in 'maps.google.com". After five minutes of slow loading, the page loaded. "I'm there Adalberto."

"Now search for 'La Tierra Del Sangre, Bolivia'."

"Okay". I typed in 'La Tierra Del Sangre'. There was no such name that showed up in the search suggestions. I hit search and waited for the page to load. After five minutes, I told him, "There's no such thing called La Tierra Del Sangre in Bolivia."

"Good. Do you see this unknown piece of land? Only poachers, people who live in the jungle and tribesmen know about it. It's the hunting grounds of La Negra."

"Why does it not show in the maps?"

"Coz the Bolivian surveyors were afraid of it, even though they never believed in ghosts or anything of that sort. Rumor has it that the surveyors deleted that area from the official maps of the Geographical Survey of Bolivia because they didn't want people to go there"

"Afraid of what?"

"Afraid of La Negra."

For an hour, Adalberto told me the story of La Negra from Acahuana to Nayra's escape and her role in haunting the villages.

"What is your opinion on it? Is it a demon or poltergeist?" I asked.

"I think there was a real cannibalistic Nayra during the time of the Incas and during the time of the Spaniards. But if you look at records you see a great dormancy in La Negra sightings until the 1990s when people reported cases of some people dying or missing in that region. That means that she died and there was no cannibal or demon after this Nayra possibly died until the 1990s. Some psychopath is using the identity to haunt others."

"I don't understand. If she died and there were no sightings why is the legend still alive? Like how the tribes know about it and believe in it even after the period of dormancy?"

"The tale has been retold, Felipe. That enforced their beliefs."

"So do you think any actual deaths attributed to La Negra are..."

"They're acts of cannibalism, Felipe," completed Adalberto.

"What?"

"I believe that someone is using the legend as a cover for their crimes."

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Next Chapter: The Night On The Hill