The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,60
on the front door of Ron Baca’s mobile home. No answer. It was just after five P.M. and almost fully dark. It had been in the fifties again today, but as soon as the sun went down, the cold had come in with a mission.
He walked around the mobile home looking for a window to peek in. All the blinds were down. He left his card on Ron’s door with a note to call him when he got home from the cabin.
After that he drove to Mrs. Baca’s. The house was full of people again. His knock was answered by Betsy Sanchez, a woman he’d briefly dated in college before he met Susan. The last time he’d seen Betsy had been after a Halloween party when he was eighteen. She had gotten mad at him about something—he couldn’t remember what—and had slammed his car door as he dropped her off at home. She was Mrs. Baca’s niece. They chatted without enthusiasm.
He found Mrs. Baca sitting in a blue-and-white-upholstered chair in the living room. She was hunched over, staring at her hands, a half cup of coffee on a table next to her. She had more color in her cheeks, but she jumped when he spoke to her. She was wearing different clothes, although Gil wasn’t sure they were an improvement—a very loose sweater missing a middle button and a pair of green pants. She looked like Therese when she tried to dress herself for kindergarten.
She got awkwardly out of the chair and offered him some coffee. Two relatives nearby spoke up at once, saying, “Let me do that, Tia,” and, “Maxine, I can get that.” Betsy Sanchez gave him a cold, accusatory look, as if he should have stopped Mrs. Baca from suggesting the coffee. Now he remembered—Betsy had gotten mad at him about how much time he spent playing basketball.
Gil took Mrs. Baca’s elbow and led her into the kitchen. A woman in her fifties stopped in midsentence to watch them seat themselves at the table. Gil asked the woman and her two friends to leave. They shuffled out, saying, “Maxine, we’re right here if you need us.”
Mrs. Baca waited until they were out of the kitchen before she said with a strange intensity, “Can’t you make these people leave my house? I can’t have them here.”
Gil didn’t know what to say, so he kept quiet. He had stopped by to ask how she was. He now realized that she had changed her clothes and drunk her coffee probably to make her relatives leave her alone. Mrs. Baca got up, rinsed a washcloth under the faucet, and started wiping down the kitchen counters.
He tried to think of kind words, something to make her feel better, feel something. But there was nothing to be said. Instead, he asked, “Have you heard from Ron?”
“He’s not here.”
That, Gil already knew. “When was the last time you talked to him?”
“He called today, this morning. I don’t know what time.”
“Did he give you a number to call him at?”
“No. He said his cell phone wouldn’t work where he was.”
He had avoided asking Mrs. Baca the next question for days, hoping that if he waited, she would be more up to answering. “Mrs. Baca, what did you do after Melissa left Monday night?” It was probably one of the first questions Pollack had asked her. Mrs. Baca was automatically a suspect since she had been the last person to see Melissa alive.
“I cleaned the dinner dishes, then Ron came over and worked on the washing machine. It’s been broken.” She kept wiping as she talked. She was now working her way across the kitchen table.
“What time did he get here?”
“Not too long after Melissa left.”
“This is important, Mrs. Baca. Do you remember exactly what time he got here?”
“I hadn’t finished loading the dishwasher. I said good-bye to Melissa when I was putting the glasses in. He got here when I was putting the plates in. Maybe five minutes after Melissa left.”
“And how long did he stay?”
“He fixed the washing machine, however long that takes.”
Gil asked gently as she wiped down the refrigerator, “When did he leave?”
“I was watching the end of Jay Leno. I wanted to go to bed, but I didn’t want Ron to have to stay up alone.”
“And did Ron leave at all while he was here?” Gil asked
“No. He never left.”
That would have made it around eleven thirty P.M. when Ron went home. He was at his mom’s house before Melissa was