Matt Pacenza

FINDING CARMEN

Adult Crime/Mystery

by Matt Pacenza

 © 2020 

CHAPTER 1

RIVERTON, NY

MAY 2005

Mick Romano could feel his editor’s eyes on him.

“Three stories waiting, Mick,” Jim Francis said, mostly keeping the irritation out of his voice. Mick was 20 minutes late. Again. “Start with the concert announcement, then the shooting, then the Dirty Old Mayor update.”

“On it,” Mick said, trying to sound sprightlier than he felt.

“We need to be on it at 8,” Francis replied. “Remember, we want fresh stories on the web when office workers turn on their computers. That’s your job.”

Mick nodded, wincing.

How had he become this guy? The reporter who gets reprimanded?

Mick wasn’t worried about losing his job at the Press, Riverton, N.Y.’s daily newspaper. He might not always be on time, but his editors liked his stories: He reported and wrote efficiently and accurately.

Mick was solid. That thought might flatter others, but it depressed him. A 42-year-old man who had settled into proficiency as his waistline grew, with middle age looming. A chubby vat of unrealized potential.

Maybe it wasn’t only his work life that was just OK, he thought.

An OK dad, he thought, wincing at a recent memory of hurling a full glass of milk off his patio. An OK friend, who had lost contact with far too many, especially those from Guatemala. An OK son, who dreaded his rare, awkward visits with his father and stepmom.

Mick stretched in his chair as he scanned the first press release, trying to limber up his aching lower back – and his foggy brain.

Ninety minutes later, by the time other reporters and editors trickled in, Mick had written the three stories in rapid succession:

Fans of the 1990s swing revival can expect a little piece of heaven when the Squirrel Nut Zippers bring their hit ‘Hell’ to the Riverton Amphitheater on June 2, kicking off the city’s popular free summer concert series.

An early-morning shooting outside a West Side tavern sent one Riverton man to the hospital with minor leg injuries, police said. Police are asking the public to come forward with information about a brawl that broke out at around 2 a.m. outside of Ruby’s Bar and Grill.

Former Riverton Mayor Ian McInnis, 89, who suffered a serious stroke last month, has recovered sufficiently to move from the hospital to a long-term care facility, his family announced last night. His granddaughter, Teresa McInnis, said the family hoped the 10-term mayor would be able to return home within a month.

 Mick was about to turn to his daily story about a new report hammering Riverton General for its dismal heart surgery survival rates, when he noticed a new email – partly-written in Spanish – from a Carmen Flores.

From: Carmen Flores <chapina9202@aol.com>
To: Mick Romano <mromano@therivertonpress.com>
Subject: HELP ME, MICK. PLEASE

Mick: Vos! There are so many questions I have for you. I can’t believe it’s been 15 years since you left Guate. Are you old like me?  

Holy crap, he thought, memories pouring in. Was it that Carmen? Carmen Nuñez? He kept reading.

Mick, I know this email will sound crazy. And I swear this isn’t a joke. I’m in danger. I had to leave Guate a few weeks ago in a big hurry. I fled to the States. And, today, I swear, I noticed this man, knocking on doors, looking for me. It was him in Guate too. At the airport when I left. I’m even afraid he might find me here at this Internet cafe.

I don’t have time – and I’m scared to put too much detail in this email – but I think this all goes back years and years. To Rachel. To the work we did together. Maybe even earlier.

I am going to go to another city – today. I can keep my head low till October, I think. I hope. I’ve got some money. But I need to talk to someone. I’m not sure what the right thing to do is, for me, or for Guate. I need to know if what I think is happening is really happening. Maybe I need a lawyer, or hell, a priest. I guess a journalist will have to do.

I didn’t know who else I could reach out to, Mick. But I’m sure I can trust you. And, thanks to Christ, I found your email address.

Please write me back. I’ll check email there in a day or two. Give me a phone number.

I have to go.

I miss you.

Carmen.

Mick read the email again. And then a third time. He sat, stunned, his thoughts rushing back to 1990, to Carmen Nuñez, to Rachel Brody.

 CHAPTER 2

GUATEMALA CITY

NOVEMBER 1989

Mick Romano was the only gringo he knew that loved Guatemala City. Sure, it was loud, polluted, and violent, but he relished its frenetic, haphazard energy.

The other members of the Central American Justice Alliance – like Mick, mostly in their 20s – spent as little time in the capital as possible. They preferred their time in the campo, in small villages and refugee camps, where life moved slowly, amidst lush natural beauty and campesinos who shared their stories of surviving Guatemala’s brutal civil war.

Guatemala City, on the other hand, assaulted the senses, with its dark clouds of exhaust, chorus of street vendors and buses crowded to bursting.

His colleagues were thus surprised when Mick volunteered to staff the group's city operations – arranging meetings, writing reports and balancing the books. This was seen as a thankless obligation.

His boss, Kim, studied him skeptically one afternoon while they sat on their patio after a staff meeting.

“Are you sure?” she said. “The city again? This is the hardest role to fill. It’s so polluted here. So loud. People are robbed, routinely. Someone was stabbed on that corner, right there, what, two weeks ago?”

Fair points, Mick acknowledged. “But, in your bucolic campo, are you walking distance from a newsstand selling 11 papers? A smoothie and granola café? A coffee roaster? An ex-pat bar where you can go if you must watch your beloved Knicks or Mets play?”

Mick explained he’d had his fill of the countryside and small towns: He had grown up on his dad’s farm in upstate New York. He went to college in a small city and did his first few newspaper jobs in even smaller ones. He knew rural life. He craved a city’s chaotic bustle.

Mick had grown to realize that his motivations for coming here were different than others in the Guatemalan solidary community.

They had come here to escape decadent, soulless America. They had become socially conscious in college. They left America to live in solidarity with the Third World poor whose lives they diligently studied. They craved a world as different as possible from the bland America of the 1980s they grew up in.

Some of his fellow activists took their commitment so seriously that they would eschew nearly any First World comfort. Some gringos would only eat rice, beans and tortillas to match the diet of most Guatemalans.

Mick admired the purity in the hearts of his fellow volunteers. But, at 26, he had come to Guatemala for more practical reasons.

After graduating from a state college near his family’s farm, Mick had worked at small newspapers in Pennsylvania and Utah. He liked those jobs but made so little he barely scraped by. He had decided one way to make his way to a bigger paycheck at a big city paper was to become bilingual.

He had taken Spanish in college and had spent a few weeks in Costa Rica after graduating from SUNY Binghamton, but his Spanish, at best, was halting.

No tan bueno.

So, he decided to leave Logan, Utah, where he had been energetically covering cops and courts in the small Latter-Day Saint college town, for a year of immersion with a human rights group in Guatemala.

His editor, Jessica – a blunt woman in her 60s – was disappointed when he announced he was leaving. They’d had an easy rapport, and as one of only a few non-LDS staff, had shared a few hours at the town’s one coffee shop and one bar, chatting about journalism and life.

She insisted on a final round of beers at Mulligan’s after he gave his two weeks’ notice that spring of 1989.

“What exactly is the Central American Justice Alliance?”

 “Jessica, I don't know, really. It grew out of the movement that supported the Sandinistas and opposed aid to the Contras. Now, they push to change U.S. policy across the region. They host groups from churches and schools, do reality tours and urge people to write their Congresspeople.”

“I smell folk songs and earnestness, Mick. Aren’t you a bit, uh, skeptical for that world? That’s why you’re a good reporter. Are you really ready for all that sincerity?”

Mick smiled. His phone interviews with the current staff in Guatemala had been, well, earnest. He had considered making jokes about whether the Alliance frowned on its workers starting side businesses in cocaine smuggling, but he had limited his wisecracks.

“I need to leave Utah. There's no one here for me to date, as you know. And I really want to learn Spanish,” he told her. “You’re a great boss, but, come on, did you expect more than two years out of me?”

Jessica laughed, said no, and ordered another pitcher.

Two weeks later, he was in intensive language school in Quetzaltenango and two months after that, in the Alliance’s Guatemala City office.

By the time Mick joined the Alliance, in 1989, Guatemala’s civil war had faded. Earlier that decade, the Guatemalan military, paramilitaries and police had killed several hundred thousand. The country was still tense, but at least the military no longer openly ran the country – a civilian president had been elected in 1986 – and the horrific massacres had ended.

That didn’t mean the country was a thriving democracy: In 1989, Guatemalan citizens still couldn’t hold a small protest, or organize a group of workers, or dig for the remains for their loved ones, without getting death threats.

A growing “civil society” of international and Guatemalan organization was trying, carefully and slowly, to nudge the tense nation towards peace and development. Mick found himself drawn to the solidarity work: The activists he was getting to know were dedicated. Genuine. Caring.

If a bit boring, he sometimes thought. Mick was intellectually stimulated, but lonely. Until he met Carmen Nuñez.

 Carmen had just begun working for the Central American Solidarity Network, which provided funds and training to Guatemalan peace and justice groups.

The Network’s director was Pete Granger, a 6’5’’ man with a big beard who Guatemalans called La Barba. Mick had developed an easy rapport with the Midwestern giant, an affable, wise-cracking Catholic.

Pete explained to Mick over coffee that the Network had decided to hire a Guatemalan to connect to the wave of nonprofits growing out of the ashes of war. It wasn’t easy to tell which budding groups of activists could benefit from a small infusion of cash.

More than once, Pete said, grants of several thousand dollars had disappeared, along with the activist who had convinced the good-natured American of his or her vision. By hiring Carmen, the Network hoped to be more discerning.

 “She’s already making a difference,” Pete continued. “Since she started, no one has used any of our grants to pay a coyote to bring them to the States,” he said, wincing, recalling the gay rights activist who had hightailed his way to Los Angeles soon after a Network grant came his way.

“She’s tough when we meet with the groups. She asks them hard questions, man. They can tell she means business. It’s pretty clear they wish they were talking to that sap, La Barba.”

Mick laughed.

Peter did a spot-on impression of a Guatemalan activist, “Who is this mean woman, Señor Peter?”

One evening at a local bar popular with solidarity groups, Mick spotted Pete talking to a short, lively Guatemalan, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail as she tossed back a rum and Coke and guffawed.

They soon made their way to Mick. Pete introduced Carmen and headed off.

“You must be the chain-smoking, gringo bookkeeper who hates the campo, drinks too much and loves gay bars – even though he isn’t gay?” she asked, in Spanish.

“And you must be the mean Guatemalan who makes indigenous activists cry before you’ll give them a few bucks?” he countered.

They talked for what felt like hours, getting to know each other. What Mick loved was that their conversation wasn't stilted, like so many of the exchanges he had with Guatemalans.

His Spanish had improved dramatically in a few months, but he struggled to be himself. He was a different person in this second language. Mick recalled his first effort at immersion, when he lived with a family while studying Spanish in Costa Rica right after college.

Despite several years of classroom Spanish, he could barely communicate. His host mother, Doña Louisa, a sparkling, generous woman, would always invite her gringo tenant to join her when she left her small house in a San Jose suburb.

He knew just enough Spanish to answer “Si,” but he rarely understood where they were going.

Would they visit her elderly mother? Buy fruit at the market? Meet her son at the bus station?

One Sunday morning, she spoke for a few minutes, and then asked something like, “Do you want to accompany me, Mick?” She looked confused when he said yes, but then left the house still wearing his Clash “Combat Rock” t-shirt. That turned out to not be as appropriate for the wake Louisa brought him to that day.

At the end of that three weeks in Costa Rica, his Spanish had improved so he could at least half-understand Doña Louisa. As they bid farewell, she told him that she had enjoyed his stay, but that he needed to not be so quiet and serious.

Mick laughed. No one had never called the Class Clown of the Class of 1983 of Dursley High serious!

Even now, after more than six months living in Guatemala, Mick felt like he was only himself – witty, sarcastic Mick – when he spoke English with other gringos.

But talking to Carmen was different.

She was 26, like Mick. Carmen grew up in Guatemala City with money, a rarity in impoverished Guatemala. She sidestepped most questions about her family and her past, but she was ladina, light-skinned, not descended from the indigenous Maya that were at least 75 percent of the country’s population.

Carmen had attended an elite, bilingual high school, and a private university, both with international students. So, she half-learned English and became comfortable with gringos and their ways. More often than not, the two spoke an improvised Spanglish.

They became good friends those few months – between meetings they both attended, and frequent meals and nights out drinking, they saw each other most days.

But Mick never learned much about why Carmen was working for the Network. She surely could make more money doing something else. When he asked her once, she took a long puff on a Rubio and joked, “For the women and the wine.”

Mick didn't smoke much before coming to Guatemala. But there was something about the post-war tension, the diesel exhaust-clogged filth of the city air, and the constant waiting for meetings (Guatemalan activists were notoriously bad with time) that had led him to buy a pack of Rubio Suaves hours after landing in the country. And he hadn't stop puffing away since. He would joke, in both languages, that he smoked because at least then he was breathing through a filter.

Mick and Carmen often gossiped about the solidarity community: Who was plotting what, who was new on the scene – and, sometimes, who was sleeping with who.

That winter and spring, they often chatted about two bright lights in their community: Rachel Brody and Gerardo Osorio.

Rachel was a curly-haired brunette, around 30. She was from Philadelphia and had founded the Guatemalan Peace Taskforce, which gathered testimonies about the civil war. She had beautiful Spanish, a gorgeous singing voice and, after nearly three years in country, an impressive knowledge of the Guatemalan coyuntura: Its current political and economic reality.

The Taskforce’s work was ground-breaking – speaking directly to survivors about the war was still seen as subversive, if critical.

Early on, though, Mick had seen Rachel’s influence extend even further.

Not long after Mick slid into his Guatemala City role with the Alliance, the group brought on another new volunteer, Emily, to work in the campo. She had great Spanish, and a warm disposition, but Mick noticed almost immediately that the young woman was rattled by Guatemala’s often tense atmosphere.

One evening, Rachel came to the Alliance office for a quick meeting with Kim, and Mick watched her spot a pale and distracted Emily from across the room as she was leaving. She pulled Emily aside and they chatted quietly, for at least an hour, a conversation punctuated by several hugs.

The next morning, Mick asked Emily how she had slept – she had admitted to him earlier that week that she had been lying awake for hours each night – and she smiled and immediately said, “Well! It was so helpful to talk to Rachel. She helped me get some perspective. I could breathe right when I went to bed for the first time in days.”

Months later, Emily was one of the Alliance’s strongest staff. Mick kept meaning to thank Rachel for her timely intervention.

Recently, Rachel had been seen out socially with Gerardo Osorio, the founder and director of the human rights group El Comité de Sobrevivientes de Guatemala. El Comité was doing dangerous but critical work, by politely calling for an independent investigation into the country’s civil war and violence. If there was one thing the powers-that-be in Guatemala wanted to avoid in 1990, it was a careful investigation of who exactly was responsible for their horrors. American officials, who had given cash, training, weapons and support to the Guatemalan military for years, also did not want to study the past too closely.

Gerardo was a sharp-jawed man around 30 with cedar skin and penetrating brown eyes, taller than most Guatemalans. He was handsome, despite pock-marked skin from a childhood battle with chicken pox. He spoke beautifully about how ordinary Guatemalans had suffered, including himself. In 1979, civil patrollers entered his village, Tres Rios, and massacred more than 100, including his father and older brother.

Gerardo’s talks were always a highlight of the Alliance delegation visits to Guatemala City. He was quoted, routinely, in stories in the country and beyond.

He and Rachel did seem like a perfect couple, based on personality, intelligence and beauty. Gerardo was married, however, with a child and a pregnant wife.

By early 1990, the relationship between Gerardo and Rachel had become public and undeniable.

So had their work, which soon landed on the front page of all 11 Guatemalan newspapers, along with the violence that followed it.

For more of FINDING CARMEN, please contact me!