David Morrell - Assumed Identity

“Then why wouldn’t we have approved of you?” Juana’s mother’s dark eyes flashed again.

“Because I’m not Catholic.”

“. . Oh.” The woman’s voice dropped.

“Juana said you’d told her many times that was one thing you expected of her. . that if she got serious about a man, he would have to be a Catholic. . because you wanted to be certain that your grandchildren would be raised in the Church.”

“Yes.” Juana’s mother swallowed. “That is true. I told her that often. Apparently, you do know her well.”

In the background, a man’s gruff voice interrupted. “Anita, who are you talking to? What’s taking you so long?”

Juana’s mother glanced down the hallway toward the entrance to the living room. “Wait here,” she told Buchanan and closed the door.

Feeling exposed, Buchanan heard muffled words.

Juana’s mother returned. “Please, come in.”

She didn’t sound happy about the invitation, though, and she didn’t look happy as she locked the door behind them and escorted Buchanan into the living room.

It was connected via an archway to the kitchen, and immediately Buchanan smelled the lingering fragrance of oil, spices, onions, and peppers from dinner. The room had too much furniture, mostly padded chairs and various wooden tables. A crucifix hung on the wall. A short, heavy-chested, fiftyish man with pitch-black hair and darker eyes than his wife sat in a LaZ-Boy recliner. His face was round but craggy. He wore work shoes and a blue coverall that had a patch-MENDEZ MECHANICS. Buchanan remembered that Juana had told him about the six garages her father owned throughout the city. The man was smoking a cigar and holding a bottle of Corona beer.

“Who are you?” It was difficult to hear him because of the laughter from the television.

“As I told your wife, my name is. .”

“Yes. Jeff Walker. Who are you? ”

Buchanan frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

Juana’s mother fidgeted.

“I’m a friend of your daughter,” Buchanan said.

“So you claim.” The man looked nervous. “When is her birthday?”

“Why on earth would. .?”

“Just answer the question. If you’re as good a friend as you say, you’ll know when she has her birthday.”. .

“Well?”

“As I recall, it’s in May. The tenth.” Buchanan remembered it because six years previously he and Juana had started working together in May. Under the pretense of being husband and wife in New Orleans, they’d made a big deal about her birthday on the tenth.

“Anybody could look that up in a file. Does she have any allergies?”

“Senor Mendez, what’s this about? I haven’t seen her in several years. It’s very hard to remember if. .”

“That’s what I thought.”

“But I recall she had a problem with cilantro. That always surprised me, her being allergic to an herb that’s used so often in Hispanic cooking.”

“Birthmarks?”

“This is. .”

“Answer the question.”

“There’s a scar on the back of her right leg, up high, near her hip. She said she got it when she was a kid, climbing over a barbed-wire fence. What’s next? Are you going to ask me how I saw the scar? I think I made a mistake. I think I shouldn’t have come here. I think I should have gone to some of Juana’s friends to see if they knew where I could find her.”

As Buchanan turned toward the door, Juana’s mother said sharply, “Pedro.”

“Wait,” the father said. “Please. If you’re truly a friend of my daughter, stay.”

Buchanan studied him, then nodded.

“I asked you those questions because. .” Pedro seemed in turmoil. “You’re the fourth friend of Juana to ask where she was in the past two weeks.”

Buchanan didn’t show his surprise. “The fourth. .?”

“Is she in trouble?” Anita’s voice was taut with anxiety.

“Like you, each of them was white,” Pedro said. “Each was male. Each hadn’t seen her in several years. But unlike you, they didn’t have any personal knowledge about her. One of them claimed that he’d served with her at Fort Bragg. But Juana was never assigned to Fort Bragg.”

That was wrong, Buchanan knew. Although Juana’s cover military assignment had been at Fort Sam Houston, her actual assignment had been through Fort Bragg. But her parents would never have known that because Juana would never have broken cover to tell them. So they naturally thought that the man who had claimed to be Juana’s friend was lying when he claimed that he’d known Juana at Bragg. Quite the contrary: The man was telling a version of the truth. Whoever he was, he knew Juana’s background in detail. But he had made a mistake in assuming that her parents would also know it.

Juana’s father continued. “Another supposed friend claimed that he had known Juana at college here in San Antonio. When I asked which one, he looked confused. He didn’t seem to know that she had transferred from Our Lady of the Lake University to St. Mary’s University. Anyone who knew her well would have known that information.”

Buchanan mentally agreed. Somebody had fucked up and skimmed through her file instead of reading it in detail.

“The third supposed friend,” Pedro said, “claimed that, like you, he had dated her when they worked together here at Fort Sam Houston, but when we asked why we had never met him-since Juana brought most of her boyfriends to see us- he didn’t have an explanation. At least, you did, just as you actually seem to know personal things about her. So I will ask you again. . Jeff Walker. . is our daughter in trouble?”

Juana’s mother waited, clutching the sides of her dress.

Buchanan had a difficult, quick decision to make. Pedro was inviting him into their confidence. Or maybe Pedro was offering bait. If Buchanan admitted his true intentions, Pedro might very well suspect that Buchanan was yet another impersonator sent by Juana’s enemies to find her.

He decided to take the gamble. “I think so.”

Pedro exhaled as if he was finally hearing what he wanted, even though the knowledge dismayed him.

“I knew it,” Juana’s mother said. “What kind of trouble? Tell us. We’ve been worried to death about. .”

“Anita, please, no talk about death.” Pedro squinted toward Buchanan and repeated the question that his wife had asked. “What kind of trouble?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here,” Buchanan said. “Last week, I received a message that she needed to see me. The message was vague, as if she didn’t want anyone else to read it and figure out what she was telling me. But I could figure it out. She desperately needed help. There’s a place in New Orleans that was special to us. Without mentioning it, she asked me-begged me, really-to meet her there at the same time and date we’d last been there. That would have been at eleven P.M. on Halloween. But she didn’t show up that night or the night after. Obviously, something’s wrong. That’s why I came here. Because you were the only people I could think of to try to establish contact with her. I figured that you of all people would have some idea what was going on.”

Neither Pedro nor Anita said anything.

Buchanan gave them time.

“No,” Anita said.

Buchanan gave them more time.

“We don’t know anything,” Anita said. “Except that we’ve been worried because she hasn’t been behaving normally.”

“How?”

“We haven’t heard from her in nine months. Usually, even when she’s on the road, she phones at least once a week. She did say she’d be away for a while. But nine months?”

“What does she do for a living?”

Pedro and Anita looked uncertain.