by Carmen Amato
Her mother was glowing, Emilia realized, and not with the vague uncertainty she usually projected, but with a rare air of assurance.
When Sophia gave the cup back to Ernesto, Emilia caught her mother by the upper arm. “I’m glad you have a new friend, Mama, but you should have asked me before bringing strangers into the house.”
The man shuffled to his feet with a sort of threadbare dignity. “Forgive me, señorita. I am Ernesto Cruz. Your mother was kind enough to offer me the hospitality of your house.”
“Ernesto’s not a friend,” Sophia gushed, her arm still firmly in Emilia’s grasp.
“I’ll work in return for her kindness,” the man said and indicated a large wooden crate and bulging knapsack on the floor by the table.
Sophia put her arms around Emilia’s waist and hugged her, making Emilia release her grip. Emilia shifted her mother so she could continue talking to the man. “I don’t quite understand, señor.”
“My grinding wheel,” he explained. “I sharpen knives and scissors for whoever needs it.”
“Is that why you’re here? My mother asked you to sharpen something?” Emilia frowned around her mother’s head. Every few months the local knife grinder usually set up his grinding wheel on a busy street corner a few blocks away. He sang or shouted to call attention to his presence and women in the neighborhood brought him their items to be sharpened. It was a social event when he came, a reason to gossip as the sparks flew and blunt steel was honed and polished. Each sharpened item cost a few pesos. But the grinder never came into anyone’s house unless there was something large to be sharpened, like a meat slicer or an office paper cutter. “Something in the house?” she asked.
Sophia started to laugh and pulled out of the hug. “Emilia, you are being so silly,” she cried. “This is my Ernesto.”
“Your Ernesto?”
“Ernesto Cruz. Your father.”
“Mama?” Emilia didn’t quite let her mother get away. This obvious vagrant was not the father who had died years ago. “What’s going on?”
Sophia’s face was bright with happiness. “My Ernesto has come back to me.”
“Señor.” Emilia addressed the man still standing by the table. “Your name is Ernesto Cruz?”
“Yes,” he said. He nodded once at her, clearly understanding that something was not right.
“Stay there, señor,” Emilia ordered. The man slid back into the kitchen chair and put his hands possessively around the cup of coffee on the table.
Emilia tucked an arm around her mother’s shoulders. “Mama, we have to have a little talk.”
“Not now.” Sophia gazed lovingly at the knife grinder. “Your father’s home and I promised to make tamales. Get an apron and you can help me.”
Emilia’s eyes flew from her mother to Ernesto. He shook his head slightly.
Sophia squirmed away from Emilia and started to unload the plastic bags on the counter. “I’m going to make sopa de mariscos and tamales to celebrate.” She showed Emilia a handful of corn husks before she dumped them into the sink. “Look! So nice, as if Señora Cardona knew that today was the day Ernesto was coming home.”
Emilia put one hand under her mother’s elbow and the other around her shoulders and propelled Sophia up the stairs. Sophia whimpered a little, as she always did when Emilia took charge. The two women made it to the top of the stairs and Emilia guided them into her mother’s bedroom. It was as small and spare as Emilia’s own, with the same white cotton curtains and bed below a crucifix. In contrast with Emilia’s room, however, the walls of Sophia’s were lined with clothes. There was no proper closet and so they’d attached hooks to the walls. On hangars, Sophia’s dresses lined the walls like a vertical garden of color and texture.
Emilia plunked her mother on the bed, then closed the bedroom door and leaned against it.
“Really, Emilia,” Sophia said breathlessly. “I have to start cooking.”
“Mama,” Emilia said, wondering how difficult this conversation was going to be. “That man downstairs is not my father. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course he is.” Sophia’s eyes were wide and dark and trusting. “His name is Ernesto Cruz.”
Emilia knelt in front of her mother and took Sophia’s hands in hers. “Mama, there are probably hundreds of people in Mexico named Ernesto Cruz. He’s just one of them.”
Sophia frowned. “He’s Ernesto Cruz. Your father is Ernesto Cruz. Don’t you think I’d know my own husband’s name?”
“This Ernesto Cruz was never married to you, Mama.” Emilia’s eyes filled with tears as bewilderment spread across Sophia’s face. She felt as if she was slapping her mother. They’d had this type of conversation before when Sophia got mixed up, although the situation had never been quite so serious. “He’s a knife grinder you met in the mercado. You don’t know anything about him. Where he’s from, why he’s homeless, if he’s a criminal.”
“He’s my husband Ernesto Cruz,” Sophia said stubbornly. She pulled a hand away to find the end of her braid. She wound it through her fingers, a nervous habit that surfaced when things got too difficult to understand. Tía Lourdes told stories of how smart and witty Sophia had been as a young girl, but Emilia had never known that young girl.
“No, Mama,” Emilia said. “He’s not. For all we know he might be married to somebody else.”
“Stop it!” Sophia pulled away so abruptly that Emilia was caught off balance. She toppled over, rapping her head against the door.
“Mama--.”
“I won’t stand for this sort of disrespect,” Sophia shouted.
“Mama, if he was my father I would be glad.” Emilia scrambled to a sitting position on the floor, her head still ringing. “I swear I would. But that’s not going to happen. My father died a long time ago and that man downstairs is some stranger you found wandering in the mercado. Nothing is going to change that.”
“You father is waiting for me,” Sophia said, calm again. “He said he would sharpen my sewing scissors.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, Sophia defiant, Emilia at a total loss for words.
Sophia opened the bedroom door and walked out.
Emilia heard her mother call out “Ernesto.” The knife grinder’s voice filtered indistinctly up the stairs. Emilia hauled herself to her feet and walked into her own bedroom just in time to hear her cell phone vibrate angrily on the bedside table.
“Where are you?” Rico demanded as soon as she answered. “I’ve been outside for ten minutes.”
“Madre de Dios,” Emilia swore.
She begged Rico for three more minutes, found a clean tee shirt, slung on her shoulder holster, clipped her hair into a messy twist and pulled on her denim jacket. When Emilia got downstairs, Sophia and Ernesto were in the kitchen. She was soaking produce in an iodine bath and he was unpacking his grinding wheel.
“I’m going to work now, Mama,” Emilia said.
Sophia nodded vaguely. Emilia stepped to the side of the table where Ernesto was working. She bent down that so he could see the gun under her jacket. “I’m police,” she said, her voice low enough so that Sophia didn’t hear. “My cousins are police, too. If you’ve done anything, we’ll know. If anything goes missing from the house, we’re blaming you.”
Ernesto looked startled. “No, I swear.”
He might be harmless but Emilia went on because these things needed to be said. “My mother may have invited you into our house. And she might be a little confused about who you are. But I’m not. And to be very clear. You’re not welcome in her bed. Or mine.”
Chapter 4
The Suburban had been dismantled and the money taken out. The body panels seemed to have been replaced in a hurry. The rear fenders were hung at an awkward angle and the doors were stuck. The shot-out rear window contributed to the look of an abandoned wreck. Rico raised the hood and put in the new spark plug.
Emilia looked past the vehicle to the bay. Kurt Rucker was in his hotel straight
below where she was standing. Maybe having his breakfast, his clothes cleaned and pressed by the hotel staff. Maybe on the telephone in his office. He’d already forgotten the terrifying moments when their hands were locked together on the steering wheel. Forgotten telling her about working on a farm. Forgotten her.
The sound of crying lifted on the warm salty breeze. Emilia walked back to the Suburban and nearly had a stroke.
A small boy about 5 years old was huddled on the floor of the back seat, partially concealed by a dirty blanket. Both of his hands were swathed in bloody bandages.
“Rico!” Emilia shouted and somehow wrenched open the rear passenger door. The child cringed, his face contorted in fear and pain.
Emilia eased herself into the backseat and onto the floor next to him. Bits of glass were everywhere. The child lifted his hands in their bloodstained bandages as if to ward her off. Emilia realized with a jolt that his thumbs were missing. “It’s all right,” she breathed. “I’m going to take you home.”
“Rayos.” Rico leaned over the front seat. “It’s the child from Ixtapa. The kidnapping from Ixtapa.”
The boy nodded and his face crumpled. “I want to go home,” he sobbed.
Emilia pulled him close. She rocked him as he cried, her own body shaking. “‘The small one cannot wait long,’” she quoted to Rico.
☼
For the next two weeks Emilia felt as if she was watching events from the other side of a mirror. The child was from a wealthy family and the media trumpeted the rare successful return of a kidnap victim, playing and replaying the story that the police had received a tip from an anonymous informant and followed directions to leave a car parked by the road. There was no mention of counterfeit money or the Hudsons or the late Alejandro Ruiz Garcia. For their protection, as was standard procedure, neither Emilia nor Rico were identified in the press. Lt. Inocente had accepted the same story the morning they’d brought in the child. He signed a requisition to tow the Suburban back to the impound yard without comment.
Emilia spoke to Kurt once. A call to tell him about the kidnapping. She’d stammered through an account of finding the child, Kurt’s voice making her feel unaccountably foolish and unsettled, then abruptly ended the conversation.
She didn’t have much to say, anyway. There was no follow-up to the kidnapping; she and Rico had been told in no uncertain terms that the case belonged to Ixtapa, not to Acapulco and that they would not be investigating. The Ruiz murder investigation had dropped to the bottom of Lt. Inocente’s list. Emilia and Rico had tried to find out which army sergeant was supposed to have worked the Palacio Réal privada the night Ruiz’s head had been found but they met with a brick wall. None of the fake money turned up.
The lull in work let her reopen the black binder she kept in a desk drawer. She’d been compiling a scrapbook of las perdidas—the lost--for several years. The binder held 52 names, women from the area whose lives had been reduced to a grainy photo and a sketchy biography. Most of their stories were sadly similar; young women from the poorest barrios, prostitutes, low-wage earners with little education. Some had been reported as missing to the police but more often Emilia found them in advertisements that their families or a women’s charity had placed in the newspaper. When she could, Emilia combed news reports and the official records that were available to her in the hopes of finding out what had happened to them. Most had no official record or had ever been fingerprinted. In two years Emilia had resolved only one perdida; a woman who’d been found beaten to death. Her killer was unknown.
Things had settled down at home, too. Ernesto Cruz had stayed for a day and then disappeared. When Emilia asked where he’d gone, Sophia replied “To work.” She wasn’t upset and Emilia assumed the strange episode was over.
On Tuesday Lt. Inocente announced a rare morning meeting of all the detectives. They stood in a knot in the middle of the squadroom, joking in low voices as they waited for el teniente to come out of his office and tell them why he’d called the meeting. Emilia talked with those few who’d gotten used to having her around.
Lt. Inocente walked out of his office and the detectives fell silent. El teniente held up a clipboard, his usual weapon of choice. “I have a letter here to read.”
He cleared his throat and peered at the clipboard. “‘This letter of commendation goes to Detectives Ricardo Portillo and Emilia Cruz Encinos for the recovery of Bernardo Estragon Morelos de Gama. The child was rescued by the detectives from unknown kidnapers and will make a full recovery from his ordeal. Although we have asked for privacy from the media and well-wishers, the Morelos de Gama family extends heartfelt gratitude and this reward to these two outstanding Acapulco detectives.’”
The detectives applauded. Emilia couldn’t help smiling as Lt. Inocente handed her an envelope. Rico’s face bloomed into a huge grin as he accepted his own.
There were congratulations all around and some beers to share before the squadroom settled down and the rest of the day went on. Rico locked his envelope in his desk drawer and Emilia did the same; less important items than cold cash frequently disappeared from the squadroom.
Emilia spent the rest of the morning wondering how much money was in the envelope. It was strange to think of getting a reward from someone who’d paid counterfeit money to ransom their own child. Still, she would buy a new dress, even if she only wore it to church. Some fancy shoes that would remind her that she was still female. An appointment at a hair salon with her mother, maybe convince Sophia to cut some off. Rico winked at her and Emilia realized she’d been daydreaming in front of her computer.
At noon Lt. Inocente dropped the keys to Kurt Rucker’s SUV on her desk. “Call him and tell him to pick it up today. The paperwork’s ready.” El teniente’s gaze included both Emilia and Rico. “That anonymous tip paid off. You should open the reward.”
He’d said it like an order. Both Emilia and Rico unlocked their drawers and took out envelopes. Emilia opened hers and saw five hundred very familiar Estados Unidos dollars with small images of a norteamericano president.
Her heart beat so fast that for a moment her vision blurred.
“Congratulations,” el teniente said.
“Thank you,” she said.
Rico’s face set in a blank smile. Lt. Inocente nodded at both of them and went into his office.
Without changing expression, Rico stared at Emilia until his meaning was clear. She made a conscious effort to relax her face muscles and breathe. Rico finally gave a barely imperceptible nod and replaced his money in the drawer.
Emilia put her money in her pocket, got out Kurt’s business card and left a message with the hotel that he should pick up his car at the police station.
He came a few hours later. Two weeks hadn’t changed him, although this time he was wearing jeans and a black polo shirt, his arms more tanned and muscular than she remembered.
“You need to sign some paperwork,” Emilia said before Kurt even had a chance to say hello. She stood up with his keys in her hand. “Please follow me.”
She felt Rico’s eyes on her as she led Kurt out of the squadroom and down the hallway. They went past the holding cell guards and Emilia smiled and shot the guards with her thumb and forefinger. At the impound counter she asked the secretary for the paperwork. They waited, Emilia painfully aware of Kurt beside her. The secretary finished her cigarette, lounged over to a file cabinet, licked her fingers and pulled a file out of a drawer. She studied the contents as if she’d never seen a typed form before. Eventually she replaced the file in the drawer, licked her fingers again and found another.
His was the fourth one. The secretary thumbed through it, left it on her desk, and disappeared through a doorway into an interior office.
“Probably hasn’t worked here long,” Kurt observed. It was the only thing he’d said since coming.
“Sixteen years,” Emilia said.
The secretary came back holding a light blue plastic bucket with a metal handle and a red handgrip, one
of millions sold in mercados across Mexico. She thrust it at Kurt along with the paperwork to sign. “You’re to take this,” she said.
Emilia felt the message like a physical blow. Kurt signed the paperwork. It was duly stamped with the authority of the police, the city of Acapulco, the police officers’ union, the state of Guerrero, and the self-importance of the secretary. Finally everything was in order and Kurt was handed the holy form giving him permission to take his car off police property. He took the bucket as well.
Emilia pushed open the door to the impound yard. The late afternoon heat pressed against the rows of cars. The yard appeared deserted. Kurt stopped walking and turned to Emilia.
Before he could say anything she handed him the reward.
He put down the bucket and opened the envelope. Emilia saw surprise cross his face at the sight of the bills. “Where’d you get this?” he asked.
“From el teniente.” Emilia heard the bitterness in her voice. “Our reward for solving the kidnapping of that poor child.”
“He called off the army that night, didn’t he?” Kurt asked. “He’s a dirty cop, Emilia. He might have been the kidnapper.”
“If he did, he got paid in counterfeit,” Emilia said. “Just like this reward.”
“You have to report your lieutenant.” He shoved the money back into the envelope.
“Report him?” Emilia laughed, a short bark that sounded more like a sob. “Who would I report him to? The army officers he paid off? The chief of police who chose him for the job? The union official who gets a take? Which of them would protect me?”
“They can’t all be dirty,” Kurt said and handed back the envelope.
“I’m the one holding the fake money,” Emilia snapped and jammed the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans. “The chica detective nobody wanted in the first place.”
Kurt stared at her as the truth sank in. “There’s got to be something.”
