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I opened the refrigerator. Sparse. But no alcohol. I checked the freezer. No hidden drugs. The small pantry had staples—cereal, rice, bread, canned food. A bowl of bananas and apples were ripe on the counter, but hadn’t turned brown yet.
Two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The larger bedroom was masculine with two double beds, another television, and a gaming system. Posters of video game scenes. The second bedroom was painted light purple with a double bed, white dresser, plush purple comforter, lots of pictures filling a cork board. A few girls clothes in the closet and drawers. Maybe Sergio had been allowed to have sleepovers with his siblings? Or maybe they had keys and could come and go as they wanted?
I turned to the pictures. I recognized Sergio. A young, pretty dark-haired girl was in most of the pictures, likely Sophia. I noted that most were older photos from happier times. Sergio, Sophia, and probably Henry, as another boy about Sophia’s age was in many of the pictures. At the park. At birthday parties. One of Sophia in her First Holy Communion dress with Sergio and Henry in ill-fitting suits standing on either side of her. I took a picture of that, and one of what I felt was the most recent photo of the three, since Sergio looked so much like his mugshot. Not smiling, his arms protectively around his brother and sister. The photo had been taken at The Taco House. By whom? And why print it? Most young people just kept pictures on their phones.
I looked on the back, being nosy and curious.
Sergio, Henry and Me, Christmas Eve
That was a month ago.
I didn’t find anything incriminating, but had there been, the police would have taken it and I would have seen it on the receipt. Sergio was a neat young man with an apartment furnished with his family in mind.
He wanted his family together, yet hadn’t been able to make it happen.
Sergio had evidently used the dining table as his work station. A printer with hanging cords that had likely once plugged into his laptop was pushed up against the wall. Next to it was a neat stack of files. I went through them, feeling a tad guilty at invading his privacy. Every folder related to his efforts to gain custody of his siblings. One of the folders had a name of a case worker—I took a photo—and another had the addresses of the foster homes where Sophia and Henry were. I took another photo of that.
Did his brother and sister know he had confessed to murder? Had he told them before he went to the police station? Had they gone to visit since his arrest on Friday? Would they even be allowed to?
I left everything exactly as I’d found it, then drove by The Taco House on Dunlap and inquired about Faith Jones. She worked three to closing.
I didn’t leave a message, and headed to Andy’s office with a lot to think about.
Five
Sophia Diaz
Sophia walked away from her friends at the lunch table, giving a vague excuse that she was going to the bathroom.
“I’ll come with you,” Gracie said, but Sophia waved her down.
“I have cramps,” she lied. What she had was a pain in her heart so deep that she didn’t know if it would ever go away. Her stomach was in knots and she wished she had pretended she was sick so she could stay home. But she’d stayed home yesterday by forcing herself to throw up her breakfast; if she did it again, Mrs. Edgar would take her to the doctor.
When her friends started talking about boys, that’s when she had to get away. She walked straight to the bathroom, in case Gracie was watching, but then she slipped down the hall and leaned against the cinderblock wall.
She was trapped. There was no way out.
On Sunday she’d gone to church with Mrs. Edgar. It wasn’t the same church Sophia had attended growing up, but she liked the priest a lot. He was young and he seemed happy, as if being a priest was what he’d wanted his entire life.
She hadn’t paid much attention until the Gospel, which was about the lost sheep. How the shepherd left his entire flock behind to search for the one lost sheep. She used to love the parable when she was little, but now it had a completely different meaning. She’d never felt lost before. Now she was that sheep. And she didn’t think anyone would care if she just wandered away forever.
God might care, but her problems seemed so small compared to everything else going on in the world. Her life seemed small.
She felt small. And scared.
It wasn’t school she was afraid of; it was walking home after school.
“Sophia, I’ve been looking all over for you!”
She jumped, opened her eyes, her lips trembling. “Oh. Henry. Sorry.”
She loved her brother, but he scared her now. He had changed.
You should never have moved out. You should have stayed with him, guided him.
She had been selfish, she realized. Sophia asked to change foster homes because she was scared, but she couldn’t say that. She didn’t want to leave Henry, but Sergio tried to get them moved closer to him, and it didn’t happen. He tried to become their guardian, but it didn’t happen. So she said that she was uncomfortable being the only girl in a home of boys, that she really wanted an all-girls house. All the stars aligned—or maybe God was watching out for her—and an opening came up at Mrs. Edgar’s house. It was only a few blocks from where she’d lived with Henry, but it was completely different.
Mrs. Edgar was a sixty-year-old widow. She’d raised four daughters, who all now had families of their own, and opened her home to four girls who needed semipermanent housing. She’d been doing it for seven years, and she was very kind. She didn’t tolerate drugs, violence, bad language, or “attitude.” Punishment was usually an extra chore, but the girls who lived there rarely violated the rules. Because three strikes in a month and Mrs. Edgar would ask for a “reassignment.”
