“I think Coach Wakeland…” Ben hesitated again. He didn’t want to do this, knew how painful it would be, but she must’ve known something, must’ve had some shred of evidence he could use to build a case—or at least to get a search warrant for the empty apartment. “I think he had an inappropriate relationship with Lucero. A physical one.”
Santiago’s eyes widened, a shocked few seconds of silence. “I’m not telling her that,” he said. “It will only make it worse. The boy was sad and he shot himself. That’s hard enough to deal with.”
“Tell her,” Ben said.
“No,” she said, shaking her head when she heard what Santiago said.
“I think Wakeland threatened to take everything away if Lucero didn’t let him…The scholarship, the swimming—”
“Callate.” Esperanza pressed her fingers against her eyes now.
“I know this is hard,” Ben said. “But there are other boys out there. He’s not the first, and I’m afraid he won’t be the last.”
Esperanza spoke sharply again. “She wants you out of this house,” Santiago translated.
“Lucero was ashamed,” Ben said, his voice lowering. “Your son didn’t want to shame you.”
“Fuera de aquí!” Esperanza was crying now, her face turned to the wall of her cardboard house. She knew something she didn’t want to know. What child came home without his underwear? What child took overnight trips alone with his coach? She would hold on to that ignorance; she would fight to protect it. The alternative—that she hadn’t, couldn’t, protect her boy—was too much to bear. And Wakeland counted on this, knew how human nature dealt with shame.
“He was a good boy,” Ben said to Santiago, knowing he’d pushed too hard. “Translate that.”
He stood and Santiago went over to Esperanza, his hand on her back, whispering to calm her. When Ben stepped outside, the wind had ripped loose the cardboard walls of one of the houses. A woman cradled her son in a corner of the exposed room, and a man chased the tumbling cardboard into the strawberry field. Ben pushed his head into the wind and trudged across the field, a tightness in his chest blurring his vision. Suddenly there were footsteps behind him. Ben turned and Santiago was nearly to him, his face blanched with fear and fury.
“It’d be easier,” he yelled to Ben over the roar of the wind. “It’d be easier if that serial killer had shot him.”
Ben couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Lo entiendes?” Santiago said, grabbing Ben’s elbow. “You understand?”
—
BEN DROVE PAST the entrance to the complex three times, spinning U-turns on Margarita Avenue, before finally pulling in. He passed the Los Flores cul-de-sac, looking to see if the Corvette was parked in the driveway. Empty. He parked on the main drag, a half block down from the street. It was 6:37 and the sun was low and orange, drowning in the band of smog pushed out over the ocean. On a balcony across the street, a woman sat in a bikini, her toes propped on the railing, a book resting on her thighs. She was smoking a cigarette, and Ben waited for her to finish, his stomach roiling, his head thudding with frustration. It’d be easier if that serial killer had shot him. Jesus.
Ben started to open the door, but a car rolled down the street, turned into a cul-de-sac, and U-turned back toward him. It was a black Toyota. Ben sat low in his seat as it passed again, the driver invisible behind the sunset-streaked glass. He waited a few minutes more, the street empty and silent, and snuck into the greenbelt behind the apartments.
No one seemed to be home in two of the apartments—a light lit on a side table in the window of one, a sure sign of an empty place, the next one darkened but with the front window wide open. Someone could punch open the screen and slip right in and wait in the darkness. A woman was in the third apartment, sitting at a kitchen table, her back to him, the phone cord wrapped around her waist.
At the fence, he slid in next to the Weber grill and a glass-topped patio table. The table had been cleaned recently, the glass shining in the shaded light. The grass around the patio had been mowed, the edges trimmed, a geometry of green. A stunted ponderosa pine rose above the patio, an extra measure of privacy and shade. On the right side of the patio was a sliding glass door that led to the kitchen. He ran his hand along the ledge above the window and found the key. Jesus, he didn’t really think he’d find it sitting there after all these years. No way in hell, but here it was in his hand. He didn’t have a warrant to search the apartment, and no judge would deign to grant him one with the meager evidence he had.
When he opened the door, he stood with his toes pressed against the aluminum guide rail, his stomach cramping. The kitchen was the same as he remembered it—a beige-and-white linoleum floor, a mustard-yellow countertop, the framed photographs of orange groves and grapevines. There would be beer in the fridge. Vodka in the freezer.
In exchange for his address, Lucero had become Wakeland’s housekeeper, an arrangement his mother could understand. Her son wouldn’t be mowing lawns for long, wouldn’t be brushing the porcelain toilet bowls of wealthy whites for the rest of his life. Lucero got to go to school, got to get a college degree on scholarship. But you had to rely on the kindness of strangers who offered an address to use, who mentored your son into a better world you could never fully join.
A distant thwamping of helicopter blades shook the windowpanes. It was one of the Sea Stallions from the Marine base, riding low over the rooftops.
Beyond the kitchen was the living room. Past that was the office, and down the hall from there the bedroom. He knew he would find something in there, but he couldn’t make himself move any farther.
The helicopter broke over the greenbelt trees, its blades shearing the air. Then a car engine rumbled to a stop in the driveway; a door slammed.
Shit. Ben backed out of the place, closed the glass door, placed the key on the sill, and slunk around the privacy fence to get skinny behind the ponderosa. A moment later, Wakeland came through the garage into the kitchen and pulled a vodka bottle from the freezer. The evening sun glanced light across the window. Ben could see in, but all Wakeland would see, if he looked out now, was a yellow orb of light blinding the edges of the patio.