Lucia, Richard, Evelyn
Brooklyn
Ten minutes later Lucia came down from the bathroom to find Richard in the kitchen toasting bread, the coffeepot full, and three mugs on the table. Evelyn entered from the yard with Marcelo shivering in her arms, and proceeded to devour the toast and coffee Richard served her. Swaying on the stool with her mouth full, she looked so ravenous and young that Richard was touched. How old could she be? Most likely older than she looked. Maybe she was the same age as his Bibi.
“We’re going to take you home, Evelyn,” Lucia told her when they had finished their coffee.
“No! No!” cried Evelyn, standing up so suddenly that the stool toppled over and Marcelo fell to the floor.
“It was only a small dent, Evelyn. Don’t be frightened. I’ll explain what happened to your employer. What’s his name again?”
“Frank Leroy . . . but it’s not just because of the accident,” stammered Evelyn, ashen faced.
“What else is there?” asked Richard.
“Come on, Evelyn, what are you so afraid of?” added Lucia.
Then, stumbling over the words and trembling severely, the young girl told them that there was a dead body in the car trunk. She had to repeat it twice for Lucia to understand. It took Richard even longer. Although he spoke Spanish, he was much more comfortable with the lilting Portuguese of Brazil. He could not believe what he was hearing: the enormity of her declaration froze him to the spot. If he had understood correctly, there were two alternatives: either the girl was raving mad or there really was a dead body in the Lexus.
“A body, you said?”
Evelyn nodded, her eyes on the floor.
“That’s impossible. What kind of body?”
“Richard! Don’t be ridiculous. A human body, of course,” Lucia cut in. She was so astonished she had to struggle to suppress a nervous laugh.
“How did it get there?” asked Richard, still incredulous.
“I don’t know . . .”
“Did you run over the person?”
“No.”
Faced with the possibility that they really were dealing with an anonymous dead person, Richard started scratching with both hands at the hives that broke out on his arms and chest in moments of tension. A man of unchanging habits and routines, he was ill prepared for unforeseen events like this. Although he was not yet aware of it, his stable, cautious existence had come to an end.
“We have to call the police,” he decided, picking up his cell phone.
The young Guatemalan girl gave a shriek of terror and began weeping with heartrending sobs for reasons that were evident to Lucia but not to Richard, even though he was well aware of the constant state of uncertainty most Latin American immigrants lived in.
“I suppose you’re undocumented,” said Lucia. “We can’t call the police, Richard. We would be getting this poor girl into trouble. She took the car without permission. She could be accused of theft as well as homicide. You know how the police treat undocumented immigrants. They always go for the weakest link in the chain.”
“What chain?”
“It’s a metaphor, Richard.”
“How did that person die? Who is it?” Richard asked.
Evelyn told them she hadn’t touched the body. She had gone to the drugstore to buy diapers and had opened the trunk with one hand while holding the shopping bag in the other. It was when she tried to push the bag in that she had noticed the trunk was full. She saw an object covered in a rug; when she pulled it aside she saw there was a curled-up body underneath. She was so scared she fell back onto the sidewalk but stifled the scream fighting to come out and slammed the trunk shut. She put the bag on the backseat and locked herself in the car for a good while—she wasn’t sure how long, at least twenty or thirty minutes—until she had calmed down enough to be able to drive back to the house. With a bit of luck her absence might have gone unnoticed, and no one would know she had used the car, but after the collision with Richard, with the trunk dented and half-open, that was impossible.
“We don’t even know whether that person is dead. He could be unconscious,” suggested Richard, wiping his brow with a dish towel.
“Not too likely, he’d be dead from hypothermia by now. But there’s one way to find out,” said Lucia.
“Good God, woman! You’re not suggesting we look inside the trunk on the street . . .”
“Do you have a better idea? There’s no one outside. It’s very early, it’s still dark, and it’s Sunday. Who’s going to see us?”
“No way. Count me out.”
“Okay, lend me a flashlight. Evelyn and I are going to take a look.”
Hearing this, the girl’s sobs increased in volume by several decibels. Lucia put her arm around her, feeling sorry for this young girl and all the suffering she had been through in the past few hours.
“This has nothing to do with me! My insurance will pay for the damage to the car, and that’s all I can do. I’m sorry, Evelyn, but you’ll have to leave,” said Richard in his broken Spanish.
“You’re going to throw her out, Richard? Are you crazy? As if you don’t know what it means to be undocumented in this country!” cried Lucia.
“I do know, Lucia. If not from my work at the center, I’d know from my father, who’s forever harping about it,” sighed Richard, caving in. “What do we know about this girl?”
“That she needs help. Do you have family here, Evelyn?”
A sepulchral silence: Richard went on scratching, thinking of what a tremendous mess he was in—the police, an investigation, the press, his reputation down the drain. And his father’s voice deep inside him reminding him of his duty to help the persecuted: “I wouldn’t be in this world, and you wouldn’t have been born, if some brave souls hadn’t hidden me from the Nazis,” he had told him over and over, about a million times.
“We have to find out if that person is still alive. There’s no time to lose,” Lucia repeated.
She picked up the car keys Evelyn Ortega had left on the kitchen table, handed her the Chihuahua as a precaution against the cats, put on her hat and gloves, and asked again for the flashlight.
“Oh shit, Lucia, you can’t go on your own! I’ll have to go with you,” said Richard resignedly. “We’ll need to defrost the trunk to open it.”
They filled a large pot with hot water and vinegar and between the two of them managed with great difficulty to carry it out, treading carefully on the slippery staircase and clinging on to the handrails to stay upright. Lucia’s contact lenses began to freeze, feeling like shards of glass in her eyes. Richard often went in winter to fish in the frozen lakes of the north and had experience with extreme cold, but he was not prepared for it in Brooklyn. The light from the streetlamps cast yellow, phosphorescent circles on the snow. The wind blew in gusts, rising and falling as if weary with the effort, then moments later stirring up swirls of loose snow. When it died down, complete silence reigned, a threatening stillness. Cars covered with varying amounts of snow were parked along the street; Evelyn’s white Lexus was nearly invisible. It was not directly outside his house as Richard had feared, but some fifteen yards away, which in fact made no difference. No one was around at that early hour. The snowplows had begun to clear the street the day before, and there were mounds of snow piled on the sidewalks.
Just as Evelyn had said, the trunk was tied with a yellow belt. They had a hard time untying it because of their gloves: Richard had become paranoid about fingerprints. They finally got the trunk open and saw a bundle partially covered with a bloodstained rug. When they pulled it back they found a woman dressed in workout clothes, her face hidden in her arms. She was curled up in a strange position and barely looked human, more like a disjointed doll. What little skin they could see was lavender. There was no doubt about it: she was dead. They stood for several minutes trying to work out what had happened: they could not see any blood on her but would have to turn her over to examine her properly. The poor creature was frozen as solid as a block of cement. However much Lucia pushed and pulled, she could not budge her. Richard shone the flashlight on her, almost sobbing with anxiety.
“I think she died yesterday,” said Lucia.
“Why do you think that?”
“Rigor mortis. A body becomes stiff about eight hours after death, and the rigor lasts for thirty-six hours or so.”
“So then it could have been the night before .”
“True. It could have been even earlier because the temperature is so low. Whoever put that woman in the trunk was counting on that, I’m sure. Maybe they couldn’t dispose of the body because of Friday’s blizzard. It’s obvious they were in no hurry.”
“It could be that the rigor mortis has finished and the body has simply frozen,” suggested Richard.
“A human being is not the same as a chicken, Richard. It takes a couple of days in an icebox for a body to freeze completely. Let’s say she could have died between the night before last and yesterday.”
“How come you know so much about this?”
“Don’t ask,” she said categorically.
“In any case, that’s up to the forensic pathologist and the police, not us,” Richard concluded.
As if summoned by magic, they saw the headlights of a vehicle slowly turning the corner. They succeeded in lowering the lid of the trunk just as a police patrol car pulled up alongside them. One of the policemen stuck his head out of the window.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“All okay, officer,” replied Lucia.
“What are you doing outside at this time of day?” the man asked.
“Looking for my mother’s diapers. We left them in the car,” Lucia said, pulling the big bag from the backseat.
“Good morning, officer,” said Richard, his voice reedy.
They waited until the car moved off and fastened the trunk again with the belt. Then they went back into the house, slipping on the ice on the stairs as they carried the diapers and the empty pot, and praying to the heavens that the patrolmen would not think of coming back to take a look at the Lexus.
THEY FOUND EVELYN, MARCELO, AND THE CATS in exactly the same position as they had left them. When they asked the girl about the diapers, she explained that Frankie, the boy she cared for, had cerebral palsy and needed them.
“How old is the boy?” asked Lucia.
“Thirteen.”
“And he wears adult diapers?”
Evelyn turned red with embarrassment and explained that Frankie was very advanced for his age and the diapers had to be loose because the “little bird” often woke him up. Lucia translated for Richard: erection.
“I left him on his own yesterday. He must be desperate. Who’s going to give him his insulin?” murmured Evelyn.
“He needs insulin?”
“If only we could call Señora Leroy . . . Frankie can’t be left on his own.”
“It’s risky to use the phone,” Richard said.
“I’ll call from my cell with the number blocked,” said Lucia.
The phone only rang twice before an angry voice began shouting at the other end. Lucia ended the call at once, and Evelyn sighed with relief. The only person who could answer on that number was Frankie’s mother. If she was with him, Evelyn could relax; the boy would be well looked after.
“Come on, Evelyn, you must have some idea of how that woman’s body ended up in the car trunk,” said Richard.
“No. The Lexus belongs to my boss, Mr. Leroy.”
“He must be searching for his car.”
“He’s in Florida. He’s supposed to come back tomorrow.”
“Do you think he could have had something to do with this?”
“Yes.”
“In other words, you think he could have killed that woman,” Richard insisted.
“When Mr. Leroy gets angry, he’s like a devil . . . ,” said the young Guatemalan, bursting into tears.
“Let her calm down,” Lucia told Richard.
“You realize we can’t go to the police now, don’t you, Lucia? How would we explain that we lied to the patrolman?”
“Forget the police for the moment!”
“My mistake was calling you, Lucia. If I’d known this girl had a dead body hanging over her I would have gone to the police right away,” said Richard, more pensive than angry. He served Lucia more coffee. “Milk?”
“Black and no sugar.”
“Shit, what a mess we’ve got ourselves into!”
“These things happen in life, Richard.”
“Not in mine.”
“Yes, I’ve realized that. But see how life refuses to leave us in peace? Sooner or later it catches up with us.”
“The girl will have to take her dead body elsewhere.”
“You tell her,” said Lucia, pointing to Evelyn, who was sobbing silently.
“What are you thinking of doing?” Richard asked the girl.
Evelyn shrugged sorrowfully, mumbling excuses for having gotten them into trouble.
“You have to do something,” Richard insisted, without great conviction.
Lucia tugged at his sleeve and led him over to the piano, away from Evelyn.
“The first thing is to dispose of the evidence,” she said in a low voice. “Before we do anything else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’ve got to get rid of the car and the body.”
“You’re mad!” he exclaimed.
“You’re involved in this too, Richard.”
“I am?”
“Yes, from the moment you opened the door to Evelyn last night and then called me. We have to decide where we’re going to dump the body.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. How can you even think of such a crazy idea?”
“Look, Richard: Evelyn can’t go back to her employers’ house, and she can’t go to the police either. Do you want her to drive around everywhere with a dead body in somebody else’s car? For how long?”
“I’m sure all this can be sorted out.”
“With the police? No way.”
“Let’s drive the car to another neighborhood, and that’ll be that.”
“It would be found at once, Richard. Evelyn needs time to get to somewhere safe. I suppose you’ve realized how terrified she is. She knows more than she’s telling us. I think she has a very specific fear of her employer, that Mr. Leroy. She suspects he killed that woman and is coming after her. He knows she took the Lexus and won’t let her escape.”
“If that’s so, we’re in danger too.”
“No one suspects she is with us. Let’s drive the car as far away as possible.”
“That would make us accomplices!”
“We already are, but if we do things properly no one will know. They can’t connect us to any of this, not even to Evelyn. The snow is a blessing, and we have to take advantage of it while it lasts. We have to leave today.”
“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 latent 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.