At twenty-four, Isabel was the mother of a two-year-old girl. Her husband Rafael Santos, only slightly older than her, was a journalist. The couple lived in a small apartment in the Barracas neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Isabel and Rafael had met in college. Like him, she was studying journalism. He always maintained that she had a snappier, more confident writing style than him, and a particular gift for writing profiles. But when their daughter was born, Isabel had chosen to put her career on standby until María Luz went to school. Journalism was the couple’s shared passion, and Rafael never sent in an article for publication without getting his wife to read it first. Once their daughter had gone to sleep, Isabel would sit at the kitchen table, pencil in hand, and revise his drafts. Rafael, Isabel and María Luz led a happy existence, and the future held the promise of even better things to come.
The coup d’état that placed the country under the control of a military dictatorship destroyed all of their plans.
Rafael lost his job. The moderate newspaper that employed him, La Opinion, was shut down, even though it had taken a “prudent” editorial stance toward the new ruling power. The couple began to have serious money problems, but for Isabel the newspaper’s closure was almost a relief. The only journalists still publishing articles had sworn allegiance to General Videla. As left-wing Peronists, there was no way Isabel and Rafael would agree to write so much as one line to appear in Cabildo or any of the other dailies still in print.
Rafael, who was good with his hands, changed jobs and started working for a neighborhood carpenter. Isabel and her best friend shared one job as supervisor at the science school, each working one day and caring for both of their children the next.
Rafael and Isabel struggled to make ends meet, but their combined salaries enabled them to scrape by and to provide for their daughter’s needs.
When Rafael returned home from the carpentry shop, they would sit at the kitchen table after dinner. Isabel completed sewing jobs she’d started taking in to earn a little extra money, while Rafael wrote about the injustices being committed and repression under the regime, the corruption of the state, the complicity of the Church and the sad state of affairs that had taken hold of Argentina.
Each morning at 11, Rafael would step out of his workshop for a smoke. A cyclist would stop next to him and ask for a cigarette. Rafael would give him a light and discreetly slip him the article he had written the previous night. The messenger would carry the forbidden text to an abandoned factory housing an underground print shop. Rafael was a regular contributor to a dissident newspaper that was printed daily and distributed in the utmost secrecy.
Isabel and Rafael dreamed of one day leaving Argentina and going to live in a country where they would finally be free. Some evenings, when Isabel’s spirits flagged, Rafael would take a little notebook with a red cover out of the chest of drawers. He would count their savings and tick off the number of days left before their departure. Once they were in bed, he would recite the names of cities to her in a low voice as if he were recounting a dream, and this was how they fell asleep, Rafael usually being the first to drop off.
After dinner one early summer evening, with little María Luz already fast asleep, Rafael put aside the article he was writing and Isabel her sewing work, and they went to bed earlier than usual. Isabel slipped naked under the sheets. Her skin was pale and smooth. Rafael’s hands had become callused since he’d started his carpentry job, so he had taken to stroking her very gently, afraid she’d find their touch unpleasant.
“I like your worker’s hands,” Isabel murmured, laughing into his ear. “Tell them to hold me tighter.”
Rafael was making love to his wife when they heard someone banging on the door of their small apartment.
“Don’t move,” said Rafael, grabbing his shirt from the bottom of the bed.
The banging got louder, and Rafael worried the racket would wake their daughter.
When he opened the door, four men in hoods threw him on the floor, raining blows on him to force him down on his belly.
One of the men kept him on the ground by pushing a knee into his back. Another grabbed Isabel by her hair as she came out of the bedroom in a panic. He pushed her up against the wall of the kitchen, rolled a dish towel around her neck and pulled it tight. When Isabel’s screaming was stifled, the man loosened his grip just enough to let her breathe. The third man quickly searched the apartment and returned to the living room carrying María Luz and holding a knife to her throat.
The men wordlessly motioned Rafael and Isabel to get dressed. They were dragged outside and shoved into the back of a small truck. María Luz was put in front.
The vehicle raced across the city. The noise of the engine filled their ears, but Rafael and Isabel could still hear their daughter calling out to them through the partition between them and the cab. Isabel sobbed uncontrollably each time she heard her little girl scream “Mamá.” Rafael held her hand and tried to soothe her, but how does one soothe a mother who can hear her child screaming?
The truck came to a stop thirty minutes later and the doors were thrown open to reveal a courtyard. They were pulled out. Rafael got another blow to his head when he tried to turn back toward the truck where his daughter was being held. When Isabel tried to break free, one of the men dragged her back by her hair.
They were pushed roughly along to an open door in the building enclosing the paved courtyard. Isabel screamed her daughter’s name, and was given a punch in the jaw that sent her hurtling down the staircase in front of her. Rafael was kicked in the back, and tumbled down the stairs after her.
They landed at the bottom of the steps on a patch of bare earth stinking of urine. Isabel was taken off to be locked up in a cell, and Rafael in another . . .
“What are you doing?” Andrew asked, coming into the living room.
Valerie put the sheaf of paper she’d been reading back down on the coffee table.
“Is it because they were journalists that you’re so obsessed with this investigation?”
“Dammit, Valerie, that’s confidential! I’m not going to put my notes under lock and key in my own apartment! Look, try and understand. This is my work, okay? I just need you to respect that,” Andrew said in a calm voice, collecting up the papers.
“Isabel was allowed to read what her husband wrote, and even make suggestions.”
“I’m sorry. Don’t hold it against me. I hate for anyone to read my notes.”
“‘Anyone’ just happens to be your future wife. ‘Anyone’ puts up with being alone when you’re off on work for weeks on end. ‘Anyone’ understands about you being distracted even when you’re around because you’re so taken up with your job. ‘Anyone’ accepts all of that because she loves you. But don’t ask me to live with you if I can’t share a little of your passion.”
“Did you like what you read?” Andrew asked.
“I’m terrified thinking of what will happen to that family, to María Luz, but I couldn’t help envying Rafael and Isabel for being so close and working together at their kitchen table.”
“It’s only a draft,” Andrew muttered.
“It’s more than that.”
“I can never publish their story if I don’t go back to Argentina. It’s not a made-up story, you know? Those people really existed. And one or two accounts just aren’t enough.”
“I know you have to go back there. This passion that drives you is one of the reasons I love you. I’m only asking you not to exclude me.”
Andrew sat down next to Valerie, took her hand and kissed it.
“You’re right. I’m an idiot. I’m paranoid about my work. I’m obsessed with secrecy, I’m afraid of deforming the truth, being partial, or influenced, or manipulated. That’s why I only wanted you to find out about my crusade after this article is published. But I was wrong,” he said. “From now on, I’ll let you read what I’m writing as I go along.”
“And?” Valerie asked.
“And what?”
“And will you show a little more interest in my job?”
“Hey, everything about you interests me. You want me to read your post-surgery reports?”
“No, Valerie replied, laughing. “I’d like for you to come to my office at least once so I can show you what a typical day is like for me.”
“You want me to come see the mounted unit stables?”
“That, and my office, and the operating room, and the lab.”
“I wish you looked after poodles. The only reason I’ve never come to visit you is that I’m terrified of horses.”
Valerie smiled at Andrew.
“No need to be scared of them. What I’ve just been reading is a lot scarier than the most spirited horse in our stables.”
“How spirited?” Andrew asked. He got up.
“Where are you going?” Valerie asked.
“Let’s go get a breath of fresh air. I want to take a walk through the Village and I’ll show you where we’re going to have a romantic dinner.”
As Andrew helped Valerie into her coat, she turned to him and asked:
“What happened to Rafael and Isabel and María Luz?”
“Later,” Andrew replied, shutting the apartment door behind them. “I’ll tell you the whole story later.”
* * *
Andrew arrived at work around 8:30 A.M. He went through security and stopped in the cafeteria to have a coffee before going up to his office.
Sitting at his desk, he switched on his computer, entered his password, and began searching a few websites. After a while, he grabbed a notepad and a pen.
Dear Mr. Capetta,
Your wife sent her letter from Chicago. The stamp has been postmarked by a post office near Warren Park.
I am deeply sorry about everything that has happened to you.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Stilman
PS Please check for yourself, but I looked at some online photos of that park, and I think I could make out a playground.
Andrew slipped his note into an envelope, copied out Mr. Capetta’s address and took it over to the outgoing mail basket.
Back at his desk, he couldn’t help but remember the last thing Capetta had said about his wife: I wouldn’t take her threats lightly if I were you. And Chicago was only a two-hour flight from New York.
His telephone rang and the receptionist informed him that he had a visitor. In the elevator on his way down to the lobby, Andrew felt a shiver surge through his body, followed by a dull ache at the base of his spine.
* * *
“You don’t look very good,” Inspector Pilguez remarked.
“Just tired. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m frozen stiff.”
“That’s odd—you’re sweating.”
Andrew wiped his hand across his forehead.
“Do you want to sit down for a moment?” Pilguez suggested.
“Let’s go out. I need some fresh air,” Andrew replied.
The pain suddenly became so intense that it stopped him in his tracks. Pilguez caught Andrew as his legs gave way and he fell.
When Andrew came to, he was lying on a bench in the lobby with Pilguez beside him.
“Good, you’re getting your color back. You scared me. You just went out like a light. Do you faint often?”
“No. I mean, I never used to before.”
“Probably stress,” sighed Pilguez. “I know what I’m talking about. You start cracking up when you’re scared. Your heart races, you hear ringing in your ears, you start feeling like you’re wrapped up in cotton, sounds become distant and then—bam!—you’re on your ass on the floor. You’ve just had a little anxiety attack.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Have you discussed your story with anyone other than me?”
“Who do you think I’d have told? Who’d believe my story?”
“Don’t you have any friends?”
“Of course I do.”
“Friends you can count on in any situation?” Pilguez asked, a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
Andrew sighed.
“Okay, I’m a bit of a loner, but there’s Simon, who’s like a brother to me. Our friendship is worth more than lots of superficial acquaintances.”
“No reason you can’t have both. You should talk to Simon and tell him what happened to you. You’ve got eight weeks left to find your killer.”
“Thanks for reminding me. I think about it morning, noon and night. Even if I do manage to forget it for a moment, the pain comes back to remind me I’m running out of time.”
“The closer you get to the date, the more you’re going to need someone to rely on.”
“Is that your way of telling me you’re giving up on me?”
“It’s sound advice, Stilman. I’ve no intention of ditching you, but I have to go home at some point. My wife is waiting for me. I’ll stay in New York until you leave for Argentina. After that, there’s always the phone, and I’ve recently started using the internet. After all those years tapping out reports on typewriters, I’m pretty good at typing. But in the meantime I want you to go tell your friend everything. That’s an order!”
“Why did you drop by to see me this morning? Anything new?”
“The list of people who have it in for you got longer yesterday, which doesn’t help matters. I’m going to follow up on Mr. Capetta’s ex-wife. Meanwhile you should take a closer look at your colleague Freddy Olson. I’d also like to find out more about your boss.”
“I’ve already told you, you’re on the wrong track with Olivia.”
“If it were my life at stake I wouldn’t exclude anyone, I assure you. Speaking of which, and I’m sorry to bring it up again, but there’s another person on my list.”
“Who’s that?”
“Your wife. The woman you ditched on her wedding day.”
“Valerie wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“That’s no surprise—she’s a vet. But a man who’d hurt her that much? You wouldn’t believe all the imaginative ways to get revenge people come up with when they’ve been humiliated. Plus she’s around police officers all day long.”
“So what?”
“If my wife decided to get rid of me, she’d be way more inventive than any cop show screenwriter.”
“Are you just here because it’ll make a good story or do you really believe me now?”
“I’m not playing games, Stilman. Follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the scene of a crime that hasn’t taken place yet.”