Do Not Become Alarmed(79)

The hospital staff had been discreet and compassionate, but they were getting weary of their troubled guests. Someone was going to tip off the media for cash or spite, and the cameras would descend. This unexpected time of privacy would be over. The new body in the trees would keep the public fascination and the television ratings going, make the flames dance higher. Angela wanted to solve the mystery of the man with the pink backpack, but she was afraid of the truth, and of what it might mean.





58.



OSCAR INSPECTED THE bandage on his knee. He guessed it looked like Frankenstein’s monster underneath, but at least they’d given him drugs, and the agony was gone. He felt nothing, only the euphoria of painlessness. His mother, terrified of pills, had insisted he could get through the recovery with ice. Ice! When they’d sliced his knee open.

He was thinking about lifting the bandage to see the stitches when a silver-haired man came into his room and closed the door.

“Hello, Oscar,” he said. “I’m Isabel’s father. My name is Gunther.”

Oscar watched him draw close.

“How is your knee?” the man asked. He spoke Argentine Spanish and used the formal you. He sounded rich, but Oscar could have guessed that from knowing Isabel.

“I haven’t seen it or tried to walk yet,” Oscar said. “But it doesn’t hurt.”

“Good,” Gunther said. “I’ve been hoping to talk to you.” He took a seat by Oscar’s bedside and crossed one knee over the other. “Did you know that they found a man dead near the train tracks? Throat cut wide open.”

Oscar held his breath. He saw Isabel again, crouched and feral in the dark, holding his yellow-handled knife.

“Do you know who this man was?” Gunther asked.

Oscar cleared his throat. He thought about lying. “Noemi’s uncle,” he said. “His name was Chuy.”

“You think he was really her uncle?”

“Sure.”

“Was he screwing the kid?”

“No!” Oscar said. “I mean, I don’t think so.”

“So what happened to him?”

“My lawyer doesn’t want me talking to anyone.”

“Smart lawyer,” Gunther said, smiling. “Shall I leave? Or shall I tell you some things you might wish to know?”

Oscar watched him. “Okay.”

“I have spoken with the machona detective,” Gunther said. “My daughter told her that maybe you killed this man.”

Oscar blinked, startled. “I didn’t!”

Gunther paused. “So why did you not mention the dead man before?”

Oscar’s thoughts were jumbled now. He hadn’t said anything because he hadn’t wanted to get Isabel in trouble. “Did you ask Marcus?”

“Marcus also says maybe you did it.”

Fury exploded in Oscar’s brain. “That’s not true!”

“So who killed him?” Gunther asked.

He took a gulp of air. “She did!”

“Who?”

“Your daughter!”

Gunther’s eyes, beneath bushy silver eyebrows, flicked back and forth between his. He didn’t seem as surprised as Oscar thought he should be. “Why would she do that?”

Oscar lay back on the pillow. “She was afraid,” he said. “The uncle was trying to help us. He went to see who was coming, and then he came back. He grabbed Noemi and Isabel, to run with them. Isabel didn’t know who it was, in the dark.”

“How do you know this?”

“I saw it.”

Isabel’s father rubbed his face and looked at the ceiling. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

“What’s going to happen?” Oscar asked.

“I don’t know.” Gunther rolled his neck and Oscar heard it pop. “If my daughter killed this man, as you say, people will want to know why.”

“She thought she was defending herself.”

“Yes, but they will want to know everything. A beautiful girl, a killer. People love this like flies love shit. You understand this, yes?”

“Yes,” Oscar admitted.

“You know my daughter was raped?”

He hadn’t, really, but now it made sense. Fucking Raúl. “Yes.”

“There will be nothing else to talk about,” Gunther said. “It will be a fucking circus.”

The door opened and a nurse looked in.

“A moment, please,” Gunther said, and the nurse retreated and closed the door. He moved his chair closer and found Oscar’s eyes again. “The story the children told is a good, boring, understandable story,” he said. “You were defending them.”

“But I didn’t do it.”

“You know that. And God knows it.”

“Do you believe in God?” Oscar asked.

“No.”

“My mother believes.”

“So does my wife, in a way,” Gunther said. “She needs to. Our son is dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Oscar said. “I didn’t know there were supposed to be six.”

Gunther clasped his hands together, and put his elbows on his knees. He seemed unable to speak.

“My sister died when I was little,” Oscar said. “I found her.”