Outside, I used the hem of my shirt to open my car door, scalded my hand on the metal seat belt buckle as I dropped my bag and the case file on the passenger seat. The AC, pathetically outmatched, blew hot air at the untouchable steering wheel. I searched the sky, longing for a good Oklahoma storm. The metallic, earthy smell of water in the atmosphere, charcoal clouds rolling in like a stampeding army. My mother could always predict storms. “Mares’ tails stream with the wind,” she’d say, pointing. “The storm is coming from the east.” Or: “Look how the top is flattened like an anvil; the anvil is pointing in the direction the storm is moving.” As a girl, I had been in awe of my mother’s ability to decipher the sky. Later, I told her, “It’s basic science.” I didn’t need to touch my mother to hurt her.
I plugged Dolores’s address—or the address I hoped was hers—into Google Maps. I wanted to drive by, see if I could get a better sense of whether or not she lived there. If so, I’d park somewhere, read the case file, then try to make contact. If not, plan B was to track down Gabriel Rivera’s house. Thanks to his Facebook posts, I knew the name of his subdivision, what his home looked like, the four handprints in the cement driveway. I could find it, easy. But it’s always better to reach a source directly.
According to my research, more than a third of Laredo residents lived below the poverty line, but the north side of town was all new construction, shells of whole neighborhoods rising from the ground as if 3-D printed. Gated entries, golf courses, sprawling hacienda-style homes with stone fountains and oversize clay pots spilling bougainvillea. I drove past a country club, every tennis court full despite the gruesome heat.
Dolores lived—maybe—on a cul-de-sac a few blocks away from the country club. The silver Volvo I’d seen in the satellite image was missing, so I parked near the mailbox. If the neighbors noticed me, they’d probably assume I was texting someone or checking directions. Women—well, white women—are so rarely seen as threatening.
I took photos one after another, zooming in on the whitewashed brick, the terra-cotta potted plants beside the cherrywood door, the chest-high bushes flush against the house’s facade. Roses, I thought, though they looked . . . wilder. Almost unkempt, the blooms ballerina pink and mauve and fuchsia, threading through thick greenery. There was something insistent about them, something defiant.
“Can I help you?”
The voice came from the passenger window, facing the street. A baseball cap shaded the woman’s flushed cheeks. She looked to be in her late sixties, wearing a sleeveless white linen top and athletic shorts, as if she’d changed from pants but left the shirt on, her plump shoulders dark and freckled. She was holding a leash, and a black Lab, shiny as an oil slick, panted at her knees.
I recognized her immediately. Shit.
“Can I help you?” Dolores Rivera asked again, her tone sharpening. She looked at my phone, still open to the camera.
I locked the screen. “I’m sorry, I was just admiring your roses. What kind are they?”
She softened, patting the dog’s head. “L D Braithwaite, mostly. But also Mary Roses and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The Marys hang on the longest come fall, though. Do you garden?”
“Oh, no,” I said, forcing a casual laugh. “Whatever’s the opposite of a green thumb, I have it.”
Dolores smiled. “I wouldn’t have known what a trowel was before I retired. Do you live around here?” She glanced around, frowning, as if she’d know if I did.
“No.” My mind raced—I shouldn’t have come yet. I shouldn’t have been so impatient. I should have read the case file, decided on the best approach. What a stupid fucking mistake, the mistake of a trashy crime blogger, not a real journalist. But I couldn’t back out now. I had to make this work. “You’re Dolores, right?”
Her wrist flicked to hold the leash tighter. “Yes . . . And you are?”
“Cassie Bowman.” I took a deep breath. “I was actually hoping to talk to you.”
Dolores peered into my car: the laptop bag and cardboard box on the floor, the folder on the passenger seat clearly marked POLICE DEPARTMENT HOMICIDE CASE FILE.
Her entire body stiffened, as if her bones had been reinforced with steel.
“You’re a journalist.” She nearly spat the word, as if it were a slur. “Are you with him? The one who wrote that horrible article? ?Que no tienen vergüenza—”
“No,” I broke in. “I’m here because I don’t think that piece was fair to you. I want to tell your side of the story.”
Dolores’s fingers closed around the leash, pulling slightly. She scoffed, her gaze hot and direct. “Please. You don’t know me from Adam. Why would you care about ‘fair’? Come on, Crusoe,” she said to the dog, and began walking toward her door. “Pinche newspaper reporters,” she muttered.
I scrambled out of the car. I couldn’t turn around and go home, back to the blog, to feeding women’s murder to an audience that consumed it like candy, quick hits of shock and disgust converting to an empty sugar rush of pleasure in the brain. I wanted more, and this could be the start, right here. I had to make her see it, make her want it as much as I did.
“I don’t write for any paper,” I called after her. “And I think your story is worth much more than two thousand words anyway.”
Dolores stopped. Slowly, she turned around. “What do you mean?”
I approached her, breathless, until we were standing directly across from each other. She was shorter than I’d expected, at least four inches below my five-seven, with a soft, matronly body, a body for pulling grandchildren close. Her eyes were a burnished bronze, her face thoroughly lined, like paper that had been folded and refolded so the creases themselves were soft as suede. There were two age spots on one temple and constellations on her hands. She’d disappear in a crowd the way older women do, the adventures and passions of their youth tucked far from view of a society that’s lost interest in them.
“A book,” I blurted. “I think your story could be a book.”
Dolores’s eyes narrowed. “A book. And why would I want to do that after going through the humiliation of being written about multiple times now?”
“Because I wouldn’t be writing it about you,” I said. “I’d be writing it with you.”
Dolores laughed, and for a moment I saw the phantom of a different Dolores, younger, whose warm, throaty amusement could make heads turn. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t see the difference. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Wait!” I gritted my teeth so hard pain shot to my head. “Just—listen. Please.”
The dog, Crusoe, whined, and Dolores said, “He’s thirsty.”
We were standing directly in the sun, my clothes sticking to damp skin, arms reddening. There was a roar in my ears, a rough wind. I knew what I had to do, though I felt sick at my willingness to do it.
“My dad,” I said, before I could think better of it. “He used to take me fishing every weekend. We caught channel catfish and saugeye and brought them home to my mom to cook for dinner. After our neighbor had a heart attack, my dad mowed his lawn for six months. He collected our other neighbors’ newspapers during their annual cruise so it wasn’t obvious they were away.”
Dolores crossed her arms. “He sounds nice. Why are you telling me this?”
“Because he was nice.” I swallowed my nausea. “He also beat the shit out of my mom.”
Dolores searched my face, and I forced myself to let her see the pain and shame at the core of who I was. “I’m sorry, mija,” she said quietly. “No child should have to see that.”
“I’ve never told anyone before,” I said. “Not even my fiancé.”