Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  When we reached the office, I rang the bell on my desk immediately.

  Wallace dropped his head and looked at me under furrowed brows. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  “Jack likes his privacy.”

  Wallace gasped, a hand over his chest. “OMG, he’s naked back there, isn’t he?”

  “I sure as heck hope not.” I rang again. “Jack, it’s Emily. I have Wallace from CPS with me.”

  Heavy boot steps sounded in the hall. Wallace adjusted his posture. And damn me to Hades, I adjusted my girls, too. I would have been ashamed of us both, if I’d had time.

  Jack sauntered into the lobby, his hand extended. “Wallace from CPS, nice to meet you. I’m Jack Holden.”

  Wallace’s voice came out deeper than it had with me. “A pleasure. I’ve heard your name many times. And, of course, our interests overlap now with your client Sofia Perez, and CPS looking for her missing daughter, Valentina.”

  I held up the bag. “I brought you food. In case you hadn’t eaten.”

  Jack shifted his eyes from my face to the bag and back again. “A peace offering? Do I even want to know why?”

  Wallace busted out a gut laugh, and I hurried to speak before he finished. Jack didn’t need to know everything.

  “Just being considerate,” I said. “Agatha’s training.”

  Jack took the bag and rustled through it as he said, “My new paralegal is trying to expand her duties to law practice manager—not that I don’t need the help—but she has her heart set on working the family law angle, Wallace. I keep trying to tell her that our focus is the criminal defendant, that we can count on CPS, the police, and the ad litem.”

  He snared a chili cheese dog, wrapped it in a napkin, and peeled back the paper wrapper.

  “I can attest that she had a laser focus on Sofia today.”

  Jack took a bite and chewed, eyes twinkling in a way that said he wasn’t convinced Wallace was telling the whole truth. He got a little chili on the left side of his mouth, so when he half-smiled around his mouthful, the chili rose toward the dimple. My stomach fluttered, and an urge to lick it off came out of nowhere. I never had thoughts like that, especially not about married men. It had to be the pregnancy hormones. It had to be. Well, surely it was okay just to look. I forced a dry-mouth swallow.

  “Laser focus,” I said.

  Jack finished his bite. “When do you think you’ll be finished with the interviews?”

  “I should be back around two-thirty,” I said. “Three at the latest.”

  “Okay, then,” he said.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Holden.” Wallace nodded.

  “Jack, please. You, too.”

  We exited the office, and, as we walked to the elevator, Wallace fanned his face with his hand. “The chili on his mouth,” he said. “Oh, honey, to be that napkin.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  A few minutes later, we headed north toward Sofia’s little, nameless apartment, which appeared to be three blocks west of Maria Delgado’s place, according to Siri.

  “This is it,” Wallace said, as we approached a dumpy block of buildings. “Help me find the manager’s office. Last time I was here, the guy was already at Sofia’s place with the police.”

  “I’ve got my eyes peeled,” I said.

  Wallace drove slowly around the block. Two-story four-plexes with white siding squatted on scraggly turf, one after another. Gaps in the siding revealed black liner, making the complex look like a mouth full of bad teeth. There were no balconies or patios. No grassy lawns or playgrounds. No parking lots. A worried cat slunk between two of the buildings with an underfed dog hot on its tail. Cars in a rainbow of colors—but similar in their states of dilapidation—lined the streets.

  “There it is.” I pointed to a ground floor unit with a sign in its window that said Manager.

  Unfortunately, there was no parking space near his unit, so we circled again and parked along the street on the opposite side of the complex.

  “We’re right by their apartment. I saw it last week. Want to go there first?”

  I nodded. “Sure.” I kept my Redrope and handbag under my arm and followed Wallace between the buildings, placing my feet carefully amidst piles of dog poop. “Nice place.”

  He snorted. “It’s worse than you think. Most of these units house multiple families. It’s like little Mexico City.”

  Residents had strung clotheslines from window to window between buildings and their clothes and linens waved like flags.

  I pointed to them. “No laundry room.”

  “No nothing.” Wallace stopped in front of unit 1C, an interior ground floor apartment. “This is where Sofia lived.” He knocked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the manager has already moved in another family. It appears to be a high-turnover business.”

  There was no answer.

  “Want to try some neighbors?” Wallace looked around at the nearest ground floor units.

  I smiled and jiggled the doorknob. The lock felt flimsy, like interior doorknob locks. I used to unlock the door to my parents’ bedroom when I was a kid, using just my mother’s hairpins. I’d put my hair up over lunch, securing the runaway strands with bobby pins, so I pulled one out. I slipped it in the lock and wiggled it gently until I heard a click. I pushed the door open and walked in.

  Wallace shook his head. “She graduates to breaking and entering.”

  “Does that mean you’re the lookout again?”

  He sighed and followed me, closing the door and relocking it behind him. “You’re an incredibly bad influence.”

  “You should have known me in high school.”

  “Were you one of those wild Amarillo girls who drank Boone’s Farm wine and snuck out to spy on the devil worshippers at the Marsh estate?”

  I winked at him. “Don’t make me lie to you.” I walked into the kitchen. A crayon drawing hung from the refrigerator by a magnet. “Is this the drawing you told me about?”

  “Yeah. I guess the cops didn’t consider this evidence.”

  I snatched it down and slipped it in my file. “Good. I do.”

  “Lord, woman. Do all paralegals act like you?”

  “It seems criminal law has already had an impact on me.” I reached for a drawer.

  Wallace stopped me. “At least use a towel to keep your fingerprints off stuff, okay?”

  “Good idea.” A dishrag hung over the kitchen faucet. I picked it up, then started opening drawers and cabinets with that hand. I found a few pieces of silverware, some plates with daisies in the center, and a stack of plastic tumblers. The only food to speak of was a bag of rice and one of beans.

  “Not much here,” I said.

  Wallace shook his head, his face soft. “Yeah, a pretty meager existence.”

  I walked the confines of the apartment with Wallace watching me. I checked under the couch, between and behind cushions, in closets, cabinets, and every other nook and cranny. No jacks, candy, or colors. No nothing.

  “You were right,” I said. “No sign of a child living here, except for that drawing.”

  Still, though I didn’t know how to explain it, I felt Valentina’s presence. I sat down on the worn, silvery blue sofa, pulled the drawing back out, and studied it. A lone man stood in front of a hill. The man had on shorts, or maybe it was a short skirt. The artist had scribbled all over his brown body in white crayon. On his head were big ears, sort of like animal ears. His nose was big, too, but more like a snout. Brown scribble over the face. Black for the hair. The man smiled back at me, and in the crude drawing, I thought I saw affection on his face. The man wasn’t scary, but he wasn’t familiar either. I put the drawing away and stood up.

  Wallace was sitting at the kitchen table checking his phone.

  “Onward,” I said.

  He jumped to his feet. “Manager’s office?”

  I shook my head. “Let’s chat with the neighbors while we’re over here.” I pried a space between the slats of the plastic white
blinds. “Coast’s clear.”

  I opened the door for Wallace and he exited. I relocked the doorknob and headed to unit 1B, adjacent to Sofia’s place. I heard children’s giggles and a happy squeal.

  “Niños, parada,” a woman said, which I translated automatically to “Children, stop” in my head. I knocked.

  Silence.

  I sensed a presence on the other side of the door. Possibly the woman who I had heard talking to the kids?

  “Hello, ma’am. I’m from Sofia’s attorney’s office. She sent me to talk to you.”

  Silence.

  Going on a hunch, I added, “Victoria, please?”

  Silence.

  I said all of it again, in Spanish. This time I heard the sound of a hand lock turning, and the door opened three inches. Narrowed black eyes regarded me from the slit behind a security chain.

  I smiled. “Tu hables ingles?”

  “Si. Yes.”

  “Good. Hello, Victoria. I’m from the office of Jack Holden. He is the attorney who represents Sofia. We’re trying to help her. Could I talk to you for just a minute? Maybe we could walk outside, or my colleague Wallace—” I gestured back at him, “and I could come in for a minute?”

  She stared at me.

  I saw movement behind her, and one little hand appeared around her knee. Then a face. Then above it, another face. And by her waist, a third one. Three little girls.

  “Not him. I talk to you solamente. Five minutes. You come in.”

  I turned to Wallace and whispered, “Maybe you could knock on a few more doors?”

  He nodded and left.

  I turned back to her. “Thank you.”

  She opened the door, revealing a small woman with long, dark hair in a low bun. She tugged at her purple velour shorts. Her T-shirt said Amarillo Sox on it.

  “Beautiful little girls,” I said.

  I smiled at them, and the cuties giggled and ran to the couch—a threadbare number in a silvery blue, like Sofia’s. The fibers were so synthetic looking that if I’d thrown a match on it I wasn’t sure if it would melt or catch fire. Each of the girls held a doll, and the littlest girl’s doll looked homemade, with long, brown yarn hair, a blue dress, and a piece of ivory-colored lace over her shoulders. I winked at her, and she held the doll up for me to see, grinning so wide my heart melted.

  “Thank you,” Victoria said.

  She pointed at her wooden kitchen table, and we took seats adjacent to each other. My chair wobbled at its joints, so I held very still. There were no lights on in the apartment, and I struggled to adjust to the dim atmosphere.

  “Victoria, what is your last name?”

  She paused. “Jones.”

  I nearly laughed at the obvious lie, but instead I nodded with a serious expression on my face. I didn’t want to spook her or insult her.

  “Thank you, Ms. Jones,” I said. “Now, you know that Sofia is in jail, for shooting a man, right?”

  Victoria nodded, eyes steady and wide.

  “Had you ever met the man she shot—Spike Howard?”

  She shook her head no.

  I grabbed the file and retrieved a picture of Spike. “But you’ve seen his picture in the paper and know who I’m talking about, right? This man?”

  She nodded. “I never see him before.”

  “Did you see any other men around Sofia’s place?”

  “No.”

  I pulled out the picture I’d printed of Harvey. “How about him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Have you known Sofia long?”

  She put her hands on either side of the seat of her chair, and slid them under her thighs. “Since she move in. One month, maybe two.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “Her daughter play with mine.”

  “Ah, so you know Valentina.”

  The girls giggled again, and Victoria shushed them. “Si, yes.”

  “Sofia is very worried about her. Have you seen Valentina since Sofia was arrested?”

  Victoria’s eyes shot over to the girls, then upwards, then down at her feet. “No.”

  “Do you ever babysit her, keep her when Sofia is at work?”

  Victoria moved her hands and squeezed them between her knees. “No.”

  “Never? Not even when she goes to the grocery store?”

  She studied the tabletop in front of her. “No. Nunca.”

  Never. “Okay.” I thought for a moment. “What about Maria Delgado?”

  Victoria moved her head back and forth in tiny shakes. “I don’t know her.”

  I leaned closer to whisper, “Did Sofia ever talk about where she came from or—”

  “No.” Victoria sat up in her chair, leaning against the backrest ramrod straight.

  I continued: “Her husband—”

  “No.” She rocked back and forth just a little.

  “Or why they came? Maybe some bad men?”

  “No.” She wrapped her arms around herself and continued the rocking.

  “No?”

  “Nada,” she whispered, still rocking.

  Nothing. Which is what she had told me. Nothing. She was lying. I was sure of it. But why? What was she scared of? I needed time to think. I rummaged through the papers in my Redrope to buy myself time. An idea came to me, and I looked at the black-haired little girls again. All three had a high single ponytail and wore pink Barbie pj’s. One appeared to be about five years old, and the others were maybe seven and eight. Close to Valentina’s age.

  “You were friends with Valentina, right?” I asked them.

  Victoria jumped up, knocking into the table as she shushed the girls. “I answer your questions,” she said. “You go now.”

  I nodded, and slowly put the pictures of Spike and Harvey back in my file.

  I walked to the door, Victoria on my heels.

  “Thank you, Victoria.”

  She was already closing the door behind me as I crossed its threshold. I heard her engage the doorknob lock and slide the security chain until it dropped into position with a tiny but final plink.

  Chapter Twelve

  Five minutes later, Wallace and I walked to the manager’s office, comparing notes along the way. He hadn’t been able to get anyone to open the door. I hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of Victoria. Together, we added up to a goose egg on our efforts.

  “At least we figured out who the woman with the incredibly bad phone manners was,” Wallace pointed out.

  “It’s the little things,” I agreed. But even I realized that my voice sounded flat.

  Wallace put his hand on my shoulder. “You know, most of the time the people here illegally are too scared to talk. If they get involved, they could be discovered, and that could lead to deportation. So don’t feel bad that Victoria didn’t open up to you. Remember, you got her to open that door, so now we know who she is. That really is something.”

  Wallace knocked on the door of the manager’s unit, 8A. The door flew open and an emaciated white man wearing a wife-beater T-shirt stepped out, an army tattoo on his left arm and a challenging look on his face. His B.O. backed me up two steps, and I put a fist under my nose.

  He trained his flashing eyes on Wallace. “You again.”

  Wallace cleared his throat. “This is Emily Bernal from the law firm representing Sofia—”

  The man turned on me, blasting me with halitosis. “I already talked to you on the phone, lady.”

  He fished a pack of Camels and a lighter with a suggestive female silhouette on it from the rear pocket of his jeans.

  Hello to you, too, Mr. Michael Q. Scott, I thought.

  “I was hoping you might be able to tell me if you’d ever seen either of these men.” I pulled out the photos of Spike and Harvey and splayed them in one hand in front of him.

  Very deliberately, Scott picked a cigarette out of the pack, shoved it between his lips, returned the pack to his back pocket, clicked his lighter until it flamed, lit his cigarette, and puffed three t
imes. He didn’t so much as glance at the photos. “Nope.”

  My blood started simmering. “I assume that means no you won’t since you didn’t look. However, I am asking you, as nicely as I can, to just look at these photos one time. Have you ever seen either of these men?”

  He sucked his cig and then blew out smoke. He shifted his eyes to the pictures and stuck the lighter in his pocket. “Yeah.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Nah. I seen the dead one on the news. Never seen the other guy.”

  The simmer in my blood sped up. “Mr. Scott, Sofia is very worried about her daughter. Have you seen her anywhere?”

  “God, lady, I already told you. I didn’t even know she had a daughter.”

  I felt pressure building under the lid of my simmering pot. “Funny. Her next-door neighbor, Victoria, did. She said her three daughters used to play with Valentina.”

  He snorted. “You’re lying.”

  I came to a full, rolling boil. “I most certainly am not.”

  “You want to know how I know you’re lying?” He pointed his cigarette at me, and I fantasized briefly about smashing it back into his face. He continued: “Because Victoria Nunez in 1B only has two kids. She brings ’em with her everywhere.”

  I stood motionless. If she only had two daughters, why had she told me all three girls were hers?

  But before I’d even finished the thought a woman’s unearthly screams rent the air from the interior of the complex.

  I turned and sprinted back to Victoria’s apartment.

  ***

  Cramps ripped through my abdomen as I rounded the last corner, panting and grimacing. I ignored the pain. Victoria and two of the little girls stood huddled and screaming outside their apartment. Victoria clutched the cloth doll I’d last seen in the arms of the smallest of the three girls. She wasn’t there with them now.

  I reached Victoria and leaned on my knees. Between ragged breaths I asked, “What is it? Are you okay?”

  Victoria shook her head and her screams turned to sobs. “He took her. A bad man took her.”