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Authors: Linda Barnes

Coyote (20 page)

BOOK: Coyote
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The tears started to fall again. “They are gone. They go away. The women at the factory, when they get their papers, they go away.”

“Where?”

“I don't know. The boss at the factory says they get papers, they get green cards, they go.”

“What's the name of this factory?” Dave asked. Mooney frowned at him.

“Go on, Ana,” I prompted.

“Maybe they all go to California. We talk about California. Maybe they get jobs selling pretty dresses at fine stores, or better, selling clothes to rich men who look for girls to marry.”

Mendez repeated everything. His words became a regular echo, background noise. His droning voice hardly interrupted the flow.

Ana's fantasies sounded singsong-rehearsed, as if she'd repeated them to herself a thousand times. While she spoke, she stared at Manuela's green card, grasping it so tightly that her thumb and forefingers whitened.

“Why did you leave the message at the newspaper office?” I asked.

“Someone reads me the words from the newspaper. I think maybe Manuela tries to reach me, or one of the others—I think after so long there is no harm in it, but then I am frightened.”

“But you recognized me.”

She stared at the card for inspiration. “No,
señorita
,” she said dully. “You are mistaken. Please, what will they do with me now?
¿La policía
? I have no papers.”

I ignored her query. “But you did work with Manuela Estefan, and you lived at Westland Avenue—also with Manuela?”


Sí
.”

“And how many others?”

“Maybe three other women.”

“And why did you leave Westland Avenue?”

“The boss says
La Migra
knows about the apartment. We must go.”

“You packed up your clothes?”

“No, one of the men from the factory goes and does that while we work. It happens too fast.”

“Which man?”

“I don't know.”

“And why did you decide to go back to the apartment today?”

She consulted the image of Manuela. “I, uh, I think maybe I leave something there.”

Sure. Something that was worth taking a risk with
La Migra
. Whatever she saw in the depths of that green card was telling her to lie.

“Do you drive a car?”

“I have no license,
señorita
.”

“How long have you been in this country?”

“Four months only.”

“Did Manuela bring you here? Was she your coyote, your guide?”

She seemed puzzled by my question. “No,
señorita
.”

“How did you get here, how did you come to Boston?”

“I walk many miles. I take the bus.”

“Who helped you?”

“I walk and take the bus. That is all.”

I breathed in and out, staring at Mooney. I realized who Ana was starting to remind me of. Marta. Marta in one of her stubborn moods. I changed direction, hoping to surprise the woman into a truthful response. “What are the names of the women who lived with you at the apartment?”

She hesitated. “Manuela you know. The others are Aurelia—”

“Aurelia Gaitan?” Mooney interrupted.

“Yes, I think. And then there is Delores and Amalia and me.”

“Last names? Family names?”


No sé
. Please,
señorita
, what will happen to me?”

Dave said, “Maybe she can clear up the IDs on the stiffs.”

Mooney glanced at him sharply. He seemed to be remembering what the dead women looked like with their butchered hands and mauled faces. He said, “First we'll have her look at their personal effects. See if you can get them up here.”

I wondered if Ana, quietly sobbing at the table, would identify the silver filigree ring as belonging to Manuela or Aurelia or Delores or Amalia.

The words of an old Woody Guthrie song came unbidden to my mind. He wrote it in the fifties after a plane crash in California, over Los Gatos Canyon.

Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye Rosalita,

Adiós, mis amigos, Jesús y María,

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane,

All they will call you will be deportees.

When the plane crashed and everyone died, nobody knew who the passengers were. Nobody knew how many died. They were just illegal aliens, just deportees.

31

Dave made a brief phone call and took off for the property room downstairs.

Mooney murmured, “Think we can talk in front of her?”

I shook my head no. I wasn't sure how much English Ana understood. My buddy Marta certainly caught a lot more than she let on. Ana's eyes were the same deep brown. They gave little away. Mooney nodded me out the door after telling Mendez to stay put.

“Please,
señorita. No salga, por favor. No salga
.”

I assured her I'd be right back. She clutched at my hand and regarded the slightly built Mendez with suspicion. Why she wanted me to stay and listen to her evasions, I wasn't sure. She didn't trust me.

“She's lying,” I said as soon as we'd put some distance between us and the closed office door.

“Well, of course she's lying,” Mooney growled, leaning against the coffee machine. “She's scared. She didn't choose to come in here and dump the bag. The question is
how
she's lying. Is what she says a lie, or is the lie in what she isn't saying?”

“She's leaving stuff out. There's a link between the dead women and Westland Avenue. We knew that. And now we know there's another link, to this Hunneman Pillow Factory.”

Mooney ran a hand over his jaw as if he were checking to see when he'd last shaved. “At least I can call off the decoys at the bus station. I've got every Hispanic woman on the force playing hooker down in Park Square, trying to lure some random psycho. Our psycho has to have a connection to one of those two places, preferably both.”


If
she identifies the effects—or the bodies.”

“Yeah. If. What was that stuff about coyotes, about the Estefan woman bringing in illegals? Where'd you get that?”

“INS. They thought she might have been killed by someone who didn't like her line of work.”

“Hell, your guy's freer with his theories than mine is. I've got to get everybody associated with that factory in here for questioning.”

Dave and a uniform appeared, each holding two large brown-paper bags. I turned to go back into the office.

Mooney stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “You ever find out why that woman came to you? Back at the beginning? The dead woman?”

I couldn't keep her out of it any longer. “Paolina's mother works at the factory every once in a while. She didn't want to tell me about it, afraid Welfare will cut her benefits if they find out she works.”

“I'll need to talk to her.”

“Oh, Mooney, you know how she is with cops. I'll get more out of her in her kitchen than you'll ever get from her down here.”

“I want a list of every man she's ever seen at the factory. Full descriptions. Names.”

“Everything,” I promised. I didn't tell him I'd already tried.

Dave and Mendez cleared Mooney's desk and set down the brown-paper bags. The property officer departed. Ana, scrunched down small in her chair, seemed relieved to see me.

The bags were stapled shut. Each was fastened with a manila tag looped to a string closure. You had to sign the tags if you authorized examination of the contents. Mooney signed. Dave started removing staples, and I joined in. Dave had a gadget designed for the task. I used a scissors blade and managed to cut myself. I couldn't remember when I'd last had a tetanus shot.

“Should we take the stuff out or let her do it?” I asked. I was whispering. I don't know why. Ana was staring apprehensively at the bags. I reached over and touched her shoulder.

The bags smelled musty.

Mooney told Mendez to help Ana unload the bags and to keep track of exactly what she said, translating every word. He told Dave to take notes.

For a while there was only the noise of crinkling paper, rustling cloth.

Mooney looked away, addressed me. “This ‘boss,' the factory owner, could be the key. He must know something's going on, even if he isn't the crazy.”

I recalled my brief encounter with James Hunneman. He'd reminded me of a schoolyard bully, with his florid face and arrogant manner. But a killer?

I couldn't keep my eyes off Ana. She didn't want to look in the bags. Mendez was taking it slowly, explaining that it was only clothing and maybe she could help us if she saw something familiar. Nothing to be afraid of.

“Carlotta,” Mooney said.

“Canfield,” I said. “The landlord at Westland Avenue. It would be nice if he had a connection to the pillow factory.”

“Yeah. We can bring him in and talk it over. It'll take time. Guys who own apartments have money and lawyers.”

Ana said something that Mendez didn't get. He couldn't have, it came out so garbled. She was holding a stained blouse in her hand, staring at the sleeve, at a tiny bit of embroidery, running her fingers over it.

“Think Ana's in danger?” Mooney asked.

“If the killer has any idea she's talking to the cops, I wouldn't take out insurance on her,” I said.


La blusa
.” Ana finally said something clearly enough for me to understand.

“What about the blouse?” Mendez murmured.


Es de Manuela
,” she said faintly. “I stitch it for her. I sew better than her. It is one thing I do better.” Her shoulders shook. She raised her left hand to her mouth; it rubbed her lips, her cheek, her forehead, before coming to rest across her eyes, blocking her vision. Dave ignored her, writing down only what Mendez said, looking only at Mendez. It was painful to look at Ana. I couldn't tear my eyes away.


Lo siento
,” murmured. I'm sorry. She lowered her hand and looked at me with such agony, that I wished I'd kept still.

“Is she going to have to stay here, Mooney?”

“I'd say yes, for her own good.”

“Maybe protective custody is the way to go,” I said slowly. “I'll call a lawyer. If Ana helps you nab this guy, I think there ought to be some quid pro quo stuff with INS—and I don't want her staying in a cell.”

“We can put her in a hotel room with a policewoman.”

“Joanne?”

“Maybe.”

Jo Triola's a good friend of mine on the force. And she speaks Spanish.

“Who you gonna call for a lawyer?” Mooney asked. “PD?”

“One of the attorneys over at the Cambridge Legal Collective, Marian Rutledge.”

“Okay.”

The room seemed unnaturally quiet. Ana's crying had given way to silence punctuated by hiccuping gulps. She fingered the tattered clothing, the worn shoes. Every once in a while she would moan, “
Jesús, María
,” close her eyes, and turn away. And Mendez would gently lead her back to yet another bag, another dead friend.

The smell of decay had entered the room, and I wished the city had been kind enough to give Mooney an office with a window.

“Tell me again about the INS,” Mooney said. I'm sure he got it the first time. He just wanted to have something to do besides stare at Ana's grief. I was glad he asked. The room seemed to be getting warmer. I was starting to sweat.

“All I know is that they've got Hunneman's under surveillance—for immigration violations, I guess. They've got plenty of violations. And I think there's an undercover guy in there, somebody who works for INS.”

“Don't they know about the killer? Are they dumb enough to try to nab him without bringing in the cops? That's our fucking job.”

“Mooney, all I know is the guy who told me didn't seem to trust anybody, especially not Jamieson. He thought somebody at INS was on the take, that they'd warn Hunneman and screw the raid. And Marta thinks cops are taking bribes.”

“Turncoats everywhere, huh?”

“Or paranoia.”

“I used to know a decent Joe at INS—somebody I'd be willing to trust on this.”

“Good,” I said. “Get in touch with him.”

“And I'm gonna have this Canfield brought in. Long night ahead.”

Not as long as Ana's, I thought. Not as lonely.

“How can you tell if it's day or night in here?” I asked. “I'm going to head over to Marta's.”

“Okay,” he said.

Ana unfolded the last bag, reached in, and drew out the silver filigree ring. She made a noise like a small animal, a noise wrenched from deep within her.

Manuela, I thought. Amalia, Delores, Aurelia. Somehow their names seemed very important to me.

“Mooney, one thing you might look for when you get some bodies in for questioning: Find out if anybody drives a white Aries.”

“Why?”

I told him about the car that had followed me. He digested the tale in silence.

“Before you go, Carlotta, ask Ana if she has any more to tell us. Maybe she'll believe us now.”

I tried. I did my best. I held her hand while Mendez murmured soothing lies about how everything was going to turn out all right in the end. But her distrust, or maybe her fear, was too strong.

32

I rapped on the door of Marta's building, hollered her name while inwardly cursing the lazy creep of a superintendent who hadn't fixed the buzzer yet. I was hoping that Paolina would hurry down the stairs to let me in.

Instead I heard Marta's heavy tread, her cane punctuating the difficult descent.

She'd been hoping for Paolina too. The angry sparkle went out of her eyes when she saw me, leaving them wary and cool. We faced each other, both too tired to hide our mutual disappointment.

“She's with you?” Marta demanded.

“No.”

“She's at your house?”

“She was there last night. I told you. She may come back. Right now it's you I need to talk to.”

BOOK: Coyote
13.9Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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