The Color of Light

Chapter 18

I was stepping into the shower, eager to wash away the grime of the day before we began making dinner, when Jean-Paul walked into the bathroom holding the red leather jewel box I had sent home with Susan. I was mystified; I thought I would never see the box again.

“Where did you find that?” I asked him.

“On my pillow,” he said. “I was curious.”

“Is it empty?”

“No.” He opened the box and showed me the brooch inside. “I remember that when you took off the dragonfly after the reception on Friday you said it was to go to your cousin. I know you are very fond of the brooch but you were quite clear that it should be Susan’s. And here it is. What changed your mind?”

“I didn’t change my mind,” I said. “I gave it to Susan last night.”

“Then she has made it a gift to you,” he said, closing the box again. “A very fond and generous gift, yes?”

“C’est un beau geste,” I said.

“Bien sûr.” He patted my naked bottom, smiled, and walked back out of the room.

When I went downstairs, shiny and clean again, I found Jean-Paul in the kitchen washing lettuces he had picked out of the garden. He handed me the dripping colander of greens. “Ever since you told me your uncle was going out for steak tonight, I have been thinking about steak. Big, red, bloody steaks. The grill is started, potatoes are baking in the oven, and the salad I leave in your hands.”

“You’ve been busy,” I said, taking a redwood salad bowl out of the cupboard. “Anything else I can do to help?”

He paused from peppering the meat. “Open some wine?”

“I can manage that.” I uncorked a bottle of cabernet and poured two glasses. He clinked his glass against mine, took a sip, and nodded his approval.

During the drive home from the hospital, I had given him, in broad strokes, a summary of the events of the last day and a half. I had almost convinced him that he shouldn’t beat himself up for going home Sunday afternoon and leaving me to find Larry alone. Whether he had been there or not, the outcome would have been the same. When I reminded him that Larry probably was put into the Dumpster not long after he walked out of our garage on Saturday night, very likely at about the same time that Jean-Paul and I were enjoying each other on rose petal-festooned sheets, he conceded that what happened to the man was nothing we could have either foreseen or prevented.

“The important thing,” I said, tearing radicchio into the bowl, “is that except for some last odds and ends, we’re finished here. The cleaning crew comes in the morning. When they leave, we hand the keys over to University Housing, and we’re gone.”

“Finished?” The question sounded loaded. “All finished here?”

I looked around the kitchen as I took out plates and silverware and stacked them on the tray that he had already loaded with various condiments. There were no boxes stacked anywhere, and no more cupboards to sort or empty. I said, “Yes, finished.”

“I wasn’t referring to the house.”

“Ah.” I sighed, feeling weighted. “That other thing.”

“The murder of your friend’s mother.”

“I think Beto and I are the only people who want to know what happened to her,” I said. “Everyone who knows something is stonewalling me in the same way I was stonewalled about Isabelle.”

“Then one day Isabelle walked up and introduced herself to you.”

“I doubt that whoever shot Trinh Bartolini is going to walk up and say hello.”

“Maybe next summer at the Hungry Ghosts celebration she’ll speak to you herself.”

“Enough about that, Jean-Paul,” I said. “You told me you had some news.”

“Three things, yes,” he said, cocking his head, watching me. “How do you say it? What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?”

“How bad is the bad and how good is the good?”

“That depends, I think.”

“Let’s get the bad news over with, then. Should we drink a lot of wine first?”

“We should keep clear heads.” He took both of my hands in his and looked into my eyes. “Chérie, I made a call or two and I found Thai Van for you, but he will be no help.”

“I should know by now that when you say you’ll make some calls, the earth will move.”

“I don’t know about moving the earth,” he said with a little laugh. “But making the right call can sometimes open a door. It is the business I am in, yes?”

“I’m not exactly sure what your business is. Or was, before you were appointed consul general,” I said. “But, what did you find out about Thai Van?”

“Maggie, he died a very long time ago.”

I mulled that over before I asked. “In Vietnam?”

“You knew?” he said, brows furrowed.

“No,” I said. “But I began to suspect it. Earlier today, I was talking with Beto’s Aunt Quynh-you met her.”

“Shrimp spring rolls?”

“Yes. And tonight’s dessert,” I said, moving her pink pastry box toward him. “Anyway, Quynh told me that she was kidnapped from a re-education camp in Vietnam and held in the mountains for ransom. One day Thai Van came in like Indiana Jones, she said, with men armed with M-16s, and rescued her. He fell off everyone’s radar at about that same time. It would have been difficult, probably dangerous, for him to go to Vietnam then, and very difficult for him to get back into the U.S. I wondered if he just stayed there.”

“When was that?” he asked.

I gave him a rough idea of the time frame and he nodded.

“Thai Van died in a firefight around then.”

“How did you find that out?” I asked.

“If I told you my sources,” he said, smiling his upside-down French smile, “I’d have to kill you.”

“I’ll take that risk.”

“I made a call to a friend, who called a friend,” he said with a little shrug, picked up a long barbecue fork and headed for the back door. I grabbed the wineglasses and followed him out.

“You’re CIA,” I said, handing him his glass. “I’ve always suspected it.”

“It would be DGSE in France,” he said, as he prodded flaming coals in the barbecue. “Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure. But no. Please don’t be disappointed, but it’s simply a matter of having connections.”

“Maybe so, but they’re pretty hefty connections.”

“You know I attended one of the grandes écoles.” That little self-deprecating shrug again. “Most of the upper echelon of the French civil service attended the same university. A very small club, if you will. It was because of connections with certain people I became friends with in school that, after Marian died and I moped around like a wounded duck, they arranged for my appointment as consul general to Los Angeles. I don’t know whether my friends were hoping a change of scenery would cheer me up, or they just got tired of seeing my sad face.”

“I think I like your friends,” I said.

“I hope that you will,” he said, setting the fork aside. “The coals won’t be ready for the meat for another half hour.”

I asked, “How does your contact know about Thai Van?”

“You know that Vietnam was once part of French Indochina,” he said. “Our troops came out a very long time ago, 1955 to be exact. But like any messy divorce, there were property entanglements to resolve and long relationships that were not severed. Remnants of our intelligence apparatus remain in place to this day.”

He took my hand and walked with me over to the garden, where the last of the day’s sun lingered. While I snipped basil for the salad, he told me that Thai Van’s father, Thai Hung, had been a leader in an organization of Vietnamese refugees down south in the Orange County community now called Little Saigon that raised money, recruited support and trained men to launch an invasion of Vietnam and overthrow the People’s Republic. A Bay of Pigs sort of endeavor, as it were. The FBI planted informants in the organization to keep close watch on the father and the son and their cohort.

“There were reports that Thai Van split with his father,” Jean-Paul told me. “The regime in Vietnam had its own spies in the U.S., so they knew what Thai Hung was up to. Word got back to Van that his relatives were being punished for his father’s activities. For their sake, Van begged his father to step away, but he refused.”

“Did you learn anything about what happened to Quynh?”

“No, not specifically her. Probably she was sent for re-education because of her family’s position before the takeover,” he said. “But the kidnapping for ransom was a different matter. There were those in positions of authority in the regime who used intelligence gathered by the state for their own criminal enterprise, kidnapping and extortion being one of several. Desperate acts in desperate times, yes?”

“Don’t be too generous,” I said. “Extortion is a vicious game any way you play it.”

“Bien sûr.”

“Quynh also told me that the ransom money was deposited into an account here. Is there anyone you could call to find out about that?”

A little shrug while he considered. “I can try. And that brings us to topic next.”

“Is this good news or bad?”

“Again, that depends on what you make of it,” he said. “You wanted to know if your father’s Colt is traceable, so I asked a friend to trace it. He learned that your gun was part of a large order placed with the manufacturer by the United States Army and it was then shipped to the National Armory in San Francisco. From there, it was allotted to a National Guard unit where, as far as I can ascertain, it remains.”

“Except that it doesn’t,” I said. “It’s in a drawer upstairs.”

“A mystery, yes?”

“But there’s someone we can ask.” I put my hand through his arm. “How long until your coals are ready?”

“Maybe twenty minutes.”

“Shall we call on the neighbors?”

“Dear George? Certainly. Shall I go upstairs first and collect some fire power?” He was smiling so I laughed, but I wasn’t at all sure if he was serious or not about getting the gun out of the drawer.

As we walked next door, I asked, “You said you had three pieces of news. The last one, good or bad?”

“Depends.”

“Of course it does,” I said, laughing. “So?”

“A question for you first: How long will you be in Normandy?”

“Through the fall, at least.” We reached the Lopers’ front porch and started up the steps. “I’ll probably make at least three more trips later so that we can capture all four seasons at the farm.”

“Would you consider staying for the entire year?”

“I think you’d better tell me your news now.”

“It’s official.” Jean-Paul rang the Lopers’ doorbell. “I have been recalled to France.”

I hoped no one would be home: recalled to France? We had a lot to talk about. But we heard voices and some scuffling and then George opened the door. He seemed surprised to see us but he quickly gathered himself and plastered on his men’s-club welcoming smile.

“Come in, come in, neighbors.” He offered his hand to Jean-Paul. “Karen and I saw you drive up, sir, and we were hoping you’d take us up on that rain check for a drink.” As he led us into the living room, he called out, “Karen, we have visitors.”

The preliminaries were somewhat painful, lots of smiling, some stilted small talk. While George went off to the kitchen to make martinis, Karen caught us up on her family news and the news of several other families, some of whom I did not recognize, but I smiled and mm-hmm’d as if I did, clutching ever harder to Jean-Paul’s arm. In return, I gave Karen as little information about my family as I could without sounding rude. Yes, those were piano movers at the house this morning. Mom had her piano shipped to her new place so she can give lessons again. I did not mention that Mom’s new place was going to be the Tejedas’ casita. Casey is just fine, enjoying college, and yes, she’s still as tall as my sister, Emily. I am fine, and I understand that my programs can be uncomfortably thought-provoking. Thank you for your condolences for my husband’s untimely passing, and no I don’t mind that you didn’t send a card at the time. I changed the subject when her inquiries veered toward Jean-Paul.

The topic Karen was dying to get into was the policemen’s circus at our house that morning. She told us we could not talk about any of that until George came back with drinks or he would never forgive her. But Karen, being Karen, couldn’t keep herself from nipping around the edges of it, like the kid who loosens the tape on his Christmas presents beforehand so he doesn’t waste time when the Go signal sounds on Christmas morning.

“We have heard all sorts of stories from the neighbors,” she said. “But of course, it’s all just rumor and gossip, you know. Very unreliable. The police aren’t saying anything until they’ve notified the next of kin. You can understand that we’re curious. I mean, a dead man, right under our noses.”

She didn’t offer that last as a joke.

George came back carrying a tray with crystal martini glasses, a frosty silver cocktail shaker, olives on toothpicks, and a bowl of salted nuts. As he poured the drinks, he wasted no time getting right into the topic du jour.

“Maggie, who was it the police dragged out of the Dumpster over at your place this morning?” he asked, extending a glass toward me. “A vagrant?”

“It was Larry Nordquist,” I said, watching his reaction closely. He froze in place, stooped over, glass halfway to my hand. I reached up and took it from him, but he still needed a moment for that nugget to sink in before he could unfreeze and stand upright again. Either he was a magnificent actor or he was genuinely surprised. I thought that the latter was more likely.

“I’ll be damned,” he said finally, remembering what he had been doing and getting back to his hosting duties. “I will be damned. Karen, did you hear that? It’s the guy, that juvenile delinquent, who’s been such a pest all summer. What happened to him? Overdose maybe? He crawl up in there to shoot up and never wake up again?”

“Coroner hasn’t released the cause of death,” I said.

“Of course, by the time he was found, we could smell him,” George said baldly. “I told you the other night that Dumpster would start to smell, didn’t I? But I never once thought a decomposing human would be the source.”

“George.” Karen shuddered. “Don’t talk like that.”

Ignoring her, he raised his glass. “Here’s to the poor bugger. Guess he won’t be hanging around anymore.”

“Honestly,” Karen said. She rolled her eyes at him before she sipped her drink. “You do make a fine martini, George. But please, the language.”

After a healthy quaff, she leaned forward in her chair and stretched a hand toward me. “It was very considerate of you to come over and tell us, Maggie. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t have slept a wink tonight, worrying about some lunatic out there on the loose. It makes me think about that other time-when was that, George? No one got any sleep then, either.”

“Do you mean when Mrs. Bartolini died?” I asked.

“Oh.” The question surprised her. “Of course that was a terrible, terrible thing. But, no, I was thinking about that poor woman who was shot in her own home right in front of her children. Was that about a year before the Bartolini woman died? Anyway, a man, a Black Panther or something, just pushed his way into her house and shot her, left her for dead. It happened only a few blocks over. Your mother knew her; what was her name?”

“Do you mean Fay Stender?” I asked, appalled anew by this callous woman. Fay Stender was a brilliant attorney, a Berkeley native who stayed in town to raise her own children. During the wild and crazy 1970s, Stender became involved with the radical prison reform movement, defending underground superstars like Soledad Brother George Jackson. It was Stender who got Jackson’s prison letters published, making him a media star for a moment. The man who broke into her home and shot her was a con named Edward Brooks who may have been put up to it by the Black Guerilla Family, a deadly California prison gang, to avenge her abandonment of Jackson. She would not provide him with a gun in prison, and they parted ways.

Fay Stender did not die the night she was shot. A year to the day after, in terrible pain, she took her own life.

“Was that her name, George?” Karen asked her husband. “Fay Stender?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding sanctimonious. “She was a local, you know. Came from a good family. I knew her father. Salt of the earth.”

He stopped short of saying that Stender was “one of us,” as perhaps Trinh Bartolini had not been. I remembered well that the Lopers did not want their daughter Sunny to date Beto, though she loved him crazily. But I never knew what their objections were. Until that moment.

Karen was still going on about how they were afraid men like that gangster would burst in and murder them all in their beds when I turned my attention to George.

I asked George, “Were you really afraid?”

“Well, of course we were.”

“Afraid enough that you armed yourself?”

The question took him aback. He gave his wife a guilty glance, suggesting she did not know that he had a gun. Before she could chime in with the inevitable barrage of questions, I asked, “Is that when you gave my dad an unregistered handgun?”

He looked at me over the rim of his empty cocktail glass. “How the hell do you know that? We promised to keep that to ourselves.”

“A gun?” Karen half rose from her chair. “George, you gave Al a gun? Where did you ever get a gun?”

“You had one, too,” I said.

“You never told me,” Karen harped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There were kids in the house,” he snapped. “I acquired a gun and I put it where no one would run across it, but where I could get at it if I needed to. Maggie, your dad told me his was well hidden, too.”

“It was,” I said. “Mr. Loper, is that what you were looking for in Dad’s workbench Saturday when you found his Purple Heart?”

“His, who?” he asked.

“You found Dad’s Purple Heart,” I said. “Not my brother’s.”

He picked up the cocktail shaker for something to busy his hands while that sunk in.

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he said, sounding rueful. “I overreacted when I saw that medal just piled in with the screwdrivers and drill bits. It’s just, I’m a veteran, too, you understand. I earned a Purple Heart of my own and I know what that means. But hell, if your dad wanted to keep his medal out with his tools who am I to say anything about it?”

“Were you looking for Dad’s gun?”

He averted his face from me when he nodded. “I was afraid it would get into the wrong hands after you turned the house over. Some kid of a visiting professor could run across it. You know how curious kids are, into everything.”

Jean-Paul set his glass on the coffee table, on top of an Avon catalogue that had Marva Riley’s contact information stamped on the front in red. He asked, “Mr. Loper, may I ask where you got the guns?”

George looked at Karen, who hadn’t yet caught up with the idea that there had been a handgun in her house, under her nose, for over thirty years, and she never knew about it. Karen liked knowing things.

“Second Thursday of the month, we always got together with the Rileys from down the street for bridge. It was serious bridge, but after a few rubbers we’d take a break. The guys would always go out to the backyard for a cigar and a stiff drink and leave the wives to talk about kids or whatever girls talk about.

“One Thursday, not long after the Stender shooting-we were at the Rileys’ that time-Chuck brought out these four Colts, brand new, still in their original boxes, with cleaning kits. He gave me two and kept two. I gave one to your dad, and kept the other.”

“Where did Chuck get them?” I asked.

“He told me some BS about the PD passing them out to good citizens so they could protect themselves and their families. I wanted the gun, so I didn’t ask a lot of questions. You know Chuck, always has something going on. Could have gotten them anywhere.”

“It appears they were the property of the National Guard,” Jean-Paul told him.

“I’ll be damned.” For some reason, George found that bit of news to be amusing. “All this time I thought Chuck lifted them from the police department.”

“For heaven’s sake, George,” Karen offered, thoroughly nonplussed by the revelations of the afternoon. “Stolen federal property. In my house. What are you going to do about it?”

Once again George seemed not to hear her, and I began to understand how he coped.

“Maggie,” he said, “I was a little surprised that your dad accepted the gun when I offered it to him. I wanted one to protect my family. You know, 1979, those were crazy times. There were still remnants of the Symbionese Liberation Army around here, robbing banks and setting off bombs. We had Black Panthers and La Raza and women burning their bras. And then Fay got shot by that guy. Jesus, I could not keep track of it all. But your dad took it all in stride. Didn’t seem to worry him. We live in interesting times, he’d say.”

Jean-Paul chuckled to himself; the phrase meant something to him. I didn’t ask what because I wanted to keep George on topic. I gave Jean-Paul’s hand a squeeze and turned my attention back to George.

“If Dad was taking things in stride, then why did he accept the gun?” I asked.

“Because of that woman,” he said. “Your mother. I guess you know by now that she was stalking you. Even got into your house one night. I thought he might want protection if she tried that again.”

My turn to be nonplussed. I managed to ask, “You knew about Isabelle?”

“Not the gory details,” he said, smiling again. “Honey, we were right next door here when you came to live with your folks. An extra little kid shows up one day and people are bound to notice.”

“What did Mom and Dad tell you about me?”

“Not much. Back then, adoptions were confidential. We didn’t think there was much to say.”

“I asked Betsy about you,” Karen chimed in. “But clearly it was a topic she did not wish to discuss. And when Betsy doesn’t want to talk about something, she absolutely won’t.”

True enough, I thought.

Again, George went on as if his wife hadn’t spoken. “When that woman started showing up, your dad told me she was the birth mother and she had some psychological problems, and he and Betsy sure would appreciate our help keeping her away from you if we saw her sneaking around.”

“Did you ever see her?” I asked.

He nodded. “A couple times. Once, I saw her hiding in the bushes by the house. We just got used to keeping an eye on you folks.”

“George, our guests need their drinks freshened.”

“Thank you, but no,” Jean-Paul said, taking my hand and encouraging me to rise with him. “We need to check on the barbecue.”

As the Lopers saw us out, Karen made conversation of her usual sort.

“I saw the locksmith van at your place yesterday. Were you having the locks changed?”

“We did, yes,” I said. “There was break-in on Thursday night, so I thought it was a good idea.”

“A break-in, oh my,” she gasped. “No wonder you were willing to pay the locksmith Sunday prices. Anything taken?”

“No,” I said. “When the police showed up whoever it was went out a window and over the back fence.”

The Lopers, smiling, exchanged knowing glances. George said, “It’s more likely that he went out through the gap the boys made in your fence.”

“You know about that?” I asked.

“Everyone does,” Karen said. “At least, everyone who had kids your age. You think we didn’t keep an eye on what you kids were up to?”

Her parting comment was, “Don’t forget to take one of the new keys down to Chuck Riley.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “We always have. All of us. In case of emergency, you know. He is-well, he was-the police.”

I was dialing my mom on the phone before Jean-Paul and I reached our front door.

“Give Chuck Riley our house key?” Mom’s reaction was a guffaw; I wish I could have seen her face when I asked her if she had. “I would not give that reprobate the time of day, much less access to our house. Whatever gave you the notion that I would, dear?”

“Karen Loper told me ‘all of us’ have left a key with Chuck the Cop,” I said, grabbing the wine bottle off the kitchen counter as I followed Jean-Paul and his platter of raw meat out to the backyard.

“She and George may have trusted Chuck with their keys,” Mom said firmly. “But the Lopers are great friends with the Rileys, and we never were. As far as old Chuck being a cop, hmm. I think that when his department suggested that he had put in his twenty years and should retire, immediately, he lost some of his cop credibility. If he ever had any.”

“He was forced out?” I asked.

“That’s what Ben Nussbaum told us, but I don’t know the details. Probably got in trouble over one of his money-making schemes. The Rileys always seem to be in over their heads,” she said. “How did the topic of keys even come up?”

“Karen saw the locksmith at the house when I had the locks changed.”

“Why did you have the locks changed?” Mom asked. “Did the housing office ask you to?”

“No,” I said, refilling Jean-Paul’s wineglass and taking it to him. “Someone broke into the house, so I thought it was a good idea.”

“Dear lord, we’ve never had a break-in before. Were you home?”

“I was,” I said, not reminding her about Isabelle’s nighttime call.

“Margot, darling.” I could have kicked myself for telling her about the break-in; now she would worry. “He didn’t…” She couldn’t even say what she was thinking. “You weren’t hurt?”

“I never saw him. He just disappeared into the night.”

“Thank God for that.”

I laughed. “I love you, Mom. The first question everyone else asks is what was taken?”

“As far as I’m concerned there’s nothing in the house of real value, except you,” she said. After a little pause she asked, “Were you thinking it could have been Chuck?”

“The thought crossed my mind,” I said.

“Whatever else Chuck might be,” she said, “I can’t imagine he’s a sneak thief. But I’m glad you changed the locks.”

While Jean-Paul cooked, Mom and I talked about the last few house details to be sorted out. I told Mom we should be finished with everything by the following afternoon and be back in LA later that night.

“And then what?” she asked. I knew her question was several layers deep. Jean-Paul, the Normandy project, my situation with the network, the future for her and me once the house-our last physical link-was gone, were all wrapped in there somewhere.

“I leave for France August first,” I said.

There was a long pause. I knew that my discovery of Isabelle and her family in France had opened old wounds, a fresh reminder of Dad’s affair. And though she fought it, she couldn’t help but feel that in some way I, too, was betraying her by getting to know Isabelle’s family. She always tried to sound supportive, but I had come to expect long pauses before she could bring herself to utter words of encouragement for the film about my grandmother, Isabelle’s mother, in Normandy.

I heard some false starts before she said, “Margot, is it possible that the break-in had anything to do with the questions you have been asking about Trinh Bartolini?”

“It’s very possible.” I hadn’t told her about Larry or being shot at by Lacy, and I didn’t intend to. She’s not the only one in the family who can keep secrets.

“Margot, dear.”

Uh-oh, I thought, this conversation was about to get very serious. Only my mom called me Margot, my legal name. And when she pronounced that name as she did then, with a ton of gravitas, I knew to be prepared.

“Margot, dear,” she repeated. “On your account, I have been on the receiving end of a two-pronged browbeating delivered independently by my oldest and dearest friend, Gracie, and your Uncle Max, whom I raised from the time he was a scruffy little nose-picker until he was a licensed attorney.”

“What have I done now?” I asked, making a note of the nose picking.

“Not you,” she said. “It’s what I didn’t do. They both have the idea that by not telling you about Isabelle as soon as you were old enough to handle the information, I actually put you-your very life-in jeopardy.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But there’s no point beating yourself up about it now.”

“Except,” she said in stentorian tones. “They both have decided that if I don’t tell you what you want to know about Trinh, I might be putting you in jeopardy again.”

“Dear God,” I said. “What do you know?”

“Where to begin?” She sighed heavily. “All right, yes, there was another man, but it wasn’t what you think. Trinh learned from the Red Cross that her sister Quynh was missing. Then she was contacted by someone who had proof of some sort that Quynh was being held for special punishment because she had American relatives. This person told Trinh he could get Quynh out of Vietnam, but it would be expensive. Trinh persuaded Bart to take out a second mortgage on their house to get the money. After they paid, they were told that the price had gone up. Bart, who is no man’s fool, understood they were being extorted and went to the police.”

“Did he go to Chuck?”

“More likely he went to the police chief,” she said. “There were always issues between the Rileys and the Bartolinis. Chuck was a Vietnam vet, and he brought a whole lot of ugly opinions home with him.”

“Did the police do anything?”

“I have no idea,” Mom said. “Whatever they did, if anything, it didn’t stop anything. Trinh had no money of her own, and the extortionist kept after her, telling her horror stories. So she asked an old friend for help, but he turned her down, too.”

“Was the friend Thai Van?” I asked.

“Yes, it was. She didn’t ask him for money; she was too proud for that. She wanted him to use whatever connections he had in Vietnam to find Quynh, to learn whether she was even alive. But Van said it was too dangerous to ask questions, meaning dangerous for Quynh, but I think it was too dangerous for his group as well. He and Trinh had a terrible argument about it; she was desperate.”

“And Trinh told you all this?”

“She didn’t have anyone else to talk to, and she was really very frightened.”

“Father John is in the business of listening.”

“Father John told her to pray. And so far, that hadn’t worked for either her or Quynh,” Mom said.

“Where does the other man come in?”

“She was told she could pay Quynh’s ransom with something other than money.”

“With sex?”

“I’m afraid so. I told her she would be crazy to do that. We argued about it, and she stopped talking to me.”

Her voice broke and it took her a few moments to get control again. After a long breath, she said, “Maggie, I made a terrible mistake. Rather, your father and I did. When Trinh told me that she was being blackmailed for sex, your dad went straight to the FBI.”

“You probably should have done that in the beginning.”

“It was a mistake,” she said. “Trinh was dead within the week.”