The living room was small. A sofa against one wall, an old console television opposite it. Toys were piled in the corners. The carpeting was thin, but looked like it had just been vacuumed. A small kitchen table surrounded by four chairs was nestled in a corner next to the kitchen. A hallway split the kitchen and living room. The smell of burnt bacon floated in the air.
“Lucia Vasquez,” Asanti said. “This is Ms. Santangelo and Mr. Braddock.”
She nodded politely at each of us, still without a smile. “Good morning.” Her voice was soft, with very little accent.
She gestured for us to sit on the sofa, and she pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and sat across from Liz and me. Asanti remained standing.
“Lucia, anything you tell them will stay between us,” he said. “Nothing that you say can harm you. And if you do not wish to answer the questions, you do not have to.” He turned to us. “Correct?”
Liz nodded. I said, “Yes.”
He nodded as if that was acceptable and then stepped away and took a seat at the kitchen table. Liz looked at me.
“Mrs. Vasquez,” I said, trying to organize my thoughts, “I am trying to learn whatever I can about the man that arranged to bring you and your family here.”
She held my gaze. “We paid a man to come across.”
“Did that man help you get here to El Centro?”
“Yes. We met him at our home in Mexico. He said if we can pay him, he will bring us to America.”
“How did you meet him?”
“My husband,” she said, her eyelids fluttering. “Hernando and Miguel met him in a restaurant in our town. They made the plans.” “You came here first?”
“Yes. Hernando wanted me to come with the boys first. To make sure we were safe. My sister lives here. We stayed with her for about six months. Then Hernando came with Miguel.”
I thought of how frightening it must have been for her to travel with her sons and without her husband to a country she couldn’t be sure wanted her. Lucia Vasquez was a brave woman.
“Detective Asanti told us that there was a problem with money. Was your husband unable to pay?” I asked.
A flicker of anger ran through her eyes, and she rubbed her hands together. “The man. He changed the money.”
“Changed the money?”
She nodded, hard. “He told Hernando that it will cost five hundred dollars to come to America. Hernando paid him.” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “But after he brings Hernando over, when he brings him to my sister’s, he tells him that he must pay three hundred dollars. More. He did the same to Miguel.” The anger flickered again. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her finger. “We did not have that. We spent everything we had to get all of us here.”
I didn’t want to ask questions that were going to bring back painful memories. But she had answers that I needed.
“When Hernando told him that you didn’t have the money, what happened?” I asked.
She clasped her hands together and looked back up. She straightened herself in the chair. “Hernando told him he would get the money. The man gave him two days.”
“But Hernando was unable to get the three hundred dollars?”
“He and Miguel, they each got two hundred dollars,” she said, her words heavier with anger than sadness. “Our family and friends, they gave us what they could. Hernando thought this would be enough, and he tells the man that they will get the rest soon.”
“But that wasn’t enough?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. Hernando and Miguel, they got angry. They are afraid he will keep asking for money. For forever, you understand.”
I did. Interest and extortion born out of fear.
“So Hernando and Miguel, they tell him no more. They tell him that they will go to the police and even go home to Mexico if they have to. But they will not pay him any more.”
I glanced at Asanti. I wondered what he would’ve done if they had showed up at his station.
“That’s when the other man showed up here.” She paused, fixing her eyes on me. “The man that you look like.”
I felt the blood rush to my face, like a kid who’d fallen down on the playground in front of all his friends.
“Wait,” Liz said. “There were two men?”
Lucia nodded. “Yes. The man that killed Hernando and Miguel, I had never seen him before that night.”
“Who was the other man?” I asked. “The man you paid.”
“He had a funny name,” she said, blinking as she tried to recall.
From down the hallway, young voices spilled out, hollering at each other. Two boys bounded into the living room and landed in pile at their mother’s feet.
“Manuel! Rigo!” she said harshly. “We have guests.”
