The Replacement Child (7 page)

Lucy drove into town and made her way through traffic. She had two hours to kill before she had to be at work. She decided to get some errands out of the way. She went to the bank to deposit her paycheck and then over to Wal-Mart.

A half hour later, she was on her way to the checkout line to pay for her merchandise—Clearasil and Lysol—when she saw Gerald Trujillo walk in. Lucy dodged into the greeting-card aisle and peeked around the corner. She watched him select a grocery cart.

Gerald was someone she liked, someone she respected. He was also someone she would rather not see. When she and Del had first broken up, she’d done the usual five stages of grief, although in her case it was twenty stages, with most being variations on anger and denial. Her mother had suggested that Lucy keep herself busy—take classes, explore Santa Fe. Like all things in Lucy’s life, she overdid it. She signed up for yoga, rock climbing, gardening, and Spanish. She also signed up for a week-long emergency-medic class. Her main reason for taking the class was purely lust driven: The man teaching it—Gerald Trujillo—was beautiful. She had met him—and ogled quite a bit—when he dropped off a press release at the newspaper announcing the class.

But she had a secondary reason for taking the class: it was held the week she and Del were supposed to have taken a fun-filled trip to L.A. She thought that spending her vacation flirting with her teacher would be better than sitting at home crying over her failed relationship.

But things didn’t go as she’d planned. Somehow, she managed to get herself signed up as a first-responder medic for the Piñon Volunteer Fire Department, where Gerald was a paramedic. Then she found out that Gerald was very married.

Gerald glanced Lucy’s way, and she ducked down the aisle, pretending to be very interested in the sympathy-card selection. She was absentmindedly reading a belated-birthday card when she noticed a boxed Barbie doll perched in the get-well-soon section.

It was a Tropical Scent Barbie, with the smell of exotic flowers built right into her skin. Lucy had the sudden urge to throw a rope around the Barbie’s neck and hang her from a rearview mirror. It could be a new marketing ploy—Tropical Scent Barbie: She’s fun to play with and makes a stylish air freshener!

Lucy picked up the Barbie, tucked it under her arm, and went off in search of the toy section.

She had started returning mis-shelved store items a few months ago. The first time, she saw a carton of milk sitting next to the feminine pads. Her only thought was that the milk would go bad if she didn’t get it back to the refrigerated section. The next time, she found a head of lettuce next to some Oreos; she reasoned that if the milk deserved to go back to its home, so did the lettuce. Last week, she had spent ten minutes trying to figure out where they shelved the lemon juice at Albertsons.

Lucy strolled around—keeping an eye out for Gerald—until she found an aisle of pink boxes from floor to ceiling. There were hundreds of Barbies—even a Pioneer Barbie next to a Native American Barbie. What were the little girls supposed to do with those—reenact the fun of Manifest Destiny?

She was about to put Tropical Scent Barbie on her shelf when she saw Gerald Trujillo turn his shopping cart down the aisle.

“Hi, I thought that was you,” he said. God, he looked great. Bright hazel eyes against dark brown hair. His wife was a lucky woman.

“Hi,” she mumbled back.

“Still playing with dolls?” he said, smiling as he looked at the Barbie box in her hand.

Lucy felt her face color. She had no explanation for what she was doing, so she lied.

“I’m thinking of getting my godchild this.”

He nodded. She steeled herself against the next question, which she knew was coming.

“We haven’t seen you around the fire station lately,” he said, without as much accusation as she would have expected. “What have you been up to?”

“Do you want the truth or a lie?” she asked.

He laughed, enough so that his eyes crinkled up. “Well, I think I already know the truth, so tell me a lie, but make it creative.”

“I think I used the abducted-by-aliens lie last time so this time I’ll go with being in jail.”

“What were the charges?” His smile got wider, showing teeth.

“I didn’t get arrested. I just really wanted a prison tattoo.”

“Look, Lucy,” he said, the smile almost gone, “I know you’re busy, we all are, but you made a commitment to the station. If you plan on volunteering with us, you really need to make time for it in your life. Make it a priority. We haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“I know, I know, I suck.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but if you want to keep your skills as a medic, you need to use them.”

Lucy just nodded, her eyes on the floor. God, she hated feeling guilty.

“How about this,” Gerald said. “I’ll be at the station tomorrow at about eight in the morning. Why don’t you stop by and we can go over some training?”

“If you make it ten instead, I’ll be there.” She had never been a morning person.

They murmured their good-byes and Lucy watched him turn down the aisle. She put Tropical Scent Barbie back where she belonged and started to the front of the store.

She was an aisle or two away when she heard exclamations of acknowledgment. She glanced down an aisle. Gerald was hugging a red-headed woman with a small child in her arms. Lucy felt, rather than heard, them giving each other the ritual Northern New Mexico inquiries: asking after each other’s families. Maybe they had been high school sweethearts or their fathers had bowled together. Lucy felt a pang of … something. Envy? She turned back around and headed to the checkout line, clutching her Lysol closer to her chest as it started to slip. As she stood in line, she noticed that someone had put several packs of gum back in the wrong places. She carefully placed them back where they belonged as she waited in line.

In the parking lot, she unlocked her Toyota Camry and tossed her shopping bag onto the seat. Then she drove to work, not even caring that she was an hour early.

G
il headed back from Taos to Santa Fe, but instead of again following the road that ran along the Rio Grande, he took the highway that went up into the mountains. He noted the mileage and time again, although he already knew that taking the High Road added about ten miles to the trip. Of the two roads leading from Santa Fe to Taos, the High Road is the more famous. When Gil was a uniformed officer working on the Plaza during the summer, he was always giving tourists directions to the High Road, each carload stocked up on cameras and extra film to capture the sweeping views. The road went mostly through Carson National Forest and mountain towns like Placita and Chamisal.

Gil kept a watch out for black ice as the highway climbed, quickly leaving the desert and making its way into ponderosa pine forest. Signs along the road warned drivers to put on tire chains and watch for snow plows. It hadn’t snowed for more than a month, but because of the high elevation, he could see some ice in the shadows on the forest floor. Keeping an eye out
for elk, Gil thought about Melissa Baca. Why had the killer driven more than an hour away to get rid of her body? Was he trying to cover up evidence? The damage to the body from a 650-foot fall would make it hard to determine which injuries had been made postmortem and which had been made pre-mortem. But it had been cold last night, which would have helped preserve the body. He would have to check to see what the temperature had been. That would help the OMI determine what time rigor mortis and lividity had set in.

He thought about Oñate Park, where Melissa’s car had been found. The neighbors had finally gotten tired of the drug dealing there and started a high-profile neighborhood watch a few months ago, but it hadn’t stopped the problems. He thought about the drug connection. The Taos Gorge Bridge had been the site of a few drug-related killings. A few years ago two men had thrown an eighteen-year-old boy alive off the bridge because they wanted to steal his car to pay for Christmas presents and drugs. Gil knew that Ron and Melissa had a brother who had died of a heroin overdose and that addictions ran in the family. But Pollack had said that no drugs had been found on Melissa.

The time frame was what bothered him most. Melissa had left home at 8
P.M.
It would have taken her about twenty minutes to get from her house to Oñate Park. She was probably dead by 8:30
P.M.
She had to have been at the bottom of the Taos Gorge before 10:30
P.M.
, when it had started snowing. It was a very tight schedule. It didn’t leave much room for error or second-guessing. Either the killer was a fast thinker or he had planned ahead.

Gil drove into Peñasco, where blue smoke from wood-burning stoves hung in the air. The shadows of the late afternoon made it harder to see the highway.

Down the road a few miles was the turnoff to a small stream that fed Santa Cruz Lake. It was one of his dad’s favorite fishing spots. They would hike in a half mile and make a day of
it, casting from one small pool to another. His sister Elena would occasionally come with them, but she would get impatient quickly with all the standing around and being quiet. She would eventually start to climb up the canyon sides and disappear in search of some new path. Once, when Gil was ten, his mother had come with them. Elena, who must have been eight at the time, stayed close to their mother instead of wandering off. They ate leftover empanaditas and drank cold Cokes for lunch. His mother did her embroidery while sitting in her skirt on a boulder. Gil thought that maybe Susan and the girls would like to go there sometime.

His cell phone rang and he pulled over to the side of the road before answering it. It was against the law in the city of Santa Fe to talk on a cell phone while driving. It was still thirty miles to Santa Fe, but rules were rules. He answered, saying, “Hello, this is Detective Montoya.”

“Gil, man, it’s Manny Cordova. I just heard about Melissa Baca. My mom just called and told me. What the hell is going on?” Officer Cordova sounded hollow. His swear words had no strength.

“Manny, I don’t really know anything. The state police are handling it.” Gil hesitated before asking, “Did you know her?”

“We went to high school together and dated a few years ago. Her mom and my mom are, like, best friends. They play bridge together every week. Ron is like my brother. I just can’t believe …”

“What was Melissa like?” Gil asked.

“I don’t know. She was … she was a teacher over at some private school. She lived with her mom and was dating some gringo, some teacher at the school…. I just saw her a few days ago and she was all smiles. I can’t freaking believe this…. You must know something. What are the state cops saying?”

“Manny …”

“Melissa would never commit suicide. Do you think it’s a suicide?” Cordova sounded desperate.

“Manny,” Gil said gently, “I don’t know anything.”

“What does Melissa look like? I mean, can you tell it’s her?”

“I didn’t see the body. But it’s her.”

Gil heard Manny swear softly before he said, “Just call me if you find out anything else. I’m going to call Ron to make sure he and his mom are okay.” They hung up, and Gil got back on the road.

As he crested the hill into Truchas, the sun was setting over the Jemez Mountains. He looked to the east, where the Sangre de Cristos were a deep shade of pink. The Española Valley below was cut by the headlights of cars following the highway out of Santa Fe along the valley floor. By the time Gil reached Santa Fe, it was full dark.

M
axine Baca sat in the easy chair that her husband, Ernesto, had bought her. It had blue upholstery with white dots and fancy skirt ruffle. Its back was too high, making it uncomfortable to sit in. The armrests were dirty. She smoothed them, hoping it would make them look better. She wanted to vacuum the chair but knew that if she walked to the utility closet she would be stopped by well-wishers—was that what they were called? The living room around her was crowded with people. She heard children’s laughter coming from the kitchen. It was quickly quieted.

She wanted them all gone. She wanted to be locked in her house alone and not let out. She had heard people on television say that having a child die was the worst thing that could happen to you. What was it supposed to feel like when you lost two children and a husband?

She stood up and made it to her bedroom, ignoring everyone who put out a hand to stop her. She slumped in front of her shrine to Daniel and struggled to stay on her knees. Someone was behind her in the doorway, saying something. She ignored him until he went away.

She picked up the picture of Daniel, her oldest. It had been taken at his high-school graduation, a year before he died. She touched the photo. Daniel had borrowed Ernesto’s best tie
and they had gone to Dillard’s to get him a new shirt with a collar. She carefully placed the picture back at the feet of the statue of Our Lady. She touched the corners of Daniel’s First Communion picture, which was leaning against a statue of St. Anthony, her patron saint. He had been only six and had been too scared to smile at the camera. Above Daniel’s shrine hung a crucifix. Maxine had dressed Our Lord Jesus in a robe of blue satin, with lace on the sleeves she had sewn by hand. The robe had been her gift to Our Lord for Daniel.

On the table next to two votive candles was a piece of coral. She picked it up. It was pink and jagged. Not much bigger than a pumpkin seed. Her mother had brought the coral when Daniel was born. To ward off
mal de ojo.
Maxine had put the coral in Daniel’s crib to protect him from the jealous people who would say he was beautiful but give him the devil’s eye.

Ernesto didn’t want the coral in Daniel’s crib, fearing that he might choke on it. But Ernesto didn’t understand. His family was from town and went to the doctor when they were sick. Maxine’s family still lived in the mountains and saw the
curandera.
The coral had come from the
curandera.
And Maxine knew that it would protect Daniel.