The warrant for Ami’s house was in process, but I didn’t need it to do a casual search. If necessary, I could break in based on our need to conduct a well check. The rooms, closets, beds, pantries, basement, and attic—any place that could conceal a body was fair game.
I’d kept the lock-picking kit in my pocket. But it turned out I didn’t need it. The front door was closed up tight, but when we went through the gate and around to the back, we found the rear door standing wide open, a rock the size of a car battery shoved up against the kickplate.
I ignored the way the skin on my back crawled. I paused on the concrete slab with its charcoal grill and weathered table and chairs and peered into the gloom of the living room while Clyde sampled the air. A drift of last autumn’s leaves had blown in and plastered themselves to the rain-soaked carpet, releasing a sad whiff of decay. The rest of the room was tidy—a gold-and-brown sofa with tasseled pillows tucked in the corners. An empty coffee table and a silent television set—a throwback console that had to be from the eighties. On the wall above the television hung a large metal cross with decorative scrollwork, surrounded by family photos.
Wind worked cold fingers down my collar. I glanced toward the neighbors—houses on either side, and one across the back fence. But rows of poplars and several immense blue spruce trees obscured their view of Ami’s house. I’d get patrol to do a canvass, see if anyone saw anything. But my gut told me it would be pointless.
Clyde’s eyes were on mine, waiting for instructions. His body language assured me we were alone.
“Good job, boy.” I dropped my hand from my holstered gun and leaned into the house. “Hello? Denver PD. Anyone home?”
My words bounced off the far wall and echoed back.
“Okay, partner.” I snapped on gloves. “Let’s check it out.”
I went quickly through the house and confirmed there were no skeletons in the closet or anywhere else. Like the front room, the rest of the home was neat but threadbare, with old-fashioned furniture and little decor. Ami’s room was a bright spot with its pink bedspread and white furniture—carryovers from her youth, presumably. A student desk held a stack of drawing books and sketch pads and a large plastic cup brimming with colored pencils. The young Ami had been a budding artist who drew horses and lions and lots of sketches of a girl in a Superman cape.
Ami the Protector. Ami and Noah, wanting to save the world.
But from what, exactly?
I returned to the living room and looked through the photographs on the wall. Most were of Ami. Birthday parties. Her Catholic confirmation. Prom, where she wore a bright-blue gown and stood next to a beaming teenage boy. High school graduation—here she flashed a thumbs-up and a wide grin as she held up her diploma. Some of the photos were of a smiling man as he passed slowly from early to late middle age—Cesar Valle, Ami’s father. His pride in his daughter showed clearly in every photo where the two were together.
But Cesar also carried sorrow in his eyes, a layer like winter ice over a lake.
Grief for his son, Enrique. For his lost country. Maybe many other things.
I found Enrique in only one photograph—standing with his father and sister outside a modest, whitewashed home. A little older than Ami, he’d been gangly and awkward, with unruly black hair and his sister’s fierce expression. A boy with two choices—join a violent gang and take on their murderous ways. Or flee.
Two photos lay frameless on the floor, perhaps blown from atop the television set. In one, Ami sat with a group of women at a picnic table. I recognized two of the women—Erica and Lupita. The women had been lying when they’d told me they didn’t know Ami. Their friendship went all the way back to Nebraska. I knew because I recognized the concrete patio and the black outdoor ashtray, which I’d seen when I zoomed in on ColdShip during my Google search right after Noah’s death.
I studied the wariness in the women’s eyes.
All three women had worked at ColdShip before relocating to Denver. Had they lost their jobs after the ICE raid and moved together to Denver and Top-A? The idea made perfect sense. Ami, at least, had ties to Denver. Perhaps the others did as well.
But the coincidence of Ami’s boyfriend, Noah, ending up on a ColdShip car—that was harder to swallow.
Why would the Superior Gentlemen care about ColdShip?
I let my thoughts wander, looking for a connection between dots that refused to line up. But after a minute or two, I shook my head. If there was something there, I couldn’t see it.
I used my phone to record the photo, then picked up the second picture. Ami’s father. In contrast to his robust health in the earlier photos, this one showed Cesar thin and ill, with hollowed cheeks and deep lines etched around his grieving eyes. His black hair had faded to thin, gray strands. Sitting next to him, Ami wore a brave smile that didn’t get within shouting distance of her eyes. Presumably, the picture had been taken shortly before Cesar’s death and after Ami had returned to Denver from North Platte.
The weight of the loss endured by father and daughter settled into my heart. From gangs in El Salvador to predatory men in America and the very ordinary specter of a natural death. I pulled in a deep breath. Shadows rustled in the dimly lit house, as if the gloom of Denver’s reluctant spring had crawled in through the open
