Ben wrote the kid’s name down on his legal pad, jotted down the time and the number of absences: seven in the last five weeks.
“I need one more thing,” he said to Helen. “Is there a Mexican kid on the swim team?”
“Two of them,” she said.
“The best one?”
“Lucero Vega,” she said.
For a moment, the name brought the kid to life in Ben’s mind—sewed up his chest cavity, blew air into his collapsed lungs, stood him six foot three from toe to crown. Ben remembered holding his daughter for the first time in the hospital fourteen years ago, when he first whispered her name and she became Emma Eunice Wade. Those five syllables animated her with the beginnings of her personality. The dead boy’s mother had had the same moment seventeen years before, when the promise of a new life seemed endless.
“They talk about Lucero,” Helen said, “like they talked about you. State, nationals, who knows what else.”
“I’ve got to show you something, Helen,” he said. “It’s not pretty, but I need you to look at it, all right?”
He felt terrible asking this of her. When Helen’s son was killed, there was nothing to identify, just his dog tags, one edge of the metal melted and cooled like scarred skin. She wore the tags around her neck, tucked beneath her peach blouse. She had picked up a bag of pieces and ash at El Toro Marine Base and buried that.
“We found a kid the other morning, in a strawberry field.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “That serial killer?”
“We don’t know,” he said. “Looks like he could have shot himself.”
Her eyes fluttered and filled with tears.
“One of ours?” she said, grabbing a package of tissues.
“That’s why I need you to look,” he said. “No one’s identified him yet. His parents are illegal. They’re scared to come forward.”
From his wallet pocket he pulled the autopsy photo, pilfered from the evidence file at the station, and held it out to her. When she saw it, she sucked air through her teeth.
“Is that Lucero?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, pushing the picture away, looking at Ben now. “There wasn’t someone else to ask?” she said, the tone in her voice changing. “I’m the only one here who could do that?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I trust you.”
She cracked a teary smile.
“Something’s wrong about this kid’s death,” he said.
“He’s seventeen years old. Of course there’s something wrong.”
“I mean, there’s something else behind it.”
“Gangs?” she said. “Rutledge and Mr. Perry keep talking about Hispanic gangs.”
“No,” he said. “Love, I think. Or something like it.”
He asked for Lucero’s address and Helen pulled the file. “Fourteen seventy-six El Ranchero Road, number four.”
A condo complex off Margarita Avenue.
“Someone’s going to call here, asking about this,” Ben said. He would have liked to keep this under wraps until he sorted it all out, but another day or two of the boy’s absence and people would start putting two and two together. “Daniela Marsh, from the World News. I want you to tell her his name, okay, but keep me out of it.”
She nodded. “Now get out of here,” she said, anger still in her voice. “I’ve got things to do.”
He touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry about Paul,” he said. “Your son was a good kid. Always polite, never pulled anything with me.”
“They’re all good kids,” she said. “Just confused.”
—
HE FOUND NEIL Wolfe leaning against the metal fence of the swim complex, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. The fence jutted from the top of a landscaped hillside that overlooked the pool, and people often stopped here to watch the tournaments when they were out walking their dogs or finishing a jog around the man-made lake in the adjacent park. Through the fence, Ben watched the lines of swimmers slice through the water. The pool was packed. Swimming was more popular than football at the high school, infinitely more popular than basketball. On meet days, for the last two decades, people turned out and filled the bleachers to watch.
The kid glanced his way, took a drag of the cigarette, and then blew the smoke above his head.
“You a truant officer or something?”
“Nope.”
“Only truant if I miss the whole day,” he said. “I’m only cutting class now.”
“Truant if you’re off campus, missing any of your classes.”
Diamonds of sunlight danced off the surface of the pool. The wind carried the droplets kicked up by the swimmers, a haze of chlorinated water darkening the cement deck on the west side of the pool. The coach was sitting down at the lifeguard bench, a bullhorn resting on his lap, his back to the fence.
“Well, I’m on campus,” the kid said. “So I’m simply late to class.”
“Very late,” Ben said. “It’s an issue for the assistant principal.”
The kid looked at him for a moment, taking Ben in. Neil’s hair was peroxide white, the tips dyed green.
“I know you,” Neil said. “There’re pictures of you all over the walls in the men’s locker room. Hall of Fame–type stuff. Medals with your name on them, trophies with your name on them, race caps with your number.”
“I won a few races when I was your age,” Ben said.
The coach called out something on the bullhorn, the wind carrying the words west, away from them. The swimmers lined up on the wall, their heads bobbing up and down, their mouths wide open as if they were fish gasping at the air.
“I can’t stand that asshole,” the boy said. “Any city statute against cursing?”
“Not yet,” Ben said. “But I’d have a few things to say if I was your father.”
“Come on over,” the kid said. “And the two of you can have a scolding party.”
“Someone told me you’re polite.”
He laughed. “Keep quiet, get left alone.”
The kid took a drag. He had small hands.
“There is a statute against underage smoking,” Ben said. “Got a fake ID, or do you go to the Taiwanese place on University Ave.?”
“The cabinet above my mother’s Crock-Pot,” he said.
“Convenient.”
The coach called out on the bullhorn again, and the swimmers dove beneath the water, dolphin-kicking into the butterfly.
“What’s your beef with the coach?” Ben asked.
“He likes to be in people’s business,” the kid said. “Thinks he’s cool shit, you know, because he’s coached a couple Olympians. Thinks he’s down with the common student and all that.”
“What business is that?”
“Forget it,” Neil said. “I like watching boys in Speedos. That’s what you’re going to say, right?”
“Nope,” Ben said, looking at him now. In high school, Ben remembered, he’d broken a kid’s nose for calling him a fag. He was sixteen, about the same age as Neil. “Wasn’t even thinking it.”