Twilight (12 page)

Rosa touched her face worriedly. “My makeup and hair, they are okay?”

“You look beautiful,” Dana assured her. “Very natural.” She just prayed she could capture that beauty. Though she’d taken more than one photography class for the pure enjoyment of it, she had very little experience with anything remotely like fashion photography. She was far better at catching an errant husband sneaking into his lover’s apartment, or an insurance cheat playing volleyball when he should have been flat on his back. Those pictures needed only to be clear enough to prove deceit, not crisp enough to sell a product or lovely enough for a gallery showing.

Rosa sat stiffly where Dana had directed her. She needed to relax, so Dana began talking, asking questions about the baby. At once Rosa’s expression became more animated. No matter the circumstances of her pregnancy, it was clear that the baby was going to be very much loved. Only when the talk turned to the future did her brow furrow.

“It is going to be difficult,” she said in a whisper. “I have no job. I have not even graduated from high school yet. I dropped out because of the baby, but I will go back when I can. I want my child to be proud of me.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

So terribly young, Dana thought sadly. “What about your family? Can they help?”

“My family has very little extra, and my father is very angry about the baby. Only my mother has been able to keep him from throwing me out into the streets,” Rosa responded matter-of-factly, though the shadows in her eyes made it evident how much this hurt her. “He has not spoken one word to me since I told him. He says I have shamed him.”

“Where does Marco fit in?” Dana asked as she clicked the shutter, shot after shot, trying to capture the lightning-quick shifts in mood on Rosa’s face. “Is he the baby’s father?”

Rosa laughed. “No, no,” she said at once. “Marco is my brother. You must excuse him for the way he is. Macho is very important to him. Inside, though, he is very soft, especially when it comes to me and the baby. If it comes to that, if my father throws me out, Marco will take me in. It will cramp his lifestyle, he says, but he will do it.”

“So Marco has many girlfriends?” Dana asked.

“Very many,” Rosa said. “He cannot settle on any one. I tell him he is scared of commitment.”

“And what does he say?”

Rosa shrugged. “He says to mind my own business.”

“But you don’t,” Dana guessed.

“Of course not,” Rosa said with a grin. “He is my older brother. It is my duty to pester him.”

Dana was just wondering whether she had gained Rosa’s confidence, whether she dared to venture on to more serious questions, when the girl said softly, “You must miss the
padre
very much.”

Taken by surprise, tears sprang to Dana’s eyes before she could prevent them. It happened that way sometimes, when she was caught off guard. For a few minutes at a time, she would almost forget that he was gone and then a reminder would come, just like this, and it would shatter her momentary tranquility.

“I do,” she said. “Very much. Did you know my husband well?”

“We all knew him well. He was very much loved here,” Rosa told her.

“By everyone?”

“Oh, yes,” the girl said fervently.

“So no one at Yo, Amigo would have harmed him?”

Rosa looked shocked by the question. “Never!”

“May I ask you another question?”

“About the
padre?
”

“Indirectly. Is anyone here involved with drugs?”

Rosa looked uncomfortable, and it was a very long time before she finally answered. “There have been drugs,” she conceded with obvious reluctance. “But no more. Rick does not allow it. If one of us is caught in the building with drugs, or even high on drugs, we are out of the program. That is the way it is and everyone knows it. It is very strict.”

“Has anyone been kicked out?”

“Not for a long time.”

Dana wondered whether they measured time the same way. “What do you mean, a long time?”

“A few months,” Rosa said. “It was before Christmas. November, maybe.”

“Who was caught?”

Rosa’s gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Why do you want to know this? It was a long time ago.”

A few months, Dana thought, barely two, in fact, before Ken’s death. Could there have been some connection?

“Not so very long ago,” she said. “Who was it, Rosa?”

Her expression passive, Rosa stood up then. “I think I have said too much already,” she said, heading for the door. She paused. “Thank you very much for taking my pictures,” she said politely.

Dana knew she would only lose ground if she persisted with her questioning. She smiled. “I’ll bring them in for you to see tomorrow.”

Despite her evident uneasiness, Rosa couldn’t hide her excitement. “So soon?”

“I’ll print them at home tonight,” Dana promised, thinking that the time in front of her computer would be more relaxing than many other things she could be doing. “Will you be here tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes,” Rosa said, clearly unable to resist the lure of those photographs. “I will be here.”

Then she hurried away, leaving Dana to wonder just who Rosa was trying to protect. Her first guess would have been Marco, the big brother who’d promised Rosa his protection. But Marco was very much involved in the program. If he’d been banished for drug use, he wouldn’t be here now.

Or would he? Was any banishment short-term, no more than a few weeks, perhaps? It was a question for Rick. Would he go as tight-lipped as Rosa had, or would he be honest with her? Maybe this would be the first real test of exactly where his loyalties lay—with his dead friend or with his program. Dana feared she already knew the answer.

When push came to shove, Yo, Amigo would win every time.

12

D
ana collected her equipment and took it with her to Rick’s office. When she entered, Maria glanced up from her work and smiled.

“There you are. How did it go?”

“I had one student,” Dana admitted. “Rosa.”

“Do not be discouraged. It is a start. Rosa will tell the others and next time, there will be more.”

Dana was not so sure of that, given the last words she and Rosa had spoken. “I suppose,” she said, trying not to sound too dispirited. “Is Rick free?”

“Actually he had to leave for a bit. There was a meeting he had forgotten. He said for you to hang in.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Or was it hang out? Anyway, he will be back shortly. You could wait in his office, if you do not mind the clutter. He will not let me touch anything in there. He says he knows exactly where everything is, and if I organize it, he will be lost.”

Dana seized the opportunity. At last, she would have free rein to do some serious snooping. “I don’t mind at all,” she said, trying not to sound too eager.

“Would you like to see a magazine? We have some that were donated. Most are in Spanish, I’m afraid, but there is a
Newsweek
from last December. That is not too old. And a
Reader’s Digest.
That is timeless, yes?”

“That’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

Maria’s expression brightened hopefully. “Maybe you would prefer to see some information on the program,” she suggested. “We have several papers that were prepared for fundraising and for grants. The
padre
helped us to write them.”

“Yes,” Dana said, careful to disguise her eagerness. “I’d love to see whatever you have about Yo, Amigo. You don’t by any chance have a file of articles that have been done about the program, do you?”

Maria nodded. “Oh, yes, we save them all.” She wrinkled her nose. “Even the bad ones.”

So not all of the media coverage had been positive, Dana thought. Who were the critics? she wondered. Would they provide some clue about the murder? Or was she grasping at straws to think that opponents of the program might kill as part of some Machiavellian plot to force its closing?

Never before had she been involved in a case in which the victim had been so universally loved. Except for those who disagreed with Ken’s philosophy regarding the gangs, there simply were no obvious starting points, at least when it came to identifying people with a motive to do Ken harm.

And yet she couldn’t accept the possibility that his killing had been random, even in an area known for its drive-by shootings. Why? Was it simply her own need to put a more meaningful label on the crime? A need to fix blame?

With the quick expertise of a very organized person, Maria put her hands on several thick files and handed them to Dana. “This will keep you busy for a while, yes? Would you like coffee? One of the boys just brought in some
cafe Cubano.
It is very strong, but very good.”

“That sounds wonderful.” She took a tiny cup of the dark, sweet coffee with her into Rick’s office and settled into the chair behind his desk, the file folders spread out in front of her.

Glancing around, she cursed the lack of a copy machine. She’d never be able to read everything in the time she had. Perhaps, though, there would be duplicates of some of the information on the program. She could take a set of those and concentrate for now on the promising batch of clippings.

Sure enough, inside one folder she found several copies of a slick brochure on Yo, Amigo that had been designed for fundraising, along with a printed fact sheet about costs, goals and achievements. She folded up copies of both and stuffed them in her purse. The grant proposals in another were too bulky to deal with, for the moment, but she made a note of foundations and government offices that had been sent applications for funding.

Then she turned her attention to the articles. One by one, she lifted them from the folder. They were in no particular order that she could discern. They hadn’t been sorted by topic or by date. She wondered at the latter. Even if the person filing them, presumably Maria, had simply been stuffing them into the folder, wouldn’t they be in something close to chronological order, either front to back or back to front?

Instead, she found articles from two years before filed ahead of those from two weeks ago, followed by one from the program’s dedication and grand opening. In fact, rather than being neatly filed, they appeared to have been jammed into the folder hurriedly.

Had someone else searched this particular file and perhaps removed something incriminating? Or, once again, was she grasping at straws? Maybe the person filing simply had no particular system. If Maria had recruited assistance from one of the kids Dana had met, it was entirely possible that the filing had been done haphazardly.

For the moment, perhaps she ought to create a log of the articles by source, date, headline and topic. Later, she could compare it to a search of the archives of area papers to determine which clipping or clippings might be missing, if any. It might lead her to a clue. It was a slim hope, but it was all she had.

Snatching a notebook from her purse, she made hasty entries, not even pausing long enough to read more than a cursory paragraph or two to familiarize herself with the article’s focus. For the most part, there was nothing remarkable about the clippings. In fact, most were glowing accounts of the successes achieved.

There was an intriguing in-depth profile of Rick that she had to force herself not to at least skim. It would be easy enough to track down a copy on microfiche later at the local library if it wasn’t available on the internet.

As she reached the last few clippings, she wondered at the lack of negative press, especially in light of Maria’s claim that even the bad articles had been kept. The only article that could be considered remotely derogatory was one in which it was charged that the program had exceeded its budget. Even in that one, however, the critics had found that the excesses were justifiable and could easily be made up with the increased cash flow from the following year’s contributions.

Just as she was about to replace the clippings, she spotted one tiny article that had been left in the folder. It was little more than a single paragraph with a two-line headline, probably tucked away in the newspaper’s pages, just as it had been virtually lost in the folder. The headline made her heart pound.

DRUG CHARGES DISMISSED

AGAINST PROGRAM FOUNDER

Chicago police today conceded that there was no evidence to support drug allegations that had been made against Enrique (Rick) Sanchez, founder of the highly successful gang rehabilitation program. Sanchez was released after questioning.

Dana’s hand trembled as she read and reread the clipping. Rick had been questioned about drugs. Now the police were convinced that Ken had somehow been tied to drug trafficking. Coincidence? She doubted it.

Why hadn’t Rick told her about this after their meeting with O’Flannery earlier? Wouldn’t that have been the logical time to explain that this wasn’t the first time drug charges had been falsely made about someone connected to Yo, Amigo? Or had they been false? Had he just dodged a bullet because the evidence had been too scanty for a conviction?

She was still contemplating the possibilities and clutching the tiny article when Rick walked back into his office. Something in her face must have given her away, because the smile that had been starting at the corners of his mouth faded.

“What’s wrong?”

She held out the clipping. “Explain this.”

He didn’t even reach out to take it. He just sighed. “The article says I was not guilty, does it not?”

“It says there was no evidence,” she corrected. “There must have been some reason for the charge being made in the first place.”

“As there was in Ken’s case?” he asked dryly.

“It’s not the same,” she argued bitterly.

Rick’s expression hardened. “Why? Because he was your husband?”

“Because he was a good and decent man who deplored the use of drugs.”

“And I am not so good and decent?” he asked softly.

Her anger fading just as quickly as it had begun, she stared at him in confusion. “I don’t know you that well.”

“Exactly,
querida.
You do not know me at all.”

Querida,
she thought. It was the second time he had used the term of endearment with her. She was not his dear one, his darling, his sweetheart or his honey. She was nothing to him. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to protest. The word was like a caress, impossible to ignore, even more difficult to undo, once it had been spoken. Its casual use inexplicably tightened the bond between them. She drew in a deep breath.

“Will you tell me what happened?”

The smile came back, but it was gently mocking. “Are you sure you wish to hear the truth? Maybe you would prefer the illusions, especially if they are damning.”

“Truth is always better,” she insisted.

“Not always,” he said. “But in this case, yes.” He held out his hand. “Come, I will tell you as we drive.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she tucked her hand into his and allowed him to gently tug her to her feet. The contact was too fleeting, too tempting. She was glad that she had so many things to carry. Otherwise she might have allowed him to keep her hand clasped in his.

Once they were in the car, however, Rick seemed to forget his promise. Instead of explaining about the drug charges, he asked how her class had gone.

“Only one participant,” she said, and told him about Rosa.

“Do not look so sad. If you were able to get Rosa, others will follow. Marco has given it his tacit approval by allowing her to come.”

“Then Marco has so much power?”

“He is a natural leader, yes.”

Putting aside for the moment her determination to learn about those supposedly falsified drug charges, she focused on the opening he had given her to discover more about Marco. “Tell me about him,” she said. “He seems like a very dangerous young man.”

“Marco is a product of the streets—tough, smart and far too rebellious to play by anyone’s rules.”

“And yet he has played by yours, hasn’t he?”

“Most of the time,” Rick conceded.

“Why?”

“Because I bailed him out of some trouble once.”

“With the police?”

“No, with a rival gang. They had him surrounded. I wouldn’t have given ten cents for his life at that point.”

“Let me guess. You just waded into the fray and evened the odds.”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

“In other words, you saved his life.”

“He believes that I did.”

“Which no doubt made it very easy to strike a bargain with him to get him into the program,” she guessed.

“Not so easy,” he corrected. “But less complicated than it might have otherwise been. He was forced to admit that it is possible to be strong without a gang behind you.”

“How many others have you rescued in this way?”

“Fortunately, some of the others have been won over more easily. A few followed Marco. Others came because their parents or a teacher or a priest dragged them.”

Dana knew enough about adolescent psychology to guess that those weren’t the ones who stayed. “I’ll bet Marco’s friends have been your greatest successes,” she said.

He nodded. “As I said, he is a natural leader. As was Tico.”

“Have you ever regretted making Marco part of Yo, Amigo?”

“Why would I regret it?”

Dana tried to feel her way cautiously with her response. “Because of things he has done.”

“Such as?”

“Drugs, maybe.”

“We are back to that again,” he said wearily. “Drugs have no place at Yo, Amigo.”

“That doesn’t mean that drug use never happens, does it?”

“No, but there are severe consequences.”

“Banishment.”

“Yes.”

“Has Marco ever been kicked out for using or selling drugs?”

“Never.”

He said it so firmly that Dana was taken aback. “Oh.”

“Why so surprised?”

“It was something Rosa said. I guess I misunderstood,” she admitted. If not Marco, though, then who would Rosa have been so quick to protect? The answer flashed as brilliantly as neon. Rick, of course.

“Rick, tell me about the drug charges against you.”

“There were no charges,” he reminded her. “Only allegations.”

It was a distinction she couldn’t quite grasp. “The police suspected you, right?”

“Because someone fed them false information,” he said with transparent bitterness. “They had no choice but to investigate, just as they claimed with Ken. While they did, I stepped down as director. I had to abide by my own rules. Naturally it got blown all out of proportion in the media. Of course, when the investigation concluded there was no basis for the accusations, it was relegated to a brief item buried deep inside the newspaper.”

“There was more in the papers than that clipping I had earlier?”

“Exposé after exposé for a few weeks last year,” he confirmed. “It could have ruined us if so many had not had faith in me and in the program.”

Dana was puzzled. “Those other articles weren’t in the file.”

Rick didn’t seem especially surprised. “Maria hates anything negative, especially if it’s about me. Perhaps she never clipped the articles.”

“Do you really believe that?” Dana asked, thinking of Maria’s declaration that she had included even the negative press.

“What’s the alternative?”

“That someone deliberately removed them.”

“Why?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea, but something tells me we ought to find out.”

Rick didn’t seem nearly as suspicious about the missing articles as she was. “Why take them from the file when anyone interested could easily look them up online?”

“Maybe the person who took them didn’t realize that.”

“Anyone knows that newspapers keep archives.”

Maybe it was as simple as someone like Rosa trying to protect a man she liked and respected. “Even the kids at Yo, Amigo?” she asked.

He seemed startled by the suggestion. “Okay, no,” he finally admitted. “They might not be sophisticated enough to realize that, but doesn’t that shoot your theory of some sort of conspiracy all to hell?”