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  He prepared a cup of black coffee, topped it with a splash of Scotch, and drove to the hotel identified in the police report, where Jennifer Simon was shot in the parking lot. On the way, Ainsworth thought over his last few years, how he’d gotten to this point. He’d been a young cop in Houston for eight years when he was dispatched to the call that ended his career. The call was made by a mother, concerning the rape of her daughter. When he arrived at the scene, Ainsworth found a mother waiting at the curb with that five-year-old girl. The girl had blood on her legs; her dress was ripped. She stared at him with eyes that said no one was home inside her pretty head. She’d been viciously raped and sexually abused by the mother’s boyfriend. He was still inside the house.

  Without waiting for backup, Ainsworth had walked into the house, pistol in hand. He found the boyfriend in the little girl’s room, beside the bed. A butcher knife lay on the bed, within the man’s reach. This memory triggered Ainsworth’s hands to clench into fists, and a bitter taste of bile burned his throat. He had raised his pistol and shot the man twice. As the body crumpled onto the floor, Ainsworth used the barrel of his pistol to push the knife off the bed, to the floor beside the man’s still body.

  The inquiry was over quickly. An older child, the brother of the little girl, had heard Ainsworth enter the house and followed him to the door of the bedroom. Once the boy gave his statement, Ainsworth was suspended from the department. Luckily, there was quite a lot of support for him when the shooting made the evening news.

  He made a deal with the district attorney, who didn’t want to try a case against a police officer who had shot a pedophile only minutes after the man had raped a child. Ainsworth pled guilty to manslaughter. The little girl didn’t have to testify. He received a six-month jail sentence and a short probation. The district attorney was elected to another term without opposition.

  After the conviction, Ainsworth couldn’t get a private investigator’s license, so he worked under the auspices of an attorney who was an old friend. Even so, since leaving police work, he’d been on a spiral toward self-destruction, pulling himself out of the bottle just enough to survive whenever he lucked into a case. This time, it was one that would pay well. After that, he would drown himself in whiskey until another case came along. Or . . . well, who knew what turns life might take?

  He parked in the hotel’s lot. Although the shooting had occurred early in the evening, the police had shown a photo of Jennifer Simon to all three desk clerks on shift that day and night. None of them admitted to having seen her before. Ainsworth wasn’t sure he would accomplish anything more than adding to the billable hours on his client’s tab, but Curtis had nearly begged him to take more of his money, so he’d walk the parking lot and interview the desk clerks again.

  According to the diagram attached to the report, Jennifer’s car was parked in the middle of the parking area behind the hotel. Ainsworth walked the entire lot and found a quarter on the ground next to a minivan loaded with fishing equipment. But he discovered nothing of interest to the case. He made a pass around the lot’s perimeter, which was separated by a thick hedge from another, larger parking area for commercial businesses along the boulevard. The hedge was not well-trimmed; wind had blown newspapers and fast food wrappers against the line of vegetation.

  Ainsworth strolled, thinking the grounds crew was shirking its duties. The sun emerged from behind a cloud, and he noticed the glint of an object struck by its rays. He leaned over, pushed branches aside, and discovered a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol on the ground, next to the trunk of a bush. Looking back toward the area where the shooting had taken place, Ainsworth realized he was as far from that location as one could be while still in what could be considered the rear parking lot of the hotel.

  Ainsworth called his friend in the homicide office, told him what he had discovered, and agreed to wait for officers to arrive. Minutes later, a patrol car pulled up. The officer wrote down the information regarding why and how Ainsworth had discovered the weapon, placed it in an evidence bag, and drove away.

  There was little for Ainsworth to do on the case until ballistics tests were run. True to his effort to maximize billable hours, he spent the next few days tailing Brodie Bancroft around Houston. Bancroft met no women except at a garden club event where he spoke. He either wasn’t a player or had suspended his extracurricular romantic liaisons while the murder investigation proceeded. After a week of following Bancroft for three hours each day and billing for eight, Ainsworth ended the surveillance. It wasn’t conscience that prompted him, but boredom with the astronaut’s routine.

  Two weeks after he found the pistol, Ainsworth sat in his office just after noon, sipping on his third drink as he half-heartedly watched an old episode of Bonanza on the television set he’d purchased with Curtis Simon’s second retainer. The show was interrupted by a breaking news alert, indicated by the words Breaking News Alert flashed on the screen and several beeps loud enough to get the attention of every living thing within earshot, including the cockroaches that had been scampering about the detective’s feet.

  There’d been a break in the Jennifer Simon murder case. High-profile—some would even say famed—astronaut Brodie Bancroft had been arrested. Officers had recovered the weapon used in the crime and learned it had been purchased by Bancroft several years earlier.

  Later, Ainsworth watched the evening news. The astronaut’s attorney denied his client had been involved in the murder or an affair with the dead woman. The attorney claimed Bancroft had placed an ad in a local weekly to sell the pistol. He said Jennifer Simon responded to the ad, and they met at the La Madeleine Café to complete the transaction, for which there was no written record.

  * * *

  Donovan Ainsworth garnered some local attention during Bancroft’s trial, but squandered it on getting a few free drinks instead of increasing his client list. Curtis Simon reaped much sympathy as the betrayed spouse. Brodie Bancroft was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The judge gave him two weeks to get his affairs in order before imprisonment. Bancroft’s socialite wife filed for divorce.

  Ainsworth sent Curtis Simon a final accounting of his time on the case, including his court appearances as a witness. It came out to an additional $2,000. There was no objection.

  The morning Brodie Bancroft was scheduled to report to begin his incarceration, his attorney found the astronaut’s body in his Mercedes SL 450 Roadster. The suicide note read simply: I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t have an affair with that woman. I will not go to prison. Ainsworth heard about it from his buddy in homicide.

  He drove to a convenience store and bought a Houston Chronicle. Back at his office, he read the details of the suicide. After a few minutes of contemplation, Ainsworth called Curtis and asked him to drop by the office.

  When the introverted accountant entered the room, he held out his hand in greeting, just as he had the first time the two men met. Again, Ainsworth ignored the outstretched hand and told Curtis to have a seat. Then he began.

  “I know what you did, Curtis. You shot your wife with the pistol she bought from Bancroft.”

  It was impossible to detect any reaction. Curtis’s body shrank into the seat as if he were trying to hide, but that was how he’d always sat. “Mr. Ainsworth, I’m surprised you would think such a thing. What would make you believe that?”

  Ainsworth noticed, then, just a hint of a smile on Curtis’s lips. Or was it a smirk? It was accompanied by a vague sense of self-confidence the detective had barely seen in any of their previous meetings.

  Curtis continued: “You have no proof of anything. I will concede to you and only you that I suggested Jennifer needed a weapon for self-protection and showed her an ad in the newspaper. But your accusations are just that. And, of course, I would deny even this conversation, if asked.”

  Smiling broadly now, the accountant stood, nodded his head at Ainsworth, and walked toward the door. He paused, turned back, and added, “You know, I shouldn’t have had to suggest
you look at the murder scene. You should have gone there the day I hired you.” With that, he was out the door.

  Ainsworth walked to his makeshift home at the back of the office and reached into the cardboard-box liquor cabinet.

  He’d never regretted killing the abusive pedophile, though it had cost him his career. The little girl’s face had been with him every day since. Now, it would be replaced by that of a swashbuckling astronaut.

  He poured a full cocktail glass of Scotch, and thus began the rest of Donovan Ainsworth’s miserable life.

  XITLALI ZARAGOZA, CURANDERA

  by Reyes Ramirez

  Spring

  Xitlali leans on the bar at her other job as a Mexican restaurant waitress, five hours into her shift, feeling the bags under her eyes deepen. A customer waves her over to his table, to pay the tab for four margaritas and three cervezas, drunk and alone on a Tuesday at five p.m. He has a sad aura about him, thick and gloomy-colored like cough syrup.

  “Ah-kee ten-go el dee-naro.”

  “I speak English, sir,” Xitlali says.

  He hands over cash and barely leaves a tip. Xitlali yawns and doesn’t bother to offer a blessing, as much as it seems he could use one. Dios mío, she thinks, prayers and alcohol are the two most abused inventions in human history. Any method to not completely accept this reality will do. That’s when the phone in her pocket vibrates. She walks outside and answers.

  “Curandera Zaragoza, we have an assignment for you. Es urgente.”

  “It can’t wait?”

  “We tried calling other curanderas, Xitlali. No one else wants to touch this.”

  “Why is that?” Xitlali asks, leaning against the brick exterior of the Mexican restaurant and watching out for her coworkers.

  “This client is gay. The other curanderas say they cannot save a sinner from himself. We know it’s short notice, but can you take it?”

  “Ay, pues . . . of course. If evil does not discriminate, why would I?” Xitlali says as she pulls her notepad from her back pocket. Desgraciadas. “Digame.”

  “Jose Benavidez has been experiencing a haunting. Says that every night, while walking home from work, there’s a presence that follows him. Won’t say what exactly. Says he might encounter it again tonight.”

  “Has there been physical interaction?”

  “No.”

  “Bien,” Xitlali mutters, scribbling onto her notepad. She can sense his energy already, tense yet weakened by anxiety. Pobrecito. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Bien, bien, bien. Mira, the code is 1448 to get into the gate. Complex is called Cherry Pointe. Apartment 13.”

  “Gracias. Que Dios le bendiga.”

  “Que Dios le bendiga, Curandera Zaragoza.”

  After closing all her tabs and sneaking out of the restaurant an hour early, Xitlali jumps into her 2004 Ford Taurus with over 138,000 miles on the engine and leaves for the complex, fifteen minutes away. The air is thick with blaring lights like cheap knockoff suns. Every stoplight turns red, as though trying to slow her reaching Jose Benavidez. Xitlali uses these short pauses to turn and sort through her messy backseat, littered with clothes, various documents, and crumbs from the many dried herbs she uses day to day. I gotta make time to sort through all this shit. Always something. Juan Gabriel sings sadly through the radio.

  As Xitlali pulls up to the apartment complex’s box to enter the code, she can feel music and taste food grilling. She’s so hungry she can’t think of the code. Notepad out, she looks for the page, flipping through scribbles on other cases she’s solved.

  Mayra Montevideo—Heights

  Curse from a lover

  Space purified with Sage, Oracion

  Salvador Trujillo—Midtown

  Rashes from bad energy

  Recommended oils and scents

  Referred to Curandera Gabriela Herrera who specializes in herberia, Oracion

  Muriel Falfurrias—East End

  Fevers

  Blessed her belongings & space, Oracion

  Xitlali gains some confidence, remembering she helped solve these cases and many more in her other notepads. This will be no different . . . but I have a bad feeling.

  As she parks, she sees where the sounds and smells are coming from. In the apartment complex clubhouse a quinceañera is underway. Xitlali can tell from the strobe lights, cumbia pounding out from speakers, the drunk uncle standing before a grill loaded with carne asada, and a young woman in a light-blue dress with rhinestones lined vertically on the bustier, sequins and pearls in a swirl design on her belly, the gown raining down the rest of her body like thin tissue. Her silver crown peeks out of her hair, styled in a bouffant. She’s gorgeous.

  A grand sadness yearns out of her heart. Xitlali hasn’t spoken to her own daughter in twelve years. She tries not to think about it. There used to be a picture of her daughter on her dashboard, but Xitlali took it down awhile ago, so as not to be reminded. Bad energy for the job. She looks at the spot where it was, a patch of plastic darker than the rest of the dashboard. Twelve years. Not a word. I can’t do anything about it right now. Twelve years, carajo. Her tire bumps into the curb, waking her from her trance.

  Xitlali gears up: three vials on a chain around her neck (one full of sage, one of holy water, and one with a tiny doll made of wire and various colors of string), ajo in her pocket, and a case of tools and containers with crystals, holy water, and herbs.

  What makes Xitlali special is that she goes deeper than most curanderas. Rather than just addressing the symptoms of a haunting or bad energy, she investigates what caused the problem. Her clients love this about her.

  She finds apartment 13 and knocks. She can feel a headache coming on from hunger, and her ankles are swollen from standing around all day.

  “Yes?” a man yells from behind the door.

  “Xitlali Zaragoza, curandera.”

  Locks clink sharply behind the door.

  “Come in, please,” the man says. He’s light brown–skinned, in his early thirties.

  “Jose?”

  “No, he’s my partner. I’m Rolando. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  There are unframed photographs all over the walls, ranging from portraits to landscapes to abstractions, some color, some black-and-white. One in particular stands out to Xitlali: a shoulders-up portrait of a young man. He peers at the camera—beyond it, at you—and his eyes portray a deep lethargy or an accepted sadness. If there’s a difference. Xitlali stares into the picture, entranced by his eyes, which are unblinking, watching ceaselessly. You cannot return the gaze. His gaze has power over you. That is its beauty.

  “Ms. Zaragoza, you like my self-portrait?”

  Xitlali looks at the young man in the picture and the young man now standing before her. They are the same person, except that the one before her has eyes and an aura that aren’t as strong.

  “Oh, yes. I love this piece,” Xitlali says.

  “I took it after I had a nightmare,” Jose says, rubbing his neck with his right hand.

  Xitlali pulls out her notepad and pen. “What is this dream?”

  “Can we sit down?”

  “Yes, of course. But the dream. Digame.”

  “Why? It’s nothing really.”

  “If you want me to help you, you must answer my questions. Everything I ask, say, and do is to help. Entiendes?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Go on.”

  “It starts with me in a room, surrounded by mirrors. I’m wearing jeans, a white shirt, and these really tall high heels. I’m staring at myself. I can’t leave or move, and I work myself up into a panic. Then my father appears and looks right into me. I can’t talk. I can’t do anything. Then I wake up. It’s funny—in that self-portrait, I’m trying to make the face he made in the dream.”

  “Why do you think you have this nightmare?”

  “Well, because it really happened. My dad walked in on me wearing heels and gave me this ang
ry look. In the dream it’s more melancholic, but in reality it was rage. Every time I have that dream, it reminds me of how disappointed he was in me.”

  “Was?”

  “We stopped talking when I came out, and he died a few years ago. We never really reconciled.” Jose’s eyes well up. His partner rubs his back with one hand, but Xitlali can sense anger and helplessness from within Rolando.

  Xitlali feels the same sadness from earlier creep up within her. He must feel awful for never reconciling. It causes bad energy. I know the feeling. Shit, not right now, Xitlali. She concentrates on the job. There’s a lingering feeling of regret haunting Jose. If I can find a connection, we can finish this quick.

  Rolando speaks: “This all just seems like a lot of nonsense.”

  “Whether you believe it or not, this is causing tangible pain and dislocation. You dismissing it only feeds the evil power. Your bad energy is wasting our time,” Xitlali says. Rolando is startled.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Zaragoza,” says Jose. “Rolando doesn’t believe in any of this.”

  “Ya. It’s okay. Look, take me to see where this happens. Then I can make an accurate assessment.”

  As they head to her car, Xitlali sees the party still going. She sees the birthday girl hiding behind a sedan, drinking a beer. She and the girl meet eyes for a second. Xitlali looks away. You only get one quinceañera.

  She drives Jose to the movie theater where he works, a few blocks away. Its bright lights fight with the night sky, long enough to attract families, couples, and loners to sit in silence together and watch. Jose has explained that he works as a ticket attendant, sometimes as late as one thirty a.m. He walks home alone after, in the odd time before the bars set the drunks loose, but after the certainty of the buses still running, sometimes yes and sometimes never showing up, the homeless sleeping under the bus stop kiosks. Xitlali parks in the back of the theater lot, close to the street.

  They walk down Westheimer, a long, long street that always smells of burnt rubber and carbon monoxide, occasionally interrupted by the aromas of foods from all over the world: Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Brazilian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Guatemalan, etc. Passing cars honk and muffled strip club music whispers through the streets. The streetlights produce a yellow glow. As Xitlali walks, she feels the looming sensation that a truck could swerve into them at any minute, or a car could pull up and drunken voices from within call them spics, dirty Mexicans, job stealers, illegals, then step out of the car and ruin you. A lot of dark energy here. White bicycles and crosses dot the sidewalks, memorials where Houstonians were run over. Conduits by which the dead speak to the living.