Fear Collector

CHAPTER 32

Mimi Navarro, smelling a little like the paint she’d used on the baby’s room, nuzzled her husband and whispered in Tavio’s ear as he faced the wall and tried to calm his heartbeat with a prayer of forgiveness for what he’d done. On any other occasion, Tavio would see his wife’s movement as an invitation to make love. He wasn’t interested in that. Not at all. Not when he felt so sick to his stomach for making the call to the police. It felt like a betrayal and there was no getting around that.

“Tavio, you didn’t leave your name?” she asked.

“No, Mimi. No.”

“You didn’t use your cell phone?”

“No, no, I did not.”

She slid closer and wrapped her leg over his. “The police cannot find you.”

Tavio felt the baby kick, but he didn’t remark on it. He had been so torn up over the whole thing. The suspicions were eating him alive. If Michael had been doing what Tavio thought he might be, then his brother was a monster and had to be stopped. And yet, there was the possibility that he was innocent. Tavio had hoped for that. Whenever that hope tried to stir, he thought more about the night Catalina died.

They were driving back to pack their belongings. They didn’t have much beyond a few changes of clothes and a couple of family photographs, a Bible, and a small pistol that traveled with them from orchard to orchard. Just in case. As Tavio drove in the blush of the morning light, he felt his face grow hot. His tears sizzled against his burning skin. He didn’t cry out. He rolled down the window to let the air dry his face while his brother started singing along on the radio.

“You cannot be singing now! Catalina is dead!”

“I’m sorry,” Michael said, switching on a sad and confused demeanor that was alarming in its swift change. “I didn’t mean to.”

Tavio had felt funny from the minute he’d seen his brother and the scratches on his face. How was it that he was scratched? The only reason could be that Catalina had tried to stop him. He had noticed something else that was strange, too. Michael said that Catalina had fallen on a rock when they were making love.

“Rough sex, yes, that’s what it is called,” Michael had said, altering his story for the second time.

Catalina’s injury was not on the back of her head. It was on the front. It was there not because she’d fallen while they were making love. It was there because Michael had likely slammed a rock into her face.

“You told me you didn’t mean to do this,” he said.

Michael tried to shake it off. “I guess I didn’t. I can’t remember.”

“Remember? You just killed a girl. What do you mean, you can’t remember?”

“Quit yelling at me, Tavio. I was so mad at her. I don’t really remember what happened when.”

“I want to ask you this, and I want a real, a true, answer.”

Michael lit a cigarette and tossed the match into the roadway.

“Go ask. You can ask what you want. I know what you’re going to ask. But, yes, go ahead, Tavio.”

“Did you kill her on purpose? Did you?”

Michael exhaled. “No.”

“I can tell when you are lying.”

The reality was Tavio couldn’t tell when Michael told a lie. No one could. Michael had a kind of strange skill when it came to lying. He’d always found a way to be less than truthful whenever it benefited him to do so.

“I will answer. But I don’t think it is fair that you keep asking me.”

“I just helped you push Catalina Sanchez into the river!”

“That’s right, you did. And that makes you just as responsible. An accomplice.”

Tavio could barely believe what he was hearing. “Are you serious? Are you threatening me now?”

“Just the truth, Tavio. You seem to always want the truth.”

Tavio knew then that his brother was not like other men. His brother did not seem to feel guilty. Not when he got extra money by mistake. Not when he cut in line to get the best row in the orchard. Not ever. Michael Navarro was not like Tavio at all. They were brothers. They had the same mother and father. In their veins the same blood flowed. Yet they were not the same.

Not at all.

Two years after Catalina had been murdered, Mimi was putting away laundry. It was a chore she despised, but because of her part-time schedule of work and classes, she took it on. She did most of the cooking, too. Sometimes she wondered out loud if America really was a place of equality. She did almost everything her sisters back in Mexico did-plus school and a job. Mimi almost never went inside her brother-in-law’s bedroom, but there was no getting around it that particular day. She had three stacks of laundry and only two hands. She pushed his door open with her hip and proceeded to his dresser. She set down the folded and sorted laundry and opened the top drawer. She wasn’t snooping at all. It wasn’t Mimi’s style to pry, but she couldn’t help but notice a bottle of lubricant nestled atop some photographs of girls.

Naked girls. Not of the ilk that would pose for Playboy, but the kind of images that would grace some pervert-visited website on the Internet. Indeed, the photographs were laser printed, not from the glossy pages of a skin mag.

Nasty, Mimi thought as she tried to set aside the unfortunately very obvious and graphic scenario of what Michael was doing with the lubricant and the photos.

Disgusting!

Before she shut the door-vowing never to go in his room again-she noticed something about the photographs. All were of dark-haired women. Women with long, dark hair. Mimi had never seen Catalina Sanchez, but she’d once met her sister. The girls that Michael were fixated on all had what she was sure were Catalina’s build and features. Tavio had told her the story after their wedding when they were talking about the worst things they’d ever done-the things they could never undo. Mimi was sorry that she’d once made out with a boy-not all the way, but closer than she should have.

Tavio’s ultimate transgression was decidedly worse.

“I helped my brother hide a body,” he had said. “He killed a girl accidentally.”

At first, Mimi had thought it was a joke. She figured he was saying something to make her feel better. That he was conjuring up something completely absurd. Because he loved her so, so much.

“I’m not kidding.”

She studied his eyes.

“You’re not?”

Tavio shook his head, his eyes grew wet, but he did not cry. Later, he would wonder if he’d lost part of his humanity because the mention of what he and his brother had done no longer produced the same emotion. Shame had replaced horror by then.

“Oh my God,” Mimi said. “You are not kidding.”

Tavio tried to explain, but it was a difficult thing to manage. “I will regret it forever. It was an accident. At least I think so.”

Later, he’d tell Mimi that once their baby was born, his brother would have to leave.

“I don’t trust him,” he said. “I don’t trust him to be good.”

Every now and then, Mimi would try to test Michael to see if he was just an immature young man or something sinister. He seemed to like girls. She and Tavio had gone out on several double dates with Michael.

One time she asked Michael if he dreamed of getting married.

“I guess so,” he said. “I don’t know if I will find anyone like the girlfriend I once had.”

Mimi held her tongue. She wanted to say, “You mean the one you killed?”

Yet she didn’t. There was something about her brother-in-law that scared her. More than what he’d done in the past. It was a fear about something he might do to her. It would probably be easier to kill a second time.

It was late, well after midnight, when Michael Navarro returned from wherever he’d been all night. He’d been evasive about what he was doing over the past few months, but neither Tavio nor Mimi pressed the issue. There was no real need for it. After all, they’d made a deal. Michael had said that when their baby was born he’d find a new place to live. He’d volunteered and the agreement had been amicable. Michael needed a place away from his brother, to start over, to begin his own life. It was true that he and Tavio would continue working together at the landscaping company, but there would be no more long drives to and from work locations. It was, Tavio agreed, the right thing to do.

“Best for you. Best for me,” he said.

Tavio was up watching a DIY show about landscaping-always good for a chuckle-when Michael came home that particular night. His younger brother literally kicked off his shoes and threw down his jacket. Though he was sometimes hard to read, this time there was no room for doubt. Michael seemed agitated about something.

“You pissed about having to move?” Tavio asked.

“No. Pissed about other stuff.”

Tavio studied his brother. His facial muscles were taut and he stood with his feet planted firmly. It was almost as if he was daring Tavio to take him on, to push him.

“Like what?” he asked, weighing his words and watching for the reaction. “Other stuff?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Michael said.

“I might,” he said. “But how would I know if you don’t tell me?”

“You have everything, Tavio. I have nothing.”

Tavio motioned for his brother to sit, but Michael refused. “I worked hard,” Tavio said. “You work hard.”

Michael shook his head. “It isn’t about that. I don’t care about that,” he said, looking at the big-screen TV. “I am stuck. I’m trying not to be. I’m trying to do like what they talk about on the radio. Move on. I want to move on.”

Tavio didn’t ask from where or what. He had an idea, a hope.

“Talk to me, Michael.”

“I won’t. I can’t. Sometimes I feel like there is a beast inside of me, eating me, clawing at me from inside my stomach.”

Tavio glanced at the TV, the sound of a commercial loudly filling the room. He pushed the MUTE button and turned to talk to his brother, only to find that he was alone.

Michael was gone.

The next morning, the Tacoma News Tribune ran another article on the dead and missing girls and women. Since there had been no real news, the reporter went for the easy way to advance the story by highlighting other Northwest cases that had held the attention of the region in years past.

GIRLS MISSING: Remembering Other Cases That Rocked Our Region

The article, which included a timeline and bonus online features, highlighted the Ted cases from the 1970s and made mention that the lead detective in today’s case had a personal connection to the crimes.

Detective Alexander’s family has always maintained that Tricia O’Hare was a victim of Bundy’s. She disappeared just before the string of murders, but her remains were never found. She’s been listed as a victim by a number of authorities, including the FBI.

Tavio and Mimi Navarro sat in his landscaper’s pickup truck across the street from the Tacoma Police Department on Pine Street. They’d never been to a police department before-they’d never had a reason to. Both also knew there was a risk at coming there-a risk that by sharing their concerns with those who carry a badge they could destroy their family. Mimi, who had the most to lose, had been the most insistent of the pair.

“If another girl dies,” she said, “then it is blood on our hands. I cannot live with that.”

“But what about…”

Mimi didn’t blink. She was completely sure. “I would rather be sent back to Mexico than live knowing I could have stopped Michael from hurting another girl.”

It was more than hurting, of course. The Navarros were heartsick about the possibility that Michael was a killer.

“Remember, we are here with the hope that he didn’t kill that girl,” Tavio said, reiterating a kind of fantastic wish that seemed like the longest shot imaginable. Everything had pointed to Michael.

Grace Alexander met them in the lobby among the historic uniforms and other relics that played out the history of the Tacoma Police like a mini law enforcement museum. The Navarros followed her to a second-floor interview room and she offered them coffee or water, but they declined.

“I know this is difficult,” the Tacoma Police detective said. “And I know your circumstances concern you, but do not worry. I’m not concerned with that. I’m not looking at causing you any harm, I just want to understand why you think your brother killed the girls found by the river.”

“I am not a police officer,” Mimi said, stating the obvious. “But I do watch CSI and Investigation Discovery all the time.”

Grace smiled. “Yes, many people do.”

Tavio spoke up. “I don’t watch them. But I do fear, I mean, know that he killed that girl in Yakima. I am sorry that I never said anything before. I am very, very sorry. I think I just believed him enough to stop me from telling anyone. And when they found the girl, what more could I do anyway? She was dead. There was no bringing her back. He’s my brother and I will always love him right or wrong. At the time, I didn’t want to think that he really killed her…”

Grace leaned forward. “But you know he did, right?”

Tavio nodded. “Yes. Are you going to arrest him for that?”

“No,” she said. “That’s not the case I’m working, but the police in Yakima will be taking another look and we will see some kind of an outcome concerning their investigation later. I’m more interested in learning more about your brother and how it is that you think he’s involved in the murders here.”

“Yes, but what will happen with Yakima?” Mimi asked.

“I talked with the police there,” Grace said. “Other than your statement, it looks like there is not much evidence.”

“What about his DNA?” Mimi said, a little proud that she could bring up a technical term. Although she was taking classes, she didn’t have much opportunity to talk about things like that. Tavio was a good man, but he was not complicated.

“Unfortunately, the samples from Catalina’s body,” Grace said, “were compromised.” She didn’t tell them that the samples had vanished from the crime lab.

As Mimi listened to the detective, she reached into her purse and pulled out the photographs of the young women she’d found in her brother-in-law’s bureau drawer.

“Makes me sick, this stuff,” she said.

Grace looked down at the images. None of the girls looked familiar. No Kelsey, no Emma, no Lisa. It was a collection of porn, disturbing, certainly. Evidence, possibly.

“Look,” Mimi said, “All of the girls look the same. Just like the missing girls in the newspaper. He must be collecting these for some perverted reason, Detective.”

Grace turned the photos over. She didn’t say that the girls were a match, because they weren’t. Not really. Yes, they had dark hair and dark eyes, but they were Hispanic.

None of the missing or dead girls were.