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Bob returned to Albert’s room with a large pepperoni pizza and a twelve-pack of Bud Light.
“Damn, this is good,” Albert said, wolfing down a slice. He hadn’t had much to eat lately.
Bob nodded.
“You aren’t going to eat?” Albert asked.
“I ate earlier. That’s for you.”
“Thank you. I was starving.”
Bob opened a beer and took a long swig.
“Who mans the front desk when you’re gone?” Albert asked.
“I leave a sign saying I’ll be back in ten minutes. It says they can grab a room key and we’ll handle the check-in later. They seem to like that—the casual arrangement. Most of them are from a big city somewhere and they never do things that way.”
“You have any employees?” Albert asked, grabbing a second slice of pizza.
The TV was tuned to CNN with the volume turned down. Albert left it on all the time, in case they mentioned him or the body at the zoo.
“No, it’s just me,” Bob said. “My wife used to help me, but she’s been gone a long time.”
Albert wasn’t sure what that meant. Had she left him, or had she died?
“Mind me asking how old you are?” Albert said.
“I’m ninety-three,” Bob said.
“No way,” Albert said. “You look about seventy-five.”
Bob shrugged, as if his appearance—or maybe his longevity—were of no importance to him.
“Your health seems good,” Albert said.
“My father lived to one hundred and six.”
“That’s amazing.”
“My mother lived to one hundred and one.”
“Great genes,” Albert said.
He grabbed another slice. He might eat the whole damn pizza.
Then, without any sort of preamble, Bob said, “I was nineteen years old, living right down the road. I’d graduated from high school one year earlier, but my girlfriend at the time was still in school, a year behind me, just about to graduate. There was a big party to celebrate. Lots of beer and liquor. Probably two hundred kids there. It was out in a big field, with a bonfire, and some people had set up tents. It was a wild night.”
Bob finished his beer and opened a second one.
“Somebody must’ve complained, because the cops showed up at about three in the morning and began running everybody off. Apparently—I only learned this later—they caught a couple having sex on a blanket, out in the dark, beneath a tree. The guy got up and ran. They talked to the girl and it turned out she was fifteen years old. A freshman. White girl. Very drunk.”
Bob shook his head at the memory.
“I knew her. Everybody knew everybody, because this town is so small, and even smaller back then. Anyway, the cops called her parents, and of course they were furious, because the girl had told them she was spending the night with a friend. They wanted the name of the boy. They wanted to know who he was and—the important part—how old he was. Guess who she named?”
Albert didn’t have to guess. “But...why would she do that?”
“What I heard is she had a boyfriend a year younger than me, but still eighteen—an adult—and she didn’t want him to get into trouble. So she named me.”
“Why you?”
“I have no idea. I guess I was the first person to spring to mind. I kind of looked like her boyfriend, so maybe that was it.”
“And what happened?”
Albert knew it couldn’t have ended well or Bob wouldn’t be telling the story.
“Remember this was all a very long time ago, back when the cops probably would’ve let it go, except that the parents pushed and pushed and wouldn’t drop it. They were wealthy people with power. The father had been a councilman a few years earlier.”
“But I’m sure you denied it was you.”
“Well, sure. You think they were going to believe me over her? A bunch of white cops and a white girl accusing an Injun?”
“Couldn’t anyone back you up? Where were you when the cops showed up?”
“Asleep. I’d wandered off to take a piss and I fell down. I decided I was comfortable right where I was, so I stayed there for a minute. Next thing I knew, I was waking up. I could hear all the commotion, because the cops had arrived. So I just walked home. Left my truck there. That didn’t look good, considering they were looking for someone who’d run away, but I didn’t know that at the time.”
“That’s terrible. What happened?”
“I got arrested a week later—can’t even remember the exact charge, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The lawyer they gave me haggled it down even lower, but I had to plead guilty to it, which I did, and then I spent six months in the county jail.”
“Jeez,” Albert said. “That’s fucked up.”
He didn’t have to ask why Bob would plead guilty to something he didn’t do.
“That stupid charge and all the gossip followed me around for nearly sixty years,” Bob said. “Early on, I thought about moving away, but screw all those people. I stayed right here. And then...”
Bob grinned.
“What?” Albert asked.
“The girl—she was an old lady now—finally told the truth. First she came to see me and apologized—she cried a lot—and then she did an interview with the newspaper and told the truth. She’d been lying to protect her boyfriend.”
Albert didn’t know what to say. “All those years...people thinking...”
“Yeah,” Bob said. “But what can you do?” An odd expression crossed his face, and he pointed at the TV. “You’d better turn that up.”
Albert looked, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.
It was Sylvia. Right there. Sylvia. Still beautiful. Still capable of capturing his heart. Being interviewed outside her home. She must’ve seen the GMA segment and decided to speak out.
The caption on the lower screen said THE MISSING ZOOKEEPER. A smaller caption identified her as Sylvia Golino, her maiden name. Did that mean what he thought it meant?
He quickly grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
“...about nineteen years ago,” Sylvia was saying. “That’s why I wanted to come forward and tell my story. Miguel and I had a relationship back then, and the truth is, I was married. I’m not proud of that, but I had no choice about staying in the marriage or not. I’ll just leave it at that. The way I handled the situation back then is something I’ll always regret.”
Was married? That was ambiguous. Was she still married?
Someone off camera said, “Did you know anything about his disappearance nineteen years ago?”
“Not at all,” Sylvia said. “He just disappeared, and I felt like I was lost on a deserted island.”
A deserted island? He couldn’t believe she said that. Was it a message?
She continued, saying, “But I’m glad to know he’s been okay for all these years, and I hope he still is. Back then, like a lot of people, I figured he was dead, and I figured my ex-husband did it.”
Ex-husband! Ohmygod! There it was!
“Miguel Lopez struck and killed your brother-in-law with his car, and he fled before he was prosecuted,” the same voice said. “Do you still want him held accountable?”
“I never did, even back then,” Sylvia said. “That wasn’t his fault. My brother-in-law was trying to shoot him, and Miguel was just trying to get away. They never should’ve charged him. Read the articles from back then. You’ll see.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“I have no idea. That’s the truth.”
“Do you know if the man who was killed at the zoo in Texas is somehow connected to this incident from nineteen years ago?”
“I don’t know that, either. You should talk to my ex-husband about that.”
Ha. She was sending them after Anthony Carducci. Sylvia had always had nerve.
She said she had nothing further to say, then turned away from the camera, ending the interview. They cut back to the anchor, who made a final comment about the story, but Albert wasn’t listening. His mind was still spinning from seeing Sylvia. Good God. She hadn’t changed a bit.
“She’s a captivating woman,” Bob said.
Albert nodded.
“Speaks her mind.”
“She always did.”
“Did you know she was divorced?”
“Not until just now. I used to check her Facebook page now and then, but I couldn’t see very much, and it was just too...”
Bob nodded. He knew. Too painful.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think so.”
The way I handled the situation back then is something I’ll always regret.
That raised so many questions.
Did she mean she wished she’d run away with Albert when he’d suggested it? Or that she never should’ve gotten involved with him in the first place? Or maybe she meant she should’ve mustered up the courage and gotten a divorce before starting her relationship with Albert.
Was she ready to run away with him now, after all these years? Maybe he was deluding himself to even entertain that question—but what if the answer was yes?
What if she’d been regretting her decision for a long time, and they could’ve been together if only Albert had reached out to her? It was heartbreaking to contemplate that possibility.
Lauren Gilchrist couldn’t believe what she had just seen. Fortunately, a deputy had been watching CNN during his lunch break and had alerted Lauren to Sylvia Golino’s interview. She’d backed it up and watched it three times, taking notes.
The bottom line was that Albert Cortez—quiet Albert, the zookeeper—had been on the run for years, living in Blanco County under an assumed name. His real name was Miguel Lopez. He’d apparently killed a man with his car in Massachusetts nearly two decades ago. Mind blower.
The first question that popped into Lauren’s mind: Could Sylvia Golino identify the dead man found at the exotic zoo?
Lauren needed to speak to her immediately, and she’d already asked Darrell to try to track her down. If Darrell couldn’t find Sylvia Golino’s phone number or contact her via social media, he would try contacting CNN. Maybe the producer would share her phone number, or at least pass a message to Sylvia Golino, asking her to contact the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office.
Lauren began to search for the archived articles Sylvia Golino had referred to, but her phone rang right then. Did Darrell have news already?
Nope. It was John Marlin.
Now Lauren couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Sylvia Golino would have to wait.