“My wife was a whore,” he said simply. “She sold herself for money and for other things as well. When I found out about it, I was afraid the same thing would happen to Ceci, to my daughter. I was afraid she’d turn Ceci into a whore, too. So I got drunk once and beat Serena up. The cops put me in jail.” He paused for a moment and studied Joanna before adding, “It only happened once.’
“And when was that?”
“Last year in Bisbee. Before she and the kids moved to Phoenix. Before she filed for a divorce.”
“What about now? What about this time?”
“I wanted the kids to come to Douglas for Thanksgiving. My mother hasn’t seen them since last spring. She misses them.”
“That doesn’t seem all that unreasonable. Why was Serena so angry then that night in the bar?”
Jorge looked surprised. “You know about that?”
Joanna nodded.
He shrugged. “She saw my truck.”
“Your truck?”
“I bought a new truck. A Jimmy. Not brand-new, but new to me. Serena said it wasn’t fair for me to have a new truck when she didn’t have any transportation at all, when she was having to walk to work. I tried to tell her that the other truck needed a new engine and that if I couldn’t get to work, I couldn’t pay any child support. It didn’t make any difference.”
“Speaking of kids. Did you see Ceci and Pablo that night?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Jorge Grijalva hung his head and didn’t answer.
“Why not?” Joanna repeated.
“Because I didn’t want them to know I was in town,” he said huskily. “Because Serena didn’t,” he added. “She said if the kids saw me there, they’d think we were getting back together, but we weren’t.”
“So you and Serena met at the bar to discuss arrangements for Thanksgiving?”
Jorge Grijalva shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“Serena was very beautiful,” he answered. “And she was much younger.... But you knew that, didn’t you?”
He paused and looked at Joanna, his features screwed into an unreadable grimace.
“Yes,” she said.
“I used to be good-looking, too,” Jorge said. “Back when I was younger.”
Again he stopped speaking. Joanna was having difficulty following his train of thought. “What difference
