I stared at the phone. The only person I could think of calling was the last person I wanted to talk to.
I dialed Abuela.
"You LOST her?"
"I'm sure she wandered off, and she might call you or..."
"You LOST your MOTHER?" Her voice was shrill, and I held the phone away from my ear a couple of inches. "Kati! It's bad enough that she got you mixed up in all this. And now she's gone? You stay right there. I need to call the police."
"No! No," I said, remembering Calerdon's admonishments about the police, but I couldn't very well tell her that. "It's just that... You know, they won't do anything for 24 hours—or longer."
I flipped through the envelopes, found the one from the credit union. I frantically pulled out the card for Alacon, the private investigator.
"I have someone I can call. Someone who searches for missing persons. He can get things rolling."
"Are you sure?" She sounded skeptical.
No, of course not. "Absolutely." I bit my lip. As long as Alacon was still in Las Cruces at this twelve-year-old phone number.
"Fine. I finally have your number now on the caller-ID. I'll call you," she said, her voice curt. "If you haven't found her by tonight, I'm calling the police, Kati."
When we hung up, I wondered why she hadn't called them already.
Alacon's card was simple, the font small and concise centered on the card. The phone rang once and the voice that answered was a woman's voice, high and rushed. "Willie."
"Um, is this Willie Alacon?"
"Yeah. Who is this?" Her voice had a trace of a midwestern accent.
"My name is Kati Perez. My mother is..."
"I know who your mother is." Alacon interrupted. Her voice quieted. "Where are you?"
Trust no one.
When I hesitated, I heard a sigh on the other end of the line.
"Fine. Don't tell me. If you've got nothing to say, then I'll get back to work."
"No," I said, feeling the panic rise again through my confusion. "It's just been... Never mind. I'm near campus."
"Good. Meet me at the Whataburger on Montana. Be there in thirty minutes."
My mind raced. "Wait, how will I know you?"
She laughed. "Girl, you can't miss me. I'll be the best-dressed guerra in the joint." The line went dead.
I put on my dark sunglasses, started the truck and put it in gear, heading east. And for the first time since my mother woke up, I let the tears slip down my face.
Chapter 19
When I was little, before the accident, I used to beg to go to Whataburger on Sundays. Sundays were our "cheat day" my mother said. During the week, it was all healthy food with a balance of vegetables and grains, a splash of dairy in the morning, juice at night. Back then I hadn't been allowed a soda during the week—until Abuela moved in and all the food rules went out the window.
On those Sundays, I got to pick where we "cheated," and I wasn't allowed to pick the same place more than twice a month. Whataburger was my go-to place. I didn't know if this was something my mother had told Alacon, or if it was one of those small town coincidences. Either way it felt strange to pull into the triangle shaped building with the giant W outside.
I checked my face in the rearview mirror to make sure the traces of my meltdown were gone. Bruises still yellowed my face and my eyes were a little puffy.
I put on my convenience store sunglasses. Much better.
Shouldering my backpack, I walked in and ordered a giant sweet tea. The place was nearly deserted. A woman stared out a window while her child tossed french fries in the air. In the corner, were two big men eating the largest burgers I'd ever seen, swallowing them as if they were sliders. I picked a table where I could watch the door. I'd finished about a quarter of my tea when Alacon walked in.
She was right. It was impossible to miss her. She had bleached-blonde hair puffed up in the back, and wore a purple suit with black buttons the size of ping pong balls. Her heels were so high my toes hurt watching her walk. She scanned the place with charcoaled blue eyes, pausing on me for a moment. She gave the barest nod, and walked over to the counter to place her order, and joined me at the table with a tall cup and a fat straw.
"I should never ever come here," she said as she sat down across from me. "Because if I walk in, I'm having a shake. Period. It's a requirement." She took a long pull from the straw, closing her eyes, savoring it.
"They're pretty good," I said, sipping my tea.
Willie Alacon was probably in her forties, and based on her outfit, must work in an office somewhere. Or maybe a high-end bordello. Tough to believe she could do detective work in those heels.
"These shakes are deadly." She loosened a button and sighed. "I lost 30 pounds when I stopped coming here." She closed her eyes in what I guessed was deep shake appreciation. "You know what? It wasn't worth it. I should have kept wearing sweat pants instead." She put the cup down and looked directly at me, narrowing her eyes into a squint. "You look a lot like her, you know. Your mom."
I was taken aback for a second. The comment hit too close, or maybe I was too raw to hear it. "I appreciate you meeting me, Ms. Alacon."
"Willie. Call me Willie," she said. "So, tell me why you called."
I swallowed. "I need your help to find Antonia. She left me your card and a note." I pushed both toward her.
Willie's eyes narrowed. "Wait. What are you talking about?"
"Antonia. She's missing," I said.
"Hang on." She glanced at the note, then up at me. "Girlfriend, I thought you were calling about the body."
I felt my blood run cold. "Body?"
"The body found at Trent Bonita's place."
"The man running for governor?"
Willie nodded, scrunching her nose as if she'd caught a whiff of something rotten. "Bonita accidentally dug it up during—get this — a photo opp. That lame governor wanna be, pretending to be working the land like a ranch hand. I guarantee you, that guy never handled a shovel in his life unless the maid was handing it to him in his sandbox."
She took the card and note from me, an unruly slip of blond hair falling in her face. She brushed it away briskly, shoving it behind her ear. It slipped right back out.
"Yeah. The card is mine." She read through the note quickly. "So, something about DNA, Detective Mora, and Texarkana. The note is definitely from my Dad. I recognize his writing and he always signed with just W."
"Your dad?"
"William Alacon. He was a private eye for thirty years. I'm Willie Junior."
"Really?" She looked about as much like a Willie as I looked like a sumo wrestler.
"He always had a quirky sense of humor." She chuckled.
"Yes. So you are a... " I searched for the word.
Willie provided it. "A private dick?" She laughed. "Actually I am. I know it doesn't look like it in this getup, but I have an undercover gig right now in a department store. They think the manager is selling handbags on the black market." Willie waved her hand dismissively. "Got a free manicure out of the deal on top of my fee. I'm milking it for another week before I bust him. There's an employee discount and the big sale is on Tuesday."
"Good plan." I turned the large tea in my hands, trying to focus. "Antonia, my mother, she didn't trust many people. I thought maybe since I had the card that you were someone she did."
Willie took a sip on the straw before she spoke. "I know she trusted my dad."
"So you're familiar with what they were working on?" I asked.
"A little," she said. "Your mom reached out to Dad twelve years ago because of a case he'd taken on in the early '60s. Some sort of missing person case." Willie took another drink from her shake. "He must have given her my card back a dozen years ago. It was right around when he was getting ready to retire. That's when they were working on the case. Guess he had more faith in me than I realized." She bit her lip in thought, smiling a little. "Anyway about a month ago he got a call from her."
"From Antonia?" I ask
ed.
Willie nodded. "Yup. They talked, she had to have been pretty intense. He called me that day, told me a little about the case." She looks around the dining area, then lowered her voice. "He thought his missing person case might be connected to the body Bonita found."
"Did he tell that to Antonia?" I asked, lowering my voice too, although I doubted the toddler was much of a danger.
"He must have. The body was found about a month ago." She tapped the table in thought. Her brow furrowed. "And now you say your mother is missing?" She shook her head. "If this is related to the Bonita family, you need to be careful who you talk to in this town. Half of the politicos in the county owe Javier Bonita their jobs. He probably has at least one of the balls of every elected official in the county in a jar in his office." She pushed away her shake and pulled out a small tan notebook and pen. "Tell me what happened. Are you sure your mother isn't just lost?"
"Not a chance." I filled her in on our meeting at the University without going into detail about why we were there.
"And she's back to the no memory thing, right?" Willie asked.
"Right," I said, fighting to keep my voice from cracking.
"And you haven't called the cops?"
I hesitated. "I haven't. My grandmother might have. I don't know."
"Got it." She reached into a black purse and pulled out a notebook. "I'm guessing you already have a suspect?"
Elijah's face came unbidden in my mind, his mask slipping at the fire, his black eyes as dead as a shark. "Absolutely."
I pulled out the photo I'd printed from the University library off my Facebook page. It was a picture of me and Eliah at Gruene Hall with a group of people from the insurance company he worked with back then. Pilar was in the picture, along with Mike. Eliah towered over the group like a misplaced redwood in a stand of crepe myrtle trees. I handed the photo to her.
"His name is Eliah. Eliah Trevino." I thought back to the credit union earlier that morning, the CEO checking the screen for information. "When I met him, he sold insurance. But I'm pretty sure that's not what he really does. He's been following me since I left San Antonio."
"You think this is connected to what your mom was working on before?" Willie asked.
My head pounded. What did I know about any of it? "I think it has to be," I said miserably, sagging against the hard back of the wooden chair.
"Okay." She tucked the photo into her purse. "I'll make some calls. I've got a friend inside the department, a real straight arrow. But I have to be honest with you, girlfriend. If this Eliah did take your mom, he probably did it to get to you. Especially if Momma Perez doesn't have her memory these days. He'll keep her until he thinks you're good and scared and will give him anything he wants."
"I'd say I'm there," I said, working hard to control my breathing, trying to stave off full blown panic.
She patted my hand. "Everybody thinks that." She glanced at her watch. "I have to get back. I'll make my calls on the drive, Kati, in the meantime, take a look at this." She reached back into her bag and pulled out a file folder. It had a crease as if it had been shoved in a spot that was too small for it. She straightened the edges, then pushed it toward me.
"This is what I thought we were going to talk about. I've been carrying it around for a week. A few years back Dad's storage unit got broken into. Several files from particular years were taken, but this one was left behind. It was misfiled. It's about that old case he worked on with Antonia. After your mom called, he told me where to look for it. Dad said it was his tell-tale heart case." She scoffed, her lips curling into a smirk. "Turns out he misfiled it on purpose. He was a marine, he'd never put something in the wrong spot by accident."
"Tell-tale heart?"
"Yeah. Like Poe. You know, that guy who went crazy because he imagined a beating heart under the floorboards that wouldn't go away. I'd bet it's connected to that body from the Bonita ranch. That disaster was right around the time your mom came out of it for a while, right?"
My throat went dry and I felt light headed. "Right."
"Hmm. Your grandmother must be going nuts." She rose to her feet, took one last pull on her shake and unfastened another button on her jacket. "I'll call you the minute I have news."
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed downtown. There was only one place I felt like I could go to try to get a quiet space to lay this all out.
I thought of calling Abuela but decided to wait. Something about her reaction up until now bothered me, and I hadn't had time to think about it until I talked with Willie.
Why was she so comfortable with Eliah? Something about the way she looked at him, as if they'd met before as if she knew what was behind the mask that had fooled me for so long. It was unnerving. Something was very, very wrong.
I walked toward the portico built from rocks dug out of the mountain. Orange figures, inspired by the drawings in Hueco Tanks pictographs, made a trail along the concrete ceiling at the entrance. Built to make the best use of shade and sun, the library had an air of wisdom of ancient people who understood what it was to live in the desert, to stay cool in the heat, to pull life from the ground along the river snaking between the mountains.
I pressed down on the anxiety in my stomach. If Willie was right, if Eliah did call me, then I'd need to have this figured out. I'd need to understand what Antonia had nearly uncovered before her accident twelve years ago. Could it really have something to do with Trent Bonita?
I had to hold it together so I could think. So I could have something to bargain with to convince Eliah to let Antonia go. I clenched my fists to stop my hands from shaking.
It wasn't very effective.
As I sat down at the computer and began typing, I felt my old annoyance rise. This, I thought, is why I couldn't wait to graduate. I hated the long hours staring at a computer screen, the low constant buzz of a hard drive, the eerie blue glow that seemed to drain the life out of everyone around me. Give me a guy screaming his head off at the top of a ropes course telephone pole any day. But no leaping off poles with giant ropes was going to help me figure this out.
I typed in the search terms, looking for news articles about the body Trent Bonita dug up. Sure enough, it had been headline news nearly a month ago. It was that weekend I'd been in the retreat with the non-profit group. I always lost track of the news during retreats.
The photos showed Trent Bonita at the controls of a huge yellow track hoe, digging out a foundation for a new barn. One pundit quipped the bar was to store all the manure that would be tossed around in the campaign. But the photo opp went terribly wrong. According to the news stories he had emptied his ceremonial giant shovel of dirt, several hundred pounds worth pouring out of the clawed bucket of a gleaming yellow track hoe when a pile of bones tumbled out.
One video showed Trent's face had gone ashen and he nearly fell out of the cab as stopped the monstrous machine. His father, Javier Bonita, who was remarkably spry for an old man, made a rare appearance right then. He'd jumped out of a white ranch truck that had been parked off on one side and rushed to his son, the elder man's face filled with fury. He waved angrily at the cameras, trying to send them away. They, of course, zoomed in on the pair.
Since then, the entire project was called off while forensic teams rushed in. The speculation was all over the map from this being an ancient Native American burial ground to the body of an undocumented worker who his father, Javier Bonita, the notorious hard-nosed NRA poster boy, had killed for trespassing.
I spent the better part of an hour downloading a dozen articles including some background pieces on the Bonita family. I was about to log off when I hesitated, thinking of Antonia. Had she seen the story when she "came back?" Or had something about the news triggered her memory, shocked her system. I thought of what Gustave had said: only a handful of cases of lucidity saw a lasting effect. Was it possible? I typed in another set of search terms. Valencia and TBI.
It took a little digging was the article Gustav had mentioned
when he met me at the ranch's ropes course. Valencia wrote about three cases where TBI patients had regained some lucidity. I scanned it quickly, my heart pounding in my chest. Hope was like a bird, trapped in my rib cage, beating against my sternum, desperate.
If only she could remember. If only she could come back. The article was filled with jargon, and I found it almost impossible to understand but I saved it to my online drive anyway. Maybe when this was all over I could decipher it, call Valencia, find out if there was some treatment, or some medication, that would make it possible for Antonia to come back, even just a little. I wondered if maybe she had come back a little and I hadn't noticed. Maybe that's why she sensed the danger at Abuela's and acted so quickly, pulling me out of the house.
I logged off and headed back to grab an empty study room in the back of the library. I had every folder now, every note Antonia had mentioned. I listened to the tape again, making notes.
Bonita had made his millions through land acquisition. The family ranch was the Rocking B, the brand was a capital B with a curve on the bottom looking like a pair of devil horns. There was one profile article detailing how Javier Bonita got the land in the first place, being deeded the huge sections of land as the bastard son of Roger Davis. The author made note of the elder Bonita's reclusive nature, a sharp contrast to his spotlight-seeking son, Trent. It was Trent who lead to the new prominence of the Rocking B, transforming it into a different kind of brand that was emblazoned on handbags, wallets, and jewelry.
But the big payoff for the Bonitas came with shale. The sections of Texas scrub they had acquired had become exponentially more valuable when oil and gas scientists had figured out how to get oil out of shale. They had been rich before. Now the Bonitas were on the scale of robber barons.
The envelope I'd gotten from the impatient graduate student, Theresa, was the last one I opened and I hoped it would have some answers. I was crestfallen as I flipped through the pages. There were articles on the use of DNA evidence in ancient burial sites, news about the cold case of the Boston Strangler which had been solved by DNA testing, a paper on the chain of custody and a hand-written list of sources of DNA with some notes about collection techniques. On the corner of the paper was a scribbled note that read "Thomas Jefferson's case." I looked the contents over again, shocked. What the hell? Why did any of this matter? What was my mother trying to prove?
When I Knew You Page 12