“The report you checked, was it one from that particular day?”
“Yes.”
“Did anything unusual or disturbing happen?”
“A lot of unusual and disturbing things happen here every day,” Alston said cheerfully. “You can count on that.”
“I meant, as far as Mrs. Harker was concerned. Did she have some trouble with any of the children, for instance?”
“Nothing on the record indicates it. Mrs. Harker might have had some trouble with a relative of one of the children or even a staff member, but such an incident wouldn’t be included in her written report. And I very much doubt that one occurred. Mrs. Harker got along well with everybody. If I had to make a personal criticism of her, that would be it. She was overeager to please people; it led me to think that she didn’t set a very high value on herself. These constant smilers usually don’t.”
“Constant smiler?” Pinata said. “Overeager to please? Could we possibly be talking about the same woman? Maybe there are two Daisy Harkers.”
“Why? Has she changed?”
“She shows no signs of being eager to please, believe me.”
“Now, that’s highly interesting. I always knew she was putting up a front. It’s probably a good sign that she’s stopped. These little Daddy’s-girl wiles can look pretty nonsensical in a grown woman. Perhaps she’s maturing, and that’s about all any of us can hope for. Maturity,” he added, “is not a destination like Hong Kong, London, Paris, or heaven. It’s a continuing process, rather like a road along which one travels. There’s no Maturitytown, U.S.A. Say, I wonder if I could put that across to the Soroptimists at their banquet tonight... No, no, I don’t think I’ll try. It wouldn’t be much of a fund-raiser. I’d better stick with my statistics. People, alas, are more impressed by statistics than they are by ideas.”
“Especially yours?”
“Mine can be very impressive,” Alston said with a grin. “But to get back to our subject, I’ll admit I’m becoming curious about the connection between Juanita and Mrs. Harker.”
“I’m not sure there is one.”
“Then I guess this is just a coincidence.” Alston tapped the cards he’d picked from the file. “Friday, December 2, was the last time Mrs. Harker appeared here. It was also the last time any of us heard from Juanita.”
“Heard from?”
“She was scheduled to come in Friday morning to talk to Mrs. Huxley, one of our social workers. It wasn’t to be a therapy session, merely a discussion of finances and what could be done with Juanita’s children, who’d been released from Juvenile Hall into the custody of Juanita’s mother, Mrs. Rosario. None of us considered this an ideal arrangement. Mrs. Rosario is a clean-living, respectable woman, but she’s a bit of a nut on religion, and Mrs. Huxley was going to try to talk Juanita into allowing the children to be placed in foster homes for a time.
“At any rate Juanita called Mrs. Huxley early Friday morning and said she couldn’t keep her appointment, because she wasn’t feeling well. This was natural enough, since she was just a couple of jumps ahead of the obstetrician. Mrs. Huxley explained to her that the business about the children was urgent, and another appointment was made for late that afternoon. Juanita was quite docile about it, even amiable. That alone should have warned us. She didn’t show up, of course. Thinking the baby might have arrived on the scene a bit prematurely, I called Mrs. Rosario next day. She was in a furious state. Juanita had left town, taking the children with her, and Mrs. Rosario blamed me.”
“Why you?” Pinata asked.
“Because,” Alston said, grimacing, “I have mal ojo, the evil eye.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“In case you think belief in mal ojo has disappeared, let me hasten to correct you. Like many older members of her race, Mrs. Rosario is still living in the distant past, medically speaking: hospitals are places to die in, psychiatry is against the Church, illness is caused not by germs but by mal ojo. If you accused her of believing these things, she would probably deny it. Nevertheless, Juanita’s first child was born in the kitchen of an elderly midwife, and when Juanita was sent to us for psychiatric help, Mrs. Rosario proved to be as big a stumbling block as the girl herself. Very few medical doctors, and not enough psychiatrists, have attempted to bridge this cultural gap. They tend to dismiss people like Mrs. Rosario as obstinate, backward, perverse, whereas she is simply reacting according to her cultural pattern. That pattern hasn’t changed as much as we’d like to think it has. It will take more than time to change it. It will take effort, intent, training. But that’s lecture number twenty-seven and not much of a fund-raiser either... I hope, by the way, that you’re not taking any of my remarks about your race personally.”
“Why should I?” Pinata said with a shrug. “I’m not even sure it is my race.”
“But you think so?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“You know, I’ve often wondered about that. You don’t quite fit the...”
“Mrs. Rosario is a more interesting subject than I am.”
“Very well. As I said, she was extremely angry when I called her. She’d gone to a special mass the previous night to pray for various lost souls, including, I hope, Juanita’s. I’ve often wondered — haven’t you? — how the parish priests handle people like Mrs. Rosario who believe with equal fervor in the Virgin Mary and the evil eye. Must be quite a problem. Anyway, on returning home, she discovered that Juanita had left, bag and baggage and five children. I’m not aware of any reason why Mrs. Rosario should have lied about it, but it did strike me at the time that it was a very convenient story. It saved her from having to answer questions from the police and the Probation Department. If she was at church when Juanita left, then obviously she couldn’t be expected to know anything. She’s a complex woman, Mrs. Rosario. She distrusts and disapproves of Juanita; she seems, in fact, to hate her; but she has a fierce maternal instinct.
“Well, there you have it.” Alston leaned back in his chair and studied the pink ceiling. “The end of Juanita. Or what I fondly hoped was the end. After a year or so we closed her file. The last entry on it is in November 1956: Garcia, when he was released from the Army, brought suit for divorce, charging desertion. Which of the children belonged to him, I have no idea. Perhaps none. In any case he didn’t ask for custody. Nor was any alimony or child support demanded of him, since Juanita didn’t show up for the hearing. The chances are she knew about it, though. Most Mexican families here in the Southwest, in spite of dissension among themselves, have a way of retaining their tribal loyalties and ties when confronted with trouble from the whites. And the law is always ‘white’ to them. There’s no doubt in my mind that Juanita remained in touch in some way with relatives who kept her posted on what was going on and when it was safe for her to come back here. I take it you’re sure she is back?”
“Reasonably,” Pinata said.
“Married again?”
“Yes, to an Italian called Donelli. I gather he’s not a bad guy, but Juanita has given him a rough time, and he’s carrying a chip on his shoulder.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I saw him in court after he got into the fight in the bar. My client was involved in the fight. Donelli couldn’t scrape up enough money to pay his fine, so he’s still in jail. It could be that’s exactly where Juanita wants him.”