The Finishing School

6

MELANIE’S NEXT STEP was to interview the super who’d discovered the bodies. She and Ray-Ray took the service elevator down to the basement of James Seward’s Park Avenue building. In contrast to the exquisite mahogany car that had ferried them to the penthouse, the service elevator was painted industrial gray and smelled like garbage. Directly across from where it let them out, a grimy door bore a small nameplate reading L. REYES, SUPERINTENDENT.

Ray-Ray pressed the buzzer. They waited. A darkening at the peephole told them someone was looking out.

“Yeah? Wha’ you want?” said a gruff voice from the other side of the door. The accent threw her back years, to her father’s English. Her father had lived in New York for two decades, but his English never made it beyond passable.

“Señor Reyes, Melanie Vargas. Soy de la oficina del fiscal.”

The door swung open immediately.

“Prosecutor? Yes, I been waiting!” The short, balding, coffee-skinned man who stood before them looked like he’d walked through hell. His eyes were puffy and red, his face haggard, yet he smiled at her and pumped her hand excitedly.

“This is Special Agent Raymond Wong from the Drug Enforcement Administration,” Melanie said.

“Good, come in, come in,” Reyes said, relief in his voice.

He led them into a sparsely furnished living room with concrete walls and floors. An electric heater in the corner did nothing to dispel the basement chill. Exposed pipes punctuated the ceiling, their sickly green paint peeling off in strips. Even the small Christmas tree pushed up against the far wall looked like it was struggling.

“Here. Sit down, and I get you her picture. You need that, right?”

Melanie and Ray-Ray exchanged uneasy glances. Should they tell Reyes they weren’t exactly here about his daughter? The fact was, they did need to find Carmen Reyes. She might know something.

“Well, actually-” Melanie began.

“I’m glad you change your mind. Three times I call the police, and they keep tell me missing-person report you can’t file for twenty-four hours. But Carmen is a very good girl. She never go out at night. She never go anywhere and not tell her papi. Look at this picture. You see how good she is? This from Great Adventure last summer.”

He handed Melanie a framed photograph of a tall, skinny girl standing in front of the sign for the Nitro. She wore pink sunglasses and a huge grin that showed her braces. Her hair was pulled back into a demure ponytail, and her T-shirt read ROCK THE VOTE. No question, she looked like a dream teen, sweet and studious. On the other hand, appearances were often deceiving.

“Is this the most recent picture you have of Carmen?” Melanie asked.

“Yes. My wife die from cancer four years ago. Since then is only the three of us, and we so sad we don’t take too many pictures.” Tears flooded Reyes’s eyes. How could Melanie possibly tell this man that James Seward had just accused his daughter of supplying the heroin that killed her classmates? She decided she wouldn’t. Not yet anyway, not until she knew more.

“Mr. Reyes,” she said gently, “please, have a seat. I’d like to ask you some questions.” She nodded at Ray-Ray, who opened his notebook.

“Of course. Whatever you need, you tell me. What she wearing, when I last see her. I remember.”

“We’ll get to all that. But first tell me about Carmen going to visit Whitney Seward tonight.”

“Yes, I think it’s connected, right? Could be some drug dealer give Whitney the stuff, and he kidnap my Carmen so she don’t tell! ¡Ay, Dios! ” Tears began falling from Reyes’s eyes, and he buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know what I gonna do if sonthing happen to her!” he cried. His stocky frame began to heave and shake with sobs.

“Let me get you a glass of water,” Melanie said.

She went into the adjacent galley kitchen and flipped on the overhead light. The shadows of dead cockroaches stood out in bold relief inside the plastic light fixture. New York was strange, the way extremes of wealth and poverty coexisted so closely, even in the same building.

After he drank the water, Reyes seemed calmer.

“About seven-thirty, Whitney call Carmen and say can she come upstairs and study for the math test. My Carmen a genius with numbers. They got her working in the office at Holbrooke because she so good with math. She could make a lotta money in business someday, but she say she wanna be math teacher instead, work with kids.”

“So it was Whitney who called Carmen, not the other way around?”

“Sí. I thought was strange, because Whitney never call here. Whitney and Carmen, they were not friends.”

“No?”

“Whitney is very fast. Carmen’s afraid of her. Besides, Whitney is very mean to Carmen, because she rich and Carmen is poor. You know, Carmen don’t got the right clothes, like that.”

“Why did Carmen go upstairs if she didn’t like Whitney?”

“How we gonna say no? Mr. Seward is the jefe. The boss. He run the co-op board in this building, so he hire and fire the staff people. And he get my girls in good school so they go in college. Not just Carmen but Lourdes, too. Lulu, we call her, my little one. So if Whitney ask for help to study, you bet Carmen gonna help her.”

“So Carmen went upstairs to the Sewards’ apartment?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“Right away when Whitney call. Maybe seven-thirty, seven forty-five.”

“What was Carmen wearing?”

“Her school uniform. Plaid skirt and navy sweater. She didn’t have no coat. I hope where she is now, she not too cold.” Reyes began to cry again, covering his eyes, his shoulders shaking. After a moment he pulled himself together and looked up.

“I know this is difficult, Mr. Reyes. You’re doing a good job.”

“I’m trying. Help my Carmencita.”

“Let’s stay focused on the details of what happened, okay? I think it’ll be easier that way. How long was Carmen upstairs before you discovered the bodies?”

“After maybe two, three hours, I say, Wha’s happening? Is taking too long. So I call up there, and nobody answer the phone. I wait little bit more. Then about maybe ten-thirty, I worried, so I go up and knock on the back door. No answer. I try front. Same. So I go in with my key and look around. And I find this terrible thing.” Reyes drew a ragged breath and looked up at the ceiling with reddened eyes.

“Tell me where you found the bodies.”

“Whitney on her bed. The other girl on the floor near the bathroom. Carmen nowhere.”

“What were they wearing when you found them?”

“Whitney got on a top and underpants. The other, nothing.”

“Did you touch or move anything in the room?”

Reyes looked alarmed. “No. I know better. You get in trouble for that, right? I see a lotta cop shows on TV.”

“Why didn’t you call the police right away, when you discovered the bodies?”

“I call Mr. Seward first, because it’s his daughter, his house.”

“And he told you not to call the police?”

Reyes looked alarmed. “Tell me? No. He never say nothing like that.”

“James Seward didn’t tell you not to call the police?” Melanie asked, confused. Hadn’t Seward already admitted that to her?

“No, I tell him, please, señor, you call. I don’t speak too good, you know. He never tell me not to call.”

“Okay.” Melanie paused, intending just to note this minor discrepancy and move on. Yet something about the timing here bothered her. “Mr. Reyes,” she couldn’t help asking, “your daughter was missing, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’d found her two classmates dead?”

“Sí.”

“Well, I guess I’m just surprised you wouldn’t call immediately yourself.”

Reyes flushed red, his eyes leaking tears again. “Yes. Of course I wanna call right away, because Carmen is gone. I want to.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“You know, I very confused. Mr. Seward say he gonna call for me.”

“But I thought you just said it was your request that Mr. Seward call.”

Reyes started to sob noisily. “Yeah. I dunno. Is very confusing,” he choked out.

Jeez, this guy was a mess. Maybe there was nothing here. Anyway, she’d better get the basic facts down.

“Okay, I don’t want to get hung up on this detail. Mr. Reyes, please.” Melanie gave him a tissue from her bag. “Are you okay to talk?” she asked after he’d blown his nose and wiped his eyes.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Now, do you remember what time it was when you first called Mr. Seward?”

Again Reyes looked alarmed. “Time? No, I can’t say.”

“Any idea? You said it was probably around…” She paused, getting confused herself now. “Ray-Ray, what time do we have that Mr. Reyes entered the Sewards’ apartment?”

Ray-Ray flipped back to the preceding page in his spiral notebook. “‘Witness states daughter went upstairs around seven forty-five. Witness further states he became concerned when daughter had not returned after two to three hours.’”

“So at the latest it was ten forty-five when you entered the apartment,” Melanie said to Reyes.

Pain and panic raced across Reyes’s face. “I don’ know times, okay? I’m not looking at my watch. All I know is, I wanna find my Carmen. You gonna help me do that or not?”

“Yes, of course. We just need to hear what happened. We have to get the facts.”

“Look, I don’t know the time, okay?” Reyes snapped. “I call for a while and don’t get no answer. Finally I reach him, he say he gonna call the cops himself. So I wait for him to come home. Mr. Seward tell me do sonthing, I listen, because I need my job.”

Melanie nodded. Whatever Seward’s motives, Reyes’s motives for obeying seemed authentic. “So what happened next?”

Reyes sighed deeply, his face scrunching up. For a moment Melanie thought he might cry again. But then he began speaking very quickly, the words spilling out in a rush. “Around midnight Mr. Seward and the missus come home. He check the bodies, very fast. He call the police. The rest you know. So let’s talk about sonthing else.”

She looked at him searchingly, wondering why he was so determined to change the subject, but then decided to let it go. This man was obviously upset. She had enough to do to solve this case without imagining credibility issues where there were none.

“Tell me about Carmen. How she spent her time, where she went. Anything that might help us track her down.”

“Mostly she go in school, she work, she go in church. She very quiet girl.”

“What about her friends? Was there anyone Carmen associated with who might have been involved with illegal drugs?”

“A kid calling her a lot. Him, I don’t like. Maybe you gotta check him out, see if he know sonthing.”

“Of course. Tell us about him.” She looked over at Ray, who nodded and continued to take notes.

“Carmen meet him in church. A real cholo.”

“Cholo?”

“You know, a gangster. He’s from El Salvador.” Reyes scrutinized Melanie closely. “You puertorriqueña, ¿sí?”

“Yes, I’m Puerto Rican. So you don’t like the boy because you think he’s in a gang or because he’s Salvadoran?”

“He’s a gangster, and he don’t got no papers. I tell Carmen, La Migra gonna deport this one any minute. I complain to the priest about my daughter meeting ilegales in the church, and you know what he say to me? Jesus don’ care about papers!” He shook his head with disgust.

“Was Carmen dating this kid?”

“No, I never let her. She teaching him to read, from the church program. But he call her too much. So I tell him no call here no more.” Reyes shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe is sonthing. Maybe he get mad.”

“What’s the boy’s name?” she asked.

“Juan Carlos Peralta.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with him?”

“Carmen had his número de celular in her book.”

“We’d like to see Carmen’s address book.”

“Okay. Is in her room. You come.”

Reyes led them down a small hallway and pushed open a door at the end. Two narrow beds and a dresser filled the tiny room. A young girl sitting on the bed nearest the door looked up at them, startled. Presumably Carmen’s younger sister, Lulu. She’d been staring vacantly into space, fiddling with a silver peace sign that hung around her neck on a cowhide string. She was about thirteen or fourteen, with enormous brown eyes just like Maya’s and dark hair in a ponytail. And she looked scared.

Reyes took Carmen’s address book from a table between the twin beds and handed it to Melanie.

“Thank you. Is this Lulu?” Melanie asked, her eyes on the girl.

“Yes. Lulu, you be polite. Say hello to the prosecutor who gonna find Carmen for us,” Reyes said.

“Nice to meet you,” Melanie said.

Lulu stared back at her silently. Melanie couldn’t decide if the girl was sullen, in shock, or just sizing Melanie up before she decided to open her mouth.

Melanie sat down on the bed next to Lulu. “I can see you’re upset. I’d like to introduce myself and tell you what I’m trying to do, because maybe you can help me. Okay?”

Lulu shrugged. “Whatever.”

“You go to Holbrooke, too?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s in eighth grade,” Reyes said.

“You know two Holbrooke girls died tonight from snorting heroin?” Melanie asked.

She finally had Lulu’s attention. “No. Papi didn’t tell me that. Who?”

“Whitney Seward and Brianna Meyers.”

“Whitney was into drugs.” Lulu nodded, unsurprised.

“How do you know that?”

“Everybody knew.”

“Does your sister do drugs?”

“No way. Never.”

“Does she hang out with kids who do?”

“Carmen doesn’t hang out with anybody.”

“Do you have any idea where Carmen might have gone? Do you think she ran away?”

Again Lulu looked at Melanie with that strange, steady gaze. There was a lot going on behind her brown eyes. Melanie almost thought Lulu was weighing whether or not to talk. She seemed old beyond her years; yet there was something in her gaze that Melanie recognized from her own childhood, from that dark time after her father was shot in a robbery, after he went back to Puerto Rico and left them alone to face life in their bad neighborhood. It was fear.

“Who knows? Maybe she did run away,” Lulu said finally, sighing.

“No!” Luis Reyes burst out, slamming a fist against the bedroom wall. “That’s crazy, Lulu! What you saying? You making me very sad. Carmen no run away, never! Since Mami die, all we got is each other. Carmen never do that to us!”

Reyes began to sob again, and Lulu lay facedown on her bed and put her pillow over her head. This interview was going nowhere fast.

Melanie pulled a business card from her bag. “I’m leaving you my cell and office phone numbers, Lulu,” she said to the girl’s back. “If there’s anything else you think I should know, you call me. It could be a matter of life and death for your sister.”

Lulu just lay there silent as a stone. Melanie handed a card to Luis Reyes as well. Reyes then escorted them to the door of the basement apartment, crying the whole way. As Melanie was about to leave, he grabbed her by the arm.

“You gonna find her, right?” he asked urgently, eyes streaming tears.

Melanie looked into the man’s desperate face and found herself wishing her own father had cared this passionately about her.

“Yes,” she said gently, vowing to herself to make it happen. “I will find your daughter. I promise.”