Peripheral Visions: Sin Corazón

Peripheral Visions: They coalesce in the soft blur of darkest shadows and take shape in the corner of your eye. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late.

Sin Corazón

The building used as a halfway house had once been a school. The daytime guard, Thomas, had told Elonzo about the building sitting abandoned for decades after public schools were decommissioned and shut down in the 2030s. "My grandmother went to school here," Thomas had said. "She and my great aunt both. They didn't get an education past the sixth grade, but at least they got that." Thomas had sighed about wanting his own daughter to get an education, but seemed pessimistic that the gender laws would be changed.

Elonzo was sitting on the concrete stairs that led to a doorway on the side of the building. The expanse of cracked tarmac next to the building had once been a playground – that was obvious from the remnants of yellow paint that had once marked out games. A barely visible circle around a rusted upright pole had probably once defined the area for a tetherball.

The sound of voices speaking English came to Elonzo's ears. He stood up as quickly as he could, but his knees were painful, and the process was slow. He didn't have time to go back into the building and shut the door behind him. They were there too quickly: Three young men rounded the corner of the building. Troublemakers: He knew the trio. They had been bothering the residents of the halfway house for weeks. The police never did anything about it, and no one had ever showed up to repair the fence out front. Anybody could walk onto the grounds at any time; responsible citizens had jobs and families to attend to, which left the work of bullying and terrorizing innocent people to juvenile delinquents like these three. Elonzo scowled at them as the young men stopped, sized him up, and traded malicious grins.

"You don't belong here," Elonzo told them. "Go away."

The leader of the pack – blond, several centimeters taller than the others, handsome, wearing a confident smile – laughed as he approached the stairs. "Sorry, old man? Who doesn't belong here? Us?" The blond kid gestured to himself and then turned to wave toward the others, who laughed with approval. "Tony, do you belong here?"

"Yeah," one of the other boys said. He had black hair and an olive complexion. He didn't look too different from Elonzo or the others who lived at the halfway house. Elonzo wanted to say something to him on this point, but the blond kid had turned to address the other boy, a skinny ginger who, like the others, wore a black leather motorcycle jacket that looked like something from a movie. It was the sort of jacket that had been fashionable more than a century ago.

Before the blond kid could ask, the ginger spoke up: "Hell yeah, I belong here."

"Since when?" Elonzo asked. "Your great-great-grandfather got off the boat from Ireland?"

"I'm not Irish, asshole," the ginger kid barked, his grin turning instantly into a mask of hate and rage. "The name's Schäuble. Not Donnelly, not O'Brien, not any other Catholic name."

"Catholics," sneered Tony.

"Guys," the blond kid laughed, "let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll take care of the Catholics in time, just like we took care of all the others who don't belong in our country. But they gotta wait their turn." The blond kid looked up at Elonzo again. "We were making progress, bringing this country back toward decency, safety, and morality. But then we ended up with a Democrat president. And now look. Open borders, a new invasion, just like in the stories grandpa likes to tell. Well..." The blond kid took off his leather jacket and flexed his arms. "It's a new day, and I guess someone has gotta take out the trash."

The ginger kid was laughing again, as was Tony. "Get him, Kyle!" the ginger cried in excitement.

Kyle walked slowly up the stairs; his eyes fixed on Elonzo. The older man reached up and fingered the medal he wore on a chain around his neck.

"Oh, right, speaking of Catholics," Kyle grinned. "What you got there, some saint of something? Some false god? Ya gonna start praying now?"

His words had a performative quality about them. They weren't meant for Elonzo, the older man realized. The other boys were the intended audience. Obligingly, they laughed.

"You guys are soldiers for that foreign prince the Pope too, aren't ya?" Kyle added, leaning close to Elonzo, his breath hot and stinking. "Is that why you come here with your caravans and your plagues? Did the pope put you up to this?"

"We just want a chance," Elonzo began.

"To what? Rape? Steal? Burn? Murder?" Kyle put a hand on Elonzo's chest and shoved him back against the metal door.

"Who's doing all those things right now?" Elonzo asked, his posture straight and voice steady. Kyle's hand was pinning him, but he refused to slump or show fear. "I don't see anyone from this building threatening people. I don't see anyone who came here to get away from the violence committing violence. We just want to live in peace."

"Yeah? So do we. But the problem is, you're disturbing the peace!" Kyle's mocking grin evaporated with those words as he grabbed Elonzo by the shoulders, spun him around, and shoved him toward the steps.

Elonzo managed not to fall. More miraculously, he managed to make his way down half the stairs without losing his footing, despite the pain in his knees.

"Hey, Fred Astaire," Kyle said behind Elonzo as he gripped the handrail and caught his breath. "Want another dance?"

The three boys laughed as Kyle shoved Elonzo again, this time sending him tumbling. It wasn't much of a fall – only a few steps, which Elonzo more or less flew over, his knee throbbing anew as he touched a foot to the next-to-last step on his way down. He managed to keep upright until he hit the tarmac, but he was falling too fast to maintain his equilibrium. Old instincts from his younger days kicked in and Elonzo managed an awkward shoulder roll.

Others had converged on the scene by now, coming around the corner of the building and emerging from the side door. Kyle spun on his heel to look back at a man who was coming through the door, and the man backed hastily into the building once again.

"That's right, you rats, run – run and hide," Kyle snarled. "The time's coming when we'll burn you out!"

A small crowd had gathered. Looking over, Elonzo saw unsympathetic faces; he hadn't been popular among the caravan he'd traveled with to the border, and he wasn't popular now with the other residents of the halfway house. Then he saw Luciana pushing her way to the front of the crowd. She, like a few other onlookers, had a frightened expression on her face. In her case, it was fear for her uncle.

Luciana called out for him; Elonzo waved her back. "Stay safe, stay away," he called to her in Spanish.

Kyle was standing over him now. "You people don't stick together very well, do you? If you even looked sideways at an American, we'd all be all over you. One people, one voice."

Elonzo knew the slogan; it was popular with supporters of the last president, who had demonized people like Elonzo and the others who lived in the halfway house.

"Looks like everyone's happy to see the show," the ginger kid laughed, looking at the men in the small crowd. The men looked away, avoiding his glance.

Elonzo reached up to touch the medal again.

"Who's the patron saint of ass kickings?" Kyle laughed, looking down at him.

Elonzo pointed a finger at Kyle. "Don't," he said.

"Oh yeah? Or else wha – ?" Kyle had drawn a booted foot back to give Elonzo a kick; suddenly, he gasped and took a clumsy step to the side. Grabbing his chest, Kyle gasped again and then gave a guttural moan.

Tony and the ginger kid seemed to dance in place in sudden panic, unsure whether to run away or come to Kyle's aid.

Kyle gave another moan that seemed almost like a scream, and then he collapsed. His body writhed on the ground, kicking for a few seconds as he continued to claw at his chest, and then he was still.

Tony and the ginger kid bolted, pushing their way through the small crowd, half of whom were also starting to run.

Elonzo looked at the dead boy, then slumped to the tarmac and covered his face.

"Uncle," he heard Luciana say. Her hands were on him as she knelt over him. "Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?"

Still with his hands over his face, Elonzo shook his head, unable to speak as he choked back his sobs.

Tony and the ginger kid ran at top speed for several blocks and then stopped, looked at each other, and hesitated. "Should we go back?" Tony asked. "Shermy? Should we go get Kyle?"

"What? Fuck that!" Sherwood, the ginger kid, responded. "They'll kill us. Or the cops will take us in."

"If the cops get hold of Kyle they'll be coming for us anyway."

"For what? Having some fun?" Sherwood scoffed. "No, they'll take Kyle to the hospital, and he'll be fine. Whatever story he wants to tell them the cops won't care. It's just invaders. The cops might even arrest some of them and send them back where they came from."

"You think he's okay?"

"Of course."

"Man, I dunno... I think he was having a heart attack or something."

"What kid has a heart attack at seventeen?" Sherwood said.

"My cousin – "

"Yeah, your cousin had a congenital defect, and they knew all about it. It was no surprise when he dropped," Sherwood pointed out. "Kyle is healthy as a horse."

"So what happened?"

"I... I dunno. Too much excitement, I guess?"

"Yeah... my heart was really pounding," Tony said. He pulled out his cell phone. "Maybe I ought to call him."

"You think he's gonna answer?"

"Then I ought to call emergency services."

"Dude," Sherwood said. "Again. You think they're gonna answer? Shit, man, they don't even pick up anymore when you call 911."

"Then... then I..." Tony was staring at his phone, eyes intent. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"Tony?"

Tony gasped and shuddered. Dropping the phone, he clutched at his chest. "Fuck," he groaned, dropping to his knees.

"Tony? What's... are you..." Sherwood stared in horror. "No, man, not you too..."

Tony slumped to the ground. Sherwood stared at his lifeless body for a moment and then took to his heels.

Sherwood ran all the way home. He was young, and in good shape. Still, the fear and stress of seeing two friends fall dead one after the other filled him with adrenaline and made him feel like he might be next.

He burst into his house and started for his bedroom.

"Sherwood?" he heard his mother call.

He stopped and turned to her. "Mom!"

"What's happened? Are you all right?"

"I –"

"Sherwood, what's going on?" His mother approached him cautiously, her look intent and methodical. Diagnosing him, Sherwood thought. She was a nurse – one of the few female nurses in the city, having gotten special permission to pursue a degree and a career thanks to her family's influence.

He waved her back. "Kyle had a heart attack or something," Sherwood managed to say, breathing hard from exertion and terror. "And... and then Tony."

"What about Tony?"

"He... he..." Sherwood couldn't say anything more. A burning, savage pain erupted in his chest. It felt like his heart was on fire. Sherwood grabbed at his chest, lost his balance... the pain was so brutal it felt like a cannon ball had hit him, was still hitting him, was shoving him backwards...

Sherwood stumbled back against the wall, his arm flailing, his had grasping at the air with a futile gesture.

"You look like you're the one having a heart attack," his mother said, trying to take him by the shoulders. Then she gasped and pulled away – pulled away so quickly she lost her footing and crashed into the table in the hall.

"Mom?" Sherwood tried to say the word, which was an appeal and a question, but the excruciating pain in his chest blinded him, took the force out of his limbs, combined with gravity to shove him down to the floor. As pain continued to wash over him, Sherwood struggled against its white-hot force; he rolled weakly from side to side, struggling against a sense that he was dying.

He felt the breath leave his body. His mother was screaming. Was she going to call for help? Was she going to take him in her arms? Sherwood tried to reach for her, but the pain was too great; he grabbed at his chest again, but it felt like something was tugging at his arm... then, exhausted, he felt his arm go limp.

Everything went dark and the pain, mercifully, receded.

Half a block away, panting from the exertion of trying to keep up with the fleeing boy, Elonzo came to a stop. He'd managed to follow Sherwood and Tony, seeing them speed up a long, straight street that led away from the halfway house. The boys had paused to talk amongst themselves, giving the older man time to catch up to them. He was in good shape, though his sixty years left him slower and without as much stamina as the teenagers. As he'd drawn near the boys, Elonzo had seen Tony go down and Sherwood dart away. He'd given chase again, managing to keep the teenager in sight, Sherwood's black jacket and red hair standing out as the pursuit went on street after street. He'd seen the boy dash up a sidewalk, no doubt toward his home. Elonzo couldn't see the house from here, but he could hear a woman's screams. The red-headed boy's mother, he thought. She had just seen her don die.

He was too late. Elonzo stopped running and stood in place, his mask a taut, ashen mask. Then turned and started walking back the way he'd come.

Muttering a prayer, Elonzo reached up to touch the medal at his chest. The gesture brought with it a flash of having seen Kyle, then Tony, reach for their own chests before falling to the ground, thrashing, dying...

Elonzo couldn't linger, not even to say prayers. This was a neighborhood with big homes and green lawns, a place where rich people lived. This wasn't like the halfway house. The police wouldn't ignore a call from an address in this part of town.

Elonzo didn't run. That would attract too much attention, especially with the screams still echoing behind him. He kept walking, as quickly as he could without feeling conspicuous. He was winded from the long jog, and now grief took its toll as well. He choked back sobs. "Niños estúpidos," he whispered to himself. Tears trickling down his face, his voice shuddering and hoarse, he added: "Perdóname, perdona mi oración desesperada..."

***

"And after Kyle fell, you chased the other two boys," Home Sec agent Henry Darrow pressed. This was the fourth time they'd gone over the sequence of events.

"Sí. Yes. I followed."

"Why?"

Elonzo shrugged.

"Mr. López, why?" It wasn't Darrow this time; it was his partner, Jillian DeGuerve. She stood by with arms folded, staying mostly silent. Her voice sounded like a woman's, but Elonzo could see that she hadn't always been...

No, he corrected himself. That was the attitude of the ignorant people in his own country, and here as well. She was a woman; she had always been a woman. It was clear that she had started life in the wrong body and that she had not been permitted the appropriate treatment before adolescence gave her the bone structure of a man. Her body language and demeanor were nothing but feminine, but the evidence of a misplaced masculinity remained.

Elonzo's heart went out to her. He knew what it was like to be rejected, reviled... attacked with words as well as fists, with laws as well as attitudes. Women like DeGuerve had been accepted in Colombia once, during a couple of peaceful, prosperous decades, and so had men like himself. The people of Colombia used to shake their heads at the cruelty of lawmakers and priests in the United States, had once prided themselves on being so much more gentle and accepting...

Those decades had been brief, and they were now long gone.

"Sir?" DeGuerve said. "What made you follow them? Why didn't you stay at the asylum house and wait for the police?"

"The police? You think they were coming?"

"They did come," Darrow pointed out.

"Yes, they did, but not until they heard it was a chico Americano. When one of our young men yace sangrando en la tierra, the police, ellos no hacen nada."

"So were you following the boys who ran away? Or were you just running away, yourself?" Agent Darrow asked.

Elonzo raised his hands and then let them fall again. "I am extraño. I don't feel safe nowhere. Not back home. Not here."

Darrow shot a glance at his partner, who seemed unperturbed. "I don't understand how that answers the question. Were you chasing the boys? Did you want to punish them?"

"No quiero castigo," Elonzo said. "No para nadie."

"¿Entonces intentabas hablar con ellos?" DeGuarve asked him in surprisingly good Spanish that carried a Madrid accent. "¿Razonar con ellos?"

The older man looked at her and smiled. "Bless you, querida niña," he said. Then, the smile fading, he added: "Soy un hombre mayor pero la vida es dura en el lugar de donde soy. Corría muchos días para llegar a donde necesitaba ir. Todavía puedo correr. Quería ver de dónde eran esos chicos y adónde irían." His voice rising, Elonzo looked at Darrow and continued: "Los niños que se sentirían con derecho a venir a nuestra casa y asustarnos, nos lastimarían, como lo hicieron ellos. Como lo hicieron muchas veces. ¡Y tu policía no hizo nada al respecto!"

"Sir, calm down," Darrow said.

"Por favor mantén la calma," DeGuerve said at the same moment.

Elonzo raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "No tengo nada más que decir. Eres la policía. ¿Harás algo al respecto?"

DeGuarve gestured at Darrow and the two of them left the interrogation room. Walking up the hall, she asked her partner, "Did you get all of that?"

"What he was saying? I don't speak Spanish nearly as well as you do, but I think I got the gist of it. I don't think he's going to cooperate with us. But is that because he's angry about how the people at the shelter have been treated? Or is he angry at those boys?"

"I think it's more sadness than anger," DeGuerve said. "Just a feeling I'm getting."

"Where are we going?" Darrow asked as they continued walking up the corridor.

"I'm expecting the coroner's report to be ready."

"On which victim?"

"All three."

"They have the morgue here?"

"No. But I asked for the coroner to meet us here, to save us some time."

"I thought you were the one who liked to meet the locals on thier own turf," Darrow said, a faint grin tugging at his lips.

The coroner was waiting in another interrogation room. The police station seemed to be nothing but such rooms, Darrow reflected. He had been surprised that they weren't meeting at an immigration enforcement field office, but then he'd been told there were none in Merton. Darrpw didn't know if that meant there once had been, or if the decades under the previous president had seen the need for such places abolished.

And now here we are, he thought, with the same xenophobia and the same political smears against asylum seekers and immigrants as we had back then. He'd have hoped the pendulum would take longer to swing back toward fearful oppression than it had.

The coroner was a short man with a florid face and a shock of thin, pale hair that was so blond it was almost white. He wasn't hostile toward Darrow and DeGuerve, but he was decidedly brisk. He had a stack of photos waiting on the table when the agents entered the interrogation room. He had the air of someone with a presentation to give and a job to get back to – which, Darrow thought, was probably pretty much how it was.

"Given his symptoms and signs, we assumed at first that he must have suffered a coronary or an arrhythmia," the coroner said without introduction or preamble. "But then we did an autopsy..." The coroner nodded at the stack of photos. "And we found this."

DeGuerve picked up the photo on the top of the stack and examined it for a moment, then handed it to Darrow. He squinted, not sure how to make out what he was seeing; it was a red mess. It looked like shredded meat and pooled blood sitting in a metal pan.

"What is this?" Darrow asked, as DeGuerve handed him another photo that was much like the first.

"The kid's heart," the coroner told him. "That's how we found it. It was in that condition, sitting in his chest, before we opened him up. Thing is... there wasn't a mark on him. No external wounds or lacerations, no punctures... no indication of how that could have happened." The coroner nodded at the photo, a frown creasing his face.

"And which kid is this, now?" Darrow asked.

The coroner walked around to where he could see the photo right-side up, and leaned forward. After a moment he said, "This is the third victim. Sherwood Schäuble."

"What were the results of the other autopsies?" DeGuerve asked.

The coroner gestured wordlessly at the stack of photos. DeGuerve picked up the whole collection and leafed through them, Darrow looking over her shoulder. All the images were basically the same: Red pulp, slick shreds of thick, ruptured meat. A few of the photos showed the boys' bodies, chests opened – more red mess. Darrow shook his head.

"They all died from the same thing?" Darrow asked.

"All of them identical. On the outside, not a mark. On the inside... hearts that look like they exploded."

"Did their hearts explode?" DeGuerve asked. "Could this be drug related?"

"No." The word was part exasperation, part rueful, scoffing laugh, The coroner took one of the photos – a closeup of mangled meat and gleaming blood – and pointed out telling features. "If you look here and here you can see how the muscle has been sheared.... but here, it's much more forcefully torn. It makes for a quaint turn of phrase to say that someone's heart burst, but physiologically it doesn't happen, Hearts don't explode." The coroner handed the photo back to DeGuerve. "And in any case, this pattern of damage isn't from a rupture due to internal pressure. This boy's heart didn't somehow tear itself apart. What we're seeing here could only have been caused by the teeth, and the tearing movements, of a large predator."

"Like, you mean..."

"A wolf, if any lived here in Ohio," the coroner said. "A lion, if they weren't extinct."

"So, something bit into his heart?" Darrow asked.

"Yes. Without damaging his clothing, his skin, his costal musculature or rib cage..." The coroner paused, then ran his hands through his thinning hair in a gesture that belied his starchy professionalism and gave him a frail, sad aspect for a moment. "...or his pleural sac."

"That's..." DeGuerve began. She looked at Darrow.

"Impossible," Darrow supplied.

***

The coroner had let the agents know that Mrs. Schäuble was in no condition to tell them anything. He had interviewed her himself shortly after her son's death.

"Well, that was two days ago," Darrow noted as they turned onto the street where the Schäuble family lived. "Maybe she's in a better frame of mind now."

DeGuerve frowned at him, "A better frame of mind? After seeing her youngest son die in agony right before her eyes?"

They were in a government car. They'd stopped by the Dayton HomeSec field office after landing in the larger city, requisitioned the car, and then driven the sixty-four miles to Merton. The interview with Elonzo and the consultation with the coroner had followed. It had been a busy morning; now it was nearing one o'clock and Darrow was feeling hungry. That hunger conflicted, though, with the disgust and horror that that lingered in his gut after seeing those autopsy photos.

DeGuerve glanced at the geofinder to confirm they were in the right place. There were plenty of cars in this neighborhood, which spoke to the upper-middle class status of his residents. The rich no longer used anything so common as ground vehicles, and they lived in gated communities. The poor could no longer afford private, personal transportation. But the middle class – what was left of it – still drove cars. Even so, parking spaces were abundant. DeGuerve pulled over and parked, then looked out the window at the large single-family residence where Thorin and Florence Schäuble lived. He was an engineer; she was a nurse.

Darrow's next words were apologetic, though his tone wasn't. "I know," he said. "I'm just another jaded G-Man, another instrument of the 'reckless bureaucratic beast.' "

DeGuerve recited the catch phrase with him. It was a favorite of the former president's, now that he was running to reclaim the office.

"Seriously, I do worry that the job is taking a toll on your capacity for empathy," she told him.

"It's not the job," Darrow told her grimly. "Living in this country is doing that."

"Yes, and to most other people, too." DeGuerve sighed. "Having to interview a grieving, traumatized mother isn't exactly the highlight of the day."

"Let's get it over with," Darrow said.

"Let's do our best," DeGuerve rejoined.

They were expected, but it still took a long time for someone to answer the door. The woman who let them in had a haggard look and her clothes were drab; she might have been a maid, except that maids were expected to wear sharp-looking, if colorless, clothing.

"I'm Gerri," the woman told them as she escorted them inside. "Laurel's sister. She's in the living room..." Gerri waved vaguely to the left. "I've made tea. Would you like some?" Before the agents could answer, she said. "I'll bring it in." Gerri scuttled away through a portal on the right. Looking after her, Darrow saw a dining room: Wooden table, six chairs, a couple of sideboards. The table was crowded with stacked plates, vases of flowers, scattered notecards.

"Looks like no one cleaned up after the wake," he whispered to DeGuerve.

The agents turned into the room to their left. It seemed to be a music room; a piano sat near the window, and a music stand holding an open score was positioned in the corner. Darrow squinted; the score was for a Bach flute piece. The room continued to the right, where two sofas and a couple of comfortable looking chairs surrounded a large, low table covered with large hardcover books. A middle-aged woman sat apathetically in one of the chairs.

Darrow and DeGuerve moved to the sofa opposite her, across the table with its mounds of books. They all seemed to be about architecture and art. Some seemed to be deluxe catalogues for collections and exhibits at major museums: The Museum of Design in Munich; the Louvre; the Prado; the Viennese Stadtmuseum.

The woman in the chair didn't react to the agents. Darrow leaned forward, cleared his throat uncomfortably, and said, "Mrs. Schäuble?"

Without moving or even shifting her gaze toward him, Laurel said, "He pushed me away."

Darrow frowned.

"Excuse me?" DeGuerve said. "Who pushed you?"

"He was standing there sweating. Wearing that stupid jacket that made him look like a delinquent from some 1950s movie. Too much, too hot, I told him not to wear that thing around all the time. He'd been running. He was out of breath. He was crying. He said his friends both died... just dropped dead. And then he dropped dead, too." She seemed to chew her lips. "Too much," she repeated. "Too hot."

"Mrs. Schäuble," Darrow started again. DeGuerve put a hand on his arm, encouraging silence. They traded a swift look; Let her talk DeGuerve's glance told him.

"I know cardiac events when I see them," the grieving mother said listlessly. "He was suffering from some sort of... arrhythmia. I thought. They tell me it's... something different, something gruesome. But I could see he was in pain. Suffering... not just from shock or grief over his friends. They weren't really very good friends anyway, those two. I told him they were a bad influence. He told me he didn't even like them. He just hung around with them so that the cool kids would accept him. I'm not sure right now if I believe him."

The agents waited wordlessly for her to continue. Gerri bustled in with a tray; she set the tray down, then arranged a teapot on a trivet, followed by three cups, a creamer, and a bowl of sugar, placing them around the table wherever there was room among the stack of books.

"Oh my, I've forgotten the cookies," Gerri said, and scuttled off again.

Darrow and DeGuerve held their peace. The room was filled with a sort of surface tension; delicate, transitory, impossible to restore when broken. There was a storm of tears or screams or accusation coming, Darrow thought.

But no such storm blew into the room. Instead, Laurel sighed and shifted. Darrow realized she had been slumped in the chair; now she straightened up and looked at the agents. "My sister's been so thoughtful," she said. "So supportive. Though I don't think she really knows what to say to me. May I pour you some tea?"

Darrow was about to decline, but DeGuerve said, "That would be so lovely. Thank you."

Laurel nodded and reached for the teapot. Half-filling one cup, then another, she paused to hand the cups out, then half-filled her own cup. "Milk? Sugar?" she asked.

"No, thank you," DeGuerve said.

"If I may?" Darrow picked up the creamer. DeGuerve almost smiled at him; she held a firm belief that tea should never be "adulterated," as she put it, but she also clung to the conviction that Darrow was, in most matters not related to work, a barbarian.

Everyone sipped at their tea. Gerri appeared briefly with a plate of cookies – some vanilla, some chocolate – which she set down on top of a volume dedicated to the work of the painter Encenio Morales. Darrow suppressed a grimace. He owned a Morales canvas, a souvenir of a case in which the painter had been a suspect. He didn't like to think about the case, or the painting, or the reason for which he had acquired it.

No one touched the cookies. The agents watched Laurel with a sense of respectful anticipation, and Laurel looked fixedly at her teacup.

Then she set her cup down and looked at the agents – first DeGuerve, then Darrow. "Thank you for being here," she said. "And thank you for listening to what I have to say... assuming you will listen."

"We will," Darrow told her.

Laurel looked at DeGuerve, who smiled at her encouragingly.

"It's... strange," Laurel said.

"I'm heard we've heard stranger," DeGuerve told her.

"My son was having some sort of cardiac event," Laurel repeated. "I'm trained, I'm experienced, I wasn't panicking. I knew if I started to panic, if I let the fear take over, I wouldn't be able to help my son. So I moved toward him to try and take his pulse... to be ready in case he needed chest compressions. But then, he... no, not him. But something. Something pushed me away."

"Pushed you," Darrow said.

"It felt like when you try to put two magnets together. You know, not the opposite ends, but the same ends – negative to negative, or positive to positive. The magnets push apart. You feel the resistance."

"Yes," DeGuerve said. "It felt like that?"

"It felt like that," Laurel nodded. "Except it was my arm. My body. His body was pushing me away. Or maybe there was some other... presence. Or field of force. Something came between us. I tried to tell the police. I tried to tell the coroner, when he explained that my son's heart had... had somehow exploded in his chest."

Not exploded, Darrow thought, recalling the coroner's words.

"Or rather, not exploded, but somehow been torn into pieces," Laurel said, evidently having also heard the coroner's little lecture about this subject. She fell silent again for a moment, then said, "They told me he was beating up those people... those migrants at the shelter about a kilometer from here. In the old school."

"That's what we were told," DeGuerve said.

"Maybe they know something," Laurel suggested. "They told me that that blond boy... Carl..."

"Kyle," Darrow corrected.

"The leader. He died on the spot, surrounded by those people. They said one of the refugees pointed at him. They said the man who pointed at him pointed with a chicken bone."

Darrow coughed and reached for his teacup. "I'm sorry," he said, taking a sip. "Scratchy throat. Allergies."

Laurel looked at him like she didn't believe the explanation. DeGuerve knew he was bullshitting; Darrow had responded much as she would have if they weren't talking to a bereaved mother.

DeGuerve stepped in smoothly. "Mrs. Schäuble, we don't know exactly what happened, and at this point we can't account for the physical evidence. But we will be at the asylum shelter later today, after we speak with you, and I promise we will make all of this make sense."

***

"Chicken bone?" Darrow said as soon as they were back in the car.

"Nice job losing your shit," DeGuerve scolded him.

"Given what the coroner told us I would almost be willing to entertain the idea of some sort of sympathetic magic, or telekinesis at the very least," Darrow said, "but a chicken bone? Where does she think these migrants have come from?"

"They're refugees, not migrants," DeGuerve said, "and it doesn't matter where they're from. Yes, the chicken bone trope is racist – but it comes from a confused understanding of a documented phenomenon. Not very well documented, but enough so that it has seeped into myth."

"The kurdaitcha," Darrow said. "A kind of shaman in Australia, centuries ago. When he pointed a bone at a condemned man, the man dropped dead."

"From fear, most likely," DeGuerve said.

"But holy hell," Darrow said. "It wasn't a chicken bone!"

"I doubt the subtle details would impress Mrs. Schäuble," DeGuerve told him.

Darrow suddenly indicated something out the windshield. "Let's stop in," he said.

DeGuerve looked to where Darrow was gazing. "An Ishmael's?" she asked. "You in need of coffee?"

"Good will gesture," Darrow said. "We're going to be talking to Elonzo López on his own turf."

"Want to get on his good side?" DeGuerve asked. "Afraid he's going to point at you next?"

"No," Darrow said. Then: "Okay, yes, I'm afraid of that, but it's not just him. We'll be making nice with a whole shelter full of people, some of whom saw what happened to Kyle Carver."

"There are more than a hundred people in that shelter," DeGuerve said. "You going to bring enough for the whole class?"

Darrow smiled. He was rubbing off on her; the line was from an old movie he'd insisted that she watch.

"We just need coffee for about a dozen people," Darrow said. "First off, most of them will steer clear; they don't trust government people like us. Second, we really only want or need to talk with people who were in the crowd and saw the interaction between Mr. López the Carver kid."

"People who saw what happened to Kyle," DeGuerve mused.

"Or maybe felt something like what Mrs. Schäuble described," Darrow said. "A magnetic resistance or a field of force."

"Do you really think telekinesis is a reasonable explanation?" DeGuerve asked.

"It can't hurt to rule it out," Darrow said.

***

Darrow had more than enough coffee for a dozen people; he had about twice that much, some of it in two watertight containers and more in a small stack of cup carriers laden with decaf, with a few more specialized options thrown in.

"I'll have a macchiato," DeGuerve said, surveying the people in the room.

"I'll have a prime suspect," Darrow responded. "Where is López?"

As if summoned by name, Elonzo stepped into the room. He looked roughed up; he had a bruise over one eye, flecks of blood under one nostril, and his hair was in disarray.

"Mr. López?" DeGuerve greeted him. "Looks like you've had a spot of trouble." Noticing how Elonzo shot a glance across the room – and noticing that a young woman put her hands to her face in shock at the sight of him – DeGuerve muttered to Darrow, "See the young woman in the blue blouse?"

"The one looking upset at López having been in a fight?"

"I think we need to talk to her."

"Do you think she and he...?" Darrow clucked his tongue. "López, you old dog."

Elonzo saw them conferring and picked up on their glances toward Luciana. Divining the nature of Darrow's softly spoken comment, he walked over to the two agents. Looking displeased, he informed them, "Luciana is my sobrina... My brother's daughter."

"Where is your brother?" Darrow asked, with no trace of apology for his earlier crudeness.

"He and the rest of our family... ellos estan muertos. The... how do you say it? Los escuadrones de la muerte."

"The death squads," DeGuerve said. "Mr. López, I'm so sorry."

"My brother's last words to me were mantenla a salvo, to keep her safe," Elonzo said. Bitterly, he added: "He meant from all the others, but also... " He sighed angrily. "Creía lo que la gente decía sobre los hombres homosexuales como yo. Que somos un peligro para los niños."

Darrow looked at DeGuerve. "His brother thought what about children?"

"He bought into the lies that gay people are dangerous to children," DeGuerve translated. "By 'keep her safe,' he was saying..."

"That he didn't trust his brother," Darrow said. Even he seemed shocked.

"So I do keep her safe," Elonzo told them. He looked across the room at his niece, and then raised a finger to his throat. Darrow saw the young woman respond with a nod, and touch a small medal on a chain worn around her neck. She started across the room toward them. Elonzo began to wave her off. DeGuerve thought it preferable to have the young woman join them, to be able to size her up in person, and countermanded Elonzo's gesture wiht a wave of her own, encouraging the young woman to join them.

"Who beat you up?" DeGuerve asked Elonzo.

He glanced at her. "No entiendo," he said.

"You do understand," DeGuerve said. "I don't mean to make trouble for anyone, but I want to know who beat you up and why.

Elonzo glanced back toward the door he'd entered a few moments earlier. A burly man in a white shirt stood among the people gathered there, glaring at him. The man's shirt was torn, and he had a split, bloody lip.

"Looks like López gave as good as he got," Darrow said, scrutinizing the man.

"Tío, ¿te hizo esto?" Luciana said, reaching the spot where they stood. She touched his arm gently. "No puedes simplemente dejar que se salga con la suya."

"No te involucres," Elonzo told her firmly.

"Pero él es peligroso," Luciana replied, turning to look at the man in the white shirt. The man shifted his glare to her.

"They think you're making trouble for them?" Darrow asked.

"Yes, because those boys... they died."

"But they were attacking you," Darrow said.

"They don't... Ellos no lo piensan de esa manera," Elonzo said.

"They don't see it that way," DeGuerve translated. "Can you blame them? It's bad enough that the local hooligans come to where you're supposed to be safe and make you unsafe, but at least the police don't bother to do anything about it. But when some local kids end up dying, that's liable to make a whole of trouble for everyone."

"Temo a ese hombre, temo cómo me mira," Luciana said, pinching the small medal between her fingers. "¡Y cómo te mira, tío!" She took the medal between her lips for a moment – as childish gesture, Darrow thought, like sucking her thumb. But maybe also a kiss?

"Dios mio," Luciana murmured, taking the medal from her mouth again.

"Is that a saint's medal?"

"It's for protection," Elonzo said.

"From a saint?" Darrow repeated. "Which one?"

"No," Elonzo told him. "No saint. Very old, older than our people come to the church."

"You mean, it predates the mass conversion of your ancestors?" Darrow asked. "That must make it five hundred years old."

"It's very old," Elonzo said again.

"If it's not a saint," Darrow said, "then who is it? Who is it that you turn to for protection?"

Before Elonzo could reply there was a sharp gasp and a choked cry of pain. Darrow and DeGuerve looked across the room to see the man in the white shirt grasping at his chest.

And his hand, Darrow noted, seemed to be batting at something – pressing against some unseen force that kept shoving his hand back again.

The man cried out once more and dropped to his knees. Glancing at Luciana, Darrow saw the young woman was staring right at the man. She had the medal between her lips again. Her mouth was moving slightly; was she praying?

Elonzo was looking at Luciana, too. "No," he cried. "¡Esto no está bien, esto no te mantendrá a salvo!"

Luciana and her uncle locked eyes for a moment.

Across the room, the man in the white shirt had collapsed to the floor and was thrashing weakly, his hand still struggling with whatever invisible force was attacking him.

"Emilio!" a woman in a red dress screamed, standing near the man and looking down at him in terror.

Darrow stepped toward the stacked coffee carriers. Picking up all three tiers, he ran toward Emilio, then threw the caffee carriers at the struggling man.

Cries of astonishment rose from both sides of the room: "¿Qué está haciendo?" "¡El agente de la ley está loco!" "¡Está atacando a Emilio con el café!"

But the shouts subsided instantly as the coffee cups struck something and the plastic lids flew off. Hot coffee spread across the air as if traveling along a glass sculpture, dripping to the floor from some sort of undulating mass that moved quickly and invisibly.

The flowing, shimmering coffee formed an impression as it hung in the air: The impression of a shape – something huge and brutish, something with a powerful body and a long neck stretched toward Emilio's chest. Then the shape seemed to whirl around; Emilio gave one final spasm, and his body lay still. The massive shape seemed to move toward Darrow, who took a step back; then the thin layer of coffee that formed a contour around the invisible creature abruptly fell to the floor, spattering Darrow's shoes.

Darrow himself stood unharmed. Shaken, he put his hands to his chest as if to assure himself he wasn't being devoured, then he looked toward DeGuerve and nodded with relief.

***

DeGuerve had promised the grieving Mrs. Schäuble that she and Darrow would "make all of this make sense." It was not a promise she could keep.

After three additional days of quizzing witnesses, examining footage from the video feed they had set up in anticipation of getting statements from the people at the asylum shelter, and grilling both Elonzo and Luciana, they had no more answers than they'd had before, other than that Elonzo had insisted the medal his niece wore – the medal he had given her after the deaths of the three boys – was a powerful talisman against evil.

Elonzo told the agents that the medallion had been in his family for centuries. A metalsmith who had learned the craft from a Spaniard had made it, but devoted it to an ancient and feared god, a "protector" of their people since the beginning of time. Elonzo said that his own grandmother had given him the medal when he was young, seeing that he was gay and that he was already suffering at the hands of other boys as well as some adults.

Elonzo begged the agents to confiscate the medal from his niece. "It will protect her, as it protected me," DeGuerve translated him saying. "But in doing so, it will be the death of many others." Elonzo told them that several people had died when he was young before others got the message and let him be. The deaths had started again after he and Luciana left Colombia to make their way to Canada via Mexico and then the United States. The journey had involved many perils, most of them encountered once they crossed the border into the U.S.

"And now my own people, once again, are a threat," Elonzo said.

"So, you should keep the medal," Darrow said.

Elonzo protested that in the wrong hands it was far too dangerous, and added that the "protector" wasn't entirely benign. It could also require sacrifice. He said he feared what Luciana might do over and above simply keeping herself safe.

"I'm sorry," DeGuerve told him in Spanish. "We don't have a reason to take the medal away from her. Not a reason that would stand up under the law, anyway."

"The law," Elonzo sighed bitterly. "Now you worry about the law. You police, you are all the same..."

Darrow added to himself that it wouldn't be healthy for anyone, even Home Sec agents, to cause the young woman to feel any trepidation.

"So what do we say in the report?" Darrow asked. They had returned the borrowed car to the Dayton field office, and now a local agent was driving them to the airport.

"Well, we've ruled out any terrorist involvement, and any connection to the drug trade, which was why we were tasked to this case to begin with," DeGuerve mulled. "I think we can leave it at that."

"I would," the agent who was driving – his name was Coulson – agreed.

***

They had come for her uncle again. And they had come for her.

And when Uncle Elonzo had turned on her in anger and accused her of using too much force, or being unjust and wrathful, and called her a murderer... all after she had sent the protector to save him... her anger and hurt had unleashed the monster on him, as well as on the rest.

Luciana stood in the courtyard beside the halfway house. The tarmac was buckled and unkempt; the building itself was in shoddy repair. But it was the 144 dead bodies inside the building and scattered around the grounds just outside it that made it unlivable.

She could no longer stay there.

She would have liked to give her uncle a proper burial. The sheet she had covered him with – him alone, of all of the dead – would have to do. She wondered if anyone would ever bother to come and see what had happened. Would years pass with the bodies becoming bones, and the bones lying undisturbed?

Luciana wouldn't be staying around to find out. She wanted to go someplace else. Maybe back home... or maybe some other city in the United States. Someplace glamorous. Chicago, or Minneapolis, or Chico.

She reached for her suitcase, then decided to travel free and light. Touching the medal that hung from the chain at her neck, she told herself: Tengo todo lo que necesito.

I have all I need.

Next week we stop over in a small city where refugees of a different sort have taken up residence – to the displeasure of some of the locals. But the xenophobic and the ungenerous of heart might wish to recall the ancient wisdom that tells us of the wisdom of offering hospitality. Join us then as we seek "Sanctuary."