Death Will Help You Leave Him (2 page)

“Hey, we’re showing support,” Jimmy said. “Sure, go suck up a death stick.” Jimmy was the only alcoholic in the known universe who had never smoked. My sponsor had quit when he got sober. I knew my long affair with nicotine would be over some time, maybe soon. But not tonight.

Out in the corridor, I leaned against the wall and lit up. Down the hall in Luz’s apartment, people came and went. Cops, crime scene guys, whatever. A lot of equipment went in. Even the uniform on the door got drafted to fetch and carry. I wondered if I’d catch a glimpse of Luz’s boyfriend. I had scored a gram or two of coke in the bad old days from a dealer named Frankie. He wasn’t Puerto Rican, though. Italian, maybe. I had almost finished my cigarette when they brought him out in a body bag. I didn’t get to see his face.

I lit another cigarette off the butt of the first. As I coated my lungs with tar, a commotion broke out in Luz’s apartment. I heard loud, angry voices. Harsh male bark, scolding female snap and yammer. Above the sharp official voices rose an argumentative rattle of syllables and a keening howl or two. Sounded like they’d rounded up a straggler. Sure enough, a woman in NYPD blue emerged, her hair wisping out of her cap and her cheeks flushed with anger. She gripped her voluble captive by the elbow. The miscreant was tiny and wrinkled, with a ramrod spine and blue-black hair too glossy not to be real. Her eyes blazed, and a flood of Spanish poured out of her. As the cop marched her toward us, Barbara’s head popped out of Mrs. Hernandez’s door.

“The aunts say Tia Rosa is missing. Have you seen— ah, you have.” She called back into the room, “Luz, they’ve got her. Maybe you’d better come and find out what happened.”

Luz slipped through the door.

“
Tia Rosa, qué pasa?
Please let go of her, officer. She’s upset, she didn’t mean any harm.”

“We found her in the kitchen,” the cop said, stiff with outrage. “Cooking! We told everybody they had to leave the apartment. It’s a crime scene.”

“She didn’t understand,” Luz said. “Don’t you have anybody in there who could talk to her in Spanish?”

“I thought the NYPD was supposed to be culturally diverse.” Barbara’s two cents.

The officer’s face went an even brighter red. She muttered some disjointed words about Detective Garcia. Sounded like the one Spanish speaker had been in the can when Tia Rosa slipped into the kitchen.

Luz turned to me and Barbara.

“She was making
pasteles.
I don’t know if you have tasted them.” She gave me a shy smile.

“I have,” Barbara said. “They’re delicious. And I know they’re a big deal. Like chicken soup and wedding cake rolled into one.”

“They take all day to make,” Luz said, managing a doleful giggle. “Usually, they are for Christmas. She says the
tias
were determined to outlast the
policias.
”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the exasperated officer said. “Go on, take her into the neighbor’s. Vamoose,
no problema
,” she said, shooing Tia Rosa toward Luz, who held out comforting arms.

“Mi pasteles!
” Tia Rosa wailed. Another flood of Spanish.

“She says she left the pot boiling on the stove,” Luz said. “She wants someone to bring her things so she can cook in Mrs. Hernandez’s apartment.”

“For God’s sake, this is a murder scene!” the cop exploded.

Before she could go on, a short, muscular man in plainclothes came up behind her.

“What’s going on?”

“Detective Garcia!” She started to explain, but Tia Rosa’s shrill voice overrode hers.

“It’s okay, Norma, I’ve got it.” Garcia turned to Tia Rosa with a little bow and listened attentively. He probably had an aunt just like her. “She wants her big pot and her spices,” he said.

“
Y la yautia para la masa
,” Tia Rosa shrilled. “
Y los platanos, y el lechon para el relleño
.”

Another plainclothes cop appeared, a big Irish guy who could have been Jimmy’s cousin.

“See to it, Officer Patton. There’s no harm in being courteous.”

Officer Patton looked as if she couldn’t decide which she wanted to do first, bite nails or file a suit for gender discrimination. But she wheeled and marched back to Luz’s apartment without another word.

“Are you okay?” I asked Luz quietly. This couldn’t be easy for her.

One corner of her mouth quirked up in a little smile.

“You are very kind to ask,” she said. “I think it does me good not to be sad and scared for a few minutes.” The smile blossomed into a radiant grin. I caught a glimpse of what she’d be like happy. “And we will eventually get to eat
pasteles.
”

The smile faded as Detective O’Brien said, “It’s time for you to talk to us, Ms. Colón. Detective Garcia and I will need somewhere to talk to you privately.”

“My apartment?” Luz said. She looked scared again.

Garcia shook his head.

“Still a crime scene. It’ll have to be your neighbor’s. But she’d better go back to bed, and your aunts will have to leave.”

“And my friends?”

“They can wait for you outside,” O’Brien said. He looked vaguely familiar, apart from his likeness to Jimmy and hundreds of other Irish Americans. If I hadn’t been staring, wondering where I’d seen him, I would have missed the tiny complicit look he exchanged with Jimmy. AA, then. Jimmy knew a ton of people from the million meetings he’d attended in sixteen years. In Alcoholics Anonymous, the Anonymous meant you didn’t let on in front of civilians. Those guys were like the Masons. Oh, yeah. Once again I’d forgotten momentarily that now I
was
those guys.

“Do I need a lawyer?” Luz asked.

O’Brien, all cop now, grinned, the menace thinly coated with a jovial tone.

“I don’t know, ma’am. Do you?”

“You don’t have to answer questions without an attorney present,” Garcia said, “but we would appreciate your cooperation.” His tone was soothing.

“I don’t want a lawyer,” she said. “I’ll only get more nervous if we put it off.”

Jimmy gave her a little shake of the head, meaning Bad Idea. She didn’t see it. As the two detectives ushered her into the apartment, she gave a despairing backward glance, not at Barbara, but at me. I felt irrationally pleased. I wished I could do something to help her.

We retreated down a couple of landings and crept right back up again. At one point, the cop on the door snuck out, probably to smoke, and we got to put our ears against the apartment door for a minute. Luz’s voice floated out to us.

“I am telling you all I know.” It sounded like she was crying. “How could I have killed him? I loved him.”

As Luz told us later, it went more or less the way we would have expected. The two detectives took her over her story two or three times. They made it clear they would check everything she said and regarded anything that couldn’t be checked with a certain skepticism. Why didn’t she and Frankie spend the evening together? He had gone to a meeting. What kind of meeting? An AA meeting. Where? She didn’t know. Garcia had wanted to make something of it, but O’Brien shut him up. Where had she been? She had gone to the library, then stopped by her aunt’s house on the way home. Which aunt? Tia Wanda. She had wanted them to get Tia Wanda to confirm it on the spot. The detectives had declined to brave the aunts in the kitchen, saying they’d get Tia Wanda’s story in due course.

Then they turned to the crime scene. Luz had come home to find Frankie dead on the floor. The apartment’s only door had a deadbolt, a keypad arrangement, and a security bar. None of them showed signs of tampering. It looked like Frankie had let the killer in. Luz had found the security bar lying on the floor when she came in. Of course, she had keys and knew the code. At least they didn’t accuse her outright. For one thing, they couldn’t find the weapon. He had been stabbed. They told her they would have to take all the kitchen knives for testing.

Did she know that Frankie had done time for drugs? Was he still using? Was he dealing? They pushed hard on the drug angle. She was indignant, insisting Frankie was clean. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. If they suspected his death was drug related, it took the pressure off Luz. She was too cautious to spill the parts of the love story that screamed motive. Like how he threatened and maybe even hit her. Like how he kept leaving.

We were on the landing with our noses to a crack in the stairwell door when the apartment door opened. We heard Garcia say, “Okay, let’s wrap it up here for tonight. You can let the ladies out of the kitchen and tell them to go home.”

The three of us retreated down the stairs. Halfway to the next landing, Barbara stopped short.

“This is silly. We waited for Luz, to make sure she’s all right. No discussion.”

Mrs. Hernandez’s door swung open as we reached it. A fleet of aunts sailed out like fishing boats at high tide. Sidling past them, we could see Luz on the sofa. Tia Margarita held her hand. O’Brien stood over them.

“We’re not finished with you,” he said. “If you want to leave the city for any reason, you’d better ask first.”

Barbara bounced right up to him.

“Look, she’s exhausted and overwrought. Can’t you just let her go home with her aunt? Or me, if you want,” she added to Luz. Luz shook her head, then bent it briefly toward her aunt.

“Yes! Let her go!” Tia Margarita said. She sat bolt upright as if to shame the sagging couch for its posture. “My
paloma
needs sleep. She is sick with sorrow over this worthless man. She had nothing to do with his
drogas terreras.
Leave her alone! You are wasting your time here. She was not his enemy. Why don’t you go and bother his wife?”

His wife? Frankie had a wife? My mouth dropped open. So did Barbara’s. Luz hadn’t told her that. The detectives froze like bird dogs, and their noses quivered. No wonder, Barbara said later, that Luz had never seemed to worry about where Frankie went when he stormed out, only whether he would come back.

“He wanted to get the marriage annulled,” Luz said in a weary voice. Her head bent, she stared down at her lap. “She wouldn’t let him.” She raised her eyes, her chin lifted. “He only went to her because he felt sorry for her. He never loved her. It wasn’t a true marriage. He slept on the couch.”

Yeah, right. And I’ve got a bridge for you, sister.
I held my breath. Any moment now, the detectives would realize they’d resumed the interview with all of us right there listening.

“You knew about the wife,” O’Brien said. If she hadn’t, suddenly finding out would be a terrific motive for murder. If she hadn’t known all along, how would Tia Margarita have known?

“It was old news,” Luz sounded defiant. “She meant nothing— not to him, not to me.”

“Children?” O’Brien persisted.

“No! He wouldn’t have them— not with her. I tell you they had nothing.”

“You knew her?” I didn’t trust Garcia’s polite tone for a second. “You had visited her home?”

“No, of course not. But I knew Frankie. He told me ev—” She stopped abruptly. She’d spotted the catch, as we all had. If he had told her everything, she would have known about the drugs. “He told me what I needed to know, and I needed to know he loved me. The wife— old news. Maybe she hated him, maybe she didn’t care. Go and ask her.”

It was after three in the morning when we finally emerged. The rain was still coming down in sheets. Luz was still going over her interview, arguing the points she was afraid had failed to convince the detectives.

“Frankie never told me where his meetings were,” she said. “I told them his home group was in Brooklyn.”

Jimmy shook his head.

“Maybe better not to have volunteered any information.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Luz said. “I thought to show them I am willing to cooperate.”

“What’s done is done,” Barbara said. “You did the best you could.”

Tia Margarita tugged at Luz’s elbow, saying something about
la mañana.
Save it for the morning.

“Si, tia, pronto!
They upset me very much.”

“We can’t do anything about it tonight,” Jimmy said. “Time to get your Aunt Margarita home to bed. Can we drive you home?”

But Tia Margarita refused Jimmy’s offer to drive her and Luz to her home in the Bronx. It was too far, she protested, and too late at night. We must go home and get some sleep. A few taxis zoomed past, all occupied and headed for nicer neighborhoods. East Harlem was not an easy place to hail a cab at the best of times. Finally, he called them a car service on his cell phone. When it arrived, he more or less forced a twenty-dollar bill into Tia Margarita’s hand. He pried her fingers open and wrapped them around it, then took her off guard by planting a kiss on her gnarled knuckles.

“You’re a good boy,” she said, patting his cheek.

In the meantime, Barbara gave Luz a prolonged hug. “It’ll be all right. Anyhow, there’s nothing you can do about any of it tonight except be good to yourself.”

“And pray.” Luz wasn’t quite crying, but she gave a watery sniff.

Barbara being Barbara, a couple of questions popped out.

“You really didn’t know about the drugs?”

“Not until he went to rehab— like I told you. Just, you know, in the past— bad company, he said.”

“And you knew about the wife? It didn’t bother you?”

Luz sniffed again and made a brave attempt at a grin. “Oh, I felt horribly guilty.”

“But you were sure she was no threat to you,” Barbara persisted.

“Absolutely sure.”

Once we were on our own in the car, Barbara said, “And you don’t know all the things she didn’t tell the cops. He was jealous. He used to snoop in her email. He wanted to make sure she didn’t have any secret lovers. Completely paranoid. She tried to make a joke out of it, poor thing.”

“And that thing about his going to church with her?” Jimmy prompted.

“Right, I told you that.” She swiveled in her seat. “She called me in floods of tears about that. He said it was bad enough he had to listen to that God stuff in AA, and she had to be an idiot to think just because he was clean he’d sit around with a bunch of old ladies with droopy boobs and silly hats.” She added, “It’s not funny.”

I hastily rearranged my face.