Whispers from the Dead (11 page)

I rewound the tape, knowing the rest of it. A higher court threw out the verdict, and Adam was released to live with one or both of his parents. There was plenty of evidence to place Adam at the scene of the murder, but an eyewitness was lacking, so he got away with his crime.

How did this all fit in with Rosa? I had the uncomfortable feeling that something I had read held a clue to the answer, but it eluded me, and I couldn’t capture it.

A voice spoke next to me, startling me so that I jumped. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

I stared up at the librarian who had brought me the film. “I don’t know,” I answered. “I thought there would be something about …” A wisp of a thought tickled my mind, then disappeared before I could grasp it. What was it?

“Do me a favor. Peel some carrots,” Mom called as she trotted past me on her way to the garage. “I forgot about lettuce and tomatoes for a salad, so I’m going to make a quick trip to the store.”

I peeled the carrots, then wandered from the kitchen into the den, Dinky at my heels. The house was quiet, the sun slanting long, shimmering ribbons of light through the west windows. I walked to the edge of the entry hall, which was peaceful in the late-afternoon stillness and shadow. I found myself waiting, melting into the silence, as though it were expected of me. Why?

Slowly, like cold, creeping fingers against my skin,
came the awareness that some unseen being was with me. Terrified, I whispered, “Rosa? Is it you?”

Esto para usted.

From classroom Spanish I remembered the words
This is for you
, but I didn’t know what Rosa meant. Slowly I sank to the tiles and sat cross-legged. “What is for me? Rosa, what do you want of me?” I asked. My whisper was so loud that I shrank from the sound, trembling.

Dinky crooned in the back of her throat, and her hair stood on end. With a shriek she bolted from the room.

In spite of my fear, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, took a deep breath, and tried to concentrate.
Rosa
, I begged,
don’t force me. I told you that I’d help you willingly.
There was no response, so I added,
I’m trying to reach you, but I don’t know what step to take next. You’ll have to tell me. You wanted me here. I’m here. I’m listening. I’m waiting.

Silencio, por favor.
Her words were soft and tearful, almost like an apology, and somehow I understood that Rosa had something she wanted to show me.

Slowly I began to feel the room changing around me. The air shifted, turned warmly damp and sour with fear, and Rosa’s sobs became little drops of ice that slithered down my backbone. I was afraid to open my eyes, terrified of what I might see.

Suddenly, with the swiftness and shock of a slap, the sensation vanished.
Rosa?
I thought in surprise.
What happened? Are you here with me? Do you want to talk to me?

I could feel her breath against my face, but it was agitated. Her plan had been interrupted.

I slumped with relief, as though I’d been held tightly by a string and suddenly let go. Even though she hadn’t told me, I suspected that Rosa had been about to unleash the horror that clung to this room.

Rosa, I’m afraid. I’m scared to death
, I told her.
I promised to help you, and I will. But please don’t pull me into something I can’t handle.

I waited for an answer, but it didn’t come. Instead I realized that I was being watched by someone close by, someone I knew was not Rosa.

I couldn’t stand the tension. My eyelids flew open, and my head jerked toward the window next to the front door. I screamed as my eyes met those in the face that was staring in at me.

The figure waved and gestured. Through a haze I saw that it was only Dee Dee.

Stumbling, shaking, I managed to get to my feet and cross the hall to open the front door.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Dee Dee said. She shifted the large potted plant in her arms and put it on the hall table. “You look awful. You’re so pale. I’m sorry.” She clutched my shoulders and led me to the stairs, pushing me down. “Do you need to put your head between your knees?”

“I’m all right. I’m not going to faint.” I took a couple of long, deep breaths and felt the color flood back into my cheeks.

“What in the world were you doing on the floor with
your eyes shut?” Dee Dee asked. “Yoga? Oh, I know. You were meditating.”

Strange Sarah. Not again! Oh, please, not again! Embarrassed, I snapped, “It doesn’t matter, does it? I didn’t think I was on exhibit.”

“Hey, look,” Dee Dee explained. “Don’t blame me for seeing you. Anybody who comes to the door can see inside your house. It would be hard not to.”

She smiled. “And don’t be embarrassed because I caught you meditating. Lots of people do it. I got into a weight-loss program last year that called for meditating, and I tried it, but I couldn’t keep my mind on it, because I kept thinking about other things.” She giggled. “If I were you, though, I’d do the meditating in your bedroom, where you’d have some privacy, and not in the entry hall.” She sat on the stair beside me.

“Would you like to split a Coke?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.

“No thanks,” Dee Dee said. “It’s almost dinnertime. I just came over to deliver the plant from my mom to yours and to tell you something about those papers and things you found. I asked Lupita if she knew anybody over here named Rosa Luiz and she—”

“Dee Dee!” I interrupted. “I asked you not to tell anyone about those things.”

She looked slightly guilty. “I didn’t, really. I just asked her if she knew Rosa Luiz. I’m not going to talk about it to anyone else, honest.”

“Okay. So what did Lupita tell you?”

“That’s the strange part,” Dee Dee said. “She acted real scared and kept rattling on in Spanish so fast, I
couldn’t understand her. I did understand a couple of words, though—
immigration
and
deported
.”

“Rosa?”

“That must be what she meant.”

“If Rosa had been deported, surely the officials would have let her take her belongings with her.”

“She must have taken her clothes,” Dee Dee said. “Maybe she forgot about the packet you found until after she was on a bus headed back to Mexico, and it was too late.”

“Her money and the silver medal her uncle left her? Do you really think she’d forget those?”

“I don’t know.” Dee Dee leaned over and scratched at a tiny red spot on her ankle. “We’re not going to find out anything from Lupita. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

“You’re wrong. We
did
find out something.”

Dee Dee stopped scratching and straightened, looking at me with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s simple,” I said. “We found out that Lupita knew Rosa.”

B
y the time dinner was over, I was exhausted. I watched TV in the den and woke up during the ten-o’clock news to find I’d been sleeping all evening.

“It’s a good sign,” I heard Dad saying. “Sarah’s beginning to relax. We all need to. The murder is over and done with, and we can’t let it affect our lives.”

“It affects the way I feel about the people on this block,” Mom said. “I can’t help it.” She glared at Evelyn Pritchard’s potted plant, which I’d moved to the coffee table.

“I know.” There was a pause and Dad said, “We could take Sarah’s example too. She’s already made friends in the neighborhood.”

I stretched, yawned loudly, and sat up, pretending to have just awakened, so they wouldn’t know that I’d over-heard what they’d said. “It looks like I woke up just in time to go to bed,” I told them.

“I’m afraid that after your long nap you won’t be able to get to sleep,” Mom said. “Would you like me to make you some hot cocoa? I’ll be glad to stay up and chat with you.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need hot cocoa—or conversation, either. I feel as though I could sleep for a couple of weeks.”

“Maybe you need vitamins,” Mom began, but Dad and I shouted at her at the same time.

“Dorothy!”

“Mom!”

She laughed. “Okay. I’ll back off.”

I kissed Mom and Dad good night and climbed the stairs to my room. Once inside with the door shut, I opened the bottom drawer in my chest of drawers and took out the packet of things that belonged to Rosa. Separating them, I laid them out on top of the chest to examine them. The silver medal seemed to tug in my hand, so I opened my palm, exposing the medal to view.

Rosa?
I asked, but there was no answer. The silver grew warm, probably from the heat of my body. I placed the medal beside the little calendar and reread the letter.

What had Rosa planned to show me this afternoon? I shuddered, pushing the question out of my mind. I didn’t want to think about it. I was afraid that I knew.

I began to yawn again. My eyelids were heavy. I wrapped up the little bundle and tucked it back into the drawer. I showered, put on my pajamas, and literally fell into bed.

I dreamed about a young woman, not much older
than I. She sat near the foot of my bed, huddled inside a large, woven shawl. Her skin was a deep brown, her black hair pulled back tightly, and her dark eyes never left my face. The sorrow that drew her features into a tight mask was so intense that in sympathy I reached out to her.

She straightened and extended her hands to me. But as she sat upright the shawl fell back, and I saw that her body was soaked with blood. The dark blood dripped from her fingers onto mine, and I was helpless to pull away.

“No!” I tried to cry out.

“¡Ayúdame!”
she pleaded.

Terrified, I tried to shout at her to go away, to run from those eyes that stared into mine. But I couldn’t move or speak. Finally, desperately, a guttural, animal sound escaped through my lips, waking me. I was tangled in the sheet, my body drenched with sweat. Struggling, kicking away the sheet, I managed to sit up and turn on the bed lamp to chase away the last remnants of the nightmare.

There were no other sounds in the house, so it was obvious I didn’t make enough noise to wake Mom and Dad. I slumped against the headboard, unable to get the picture of the woman out of my mind.

Rosa. It had to be.

I’d promised to help her and had opened my mind to her. I’d allowed her to come.

“Not in my dreams,” I murmured aloud. “There has to be someplace where I can escape. Rosa, I don’t want you to frighten me like this. Do you understand?”

There was a special silence, like a door closing softly, and I knew she had left.

I didn’t understand the dream. Why had Rosa been covered with blood? What did she have to do with Darlene Garland’s murder? What had really happened in this house? I squirmed back down under the sheet, punched at my pillow and rolled on my side. I ached for sleep but I was afraid to let go, afraid that Rosa might return.

The next day, after breakfast, Mom decided to hang pictures, and I helped her, the measuring and hammering and pounding mercifully driving all thoughts of the dream out of my head.

Around eleven she asked, “Where’s Dee Dee? I thought she’d be over to see you.”

“She said something about having to go shopping all day with her mother. This is Dee Dee’s day off from her lifeguard job.”