LITMIR.BIZ

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      “So, you’re taking it easy… No new case?”

      “No…”

      “If you’re just goofing off, you could go to lunch with your old man.”

      “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m goofing off. I’m looking over some unsolved cases they want to reopen. Besides, I’m on a diet and I’d prefer to get a yogurt.”

      “Anything interesting?”

      “Yeah, I’m thinking strawberry.”

      “No, come on, I mean, is the case interesting?”

      “I don’t know, Papi, I just started looking over the documents. Let’s talk later. Behave yourself.”

      “What choice do I have?”

      She headed back into the conference room and opened the second box. She found a bag with the car seat, the birth certificate, a couple of photos of the newborn, and documentation about the search for the body, the false alarm when they had found other remains, the order to close the case, and the various attempts by the mother to reopen it, which until now had been unsuccessful. She wondered what must have happened for them to finally reopen it now that twenty-three years had passed. She went over to the computer and searched through the file where she found a short note:

      “Mother asserts having seen missing daughter at Heat game.”

      She also did a Google search on the girl. She found out about the many efforts carried out by Gladys Elena Lazo to find her daughter because she was convinced that she hadn’t died in the accident. She had hired private detectives and sought assistance from associations dedicated to searching for missing children. Over the years, they had made three or four sketches of what the child would have looked like at a given time. The last one, made two years ago, showed a young brunette with large eyes and a fixed gaze. Suddenly, that small, missing child took on life. Was it possible that she hadn’t died? And if she had survived, where had she been all these years? And how to even go about looking for her?

      She grabbed the phone and dialed the most recent number in the file.

      “Hello, is Gladys Elena Lazo there?”

      “Speaking.”

      “This is Officer Maria Duquesne. Is there a convenient time when I could come by and see you at your house?”

Chapter 2

      Day 1—Monday, November 2, 2015

      Even though she hadn’t planned to go out for lunch, she immediately agreed to do so given the urgent tone in the voice that was speaking to her:

      “We have to see you right away!”

      A rolling stone gathers no moss, she told herself as she put her cell phone into her purse, got her keys out, and headed out into the midday sun.

      What could possibly be up with these crazy old women who need to see me so urgently and with all this mystery? The crazy old women in fact were Lourdes and Yolanda, her mother’s schoolmates from a childhood long ago in Havana.

      They were waiting for her at the most obscure table in the restaurant. Rather than one of the places where they typically met, they chose a small, half-empty restaurant in a seedy strip mall in the Sweetwater area. The surprise must have registered on her face because Yolanda quickly blurted out:

      “The fact is that Lourdes has to ask you something very privately.”

      As the waiter got closer, they lowered their voices. They asked for three glasses of Chardonnay. It was as if they were speaking Chinese. They wound up accepting three Presidente beers.

      In response to her inquisitive look, Lourdes began to speak slowly, as if pronouncing each syllable required an immense effort.

      “I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up… I don’t think it’s anything… I don’t know… Probably… It’s just that it seems like…and maybe you…”

      Maria was about to lose her patience and to tell her to get to the point, but she noticed a hint of pain in the woman’s eyes that made her hesitate and try to comprehend what she was saying beyond the actual words, the meaning behind her gestures and the modulation of her voice that was becoming fainter.

      “And?” she succinctly asked while raising an eyebrow.

      “Lourdes thinks that Ramon is cheating on her,” Yolanda blurted out.

      Maria had to make an effort to stifle her laughter. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that the seventy-year-old man was up for an affair, even though it wasn’t out of the question at his age with Viagra. These days, even Vargas Llosa, who was pushing eighty, was making a fool of himself as a dirty old man in all those photos in Hola magazine. When the waiter came back with their food, the women hushed their conversation for a moment. Lourdes’s breaded cutlet draped over the plate, along with black beans and plantains. Yolanda had asked for vaca frita, that typical Cuban flank steak, with the same side dishes except that the plantains were sweet. As for Maria, she had limited herself to a tuna salad.

      When they were alone again, she looked at Lourdes.

      “Hang on, what makes you think that?” she asked with all seriousness, as if she were investigating one of the cases back at headquarters.

      “Look, when he retired a year ago, he was happy enough watching films on Netflix, listening to the news, reading… He even bought a Kindle. You had to light a fire under him just to get him out of his recliner. A few months ago, he started eating lunch every Thursday with some friends…”

      “That’s true, because Alicia’s husband, Oscar, goes too and they get together for lunch in a backroom at Casa Juancho…”

      “Yeah, but now they’re also meeting at night one or two times a week, and he never tells me anything… It’s all a mystery… And he whispers on the phone.”

      “Have you noticed any unfamiliar number or a text on his cell?” Maria asked, certain that her friend would have already checked it.

      “Well, truthfully, no. The texts only come from the grandkids…occasionally from his sister, and no unknown telephone numbers.”

      “And his emails?”

      “No, but he could erase them.”

      “A woman’s perfume, lipstick on his clothes, anything unusual about his underwear, socks inside out?”

      “No.”

      “Because you checked all these things, right?”

      “Well, it’s just that I…”

      “Yeah, that’s what any of us would do. Anything else?”

      “I don’t know, he just doesn’t seem to be himself, like he’s not here, he’s got his mind on something else. I’m sure he’s hiding something from me.”

      “Is it possible that some type of investment went wrong, and he doesn’t want to tell you?”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “Any health problems?”

      “I always go to the doctor with him…a bit of arthritis in his knee, medicine for his blood pressure…normal stuff for his age.”

      Worrying about her husband’s possible infidelity had not made Lourdes lose her appetite. The waiter came and took away the empty plates. Maria had heroically managed to avoid Yolanda’s tempting offer to share her sweet plantains. Years ago, she had gone to Weight Watchers to lose some weight, and she remembered the instructor’s dramatic assertions about how Cuban food makes you gain weight. However, she couldn’t turn down the croquettes that came with her tuna salad.

      They were already having their coffee when Maria asked:

      “And

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