by Manuel Ramos
Inside the rec center, I worked with various weights and an elliptical, and I stroked a few laps in the pool. When I finished with all of it, I felt better. I thought that, as long as I played it straight and honest, I should be all right. Maybe that’s what I wanted to think.
Móntez buzzed my cell. He was finished with court and had arranged a meeting with the cop liaison person for later that afternoon. I told him I’d be in to work and we could go from there, but first I had something to do for Jackie O.
Jackie called to ask if I had anything new on her problem. I had to tell her that, based on her story and the couple of printouts from Joseph Cristelli’s computer that she managed to copy before she was fired, I couldn’t say that the case against Cristelli was a slam dunk. She said she would see what else she could dig up.
“Be careful,” I said. “I’m looking into it. Just might take some time.”
She agreed, then hung up.
Jackie O had been one of the boys in our middle school crew. Along with Shoe and Ice, Javier didn’t run when we needed to protect ourselves from the bad or stupid—sometimes both—jerks we bumped into on the Northside just about every week. Jackie was a little guy in muscle and height but he was the meanest of the bunch. He had to be. His home life was a nightmare. He learned at a very early age all about survival.
Javier’s mother dropped dead when he was about three. He never learned why she died. The semi-official story was that she’d been beaten by Javier’s father, a man who didn’t live with Javier or his mother, and she died of a broken heart. “Broken jawbone more like it,” Javier would say when he talked about growing up without actual parents. He was raised by his aunt. “I slept in her house every so often,” was Javier’s version.
The aunt shared the house with assorted men. The man who lived there the most while Javier was growing up hated the boy. He especially hated him when Javier paraded around the house in the aunt’s high heels and flowery hats. When Javier put on lipstick and earrings, the man’s hate grew into a violent obsession to hurt the boy. Javier got hurt a lot.
One day, when we were sophomores at North High, I stopped at Javier’s so we could hang out. I walked in on Javier and the aunt’s boyfriend brawling in the living room. Lamps were knocked over, ripped cushions from the couch spilled their padding on the stained carpet and the screaming aunt stood in a corner of the room with her fists jammed against her eyes. Javier was covered in blood from a cut across the back of his head. The man bled from his nose. He held a massive kitchen knife that he swung wildly at Javier.
“Drop the knife,” I hollered. The man did not even look at me. He lurched toward Javier, then crouched as though he was about to lunge.
“I’ll slice your balls off, boy,” the man growled. “You don’t need them anyway.”
I picked up one of the lamps and smashed it against the side of his head. He fell to his knees, then to his back. The aunt quit screaming. Javier ran out the front door. Drops of blood rained from his ponytail and left a trail behind him. I caught up to him as he ran through the intersection at Zuni Street and Thirty-Eighth Avenue.
He stayed at our house for a few days. No one came looking for him. No policeman asked him questions about the fight, no aunt wanted him to come back home. The doctor at the clinic who patched up his head repeatedly asked about the details of the wound, but Javier would say only that he slipped and fell.
About a week after the fight he was gone. Several years passed before I saw him again. By that time he’d reinvented himself as Jackie O.
I never asked her about those missing years and she never opened up about where she went and what she did. We let those days slip away without regret.
So it didn’t surprise me that Jackie wanted to fight back against Cristelli. It didn’t matter that the odds of winning the fight were slim to none, or that there wasn’t any real payoff if she did manage to win. For Jackie, it was about standing up to the bullies.
I calculated that my first action had to be a visit to Cristelli. His office was in one of the retail spaces on the first floor of a massive condo building on Tejon Street, in the midst of developers’ wonderland.
The perky receptionist at the front desk politely told me that Mr. Cristelli was out of town but expected back in the office tomorrow. A name plate on the front of her desk said her name was Debra Pagent. I handed Debra a card that had my name and phone number along with the words “Investigator” and “Law Office of Luis Móntez.”
“Why does an attorney want to speak with Mr. Cristelli?” She smiled at me while her fingers played with her computer mouse.
I quickly calculated how much I should tell her. “It has to do with a former employee and a complaint that was made against her.”
“You mean Jackie?” Her fingers quit tickling her mouse. “I knew there was more to why she left than what Joey said. I knew it.”
“Joey?”
“Mr. Cristelli. We all call him that.”
I played my next card. “Mrs. Villagrana around?”
“Not since she left. That was another hard day.”
She continued to wear her smile but her eyes told me that she wasn’t happy about something. “Debra, you been here a while with this company?”
“Going on a year. I liked it, still do I guess. But it’s not permanent for me, you know what I mean?”
“I do, for sure. Good experience, though, I bet?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Learning how an office works, how all the different people get along, or don’t.”
“Definitely.”
“What do you think happened between Joey and Jackie? That must have taught you something.”
“Well, I can’t really talk about it, you know. It’s a private thing that was handled by human resources. I can’t talk about certain people, or give you anything from our files. I hope that’s okay?”
“Yeah, I understand that. I wouldn’t want you to violate your company’s policy. I myself had to get permission from Mrs. Villagrana’s attorney to talk with her. But it was worth it. She told me a lot. I was hoping I could confirm some of the details with your boss. I wouldn’t want you to tell me anything personal, confidential. Nothing like that.”
“Clara talked with you? That’s a surprise. She hated Jackie and was so happy when Joey forced Jackie to leave. I thought that was wrong and I told Clara, but she didn’t care. But then, not too long ago, out of the blue, she jumped all over Joey. Argued with him about Jackie, about a lot of stuff. I know she wanted Joey to give Jackie back her job. Talk about a big change. Takes all kinds. I’ve learned that.”
“Yes, good lesson. Mrs. Villagrana was very upset.”
“I hope it works out for her at the church. She never really fit in around here, even though she was a good bookkeeper.”
“She said the change was good, and not much of a drive for her.”
“Shouldn’t be since it’s only a few blocks away. I hope this gets straightened out eventually.”
“I’m sure it will be. And I agree with you.”
Debra was back to being perky.
Three distinct Catholic churches had existed in the neighborhood for decades, all within a few blocks of each other. I took a leap of faith based on what I thought I knew about Clara Villagrana. “Our Lady of Guadalupe is a better fit for Mrs. Villagrana.”
Debra nodded. “I thought it was an obvious place for her, what with all her, uh, religious attitudes.”
I asked her to make sure Joey got my card.
She promised she would.
According to Corrine, Our Lady of Guadalupe was a pillar of the Denver Mexican community since the 1930s. It’d been one of the more active churches in the city because the priests were political—progressives who used the church to organize various liberal, even radical, projects. The church hall was used for meetings and propaganda events. Corrine remembered attending meetings in the church hall about third-world struggles, the grape boycott and bilingual education.
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But all that changed over the years. Like the rest of the Northside, the church developed a different perspective. A good example of the change involved a work of art. The mural of the Virgin’s miraculous appearance to Juan Diego painted on the altar wall by Carlota Espinoza in the politically ripe 1970s had been hidden behind a wall a few years ago. Chicano Catholics protested and demanded the destruction of the wall, but the priest remained firm in his decision. The official reason was that Christ had to be at center altar, certainly not Mary. Many in the Chicano community assumed that the covering up of the mural marked one more line of separation between long-time Chicano residents and more recent immigrants. Others thought the priest wanted a more conservative, less active agenda. Still, others saw the conflict as a gender struggle between Chicanas, who revered the Chicana-looking Virgin in the mural, and the male priest and church authorities.
Corrine told me the struggle was ironic since, bottom line, the Chicano protestors and the immigrant churchgoers were all Mexican. “But that’s the way we are,” she said. “If nobody picks a fight with us, we’ll make one up among ourselves. Always been that way.”
I had no problem believing that a woman like Clara Villagrana, who spouted ugly homophobic rants, could find a place for herself in the church. The days were gone when she would have been challenged by one of the church activists. And I’m sure she felt safe from running into another Jackie O at the church.
I walked around the church grounds and checked out a couple of the buildings before I found Clara Villagrana cleaning the toilet in the priest’s house. The door to the house was open and I walked in, and then back to the bathroom.
She was a woman of about sixty-five. Plump, dressed in baggy jeans with an elastic waistband. Her faded sweatshirt had the words “Keep Christ in Christmas” printed on the front. Her mostly gray hair was bunched on the top of her head.
“What do you want?” she said as soon as she saw me at the bathroom doorway.
“I was told that Clara Villagrana was working here in the house. Is that you?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “What do you want?” she repeated.
“I work for a lawyer, Luis Móntez. Our client is Jackie Ortega. You worked with her at Dynamic-Tec. You remember her?”
She dropped the toilet brush in a bucket near her feet. She dried her hands on her sweatshirt. She walked past me to the front of the house. I followed her outside and stood next to her on the steps. The cool morning air chilled me, but it had no effect on her that I could see.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m trying to find witnesses to what happened at Dynamic-Tec when Ms. Ortega was fired. We think she was wrongfully terminated. My understanding is that you know a lot about the situation.”
“I don’t know anything about any of that.”
“Really? According to our client, you made a complaint against Ms. Ortega that got her fired. Are you saying that’s not right?”
“Look. I don’t want no trouble. I don’t know anything. I told Mr. Cristelli that when I left. I’m not involved with that anymore. Leave me alone.”
Her lips trembled.
“I’m not trying to cause you any trouble, Mrs. Villagrana. But our client lost her job. Because of what you said she did when she worked with you. Are you saying now that there isn’t anything to your complaint?”
“I’m saying I want to be left alone. Now leave or I will call Father Morales. He’ll make you leave.”
I backed away. On the one hand, it was good news that she was a reluctant witness. But could she make it right for Jackie?
“You understand the damage you caused with your complaint?”
“Look, mister. I don’t care if he goes back to work with Cristelli, or whatever. I don’t want anything to do with him or Cristelli or any of that business. Now leave.”
A dark boy of about thirteen emerged from inside the house.
“Grandma? You okay. What’s going on?”
The boy was tall, skinny and sweet. He held a feather duster and a rag. His hair hung down to his shoulders. Earrings protruded from both his earlobes. He wore an apron and a red scarf wrapped around his head.
“Go back inside, Armando. This doesn’t concern you.”
The boy gave me a good look. “You sure, Grandma? If this guy is bothering you . . .”
“No, no. Just go on inside. I’ll be right there. We’re almost done.”
The boy turned and walked back in the house. His steps were almost delicate. His hands fluttered when he waved the duster at the walls.
“Your grandson doesn’t have school today?”
“None of your business. Anyway, we’re looking for a better school for him. We . . .” She couldn’t finish. Clara Villagrana’s sad face turned away from me. The trembling lips were open but she didn’t speak.
“I think I understand,” I said. “I’ll leave. You’ve withdrawn your complaint.”
She grabbed my arm. “Look. I, uh . . .”
“I’ll tell Ms. Ortega that you apologized.”
I left her standing on the steps. The breeze whipped my jacket, and I turned my head away from the cold.
Ana Domingo surprised me. Actually, I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I guess anything would have surprised me. The woman who sat behind a very organized desk in her office at the old City and County Building oozed confidence. Nice clothes, tasteful make-up, serious attitude. She was about my age, my height. Hint of a smile but heavy emphasis on playing the cop role. A framed photo of four Mexican-looking men sat on the corner of a bookcase. Nothing out of place, nothing unnecessary to her job except for the photograph.
The city big shots who’d created her position did all they could to make it clear that she was different from the rest of the department. The first thing I noticed was that her office was not in the police building.
Positively not my type so, naturally, I was attracted—and not just because I’d been locked up for years with lowdown, mean, insane and hostile men.
Luis Móntez sat in the chair next to mine in front of her desk. He stayed out of the first part of the conversation. I did most of the talking since it was really my story. Her face told me all I needed to know. She went from curious to amused to shocked to something like disgusted.
“Let me get this right. You’re on parole. You saw a murder . . .”
“No, I didn’t actually.”
She quickly nodded. “Correction. You saw a dead man, who died because of an apparent violent attack. But you did not report what you saw to the police or . . .”
“He’s reporting it now, Ana.” Móntez finally chimed in.
“Yeah, with his attorney present, I should note.”
“I thought you guys were friends,” I said.
She grinned while she looked at the lawyer.
“Not exactly,” she said. “But, in any event, you did nothing when reporting the crime to the police might have made a difference.”
“The guy was dead. Nobody could have done anything for him,” I said.
“No, but maybe the murderers might have been arrested if the police were involved at the beginning?”
“What I saw was the end of something, not the beginning. And anyhow, I understand there was no body in the house, so who knows for sure what the police might have found?”
“We’ll never know, will we, Mr. Corral?”
I shrugged. “Look. I just want to do the right thing.” I hoped I sounded sincere, even a bit naïve. “I probably should have called you or some other cop when I saw what I saw. I didn’t.” I waited a long second. “My bad.”
She stared at her well-manicured hands and shook her head.
“I can’t undo my screw-up,” I continued. “You do what you have to do. It’s your job. I guess my hard-ass parole officer will yank me back in the joint, so maybe I should’ve just kept my mouth shut and let the police department stumble around until maybe they bumped into something that might lead them to think there was
a body in that house before the fire.” That last part came out slicker than I intended.
“Your story has several problems, not the least of which is that there has been no indication that anyone died in that house, either immediately before or during the fire. What am I supposed to do with that?” She glanced at Luis, then fixed her eyes on me.
The conversation wasn’t going well, even I knew that. I glanced at Móntez for support.
“Ana, please,” Móntez said. “You should appreciate what Gus is doing here. There’s no reason for him to put himself on the line like he has, except that he wants to be cooperative, a good citizen. He could have walked away from what he saw, and no one would have ever known. And, besides, he was following my instructions, as his employer and his lawyer. I thought we, he and I, should talk over the situation, and figure out what was happening before he went to the police. It’s what any attorney would want his client to do before he talks with the police.”
“Maybe I should have you arrested then, Luis.”
He jerked his head. “You’re funny, Ana.”
An angry wave flowed across her face, then, just as quickly, it was gone. “I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to figure out what is going on here. Your client apparently saw the results of a violent crime but he didn’t report it. A man was probably murdered and Gus did nothing about it. That alone is enough to get a warrant, search his house, arrest him and, like he says, get him thrown back in jail. You know that, don’t you, Gus?”
Before I could answer, Móntez reacted. “Here’s what I know. It’s not clear that not reporting a crime in Colorado is a crime. There may be a statute that says we have a responsibility to inform the police and that we all should do it, but I’ve never known what the penalty is for not doing that, and I’ve never heard of anyone being arrested for it. If it’s a crime, it’s minor, a misdemeanor. And that means it’s a discretionary call by the parole board about whether it’s enough to revoke parole.” He leaned over and patted my shoulder. “What I also know is that Gus is willing to help. Right, Gus? That’s all he can do. You should take him up on his offer.”
