He broke into tears.
“I took that baby in, and I saw the state she was in. She was barely alive and she was terrified. It was months before she could sleep alone and not wake up screaming in the middle of the night. You can go on telling that shitty lie to anyone you want, but not to me!”
Juan’s face lost its color, and he looked like he was about to be violently ill. “The girl has forgotten all that,” he whispered, wiping away snot with the back of his hand. “Rosario doesn’t remember. Why can’t you forget too?”
Engrasi’s smile was bitter. “I know you, Juan. You’re not a bad man, but you’re a coward. That’s not a crime in itself, but you let yourself be manipulated by your wife. You let her drag you down into a morass of evil. Think about that.”
Juan wiped off his tears with the sleeve of his Sunday best suit. “I don’t want to talk about this.” He turned to go.
“Just a minute. I have something for you.” Engrasi pulled out the little key she wore on the chain about her neck. She leaned over and inserted it into the lock of the drawer. She took out a thick envelope and tossed onto the table an X-ray image of a human skull. A child’s skull.
He came back. “What’s that?”
“When you brought the girl here, she could scarcely speak. She was deeply disturbed. I was afraid she might have internal bleeding. I took her to a neurologist, as I told you, but I also took her to a physician friend of mine, a pathologist. He drew up a detailed diagnosis of the girl’s trauma.” She pointed to a thin white line on the X-ray. “Here, on the side of her head. That’s where the first blow from a blunt object struck her. I also have the X-ray of the fingers of her right hand, fractured when she tried to protect herself. And look here, at the second blow. She didn’t defend herself, because she was unconscious on the floor. The identical downward trajectory. It started from the same place and was delivered with a great deal more force. This is where the edge of the steel rolling pin fractured her skull.” She fixed Juan with a ferocious, accusing glare. “It was meant to kill her, and it almost did.”
Juan gaped at the X-ray as if about to have a heart attack.
Engrasi dumped out the rest of the contents of the envelope: X-rays, photos, and a thick typewritten report. “The girl also had an abrasion around her neck, produced when Rosario seized the cord that the child wore to carry her bakery key. A lesion caused when she was yanked back and forth with tremendous force. The scrapes on her calves, her rear, and her elbows occurred as Amaia was crawling across the floor trying to escape.”
“You had those reports prepared so you could . . .”
She gave him a disgusted look. “Don’t be absurd. I took the child to the doctor to make sure she would heal, but yes, I kept the results. And now I see I was right to do so.”
“If you go waving that around now, you’ll be sorry!” Her brother’s threat took her breath away.
“The difference between you and me, brother, is that I am ready to do anything at all to protect the girl, no matter what the cost.”
Witless and speechless, Juan stared at the pile of documents.
“Go on, take them. I have copies safely stowed with a friend.”
He looked up in alarm.
“Tell your wife to show them to that lawyer of yours to get an idea of what the judge will think of them, because the conclusion will be obvious to anyone. It wasn’t an accident; it was attempted murder.”
Juan went toward the door, and Engrasi pursued him with the documents in hand. “This was premeditated. Rosario followed the girl to the bakery when she knew there’d be nobody around. She could have confronted the child at home, but she waited until she could corner Amaia without witnesses. Rosario lied to you about where she was going when she left the house; she followed Amaia to the bakery to make sure no one would stop her from murdering the girl. She hit her with tremendous force, and the only reason she stopped was that she thought she was dead. She buried her in the flour bin and went back home. She thought she’d finally accomplished what she’d been planning since the day Amaia was born.”
Juan had already opened the front door. He looked back and cried out in a panic, “How could you possibly tell people that? I shouldn’t have told you. Rosario was depressed after Amaia’s birth. It happens with lots of women.”
“Rosario has no friends. Did you know she doesn’t even talk to Elena Ochoa anymore? Elena was her best friend. Maybe you should do yourself a favor, Juan, and go see Elena. I ran into her daughter in the street and asked why I hadn’t seen Elena in such a long time. She said her mother was very ill, so I went to visit. She’s not ill, Juan, she’s scared. I don’t know what your wife has gotten herself involved in, but ever since they stopped seeing one another, Elena stays home behind locked doors and surrounds herself with saints and crucifixes. She’s terrified. She doesn’t want to hear a word about Rosario. She said your wife sold her soul. What do you think she means by that?”
“It’s envy, that’s all. The women in this town have always been jealous of her.”
“Does she still go out at night without telling you where?”
Fear showed on his face. Engrasi knew she’d guessed right. Even so, Juan tried to brave it out. “I can’t believe this. Are you going to use what I told you in confidence to attack my wife?”
Disgusted, she glared at him. “Juan, you don’t want to understand. This has nothing to do with Rosario; it’s about Amaia. It’s always been about her. You’re a lost cause; you can go on and keep justifying and rationalizing Rosario’s behavior all you want. But if you think there’s any way in the world I’ll deliver Amaia to the woman who’s been trying to murder her since the day she was born, you’re a fool.”
22
THE CHARBOU METHOD
New Orleans, Louisiana
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Amaia woke early. After showering and dressing, she made the bed and watched the six o’clock newscast.
The news was reporting that the authorities were using all available means to warn the public that Katrina would have a devastating effect on the entire Gulf Coast. The prospects for New Orleans weren’t encouraging. Parts of the city were as much as ten feet below sea level, and with Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River snaking through the heart of the city, the threat was real. A hurricane tide was almost inevitable. The National Hurricane Center was predicting a category five, meaning winds of 280 miles an hour and gusts of more than 320. New Orleans had never experienced a category five storm. In 1965, category three Hurricane Betsy had worked her way up the Mississippi Delta and rolled over New Orleans, killing eighty-one people and causing untold millions of dollars of damage. The television was now alternating weather forecasts for Katrina with streams of alarming images from Billion Dollar Betsy.
Unwilling to watch any more, Amaia turned off the set and went out into the hall. She caught a glimpse of Dupree, who was on his way down the stairs. She quickened her pace, intending to catch him. The wide opening of the stairwell amplified her boss’s voice as he spoke into his cell phone. “Okay, right, I’m on my way downstairs. Wait for me in the car.”