Patty McGann slumped in the red chair and exhaled smoke from her True cigarette; assistant news directors—even recently promoted ones—didn’t cover fund-raisers, for Christ’s sake. Before the Innocents she would have jumped at it, but now—hell, women’s groups had her booked six months in advance for speaking engagements. No looking back. Across from her the news director was saying, “Come on. Tell me you haven’t heard the Nobel Prize talk.”
“I’ll put somebody good on it,” Patty McGann said. “No problem.”
“Look,” the news director said, “I’m running it lead local with international overtones, the Mexican consul’s primed. You can swing by there before you interview Father Martin. That’s early news. At eleven we broadcast what you get at St. Boniface.” He saw her expression. “It’s hot, guaranteed. Guy’s the next Mother Teresa.”
Patty McGann rolled her eyes.
“Most of Hollywood’s coming. Pick a name…”
She sat forward. “All right, I’m weak. What do you have on it?”
Smiling, the news director briefed her.
Afterward, Patty McGann said, “I’ll take Lombardi. He’s luck.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Lisa left for St. Boniface early Sunday morning, the event, including a three-o’clock Mass and donor reception afterward, requiring every available volunteer. Wil showered, had breakfast he hardly tasted, then chafed and paced for an hour, anxious to move on what he had planned. At ten-thirty she called: Guerra had arrived, Julio in tow, to organize the financial part of the evening’s presentation. She’d slipped away to get him some numbers and had to go now, bye.
Wil hung up, transferred his B&E tools from the torn-up field jacket to a windbreaker, put Lisa’s beeper in his pocket, then locked up the house. As he drove east the sun’s glare found the windshield streaks from Friday’s storm. The Santa Ana had blown itself out, allowing an infusion of cool air into the basin, a new buildup of smog toward downtown, and scattered clouds against the mountains. Forty-percent chance of thundershowers for later, the radio said. The air smelled of ozone and exhaust.
From the gate, Guerra’s place looked empty; no cars in the drive, garage doors shut, curtains pulled across the windows. Wil cruised, found a cul-de-sac a block up, and parked. From here he had a bird’s-eye view of the Arroyo and the Rose Bowl. Ahead, the big Craftsman’s shake roof showed through close-bunched myosporum, bottlebrush and eucalyptus.
Pretending to admire the view, he found a way through the greenery and slipped into it; minutes later, he was cursing an impenetrable rear door lock, feeling around a window for alarm wire, finding none. Interesting, Wil thought, scoring and removing a glass circle near the latch: Guerra preferring to take his chances with a burglar entering the house than with a security guard who’d report what he found.
He did a fast scan of the interior, found no evidence of Jessica, then came back to what had to be Guerra’s bedroom: large, with French doors facing the mountains, gold-veined mirrors, recessed lighting, thick gray carpet, and a huge bed with a black-and-gold tapestry spread. Across from a walk-in closet was a two-person, multijetted spa surrounded by an apron of black marble. The room exuded the sweet-tart essence of citrus cologne.
Wil checked his watch: twelve-ten. He did a cursory check of the closet, then came back and tossed the bureau drawers. Nothing, personal effects. Next he returned to the wood-paneled den just off the living room and started through the desk and bookcases. Zip—until he saw the photo album. It was on a floor-level bookshelf, a corner of it sticking out from a crevice between two anthologies of Latin American poetry, their leather spines ornately embossed. The photo album, by contrast, was plain and water-spotted, deteriorating suede that cracked as he opened it.
She was there between them, a serious-looking young girl in glasses, peering out from deckle-edged snapshots blotched by time. In most, Martin was on the right, Lenny left. In some, she was petting a boxer dog or dwarfed by a heavy woman in bunned hair and a print dress. He recognized the girl immediately, but the caption under one of her and a sunburnt man with pocked features and thinning hair was mute confirmation:
Wedding Day, October 16th, 1949. Sissy and Fredo Contreras.
Wil almost felt for her, she looked so unhappy: Lenny’s little sister on her day of days. Jennette Guerra Contreras.
Christ, Wil thought, she’d been right under his nose the whole time. Jennette Contreras: Not the stolid Niños employee, understandably and expectedly supportive of her boss. Not the dutiful worker taking papers home to complete the night he broke into Lenny’s office—after Lenny transferred a suitcase large enough to hold a small child from his Mercedes to her white Camry. He pictured her looking out at him from Lenny’s arched window, her face a hard mask through the rain.
The next spread was empty save for a small pasted-in newspaper clipping showing the sunburnt man in a dark suit. Local man drowns in fishing accident 2/15/51, the caption read. There was no story.
More blank spreads, then in back, a fissured snapshot shoved in without mounts; Wil took it out. It was Martin and Jennette, he eighteen perhaps, muscular in tight swimming trunks, she younger and obviously pre-Fredo Contreras. She was smiling at him, feeling the bicep he’d flexed for her. Wil flipped it over, read the girlish hand: Mi corazón y mi vida. Por todo tiempo.
In the drawers he found a phone book but no listing for Jennette Contreras; directory assistance was similarly helpful. Mo? Not likely and too little time: one o’clock already. He began going through the desk again, anything with an address for Jennette Contreras. Nothing. He checked the bedrooms, the closets, anything with drawers, and came up empty.
Like the trash containers in every room, even the kitchen.
He bolted outside in search of the garbage cans and found them racked beside the garage. Full, awaiting a Monday pickup—his first break. He dragged them inside, dumped them out on the kitchen floor, and started going through them. Ripe table scraps, vegetable peelings, spoiled fruit, damp tissue and paper towels, milk containers, junk mail, bits of voided checks showing Guerra’s Pasadena address, wadded-up yellow tablet sheets with English and math homework attempted on them, old newspapers, cans and bottles. Bingo.
Wil lifted out the Southern Cal Edison bill out as if it were buried treasure. Stained barely legible, it was for a Palos Verdes residence, 844 Pájaro Lane, yet was addressed for payment to Guerra. The name Contreras showed under tomato seeds Wil scraped off with his thumbnail.
He was headed out the door when Lisa’s beeper sounded. Wil called her back at the number she’d given him. She was on in a half-ring, asking when he’d be coming. He told her what he’d found, about Jennette Contreras being Lenny’s sister.
“What does it mean?” Her voice had a furtive edge to it.
“That’s what I hope to find out,” he said. “But I think she’s had Jess the whole time. Guerra must own the property.”
“So you’re going.” The disappointment was audible.
“Can you hang in until I get there? It’s important.”
“Guerra’s acting strange, Wil.”
“How?”
“Omnipresent or something. He barely lets me go to the bathroom without him. Father Martin’s been with the media nonstop since I arrived. Wil, it’s nearly two-thirty.”
“I know. This could be it, Leese. Beep me when you can, and I’ll let you know what I find. I’ll try and make the reception, okay? I love you.”
Sunday traffic was heavy in places but moving; thickened overcast made the day oppressive as though a lid had come down on it. Pushing the rental, Wil made Palos Verdes in forty-three minutes. As the road curved up and along the cliffs above the ocean, he stopped at a gas station for directions.
Eight-forty-four Pájaro Lane was set back on the hillside in a looping circle of large established lots: horse corrals and tennis courts, pittosporum and eucalyptus windbreaks, ice plant and bougainvillea, Mexican tile and turf-roll-perfect lawns, rain-birds going despite the prospect
of rain. Through tall oleander bushes, he could see no white Camry. He parked a block away from the house, tried to look like an insurance agent going up the drive to an entry overhung by the second story. He rang the bell, heard it echo, waited. No one came. He found a side door, looked around, then put his shoulder to it; the wood gave grudgingly, but it gave.
It was an odd house inside, predominantly white in theme and more spacious than it appeared from the street. Wil drew the .45 from his waistband, slid a round into the chamber, and did a room-by-room. The ground floor was heavy with the smell of air freshener but clean and tidy, nothing out of place, nothing to give away a baby presence. It was upstairs that the need for the freshener became clear. In a small closed bedroom down the hall from the one with all the candles.
The shuttered window was latched tight, the room empty save for a closet with an open sliding door and a rug cleaner awaiting use. The urine smell seemed to be coming from everywhere, not just the stained carpet with the playpen-sized imprints. He ran his finger over one, the fibers rising slowly.
He checked the rest of the upstairs, found two unopened bottles of Johnson’s lotion under the bathroom sink, baby aspirin in the medicine cabinet, no-tears shampoo by the tub. For a minute he sat on the edge, imaging Jessica Pacheco here, feeling her, his gut twisting at how close he’d come. Then he went outside.
The trash cans beside the utility shed were empty and oddly free of the smell from upstairs. Puzzled, he searched the enclosed yard: unpruned rose bushes, patchy lawn, medium-size pines, a pile of recently raked needles in a shaded area, wire rake up against the fence. Wil moved the pine needles aside, then put weight down where they’d been; his chukka boot left a deep imprint. He broke the handle off the rake and began poking the sharp end into the soft spot. About eighteen inches down he felt it penetrate something, was widening the hole when the smell hit. He went back to the garage, found a shovel, and began digging.
The black plastic garden bag was full of old diapers, the stench like a slap in the face. Credit for thoroughness, he thought. With all the publicity about Jessica, she’d buried them to avoid any trace of suspicion by sharp-nosed garbage men. He reburied the bag, was washing his hands off at the faucet, when something caught his eye. Where the house seemed smaller than it was from outside, the garage seemed larger. It didn’t take long to find the reason.
The space meant for cars was claustrophobic with old furniture, appliances, storage cartons, sacks of fertilizers, bottles of pesticide, paint cans on shelves, sprinkler hoses looped over hooks. But its depth lacked about three of the strides he’d measured off outside. Behind a work bench, the rear wall was festooned with tools; beside the bench a ladder leaned up against a padlocked door. Wil moved the ladder, found a crowbar, and went at the lock. It was a big Master, the kind bullets bounced off, and the wood around it gave before it did.
Unlike the raw garage, the inner room was carefully finished and painted white. It had a small roof vent through which sunlight angled and a marbled Formica surface anchored to white legs against the far wall. The smell of burned candles was like that from Jennette’s bedroom, yet there were no candles. Roses hovered in the air where there were none.
The thing that drew him, however, locked his eyes onto it and set off a roaring in his ears, was the drain. It was in the center of the gently sloping concrete floor. Nothing unusual—just a couple of inches across with a gleaming steel grate. Yet it was everything, a vortex that dizzied and pulled him in, the portal to some dreadful dark place that sucked out hope and life and left behind a bloodless world.
It began with a blast of organ music; halfway through the Mass Father Martin took the pulpit. He spoke of feeding and clothing, sheltering and healing; of bringing forth the means to lead a dispossessed generation back to grace. He had something he wanted them to see.
As Lisa watched from her seat on the aisle, a big-screen video projector was rolled out, the lights dimmed. Underscored by haunting flute music, the production’s visuals hit with wrenching directness. In the end the appeal of the actor-narrator was passed back to the priest like a baton.
For a moment Father Martin surveyed them; then his smile vanished. With the remote, he reversed the video to a child’s face, freezing anguish made memorable by angelic features.
“This is Lourdes,” he said. “One of our workers found her living in a dump, her home a rusted-out boiler. Anything she could find she ate—garbage, grass.” He paused. “It wasn’t enough. Lourdes—she hadn’t even a name when we found her—died three days ago.”
There was a murmur from the packed church.
“You see, we had no room for Lourdes. Because we hadn’t room, because humanity hadn’t room, she died. And because she died, we could wait no longer. Lourdes is why you are here tonight, my friends.
“How old would you say she was from the picture—seven, eight?” Seconds passed. “She was twelve.
“Twelve!” He banged the pulpit.
“We feel the pain of hunger a few hours after eating—let a day go by and we’re fainting.” His face was stone cold. “Try it for twelve years.”
He pressed his hands together as if in prayer, then to his lips.
Lowered them.
He said, “I want you to do something for me. I want you to be silent for two minutes while you think what it was like to be”—pointing to the image—”that child.”
By the end of two minutes, many were in tears. Lisa was not ready for what followed.
“Tears?” Father Martin raged suddenly. “For Lourdes? She could not eat your tears then, and she can’t now. She could not be comforted by your tears then, and she won’t be now. She could not draw warmth from your tears then, and she certainly cannot now.
“You are too late!” His voice thundered off the hard walls of St. Boniface.
“Yet even Lourdes, who was given nothing her whole life, found in the end something to give.” His voice broke. “Before she died, she gave us her smile.
“If I had only known, you say. Only helped.” He shook his head at them. “Lourdes had one thing, and she gave it gladly. How much will you give so that no more like Lourdes die?”
For a long moment he scanned their upturned faces. “For God’s sake, help us,” he said. “Now.”
His silence was like a call to action. Baskets were passed. Every few rows, empties replaced full ones, reminding Lisa of the loaves and fishes in reverse. Then the baskets were gone, and Father Martin retook the pulpit. The video unit was replaced by a carousel projector and screen.
“Are the slides ready?” he asked. The lights dimmed again in response. “My friends, these charts will help you understand the magnitude of this project. Your project. And why tonight’s donation, generous as it is, can be only the beginning—”
Familiar with this part, Lisa’s mind began to drift. Where was Wil, what came next? She swiveled and tried to locate Lenny in the projector light, but he’d evidently left his seat during the interlude. So strange he was—courteous and deferential one minute, sinister the next. And Martin DeSantis: Wil’s logic to the contrary, there was no way the man she’d just heard could be involved in…
Lenny was beckoning to her from a shadow. She nodded, saw him slip out via the baptismal entrance. Lisa eased out of her seat, gave a last look at the audience. Every eye was on Father Martin and the figures she’d helped prepare. Well-dressed powerful people held rapt.
Outside it was almost dark, the sky heavy with coming rain; thunder sounded faintly in the San Gabriels. Across the lawn, though, all was festive readiness. Twinkling lights and the sounds of a string quartet warming up came from the big reception tent. She checked her watch: five o’clock, time to call Wil again.
“Here. Over here.”
He was standing under a deodar near the parking lot, the red carnation a spot of color on his black tuxedo jacket.
“Sorry to pull you out,” he said as she approached. “But we need to get some things for your presentation.”
> “What?” A chill went through her: the persistent fear of speaking in public, something she hated about herself. “What presentation?”
“Later at the reception.” he said. “The tax ramifications of donating. Father Martin thought of it earlier, giving that part to you, and I forgot to mention it. It is your area, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Come on, I’ll brief you on what to say. I need to get some things for my own talk.”
“I thought it was all set,” she said. He was steering her toward his car. “Where are we going?” Dammit, get to a phone.
“Only take a second to get what I need. We thought you could open with a short review of that part of the tax code.”
“Father Martin for sure wants this?”
“You’ve impressed him. Look, they’ll be through any minute, and we’re up next. Are you coming?” Reflection from the lot lights flared off his glasses, making it impossible to see his eyes.
She didn’t like it, tried to weigh the consequences, wondered what Wil would do, cursed her inexperience. Her fear decided it. Ever since eighth grade—the speech class when she’d gone mute and fled the podium—she’d had nightmares about being unprepared. As she got into the big Mercedes, Julio raised up in the rear seat from where he’d been sleeping. He blinked and took her in with vacant eyes, then settled back down on the leather cushions. Calmed by his presence, she snapped on the seatbelt and began running through possible opening remarks as Lenny Guerra headed out of the lot, the first big drops of rain pelting the windshield.
The Innocents Page 23
