Robert nodded. He was beginning to feel sick. Still...
“The reason it doesn’t surprise me that they’re looking at Raul as being the murderer of those kids is simple for two reasons: one, he already had a criminal record that included violence to children and adults alike and, two, the Department of Welfare and Social Services records indicate that on numerous occasions, Raul and Rudy—yourself as well—were continually placed back in the custody of your mother after various complaints were made against her to law enforcement for different infractions ranging from drug use to prostitution. In all cases, Social Services were ordered to return the three of you to her care, knowing the environment wasn’t to the best of your interest.”
“I don’t understand,” Robert said, but in his mind he was beginning to think maybe he did understand what the lawyer was saying. He wasn’t totally oblivious to Raul’s reputation as the neighborhood bully; he knew his little brother terrorized the kids in the immediate neighborhood. He remembered numerous times when he’d chased Raul away or dissuaded him from preying on some of the kids in the neighborhood. He’d heard whispers of rumors among his friends who had siblings in Junior High and Elementary School that Raul was a kid you didn’t mess with, that he would try anything, that he didn’t care about authority and continually flaunted it. He knew Raul was suspended from school, that he’d been picked up by the police for everything ranging from truancy to vandalism. And through it all, despite all that, Robert still saw Raul as his little brother—a good kid who was troubled due to his upbringing.
“Take Raul’s school disciplinary record,” William said. “Half of it is filled with accounts of terrorizing and beating on other kids. More than half of those cases were done without your mother being aware of what was happening. I don’t presume to know what was on your mother’s mind when school officials kicked Raul out of school again and again, but I can safely assume that her constant state of inebriation was a primary factor.”
“I think I will have to concur on that,” Robert said, his mind spinning. “My mother was such a lush, she had no idea which way was up or down most of the time.”
“I think there’s a lot more here than simple neglect on your mother’s part. Did you know, for instance, that Social Services complained to the Los Angeles District Attorney that the Gardena PD was mishandling their recommendations? That they were hindering their efforts to have you and your brothers removed from the house permanently?”
“No!” Robert sat up on the bed. This was news to him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“You mean, you didn't know?”
“No, I didn't.” It was true. Robert had tried to stay out of his mother’s life as much as possible and was living on his own pretty much from the time he was ten, when she slipped into an alcoholic fog shortly after their father was killed in an automobile accident, a state in which she lived the remainder of her life.
Robert was able to piece together fragments of the life his mother lived prior to getting married and it wasn’t pretty. Born to a family of alcoholics, Eva Martinez was shuttered back and forth between relatives during the forties. Her father was abusive, and Robert learned later that his mother might have been sexually abused by him. The family endured terrible hardships for years until Eva ran away from home at the age of sixteen. She lived on the streets for a few years, getting by on prostitution and drugs, and then she’d met her knight in shining armor—Jesús José Valesquez, a hardworking man from Ciudad Chihuahua, a city in central Mexico. Jesus had slipped into this country with thirty other undocumented workers to pick watermelons on a farm and was living in a safe house in Hawthorne and attending St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where he met Eva. Robert learned Eva had been immediately struck blind with love for him. Unlike the other men in her life, Jesus treated her like a princess; he’d doted on her, treated her with respect, kindness and love, and almost instantly she’d stopped the drinking and partying. She became pregnant within months of the two of them settling down together and were married a few months later. Robert remembered those early years with a sense of sadness—they were the only memories he had of his mother being happy. He remembered his father as a hardworking, generous man, who always found time for his wife and sons no matter how busy he was, or how exhausted he felt after working long hours in a factory. During those years, Robert never saw his parents drink or be abusive toward each other. It wasn’t until they’d received the news that Jesus was killed in a freak auto accident while on his way to work that his mother’s life unraveled at such dizzying speed, and the past life they’d shared as a family was blinded by her self-destructive rage.
From the time his father was killed, when he was seven years old, to when he left the house upon graduating from high school, Robert’s mother did not experience a single day of sobriety. Jesus’s death shattered her irrevocably. The only thing his mother said to Robert about why she started drinking again was when he was twelve and was trying to sober her up; she’d passed out in the bathroom and had just finished throwing up. Robert had dragged her to the kitchen and was trying to get some coffee into her (he’d seen that in movies—you always sober up a drunk by giving them coffee) and was asking her why she was doing this to herself—to them. In that brief moment, Eva became lucid. She’d fixed her oldest son with a gaze of sorrow and shook her head. “It hurts too much to explain,” she’d said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “God knows I love you all...but...God obviously doesn’t want me to be happy...otherwise he wouldn’t have taken my Jesus from me!”
And then she’d started crying again and Robert could only sit there beside her, his thoughts frightened and confused. And now, over thirty years later, the only thing he could offer as a way of explanation for his mother’s self-destructive behavior was this: she felt God put her on this earth to suffer and had somehow lapsed when He’d allowed his father into her life, so He’d rectified the error of His ways by taking Jesus Valesquez away. It was a bullshit theory, and Robert didn’t believe it for bit—hell, shit just happened!—but in the years to pass, whenever he would ask his mother what she’d meant by those words she would grow sullen and refuse to answer him. “You wouldn’t understand,” was about the extent of her answers.
She’d been born into abuse, been rescued by her prince, had known love and laughter and joy—and then that joy was cruelly snatched from her. No wonder she’d hit rock bottom so hard.
Raul was four months old when their father was killed. For a while, Eva relied on Jesus’s sister, Maria, to help with the baby, but within a few months Maria left for Arizona, unable to deal with Eva’s drinking. By then, Eva had a boyfriend, a man Robert remembered as being very charitable, very good with him and his brothers, and when he wasn’t drunk, he was able to help Eva feed and change Raul. She also relied on the kindness of Jesus’s friends and co-workers for help, but by the time Robert was nine and Raul was two, Robert was pretty much taking care of himself and his brothers. For the most part, he was taking care of his mother, too.
She was never able to climb back up from the dregs she’d thrown herself into.
The year after Raul was murdered, Robert enlisted in the United States Air Force, two days after graduating from high school. Three months later his mother was dead. She had passed out face-first on the sofa and vomited, suffocating in her own puke and the smelly, cigarette-reeking upholstery.
“It’s one of the things I’m finding out as we continue with our own investigation,” William said. “I’m certain the new task force will find out the same thing. I’m hoping they will.”
Robert’s head was spinning with all this new information. There was no way he could go home now. He glanced at the clock. He had fifteen minutes to be fully packed and outside the hotel waiting for the shuttle. He took a drag of his cigarette. “Listen, I think I’m going to call the airlines and see if I can have my flight changed. I’d like to be in town to see how this plays out.”
“You sure? There’s no reason for you to, Robert. We
can call you if—"
“I want to,” Robert said quickly, cutting him off. “I’m retired and I don’t have anything else to do except see that this gets resolved. You’ve already opened doors I’ve wanted kept shut, and the more I think about them, the more I know they’re going to bother me. I’d rather have the flight changed than have to fly right back here once I get home later today. This is just going to bug me.”
“Very well, then. But Robert?”
“Yes.”
“It might get ugly. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I have every reason to believe my client was framed by the Gardena Police Department to cover something up. I can’t prove it, but based on what I’m learning now about their dismissing Social Services and ... influencing things, so to speak, with their efforts in having you and your brothers removed from your mother’s custody in the seventies, I don’t think it’s a matter of mere incompetence on their part. Incompetence in law enforcement agencies is inevitable; it happens to the best of them at some point. To the casual observer, their rush to find a suspect in Douglas Archer could be perceived as incompetence in the fact that he looked good in theory: they had phone records indicating he’d called your house asking for Raul, they had witness testimony — not very reliable, I might add—that suggested Doug was one of the regulars at your mother’s house. They had witness testimony suggesting he called other teenage boys soliciting sex. And by a good coincidence, he was very small in stature. He was wearing a shoe that matched a print found in the area your brother was found. That’s enough to get an overzealous investigator who’s perhaps anxious to resolve this case to manufacture and plant evidence that will stand up in court, which is what I think they did. Why would they do this? Who knows? Now that this other stuff is coming to light, we may begin to see why.”
“I gotta go,” Robert told William Grecko. He stood up and crossed over to the other side of the room where his suitcase lay. “I’ll call you later and let you know where I’ll be.”
“Fine. I’ll call you if I hear anything further.”
When they got off the phone, the headache came back with a vengeance.
Robert sat on the bed for a moment, his mind spinning as his head throbbed. His sole purpose in coming out to California was to partake in the deposition in which William Grecko had subpoenaed him in the reopening of Douglas Archer’s defense case. In doing that, Robert hoped for a quick resolution; he wanted to know who was responsible for Raul’s murder. He had come to slowly believe Doug wasn’t the killer, and hoped that with a new investigation they would quickly identify a new suspect and make a better case, one built on actual evidence rather than flimsy theories.
That wasn’t happening yet. What was happening was the door he’d slammed shut on his childhood and teenage years was being opened.
Robert picked up the phone and, after consulting the scratch pad he used to jot notes down, called the airlines and arranged to take a later flight—he didn’t mind paying a penalty. And as he sat at the desk in his room and made his flight arrangements and spoke with the front desk to inquire about lengthening his stay at the hotel, he wondered if he would have the strength to look deep into the abyss that was his childhood and survive.
Nine
DANNY HERNANDEZ WAS at his station in the shipping department at WalMart when he heard his name being called over the loudspeaker. “Danny Hernandez, pick up at the Customer Service window!”
He set down the Sports section of the newspaper and got out of his chair. It was the middle of the day on his first day back to work after the long weekend, and the store was fairly quiet. Day shift was Danny’s favorite to work, especially during the weekday when the nine-to-five crowd was holed up in their offices. The only people who shopped during the day were the occasional housewife (an increasingly rare breed these days) and retirees, most of who either used the interior of the store as a track to walk for their daily exercise regiment, or merely browsed and bought the occasional trinket for a grandchild. That probably wasn’t the case with this service call, though. Usually when Danny took a service call it was to pull a heavy item ticket and make a delivery to the back shipping dock. It was rare, but it happened.
As Danny crested the doorway that led from the warehouse to the floor, the intercom squawked again. “Customer pickup at shipping. Correction, customer pickup at shipping.”
Danny sighed in annoyance and headed back through the warehouse to shipping. Carol Hennessey, the receptionist, was pretty ditzy and she fucked up like this all the time. The customer was probably already waiting in his car at the loading dock with his claim ticket in hand. No problem. Danny headed toward the loading dock and saw the car from the open bay door—a dark blue Chrysler.
The passenger side window rolled down and Danny leaned forward. “What can I do for you, sir?”
A gray-haired man with a ruddy complexion and a considerable girth around the waist leaned toward him, outstretched hand bearing a claim ticket. He was wearing sunglasses. “New TV,” he said, grinning at Danny.
Danny took the claim slip and headed back into the warehouse. He went to the aisle where the TVs were stored and looked around for the correct ticket number. He found it and got the TV down off the second ledge. It wasn’t that heavy, and he carried it back toward the dock.
The man was already out of his car with the trunk open. Danny didn’t think the box would fit, but the car had trunk space as big as a caddy—deep and wide. Danny gently lowered the box that contained the television inside, grunting as he moved it into a position where it wouldn’t be jostled in traffic. The customer stood back, that grin on his face. Danny had him pegged immediately; early retiree or some high ranking middle-manager taking the day off to do some shopping. He caught a glimpse of a gold bracelet around the man’s left wrist. When the TV was in place, the man slammed the trunk lid down. “Thanks, Danny. I appreciate it.”
Danny started. Even though he was wearing a name badge, it was rare for a customer to call him by his first name. Most customers looked down at people who worked retail and didn’t address them by their first names. “No problem,” Danny said. “Enjoy it.”
“I will,” the man said, and now he had his wallet out and Danny saw the badge immediately. He flipped it open and Danny caught the brief glimpse: Gardena Homicide. The man flipped the wallet closed and Danny felt his stomach tighten. “I’d like to have a quick word with you if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” It was the only thing Danny could think of to say.
“Detective Jensen is barking up the wrong tree,” the man said. Danny couldn’t see the man’s eyes through the dark shades he was wearing, but he could imagine they were cold and penetrating in their gaze. “He’ll discover that very shortly. I suggest you forget what happened to you when you were a kid and play dumb with Detective Jensen if he continues to call on you.”
Danny didn’t know what to say; he was confused, his mind was spinning, trying to process what was happening. The man cocked his head at Danny. “Do we have an understanding?”
“No,” Danny said. “I don’t understand. I...”
“I appreciate you being a good citizen and cooperating with law enforcement,” the nameless detective said. “And you would be furthering our investigation if you ceased cooperating with Detective Jensen. All he’s doing is...making this investigation more difficult.”
The first thought to cross Danny’s mind was that Jensen was bungling the investigation. Then he felt his face go red as what he feared the most entered his mind. He tried to speak and couldn’t; his mouth was completely dry from fear.
The detective sensed Danny’s sudden fear and smiled like a hungry predator. “We have an understanding, then?”
Danny nodded, not knowing what else to say, but just wanting the man out of his sight.
“Good. Stay quiet. You are under no obligation to continue your talks with Detective Jensen. If he should threaten you with some kind of obstruction of
justice crap, don’t worry about it. He can’t force you to tell him anything.”
Danny was about to say, he hasn’t forced me to tell him anything, but then wisely decided to keep his mouth shut. He nodded.
“So we have an understanding?”
Danny nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“No guessing. And don’t worry. You aren’t in any kind of trouble. You were worried about that, weren’t you?”
Danny nodded, relieved that his worst fear hadn’t born fruit.
“You aren’t in trouble. We’re trying to rein Jensen in, keep him from chasing all these bullshit stories. The more he does that, the more he’s compromising the investigation. Do you understand?”
Danny nodded. He still didn’t feel good about this.
The detective smiled. “This will all be over in a few days. Don’t worry.” He went back to the driver’s seat of his big car and slid behind the wheel.
Danny took a step back toward the loading dock door, his heart racing. The driver’s side window of the car was still rolled down and the detective turned to him, leaning toward him slightly. “You have yourself a good day now. Don’t forget to pick up Chris and Tina at three p.m. sharp. Carson Elementary School, right?”
Danny froze. How does he know my kid's names? How does he know what school they go to?
How the fuck does he know I’m supposed to pick them up today?
The detective chuckled at him, threw the car into drive and crept down the alley behind the WalMart Super Center toward the front of the parking lot, leaving Danny standing outside, now more scared than he’d ever been in his life.
Was that a threat? Did that motherfucker just threaten me?
It’s a threat all right. That bastard not only didn’t tell you his name, he told you to stop talking to Tom and he made it very well known that if you continued talking to Tom about this case, he knows what school the kids go to and what time they’re picked up. He also knows your schedule. How he knows that, I don’t have a fucking clue. But he knows, that’s all you have to worry about. He knows and if you tell Tom, this guy will know and—
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