I found the story close to the middle of the film. It was under a top-of-the-page banner headline: DELIVERY GIRL BRUTALLY MURDERED; TEENAGER CAUGHT, CONFESSES.
The picture of Adam Holt was not very clear, and one arm was across his face, so a school photo from the year before was run next to it. Adam was blond and pudgy and looking away from the camera, unsmiling, so it was hard to tell about his eyes.
Basically there was not much more information in the news stories than Dad had told us. The murder victim, Darlene Garland, apparently came to the Holts’ door with a pizza delivery. Adam Holt met her there with a knife. He attempted to drag her up the stairs, she bolted and tried to run, and he stabbed her.
The follow-up stories covered the same information. Adam told his story to two police officers while being driven to headquarters, but refused to give a written or taped confession after his parents hired an attorney.
I rewound the film, according to instructions, and put on the last roll—the one with the accounts of the trial. This one had some information that hadn’t come out in the earlier stories. A woman who lived across the street from the Holts testified that she had been gardening in her backyard when she heard screams coming from what she thought was the Holt house. According to her testimony, she ran inside her own house and locked the door.
“Did you call the police?” the prosecuting attorney asked her.
“Oh, no,” she answered. “At first I was afraid, but then I thought how I’ve never heard anything like that around here, and it had to have been—well, I thought it was kids just chasing around and acting silly. If that’s all it was and I called the police, I’d look like a fool.”
I stopped reading. If only she’d called the police, they could have placed Adam at the scene of the crime. I rubbed my eyes, which were beginning to ache, and went back to reading the newspaper stories.
The woman told the court that she thought she had remembered glancing at her kitchen clock, and she was pretty sure that it read one-fifteen. The defense attorney discredited her testimony, which must not have been hard to do, because the delivery girl couldn’t have arrived on the scene much before one-thirty.
The medical examiner testified there were two kinds of blood found in the Holts’ hallway, type A and type O. Darlene Garland had type O blood, and Adam had type A.
The discussion about the oral confession took up half a newspaper page. The judge allowed it, even though the defense attorney reminded him that under Texas law an oral confession was not admissible.
In a later issue I read that the jury had found Adam Holt guilty of murder in the first degree and that he was sentenced to life imprisonment. But his attorney filed an appeal, based on the wrongful admission of the oral confession.
I rewound the tape, knowing the rest of it. A higher court threw out the verdict, and Adam was released to live with one or both of his parents. There was plenty of evidence to place Adam at the scene of the murder, but an eyewitness was lacking, so he got away with his crime.
How did this all fit in with Rosa? I had the uncomfortable feeling that something I had read held a clue to the answer, but it eluded me, and I couldn’t capture it.
A voice spoke next to me, startling me so that I jumped. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
I stared up at the librarian who had brought me the film. “I don’t know,” I answered. “I thought there would be something about …” A wisp of a thought tickled my mind, then disappeared before I could grasp it. What was it?
“Do me a favor. Peel some carrots,” Mom called as she trotted past me on her way to the garage. “I forgot about lettuce and tomatoes for a salad, so I’m going to make a quick trip to the store.”
I peeled the carrots, then wandered from the kitchen into the den, Dinky at my heels. The house was quiet, the sun slanting long, shimmering ribbons of light through the west windows. I walked to the edge of the entry hall, which was peaceful in the late-afternoon stillness and shadow. I found myself waiting, melting into the silence, as though it were expected of me. Why?
Slowly, like cold, creeping fingers against my skin, came the awareness that some unseen being was with me. Terrified, I whispered, “Rosa? Is it you?”
Esto para usted.
From classroom Spanish I remembered the words This is for you, but I didn’t know what Rosa meant. Slowly I sank to the tiles and sat cross-legged. “What is for me? Rosa, what do you want of me?” I asked. My whisper was so loud that I shrank from the sound, trembling.
Dinky crooned in the back of her throat, and her hair stood on end. With a shriek she bolted from the room.
In spite of my fear, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, took a deep breath, and tried to concentrate. Rosa, I begged, don’t force me. I told you that I’d help you willingly. There was no response, so I added, I’m trying to reach you, but I don’t know what step to take next. You’ll have to tell me. You wanted me here. I’m here. I’m listening. I’m waiting.
Silencio, por favor. Her words were soft and tearful, almost like an apology, and somehow I understood that Rosa had something she wanted to show me.
Slowly I began to feel the room changing around me. The air shifted, turned warmly damp and sour with fear, and Rosa’s sobs became little drops of ice that slithered down my backbone. I was afraid to open my eyes, terrified of what I might see.
Suddenly, with the swiftness and shock of a slap, the sensation vanished. Rosa? I thought in surprise. What happened? Are you here with me? Do you want to talk to me?
I could feel her breath against my face, but it was agitated. Her plan had been interrupted.
I slumped with relief, as though I’d been held tightly by a string and suddenly let go. Even though she hadn’t told me, I suspected that Rosa had been about to unleash the horror that clung to this room.
Rosa, I’m afraid. I’m scared to death, I told her. I promised to help you, and I will. But please don’t pull me into something I can’t handle.
I waited for an answer, but it didn’t come. Instead I realized that I was being watched by someone close by, someone I knew was not Rosa.
I couldn’t stand the tension. My eyelids flew open, and my head jerked toward the window next to the front door. I screamed as my eyes met those in the face that was staring in at me.
The figure waved and gestured. Through a haze I saw that it was only Dee Dee.
Stumbling, shaking, I managed to get to my feet and cross the hall to open the front door.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Dee Dee said. She shifted the large potted plant in her arms and put it on the hall table. “You look awful. You’re so pale. I’m sorry.” She clutched my shoulders and led me to the stairs, pushing me down. “Do you need to put your head between your knees?”
“I’m all right. I’m not going to faint.” I took a couple of long, deep breaths and felt the color flood back into my cheeks.
“What in the world were you doing on the floor with your eyes shut?” Dee Dee asked. “Yoga? Oh, I know. You were meditating.”
Strange Sarah. Not again! Oh, please, not again! Embarrassed, I snapped, “It doesn’t matter, does it? I didn’t think I was on exhibit.”
“Hey, look,” Dee Dee explained. “Don’t blame me for seeing you. Anybody who comes to the door can see inside your house. It would be hard not to.”
She smiled. “And don’t be embarrassed because I caught you meditating. Lots of people do it. I got into a weight-loss program last year that called for meditating, and I tried it, but I couldn’t keep my mind on it, because I kept thinking about other things.” She giggled. “If I were you, though, I’d do the meditating in your bedroom, where you’d have some privacy, and not in the entry hall.” She sat on the stair beside me.
“Would you like to split a Coke?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“No thanks,” Dee Dee said. “It’s almost dinnertime. I just came over to deliver the plant from my mom to yours and to tell you something about those papers a
nd things you found. I asked Lupita if she knew anybody over here named Rosa Luiz and she—”
“Dee Dee!” I interrupted. “I asked you not to tell anyone about those things.”
She looked slightly guilty. “I didn’t, really. I just asked her if she knew Rosa Luiz. I’m not going to talk about it to anyone else, honest.”
“Okay. So what did Lupita tell you?”
“That’s the strange part,” Dee Dee said. “She acted real scared and kept rattling on in Spanish so fast, I couldn’t understand her. I did understand a couple of words, though—immigration and deported.”
“Rosa?”
“That must be what she meant.”
“If Rosa had been deported, surely the officials would have let her take her belongings with her.”
“She must have taken her clothes,” Dee Dee said. “Maybe she forgot about the packet you found until after she was on a bus headed back to Mexico, and it was too late.”
“Her money and the silver medal her uncle left her? Do you really think she’d forget those?”
“I don’t know.” Dee Dee leaned over and scratched at a tiny red spot on her ankle. “We’re not going to find out anything from Lupita. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“You’re wrong. We did find out something.”
Dee Dee stopped scratching and straightened, looking at me with surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s simple,” I said. “We found out that Lupita knew Rosa.”
Chapter
Eight
By the time dinner was over, I was exhausted. I watched TV in the den and woke up during the ten-o’clock news to find I’d been sleeping all evening.
“It’s a good sign,” I heard Dad saying. “Sarah’s beginning to relax. We all need to. The murder is over and done with, and we can’t let it affect our lives.”
“It affects the way I feel about the people on this block,” Mom said. “I can’t help it.” She glared at Evelyn Pritchard’s potted plant, which I’d moved to the coffee table.
“I know.” There was a pause and Dad said, “We could take Sarah’s example too. She’s already made friends in the neighborhood.”
I stretched, yawned loudly, and sat up, pretending to have just awakened, so they wouldn’t know that I’d over-heard what they’d said. “It looks like I woke up just in time to go to bed,” I told them.
“I’m afraid that after your long nap you won’t be able to get to sleep,” Mom said. “Would you like me to make you some hot cocoa? I’ll be glad to stay up and chat with you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need hot cocoa—or conversation, either. I feel as though I could sleep for a couple of weeks.”
“Maybe you need vitamins,” Mom began, but Dad and I shouted at her at the same time.
“Dorothy!”
“Mom!”
She laughed. “Okay. I’ll back off.”
I kissed Mom and Dad good night and climbed the stairs to my room. Once inside with the door shut, I opened the bottom drawer in my chest of drawers and took out the packet of things that belonged to Rosa. Separating them, I laid them out on top of the chest to examine them. The silver medal seemed to tug in my hand, so I opened my palm, exposing the medal to view.
Rosa? I asked, but there was no answer. The silver grew warm, probably from the heat of my body. I placed the medal beside the little calendar and reread the letter.
What had Rosa planned to show me this afternoon? I shuddered, pushing the question out of my mind. I didn’t want to think about it. I was afraid that I knew.
I began to yawn again. My eyelids were heavy. I wrapped up the little bundle and tucked it back into the drawer. I showered, put on my pajamas, and literally fell into bed.
I dreamed about a young woman, not much older than I. She sat near the foot of my bed, huddled inside a large, woven shawl. Her skin was a deep brown, her black hair pulled back tightly, and her dark eyes never left my face. The sorrow that drew her features into a tight mask was so intense that in sympathy I reached out to her.
She straightened and extended her hands to me. But as she sat upright the shawl fell back, and I saw that her body was soaked with blood. The dark blood dripped from her fingers onto mine, and I was helpless to pull away.
“No!” I tried to cry out.
“¡Ayúdame!” she pleaded.
Terrified, I tried to shout at her to go away, to run from those eyes that stared into mine. But I couldn’t move or speak. Finally, desperately, a guttural, animal sound escaped through my lips, waking me. I was tangled in the sheet, my body drenched with sweat. Struggling, kicking away the sheet, I managed to sit up and turn on the bed lamp to chase away the last remnants of the nightmare.
There were no other sounds in the house, so it was obvious I didn’t make enough noise to wake Mom and Dad. I slumped against the headboard, unable to get the picture of the woman out of my mind.
Rosa. It had to be.
I’d promised to help her and had opened my mind to her. I’d allowed her to come.
“Not in my dreams,” I murmured aloud. “There has to be someplace where I can escape. Rosa, I don’t want you to frighten me like this. Do you understand?”
There was a special silence, like a door closing softly, and I knew she had left.
I didn’t understand the dream. Why had Rosa been covered with blood? What did she have to do with Darlene Garland’s murder? What had really happened in this house? I squirmed back down under the sheet, punched at my pillow and rolled on my side. I ached for sleep but I was afraid to let go, afraid that Rosa might return.
The next day, after breakfast, Mom decided to hang pictures, and I helped her, the measuring and hammering and pounding mercifully driving all thoughts of the dream out of my head.
Around eleven she asked, “Where’s Dee Dee? I thought she’d be over to see you.”
“She said something about having to go shopping all day with her mother. This is Dee Dee’s day off from her lifeguard job.”
“Speaking of shopping,” Mom said, “I’ve been making a list. Hardware, plumbing supplies, that sort of thing. It’s going to take me all afternoon to find everything on my list. Want to come? Or would you rather stay home?”
I smiled at her. “Going to a plumbing-supply store is not my idea of real excitement. I could stay here and work and be of more help. Would you like me to unpack the books and put them in the bookcases? I know how you like them arranged.”
“I’d love it if you’d take care of the books,” Mom said. “I’ve been dreading that job.”
The mail came, but no letter from Marcie. Why should I have expected one? I hadn’t written to her, either. I’ll write today, I promised myself. I’ll tell her about Dee Dee. Maybe about Tony. But I knew I wouldn’t. I was distancing myself, afraid to write a letter that might not be answered.
Mom left after lunch, and Dinky settled into a nap on the top box of those marked BOOKS. I moved Dinky to another perch. Upset at being moved, she narrowed her eyes and mewed a complaint, then pretended to go back to sleep.
I was so busy checking titles and reading snatches here and there that I jumped when the doorbell rang. Dinky rose majestically, flipping her tail with a snap of irritation.
Through the window by the door I saw Tony and stopped, catching my breath, as his eyes met mine. I smiled, not trying to hide my delight, and hurried to open the door.
“I was in the neighborhood and thought this would be a good time to meet your mother,” Tony said as he stepped inside and shut the door.
The air turned cold, and the walls of the entry hall seemed to press inward. My head pounded and I silently screamed at Rosa, No! Not now! Go away! You can’t do this to me now!
Gasping for breath, I grabbed Tony’s hand and tugged him past the entry hall, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. I let go and leaned against the nearest counter, breathing heavily. Whatever I had felt in the entry hall had gone.
But Tony was studying me,
and it surprised me that his eyes had narrowed in the same way that Dinky narrowed hers, with light seeming to gleam from under the lashes. “What’s the matter, Sarah?” he asked me.
“Nothing. I’m fine.” I tried to shrug off what had happened. “I’ve been working hard unpacking books. I guess I got a little out of breath.” I opened the refrigerator door, wanting desperately to talk about something else. “How about a soft drink?”
“Sure,” he said, “but I can only stay for a few minutes.” He looked at his watch and glanced back through the living room. “Where’s your mother?”
“Oh. Mom. She left to run errands. She won’t be back for a few hours.”
Tony smiled. Did I imagine that he looked relieved? “My bad timing,” he said. “Well, as long as I’m here, I’ll help you unpack the books.”
“Thanks, but you said you could only stay a few minutes. You won’t have time.”
His smile was easy. “I’ll make time.”
We took our soft drinks into the den, and Tony worked beside me, making the job go much faster. Our conversation consisted of his asking, “Where do these go?” and my telling him, “On the bottom shelf over there” or “Right here, next to the gardening books,” until he suddenly stopped, took the books I was holding out of my hands, and led me to the sofa.
“We need a break,” he said. “I want a chance to talk to you.” He didn’t let go of my hand, and I was glad. I didn’t want him to.
“Tell me about yourself,” Tony said.
“There’s not much to tell. We used to live in Missouri until Dad was transferred here to Houston.”
“That’s not about you,” he insisted, and leaned closer, staring into my eyes as though he could see what was in my mind. “I want to know about Sarah, the things that make her happy, the things she likes, even the things that frighten her.” His voice was low, almost a whisper.
His question puzzled me. “Why should you want to know what frightens me?”
“Something frightens you,” he said. He stroked my hand. “Look. You’re trembling.”
Whispers from the Dead Page 8