Chapter Ten
Judy pulled up, cut the ignition, and looked around. The apartment complex where Iris lived was too run-down to be well-lighted, and the only light came from a street lamp, which dimly illuminated a large, square parking lot that seemed to be the focal point of the apartments, a connected series of two-story buildings wrapped in a U shape around the lot. Old cars filled the parking spaces, some with missing hubcaps and others with dented doors, and the lights from the apartments showed people leaning on the cars and sitting on their front steps or on plastic beach chairs, visible only in silhouette, laughing, talking, or smoking, the red tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark.
“Judy, you ready to go?”
Judy looked over. “Sure, but what are we trying to accomplish, again?”
“I told you, you’re not going to talk me out of this. I have one day of freedom left. Even if the police follow up, there’s things they might miss. They didn’t know Iris the way I know her. And I’m sure the roommates will be much happier talking to me than the local constabulary.”
“On it.” Judy pulled the key out of the ignition, and they both got out of the car and walked to the driveway of the apartment complex, where she took her aunt’s arm.
“I can walk, you know.” Aunt Barb’s gaze slid slyly to Judy under her knit cap. “My legs are fine, it’s my breasts that are the problem.”
“Yes, but if I hold your breasts, people will talk.”
Aunt Barb laughed. “Look around you, they already are.”
Judy looked at stoops and beach chairs, where heads were turning. The residents had grown quiet as the two women made their way down the center of the square parking area, and a short man nearest them flicked his cigarette into the air, where it arced like a falling star.
“It’s because we’re gringas,” Aunt Barb said, lowering her voice. “By the way, like my accent?”
“Nice. How good is your Spanish?”
“Let’s put it this way, your mom is the linguist, not me. But I understand it better than I can speak it.”
“Which apartment did you say it was again?”
“This one, right here.” Her aunt turned right between two parked cars and walked until they reached a path of cracked concrete that served as an interior sidewalk.
“Aunt Barb, do you realize they might not know about Iris’s death?”
“I know. I’ll do the talking, okay?”
“Fine with me. You’re on a roll.” Judy squeezed her arm, and they turned onto a crumbling concrete path that led to the front door of one of the buildings. Everyone on the step or the beach chairs fell silent, and in the lights from inside the first-floor apartments, Judy could see that they were younger than she had realized, maybe in their twenties and thirties, a group of men and women, all of them Hispanic, in an array of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and jeans.
Her aunt stopped short in the middle of the path. “Hello, my name is Barb Moyer and this is my niece Judy. I’m a friend of Iris’s and I’m here to see her roommates Maria Elena or Hermenia.”
“I’m Maria Elena,” said one of the women, in slightly accented English. She was sitting in a beach chair, holding a phone and wearing a white sweatshirt and jeans, but it was too dark to see her facial features. She sounded young, and her long, glossy curls shone in the light from the window.
“Maria Elena, would you mind if we went inside and talked a minute, about Iris?”
“She’s not home.”
“I know, I’m a friend of hers, and—”
“Oh, wait, I know who you are!” Maria Elena’s tone warmed up. “You’re the lady with the roses. Iris told me about you.”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“What about Iris?”
Aunt Barb hesitated. “I’m afraid I have bad news. I’m very sorry, but I’m here to tell you that she has … passed. She was found tonight in her car, on Brandywine Way.”
Maria Elena gasped, and everyone burst into shocked Spanish chatter, and Judy caught the words morte and accidente.
Her aunt said, “No, not a car accident. They think she had a heart attack.”
“No.” Maria Elena moaned, and another wave of chatter went through the crowd, which grew somber, and an older man made the sign of the cross on his chest.
“Do you think we can go inside? There’s just some things I want to talk to you about.”
“Sure, of course.” Maria Elena rose, made her way through the crowd, and led them to the front door and inside the building. They walked down a long, dimly lighted hall, and at the end was a door, which Maria Elena unlocked and pushed open, flicking on a stark overhead light. “Come in, please.”
“Thank you,” Aunt Barb responded, and they entered a neat, if small, living room that was modestly furnished with an old brown couch, a red plaid chair, and a wooden rocker set around a battered coffee table. A tiny galley kitchen was on the right part of the room, but there was no dining-room table, and two closed doors off the room presumably led to the bedrooms.
“I can’t believe this happened, are you sure it’s true?” Maria Elena frowned sadly, pocketing her keys. In the bright light, Judy could see that her warm brown eyes had filmed, dampening her mascaraed lashes. She was pretty, with a small nose and heart-shaped lips, slick with gloss.
“Yes, it’s true,” her aunt answered. “I’m so sorry. The police came to me because she has my name as her emergency contact.”
“So she’s really … dead?” Maria Elena sank onto the plaid chair, linking her fingers between her knees, absorbing the shock. Her nails were polished red with white chevrons at the squared-off tips, reminding Judy again of Iris’s broken fingernail.
“Yes, it’s true. I identified her.”
“That’s terrible.” Maria Elena shook her head, numbly, and wiped her eyes. “This makes me so sad. That hurts my heart.”
“I’m so sorry. And her family at home, it’s all gone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know Daniella Gamboa?”
“I meet her once or twice.”
“Do you have her cell phone or address?”
“No.” Maria Elena sniffed, brushing a tear away before it started to spill down her cheek. “Iris is so quiet, like, to herself, but she is so sweet, she has such a sweet heart. She’s older, you know, she act like my mother. She is always baking cookies and cakes, to get us to eat, and she is so religious, all the time she want us to go to church with her. She says we drink too much beer. She tells us, like, all the time.” Maria Elena wagged her finger, with a mock-comic frown. “‘Ladies should not drink too much, never out of the bottle.’ She wants us to make a jurmamentos.”
Judy interjected, “What does that mean?”
“Is a special thing, like, you go to church with her and make a promise to God that we don’t drink for, like, two weeks.” Maria Elena chuckled. “She wants us to, anyway, but we don’t do it.”
“How long have you lived together?” Aunt Barb asked, but she was beginning to sound tired again.
“About six months. She take us both in, her other roommates go home. Me and Hermenia, she’s out with her boyfriend. Iris meets us at the mission and she takes us in. She get us jobs.”
Judy interjected again, “What’s the mission?”
“You know, the church mission, they give out clothes and toys for free.”
Her aunt asked, “Do you know why she didn’t go to work today? When she left my house this afternoon, that’s where she said she was going.”
Maria Elena shook her head, blinking away her new tears. “No, I don’t know. I work the morning shift today and she’s gone when I got home.”
Aunt Barb asked, “Do you work at Mike’s, too?”
“Not anymore. I work in a restaurant and I clean houses.” Maria Elena wrinkled her pretty nose. “I don’t want to do the mushrooms anymore, even though they pay good. That smell, I can’t take it. It gets on your clothes and your hair.” Maria Elena turned to Judy. “You know what I’m saying, you can’t get the stink out. It’s like on you, like, all the time. I won’t have no boyfriends if I smell like that. That’s why Iris use the perfume, so much.”
Her aunt asked, “Maria Elena, was Iris sick lately? Did she mention anything about her chest hurting or not feeling well?”
“No.”
“Do you know who Iris uses for a doctor? Does she have a doctor?”
“I guess she goes to LCD, but I don’t know.”
“Do you know any reason why she’d be on Brandywine Way? Do you know where that is?”
“I know where it is. I don’t know, like, why she was there.” Maria Elena tossed her head, and her curls bounced.
“Did you text her today?”
“No.”
“Do you mind if I go in her room? I just want to look around and see if there’s anything to explain why she missed work today.” Aunt Barb emitted a small sigh. “I should get some clothes to bury her in.”
“Oh right.” Maria Elena rose. “Come on.”
“Thanks,” Aunt Barb said, and they crossed the living room to the kitchen side, where Maria Elena opened the door onto a room that was barely big enough for a single bed, neatly made with a blue comforter, and a beat-up, fake-wood chest of drawers. A pair of old pink flip-flops sat beside the bed on the floor, ready and waiting for a woman who would never come home.
“She has the smallest room, that’s why she doesn’t share.” Maria Elena tried to press the door open all the way, but it banged into the wall. “We share. Also it works out better because she doesn’t stay out late, like us.”
They entered the tiny room, barely able to fit the three of them, with Judy feeling strange, having just come from seeing Iris’s lifeless body on the stretcher. A large crucifix hung on white walls, and the dresser held an old-fashioned runner of white cotton, on which rested a few bottles of nail polish, perfume, a ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary, a plastic white crucifix, a multicolored clay plate that held gold-toned hoops and necklaces, and a yellow shaker of athlete’s foot powder.
“Where’s the closet?” Aunt Barb asked, turning on her heel, but Maria Elena shook her head.
“She don’t have one.”
“Where does she put her dresses?”
“In the drawers. She only has two dresses, that she wears to church.”
“But that can’t be. I gave her dresses, and sweaters and shirts, too. Jewelry.” Aunt Barb frowned, puzzled, looking around. “I don’t see any of the stuff I gave her here. There were shoes and rain boots, too.”
Maria Elena shook her head. “I don’t know, maybe she give them to the mission. She’s always after me to give my things to the mission, too. When I meet her at the mission, the first day, she isn’t there to get, she is there to give. She always says, ‘Maria Elena, God wants you to take care of people,’ but I tell her, ‘Iris, it’s not like I have so much.’ She wants us to give our money to the mission, too!” Maria Elena’s eyes flared open, incredulous. “I tell her, ‘mami, you can give your money away, but me, no. God don’t want me broke.’”
“Oh my, what a wonderful spirit she had.” Aunt Barb rested a hand on the dresser, seeming to steady herself. “Judy, can you look through these drawers and find a nice dress for her?”
“Sure.” Judy went to the dresser and opened the top drawer, which contained folded underwear, bras, and a Bible. “Do we need underwear?”
“No, funeral homes usually have that.”
“Good.” Judy opened the second drawer, of neatly folded T-shirts that looked as if they had been ironed, which for some reason caught her in the throat. “I don’t think there’s anything useful in here.”
“I help.” Maria Elena squeezed past Judy, went to the dresser, and opened the third drawer. “I know the dress she like the most.”
“Thanks.” Judy looked into the third drawer, which held pressed jeans, sweatpants, and two folded shift-type dresses, both a flowered pattern, with a light blue sweater, also carefully folded.
“This one.” Maria Elena picked up a dress with pink flowers, her eyes glistening anew.
“Thank you.” Judy accepted the clothes and took a look at her aunt’s heartbroken expression, which told her it was time to go home.
And that their questions about Iris’s death would have to be answered another day.