Birthdays of a Princess (16 page)

Since that scary night in the shelter when Katrina had hit the coast
I was terrified of storms. Strong winds and rain turned me into a gibbering
nit-wit. In the days leading up to Ike’s landfall, clouds darkened the sky,
driven by furious gusts. I wanted to hide in my room, in my bed, under my
blanket, but nowadays Gracie locked my room during the day so I couldn’t get in.
She had argued with Mom that I needed to stop shutting myself away. I needed to
be more
out-going
—funny choice of words that was.

So I spent the hours curled up on the narrow kitchen bench, shaking
uncontrollably. I couldn’t articulate what I felt, I was simply beside myself
with fear.

Mom sat glued to the TV. To hear those constant warnings and see
frantic evacuees, packing their belongings in haste, leaving our neighborhood,
didn’t exactly calm her down either. Mom had been packing all morning long,
waiting for Gracie to get back. When she finally did, Gracie laughed at her.

“Have you lost our marbles? The mandatory evacuation order is only
for the Island, we live off the coast, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Mom told Gracie what she’d heard on TV. They were evacuating more
than a hundred-thousand, so it couldn’t just be Galveston Island. I think she
was nearly as panicky as I was.

“Sure,” Gracie said, “we go if you feel so strongly about it,
eventually, but I’ve got one important session lined up for Tia this afternoon.
I can’t really cancel that one.”

The wind was rattling on our tin roof when she said that. I thought
its roaring power would rip it off and then suck me out. It would hurl me into
space and then drop me back to the ground. I would crash and burst like a pumpkin.

Mom actually stood her ground for all of ten minutes. She argued
that it was way too dangerous to wait much longer, and if Gracie ventured out
there for a session as if no hurricane was approaching, she’d be stuck in this
house all be herself, with no way to leave if things got worse.

“I’m the one with hurricane experience,” Gracie said. “Hurricane
Carla in 1961 was much bigger than Ike, and my parents hadn’t left then either.
And what about Hurricane Gustav earlier this month? That had blown over with
hardly a dent. God, the authorities always panic, they have to, so they won’t
get sued later on. We’re safe here.”

“But the studio is in Texas City,” Mom said, in a last desperate
effort to change Gracie’s mind, “that’s even closer to the coast than La Marque.”

It was in vain. Gracie got her Princess Tia bag, took my hand and
dragged me out of the house. After the initial half-hearted struggle, I went
limp. The short distance from the house to the car was a walk to the
gallows—often enough portrait in those old history movies, when the innocent is
dragged to his death. Halfway there he turns all calm, accepting his fate.

We drove out of Azalea Lane and onto the highway, turning south. I
can still see all the cars bumper to bumper in the north-heading lanes, ours
empty. Everybody tried to leave the coast—everybody, except Gracie and me.
Gracie didn’t have the radio on. She didn’t want to know.

She stopped at the Island View Motel, saying we wouldn’t be doing
the session in the studio, we’d do it in here. The motel smelled moldy like all
cheap hotels close to the ocean do. They had boarded up all windows with
plywood planks, so it was dark inside. Only some dim lights guided us to the
room at the end of the hallway—all the way down.

The pattern of the carpet, entwined golden leaves and vines on solid
burgundy, was only recognizable along its borders; the middle part, the one I
was staring at while trudging along, had long ago faded into a dirty brown
beaten path.

We got to our room, which felt as shabby as the carpet. It was
dominated by a large bed with a purple spread so shiny it looked like plastic.
Same entwined gold leaves. Gracie said I should sit on it, she’d make me up for
the session now. I looked around. No photographer friend, but there was a
double door with a slide lock. She unlocked this door and explained that the
session would happen in the next room.

The wind got stronger. I could hear it rattling the plywood
safety-shutters. A wild creature, trying to get to the hidden prey. Me.

Most of what Gracie said while she changed my dress and slapped some
color on me got lost in the raucous cacophony of screeching and whistling and
rattling. The storm-beast increased its efforts to dig into my lair.

Gracie was in a hurry to finish.

“You stay here now and wait until somebody comes to get you.”

I started to cry.

”You be a good girl.” Her voice sounded quivery. “You be a good girl
and it’ll all be over before you know it.”

 “Gracie, don’t go.”

Gracie stiffened inside my vise embrace then pried herself out of it,
shaking a little. My thin arms can’t hold her.

“Pull yourself together,” she said. “You’re a big girl now. Just
wait until somebody gets you.”

With that she left me. I’m all alone. Who will get me? The storm?
The monster? The demon creature? I wait, shivering and scared to death.

Suddenly, a huge bang, like an explosion, like thunder, really
close. The light on the bedside table goes puff, total darkness engulfs me.

Now I cry. Stanley touches my arm, I recoil. The unexpected caress
is more than I can handle. I sob even harder.

“She left me alone in the dark. There was nothing, not even a shape.
Pitch black. I was, I was—” I can barely speak. “I was all alone in the dark.”

Very gently—without touching me—Stanley tells me to take my time.
But I can see it in his face, he wants to know what happened next.

So do I.

“I don’t remember anything after that,” I say. “It’s all black.”

Chapter
39

When it comes to crimes, Vancouver is like every other big city; it
doesn’t sleep. Another shooting had occurred, in South Vancouver, this time a
thankfully easy case. Two rival gangs were spiraling out of control. They shot at
each other in broad daylight, and plenty of witnesses had seen the attacker’s
car speed off after fatally wounding one gang member.

Sergeant Tong assigned Macintosh and Harding to the South Vancouver
case. It didn’t need much police work to reconstruct the case, but it would
still result in loads of paperwork, time-consuming but necessary to supply the
courts with enough munitions to convict those sleazy suburbia-terrorists.

This was on top of the cases they were already dealing with. Tiara’s
was slipping into obscurity faster than a politician caught cheating on his tax
return. Macintosh felt the pressure. He knew he couldn’t let go of the Princess
case. Tiara deserved better—hell,
he
deserved better than going into
retirement with a half-baked case that would send an already troubled girl into
an uncertain future. Whatever she had done, she deserved better than the
judicial system chalking it up to juvenile crime. And he deserved better than
sitting alone in his country home wondering where it had gone wrong. He really
had to try harder, but where to find the time?

He was half-heartedly shuffling some documents around when Harding
approached his desk with a distinct spring in his step.

“Found the aunt!”

Harding placed a file on Macintosh’ desk and sat down. The chair
creaked precariously.

“Shit, you got to do something about this chair before somebody
breaks his neck. I’m a featherweight in comparison to our average detective
around here.”

Macintosh opened his hands like a saint. “Don’t worry, if you break
yours, it’s early retirement.”

“Is that all you ever think about—retirement?”

“Gone hunting! That’s what’s written on my door. Nine months and three
days and counting.”

He tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling.

“I’ll get up north, start breathing fresh air, go for long walks in
the mountains, actually see the sun rise and set again, and eat moose roast and
deer stew with vegetables from my own garden. Don’t be jealous, your time will
come.”

“And until
your
time has come, use your hunter’s instinct for
the job at hand. We found her.”

Macintosh moved back in position.

“Great. Tell.”

Harding took a seat and opened the file.

“I figured an aunt in Texas would most likely be a relative from the
father’s side. So I asked Josh to look into that. It took him a few days, with
the guy being dead for so long, there wasn’t really much to go on. But good old
Josh sent a request to the Military and a Miguel Rodriguez was listed under the
same address Melissa Brown gave us initially, you remember, the Caroline Road
one that doesn’t exist anymore. He had only one sibling, a sister. Her name is
Graciella Rodriguez. Josh routinely ran her name through the system and came up
with a few very interesting facts.”

Macintosh settled back in his chair, enjoying the moment. Maybe a
few details would begin to make sense now.

“After she moved from the Galveston home, her driver’s license
states her address as 4341 Azalea Lane, La Marque.” Harding tapped on the
address written on the top sheet of his file. “That’s a town north of
Galveston, south of Houston. There is no official record of a Melissa or Tiara
Brown at this address, but I checked the registry of the Little Miss Texas
Beauty Pageant online for the years 2000 to 2010 and found a Tia Rodriguez
listed as a participant in 2006 with the La Marque address. She didn’t win that
year, so there’s no picture of her online, but it’s fair to say that Tiara and
her mother were living there with Graciella, at least in 2006.”

“It’s a good start.”

“It’s more than a start.  I told you Josh has run Graciella
Rodriguez’ name through the system, and guess what, she was under suspicion for
drug trafficking in 2002. Wasn’t convicted though, not enough evidence. Nothing
after 2002. She must have been especially careful, or exceptionally lucky,
unless she stopped altogether. And you know as well as I do that this is rarely
the case.”

Macintosh nodded. “Hang on a second.”

The two detectives had worked many cases and had solved more than a
fair share. While Harding sniffed out the details, Macintosh took a more
panoptic approach. All his senses had been sharpened by hunting game in the
wild since he’d been old enough to hold a rifle. He could connect the noises
and smells and know where a deer broke through the bushes before it became
visible. He and Harding had different ways of drawing their conclusions, yet
they always reached the same. So Harding waited.

After a full minute, Macintosh’s face opened up. “The victim. In St
Paul’s. She’s Hispanic, right?”

“Right.”

“So,” Macintosh grinned. “Could be our victim is Graciella
Rodriguez.”

Several hours later they were waiting at the reception of busy St
Paul’s Hospital. Alien metallic equipment sounds and hectic caregiver
activities circumfluent them as if they were in the vortex of a hurricane.  All
this clanking and cluttering, chatting and yelling and rushing seemed like a
mad army’s futile defense, while in fact it was a well-orchestrated survival
symphony.

The station’s head nurse marched toward them to defend her castle.
Up in invisible arms, protected by an armor of discretional powers she, and she
alone, was to decide who would be permitted to speak to the patient in her care.

“The doc told us you’d wake her up soon,” Macintosh said.

“So?”

“So, did you?”

Her nodding was a rebuttal.

 “We only have a few questions,” Macintosh insisted.

“Being out of a coma doesn’t mean she can be put under stress. She’s
lost a lot of blood, has suffered a cardiac arrest, and has had major surgery.
Her vital functions don’t need to be supported any longer, but we don’t know
the extent of possible brain damage. CT is scheduled later on this week.”

“Has she said anything at all?” Macintosh asked.

“Of course not. I told you, she’s not coherent yet. And even if she
would be, she can’t speak. She’s got an endotracheal tube inserted.”

“How much longer?”

“You’ll need to consult the physician on duty.”

“Can we at least take her fingerprints?”

The armored guard of hospital patients frowned. “Is that normal
procedure? Her file doesn’t classify her as a suspect.”

“Can we ask her permission?”

“Out of the question!”

Macintosh gave up. It had been a long shot, and it wasn’t really
important. If Graciella Rodriguez hadn’t been arrested, her prints wouldn’t be
on file anywhere.

“The doctor on duty, where do we find him?”

“Down the hall, third door on the right. But he is doing his round
just now. You’ll have to wait. It could be a few hours.”

Macintosh took a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “Would
you be so kind and give this to him? I’d appreciate if he calls my mobile when
he’s free.”

She accepted the card and pocketed it. Sure she would give it to
him, she promised, and for sure he would call, today or tomorrow, as soon as he
found a minute.

They left the hospital, crossed the street and walked into the Throw
& Catch Sports Bar. It was high time for an off-duty beer.

“We’re going in circles here,” Macintosh said. “There is no saying
when the woman will be stable enough to be interviewed—even after they removed
the endotracheal tube. Never in all my years on the force has a victim stayed
unidentified for so long. For what it’s worth, I bet she’s Graciella
Rodriguez.”

Harding took a sip and wiped his mouth. “Wouldn’t Tiara then know
whom she’s stabbed? I mean, her own aunt?”

“That could be the reason why she doesn’t remember.”

“But why would she attack her like that?”

“She held a grudge against her because of all those weirdo modeling
jobs she had to do. Most likely it was the aunt who ran the show.”

“You think Tiara is just one hell of a pissed off teenager? Payback
time for having to work as a child model?”

“You’ve seen the pictures. Who could blame her?”

Harding smiled. “Taking her side now, are we?”

“I’d talk to her again, if there was the slightest chance that she’d
give me anything useful.” Macintosh paused to get his thoughts in line. Too
much didn’t fit. “There’s more to this story. Graciella must have entered
Canada illegally, using another name. We have no record of her coming in. We should
interview the mother again, confront her with what we know. Ask her why the
fuck she didn’t tell us about this precious aunt.”

“How are we going to justify the amount of time we spend on it? So
far, it’s not even a homicide yet, and if she pulls through, the charge will be
downgraded to aggravated assault and we’ll be out of the picture altogether.”

“How about child exploitation?”

“Those beauty pageants are freaky but they’re not illegal, and as
far as those pictures on the internet go, that’s Sexual Offense Squad. Who, by
the way, are overloaded with stuff that’s way more serious.”

“It seems pretty goddamn serious to me,” Macintosh said. “I’d be
willing to put in some extra time.”

“Anything to save the damsel in distress?”

 “You got something better to do with our evenings?”

They chuckled, drank their beers and watched the pretty waitress
behind the counter polish glasses and wipe the counter tops when she wasn’t
smiling and serving. It was still early; she did a lot of cleaning.

Harding’s mobile announced an incoming text message. He took it out
of his pocket, clicked on it and read it.

 “I’ll be damned.” He lowered the mobile. “You are not going to
believe this.”

Macintosh cocked his head, listening.

“It’s from Josh. I asked him to check if Graciella Rodriguez still
lives at the La Marque address. You’re never, not in a million years, going to
believe what he found out!”

“Well, what?”

“Not in a million years!”

“Oh Christ Almighty, spit it out.” Macintosh was really curious now.
He knew his partner, when he looked that seriously surprised, something big was
coming.

“It’s worth another beer. You paying?”

Macintosh waved at the waitress and showed her two fingers. She
nodded.

“I’ll read it to you: Graciella Rodriguez last known address is 4341
Azalea Lane. The building located there burnt to the ground three years ago.
Fire of unknown origin, but suspected arson. No leads. One body recovered. Call
me.”

Macintosh stared at his partner with big eyes. That was some text.
The music blared in the background, the waitress placed their new beers in
front of them, a group of happy-hour customers came through the revolving door—the
detectives didn’t notice any of this.

“Guess we owe Josh a six-pack,” Harding finally broke the silence
between them.

“Call him!” Macintosh urged.

Harding was already dialing the Texan’s number. He got connected
very quickly, said his hurried ‘hi’ and then listened.

“Got it,” he finally said, “Great work, Josh. We got to meet some
day. … Yes, of course… No, I’ll keep you in the loop… Yes, thanks. Whenever.
Anytime.” He hung up and filled Macintosh in.

“The body they recovered was burnt beyond recognition, but was
female and matched in height and approximate age that of the woman living
there. Neighbors confirmed that they had seen her at the house on that day.
They have listed the deceased as Graciella Rodriguez.”

Macintosh took a large sip of his fresh beer.

“Then who the hell is our victim?”