The Third Sister Read online

  They were in the backyard now; the bicycle still lay on the ground and the clothes still hung on the line.

  Ilka sank down into one of the lawn chairs. “You really don’t have a clue.”

  7

  Her father didn’t say a single word while Ilka spoke. She handed him her cell phone and showed him the articles about “the Baby-Butcher of San Antonio” while explaining how Lydia Rogers had stolen babies and stuffed them with drugs. How dead infants had been dug up from their graves or taken from crematoria and morgues. Clearly this wasn’t what Lydia had told him that night about her past.

  For a long time, he sat in silence with the phone in his hands, staring at the screen.

  “Babies,” she said, “taken across the border from Mexico by a couple, babies stuffed with drugs. They would put the dead baby in a stroller or baby sling and pretend it was asleep. They covered its face with a sun hat and hoped the customs agents and border police wouldn’t try to wake it up. The nun you’ve been employing, the one living at your funeral home—among other things, she killed her own brother and sister-in-law and their two daughters.”

  Without a word he handed the phone back to her. Ilka leaned toward him.

  “She shot them. And before she and I split up, she pointed an automatic weapon right into my chest. You can’t trust the woman, and she hasn’t enrolled you in any clinic. She’s written you out of your life.”

  On her phone, Ilka showed her father his obituary from the Journal Times, the paper covering Racine and a large portion of Wisconsin. He rested his elbows on the table as he read his own obituary, then sat for several minutes staring into space.

  “So my wife thinks I’m dead?” he finally said. “She doesn’t know I’m coming back home?”

  Ilka shook her head. “Mary Ann put your urn on the fireplace mantel after the memorial service for you.”

  He slumped in the chair; Ilka could see that the extent of Sister Eileen’s lies was sinking in. She decided it wasn’t a good time to tell him his wife was in jail after confessing to shooting her father. That would have to wait.

  She straightened up when she heard voices out by the gate. Her father handed her phone back to her and glanced over at the sidewalk in the yard.

  “I’d better get dinner started,” he said. He wobbled a bit as he got to his feet, then he walked over to the gas grill and opened it. His movements were slow and shaky; he was possibly in shock from everything he’d been told. He began cleaning the iron grate while staring straight ahead at the wall. Ilka wanted to join him and put her arm around his shoulders, but she stayed in her chair instead and watched, trying to get used to the sight of him. To commit to memory the way he moved and leaned over the grill.

  A blond-haired boy came around the corner of the house and stopped on a dime when he noticed Ilka. A dark-haired lady holding two grocery bags followed. She was younger and quite a bit shorter than Ilka.

  Her father turned slowly with steel brush in hand and greeted them. He introduced Ilka and explained that she was his oldest daughter. “She lives in Denmark, but she just arrived from Racine. She’s going to have dinner with us.”

  A guarded look flickered over the woman’s face, and the boy walked over and stood behind her father.

  The woman hesitated, then approached Ilka and held her hand out. “Fernanda.” She glanced at Ilka’s father, but he had nothing more to add.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ilka said. She had no idea how this woman fit into her father’s life, though he acted as if she belonged there. The woman had pinned up her thick black hair. Even though her dress was simple, she radiated a femininity Ilka would never possess.

  “What’s your boy’s name?” Ilka asked.

  “Ethan.”

  The boy looked up at her from under a heavy curtain of hair drooping over his forehead. Ilka smiled at him to break the ice. Her father had turned away from them, and the woman stood motionless with the two bags dangling from her arm.

  “Can I help with anything?” Ilka glanced at the bags.

  “No thank you,” Fernanda replied quickly. “Would you like something to drink?”

  She headed for the door and nodded for the boy to follow.

  “The grill’s ready in five minutes,” her father said. “Do you want me to help with the meat?”

  Ilka could see he was tired. She offered to help in the kitchen, but Fernanda said the meat had already marinated in barbecue sauce and was almost ready.

  After she and Ethan went inside, he turned to Ilka and explained that Fernanda had worked for Lydia’s brother and sister-in-law in Texas. “They came to Racine with Lydia twelve years ago. At first, she hid them in her apartment, but Artie found out.”

  “So Fernanda worked for the family Lydia shot?”

  Her father ignored her question and said that initially, he’d thought the boy was Lydia’s son. “Artie and I figured she was running from a man who mistreated them. Ethan was a baby back then, no more than three months old. But it turned out he was her nephew, and that Fernanda was his nanny. Now she’s his mother.”

  They ate most of the meal in silence. Several times Ilka tried to start a conversation, but her father said very little. Fernanda told Ilka she baked key lime pies in a small bakery close to where the cruise ships docked, and Ethan went to school in town.

  “Tell her about how you help Theodor during the weekends,” Fernanda said to the boy, but all he did was look up bashfully at Ilka.

  “Ethan picks up fallen palm leaves for an artist in town. The man weaves baskets and hats for tourists.” Even though Fernanda made the greatest effort to keep a conversation going, Ilka couldn’t establish eye contact with her. Every time she tried, the woman looked away.

  “Does Lydia know they’re living here?” Ilka asked her father after they’d cleared the table and Fernanda and Ethan had gone inside. He sat with a cigar and a cup of coffee, exactly the way she remembered him sitting in the living room while her mother washed dishes in the kitchen.

  He nodded and said he thought Lydia sent them money to help make ends meet. “A token of appreciation to Fernanda for taking the boy.” He leaned forward and knocked the ashes on his cigar into a colorful ceramic ashtray.

  Ilka tried to clear her head. Maybe it was the insecure look on the boy’s face, or how the woman’s eyes kept darting around, but for whatever reason she felt like they were hiding something. “Why in the world did they leave with Lydia, when she killed the boy’s family? Did she force them to go along?”

  Again, her father didn’t answer. The sun had gone down, but he still wore his straw hat. Ilka was getting annoyed at how he just sat there, pretending everything was marvelous.

  “If Fernanda was the family’s nanny, and they went along with Lydia—it doesn’t make sense.” All the questions in her head seemed jumbled up. “One of the articles said the couple’s son was never found; he wasn’t in the house with the rest of his family. The police thought she might have killed him too and used the body to smuggle more drugs. We have to contact them and tell them the boy’s here.”

  Her father shook his head. “You can’t call the police. Ethan has a good life down here, he’s safe and has lots of friends. He and Fernanda are doing fine. Don’t let what happened in San Antonio spoil their lives.”

  Ilka leaned forward and spoke slowly and emphatically. “Lydia Rogers is wanted for the murder of eight people. We have to call the police and tell them she’s on her way to Racine. Her name is on the Most Wanted list. We can’t just let her go. We could be charged as accomplices if we don’t report her. And you can’t know if Fernanda and the boy are safe here. Lydia is that dangerous a person! She shot a young man yesterday.”

  Ilka brought out her phone. The experience back at the rest stop was still fresh in her mind, so shocking that her hands shook when she began thinking about it.

  Another silence fell between them.

  “We have to report her,” she repeated.

  “Lydia saved our lives.”
Fernanda stood in the doorway holding a clothes basket. “She wasn’t the one who shot her brother and his family, and she didn’t smuggle drugs in the bodies of babies.”

  She walked over and set the basket down, then gathered her shawl closer around her shoulders. “None of it is true. Lydia is a good person.”

  “Lydia Rogers threatened me with a gun less than a day ago.” Ilka described what had happened at the rest stop. “She almost shot me because we’d left without her bag! She’s totally insane.”

  Something flashed across Fernanda’s face, then she turned to Ilka. “What was in the bag?”

  Ilka shrugged. “It was just a travel bag. Maybe her nightgown, a toothbrush, some clothes.”

  Fernanda shook her head. Her golden-brown face turned a shade lighter, and she began wringing her hands. “I don’t think it was just a travel bag.”

  Ilka’s father sat up in his chair. He’d finished his cigar, and his straw hat lay on the table.

  “I think there were some important papers in that bag.” Fernanda glanced over at him as if she needed his support. “It must be the notes her brother hid in Ethan’s luggage the day the family planned on leaving. We found the papers later, under the mattress in the baby’s carrier. They are important to her, very important. Lydia was a scapegoat. They blamed her for everything, lied about it all. The papers were her only proof she was innocent. They are her insurance if she gets caught and has to explain what really happened. She needs those papers.”

  Darkness had fallen; the gas grill had cooled off.

  Ilka was about to say something, but Fernanda pulled out a chair and sat down. “If it hadn’t been for the children, I think Ben would have reported it earlier.”

  “Ben?”

  “Lydia’s brother. He worked for the Rodriguez family, but he was always talking about moving away and starting a new life. You might not know, but he and Lydia grew up in a religious cult. There were four children in the family, but only Lydia and Ben got out.”

  Her father nodded; apparently, he’d already known this. And she had to admit, it didn’t surprise her much that Lydia’s childhood had been unusual.

  “Ben and his wife, Jenny, planned to leave everything they had behind, to get away from Texas and the Rodriguez family. He wanted out of the life of a criminal. I packed the children’s bags the morning they were leaving. They weren’t taking much, just some toys and clothes for the first few days. The evening before, I heard Ben call Lydia to tell her they were leaving. He asked her to stop by early the next morning. I don’t know how much they talked about it before, but Lydia and Ben were close. They lived close to each other too, in San Antonio.”

  Ilka was getting cold. She poured herself a cup of coffee and held it to warm her hands, all the while watching Fernanda as she told her story.

  “Early that morning, we were packing the car out in the garage. I’d carried some of the load down the evening before, but we’d waited to pack the kids’ things so they wouldn’t ask questions. Ben and Jenny hadn’t told them much; they didn’t want them talking about it, it had to be kept a secret. I’d just picked up the carrier with Ethan in it as well as the bag Ben had laid beside it when they arrived.”

  She looked away for a moment. “I don’t know how many of them there were; I was out in the garage stowing things in the back of the car. The front door blew open, I heard it through the door between the front hall and the garage. First they shot Cindy; she was the oldest girl. I’d sent her down to put on her shoes. Her little sister was still upstairs with Jenny, and I ran inside to go up to them, but Ben was already on his way down. He killed one of the men before they shot him, then he fell in the middle of the stairs. I’d set the crib with Ethan beside the bottom of the stairs, but they didn’t even see it, they just ran upstairs, so I grabbed Ethan and the bag and ran back into the garage.”

  She squirmed a bit, rubbed her arms as if she was trying to hold herself together while she relived what had happened.

  “Lydia showed up at the house right after they went upstairs, I heard her car outside. I was hoping the neighbors had called the police. Or that Jenny had. I think Lydia knew something was wrong right off the bat, because she came in through the garage, which she never did. She saw me and signaled to me to stay out there and hide with Ethan. I had to tell her Ben and Cindy had already been shot. Lydia walked inside, but she came right back out and said they were both dead.”

  Again Fernanda looked away; then she took a deep breath. “Lydia had her brother’s gun. We listened to Jenny upstairs, pleading to save her daughter’s life.”

  Tears began streaming down her cheeks. “Lydia told me to put Ethan and his things out in her car, then she went upstairs. I got in the backseat, then a car drove up in front of the house. I thought about running in and warning Lydia, so she wouldn’t get caught in between, but she’d already heard the car. The door was open, I saw her standing just inside the doorway, and two men from the car started shooting at the house.”

  Fernanda fought to keep her voice under control. “Lydia stepped out and shot them both with her brother’s gun, killed one of them.”

  She dried her eyes and stared down at the table a moment. “The men upstairs heard all the gunfire, and one of them came down. There was more shooting, and I thought Lydia was dead for sure, but no, she killed him. Then she came running out, said they’d already killed Jenny and Lucy and they were tearing things apart upstairs.”

  She wiped away more tears and shivered a bit in her shawl. Ilka’s father hadn’t moved a muscle since laying his cigar butt in the ashtray. Ilka was leaning toward Fernanda, and she realized how tense her body was.

  “What happened,” she said, “to make Ben want to run away with his family?”

  Fernanda took a few moments before answering. “Ben was the financial middleman. And he was the contact for the people who crossed the border with the dead babies. I didn’t know that at the time. He had nothing to do with the babies, but he would find people, a single person or a couple, who wouldn’t attract much attention. And he wanted out of it.”

  “So Lydia helped him? Or how was she involved?”

  Her father said nothing, but Fernanda shook her head.

  “Lydia wasn’t involved. I don’t know how much she actually knew about her brother’s connection to the Rodriguez family. She said she suspected he was involved in something not good for him, but she didn’t know it was the dead babies and drug smuggling thing. And it shocked her, of course it did, but she was sure he’d done it to give his family a better life. Remember, none of them had anything to begin with after they left the cult.”

  She kept wringing her hands, but now her voice was clear as she told Ilka about the day she’d found out that Ben was working for the Rodriguez brothers.

  “I was folding clothes when they came to talk to him. It was a few days before the tragedy, all the killing. Either they didn’t think a nanny had ears, or else they didn’t notice me. Or maybe it was because I’m Mexican, just like them. Ben told them he wanted out. I could hear they were planning a new shipment, but Ben said once that was over, he was done. They’d already given him the money to buy the drugs, and they were just waiting for the dead babies to get started.”

  From the look on her face, it was obvious that talking about it disgusted her.

  “But Ben was planning to take off with his family and the money,” Ilka said.

  Fernanda nodded. Ilka’s father leaned forward on the table.

  “Where is San Antonio in relation to Mexico?” he asked.

  “About a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the Mexican border. The drug deal was supposed to take place in Piedras Negras.”

  “And what about the papers in the crib—what were they?” he asked.

  “They were records of all the shipments, with names of the people who had smuggled the babies across the border and detailed descriptions of where Ben was to pick up the dead babies. And then there were all the messages between him and the Rodriguez br
others. If Lydia had known she had all that information, she wouldn’t have had to run. She could have given the police the names of all the men who had shot her family. But she didn’t know the papers were under the mattress.”

  “But didn’t she call the police?” Ilka asked.

  Fernanda nodded. “She called and reported the shooting while we were driving away, but it was already too late.”

  “What do you mean, too late?”

  “The official report was already different from what really happened.”

  Ilka turned to her father to see if he understood all this.

  “The Rodriguez brothers have all sorts of contacts,” Fernanda said. “But Lydia was lucky. She got hold of an officer who knew her brother, and that saved her. She reported the attack on the house, exactly how it happened. She told him we escaped, and we were on our way to the station to make our statements.”

  Fernanda’s face was wooden as she spoke, except her eyes, which were wide with fear. She was clutching her upper arms, literally holding herself together. “Lydia told the policeman her brother had been working for the Rodriguez family, but he already knew that. Ben had contacted him and another policeman a week earlier; he told them he had information about the dead-baby smugglers. He’d agreed to inform on the Rodriguez brothers if the police gave him a new identity. But it never got that far, of course.

  “The policeman told Lydia to get away from there as fast as possible, because one of the Rodriguez brothers had been killed at the house, and she’d never get a fair trial if the police caught her. The brothers had connections in the police department, all the way up to the top, and they’d already named her as the guilty party.”

  “How many brothers are there?” Ilka thought about the two men she’d left behind at the funeral home.

  “Five, originally.” Fernanda added that even though it was common knowledge in town that they were criminals, they were still powerful. “They owned several commercial buildings and businesses. And they’d just built a housing complex in one of the newer sections of San Antonio, so a lot of people were dependent on them. Carlos was the oldest brother; he was killed in a shootout long before all of this happened. Enrique was killed while I was in the car with Ethan—he was the one Lydia shot in self-defense. And Javi had been upstairs with a few of their gorillas. Ben shot one of them when they broke into the house, before they killed him and Cindy.”