by Becca Bloom
“I no remember Luis go to the prison,” said Tia Rosa. “You remember, Bertha?” she asked her sister.
Abuelita hemmed and hawed, not wanting to admit she’d been in the dark like everyone else, but eventually she said, “I too busy in the restaurant. I work hard. No have time for to listen gossip. Luis good boy. I agree Sylvia.”
My stomach grumbled embarrassingly loud.
Sylvia smiled at me. “How about you talk to Luis after lunch?”
“I go with you,” Abuelita declared.
That was fine with me. I looked down at my growing list of suspects. Along with the mayor, who seemed the least likely of all the names I’d written, I now had three other names. Shirley, merely because she had been in the same class and study group as Sophia and might recall something important. Alex, who aside from my dislike, possessed a cold, calculating mind which all the killers in the mystery books I’d read also had. He was at the top of the list.
Then there was Luis. What secrets did he hide?
I gulped down my lunch and was ready to go within a half an hour, forgetting the Ecuadorian custom of shopkeepers closing up shop between noon and three o’clock to eat lunch with their families. Luis would have employees working around the clock, but as the boss, he would most assuredly not be in his office until after three.
Adi and Tia Rosa joined me for a stroll around the park with Lady. They helped me keep a lookout for the annoying couple trying to claim my dog while Lady contentedly played with any insect that happened to buzz by. She was starting to grow into her feet and now reached just above my knee when she sat beside me.
“She miss you when you go,” Tia Rosa said, sitting down on a bench shaded by a sprawling tree and calling Lady over to scratch behind her ears.
Guilt pinged my conscience. At least she’d have a good home behind the restaurant. Abuelita would make sure Lady was warm and well-fed.
“We’re all going to miss you. It’s been fun having you around. Baños will never be the same,” said Adi.
I’d never be the same. The life I’d left behind me in Portland seemed dull to me now. But I certainly wasn’t going to pick up and move to Ecuador just so I could keep the little puppy who had wiggled her way into my heart. Sensible people didn’t move to a different continent for a dog. Even my adventure-loving, inspiration-seeking family would question my reasoning on that. Maybe I could try to take Lady home with me. Now, that was an idea. I’d have to move out of my studio apartment, but my parents’ house was currently empty while they drove around the country with Mammy. I could stay there with Lady and make good use of their backyard until I found something more suitable.
“Jessica!” I heard Abuelita call me. She stood in front of the restaurant, holding out a phone.
“Let’s hope it’s an anonymous tip,” said Adi, looking calculatingly at the second story of the building where her design studio was supposed to be. What was she planning?
I sighed. “It’s probably another call about my uncle. I’m starting to think that there’s no great mystery to be solved or conspiracy theory to be uncovered, despite what Abuelita may think.”
Abuelita shook the phone at me impatiently.
“I’d better see what it is,” I said, crossing the park and the one-way street to meet her.
Abuelita grinned. “This time is man! Is good, yes?” She looked so hopeful, I smiled and took the phone from her.
“Hello?” I asked.
A deep voice on the other end of the line said, “Jessica, I am your father.”
Someone needed a vocabulary lesson, and I was too disheartened to attempt it. Thanking him for his call as best as I could in my broken Spanish (the one sentence he’d pronounced was the full extent of the callers English), I hung up.
“Is good, yes?” asked Abuelita insistently.
“Not this time,” I said, handing the phone back to her and looking at my watch. It was three o’clock. Time to visit Luis. I just prayed we’d have more success solving Sophia’s cold case than I’d had looking into the circumstances of my own uncle’s death.
Abuelita jabbed me in the arm. “Is good you no give up. I feel it in gut he alive.”
I didn’t trust Abuelita’s gut nearly as much as she did. And I was having a particularly difficult time just then trying to hide my disappointment. I knew it was foolish to believe my uncle could be alive — I mean, why wouldn’t he let his family know somehow? — but I was every bit as hopeful as Abuelita was.
Tia Rosa squeezed my shoulder comfortingly as Lady nudged my hand and settled against my leg.
“And what does your gut tell you about Luis, Abuelita?” Adi asked with a grin.
Abuelita waved her hand in the air. “Luis no kill Sophia. Is ridiculous.”
“Who you think do it? What say you gut?” Tia Rosa asked, joining in on the teasing.
Abuelita raised her finger and pointed at us. “You laugh me, but I right. You see. I think the boyfriend do it.” She raised her nose into the air and jutted out her chin defiantly, daring us to contradict her.
The boyfriend hadn’t even made it to my list of suspects yet, but that didn’t mean much. This was only our first day of investigating.
Giving Abuelita the benefit of the doubt, I said, “It could be. The mayor said he’d be at the event, giving us the perfect opportunity to speak to him.”
“I come with you,” Abuelita insisted.
There was nothing I could say to convince her otherwise, so I agreed. If anyone could bully a confession out of a criminal, it was Abuelita. Which reminded me … it was time to talk to Luis.
I held up Lady’s leash. “Do you think we can take her with us?”
Adi answered. “I don’t see why not. He has an old hound dog that lies in front of his office door.”
“A guard dog?” I asked.
Adi laughed. “Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
A few minutes later, I saw why Adi found my comment funny. There was a hound dog stretched across the door that must have been his master’s office. He opened a bloodshot eye when we knocked on the door and grunted as he rolled to his back and kicked his stubby legs into the air for a belly rub.
“Some guard dog you are,” I said as I crouched down to scratch his tummy.
I knew I’d hit the perfect spot when the hound’s back leg started pedaling in circles. He flopped his head over to look at me and the extra skin around his muzzle pulled back into a smile.
“Why you talk dog? We here for to ask questions, no for to play with the dog,” scolded Abuelita.
The door opened suddenly, startling me and sending me sprawling backward to land on my bum.
A man, almost as tall as Jake cracked the door open just wide enough for us to see his scowl. “Who are you?” he asked, looking at me. “Why are you bothering my dog?”
I stood up, brushing the dust off my jeans. His dog, knowing to perform while his owner was present, sat with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. As if on cue, he howled and nudged his nose toward us. Lady, deciding he was all bark and no bite, tugged on his ear and pounced around in play.
“He doesn’t look bothered. What’s his name?” I asked.
“Cody,” Luis answered in a gruff tone. “He doesn’t like to be bothered. You be careful or he might bite. He’s ferocious.”
Just then the “ferocious” guard dog rolled onto his back again, asking for another belly rub.
“He looks it,” I said, trying to control my smile and hoping Luis was as agreeable as his dog.
Luis’ face bunched up as he looked down at his dog wiggling at his feet. “You’re a disgrace to your breed, you old mutt,” he said affectionately before reverting back to his grumpy tone. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
Abuelita said, “We find Sophia.”
Luis’ hand dropped from the door, letting it swing wide open. He didn’t move to close it. He rubbed his hands over his stubbled cheeks.
“Confound it all, now I got something in my eye,” h
e said, returning to the depths of his office to grab a shop rag to hide behind.
Abuelita and I stood in place until Luis motioned for us. “Well, what are you doing standing there like dummies? Come inside before something else gets in my eye. Leave your dog out here. My station manager will see she doesn’t run off.”
An older man with a weathered baseball cap sauntered over, waving at us with work-worn hands, his leathery face replete with smile lines. Lady trotted over to him when he patted his leg and whistled. He seemed trustworthy.
Stepping over Cody, I pulled back one of the metal, fold-up chairs in front of what must have been his desk. It was so cluttered with stained coffee mugs, empty Styrofoam cups, and dog-eared auto part catalogs, he had to shove things over to rest his hands on top of the surface.
Behind him, sitting on a battered gray file cabinet, he had a small television like the one my parents had in their kitchen when I was little — complete with rabbit ears and static lines crossing the screen. A soccer game was on.
The dingy walls only had one picture to brighten them up. A girl with light brown hair and one of those contagious, open-mouthed smiles. Her eyes sparkled with life and absolute glee.
Luis’ chair squeaked as he rose from it. He stood in front of the picture, reaching out and tracing his fingers along the frame.
He didn’t need to tell us who it was. It had to be Sophia.
Unhooking the picture from the wall, he pressed it to his chest before holding it out for us to see.
“She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” he asked, his voice quivering.
I stared at the picture, wanting it to be the image my mind would conjure when I thought of Sophia, instead of the pile of bones in Tia Rosa’s shop floor. “I can see why you loved her,” I said.
Luis’ hand shook so much, he had to set the picture down on the desk. “I’ve loved her since first grade,” he said, his white knuckles gripping the red rag he used to rub at his eyes again. “Like everybody, I had hoped she was happy somewhere else — even though it meant she’d chosen not to take me with her. But I think I’ve always known that she was truly gone. I’ve felt her loss all these years, but cruel uncertainty wouldn’t let my hope die along with her.”
Abuelita asked, her voice low and tender, “Is why you no marry?”
Luis nodded. “I waited for Sophia.” He raised his head. “Where is she? Can I see her?”
Chapter 12
Luis’ anguish twisted my stomach and made it hard to breathe. But he deserved answers, so I told him how we’d found Sophia as well as our hopes of bringing her killer to justice. Concluding, I said, “If you have any information which might be helpful to us, I hope you tell’ll us. We only have until Sunday afternoon, then everyone leaves.”
Luis sat in silence for a few minutes and, when he looked up, his eyes went directly to the picture of Sophia sitting on top of a pile of catalogs. “I want to help you, and so I will be completely honest. I was arrested as a suspect and spent a week in jail until the police dismissed her as a Missing Person case. I would have stayed in there as long as it took to find her if it meant they wouldn’t have dismissed her case so quickly.”
I sighed in relief that he brought that up. It made him more trustworthy. However, I did find it odd that neither Tia Rosa nor Abuelita had remembered that detail. In a town as small as Baños, and with a crime that was blown up as much as Sophia’s, you’d think that they’d have noticed when one of her classmates was thrown in jail.
I asked, “Why doesn’t anyone know about your incarceration?”
Luis clenched his hands before relaxing them again. “Sophia’s parents never believed I did it, otherwise I never would have seen the light of day again. It was a classmate who knew my true feelings for Sophia who saw a chance to get even and turned me in. I was sent to the prison in Ambato, it being the nearest city, and my parents managed to keep it as quiet as they could.”
“But still … an arrest. That would have made the news,” I said.
“It did,” Luis answered, continuing, “but the strangest thing happened. Someone broke into the grocery store and stole all of the kitty litter the same night Sophia disappeared. I’m grateful to whomever did that because it took the limelight off me. It was unfortunate for Señora Yvonne, though.” He clucked his tongue.
Abuelita filled me in. “Señora Yvonne is … what you say … the Cat Lady. She have fifty cats.”
Luis shook his head. “The police searched her home and nearly arrested her for the robbery. After all, the average pet owner doesn’t need so much kitty litter.”
“But with fifty cats?!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly,” nodded Luis. “Anyway, you can see how that made a more entertaining news item. More so than a disappearance and a kid the police held without more evidence than a classmate’s testimony.”
“The boyfriend?” I asked.
Luis nodded, but said nothing.
“You never believed Sophia ran away?” I asked softly.
“No. I couldn’t believe she’d leave without saying anything … although it didn’t keep me from hoping she was alive somewhere and happy … without me.” He swallowed hard and looked down at his hands. “I think I always knew she was really gone. It’s hard to explain, but I felt her loss and I knew in my heart she couldn’t come back.”
Mammy and Dad said the same about my uncle. Hope gnawed at them, tormenting them with uncertainty. Neither of them had been able to accept his death. Could it be that, like Luis, their intuition was right?
“Hope is a tricky beast. I should have trusted my gut. Then, maybe, I might have…” Luis sighed heavily, leaving his regrets unspoken.
“Not everyone can trust their intuition,” I said with a pointed look at Abuelita.
“This time, I right!” she insisted. “Is the old boyfriend. I feel it. I prove it!”
How many times had I heard that? I might as well scratch the boyfriend off the list. It would save time.
Luis chortled, leaning back against his chair and resting his hands behind his neck. “Well, I take great comfort knowing Abuelita is helping you investigate. If anyone can bully a confession out of a hardened criminal, it’s her. She and Tia Rosa have quite a past if half the rumors I’ve heard over the years are true.”
“Their silence on the subject makes me inclined to believe most of them are.” That, and the small armory in her spare room.
“Everyone have secret,” Abuelita mumbled, squirming uncomfortably in her chair.
Luis leaned forward. “I have no secrets where Sophia is concerned. Ask me anything. I will stop at nothing to bring her killer to justice. I hope he rots in prison.”
He? Did he suspect the old boyfriend? “You mentioned that the person who put you behind bars was trying to get even with you?” I asked.
His dark eyes hardened and his face set. “Antonio Manjarrez. He was Sophia’s boyfriend. And yes, to answer the question I know you want to ask, I was jealous of him. I loved her, you see, and I knew how wrong for her Antonio was. He was too self-absorbed to notice how her parents’ separation had affected Sophia.”
“She had a class ring on her finger.” I didn’t want to rub salt in his wound, but I wanted to know who had given it to her.
Luis’ arms fell limply to his sides and he stared blankly over at her picture. He asked in a whisper, “A ruby?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“What finger did she wear it on?” he pressed, now looking at me with an intensity that told me that he put great importance on my answer.
“Her ring finger.”
He gulped and rubbed his hands over his face. “She chose me,” he whispered in awe. With a sniff, Luis composed himself. With a shaking voice, he said, “Antonio chose a stone in the same color as his favorite soccer team. A diamond.”
“Liga de Quito?” Abuelita scoffed. “I no like them.”
Luis said, “He was going to be the Quito League’s next star player. But Sophia chose me,” he smil
ed, covering his eyes again.
“You didn’t know she wore your ring?”
“No. The last time I saw her alive was before the graduation ceremony. She was really upset.”
“So now we have a jealous boyfriend to add to our list of suspects,” I commented as I wrote Antonio’s name down in my journal, along with his possible motive.
“He was part of Miss Matty’s study group. If you ask me, you should write all of their names down on your list. I don’t trust any of them.”
“Really? Why?” I asked.
He leaned forward, clasping his hands together and lowering his voice. “They all had a motive to kill Sophia. They had arranged a party to celebrate their successes, so they all had access to her after graduation.”
“You weren’t invited?” I asked.
“I wasn’t in their precious group … not that I’d have accepted an invitation anyway. I wasn’t college-bound,” he said with a shrug, adding, “But doesn’t it strike you as odd that all four of them got full scholarships to the best universities?”
“They must have worked very hard,” I commented. What was he getting at?
He scoffed. “Three out of the five of them got perfect scores on their entrance exams, not including Sophia, who would never cheat like I suspect they did.”
“But wasn’t that the purpose of the group? Couldn’t it be that Miss Matty was an exceptional teacher?” I asked, even though the skeptic in me doubted it.
“Getting a full scholarship, especially back when I was in high school, was every kid’s dream. It was highly competitive and, yet, all the scholarships were won by students from Miss Matty’s group. It was too good to be true if you ask me.”
“Who didn’t get the perfect score?” I asked, looking down at the names in the group.
“Sophia, who would never stoop to cheat and Shirley — although she only missed one question from what I remember. She worked harder than the lot of them. Alex was brilliant, but he was lazy. I could see him getting a perfect score on his own, but I wouldn’t put it past him to cheat just to make things easier on himself.”