When I Knew You

by Desireé Prosapio

  I understood why she never told him about Javier Bonita or the Rocking B Ranch in La Salle County.

  For the first time, I understood what was at stake for Javier—or whoever he was. If he wasn't Javier Bonita, then the land he'd built his empire on wasn't his. Money and power, those were reason enough to make sure my mother didn't find out more. Reason enough to send a truck into that intersection, to destroy my mother.

  I missed her so much my whole body ached. I didn't care if she wasn't who she was once if she would forget my birthday or the names of my friends. Clouds drifted in overhead, covering the stars and barest sliver of a moon. The boulders of Hueco Tanks glowed in the lamplights of other campers.

  By now Antonia would be forgetting our night in the hotel room. I couldn't remember her being away from her tapes and notes before. I could imagine the look on her face when she struggled to remember something from a few days before. Her memory would be fraying, a thin flag ripping in a hot desert wind until all that was left was in tatters. I imagined her eyes would widening in fear as she searched her surroundings, looking desperately for her notes or tapes—anything to shore up her mind.

  She had none of those now. I had the tape player, she'd left her notes in the truck. I buried my face in my hands, shaking like a leaf. Willie was right. Eliah was undoubtedly waiting for me to become completely terrified, and he'd succeeded. Because I knew that if Antonia was gone much longer, she might not remember who I was at all.

  Stop it, Kati. Get it together, I scolded myself. It's got to be here. There's got be something here you can use to get her back. Pulling my hair back into a ponytail and wiping my eyes, I went through every envelope again, re-read Abuela's letter, rubbed at the locket at my neck. If Abuela had already told my mother about Javier Bonita being an imposter, then what was my mother researching?

  I read until my eyes blurred and the cold desert penetrated the camper. I double checked the phone one last time to make sure I still had a signal in case Eliah called, and climbed into the sleeping bag.

  The darkness was complete as the cell phone light went out and I felt despair wash over me. "I'm sorry, Antonia. I'm sorry I didn't take care of you," I whispered, wiping my tears on the sleeve of my shirt. And for the first time since the day my mother got hit by the truck, I prayed.

  Reaching for the next hold on the cliff wall, I pivoted on my leg carefully to give me that extra inch of extension. It was just enough for me to clip my carabiner to the bolt in the cliff wall and pull up the rope hanging from my waist. I yanked on the rope, but it was too taut.

  "Slack" I called over my shoulder, concentrating on the holds in front of me.

  "You got it," shouted my partner.

  The rope loosened at my waist. I'd climbed this wall a dozen times, but only managed to lead climb—to be the person who climbed up and set the top rope in place—once. I was still in the easy part of the climb, where the footholds were fat and the handholds were solid. Thanks to the slack in the rope I could now easily pull a bite of rope and with a twist of my wrist I managed to clip it into the carabiner. The next section was pretty technical, with a tricky overhang that I'd fallen from before. I'd gotten lucky on those falls, swinging freely in the air from my rope, cursing my lame skills. But I was better now. I could do this if I rested my muscles a little.

  "I'm going to hang for a minute," I called down to my partner. I wanted to be rested and ready before my next move. I clipped a tie off—two carabiners on a short length of webbing— into my harness and the bolt. I relaxed, hanging from the wall from my tie-off. I looked down for my partner, but the rope disappeared into a fog. Still the rope was taut, so someone had to be holding it.

  "Kati," a voice drifted down to me from the top of the cliff. Because of the overhang I couldn't see who was talking.

  "What? Who is it? Who's up there?"

  "Kati," the voice continued, getting a little fainter. "It's not who he isn't. It's who he is."

  I leaned my upper body away from the wall, trying to see who was talking. Above me, I could see the dim white disc of a full moon in the clear blue sky. It was odd that the sky was so clear, given the fog below. The rock above me was that golden sand color of limestone, with crumbling granules on the ledge. "What are you talking about?" I shouted. "Who?"

  "You have everything. You have everything I had, Kati. I figured this out, why can't you?"

  "Mom?" My chest tightened. I got back in climbing position. "Stay there. I'm coming."

  I pulled in toward the wall then unclipped my tie-off, fastening the carabiner that had been hooked to the wall to the side of my harness. "On belay!" I shouted to my climbing partner.

  There was no response. When a climber yells "On belay" their partner should respond with "belay on." It meant they were ready to catch the climber by tightening the rope if they were to lose hold. Without someone on belay, a climber who slips will fall all the way back to the ground. I shouldn't have released my tie-off until I heard from my partner. I knew better.

  I looked down at the rope trailing down through the bolt I had just clipped it into. The rope was no longer as taut as it should be. Instead, it dangled in the air, slack and swaying in the breeze.

  "On belay!" I shouted again, louder. My arms were beginning to shake and my legs were cramping. I reached back on my harness to grab my tie-off, to clip it back into the bolt, but it slipped from my fingers, then unclipped from my harness as well. I yelled as I watched it fall into the fog, then all I could hear was the sound of it hitting rocks on the way down with repetitive sharp metallic clangs.

  No one shouted back, no one complained about the falling debris. Which meant only one thing. There was no one down there to catch me if I fell.

  I woke up drenched in sweat, my legs aching and my hands clenched in fists. I closed my eyes and got my breathing under control. The camper was dark, the barest sliver of moonlight casting a gray shadow through the windows. I felt the locket at my neck and thought of the voice in my dream.

  Even if Javier wasn't who he claimed to be, Mom was wrong. DNA would be useless. Even if the imposter's DNA didn't match his daughter Lupe's, all he had to do was claim that Estella had been unfaithful. The reason DNA from great great grandchildren worked in the Thomas Jefferson case was because the goal was to prove he had fathered children with Sally Hemings.

  Mom's collection of envelopes had documents that had no connection to Bonita that I could see. Was she in a hurry when she scattered everything, with no time to filter out what was worthless?

  The only thing missing, at least as far as I was concerned, were the file from Mom's accident. There was a chance there was something in there. Something I could use. They were back at the house with Abuela.

  The ceiling of the camper was covered in stickers from different climbing equipment companies. Pilar often met with the climbing sales people, learning about what was the latest and greatest new gear. Even in the faint light a few of the stickers stood out. One had a faint glow. It was like moonlight in the tiny cabin.

  Moonlight. I thought of the white disc in my dream, the full moon out in the daylight. I wished the moon was full tonight; I thought I'd sleep better with a silver glow around me. Everything was easier with the light of a full moon.

  The realization came over me like frost on a windshield, cold and jagged. The Moonlight Murders. The newspaper clippings from Texarkana. I sat up, nearly hitting my head on the camper's roof. Oh my god, that was what she was telling me in the dream. She wasn't trying to prove the imposter wasn't Javier. She was trying to prove he was someone else altogether.

  My mother was trying to prove Javier Bonita was actually a serial killer from 1962, the Texarkana Moonlight Murderer. All because it all line up. In 1963, year after the investigation in Texarkana, Javier had traveled to Texas. Right after the murders stopped in Texarkana.

  I turned on my phone and in the glow, grabbed my backpack, pulling out my notes.

  I thought of Abuela's description of the imposter as
I dug through the piles of paper. I remembered Eliah, his mask slipping as he watched the fire at my apartment. My mother couldn't get Javier, or rather, the imposter's DNA, but what if I could get his descendant? If Eliah was really the imposter's son, even without DNA from the imposter, there would be a link.

  Of course, what I really wanted wasn't an answer to who the imposter was. What I wanted—no, what I needed— was leverage to get back Antonia. Leverage to make Eliah and whomever he was working for, to leave us alone.

  These were the people who weren't satisfied with taking my mother from me twelve years ago. They weren't satisfied with destroying her memory of everything and everyone, including me.

  Then it hit me. My mother, when she was lucid, she was right. They were worried. They were the ones actually running scared—not just for a month, but for years. And the reason was in the envelopes my mother had gathered. Add to the governor's race and the body discovered on the Rocking B. The ranch where Abuela had looked for Javier, and instead found someone so terrifying that she fled and buried the whole nightmare as deeply as someone had buried that body.

  I realized the only thing I could do that would keep them from killing me and Antonia was to prove it, all of it.

  Dawn began to spill over the horizon as I leaned over the notes, articles, and photos, looking for an answer.

  Chapter 24

  I sipped the bitter 7-Eleven coffee as I sat at the concrete picnic table at the park. My back ached from sleeping in the camper, and I longed for my bed in my apartment. That pillow top mattress was my first purchase as an adult, and now it was a pile of ash. Along with the Texas Parks and Wildlife calendar, the cheap Ikea desk and chair, and the old stereo that was gifted from Margie when she heard I was looking for inexpensive furniture—all of it was rubble.

  I took a longer sip of coffee and rubbed at my face. Fear and weariness had disappeared last night and in its place was a simmering anger.

  I had the articles from the Moonlight Murders strewn out across the concrete table, held down with rocks I'd gathered from around the campsite to keep them from blowing off in the morning breeze. I flipped through the file from Willie's father, the investigator who had reported back to the Chicago Bonitas that Javier had run off with another woman.

  Then it hit me. My mother wasn't asking him about Javier. She was asking about the Texarkana Moonlight Murders. In the file folder was a copy of several of the articles, most of which I'd printed from the library, several police reports, and a photo of a man I hadn't seen so far. Writing in the margins identified him as Caleb Mayhan of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

  The quality of the photo was poor, and the man looked off to one side, but he looked a little like Eliah. He had short cropped dark hair, his jaw was square, just like Eliah. Eliah had a nose that looked too small for his face, as well as brown eyes, but the rest was similar enough to make it believable that he was the man's son. I couldn't make out Mayhan's eyes in the photo, but they looked like they were light.

  In reading through the police report, it sounded like Mayhan was the only suspect, but there never was enough evidence to do more than question him. The murders remained unsolved.

  Willie Alacon's father had written that the "DNA from Texarkana was still on file" with a Detective Robert Mora. Was he talking about DNA from the Moonlight Murder victims or the suspect, Mayhan? Evidence from the crime scenes? Was this the Roberto my mother mentioned? I began to re-read my mother's notes on DNA.

  There were only two possibilities that I could see to prove who Javier Bonita really was. The body that had been dug up on the land could be proven to be the real Javier by linking to his daughter. Or the fake Javier, the imposter, could be linked to the Texarkana Moonlight Murders case. But Gustav was right. There was no way to get DNA from the imposter. All of this was so far fetched, and the imposter had all the power and money in Texas to hide behind.

  But what if I could get Eliah's DNA? Would that be enough to tie it all together?

  When Eliah called, I had to be ready. My hands shook as I searched Pilar's truck for the one thing that would be my insurance policy if things went wrong.

  "Hey, Kat. Sorry it took me so long to get in touch. Turns out I didn't have your new phone number. Had to get it from your grandma."

  My throat felt tight. Elijah sounded like his old self, the geeky insurance guy who tried to ingratiate himself into every conversation. "Eliah. Where's Antonia?"

  "Right to the point, Kat? But we have so much catching up to do." He laughed, then his voice changed from cheerful to the voice I heard in the church, threatening Father Vincent. "Fine. I need all those envelopes your mother scattered around town. It's the last of the loose ends. Then I'll tell you where you can find Antonia."

  "I want to talk to her. I want to know she's okay."

  "You don't want to talk to her. She doesn't even know who you are, Kat."

  I felt lightheaded. It wasn't possible. She hadn't been gone that long. "I want to talk to her right now."

  Eliah sighed heavily. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you." The line was silent for a moment, then I heard muffled voices as if he'd covered the phone with his hand.

  "Hello? Who is calling?" Antonia sounded confused.

  "Mom? Mom! Are you all right? Where are you?"

  "Ah'm fine, honey. Ah'm fine. Ah'm here with Joey, we have been doing some travelin'." She paused. "But ah think you have me mixed up with someone else." Her southern accent was strong as a Dixie belle. Thicker than I'd ever heard it.

  "Mom! It's Kati, it's me!"

  "All raight now, don't be upset. Ah'm just gonna hand you back to Joey here. You keep an eye on that pilot, okay?"

  Pilot? My mind raced. Pilot was the name of our cat. He had died a year ago. Why did she bring up Pilot? Was she trying to tell me something? Or was she in the middle of some strange story Eliah had fed her?

  "What did I tell you, Kat? She's put you out of her mind already. Not that she's had much of a mind in the last ten years or so." Eliah's voice was smug. "Mothers. I've always said the whole mythos was overblown."

  "Look, Eliah, I'll do whatever you want. I've got all the stuff Antonia was working on. I just want her to back safe and sound."

  "I know you do. You're a good kid, Kat. Tell you what we're going to do. We're going to meet you over at the church in San Elizario. I'm sure you know the one I'm talking about."

  "I'm familiar."

  "So I've heard. It should be pretty quiet there. And like they say in the movies, come alone. I'll see you in an hour."

  "You're bringing Antonia?" I asked, my voice cracking.

  He laughed. "She goes by Priscilla now. Or maybe it's Selena. I forget." His laughter cut off when he hung up.

  No one answered the phone in the rectory. I'd called three times, hoping to reach Father Vincent, hoping to warn him. When I pulled into the plaza in front of the church I understood why. Half a dozen people were in the courtyard setting up lights, large electric fans, and sweeping the stone walkway. Off to the right a grouping of unusually tall women sat at a table under a large umbrella, each with an attendant fussing over their hair and makeup. Father Vincent was talking to a man with dreadlocks who had three large cameras hanging from his neck. The Father had one arm in a sling, but managed to be just as animated as if he had two functioning arms.

  I grabbed my backpack along with my "insurance policy" and headed toward the church office.

  "We can meet over here, Kat."

  Eliah stepped out from behind a truck, startling me. He took a long drink from a water bottle, then offered it to me. The giant water bottles from my mother's accident flashed in my mind, rolling in the street. Beautiful Living Waters was the brand, the same as the one he handed me. "Not much left. Want some?"

  "No thanks," I said. "Where's Antonia?"

  He shrugged, then capped the water. "Come on over," he said, ignoring my question. "Let's sit down over there and talk."

  We walked over to a bench in the plaza where we
had a perfect view of the photo shoot in front of the church and sat down. Two of the models stood in the center of the bright lights, and someone turned on the fans. The buzzing sound echoed off the church walls and in seconds their long hair began to flow around their heads like snakes.

  "Eliah," I said. "I brought everything. Where's Antonia? Why isn't she here?"

  "Calm down. I had to make sure you came alone and I had to make sure you brought everything. You don't expect me to take your word for it, do you?" He held out his hand. "Let's see what you've got there."

  I pulled away. "You think I'm an idiot?"

  He grabbed at the shoulder strap on the backpack and pulled me close, way too close. "Actually I do."

  "Think again." I flicked off the safety with my thumb and cocked the gun.

  Even with the sound of the fan and clicking of the camera flashes across the street, the sound was unmistakeable. Since Eliah had pulled me close, I had the barrel of the gun deep in his belly. Pilar's gun, aka, my insurance policy.

  "This is a .38 caliber, just like what I shot in my marksmanship class in college, Eliah," I said languidly. "You know, it's moments like this when I think, God Bless Texas and its liberal gun laws. How about you?"

  We sat there for a minute, staring at each other. Eliah's eyes had narrowed and the skin at his temples glistened. Across the street from the plaza the clicking sounds continued as the photographer barked encouragement.

  "Eliah, my friend," I said sweetly, measuring out every word as if it were a honey laced poison. "My dear friend. You know, I figured something out. If I shoot you, chances are good I'll find Antonia anyway. So you might as well tell me where she is."