Shadow Man

by Alan Drew

  Finally she handed the photograph back. Ben gave her a handkerchief and she held it to her eyes. Esperanza said something to Santiago, and he said yes back to her.

  “What was that?”

  “She said he was a good boy.” She spoke again, shaking her head with grief, and Santiago translated. “She hopes God will forgive him.”

  “Forgive him for what?”

  “For killing himself.”

  Anger surged in Ben. Sin. Ben understood plenty about sin, but he didn’t understand blaming the child. And no way could he believe in a God who would condemn a boy as young as Lucero.

  “Was Lucero close to Coach Lewis Wakeland?” Ben asked.

  Santiago glanced at him—afraid, Ben guessed, that he knew Wakeland was the one who gave the kids the address to go to school.

  “Ask her, please,” Ben said.

  Santiago did, and Esperanza said yes.

  Ben asked if he spent a lot of time alone with the man. Sí. He asked if he got gifts from Wakeland. Yes, clothes.

  She showed him a makeshift drawer with new Levi’s, a few polo shirts, an unopened package of underwear. The kind of clothes an illegal couldn’t afford. Next to the drawer was a cot with a bunch of flowers on top of a pillow. Below the cot was a cardboard box.

  “Can I look?”

  She nodded once.

  Ben thumbed through the box—math assignments from school, a marked-up essay on Macbeth, a swimming cap—while Esperanza talked on about the swim coach. Wakeland sometimes brought them food from the grocery. He bought Lucero his books for English class. When Esperanza was afraid to go to school conferences, Wakeland got a written report from each of Lucero’s teachers. On Christmas, he gave everyone gifts. Ben found a piece of paper with neat cursive written in the margins, notes on a rough draft of an essay that Lucero was writing for history class. Need a topic sentence here. You’re not proving your thesis. This section makes no sense. Wrong word. Great point here. Ben found another envelope with the same neat cursive on the front.

  “Recognize this writing?” Ben said to Santiago pointedly, holding the envelope up to him.

  Santiago looked at the ground.

  Ben opened the envelope and found a birthday card. Inside, beneath the Hallmark platitudes, was written: You’re a wonderful young man, talented and thoughtful, special in every sense of the word. I’m happy to know you, coach you, guide you as you grow up. I hope our friendship will carry beyond your years here. Happy 16th!

  It was nothing. Paternal, genuine, the love of a mentor. But there was that special. You’re special. You’re different from the rest. Why did that word have so much power? There were no other letters in the box, just teenage-boy detritus—Sports Illustrated, a photograph of what Ben assumed was the boy’s father, swim goggles, a few pens.

  “Tell her,” Ben said, “that I know Coach Wakeland let her use his condo address so the kids could go to school. I know Lucero cleaned it, mowed the lawn.”

  Esperanza listened and then she spoke for a while, gesturing with her hands, speaking rapidly and with passion. “She says that Mr. Wakeland helped them a lot, that he is a saint. Without him, Lucero wouldn’t have gone to school. Without him, Lucero wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go to college and become an American. Without Wakeland, Lucero would have been working in the fields, picking diseased fruit for gringos to eat.”

  “Without him,” Ben said, “your daughters won’t be able to go to school, either.”

  She flashed her eyes at him when he said it.

  “Wakeland came here one day to tell you what an amazing swimmer Lucero was, sí?”

  “Sí,” she said. Before they came here, she explained, when Lucero was seven, he used to go swimming in the river.

  “In Chiapas?”

  “Sí.”

  He could dive underwater and hold his breath for a minute, maybe more. She would stand on the banks of the river and watch it swallow him up and hold her breath with him until she couldn’t hold it anymore, waiting for his head to break the surface. When they first got here, her husband took an address from a phone book at a pay phone and registered Lucero in elementary school. They were frightened every day that the false address would be found out. They did this for junior high school, too. Then one week during his first year in high school, Lucero went swimming in physical-education class. Lucero hadn’t gone swimming for four years, and he came home bragging about it. About the big pool, about the diving board. He had never been in a swimming pool. Esperanza had never seen him smile the way he did that day, and he made his parents walk to the school in the dark to look at the water, lit up with floodlights.

  Esperanza smiled when she described this. Then one day, she said, Lucero showed up at the house with this man. Her husband was angry. He told Lucero to get inside, and he stayed outside and talked to the man.

  “Wakeland?”

  “Sí.”

  When he came back inside, her husband told her that Mr. Wakeland wanted Lucero to join the swim team. He said that Lucero was very talented. Her husband told her that Wakeland had looked up their address so he could find them. He had driven to the house, and when an elderly white man opened the door, he understood their secret. He said he’d let them use the address of his condominium, which he rented out, for Lucero and the girls. It was sitting empty now and no one would check. They were frightened at first, but Mr. Wakeland did everything he said he would do, and, besides, what choice did they have? Lucero didn’t need to be bent over rows of strawberries for the rest of his life. That’s not why they came here.

  “Did Lucero take any trips with Wakeland?”

  “Yes,” Santiago said. “To Los Angeles, to swim for some college coaches.”

  Esperanza said something to Santiago. “He was going to go to the university,” Santiago said, translating as Esperanza talked. “She was very proud. The college was going to pay for it.”

  “Did he get a letter from the college?”

  “Not yet,” Santiago said. “It was being sent to Mr. Wakeland’s office.”

  Of course.

  Did Lucero ever come home upset? No. Did he ever lose his appetite, suddenly stop eating? No, he was always hungry. Did he ever have trouble sleeping? No. Did he ever yell at you? Sí, but he was a boy and life here is difficult. Did he ever tell you he was uncomfortable around Wakeland? No, he loved Mr. Wakeland. Ben took a deep breath before this question. Did he ever come home without some of his clothes?

  Esperanza hesitated. Then she shook her head no.

  “Why did she hesitate?” Ben said.

  Santiago asked her, and she spoke to him for a few moments.

  “She says sometimes when she washed his clothes he seemed to be missing underwear. But that happened a long time ago, and he was changing his clothes in the locker room at school, and he probably left them there. Sometimes he had a sensitive stomach. It embarrassed him.”

  Ben felt dizzy: the dryness of the air, the stench of the rotting oranges outside, something starchy and thick, cornmeal burning on a propane stove. He rubbed his palm across his forehead and wiped the sweat on the thigh of his pants.

  “Has Wakeland visited since…” Ben hesitated. “Since it happened?”

  She was quiet for a moment, then she shook her head no.

  “If Wakeland loved Lucero and your family,” Ben said, “why not let you all live at his empty apartment? If the school district wanted to confirm the address, they’d find you living there and everything would be safe.”

  “Because the man could go to jail for helping illegals,” Santiago said without translating for Esperanza.

  Ben let that go, but a frustration was taking hold of his tongue. All things could be explained away when you were frightened of the truth.

  “I think I know what happened to your son.”

  Santiago narrowed his eyes at him.

  “I think Coach Wakeland…” Ben hesitated again. He didn’t want to do this, knew how painful it would be, but she must’ve known
something, must’ve had some shred of evidence he could use to build a case—or at least to get a search warrant for the empty apartment. “I think he had an inappropriate relationship with Lucero. A physical one.”

  Santiago’s eyes widened, a shocked few seconds of silence. “I’m not telling her that,” he said. “It will only make it worse. The boy was sad and he shot himself. That’s hard enough to deal with.”

  “Tell her,” Ben said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head when she heard what Santiago said.

  “I think Wakeland threatened to take everything away if Lucero didn’t let him…The scholarship, the swimming—”

  “Callate.” Esperanza pressed her fingers against her eyes now.

  “I know this is hard,” Ben said. “But there are other boys out there. He’s not the first, and I’m afraid he won’t be the last.”

  Esperanza spoke sharply again. “She wants you out of this house,” Santiago translated.

  “Lucero was ashamed,” Ben said, his voice lowering. “Your son didn’t want to shame you.”

  “Fuera de aquí!” Esperanza was crying now, her face turned to the wall of her cardboard house. She knew something she didn’t want to know. What child came home without his underwear? What child took overnight trips alone with his coach? She would hold on to that ignorance; she would fight to protect it. The alternative—that she hadn’t, couldn’t, protect her boy—was too much to bear. And Wakeland counted on this, knew how human nature dealt with shame.

  “He was a good boy,” Ben said to Santiago, knowing he’d pushed too hard. “Translate that.”

  He stood and Santiago went over to Esperanza, his hand on her back, whispering to calm her. When Ben stepped outside, the wind had ripped loose the cardboard walls of one of the houses. A woman cradled her son in a corner of the exposed room, and a man chased the tumbling cardboard into the strawberry field. Ben pushed his head into the wind and trudged across the field, a tightness in his chest blurring his vision. Suddenly there were footsteps behind him. Ben turned and Santiago was nearly to him, his face blanched with fear and fury.

  “It’d be easier,” he yelled to Ben over the roar of the wind. “It’d be easier if that serial killer had shot him.”

  Ben couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Lo entiendes?” Santiago said, grabbing Ben’s elbow. “You understand?”

  —

  BEN DROVE PAST the entrance to the complex three times, spinning U-turns on Margarita Avenue, before finally pulling in. He passed the Los Flores cul-de-sac, looking to see if the Corvette was parked in the driveway. Empty. He parked on the main drag, a half block down from the street. It was 6:37 and the sun was low and orange, drowning in the band of smog pushed out over the ocean. On a balcony across the street, a woman sat in a bikini, her toes propped on the railing, a book resting on her thighs. She was smoking a cigarette, and Ben waited for her to finish, his stomach roiling, his head thudding with frustration. It’d be easier if that serial killer had shot him. Jesus.

  Ben started to open the door, but a car rolled down the street, turned into a cul-de-sac, and U-turned back toward him. It was a black Toyota. Ben sat low in his seat as it passed again, the driver invisible behind the sunset-streaked glass. He waited a few minutes more, the street empty and silent, and snuck into the greenbelt behind the apartments.

  No one seemed to be home in two of the apartments—a light lit on a side table in the window of one, a sure sign of an empty place, the next one darkened but with the front window wide open. Someone could punch open the screen and slip right in and wait in the darkness. A woman was in the third apartment, sitting at a kitchen table, her back to him, the phone cord wrapped around her waist.

  At the fence, he slid in next to the Weber grill and a glass-topped patio table. The table had been cleaned recently, the glass shining in the shaded light. The grass around the patio had been mowed, the edges trimmed, a geometry of green. A stunted ponderosa pine rose above the patio, an extra measure of privacy and shade. On the right side of the patio was a sliding glass door that led to the kitchen. He ran his hand along the ledge above the window and found the key. Jesus, he didn’t really think he’d find it sitting there after all these years. No way in hell, but here it was in his hand. He didn’t have a warrant to search the apartment, and no judge would deign to grant him one with the meager evidence he had.

  When he opened the door, he stood with his toes pressed against the aluminum guide rail, his stomach cramping. The kitchen was the same as he remembered it—a beige-and-white linoleum floor, a mustard-yellow countertop, the framed photographs of orange groves and grapevines. There would be beer in the fridge. Vodka in the freezer.

  In exchange for his address, Lucero had become Wakeland’s housekeeper, an arrangement his mother could understand. Her son wouldn’t be mowing lawns for long, wouldn’t be brushing the porcelain toilet bowls of wealthy whites for the rest of his life. Lucero got to go to school, got to get a college degree on scholarship. But you had to rely on the kindness of strangers who offered an address to use, who mentored your son into a better world you could never fully join.

  A distant thwamping of helicopter blades shook the windowpanes. It was one of the Sea Stallions from the Marine base, riding low over the rooftops.

  Beyond the kitchen was the living room. Past that was the office, and down the hall from there the bedroom. He knew he would find something in there, but he couldn’t make himself move any farther.

  The helicopter broke over the greenbelt trees, its blades shearing the air. Then a car engine rumbled to a stop in the driveway; a door slammed.

  Shit. Ben backed out of the place, closed the glass door, placed the key on the sill, and slunk around the privacy fence to get skinny behind the ponderosa. A moment later, Wakeland came through the garage into the kitchen and pulled a vodka bottle from the freezer. The evening sun glanced light across the window. Ben could see in, but all Wakeland would see, if he looked out now, was a yellow orb of light blinding the edges of the patio.

  Wakeland fumbled with the vodka bottle’s screw cap, his hands shaking, his face distressed with furrowed lines. He disappeared for a moment, and then he was back, carrying a tumbler. He filled up the glass—no ice, no lime, just clear liquid to the top—and stood at the kitchen counter and sucked down the drink. After three gulps, he set the tumbler on the counter and stared out the window. The orange sunlight burnished his face and Ben could see he was upset. He’d seen the look before—knew it well, actually; the vulnerability in it had always surprised him, the depth of feeling surfacing in his eyes. He topped the glass off again and then sat at the kitchen table, rubbing his temples with his left hand.

  This was it, this should have been the moment. Ben should have gone in through the unlocked door, flashed his badge, and started asking questions. He’d spent hours in interrogation trying to get a man to his breaking point; it’s when they screwed up, revealed things they’d been concealing. It was when cases broke open. He should have gone into that apartment, done his goddamned job, but he escaped the backyard, feeling weak and stupid, and hightailed it through the greenbelt.

  Back at the cruiser, Ben fired up the car and was about to punch the gas when it came out of nowhere, just jumped out of him, and he barely got the door open before the contents of his stomach sprayed across the pavement.

  11

  WITHOUT CONSULTING HER, MENDENHALL HAD signed off on the boy’s file: suicide.

  “What about the inconsistencies?” Natasha said to him in his office on Monday afternoon. “Gun in left hand, shot near the back of the head?”

  “He’s ambidextrous. He was agitated,” Mendenhall said, writing something down on a clean white piece of paper that he folded in half. “His hand shaking.”

  “His hand shaking?”

  “Yes, Deputy Medical Examiner,” Mendenhall said, his voice lowering. “His hand shaking.”

  Natasha called Ben and told him she needed a drink. By t
he time she got to the Reno Room in Long Beach—a Sigalert for an accident on the 22 Freeway had everything backed up to the Crystal Cathedral—Ben was propped on a stool at the end of the bar, a Viper fins cap pulled low over his eyes, halfway into a vodka tonic.

  “You sign off on Lucero?” she said, lifting herself up onto the stool next to his.

  “So this is a business drink?” he said, an edge in his voice. His eyes were rimmed red, blurred in the blue light of the television screen bolted to the wall.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you on the hard stuff.”

  “Something in the wind,” he said.

  She could see why Rachel left him. He was a room with a locked door, and a wife wanted access. She lit a cigarette and waved the bartender over for a Dewar’s. “One rock,” she said, “and three fingers.

  “So, did you sign off on Lucero?” she asked again.

  “It’s a suicide.” He gulped the last of the vodka and crunched a cube between his teeth. Shook the glass toward the bartender to ask for another.

  “That’s what the suits are telling me,” she said. “Shaky hands.” She blew smoke. “But I’m asking you. Did. You. Sign off on it?” She was leaning into him, trying to get a look at his eyes. He looked at her then, the door in him opening a crack.

  “Not yet,” he said. “There’ll be some shit to catch for it, though.” The bartender, a woman with a shaved head and loose-fitting Minutemen shirt, slid Ben another drink. “Mayor made a visit today. Got investors in. He can’t make the serial go away, but this one he can.”

  “Because the kid’s illegal.”

  “Yep, wetback Juan Nadie,” Ben said. He put away half the glass in one gulp.

  He’d had a couple before she arrived; she could tell. After Rachel had left him, when Ben and Natasha started meeting for drinks, he was drinking heavily, putting away vodkas on ice, soaking himself in it. Sick of bearing witness to it, she finally told him one night that Rachel had left him because he was a drunk.

  “No,” he’d said then. “That’s not why.”

  But he never elaborated, and she didn’t give him a chance. “Well, that’s why I’m leaving you.” She’d said it just like that, as though they were already a thing, and then she walked out the door, leaving him ringing wet circles on the bar. He called her a couple of days later and apologized. He’d stayed mostly sober since then, at least in her presence. A Bohemia, a few Modelo Especiales, but not the hard stuff, not like tonight.