The Lemon Orchard

by Luanne Rice

  “Bring ’em,” Latham said.

  Jack left the Explorer running, AC on, so Sugar wouldn’t get too hot. Then he carried the bag and coffees into Latham’s truck, handed him a large coffee, and bit hungrily into a cruller while Latham chose a honey-dipped.

  “So,” Jack said. “Talk to me, and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Not much to tell you,” Latham said.

  “I didn’t think there would be,” Jack said. “Obviously there’s no hard evidence.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Latham said. “When I track someone, I produce evidence. You’re looking for the identity of the group moving north with Rosa Rodriguez, at least until the crossers split up and she wound up in the western sector.”

  “Well, we don’t know where she wound up,” Jack said. “All we know is where her sneakers were found.”

  “Fine. You know my theory.”

  “I do, and consider it a possibility,” Jack said. “So, what evidence did you produce that could help me?”

  “Three things came from the second group, the one that continued with Rosa after her father was picked up. One: a degraded print of a rope-soled shoe with the word ‘Marcie’s’ woven into the sole. Another: on the body of a deceased twenty-year-old male, we found an Arizona Diamondbacks tattoo.”

  “What’s ‘Marcie’s’?” Jack asked. “It sounds familiar.”

  “A chain of stores in Mexico. According to the report, these crossers might have come from Veracruz. The male had a one-way plane ticket in his pocket—from Tucson down there.”

  Jack wrote “Marcie’s—Veracruz” and “Diamondbacks” in his notebook. “Rope-soled women’s shoes, definitely Mexican-style,” he said. “But the tattoo and the plane ticket on the guy—what do they mean? If he flew down, why didn’t he fly back? What nationality was he?”

  “His dental work was American,” Latham said. “That’s as much as we know.”

  “Okay, thanks, Latham.”

  “No problem, Jack.”

  The two men shook hands and said goodbye.

  Jack climbed into his Explorer, then sat back while Sugar launched herself at him, barking with mad joy at being reunited. Louella probably wouldn’t have approved, but Jack broke off a piece of donut and fed it to the tiny terrier.

  He glanced around the lot for Patricia’s Lexus. It wasn’t there; today must not be a water station day. Pulling onto the road, he drove toward home thinking of Veracruz. He, Louella, Patricia, and her husband, Mike, had vacationed there in the past. It was a port city, and he liked the waterfront—he needed salt water once in a while to remind him of Boston.

  Three clues—the tattoo, the shoe, and the ticket to Veracruz. He put in a CD by Ry Cooder and the Chieftains and felt it pump him up in a way he didn’t fully understand. He was pretty sure Patricia would look after Sugar. All he had to do was pack a bag, and he’d be on his way.

  Julia

  The first week of December, the Santa Ana winds tore through the canyon with a freight train roar. Julia heard it from the moment she woke up each morning, and it kept her tossing and turning through each night. Even Bonnie seemed unsettled, not wanting to take her usual walks or stray far from the house. Lion told Julia the Santa Anas always filled him with a sense of doom, so he was taking off to visit friends on Martha’s Vineyard till it was safe to return.

  Downed power lines had sparked fire in the western Santa Monica Mountains, consuming two hundred acres so far. Although it was miles away, Julia smelled the smoke and watched National Guard aircraft flying west to drop flame retardant in the wooded mountains. Roberto had called Serapio and the others to come to work, and they patrolled the orchard and kept the irrigation going, vigilant about the threat of wildfires.

  He had told Julia not to worry. She sat at a writing desk in her bedroom, facing the ocean, away from the fires. Back in Connecticut, most of the heavy winds had come from the sea, swirling off the Atlantic into Long Island Sound. Their house had been a quarter mile from the beach, separated from the sand by a salt pond, right at sea level.

  “Hola, Julia!”

  She walked out the French doors and onto her terrace, looked down at the yard sloping toward the Pacific, and saw Roberto standing there.

  “Hi,” she called. “Everything okay?”

  “Sí,” he said. “For now, but the fire is getting closer. The fire department came to give us an update.”

  “Is the Casa in danger? Should I call John?”

  “Yes, I think it would be good, but we are still safe,” Roberto said. “They’ll come back and tell us if we have to leave.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Good,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen.”

  “You against the fire,” she said.

  “Sí, amor.”

  “I’m coming down to help,” Julia said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  She smiled at him, saw his deep brown eyes red from the smoke, worry lines across his forehead, and felt a flood of emotion. She didn’t speak, but thought, Yes, I do.

  chapter thirteen

  Jack

  The busy port of Veracruz was a riot of contrasts. Oil rigs sat just outside the harbor and huge container ships filled the wharves. High-rises towered over mom-and-pop tiendas. Tourists flocked to Fort San Juan de Ulúa, built by the Spanish in 1582 to protect the gold-rich city from pirates. Now the waterfront was patrolled by the military.

  At nine in the morning, Jack walked along el malecón, the harbor boardwalk. The walkway was lined with shops and stalls, very few of them open yet. He knew from Patricia that this was the general area where Marcie’s sold shoes, but he hadn’t found the shop yet.

  He’d flown in the night before, checked into the Hotel Candilejas, which overlooked the commercial port, malecón, and old lighthouses. After checking in, he had walked around town, getting his bearings.

  The city looked the same as when he’d come here with Louella and the Finnegans, but the atmosphere had turned tense. The Zetas drug cartel had taken hold, and last spring several crime reporters and photographers had been killed throughout Veracruz State. Believing the police had been infiltrated by the Zetas, Mexico’s last president had replaced the eight-hundred-officer police force with naval infantry and marines, and they were in evidence everywhere.

  Walking through the city’s main square—the Zocalo—Jack saw heavily uniformed men wearing Kevlar vests and was tempted to stop and talk shop with them—hey, guys, how’s the drug war going? But he was hungry, and he no longer had a badge, and even if he had, they wouldn’t have talked to him. Music played while under tall palm trees crowds of people danced, as they had last time he was here, lending the scene an uneasy sense of normalcy.

  He passed the Municipal Palace, a baroque wedding cake of a building, and the Catedral Virgen de la Ascunción. He paused outside the large church. The doors inside the arched entry were open, and a Mass was being said. He smelled incense and heard the priest saying the Consecration in Spanish. His Irish Catholicism flared up, but he couldn’t make himself go inside.

  He knew all the expensive tourist restaurants were on the harbor, so he wandered to the marketplace, Mercado Hidalgo, and ate a plate of arroz de tumbada—rice and the freshest seafood possible. It tasted so good he ordered a second plate. Jarochos—as the locals referred to themselves—sat around him, eating and talking, and Jack felt good that he’d found this place on his own, off the beaten path.

  This was his first time back to any of the Mexican seaside towns he’d visited on vacation with Louella. Jack had avoided checking into the hotel where they’d stayed, or eating at the portside palapa that had been her favorite. At home, missing her had dulled to an ache, but here the sense of her was fresh—every sight reminded him of the delight she’d taken.

  Now, walking al
ong the waterfront, he saw the vast and ornate Faro Carranza and remembered taking pictures of Louella with it in the background. He’d never seen a lighthouse like it—it seemed more like a residence for royalty, white and imposing, with two floors of arched windows, decorative pediments at either end, and rising dead-center, a tall square clock tower topped by the domed enclosure that held the lighthouse lens.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she’d said. “Looks like a fairy-tale castle.”

  “It’s gaudy,” he’d said.

  “How can you say that?”

  “I’m from New England. I know how lighthouses are supposed to look—plain white towers. Brick or stone if necessary.”

  “This is Mexico, not Boston.”

  “That’s for sure.

  “Well, this lighthouse is romantic.”

  “Romance is your department, kid. It doesn’t even function as a lighthouse anymore.”

  “So what?”

  “Things should work.”

  “It’s probably too expensive to run, but the guidebook says it has naval offices on the first floor. Does that meet your standards?”

  “Plain and functioning, Louella,” he’d said. “Aids to navigation. That’s how I like my lighthouses.”

  She had laughed at him as usual, and he had walked along loving the salt air and seeing her happy. Later they’d met up with Mike and Patricia, and he and Mike had bought Cuban cigars from some guy on the dock and walked along looking at tankers, freighters, oil derricks, and fishing boats while Louella and Patricia had gone off on their own. It must have been on that walk that they’d stopped at Marcie’s and bought the shoes.

  He had passed the area where most of the shops were located and wondered if he’d missed it. Some of the establishments had hand-lettered signs; others had awnings professionally printed with the store or restaurant names. Walking back the way he’d come, he stared at each storefront more carefully.

  José’s Mariscos stood between the El Malecón café and Delfi4Ever, a shop that sold beaded jewelry. Jack looked at the fresh seafood on display at José’s—crabs, spiny lobster, octopus, shrimp, tiny clams the size of his thumbnail, all glistening on ice. Raising his gaze to the row of awnings, he walked another hundred feet, and there he saw the sign: MARCIE’S.

  The awning’s lettering had faded, but the shop’s display was vibrant. A woman stood outside, watering pots of geraniums. She looked about Louella’s age, quite a bit heavier, and with curly black hair. She wore a red dress and a pair of rope-soled shoes. Jack’s heart quickened, and he cleared his throat. She turned around, smiling.

  “Marcie?” he asked.

  She laughed. “No, there isn’t a real Marcie anymore, but I do run the shop. I’m Maya.”

  “I won’t take much of your time. I’m Jack Leary, a retired U.S. border agent, and I’m trying to identify two Mexican migrants who crossed the border. One died in the desert.”

  “Sí?” she asked and frowned.

  “Sí. Is this the only Marcie’s in Veracruz?”

  She nodded. “Why?”

  “We found footprints, rope-soled shoes that said ‘Marcie’s.’”

  “I sell so many pairs,” she said. “And there are other Marcie franchises all over Mexico. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help you.”

  “We think the woman who was wearing them was with a man who died. He had a sports team tattoo—the Arizona Diamondbacks. And he had a plane ticket from Tucson in his pocket.”

  Maya looked stunned and Jack’s heart began to race.

  She sat heavily on the bench outside her shop and stared out into the harbor. “It can’t be,” she said.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Five years ago,” she began, and trailed off. “That’s when they left.”

  Jack took a deep breath. Five years—this was it. “Who left?” he asked.

  “There was a girl who worked for me, Felicia,” Maya said. “She had a boyfriend who’d come down from the States on one of the boats that tend the oil wells. A sweet boy, Eduardo. He was always around the docks while the boat was in port, you see. He fell in love with her and stayed here when the boat pulled out.”

  “He had a Diamondbacks tattoo?”

  She nodded. “He was from from Tucson, but worked for an oil company, servicing the rigs. He was a mechanic—it was a good job.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “He was a U.S. citizen, and they married so she could have a green card. But the wait—she would have had to stay in Mexico for months, maybe a year, till her papers came through. He couldn’t stand to be away from her that long, and he had to work.”

  “So they went north?” Jack asked. “He wanted to take her back to Tucson?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes filled. “You know, they were so young and very foolish. Because he was from Arizona, he thought he would have an easier time in the desert, that he would be able to find his way. Poor Eduardo.”

  “We don’t know if Felicia made it or not,” Jack said. “We found the shoe print, but nothing more.”

  “Oh, she made it,” Marcie said. “She called her mother as soon as she reached Tucson. We thought she would come back home right away, because Eduardo had died, but she decided to stay with his family and raise their child.”

  “Their child?”

  “Yes,” Marcie said. “She was pregnant even before they left Veracruz—she just didn’t know it.”

  “Do you have her address?” Jack asked.

  Marcie’s face closed off. She tightened her lips and looked away.

  “Look,” Jack said. “I swear I won’t turn Felicia in. I’m trying to find a little girl and get her back to her father. This man lost his daughter on the crossing, and we think Felicia and her group might have found her.”

  Marcie looked at him again. “Felicia would have helped if she could.”

  “I believe that,” Jack said.

  “How old was the little girl?”

  “Six. Do you have Felicia’s phone number?”

  Marcie shook her head. “No, but she sent me a card for my birthday. It had an address.”

  “Could you look for it?” Jack asked.

  Marcie disappeared into her store. Jack looked out to sea, facing east, the way he’d do as a boy in South Boston. The light glinted on the harbor and the Caribbean beyond. Jack heard the metal shutters of the shops clanging up as they opened for business. Mariachis had started playing at the far end of the walkway. The music sounded happy and sad at the same time.

  “I found it,” Marcie said. “But you have to swear to me you won’t do anything to hurt her. You won’t turn her in.”

  “I swear.”

  “On something that matters to you—more than anything in this world.”

  “Louella,” he said without thinking. “My wife.”

  She nodded and handed him the envelope. Jack copied down the address. He recognized it as being in rural West Tuscon, out beyond I-10, past the Tucson Mountains.

  “Thank you very much,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  People strolled around him. Families, couples linked arm in arm, young people on cell phones. He listened to them speaking. He loved Spanish spoken by Mexicans. It had a softness and kindness to it, and when he heard it spoken he could always hear the love.

  That’s what Louella had seen in him. He’d been a hard-ass in a uniform for a long time, but that was his job. After a while the job wore him down. He got tired of arresting people trying to be with their families. His wife had loved him enough to see the best in him—he knew she was the reason he wanted so badly to find Rosa, to give Roberto some peace.

  chapter fourteen

  Roberto

  The Rileys’ orchard was the most tranquil
place Roberto had ever been on earth, but today he felt restless and full of dread as they waited to see which way the fire would move. It was still far off, but the wind roared and shook the trees, and dense clouds of smoke darkened the mountains. In the near distance the sky glowed red; that meant the fire was just a ridge or two away.

  Roberto was usually good at waiting. He always had been. Maybe it came from growing up in the country, knowing that there are some things you can’t rush, stop, or control. He waited by working, doing the best he could. But Malibu fires were fast and unpredictable. This one could zigzag into another canyon or march straight to the orchard.

  Right now he and Serapio were using the backhoe and shovels to dig a fire line, a wide trench that ran along the orchard’s northern border. Two water tank trucks stood by, and Roberto had set up a tender, hoses, and a 350-gallons-per-minute pump to soak the vulnerable north side.

  Until dawn, they’d had ten additional workers. Day laborers whom Roberto had found standing in the usual spot, hoping for a job. They had worked all night. When the sun came up, the fire marshal and sheriff arrived to give Roberto a report on the fire. As soon as their cars drove away, the men started leaving.

  “Hey,” Roberto had called to Geraldo, a Oaxacan he had used many times before—very reliable and hardworking. “Where are you going?”

  “Lo siento, amigo. Too dangerous,” Geraldo said.

  Roberto knew he didn’t mean the fire—he was worried about the officials.

  “They’re not going to be checking papers,” Roberto said. “All they care about is saving the property.”

  “Too dangerous,” Geraldo repeated.

  Roberto could only watch him leave with the others. They crammed into two old vehicles, both without inspection stickers, and drove away. Cops couldn’t just ask for papers, but if they got you on motor vehicle violations or saw something about you they didn’t like, they could search you for probable cause. If you didn’t have a driver’s license, which none of them did, they impounded your vehicle, no questions asked.

  So now it was just Roberto and Serapio.