cold showers,’ he said. ‘Let ’em go wash off. Where’s
the harm?’ After that, I stayed in New Bern and I didn’t
know about Maria till Mercedes Santos called me. I
came immediately. And yes, I gave her the money to
bury her baby and yes, I gave her money to fly home.
Enough to buy a little house and a sewing machine and
start a new life for herself. All her husband wanted to do
was stay drunk. She’s better off without him.”
“He didn’t think so,” Dwight said and turned on his
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HARD ROW
heel and walked out. He needed air. Long deep drafts
of clean spring air.
Mayleen Richards was waiting beside his truck. “No
luck, Major?”
He gave her a quick synopsis of what had passed in
the kitchen but before they could confer on their next
actions, Susan Hochmann called from the back porch
and crossed the yard to them.
“You were right,” she said, nodding to Richards.
“Mother’s terrified of a lawsuit. I’m not though. What
can I do to help?”
“Do you speak Spanish?” Richards asked.
The woman nodded.
“Mrs. Sanaugustin let slip something that makes me
think her husband might know more than he’s told,
but she’s clammed up altogether now and won’t say a
word.”
“Sanaugustin?”
Dwight told her about the worker who said he had
seen the bloody slaughter scene in the shed on Saturday,
two days before they discovered it.
“Sanaugustin,” Mrs. Hochmann said again. “Felicia?”
“Si,” said Richards and immediately turned as red as
the shoulder-length red hair that gleamed in the sun-
light. “I mean, yes.”
“Let me talk to her. I think she trusts me almost as
much as she trusts Mother.”
She got in the prowl car with Richards and Dwight
led the way back down to the camp. It took a few min-
utes, but at last Felicia Sanaugustin threw up her hands
and told them everything. Yes, the baby was as they
had said. Yes, Maria Palmeiro had been covered with
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MARGARET MARON
pesticide. No, she did not know the name. Only that
it was green and it made them break out in a rash even
though they washed it off every day. And yes, she ad-
mitted, she and Rafael knew that Ernesto had killed
