46
Our Lady, Protector of Documents
You will be well, little one. Just uncomfortable for a few days, with this packing in your nose. Now, who did this? Did Victoria involve you in some desperate scheme?”
“Lotty!” I started to protest, but the words died in my throat. If I hadn’t nosed my way into the Guaman home, tonight’s assault probably wouldn’t have happened.
We were in Lotty’s clinic on Damen Avenue, along with Mr. Contreras, who had surged out of his apartment moments after Clara’s arrival.
“My God, is it Peewee?” he cried. When he saw that the face of the young woman, a stranger, was covered in blood, he’d ordered me to bring her into his place.
We laid her on his couch, and he made an ice pack for her face. “You stay with her, doll. Make her lie still. I’m getting dressed, and then we’ll get her to the doc.”
Clara was clutching her French textbook, and she wouldn’t relinquish it. I wrapped her in a blanket and concentrated on cleaning the blood from her face. While Mr. Contreras changed out of his magenta-striped pajamas, I called Lotty from the phone in his living room to ask if she could cut through the red tape at Beth Israel’s emergency room for us.
She’d been sound asleep, but years of practicing medicine made her alert at once. She told me to bring Clara to her clinic. “If nothing is broken, we’ll put her together there more comfortably. And without worrying all those social workers and insurance companies about reports on injuries to a minor child.”
As soon as Mr. Contreras was dressed, I ran upstairs for jeans, a sweater, and a spare coat for Clara, who’d arrived wearing nothing over her jeans and St. Teresa sweatshirt. I drove the two miles from our place to the clinic with a Lotty-like disregard for traffic laws.
Once Lotty assured herself that Clara’s injuries were superficial—no broken jaw, no damaged eye sockets—she inserted codeine-laced swabs into Clara’s nose and then packed it with what looked like a mile of gauze. Lotty applauded Mr. Contreras for knowing to ice the swollen eye and broken nose, then turned a stern gaze on me, wanting to know what kind of scheme I was running that endangered children.
“It wasn’t Vic,” Clara said. She was sitting in a big reclining chair in the examination room, knees up, head back, another ice pack pressed to her face. Her voice was a little slurred from the drugs Lotty had given her, but she seemed anxious to tell us what had happened.
“I guess they had someone watching our house, Vic,” she said. “Like, you know, I told you how Prince Rainier thought we were talking to you. I guess someone told him you still were.”
I felt sick to my stomach, as if Rodney were standing over me, kicking me again. Maybe I should find him and let him do it a few more times. Lotty was right—I had been running a scheme that endangered children. I couldn’t wallow in guilt now—I needed to get Clara to tell me how bad the damage was before Lotty’s drugs put her to sleep. I prodded her to continue.
“They must have waited until Papi got home from work. He was on the three-to-eleven shift today, so it was almost midnight before he got back. He was eating supper in the kitchen, and they just battered down the back door and came in. It—the noise, the shouting, these men all in black—it was so terrifying I don’t even know how my abuelita didn’t have a heart attack.
“I was doing homework, and I ran to the kitchen. Mamá and Ernie and my grandma were all asleep, but the noise woke them up. The men, they made us all come into the living room. One of them had me, he was holding me. I tried kicking him, and that’s when he hit me the first time.”
She was trembling at the memory, but I spoke sharply, forcing her to focus on details. How many men? Four. How were they dressed? Like Ernest used to dress when he rode his motorcycle, all black leather and studs.
“That was almost the most awful part, because Ernie started shrieking, ‘We’re getting our bikes out! We’re going for a ride!’ So these men, they yelled at him to shut up, and when he wouldn’t, first one man punched him, and when he still kept yelling, this other man, he hit me. Papi and Mamá, they stood there like frozen statues.”
She let out a bark of laughter that turned into a sob. Lotty wrapped her in a blanket, and forced some hot sweet tea into her. After a few moments, when she seemed calmer, I asked why she had come to me.
“Vic, she’s had enough!” Lotty’s voice was a whip. “She needs to sleep, and in a safe place.”
“Clara’s been playing with fire for too long,” I said. “If she’s ready to tell me what she knows, I need to hear it now, before anyone else gets hurt or killed.”
“That’s why I came to you, Vic,” Clara said. “Because they said if we didn’t give them the report, they’d burn the house down.”
My stomach became a lump of ice. “What report?”
“The Army sent it to my parents after Alexandra died.”
Clara’s hands were shaking so badly that the tea slopped onto the blanket she was holding.
I took the cup from her and held it to her mouth. I waited while she gulped the tea down before pushing her to tell me more about the report.
“It’s what started all the trouble, only I didn’t know back then. I was a kid still, no one told me anything. But it’s why Nadia and my mom were fighting all the time.
“My mom tonight, first she told the gangbangers she didn’t know what they were talking about, only when they punched me again and my nose started to bleed, she went to get it. See, she’d hidden it inside the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe over Allie’s bed. She—I should have told her, but I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I was just praying and praying that the gangbangers would leave.
“When they couldn’t find it, they said we had twenty-four hours to give it to them or the house would be burned down, or blown up, I don’t remember which. They left, out the front door. I just grabbed my French book and went out the back door, down the alley. I ran all the way to Ashland with Papi chasing after me, begging me to stop. But I found a cab right away and came to Vic’s place.”
“Your French book?” Mr. Contreras said. “Why the heck would you even be thinking about your studies at a time like that? And what about—”
“Vic gave me a twenty for an emergency.”
She opened the book to the back and showed us where she’d glued a piece of notebook paper over the verb tables to make a kind of pocket.
“Yeah, but that don’t explain—”
“Also, I put this inside.” Clara reached into the pocket and pulled out a set of folded papers, which she handed to me.
When I opened them, I found a letter with an autopsy report attached. I began to read—Classic pugilistic attitude absent . . . lack of smoke stains around nostrils . . . questions about cause of death led to decision to perform autopsy . . . charring . . . made it difficult to extract femoral blood sample . . . anterior aspect of right wrist (which survived fire intact) shows a 1- × ?-inch contusion.
I felt my blood congeal in my arms. Dynamite. Clara had been carrying dynamite to school with her every day as if it were her lunch.
“Did you read this?” I asked.
“I tried to,” Clara whispered. “I . . . They’re about Allie. How she died, I mean. The report came from some doctor in Iraq who saw her body after she died. That’s why Nadia and my mother fought. I think Nadia knew what was in the letter.”
“But—the journal was sent to Nadia as next of kin, and the doctor wrote to your mother?” I asked.
“Can’t you see the girl is worn out?” Mr. Contreras interrupted. “She don’t need you bullying her.”
“He’s right, you know,” Lotty said.
“I’m worn out, too, but we have to do this.” I pushed my fingers into my cheekbones as if to push back my own overwhelming fatigue. “If Clara, if her family, are going to be safe, I need to understand this tangled mess of documents. Who hid what. Why they hid them.”
“I think the Muslim lady sent the journal to Nadia because she was afraid if my mom knew about her and Allie she’d just burn everything. At least, Nadia said that was the reason.” Clara was still whispering as if it could keep the reality of her family’s torment at bay.
“Does your mother know you have these?” I asked.
Clara grimaced, bunching up her cheeks. “Maybe she guessed. See, Allie, Nadia, and me, we all shared a bedroom. After Allie died, Mamá, she created this whole shrine by Allie’s bed. In a way, it’s freaky to sleep in there, but it’s also comforting. I feel like Allie is there with me, you know.
“Anyway, after Nadia got killed, I came home one night, and my mom was praying in there. She ordered me out of the room, and I thought it was, well, you know, she wanted to be private while she prayed, maybe she wanted to ask Nadia to forgive her. But later, when I went to bed, I saw the Virgin wasn’t sitting flat on the base. So I went to put her back. And Mama had taken the bottom off and put these papers inside, except a bit of the paper was sticking out.”
“So you put them in your French book. Why?” I asked.
She hunched a shoulder. “I don’t know. It was . . . Nadia was dead, and Mamá had fought with her over Allie . . . I can’t explain it . . . I thought maybe if, I don’t know, if Mamá had listened to her, Nadia would still be alive. And I kept trying to decide if I should show the papers to you, if they were the reason Nadia was killed, although everyone said that crazy soldier shot her.”
“Victoria, that really is enough,” Lotty said. “I will call her mother, so the poor woman isn’t completely ravaged by grief, and then let’s get Clara someplace safe to spend what’s left of the night.”
“She can stay with me,” I said, “but only for tonight. I’m too visible a target for the people who came after her family and her.”
“Mitch could protect her,” Mr. Contreras huffed. He hates not being thought strong enough to protect a girl.
Lotty gave him what Max calls her “Princess of Austria” look: Do not argue with Royalty, back out of the room, keep subversive thoughts to yourself. Mr. Contreras subsided into a grumble.
“It’s all well and good to freeze our blood, Lotty,” I said, “but it doesn’t solve the problem of where she can stay.”
“We’re all tired now,” Lotty said. “Let’s get some sleep and pray that inspiration comes in our dreams. Come! My surgery schedule starts in three hours.”
I started to put the documents into a large envelope but stopped and frowned over them. Kystarnik, or Rainier Cowles, or someone at Tintrey, wanted these so badly they’d gone down to the Guamans’ hunting for them. I tried to imagine what I could do with them to keep them safe.
Lotty called the Guamans while I went to the clinic’s business office to make copies. I could hear Lotty’s voice, sharp, authoritative—I’m the doctor, I’m doing what’s best for your child—without making out the words. I put one copy into an envelope addressed to my lawyer, which I stuck in the clinic’s outbound mail basket. I mailed a second copy to myself. The others I tucked into an envelope underneath my sweater. I thought about sending a copy over to Murray at the Herald-Star but wasn’t sure how much publicity I wanted for them right now.
“Everything settled?” I asked when I got back to Lotty’s office.
Lotty nodded. “I explained we were watching Clara overnight but that you’d be down with her in the morning to talk about how to look after her. They’re not happy, how could they be? But they spoke to Clara, who made it clear that she wasn’t coming home tonight.”
“But what are you going to do?” Clara’s amber eyes were dark with drugs and fear. “They said they would blow up the house. I shouldn’t have run away, I should have just given the papers to them. Oh, why was I ever born? Why wasn’t I the one to get killed instead of Allie and Nadia?”
I took her in my arms. “You did the right thing, baby,” I said. “If you’d given them the autopsy report . . . They knew you and your mom had read it. It’s your ticket to safety, giving me the report. I’ll make sure they don’t know where to look for it, and I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
How, I didn’t know, but it was the least I could do after exposing the fragile remnants of the family to tonight’s assault.
“You come on home with us,” Mr. Contreras said gruffly. “Vic and me, we’ll get you settled for the night. And you listen to Vic. She knows what she’s talking about.”
A heroic admission. I grinned at him, and he turned red, covering his discomfiture by taking Clara from me and half carrying her out the clinic door.
As Lotty locked up and we bundled into our cars, I began to worry whether the thugs who had attacked the Guamans might have tailed Clara when she ran from home. As we followed Lotty onto Irving Park Road, I tried to look for anyone who might be trailing us. I couldn’t really tell in the dark which set of headlights looked familiar. Just to be on the safe side, I trailed Lotty the two miles to her high-rise on Lake Shore Drive. We bumped over the ice and potholes without incident, even when Lotty ran the red light at Ashland Avenue. Lotty is a terrible driver, the kind who insists that all her dings and near misses are due to the incompetence of every other car on the road.
Back at our own place, I circled the block, looking for anyone who might be staking out the building. All the cars on the street were quiet. Still, I sent Mr. Contreras in through the back with Clara while I parked on a side street some distance away.
Mr. Contreras and I decided to leave Mitch downstairs to sound the alarm if anyone tried breaking in. Clara and I took Peppy up to the third floor for comfort. By now, Clara was more asleep than awake, so I helped her undress, pulled a big sweatshirt over her head, and tucked her into my own bed.
Peppy jumped up and curled into a ball at her side. I remembered the grandmother saying Clara was allergic, but her fingers knotted themselves into Peppy’s fur, clinging to the dog. She’d been walking on a path strewn with broken glass and boulders; a few sneezes were a small price to pay for the security of a warm puppy.
As I pulled the blanket up to her chin, Clara whispered, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It’s just until those men came tonight, I thought maybe if I didn’t say anything it would all turn out okay somehow.”
Her eyelids fluttered shut, and in an instant she was asleep. I double-checked the doors and windows. Everything was bolted shut. I made up the couch in the living room, put my gun on the floor by my head, and lay down with my copy of the document Clara had handed me.