Five Midnights Read online

  Someone appeared at his left elbow and asked a question in rapid-fire Spanish, and Esteban answered with a raised finger that bought them a minute. “Phone conversations about my cases when you’re tucked away safe in Vermont are one thing, but this?” He gestured around to the hive of activity that surrounded them. “I’m sorry you have to see this, Lupe. I shouldn’t be surprised that your father forgot to give you the keys, but he always disappoints me.”

  Welcome to the club, Lupe thought, but a feeling of guilt for the deception haunted her. Well, for a few seconds, anyway. She was at a real crime scene! It was worth the white lie.

  “I’m afraid I still have about an hour of work left.” The lines around his eyes seemed deeper as he glanced around.

  She smiled at him while duplicates of herself smiled back in the lenses of his sunglasses. “It’s okay. Anyway, you know I love this shi … stuff.”

  He looked at her reproachfully, then sighed. “Yes, well, I have to figure out how to tell your aunt about all this shi … stuff.” He pulled out his phone.

  Lupe paused. “Why would tía care?”

  He dialed as he spoke. “The young man who was killed was her nephew Izzy’s friend.”

  “Cousin Izzy?” Wait. “He isn’t mixed up in the murder, is he?”

  “I don’t think so. But he and Vico, the boy who was killed … they were like brothers.”

  Lupe nodded solemnly. She didn’t have a friendship like that, but she often wished for one. What must it be like to have it … then lose it? Her eyes fell on the bloodstain. And like this.

  Esteban let out a breath. “Well, don’t worry about that, niña.” He held the phone to his ear, forced a smile, and put his large hand on her shoulder. “You’re on vacation! Just sit over there and wait for me.” He pointed to a brightly painted picnic table by the wall, the kind at which a child would eat out of their lunchbox. “I shouldn’t be long.”

  Lupe made for the bench as expected and sat perched on the edge. Images of her wild cousin ran in her head like a digital slideshow. They had been inseparable when they were little and she used to count the days till summer when she would see him again. But even then he made her nervous. Izzy was the kind of kid who enjoyed taunting death. Skateboarding down Calle Santa Cruz while holding on to a car’s bumper, leaping from concrete pillar to concrete pillar whenever the adults looked away. He was like a kite you could barely hold on to, the string vibrating with its need to break free. She loved him for that.

  She’d get more details later.

  The sun baked her from overhead and she wondered if eyeballs could boil in their sockets.

  Just behind the police tape an old woman dressed in a long-sleeved black dress, her head covered in black lace, stood staring into the center of the police activity, at the bloodstain on the steaming pavement. She looked so out of place among the shorts-and-T-shirt-clad spectators.

  The old woman made the sign of the cross and stepped back, the crowd filling the gap she’d left like the tide coming in.

  Lupe got to her feet.

  She glanced over at Esteban, who was absorbed in a phone conversation. If Izzy and his friends were in some kind of trouble, she was going to help. Which meant she had to listen to her instincts and at the moment they were telling her this old woman was connected.

  When her uncle was out of sight, she stood up cool and calm-like and strolled down the street. As she walked and looked for the woman, Lupe took everything in: the colors, the sounds, the smells. There were people scurrying along the roads, not even paying attention to the police activity in their backyard. It made her think that this was a regular occurrence.

  She sped up as she made her way down a main drag, looking for the black-clad figure. She couldn’t have gotten far. Lupe felt like Detective Leah Carlson, the rule-breaker on DOA Newark.

  A few people looked up as she rushed by as if she were some sort of oddity, her ridiculously pale Irish skin (literally the only thing her mother had given her before skipping town) standing out. Music spilled out of houses as she passed by, the sizzle of frying grease, and the sounds of babies crying carried on the hot afternoon air. There was no doubt in her mind that this place was a home. A real and true home.

  Lupe reached the end of the main drag. No sight of the woman but she thought better of heading down the side alleys. She’d been so busy looking, she hadn’t noticed the catcalls that trailed behind her from a group of men standing against the buildings. They wouldn’t have dared do it if she’d been walking in her father’s large shadow like normal. Blood rushed to her cheeks. Maybe she’d better get back to her uncle.

  As she turned back she saw the old woman on a corner up ahead. Activity bustled around her but she was still as stone, her black dress moving only slightly with the torpid afternoon air, ruffling like the feathers of a raven. Lupe approached with caution. The woman was worrying a set of brown wooden rosary beads in her wrinkled hands, her lips moving in a constant trickle of prayer.

  The woman looked right into Lupe’s eyes and she froze. Well? What could she possibly say to this lady? Sorry to stalk you, but you looked suspicious in your black lace and orthopedic shoes? But as she turned to walk away, a tremulous voice called out to her.

  “It was not our fault.”

  Lupe froze. “I’m sorry, Señora?”

  The old woman’s hazel eyes were covered with a hazy filter of age but were intense nonetheless. Lupe’s skin tightened.

  “Mi nieto, his death.” She pointed back toward the stairs and the hive of police activity.

  Nieto. Lupe sorted through her half-assed and rusty Spanish vocabulary. Then it clicked. “The boy who was killed, he was your grandson?”

  The old woman nodded, her eyes never leaving Lupe’s face. “My daughter. It was not her fault. They didn’t know he would really come.”

  Lupe took a step closer, the old lady’s scent of talcum and roses reaching for her with delicate fingers. “They didn’t know who would come, Señora?” She spoke quietly, coaxing the woman to continue. A voice in her head told her to take off and run for the safety of her uncle. Another voice, the stronger one that sounded like Detective Carlson and usually won out, wanted to hear what the old woman had to say, to poke at the feeling with a stick and see what happened. “Señora, your grandson was friends with my cousin Isadore. Do you know Izzy?”

  She pointed a crooked finger at Lupe. “Isadore is a good boy. A good boy. But he’d better andar con cuidado, be careful, or he’ll come for him, too. He’ll come for retribución.”

  Lupe’s heart started banging against her ribs. “Retribution? For what? I’m sorry, Señora, but who exactly will come for Izzy?” This was getting real.

  The woman just shook her head, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “May God forgive us.” And with that, she turned and started back down the street, her shoulders hunched and appearing to age with each step.

  Lupe stood frozen to the spot, watching the woman shuffle through the people on the sidewalk. Finally she willed herself loose, and ran after her.

  “Señora? Wait, Señora!” she called, catching glimpses of her white hair weaving among the midday street traffic. She thought she saw her down one of the side streets, so she bolted toward the corner, her breath coming in shallow with the heat. Lupe came to an abrupt stop, chest heaving as her gaze swept the street. There was no one there. She spun around and searched the faces, but the grandmother was nowhere around.

  She stood in the street, feeling alone, adrenaline cooling like when she sat in the tub and let the bath empty around her, sitting there as the cold air replaced warm water.

  July 6, 4:15 P.M.

  Javier

  STOPPING AT THE entrance to the church, Javier ran his hands across the curtain of black rubber strips that hung from the doorway. He and Vico used to compete to see who could make them fly higher as they ran through. Abuelo told him the strips were there so they could leave the doors open during mass but keep the birds out. Vico always said it l
ooked like a carwash. With a heavy sigh Javier shoved the worn rubber aside and headed into the cool darkness of the church.

  The crowd in the church was an odd combination of players and citizens from the neighborhood. He should have stayed in touch with Vico. Maybe he could have helped, made him talk to Padre Sebastian.

  Maybe his friend would still be alive.

  Javier found a seat at the end of a pew, in the shadow from the balcony above. He really wanted to avoid seeing any of his old “associates.” Not that he wanted to use again, but they could be so damned persuasive and today he was feeling like an open wound. For two years he’d lived without the darkness trailing behind, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  As if on cue, a wave of voices rose at the entrance to the church and he looked back to see a group of Vico’s gang, Las Calaveras from El Norte, the drug-infested north end of Amapola, pushing toward the center aisle. They were puffing and preening like pigeons, shoving one another and spewing obscenities. Javier could feel the tension come off the people in the pews like static electricity. They cast disapproving looks out of the sides of their eyes, but no one seemed as if they were going to say anything. These were regular mothers, fathers, and grandparents who worked hard so their young would not end up like these boys. And Javier was damn sure they never expected to bury them first.

  Padre Sebastian had taught Javier not to get involved, that other addicts’ problems were not his own, but he was on his feet before he could talk himself out of it. The church was filled with viejitas, powder-scented ladies all around him, so no way in hell was he going to let something happen to them, in a church no less. He’d only taken a few steps when a tiny old woman dressed in black from head to toe made her way to the center of the aisle. It took him a minute, but Javier recognized Vico’s grandmother. She lived in El Rubí and had refused to move when her family tried to get her out.

  The guys pushed their way forward, their attention only on one another, when the lead kid noticed the old woman ahead of them. He stopped short, the others plowing into him from behind, their voices dying down in a wave. She lived among gangs like these, there was no fear in her stance. Good thing, since guys like that smelled fear like wild animals. She pointed her finger at them, the lace mantilla over her head shaking with the movement, her voice carrying across the church.

  “You will show respect for the dead.”

  The guys froze for a minute, then nodded their heads and quietly made their way to the front of the church, giving her a wide berth as they passed by.

  Javier smiled. Seven words from a tiny old woman could control a gang of thugs.

  Only in Puerto Rico.

  The organ music rose from behind the altar and Javier settled into that numb state that mass always brought. He welcomed it.

  * * *

  After the service he sat in the pew in the darkened nave until most of the mourners had filed out.

  “Man, all this and Vico’s body ain’t even here!”

  “Yeah, the police got what’s left of him.”

  “I heard there were claw marks—”

  “I heard that he was sliced in two!”

  Javier caught pieces of conversations from the players as they shuffled out. He knew that stories were passed from one of these guys to another like a game of telephone until they reached supernatural proportions, but the talk still made his skull feel heavy. It was like something from his childhood nightmares reaching forward to pull him back. But the way Javier figured it, it was just Vico’s time to pay the check for years of peddling the hard shit on las calles. After that much darkness, no one gets away clean.

  He just hoped it wasn’t too late for him.

  Javier decided he might as well head out. To where, he didn’t know. He had the day off from work and the idea of going home to his small, empty apartment wasn’t very appealing, but the air was getting thin in the church, so he stood and walked quickly to the front. Someone coming from the center aisle brushed by him, knocking against his shoulder. In the old days this would’ve earned the other guy a right hook, even in a church, but on this day he had no fight left.

  “Sorry, man. I didn’t see— Javi? Is that you?”

  Javier squinted in the semidarkness and recognized Memo from the neighborhood. His face looked the same, all bones and sharp angles, and he hadn’t gotten much taller than he’d been at thirteen. But even if he’d looked totally different, Javier would’ve recognized him anyway from the twitching and shifting from foot to foot. Memo was always strung a bit tight. Javier offered his forearm for a shake and couldn’t help smiling at the familiar face. “Damn, Memo. I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “I know, right? It’s good to see you, Javi. You clean up nice.”

  Javier laughed. Even though Memo was a few days older than he was, he always felt like a little brother. Memo was a follower, like a puppy that stays at your heels no matter how you treat him or where you’re heading. “Thanks, man. You doing okay? You still living in the neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, pana. It’s home, you know. I look in on your mom from time to time. Make sure she’s taken care of.” His eyes were far away. “She always been good to me. Never criticizes or judges me.”

  Javier was always surprised to hear what other people thought of his mother. They didn’t know her like he did. But it was good to hear that she helped Memo. The poor guy’s own mother put everything he did under a microscope and passed judgment like it was a matter of life and death. Or an excuse for a new therapist or medication. No wonder he was nervous all the time. Memo brightened up. “What about that Carlos, hey Javi?”

  He smiled. “You mean Papi Gringo?”

  “Yeah, man. He’s doing good for himself. Traveling around the world, all those hot mamis throwing themselves at him. He’s a star. Pana has it made.”

  Javier was always shocked when he saw their childhood friend on television or heard his voice booming from a car driving by. It was surreal. “That he does, hermano. That he does.”

  Memo was shifting back and forth, even more than usual.

  “Something bothering you? I mean, other than the obvious?” He pointed back toward the altar, where an empty box stood in for their friend.

  Memo’s eyes darted back and forth, never landing on Javi’s face. “I don’t know, man. It’s just with Izzy missing after what happened with Vico—”

  Javier’s breath caught. “Wait, Izzy’s missing?”

  Memo started talking fast, really fast, something he always did when he was scared. “Yeah, I mean, I heard he was trying to kick the junk, you feel me? Go straight? But no one’s seen him for, like, weeks, and with all the talk about what happened to Vico…”

  Javier waited, willing Memo to say what he needed to say. Or to not say it, because truth was, he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to know. What he did know was that it was hotter than hell in his suit. “I’m sure Izzy’s just laying low.” Hell, Javier had to withdraw completely from his life in order to get clean. Memo leaned in close, and Javier could smell the alcohol-like scent of his friend’s asthma spray.

  “Javi, aren’t you … worried about all this?”

  “Worried about what? It was only a matter of time with Vico. We all knew that.”

  Memo’s eyes darted toward the crucifix hanging at the back of the church, whispering as if God himself was trying to overhear their conversation. “I been getting that feeling, you know? That dark feeling we used to get?”

  Javier shuddered. He stared at Memo, a memory scritching at the back of his mind. Like a craving for smack, he knew it was something he couldn’t allow in. He pulled back from Memo and straightened his tie and jacket. “You on something? You’re talking some weird shit.”

  “No! I’m not! Not when I’m in church.” He did a fast sign of the cross. “You know what I’m talking about, I know you do. Remember—”

  A shout from just outside the door interrupted their conversation. “Damn, Memo! You comin’ or what? We gotta roll, pende
jo.” Javier took a deep breath as the spell broke.

  A group of guys were on the steps and, even in their Sunday-best funeral wear, Javier could tell they were gang members. Anger rose in his chest. “Tell me you’re not still hanging with those guys from El Norte. Didn’t you listen to anything Padre Sebastian told you?”

  Memo shuffled his feet on the marble tiles as if doing some intricate, anxiety-fueled dance. “I know, but they’re my friends.”

  Javier wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. “They’re not your friends, man. Anyone who encourages you to do bad shit is not your friend.” He felt the anger leak out, pity rushing in to take its place. “Why don’t you come to the parish with me now? It’ll give us some time to catch up, you know, talk, like old times.” Even as he was saying the words, Javier knew it was a waste of breath. Sometimes you can’t even teach a young dog new tricks. And part of him was hoping Memo would say no. This whole conversation was like a dark cloud he wanted to outrun.

  “Nah, man. I mean, thanks, and all, but I gotta go.” He was already moving sideways toward the door, as if the scumbags outside were tugging on some kind of leash. “It was good to see you, Javi!” Memo took off in a run toward the group who had already turned and started walking into the park, shoving one another, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.

  Javier stared after Memo for some time, rooted in the church aisle, as he felt darkness seep through the soles of his feet. He should have insisted. Would Memo end up like Vico? Padre Sebastian warned him that you were lucky if you saved one out of every hundred; at the end of the day, at least you had saved one. But this one hurt more than most: this one he felt in his chest like a blow. Memo was like a brother, one of los cangrejos. This and Vico? It was like losing a part of himself.

  He was mustering the energy to go out into the afternoon heat when he realized someone was saying his name.

  “Javier Andres Utierre?”

  His full name, which was never good.