The Janes

by Louisa Luna

  Dalena stopped. Another pothole.

  “Was Maricel Villareal like that, too? Did she cry all the time?” asked Vega.

  “Oh yes,” said Dalena. “Missy cried, too, but she knew how to keep it quiet, but the city girls, they didn’t know. Maricel and Dulce with the good hair, all they do is cry.”

  “So what happened to them?” Vega said quietly. “The girls that cried.”

  “Rafa took Dulce first,” said Dalena. Now her eyes were blank, the movie screen of memory showing in front of her. “She was screaming at everyone but then when she looks at me she screams words: ‘Help me.’ Just for me she said that. She thought I could help her.”

  “Because Coyote Ben liked you?” Vega ventured.

  Dalena snapped free from her reverie and looked at Vega like she was crazy.

  “Coyote Ben didn’t like me. He tried me out,” she spat.

  Vega nodded, afraid she’d overstepped.

  “What happened when she got back from the shed with Rafa?” said Vega quietly, hoping to redirect the girl’s focus.

  Dalena shook her head, derisive.

  “She wasn’t there anymore,” she said. “We had to hold her hand to pull her around, because she wouldn’t just walk. And she didn’t understand what anyone said.

  “I slept next to her and one night I wake up. I was all wet because she peed everywhere. So that day I took the knife with me.”

  “Fat Mitch didn’t notice?” said Vega.

  “He ate candy and drank tequila. Rafa smoked drugs and pounded the walls. They couldn’t watch all of us all the time,” Dalena said.

  She paused, examined her hands, the tips of her fingers and her nails. Looking for the prints, Vega thought.

  “What did you do, Dalena?” Vega said, her voice quiet, rising only a little above the fan in the corner. “What did you do with the knife?”

  Dalena stopped looking at her hands, dropped them in her lap.

  “I put a towel over Dulce’s mouth and stuck in the knife, right here,” she said, placing her hand on her side. “I saw my father do that with javelinas. I know if I don’t kill her, they will. Or a worse thing.”

  “What about Maricel Villareal?” said Vega, just north of a whisper.

  “I know Rafa will take her next. She cries while she is in the rooms downstairs with the men. The men complain. She watched TV and saw you on it. She watched TV, and I watched her. I saw you on TV, too,” said Dalena. “You saved a little boy, but I know you can’t save us. Maricel and the city girls, they say they can’t go back home because their fathers are in trouble. Their fathers are all big men.”

  Dalena smiled then, a little laugh.

  “My father’s not big. Missy’s father, not big. But in the house it doesn’t matter who your father is. No one will see her father again. I know Maricel’s going with Rafa soon, so I do the same thing to her.” She paused, then added, “Only I’m better at it the second time.”

  Dalena’s voice remained steady, not a lot of emotion seeping out. Vega didn’t think she was showing off, just telling the truth. Vega had met a couple of sociopaths, recognized the cool lack of remorse, but didn’t think Dalena fit in that box.

  “Dalena,” said Vega, gently as she could. “You know that killing a human being is not a good thing to do, right?”

  Dalena put her hands on the table and leaned forward.

  “It was a good thing to do for those girls. They would have had a worse thing happen to them.”

  Her nostrils flared and her pupils grew. She bared her teeth as she spoke.

  “What do you know? Nothing. You have money and guns,” she said. She sat back in her chair, continued: “They had no home to go to anymore.”

  “They did,” said Vega quietly. “Catalina, Nati, Areceli, María Elena. Their fathers aren’t in trouble anymore, and they came to get them. Maricel’s and Dulce’s fathers came with them, too. They were waiting for their daughters.”

  Dalena turned her head to the side but kept her eyes on Vega. She was breathing quicker now, starting to feel trapped.

  “You’re lying,” she said, not very persuasively.

  “I’m not,” said Vega.

  Dalena looked at her hands again and clenched them slowly into fists. She brought them to her forehead.

  “My head is on fire,” she said hoarsely.

  Vega looked at all of her: the dirt under her thumbnails, the vertical hash marks on her chapped lips, the natural gloss of her young skin, her long straight hair unbrushed but not matted, lying over her shoulders like a dark cloak. The terror in her eyes. Vega saw her living every second of what she had done again and feeling it slip away from her like a coin dropped off a cliff, deeper and further into the past, so far now she could not reach it even if she jumped in after it. Lost.

  Vega thought about reaching for Dalena’s hands but thought better of it.

  So she said all she could say, which was “I know it is.”

  * * *

  —

  The girls were happy.

  In the van, McTiernan put on a Spanish music station, and the girls were singing and laughing with one another. Cap watched them from the front seat and noticed it was really only four of them who were engaged. Isabel Benitez stared out the window blankly, and Dalena Cortez was pretending to be asleep—Cap could tell because she would periodically open one eye to see if the others were watching her.

  Vega was locked in with her phone, not noticing anyone. Cap tried to catch her eye in the side mirror but she refused to look up. She’d spent only a few minutes in the trailer with Dalena and hadn’t said anything more to Cap than “I’ll fill you in later” when they’d emerged.

  But at this moment it was difficult for him to sulk. They had found all the girls, every one, and the guy who’d killed the two Janes was handcuffed to a hospital bed, and the architect of the whole mess was dead due in large part to his own hubris. And on top of everything, he and Vega got to keep their eyeballs. Always a plus. It would all make a great story for Nell, and Cap couldn’t wait to call her and tell her everything, good and bad. And big bad, as Vega would say.

  The girls erupted in laughter, and Cap turned to see McTiernan laughing but trying not to.

  “What?” said Cap.

  “They’re comparing us to animals. They said Vega’s a fox, and I’m a bear, and you’re…”

  McTiernan paused.

  “I’m a what?” Cap said, turning almost all the way around to look at them.

  The four burst into hysterics again.

  “You’re a goat, dude,” said McTiernan.

  “What?” said Cap, incredulous. “Why a goat?”

  “Because, um, your hair’s a little curly on top and one of them said you have tiny eyes.”

  “Tiny eyes?”

  The girls were now apoplectic with laughter.

  “It’s because I’m tired. These are bags,” Cap said defensively, pointing to them. “How do you say ‘bags’?” he said to McTiernan.

  “Las bolsas,” McTiernan said, almost unable to get the word out.

  “Bol-sas,” said Cap to the girls, enunciating.

  They howled and cried with laughter. Cap loved the way Missy looked as she laughed with her mouth wide open, her crooked teeth. It was such a glorious image of her compared with how small and terrified she’d been in the room downstairs at the Salton house. Even Isabel Benitez was smiling now, but Cap thought she was just mimicking the others, mirroring their faces the way babies did to see if they could form their features the same way.

  Vega, still focused on her phone, let a smile sneak onto her lips. She glanced at Cap quickly.

  Only Dalena Cortez stayed out of it, still pretending to sleep, eyes squeezed shut so hard Cap thought she might bruise the lids.

  Soon the girls calmed down, and Cap st
arted seeing signs for El Centro exits. Vega leaned over and forward so she was between Cap and McTiernan.

  “McT, could you stop at the hotel? I need some more time with Dalena,” she said.

  “Yeah, of course,” said McTiernan. “What’s going on?”

  Cap turned his head to watch Vega’s face while she spoke. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, just knew she was about to tell them only the select cut she thought they needed to know.

  “She might have overheard something about Lara that’ll help wrap up his case.”

  “Definitely. Take all the time you need,” said McTiernan. “We’re not going to be in any rush at the station. And GATO, the organization, is based downtown. They have some beds where they’ll probably put the girls at least for a few nights. You can always drop her off tonight.”

  Vega thanked him and sat back in her seat.

  Cap knew she was lying. He also knew she was trying to protect him from something, and even though he knew that, he still didn’t like it.

  He tried to meet her eye again in the side mirror but she put her sunglasses on and looked out the window, and then he knew she didn’t like lying to him either.

  26

  much later, cap stood on the walkway outside his hotel room on the phone. He was in his bare feet wearing jeans and an Eagles T-shirt, drinking a can of beer he’d bought from a 7-Eleven. The sun was setting behind him, and the air was clear and warm. He watched planes overhead and talked to Nell, answered every question she had, which were many. He was tired but awake.

  “You have to go to a doctor as soon as you get back, Dad,” said Nell. “You have to get an MRI or a CT scan.”

  “I will, Bug, I promise.”

  She sighed forcefully.

  “I mean, you don’t know what kind of long-lasting damage that guy caused. I saw this Nova where this guy hit his head when he was in his twenties and then when he was like fifty all he did was hear music, which sounds nice but it’s absolutely not nice, it’s like torture when you can’t sleep because music is blasting in your brain.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen to me,” said Cap, folding his toes under his foot and cracking the knuckles.

  She was quiet, sniffling.

  “You okay, Bug?” said Cap.

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice small. “I’m just worried about you.”

  “I’ll be home tomorrow or the next day, okay?” he said. “Don’t worry about me. I know this is all really intense, but Vega and me, we’re both okay.”

  “Of course I’m going to worry about you,” she said, indignant. “I worry about you, you worry about me. That’s what people in families do. They worry themselves sick.”

  Cap smiled.

  “Dad, I’ve been thinking about something,” Nell said.

  Cap braced himself and said, “Shoot.”

  “I think I want you to take that job with Vera Quinn. I mean, you should do what you want to do. Next year I’ll be in school somewhere so it’s not like you’ll need to report to me or anything, but working with Vega, it’s just pretty dangerous. That’s my official recommendation.”

  “Noted,” said Cap. “We’ll talk about it when I get home. Right now all I want to do is sleep for about a week.”

  “That we can accommodate,” said Nell, her tone growing stronger. “And I’ve got more good news,” she whispered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Mom made you a scarf. It’s dark blue.”

  Cap laughed very hard.

  “Wow, that’s something,” he said.

  “I’m sure it means you guys are getting back together,” Nell said, and then she started laughing.

  Both of them continued to laugh, and it reminded Cap of the girls in the car that morning, before they got to the station and met the people from GATO, the nonprofit, who seemed perfectly nice and genuinely interested in the girls and their well-being. But Cap couldn’t shake saying goodbye to Missy, how concerned she seemed that he was leaving.

  “You’re going to be okay now,” he’d said to her, knowing that she wouldn’t understand, except the word “okay.”

  She’d nodded confidently, but Cap had the feeling she was doing it to reassure him.

  “Get some sleep, Dad,” Nell said now, finally curbing the giggles. “Don’t do that thing when you drink too many beers and fall asleep and then wake up at three and can’t go back to sleep, okay?”

  “Yes, Chief,” he said, not even pretending to protest.

  They said goodbye and I love you, and hung up. Cap finished one beer and opened another, told himself it would be the last one, to pay attention to Nell’s warning.

  The sun seemed to be taking a while to go down, and Cap enjoyed the last of the light, the near-tropic blue of the sky as it transitioned into black, the still of the palm trees and the cars racing under them.

  Soon he saw the undercover loaner pull into the lot and park. Vega got out. Cap thought his eyes were tricking him a little but then he stared and saw that she wore different clothes: a baggy shirt, strange faded jeans, sneakers.

  She was wearing Dalena Cortez’s clothes.

  She carried her Springfield under her arm, the holster wrapped around it, and she came up the stairs slowly. She walked down the walkway toward him, and he stayed right where he was, leaning on the railing, still looking at the trees and the cars. She leaned on the railing next to him the opposite way, facing the room doors.

  “You want a beer?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  She reached down to the plastic bag on the mat in front of his room and pulled a can out of it, snapped it open, took a sip.

  They were quiet for a few minutes.

  “Your text said you were leaving a while ago,” said Cap, trying not to sound reproachful. “I was starting to get worried.”

  “Sorry, Caplan,” said Vega. “I had to take care of some things.”

  Cap nodded.

  “Where’s Dalena, Vega?” he said quietly. “Why are you wearing her clothes?”

  Vega took a deep breath through her nose and sipped her beer. She held the cool can to her forehead.

  “I’m going to tell you the first part. Then you can tell me the rest, okay?” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “Rafa didn’t kill the Janes. Neither did Davis, or Mitch, or Mackey. Dalena did,” said Vega.

  Cap pushed off the railing, looked at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was in charge of the drinks for the guests at the house. She cut the limes with a paring knife and she killed Dulce Díaz because Rafa fried her brain. Then she killed Maricel Villareal because Dalena knew she was next on the table.”

  Cap felt pins in his skin, on his neck and ears. He bent over, put his hands on thighs, and breathed deeply.

  “Shit,” he said. “She told you all that?”

  Vega nodded.

  “She saw no reason to hide it from me. Now, do you think you can tell me the rest?”

  Cap stood up straight and leaned back on the railing, facing the room doors like Vega was. He looked at her clothes again and thought.

  Then he just started talking, like he was reading from a book: “I think you gave her your clothes, your boots. Some money. I think you put her on a bus or a train or a plane. Maybe back to Mexico or maybe somewhere else.

  “You did it because you don’t think she deserves any more punishment than she’s already had, and you couldn’t take the chance that someone will lift her prints off the knife when they find it, which, if she goes through the naturalization process, she’ll have to provide.

  “You did it because there’s not a lot of justice happening right now, and you had to make your own.”

  Vega didn’t respond. She took dainty sips from her beer. Cap watched her pro
file as the walkway lights fluttered on.

  Even though she wasn’t trying, she was still this beautiful thing.

  “What should we tell McT and Otero and Boyce?” Cap said.

  Vega shrugged once. Up and down.

  “The truth,” she said. “Nobody’s going to notice one undocumented girl’s name crossed off a court order.”

  Cap nodded thoughtfully.

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “When do you think I should book my ticket home?”

  Vega shrugged again.

  “We can do paperwork tomorrow, so you could do the red-eye if you want. I’ll drive home at night.”

  “You think we’ll be done by then?” Cap asked, stifling a yawn.

  “That’s the upside of working an unofficial case,” she said, allowing a tired grin.

  Cap smiled too. He felt like he had a lot to say but didn’t know quite where to start. He pictured an arrow on a board game. Start here.

  Then they heard some music. It was a trumpet, and it sounded close. They looked at each other and laughed, perplexed.

  “I think it’s coming from one of the rooms down below,” Cap said, leaning further over the railing.

  The trumpet player was not untalented. He played a tune that sounded like part of a larger piece with a larger band, stopping and starting. Cap recognized the rhythm from the way Nell practiced her snare for marching band—a lot of action and then a break. They listened to it for a few minutes and drank their beers.

  Then Vega said, “I’m going to take a shower and go to sleep, Caplan.”

  “Yeah, I think I will, too,” he said.

  “Thanks for the beer,” she said, lifting it toward him in a toast. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Vega.”

  He watched her walk away from him again and disappear behind another closed door.

  * * *

  —

  Vega stuffed Dalena’s clothes in the small cylindrical trash can in the bathroom and took a shower. She got out, toweled dry, and changed her bandages.