In the Midst of Winter

  “Where to?”

  “How should I know, Richard! Think of something. We have to head for somewhere cold so that the body doesn’t start to smell.”

  AFTER RETURNING TO THE KITCHEN, they drank coffee while considering the possibilities. They did not consult Evelyn Ortega, who sat watching them timidly. She had dried her tears but had slipped back into the mute attitude of someone who has never had any control over what happens in her life. Lucia suggested that the farther away they went, the greater the probability they would emerge unscathed from this adventure.

  “I once went to Niagara Falls and crossed the border into Canada without showing any documents. And they didn’t search the car.”

  “That must have been fifteen years ago. Nowadays they always ask to see your passport.”

  “We could reach Canada in no time, then abandon the car in a wood; they have lots of woods up there.”

  “They can also identify the car in Canada, Lucia. It’s not the far side of the moon.”

  “By the way, we need to identify the victim. We can’t abandon her somewhere without at least knowing who she is.”

  “Why?” asked a perplexed Richard.

  “Out of respect. We’re going to have to take another look in the trunk, and it’s better we do so now, before there are people out and about,” Lucia decided.

  They almost dragged Evelyn out of the house and had to push her over to the car.

  “Do you know her?” Richard asked, after he had untied the belt and shone the flashlight into the trunk.

  He had to repeat the question three times before Evelyn dared open her eyes. She was trembling, overwhelmed by that same atavistic terror she had felt by the bridge in her village, a terror that had been lurking in the shadows throughout the eight years that followed, so searing that it was as if the livid, bloody body of her brother Gregorio were present right there on that street.

  “Make an effort, Evelyn. It’s really important we know who this woman is,” Lucia insisted.

  “It’s Miss Kathryn,” the young woman finally murmured. “Kathryn Brown . . .”

  Lucia and Richard quickly retied the lid of the trunk closed and made their way back to the house.

  “Who is Kathryn?” Richard asked Evelyn.

  “Frankie’s physical therapist; she used to come every Monday and Thursday. She taught me exercises for the boy.”

  “That means she was someone who was known in the house. What did you say your employers’ names were?”

  “Cheryl and Frank Leroy.”

  “And it looks as though Frank Leroy is responsible for—”

  “Why do you think that, Richard? We can’t assume anything without proof,” said Lucia.

  “If that woman had died a natural death she would not be in the trunk of Frank Leroy’s car.”

  “It could have been an accident.”

  “Yes, like she stuck her head in the trunk, wrapped the rug around her, the lid closed on top of her, she starved to death, and no one noticed. Not very probable. No doubt about it, Lucia: someone killed her, and was planning to get rid of the body when the snow was cleared. By now he must be wondering what the hell happened to his car and his dead body.”

  “Come on, Evelyn, think about it: how do you guess that young woman ended up in the trunk of the Lexus?” Lucia asked her.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “She used to come on Mondays and Thursdays,” Evelyn repeated.

  “And last Thursday?”

  “Yes, she arrived at eight in the morning, but left almost immediately because Frankie had problems with his glucose levels. The señora was very angry. She told Kathryn to leave and not come back.”

  “They had an argument?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Mrs. Leroy have against her?”

  “She said she was brazen and vulgar.”

  “Did she tell her that to her face?”

  “She used to tell me. And her husband.”

  Evelyn explained that Kathryn Brown had been looking after Frankie for a year. From the start she got on badly with Cheryl Leroy, who thought she was indecent because she came to work in low-cut T-shirts with her breasts half-exposed. She was rude and common, with the manners of a platoon sergeant, Cheryl used to say, and besides, there were no signs of improvement in Frankie. She had given Evelyn instructions that she should always be present when the Brown woman was working with him, and to tell her at once if she saw any signs of abuse. She did not trust Kathryn and thought she was very rough with the exercises. Once or twice she had wanted to fire her, but her husband was against it, as he was with all her initiatives. In his view, Frankie was simply a spoiled brat and Cheryl was jealous of the physical therapist because she was young and pretty. For her part, Kathryn Brown also spoke badly of Mrs. Leroy behind her back. She thought Cheryl treated her son like a baby, and that children needed authority. Frankie ought to be eating on his own: if he could use a computer he could hold a spoon and brush his teeth, but how was he going to learn with that alcoholic, drugged mother of his who spent all her time in the gym, as if that could keep old age at bay? Her husband was going to leave her, that was for sure.

  Evelyn would listen to the accusations from both sides with her mind a blank. She never repeated any of it. Her grandmother had washed her brothers’ mouths out with soap whenever they said anything dirty, and hers whenever she repeated gossip. She found out about her employers’ arguments because the walls of the house kept no secrets. Frank Leroy, who was so cold with his employees and his son, so controlled even when the boy suffered an attack or tantrum, would fly into a rage with his wife at the slightest excuse. That Thursday Cheryl, who was worried about Frankie’s hypoglycemia and suspected it was the physical therapist who had caused it, disobeyed her husband’s orders and fired her.

  “Sometimes Mr. Leroy threatens his wife,” Evelyn told them. “He once put a pistol in her mouth. I wasn’t spying, I promise. The door was half-open. He said he was going to kill her and Frankie.”

  “Does he hit his wife? Or Frankie?” asked Lucia.

  “He doesn’t touch the boy, but Frankie knows he doesn’t love him.”

  “You haven’t answered if he hits his wife.”

  “Sometimes she has bruises on her body, never the face. She always says she fell.”

  “And do you believe her?”

  “She falls over from the pills or the whiskey, and I have to pick her up and put her to bed. But the bruises come from fights with Mr. Leroy. I feel sorry for her, she’s not happy at all.”

  “How could she be, with a husband and son like that . . .”

  “She adores Frankie. She says that with love and rehabilitation he’s going to get better.”

  “That’s impossible,” muttered Richard.

  “From what I see, Frankie is the señora’s only joy. They love each other so much! You should see how happy Frankie is when his mother is with him. They spend hours playing, and often the señora sleeps with him.”

  “She must be very anxious about her son’s health,” commented Lucia.

  “Yes, Frankie’s health is very delicate. Could we call the house again?”

  “No, Evelyn. It’s too risky,” Lucia said. “We know his mother was with him last night. We can assume that if you’re not there, she’ll take care of him. Let’s go back to our most pressing problem: what to do with the body.”

  Richard caved in so quickly that later on he was amazed at his own inconsistency. Reflecting on it, he concluded he had spent years fearful of any change that might threaten his security, and yet perhaps it was not fear but anticipation: maybe he harbored a secret desire for divine intervention to descend and disrupt his perfect, monotonous existence. Evelyn Ortega, with this corpse in her trunk, was the exaggerated reply to this l
atent wish. He needed to call his father because today he would not be able to take him out for their customary Sunday lunch. For a brief moment he was tempted to tell him what they were going to do to help Evelyn, because he was sure that old Joseph would be applauding from his wheelchair. He’d tell him later on, in person, so that he could see the look of approval on his father’s face. For whatever reason, he put up only minimal resistance to Lucia’s arguments, and went off to look for a map and a magnifying glass. The idea of getting rid of the body, which only a short time earlier he had flatly rejected, now seemed to him inevitable, the only logical solution to a problem that all of a sudden was his as well.

  PORING OVER THE MAP, Richard remembered the lake in the Catskills he used to visit with Horacio. His friend had a log cabin there, where in the summer he vacationed with his family, and where he and Richard went in winter to fish in a hole on the icy lake. They would always avoid the busiest areas, because for them angling was a meditative sport, a special opportunity to enjoy silence and solitude, and to strengthen a friendship that went back almost forty years. That part of the lake was difficult to get to and did not attract the winter hordes. He and Horacio would drive across the frozen surface in an off-road vehicle, dragging a small trailer containing all they needed for the day: a saw and other tools to cut the ice, rods and hooks, batteries, a lamp, a kerosene stove, gasoline, and provisions. They made holes and with infinite patience fished for some rather small trout that when grilled were little more than skin and bones.

  Richard missed Horacio and looked after his affairs in his absence. His friend had gone back to Argentina when his father died, thinking he would return after a few weeks, but two years had passed and he was still caught up in his family’s businesses and only came to the United States a couple of times a year. Richard had the keys to his empty lakeside cabin and used his vehicle, a Subaru Legacy with a roof rack for skis and bicycles, which Horacio refused to sell. It was at Horacio’s insistence that Richard had applied to be a faculty member at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. He had been an assistant professor for three years, and associate professor another three, before getting tenure, with all the security this implied. And when Horacio quit his position as chairman, Richard replaced him. He also bought his friend’s house in Brooklyn at a bargain price. As Richard used to say, the only way to repay Horacio for everything he had done would be to donate his lungs to him for a transplant while still alive. Like his father and his siblings, Horacio was a chain-smoker and had a constant cough.

  “The woods surrounding that part of the lake are fairly dense. No one goes there in winter and I doubt they do in summer either,” Richard explained to Lucia.

  “How are we going to organize this? We’d have to rent a car to get back,” said Lucia.

  “That would leave a trail. We can’t draw attention to ourselves. We can take the Subaru to return in. Normally we could go and come back in one day, but with this weather it will take us two.”

  “What about the cats?”

  “I’ll leave them food and water. They’re used to being left alone for a few days.”

  “Something unexpected might happen.”

  “Like for example us being sent to jail, or getting murdered by Frank Leroy?” Richard asked with a wry smile. “If that happens, my neighbor will come and look after the cats.”

  “We have to take Marcelo,” Lucia said.

  “No way!”

  “What do you want me to do with him?”

  “We can leave him with my neighbor.”

  “Dogs aren’t like cats, Richard. They get anxious over separations. He has to come with us.”

  Richard flung his hands in the air. He found it hard to understand how anyone could be so dependent on animals in general and in particular on such a grotesque Chihuahua. The cats were independent; he could go away for weeks secure in the knowledge they would not miss him.

  Lucia followed him to one of the unoccupied rooms on the first floor, where he kept his tools and a carpentry bench. This was the last thing she would have imagined; she’d assumed that like all the other men in her life, he was unable even to hammer a nail in the wall, but it was clear that Richard enjoyed manual work. The tools were mounted on pegboards on the wall, each with its own spot clearly outlined in chalk so that it would be obvious where to replace it. Everything was arranged as neatly as in the pantry, where each object had its exact position. The only evident chaos in the house was limited to the papers and books that had taken over the living room and kitchen, although possibly this chaos was only superficial and they were in fact classified according to a secret system that only Richard understood. He must be a Virgo, she decided.

  RICHARD GOT OUT THE SHOVEL and cleared away the snow in front of the basement door so that Lucia could rescue what was left of her Chilean cazuela, the food for Marcelo, and her toiletries. Back in Richard’s kitchen they shared the tasty soup and prepared another pot of coffee. Distracted by all the commotion, Richard ate two platefuls, even though there were chunks of beef floating among the potatoes, green beans, and pumpkin. He had succeeded in controlling the upsets of his digestive system thanks to a strictly disciplined life. He avoided gluten, was lactose intolerant, and did not drink alcohol for a much more serious reason than his ulcer problem. His ideal would be to eat only plants, but he needed protein, and so each week he added to his diet certain types of seafood that had no mercury in them, six organic eggs, and four ounces of hard cheese. He followed a biweekly plan with two fixed menus each month. This meant he bought only what was strictly necessary and cooked it in the preestablished order so that nothing was wasted. On Sundays he improvised with whatever fresh produce he could find at the market; this was one of the few flights of fancy he allowed himself. He did not eat meat from mammals out of a moral decision not to eat animals he would be unable to kill, or fowl because of his horror of industrial farming and because he would not have been able to wring a chicken’s neck either. However, he enjoyed cooking, and occasionally, if a dish turned out especially well, he fantasized about sharing it with someone, for example, Lucia Maraz, who was far more interesting than any of his previous basement tenants. He had been thinking about her increasingly often and was now pleased to have her in his house, even if it was thanks to the extraordinary pretext offered by Evelyn Ortega. In fact, he was far more pleased than the circumstances warranted; something strange was happening to him, he had to be careful.

  Fortified by the cazuela, they went out into the street again. Richard studied the broken lock on the trunk for several minutes while Lucia protected him from the falling snow under a black umbrella. “I can’t fix it, I’m going to secure the lid with a piece of wire,” he concluded. Beneath the disposable latex gloves he had insisted on wearing so as to leave no fingerprints, his hands were blue and his fingers stiff, and yet he worked with a surgeon’s precision. Twenty-five minutes later he had painted the bulb in the smashed indicator red, and had fastened the lid so skillfully that the wire was invisible. Teeth chattering, the two of them went back into the house, where the still-hot coffee awaited them.

  “The wire will last the whole trip and won’t cause you any problems,” Richard announced to Lucia.

  “Cause me any problems? No, Richard, you’re going to drive the Lexus. I’m a poor driver, and even worse if I’m nervous. The police could pull me over.”

  “Then Evelyn can drive. I’ll go ahead in the Subaru.”

  “Evelyn doesn’t have any documents.”

  “Not even a license?”

  “I’ve already asked her. She has a license in someone else’s name. A fake one, of course. We can’t run any more risks than we have to. You’ll drive the Lexus, Richard.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re a white male. No cop is going to ask for your documents, even if a human foot is sticking out of the trunk. But a pair of Latinas driving
in the snow is suspicious right away.”

  “If the Leroys reported the disappearance of the car we’re in trouble.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To claim insurance.”

  “What do you mean, Richard? One of them is a murderer, so the last thing they would do is to report something like that.”

  “What about the other one?”

  “You always imagine the worst!”

  “I really don’t like the idea of traversing New York State in a stolen car.”

  “Neither do I, but we’ve got no alternative.”

  “Look, Lucia, has it occurred to you that it could have been Evelyn who killed that woman?”

  “No, Richard, it hasn’t occurred to me, because it’s a stupid idea. Do you think that poor girl is capable of killing a fly? And why would she bring the victim to your house?”

  On the map Richard showed her the two routes to the lake. One was shorter but had tollbooths where there might be checks; the other involved secondary roads that were full of bends. They chose the latter route, and could only hope the roads had been cleared by the snowplows.

  Evelyn

  Mexico, 2008

  Berto Cabrera, the Mexican coyote hired to take Evelyn to the north, called his clients to the bakery at eight in the morning. When they were all assembled, they formed a tight circle holding hands and he raised a prayer to the heavens. “We are pilgrims in a church without borders. Grant us, Lord, that we travel with your divine protection against both attackers and guards. We ask this in the name of your son, Jesus of Nazareth.” All the travelers said amen, except for Evelyn, who was still sobbing and unable to speak. “Keep your tears, Pilar Saravia, you’re going to need them later on,” Cabrera advised her. He gave each of them their bus ticket, told them it was forbidden to look at or talk to each other, to make friends with other passengers, or to sit in window seats, because first-timers always did that, and the border guards paid special attention to them. “And you, my girl, are coming with me. From now on, I’m your uncle. Stay silent and with that moron’s face of yours no one is going to be suspicious. Agreed?” Evelyn nodded.