The Innocents

by Richard Barre

  “Thank you, Father,” Paul said, chewing. “We’ve donated clothing and food several times before. Do I remember correctly hearing they were meant for Hermosillo?”

  “Los Amigos de Hermosillo, yes. But those things you give us go out to all of Mexico.” Father Martin smiled. “My thanks, Mr. Rodriguez—as you can imagine, we never have enough contributions.” He began walking them toward the rectory. “You have a family?”

  “Just the wife and myself at home now, Father. I’m retired military.”

  “And what has your friend to do with Hermosillo? Is he a part of our work down there?”

  Paul shook his head. “Father, you remind me of someone—who is it? Ricardo, um…Montalban. Anybody ever said that?”

  Father Martin smiled, wishing he had a dollar for every time. “Poor Montalban,” he said smiling, his standard reply. “But thank you. You were saying about your friend?”

  “Yes. My friend is trying to locate someone. He was told this person had interests in Hermosillo at one time.”

  “I see.”

  “I was hoping you might be able to suggest some people down there I could ask. If he was still around, where he might have gone, what he’s doin’ now, things like that. My friend thinks he might’ve been there off and on going back about twenty years.”

  Father Martin paused in front of a natural stone grotto. On a ledge was a statue of the Virgin appearing to a smaller figure kneeling below; a waterfall spilled over the rocks at the Virgin’s feet, past the saint, and out into a quiet garden. He fixed his gaze on the rushing water, then turned to Paul. “Names we have, Mr. Rodriguez. Perhaps this man even helped us at one time.”

  Paul smiled politely. “I’d be surprised.”

  Father Martin resumed their walk, Paul following in step. They passed a row of deodar cedars and headed toward a brick residence with stained glass in the door. They were almost there when Father Martin said, “You know, I visit the city rarely now, but I wonder if I might know this person.”

  “My friend remembers him as something of a character. Short, with reddish hair. Had a reputation, he said.” Stopping as they reached the door: “The name is Zavala. Bolo Zavala.”

  Father Martin pursed his lips. “No,” he said after a pause. “But our Amigos chairman lived there at one time, he may remember. If you wish I will speak to him.”

  “If it’s no trouble, Father.”

  “Another mint?”

  Paul took the candy.

  Father Martin had his hand on the latch when the thought struck him. “Even better—speak to Leonardo Guerra yourself, Mr. Rodriguez. He’s here every Sunday at eleven.” He checked his watch: late again, never enough time. “As for the other, see Mrs. Diaz in the administration building, tell her you talked to me. She’ll give you a list of some people to call. And now, Vaya con Dios.”

  He waved a blessing, then hurried inside.

  Later, in his office, he checked his afternoon, then buzzed Mrs. Diaz. “Isabel, please convey apologies to my four o’clock. I will be unable to attend the meeting after all.” He tapped the desk.

  “And Isabel, dial Leonardo Guerra for me.”

  Freiman’s face was a storm front.

  “Here’s how it plays, Mr. Hardesty. Lieutenant Vella will show you everything we’ve gathered, plus the coroner’s report we got this morning. You then will give us your information. All parties agree in advance to share future findings as they occur. Which means that should you act independently, as Lieutenant Epstein indicates you have a penchant for, it will be grounds for serious can time to celebrate your independence from peeking through keyholes. Am I quite clear on this?”

  Wil met his eyes. “Clear.”

  “Consider yourself warned.” Freiman stood, announced he had another meeting, and left the room.

  As Epstein got them foam-cup coffees, Vella brought a thick file up from the chair next to him. He spread a large-scale map showing the crime site and its relative location to Saddleback Butte. Then photographs.

  Wil concentrated on the close-ups. Small skulls, ribs, spines brushed free of earth; rulers to lend scale; the Saint Christopher medal once in open palm and again tighter in to show the inscription.

  Vella brought it out, opened the plastic bag. “Handle it if you like.”

  Wil did. It felt small and rough and insignificant, not much to show for a kid’s life. He recalled Benito’s face, then focused on what Vella was saying:

  “—definitely kids, all seven. Fairly young we think, impossible to tell exact age after that amount of time in the ground, which we don’t know for sure either. Only thing we do know is since sixty-seven on the one kid, and that’s assuming the medal belonged to the victim. Condition of the other bones was more or less the same, clean. No clothing, no threads, no soft tissue, no traces of blood, nothing in the surrounding soil—killed someplace else, we figure, buried about four feet down. The flood that uncovered them must have been fairly recent, though. Coroner’s anthropologist found almost no external weathering.”

  He pointed to some extreme close-ups. “This nick on the front of the neck vertebrae, each skeleton had one. The coroner says knife, possibly curved from the unevenness here and here.” Vella glanced again at the report.

  “The angle would indicate an upward cut from behind, like so, all of them. Whoever did it had to have been strong—much deeper and they would have been decapitated. As for motive, the sex killing stuff is media generated so far. It’s certainly possible, but from the bones we don’t know if we’ve got boys or girls or both.” He sucked in coffee, tapped a photo. “This one’s our medal kid. Like the others, no hacking or saw marks. One nick to a customer.”

  Not a customer, goddammit.

  “He was a nice-looking boy,” Wil put in quietly. “I saw a picture of him. I met his father.” He watched their expressions change. It was still enough to hear Epstein’s cheap watch.

  “Jeezus,” Mo said finally. He took off his suit coat, slung it over a chair.

  Wil went on. “Benito was payment to get his family across the border the same year as the medal, sixty-seven. They were dirt poor. The man who brought them over promised the boy would be adopted by a wealthy family. The parents believed they were doing what they had to do and the right thing for him. Obviously something went wrong.”

  “Illegals would explain why we weren’t able to make dental records,” Vella said to Epstein. “What about the others, Hardesty?”

  “I don’t know, but the pattern would seem to hold if nothing’s turned up. There’d be no shortage of interested buyers, judging from the stuff you read in the papers.”

  “Who’s the man the parents gave the boy to?” Epstein asked.

  “The name the father remembers is Zavala, first name Bolo.” Wil waited for both cops to write it down. “You’ll want to check it, but twenty years ago, he shot up three border patrolmen at Calexico, got some of his cargo killed using them as shields.” He paused again. “The kids must have been a side venture for him. Just so happened my client had no money. It was Benito or nothing.”

  They drank coffee in silence.

  “I’ll save you more time,” Wil continued. “Zavala worked with a man named Pacheco. Apparently they fell out, because after the shootout Pacheco wound up in the Colorado River with his throat cut.”

  Epstein sat up in his chair. “You get all this from your client?”

  “No,” Wil said. “This man would never have given his flesh and blood to a jackal like Zavala if he’d known what he was like. I’ve done some checking.” No sense involving Rodriguez, he reasoned.

  Vella scratched his head, smoothed thinning hair. “This Zavala alive, dead, what?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Lieutenant. So far nobody I’ve talked to seems to know. Or is saying.”

  “Your client, why won’t he come out?”

  “Selling your child in exchange for illegal entry? Funny thing is, up until last week he’d imagined Benito a successful doctor or lawyer s
omewhere. I’m sure you can guess how he feels now.”

  Epstein bit the rim of his cup. “That would explain why nobody else has come forward. With no ID on the other bones, how would you know it was your kid out there?”

  “Assuming the parents are even around,” Wil said.

  Vella checked his notes again. “What about the medal? We found no chain, so the kid wasn’t wearing it. If he was killed somewhere else, he couldn’t have had it in his hand, it would have fallen out. If the killer dropped it, which I doubt, the medal could have belonged to some other kid.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, waved away smoke. “The killer himself could be named Benito.”

  “You’re right except for one thing,” Wil said. “The day before Benito left with Zavala, they had a birthday party for him, his sixth. The medal was a present. Later, another kid dared him to swallow it, which he did—the father remembers spanking him for it. That’s why you found the medal where you did. It was inside him.”

  Epstein flipped his cup in the trash. “Which means he was killed right afterward or it would have passed through his system. It also fixes nineteen-sixty-seven as our year.”

  “April ninth,” Wil said.

  “What?”

  “The day he swallowed it. His birthday.”

  Vella shook his head. “Makes no sense. If the kid…”

  “Benito.”

  “I know his name, Hardesty.”

  “Then use it.”

  “Fuck off. You’re here by dispensation, remember?”

  “Right. Like you had so much going.”

  “Come on, people,” Epstein said. “We’re on the same side here. Carl?”

  Vella glowered, then spoke. “What I don’t get is, why kill Benito and the others? Delivered alive the kid means big bucks to Zavala from somebody.”

  “A double-cross, maybe,” Wil said. “Money up front that Zavala splits with. Not much recourse when you’re adopting illegally.”

  Epstein said, “Unless the kids were worth it to Zavala for sex. Wouldn’t be the first time.” He rubbed his forehead. “Your client remember what Zavala looked like?”

  Checking his notes, Wil described Zavala for them, and they concluded with that. Vella went to brief Freiman and to turn the task force loose on the lead, telling Wil he’d let him know when something turned up. Mo Epstein accompanied Wil down the elevator into the lobby, walked him to the door.

  “Really stepped in it big-time, didn’t you?” he said. “I’ll give you this, you did better than most with Freiman. Don’t take him for granted, though, he’s not nice when he’s mad.”

  Wil was glad the sweat-soaked shirt under his jacket didn’t show. Or the craving for cold beer and warm shots. “Far be it from me to upset the captain,” he said over his shoulder. With the shouts of the reporters, he wasn’t sure if Mo heard him or not.

  EIGHT

  Leonardo Guerra put the phone back in the onyx cradle. Sunlight slanting through the French doors illuminated the smoke from his cigar, an exceptionally fine Havana. For a moment he watched it waft upward toward polished wood beams, then he rose from the desk.

  Father Martin was right. They were going to have to raise the stakes for Hermosillo; the work there was too important, the old facilities inadequate. The run-down hotel they’d converted was beyond repair, the orphanage similarly decrepit. They needed another drive, another huge effort. Money and a great deal of it.

  He flicked a long ash into the fire Julio had laid then panned his eyes over the photographs on the mantle. The charitable missions of St. Boniface: Gentes de Ciudad, caring for L.A.’s downtrodden; Casa de Bienvenidos, assisting immigrant families; Dirección, the urban resources network; Work Etc., jobs for the indigent; Justicia para Todos, legal help for L.A.’s hispanic poor; Friendship House, spearheading human rights; Comfort Zone, helping poverty-level disease victims; Amigos de Hermosillo, their first project together. Framed ribbon-cuttings, freshly painted signs, earnest volunteers wearing change-the-world smiles. He and Martin; Martin’s look. Martin growing increasingly distinguished over time.

  Guerra took in cigar smoke, let it out slowly. When viewed dispassionately—a talent of his—St. Boniface was simply another diversified market-driven corporation. With attendant responsibilities, of course. Planning for the Amigos fund-raising would begin tomorrow.

  He moved away from the hearth, pressed the button for Julio, and a slim youth appeared. Guerra’s eyes appraised him: fourteen now, not a youthful or awkward fourteen either; no, far older. His brown skin glowed in the light from the fire, the black eyes deep and expressionless as empty vaults.

  “Julio, start my bath,” Guerra said, brushing a fleck of ash from his smoking jacket. “And before that, I would like a massage.” He watched Julio nod and withdraw.

  Then he dialed a familiar number.

  Wil had to sprint from the corner, barely saving the Bonneville from a city-sanctioned tow truck. Driving away, he reflected on the meeting. No turning back now: Dead or alive, Zavala had to be in somebody’s computer. And if they found him, what then—engineer a deal for Reyes to testify? Maybe; worry about that later.

  He stopped for a quick lunch, called Lisa and got the machine, left a message he’d be back late. Outside the murk had intensified, thickened by lumpy clouds into a steel-wool sky. With the traffic already stacked up at Vermont, it was an hour to Reyes’ place. By that time rain was making soft sounds on the leaves.

  Wil walked toward the house, the low gloom making it seem larger than he remembered. Shrubs glistened on either side of the walk; somewhere a metal wind chime stirred. The housekeeper directed him partway to the study, then returned to her vacuuming. Built-in job security, he thought; finish one acre, another one needed it.

  As before, Reyes was in the study. Wil briefed him on the border patrol incident, the killings, Zavala’s trouble with drugs and guns. “As you said, a bad man.”

  Reyes shook his head.

  “I am going to see Gilberto,” Wil continued. “Tonight if I can.”

  There was no mistaking the expression, the twisting of blue-veined hands. “I know,” Reyes said quietly. “It makes sense to speak with Gilberto.” He sighed. “What doesn’t make sense is how his own father could sell his brother to a man like Zavala.” He looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time. “And for what—for this? Jesumária!” He got up awkwardly, fists clenched; picking up an urn-shaped lamp, he raised it over his head and smashed it on the floor.

  Pieces flew, and the room dimmed. In seconds there was banging on the door. “Señor Reyes, está usted bien?”

  As quickly as it happened, Reyes’ composure returned. “Si, Marta, gracias. Solamente un accidente. Estoy bien.” Turning to Wil he said, “I will speak to my son this afternoon. For now I am tired. Please excuse me, Mr. Hardesty.”

  Ignacio Reyes’ feet crunched across lamp shards. Opening the doors, he walked past sliding glass, beaded now with rain.

  Bolo Zavala checked his watch: eight-fifteen. From his position up the street, he watched the three leave the house and take two cars, the white coupe following the station wagon.

  The fat one had to be Rodriguez, he guessed, the black woman his wife, since they left together. No telling about the tall one—blond he looked in the greenish night glasses.

  After the taillights vanished, Zavala took a double hit off the inhaler, then timed off twenty minutes. Satisfied they weren’t coming back for something forgotten, he left the IROC, put up his collar, and made for the house.

  A snap: He was inside in less than a minute, pausing in the darkness, getting a feel for the place, then twisting on the flash. He looked around: four doors down the hall, the kitchen to his left. Start with the front room: stuff everywhere—knickknacks, knitted shit, family photos. He examined the photos.

  It was him all right. Paul Rodriguez in uniform, with the woman, with babies. He swung the light down the hall. Bathroom on the left, sewing room, then master bedroom.

 
; Zavala stepped inside, saw a canopied bed, throw rugs, plants: a woman’s room, a woman’s house. What kind of man lived in a place like this? He almost spat. If they were here, sleeping, it would be easy to take them both, pigs in a slaughterhouse. He fingered the knife: her first to keep her from screaming, then Rodriguez…

  Some other time, maybe.

  Back in the hallway, pushing open another door with the flash. Papers strewn on the gray metal desk, trophies; on the wall, more photographs: Rodriguez at some ceremony, posing in uniform, shirtless cleaning a machine gun. Rodriguez with…He stopped. It was the tall man Rodriguez had left with, younger but recognizable, standing on a gray ship by a mounted deck gun. He lifted it off the wall, turned it over, saw writing: With Wil, Cam Ranh Bay, 1969. He flipped it back, wondering about this Wil. And Rodriguez.

  Why had he been asking about him? For a friend, the voice had said. On a whim, he slipped the snapshot, frame and all, into his coat pocket.

  Next he shuffled through desk papers: junk mail, gun magazines, insurance come-ons, a take-home restaurant menu. He picked up the menu, paged it, turned it over: on the back was a yellow Post-it with a name and phone number, under that a story about the restaurant and the family who owned it. The name meant nothing, and he went on.

  There were envelopes addressed to Paul Rodriguez, United States Coast Guard, Retired; next to the phone a business card. Directing the light, he read Wil Hardesty, Private Investigator. The tall guy, the Wil in the Vietnam photo. La Conchita, wherever the fuck that was. He pocketed the card, useful perhaps if the tall man came too close. An investigator—maybe he’d find him first, see what he was made of.

  Finished in the den, he searched the kitchen, found nothing of interest there. For a moment Bolo Zavala stood very still in the darkness, his hand on the frame in his pocket. Then he slipped outside, retracked the glass door, and headed up the street toward the IROC.