Come in, please.”
She took her to an office with a small desk, a computer, a bookcase, various metal filing cabinets, and a few family photos. Maria didn’t have much time to observe her surroundings because the young girl came back right away with two glasses of water and two cups of coffee on a tray.
“Wow, with foam and all. Thank you.”
“Sit down, please,” said the owner of the house, pointing to one of the two armchairs in front of the desk. She sat in the other.
She’s perceptive, Maria thought. She didn’t sit at the desk to avoid creating distance between us.
“Go ahead, please.”
“Would you mind if I take notes and record the conversation?”
“Of course not.”
“So, I’ve been assigned to reopen both of the cases, the accident involving your first husband and also the disappearance of your daughter. I’ve read what little information there is in the files, which is understandable given that it happened a few weeks after Hurricane Andrew, and I’ve seen everything on the Internet you’ve done to try to find your daughter, that you think she’s still alive, and that you thought you recognized her recently among the crowd at a Heat game. I want to take the case in a new direction without the influence of the prior investigation. To do so, I need you to be completely honest with me, tell me everything from the beginning, even though you might have already gone over it with other detectives, and that you answer my questions without leaving anything out. Are you willing to do so, even if it opens old wounds?”
“You have my word that I will tell you everything.”
“Then let’s start at the beginning. Where did you meet Lazo? What did he do? How long were you together for?”
Gladys Elena took a deep breath, as if to gather up the courage before she began to speak.
“Well, Detective, I was born in Pinar del Rio, not even in the city, just in the middle of nowhere. My parents were simple people, good and honorable country folks. If you’re Cuban, certainly you know that the worst times of the “Special Period” were in ’93 and ’94, but even as early as ’91 things were already bad. Some of our neighbors began pressuring my father to leave the country with them on a raft. My mother refused to. It frightened her, and she didn’t want to risk losing my brother and me. We were just children. My brother was only fifteen and I was seventeen, more or less the same age my children are now. On another occasion, when you have time, I can tell you about the preparations for the voyage and about the journey itself. It was something I’ll never forget. It scarred me for life because my father and neighbors died during the passage. Only Raulito and I survived, arriving here without anything and not knowing anyone. Fortunately, at the last minute, the thought of the sea at night terrified my mother, and she refused to get on the raft.”
The woman took a moment, perhaps searching for the strength to continue.
“At first, we got help from the government, from the Red Cross. Eventually we found some distant relatives who took us in for a while. My mother suffered so much by herself in Cuba that she braved the journey months later and got here safely. The three of us found work. Things were looking up. The laundromat where I worked—you can’t imagine how hot it was in there—is where I met Raimundo, who worked as an electrician. He was much older than me, but we were a lot alike. I had left my boyfriend back in Cuba and, although I’d heard rumors that he was seeing somebody else, I kept receiving letters from him and I still loved him…but the truth is I was falling in love with Ray. I became pregnant and we got married soon after. Our daughter was born prematurely, I don’t know why, but thank God she weighed enough and was healthy. I recovered the positive outlook on life I had before the trauma caused by my father’s death.”
She took a sip of water and continued:
“Then Hurricane Andrew came. We hadn’t even been here for a year. Little Gladys was a newborn. She cried constantly. She was colicky. Then we lost power. You wouldn’t believe how hard that was with a newborn. Our neighbors, who had a generator, let us keep the baby bottles in their refrigerator. I couldn’t nurse her because my milk dried up. It must have been nerves. The heat was unbearable. I don’t know how long I went without sleeping. I was exhausted. A few days later, we got a message from my mother that her phone was out but at least she had electricity, and that we should go over there. I didn’t have enough energy. That’s when the lights came back on. Ray suggested that he take the baby to my mother’s so that I could rest. I packed the diaper bag with bottles, formula, diapers, the dirty laundry that needed washed, and whatever clean clothes I had for the baby… Finally, he put her in the car seat and drove off; I laid down and slept for ten hours.”
“When did you learn of the accident?”
“Since neither my mother nor I had a phone, she thought that we had a change of plans, and I thought that she had the baby and that Ray was out working. The next morning, a police officer knocked on the door. Someone had seen the car in the canal and when they recovered it they found Ray.”
“But not the baby?”
“No…never.”
“Do you think that the current could’ve dragged her off?”
“That’s what I thought for a while. It drove me crazy. You have no idea how depressed I became afterwards.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“Detective Duquesne, because two years later they found human remains and thought they were hers.”
“Yes, I read that.”
“Since the police contacted me again, I asked to see the photos of the accident for the first time.”
“And?”
“The photos were a bit blurry, but I could see clearly that Gladys’s seatbelt was unfastened. All the windows were closed when they took the car out of the water. Only the passenger-side window was cracked open a bit. Where could the baby have gone? And they didn’t even find the diaper bag that was placed beside her. Someone took my baby out of the car before it crashed into the canal.”
She calmly placed her hand on her chest to emphasize her conviction.
“I know that she’s still alive. I know it in my heart.”
Day 2—Tuesday, November 3, 2015
There’s nothing like a hot cup of Cuban coffee from any local café to start the day. The coffee she made at home just wasn’t the same. Additionally, she liked how the waiters would call her “mi amor” and “mi vida.” And to think that when I was a kid that affectionate treatment annoyed me! You’ve become soft in your old age, she said to herself while enjoying the last sip of her strong, sweet coffee.
The night before she had gone to her dad’s house for a beer on her way home, had exchanged texts with Patrick who assured her that the semester was off to a good start, and had put together a salad for dinner. She really couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was that worried her, but she couldn’t fall asleep. Even when she felt like she was sleeping, she kept thinking about the case.
The previous afternoon, she had finished
