The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,97

about it. She drove over to the place Ernesto had told her about. She wasn’t scared. She wore the gold crucifix she’d gotten for First Communion for protection from the evil. A white woman whose hands shook handed Maxine some heroin for thirty dollars. Maxine watched a thin girl heat the drug in a metal spoon and inject herself with it.

Maxine went to the cemetery and took the heroin to Daniel’s grave. She carefully dug a hole on top of his grave and put the heroin in it with some holy water. She said a prayer over him to Our Lord and placed some flowers in the hole, too. She went back every few weeks to buy more drugs with some of the grocery money and buried those near his grave. But last year, the cemetery had put grass over all the graves. She had tried to dig through the grass, but one of the cemetery workers had yelled at her. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go to Española and ask the curandera what to do because the curandera had died. Maxine decided to bury the drugs in the backyard near where Daniel used to play. She would pray to him every time to tell him where to find them.

The counselor was saying something, but Maxine ignored her. She started praying the rosary in her mind, since she didn’t have her beads. She started the Carrying of the Cross, imagining herself holding the heavy cross on her back, the wood scratching her skin. She was walking slowly up a hill and the cross was getting heavy. The Roman soldiers were pushing Simon of Cyrene toward her, to have him take the cross. She pushed him away as hard as she could. But when he looked up, he had Melissa’s face, with cuts on her cheeks. Maxine stopped her prayers and opened her eyes. The counselor was on her cell phone.

Maxine made the sign of the cross, closed her eyes again, and said the Our Father, starting the Crucifixion.

She said a Hail Mary and thought of herself on the cross. Her hands started to shoot with pain from the nails the guards were pounding in. She turned to look at one of the guards, but it was Melissa, with her face covered in blood. Suddenly, Melissa was the one on the cross and the guards were nailing her to it. Maxine was far away, watching Melissa. Her daughter was screaming to her for help. She opened her eyes and crossed herself three times, wondering again what God was trying to tell her.

Gil stood in the Strunks’ driveway, waiting for the state police to return with a search warrant for the house and car. They had decided to also get a warrant for Mrs. Strunk’s car. Ken Strunk had stopped talking after the state police came and called his attorney. As Pollack had said, “He’s lawyered up.”

Pollack jingled the change in his pocket as he walked over to Gil.

“This is looking interesting,” he said with enthusiasm, eyeing Ken Strunk’s car while he said it. Mr. and Mrs. Strunk were sitting in the back of a state police car across the street. They weren’t technically under arrest yet.

One of the officers called over to Pollack, saying that the Strunks wanted to see him. Pollack went to the patrol car, opened the back door to talk to the couple, and crouched down.

He trotted back to Gil a few minutes later, chuckling. “Those people have some balls. They’re stupid balls, but still balls. Mrs. Strunk wanted to know if she would be outta jail by tomorrow because,” Pollack changed his voice to a falsetto, “she’s expected at a function with the mayor.” Pollack laughed. “I think she thought that would impress us. I’m impressed. Are you impressed?” Pollack stopped dead for a second and smiled. “I got an idea.”

He walked to the patrol car and spoke quietly to the officer, then came back to Gil and said, “Let’s have some fun.”

The officer escorted Mrs. Strunk out of the car and over to Pollack and Gil.

“Mrs. Strunk,” Pollack said in a tone that sounded exaggeratedly polite to Gil. “It occurred to me that you must be freezing in that car and that you might be more comfortable if we waited inside the house.” Mrs. Strunk glanced toward her husband. Pollack said, “He’ll be fine out here.”

She hesitated. Pollack said in the same tone, “You know, Mrs. Strunk, you’re not a suspect. We would