Sounds of Silence (12 page)

The policewoman surveyed her with sympathy. “Rough couple of days, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Truthfully, anxiety was eating Isabel alive. She glanced into the foyer mirror. Big mistake. She looked like the refugee she was. “The most frustrating thing is, I can’t go looking for my little boy myself. I have to depend on other people to do it for me.”

“We’ve got experienced detectives. They’ll do everything they can to find him.”

“Officer Beatty, I have every confidence in the Del Rio PD, but some things are just out of control.”

“Please call me Phyllis,” said the other woman. “I have a feeling we’re going to get to know one another pretty well in the next day or two.” She warmed Isabel with a surprisingly charming smile.

“Okay, Phyllis it is. I’m Isabel.”

“Oh, I knew that. Agent Carmichael made it very clear you’re a special case.”

Isabel blushed. “He probably meant
head
case.”

Phyllis laughed and walked toward the family room, unbuttoning her jacket. “And this must be Mercedes.”

“Yes.” Isabel beckoned Mercedes, who laid down her pink crayon and shyly came to take Isabel’s hand.
Officer Beatty
, she spelled for the little girl. Mercedes gave the woman a scared look and ducked behind Isabel. “She doesn’t hear or speak.”

“That’s what Agent Carmichael said. Too bad, but deaf kids can be really smart in other ways.”

“She is,” Isabel said. “And a very talented artist.”
Show your pictures?
she signed for Mercedes.

Looking relieved to be dismissed, Mercedes scooted for the stairs.

Isabel gestured for the policewoman to sit down. Soft leather furniture and large plants, a skylight, and a widescreen TV made Pamela’s den a comfortable and inviting room. As prisons went, it was an okay place to be.

Phyllis made herself at home, tossing her jacket across the arm of a rocker. “Agent Carmichael suspects this may be a kidnapping. Your boy—Danilo’s his name, right?—he’s been missing for over twelve hours?”

“That’s right.” Nauseating fear assailed Isabel again.

“Does your hostess suspect Mercedes was the one they were going for?”

“No. At least I hope not.” Isabel wasn’t sure any longer just who knew what. She was pretty sure she could depend on Pamela’s discretion, but Eli had insisted on keeping her out of the loop.

“Where is Mrs. Hatcher right now?”

“She’s heading up a charity organization meeting at a local women’s shelter. She knew you were coming, but she thinks your presence is just a precaution.” Isabel put shaking fingers to her temples, partly to shield her expression from the officer. “I hate lying—”

“That’s because you’re a good person,” said Phyllis. “Most people don’t have a bit of problem with it.”

Agitated, Isabel grabbed the TV remote and flicked it on. Oprah began to hold forth on the latest fad diet. Isabel might be a basically good person, but she wasn’t nearly smart enough to deal with this situation. How could she have let Danilo out of her sight? It was her fault he was gone.

Chapter Eleven

M
ercedes stood at the foot of the stairs, clutching her sketch pad. She knew enough English to understand the lady officer’s words all too well. Danilo had been kidnapped, and it was
her
fault he had been taken.

I’m the one they wanted.

Fear clenched her stomach. Pablo had found her again. First he’d killed Lupe, then burned down Isabel’s house. Now he’d stolen away the little brother God had given her.

If she could only undo that silly game last night. Danilo didn’t know how to get away from Pablo.

She was going to have to show him.

Just then Isabel looked around and smiled.
Come here.

Mercedes obeyed, climbing onto the sofa between the two women. She let Isabel take the sketch pad and flip through it with Officer Beatty. She had more important things to think about than pictures right now, so she jumped when Isabel squeezed her knee, just hard enough to get her attention.

Isabel was pointing to a portrait Mercedes had drawn last night.
Who is this?

Mercedes shrugged.

Eli parked in front of the ruins of Isabel’s house and sat there looking at it. With the house and all her memories burned up, nothing held her in Del Rio anymore. Once she got the insurance paperwork straightened out, she had no reason to stay.

Immediately he felt ashamed of the thought. He should want the best for Isabel. If she wanted to leave and go back to college, who was he to wish less for her? Isabel deserved the best, but she’d lost everything important to her. Her husband, her house and now even her little boy.

Eli got out of the vehicle and walked up to the scorched mess that had been Isabel’s home. As a crime scene, it had been roped off, picked over and investigated both by the fire department and local police. It had been determined that the fire started with a bowl of gasoline placed near the pilot light for the hot-water heater. The fire alarm was in perfect working order, but the battery had been disconnected.

The thought of some criminal entering Isabel’s house sickened Eli.

Eli crouched on the blackened sidewalk in front of the porch. He could close his eyes and see Fonzie snoozing beside the steps. Too bad about the dog. One more thing Isabel had lost.

“Hello? Officer!”

Jolted out of his thoughts, Eli looked over his shoulder. Isabel’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Peterson, stood on her porch across the street, waving at him. She was actually the person he’d come out here to talk to, on a tip from police who had interviewed the neighbors after the fire. He’d met the lady only once, but Isabel spoke highly of her and her husband’s kindness.

He rose and crossed the street. “Hi, Mrs. Peterson.”

She stuck on a pair of glasses that had been hanging from a chain around her neck. “Oh, Eli, it’s you!” She moved down the porch steps one slow step at a time. “I’ve been trying to call someone from the city about our garbage pickup.”

Amused that he had been relegated from federal agent to “someone from the city,” Eli grinned and met the old lady at the end of the sidewalk. “Sorry, I don’t do garbage, but I needed to talk to you about something else.”

Mrs. Peterson stopped and put a bony hand to her chest. “Whew! Looks like I need to get back on my treadmill. What can I do for you?”

“Listen, Mrs. Peterson, I know you talked to the police after the fire. But would you go through it again for me? I’m trying to piece together everything we’ve got.”

“I just remember you and your brother taking Isabel and the children off for the day. I thought to myself, well, good for Isabel, she deserves a day out, and I came in to watch my soaps and mind my own business.” Mrs. Peterson frowned a little. “’Course, first I had to make that meter-reader fellow move his van so the mailman could get to my mailbox.”

On the point of walking away, Eli stilled. “Was he anybody you’d ever seen before? What did he look like?”

“Hispanic. Heavyset, I guess, and wearing sunglasses. Had on one of those blue jumpsuits.” She pushed up her glasses. “I’d never seen him before.”

“So you talked to him? Do you think you could describe him to a police artist?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But you know my vision’s not what it used to be.”

Since the old lady’s eyes behind the lenses of her glasses were magnified to the size of golf balls, Eli could well believe it. “Look, Mrs. Peterson, would you go with me down to the station and look at some pictures, see if you recognize the guy?”

“Well, sure.” Mrs. Peterson looked pleased that somebody thought she had something important to say. “Howard doesn’t like people blocking our mailbox.”

“Where is Mr. Peterson, by the way? I’d like to talk to him, too.”

“He’s on the golf course. Can’t hit a lick at a snake, but he thinks he’s Tiger Woods. Just let me go spackle on a little paint and I’ll go with you.” She turned to toddle back toward the house.

Feeling more hopeful than he had in days, Eli went back to the car to wait. He’d been praying for a break, and if Mrs. Peterson could ID the arsonist, this just might be it.

Isabel sat down at the breakfast bar and studied the pencil portrait Mercedes had shown her. Its simplicity and economy of line gave it had an almost pen-and-ink quality. But though the girl in the drawing’s beautiful face was very young, she was posed chin down, looking up with a sultry expression that was anything but childlike. Dressed in a ruffled off-the-shoulder blouse, with gaudy jewelry and extravagant makeup, she looked like nothing so much as a teenage prostitute.

Isabel grieved all over again for Mercedes, who obviously knew this young woman well. What kind of life had she lived before running away to the orphanage?

While Mrs. Peterson was looking at a computer file of smugglers, Eli went back to his office to think. Leaning back in his chair, he looked at the items lined up on his desk.

One small, blue flowered tennis shoe with bloodstains inside the heel, and one beaded bracelet.

A pearl-handled switchblade. More rusty stains.

And the last item, a child’s full-color drawing of a murder scene.

Frowning, he picked it up. The psychologist who had interviewed Mercedes claimed the child showed all the typical signs of trauma. During the interview her expression remained serene, almost vacant, as though she understood not a word translated by the deaf interpreter.

He’d had a profiler look at the drawing, as well as a police artist—professionals who agreed that the child who drew it had seen something terrifying. But neither had had a point of reference to interpret place and time, or identify victim and perpetrator.

The problem was, the crime had occurred in a border slum. Life there, for vast multitudes of people, was little more than a matter of survival—and for many, a cheap quantity to be taken at will.

Eli’s job was defined as an American law officer. His assignment was not alleviating the poverty and violence south of the border, but protecting the citizens of his own country. Still, he would have given anything for the power to do both. His enemy had been on U.S. soil at least twice, vulnerable to prosecution by American law, and Eli had failed to capture him.

Now, unless Mrs. Peterson’s description revealed some previously unexplored clue, Eli would be forced to wait until his enemy struck again. Galling.

On a personal level, all he wanted was to love and care for one little girl, one little boy, and most especially one woman. There were no guarantees there, either; if anything, the prospect of a relationship with Isabel looked pretty hopeless at the moment.

He rubbed his forehead just above the bandage. It itched like crazy, and he had a lingering headache. He needed to talk to somebody. Needed another brain to help him analyze the evidence.

The only person he wanted to talk to right now was Isabel.

Earlier in the day Isabel would have given anything to see Eli. Now she almost wished Phyllis, self-appointed butler that she was, would slam the door in his face. How could Isabel possibly look him in the eye without telling him about the kidnapper’s call?

But Officer Beatty, who seemed to have a soft spot for blue eyes, took her hand off her gun and stepped back. “Carmichael! I thought you said you’d be tied up all day.”

“I need to see Isabel.” A presence of barely contained energy, Eli came in and shut the door behind him. He was in uniform, as clean and pressed as ever, though a shadow of dark late-afternoon beard outlined his mouth and jaw.

Isabel wanted to fling herself into his arms.

That, or hide behind the sofa.

Phyllis gave Eli a speculative look. “Well, she’s pretty busy wearing out the carpet, but I guess we could spare you a minute or two. Haven’t heard a word from search-and-rescue. Do you know what’s going on?”

He shook his head, his gaze finding Isabel’s. “I’ve come about something else.”

Isabel swallowed. “What is it?”

Eli hesitated, glancing at Phyllis.

“I’ll give you some privacy.” Phyllis plopped down in a leather recliner and turned up the volume of the TV. “But behave yourself, Carmichael,” she added with a glimmer of a smile.

Eli reddened and pulled Isabel into the empty dining room. “Where’s everybody else?”

“Rand hasn’t gotten back yet. Pam is letting Mercedes help her cook dinner.”

He nodded. “Good. Come here.” He drew two chairs close and sat down in one. If Isabel sat in the other, she would be knee-to-knee with him.

Anxiety over what Danilo could be going through trumped any lingering shyness. Isabel sat down, clenching her hands. The Lord had known how much she wanted to see Eli. Now she couldn’t talk to him.
Oh, God, what do I do?

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He showed her a Ziploc bag he’d had tucked under his arm. “You haven’t seen this, because I didn’t think it was any big deal at the time. But—” He opened the bag and removed a cheap beaded bracelet and a small blue-flowered tennis shoe. “Mercedes was wearing these when we found her in the orphanage.” Eli touched the bloodstains on the shoe. “Remember the gash on her knee?”

Isabel nodded. Mercedes had been through so much. “Where’s the other shoe?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping you can help me brainstorm a little.” Eli opened his wallet and pulled out a sheet of tablet paper Isabel recognized from Danilo’s school supplies. “Remember this?” He unfolded the paper and showed her Mercedes’s drawing.

Isabel shuddered. “How could I forget?”

“Well, I got to wondering if Mercedes has drawn or painted anything else that might give us a lead.” He laid the drawing on the table, with the two items from the bag on top. “Maybe the bracelet or the shoe will jog your memory.”

Isabel instantly thought of the portrait Mercedes had shown Phyllis. “She has been drawing a little since we’ve been here. But I don’t think—” Her eyes fell on the little bracelet. Suddenly she realized that the size and shape of the beads echoed the odd, rounded foreground element in the picture. “Eli! Look at that.”

“What?” He followed her gaze. “I’ve looked at that thing a hundred times.” He jerked the drawing off the table, and the bracelet fell to the hardwood floor. Its rotten string broke, sending beads rolling everywhere.

Isabel bent and caught a handful of them, laying them against the bottom of the drawing. “Look what she’s drawn here. It’s not drops of water, Eli, it’s beads. There are strings of them in people’s doorways all over the colonies.”

Eli rattled the paper, making the beads jump. “You’re right. I don’t know why I didn’t see it.”

“Beads are kind of a girl thing.” She smiled a little at his chagrin. “But—I might know who the woman in the picture is. I’ll show you.” Isabel hurried to the den, where she’d left the portrait on the coffee table.

Phyllis looked around in concern. “Everything all right?”

“Um, yes, fine,” Isabel said, distracted. She snatched up the picture and went back to the dining room. “Here.” She thrust the portrait into Eli’s hands.

He studied it for a long minute, then looked up at Isabel with blazing blue eyes. “When did you find this?”

“This morning when Phyllis first got here. Mercedes volunteered it, I don’t know why she picked now—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Eli laid aside both drawings and got up to take Isabel’s wrists, though he’d had her complete attention since he entered the house. His hands, big and warm and reassuring, sent electric shocks up her arm. “I remember seeing beads like that—same size, same color—in a bar I went to the other night. I’ll either go back myself, or send Artemio.”

“You think that’s where the murder happened?” Frozen, she didn’t move even when Eli unconsciously clenched his hands so hard her wrists ached.

He nodded. “There was a big storage room in the back, where I talked to Caslas, the guy who owns the place. Beads across the doorway and the room was laid out just like in her drawing. If Mercedes was there, then Caslas would have to know her and this young woman.”

“Who is this girl, Eli? Mercedes won’t say who she is. Maybe, if we could find her, she can lead us to Danilo.”

Eli released her enough to take her by the shoulders. “I know this is my fault, Isabel. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I got you and Danilo mixed up in this. If I could go back and do things different—”

“No.” Isabel looked up at him with eyes blinded by tears. Even in her grief, she couldn’t let him take all the blame. “I was
meant
to care for Mercedes. She feels as much my child as Danilo.”

Eli suddenly let her go, and Isabel looked around to find Phyllis Beatty standing in the doorway. “Everybody all right in here?” asked the policewoman.

“We’re okay.” Eli stepped back and put his hands in his pockets. He looked at Isabel as if trying to gauge her emotions. “I need to talk to Mercedes before I go. One other thing came to light today. Your neighbor across the street—”

“Mrs. Peterson?” Isabel supplied.

“Yes. She ID’d a Mexican thug who sometimes works as a bodyguard for the governor of Coahuila. From her description of his vehicle, he may have been the same guy that ran me off the road yesterday.”