Panic Attack (7 page)

Her father ended his speech, seeming proud of himself, as if he’d just delivered a Shakespearean soliloquy or something. But, Marissa had to admit, the idea that Gabriela was part of the robbery did sound ridiculous. She couldn’t imagine any scenario where Gabriela would do something to hurt Marissa’s family.
“He’s right, it does sound pretty crazy,” Marissa said. Then she said to her dad, “So what do you think it was, a big coincidence? She gets shot the morning after our house is robbed, right before the detective has a chance to talk to her?”
“Look, there’s a lot we don’t know right now,” her dad said. “Maybe it has something to do with her daughter, some guy she was dating.”
“Manuela’s eleven,” Marissa said.
“What I’m trying to say,” her dad said, “is let’s just confirm she’s actually dead.”
“It’s confirmed!” her mom suddenly shouted. Her face was red, and her eyes were very big. “How many times do I have to tell you before it gets through your thick skull? She’s dead! She’s fucking dead!”
Her dad shook his head in frustration and exited to the kitchen.
“You’re so goddamn impossible,” her mom said and left, going toward the front of the house.
“Ma,” Marissa called and followed her.
She watched her mother head up the main staircase, hesitate for a moment as if suddenly remembering what had happened there, and then rush upstairs.
Marissa couldn’t believe how absolutely screwed up everything suddenly was. Gabriela had always been so warm, so friendly, and had probably been one of the kindest people Marissa had ever met. Marissa remembered all the times Gabriela played with her and took her places when she was growing up. In high school when she had boyfriend problems, she never felt comfortable talking to her parents, and Gabriela was always there to give advice. Marissa had helped Gabriela learn English, and Gabriela had helped her with her Spanish. She had been a combination big sister and close friend, and Marissa just couldn’t accept the idea that she was gone, as dead as the guy on the stairs last night, that she’d never see her face or hear her voice again.
Standing in the foyer, Marissa started to cry again. Then her dad came in and put an arm around her and in that pseudo calm voice said, “It’s gonna be okay, sweetie. I promise.”
Marissa couldn’t take it anymore. If he was in denial before, now he was hopeless.
She broke away and said, “Please, Dad, just stop it already,” and went upstairs, not even realizing she’d passed the spot where the body had been until she was in her room.
She checked her phone and saw that she’d received a bunch of e-mails and texts from her friends as news of the robbery had been getting around. She felt like she really needed to vent, let out her anger, so instead of replying individually she went online and posted a long entry on her Artist Girl blog, which most of her friends— her closest friends, anyway— read every day. She described the robbery as dramatically as possible, focusing on how terrified she’d been when she woke up and heard the intruders in the house and everything that had happened with the shooting and how the police had questioned her and her family for most of the night. She left out the part about how Clements had questioned her about her drug use in the house, paranoid that this would somehow incriminate her. Although she didn’t mention anything about Gabriela specifically, she hinted at it, ending with “Now things seem to be getting even more fucked up. This is the craziest day of my life.”
After she posted the blog, she searched Google News for “Gabriela Moreno,” hoping to find nothing, but there were two news items about the shooting. Marissa read them, feeling devastated and numb. The items gave pretty much the same minimal information that Marissa’s mother had already reported: Gabriela had been shot to death in her Jackson Heights apartment this morning by an unknown assailment. The motive for the shooting was also unknown.
“Goddamn it,” Marissa said, and she picked up the keyboard and banged it against the desk. It sounded like something cracked, but she didn’t care.
She hoped that whoever killed Gabriela rotted in hell for it, but she still couldn’t believe that Gabriela had actually been involved in the robbery. Maybe her dad was right about it being a coincidence. Maybe Gabriela was shot for some crazy random reason. It seemed farfetched but not any more farfetched than her having anything to do with that dead guy, Sanchez.
“Marissa.” Her father knocked on the door. “Marissa, can you come downstairs for a sec, please? Detective Clements is here.”
Great, just what Marissa needed.
“Coming,” she said, nearly whispering.
“What?”
“I said I’ll be right there!” she shouted.
She took her time, answering a few more e-mails, then went downstairs. Her mom, her face still smeared with mascara, was at the dining room table with Clements. Her dad looked more serious than he had before.
“What’s going on?” Marissa asked.
“Please . . . join us,” Clements said.
Marissa sat in the empty chair, noticing that her mom and dad were avoiding eye contact with each other.
“I guess you heard the news,” Clements said.
“About Gabriela, yeah,” Marissa said.“Why? Nobody else died, right?” She was only half joking.
“No one else died,” her dad said in a monotone.
“I was just filling your parents in on a few of the latest developments,” Clements said.
“Oh, no, what now?”
“She was involved in the robbery,” her mom said.
“You know that for sure?” Marissa asked.
“It’s very likely she was involved,” Clements said. “We’ve established a connection, a very definite connection, between her and Carlos Sanchez”.
“What kind of connection?” Marissa asked.
“They had a history,” Clements said. “They dated for several years and there was a history of domestic violence. She’d even gotten a restraining order against him.”
Marissa looked at her mom, then her dad, in disbelief. “Did you guys know about this?”
Her mom shook her head. Her dad didn’t have any reaction.
“She’d been in contact with him by cell phone numerous times in the days prior to the robbery,” Clements said. “A neighbor also thinks he saw Sanchez at her building one day last week, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.”
“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense,” Marissa said. “If she had a restraining order against him, why would he’ve been at her building?”
“We’re not sure,” Clements said. “Her sister said their father in Ec ua dor is ill and needs money for an operation, so that may’ve been the motive.”
“Tell her about the AIDS,” Dana said.
“Her father had
AIDS?”
Marissa asked.
“Not her father— Sanchez,” Clements said. “And he didn’t have full- blown AIDS. He was HIV positive.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Marissa’s dad said.
“We all have to get tested now,” her mom announced.
“That’s ridiculous,” her dad said.
“His blood was all over the staircase,” her mom said, suddenly looking and sounding maniacal. “It could’ve splattered on you.”
“Oh, stop it,” her dad said, waving a hand at her dismissively.
Marissa couldn’t believe her parents were actually arguing about HIV transmission. They’d officially hit a new low.
“The risk for HIV transmission in this type of situation is minimal if not nonexis tent,” Clements said. “The virus dies almost immediately when it’s exposed to air.”
“See?” her dad said to her mom, like he was so proud of himself. “I don’t care,” her mom said.“The blood was everywhere, I want to get tested.” “If you want to get tested, get tested,” her dad said. “I can’t stop you.”
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Marissa said to Clements. “You think Gabriela took the code to the alarm so she and her ex- boyfriend could rob our house?”
“It seems logical,” Clements said. “Your mother says she believes Gabriela had access to the code.”
“What about the keys?” Marissa asked.
“She could’ve copied them at some point,” Clements said. “We’re talking to area locksmiths, and my guess is we’ll find out that she copied the keys to the back door.”
“I don’t believe it,” Marissa’s mom said. “If Gabriela robbed the house, then who killed her? Explain that.”
“It’s too early to speculate,” Clements said.
As Marissa’s mom rolled her eyes, Marissa said to her dad, “I thought you heard another guy in the house.”
“I’m not sure about that,” he said. “It could’ve been a woman.”
“According to your parents,” Clements continued to Marissa, “Gabriela wasn’t aware that you’d canceled your trip to Florida, so she may have believed the house would be empty. Did you tell her you weren’t going to Florida?”
Marissa didn’t say anything, just shook her head.
It was starting to set in—
Gabriela had been involved in the robbery of their house. She’d actually been involved
.
“Oh my God,” Marissa said, “I don’t think I can handle any more of this.”
Her dad, suddenly all protective, said, “If you don’t have any more questions for her, why does she have to be here?”
Ignoring him, Clements said to Marissa, “I understand you were close with Gabriela.”
“Yes,” Marissa said, trying her hardest not to cry. “I was.”
“Did you talk to her at all during the last few days?”
“Monday,” Marissa said. “I saw her Monday.”
“Did she mention anything to you about how she needed money, or about how she’d gotten back with her old boyfriend?”
“I had no idea she even had a boyfriend.”
“So there was nothing unusual in her behavior?”
“Nothing at all. She was her usual happy, smiley self.”
“Well, she was apparently very good at keeping secrets,” Clements said. “Did she ever mention anything to you about drug use?”
“Gabriela?” Marissa said, shocked. “Are you kidding? She was totally antidrugs.”
“Sanchez had a history of heroin addiction,” Clements said. “It’s likely that since he had a relationship with Gabriela she was using as well, at least when they weretogether.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Marissa’s dad said.
“I can’t believe that either,” her mom said. “The money’s one thing. Anybody can get desperate, make a mistake, but drugs? I don’t think she’d be able to hide that from us.”
“You’d be surprised what people can hide when they put their minds to it,” Clements said.
There was an awkward silence in the room for several seconds— Marissa noticed that her mom and dad both seemed uncomfortable— then her dad asked, “So’s that it?”
“Yeah,” Clements said, getting up. “For now.”
Marissa and her dad stood, too.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” her mom said, remaining seated. “
That’s it?
There’s a killer out there, a killer who was probably inside our house last night, and you say
that’s it
?”
Her dad said, “You don’t know—” and her mom shouted at him, “We do know! Why do you think she got shot today? Because somebody was trying to shut her up, that’s why! And you shot the other guy! You killed him and you think he’s not gonna come back here?”
“Okay, try to calm down,” Clements said.
“Why the hell should I try to calm down?” her mom said. “Do you have any leads? Do you have any idea, any idea at all who shot Gabriela?”
“We’re working on it,” Clements said.
“Oh, you’re working on it,” her mom said. “That makes me feel so much better. You’re just so good at reassuring us. Meanwhile, you could’ve saved her life. Last night, if you weren’t here asking us about my daughter’s bong you could’ve talked to Gabriela sooner, stopped her from getting killed, and found out who the other guy is. Now you’ll never find him, and he knows who we are, he knows where we live, he’s been in our house!”
“I’m sorry,” Marisssa’s dad said to Clements.
“You don’t have to apologize for me, you son of a bitch!” her mom screamed. “You caused all this— you and your stupid gun! How many times did I tell you to get rid of that stupid thing?”
“Here comes the blame,” her dad said.
“I’m blaming you all right!” she screamed. “Who else should I blame?”
“See? I knew you couldn’t hold back forever. You’ve been dying to blame me. Go ahead, keep going, let’s hear all that rage.”
“I told you if you had that gun in the house something horrible would happen someday. You didn’t listen to me, and, what do you know, something horrible happened. What a shock!”
“Horrible!” her dad shouted. “That’s a good one, I love that. No,
horrible
would’ve been if you and Marissa got killed, that would’ve been horrible. You should be thanking me instead of yelling at me!”
“You wanna be thanked? Okay, thank you! Thank you for fucking up my life!”
“Can both of you just stop it already?” Marissa screamed as loudly as she could.
Finally there was silence as Marissa’s parents remained glaring at each other, breathing heavily. Then Clements announced, “I’ll keep you informed, and you let me know if anything comes up on your end.” Then he looked at Marissa’s mom and said, “And despite what you think, Mrs. Bloom, we do know how to do our job, and I think we do it very well.” He put his pad away in his pocket, then said, “Sorry again for your loss,” and left.
Marissa remained with her parents in the dining room, watching them exchange looks. Then her father said, “That was brilliant, insult the whole NYPD, why don’t you?” and that set her mom off again. Marissa couldn’t take it anymore and went up to her room. She heard her mother shouting, “You still think everything’s okay? You think it’s going to all miraculously blow over?— and then she turned up her stereo— more Tone Def— to drown her parents out.
She hoped this wasn’t just the beginning, that her parents weren’t going to start having marital problems again. In high school, it had seemed like her parents were on the verge of divorce, at each other’s throats 24/7, and they always argued about the stupidest things. Like her dad would leave some dirty dishes in the kitchen sink or pee on the toilet seat, and her mom would lay into him about it. Or her dad wouldn’t like a look her mother had given him or her tone of voice, and it would lead to a huge fight. And, because her dad was a psychologist and they were in marriage counseling, they would both go into this weird therapy- speak in their arguments that only led to more fighting. Like during a fight her mother might say,“You’re so annoying” and her father would say,“You’re generalizing” or “There you go with your rage again,” and then
that
would lead to a fight. Or sometimes they would be arguing and her mother would say, “You’re being defensive,” and her father would fire back, “There you go, projecting again,” and they’d be off, shouting at each other in their ridiculous mumbo jumbo about who was projecting and who was being defensive. Of course there was never any resolution to their fighting; no one ever won or conceded. It seemed like they had the same argument over and over again, like an annoying song stuck on repeat play. Marissa never understood why they bothered to stay together. If they couldn’t get along, why make each other miserable? Why not just get divorced? She’d hoped they weren’t staying together for her, because she would’ve preferred that they just split up and move on with their lives. What kid wanted unhappy parents?