by Sam Reaves
Fifty yards farther on was the address she was looking for, a pink trailer with a satellite dish on top, a gas grill by the steps and a pickup truck parked on a little patch of asphalt. Abby swore under her breath: Here was another reception committee. She counted six young Mexican guys by the open tailgate of the truck while she pulled over onto the grass and shut off the car. There was a cooler in the bed of the truck and the guys all had beers in hand. They had been looking down the way at the posse on the playground, but now they were staring at her, and she almost lost her nerve and cut and ran. But the number was right, and she got out of the car. “Hi. I’m looking for Leticia’s house.”
“Leticia. Lemme see. Never heard of her.” This one had been at work all day; his clothes and boots were dirty, his hair tousled and sweaty. “But you can hang with us. Want a beer?” One of his friends said something under his breath in Spanish and a couple more laughed. All of them were giving her the once-over, head to toe.
Abby was wishing her outfit didn’t display quite so much skin. She gave the offer the token smile it deserved. “No, thanks. You think somebody inside might know Leticia?”
He grinned and cocked a thumb toward the trailer. “I’m just messin’ with you. You got the right place.”
As Abby made for the steps, the door to the trailer opened and Natalia appeared. “Abby, hi, you made it. Come on in.” Natalia’s look went beyond Abby to the young men gathered behind the truck. “What are you guys looking at?”
There was a murmur of Spanish and an explosion of laughter. Abby ducked inside the trailer with relief. Here there was cool air and a smell of something spicy simmering. Abby was presented to Leticia, cast in the same mold as Natalia, pretty and dark-eyed, and to her mother, gray haired and plump. The mother was bustling about the tiny kitchen and apparently spoke no English. Leticia said something to Natalia in Spanish and went outside. Her mother cleared a space on a small table so that Abby and Natalia could work there.
“I’m sorry,” said Natalia. “I know this isn’t the best place to work. My daddy wouldn’t let me take the car. Next time I’ll try and come to your place.” She exhaled and Abby could see the strain in her face. “I didn’t study or anything since the last time, I’m sorry.”
“You’ve had other things on your mind. Don’t worry about it.”
“But I really want to do this. I’m gonna have the time to study, now, without the store. I’m gonna do an hour a day. Whatever happens. Leticia says I can stay here if I have to.”
Abby frowned. “What’s going on with your family?”
“My mama’s going back to Mexico. She said I have to come with her, but I told her I won’t. We had a big fight about it. So then my daddy says I can only stay here if I can get a job. Leticia says I can live with her, here. That would be really tight. But if I can get a job I can maybe get my own place after a while. And a car. I’m gonna need a car.”
“Why is your mother going by herself? What’s your father doing?”
The look in the big bright eyes was desolate. “He’s probably going to jail.”
“Oh, Natalia.”
“The lawyer says the best he can do is cut a deal where my daddy will only have to do four or five years. And he’ll have to pay restitution. We’re gonna be so broke. But the lawyer says we should be grateful. The government wanted to give him twenty years.”
“What about Luis, what’s he doing?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s back in Indianapolis with those gang guys again.”
Abby reached out and took her hand. “I’m sorry.”
Natalia sniffed and gave her a smile. “I’m OK. Let’s do this.”
Abby drew a deep breath. “All right, let’s try to get some momentum back,” she said, opening her notebook. “Do we need to review the trigonometric functions?”
“I think we need to review just about everything,” said Natalia. “Two plus two is four, right?”
They had been working for maybe twenty minutes when the door burst open and Leticia leaned in, looking frantic. “They’re fighting!”
Natalia looked up. “Who’s fighting?”
“The guys, my brother and his friends. With those rednecks.” A torrent of Spanish directed at her mother followed. Natalia jumped up and followed Leticia out the door. Abby exchanged a look with Leticia’s mother and stood up slowly. Leticia’s mother said something in Spanish, looking frightened, and went to a window. There was also one near Abby but all she could see was the neighboring trailer.
“I’ll go see,” she said pointlessly, out of her depth, and headed for the door.
By the time she got to the end of the drive, by the now-deserted pickup, it was over. Down by the playground, the rednecks were dispersing, yelling the last insults and thrusting middle fingers into the air. One of them took his hand from his face and shook blood onto the ground. Natalia, Leticia and two of the Mexican guys were coming back toward the trailer. One of the guys was bleeding from the mouth, spitting red onto the grass. Leticia was crying. Neighbors had come out of their trailers and the street was full of people, mostly Mexican.
Abby spent the next ten minutes standing ineffectually in a corner of the trailer while the women fussed over the injury and the men recapped the fight, in a mixture of Spanish and English. The split lip belonged to Leticia’s brother, and he wasn’t saying much, but his friend looked at Abby and said, “Those fuckin’ guys, they been looking for trouble since all this bullshit about Mexican killers started.”
Natalia came over to Abby and said, “We’ve never had this before. People always got along. This is real bad.”
Abby reached for her and they hugged for a few seconds. “Call me when you’re ready. I’ll come pick you up if I have to.” She gathered her things and left.
An LPD squad car had appeared by the playground and two officers were talking to a knot of Mexican residents. Abby got in her car. Braking at the stop sign at the exit from the trailer park, Abby eased to a halt directly in front of a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt, leaning on the gatepost, smoking. The man gave her a look full of contempt and said, “You like to fuck Mexicans, huh? We got a name for bitches like you.”
As her topology class broke up into pockets of small talk and banter, Abby turned her phone on and saw a light flashing, signaling a text message from Richard Spassky: Please come see me in my office ASAP.
When Abby rapped on the door frame, Spassky was shoving something into a drawer in a filing cabinet. He looked at Abby over the top of his reading glasses and said, “Ah, Abigail.” He pushed the drawer shut and pointed to the chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat.” He whipped off his glasses, walked past her to the door, and closed it gently. “Thank you for coming.”
“He hasn’t been in class since we last spoke.” Abby was prepared for the worst; there were lots of academic horror stories about nightmare students protected by rules, impossible to expel.
Spassky laid his glasses on the desktop and settled onto the chair behind it with a sigh. “And he won’t be,” he said. “Not anymore.” He frowned at a paper on the desk and shifted it an inch or two to his left.
“I see,” Abby said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” Spassky was looking at her now. “I have to tell you that I received a call just now from Mercy Hospital. Ben is there, getting emergency care, unconscious after apparently taking an overdose of some kind of medication.”
Abby gaped at him for a moment and then closed her eyes. She sighed and sagged on the chair. “Is he going to make it?”
“I couldn’t say. He was found in bed this morning by his roommate. Ben lives off campus, as you may or may not know, in one of those houses over on Sycamore Street. The roommate went to wake Ben for a class and found him in bed, unresponsive. He called the ambulance, and there we are.”
“Oh, my God. That’s horrible.” Abby stared out the window, thinking: You need to be very cold about this or it will eat you alive. She took a deep breath before turning to t
he dean. “I assure you, I did nothing to lead this kid on. Nothing. You can ask anybody in the class.”
Spassky nodded. “I don’t doubt that for an instant. This young man has a history of instability. Nobody’s blaming you. Not at all. I’m sorry you had to go through this.”
Abby opened her mouth but found that the questions she wanted to ask were too jumbled in her head to come out. “God. I have to go in and face that class tomorrow.”
Spassky exhaled, heavily. “I’ll be sending out a campus e-mail about it some time this afternoon.” He reached for his reading glasses. “At least you didn’t have to call his parents,” he said, and for a moment Abby felt sorry for him.
Graham waylaid Abby as she crossed the green. “I got a text from Spassky,” he said, brow contracted in concern. “Did you hear about Ben?”
“I’ve just come from Spassky’s office. You could say my feelings are kind of mixed right now.”
They stood frowning at each other in the middle of the walk, the flow of passing students parting around them. “Well, this ought to get him out of your class,” Graham said finally.
“I’m not going to lie to you, that’s a relief. But I didn’t want this. I didn’t want anything like this. I wanted him to get help and get straightened out.”
Much to her surprise she was suddenly close to losing it. Abby had to look away from Graham. She clamped down hard on herself, staring out across the green.
She felt Graham’s hand on her arm. “You’ve had a rough time. I’m sorry.”
Cold, she thought, ice cold. “I didn’t do anything to provoke any of this.”
“I know.” He squeezed gently and his hand fell away. “Hey, you want to go get a cup of coffee or something? Just sit and vent for a while? We could go somewhere off campus if you want.”
Abby glared at the distant chapel until she was sure her voice was reliable. She looked at Graham and gave him a brief smile. “No, thanks. I’m OK. I need to go get some work done. But I appreciate it.”
There was genuine sympathy in Graham’s eyes; the swagger was gone and he looked completely guileless for the first time in Abby’s experience. “All right. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“I will, thanks.”
Walking toward her office, heart rate slowing and self-possession returning, Abby remembered Graham’s touch on her arm. She found she did not resent it, and she wondered briefly if perhaps she had misjudged him.
“I seem to have developed an amazing talent for antagonizing people. I don’t know how I got to be so God damn irritating. I’ve always tried to get along with people.” Abby took a generous sip of her second Manhattan.
Across the table from her Lisa Beth was perusing her with a mild frown. “Easy on that drink,” she said. “That’s all liquor.” Around them swelled the hubbub of a moderately full bar with two baseball games and a football game in progress on multiple TV screens. Abby had made it halfway through a solitary evening in her apartment, frenetically working, texting and instant messaging, before admitting to herself that Graham had been right: she needed to vent, and she needed a live companion to sit there and take it. Finally she had called Lisa Beth.
“I’m sorry to dump all this on you,” Abby said. “I know I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”
Lisa Beth shrugged. “Sometimes you’re entitled.”
“I thought coming here would be some kind of retreat. I thought it would be like going into a nunnery or something. Just feed me gruel and let me do my penance.”
“Well, the gruel we can do. As for the penance, I don’t see where you’ve done anything wrong. Your guy in New York was obviously a bad bet from the get-go, if you’ll allow me to be blunt. As for this little creep in your class, my only regret would be that he’s an incompetent suicide.”
“Oh, God. I swear to you I wish this kid no harm. I’m sorry for him, I really am. I just want him to be someone else’s problem and not mine.”
“I believe you. Did I tell you I actually know him?”
“Ben? God, no.”
“Jerry had him in one of his classes, and he’s been to our house. I thought he was a little strange. And Jerry said there were some drug issues, some heavy recreational use on top of his medications.”
Abby gaped at her. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“I smelled dope coming home one night. Behind my house.”
Lisa Beth waved the notion away. “Could have been anybody.”
“Ned doesn’t smoke, as far as I know, and the neighbors are elderly. Oh, God, he knew where I lived.” Abby shuddered.
Lisa Beth looked dubious but said, “Well, all the more reason to be glad he’s gone. You are the victim in this case, with absolutely nothing to apologize for. As for Luis Menéndez, he’s a criminal like his father.”
“Don’t forget the trailer park rednecks. I managed to piss them off just by speaking civilly to some Mexicans, apparently.”
“Mmm, yes. Did you ever hear of the cluster effect? Any random pattern, like pepper spilled on a tablecloth, will show clusters. Events are like that, too. Every once in a while there’s a cluster of anomalous events. This is one.”
“That’s a good try. I’ll work on that.”
“Take it from me. You just had the bad luck to cross paths with this little cluster of sewer rats, and as a native Hoosier I apologize for the poor impression we must be making.” Lisa Beth took a sip of her martini. “There was a bad fight at a bar out on Indianapolis Road last night. Mexicans versus Hoosiers, three people to the hospital. That’s the worst part of this nonsense about Mexican killers. We’re starting to see the kind of animosity we’ve avoided so far.”
“Nonsense?” Abby frowned at her. “Excuse me, but what are you saying? You don’t think this Gómez is the killer?”
“Oh, he may have done the killings. But it had nothing to do with the drug cartels.”
Abby nodded. “I think the police know that. Ruffner told me Gómez had quarreled with Frederick and was a pal of the guy Lyman snitched on.”
“That may be. Or it could be something else. Rex Lyman and Jud Frederick were into so much hanky-panky there’s a smorgasbord of options.” Lisa Beth leaned closer across the table. “My guy Dexter is a great source for dirt, all the gossip he hears. And you know what Dexter told me? Just before he got toasted, Rex Lyman had a serious tiff with your landlord’s old pal Everett Elford.”
“Really.”
“Gospel. Dexter got it from Elford’s office manager.”
“So what does that mean?”
“God knows. Maybe nothing. But if there’s anything there I hope to find it.”
“You’re always looking for dirt, are you?”
“You don’t have to look too hard. In a place like this they all know each other. The rich folks, the lawyers, the bankers. They all grow up together, go off to school together, come back and do business together. It’s cozy. It’s small-town life. It’s intimate. It’s all stitched up.”
“I think it’s the same everywhere. I think there’s a lot of insider stitching up that goes on in New York.”
“No doubt, no doubt. Boys will be boys. Did you know Elford is looking for a new secretary?”
Abby peered at Lisa Beth. “Why would I know that? Why would I care?”
“No reason. You know who the old one was?”
“I give up.”
“The blonde we saw with Jud Frederick at the Azteca that night.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Somebody told me Frederick had been dating Elford’s secretary and the penny dropped. And now Dexter tells me she has decamped, if that’s the word I want. I think it would be very interesting to talk to her. But nobody can tell me where she’s gone. I just find it intriguing that Jud Frederick was intimate with Everett Elford’s secretary. Elford’s got a clean reputation. I wonder if he knew that his secretary was putting out for one of the top sleazeballs in the county.”
&nbs
p; “Why don’t you ask him?”
“Oh, I will. But I’m not quite ready to talk to young Everett. I don’t have all my ducks in a row yet.”
Abby gaped at her. “Do you mean you’re really digging up something new on these murders? And you think Elford’s involved?”
Lisa Beth leaned closer. “Elford’s involved in everything in this county. I don’t mean he’s a crook. I’m not accusing him of anything. But when you have a lot of money and influence and interests in a place, things that happen affect you. And I’d like to know how these murders affect Everett Elford, I really would.” Lisa Beth leaned back, waving it all away. “Forget I said anything. For you the only thing that matters is that the guy that did it is under lock and key. I think the local flatfeet may have gotten it right.”
Abby raised her glass. Her head was spinning a little. “Here’s to them.”
I will pay for this tomorrow, thought Abby as Lisa Beth pulled into the driveway of 6 Hickory Lane. On the ride home the world had seemed a little less threatening but also a little less stable, the second Manhattan permeating comfortably through her brain. “Thank you,” she said. “I needed this. Your patience was much appreciated.”
Lisa Beth reached out to give her hand a squeeze. “Honey, any time.” She paused, on the verge of saying more, then smiled and released Abby’s hand. “Be careful going up those steps, will you? I should have cut you off after one.”
“I’ll be OK. I have my sensible shoes on.”
“Looks like someone’s waiting up for you.” Lisa Beth nodded at the figure dimly visible on the porch. “Don’t let him ply you with drink.”
“I’m sure he will see me safely home.” Abby got out of the car.
“Watch the cord,” said Ned as she came carefully up the steps. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, his face illuminated by a laptop on a footstool in front of him plugged into an outlet in the side of the garage.