“Ah, you must be here about Melissa Baca, that poor girl.” Mrs. Strunk smiled tightly, showing perfect teeth, almost too white.
“Had you ever met her?” Gil asked. She didn’t protest as he took the shopping bag from her; she seemed to expect it. Now he would have to go back into the Strunks’ house.
“I greeted her when she first came to town.” She had an East Coast accent and her husband’s big-word way of talking.
“Had you seen her since?”
“No,” was all she said as she closed her car door and started walking up the driveway. Gil changed the subject to something more innocent: “So how was the drive to Las Cruces?”
“The weather was perfect, for a change. I swear, every time I try to go somewhere in this state the weather gets atrocious. Last time I went to Albuquerque it snowed the whole way.”
“How is your mother?” Gil asked,
“She’s fine, although all she could do was complain that my car seats are too soft for her bad back.” Mrs. Strunk laughed softly.
“I thought your car is the maroon one?”
“It is. I think next time we’ll fly.”
Gil wondered why Mr. Strunk had tried to give him the impression that they had taken his car to Las Cruces.
Lucy slammed on the brakes as a shrill chirping came from under the passenger seat. Since storming out of the fire station, she had been running errands—paying her utility bill (late); trying to find a baking sheet to replace one she’d burned—and was now on her way to the Plaza to get a pork tamale for lunch.
She pulled over and frantically threw her tennis shoes and old McDonald’s bags into the backseat, trying to find the noise. She found the source under a sock. Her EMS pager. A dispatcher’s voice came up: a seventy-nine-year-old female was feeling sick. The dispatcher gave the address. Lucy had a general idea of where it was. She took the next side street and turned her car around, speeding off to the address. She was still mad enough at Gerald to want to prove him wrong. But was she trying to prove that she was a grown-up or that she sucked as an EMT? And how do you prove that you suck as an EMT? She hoped she wouldn’t have to kill someone.
Gerald was already there when she pulled up. He and another male EMT were standing in front of the mobile home, shifting from side to side to keep warm in the wind. He didn’t look surprised to see her. Whatever. The mobile home was white with blue trim. A double-wide that looked like it was built in the 1980s.
“The woman’s name is Lily Hitts,” Gerald said without greeting her. “She’s inside the bedroom but won’t let us men come in until she’s dressed.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, unsure of what he wanted her to say.
“So, I need you to go in and talk to her. We could just go in anyway, but I don’t want to agitate her.” Gerald looked at Lucy and smiled. Was this a test to see if she would balk? Was that a mean smile? Well, she wouldn’t balk.
“Fine,” Lucy said roughly as she headed into the house. She took a couple of deep breaths. She could do this.
She started calling out, “Ma’am, ma’am, I’m a medic.” It reminded her of when she and Gerald had first gone into Patsy Burke’s house. She heard an answer from the back of the mobile home. Lucy made her way past overstuffed furniture and shelves of dolls, which the woman collected. She must be the sole supporter of the Franklin Mint.
The woman lay on the bed overflowing with more dolls; their unanimated faces creeped Lucy out. The woman was in a long-sleeved nightgown, trying to draw it over her head. Lucy murmured, “Let me help you with that.”
The left side of Lily Hitts’s face was drooping, and she looked out of it. Lucy needed Gerald inside. Now.
“You know what, Lily? I think we’re going to need some help.” Lily looked panicked. Lucy continued in a soothing voice. “It’s okay. The guys outside are friends of mine. I’ll make sure you look decent.”
Lucy yelled for Gerald to come in. A second later, Gerald and the other EMT came in. The EMT took Lily’s vitals while Lucy tried to keep her calm and Gerald hooked up a heart monitor. Lily kept trying to get out of her nightgown and into a skirt and a blouse. Lucy gently kept her still. She didn’t even listen as Gerald and the EMT talked to each other, doing what needed to be done, while Lucy tried to keep Lily’s attention. Lucy tried to think of questions to ask. But all she could think of were the creepy dolls, so she asked about them. Lily was able to tell her that she had been collecting dolls for fifty years, but within a sentence or two she stopped talking and could only hold Lucy’s hand tightly. Gerald was suddenly at her side with the gurney. They moved Lily onto the stretcher, with Lucy making comforting noises the whole time. They got her out of the mobile home and into the ambulance. Lily never let go of Lucy’s hand.
“Good job,” was all Gerald said with a smile as he hopped into the ambulance. Still, Lucy smiled back, her anger at Gerald easing a little. Maybe she could do this medic thing after all. She got back into her car and smiled with pride. Then stopped. She had no right to be proud of herself. None at all. So she had helped one old lady. That didn’t make up for the other one, who had died.
Ten minutes later, Lucy was parked in front of Patsy Burke’s house. The crime-scene tape was gone, probably taken by the wind. She tried to imagine Patsy Burke’s life—listening to the scanner, calling the paper. But all she could think of was her body slumped backward over the chair, her body contorted in death. Lucy shook her head to make the image leave. She tried to remember the Patsy Burke who was in the pictures that lined the walls—smiling, joyful, alive.
But Lucy couldn’t remember what Patsy Burke looked like. Had she had full gray hair or salt-and-pepper? Had her eyes been blue or brown? It bothered Lucy that she couldn’t remember. Patsy Burke deserved to be remembered. It was Lucy’s duty to remember. She owed her that much. In truth, she owed her so much more.
Lucy drove to the Capital Tribune office even though it was her day off. She knew how she could find out if Mrs. Burke’s eyes had been brown.
Gil set the groceries on the counter, eager to get out of the Strunks’ and find Pollack. Gil glanced through the kitchen door into the living room, where Ken Strunk was sitting on a couch. Strunk jumped up quickly and rushed into the kitchen with an exaggerated, “I could have helped you with the groceries, dear. Detective Montoya needs to get going.” But Gil had seen the couch—a light blue one with dark blue swirls—an exact match with the one Sandra Paine had been photographed on.
He tried to hide his surprise, forcing his face to be impassive, knowing that Strunk was watching him closely. He walked nonchalantly into the living room, which was decorated in pastels and watercolors. The couch matched the room perfectly.
“This is an interesting couch,” was all he said.
Mrs. Strunk piped up with, “Yes. It’s one-of-a-kind. I had it made to match the picture behind it.”
Gil glanced at the picture. It looked like something Therese might have drawn with her crayons. It had pink lines and green circles.
Gil pulled out his cell phone and said, “I think the state police are going to want to question you in more detail.”
“Are you sure that’s necessary?” Strunk glanced at his watch. “We have dinner plans soon.”
“Officer,” Mrs. Strunk said, copying her husband’s tone, “I believe we have given you enough time. The other police can stop by later. We have our lives to get back to.” She stood up, as if ready to escort him to the door.
“Actually, let’s wait for them,” Gil said.
Ken Strunk wasn’t a good enough actor to look confused. Gil called Pollack, who answered this time. Gil quietly talked into the phone so that the Strunks couldn’t overhear. He told Pollack, “I need you at the principal’s house,” then rattled off the address. Pollack didn’t ask why, only, “How fast do you want us there?”
“Now,” Gil said, before clicking his phone shut. He turned back to the Strunks and said, “Mr. Strunk, have you been on any long trips in your car lately?”
>
Ken Strunk looked disinterested and exasperated. “I told you we went to Las Cruces.”
“But not in your car. You went in your wife’s car.”
Mrs. Strunk looked bewildered. Ken Strunk answered quietly, “No. I haven’t been anywhere.”
“Just to work and back, no trips to the store or anything?”
Mrs. Strunk answered quickly, “I do all the shopping. He’s only been to work.” She seemed eager to say it, as if it would help.
“You know,” Gil said, “while we’re waiting, let’s get a better look at your car.”
He motioned both of them outside and had Strunk give him the keys. Gil peered into the open trunk, which had been vacuumed. No flecks of blood or a blanket used to wrap a body in. Gil went to the front of the car and reached in to turn on the ignition, careful not to touch anything else. He wished he had on a pair of latex gloves. The odometer lit up on the electronic dashboard. According to the oil-change sticker, Strunk needed to get his oil changed at 39,535 miles. Gil did the math in his head. This meant that on Monday, when he’d gotten the oil changed, his car would have had 36,535 miles on it. The odometer now read 36,765.
“Mr. Strunk, how many miles would you say it is from home to work?”
“About five, one way.”
“So, you drove about thirty miles total this week. You were in Las Cruces since Wednesday night, so your car has just been sitting here since then, is that right?” A state police car pulled up; they must have done ninety miles per hour to get there so quickly. Gil watched Pollack get out of the car as he asked Strunk, “Can you explain then why there’s an extra two hundred miles on your car?”
The exact number of miles it would take to drive to the Taos Gorge Bridge and back.
Maxine Baca heard the police drive away. She was left alone with the counselor, who kept wanting her to talk about the drugs. Instead, Maxine studied her hands, which were folded on the kitchen table, where she sat.
After Melissa was born, Maxine had thought that everything would be all right. She had served her penace. But her Anger Sickness hadn’t gone away. After a year, it was still with her, making her lose her hearing and feel pins and needles in her hands. The doctor said it was an imbalance left over from Melissa’s birth and all the blood Maxine had lost. But Maxine knew that something else was wrong. She saw the curandera in Española again, who made a circle around her three times with red carnations. Maxine went home with a hankerchief full of leaves from an orange tree and slept with them under her pillow. The next day she took the leaves back to the curandera, who told her what was wrong: Daniel was calling to Maxine. Maxine and the curandera spent weeks trying to reach him. Every day they would sit for hours on the floor until Maxine’s legs hurt. She would have to give Melissa a drink of NyQuil to make her sleep so that they could perform the ritual. Finally, after a month, Daniel spoke to them. He told her that he needed his drugs or he would get sick.
The next morning, Maxine asked Ernesto where people sold their drugs. He asked her why she wanted to know, and she told him. He looked at her, but didn’t ask her more about it. She drove over to the place Ernesto had told her about. She wasn’t scared. She wore the gold crucifix she’d gotten for First Communion for protection from the evil. A white woman whose hands shook handed Maxine some heroin for thirty dollars. Maxine watched a thin girl heat the drug in a metal spoon and inject herself with it.
Maxine went to the cemetery and took the heroin to Daniel’s grave. She carefully dug a hole on top of his grave and put the heroin in it with some holy water. She said a prayer over him to Our Lord and placed some flowers in the hole, too. She went back every few weeks to buy more drugs with some of the grocery money and buried those near his grave. But last year, the cemetery had put grass over all the graves. She had tried to dig through the grass, but one of the cemetery workers had yelled at her. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go to Española and ask the curandera what to do because the curandera had died. Maxine decided to bury the drugs in the backyard near where Daniel used to play. She would pray to him every time to tell him where to find them.
The counselor was saying something, but Maxine ignored her. She started praying the rosary in her mind, since she didn’t have her beads. She started the Carrying of the Cross, imagining herself holding the heavy cross on her back, the wood scratching her skin. She was walking slowly up a hill and the cross was getting heavy. The Roman soldiers were pushing Simon of Cyrene toward her, to have him take the cross. She pushed him away as hard as she could. But when he looked up, he had Melissa’s face, with cuts on her cheeks. Maxine stopped her prayers and opened her eyes. The counselor was on her cell phone.
Maxine made the sign of the cross, closed her eyes again, and said the Our Father, starting the Crucifixion.
She said a Hail Mary and thought of herself on the cross. Her hands started to shoot with pain from the nails the guards were pounding in. She turned to look at one of the guards, but it was Melissa, with her face covered in blood. Suddenly, Melissa was the one on the cross and the guards were nailing her to it. Maxine was far away, watching Melissa. Her daughter was screaming to her for help. She opened her eyes and crossed herself three times, wondering again what God was trying to tell her.
Gil stood in the Strunks’ driveway, waiting for the state police to return with a search warrant for the house and car. They had decided to also get a warrant for Mrs. Strunk’s car. Ken Strunk had stopped talking after the state police came and called his attorney. As Pollack had said, “He’s lawyered up.”
Pollack jingled the change in his pocket as he walked over to Gil.
“This is looking interesting,” he said with enthusiasm, eyeing Ken Strunk’s car while he said it. Mr. and Mrs. Strunk were sitting in the back of a state police car across the street. They weren’t technically under arrest yet.
One of the officers called over to Pollack, saying that the Strunks wanted to see him. Pollack went to the patrol car, opened the back door to talk to the couple, and crouched down.
He trotted back to Gil a few minutes later, chuckling. “Those people have some balls. They’re stupid balls, but still balls. Mrs. Strunk wanted to know if she would be outta jail by tomorrow because,” Pollack changed his voice to a falsetto, “she’s expected at a function with the mayor.” Pollack laughed. “I think she thought that would impress us. I’m impressed. Are you impressed?” Pollack stopped dead for a second and smiled. “I got an idea.”
He walked to the patrol car and spoke quietly to the officer, then came back to Gil and said, “Let’s have some fun.”
The officer escorted Mrs. Strunk out of the car and over to Pollack and Gil.
“Mrs. Strunk,” Pollack said in a tone that sounded exaggeratedly polite to Gil. “It occurred to me that you must be freezing in that car and that you might be more comfortable if we waited inside the house.” Mrs. Strunk glanced toward her husband. Pollack said, “He’ll be fine out here.”
She hesitated. Pollack said in the same tone, “You know, Mrs. Strunk, you’re not a suspect. We would just like to talk to you.” He added with a whisper and a smile, “But we’re really just using that as an excuse to get out of the cold.” Still she hesitated, then she nodded and the three went inside.
They sat at the kitchen table, and Pollack, all smiles, offered to make coffee.
“So, how long have you and your husband been married?” Gil asked.
Mrs. Strunk seemed to examine the question for tricks before she answered. “Four years.”
Gil could almost hear Pollack smiling behind him. That might be good news. If it had been twenty years, she might have been in too much denial to help them. If it had been only one, she might still be too infatuated with her new husband to betray him. But four was perfect. After four years, the shiny-new marriage would have given way to the everyday marriage. And everyday marriages are prone to cracks and leakage. Mrs. Stunk might have noticed the cracks but ignored them for the sake of the marriage. It was
their job to shine a bright light on those cracks.
“If you’ll pardon me for asking,” Pollack said, with the same false decorum, “but were you ever married before?”
Mrs. Strunk answered more quickly this time. “Yes. For ten years. I have a son who goes to UCLA.” Pollack made noises like he was impressed.
“And Mr. Strunk—does he have children?” Gil asked.
“He was married to this awful woman for thirteen years, but they never had children.”
“How’d you and Ken meet?” Pollack asked.
“We were at this gallery opening on Canyon Road, the Hewitt Gallery.” Pollack nodded like he knew it, but Gil was sure he didn’t. “The hostess introduced us.”
“How long was it before you two got married?” Pollack asked.
“We both decided that since we were older, a long courtship wasn’t necessary, so it was just a matter of months. Why waste time? We weren’t children.” She was starting to warm up to the conversation, not checking her words for flaws before she spoke.
“Did you meet his family before the wedding? Go on long vacations together to get to know each other?” Pollack asked, sounding casual.
She faltered. “No, not really. I just …” She stopped, then started. “I thought there’d be time for that after the wedding.”
Pollack said, “I can understand that. Of course.” He put the filter into the coffeemaker before saying, “You know, when you’re married kinda quick like that, there are bound to be some surprises.”
“Well, the normal things. Adjusting to home life together, trying to get our schedules to mesh.”
“This whole business must come as a shock,” Pollack said slowly.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“Did you have any idea that this was all going on?” Pollack asked.
“I’m not really sure what this is,” she said with some heat. “What can you tell me?”
The Replacement Child Page 23