Jonathan Santlofer - Anatomy of Fear

“Why?”

“Because he is an enemy and if you place him under the Eleggua he will lose his power. And it would be good if…you sprinkled some blood on the Eleggua.”

“ Like what? Kill a chicken or something? Perform some sort of voodoo rite?”

The muscles in my grandmother’s face tightened with anger, and I was immediately sorry. “Perdón, uela.”

“It is not voodoo. You know that. I never do el sacrificio, but now you must make el ofrecimiento, maybe some coconut and candy.”

I was tempted to make a joke, ask whether the Eleggua preferred Snickers to red licorice, but I didn’t dare.

“Algo rojo,” my grandmother said, which sort of spooked me as I’d just been thinking about licorice, red licorice.

She lit more candles, took my hand, asked me to pray along with her, and I did.

It’s a funny thing when one chooses to believe. I knew people, serious business types, who believed in feng shui, who rearranged their furniture so that they faced the door to invite money in, who placed tiny Buddha statues in corners to bring them luck. I’d always scoffed at them and here I was thinking that as soon as I left my grandmother’s apartment I was going to stop in Central Park to collect rocks for a god to ward off evil, and buy him some red licorice in case he got hungry.

When I got back to my apartment I found a big bowl, put the rocks into it, and wound the beads around them. I felt a little foolish but couldn’t ignore that one of my abuela ’s visions had already proved prescient, and another-her description of my apartment and an evil presence-rang too true. I tried laying the shells onto the rocks to create the face, but they kept falling off, so I resorted to a glue stick. It was like a sixth-grade arts and crafts project, but I got into it, gluing down the shells to create the eyes and mouth. I didn’t know what to do with the licorice and ended up sticking it in around the edges of the bowl. They looked like headless, flowerless stems.

I spent a minute staring at my creation, wondering if I’d finally lost my mind, then figured what the hell, and pricked my finger with a pin. Three droplets of blood landed on the stone and were instantly absorbed into its porous surface. It was as if the Eleggua had eaten it. Then I tore a corner off one of my sketches, slid it under the rock, placed the whole thing beside my front door, stood back, and shook my head.

Rodriguez, you are definitely losing it.

But I didn’t stop. I took the glass-encased candles with pictures of Chango and Babalu-Aye that my abuela had given me and put one in my living room, the other in my kitchen window. I had no idea if that was right. Maybe Babalu-Aye didn’t like the cold and shouldn’t be in the window; maybe Chango needed sunlight? I switched the candles. I had no idea why, it just felt right. Then I stripped off my clothes, lay down on my bed, and for the first time in twenty-four hours fell into a deep sleep.

Terri spread the first set of the Cordero crime scene photos across her desk. They showed the superintendent lying facedown in a pool of blood from every conceivable angle; the second set, details of the body; the third, pictures of evidence collected by the CS team-the unsub’s drawing, a pizza box, a matchbook, a half-smoked cigarette, a pencil. At first none of it registered. But the next group of photos, these taken after the body had been removed, stopped her.

Terri shuffled through the evidence photos again. She had to be sure of what she was looking at.

Her hand was shaking as she called the G. She needed to know if they had this too.

Terri had called, rousing me from a deep sleep to say she was coming right over.

I was still a little groggy, but when she slid a crime scene photograph onto my kitchen counter, I was wide awake.

“Please tell me this isn’t your pencil.”

I tried to think. Did I have a pencil with me when I went down to see Cordero? I didn’t think so, but my thoughts were bouncing around like a ball in a pinball machine. “Maybe it fell out of my pocket when I leaned over to see the drawing.”

She placed a second photo in front of me, an outline of where Cordero’s body had been, the pencil inside it. “The pencil was under Cordero’s body.”

She didn’t have to spell it out.

“Maybe…it was Cordero’s,” I said, though I knew it sounded lame. “The unsub must have stolen it. He stalked me, right? We know that because he saw my tattoo. Then he breaks into my place, steals a pencil, and, Jesus, Terri, he’s setting me up!” My head was pounding again. I got some aspirin, Terri watching me the whole time, that look of doubt registering in the narrowing of her eyes and tightened mouth.

“I thought you believed me.”

“I do, but-” She shook her head. “This isn’t going to look good.”

She didn’t have to tell me that. I took a deep breath. “And there’s more.”

“What?”

“The new drawing, the one of Cordero…You thought it looked different and…it does.” I took a deep breath. “He’s copying my style. The softer pencil-” I tapped the crime scene photo of the Ebony pencil. “I’ll bet he made the drawing with this pencil-with my pencil. And that little detail you noticed-the one of the mouth drawn on the side? It’s a direct copy of a sketch I made-which I no longer have. He’s been in my apartment, Terri. How else could he have my sketch-and my pencil?”

“Oh, Jesus, Rodriguez. The G is running DNA on that pencil. A chewed pencil equals saliva. Saliva equals DNA.”

“How do you know that?”

“I called. I pretended I already knew. As soon as I saw the picture of the pencil I knew they’d be testing it, so I asked when the DNA results would be ready. Some techie told me he didn’t know, that they were backed up, which, thank God, is the only good news.” She sighed. “I’d say we’re looking at a matter of days.”

I eased myself into a chair, trying to comprehend the extent of the nightmare. “I’ll go to them, tell them before they find out.”

“Tell them what ? That it’s your pencil they found under Cordero’s body? That a phantom you cleaned up after took it from your apartment to plant at the murder scene, along with a sketch that you say looks like you drew it?” She stopped me before I could say anything. “Your DNA isn’t on file, is it?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay. So let’s say they get the DNA results from the pencil in two days. Then it’s another two days before they think to test yours.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That we’ve got about three or four days.”

Dolores Rodriguez had first consulted Eleggua because that was the way it was always done. Eleggua, messenger of the gods, who had cured Olodumare was always the first to be honored in any ceremony. Now she lifted the shrine from the floor, poured rum over the rocks, and sprinkled the surface with shredded coconut, though she knew the orisha favored the blood of roosters and turtles. She promised herself if things did not improve-if the feeling something bad was going to happen to her beloved Nato continued-she would find someone who would help. She would do anything to protect her grandson.