“Sí. I thought was strange, because Whitney never call here. Whitney and Carmen, they were not friends.”
“No?”
“Whitney is very fast. Carmen’s afraid of her. Besides, Whitney is very mean to Carmen, because she rich and Carmen is poor. You know, Carmen don’t got the right clothes, like that.”
“Why did Carmen go upstairs if she didn’t like Whitney?”
“How we gonna say no? Mr. Seward is the jefe. The boss. He run the co-op board in this building, so he hire and fire the staff people. And he get my girls in good school so they go in college. Not just Carmen but Lourdes, too. Lulu, we call her, my little one. So if Whitney ask for help to study, you bet Carmen gonna help her.”
“So Carmen went upstairs to the Sewards’ apartment?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Right away when Whitney call. Maybe seven-thirty, seven forty-five.”
“What was Carmen wearing?”
“Her school uniform. Plaid skirt and navy sweater. She didn’t have no coat. I hope where she is now, she not too cold.” Reyes began to cry again, covering his eyes, his shoulders shaking. After a moment he pulled himself together and looked up.
“I know this is difficult, Mr. Reyes. You’re doing a good job.”
“I’m trying. Help my Carmencita.”
“Let’s stay focused on the details of what happened, okay? I think it’ll be easier that way. How long was Carmen upstairs before you discovered the bodies?”
“After maybe two, three hours, I say, Wha’s happening? Is taking too long. So I call up there, and nobody answer the phone. I wait little bit more. Then about maybe ten-thirty, I worried, so I go up and knock on the back door. No answer. I try front. Same. So I go in with my key and look around. And I find this terrible thing.” Reyes drew a ragged breath and looked up at the ceiling with reddened eyes.
“Tell me where you found the bodies.”
“Whitney on her bed. The other girl on the floor near the bathroom. Carmen nowhere.”
“What were they wearing when you found them?”
“Whitney got on a top and underpants. The other, nothing.”
“Did you touch or move anything in the room?”
Reyes looked alarmed. “No. I know better. You get in trouble for that, right? I see a lotta cop shows on TV.”
“Why didn’t you call the police right away, when you discovered the bodies?”
“I call Mr. Seward first, because it’s his daughter, his house.”
“And he told you not to call the police?”
Reyes looked alarmed. “Tell me? No. He never say nothing like that.”
“James Seward didn’t tell you not to call the police?” Melanie asked, confused. Hadn’t Seward already admitted that to her?
“No, I tell him, please, señor, you call. I don’t speak too good, you know. He never tell me not to call.”
“Okay.” Melanie paused, intending just to note this minor discrepancy and move on. Yet something about the timing here bothered her. “Mr. Reyes,” she couldn’t help asking, “your daughter was missing, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’d found her two classmates dead?”
“Sí.”
“Well, I guess I’m just surprised you wouldn’t call immediately yourself.”
Reyes flushed red, his eyes leaking tears again. “Yes. Of course I wanna call right away, because Carmen is gone. I want to.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“You know, I very confused. Mr. Seward say he gonna call for me.”
“But I thought you just said it was your request that Mr. Seward call.”
Reyes started to sob noisily. “Yeah. I dunno. Is very confusing,” he choked out.
Jeez, this guy was a mess. Maybe there was nothing here. Anyway, she’d better get the basic facts down.
“Okay, I don’t want to get hung up on this detail. Mr. Reyes, please.” Melanie gave him a tissue from her bag. “Are you okay to talk?” she asked after he’d blown his nose and wiped his eyes.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Now, do you remember what time it was when you first called Mr. Seward?”
Again Reyes looked alarmed. “Time? No, I can’t say.”
“Any idea? You said it was probably around…” She paused, getting confused herself now. “Ray-Ray, what time do we have that Mr. Reyes entered the Sewards’ apartment?”
Ray-Ray flipped back to the preceding page in his spiral notebook. “‘Witness states daughter went upstairs around seven forty-five. Witness further states he became concerned when daughter had not returned after two to three hours.’”
“So at the latest it was ten forty-five when you entered the apartment,” Melanie said to Reyes.
Pain and panic raced across Reyes’s face. “I don’ know times, okay? I’m not looking at my watch. All I know is, I wanna find my Carmen. You gonna help me do that or not?”
“Yes, of course. We just need to hear what happened. We have to get the facts.”
“Look, I don’t know the time, okay?” Reyes snapped. “I call for a while and don’t get no answer. Finally I reach him, he say he gonna call the cops himself. So I wait for him to come home. Mr. Seward tell me do sonthing, I listen, because I need my job.”
Melanie nodded. Whatever Seward’s motives, Reyes’s motives for obeying seemed authentic. “So what happened next?”
Reyes sighed deeply, his face scrunching up. For a moment Melanie thought he might cry again. But then he began speaking very quickly, the words spilling out in a rush. “Around midnight Mr. Seward and the missus come home. He check the bodies, very fast. He call the police. The rest you know. So let’s talk about sonthing else.”
She looked at him searchingly, wondering why he was so determined to change the subject, but then decided to let it go. This man was obviously upset. She had enough to do to solve this case without imagining credibility issues where there were none.
“Tell me about Carmen. How she spent her time, where she went. Anything that might help us track her down.”
“Mostly she go in school, she work, she go in church. She very quiet girl.”
“What about her friends? Was there anyone Carmen associated with who might have been involved with illegal drugs?”
“A kid calling her a lot. Him, I don’t like. Maybe you gotta check him out, see if he know sonthing.”
“Of course. Tell us about him.” She looked over at Ray, who nodded and continued to take notes.
“Carmen meet him in church. A real cholo.”
“Cholo?”
“You know, a gangster. He’s from El Salvador.” Reyes scrutinized Melanie closely. “You puertorriqueña, ¿sí?”
“Yes, I’m Puerto Rican. So you don’t like the boy because you think he’s in a gang or because he’s Salvadoran?”
“He’s a gangster, and he don’t got no papers. I tell Carmen, La Migra gonna deport this one any minute. I complain to the priest about my daughter meeting ilegales in the church, and you know what he say to me? Jesus don’ care about papers!” He shook his head with disgust.
“Was Carmen dating this kid?”
“No, I never let her. She teaching him to read, from the church program. But he call her too much. So I tell him no call here no more.” Reyes shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe is sonthing. Maybe he get mad.”
“What’s the boy’s name?” she asked.
“Juan Carlos Peralta.”
“Do you know how to get in touch with him?”
“Carmen had his número de celular in her book.”
“We’d like to see Carmen’s address book.”
“Okay. Is in her room. You come.”
Reyes led them down a small hallway and pushed open a door at the end. Two narrow beds and a dresser filled the tiny room. A young girl sitting on the bed nearest the door looked up at them, startled. Presumably Carmen’s younger sister, Lulu. She’d been staring vacantly into space, fiddling with a silver peace sign that hung around her neck on a cowhide string. She was about thirteen or fourteen, with enormous brown eyes just like Maya’s and dark hair in a ponytail. And she looked scared.