The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,75

way. Not possible. These guys know what they’re talking about. And we know drugs were found in her car.”

“Tommy,” she said firmly, “I will not argue this with you.”

In the end, he told her the names of his sources—Santa Fe Police Officers Manny Cordova and Ron Baca and Lieutenant Tim Pollack of the state police. Tommy added that Pollack was the one who had leaked the autopsy to them.

Lucy was looking up triangulating cell-phone towers on the Internet when her managing editor gestured at her to come into his office. He said. “You said you wanted to talk to me?”

She had asked to speak with John Lopez right after her conversation with Tommy Martinez. At the time, she’d been pretty clear about what she wanted to say, but now she wasn’t so sure. She started with, “I think we may have been wrong in the Melissa Baca story that was in Wednesday’s paper.”

Lopez always looked so concerned. “How so?”

“We said Melissa was a drug user, but I don’t think she was.”

“What makes you think that?” Even though she wanted to, Lucy couldn’t mention what Hector Morales had said. She had promised Gil.

“Well, on a hunch, I asked Tommy Martinez who the sources were that said Melissa’s Baca did drugs. He said one of them was Melissa’s brother,” she said.

“That’s interesting.” More of the concerned look.

“I think so. I mean, it’s really weird that a brother would offer up that kind of information. Normally, he’d be the one screaming if we printed something like that. It makes me think that maybe he’s involved in her murder.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“Well, it’d be great if we could say he was the one who gave us the tip, but we can’t, because it was off the record. I think the best we can do is print a story that casts some doubt on the drug angle.”

“Are the police no longer saying drugs were involved in Melissa’s death?”

Lucy faltered. “No.”

“Do you have any hard evidence that our sources were lying?”

“No, but it’s very strange.”

Lopez nodded. They sat without talking, Lopez just staring at her, as if waiting for her to have an epiphany.

“Why do you think you’re really talking to me about this?” he asked. His psychiatrist-sounding voice was perfectly modulated. It was inquisitive, yet not threatening or judgmental. The man had missed his calling.

She stumbled, saying, “I don’t know….”

“Do you think maybe it’s because you’re feeling guilty?” She didn’t answer. He continued. “Do you think that maybe if you’d asked Tommy Martinez who his sources were to begin with, that you would have handled this differently? That maybe you would have questioned the information about the drugs initially?”

That was the truth, of course. If she’d been like the other editors, she would have asked Tommy who his sources were. She would have known that Melissa’s brother was the leak from the beginning. And she would have wondered why. She wouldn’t have let the information about the drugs get into the paper. Now everyone in Santa Fe thought Melissa Baca had been an addict. And there was no taking that back. Ever. And it was her fault.

Lopez watched her, considering, before he said, “If the police ever officially say that Melissa Baca didn’t do drugs, we’ll write a story about it. But, until that happens, we do nothing.”

Mrs. Paine jumped up from the table, almost knocking it over, when she saw Gil come in. Her coffee was still swishing in its cup as they shook hands. Her skin was soft, but her nails were bitten down to the quick. The nail of her ring finger was shredded so low that it was spotted with blood.

Gil recalled an instructor at the police academy who used to categorize all the people he interviewed as animals. “Elephants never kill anyone, but watch out for those badgers,” he would say. Mrs. Paine reminded Gil of a ferret. She looked like she was on something. Her small, dark eyes looked unfocused and her upper lip was sweaty. She wiped it with a napkin. She adjusted the scarf and the gold chain around her neck.

She had called him, saying that her husband had told her about Gil’s visit and that she wanted to clear up a few things. They were at a coffee shop where a Chinese restaurant had been a month ago. Mrs. Paine didn’t look like she needed coffee.

She said that her first name was Joyce, then said nothing else. She just sat there, tearing