eyes.
“I'll be okay,” I said.
“You got your radio with you?”
I nodded.
“You holler first hint of trouble, you hear?”
“Thanks, Chunk.”
“For what?”
“For knowing me well enough not to ask any questions.”
I could tell he was frowning behind his gas mask. “Five minutes,” he said. “You're not back by then, I come looking for you.”
“I'll be careful,” I said.
I crossed the alley with its scrub brush growing wild and came up in Carmenita's backyard. A haze of dust hung about the yard.
As I stepped onto the porch I heard a cooing sound. The plank boards of the sagging porch creaked beneath my feet. It must have echoed through the house, for there was a fierce, panicked rustling, and then a wall of Mexican doves took wing and rushed out the doorway and windows in front of me. For a moment, my world was a terror of flapping gray wings and yellow, glassy eyes and angry squawks. I threw my arms over my face and turned away, and when the last of the birds had gone, I stood there on the porch, breathing hard and in a state of shock.
I didn't know what to do, and so I did nothing. I stood there, letting the silence wash back over me, until a weak, far away sounding voice called out my name.
“Carmenita?” I said.
“Yes,” she said, her voice coming from somewhere back in the shadows of the empty house. “Yes, yes. Come in, sweetie.”
I put my hand on the doorjamb and peered inside, past the patches of sunlight on the warped, wooden floor and the hanging bouquets of dried herbs, to the ancient, mummy-skinned woman in the rocking chair in the far corner.
“Come in, Lily. You're letting the air-conditioning out.”
I felt like a penitent, and I didn't know why. I walked across the room, stood before her, her in her gray rags and tattered shawl draped over her shoulders and me in full biohazard containment gear, sounding like Darth Vader as I breathed, and then dropped to my knees.
We were eye level now, but I sensed she saw much more than I did. Or at least saw what was there much more clearly.
“You found something,” she said.
“Yes. Thanks to you. We found the man responsible.”
Her gentle smile never wavered.
“How did you know?” I said, meaning the chocolate cake, not the crime we'd just solved. “How did you know what I needed?”
“It's not magic. Far from it. What I do, it's read the things you tell me in your eyes.”
“I don't understand that,” I said.
“Some people are easy to read,” she said. “Especially honest people. You, you are easy to read.”
I shook my head, still not understanding.
“Sometimes you won't get an answer. Not one you like.”
“Carmenita, I…” I didn't know how to finish what I'd started to say. The words stuck in my throat thick and hard as a walnut and wouldn't come loose.
“You are still looking for something?”
“Yes.”
“Something bigger than over there.” She waved a gnarled, yellowed hand in the direction of her backyard.
“Yes.”
“Why haven't you made your mind up yet?” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“You know what I'm asking you. That, over there, there was a time when that was all you wanted. When that was enough. But now finding answers to questions like that doesn't satisfy you. Now there's something bigger in front of you, and you can't make up your mind about it.”
I coughed a little, choking back a tear that came without my knowing it. Hadn't I made up my mind? I knew what was really important. My family. They mattered more to me than my career, my reputation, even my oath. Why then the confusion? Why the nagging self-doubt?
“You ask hard questions of yourself,” Carmenita said. “The questions are harder than they need to be.”
“What questions do I ask?” I was trying to be tough now, defensive for no reason. Hadn't I come to her for a reading?
“You are leaving.”
The words came out of her quietly, but they rolled over me like a sand storm.
“How did you know?” I asked. “Is it written over my head or something?”
“Hard decisions are like shouts into a canyon,” Carmenita said. “They leave echoes behind. What troubles you is not how hard the choice is, but how easy it is. You wonder if you are right when the decision to do something so big is so easy to make.”
I hung my head a little. “Yes,” I said.
“You wonder why you're conscience isn't at ease.”
“Yes.”
She was silent for so long that I raised my eyes to hers. Her black eyes sparkled like obsidian in the sunlight.
“This is a wasteland,” she said. “This is no place for a child. Leave here, and if you ever doubt that you have done the right thing, look into your child's eyes and be at peace.”
My mouth opened, but I didn't speak. I couldn't.
“Go,” she said. “They are calling you.”
I rose to my feet, still looking into her eyes, and from somewhere out in the backyard, heard Chunk yelling my name.
Chapter 26
Cole died in the ambulance.
We had his body taken to Arsenal, with a hold placed on it for Dr. Herrera. Chunk and I then went looking for Dr. Herrera himself, the idea being that we would tell him personally what to expect. But that never happened. We were met on the main floor of the morgue by Lt. Treanor and Dr. Laurent. Both, it seemed, already knew about Cole.
“You did good work,” said Treanor, shaking our hands. All of us wore gloves. “I understand you got a full confession?”
“That's right,” I said.
There were two SWAT officers standing a short distance away, both of them armed with MP5s, nasty little machine guns. There was something about the way they were watching our conversation with Treanor that made me think something was very wrong.
“You'll send me a copy of the Prosecution Guide, I trust?” Treanor said.
“Yes, sir.”
Laurent stood a short distance behind Treanor, her eyes little green pinpoints of hate in her fat, round face.
“Lieutenant,” she said. The impatience in her voice was palpable.
