by Manuel Ramos
She waved her hand at the couch signaling me to sit down. When I did, she disappeared into the next room.
“You want something to drink?” she hollered from around the corner of the wall. “A beer? Maybe some wine? I have an awesome Malbec.”
“You serious?”
She came back to the room, a bottle of red wine in her left hand.
“Why not? I told you and Móntez this was informal. I’ve had a rough day. I need a drink. You can join or not. Up to you.”
“I’m not much of a drinker anymore. But I’ll take a beer.”
When she finally sat down to take care of business, half of her glass of wine was gone and I’d taken a few healthy swigs of beer. Somehow, it slid down my throat easy and I remembered that at one time I’d actually enjoyed beer.
“I assume Luis told you about the second body that was probably in the house?”
“Yes. But I never saw a second dead person. I saw three people in that house. The woman, a tall guy in a hoody sweatshirt who drove a pickup truck and a man on the floor, bleeding from his head, probably dead.”
She nodded.
“Are you recording this, or taking notes, or what? How does this help me?”
She laughed. “Easy, Gus. I’ll put your responses in my report. The report goes to my supervisor, who talks to the detectives looking into the fire, which is now confirmed as arson by the way, and maybe they’ll want to talk to you.”
“What? I thought this was gonna end it.”
“If I put your name in the report, you know the officers on the case will follow-up. You know that.”
“Shit. Of course there was a catch.”
She finished her drink and poured another.
“Well, wait. Don’t get all heated up. I doubt there was a second body. The fire report says something like ‘indications of a second body.’ Could be anything. Don’t worry about it. These fire investigators tend to over-include, if you know what I mean. If I’m convinced that you don’t have any more involvement than what you’ve told me, maybe I can help. So far, I’m the only one who knows about what you saw and what you reported.”
She swirled her wine. She slipped out of her sandals, curled her feet under her butt and leaned forward. I thought she might fall off her oversized chair but she maintained her balance.
“What does the investigator, Montaño, know about me?”
She shook her head and set down the glass. “I didn’t tell him about you. I only went over what he’s found out so far. He’s the one who told me that there might’ve been two people killed in the house before the fire, but he’s just dotting i’s and crossing t’s. He doesn’t know about you.”
“Why would you do that?” The meeting with Domingo was looking more and more like a big waste of my time.
She smiled. “If you’re telling the truth, maybe there’s no reason to drag you into the full investigation.”
“I’m trying to understand.” I finished the beer. “What else do you need to know?”
She sat back and gave me a look I hadn’t seen in a long time. I calculated the risk of any involvement with the human relations cop. She gave off a vibe that in the past would’ve been all I needed to make a move. But I didn’t live in the past anymore.
“You didn’t really have to see me about this, right? I could’ve given you whatever you need on the phone.”
“Truth is, I want to get to know you better. Is that a mistake?”
That was a big mistake, I thought, especially with the old Gus Corral.
By the time she raised her arms and pulled the T-shirt over her head and her hair tumbled around her shoulders and a red blur flashed as she tossed the shirt against the wall, I was won over to the idea that no mistake had been made, and the old Gus Corral was gone. Not forgotten, but gone.
12 [Luis]
well I know, know my time ain’t long
The morning after Gus was supposed to meet with Ana Domingo, I arrived at my office early, not quite eight. I made coffee and opened a computer file for a client who had been especially needy. I hoped Gus also would come in early to review everything that he and Domingo talked about, and how she reacted. I hadn’t let on to Gus but I shared his anxiety about the meeting. I’d spent a fitful night regretting that I talked Gus into the second appointment with Domingo. I wanted things to work out—wishful thinking I guess—but deep down I doubted that I would be able to close the file on María Contreras.
I drank a quick cup of black coffee. I poured a second cup before I sat on the carpet and stretched my legs, twisted my torso and did a few other moves and poses designed to keep me limber. So far they hadn’t worked. I used the office restroom sink to splash water in my face, then dried with paper towels as vigorously as I could manage. Somewhere along the line, waking up had turned into a major endeavor.
I returned to my computer and forced myself to focus on the marital problems of Mrs. Viola Atencio, whose file lit up the screen.
In a few minutes I was deep into a divorce settlement agreement that no one, including my client, was happy about, trying to tweak the document so that it would be more palatable. I focused on the minutiae of a wrecked relationship that had become important, even vital, to Mrs. Atencio and her soon-to-be ex: holiday visits with the dogs, the outstanding balance of a joint wine-of-the-month club, a motorcycle that hadn’t been started in three years. For the thousandth time I said to myself that after retirement I would not miss divorces and divorce clients. Then I thought about it and accepted that, most likely, I would fondly remember these clients and cases. They’d been part of my identity for years, burned into my consciousness with the same intensity as any of the rocky memories and nostalgia I could dredge from any other part of my life.
A yellow note from Rosa stuck to my desk near the phone charger cord. “Your bar dues are past due. You get a reduced rate now because of your age, Mr. Senior Citizen. Should I cut a check?”
I whispered to no one in particular, “I’ll write the damn check myself.”
I didn’t expect to see María again. As far as I was concerned she was my ex-client, most likely a killer and a con artist on top of everything else. I was the guy she’d conned. I couldn’t escape that basic fact, and neither could the cops once their involvement turned into a murder investigation.
Several minutes passed with me alternating between hard work on language for the Atencio agreement and worry about Gus and my vanished client, María Contreras.
I was still alone in the office when I heard the main door open. I assumed it was Rosa, although she never showed up before nine.
“Mr. Móntez. Luis?”
I looked up into the tired and much older face of María Contreras.
I jumped up from my chair. She jerked back. I showed her my hands to let her know that I meant no harm.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I need to talk to . . . you, you.” I had a hard time hearing her. Her breath caught in her throat and she repeated thin words. “I think . . . think, I’m in trouble.”
“I think I’m in trouble.” How many times had I heard that sentence uttered by a client? The words usually meant business for me, another retainer and billable hours. Unlike most attorneys, sometimes—actually more often than I cared to remember—they meant a wild ride into a dark pit, for the client, me and anyone else unlucky enough to be involved in whatever the “trouble” turned out to be. This looked like one of those times.
She collapsed onto the leather chair. The woman was in bad shape. She slumped like a soggy clump of mud. Tangled and dingy hair framed bloodshot eyes that jumped from me to the door to the ceiling, back to me. Her hands and arms shook. I smelled urine and sweat.
Bruises circled her wrists and forearms. Jagged cuts and scrapes framed her eyes. Scabs dotted her fingers and neck.
“You want some coffee, or water?”
She nodded. “Coffee would be good. Yes . . . yes, please.” She grimaced as though speaking was painful.
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I fetched the pot and a cup from our break room. When I returned I thought she was asleep. Her eyes were closed and her chin rested in the palm of her right hand, which was propped on the side arm of the chair.
She stirred as I poured the coffee.
“You need a doctor. I can take you to an emergency room. You don’t look good at all.”
She shook her head. “No. I have to . . . tell . . .” Her lips quivered.
“Where have you been? What happened to you?”
She drank her coffee but most of it dribbled out the side of her mouth. “You won’t believe. I don’t . . . myself.”
“Try me. I need an explanation. You disappeared. I’ve been trying to find you since I last saw you. A lot has happened.”
She appeared to nod but she didn’t say anything.
“And you know about the fire at Valdez’s house? The police are looking into that. It’s not good for you.”
Still nothing from her.
“What’s going on? What are you mixed up in?”
She held the cup in both hands, resting on her lap. “I don’t know . . . where to . . . start.”
I breathed easier. She was going to talk. “Start with what happened after I told you the address for Richard Valdez. You remember that? What did you do? Where did you go?”
“‘Uh . . . that address. That was . . . uh, Sam’s.”
“Right. That house was your husband’s. Valdez was living in Sam Contreras’ house. And you didn’t know that? You were there the night he was killed. How do you explain that?”
I reached for the phone to call an ambulance.
Fear opened her half-closed eyes. “I . . . uh . . .”
She hyperventilated and groaned with each labored breath. She clutched her throat. The cup dropped in her lap and then bounced on the carpet. Coffee spread across her jeans and the floor. She slumped forward and fell on the spilled coffee. I rushed to her and felt for a pulse, checked for breathing. A thin line of white foam stretched from the corner of her mouth to her chin.
It happened so fast I couldn’t react. I heard the outer door open again.
“What the . . . ?” Rosa rushed in, dropped her purse and immediately tried CPR on Contreras. She worked intensely for several minutes but it was futile.
I punched 911 on my phone. “We have a medical emergency. Send an ambulance. We think the woman is dying. As quick as you can.” I kept talking until the dispatcher had all the information she needed.
When Rosa gave up she sat on the floor, leaning against my desk, a few feet from the dead woman.
“What happened, Luis?”
I looked around my office. Nothing about it had changed and yet it felt completely different. A dead client sprawled on the carpet. My overwhelmed secretary, also on the carpet, looked at me as though I finally had surprised her one too many times. I offered her my hand and helped her stand.
“I don’t know. She stumbled in here, looking like a ghost. We were talking when she collapsed. Then you walked in. You know the rest.”
We waited for the ambulance and the police. Gus never made it.
Part Two
Days of the Dead
13 [Gus] Six months later
I’m dead and buried
somebody said that I was lost
Corrine arranged the final sugar calavera on her altar. The red skull had “Gus” written across its forehead in black letters. It joined a dozen other skulls, life-size to miniature, Katrina figurines, muertos and mementos of dead people we knew or wanted to know—parents, uncles, aunts, abuelos, friends, coworkers and our own heroes. Corrine included photographs and trinkets that were supposed to remind us of something about the particular person’s personality. That explained the unopened cigarette packs, empty candy bar wrappers, laminated cover of People magazine and several other things that looked more like litter than altar decorations.
Corrine strategically set up a glossy of Ricardo Montalbán and Katy Jurado, the “all-time” Mexican actors according to her. Max contributed a signed photo of Chavela Vargas, Frida Kahlo’s girlfriend and idolized singer who had died recently at age ninety-three. After much nagging from Corrine to “do something for Day of the Dead,” I placed a magazine pic of Freddy Fender on the altar. She clicked her teeth and shook her head.
“Is the policewoman coming to dinner, after all?” she said. “Be nice if I could plan for the number of guests.”
I had no doubt that a dozen uninvited guests could drop in and they would end up fed to complete satisfaction. Corrine cooked enough food for her annual Día de los Muertos dinner to feed all the soldiers on one of Pancho Villa’s troop trains. The feast had great-party status among her circle of friends. For the meal, she rolled out platter after platter of enchiladas and tamales, and bowl after bowl of pozole, green chile, arroz and beans. The table included stacks of tortillas (maíz and harina), side dishes of roasted jalapeños, olives, chiles güeritos and serranos, lemons and limes, walnuts and almonds, pink and white sea salt, oregano, onion and cilantro. Bottles of beer, wine, tequila—the liquor usually carried skull labels—and a jug or two of fruit-infused water and Mexican hot chocolate. Pan de muerto, dead man’s bread, of course.
The diners brought dishes, too. The one dish that Max boasted about was her fideo, and there was always a bowl of the Mexican pasta, with tomato sauce and onions, on the table. Corrine’s dining table quickly maxed out and the guests followed a trail of serving dishes back to the kitchen if they wanted to sample everything. When we finished the main courses, desserts took center stage. Pies, empanadas, cakes, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, Jell-O, leftover Halloween candy, biscochitos. All to honor the dead.
“I can’t say yet. I told you, she doesn’t know if she has to work. That’s all I got.”
Corrine didn’t exactly approve of my ongoing relationship with the policewoman, as Corrine called her. Nothing surprising about that.
She set the time for the party at 4:00 p.m. That gave the guests about an hour and a half of talking, drinking and remembering before she began serving. The late afternoon start also meant that she had time to visit our parents’ graves in the Crown Hill Cemetery, where she left a vase of flowers, a few cookies for my father’s sweet tooth and a shot of tequila in a paper cup for my mother.
“Luis is coming, right?”
“Yeah, he’s for sure. When I gave him your invitation he went on about how no one used to know what Day of the Dead was all about, and now it’s practically as popular as Christmas.”
“Wh-a-a-t? Mexicans knew about it. Mom always put up a little altar when we were kids. What’s the lawyer talking about?”
“I think he meant in general. You know Móntez. He’s always going back to the days when things were different. He’s more and more like an old man every week.”
“I hope when I’m his age I’m as sharp as he is.”
“His mind’s okay, I think. His body, not so much.”
“Happens to us all.”
She rushed to the kitchen and her food. I went downstairs to my cave in the basement.
I called Ana.
“What’s up?”
“Still at the office,” she said. “But with a little luck I’ll get out of here in time for your sister’s dinner. Around six, you said?”
“Be better at five-thirty, even earlier if possible. We’ll be almost done eating by six.”
“Okay. I’ll do what I can.”
“Be nice to see you.”
“If I don’t make it, we can get together later, right? You coming over?”
“I think so.” I hadn’t figured out what our relationship was all about, other than we were both having a good time. She rushed through the next few seconds and hung up before I said much more. Our relationship, or whatever we had, was stuck on fast forward.
By the time Móntez arrived for the dinner I’d popped open and finished a couple of Mexican beers. My taste for booze was slowly returning. He sat down next to me on Corrine�
�s couch, where we listened to her homemade mix of Mexican oldies, watched a silent TV game show on her big screen and munched nachos.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “It’s about the Contreras thing.”
I hadn’t heard that name for a few months. After her heart attack in our office and the official conclusion that she died of natural causes, Luis and I passively let her case close. I didn’t think there was anything we could do to find out more about what she’d experienced, and nothing came of the investigation into the Westwood arson. Other than Ana and Luis, no one knew what I’d seen in the house before the fire.
My own investigation of María Contreras had hit the pause button. I looked into her background again, and learned a little more about Valdez. Nothing new. As a last step before I shut the file for the final time, I figured out where she actually lived. Her driver’s license address was a dead end and the fake address she gave Luis stalled me for about an hour before I dug up her real address online. It wasn’t that hard. I scoped out her house for three days, off and on, but I didn’t see anyone enter or leave. Finally, I visited María’s home late one night. Very late. I used some tricks I’d picked up in prison to open her back door and spent about twenty minutes looking for anything that might explain what she had going on in her life that involved Luis or me. The place felt damp and smelled musty. I hurried my search because of the uncomfortable feeling the place wrapped around me. I took a folder of papers related to the import business, a key that looked out of place in the folder, a few business cards from artisan shops and distributors in Mexico, and the insurance policy for Sam’s bar. The visit wasn’t a complete waste of time, but we didn’t end up with any more of an explanation.
“The police and the fire investigators know the fire was intentionally set, and a few think someone died in the house, maybe more than one person. But there’s no evidence, no proof. Nothing verifiable, at least.”