“It’s true,” I said. “The phone will probably be destroyed but not right away. We may catch some conversations before then that could be useful.”
“And that’s a good start,” Detective Jaworski said. “The idea here is to have enough jail time hanging on Rupert and Jones that they will tell us where we can find the women.”
“When I talk to my father … when I give him the phone, I will try to get him to tell me about Mrs. Costelo. He will know something about it … We think it was Rupert’s bodyguard who killed her. If so, Rupert will be charged with the murder as well. We can use that against Rupert to tell us how to find the women.”
There was a moment of silence. It was a lot of information to take in at once. Finally, Aniela asked what everyone was thinking.
“What if your father was involved in Mrs. Costelo’s murder?”
I took a deep breath. It was a question I could not stop asking, but not the most important one. The one that weighed the most was: Did Raúl Lopez get to Sara in time? But there was no more time for questions. “The only thing that matters now is finding the women.”
“How exactly do you expect it to go down at the station? You all thought of that?” Stanislaw asked, concerned.
It was Detective Rogers who responded. “We think Emiliano’s father will be accompanied by someone who can inspect the phone to see if it has been turned on or unlocked and they will quickly see that it hasn’t. Emiliano will also be wearing a wire so we can record whatever his father says about Mrs. Costelo. We can move in quickly if something is going wrong.”
“No way!” Detective Jaworski and Stanislaw objected.
“We need to record any information about Irene Costelo,” Ann Rogers said firmly. “Aurora has some good tech too, you know. I can put something on Emiliano that no one will ever detect.”
“Unless they search him,” Stanislaw pointed out.
Ann Rogers continued. “Look, no one knows that we exist. By ‘we’ I mean Chicago Police, Aurora Police. Emiliano is returning the phone to his father because he has seen the news reports about the murder of Irene Costelo, the same news reports that name him as a primary suspect and that have the whole city in an uproar about yet another crime committed by an undocumented immigrant. He’s had it. They killed Irene Costelo to send him a message. Okay. Message received. Here’s your damn phone, I’m out of here. Besides, as Frank just said, if anyone makes to search him, our undercover agents will be there.” Then Ann Rogers asked me, “What do you think, Emiliano? Are you okay with a listening device on your person?”
I lowered my head in thought. “What will happen to my father … if he’s involved?”
Ann Rogers spoke softly. “As far as Aurora Police is concerned, it depends on what he says. If he acts like he knew about the murder of Irene Costelo, we’ll have to bring him in.”
I hoped he didn’t know. What did my mother say? Your father is not a bad man, stupid maybe, but not bad. There was more hope than certainty in her words.
“My take on your father,” Detective Jaworski said, “is that he hasn’t done anything big enough for any state or federal prosecutor to waste their time with. They’ll be too busy going after some very bad people, like the ones who have the women. Your father’s connection to the criminal world is very weak, but, unfortunately, there is a connection. He is connected to Abe Gropper, who is somehow connected to Mathew Rupert and Wilfred Jones. Your father doesn’t have to be a criminal in order to be connected to criminals. When he agreed to get the phone from you instead of letting you go your way, he became part of the criminal web.”
“He wanted the phone to protect me.” Why was I so desperate to defend my father?
“If that’s the case, it will become clearer to us all if you wear a wire,” Ann Rogers said.
I looked at Aniela, hoping to see an answer in her eyes.
“The truth is good,” she said to me.
“Okay,” I said to Detective Rogers.
“Then we’re all set,” Detective Rogers said. “Let’s get Emiliano ready.”
“I have a final question.”
Everyone looked at me.
“What’s going to happen to me after all this?”
“Yeah,” Aniela said, understanding why I was asking. “Is he risking his life for you so that you can then deport him?”
“We can’t make any deals or promises with a confidential informant regarding his immigrant status. Only Immigration Services is authorized to do that. But”—Detective Jaworski grinned—“we know they’ve given visas based on phony labor certifications, visas that resulted in human trafficking, so I have a feeling that we may be able to persuade Immigration to agree to some kind of visa.”
I liked the confidence of Detective Jaworski.
“You should get him to put all that in a document signed by a U.S. attorney,” Stanislaw whispered to me. “Don’t trust anything he tells you.” Stanislaw winked at his old partner.
“I trust you,” I said to Detective Jaworski.
* * *
I walked out and sat on the front steps of Stanislaw’s house while Detective Rogers went inside to get the listening device activated. A few moments later, Aniela sat next to me. The flag snapped with a sudden gust of wind. Bees buzzed over the red and white tulips that surrounded the base of the flagpole.
“They bloomed the day you came,” Aniela said.
“What do you call that red color?” I pointed with my chin at the tulips.
“Vermillion,” Aniela answered. “It’s one of the two colors in the Polish flag. The other one is white.”
“In Mexico we call that red rojo sangre.”
We watched a bee dip into the petals of a white tulip. “Are you afraid?”
“Not so much of what will happen to me. Of seeing my father.”
“Of what he tells you?”
“Just of seeing him. It will probably be the last time I see him.”
“You think so?”
“Do you see your father?” I asked without looking at Aniela.
“Yes. It’s hard. His new wife looks like she’s about twenty. She’s actually twenty-nine.”
“But you go see your father anyway. You’ve forgiven him?”
“He’s just stupid.”
“That’s what I hope my father is—just stupid.” Then, after a long pause, “When I was crossing over from Mexico, I got lost in the desert. I had a foot infection and was dehydrated. I almost died. I knew I was dying. Just before I lost consciousness, I … this is hard to put into words … I entered a different place. It was a place of … forgiveness. I guess that’s the best description I can come up with. I forgave my father. I forgave myself for all the stupid, selfish things I had done in Mexico. It was easy. It was easy to forgive in that place. Not like in this world where it’s so hard.”
“It is hard,” Aniela said, speaking as if from personal experience.
“Then when I met my father, I couldn’t keep any of the … forgiveness I found in that … place.”
“But now you know that place exists. You were there.”
“Yes.”
“You’re thinking about that place now because …”
“I don’t know if I can forgive my father. And forgiving the people who killed Mrs. Costelo is impossible. It’s just not possible.”
There was a long silence and then Aniela said, “I know my father is a self-centered jerk. The woman he married is like him, only worse. She pretends to like me, but I can feel her hostility. I hated both of them for a long time.”
“You found a way to forgive them.”
“I just know that hatred is poison. Hate was poisoning me. It hurts to hate. Hate turns you into something you’re not meant to be. Then I kept seeing how much we were all alike. All the ugliness that I found in my father and his wife, I saw in me. I think that was what I was hating—the arrogance and the superiority and the way they used people, all that was, is, in me. What I said inside about the truth being good—I was
n’t talking about what I knew about my father. I was talking about what I knew about me.”
I looked at her. “That’s hard to believe. That you are all those things you said about yourself. Arrogant, using people.”
“Believe them.”
Just then, I saw my father consumed by his work, by the desire to advance, by the need to prove to Abe Gropper and everyone that he was a success. Then I remembered how I convinced Javier to help me put heroin in the piñatas. All that I did to get Perla Rubi and her father to accept me. There were similarities, weren’t there? Maybe if I were in my father’s place, I would have done as he did.
“The big difference,” Aniela continued, “is that I don’t like those things about myself. My father and his wife take pride in them. I know what’s in me and I try not to act accordingly.”
“Emiliano,” Detective Jaworski called from inside, “we’re ready.”
“Your granddad was right,” I said. “You are special.”
“Me? I’m not the one saving God knows how many women.”
I stood, then sat down again when she touched my arm.
“I have to tell you something. But please don’t laugh or make me feel silly.”
“I promise.”
“I … I’ve never kissed anyone. I mean, maybe when I was a little kid. But not really. I’ve had opportunities. I don’t want you to think I haven’t. But I told myself that I would never kiss anyone I … okay, promise not to laugh … that I would never kiss anyone I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life with. Not that I would actually need to spend the rest of my life with that person … but that the person I kissed would be the kind of person I could see myself spending the rest of my life with. Oh, God, I screwed this up royally. Forget everything I just said, okay?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re too smart?”
“No …”
But Aniela could not speak because I moved closer to her with my eyes closed and kissed her lips softly.
“Don’t worry,” I said to Aniela, my forehead resting on hers. “I understand what you were trying to say about the person you kiss. I’m just grateful you thought of me that way.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “Emiliano?”
“Yes?”
“What will you do after this? Where will you go?”
“You mean assuming I’m still alive?”
Aniela grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Be serious!”
“I don’t know. I was thinking I’d go back to Texas. Help Mr. Larsson with his ranch. I’d be close to Sara. I’m hoping she’ll be okay.”
“She will be. I’ve prayed for it.” There was a pause, then, “If that’s what you want, I think I can get Grandpa to drive you there. It would be good for the two of you to travel together. Maybe you can get Grandpa to articulate his views on immigration.”
“Would you like that?”
“Yes,” she answered softly. After a while she looked at me and said, “Then he would know the way and he could take me next summer. Would you like that?”
“Yes.”
We looked into each other’s eyes, saw the future, and we were there.
Detective Jaworski stopped the car four blocks away from the bus station in downtown Chicago. Just before I got out, he said, “It could be that they’ll want to see you get on the bus. If that happens, just go ahead and get on. Let them see you on your way to Mexico. Then get off at the next station and call Detective Rogers and we’ll come get you.”
“Okay.”
“Just so you know, there’s three other undercover officers in the station. Outside in a van, you got Detective Rogers and two Aurora police officers. If anybody tries to grab you, we’ll be on them before they take three steps.”
“I’m not worried.”
Detective Jaworski pushed the button on a walkie-talkie. “Ann, you there?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m going to do a test run on your gadget. See if it’s as good as you say it is.”
“Go ahead.”
Detective Jaworski got out of the car and indicated for me to do the same. When we were outside, he said to me, “Say something. Speak normally.”
“Hello. Testing. One, two three, testing.”
“That’s a go.” Ann Rogers’s voice came over the walkie-talkie in Detective Jaworski’s hand. Then he leaned close to me. “Looks like this piece of crap works after all.”
“I heard that!” Ann Rogers responded on the walkie-talkie.
My father was sitting on a bench facing the main entrance to the bus station. Next to him sat the same blond man I saw at the Aurora train station, the driver of the gray Mercedes.
“Hello, son,” my father said, standing. He kept both hands by his sides. The blond man rose from his chair slowly, his eyes on the paper bag in my right hand.
“Is that the cell phone?” the blond man asked.
“Yes,” I said, offering the bag.
The blond man took out Hinojosa’s cell phone and said, “I need to check it. Stay here.” He walked to a counter where people sat working on their laptops and charging their phones. He sat on an empty stool facing us and plugged the phone into his laptop.
“Let’s sit,” Bob said.
I sat next to him and reminded myself to not look around the station for Detective Rogers and the others.
Bob took an envelope out of the inside pocket of his coat. It was the first time I had seen him wear a sport coat. “I got you a ticket all the way to Laredo. You’ll need to transfer to another bus in St. Louis and again in Dallas. I wrote down the times when each bus departs. But you’ll only need one ticket. There’s also two thousand dollars in there. I wish it could be more.”
“Abe Gropper offered me ten thousand,” I tried to joke.
“That was Abe. This money is from me.”
“Thanks.”
“Why did you run like that? Last time?”
“I promised Sara I would give the phone to someone who could open it and who would use the information to make sure Hinojosa went to jail. Sara went through a lot to save Linda and the other women from Hinojosa. I owed it to her to try to do something with the cell phone.”
“And now? Why did you change your mind? Why did you call me this morning?”
“The person I was supposed to give the phone never responded. Then things started happening. I saw on TV that Mrs. Costelo was murdered, and they were saying I did it.”
“Emiliano, you have to believe me. I had nothing to do with that.”
I hesitated for a moment before asking the questions I needed to ask. My father’s answers could send him to jail. Did I really want to do that? No. No, I didn’t want to hurt him. It felt good to know that. But I needed the truth, regardless of the cost. “Who’s that guy?” I pointed with my chin at the blond man. “Who killed Mrs. Costelo?” I held my breath, waiting for my father’s answer.
“It wasn’t me. You know I would never do something like that.” He looked to where the blond man was sitting. “His name is Moss. I don’t know his first name. After we didn’t find the phone in your backpack, Abe told Moss’s boss, a Mr. Rupert in Washington, that you worked at Mrs. Costelo’s house for a few days and that maybe you had hidden the cell phone there. We knew it wasn’t in my house because Nancy first and then Moss and me, we turned the place over. Every inch inside and outside. There was also a possibility that you had gone to Mrs. Costelo’s house, that she was hiding you. Where else would you go? You don’t know anyone else in Chicago. Mr. Rupert told Moss to go to Mrs. Costelo’s house to see if you were there and to look for the phone.”
“This Mr. Rupert told Moss to kill her?”
“No, it wasn’t like that!” He sighed. “Look, I don’t know what Mr. Rupert told Moss. Moss says it was an accident. Mrs. Costelo came out of nowhere while he was looking for you and for the phone and hit him on the side of the head with an iron skillet. Moss turned instinctively and punched her. That’s all it took. She must have had a heart con
dition. You can still see the bandage on the back of Moss’s head … What? Why are you smiling?”
“Nothing. I was just imagining Mrs. Costelo hitting him with an iron skillet.”
But I was also smiling because I believed my father. He didn’t know Mrs. Costelo would be killed. And now we had enough information to arrest Rupert.
“Son, you can’t think I had anything to do with her death. Do you?”
“I think that at the very least you’re connected to some very bad people. Starting with your father-in-law.”
“That’s not true. Somehow the people who want the cell phone found out that you were with me and they found out I worked with Abe. They got to Abe through contacts that Abe has in Washington. He thought getting the phone from you was his best way of protecting you, Sara, Nancy, Trevor, all of us. That’s the honest truth.”
“Well, whoever wants the phone won. Getting people killed, putting me in jail for something I didn’t do, it’s not worth it.”
“Are you going to be all right? They’re calling you a person of interest in Mrs. Costelo’s death.”
“Why don’t you go to the police and tell them the truth? Tell them Moss over there did it.”
Bob turned suddenly silent.
“I didn’t think so,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be able to keep Abe out of it. I have Nancy and Trevor to think about.”
“Able Abe Heating and Cooling will be your company in a few years.”
“Put yourself in my place, Emiliano, please.”
“I have. I think … when all is said and done, I would have acted differently. I would have fought for my son and my daughter more.”
Bob’s eyes turned red. “I deserve that. I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” I said. Moss was walking toward us.
“It’s clean,” Moss said to Bob. “I powered it up and checked when it was last used. It hasn’t been opened since almost a month ago. Everything’s there in the memory card. No one’s messed with it.”
We stood.
“That’s your bus.” Moss pointed to a line of people waiting at an exit.
I walked to the end of the line before Bob had a chance to say anything. When my turn came, I showed the driver my ticket and then entered the bus. I took a window seat. Bob and Moss stood next to each other in silence. They were waiting for the bus to pull out of the station. Bob looked small and weak next to Moss. I recognized the cologne in the envelope I was still holding.
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