Free Endangered Species by Barbara Block Page A

were watching the cartoon channel. A show I’d never seen was on.
    â€œI mean it.” The woman’s voice rose slightly, the way it always does when someone isn’t paying attention to you.
    The youngest child, a girl, replied, “We won’t, Mommy.”
    The woman snorted and continued on into the kitchen. It was a small, bright room. The plants spilling over the window ledges and the children’s drawings and paintings on the walls contributed to its cheerful appearance. A round table over in the corner was piled with brown paper bags full of groceries.
    The woman unbuttoned her coat and slung it over the back of one of the chairs. I wanted to do the same, but something told me I wasn’t going to be here that long. I read her name off the tag pinned on her uniform.
    â€œWhere do you work, Donna?”
    She started putting groceries away. “At the Jewish old age home. I’m an orderly there. I got the early shift.” She whirled around as a thought occurred to her. “Why you wanna know? You gonna come out there and make trouble? Make me lose my job?”
    â€œNo. Of course not.” Her reaction made me wonder if she had a green card. I reached into one of the bags and handed her ajar of peanut butter. She took it reluctantly, as if doing so would compromise her in some way. “I just want to know about your daughter.”
    Donna put the peanut butter away. Then she opened the refrigerator and carefully placed two gallons of milk and a half-gallon of orange juice on the top shelf. “I haven’t heard from my daughter since she walked out of this house.”
    â€œAren’t you worried?”
    The woman shrugged. “It’s not the first time she’s left home like this.” She stowed three boxes of macaroni and cheese in the bottom shelf of the kitchen cabinet by the refrigerator.
    I leaned against the back of one of the chairs. “You don’t strike me as the kind of mother who loses contact with her daughter,” I observed.
    Donna took two rolls of paper towels out of the bag. “My daughter and I didn’t get along so good.” Her tone was unconvincing.
    â€œWhat are you afraid of?”
    She looked off to one side. “I’m not afraid.”
    â€œI don’t believe you. Your daughter could be in a great deal of trouble from a man called Chapman.”
    â€œChapman?” The woman went over to the table and folded up one of the brown paper grocery bags. She ran her fingers over the creases, making sure that folds in the paper were sharp. Then she started on the second one. “Who is this man Chapman?” Her air of studied innocence was about as convincing as a hooker playing a schoolgirl.
    â€œThe suitcase that your daughter’s boyfriend stole. It’s his property.”
    Donna straightened up and folded her hands across her chest. “She has nothing to do with any of this.”
    â€œPossibly.” I sighed. “But she has to do with Nestor, and Nestor is in big trouble.”
    Donna’s jaw muscles tightened at Nestor’s name. She didn’t like him much. I asked her why, hoping her answer might give me a way in.
    She turned and began stowing cans of tomatoes in one of the upper kitchen cabinets. “It’s not me. It’s my husband. He doesn’t like that he is Chinese.”
    Somehow I’d expected a different answer. “What’s wrong with the Chinese?”
    â€œMy husband says they eat cats and rats. He says they are dirty.”
    â€œYou believe that?” It amazes me how frequently I hear comments like that, often from people who should know better.
    She shrugged again.
    â€œWhat do you think of Nestor?”
    â€œI think he thinks he is smarter than anyone else.”
    â€œDid you tell your daughter that?”
    Donna slammed the cabinet door shut. “She won’t listen to anything I have to say about him.”
    My way in was turning