The Innocents

by Richard Barre

  Wil felt himself gripped on each arm, the picture shoved back in his pocket; this time he didn’t resist. “That little girl’s mother used to be happy, Mrs. Sumner. Tell it to her.”

  At the door, he shrugged off the escort and walked out into the rain. Midway down the drive, he looked back to see them all watching and, standing at a separate window, Lenny Guerra, one hand jammed in his coat pocket, the other holding a flip phone to his ear. Beside him, Jennette Contreras’ face was as white and rigid as sculpted marble.

  Wil wound the Harley down into Brookside Park, where he found a phone by a deserted Little League diamond. Raindrops cratered the wet dirt of the infield.

  “Wil,” she answered. “I just got home. Believe it or not, I’ve been out there all this time. Working.”

  “That’s great, Lisa.”

  “You sound funny. Are you okay?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry—think I was boozing or something.”

  She was quiet a moment.

  “It’s a bitch, Leese, that’s why I’m calling.” He was still sweating from Guerra’s, could smell himself under the field coat. His knuckles were pale peaks on the hand holding the receiver. “I want to,” he said. “A lot.”

  “Come home, Wil,” she said, then hesitated. “I have a surprise. The Polaroids you wanted of that statue? I got them.”

  “Unbelievable. How?”

  “Father Martin held a press conference for his big fund-raiser event coming up. They all went but me, I volunteered to answer the phones. Are four shots enough?”

  Wil found his voice. “Nobody saw you?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’ll be damned—nice going.” He checked his watch. “Now we have to get them to Lindeman.”

  “Where is he?”

  “UCLA, Anthro department, his card’s in with my stuff. Take 405 South, then go east on Sunset, and you’ll see it. It’s about twenty minutes. If he’s not in, slip them under his door.”

  “Done. What else?”

  “I love you.”

  “Come home, Wil.”

  He was thinking of something clever to add when he saw the blur of motion, heard the whine. The car was bearing down on him, its headlights off, part of the dark and gaining speed. Wil jumped and felt it roar by him, heard the phone kiosk explode as though an artillery shell had hit, then he was rolling and scrambling in the mud toward the Harley.

  He was trying to start it when the car completed a 180 and came barreling back. Three kicks, four, and then the bike caught and he was fighting for control as the car tried to cut him off. He spun away, roostertailing mud, then felt the surface change, the bike attempt to grip rain-slick asphalt and fail. He throttled down to stop the skid and stalled it.

  The car, like a cape-maddened bull, completed its turn and gunned the engine as though sensing the kill. It was a black Dodge, an ex-CHP cruiser with tinted windows, the front doors still white, a faint outline where the shield had been. On the driver’s side, a single windshield wiper swept back and forth like a twitching tail. The driver popped on his headlights, floored it, and the big engine threw the car forward, tire smoke streaming from the wells.

  This time the Harley responded; after a brief jitter Wil was up and running, the Dodge gaining, then losing ground as Wil pushed the faster, lighter bike down a stretch and into a turn. Rain pelted his coat, burst on his helmet, stung his hands and neck. The Dodge’s high beams were like twin searchlights in the rearview.

  He torqued the bike past seventy, felt a surge of exhilaration. Almost to the freeway, he could see the sweeping arches of the Colorado Street bridge.

  The pickup truck.

  Pissed or disoriented by the three raised headlights coming at him, the driver hit his high beams. Momentarily blinded, Wil reflexed a feather squeeze on the brakes, knew his mistake instantly as the Super Glide’s rear end broke loose. He turned the bars toward the slew and almost righted it. But the drift was too deep and it went out from under him, and then he was down and sliding across wet pavement and gravel, his knee on fire, and he was trying not to let the front wheel dig in, and then he and the bike were airborne and that’s all he remembered except for the feeling his head was being twisted off.

  The young-looking doctor with the red buzz cut was finishing the stitches in his scalp when they let Lisa in to see him.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  Wil opened his eyes against intense light, closed them again. “He’s fine,” he said, his words disjointed and faraway sounding.

  “Lucky to be here,” the doctor said. “You see his helmet?”

  “Yes,” Lisa said. “Doesn’t that hurt him?”

  “The area’s deadened. And I gave him a pain shot for his knee. Nothing’s broken, but I want to keep him overnight. I’ll be around in the morning.”

  After the doctor left, Wil felt her touch his forehead, then take his hand. He was aware of dried blood tightening the skin on his neck.

  “Guerra,” he said. “As I left, I saw him on the phone. Setting it up. They must have been waiting outside.”

  “No more tonight, Wil.”

  “The pictures?”

  “I put them under Lindeman’s door.”

  “Not an accident, Leese.”

  “I know. Sleep now. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Not…drunk.”

  He woke up in a room looking out over a small park. The rain had let up recently; eucalyptus swayed gently in the wind, the wet foliage droopy and gray-green. Beyond them morning traffic hissed by on a four-lane surface street. He was stiff and bruised; where he’d been sewn up, he felt as though someone had left a fork in his scalp. Lisa stayed as long as she could, then left for St. Boniface, promising to call later. Wil remoted the TV on, flipped through silent channels, then turned it off. Vents exhaled processed air like a long sigh from deep inside the building.

  Mo Epstein came by as Wil was picking at white-flecked scrambled eggs and pale toast.

  “My, that looks appetizing,” he said, regarding the plate. “And you look better than I was expecting.”

  “Put me back in, coach. I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, right.” Mo regarded the stitches. “Nice even work there. I’m something of an expert, you know. How’s the knee?”

  “Got me to the bathroom and back this morning,” Wil said. “What’s up?”

  Epstein sat down in a blue vinyl chair. “Casewise? Well, let’s see: nothing on those file names you gave me. Every address had a different current resident.”

  “That tell you anything?”

  “In the light of everything else that’s checked out, no, it doesn’t. As far as the infamous register receipt goes, that came from the SaverDrug on Alvarado.”

  “Guerra drove home that way the other night.”

  “How about giving the Guerra thing a rest, huh? Lots of people drive Alvarado. Some even shop at SaverDrug.”

  Wil downed the rest of his orange juice, shifted his weight off a sore spot. He threw a forced smile at Mo’s look and waited for him to continue.

  “The buyer paid cash. The checker was working late and doesn’t recall the sale. I saw the accident report. You’re kind of hard on the transportation, aren’t you?”

  “It’s a weakness of mine.”

  “Among notable others.” Epstein leaned forward on his elbows. “Guerra phoned the captain personally, said you were drunk and abusive to his dinner guests. There’s a restraining order being cut.” He paused. “You wouldn’t be a little over the top here, would you, old buddy?”

  Wil looked out the window. “You got something to say, Mo, say it.”

  “I saw my empty bottle of JD the other morning, and it wasn’t me who emptied it. Maybe you get blitzed, go to Guerra’s, spew all over him, then dump the bike seeing double. Doc said you must have been pretty damn loose to come out as good as you did.”

  “Or ridden one down before.” He was suddenly flat-out weary of justification, raised eyebrows, swimming upstream. “I’
m tired, Mo. Just drop it. There’s money in my pants pocket for the Jack.”

  Epstein flushed to his ears. “Hey, fuck you—I didn’t deserve that.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “You ain’t the only one with problems, but here’s another: Freiman’s talking about running you in when you’re well enough. I wouldn’t want to tell you your business, but you might try lowering your profile for a change.”

  Wil sat up in bed, twisted his knee, and winced. “Am I under arrest, Mo?”

  “No. At least not yet. But people who continue to futz around with the buzz saw usually wind up with the short end. Pal.” He snatched up his nylon rain shell and walked out of the room.

  Later, Wil dozed and woke up sweating from a dream about Devin and Jessica Pacheco playing at the edge of a cliff and his parents with blood all over them warning him not to die. He limped to the sink, splashed water on his face, and took another painkiller with some juice. He was in bed staring out the window when Lindeman called on the room phone.

  “How’d you get this number?” Wil asked him.

  “Your wife. She said you’d had an accident but would want me to call.”

  “Thanks. What about the Polaroids?”

  “It’s been an interesting day. Turns out your little idol is pre-Santería, all right, but not what I first thought.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s sacrificial in nature—as in human. I’d stake my reputation on it.”

  “Then it’s not Santería, right?”

  “No. As I said before, Santería’s doves, chickens, the occasional goat. Rum and flowers. Nothing like this.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Apparently some old African deity, at least an interpretation of it. Remember I mentioned there were myths? This is one—a spinoff sect that hit the beach in Cuba early on, then disappeared into the forests and never came out again. Through sources, we learned that all the governments down there have tried eradicating it. The last big push was in the forties, before Castro. Troops wiped out several whole villages—nothing they readily admit to.”

  1945, Key West. Martin DeSantis. “And the deity?”

  “The name we got is Chawa Uve. It means lover of innocent blood. That’s why the purges. Kids kept disappearing.”

  “What was the purpose?”

  “Of the sacrifices? Special favors, special blessings to accomplish certain things. Usually when a great deed was about to be undertaken.”

  Wil was quiet.

  “You there?” Lindeman asked.

  “Yeah, just thinking.”

  “Kind of prickles your short hairs, doesn’t it, what that little thing’s seen. How did your collector respond to my suggestion?”

  “Were you able to find out if it was stolen?”

  “Uh huh—August 17th, 1963, from the National Museum in Havana. Somebody ripped off the only three ever found, replaced them with monkey heads to show their contempt. Well, if there’s nothing else you need, I have to run. The ball’s in your court.”

  “Tell me about the fund-raiser,” he asked Lisa in the car as they left the hospital. It was after seven and the rain had started again. She had a country station on for background, a Mary-Chapin Carpenter ballad about Carolina. The seats made soft leathery sounds as Wil shifted around to get comfortable.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  His fingers went briefly to the line of stitches, felt their wiry stiffness. “Whatever you know.”

  “All right. It’s the event around St. Boniface. Cardinal Ennis is coming, and half of Hollywood. Media, of course.” She had both hands on the wheel, race driver style; oncoming headlights cruised across the lenses of her driving glasses. “There’s going to be a special Mass and a reception afterward in a tent they’re putting up. I’ve seen the renderings for Hermosillo and the initial projections. It’s very ambitious. They need a ton of money.”

  “When is it?”

  “Sunday at three.”

  “That soon?”

  “Two nights and a day. Why?”

  Mary-Chapin Carpenter segued into Bonnie Raitt. The Acura’s wipers swept rain noiselessly off the windshield.

  “Because I think we have until then to find Jessica,” he said.

  “And if we don’t?”

  “Then it’s too late. She’ll be in a grave somewhere.”

  Suddenly she swung off the street and stopped at the curb in front of a group of stark apartments. She set the brake and turned toward him. “I thought you were afraid Guerra was going to put her up for adoption.”

  “I don’t think that anymore.” He told her about Lindeman’s findings—the violent nature of Chawa Uve, the wealth-gathering significance of the idols’ cowrie shells—and watched her face darken under streaks of windshield rain. Christmas-tree lights showed through drawn blinds in some of the apartments; a downpour rattled the car, then left as though running behind schedule.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she said finally.

  “Lindeman said great deeds. I think the Innocents were blood sacrifices for things like this fund-raiser. Seven kids, their throats cut—of course the assumption these days is serial killings, sex murders. But each was buried with respect for the remains. You could even say reverence.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “Hear me out, Leese. Zavala worked for Guerra, it would be logical bringing Jessica there while he stalked me. Meanwhile Lenny senses an opportunity. He not only sees what he needs in Jessica, but a chance to rid himself of the loose cannon Zavala has become. If Zavala kills me, great. If not, Zavala is still dead and the case is closed. Somehow he pulls it off. All except for the second bullet.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair. “What about Father Martin?” she said.

  “What do you think?”

  Rain dripped steadily on the black coupe. As she turned away to face the windshield, he saw the shine in her eyes and felt something let go inside him, as if a spring had been stretched too far.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’ll shut up.”

  “No,” she said bleakly. “I just can’t comprehend that we’re sitting here talking about children being murdered, possibly by people I’m in with, working with. It’s like this tight little box where I’d lock away the bad things is broken.”

  Wil touched her hand.

  “Lenny Guerra brought me a rose my first day,” she said. “He was charming, warm, welcoming. And yet I believe you when you say those things about him. But you can’t convince me Father Martin is involved.”

  “You’ve known him how long—two days?”

  “I don’t care. I just know. You ought to see him with kids.” Fresh tears came. “Wil, I keep thinking of Devin.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “What’s she like—Jessica?”

  “You saw the picture—”

  “Tell me!”

  He let out a breath. “A lively little thing, small like her father. She likes to play with Legos.”

  “It’s so goddamn real suddenly.”

  “You can be home in an hour, and nobody’d blame you. One way or another, it’ll be over soon.”

  She drew a deep breath, wiped her eyes. “Tell me,” she said. “Does Mo Epstein cry like this?”

  Wil kissed her hair and stroked her cheek, held her to him. “All the time,” he said. Beyond the windshield, the bone-white underbelly of the moon peeked through clouds like the tail of a curtain tattered and whipped up by the passing front.

  Donna Pacheco was elbow-deep in dishwater when it hit: the sound of a child crying, audible instantly over the lunchtime mutter and clink. A knife in her heart. In the kitchen, no one else noticed; so many families came to Papa Gomez, crying kids were as common as refritos. She remembered how easy it had been to tune out Jessie’s little cries. Every mother did it.

  It was tearing her apart. Again.

  Kids with their mothers in the market, children playing in the
street, pictures of little girls—that’s all it took anymore, anticipating them was not enough. The tears were coming again. Plunking in the half-filled sink as the sobs swept across in waves.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Saturday morning brought thundershowers, rain falling and the sun shining, then the last of the clouds crowded out of the L.A. basin east toward Arizona. By nine the sky was clear and blue, odd contrast to the flood warnings broadcast for some canyon and low-lying areas.

  After dozing intermittently, Wil turned the clock radio from low to off, shook the cobwebs out, and took inventory. He was much sorer than yesterday. His knee was puffy and reluctant and tweaked him getting out of bed despite its Ace bandage. A centipede crawled in his scalp wound, evidence of healing. After slow stretching, ginger steps and the oatmeal Lisa’d left with her note about needing to get an early start at St. Boniface, he showered and eased into khakis and a navy sweatshirt, deciding he felt good enough to pass on his pain pills. As he sat with a coffee, he phoned to update Ignacio Reyes. Then he tried to make arrangements for the Harley to be flatbedded up to La Conchita. A recorded voice suggested he call Monday.

  Mo Epstein he reached at home.

  “You accept apologies during off hours?” he said.

  “Apologies meant, or the chopped-liver kind supposed to grease somebody up for a favor?”

  Wil felt the sting, knew he deserved it, and said nothing.

  “Well, shit,” Mo said disgustedly. “Our Lynwood hooker killer walked this morning on a technicality. Dead to rights we have this bird and now she’s out on tainted evidence. You were saying?”

  “I’m sorry I behaved like a jerk. No excuses. Sincere enough for you?”

  “Why not. How you doin’?”

  “Better.”

  “You still on the sauce? I mean not that it doesn’t do things for your personality, it’s when it becomes your personality that friends say things, right? You do get that?”

  “Right now I’m sober,” he said.

  “And you’re smart enough to know there’s help.”

  “Yes. Look, I’m going to apologize again—sort of an advance.” He heard the expulsion of breath at the other end. “You were right. I do need your help.”