What The Dead Know

“I didn’t realize you and Nancy were pals.”

“We became reacquainted, from the House of Ruth. She did a presentation for us on one of the county’s oldest unsolved murders, the Powers case.”

He remembered. He never forgot one of his own. A young woman, separated from her husband, a contentious custody battle. She had left work one afternoon. Neither she nor her car was ever seen again. “Oh, yeah, that one. How long has it been?”

“Almost ten years. Their daughter is in her teens now. Can you imagine? She has to know that her father was the number one suspect, even if nothing was ever proven. I didn’t remember that he was a former cop, though, before he went into private security.”

“Huh.”

Another awkward pause, as Infante wondered why Kay Sullivan had brought up that one piece of information. Was she trying to say that Baltimore cops were, by nature, felonious? All Stan Dunham had done was cover up a murder.

“Do you ever…?” Kay began.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“I just assumed it was about Su

He swiveled his head, realizing that Willoughby should be among the party guests, too, and saw him in an argyle sweater, of all things-chatting up the brunette in the bright red dress. Willoughby had an eye for women, as Infante had learned since they started playing golf together. To his surprise-and, although he didn’t want to admit it to himself, his gratification- Willoughby seemed to prefer his company to the stuffed-shirt crowd at Elkridge. He was more police than prep, after all. He also was one of those genteel letches, the kind who liked to bask in the glow that good-looking women threw off. He doted on Nancy, had lunch with her at least once a month. He was probably trying to work the brunette toward the mistletoe, angle for a little cheek kiss. “I should go say hi.”

“Sure,” Kay said. “I understand. But if you do hear from Su

“Yes?”

“Tell her that it was nice of her, to remember to send Grace’s pants back dry-cleaned and mended. I appreciated that.”

She sounded forlorn but resigned, as if used to being abandoned in social situations. Infante speared a pierogi from the platter and dragged it through some sour cream-bless Nancy ’s Polack forebears, the girl knew how to put on a holiday spread. The events of last spring had been a job to him, but they must have been exciting to Kay Sullivan, a reprieve from a life spent…well, doing whatever hospital social workers do. Wrestling with Medicaid forms, he supposed.

“Grace?” he asked Kay. “Is that your daughter? How old is she? Is she your only kid?”

Kay brightened and began to tell him in great detail about both her daughter and son, while Infante listened and nodded, helping himself to more pierogies. What was the big deal? The brunette would keep.

“¿CÓMO SE LLAMA?” asked the man outside the gallery, and Su

He persisted, unperturbed by how her eyes slid away from his face, probably used to that visual evasiveness, maybe even grateful for it. She would be. “Es la hija de Señora Toe-lez, ¿verdad?”

How do you call yourself? You are the daughter of Señora Toles, true ? Although Su

“Soy,” she began, then corrected herself. Not “I am,” but Me llamo . “I call myself.” “Me llamo Su

Here, however, she could call herself whatever she wanted. For the next two weeks.

“Me llamo Su

Javier laughed and pointed to the sky. “¿Como el sol? Qué bonita .”

She shrugged, at a loss. Small talk was hard enough in English. She pushed into the store, engaging a gentle wind chime. The Man with the Blue Guitar had a wind chime, too, she remembered, although its sound had been deeper, chunkier.

Her mother-her mother!-was with a customer, a short, squat woman with a grating voice, who pushed and poked at the earrings on the counter as if they had displeased her in some way. “This is my daughter, Su

“She must take after her father,” the woman said, and Su

She was actually a little nervous about finding things to talk about with her mother, but it would turn out to be far easier than she anticipated. On the train into Mexico City the next day, they would begin by discussing Penelope Jackson, whereabouts still unknown, although she had stopped using Su