Free Murder Key by H. Terrell Griffin

area, but I don’t know why. Some Army units are in the pockets of the drug lords, but there isn’t much in the way of drug trafficking around here. They might just be a show of force to make sure the local residents don’t decide to join the Zapati s tas.”
                  I knew that the Zapatistas were an armed revolutionary group of mostly Mayan Indians indigenous to the state of Chiapas, located in the mountains sout h of Mexico City. They had chal lenged the government on a number of occasions, but for the most part eschewed violence.
                  I asked Emilio why the govern ment would be concerned about the Tlapa area. “I thought the Zapatistas were primarily Mayan,” I said.
                  “They are, but the government sees us all as Indians. The people around here are descended from the Aztecs, and they’ve never been completely assimilated. I think the Zapatistas gave the guys in Mexico City a scare. They don’t want the same thing to happen in other areas of the country where there are a lot of indigenous peoples.”
                  We were driving into a small village clinging to the side of a mountain. We crossed what appeared to be a public square, with a church on one side and a basketball hoop on the other. Two boys, both about thirteen , wearing shorts and T- shirts, no shoes, were shooting hoops. Nearby, on a cement bench covered in colorful Mexican tiles, two teenage girls sat watching the boys and giggling.
                  One-story buildings surrounded us, all painted in the pastels that seemed to abound in the area. Some were houses, and others appeared to contain stores and shops. There was a pole topped by a loudspeaker broadcasting in a language I didn’t recognize.
                  “Nahautl,” said Emilio. “That’s the radio station down in Tlapa broadcasting messages to the people in the village. It’s our form of e-mail.”
                  There were no overhead wires going to any of the buildings other than the church. It appeared as if electricity had not yet reached the rest of the village.
                  We took a side street for about a block, and pulled up in front of a house sitting in a dusty yard. The building was one story, constructed of concrete blocks; n o paint, no siding, no stucco. Just bare blocks and mortar. Every few feet, iron rebars stuck several feet above the flat roof.
                  We went through the front door into a tastefully decorated room with Zapotec rugs lying upon a floor of Saltillo tile. The finished wal ls were painted a subdued beige, adorn ed with framed Mexican scenes, garish oils of bullfights and peasants in the fields wearing colorful clothes. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling, rustic in appearance, with an electric candle perched on each of its branches. I could see through a dining room into a modern kitchen.
                  “Home ,” announced Emilio.
                  “Not exactly a dirt-floored hut,” I said. “Where do you get the electricity to run everything?”
                  “There’s a line coming in from Tlapa. Not many people here can afford it, but if you have a little money the power company will send a truck and hook you up.”
                  Jock, who had been quiet during most of the trip, said, “Do you own this place?”
                  “No. I’m renting it from a guy in the States. He works in New York in a resta u rant and saves all his money. He comes home about every six months and uses his savings to build a little more onto the house. Stays with his mother when he’s here.”
                  “Why the rebar on the roof?” asked Jock.
                  “That’s for adding the walls to a second story when he has the money.”
                  I said, “How long have you been here,