Grave Secrets

“Molly was still wearing jewelry and a wristwatch,” I said.

“The police couldn’t find their passports or wallets.”

“Let me get this straight. Thieves followed them for over two hours, then took their wallets and left their jewelry?”

“Sí.” He lapsed into Spanish.

“Is that typical for highway robbery?”

He hesitated before responding.

“They might have been scared off.”

Señora Samines arrived with my eggs. I poked at them, speared a potato. Carlos and Molly had been shot for money?

I had come to Guatemala fearing government bureaucracy, intestinal bacteria, dishonest taxi drivers, pickpockets. Why was I shocked at the thought of armed robbery?

America is the leading producer of gunshot homicides. Our streets and workplaces are killing fields. Teens are shot for their Air Jordans, wives for serving the pot roast late, students for eating lunch in the high school cafeteria.

Annually, over thirty thousand Americans are killed by bullets. Seventy percent of all murders are committed with firearms. Each year the NRA spoons up propaganda, and America swallows it. Guns proliferate, and the slaughter goes on. Law enforcement no longer has an advantage in carrying arms. It only brings the officers up to even.

But Guatemala?

The potato tasted like pressed wood. I laid down my fork and reached for my coffee.

“They think Carlos got out?” I asked.

Mateo nodded.

“Why take the trouble to shove him back into the truck?”

“A disabled vehicle would draw less interest than a body on the ground.”

“Does a robbery scenario sound reasonable to you?”

Mateo’s jaw muscles bulged, relaxed, bulged again.

“It happens.”

Elena made a sound in her throat, but said nothing.

“Now what?”

“Today Elena will keep watch at the hospital while we continue at Chupan Ya.” He tossed coffee dregs onto the grass. “And we all pray.”

My grandmother used to say that God’s tonic for sorrow was physical labor. She also felt toads caused infertility, but that was another issue.

For the next six days the team ingested megadoses of Gran’s elixir. We worked at the well from sunrise until sunset, hauling equipment up and down the valley, troweling, hoisting buckets, shaking screens.

In the evenings we dragged ourselves from our hospedaje to one of the restaurants lining Lake Atitlán. I enjoyed these brief respites from death. Though darkness obscured the water and the ancient volcanoes on the far shore, I could smell fish and kelp and hear waves lapping against rickety wooden piers. Tourists and locals wandered the shore. Mayan women passed with impossible bundles on their heads. Notes drifted from distant xylophones. Life continued.

Some nights we ate in silence, too exhausted for conversation. On others we talked of the project, of Molly and Carlos, of the town in which we were temporary residents.

The history of Panajachel is as colorful as the textiles sold on its streets. In another age, the place was a K’akchiquel Mayan village settled by ancestors of the current citizens when a force of rival Tzutujil warriors was defeated by the Spanish. Later, the Franciscans established a church and monastery at “Pana,” and used the village as a base for missionary operations.

Darwin was right. Life is opportunity. One group’s loss is another’s gain.

In the sixties and seventies the town became a haven for gringo gurus, hippies, and dropouts. Rumors that Lake Atitlán was one of the world’s few “vortex energy fields” led to an influx of cosmic healers and crystal watchers.

Today Panajachel is a blend of traditional Mayan, contemporary Guatemalan, and nondescript Western. It is luxury hotels and hospedajes; European cafés and comedores; ATMs and outdoor markets; güipils and tank tops; mariachis and Madonna; Mayan brujos and Catholic priests.

By late Wednesday we’d finished our excavation at Chupan Ya. In all, we’d removed twenty-three souls from the well. Among the skeletons we’d found thirteen projectiles and cartridge casings and two broken machete blades. Every bone and object had been recorded, photographed, packaged, and sealed for transport to the FAFG lab in Guatemala City. The cultural anthropologist had recorded twenty-seven stories, and taken DNA samples from sixteen family members.

Carlos’s body had been transported to the Guatemala City morgue, where an autopsy confirmed the impression of the local police. Death was due to gunshot wounding at close range.

Molly remained comatose. Each day one of us made the drive to the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Sololá, sat by her bedside, reported back. That report was always the same. No change.

The police found no prints or physical evidence, located no witnesses, identified no suspects. The investigation continued.