Sacrifice Fly (6 page)

“You’re going to make me pay to watch you pitch?”

“I can’t be asking the boss for tickets all the time. Got a family to think about.”

“Until that day comes, try to keep my desks a little cleaner. You make the Yankees—hell,
you even make the Mets—you can come back here and write on every single desk I’ve
got.”

“I’m gonna do that, Mr. D,” he said. “You watch.”

I left Frankie’s autographs alone and sat down at his desk. I’d do that from time
to time, get a feel for what my students were seeing. I reached inside and pulled
out his spiral notebook. I began flipping through the pages and saw more autographs,
pictures of baseballs, the
N
and
Y
interlocking to form the Yankees insignia. On the inside of the back cover was a
photo of a large, white house with a smaller structure—a garage, maybe a barn—off
to the side. Underneath the photo were listings from a real estate section for houses
up in Ulster County in the half-million-dollar range. Frankie had written
SIGNING BONUS
on the bottom of the page.

I placed my palms down on his desk and shut my eyes. I could see his father’s body,
the yellow flower on his sister’s bloodless book bag, the near-empty refrigerator.
I picked my hands up and slammed them down on the desk.

“Goddamn it!”

I don’t know how long I sat there with my eyes closed, but when I opened them again,
Lisa King was standing just inside the doorway, her book bag hanging over her shoulder.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I looked at my watch. “Nice of you to join us.”

She shrugged. “Slept late.”

“Did you sleep through the last two days?”

She shrugged again, went over to her desk, and placed her bag on the seat.

“What we got now?”

“Five more minutes of gym. Then lunch and back here for one period. Good timing.”

“Shoulda just stayed home.”

“That’s a choice,” I answered. “I spoke to Ms. Stiles this morning.”

“So?”

“So, if you had your hopes on a certain high school…”

“I’m just gonna go around the block.”

“‘Around the block,’” I repeated. “That’s assuming you get out of the eighth grade.”

Another shrug, like she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Second, a kid like you’d get lost in that place.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, Lisa.” I stood. “You will not be fine. You have any idea what the dropout rate
at that place is?”

“You saying I’m dumb?”

Jesus. “I’m not saying you’re dumb.” I took a moment to check myself. “Your dad’s
coming up tomorrow.”

Now she cared. “You called my dad?”

“Ms. Stiles did. Yes.”

“Ahhhhh!” She looked at me and waved her hand as if slapping away a fly. “All y’all
need to mind your own business.”

“You
are
our business, Lisa,” I said. “Whether you like it or not.”

“Nah, nah,” she said and ran her hand from her forehead to the back of her neck. I
noticed a slight discoloration two inches above her left eye.

“What’s that mark on your face?” I asked.

She turned away and headed toward the door. “Nothing, okay?”

I followed her. “No, it’s not okay.” I grabbed her elbow to stop her from leaving
the room and got a close-up look at the mark above her eye. “Where’d you get that
bruise?”

“Nowhere.” She shook my hand off her arm. “I’m going to gym.”

“Lisa,” I tried, “I can’t help you unless you talk to me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I guess you can’t help me then.”

She walked out into the hallway. Again, I followed and called her name.

“Go help the other kids, Mr. D,” she said, not bothering to turn around. “They need
it more than I do.”

I couldn’t think of a response to that, so I just watched as the kid who didn’t need
my help made a right turn into the staircase. The gym was the other way.

*   *   *

A few hours later, the kids were gone, the windows were shut, and I went up to the
main office to check my mailbox before going home. Mary was slipping her pocketbook
over her shoulder when she spotted me.

“Oh, Ray,” she said. “Mr. Thomas said not to worry about the meeting with the police.
He took care of it over the phone.”

“Really?” I said, surprised by the disappointed tone in my voice.

“That’s what he told—” The phone rang, stopping her in mid-sentence. She picked up
and mumbled her standard greeting. She pressed a button and held it out to me.

“Tell them they’ll have it tomorrow,” I said. “Whatever it is.”

“It’s a female,” Mary whispered. “Sounds cute.”

And you sound like my mother, I thought. I walked through the swinging gate and took
the phone.

“This is Raymond Donne.”

“Mr. Donne, this is Elsa. Mrs. Santos’s neighbor. From yesterday?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s Mrs. Santos. Her apartment was broken into.”

Shit. “Did the cops get there yet?”

A pause and then, “She did not call the police.”

“Elsa,” I said, “she has to call the police. Where is she now?”

“My mother and I are with her here. In her apartment.”

“In her— Elsa, you have to call the police. Now.”

“She called the church.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said yesterday that you were a policeman.”

“Five years ago. Why are you calling me?”

“What is the church going to do, Mr. Donne? Please come over.”

“If she doesn’t want to call the police, what makes you think she’ll want to see me?”

“It would make me feel better, Mr. Donne. She is very stubborn and will not listen
to me or my mother.”

I took a moment to look at the clock. I wanted to go home. I said, “I’d like to, Elsa,
but…”

“Thank you, Mr. Donne. Thank you.”

“Call the police,” I said, but she’d already hung up.

Chapter 6

WITH HAROLD NOWHERE TO BE
found, I took the elevator straight up to the seventeenth floor. Elsa was standing
outside Mrs. Santos’s apartment when I turned the corner.

“Mr. Donne,” Elsa said as she stepped toward me. “Thank you for coming.”

“Did you get her to call the police?”

“She is inside,” she said. “With my mother and Mr. Cruz.”

“Another neighbor?”

“He’s from the church.”

“Did he convince her to call the cops?”

“Come inside,” Elsa said. “Have something to drink. Some water, iced tea.” She lowered
her voice. “If Mrs. Santos asks, you came by to check on Frankie.”

“You didn’t tell her you called me?”

“Come,” she said, pulling on my elbow.

I pulled back while we were still in the doorway. “Are you going to answer any of
my questions?”

“No,” she said. “I did not tell her I called you. No, Mr. Cruz has not convinced her
to call the police. Now can we go inside?”

Good-looking women can get away with talking like that sometimes. Use their tone of
voice to imply a sense of superiority and vulnerability at the same time. I put my
hand on the doorknob and turned it a few times.

“What are you doing?” Elsa asked.

“The lock doesn’t seem to have been forced,” I said. I ran my hand over the wood and
brass plating. “No scratches on the door.”

“Come inside,” she said, pulling me again. This time I went without a fight.

We walked through a narrow hallway, past a dozen or so pictures on the wall, some
black-and-white, some in color. Elsa led me into the main room, where an elderly woman
in a wheelchair held hands with another woman of about the same age, who sat in a
metal folding chair. They looked over at Elsa and me as we entered. I could tell from
the blue eyes that the woman in the wheelchair was Frankie’s grandmother. The wheelchair
had a decal on the side: a blue snake wrapped around a white cross. The words
EC MEDICAL
were written under the logo.

“Mommy,” Elsa said. “Senora Santos. This is Mr. Donne. Frankie’s teacher.
El maestro de la escuela.
”

I stepped forward and offered my hand to Mrs. Santos.

“
¿Qué tu quiere?”
she asked, looking at my hand.

“I came by to see if there’s any news about Frankie.” I withdrew my hand. “If you’ve
heard from the police.”

She let out a hiss and said, “
La policía.”
She looked at the other woman and they commiserated by shaking their heads.

I turned to Elsa. “Maybe I should go.”

Before she could answer, a man’s voice came from another room.

“
Si, immediatemente
,” he was saying. “‘As soon as possible’ would mean immediately, would it not?” A
pause. “Thank you, Johnny.”

I heard the refrigerator door close. A man came out of the kitchen, holding a glass
of water in each hand. He acknowledged my presence with a slight nod of his head and
handed the glasses to the two older women. He whispered something in Spanish and they
both smiled. He turned his attention to me.

“Elijah Cruz,” he said with just a hint of a Spanish accent. We shook hands and he
held mine in a tight grip until I said, “Raymond Donne.”

Elijah Cruz appeared to be a few years older than I. His dark hair was cut short,
and his goatee had a few flecks of gray in it. He was wearing a white shirt with the
sleeves rolled up, a black tie, and black pants. A cell phone was clipped to his belt.

“You are from Francisco’s school,” he said.

“I’m his teacher.”

He nodded. “Senora Santos told me you were here yesterday looking for Francisco. It
was you who found Mr. Rivas?”

“How did you know that?”

“The detective who came by last evening—Detective Royce—mentioned it. That must have
been quite a shock for you.”

“You could say that.”

He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Unfortunately, there is no new information regarding
Francisco or his sister. And now”—he placed his hand on Mrs. Santos’s shoulder—“to
add to her miseries, her apartment has been violated.”

Elsa’s mother whispered something to Frankie’s grandmother, and again the two women
shook their heads. I took a quick look around the room. I’d never been inside the
apartment, but everything looked pretty much the way I guessed it should. There was
an oxygen tank in the corner of the living room, the same snake and white cross on
its side.

“Was anything taken?” I asked Mrs. Santos, but she was not looking at me, so Elijah
Cruz answered.

“She does not believe so.”

“I didn’t notice any damage to the front door. Who else has a key to the apartment?”

Cruz translated my question for Mrs. Santos.

“Solamente Francisco … y Johnny
,” she said to Cruz just above a whisper.

“Her grandson and the super,” Cruz told me.

Mrs. Santos looked at me and for the first time since I’d entered her home, addressed
me directly.

“You no think Frankie came home and not tell me?” she asked.

“No,” I said, noticing all the eyes in the room on me now. “I don’t think anything.
It’s just a routine question.”
Shit, Ray. Could you sound more like a cop?

“He no come home without telling me,” Mrs. Santos said to Elsa’s mother.
“Imposible.”

She started to breathe a bit heavier, and Elsa’s mother went to the corner of the
living room and wheeled over the oxygen tank. She took the opportunity to throw a
distrustful look my way before she handed the blue mask to Mrs. Santos, who took it
and placed it over her nose and mouth. As I watched her breathing, Elijah Cruz took
me by the arm.

“Perhaps we should talk outside, Mr. Donne.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe we should.” I gave Elsa a look and motioned with my head toward
the front door. She nodded and mouthed, “Thank you.”

When we got to the hallway, we were met by a gray-haired man in a blue denim shirt
with the name
JOHNNY
written on it in gold script. He placed his toolbox on the floor, took Cruz by the
hands, and held them.

“Johnny,” Cruz said. “Thank you for coming so quickly. I am very grateful. As is Senora
Santos. This is Mr. Donne.”

“Mucho gusto,”
Johnny said, shaking my hand.

“I’m impressed,” I said. “It takes me a week to get my super to return my phone calls.”

Johnny smiled. “Senor Cruz, he call. I am not too busy. I come.”

Elijah Cruz put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Johnny is a member of the church, Mr. Donne. We look out for each other.”

“Si,”
Johnny said.

“Let us leave you to your work, Johnny,” Cruz said.

“
Mucho gusto,
Senor Donne.” Johnny picked up his toolbox, gave us a smile, and stepped over to
the door to get to his work.

“I apologize for Senora Santos, Mr. Donne,” Cruz said. “She is very tired and very
upset. The police, the newspapers. And now”—he pointed to where Johnny was crouched
down removing the old lock—“this.”

“Where was she when the break-in occurred?” I asked.

Cruz smiled and said, “Detective Royce said you were a police officer once.” He paused.
“The church.
Las Mujeres
—our women’s group—meets Wednesday afternoons. It is as much a prayer group as it
is an opportunity for the women to share time and food with each other.”

“I’m confused,” I said. “You work at the church, Mr. Cruz?”

“No, I would not say that. I am a parishioner, like Johnny and Senora Santos.”

“Who makes a phone call and gets the super here in world-record time.”

“I am not without a certain amount of influence, Mr. Donne. I am in the fortunate
position to help the church financially. The members appreciate and respect that.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and handed me a business card.

“EC Medical Supplies,” I said, recognizing the snake and the cross. “The wheelchair
and oxygen tank?”

“That is my company, yes.”

“I didn’t know that Mrs. Santos was ill.”

“Chronic bronchitis,” he said. “She will be with us for a long time, but she does
need assistance. Especially in a time like this.”