Thirty-Seven
RIDING ALONE IN THE BACKSEAT, LUCHA HAD TO FIGHT BACK the nausea bubbling up in her stomach, fearing she might get sick. She told herself to breathe but the car had a sour smell, like food that had spoiled.
They’d ransacked the trailer, telling her nothing, just handing her a piece of paper that made no sense. She knew not to stand in their way. Armed men, you object, you suffer. Then these two stepped forward through the bedlam, told her they wanted her to come with them.
She knew the handsome one from that day la migra raided the trailer park. He was the one who calmed everyone down, talked sense into Godo. Lattimore, his name was. The other one, the driver-Dunn, his card read-was unfamiliar. He was homely and yet full of himself, the kind of man Graciela used to mock with… what was the phrase? Sapo guapo. Handsome toad. Every few minutes he hawked up mucus, cranked down his window, spat onto the road. Qué grencho. What a hick.
Lattimore talked into his cell, confirmed something, slapped the small black phone shut. He turned in his seat to face her, wearing a thoughtful smile that his eyes betrayed.
“Sorry for that interruption. Your nephew, Godo, and your son-in-law, Pablo-”
“He is not my son-in-law.”
“All right. Excuse me. Pablo, let’s just call him that. The last time you saw him was?”
She looked out the window. They’d crossed the bridge spanning the Carquinez Strait and were veering down the first off-ramp, the one for Crockett. It was almost dark now, the bridge’s new span lit up like a monument and shrouded with wind-driven mist, the distant house lights glowing against the fogbound hill. Directly below the bridge, the sugar refinery’s massive neon sign anchored the small downtown with its abandoned railhead and lonely dock and ghostly warehouses. “I told you. I am afraid. I have temporary protected status and my green-card application is pending but nothing is certain these days. I do not want to do anything to harm my chances. I wish to have a lawyer with me when I talk to you.”
She kept to herself the fact that her heart was breaking.
“You’re not a suspect, Lucha.”
“Lucha is what my family calls me. My name is Élida.”
The man’s smile weakened. His eyes remained unchanged. “You’re not a suspect, Élida.”
Dunn cranked down his window again, a burst of cold air, smelling of brackish water and eucalyptus, a hint of the oil refinery over the hill in Rodeo. “You’re not a citizen, either.” A punctuating spit. The window shuddered back up. “Your right to a lawyer’s not absolute.”
“I wish,” she repeated, “to have a lawyer when I talk to you.”
“I understand,” Lattimore said, stepping back in. “But this isn’t El Salvador, especially the El Salvador you left behind. I mean, sure, we’re cops, not dancers. But we’re not here to hurt you. We just want the truth.”
He thinks I’m stupid, Lucha thought. Like all he has to do is keep chattering away and I will forget about a lawyer. Will they ever stop insulting us?
“The warrant’s a little sketchy on what this is all about, so let me explain a few things. Witnesses place Pablo Orantes and your nephew Godo at the scene of a home invasion this morning. The thing went pretty badly off the rails. The homeowner’s dead. His nine-year-old daughter’s in pretty bad shape too, not physically, but her dad was gunned down right in front of her. We’re still putting things together but it seems pretty clear that Pablo was the ringleader. Godo wasn’t just along for the ride, though. He was in deep, especially on the violence end.”
She felt like she’d misunderstood. He couldn’t have said what she just heard. “Excuse me, I do not-”
“We need to find both these young men. I could lie to you, try to trick you, say we just want to talk to them. But I don’t want to do that. They’re in very serious trouble. That trouble won’t go away. They need to come in, give themselves up, tell us what happened. It could get a great deal worse for both of them if they don’t do the right thing now. I can understand how frightened they might be. I would be, in their shoes. I can imagine why they did it, hoping to score enough money to get Pablo’s father back from El Salvador. Or maybe somebody else put them up to it, Vasco Ramírez, let’s say.” He paused, as though to see how she reacted to the name. It meant nothing to her, she just sat there. “They’re going to be caught, Élida. They won’t walk away free. They need to talk to me or Detective Dunn here, tell us everything. I promise, they’ll be treated fairly.”
She could no longer look at his face. Such a cruel and devious thing to do, take advantage of her grief, play on her conscience, so soon after hearing that Faustino was dead-did they know that? Were they piling one misery on top of the other, just to get her to say something, get her to tell them where Godo was, where Pablito was? As if she knew. As if, supposing everything he’d just said had actually taken place, those two would tell her anything about it.
By the time she realized what was happening she couldn’t stop it, the vomit churned up into her throat and out of her mouth, sour and hot, showering across the seat and onto the floor mats. Her skin was flushed, she felt repulsive, childish, naked.
“Don’t worry, ma’am.” It was Dunn, his voice surprisingly gentle. “You’re probably the third person this month who’s lost his lunch back there. But I bet you figured that out already.”
THEY HELPED HER WALK FROM THE CAR, ONE ON EACH ARM, LEADING her up the steep driveway and into the house. Everyone stared as she came through the door; their gazes weren’t kind. There were strange markings everywhere, circles drawn on the floor and walls, smudges of soot-like powder. Police officers milled about as though they had nowhere else to go. She wavered, feeling sick again but there was nothing left to bring up. Lattimore, sensing her unsteadiness, tightened his hold on her arm. A midair feeling, about to fall-from where?
Lattimore addressed one of the uniformed officers. “The girl still here?”
The officer glanced offhandedly at Lucha, then shook his head. “She was acting a little loose on deck. Mom pitched a fit, be glad you weren’t here. Meds all around, that’s what they wanted. Sergeant said screw it, take her to Kaiser in Martinez, patrol car drove them over about an hour ago. Son went with them. He came home from school while you were gone.”
Lattimore frowned like he was adding up a sum. “Housekeeper’s still here, right?”
“Lourdes? For now. DHS called, they put dibs on her.”
Lucha felt Lattimore’s grip slacken. “DHS? Christ, what the… They’re going to deport her. Best wit we’ve got, only one-” He cut himself short, glancing to Lucha and Dunn then back at the officer, looking sheepish, tense. “Never mind. Not your problem.”
“She’s still in there,” he pointed, “you want to talk to her.”
“Yeah. Good. Thanks.”
Lattimore guided Lucha into a spacious, dimly lit kitchen. A greasy black stain coated the wall above the stove, the lingering smell of a grease fire. A mejicana sat napping at the table. Lucha felt a shudder of contempt. The woman was short like a stump, flabby arms, pudgy hands, dyed hair. She looks like one of those troll dolls, Lucha thought, even as she recognized the scorn for what it was. Fear. What has this puta cochina said, what does she know?
The woman lifted her head, rubbing her eyes, blinking, then staring at Lucha with the same instant distrust. They were opposites, they were mirrors.