by P J Parrish
“Why did you lock it?” Pierre asked, coming in. “You never lock your door.”
“What do you want, Pierre?” Louis asked, going to the kitchen. He jerked open the refrigerator.
“The pool needs skimming,” Pierre said.
Louis popped the top on a Dr Pepper and took a swig. “I told you I’d get to it.”
“When? For a month you do nothing around here,” Pierre said. “If you don’t start pushing your weight around here, I will have to charge you rent and —-”
The phone rang and Louis went to the bedroom, picking it up.
“Louis, it’s Mel.”
“Hey,” Louis said. “Where you been hiding for the last two days? I thought maybe you went back to Miami or something without saying good-bye.”
“Nah, not yet.” Landeta paused. “Listen, how about meeting me for lunch at O’Sullivan’s? I got some news on the case you might want to know about.”
Louis glanced back at Pierre standing at the bedroom door. “Sure, give me a half hour.”
He hung up and started out the door.
Pierre hurried after him. “Louis! Where are you going?”
“Flic business. Close the front door when you leave, Pierre.”
A tirade of French followed Louis out to the Mustang parked under the gumbo limbo.
On the drive across the causeway, Louis thought about Landeta, wondering again what he was going to do now that the Away So Far case was over —- or at least their part of it. He wondered what he himself was going to do.
Probably skim the friggin’ leaves out of the pool for the rest of my life.
At O’Sullivan’s, Louis paused just inside the door to take off his sunglasses. It was a little after eleven a.m. and the place was near empty. He saw a couple of guys at the end of the bar sipping Bloody Marys, and way in the back, his bald head silhouetted by the jukebox lights, he saw Landeta.
Louis stopped at the bar, got two Diet Cokes and some lemon wedges, and headed back.
“Morning,” Landeta said, looking up.
Louis sat down. “So what’s up?”
Landeta was just finishing a cup of coffee. “The women are being released this afternoon.”
“How do you know?”
“I got a friend at the prosecutor’s office. Since the old lady confessed, Sandusky can’t make a case against the others. The old lady, yeah, but not the other women.”
“What about the men?”
“Charges are still pending, but it doesn’t look good there, either.”
“How can they believe the old lady did all of this? How can they not prosecute the whole family?”
“You’d need a Bugliosi for that.”
“The Manson prosecutor?”
Landeta nodded as he pushed his empty coffee cup away and drew the Diet Coke near. He squeezed the lemon wedge into the Coke. “People said Bugliosi would never be able to convince a jury that Manson was guilty without a motive, that he would never be able to explain why Manson would send those girls off to kill somebody and why they obeyed him. That’s when he came up with the Helter Skelter theory. And suddenly a jury could understand the crimes.”
“I don’t see the parallel,” Louis said.
“Well, not one of the del Bosques is talking. We have no physical evidence. And what did you and I really see on that island? A man holding a rifle and walking away with a pregnant woman so she could have her baby in private. A family argument. And five little graves, with no way anyone can tell how they died.”
Landeta took a drink of his Diet Coke before he went on. “Unless Sandusky can tie all that together with a well- constructed and intelligent theory about families, Roman soldiers, incest, and tradition, and make it believable, he will never get a conviction. It was hard enough in the Manson case, and Sandusky doesn’t have half the brains of Bugliosi.”
“Mel, Those women let their children die.”
Landeta nodded. “Yeah, they did. But did they really have a choice? Emma, Cindy, Paula —- they all had nothing before they got to that island. Then suddenly, they have a man who loves them. And a nice, big family. Such as it was.”
“You’re making excuses for them,” Louis said.
“Not excuses. Reasons.”
Louis was shaking his head.
“It’s over for them, Louis,” Landeta said. “DCF has their hands in it now. Little Louisa’s mother is dead and her aunts, even if they don’t go to trial, are certainly weird enough to call unfit. She won’t have a problem finding someone to adopt her.”
“What about Roberto?”
“DCF will probably charge the family with truancy and other crap like neglect and living in an unsafe environment. Sandusky will make sure he at least saves the souls of the two surviving children. Makes a nice sound bite, don’t you think?”
Louis was quiet.
“I know people over at family services. I can arrange for you to see him, if you want,” Landeta said.
“Roberto?”
Landeta nodded. “Someone needs to let him know things will be all right eventually.”
“I’m the last person who should be telling him anything like that,” Louis said.
Landeta was working on his lemon peel. “We did the right thing, Louis,” he said.
Louis didn’t reply. His fingers picked at the cocktail napkin under his soda.
“They let Woods go,” Landeta said.
“I know. I saw him out at the restaurant. We had a long talk.”
“Oh, yeah? You get anything out of him?”
“Yeah, the ‘why.’”
“He told you why they did it?”
Louis nodded. A part of him didn’t really want to go over it again. A part of him just wanted to forget the whole damn thing. But he knew now that Landeta wanted to know the why as much as he himself ever had. He told Landeta about Ana del Bosque, the incest, and the daughter born with a birth defect.
“Why did they kill the others?” Landeta asked.
“An attempt to keep the blood pure. Jesus, you’d think this was the Middle Ages or something.”
Landeta didn’t ask any more questions, just took a drink of his Diet Coke.
“Well, if the old lady ever comes to trial, she’ll have motive for one of the murders at least,” Landeta said. “But I doubt she will see the inside of a courtroom. For any of this.”
“The county closed down the restaurant,” Louis said.
Landeta pushed on the lemon peel with his thumbs, exposing the pulp. “Well, maybe Frank can sell his story to the National Enquirer or someone will pay to make a movie of the week.”
Louis was quiet, staring down into his glass.
“What’s the matter?” Landeta asked.
“They deserve to be in prison,” Louis said.
“Everyone knows who they are and everyone thinks they’re guilty,” Landeta said. He bit into the lemon. “The world is going to be one big prison for them for the rest of their lives.”
CHAPTER 53
Louis made his way through the clutter of cameras and reporters and slipped inside the entrance of the Fort Myers Police Station.
The women had been released, and rather than force the women into the media pack outside, Horton had allowed them to wait in a conference room on the second floor. Frank Woods was on his way to take the women back to the island.
Louis stopped at the top of the stairs to catch his breath. He wasn’t even sure why he was here. What was it he wanted to know? He already knew why the killing had started. Did he really expect any of them to tell him why they allowed it to happen?
But still, he had to ask. There had been something about this case right from the beginning that gnawed at him unlike any other he had worked. He couldn’t seem to let it go. Not yet.
He paused at the open door of Landeta’s office. It had been cleaned out. All that was left was the desk, the chair, and the empty bookcases.
Louis continued down the hall to the conference room and opened the door s
lowly.
The women were seated at a conference table, backlit by the sun streaming through a window. Paula Berkowitz was closest to him, dressed in the shapeless cotton dress, her hands folded in her lap. Next to her was Cindy Shattuck, her blond braid now half undone around her face. Emma Fielding sat nearest the window and her wary gray eyes followed Louis as he stepped around the table.
“We don’t have to talk to you,” Emma said.
“I know that,” Louis said. “But there are some things I need to ask you. Off the record.”
The women sat as stiff as stone statues, dust motes floating in the air above their heads.
Louis slipped into a chair across from Emma. She looked up at him slowly, her expression a mixture of anger and sadness.
“How could you let them kill your babies?” Louis asked.
Emma shook her head. “Francisco told us not to talk to anyone else. He says they still might put us in jail.”
“We don’t want to go to jail,” Cindy said.
“We’re going home to take care of Roberto,” Paula added.
“Roberto isn’t going home,” Louis said. “The state will keep him until all this is over, if not forever.”
“What about the baby?” Cindy asked.
Louis looked at her. “You ask about a baby you were going to let die?”
“It’s her grandchild,” Emma said. “Rafael is Cindy’s son.”
Louis looked back at Emma, trying to keep his voice even. “What you let happen was wrong,” he said.
Emma’s eyes hardened. “You’re judging a situation and people you don’t even know. You came to our home, you shot my nephew, and now your people are desecrating the babies’ graveyard. You just want to punish us for being what we are, for being different.”
“You murdered children,” Louis said.
“We survived,” Emma said.
“That’s not surviving.”
Emma shook her head. “What do you want from us?”
“I want to know why you let it happen. Just tell me why,” Louis said.
Paula started to speak but Emma hushed her with a raised hand. “I was twelve when my stepfather first climbed into my bed,” Emma said.
“I don’t need to hear –-”
“Yes, you do,” Emma said. “I was fourteen when my mother dragged me off to a doctor and he put me on a table and stuck something up inside me and killed my stepfather’s baby.”
Louis couldn’t move. Emma’s face was stiff but her eyes jumped with emotion.
“After my brother Neil left, I was alone,” she said. “I used to lock myself in my closet at night, praying I would die.” Emma straightened her shoulders. “Do you know what it’s like to be twelve years old and want to die?”
Louis was quiet.
“I met Emilio del Bosque at the grocery store. I was only fifteen. He offered me a candy bar. I was afraid to take it because I figured he wanted sex in return.”
“Mrs. del Bosque —- ” Louis began.
“Let me finish. We met every week for six weeks. He would buy me sandwiches and sodas, things I couldn’t afford. He never asked a thing of me, not once.” Emma took a breath, looking at the other two women.
Paula was staring at the table, and Cindy had her eyes closed.
Emma looked back at Louis. “Then one day he took me to the island for lunch. His brother Edmundo, his uncle Alfonso, Ana, they were all kind to me. They had something...something I never knew existed. They had family, love, traditions. They were normal.”
Emma paused again, glancing back at Paula. “When Emilio said it was time for me to go home I begged him to let me stay. I told him I would do anything he wanted. I was sixteen when we were married.”
Louis put a hand to his brow.
“A year or so later, I gave birth to Carlos,” Emma went on. “Emilio was so proud and for a few years we were really happy. Emilio and his brother opened the restaurant and we had money coming in. We had everything we needed there on the island and life was good.”
Emma paused. “Then I became pregnant again,” she said. “When the time came, Abuela Ana took me to the birthing house and I had a little girl. I heard her cry but Ana told me later she just stopped breathing. For months, I cried. Then one day Emilio told me he couldn’t stand my tears anymore and he told me that our baby had been smothered.”
Emma paused again. Her face was empty, her eyes still dry.
“I was only told that was the way it was done,” she said. “To this day, I don’t know why.”
“When you get back to the island ask Frank,” Louis said. “He knows.”
Emma blinked in surprise and glanced at the other women. “He knows? Is that why he took Sophie away?”
“Like I said, ask him,” Louis said.
The scrape of a chair made Louis look at Cindy. She had gone to stand at the window, her back to them. Emma watched her, her expression suddenly tender, almost maternal. Then she turned back to Louis.
“You probably want to know why we didn’t leave,” Emma said. “I thought about it. We all did at one point. But there was nowhere to go. I had a son and a husband. Where was I going to go?”
Louis heard Cindy crying softly.
“When you finally have something good,” Emma said, “when you finally feel connected to someone, you’ll do anything to keep from being alone again.”
Louis shook his head.
“I know you want us to somehow pay,” Emma said. “My husband and son are dead. Paula’s son, Tomas, is dead. The only thing I have left is my grandson, Roberto, and he isn’t coming back.” She paused. “How much more do you want to punish us?”
Louis felt a pull in his chest, and it bothered him because it felt like a pang of sympathy and they didn’t deserve his sympathy.
“I need to ask you something now,” Emma said. She was looking straight into his eyes. “What would you have done?”
Suddenly, he wanted out of here. He didn’t want to deal with the women, their pathetic stories or their dead children. He rose and went to the door.
“I answered your questions,” Emma said. “I think you should answer mine. What would you have done?”
Louis looked at the other two women. Cindy was staring out the window. Paula’s head was down, her cheeks streaked with tears.
“I can’t put myself in your place,” Louis said. “I’m sorry.”
He left, closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER 54
Louis leaned back against the closed door and let out a long, slow breath then he started down the hall. At the top of the stairs, he stopped.
At the bottom was a heavyset woman dressed in a dark blue suit, carrying a briefcase. She had Roberto by the hand. His head was down as he trudged up the stairs, a half step behind her.
“Come on, Robert,” she said, “we don’t have all day.”
The boy’s eyes shot to her face. “It’s Roberto.”
Someone had found him some clean clothes -- jeans, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt and new Nikes. He looked stunned, like someone wandering alone in a foreign country where he couldn’t understand the language.
Halfway up the stairs, Roberto spotted Louis and froze. His dark eyes were locked on Louis and in them Louis could read all the questions: Why am I here? Why is my father dead? What’s going to happen to me? Why did you do this to me?
The woman started tugging his hand again, pulling him up the remaining steps. Louis stepped aside to let them pass, and Roberto shuffled by him silently.
“Roberto,” Louis said.
The woman turned. Roberto did not.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“I know him,” Louis said. “What is he doing here?”
The social worker sighed. “He wanted to see his aunts before we left. He’s here to say good-bye.”
“I’d like to speak with him. Please.”
“I don’t think —-”
“I work with the police department,” Louis said.
<
br /> The woman looked down at Roberto. “Do you want to talk to him, Robert?”
Roberto shrugged. Louis came back up the stairs.
“Can we be alone, please?” Louis asked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the woman said. “The boy is very upset and he might —-”
“I’m not going to take him anywhere,” Louis said.
The woman hesitated then let go of Roberto’s hand. She walked about twenty feet down the hall, sinking into a chair near the conference room door. She watched as Louis took Roberto by the shoulders and eased him down to the top step then sat down next to him.
Roberto kept his eyes on his new Nikes.
“Roberto, I want you to know how sorry I am,” Louis said.
Roberto said nothing.
“And that I know what you’re going through,” Louis said.
“You don’t know anything,” Roberto said. He pulled his knees to his chest. His eyes were on the two cops in the lobby below.
“When I was your age, I had to leave my home, too,” Louis said. “I didn’t want to go, but I had to.”
Roberto’s eyes welled. “I want to go home.”
Louis wanted to touch him, but he didn’t dare with the social worker watching.
“I know,” Louis said. “I felt like that, too. But I had to go live with somebody else for a while. Until things could be straightened out.”
Roberto didn’t look at him. “How long?” he asked.
Louis took a deep breath. “Well, there are some things that have to be sorted out first about your family, and if the judge decides...”
He stopped. He would only make things worse by lying. He knew what was ahead. “I don’t know when you can go home,” he said.
“Do I have to stay with her?” he asked.
Louis looked back at the social worker, who was still watching them closely.
“No,” Louis said.
Roberto’s chin quivered. “Then who’s going to take care of me?”
Someone good and kind? Someone who will make you believe that you might, someday, be able to trust people again, like Phillip Lawrence did for me? It had been a long two years and too many other shadowed houses before Louis had finally been placed with Phillip, his last foster father.