"It is Lieutenant, Teresa," said Ranrez distractedly; he let her urge him through a shabby dining room. Mendoza strolled after: she threw him a glance over her shoulder of mixed interest, anxiety, and a kind of mechanical female brandishment. The kitchen was big, cold, reasonably clean. "Please to sit down, sir-if you would accept my hospitality, a glass of wine-it's only cheap stuff' Ramirez was trying to pull himself together; the conventional courtesy was automatic.
"No, no, thanks. Tell me first, I believe your daughter lived here with you?-then you must have been worried that she didn't come home last night? Do you know where she was?"
The girl answered from where she had perched uneasily on the kitchen table. "Sure, we were worried. But she might've gone to stay overnight with a girl friend, or-well, you know how it is, we sort of talked back 'n' forth and kept waiting for her maybe to call one of the neighbors with a message-Mrs. Gomez next door lets us-"
"Where had she gone and when did she leave?"
"She was-she was just out on a date. I don't know where they were going. Ricky, he was here for Elena about seven, I guess, and they went right after." In answer to the query only begun, she added hurriedly, "Ricky Wade, he's a boy Elena's-Elena had been going with a lot. A nice boy he is, you needn't go thinking anything about him, see. I don't know where they were going, but they did go to the Palace rink a lot-that roller-skating place, you know. Silly, I say, but Elena's-Elena was just a kid, she liked it."
"She would have had nineteen years only the next month," murmured Ramirez. "It was wrong, Teresa, I said so! We should have gone to the police at once, at once! Elena was a good girl in her heart, she was properly brought up, never would she have done such a thing-all the talk around and around, I should have let you and Mama talk and gone to the police myself-"
"What would she not have done, Miss Ramirez?" asked Mendoza.
"Oh, well, I spose we got to say or you'll think it's funny we didn't seem more worried." Her mouth tightened. "We were going to do something about it this morning, don't know what, but-We were awful worried, you can see that, way Papa and I both stayed home from work-it wasn't as if Elena ever did nothing like that before, stay away all night and not call or nothing. But-well, we got to thinking maybe her and Ricky'd eloped-you know, over to Las Vegas or somewhere, to get married in a hurry."
"It is not true!" exclaimed Ramirez excitedly, jumping up. The bathrobe fell open to reveal his spindly legs and unexpectedly gay pink cotton underpants. "It is a wicked lie, that Elena is got in trouble with this fellow and has to run away and marry quick! She is a respectable girl, never would she-oh, she does this and that Mama and I don't like, sure, but she's young, it's different times and ways now, I know that-she's impatient, she wants the moon like all youngsters, but never would she-"
"I never said she did, I never! But after they made up and he came back, she sure meant to keep him, she was set on marrying him some day, you know good as I do. All I said was, if be all of a sudden wanted to elope, she wouldn't take the risk of losing him, she'd say yes quick!"
"Did you disapprove of this Mr. Wade, then?" asked Mendoza of Ramirez casually.
"Disapprove?" He moved his thin shoulders wearily. "He is not of the faith. I don't know, if Elena wanted so bad, I-You don't have nothing to say about it any more, anyway, fathers. The kids, they go their own way. She wouldn't have been happy in such a marriage, that I thought. But it wasn't really serious, they were just youngsters-"
"Elena was serious, all right!" said Teresa. She turned to Mendoza.
"Look, you might's well know how it was, an' weasel round like I suppose you got to, to be sure Ricky didn't have nothing to do with-with killing her. That's silly, he wouldn't. Elena met him in school three years back, see-that's Sloan Heights High, where I went too. Only I had the sense to finish, and she didn't-wanted a job so's she could buy a lot of splashy clothes 'n' all-soon as she turned sixteen, she got a work permit an' a job uptown in a Hartners' store, putting stuff on the models in the windows, unpacking in the stock room, like that-"
Ramirez moved restlessly. "All this foolishness," he muttered, "keeping girls in school so long-history and algebra, it don't teach them any better to keep house and bring up the kids. And Elena always give Mama her five dollars a week, regular, like she should."
"I'm not saying nothing against her, Papa, only she should've finished like I did, learned typing and all, so's to get a better job. Sure she gave Mama money, and bought things for the kids too, she wasn't stingy. All I-"
"Mr. Wade," murmured Mendoza.
"That's what I'm getting to. She saw I was right in the end, see? Because the Wades, they reckon they're a lot too good for the likes of us, they didn't like Ricky taking up with Elena. Mr. Wade, he works for the city, they own their house and all that-you know. Elena, she liked Ricky a lot, sure, he's a nice boy like I said, but at the same time she saw it'd be kind of a step up the ladder for her, marry into a family like that. She didn't want to stay on Liggitt Street all her life, well, who does? But the time she had a little fight with Ricky, 'n' don't go thinking it was anything serious, just a little spat like, she started thinking how silly it'd be to really lose him-I know all this because she talked it over with me, see, nights-we got the same room. I mean, she thought, he's used to different sorts of ways and she got worried she wouldn't know how to act right about things like that if they got married."
"It was foolishness," said Ramirez. "That school place for teaching the fascination. But it's Elena's money, if she wanted-"
"Fascination?" Momentarily the subtle color of near-synonyms in the Spanish misled Mendoza.
"No, it wasn't," said Teresa. "It's-it was worth the money, Papa, and that Miss Weir's real nice, you know I seen her once, when I met Elena uptown to shop. It's a charm school"-turning back to Mendoza-"you know, they teach you what's right to wear and so on. Me, I say it was O.K. for Elena to try to improve herself, sure. Even if she had to quit her job like she did, it's a six-week course an, every day-she could get another easy enough after. What was silly about it, those Wades aren't all so much that she had to feel nervous about them! Mother of God, you'd think they were millionaires with a butler maybe like in the movies, way she talked. He's just a bookkeeper in some office, but-you know-they're the kind put their noses in the air at us, dirty low-class Mexes, they say to each other, an ' Catholic which they don't like so much either. Me, I don't let people like that bother me, not one little bit. Maybe we do rent a house instead of owning one, an' maybe our street isn't so high-class, an' we don't have no car or telephone or electric washing machine-maybe Papa does just drive a delivery truck-what's that got to do with anything? We're respectable folks, Papa's worked for Mr. Reyes all the time since he come over, and that's nearly twenty years, and we don't owe nobody no money like I'll bet the Wades do. I got a good job typing for El Gente Mejico, 'n' I've saved nearly three hundred dollars toward furniture an' so on for when Carlos and me get married this summer-which I'll bet is more than Mrs. Wade can say she did!" Teresa gestured contemptuously.
"People like them, let them talk! But it bothered Elena, see."
"You have much common sense," said Mendoza with a smile. "I think Carlos is lucky. So nothing was said last night about where your sister and Mr. Wade were going?" She shook her head. "But you would certainly have expected that he'd see her home?"
"Oh, sure. I can't figure out how she come to be alone-she must've been, for whoever-did it-to sneak up on her. You said-the corner at Commerce an' Humboldt? She must've been on her way home then, and from that Palace rink too, coming that way."