Angel Among Us (14 page)

In the living room, even his own television set blared his guilt. He had been seeking information on his wife and found only condemnation of himself. I watched Lindsey Stanford reigning supreme over the cable airwaves for a few moments. Maggie's ex-husband, Skip Bostwick, sat next to her, looking unnaturally handsome in a tailored suit and crisp white shirt. A forensic expert and psychologist framed them. Everyone looked very earnest and self-satisfied. There was apparently no shortage of people willing to speculate on how Danny Gallagher had gotten away with murder.

It is difficult to get a reading of a person off a television screen. It is the perfect medium for disguising who or what you really are. It is all about appearances and it does not favor substance. But I wanted to find out what the real Lindsey Stanford was like. I wanted to know why she felt compelled to condemn people she did not know, why she could not wait and let the justice system do its job, how she lived with herself after so many instances of being wrong and destroying lives without any evidence at all, with only the motivation of higher ratings to drive her. Did she really believe that she was morally superior or did her self-righteousness come from some sort of void within?

The show ended and I went in search of Lindsey Stanford, needing to know what drove her to destroy Danny Gallagher. There are only two hotels that a person with more than a few bucks to spend would choose when visiting my town. The most expensive is a small hotel built near the interstate with a spa to keep the mob wives happy while their husbands spend time in Atlantic City. I suspected Lindsey Stanford would be there.

I waited in the lobby, watching late-night travelers return to their rooms, tipsy and infatuated with each other. About an hour after midnight, she walked in the door, her stocky frame seeming to demand that others make way for it. She looked exhausted and her heavy television make-up only accentuated her coarse features. She kept her head down and headed straight for the elevator. I hopped in for the ride.

She kept jabbing the floor button until the doors shut – she was not the kind of person who waited patiently for anything. She wanted it all and she wanted it now. Up close, she mostly felt angry, although I could not tell if the anger was directed at herself or at others. Her memories were a kaleidoscope of people who had ignored or offended her, and her emotions tainted by a constant need for revenge. No wonder her face always looked so contorted as she ranted about the need to put a suspected killer to death – her whole being had been poisoned with resentment. Her soul was steeping in it. I would not want to live in her skin, not even for a day, and I was glad when the elevator stopped on the top floor and she barreled out, angry the ride had taken so long.

Of course, she was staying in the penthouse. Lindsey Stanford would never settle for less. She flung open the door and inspected the room, finding disfavor with it although it was immaculate, immense and completely over the top. Her suitcases had been brought up and unpacked for her. She had fresh ice in a bucket, bottled water nearby and a bottle of champagne on ice waiting just in case she wanted it. There was a fruit basket on a desk which she tore open and inspected with the greed of a child, selecting a box of chocolate-covered cherries. She ate them so quickly she barely stopped to chew. This was a woman intent on proving the world wrong about her – but so filled with self-loathing she could not take care of herself.

A stack of newspapers waited on a desk and she flipped through them quickly, hungry for news about herself. Done, she tossed the papers into a trash can and looked around as if there had to be somewhere better she could go. Yes, I thought to myself, this was a woman who was always running away from herself.

A soft knock at the door diverted her attention. She did not seem surprised to hear it. She did not seem excited, either. She glanced briefly in the mirror, rearranged her helmet of hair, then peered out the peephole and opened the door.

Skip Bostwick stood in the hallway holding two bottles of red wine and a box of expensive chocolates. I would have needed two bottles of tequila to do what I was pretty sure he was about to do.

‘Heard you like these,' he said, handing her the candy. She took it and stared at him, blatantly evaluating whether he would be worth her time.

He raised the bottles of wine and smiled, revealing perfect teeth. ‘It's the new Beaujolais. No one else has it.' God, how had Maggie been able to live with such a self-satisfied twit?

Lindsey Stanford grunted and opened the door wider. I guess that was her idea of gracious. As old Skippy walked inside, she stared at him from behind, gauging how well he was built.

Now, I am no stranger to seedy encounters. I have had my share of meaningless nights trying to forget myself in the sweaty embrace of an equally frantic stranger. But this? This seemed as passionate as an ATM transaction. He wanted a leg up for his career, she was bored and looking for something to distract her from herself.

I fled. It was the last thing on earth I wanted to see.

B
ack at the church, a terrible lottery of sorts was being held. Father Sojak was huddled with the nuns in the hallway outside the basement room where the refugees were hidden, whispering. The oldest nun was unhappy with her priest.

‘If you send him there, they will arrest him,' she told Father Sojak. ‘They don't care about where his wife may be. They're looking for someone to blame.'

Father Sojak looked stricken. ‘We have no choice,' he said. ‘We have to give them someone or they will come back around here, looking harder, and if they do that then you know they will find all of them.'

‘Can't we claim we are giving them sanctuary?' the youngest of the nuns asked. She was so nervous that her voice was shaking.

‘Not in this day and age,' the oldest nun said bitterly. ‘We'll be lucky we don't all get arrested for it.'

‘We knew what we were getting into,' the third nun said. She sounded quite at peace with her conscience. ‘I am not afraid of being arrested. We are doing the right thing.'

‘No one is getting arrested,' Father Sojak promised. ‘Rodrigo assures me that Aldo is willing to go to the police.'

‘Only because he is desperate to find his wife and he actually thinks they might help him,' the old nun insisted.

Father Sojak held up his hands for peace. ‘It has been decided. There is nothing else we can do. Aldo must go to the police.'

‘That's not enough,' the youngest nun said timidly. She flushed when everyone turned to look at her. ‘I understand that we must hide the existence of these people from the police, but what if one of them knows something that might help the police? What if one of them might lead them to Arcelia? She is our friend. We must help her. We can't take the chance that anything is overlooked.'

The others, perhaps too old to understand how dear friendship could be to a lonely nun isolated from other women her age, thought about it in silence. At last Father Sojak spoke. ‘I suppose we could interview all the refugees ourselves and see if they know anything,' he said. ‘If they do, we'll just have to figure out a way to bring it to the attention of the police.'

‘All three of us know Spanish,' the old nun agreed, looking at her peers. ‘Together, we should be able to question at least thirty to forty people every night. If we hear anything useful, we will let you know.'

Just as the other nuns nodded their agreement, the door to the underground room opened and a small, frightened-looking Mexican man stepped out. Rodrigo, the gardener at the Delmonte House, entered the hallway after him, gently pushing his brother forward toward the waiting nuns. ‘My brother's English is bad,' Rodrigo explained. ‘I will accompany him to the police station and interpret.'

‘I'm sure the police will have an interpreter,' Father Sojak said.

Rodrigo looked at him with calm eyes. ‘I will not let my brother go alone.'

‘Understood,' Father Sojak acknowledged. ‘My car is ready. It is best we go now.'

Although Aldo had yet to say a word, he was shaking and that told me he understood what lay before him. How badly he must have been worried about his wife to risk deportation. His only hope, I knew, was that he somehow had seen or heard something that might lead the police to whoever had taken Arcelia Gallagher and, most probably, his wife. If he proved useful, perhaps they would show him some mercy – or at least keep him around long enough to testify if they caught the culprit.

I had not counted on Gonzales. I should have known that after a lifetime of trying to rise above his heritage and lay claim to power that only white men had enjoyed in our town before him, the commander would be the last person likely to show an illegal immigrant any mercy. Gonzales was determined to prove that he was not one of them and, so, he turned out to be the harshest of them all on Aldo Flores. He stood on the other side of a one-way mirror, in a small room where detectives sometimes gathered to monitor the interrogation sessions on the other side. He was alone in the room, except for me, and I drew no more attention from him than I had when I was alive. Maggie and Calvano sat in the interrogation room on the other side of the window, looking exhausted. Calvano's usually impeccable clothes had started to wilt and Maggie had deep circles under her eyes. Aldo and Rodrigo Flores sat across from them, side by side in solidarity. An interpreter from the department sat at the end of the table and a camera was recording the interview just in case.

‘Are you sure your brother does not want a lawyer?' Maggie asked Rodrigo.

‘He has agreed to talk now,' Rodrigo said. ‘He does not need a lawyer.'

Maggie and Calvano both looked uneasy. They both knew that anyone connected to this case, however remotely, needed a lawyer. The whole town was on a hunt to blame someone for the loss of Arcelia Gallagher and if they could not pin it on her husband, they would find someone else to blame. They could not, of course, turn down Aldo's offer to talk without a lawyer present. No detective could.

Aldo Flores looked as if he might faint dead away at any moment. He was sweating and his right leg would not stop tap-tap-tapping on the floor. His eyes were wide with fear. He clutched a small cloth hat in both hands, wringing it out like it was a washcloth. The guy was absolutely terrified. Calvano tried to put him at ease. He assured him they were not from Immigration and that he should not worry about that. But nothing he, nor anyone else could say, served to calm the man.

His brother was far more confident, and I wondered how accurately Rodrigo translated his brother's stumbling answers. I wondered if he was shading them at all in an attempt to help Aldo, who looked far too frightened to exercise caution. But I did not speak Spanish and I could not tell. The official translator kept a neutral expression on her face at all times and seldom interrupted Rodrigo's translations of his brother's words. It was impossible to tell how she felt about the situation. But what emerged from the conversation did little to either help Aldo establish his innocence or encourage the police to find his wife.

In halting sentences and bursts of information that later had to be put in proper sequence, the story that emerged was this: Aldo and his wife had arrived in the States three months before, with his wife six months pregnant at the time. It had been a difficult pregnancy. She was frightened and did not like America. It was too cold, it was too different, it was too far from her family. On top of that, she was still suffering from sickness each morning that lasted nearly all day. Worse, Aldo confessed with downcast eyes, she kept saying that she did not want the child, that she was afraid she would not know how to take care of it. She had soon transformed from a loving wife who would take the bus to bring her husband lunch each day to a woman he scarcely knew. Aldo had visited the church seeking help and Father Sojak had recommended that Aldo's wife talk to Arcelia Gallagher.

Arcelia had helped his wife so much, Aldo told the police. She had calmed his wife down and explained that all new mothers were nervous, but that she would love her child when it came and find it in herself to be a wonderful mother. Arcelia had promised the woman that life in America would get better and that there was no better place for her to raise her child.

Aldo's wife had returned from her visit to Arcelia Gallagher saying that everything was going to be OK. Aldo had seen great improvement in her after that. His wife had started to look forward to their baby's birth and begun discussing names with him. But then, a little over a week ago, she had left the house one night – to go to the store, she said, because she wanted a mango, but it had to be ripe and only she could pick it out. She had returned a half-hour later, flustered, without any fruit. Aldo had chalked it up to her being pregnant and changing her mind. But that night, he felt her tossing and turning all night long. Neither one of them had gotten much sleep.

He had gone to work the next day. When he returned home that night, his wife was gone. Unlike Arcelia Gallagher, she had taken at least one thing with her – a small suitcase filled with a few articles of clothing. But she had left no note and no clue as to where she was headed.

It made no sense, Aldo Flores insisted, she was to have a baby any day now and the doctors had been arranged. There was a clinic where she could go that did not ask any questions. They had discussed it at length and were happy their baby would be born with doctors on hand. Why would she leave under those circumstances? Aldo was sure something terrible had happened to her.

He had not known where to turn for help, Aldo told Maggie and Calvano. And although his brother hesitated to translate the words, it became apparent that Aldo had visited Arcelia Gallagher at school the day after his wife disappeared, asking her for help in finding his wife. Which meant the little Mexican boy in Arcelia's class had been right after all – she had been talking at the fence to a man with hair and skin like his.