“A Catholic burial,” Pastor Andrés corrected me. “Not a Christian one: Bron Czernin died in the company of the woman who had been driving a wedge into his marriage.”
“Bron was a passive bystander, by-layer, maybe I should say, while Ms. Love drove her wedge into his marriage?”
He frowned. “He was responsible, too, of course, but a woman has greater—”
“Powerlessness, usually,” I cut in, “although I grant probably not in this particular instance. But speaking of powerless women, let’s talk about Josie Dorrado. She disappeared Monday night, I think with Billy the Kid, Billy Bysen. Where are they?”
“I don’t know. And if I did, I do not understand why you are interested.”
“Because Rose asked me to find her. And, since you know Bron died in a pit lying next to Marcena Love, you must know that Ms. Love was in Billy’s car when it plowed into the undergirders of the Skyway. I’d like to know where Billy and Josie were when that happened.”
All the time I was speaking, he was shaking his head. “I do not know. Billy came to me on Sunday night, pleading with me to take him in again. He had gone to stay with Rose but now thought that was unsafe, for him or for Rose, I was not sure, but he wanted me to shelter Josie as well as himself. I said I could not, that his father’s detectives would look for him at my home first. They have already been to see me twice, and when I look out my window at night I see a car in the street now, always. I also pointed out that he and Josie must be married, anyway, before I will give them a bed together.”
“I don’t know a state in the union where it’s legal to get married that young,” I said sharply. “Fortunately. Where did you send him?”
“If you are going to judge what you have no business judging, we cannot have this conversation.”
I could feel hot spots in my eyes. I swallowed my anger as best I could: arguing with Andrés over morality would not get me any of the information I needed.
“Was the car watching your house Sunday night when he came to plead with you?”
He thought about it. “I don’t think so. I first became aware only on Monday, when I went home for lunch. But if they were there Sunday night and looking for Billy, they would take him then, and you say he was with Josie on Monday.”
“So where did you suggest he go?” I said.
“I suggested he go home to his family and take Josie with him, so that they can see her for themselves, instead of judging her by rumors. But he would not go.”
“That’s the real question,” I said. “What is going on with him that he won’t go home? He told me he had questions about his family, and that you were the only person he trusted. What happened to make him so untrusting of his family?”
“Any confidences he made to me were to me alone, not to share with any other person. Which includes you, Miss Detective.”
“But the problem is connected to his work at the warehouse, isn’t it?”
“That is always possible, since he was working there.”
“And to Fly the Flag.”
That was a random guess, but Andrés looked nervously over his shoulder. The man he’d been handling pipe with was watching him with a worried expression.
“I will not be tricked into disclosing confidences. What do you know about Fly the Flag?”
“Frank Zamar had just signed a big contract to deliver sheets and towels to By-Smart, not long before his plant burned down. That sounds like good news, not the desperation that would make a man blow up his own plant with himself inside it. So someone was annoyed with him.”
I slapped my head, the caricature of someone struck by a hot idea. “Come to think of it, you yourself were at Fly the Flag a couple of days before the fire. You had some kind of issue with Frank Zamar. You’re an electrician. You’d know just how to set up something that could start a fire while you were long gone. Maybe you put it in place that Tuesday when I saw you at the factory.”
“You should be careful about making such accusations.” He tried to speak angrily but his lips were stiff; I had the feeling that if he relaxed they might start trembling. “I would do nothing to risk the life of a man, especially not Frank Zamar, who was not wicked, just troubled.”
“But, Roberto,” his coworker said, “we all know—”
Andrés interrupted him to tell him in Spanish to be careful with what he said—I was not a friend.