by Mary Feliz
“He didn’t have ID?” I knew that Stephen always carried his phone and wallet with him when he walked at night, and he was known to offer change and dinner money to homeless people who were in trouble. And Jason, at Christmastime, had made ID tags for all of us to attach to our running shoes or cycling gear to identify us in case of an emergency. I also knew that Stephen had an ICE app on his cell phone. The critical “in case of emergency” information that police often used to identify next of kin following an accident.
“We later found his empty wallet and cell phone tossed over the fence in back of the restaurant, but by that time we already knew who he was. He made an extra effort to deliberately delay identification, but he must have known we’d find out fairly quickly anyway. Because he’s a marine, his prints are in the FBI database. Identifying someone through their fingerprints normally takes hours, but he must have known he couldn’t keep his identity a secret for long.”
“So why hide it at all?”
“That’s what we were hoping you might tell us.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “And his shoes? He’s wearing a pair loaned to him by one of our officers. Mr. Laird’s shoes were covered with blood. They are at the county crime lab being tested.”
No one had shoes quite like Stephen’s. He’d had a too-close encounter with an IED in Afghanistan and had a distinctive gait as a result of his injuries. There would be no mistaking his footprints.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know the answers to any of your questions. I wish I did.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. McDonald.” She shook my hand and gave me her business card. “If you remember anything you think might help over the next few days, please let us know. We’re on the same side here. Our tech experts are working now to unlock his phone and see whether there are photos or contact information that will provide us with other details about what happened.”
I wasn’t sure about us being on the same side, but Stephen certainly wouldn’t have agreed with her. I didn’t want to make her my enemy, so I politely thanked her for her help, for letting me see Stephen, and for her service to the community.
As I left the building, Officer French Braid called out, “Have a nice day” from behind her desk and I waved to her as I let the door swing shut behind me. I raced to the car, not wanting to waste any time before reading Stephen’s note. I removed the scratchy pack of papers from my bra after looking carefully around the parking lot for anyone who might spot me rummaging in my underwear.
This Maggie McDonald, the one who had friends being held by the police, the one who just blew off questions from a detective and who’d been asked to keep secrets from friends, was someone I scarcely knew. But it looked like we were going to have to get acquainted quickly if I was going to keep my promises to Stephen.
The note was scribbled in pencil in tiny writing on what looked like endpapers torn from a worn mass-market paperback.
Dear Maggie,
Thanks for listening. Let me tell you as much as I can about what I think is going on. If, after you read this, you decide you don’t want to get involved, I’ll understand.
Rafi Maldonado is a 17-year-old junior at Orchard View High School. He works nights at the Golden Dragon. The restaurant owner, Mr. Xiang, pays him in cash. Rafi was born in the United States, but does not have a birth certificate because he was born at home. His mom was considered an illegal resident and has been deported, though based on what Rafi’s grandmother has told me, she may have been able to at least obtain a green card through her marriage to Rafi’s father, who is missing. Rafi and his two young half sisters live with his father’s mother. The grandmother is a citizen and owns her house. She has social security and a small pension from her late husband. Beyond that, Rafi is the sole provider for the family. He goes to school during the day, taking the minimum coursework required to graduate. Because his mother was deported, he doesn’t trust strangers or the government. Therefore, he has no access to public services. Neither do his sisters.
The grandmother claims that Rafi’s parents were married, but there is no documentation. His sisters have birth certificates because they were born in the hospital in Mountain View. Rafi’s father was serving in the military overseas when Rafi’s mom was reported as an illegal alien. The mother and grandmother didn’t have access to good legal advice. The military refused to help Rafi’s mom because she couldn’t prove she was married and she wasn’t mentioned in any of the father’s official paperwork.
The father vanished after leaving the military and no one knows where he is. Rafi’s grandmother took good care of the children when she was younger, but has been in poor health recently. A neighbor helps out, but the situation is spiraling out of control and Rafi is spread thin. He needs his job because he takes leftovers home to his siblings. What leftovers he doesn’t take home, he leaves outside the restaurant for the homeless people in the area. According to Rafi, Mr. Xiang knows he does this and approves but pretends he doesn’t know. He wants to have deniability in case leaving food out like that is a problem for the health department or any other government agency.
In fact, someone recently reported them to the health department, saying that leaving the food out has attracted rats. Rafi doesn’t think that’s true because he makes sure the place is clean and tidy before he goes home at night. Rafi thinks the problem is that the health inspector and whoever reported him thinks of the homeless people as vermin. The official let Mr. Xiang off with a warning and muttered something under his breath about how the only way to get rid of them was to poison them or shoot them. Rafi didn’t think he was talking about any actual rats.
Rafi has continued to leave food out, but now has to stay later to clean up the food before he leaves. I found him one night last month dozing on the back stairs of the restaurant, coughing hard and holding his chest. I gave him a lift home, and since then, I’ve been helping the family out a bit, trying to get a birth certificate for Rafi and working to convince them to connect with social services. I’ve provided groceries, transportation, and medication.
On Wednesday, I had a late meeting at the VA and stayed to play poker with a group of injured vets. It’s a regular gig and I sometimes give other folks a lift home, so I drove my car rather than walking.
But both Munchkin and I were restless so we stopped on the way home to take a walk around Cuesta Park and the nearby neighborhoods, including the alley behind the Golden Dragon. We came upon two scumbags roughing up Rafi outside the restaurant. Munchkin and I intervened but they beat on us too.
I stopped reading and took a breath. I looked up and was surprised to find that it was still light out and that I was still in the police parking lot. I’d become so immersed in Stephen’s note that I’d lost track of both time and place. But the idea that Stephen and Munchkin had been beaten knocked me back into the real world. I knew enough about Stephen to know that along with being a marine he was ex-special operations. I imagine he could easily defend himself from the average thug, even if he was outnumbered. I knew that Munchkin would do anything to protect Stephen. But I also knew that Stephen carried no weapons and seldom used force.
I read on.
The men had knives and Rafi at one point mouthed the word gun. I submitted to the beating because I realized that if the men were concentrating on me and Munchkin, they’d leave Rafi alone. I also wanted to get a sense of who they were. Often the best way to do that is to see how a guy fights. These two were strong, but undisciplined and untrained. They were likely low-level gang members, independent operators, or just your basic lowlife opportunists looking for some quick money.
At some point, we all heard sirens and the men ran off. Rafi was badly beaten but refused to stay to help the police or get a ride to the hospital. He insisted on going home to give his sisters the leftover food he’d saved for them. Rafi seemed to recognize the bad guys, but wouldn’t tell me anything more. Not that night anyway. There wasn’t time.
He thinks they were coming
for Mr. Xiang because he’s been feeding the homeless. I’m convinced there’s more to the story. I can’t believe someone would kill another person over something like feeding vagrants. And there’s been tension among the businesspeople here, as though they’re being stalked and don’t feel safe in their own shops after hours. I don’t know who we can trust, but I do know that Rafi needs to be protected. The bad guys know he can identify them and are likely to return to finish him off. He also needs protection from the police, at least temporarily. I’ve been working on getting documentation for him, and believe we’ll ultimately be successful, but right now I’m afraid that the first thing the police would see is that he’s nearly 18 and without papers. I fear they’d deport him before he could set up any kind of safety net for his grandmother and his sisters.
What I need you to do is to check in on Rafi and his family and make sure they’re safe. If you’re willing, I’d like you to help Rafi finish the work on his papers so that, after he’s fully documented, he can safely go to the police and tell his story. Better yet, he may be able to point to other witnesses who could testify about what happened on Wednesday night so that he can stay out of it.
Here’s what I know so far about what happened: Rafi came to work late on Wednesday because his grandmother had fainted at home. A neighbor named Alejandra took the grandmother, Gabriela, to the hospital, where they treated her for dehydration. Rafi stayed at home with the girls until his grandmother and Alejandra returned. The discharge nurse at the hospital was concerned about Gabriela’s ability to care for herself but Alejandra assured her she’d look in on the family and help out. Alejandra told Rafi that social services might be stopping by to check on the girls. Rafi is worried that the family will attract too much attention and that the authorities will put his sisters in foster care and deport him.
After Rafi got his sisters and grandmother settled on Wednesday night, he went to work at the Golden Dragon as usual. He found Mr. Xiang in the open doorway of the refrigerated storage room. Rafi tried to help Mr. Xiang and was soon covered with his blood. He heard the thugs breaking into the cash register in the front of the restaurant, saying that they knew there must be gold hidden in the restaurant somewhere. Rafi tried to pull Mr. Xiang into the refrigerated storage unit, secure the door, and call the police. But he couldn’t budge the body. He ran, but slipped in the blood. The thugs heard him, chased him, caught him in the alley, and beat him, urging him to tell them the combination to Mr. Xiang’s safe. That’s when Munchkin and I arrived.
Later, when I asked Rafi what he was going to do, he said his grandmother’s younger brother lived outside Sacramento and might take him in. I gave him my car keys and told him to go.
I went back into the restaurant and tried to figure out how to prove Rafi’s innocence. But before I could do much of anything, the police arrived, saying that they received an anonymous phone message reporting a “disturbance” at the restaurant. I think the caller must have been a witness. The police have probably already figured out where that tip came from. Since they’ve got me locked up, I don’t know how interested in pursuing that lead they’ll be. But if you can find the witness I think the whole problem will go away quickly. She could be an older homeless woman I’ve seen often who wears long skirts and braids and hangs out in Cuesta Park at night. I don’t know where she is during the day.
The police brought me in, but I haven’t said anything. I want to delay the investigation and keep it focused on me so that Rafi has time to get away and establish his innocence and his citizenship—but he needs help to do that. I’m hoping that you’ll be willing to call the phone numbers below. They are the people who ’ve been helping to document Rafi’s citizenship and may be close to a solution.
Please don’t let Jason know any of this. Jason’s sense of responsibility to me and to the police force would put him on a plane back here in an instant, and he has a job to do in Texas. People are depending upon him. Like any husband, he’s adept at reading me. I can’t lie to him. He’ll pull strings to get me out, which will endanger Rafi and his family.
As long as the Mountain View Police believe they have the right guy, they’ll leave Rafi alone.
I know Rafi. He’ll turn himself in as soon as he knows he won’t be deported. The police will be able to investigate thoroughly and I’ll be off the hook.
You will help, won’t you? Please?
I folded up the papers slowly and thought about what to do. I felt confined in the car and decided to walk around a bit. I opened the door and stood, shaking a little from what I assumed was an adrenaline rush brought on by the enormity of the task Stephen had set for me.
I needed to clear my head, figure out my next steps, and regroup. If I didn’t, I knew I’d be useless to anyone, ineffectively chasing shadows as I grew more frantic. I took a few deep breaths, stretched, and set out for the peaceful park behind the library about three blocks away. I checked my watch. It was a little past noon, though I felt I’d been inside the police station all day.
Everything I’d learned to count on in my new hometown had been turned on end. If Stephen Laird could be in jail, nothing I thought I knew about Orchard View, its inhabitants, or the surrounding towns could be true. Stephen’s note had a paranoid tone that wasn’t like him. Yet, I was confident that if he sensed that the downtown business owners were uneasy, he was right. Stephen always seemed to know when members of the community needed help. The whole situation needed looking into, but it also seemed far too nebulous to alert the police. For the first time, I realized how lucky our little town of Orchard View was to have Stephen and Munchkin patrolling the streets, getting to know everyone, and providing an early-warning system for when the police might need to step in. Stephen’s access to Jason’s law enforcement connections and expertise gave Orchard View an opportunity to resolve many problems long before they would ordinarily come to the attention of law enforcement.
But, for now, with Jason away, Stephen in jail, and Munchkin at the vet, I was going to take over that role without being able to ask Jason or Stephen for advice. I wasn’t sure I could handle the job, but I had to try.
I squared my shoulders, put my hands on my hips, and took a deep breath, trying to attain the superhero pose. I’d read articles in various popular magazines and online that the stance engendered self-confidence that could help with public speaking and job interviews. It was worth a try.
For now, though, I only needed to accomplish one step. If I could do that, and then the next and the next, I might be able to succeed without scaring myself to death in the process. First, I hoped that Jason would become so wrapped up in his work in Texas that he would be unable to phone me and wouldn’t think about how long it had been since he’d heard from Stephen.
I still felt wobbly and shell-shocked from the news of the murder of Mr. Xiang so close to home, and Stephen and Rafi’s proximity to the violence. I needed to let the news sink in before I could talk sensibly on the phone to any of the people on Stephen’s list, which included Forrest Doucett, a defense lawyer, and Nell Bevans, his associate who was researching Rafi’s immigration status and looking into Rafi’s father’s whereabouts and history to determine benefit eligibility for Rafi and his sisters. And I needed to learn more about Mr. Xiang, why at least one member of the community wanted him dead, and why the men who’d broken into his restaurant suspected he’d hidden gold on the premises.
My stomach growled. I needed food. Comfort food. No one can solve a murder on an empty stomach. While I ate, I’d jot down a plan of attack that would include phone calls to Forrest and Nell. I hoped I’d be able to figure out how I could break this enormous problem into bite-size pieces.
Though the best burger joint in the area was less than a mile from the police station, I walked back to my car and drove to the restaurant, thinking it would save time later to have the car with me. Before I’d gone a single block, I remembered that Paolo must know something, since he was the one who’d told me Stephen was at the police stat
ion. I called and left a message telling him I was stopping at Clarke’s for a burger and fries. If he called me back quickly, I’d order food for him. If not, he could meet me there.
The smell of the place greeted me before I had time to park the car. For a meat eater and junk-food junkie like me, the smell was heaven. Long-time area residents told me they could smell charbroiled meat in the air here even when the tiny A-frame restaurant was closed. Whether the aroma had seeped into the building’s beams over the past seventy years or their clientele had imaginations that had been trained over decades of burger consumption, I didn’t know. As my stomach growled again, though, I knew it was the comfort food I needed.
Inside, a few stools snuggled up to a bar that hugged the walls on three sides. But I only knew that because I’d been here before. The room was so packed, I took my place in what I hoped would at some point coalesce into a line and draw me toward the counter where I could place my order. I made up my mind to order enough for Paolo. No way would I get a chance to talk to him if he had to wait in this line. If he didn’t show, I’d take the food home where my boys would make quick work of it.
The crowd was made up of burly construction workers, khaki-clad techies, lawyers in suits, and high school kids with backpacks. The press toward the counter never thinned, but there were at least six employees working with practiced moves that delivered meals more quickly than I would have thought possible. My turn came and I ordered two basic burgers that turned out to be thicker and larger than my palm. I grabbed a tray that was filled close to overflowing once I added the fries and drinks.
I made my way back through the crowd without dumping my food on anyone’s suit, though I had to laugh when a hand crept out to steal a fry from my tray. A young suit-clad worker yanked his hand back quickly and blushed in chagrin. “Sorry, I . . .”