The 19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19)(10)

Joe asked questions. I told him what I could, and we continued talking as I took a hot shower. When I was dry and dressed in pj’s, sure enough, there was a bowl of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream waiting for me. Joe, Martha, and I went over to the tree, and I watched Joe write out gift labels, most of them from Santa. He shook a small, flat box. “From Aunt Cat,” he said. “Bet it’s Julie’s annual Christmas star.”

Would I see the next one? I was thinking again about the Job versus Life. Everyone I knew, certainly my closest friends, was trying to balance this conflict every day.

Joe read me. “You’re thinking about the shootout?”

“I was feeling bad that I missed the J-Bug hanging balls on the tree.”

“There will be other Christmas trees,” he said.

“I know.” I said it again for emphasis and maybe for luck. “I know.”

But what I was thinking was God willing.





Part Two




* * *





DECEMBER 22





CHAPTER 13





CINDY THOMAS WAS in her office at the Chronicle, laptop open and coffee cooling as she dug into the assignment that had just arrived in her inbox.

The paper’s publisher and editor in chief, Henry Tyler, had asked her to do a piece for the Living section about how undocumented immigrants in San Francisco celebrated the Christmas holidays. Undocumented immigrants were tangential to her usual crime beat, but Cindy was charged up by the story idea. For once she wouldn’t be reporting on bombings or mass murderers or parents who’d locked their babies in hot cars.

Cindy created a new folder and shut out the sounds around her—the coffee-cart lady’s bell, her coworkers laughing and chatting as they passed her office, and the traffic noise coming from the street below.

She would begin her research with the Christmas traditions of people from Mexico and Central America, focusing on a central question: Was it possible to keep cultural tradition alive when you were living under a shadow? Sometimes that shadow was decades long.

Cindy began reading about Las Posadas—“the Inns” —a nine-day Mexican Christmas tradition celebrating Mary and Joseph’s journey to find a safe place to stay while awaiting the birth of their child. How had she never heard of this festival? It sounded so joyful. It started every year on December 16 with a costume parade down a main street, after which friends, families, and neighbors would take turns acting as “innkeepers,” one home hosting a posada each night through December 24. As tradition had it, once the crowd had gathered inside a home, there were prayers and a Bible reading before the good times rolled. Cindy found photos of the pi?atas, the hot drinks and yummy food, and the take-home bags of candies for the celebrants.

Today was the twenty-second. Cindy figured that in some places in San Francisco, Las Posadas was in full swing, but it would be ending soon. She had to work fast if she was going to center her story on that. Research alone did not a story make.

Five days a week Cindy published a crime blog that was open to her readership for comments. She clicked on her crime-blog page and wondered how to ask for assistance from Latino immigrants without it looking like an ICE-inspired sting.

She wrote, “If you’re from South or Central America or Mexico and would like to share your Christmas tradition with our readers, please write to me. Your real name is not required.”

Within the hour she was looking through dozens of responses to her query, and one of them was tantalizing.

But it had nothing to do with Las Posadas. At all.





CHAPTER 14





THE RESPONSE THAT grabbed Cindy’s attention was from Maria, who wrote, “My husband is in jail for a murder he didn’t do. We are undocumented and he has been in jail for two years, no trial. I am lost. Please help.”

Cindy replied, “Thank you for your message, Maria. Can we meet?”

Maria wrote back in minutes. “Can you come to my apartment? I have to work at noon.”

Less than an hour later Cindy was driving through the Mission, a neighborhood heavily populated by Spanishspeaking immigrants from Latin America.

She checked off the landmarks Ms. Maria Varela had given her—the tattoo parlor on one corner, a mercado on the opposite one, vividly colored signage and murals on the sides of the three-story wood-frame building on Osage Street where Maria lived.

Cindy parked in front of a coin-op laundry, walked a block west to Osage, and buzzed the button marked VARELA. A return buzz unlocked the street-level door. With some trepidation, Cindy entered and climbed two flights of stairs.

Maria was waiting for her outside the apartment door.

“I love you for coming,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

Cindy thought Maria looked to be in her forties, average height and weight, hair pulled into a bun. She wore a loose-fitting flowered top over tights and flat shoes, pink lipstick, and a smile at odds with the sadness in her brown eyes.

The small apartment was tidy with a nice sectional facing the TV, a print of the Crucifixion over the faux fireplace, and Christmas lights strung along the wall above the windows. A small Christmas tree stood on the kitchen table, and there were framed family photos—everywhere.

Cindy declined an offer of coffee, took a seat on the sofa, and began to interview Ms. Varela, noticing that her English was excellent.