“I haven’t seen a paper today.”
“It’s bad for Hugo, but it was just a theory of mine that Guido knew about Yoly’s disappearance, a possible motive for his murder.” It was the first time I’d spoken the word out loud, and instantly regretted using it in Celinda’s presence.
Felix explained the situation to her, but the familiar word spoke volumes.
“Jon and Felix have brought this case back into the public eye. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed.”
As I fumbled for other, more comforting words, Lucy bent over to whisper to me. “I appreciate the thought, but, uh, Felix owns that network. That was how he got Yoly mentioned on the air. Have you really been out of the business that long? They live for this stuff,” Lucy continued. One of her many ex- boyfriends had slid seamlessly into my old TV job, and was churning out true- life tragedy on a weekly basis. Lucy thought she could interest him in Yoly’s story.
“And these guys work fast. They have a basic template and just plug in this week’s gory details,” she said thoughtlessly. She started to apologize, but Felix cut her off.
“It’s not necessary. Mrs. Rivera couldn’t understand you. She knows only that you want to help.”
Half the story would be Felix’s successful search for the mother, and the other half, our search for the daughter. It’d make a good feature. I didn’t want to get Celinda’s hopes up, but it was worth a try.
While Lucy made some calls, Celinda brought out a stack of blue airmail envelopes, tied with a brown and gold nylon shoelace. She took out Yoly’s last letter and handed it to me.
She watched me struggle with the Spanish, and started to speak. Recite, really. As many times as she’d read that last letter, she knew it by heart, like a prayer.
“Yoly was happy,” Felix said, in his rough translation. “She’d met a man. An older man she said had been good to her. He’d even taken her on a trip to Newport, Rhode Island. He said it reminded him of his home, the boats and the water. He wasn’t from here, originally.”
For the first time, a little smile crossed Celinda’s face, and words passed between her and Felix.
“Yoly joked that they had something in common,” Felix said. “He had an accent, too.”
Celinda said something else to him.
“It wasn’t in the letter, but Celinda believes Yoly was embarazada-pregnant.” Another heartbreaking smile and more words.
Maybe that was the connection. Could Yoly have gone to the Peacocks for help? “What made her think that?” I asked.
“Yoly said she’d need a new rebozo soon.”
“A shawl?” Lucy asked, phone to chest, obviously on hold.
“It’s also used to carry a baby,” I said, appreciating the shorthand between mother and daughter.
“She thinks Yoly didn’t want to tell her until she and the man were married, but there was a difficulty. That’s why she didn’t give the man’s name.”
“Already married?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps an immigration issue,” Felix suggested. He was thinking of Guido.
“Senora Rivera, where was Yoly working the last time you heard from her? Could she have met this man at work?” I asked in halting Spanish.
“She was a cleaning lady, at a big house near the water,” Felix translated. “Live- in.”
“Right in Springfield?”
“We think so. Most of her letters have a Springfield postmark.”
Obsessed with where Yoly’s letters had come from, I’d neglected to ask the obvious.
“Senora Rivera, when you wrote to Yoly, where did you send your letters?”
When Yoly worked as a nanny for the crew leader, letters were sent to her at that family’s home. Once she switched jobs, her mail went to a post office box in Springfield. At the request of her new employers, mail should not be sent to their address. Celinda showed me the one letter that was returned to her as undeliverable- 2381 Hawthorne Lane. One bus stop away from the Peacocks. And the Fifields.
CHAPTER 47
The house on Hawthorne Lane had been torn down years ago, replaced by a newer, bigger, no doubt uglier model. The original residents were long gone, and judging by the FOR SALE sign and uninhabited look, the current own ers had already packed their bags. I did the next best thing.
“You’re not really here about the landscaping, are you?” Dina Fifield had seen through me five minutes into my visit.
“No, ma’am. Not entirely.”
“Please don’t ‘ma’am’ me. Not unless you’re from the South, which I suspect you aren’t.”
When I called Mrs. Fifield, she agreed to see me right away. It was only after I hung up that I realized she thought I was moving in on the gardening business recently vacated by Guido Chiaramonte. The guy hadn’t been dead for forty- eight hours. Now I knew where Win got his ambition; these people wasted no time.
“Win does it all the time, of course. Ma’ams people. As I said, unless you’re from the South, or running for office, it’s unacceptable. After the age of forty, women hate it. You’ll hate it in about four or five years, won’t you, dear?” she said, with one glance, assessing my age, weight, and economic status.
And I’ll hate you in about four or five minutes, I thought. Dina Fifield had to be sixty- five but looked forty-five. Very slim, spray- tanned, and highlighted by masters, she was dressed in a form- fitting tennis dress that would have done any of the current crop of tennis nymphets proud. Gossips claimed the Nalgene water bottle she was never seen without was filled with gin; if they were right, it didn’t seem to be doing her any harm.
“So, at the risk of being rude, if you’re not here about the garden, why are you here?”
“I’d be delighted to discuss your landscaping needs,” I lied, “but you’re right-there is something else I was hoping to speak with you about. Have you read any of the articles in the Springfield Bulletin about a missing girl named Yoly Rivera? She was last seen-”
“Yes, yes, I know… ‘Where is my daughter?’ So you’re the one who lit a fire under Jon Chappell. Andrew Chappell’s boy. Cute kid, but a classic under-achiever.”
I kept talking. “Yoly Rivera worked as a cleaning lady in this neighborhood about thirty years ago. I thought you might remember her.”
“Are you serious? I don’t remember my cleaning lady from thirty days ago. They come and go. They make a little money and go back home to live like queens.”
I’d thought the same thing myself, but cringed at hearing it from Dina Fifield. “Not this one. She wrote her family that she met a rich man who was going to take care of her.”
“What was she supposed to write? ‘I’m in a low-paying, boring job; my boyfriend slaps me around; and I cry myself to sleep every night?’ Look, I get a name, a phone number, and a few references. That’s it. I’m grateful if they show up and don’t steal anything. I don’t adopt them.
“Now let me ask you something,” she said. “Why are you asking these questions and not the police?”
“I guess they’ve got their hands full with Guido’s murder.”
She softened the tiniest bit. “Yes, it’s terrible. Guido was the best I’ve ever had,” she said nostalgically. “Gardener, that is. I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s so hard to find a good man.”
Thank god I didn’t really want this heartless bitch as a client.
“He worked here for over thirty years. He used to say it would take another twenty years to get the garden the way he wanted it. Of course, he was a terrible flirt.”
The way she said it made me think Guido didn’t always strike out.