Janet Malcolm wrote of the relationship between journalist and subject as a “deliberately induced delusion, followed by a shattering revelation.” The interviews that feel more like conversations, like intimacies, are eventually over, translated to a black-and-white rendering in which the subject might not even recognize themselves. It’s a gut punch, the subject left like all those women I’d read about at the start of this, who’d fallen for men shuffling wives like cards. The journalist like a con man, there for one reason: the story.
Had I, as the journalist, conned Lore into a delusion of intimacy so great that she believed I wouldn’t reveal her as a murderer? Or had she, with her maternal caring, conned me into a sense of loyalty to her, instead of to the truth or the story or even to justice?
I reached into my laptop bag, pulled out the crime scene photos I’d seen so many times—the shape of Andres on that carpet felt as familiar as a lover’s face in the morning light. Would he really have hurt Lore and, by extension, her unborn baby?
(What had happened to the baby? Lore must have miscarried after all.)
But questioning what Andres might have done if Lore hadn’t killed him was a slippery slope. Not only could I never know, it meant I was trying to justify Lore’s actions and, therefore, possibly keeping her secret. But there were more people than Lore to consider.
Penelope and Carlos deserved to know who had really killed their father. Maybe it would bring them more pain, though maybe it would also bring healing; maybe Carlos would take Penelope up on her offer, whatever it was, after all. Mateo and Gabriel and Gabriel’s children deserved to know that Fabian was innocent; that he had made the ultimate sacrifice to keep his family intact. Fabian deserved to spend time with his sons and grandsons, to feel their weight in his arms. The justice system needed to be held accountable for the ways it had failed Fabian, failed Andres. This could be part of a much bigger conversation, a push for systemic change.
I could not hold myself responsible for what might happen to Lore as a result.
I threw on sweatpants and a tank top, trying to ignore how familiar this shirking of responsibility felt. I had passed Andrew to my father and hoped for the best. Now I was planning to pass Lore to the legal system and do the same.
But Andrew had been a baby. Lore was a killer.
No—she was someone who had killed under a set of specific circumstances. And couldn’t that be true for most of us? If true crime had taught me anything, it’s that if we never see that version of ourselves, it’s only because we’re lucky.
But still. A man was in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Would Lore’s confession be enough to reopen Fabian’s case, reexamine the evidence? DNA might have been science fiction then, but it wasn’t anymore. Maybe she’d left some part of herself behind.
I searched through my bag for my phone, wanting to listen to the recording. A part of my brain, mercenary and untamed, imagined what Lore’s words would sound like on a podcast or prestige docuseries on Netflix or HBO, what that might mean for the next book I wrote, what it might mean for my whole life.
This could be big.
“Fuck,” I said out loud, disgusted.
I needed to think before I called Deborah. A question nagged at me: Once Fabian had been ID’d at the hotel, once his fingerprint had been found, why hadn’t he turned on Lore? Yes, they were still married. But Lore herself had said the new, richer love between them had come later. Would Fabian really, in the immediate aftermath of Lore’s betrayal, be willing to go down for thirty-five years for murdering her secret husband?
And where the hell was my phone?
Lore, 2017
I sank deeper into the bath, letting the water close over my face, my hair waving above me like seaweed. The horror of that night felt fresh, sticking in my throat. Andres’s hand on my chest, shoving. The shock of it, the insult. The shock in Andres’s face, too, as if he hadn’t known before that moment he could touch me like that.
“I’m sorry.” Andres had stumbled back, palms out. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, so eager to give him my forgiveness. “I—”
“Just leave, Lore.” Andres turned away, toward the windows. The first fat drops of rain were falling, smearing across the concrete walkway. “Go. I never want to see you again.”
“Andres, please,” I whispered. “Don’t say that.”
I stared at him, willing us to fall into one of those long unbroken gazes, pero he went into the bathroom and closed the door. I looked all around the room for paper and a pen, seeing a notepad beside the phone. He’d started to write me something: Lore. That’s all. No querida. I didn’t know what to write.
Finally, with Andres still shut in the bathroom, I left. Weeping, head lowered against the hot swirl of wind, clutching my stomach. The sky was as dark as the parking lot asphalt, and when I reached my car, I threw the notepad and pen onto the passenger seat and screamed.
I couldn’t go home. Couldn’t face Fabian. So I drove, the windshield wipers frantic and useless against the furious slant of rain. Water sloshed from the gutters back into the streets. I drove too fast. Wide, winding loops past the meat market where Papi picked up fajitas and sausage for Sunday lunches, and the cemetery where he would be buried only a few months later. Past the corn-in-the-cup stand where I used to take the cuates every Friday after school. Back downtown, past the bank and through the empty streets. The car sliding when I braked, fishtailing, and for a second I hoped that everything would end before I had to see Fabian’s face.
Cassie, 2017
I had just overturned my bag on the bed to find my phone when I remembered something Oscar had said—something about Lore being upset that afternoon. Something about her purse.
I slid my laptop from its sleeve, opening my notes from that call.
OSCAR: But look, after Lore told me how he was bothering her—I mean, we all make mistakes. I just wish—
CASSIE: Wish what, Oscar?
OSCAR: I don’t know—that I would’ve done something to help. But Lore was very independent like that.
CASSIE: Let’s go back. She said Andres was bothering her? Bothering her how? When did she tell you this?
OSCAR: When she came back to the bank that afternoon, after I gave her the note he left. She didn’t go into detail. But again, that’s Lore. You could tell she was rattled, though.
CASSIE: How so?
OSCAR: She was looking for her keys to lock up her office. Ended up dropping her whole purse on the floor. Everything spilled out.
Everything spilled out. But tonight, Lore had specifically said she always carried the .22 in her purse. If everything had spilled out, Oscar would have seen the gun. Whatever loyalty he felt toward Lore, surely he would have told the police if he’d seen her with the murder weapon.
Breathe, I told myself. Slow down. Maybe Oscar only thought the purse had emptied entirely. Because the alternative—that she wasn’t carrying the gun—meant she’d given me a false confession. Why would she do that when Fabian was already in prison?
There’s nothing a mother won’t do to protect her children.
The calm, unwavering conviction in Lore’s voice. A truth I could feel, despite whatever else she had lied about. Lore had a way of doing this, of making even the lies truthful. She had done it with Andres and Fabian, giving them something real even through her deceit. She’d done it with me, too. I thought about how Lore had claimed Fabian killed Andres to “feel like a man again.” Maybe he’d tried to make up for his perceived failures not by killing Andres but by taking the blame for it.
Except—maybe he hadn’t done it for Lore.
Gabriel and Mateo had been fifteen years old. Their friends Rudolfo Hinojosa and Eduardo Canales had confirmed they were all playing basketball at the park between four and six, which meant they couldn’t have been home when Andres had pulled into the Riveras’ driveway at four thirty. Even if they’d somehow known about the double marriage—and improbably kept it a secret—they’d have no way of knowing Andres was in town or where he was staying.
I returned to the neighbor’s witness statement. He had waved at Andres, thinking it was Lore parking in her usual spot.