“Even though the progression to that night should have been evident, the dreadfulness of his attack filled me with revulsion for him and for myself,” Julio continued. “His final violation pushed me over my limits. After a sleepless night spent sobbing into my pillow, I listened for him to leave and then went to my mother.
“The bitch did the unforgivable. She called me a slut. I will always remember what she said. ‘You taunted him with your beauty and your elusive ways. You must have liked what he did all these years. Why are you upset now? Live with it.’ Then as she did every day, she left to go to mass.”
Cruze gritted his teeth. He and his brothers had envied Annetta. She lived in a big house, she had a father who spoiled her and she always had new clothes and carried spending money. She rarely invited them to her house, although she was in and out of their small home almost daily. He always thought she was ashamed of her poor cousins even though she spent so much time at their house. Now he understood that she was ashamed, not of them as her cousins but of her parents and of herself.
“Devastated beyond hope, I went upstairs, threw clothes into a suitcase and ran out. After Eduardo and Cristo left for school, I snuck in the back door of your house into your mother’s kitchen, knowing she would be there since she worked at night and stayed home during the day. She held me while I cried and she muttered that my father was an oversexed goat and called him names in Spanish I didn’t understand at the time.
“During the morning she told me years before my father had attacked her too with a savagery she still quailed from.”
Cruze released the hand he clasped during Julio’s disclosures. His mother had never let on anything had gone so profoundly wrong in her life. He was not a man to feel hatred easily, but at that moment he hated his Uncle Rodrigo, Annetta’s father. He hated him for what he had done to the teenager Annetta and to his sweet mother. He would never forgive that man any more than he or Cristo ever forgave the people who abducted Eduardo. Thankfully the man was dead.
Julio handed him champagne and picked up his, this time only taking a long sip. Cruze drained his glass, wishing it were a stiff Bourbon.
“Back on the day your mother was raped, she first walked you and Cristo to grade school as she always did,” Julio said, “then she went home to do housework and rest before going out to work late in the afternoon. Your father was at his day job. My father came in, hurled her against the wall and pounced on her, raping her in the sadistic way he had ravaged me.”
“When was this?” Cruze asked, croaking his words out.
“September 1974,” Julio said, pausing to let Cruze do the math. “Nine months later Eduardo was born, and your mother could only hope your father was the biological dad. Of course in those days, family rapes went unreported or often not revealed. The same is often true today.”
Cruze remained quiet for a couple of minutes, absorbing what Julio had told him. His mother had epitomized happy sweetness, and she had devoted herself to his father. He would bet that she went to her grave without ever telling anyone except Annetta. His mother would not have even wanted a priest to know of her misery. Hearing about these violent assaults, horrified him for Julio and for his mother.
“What did you do?” Cruze asked although he thought he knew the answer or at least most of it.
“I hung around your house. Your father had it out with mine and would not allow him near the house. I was unsure what I should do. I trembled with fear every time your father left the house, lest my father broke in to get at me. It was only years later that I discovered your father had told him I had left the country.
“I talked it over with your parents. We explored various options. I could not stay hidden indefinitely. Together we devised a plan to get me to Caracas.
“When I missed my monthly cycle, we realized I was pregnant. While each of us cried over the very thought of ending a life, given the incestuous parentage, I went for an abortion and made plans to flee beyond my father’s reach. One evening, I said goodbye to your parents and left.”
An abortion! He didn’t know the rest of the story then. What else could Annetta have done?
“How did you live?” Cruze asked, his mind moving to the years that Annetta had lived outside the United States.
“Before departing I went to the dry cleaning plant my father owned where he kept a locked vault. I had spied on him and figured out the combination. I broke in at night, scooped up a ton of money and flew out to Caracas. I lived a secluded life while I made myself into Julio. From my perspective men possessed power. Women suffered as prey. I became determined to build a life where I possessed power and control.”
Cruze sat staring at the calm, aqua water letting Julio’s heartrending history sink in. “Did you kill your father?”
“That happened after I left the country. Against your mother’s wishes, I confided in Cristo before I left. Young and hotheaded he was in a rage with my father, but he told me to leave. Some days after I had called to confirm my safe arrival in Caracas, Cristo heisted a car and shot my father when he came out of his current mistress’s house. Cristo put three bullets in him, sped off, ditched the car and went home, slipping back in through his window.”
“As we often did at night,” Cruze said, his voice strained and sad. Cristo had known about Annetta’s tragic childhood but had never said anything, just as his mother never had.
“My father ran a local ring of pushers. The dry cleaning chain he operated fronted for his illegal activities. The big money came from narcotics. You didn’t know it, but you ran drugs for him. He made sure you and Cristo became his delivery boys.”
“We suspected from rumors circulating back then,” Cruze replied. “I think he wanted my father to join the ring. He was the opposite of your father, unobtrusive and humble and he believed in the American dream of hard work and honesty having their own rewards.”
“Your father personified goodness and kindness. I felt safe in your house. I loved your parents and the way they were always happy. So sad he died too soon in his fifties.”
Julio rose and went to check the lines, but no fish had drifted by. He stood by the railing, turning to face Cruze. “After I left and before Cristo gunned down my father, Eduardo’s abduction took place, right?”
Julio stared at him, wanting Cruze to see the connection.
“Shit, you don’t suppose . . .” Cruze said.
“I am pretty confident my father orchestrated the whole awful scene of cocaine, heroin and cruelty with the intention of ending Eduardo’s life by inflicting as much misery as possible. I remember Eduardo as an adorable and intelligent child and thought he would become a doctor or attorney or even a computer scientist.” Julio paused, lost in a memory.
“My scum bag of a father wanted revenge for losing me,” Julio said, continuing her revelations. “I think one of the guys involved came down from his high long enough to get scared about Eduardo. He made an anonymous phone call to the cops after his gang cleared out of that house where they left Eduardo stuffed in a closet.”
“Your father organized the whole travesty to torture and kill Eduardo? Did he have any idea Eduardo might be his?” Cruze asked.
“My father was a bully and a pervert, but the man did not lack intelligence. Of course he recognized Eduardo as his son.”
Cruze sat with his head in his hands, his mind reeling from this series of revelations. Those events from that miserable year he spent in juvie were connected. “Do you think your father squealed on Cristo and me to the cops that day I got busted?” he asked.
Julio sat thinking for a moment. “Possible, though it was unlike him to involve the police.”
“Why did your own mother stay with him?” Cruze asked.
“She gloried in the money. She took pride in our big, flashy home. She donated tens of thousands of dollars each year to the Catholic Church. They thought of my mother as a saint. Ironically many nights, my father banged her with their bedroom door open. I buried my head under the cover
s and turned on the radio to block out the sounds of their passion. Sick as him in her way, my mother knew I heard them. She screeched like a whore with every orgasm. The next morning the hypocrite donned her mantilla and went to mass as demure as a virgin.”
“My lovely Annetta, why did you never tell us?” he asked, reverting to her childhood name and taking her hand again.
“Even as a little girl what he did, what they did, shamed me. The best times were with you and Cristo and at school. I made up reasons to avoid going home. As long as I had the two of you, I could survive. Even as a child I developed evasive skills to dodge my father as often as I could. The first freedom I experienced came only after his death.”
“You always acted happy.”
“Acted, yes.”
Cruze sat staring out to sea while Julio regarded him with sympathy. They confirmed his brothers were dead. Now they hid out from an unknown person who tailed them. The FBI knew about the stolen bones. Julio received the news of the feds keeping his parents’ gravesites under surveillance. No doubt the FBI was conducting their own DNA investigation. They would find the differences and exhume his parents’ remains to confirm they had nailed the Fuentes brothers.
Cruze now understood the full picture from their childhood. They still faced the same major question – would he avenge his brother’s deaths?
“We will stay here tonight,” Julio said. “Lay out our tactics in the morning. Whatever you decide about Cristo and Eduardo, I will abide by. I ask one thing.”
“Which is?”
“I stay a part of your life. Not full time but we must be in communication. You are my family,” Julio said.
“And you are mine.”
“I used to be closer to Cristo. I will always love him as a close relative and as a friend, the same way you will always consider him and Eduardo as your true brothers.”
Cruze nodded and leaned his head the back of the lounge chair. Tears trickled down his face. Julio reached out and took his hand. They wept for Cristo and for Eduardo. They lamented Julio’s ruined childhood and the attack on his mother. Together they agonized in their mutual pain.
He charged Julio with delving into information on the big agent and his sidekicks who had led the sting on their Mexican repackaging plant and who had hit a couple of their yacht setups. After the big agent retired, he might have operated under the guise of the enterprise in the FBI’s records. He was the one fed who had worried them because they had heard he solved each of his assigned cases with the relentlessness of a bloodhound. Every criminal he went after had wound up dead or in prison. Each one until El Zorro Astuto as the three Fuentes brothers collectively called themselves. Would a man that dedicated walk away from the case when he retired?
“Enough Cruze. Today we grieve. In the coming days we will strategize,” Julio said, wiping away the moisture seeping from the corners of his eyes.
Chapter 16
On Friday morning Mathew appeared in the kitchen at dawn, even though his sleep had been fitful and he woke feeling grouchy. He fought with the coffee maker and started cursing at the finicky lid on the pot because it only poured when twisted into the right position.
Steve worked on his laptop in one of the easy chairs at the side of the kitchen. Mathew glowered at him as he sat down on a nearby chair. This morning his usual even temper turned prickly.
“Good date last night?” Steve asked.
“Odd you should ask,” Mathew replied. “What made you interfere with Callie and me by sending her off on retreat for a month? You – Mister Concrete, Agnostic, Just Do It? Why are you interfering? Did Ivy put you up to this?”
“Callie came to talk to me on Friday. Leave Ivy out of this. If I gave Callie bad guidance, it all came from me. Ivy did not have the opportunity to give her opinion.”
“You told Callie to go away to find herself?” Mathew asked.
“She is troubled by her years with that prick John Henry, more than I think any of us appreciate.”
“Now I won’t go out with her for four weeks or more. In January she starts classes for her Masters in viniculture. Between her studies and working at Rick’s, I won’t spend any time with her at all.”
“I wanted to short-cut her recovery,” Steve said. “She said her psych told her coming to grips with her bad marriage would take years.”
Mathew still glared at him. “Keep what you think are your enlightened perceptions to yourself. This is between Callie and me.”
“When someone comes to me who needs help, I can’t turn him or her away, can I? Isn’t my life experience meant to be shared? Shouldn’t I listen and provide counsel?”
“After the mess you made of your life? You think you can give anyone guidance?” Mathew asked, startling himself with how mean his questions sounded.
“You helped me start a life-affirming journey,” Steve said, remaining calm despite the stinging comment. “My personal life floundered until I found a better path. I wanted to support Callie. I might still be too narrow as a man to give advice to anyone, but I gave her an idea to consider.”
Mathew sprang up, went to the coffee machine, refilled his mug and stomped out of the kitchen. Steve made him angrier by the minute. He needed to take a walk. The fresh air might turn his foul mood into one more positive. If falling in love made him this irritable, he should forget about it.
Going through the garage, he grabbed a windbreaker off a hook and tugged it on. The cool morning air, down in the high forties, hit his skin. He inhaled deep into his lungs about six times, bent down, retied his trail shoes, stretched and headed over to the old house. From there he went up the hill, taking such long strides that he was huffing along up to the summit. He stopped to gaze back towards the coastal mountain range, down to the vines and over to the big house in the light morning mist.
He gulped in the clean morning air and glanced at the empty farmhouse on his property, wondering if he should move in, away from Steve and Ivy or at least remodel the building and set up an office for himself. He decided to call their contractor later in the day. The work could be a winter project for Fred and his father too. That was another point of irritation. Steve had proceeded to add Federico to the payroll and told him after the fact. While Mathew was supposed to head up this business, Steve was incapable of staying on the sidelines.
He strode across the ridge, away from Spook Hills and on to Rick’s land, pushing himself faster in hopes of ridding himself of his angst. Up ahead Lenny was approaching as he did his morning round. While Mathew did not want to talk with anyone, he reached Lenny’s line of sight, and he could not duck away from him. Lenny lifted a hand in greeting and kept tramping his way, halting once to stare down at the Lindquist house.
“Anything happen?” Lenny asked as he neared Mathew.
“Taking some exercise. How is Federico doing?” Mathew asked.
“Solid man and a fast learner. He and I are going to start shooting practice next week. Federico served his mandatory year with the Mexican military before they moved up here, which gives minimal weapons training.
“When I started worrying about how to handle patrolling round the clock, Steve solved the problem by bringing in Federico. You two sure carried your partnership over from the Bureau. For those of us who worked with you in the past, your role reversal is impressive and yet you are always ready to step in for each other when needed.”
Mathew gave a quick nod and hiked on. At the turning of the crest, he swiveled his head back to peer over his shoulder. Lenny paused up behind his house, surveyed the area, turned and rambled to the crown of the knoll by the tree house before disappearing down the other side towards the new acreage. Grudgingly he admitted the truth in Lenny’s remarks about Steve. Overall he had been accommodating on how things went at the vineyard. However the Callie circumstance still sat big in his mind with her spending a month at a healing center, away from Susannah and away from him. What if she talked herself out of her attraction for him?
Going around the
curve in the ridge, downhill from him he saw Callie sitting on the ground and staring at the horizon. Given his sour mood, he considered going on his way, but he wanted to take every opportunity to be with her. He tramped down the track and called out her name. She turned around, stared without smiling and gave a little wave of greeting.
“Hi Callie. Enjoying this morning?”
“Thinking,” she said without smiling at him.
He thought about not disturbing her ruminations when she patted the ground.
“Sit with me?” Callie asked.
He plunked himself down next to her, folding his arms around his knees. They sat for a few moments, then both started to talk at once.
“You go first,” he said.
“Sassy wants you all to come over tonight. Would you ask Ivy to bring some of her yummy jalapeno cornbread? Sassy is inviting Lenny too.”
“Assume we will be over, loaves and all.” He reached to take her hand. “I will miss you when you go away.”
She turned to face him, her dark chestnut-brown eyes searching his face. She leaned forward, placed one hand on either side of his face and kissed him full on the mouth. The intensity of her soft lingering lips jolted through him.
“I wanted to kiss you for so long,” he said when she pulled away.
“Last night I kept expecting you to kiss me,” Callie said, “but when I mentioned trying spiritual therapy, you went all serious on me. This morning I decided we should share our first kiss whether you are solemn or smiley,” Callie replied.
“Was solemn. Outright dreary. I’m smiley now.” He slid an arm around her slender back, and she pressed against him. The sun’s slanted morning rays slipped through the clouds, bringing the potential for another beautiful autumn day.
Down below them Susannah sprinted out of the house, her long dark hair flying out behind her like a silken scarf. She stopped in the yard, flicked her eyes around the surrounding hillsides, noticed them, waved, popped up like a skater doing a twizzle and pelted up the slope to them.
New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2) Page 15