CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A stairway in the transept led Veronica down to the cathedral’s subterranean multipurpose room. It was a large space with linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting, more high school cafeteria than Gothic catacomb. A kitchen was visible through an open door at one end. Several people sat talking and laughing at the long folding tables. Children ran around the open space, playing a game with rules obvious only to themselves.
Gladys Corrigan came out of the kitchen balancing a silver tray heaped with Oreos. She placed it on a small table next to two large carafes of coffee, and was busily straightening the sugar packets when Veronica stepped up next to her.
“Hi, Ms. Corrigan. I don’t know if you remember me, but my name’s Veronica. I met you at the Neptune Grand a few days ago?”
The woman blinked rapidly, then took off her glasses and polished them on the edge of her blouse. “Veronica. Yes, I’m sorry, you startled me. Hello.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry to sneak up on you like this.” She smiled, doing her best impression of affable. “I was wondering if you could help me.”
Gladys hesitated, her brow knit into a complex tangle of lines. She glanced around the room. “What is this about, dear? If it’s something work related, I can’t really…”
“I’m trying to find someone…anyone…who can talk to me about Miguel Ramirez. You mentioned that you knew him through church. How well did you know him?”
Gladys twisted her lips in a thoughtful pout. “Well, we talked after Mass sometimes. When my husband died a few years ago, he came by once in a while to help me mow my lawn. It was so sweet of him. I was too…you know, too heartbroken to see to it myself.” She shook her head. “But I didn’t know much about his personal life, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Is there anyone here who might know more?”
Gladys straightened herself up, one hand going to her hip. “Miss Mars, these people are here for church. You can’t just ask—”
“You sounded very sure that Miguel was innocent,” Veronica interrupted. “If that’s true, don’t you want his name cleared?”
Gladys fell silent for a moment. At the tables around them, people chattered on, oblivious to the tension at the snack table. A small child darted between them, grabbed an Oreo, and ran off to join his friends again.
She gave Veronica a strange, searching look. “He’s already been deported. It doesn’t matter.”
Veronica took a deep breath, frustrated.
“It does matter. I’m trying to save the place you work millions of dollars. I could also restore the reputation of someone you believe is a sweet young guy who couldn’t have done what he’s been accused of.”
The woman’s eyes dropped down to the dirty linoleum floor. Veronica knew the details of the crime were probably common knowledge among the staff of the Neptune Grand.
“I don’t want to bother anyone, or get anyone in trouble,” Veronica continued. “But unless I can find some way to either rule him out or find him, this case is going to fall apart.”
Gladys looked up, her lips pressed tightly together but shaking. She took a deep breath. Then she held up her hand, calling out to someone across the room. “Bianca, honey. Can you come here for a second?”
Veronica watched as a young woman in a yellow sundress turned toward them from the table where she sat. Her black hair was cut short, and she tucked the ends nervously behind her ears as she approached.
“What’s up, Gladys?” She crossed her arms over her chest in a gesture that seemed more self-protective than hostile.
“Well…if you have a few minutes…” Gladys gave a sad little smile. “This young lady has some questions about your husband.”
—
Veronica and Bianca sat together on an oak-shaded bench in Founder’s Park, just across the street from the cathedral. Eucalyptus and palm trees dotted the expanse of the neatly manicured lawn. Paved trails wove through the greenery, joggers and speed-walkers hurrying past. Their bench faced a playground where Bianca and Miguel’s four-year-old son, Gabe, shrieked with laughter as he chased another boy.
Bianca angrily wiped a tear from her eye. “I can’t believe I didn’t know.”
The feeling is mutual, sister. Veronica had been prepared to question churchgoers about Miguel, but finding out that he had wife—a wife who had no idea that he was accused of any crime, much less a vicious rape and beating—had left her reeling.
“It’s strange. If local law enforcement ran any kind of identity check on Miguel, you and Gabe would have come up,” Veronica said, leaning forward, bracing her forearms against her knees.
Bianca sniffed. “Not necessarily. ‘Miguel Ramirez’ wasn’t his real name. And we weren’t…we weren’t legally married.” Her voice dropped, ashamed. “We always really wanted to be. But he didn’t want me to get in trouble if he got caught. No one at church knows the truth—we told everyone we were married in San Diego.”
Bianca pulled her phone from her purse and, after pulling up the photos, handed it to Veronica. The screen showed a smiling Miguel with Gabe on his shoulders, somewhere down by the Boardwalk. Carnival lights flashed in the background, and Gabe held a towering cotton candy high over his head. It was hard to reconcile this image with that of the sinister-looking alleged perp in his mug shot. But then, that was the nature of mug shots. They could make Bruno Mars indistinguishable from Rondo Hatton.
“He told me he was undocumented before we even had our first kiss,” Bianca said softly. “He knew what it could mean for me. For us.”
“Couldn’t he apply for citizenship once you were married?” Veronica asked.
“It’s not that simple. You have to go back to your home country to apply for a green card, but there’s a law that anyone who entered the country illegally is banned from reentering for ten years. So we decided to risk it and stay here. I’ve been constantly afraid he would get pulled over for a bad taillight or something. That’s all it takes for them to get you.”
“Are you in touch with him now?”
“Of course I am.” Bianca tucked her hair behind her ears again and frowned. “But if you’re hoping I’ll put you in touch with him—no way. Just no way. Miguel can’t possibly have done this…thing you say he’s accused of. Look, Ms. Mars, Miguel is the gentlest man I’ve ever met, okay? He never raised his voice with me or with Gabe. He never even slammed a door. I’m sure that’s exactly what you’d expect me to say, but it’s true.”
“Maybe so. But with him out of reach, no one here has a good incentive to prove him innocent. Think about it—if you were, say, a lazy, corrupt deputy, would you put much effort into finding an accused criminal once he’d disappeared into Mexico? Or would you throw your hands up and assume he’s guilty so you can move on with your day?”
She’d phrased it carefully. She wanted Bianca to hear the word innocent before she heard guilty. She wanted Bianca to trust that she would take either possibility very seriously.
“Mommy! Watch me!”
Gabe’s high-pitched voice wafted back to them from the playground. He started to climb up the miniature rock wall—a three-foot ledge with hand-and footholds bolted to the side. Bianca’s eyes followed him closely as he scaled the wall. When he’d gotten to the top, he waved. She waved back. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, broken.
“I grew up getting the shit beat out of me on a regular basis. Grew up watching my mom get the shit beat out of her too. I used to watch her cover for my dad at the hospital. Bruises all over her body, broken wrist, broken nose, and she told the cops she walked into a door. I swore up and down I’d never let anyone treat me like that. Never.”
Veronica fought the urge to reach out and touch the woman’s hand. She knew it would not be welcome.
“Whoever said this about him is lying.” Bianca tugged at a lock of her hair, looping it tightly around a finger. “You said there was DNA evidence?”
“Yes. If we could get a sample from him…”
The woman shook her head tightly. “He’s in Michoacán, on his sister’s farm. It’d take you weeks to find him and get him tested.” Her eyes stared out over the playground. Gabe ran along the playscape to the fireman’s pole, leapt onto it, and squealed as he slid to the ground. “There’s another way, though, right?”
Veronica didn’t answer. She’d been hoping Bianca would have the idea for herself—and she didn’t want to say anything that might accidentally change her mind.
“Gabe, mijo, come here for a second, please.” Bianca gestured for the boy to come over. The child ran over, tripping on his shoelaces once but getting right back up.
“You can take his, can’t you?” The woman scooped the boy up and pulled him in her lap.
Veronica hesitated. “I could,” she said. “Do you mind?”
Bianca’s nostrils flared. “Do it.”
The little boy stared up at her with wide, baffled eyes. Veronica used the tweezers she kept in her purse to pluck five glossy black hairs from his head and put them into a plastic bag. This sample, of course, wouldn’t be admissible in court. It would be too easy for a lawyer to claim—for a while at least—that there was no proof Gabe was Miguel’s son. However, it would determine her next step. If the samples matched, that would be enough to get the FBI interested in tracking down Miguel Ramirez, or whatever his name really was.
And if they didn’t…Well, it wouldn’t completely rule Ramirez out. But Veronica would start looking damn hard at other suspects, other possibilities. Because she sensed that, like all survivors, Bianca Ramirez was a kind of amateur detective herself. Anyone who’d spent a childhood waiting for the other foot—or the other fist—to fall knew how to sense danger. And she didn’t get the feeling that this was a woman who’d tolerate a threat in her home for very long.