Sofia knew the children would be fine—if anything, the younger two would forget where she’d gone in a few minutes and resume their normal activities.
She went around the left side of the house and down the driveway. The Lopez home didn’t have a garage, just an open strip of blacktop that ran alongside the front yard and then the house and stopped once it reached the back porch. Alejandro and Eduardo had already discussed putting up some kind of cover for the cars, even if it was just a canopy roof. The summer heat beating inside the cars made them unbearable.
Sofia stopped when she reached the mailbox at the end of the drive, trying to pinpoint the location of the screams. Their house was in a little cul-de-sac, and sometimes sound echoed strangely through the space.
None of the other neighbors appeared to be home—or if they were, they were singularly incurious about the source of the noise. Sofia was the only person standing out in the street, perspiration beading on her forehead.
“Is that the Old Bigot?” she murmured to herself. She started across the street, the heat making the soles of her sneakers feel sticky.
Halfway there she was sure it was, in fact, Mrs. Schneider. What could have the old woman in such a state? Sofia felt vaguely annoyed that she had to ride to the rescue of a person who held her and her entire family in contempt. She knew that Jesus said to forgive, but it was hard to feel the warmth of Christian love toward the woman.
Still, Sofia knew that she wouldn’t leave Mrs. Schneider in such obvious distress, even if part of her would like to do just that. She was fairly certain the Old Bigot wouldn’t spit on her if she were on fire.
Once she was standing on Mrs. Schneider’s front lawn it was apparent that the screaming was coming from the backyard. The screams hadn’t diminished in volume or length, although Sofia thought the old woman’s voice was getting hoarse. As she unhooked the gate to the backyard Sofia felt the first stirrings of alarm. This wasn’t just some wild hair of the old lady’s. Something was really wrong.
The gate clattered shut behind Sofia. Mrs. Schneider stood on the downslope of her yard, close to the edge of the woods that abutted the neatly trimmed grass. The old woman was ramrod straight, her hands down at her sides. Her purse had fallen at her feet and a white handkerchief fluttered weakly in the grass, like a halfhearted surrender.
“Mrs. Schneider?” Sofia called, approaching her.
Mrs. Schneider stopped screaming then, all of a sudden, like she was a tap that someone had switched off. She spun around, saw Sofia standing there, and then raised one stiff arm toward the bottom of the yard.
“Look!” she shouted. “Look what you’ve done. This neighborhood used to be safe before your kind came here! Look! Look!”
Sofia felt her temper shoot up into the stratosphere. She had always been quick to anger, something she hated because she felt it just played into people’s prejudices about hot-blooded Latinas.
“What are you talking about, you old . . .” Sofia said. She’d been about to say you old bitch, because that was exactly what Mrs. Schneider was, a hateful old bitch, but then the smell finally permeated her anger and she staggered. “What on earth?”
She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, but that just seemed to hold the smell closer and she coughed, gagging a little.
“Do you see? Do you SEE?” Mrs. Schneider said, shaking her head with all the righteous fury of a tent revivalist. “This is what happens when people don’t stay in their place! I knew your house was full of thieves and murderers.”
Sofia wasn’t really listening anymore, because she’d seen the thing that Mrs. Schneider was pointing at, the thing that was choking her with its smell, and the bottom fell out of her stomach.
Blood. There was so much blood, and other things that were barely recognizable but had certainly come from a human. By the looks of it, two humans.
“I need to use your telephone,” she said, and her voice sounded like it came from a faraway place. “I have to call Alejandro.”
Yes, she needed to call Alejandro, and he would bring the police car and the ambulance and he would know what to do about all this.
Sofia turned her back on the mad old woman and her accusing finger and walked toward the back porch. She felt like she was swimming underwater, like the steps of the porch were miles from where she stood.
“Don’t you dare sully my house!” Mrs. Schneider shouted. “Don’t you put one of your dirty Mexican feet on the porch my husband built!”
Sofia ignored her. She needed a telephone, and there would be a closer telephone in Mrs. Schneider’s house. Besides, she didn’t want to call from home. She was going to have to explain why the police needed to come immediately and she’d rather the children not overhear.
She was opening the storm door when Mrs. Schneider charged across the lawn toward her.
“Get away from there!” the old woman shouted. “You get away right now!”
Sofia let go of the storm door and turned to face the livid Mrs. Schneider, who’d come up one of the steps and reached for the hem of Sofia’s shorts, as if she were going to pull Sofia off the porch.
Somewhere underneath the shock and the underwater feeling, Sofia’s anger still bubbled. She’d come over here to help this screaming woman, and the old bitch was only worried about her house being “sullied.”
Sofia slapped the old woman across the face as hard as she possibly could. The impact seemed to echo in the air between them, a seismic reverberation.
“I am going to call the police,” she said in a tone that she usually reserved for the children, and then only when they were on the thinnest possible ice. “I am going to use your telephone to do this. You will not shout, scream, or impede me in any way while I do this.”
Mrs. Schneider nodded, chastened. Her eyes dropped in the direction of Sofia’s off-brand tennis sneakers.
“The telephone is just inside the door,” she said. “I think I’ll . . . just wait here.”
She turned her back to Sofia and lowered herself slowly to the wooden steps of the porch. She seemed very old to Sofia then, at least ten years older than she’d been a few minutes earlier.
As Sofia entered the house she heard Mrs. Schneider begin to sob.
The phone hung just to the right of the back door as advertised. Sofia lifted the receiver and dialed Alejandro’s desk phone instead of 911. She didn’t want to talk to a dispatcher. She wanted to talk to her husband. She wanted him to come to her right away.
“Officer Lopez,” he said.
“Alejandro,” she said, and she was surprised to hear her voice crack. “Alejandro, you have to come. There are girls.”
“Sof?” he asked. “What’s the matter? Did something happen to Val or Camila?”