“Evil? Like what?”
Byrdswain tapped a file jacket he’d brought with him. “There’s a new rape law—Penal Code 261 says a guy can’t coerce or trick a woman into giving consent.“
“It’s called rape by deception,” Delores said.
“You guys lost me,” Myles said. “Lots of fellows tell white lies to get women into bed, but what does that have to do with Yolanda Vigil’s marriage and divorce?”
“Yolanda is undocumented,” Delores said. “Most women in that situation only have a couple ways they can stay in the U.S. legally. One is to have a baby. The other is to marry another citizen.”
“So you’re saying she married the dude so she could stay here, legally. What’s wrong with that?”
“It takes three years to become a citizen that way,” Delores quickly added. “Yet hubby gave her those bogus walking papers before the first year was up. In spite of all that, Yolanda was convinced she was still on track to become a citizen.”
“Hmmm. If there’s any crime there, it still sounds like fraud to me.”
Delores raised a finger. “But what if we turn things around and look at this from hubby’s perspective? He could have been the one who promoted the marriage idea, knowing full well that he’d close out the so-called marriage long before she’d ever become a citizen.”
“Why would he do that?”
“We don’t know yet, but we can assume he and Yolanda were intimate and if that was the result of him intentionally misleading her about the citizenship issue, her consent doesn’t count.”
“But, if she married the guy, she surely knew there’d be bed action.”
“At least for six friggin’ months,” Byrdswain said with a scowl on his face.
Myles snickered. “That sounds like the voice of experience, Birdman.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“But it was all under false pretenses,” Delores said to Myles. “Now he’s got another woman living with him who fits the same profile. Maybe he’s pulled the same scam on her. Either way, we’ve got multiple counts.”
Byrdswain leaned in. “Detective Sanchez thinks that makes it ‘serial’ rape by deception.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Like we said,” she went on. “This whole concept is new. Only twelve states have laws like it. We’re having to figure it out as we go along.”
“I gotta admit it’s interesting. What does the DA say?”
Delores scoffed. “That’s the rub. If you listen to him, you’d think we have no more chance than a worm in a chicken coop. He says it would be impossible to prove that a wife, who knowingly and willingly gives consent, doesn’t actually mean it.”
Byrdswain nodded. “He prattled on about the hundreds of other cases on our shelves, complete with DNA results, just waiting to be solved.”
“But those cases went cold for a reason,” Delores said. “And we know who our dirtbag is and what he’s doing.” She slid her can aside. “I need some time to build our case and to determine if there are accomplices or other bad guys doing the same things.”
“I can see you’re fired up,” Myles said, “but why’d you call me in? I don’t have much expertise in this kind of case.”
“The DA doesn’t think this guy’s worth our resources, but I don’t want to give up. Birdman is sticking with me so he’s going to work our other cases and I’ll have to work off the clock sometimes. That leaves us thin. Since you live close by, it’d be nice to have somebody else I can call on if need be.”
“As back-up, huh? Sure. What have you done so far?”
Birdman leaned in. “For starters, the dude said he had ‘friends’ in the department but I checked with the Sheriff and the officers in that district. Nobody has any reason to do extra favors for this guy.”
“It was all a bluff,” Delores said. “We figured he preys on the naïve and timid ones, so I took on that persona, using an alias and rented one of his apartments. I fed him some crap about a missing brother, and told him I had a low-paying job.”
Byrdswain grinned. “He thinks she’s 19.”
Delores pursed her lips. Then, “See what I mean? I put my real age on the application, but the bastard didn’t believe it. Like I said, people don’t take me seriously.”
Myles lifted his cup. “The fools.”
“He’s already begun hitting on me. He calls me his Monday Girl. God, he makes me cringe.”
“Monday Girl?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to do whatever he wants on Mondays in exchange for some help with my rent.”
“Just Mondays?”
“Apparently. He said he’s got somebody else to do his bidding on Wednesdays and Fridays and maybe other days too.”
“Wednesday Girl and Friday Girl?”
Delores smirked. “You got it. So far, it’s as if I’m auditioning to get laid. I’ve already had to kiss him but I doubt he’s going to stop there.” She wiped her mouth. “Gross. Gross. Gross. I gotta fry this damn pig!”
“While Detective Sanchez is doing her homework, we could use another small favor,” Byrdswain said. “You L.A. boys have better equipment and more resources than we do. We’d appreciate it if you’d do a background check on him for us. Ours isn’t very thorough. See if we’ve got a Code Five.”
“Outstanding warrants, eh? Sure,” Myles said, taking his iPhone from his pocket and readying his fingers to take notes. “Who is this bad boy? Where’s he live?“
“Name’s Dixon Browne. He’s at the Cal-Vista apartments.”
Myles stopped dead in his tracks and set his iPhone on the table. “No friggin’ way. I know that guy. Stump and I were there the other day. We suspected he was cooking the books, but didn’t suspect anything like this. The owner of the building even offered Stump a job.”
Both Byrdswain and Delores perked up. “Did he take it?” she asked.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Chapter Eleven
In the office of dr. Jeanine moreno, Delores eased into the same high-back chair as before. She removed her shoes and observed Dr. Moreno’s fingernails. “I looked forward to this meeting because it’s one of the few places I can drop the formalities and simply be Delores.”
“Welcome back,” the doctor said. “How are you doing this week?”
“A little better, but I’m still confused about some things.”
“Have you had an opportunity to work on the IMT technique we learned?”
“Undercover work can get pretty boring, so I tried it a few times. It was both helpful and scary.”
“How so?”
“It made me face some things that I didn’t really want to think about?”
Jeanine nodded. “Sometimes that’s what we need.”
“You know something, Jeanine? I hope you don’t mind if I change the subject, but the last time I was in here, I noticed your fingernails. Now, they’re completely different but equally as beautiful. Do you mind if I take a closer look?”
“Of course not,” Jeanine said, holding out her hands.
Delores delicately cradled the doctor’s remarkably smooth hands in her own scruffy cop-hands. The left thumbnail was pearl white with a small red heart painted in the center. All the remaining nails were of the same deep red, but two nails had small pink hearts painted in them. Delores shook her head. “They’re lovely. Who does them for you?”
“My girls and I work on them together. The red heart is my husband. The pink ones are the girls.”
“You’re so lucky to have such a special family.”
“Well, thank you. I’m glad you like them. Getting back to where we left off the last time you were here, you said you were the only person who could understand Dixon Browne’s victims. I wanted to ask you what you meant by that but we ran out of time.”
Delores cringed. She’d been hiding a couple big secrets from everybody for a long time. She didn’t like to think about either one of them, let alone discuss
them. On the other hand, Jeanine was both smart and easy to talk to. Delores rose and stared out the window for a long moment. Finally, she said, “I suspected we’d get around to my childhood sooner or later, but I didn’t think it would come up so quickly.”
“You didn’t come here just to examine fingernails, right?”
“I dunno, Jeanine,” Delores said while pressing her hand along her thigh. “Maybe down deep, that’s really what I wanted to talk about.”
“It’s up to you.”
Delores grabbed her pillow, leaned back into her chair and sighed. “When I was young, everything was bad. I lived with my older sister, Simone, and Grandma, along with Mama and Tio.”
“Tio? Doesn’t that mean uncle?”
“Technically he was our stepfather, but when Simone was little she couldn’t say padrastro so mama just said he was Tio—but that wasn’t correct either because we should have called him Tio Carlos—which still wouldn’t be correct because he’s a stepfather, not an uncle. See what I mean when I say everything is screwed up?”
Jeanine smiled. “People frequently assign convenient nicknames to family members. So, did you all get along?”
Delores’s clammy fingers trembled as if she were a witness in a high-profile case and had just been asked to betray God, himself. She pulled her pillow toward her. “Tio molested Simone and me.”
Jeanine’s eyebrows squeezed down. “I’m so sorry, Delores. That must have been awful.”
“He started sneaking into our room at night when Simone was ten and I was seven. He must have thought I was too young at first, because he’d been groping Simone for a long time before I knew about it.”
Jeanine clucked her tongue.
“He told Simone that everybody did the same thing but nobody was allowed to talk about it. Naturally Simone believed him. Then one night when I was eleven and Simone was staying with friends, I felt his hands on me.” Delores’s tear ducts activated. “I still remember how ugly he looked with his ultra-thick eyebrows. I tried to pull away, but he held me down and told me to keep quiet or he’d hurt Mama.”
Jeanine rose and retrieved a tissue box from the cluttered side of the room. “I’m so sorry, Delores,” she said, holding out the box.
Delores snagged several tissues and patted both her eyes. “I pretended I was being examined by angels so they would recognize me when I got to heaven. When I finally got the nerve to say something to Simone she said the same thing had been happening to her.”
“That must have been absolutely horrific for both of you.”
“It wasn’t over yet,” Delores said, wiping away more tears. “Simone was ashamed of herself. She said if she’d said something to Mama earlier maybe Tio would have left us both alone. The next morning we confronted Mama.”
“How did that work out?”
“Mama said even if it were true, there wasn’t anything she could do about it because Tio was the only person who could support us. Mama made us promise not to bring it up again, so we mostly pretended it never happened. After that, Tio slowed down some but he still came around once a month or so. Finally, about two years later Simone woke me in the middle of the night. She was fourteen and crying. This time Tio had raped her. Simone said if she didn’t leave, he’d keep doing the same thing to her, and sooner or later he’d want me. She decided to run away and wanted me to go with her, but I was only eleven, Jeanine. I was too scared to leave and too scared to stay. The next morning when I woke up, my beautiful sister was gone.” Delores lifted her hands to her face and sobbed.
“Let it go, Delores. Let it go.”
Delores squeezed her pillow and cried tears she’d been holding back for too long. Finally she lifted her head and blew her nose. “Tio stopped touching me after that. Mama must have figured out what happened, but nobody talked about it for all the remaining years that I lived there.”
“Simply awful,” Jeanine said softly.
“I still don’t know where my sister is. I’ve tried to find her but she didn’t have a social security number. She could have a new name now.”
“What about your grandmother? Did she know what was going on?”
“I don’t think so. That’s another one of my problems. Nobody has ever told me anything. All I knew for certain was Tio had all the power and I felt helpless and lonely. I cried myself to sleep lots of nights. I told myself over and over again that if I ever had a chance, I would get even. I think that was one reason I became a detective.”
“Where are your mama and Tio now?”
“Grandma is in heaven, but Mama and Tio live in El Centro. I don’t see them very much. Too many deep wounds and I don’t want to hurt Mama. I’ve tried to get over what happened, but I never could, especially losing Simone.”
“I’d guess not. Can you tell me how all this affected you in your later years?”
Delores sucked down another deep breath. Discussing her past actually made her feel a little better. “I’ve always had a difficult time trusting men, which isn’t fair to them or me.”
“That must be difficult, especially considering the last time we met when you said you’d like to be married and have children someday.”
Delores scoffed. “Who’d marry a train wreck like me? Whenever I find a nice guy and we begin to get serious, all those horrible memories haunt me and I sabotage everything in ways I don’t even want to talk about.”
“We can get back to that later. For now, I’m still curious about how all this came to a head. I take it Dixon Browne reminds you of Tio?”
“He’s even worse.”
“Worse?”
“I don’t think he molests children, but he’s been doing bad things to several vulnerable women that I know of and I’m the only one who knows how it feels to be manipulated like that.”
“So you plopped yourself right in the middle of the very activities you hate so you could protect other women from the exact same feelings you had?”
Delores nodded her head. “Dumb, huh?”
“Noble and unselfish where the words that occurred to me.”
PING!
“Darn,” Jeanine said. “That bell always seems to go off too soon. Would you like to know what I think before you go, or did you just want to vent?”
Delores sighed. “Am I totally hopeless, Jeanine?”
“You’re like the string in a beaded necklace. You’re trying to hold everything together but the beads are too heavy. Meanwhile you can’t get revenge on Tio without hurting your mother so you’ve found an alternative. We call that transference.”
“Transference? I’m a disaster.”
“Another thing. You keep blaming yourself, but none of this is your fault. The first thing you need to do is get your self-loathing under control.”
“I’ll try, Jeanine, but it won’t be easy.”
“It never is, but as challenging as your work situation is right now, I’m more concerned about the pent-up feelings you’ve never faced regarding your family and your personal life. Unlike your cases, which come and go, these issues are going to be with you until you fix them. Until then, I don’t think you’ll ever be able to function properly in any phase of your life. Does that make sense?”
“Are you saying I ought to level with Mama about Tio raping Simone? ’Cause, I’m not even sure she’d believe me.”
“Could you do that?”
“I don’t exactly know, Jeanine. How do you tell your mama something like that?”
“I’ll leave that up to you, but remember this: Regardless of what you choose to do, it’s usually better to be kind than correct.”
Delores’s skin tingled. As before, she’d been at Jeanine’s office less than an hour and somehow Jeanine helped her understand some of her core thoughts and feelings. Maybe someday she could confide in Jeanine about her other issue: the black cloud behavior that couldn’t possibly be healthy.
Chapter Twelve
Stump was well on his way to the fifty practice-hours he needed t
o convert his driving permit into a full-blown license, and Sunday enabled him to knock off another big block. He and Myles were twelve miles from the canyon where Stump’s assistant principal died several years earlier before Myles had to issue any pointers. “Keep a closer eye on the speedometer,” Myles said. “It’s easy to go too fast on highways.”
Stump let off the gas. “You still going to Oklahoma to see Grandma Pauline?”
“Yep. Tomorrow. That is if you can get by without me.”
Of course he could. He’d probably have James come over and they could call some girls. “You’ve gone on short trips before and it always worked out.”
“Alright then, but I want you to be extra careful, especially on that job of yours. If you find it dangerous for any reason, just get out of there. Okay?”
“Dangerous? Why would that job be dangerous?”
“I’m just sayin’.” Myles pointed to the speedometer. “You’re going ten over, again.”
As they moved up the hills and around curves, Myles offered Stump fatherly pointers about driving on curves and near big trucks. Stump doubted if all dads taught their sons those things.
After they reached the top they drifted along for a few quiet miles before Stump said, “There it is,” and pulled into the small parking area. They walked the gravel path that led to the viewing platform from which Ms. Johnson was pushed. From the far corner, they could see half-way to forever where the early morning clouds rested on the horizon like a stack of giant cotton balls. Down below, a pair of red-tailed hawks lazily glided in the upwind along the canyon wall. On the desert floor a blend of cacti, green foliage and sandstone seemed to be modeling for a painting. “This is the exact spot,” Stump said as he leaned over the edge of the handrail.
“Let me ask you something,” Myles said. “What would you say if I suggested you forget about that job and look for something else?”
“No way. I need that money,” He turned his head. “Unless you’ll let me grab a few grand from my trust.”
“You know better than that. But there must be something else you can do.”
“There’s nothing out there, Dude, except drive-through joints and they don’t pay as much.” Stump spit over the handrail and watched his saliva ball race to the bottom. ”Why are we having this dumb conversation, anyway? The other day, you thought that gig was thumbs up.”