My Name Is Venus Black(88)
A half hour later, I’m lying in my tightly made Holiday Inn bed, trying to put together the strange pieces of my life. My estranged mother is lodged next door. My long-lost brother is across town in protective custody. A gorgeous man with a beautiful Mexican daughter sits in jail for kidnapping. And a little girl I love thinks I’m a promise-breaker.
Maybe Inez was right before. Somebody should make a movie.
* * *
—
SATURDAY MORNING, INEZ sits in a chair while she looks at a mug shot.
“Do you recognize this man?” asks the detective called Cunningham.
“Yes,” says Inez. “He came to look at my house in Everett. It’s him.” She picks up the photo from the detective’s desk and stares at it. “It’s the Tony guy.” For some reason, she feels a little disappointed. She half-hoped it was someone else.
“If this man had Leo, why did he come to my house in Everett and pretend he might want to buy it?” she asks.
“When exactly did he come to your house?”
“A few days ago…It was Sunday, this past Sunday.”
“But you’d never seen him before that? Maybe lurking around?”
Inez stares again at the photo. “No.”
“Do you know of a man who goes by the name Tinker Miller?”
“Tinker? Sure. Tinker is my late husband’s brother. I haven’t seen him in years, though. Tinker and our family didn’t get along.” Inez shakes her head. “He even burglarized us once.”
“This man here, Tony Herrera…” The detective points at the photo. “He claims that Tinker, going by the name Phil Brown, brought the boy to Oakland and rented an apartment from him. Says the guy claimed to be the boy’s father and told him the mother was a heroin addict.”
Inez can’t believe her ears. “So you’re saying Tinker took Leo?”
“It would appear so.”
“I don’t get it. Why would Tinker take Leo, first of all, and how come this other man had him?”
“Could this Tinker Miller, your brother-in-law, be a pedophile?” asks the detective.
“Oh God! No. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so. But…” Clearly she’s not a good judge of character, she reminds herself. She never thought Raymond would be a pervert, either. “Oh dear God. Please, no!” she says. “Do you think Leo was sexually abused?”
“That’s something we need to evaluate,” he says. “That’s just one of the things the children’s services department will want to explore.”
“So how did this Tony end up with Leo, then? I don’t get it.”
The detective sits up straighter and tucks in his neck the way a fat man might his belly. “His story is that this Tinker fellow up and abandoned the boy.”
Well, now, that she can believe. Tinker would have had his hands full with Leo. She tries to imagine how Leo would have responded, tries to picture Tinker taking care of Leo with all his picky habits and tantrums and…“How long did Tinker have Leo?”
“This Herrera fellow says that Tinker up and took off after a few months. Instead of calling the police to report it, Tony Herrera and his daughter, Tessa, kept Leo. Got him a fake birth certificate and everything.”
“So all these years he’s been living with this guy and his daughter?”
“That’s the story.”
“But why? Why would someone do that?”
“He says his daughter cared for the boy.” Inez remembers that Venus described seeing a beautiful teenaged Mexican girl at the house where they found Leo. “Apparently she didn’t want the boy to end up in foster care.”
Inez tries to absorb this. She desperately needs a drink. “So why the hell didn’t they first make sure that no one was looking for him? Why assume he doesn’t have another family?” She feels her anger rising. “How could they not call the police? They must have known about us, because how else did this Herrera guy come to my house in Everett?”
The detective sits back in his chair. “I’m not sure, ma’am, but in his statements, Mr. Herrera claims that after he saw Leo featured as missing on a milk carton a week or so ago, he realized someone was looking for him and was planning to give the boy back. Apparently he came to Everett to check out the situation. Claims he wanted to make sure Leo was going to a good home.”
Suddenly it all makes sense. The reason Tony was more interested in her than in the house. His emotional reaction to Leo’s room. She can feel her face burning red. “If he knew I was Leo’s mom, then why didn’t he say so? Why did he just turn around and go back to California?”
Then it hits her. Obviously, he didn’t think she was good enough.
* * *
—
LEO IS ALONE in a playroom with lots of toys. Most of them are for babies. He notices some race cars on a shelf. He picks out an orange one and sits on the floor. He spins the wheels like he used to. He stares into the turning.
When he hears a door open, he looks up, hoping for Tessa.
But it’s not her. He sees his sister, Venus, from before. And there’s also the one who was his mother. He stares down at the car in his hand and ignores them. He hears their steps coming closer. Then he sees black sneakers with white circles. Brown boots. He wants them to go away.