Now I knew for sure that Andres had told Lore where he was staying; he’d even left her a key. She’d seemed in pain after her OB appointment, which implied—what? That she’d had an abortion after all? On top of that, she could have been carrying a gun, and if what she’d told Oscar was true, Andres had been “bothering her.”
By the time Lore saw Andres, he would have known about not only the pregnancy but also her double life. Maybe Lore had told him she’d gotten an abortion, and he’d lost his temper. Threatened her, attacked her. Maybe that’s what she’d told Fabian later, and he’d gone back to take care of the problem. To “feel like a man again.” Then he’d confessed to her and they’d planned how to dispose of the gun together. Her voice had rung so true when she said she couldn’t hate Fabian. That they were family.
Something still felt off.
Have you spoken to the ex-husband? I remembered my father asking on Thanksgiving.
Well, I’d be talking to the current husband in two days, but that didn’t seem soon enough.
Thinking of my father brought back painful flashes: the smell of coffee sputtering from the Keurig, the smudges on his glasses in the lightning-white kitchen. And the last words Andrew had spoken to me before fleeing to his room: You said there wouldn’t be thunder.
Thunder. Rain.
I pulled up the original Laredo Morning Times story, the one that had started it all. Yes. That little writerly flourish I’d noticed on my first read: “Andres Russo was shot the evening before, on a day temperatures soared to a record-breaking 117 degrees before a much-needed rain cooled things off.”
Someone else had mentioned rain, too. I opened my folder of interviews. Lore? Oscar? No—Sergio! He’d said Fabian had made a joke about it when they got home. I pulled up the transcript: “Pointed to his truck and said of course it had rained—he’d just washed it. That was exactly the kind of day he was having.”
My heart pounded. Sergio said it had rained on their way to the ranch. That would have been just after five. Right in Lore’s un-alibied window. Thunder would cover the sound of a gunshot even better than music outside, splashing in the pool.
Okay. So Andres confronted Lore about the double life. The pregnancy. She told him she’d had an abortion. Or that the baby was Fabian’s; that she was choosing him. Andres attacked her. She shot him. The sound of thunder covered the noise.
It was so simple. Except for one thing: Andres’s time of death, during which Fabian was seen at the hotel. His fingerprint in the room. His confession, even if it was part of the plea deal.
Buzzing with caffeine, I returned to the crime scene photos. Fabian’s fingerprint in that strange spot, on the base of the bed, and nowhere else. Even the glass of Scotch wiped clean, though only Andres’s prints were on the bottles. Fabian could’ve picked up the glass at some point. Could’ve taken a drink for all I knew. Or maybe he wasn’t thinking, frantically wiping down everything in front of him.
Like the interior and exterior door handles. If he’d knocked on the door and Andres had opened it, he wouldn’t have needed to wipe his print off the exterior handle. If, though, he’d opened the door with a key, he would have.
I flipped through the photos, looking for something, but what? And then—I found it. The window unit, beaded with condensation. Hotel Botanica had central air and heat now—I remembered turning the thermostat down cold—but apparently not back then. On a 117-degree day, there was no way a window unit would have sufficiently cooled the space. Andres’s time of death had been established as between 9 P.M. and midnight based on body temperature. But if the room was warm, delaying drop in body temp, couldn’t that have given the impression he’d died later than he had?
Maybe Fabian had used Lore’s key not to take Andres by surprise, but because he knew Andres couldn’t open the door for him.
Because he was already dead.
Because Lore had killed him.
Lore, 2017
The week before Christmas, there was hardly a parking space left at the mall, even at Dillard’s. The purses were all tiradas, shoes left in boxes on the carpet with tissue spilling out. White-knuckled hands clutched Starbucks cups, jaws set in determination. I could hardly imagine the mall thirty years ago, when Sears and Bealls had been the high-end department stores, when I’d taken the cuates to the sticky-floored movie theater beside the food court on that terrible night. I could never go back after that, not even when it became a dollar theater and would have been an easy way to pass my unanchored time. I was glad when they closed the doors and sutured it all up inside so it became something totally different. Sometimes that’s what you need.
I finished my shopping and was home before six on Wednesday. I poured two fingers of Bucanas and waited for Cassie to FaceTime me, but it was a regular phone call.
“?Hola!” I answered.
“Hi. How are you?” She sounded stiff and formal.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, squeezing my glass. “Is it your brother?”
“No, no.” She softened a little. “I’m just tired. Hey, I wanted to let you know . . . I’m scheduled to interview Fabian on Friday.”
I hid a smile, though she couldn’t see me. Qué linda, thinking she could surprise me. “Sí, me dijo. I was wondering when you’d mention it.”
“I’ve had a lot going on.” The distance was back in her voice. It set my teeth on edge. “I’d like to go down and see you first. Tomorrow. What do you think?”
I opened the back door, the rush of cold air like a splash of water on my face. It was supposed to be in the eighties again by Christmas, the way it had been so many other years. I could still see Papi at the rusty barbecue pit, white muscle shirt and burly brown arms, the silver glint of a beer can. Inside, Mami warming up the tamales. These days, it was as if past and present were unfurling at the same time, as if maybe it were still possible to change the ending.
“Sabes qué,” I said, “that would be great. Mateo will already be here, and you still haven’t met Gabriel. How’s dinner? Six o’clock? We eat early because of the boys.”
“Perfect.”
We went quiet, like if we were both standing with an ear to opposite sides of the same door.
“Why don’t we call it a night?” Cassie suggested. “I haven’t been sleeping well. Let’s touch base again tomorrow.”
“Oh,” I said. “Bueno. Take care, mija.”
Something had changed. That’s why I had invited her to dinner. It might be good for her to see us all together. To remember who we were, apart from the things that happened back then.
And if it turned out she knew more than she should—pues, I’d opened this door. Maybe I’d always known I would have to walk through it.
Cassie, 2017
Before driving down to Laredo, I finally emailed my agent, Deborah, to set up a call. My phone rang as I passed the Border Patrol checkpoint on the other side of the highway.
“Cassie!” she said. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you. What’s going on?”
“Well, I told you things seemed off about the day of Andres’s murder. I spoke to Carlos Russo, Andres’s son. It turns out Lore was pregnant, and Andres found out the day before flying in to see her—that was the reason for his surprise trip. Carlos thinks—” I hesitated. “He thinks Lore killed Andres.”
Deborah sucked in a breath. “Okay. Any proof?”
My stomach tightened. “I spoke to an M.E. this morning. Andres’s time of death was established solely by body temperature, which is apparently an outdated and incomplete measurement. Because of insufficient cooling in the room, TOD might have been earlier. Around the time Lore doesn’t have an alibi. I told you she may have been carrying a gun. And it was apparently raining then, which could have covered the sound of the shot.”
Deborah was silent, considering. “How do you explain the original husband’s print and ID?”
“I think he went back to clean up after her, then took the blame.” The first industrial parks were coming into view. The fast food billboards and trailers advertising nationalization services. In ten minutes, I’d be at Lore’s house. No going back. “It turns out they’re still married.”