Pray for the Girl

by Joseph Souza

  “Stefania let you in my kitchen?” His face scrunches up, and his meaty hands ball into fists. “I taught that girl everything she knows and she betrays me like that?”

  “Even your granddaughter knows better than to use liquid eggs when making an omelette.” I stare at him. “Seriously, are you that stupid? Or just plain cheap?”

  “If you were a man I’d punch you in the face.”

  “So what’s stopping you?” I offer up my chin, and he backs off.

  “Bah! People love my food,” he says not so convincingly. He picks up the spatula on the counter and holds it aloft.

  I laugh at this silly gesture. “I drove by the Denny’s yesterday, and it was packed.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are, anyway, coming in here and criticizing me?”

  “I’m someone who appreciates good food and knows how to cook it.”

  “Then come back and cook for me, and we’ll see who’s the better chef. I’ll even give you some money to buy what you need.”

  “When?”

  “Two days from now.”

  “Okay, I accept your challenge.”

  “Good.” He peels off two twenties and hands them to me. “You don’t get paid a dime until I get results.”

  “Results?” I laugh, looking around the room. “Could I do much worse than this?”

  I remove my sunglasses once I’m out in the parking lot, wondering how long it will take until I go blind. The sun irritates but doesn’t necessarily hurt my eyes. I’d visited so many dark places in my life that the light now seems like a foreign entity. And yet here I stand under the September sun, no worse for the wear, feeling more stable than I have in weeks. The feeling won’t last long, although I wish it would. I’ll eventually need to return to that dark place in order to confront my demons. I need to be strong, because there’s no turning back now. I need to follow my gut.

  * * *

  The dead girl’s name was Sulafi. According to the paper, she was a month shy of turning sixteen when her body was discovered buried along the river. Of course no one can be sure, because the refugees didn’t take paperwork with them when they fled from their war-torn country. Paperwork was the least of their worries. They were brought to these shores unknown and unheralded, then resettled in Fawn Grove.

  I sit in the Fawn Grove Library, reading as many accounts of the murder as I can find. But the facts are scant, and there’s not much written about the girl. No one knew much about Sulafi’s past, and the people in her community aren’t talking to the police or news reporters. The few articles about her showed the same black-and-white photo of her staring blankly into space. In the picture she’s wearing a hijab. I can’t really tell whether she was an attractive girl. I’ve always found it difficult to judge a woman’s appearance when her head is covered with a scarf. Maybe it’s the sheer uniformity of the hijab that blinds me to a woman’s looks. More likely, it’s my own personal bias.

  And yet I clearly remember that beautiful young girl from many years ago, smiling brightly beneath a hijab as she arranged the fruit on her stall.

  After an hour I stop researching because there’s nothing left to read. Somehow I need to dig deeper if I’m to find something more substantial about the girl’s death. How I’ll do that I have no idea.

  My legs hurt from that long trek down to the Alamoosa, and I worry how my stamina will hold up at the diner. What have I gotten myself into? Will I be able to stand all day after taking more than a month off from cooking? Looking back on my career as a chef, I can’t believe I lasted as long as I did with these sawed-off legs of mine. The key was keeping my movements economical and efficient and not making extra work for myself. I got to the point where I could work my mise en place blindfolded, every pan and utensil seeming to rise to my hand as I reached for it. My knives were an extension of my body, like Harry Potter reaching for his wand. I even had a specially made rubber mat underfoot that helped absorb the impact on my stumps.

  But I’ll have none of that at The Galaxy.

  * * *

  I walk past Big Russ, barely stopping to look at him. He’s reclining in his easy chair, boots resting on the footrest, eyes glued to the flat screen. He’s watching a documentary on World War II, and the low level hum of B-24 bombers makes it seem as if they’re flying overhead. Bombs fall and strafe the European landscape, and for a brief moment it harkens me back to my tour overseas.

  Shaken, I quickly climb the stairs before he tries to engage me in conversation. Once safely in my room, I collapse on the bed and burst into tears. This is so silly. I have no idea why I’m crying. Must be the hormones zipping through my system. Maybe exhaustion is finally setting in, having accomplished far more than I should have in one day. I need to rest up and take it easy lest I fall back into the same funk that brought me here in the first place.

  It’s a relief to take off the sunglasses and gaze mindlessly up at the black void. If this is what death feels like, then there’s no reason to fear it. Sometimes I welcome death as an escape from this crazy life. A way out of the pain and suffering I’ve been forced to endure.

  But my emotions snowball and I start to feel worse. At some point I sit up on the bed and sob uncontrollably, unable to rein in this vague feeling of dread. I wriggle out of my jeans and remove the prosthetics, laying them gently on the floor. The medicated tube of cream sits on the nightstand, but I’m too tired to apply it. I lay my head down on the pillow, tears dampening the floral casing my sister makes Big Russ change on a daily basis. I don’t want to sleep for fear of stirring the voices. And yet I don’t want to stay awake and think about my crazy life.

  There’s a knock at the door. After a few seconds it opens a crack. Light streams into the room and temporarily blinds me. I don’t ask who it is, because I don’t really care at this point. I pray it’s not Russ, and I know it’s not my wheelchair-bound sister; I would have heard the mechanical whir of her chairlift. Whoever this person is sits on my bed and whispers sweetly to me. Their sudden and unannounced proximity makes me feel helpless. I reach out, despite my reservations, and grab their hand. It’s soft and small, like a child’s. It takes me a few seconds to realize that Brynn is sitting next to me. We’ve hardly talked since I’ve arrived.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “How much has your mother told you about me?”

  “Not much except that you two were cousins back in the day and that you practically lived here because your mom was never around for you.”

  I nod knowingly, wondering how much of the truth I should fill her in on.

  “She said that you called this place home and that my grandmother was more of a mother to you than your own drug-addicted mom. My mom said you were dying to leave this town when the time came.”

  “This house really was my home growing up.” I squeeze her hand tenderly. “I’m sorry we had to meet like this, especially in the condition I’m in.”

  “No, it’s perfectly all right.”

  “Would you place the comforter over me?”

  “Sure.” Brynn covers me with it, tucks it under my body, and gasps. “Oh my God!”

  “I should have told you.”

  “You have no legs.”

  “Not below the knees, anyway.”

  “What happened?”

  “Your mother never told you how I lost them?”

  “No. She just said that you were injured in an accident or something. She never told me the details.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  “Why didn’t you come home and let us help you?”

  “I spent the first few years recuperating. Then after that I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone, including your mom.” Brynn doesn’t need to know the entire truth, I realize. Not now. Not here, especially after what her mother has already told her about me.

  “Because you didn’t want people in town to see you like this?”

  “What do you think?
”

  “I think people would have understood.”

  “You obviously don’t know the people in Fawn Grove.”

  “Trust me, I know them better than you think,” she says. “But times have changed, Cousin Lucy.”

  “Do me a favor and drop the cousin crap.”

  “Okay,” she says, wringing her hands. “It’s just that Dad and Mom wanted me to show you some respect.”

  “You’ve already shown me some,” I say. “And as for changing times, the more things change in Fawn Grove, the more they stay the same.”

  “My mom says that you and Jaxon were once close. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No!” I turn away from her.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you facing away from me?”

  “Because I don’t feel well.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “Not with what I’m suffering from.”

  She rests a hand on my hip. “I came here to tell you something because I heard you were interested.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I knew the girl who was murdered. She was in a few of my classes.”

  I turn to face her.

  “I overheard Stef talking to another kid about you. Stef’s a bit of a . . .”

  “Bee-yotch?”

  She giggles at this. “Don’t say that about her. She’s really nice once you get to know her.” She removes her hand. “She said you visited the diner and seemed obsessed with the girl’s murder.”

  “What if it’s true? Will you feel any different about me?”

  “Of course not.” She pauses. “But why do you care? You’re not a cop.”

  “I wish I could give you a reason.”

  “Does it have anything to do with Jaxon?”

  I nod, feeling a tear coming.

  “If you want, I can put you in touch with someone who knew her much better than I did.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “She was Sulafi’s cousin.”

  “Why won’t she talk to Detective Dalton?”

  “Dalton?” She laughs. “That guy’s such a tool.”

  Brynn seems a good judge of character. “But doesn’t she want the police to find her cousin’s killer?”

  “She said it has something to do with her culture. The people in her community refuse to talk to the police because they’re afraid of them. Supposedly, they don’t trust cops because they remind them of war and the soldiers back home.”

  “Even a guy like Dalton?”

  “Especially him.” She holds out her hand and examines her nails. “Did you know that his daughter’s in a few of my classes?”

  “I didn’t know he had a daughter.”

  “They’re not particularly close and haven’t been for years,” she says. “Brandy feels the same way about him as most people do. And she’s totally embarrassed that he leads that ridiculous group in town called AFA.”

  “AFA?”

  “Americans For America,” she says. “It embarrasses Brandy that he’s so outspoken on this immigrant issue. She feels it reflects badly on her in school and that the teachers and kids judge her unfairly because of her dad’s actions.”

  “Dalton hasn’t told me much about his personal life.”

  “How do you even know him?”

  “I met him one morning at the diner,” I say, leaving out the speeding part of the story.

  “Brandy’s parents got divorced when she was little. She lives with her mom now and hardly ever talks to her father. She’s always going on and on about what an asshole he is and how she never wants to see his ugly face again. She even changed her last name back to her mother’s.”

  “Who’s her mom?”

  “I don’t know her first name. Last is Millis.”

  Debbie Millis. In high school she was the drop-dead-gorgeous cheerleader who could have had any guy she wanted. Not a very nice person to those outside her clique. A walking cliché for high school bitches who ruled the roost and excluded everyone else. She was the perfect match for Dalton. Or, as it turns out, the worst match possible.

  “Do you want to meet her?”

  “Dalton’s ex?”

  “No, Sulafi’s cousin. She might talk to you because you’re a woman. Maybe she could tell you what Sulafi was really like.”

  “You think one of her own people killed her?”

  “Who else in town could have done something that evil?”

  “Something tells me you know more about all this than you’re letting on.”

  “That’s a silly thing to say,” she says, averting her eyes from me. “So, do you want to meet her or not?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll set it up tomorrow, then.” Brynn stands and walks toward the door. “Is it true you made a scene at The Galaxy this morning?”

  “Made a scene?” I laugh. “Hardly.”

  “I heard you complained to Stef’s grandfather about the food?”

  “How do you know that? Did Stefania tell you?”

  She shrugs. “You better call her Stef and not Stefania. She hates being called that.”

  “Have you ever eaten there?” I ask, making a note of that.

  She laughs, and it is a girlish laugh—the laugh of a fifteen-year-old who knows she’s pretty and more popular than most of the others and can get whatever she wants. It’s a laugh that tells me she won’t be eating at The Galaxy anytime soon. And who could blame her?

  11

  ANOTHER MORNING AFTER A FITFUL NIGHT OF SLEEP AND I’M EAGER to get to The Galaxy. I wonder if Dalton has the balls to show his face in there after trying to put the moves on me. There’s not a car in the parking lot when I pull in. I’m the first one through the door and the only one sitting at the counter. An octogenarian walks in soon after and takes a seat in a back booth. Billie is working this morning, although there’s a part of me that misses Stefania’s wisecracking energy. It’s the only interesting thing in this otherwise depressing place.

  Billie pours me a cup of coffee and then skitters off to attend to a customer. A self-admitted snob when it comes to coffee, I’ve never yearned for a good cup more than I do now. But I need caffeine and so I sip this tepid brew and make do.

  I sit quietly reading the paper when Dalton walks in. He seems to come in here most mornings on the days he’s working. I pretend not to notice when he sits three stools from me, giving him the cold shoulder on this cold autumn morning.

  “You think you’re Jacqueline Onassis wearing those stupid glasses?” he mutters.

  “Jackie O was a glamorous and beautiful woman, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Not so glamorous when she was scooping up her husband’s brains off the backseat of that limo.”

  “Why must you be so crude?”

  “At least I’m not being pretentious.”

  “Do tell. How am I being pretentious?”

  “For starters, you wear designer sunglasses inside The Galaxy, and you act like you’re better than everyone else in town.”

  “For your information, I wear sunglasses because I’m sensitive to light.” I turn to face him. “Why are you being so mean to me? Was it because of that kiss?”

  “What kiss?” He laughs. “I don’t remember you trying to kiss me.”

  “Stop acting like a child.”

  “A child?” He sips his coffee and stares ahead. “I’m just making an observation. And I was not at all being mean to you.”

  “You most certainly were being mean to me, Officer Dalton.”

  “It’s Detective Dalton, if you’ve forgotten.”

  “Is it because I pose a threat to you?”

  He laughs and turns to face me. “Now how in God’s name could you possibly pose a threat to me?”

  “Because you’ve made so little progress in this murder investigation.”

  “I took you down to that crime scene, didn’t I? You saw what progress was being made.”

  “Yes, but I wonder what your m
otive was for taking me down there.”

  “You obviously misinterpreted my motive.”

  “If you say.”

  He laughs dismissively, and I slide over two stools so that I’m sitting next to him. Our shoulders press lightly together.

  “You’re frustrated.”

  “Okay, I’ll play along. What am I so frustrated about?”

  “You’re frustrated because you’re not getting any cooperation from the family of that dead girl. You’ve gone to them, but they refuse to talk to you. They don’t trust outsiders, especially a man in uniform carrying a gun. Reminds them of home. This frustrates the hell out of a guy like you because you’re used to getting results, and that extends to your romantic life. You need a break in the case and you need it fast because you’re the assisting detective on the investigation and the state police are breathing down your neck for answers. The Afghani women who knew Sulafi best act as if they’re repulsed by you.”

  “Don’t you worry, they’ll talk eventually, even if I have to subpoena them.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “We’ll see how they like it when they’re being charged with obstruction of justice and then thrown in jail for a few days. They won’t like being forced to live without that stupid headscarf of theirs.”

  “It’s called a hijab.”

  “Whatever. We should have never let so many of those animals in here to ruin our town.”

  “Have some compassion. They’re human beings, not animals,” I say, infuriated by his comments. “And their culture dictates that women not talk to strange men.”

  “I’m so sick of hearing about Muslims and how we need to be so tolerant and kowtow to them. How about we take care of our own citizens first.”

  “How can you assist on the case when you’re so obviously biased?”

  “I’m a professional. I can set aside my personal beliefs to do my job.”

  “Then why am I making more progress than you?”

  He laughs. “You should hear how ridiculous you sound.”

  “Do I?”

  His expression quickly turns serious. “I’m warning you to stay out of this murder investigation, Lucy. Do you hear me?”

  “You haven’t changed one bit, Dalton,” I say, instantly regretting the words as soon as they come out of my mouth. He swivels toward me and is about to say something when Yanni walks out of the kitchen, spatula in hand, and surveys the near-empty diner. Upon seeing the two of us sitting side by side, he walks over and stands in front of me. It’s laughable the way he thinks he can intimidate me because of his size. The smell he gives off is enough to scare anybody away, but I refuse to budge.