I shook myself, checked my phone: no calls or texts from Dolores.
Why the hell had I said I was writing a book? If Dolores had bothered looking me up, she must have laughed. As if landing a piece in Harper’s or the New Yorker, the way I thought I’d been envisioning, wasn’t hard enough? Yet, now that I’d given it voice, it felt obvious. Of course I wanted to write a book about her double marriage. I would write the hell out of this story, and it would practically sell itself. And after that, I’d have some legitimacy. A real career, not a part-time blogging gig I could lose at the whim of a giant media corporation deciding to “restructure.” I’d have some money in the bank—maybe not a lot, but more than I had now, surely, enough to have some cushion in case of an emergency, not like today, when I’d had to put gas and motel on my credit card, which was already dangerously close to maxed out. All I needed was a chance.
I ate the refrigerator-hardened deli sandwich I’d bought at a gas station before tipping a heavy pour of six-dollar cabernet into a coffee cup. Then I opened the case file. Incident reports, evidence log, witness statements, search warrant, arrest warrant, crime scene photos—a treasure trove, irresistible.
According to Dolores’s statement, she hadn’t known ahead of time that Andres was coming into town. He’d first arrived at the bank where she worked around nine in the morning on Friday, August 1, but Dolores had been in a board meeting, which, according to the receptionist, couldn’t be interrupted. The receptionist had told Andres to return after two that afternoon. When he’d come back around four, Dolores had been at a doctor’s appointment, the first stop in a string of corroborated alibis. Andres had left a note for Dolores with her colleague, Oscar Martinez, who had given it to her when she returned to the bank close to five. The note itself had never been recovered. Dolores had thrown it away that afternoon, she said. Maintenance had emptied the trash cans on Saturday, and by Monday the garbage was collected. In her statement, Dolores said the note read, I’m sorry I missed you.
I frowned. I’m sorry I missed you? It wasn’t like this was a friend who’d stopped by on a whim. This was her husband. Her husband, who apparently had no other way to find her than to visit her at work. Her husband, who’d apparently just found out from Oscar Martinez that Dolores was married to someone else. Could that really be all the note said—no details, no contact information? But if it had said something more, or different, why had she lied?
I flipped through to the next witness statement. Around 4:30 in the afternoon, Andres and Fabian were seen arguing outside the Rivera house.
[Witness name redacted], who lives at [witness address redacted], waved when a car pulled into Fabian and Dolores Rivera’s driveway. He initially believed it was Mrs. Rivera, who always parked in the driveway, but an unfamiliar man, later identified as the victim, Andres Russo, emerged instead. [Witness name redacted] was unloading groceries when Mr. Russo knocked on the Riveras’ door. [Witness name redacted] states that his attention was caught when he heard Mr. Russo say, “That, there, she’s my wife!” pointing to something inside the house. Mr. Russo then showed something to Mr. Rivera; [witness name redacted] could not identify the item. [Witness name redacted] states that Mr. Rivera yelled, “Get the fuck off my property!” [Witness name redacted] states that before Mr. Russo reentered his car, he told Mr. Rivera he was staying at the Hotel Botanica, and that they “needed to talk.”
Well, that explained how Fabian had known where Andres was staying. Except, how had he known the exact room number? The hotel clerk had spotted Fabian returning to his car but said they’d never spoken. And if Andres had known Dolores’s address, why leave a note—or stay at a motel—at all when he could wait for her at her home? I opened the basic timeline of events on my laptop, adding to it as I went, and started a separate document of questions.
Between 5:00 and 5:30 that afternoon, Dolores’s brother-in-law, Sergio, had picked up Fabian to go to the family ranch, where Fabian was alibied until he was dropped off at home around eight. Dolores, meanwhile, claimed to have gone straight home after work because she had plans with her kids. A cashier at Wendy’s remembered her and the twins ordering Frosties around 6:30. Lore had then taken them to the movie theater at the mall. She still had their receipt and ticket stubs. The movie cashier commented on how nice it was, teenage boys not being embarrassed to see a movie with their mother, especially a blockbuster like Aliens.
After that, they went home. In her initial statement, Dolores had claimed Fabian was there when they arrived around 9:15 and remained there all night. She had called her sister close to 10:30, placing her at home until after 11. But Fabian was seen at the motel between 10:00 and 10:30. Andres’s time of death, established by his body temperature, was estimated between 9:00 and midnight, making that ID damning.
I took a few sips of wine. Fabian must have confronted Dolores about Andres. If they’d fought and Fabian had left . . . Had Dolores had any idea where Fabian was going? Or what he was about to do?
I set my cup on the nightstand. My tailbone ached from sitting heavily on the bed for the better part of two hours. The room had felt cool earlier, when I’d come in from outside. Now a thin sheen of sweat had formed under my arms and between my breasts. No wonder—the thermostat was set at seventy-nine. I lowered it to seventy-five, where Duke and I kept ours. Then, after a moment, stabbed the down arrow several more times. I wasn’t paying the electric bill.
After a quick shower, I spread the crime scene photos—about three dozen, all taken vertically—across the bed. They formed a dark collage, a cross between precious artifacts to be handled with care and something lewd and forbidden I shouldn’t be seeing—and shouldn’t want to see. But I did. I always did.
Andres Russo lay with legs splayed on the cornflower-blue carpet, a strip of skin visible between his socks and jeans. A jagged, star-shaped hole in his gray T-shirt (of course it wasn’t the Christmas photo sweater), photographed close-up with a scale beside it. His shirt darkened to eggplant around the wound, dry and stiff as a paper airplane. Left arm close to his body, his hand—his nail beds, his gold wedding band—stained with blood, as though he’d tried to stanch the inevitable gush. His other arm was flung out wide, palm up, fingers half-curled. His skin was oyster gray, his face caricatured in death: the prominent nose and heavy brows, lips twisted. I wished I could place my fingertips on his closed eyelids and lift them. I wanted to see what Dolores had seen the night they met. I wanted to see what Andres had seen the night he died.
For now, the photos were the closest I could get. In them, the room’s venetian blinds were closed, a window air conditioner unit spotted with condensation. The white pillows on the queen-size bed were lightly rumpled on the left side, as if someone had briefly leaned against them. The black telephone, slightly askew on the wooden nightstand beside the metal hotel key. Gray canvas duffel bag, unzipped. Across from the bed, a long, low-slung TV armoire similar, but not identical, to the one in my room. Remote control in place beside the wood-paneled TV. One empty highball glass, two empty mini bottles of Scotch. A hand towel crumpled on the white counter beside the bathroom sink. The bar of soap stuck, gummy, to the drain. Toilet lid down.