No Witness But the Moon(74)

Adele had a long list of errands to run while Sophia was at the party. Her younger sister Grace’s birthday was coming up. There was a drugstore next to the French restaurant, Chez Martine, that sold birthday cards. Adele began walking over. She heard someone call out her name. She turned to see a teenager in restaurant whites sweeping the sidewalk.

“Omar!” Adele couldn’t remember his last name. He was a Guatemalan, about seventeen, short in stature with a round, impish face. She hugged him. “I didn’t know you worked at Chez Martine.”

“I got the job maybe two months ago, se?ora.”

Adele culled her memory for what she could remember about him. His mother used to attend that Friday night support group at La Casa, Las Madres Perdidas. She worked for years as a live-in maid in Wickford. Omar had come over recently. There were probably other siblings still left in Guatemala. Adele didn’t think he attended school. Most likely, he hadn’t been to school in years—which made it next to impossible for him to go back. Besides, the trip over had probably burdened him and his family with enormous debt. He needed to earn money to pay it back. He probably didn’t even have time to take English classes.

“Are you happy here at Chez Martine? Are they treating you well?”

“Yes, thank you. I just got a promotion to a better shift.” His face turned solemn. “Only I am sad because of the reason. It’s because our head dishwasher, Hector, died. Did you know?”

“Yes. I heard. I’m sorry.” Omar was so young and so new to this country that he probably had no idea how Adele was connected to the shooting. “Did you know him well?” she asked.

“Oh yes. He was a very good man. I don’t care what the police say.” Omar waved his hands in front of Adele. They were encased in heavy padded black gloves. “These? Hector gave them to me. I didn’t have a pair. I didn’t know how cold it gets here. He gave me a wool hat, too.”

None of this sounded to Adele like a man who would rob a house.

“Omar, did the police talk to you about Hector at all?”

“They talked to all of us after the shooting, yes. They searched his locker.”

“Did they find anything unusual?”

“I don’t think so. They didn’t even find his extra jacket in there. Hector always kept one in his locker in case the weather changed. He didn’t like the cold. Maybe he gave it to his friend.”

“A friend at work?”

“No.” The teenager looked over his shoulder and kept sweeping.

“Omar, is there something you didn’t tell the police?”

“I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“This isn’t Guatemala. The police won’t do anything bad to you.”

Omar kept his eyes on his broom. “I have to go peel carrots.”

Adele squinted inside the mullioned windows. Chez Martine wasn’t open for lunch on Sundays. The staff would just be cleaning the place out and preparing for Sunday dinner. “Do you have a break when I can talk to you?”

“Maybe you can come around back? I will speak to my boss.”

Omar’s boss, a hefty Colombian who seemed to tower over his largely Central American staff, growled at Omar in Spanish that he had “five minutes” to speak to Adele. Then he handed Omar a giant bucket of carrots. “Peel while you talk.” He had a commanding presence. Adele felt as if she were being ordered to don an apron and do the same.

“I don’t want to get fired,” said Omar. He worked fast as he spoke. Adele watched the carrots flying through his fingers, the knobby orange peels gliding across his sun baked hands. His fingernails were chipped and uneven. They looked like they belonged to a hand much older than seventeen years. There were fresh pink scars across the knuckles. She wondered what sort of journey he’d endured to make it to see his mother here in Wickford. She wondered how they were faring as a family now.

“Nobody is going to fire you for telling the truth,” Adele promised him.

“Even when the truth is against an important person?”

“What important person?”

Omar wiped his hands on his white apron. He licked his chapped lips. He seemed to be weighing some secret he was deciding whether he could trust her with. Adele sat very still.

“My mother,” he said finally. “She still lives at her employer’s house. Here in Wickford.”

“She’s still a live-in? I thought after you arrived . . .” Adele’s voice trailed off. She saw at once what the boy was telling her. His mother’s living accommodations weren’t sufficient to take him in.

“Omar,” she asked softly, “where are you living?”

Omar kept his eyes on the carrot peeler. “I have a cousin. He lets me sleep on his couch sometimes. My mother does my laundry when she can at her employer’s. But some nights, my cousin has no room. So I—” Omar nodded back at the restaurant. The lovely cobblestoned restaurant with the glass mullioned windows. It was a great place to dine. It was no place for a seventeen-year-old boy to live.

“Does your employer—?”

“Jorgé knows. He sounds mean but he has a good heart. He is only the kitchen manager, however. The chefs don’t know. And the owner definitely doesn’t know.”

“Do you stay over at the restaurant often?”