four

S

ofia Lopez clipped the top sheet to the line and then pushed the rope along so that she could attach the next one. There was nothing nicer, in her opinion, than bedsheets that had dried outside in the sunshine. She mopped her forehead

with the inside of her arm. In this heat the whole load would be dried in no time.

“Mama?” Her older daughter, Valeria, stood at the screen door that led into the kitchen. “Can I have some marshmallows?”

Sofia squinted at Val. The girl was eleven years old and obsessed with chemical reactions, so there was plenty of reason to suspect that Val was not going to eat the marshmallows that she’d just requested. More than likely the final result would involve a sticky mess on the floor of her bedroom or a plume of smoke coming out the window.

“What are you going to do with them?” Sofia asked.

“Um,” Val said, the toe of her sock tracing a pattern on the floor. “Just, you know, some experiments.” “Experiments,” Sofia said flatly. “Do these experiments involve fire?”

“Um,” Val said again.

From inside the house Sofia heard her other daughter, Camila, arguing with her cousin Daniel. They were both eight years old and always seemed to want the same thing at the same time.

“Go and see what the problem is this time,” Sofia said, turning back to her sheets. “The marshmallows . . .” Val said.

“When I’m done you can tell me exactly what you want to do with them and then I will decide,” Sofia said. Val sighed and went to separate her sister and cousin.

Sofia liked to encourage Val’s interest in science, but she didn’t like worrying that Val was going to burn the house down. She wished there was someplace she could send Val where she could safely perform whatever experiments she liked, preferably under the supervision of someone with a chemistry degree.

But there wasn’t anywhere like that in Smiths Hollow. In Chicago, maybe, but they’d moved here from Chicago so everyone could have a better life, and that meant that Valeria could observe chemical reactions outside in a backyard rather than in their cramped two-bedroom apartment in the city.

Despite what the Old Bigot across the street thought, neither Sofia nor her husband Alejandro nor Alejandro’s brother Eduardo nor his wife Beatriz had been born in Mexico. They were all U.S. citizens, born and bred, and their parents had immigrated legally.

And I’ll never tell her that, either. Let her think what she wants about us.

Alejandro had served for ten years in the Chicago Police Department, while Sofia and Eduardo and Beatriz had all worked at the Nabisco cookie factory on the southwest side. Eduardo and Beatriz and Daniel had lived across the hall from Sofia and Alejandro in the same apartment building in the Blue Island neighborhood, and they’d all taken different shifts so they could care for the children.

But all four of them always felt like they would never get ahead in the city, where rising costs made it difficult to even think about buying a house. Even with all seven of them living in this house in Smiths Hollow, they still had more room than any of them had ever had in Chicago. Just having separate bedrooms for Camila and Valeria had saved Sofia’s sanity, which had been on the verge of cracking if she heard one more argument about “her stuff is on my side of the room.”

Most of the neighbors were friendly and welcoming, and the Lopez families quickly found their place in their new home. Beatriz and Eduardo got better-paying jobs at the chili factory, and Alejandro had no trouble joining the tiny police force. Most days he was able to come home for lunch and he was never late for dinner because, as he put it, “There’s really nothing resembling crime in this town.” The dark circles that he’d always had under his eyes in Chicago from working shifts that never ended cleared up. And Sofia was able to stay home with all the children because her income was no longer vital.

There was the Old Bigot across the street, Sofia conceded, as she hung up the last of the sheets. Mrs. Schneider was always peering through her curtains at them like she thought Sofia couldn’t see her. Whenever the Old Bigot went to the end of her driveway to get the mail she’d glare at the Lopez house like she thought one of them had stolen her social security check.

When the screaming started Sofia at first thought that Daniel had hit Camila again. Even though he’d been told repeatedly that he wasn’t supposed to hit his cousin, their arguments usually seemed to devolve into smacking and punching if an adult wasn’t there to supervise them. Camila would hit back, too, but she was a pro at making it seem like Daniel was the only one at fault.

Her younger daughter was a born actress, and the slightest bump, bruise, or whack resulted in waterfalls of tears and the kind of melodramatic accusations that would be better suited to a Joan Crawford film—or rather, that movie about Joan Crawford, what was it called? There had been a lot of histrionics in that movie, and Camila seemed to be taking her

cue from the same director. Sofia was immune to these performances, but Camila still managed to snow her father, who never believed that his little princess was exaggerating.

Sofia took one step toward the screen door, then stopped. The screaming wasn’t coming from inside the house but outside it. Had the kids gone out on the front lawn? Alejandro had left the sprinkler attached to the hose up there so they could play in the water on days like today, but Sofia hadn’t heard any of them turn the faucet on the side of the house.

Val came to the back door, eyes round, and Camila and Daniel crowded behind her. “What’s that?” Sofia shook her head. “I thought it was you kids.”

As soon as she said it, she realized it was an idiotic thing to say. The noise wasn’t anything like the sounds the kids made, short bursts of raucous joy or just as raucous arguing. This scream was a long sustained thing, almost impossible in its breadth and length. How could one person scream for so long and never take a breath?

“Stay here,” Sofia said.

Camila immediately tried to push past Val to follow her mother—Camila had a nosy streak a mile wide—but Val snagged her around the waist before she could escape.

“Hey!” Camila said, and kicked her sister in the shin with the heel of her shoe. “Ow!” Val shouted, dropping Camila to the ground.

Camila collapsed and immediately started howling like her ankle had broken upon landing.

“Enough,” Sofia said, slashing her hand through the air. Her mother’s tone was firm enough that Camila ceased the fake crying immediately and stared up at her in astonishment. “All of you will stay right here while I see what’s happening, and you will not put a toe outside unless you want to lose all your privileges for the rest of the summer.”

“Yes, Mama,” Val said.

“Yes, Mama,” Camila repeated. “Yes, Aunt Sofia,” Daniel added.

“I will be back,” she said. “If I’m gone more than fifteen minutes, call Papa at the police station.” Val glanced over her shoulder at the clock, starting the countdown from that moment.

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?”

“No,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It’s not our girls. It’s somebody else’s girls. There are two of them, and someone left them in pieces all over Mrs. Schneider’s yard.”