This brought some calls of support from the women crowding in at the door—and some dark glances in my direction—but Tomás looked at him soberly: Andrés was not just a coworker but a leader in the community. Tomás, at least, needed to know he could trust the pastor.
“The fire was set using the same method you used when you put Diego’s stereo out of commission,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t start it yourself, but perhaps you showed Freddy how to do it.”
Again, I took the drawing out of my pocket. I laid it on the desk in front of him. “Did you draw this for Freddy?”
To my astonishment, instead of rapping out a denial Andrés turned the color of putty and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “Oh my God. That is why—”
“Why what?” I demanded.
“Freddy came to me, he wanted some nitric acid, he said it was to clean the rubber that had melted into the truck bed when I ruined the stereo. He said I owed him, but now—oh, now, oh, Jesus, oh, what have I done in my pride? Shown him how to burn down a plant, and to kill a man?”
“But why would Freddy do such a thing?” Celine’s uncle asked from the doorway. “Freddy, he’s just a chavo, he would only make such a—a esquema for someone else, not because he thought of it himself. Who ordered him, who paid him if not you, Pastor Andrés?”
“I think Bron Czernin was making the plug in his kitchen workshop,” I said, “and I found the drawing near where Billy the Kid’s car was wrecked. Bron was seen with Freddy, but why would Czernin want to burn down the plant?”
Not everyone in the room knew who Bron was, but one of the women, announcing she was Sancia Valdéz’s grandmother, explained to the others: April’s father, the man who was killed last week. Yes, April, the girl who played basketball with Sancia and Josie, only now she was sick, her heart, she couldn’t play anymore.
“What did you use to hold the acid when you put Diego’s stereo out of commission?” I asked Andrés.
“Just a metal funnel, a small one; I clamped it to the back of the amplifier.”
“So Josie knew how you’d damaged Diego’s stereo,” I said slowly, thinking through the network of connection in the neighborhood. “She and April were best friends; she told April. April probably thought it was a good joke and described it to Bron. Or maybe even Freddy suggested your scheme to Bron when he found out what Bron wanted to do.”
Had Freddy gone to Bron, knowing—from Julia, I suppose, Julia who would have heard it from Josie—that Bron had a shop in his house? Or had Bron gone to Freddy to help plant the dish? Either April knew about the soap dish brouhaha and had mentioned it to her father, or when Bron explained what he needed Freddy remembered the soap dish. It all sort of made sense in a horrible way.
“What I don’t understand is why they did it at all?” I continued out loud. “What would—”
I broke off, remembering Aunt Jacqui’s dazzling smile: we never, never renegotiate contracts. And her malicious smirk when she announced I’d find the sheets being sold in the neighborhood were a dead end. Would she have hired Bron to burn down the factory?
“You have to tell me what was troubling Billy the Kid about his family,” I said abruptly to the pastor. “It’s too important now for you to keep it secret.”
“It wasn’t this,” Andrés objected. “If Billy told me they were burning down Frank Zamar’s plant, believe me, I would not have kept that a secret.”
He gave a sad smile. “Billy knew I was working with Frank Zamar—he knew our attempt to sell sheets through our churches here in South Chicago—he knew that failed. But Billy himself went back to his aunt, to his father and grandfather, to try to get them to renegotiate the contract with Fly the Flag. They were—like rocks, unmoving. This caused him great grief. And then he found in the records, the faxes that came from overseas, that they had already arranged with a shop in Nicaragua to make these towels and sheets, on a production schedule where the workers will be paid nine cents for every sheet or towel they make.
“Billy went to read a report on this factory and found a disturbing situation, that people must work seventy hours a week, with no overtime, no holidays, one short break for lunch. So he said it was time for Nicaraguan workers to have rights, to have a union, and he would go to the directors and tell them this if the family did not reconsider. His grandfather loves Billy greatly. When he saw how upset his grandchild was, he said, before they turned to Nicaragua they would wait a month and see how Frank Zamar did.”
“And then Frank Zamar’s plant burned down. How convenient. And Bron Czernin is dead.” I laughed a little wildly.
I didn’t see the whole picture but enough of it. Bron thought he could put the bite on the Bysens—he had done their dirty work, now they should pay for April’s surgery. Only they had killed him instead. Or Grobian had killed him. All I needed was Billy and Freddy. And a little proof.
“You really don’t know where Billy is?” I asked Andrés.