by Sarah Lovett
Nellie clucked her tongue as she lured a strand of spaghetti onto her spoon. She sampled it, then retrieved a colander from a high cabinet. She was about to call her second son when she heard something that gave her goose bumps. A child's piercing scream.
Nellie dropped the colander and dashed into the hall. She cried out when she saw something on the floor. Her eyes caught motion—then she realized what she was staring at. Her two boys were wrestling, the older had the younger in a headlock.
Both boys ignored her until she grabbed Rudy by the scruff of his neck.
"Ouch!" Rudy finally released his choke hold on his brother.
"Didn't I ask you to check on Serena?"
Rudy moaned when his brother kicked him in the shin. Then he shrugged and said, "I did."
Nellie frowned at the odd expression on her older son's face. "And?" His silence alarmed her. "What?"
"She ran away, Mom. She's not there."
AT HOME IN La Cieneguilla, Sylvia slipped out of running shoes, stripped off shorts and T-shirt, and showered. She was energized from a three-mile run. Her favorite route led up the ridge behind her adobe house, but she had acres of relatively open country to choose from. That was one advantage of living fifteen miles south of Santa Fe. Another was the quiet seclusion, and the incredible star-studded night skies.
She found a cigarette in a kitchen drawer, lit it, took three long hits, then stubbed it out in the sink. She'd cut her smoking down to almost nothing. She tried her best to sit and meditate each morning—always with less-than-perfect concentration. And she was drinking vodka only on special occasions. It was all part of the year's reorganization. Her new priority: less bullshit, more peace of mind, a lot more sex. She squeezed half a lemon into a glass of iced tea, mugged a smile, then caught sight of her reflection in the kitchen window; the shiner lent her a rakish air.
It was early yet; just past four-thirty. She found the newspaper on the counter where she'd left it on a stack of mail. She began sifting through the pile. A large manila envelope contained a series of her prison-inmate interviews, just transcribed. The new issue of Corrections Alert! had a piece on female inmates' mental health issues; she set it aside to read later. There was a letter from her mother, letters from colleagues. She stacked those with the others. She knew she was stalling, not ready to tackle the book.
She refilled her glass with iced tea. Resting her elbows on the counter, she perused the newspaper; the front page had stories on the governor and new prison construction; she clipped a recipe for fruit salsa; she pulled out the movie schedule from the entertainment section. There were three films she wanted to see.
A story caught her eye: an upcoming gala fund-raiser for the Children's Rescue Fund was being held at the Frank Lloyd Wright Pottery House. Sylvia had always wanted to see the inside of the east-side landmark. She scanned the story—music by Los Mariachis Nachitos . . . dignitaries expected to attend include the governors of New Mexico and Texas . . . hostess Noelle Harding . . . $500 to $5,000 per person. She sighed and stopped reading. Harding was Texas "Big Rich," and five hundred dollars was a tad rich for Sylvia's blood. She'd catch a garden tour one of these days.
She gave the dogs water, then carried the tea to her study and sat down at her desk to rework a section of her book. This particular chapter centered around an inmate whose mother had been a prostitute, father unknown but probably one of her johns.
Light bedtime reading.
When Sylvia's first book, Attached to Violence, was published a few years earlier, it had drawn professional criticism and praise. Her publishers hoped a second book would increase her visibility. Sylvia just prayed she wouldn't end up on some talk show with a hyperactive confrontational host. She knew her publishers prayed she would. And they kept threatening to trash her subtitles.
It was no mystery to Sylvia why she wrote about attachment or bonding disorders. Most children who experienced the loss of a parent spent some portion of their life trying to fill the void. It was one of those wounds that never quite healed. Sylvia turned thirteen the year Daniel Strange walked out of her life. Bonnie, Sylvia's mother, had always insisted her husband was dead: "Why else would he stay silent, hurt us this way?" Sylvia felt in her heart he was still alive . . . somewhere in the world. Even as a young child, she had sensed a fundamental change in her father after his return from military duty in Southeast Asia. Years before his physical disappearance, he had abandoned his family emotionally.
She tried to focus on the revision, but she lacked concentration. Emotionally drained from the day's events, she found herself at half-mast in her swivel chair. Serena's file and the accident report were on a shelf next to her desk; she scanned the few pages again. And when she picked up the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV to verify a term, the pages of the tome just happened to fall open to the categories of disorders usually diagnosed in childhood: mental retardation, autistic disorder, learning disorders, expressive language disorder.
Sylvia scrawled notes on scratch paper: cognitive disorders? definite vocal capacity! lack of language skills? stuttering? selective mutism? silence intermittent? for days, weeks, months? years?
"God, let's hope not years."
Rocko, who was stretched out on the floor of the office near Sylvia's feet, opened one eye at the sound of a human voice and yawned. His mistress absentmindedly scratched the terrier's tummy with her bare toe.
Since, at the moment, Serena was minus almost all history, there was no way to know if her family dynamics matched the selective-mutism profile. On one hand, she wasn't a "frozen child," completely withdrawn from all social contacts. On the other hand, she wasn't your average kid. The image remained in Sylvia's mind—the child's luminous features raised skyward.
Sylvia poked Rocko's belly. "Whaddaya think, big guy? Is Serena a wee bit tetched?"
The terrier raised his head attentively as if he were about to answer the question. Sylvia was reaching forward to pat the animal when someone grabbed her from behind.
She let out a short yell and thrust her elbow backward.
"Hey! It's me."
She recognized the voice, turned, and saw a familiar face gazing at her from under the brim of a baseball cap. His skin was weathered and tanned, his gray-green eyes fringed by dark lashes, his nose had encountered obstacles, and his mouth was wide and expressive. Tall and solid at forty-three, Matt England had a cop's seen-the-world face.
"It's you," she said, breathless.
"Who'd you think it was? You almost injured my manhood." He gave her a speculative glance before he disappeared from the study. She followed him to the living room—he wasn't there—and stepped out the open sliding glass door onto the deck. When Matt reappeared through the backyard gate, his arms were weighed down by something black and heavy and wrapped in plastic. He let the load fall to the wooden deck.
Sylvia bent close to read the label. "Pond liner?"
"Ummmm." Matt grazed one hand along Sylvia's bare arm. He pushed his cap off his forehead and smiled. "This one's going to be big."
Sylvia set her hands on her hips. "Bigger than the two ponds you've already made?"
"This'll be the best. We can stock it with spadefoot tadpoles next July. And it's going over by the moss rock and the blue spruce." He glanced off toward the rear of the house and the ridge beyond. Sylvia knew the spot he was talking about. It was on the other side of the fence, maybe thirty feet from the house. A place where she'd seen rabbits, foxes, and very recently a corn snake. Matt moved toward the sliding glass door. "What are you drinking?"
"Iced tea." Sylvia followed. "But there's still some beer in the refrigerator." In the kitchen, she watched him line up bread, mayonnaise, sweet pickles, and a plastic bag of sliced ham on the counter. She pulled a cold bottle of Rio Grande Lager from a six-pack, popped the top, and took a long drink. She wiped the bottle's rim with the base of her palm and handed the beer to Matt, who was busily creating a massive sandwich.
She perched herself on the kitch
en counter like a kid, bare heels gently slapping a cupboard door. She'd been working questions in her mind like worry beads, and she was impatient to get Matt's feedback. They each had a distinctly different reasoning process; when they worked a problem through to its logical end, they reached two very different conclusions.
At the moment, to drive her crazy, he took his time returning various bottles to the refrigerator. When he was finally seated at the small table, eating, she asked, "If you've got plates and an I.D. number on a vehicle, how long will it take to trace it?"
Matt shrugged, then swallowed a mouthful. "The VIN will tell you origin of manufacture. Are the plates stolen? Is the vehicle stolen?"
Sylvia pursed her lips. "Maybe."
Matt closed one eye and looked skeptical. "What are we talking about here?"
"My new client." She frowned. "Remember the child I saw at the hospital?"
"You said you were going to work on the book." Rocko had taken up position at Matt's feet.
Sylvia thought about the unrevised pages stacked on her desk. She ducked her head as if she could physically dodge her own deadline. "I worked this afternoon—"
"Can you get me another beer?" Matt gazed at her over his sandwich.
"You've still got some."
"I'll need another one." Matt set the last quarter of the sandwich on his plate. He pulled crust from the bread and tossed it to Rocko. The terrier caught it, then let it drop to the floor, where he nosed it unenthusiastically, all carnivore.
Matt said, "The reason I mentioned your book is because you made such a point about finishing the chapter before the party."
"Uh-huh. I'd like to do that." She was puzzled by his reaction. She knew he'd been relieved when she'd taken a break from prison and court evaluations to concentrate on writing and research. He didn't have to worry about a stay-at-home writer the way he had to worry about a woman who worked with sociopaths and psychotics on a daily basis. Even her trips to California to gather data with her friend and colleague Leo Carreras had found Matt's support.
He said, "The party's tomorrow. Can you get me that beer?"
"Get your own beer." Sylvia stood. Her dark gold-brown eyes flashed, displaying temper. "If I don't get the pages done, it's not the end of the world. I'm trying to tell you about this child."
"Fine. Tell me." Matt shrugged as he rose from the table and carried his plate to the sink.
"Never mind."
"I'm listening." He ran water over the plate and squirted a dab of dish soap from a yellow bottle onto a sponge, scrubbing stoneware.
"All right." Sylvia's expression shifted as she concentrated on relating her experience. "Her name is Serena. She's nine or ten, probably ten years old, Hispanic, with a great face, and gawky the way kids are—"
"I know kids who aren't."
"—but she doesn't speak a word. I think she's capable of speech—" Sylvia refocused on Matt, saw his best poker face, and stopped speaking. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Something's going on." Sylvia watched Rocko slink out of the room. "You're upset I went back to work to see a traumatized kid?"
"No." Matt slapped his baseball hat on his head. He took a long breath. Paused heroically. Kept his voice very soft. "But I'm fuckin' pissed about that beer."
Sylvia eyed her lover suspiciously as she moved to the refrigerator and opened the door. She pulled a lager from the six-pack and closed the door. The quick intake of her breath was involuntary. Slowly, she opened the door again. There was a blue velvet ring box on the shelf between ketchup and beer.
"Oh." Sylvia's face broke into a smile. "Gee."
Matt looked pleased and embarrassed. "You're supposed to open it."
She lifted the lid and smiled at the delicate gold ring with its flower of shimmering rubies and tiny pearls.
"It belonged to my great-grandma Etty."
"It's beautiful." She catapulted herself toward Matt, grabbed him around the waist, and kissed him.
When he pulled back for air, his lopsided grin made him look twelve years old. He took the ring from the box and started to slip it onto Sylvia's left ring finger. "Let's see if it fits."
She protested, "My fingers are too fat—"
"Your fingers are lovely"—the ring hit her knuckle and stuck—"but fat."
"Thanks."
The gold band wouldn't budge. "Really fat." Matt dodged her punch. "Do you have any butter?"
"Wait." Sylvia licked her finger and worked the metal band until her knuckle felt raw. Just when she was about to give up, the ring slid into place.
"So . . ." Matt removed his baseball hat from his head and crumpled it between nervous hands. "Now it's official."
She forced herself to respond before the silence became uncomfortable. "Absolutely," she said lightly, swatting him on the nose with one finger.
They kissed. Matt's hands were moving up under her shirt when a high-pitched bleat sounded from the pager on his belt. "Damn." He glanced down. "Rosie."
"At the pen?" Sylvia frowned. Rosie Sanchez, penitentiary investigator, would only be working overtime if there had been an incident. There were plenty of incidents at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, an institution that was the center of constant political, judicial, and social controversy.
Matt nodded, even as he was reaching for the telephone.
Sylvia prepared the dog's dinner while eavesdropping on the monosyllabic phone conversation. "Matt . . . . Yeah . . . . Uh-huh . . . . Uh-huh . . . . Yeah." A glance at his wristwatch. "I'll be there in fifteen." He hung up and caught Sylvia's questioning glance. He said, "An OD at the joint. Some of that stuff coming up from Mexico."
She nodded, following him to the door. She knew the Rio Grande corridor was a major conduit for marijuana, cocaine, and the newest "super" heroin traveling from the Colombian-cartel drug labs through Mexico into the northern states. The D.E.A. clampdown on Miami had created a wealth of opportunity for Mexico's border towns.
And New Mexico State Police got their share of Mexico's drug crime; there was more than enough to go around.
In the doorway, Matt paused and cleared his throat. He had an odd expression on his face. He said, "By the way, that car your girl was driving? Dispatch ran a ten twenty-nine and—"
"Whoa, translation."
"You better bone up on your ten codes, ma'am. Ten twenty-nine—wants, warrants, stolen; ten twenty-eight—registration."
Sylvia set her hands on her hips and took a breath. "The car's from Mexico, right?"
"Wrong. The vehicle had plates from a dealer in El Paso, Texas, so E.P.I.C.—" He caught himself before she could protest, and then slowed down. "El Paso Intelligence Center; it's law enforcement and military, they do the U.S.-Mexico border checks. They ran it on their computer and came up with a company in El Paso."
"You knew this and you didn't tell me?"
"I found it out this morning. I'm telling you right now. The biz, Hat-Trick Incorporated, turns out to be a drop box. The car wasn't reported stolen, and nobody answers the phone at Hat-Trick."
"That doesn't sound very promising."
"It sounds like a front for contraband, and the most likely contraband is drugs. So what's your kid's connection to sleazy drug deals?"
"She could be the daughter of a mule."
Matt nodded slowly.
Sylvia let out the air from her lungs with a huff. "Sometimes you're a real shit."
"Thanks for the compliment."
"Thanks for the research."
As Sylvia watched Matt's Caprice pull out of the drive, she felt a tinge of envy. For the first time in months, she actually wished she was going to prison.
CHAPTER EIGHT
GHOSTLY IN FADING daylight, a handful of protesters stood vigil outside the entrance to the Penitentiary of New Mexico. One protester held up a black-and-white placard as Matt England downshifted for the turn off Highway 14. The sign read EXECUTION IS MURDER.
Matt caught a glimpse of the protester's pale and drawn face. Why
did professional crusaders always look as though they were allergic to sunshine? Didn't these people have lives of their own? In Matt's experience, they attached like leeches to the cause of the moment.
He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the figure receding, now the size of a child's puppet. The state's "murder" was going to take place in less than a month. Death by lethal injection for a torture-killer named Cash Wheeler. The first execution in New Mexico since 1960, when David Cooper Nelson was put to death in the gas chamber for the murder of a hitchhiker. The chamber was still in the basement of the pen's old facility. Collecting dust. The new "death house" was a small, sterile concrete-block building constructed in 1990. It sat just outside Housing Unit 3-B at North, the maximum-security facility, where Matt was headed now.
He parked next to a hot cherry-red Camaro, climbed out of his Chevy, and walked around to greet Rosie Sanchez. He smiled to himself; Rosie didn't look like a penitentiary investigator—maraschino nails, copper curls almost touching her round butt, five-feet-two and given to wearing spike heels. At the moment, she was balanced on the trunk of her Camaro, filing a polished red fingernail that was brighter than the car.
Rosie tucked the file into her suit pocket and cocked her head at the state police criminal agent. "Took you long enough."
"Eleven minutes." Matt popped the Chevy's trunk and removed camera and crime-scene kit.
"More like twenty-five." She slid gracefully from the Camaro and dusted herself off. "Did I interrupt the lovebirds?"
"Yeah, actually—"
But Rosie was already leading the way across the parking lot to the maximum unit's main entrance. The multi-building facility dated to the mideighties; all slab concrete, riot glass, high-voltage T-line edging the roof, perimeter fence, and razor ribbon.
"On the phone you said OD. What've we got?"
"Looks like heroin. Paramedics were here before you. Body's at St. Vincent's because they tried to resuscitate. No luck. His cell's cordoned off." As an investigator, Rosie knew how to process a crime scene, but serious offenses at the pen fell under the jurisdiction of the New Mexico State Police. She continued, "It's straightforward."
