Jonathan Santlofer - Anatomy of Fear

“I don’t know. Plenty of people take crap for being Puerto Rican or Jewish or black,” said Archer, thinking about his own life experiences. “And they don’t become serial killers.”

“Absolutely correct,” said Schteir. “There is always the unknown component. What makes one person, say, merely sensitive, and another, a killer. Science is investigating that, and one day we may have the answer. Look, I’m not saying Rodriguez is your man. I’m just saying it’s a possibility. ”

“So we wait for the DNA,” said Richardson.

“Yes,” said Collins.

Schteir glanced up at the Cordero crime scene pictures, then at the recent sketch. She plucked it off the wall. “You must have copies of earlier drawings left at the scenes, yes?”

“Of course,” said Collins. “Why?”

“I’m not sure,” said Schteir. “But there’s something about this one that’s a little different, isn’t there?”

Ihad become a suspect. It seemed inconceivable, but true.

Terri promised she’d help, but didn’t say how. She told me to be patient, but didn’t tell me how to do that either.

I couldn’t sit still. My head was throbbing, muscles in my neck and jaw at a level of tightness I did not think humanly possible. Was I going to have a heart attack? A stroke? It felt like it. I took two aspirin. I chewed my cuticles. I called Julio.

The law offices of Russell, Bradley and Roach looked like the fanciest funeral parlor in the world, everything muted and gray, including Julio’s office. Even Julio was in gray pinstripes.

“ Pana, take it easy. No way they think this is you.”

I had told him about Cordero’s murder, my tattoo in the sketch along with the detail that was exactly like one of my drawings, my pencil at the scene; that it was only a matter of time before they connected it all to me.

“Circumstantial,” he said, trying hard not to frown. “All of it.”

I reminded him he was a real estate lawyer, not criminal, and he kidded me and tried to make me laugh but his face betrayed him, the worry impossible to hide.

Then his phone rang. He was late for a meeting. Mi pana a broqui, my bodyguard, had to go. I painted on a smile and told him I’d be fine. He said I should go to his apartment and hang out till he got off work, that he’d think of what to do. But I did not want to be a child who needed babysitting.

I just went home.

I checked the Eleggua. It looked ridiculous, wilted licorice sticks lying over the rocks. I thought about taking the candy out before it attracted roaches, but didn’t, because I was afraid to offend the gods.

I’d never felt like this in my life. But this was like no other time in my life. I tried to think of what I could do, and there was only one thing: I had to finish the sketch.

I went to get my pad and it wasn’t there. I had a moment of panic. Had he been here again?

Then I remembered I’d left it at my grandmother’s.

My abuela was happy to see me, but worried too. I told her I just needed my drawing pad. I could see she wanted to ask me a million questions, but controlled herself, and left me alone. I went into the living room and opened my pad to review the sketches I’d made of the unsub’s face so far.

I sharpened a pencil and waited for inspiration, something to guide me, but nothing happened. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but I couldn’t clear my mind enough to let anything in.

My grandmother came into the room with a beer-an excuse to interrupt me. She saw the look on my face, sat down beside me, and touched my cheek. It was all it took to reduce me to her little nene. I told her what was going on, how I feared I was already a suspect.

“This is loco. ” She shook her head and muttered, “Coño carajo,” words I had never heard come out of her mouth.

“This man- este demonio desgraciado -he has put a curse on you.”

“No,” I said, trying hard to look confident for my grandmother. “It’s just a…mistake.”

“ No hay errores, chacho. Everything happens for a reason.” She stood up and told me to wait. I could hear her on the phone in the other room. A minute later she was back.

“Entra.”

“Where?”

My grandmother stood over me, all five feet two inches, hands on hips, eyes narrowed. “You are coming with me, chacho, and you will not say no.”

I could see she was serious, but I was no longer feeling like little nene; not quite grown up, but old enough to ask where she was planning to take me.

“To the botánica. ”

“What for? A radish root? A frog? This is serious, uela, and you can’t make it go away with herbs and incantations.”

“And you have fixed it? You, who are here now in my house with your pad and pencils and looking like hell?” Her face was screwed up tight. I’d never seen her like this. “I have done what I could, Nato, prayed to Chango, Osain, and Ochosi, but it is not working. I do not know why, but the forces have turned against you. It is time to try something more powerful.”

“More powerful than what ?” I asked.

“Than me, or you. Ven. ”

We walked six blocks, my grandmother nervously playing with a strand of rosary beads. We turned onto 118th Street and I saw it, the bótanica. It looked like a junk shop, signs in English for party favors and gifts mixed in with hand-painted lettering in Spanish.

“It looks closed,” I said, with a sense of relief. A part of me wanted to run.

“No para nosotros.” My grandmother rapped on the window. “I know the consejos espirituales. She is expecting us, and she will help.”

A moment later a big dark-skinned woman opened the door.

“Nato,” said my grandmother. “This is Maria Guerrero.”

Guerrero, the Spanish word for warrior. She looked it.

“Entra, mi hijo.” She put her hand on my arm to steer me in.

Inside, the place was small, crowded with herbal remedies, statuary, glass-encased candles, fake flowers and real ones, a large plastic Madonna beside one painted black. There were rows of multicolored beaded necklaces hanging from hooks above mundane religious articles one could find in a Christian gift shop. On the floor near the door, a shrine with cowrie shells not unlike the one I’d created at home. A few weeks ago I would have been shaking my head and sighing, but I had just made my own Eleggua, so how could I?

“You know Quincy Jones?” asked Maria Guerrero. “A very nice man. He comes whenever he is in Nueva York.” She smiled, showing two front teeth plated with gold. “My customers are black and white, Catholics and Jews. Only two days ago, a rabbi. I am a Catholic, but I welcome all people. But I am also a santera, and before that an espiritista. I was born an espiritista. ” She looked me over and said she was glad I was wearing a white shirt or she would have made me change. I remembered what my abuela had said the last time about my white shirt, and I knew white was an important color for Santeria, the bóveda referred to as the Mesa Blanca, the white table, a color of purity, empowerment, associated with Obatala, the sculptor of human form, all the lessons my abuela had taught me coming back to me.

Maria Guerrero laid her hand on my chest and told me there was much pain in my heart. At first I flinched, but she kept it there for several minutes and I began to relax, the warmth from her hand spreading through me. Then she touched my forehead and asked how long I had suffered from dolor de cabeza.