Chapter Eight

Faith Jones had worked with Sergio at the 19th Ave Taco House until Antonio promoted her to assistant manager of Dunlap. She, more than Antonio, might know Sergio’s secrets.

I walked up to the window, ordered a churro, paid, and put a dollar in the tip jar. “Is Faith here?”

“Faith!” the young man called behind him. “There’s a woman here to see you!”

The way he said it made me feel old. I was only twenty-five.

A moment later a girl of about nineteen or twenty came up to the window. She said, “Can I help you?”

It was only four, so not too busy. Customers were mostly high school kids hanging out after school.

“Do you have a few minutes to talk in private?” I asked. “It’s about Sergio.”

A cloud crossed her face, then she glared at me.

“Are you a reporter?” she snapped. “A cop?”

“Margo Angelhart, private investigator,” I said. “I’m trying to help Sergio.”

Faith’s expression said she didn’t believe me.

“Who hired you?” she demanded.

“That’s confidential,” I said.

“I don’t have to talk to you.”

“No, but if I tell you that I think Sergio is innocent and covering for someone, would you be willing to chat?”

“You lying?”

“Faith, I’m trying to help Sergio and from what Antonio says, you’re his closest friend. Judging by your animosity, you don’t think he’s guilty. I’m his best chance at proving that.”

She narrowed her eyes, then said in rapid Spanish to her co-worker, “I need to talk to this gringa, five minutes.”

Gringa? Me? I was as Mexican as Faith.

I sat at the only unoccupied table, the one closest to the street, and waited. Faith’s attitude wasn’t worth getting into an argument about, and I needed her help.

I ignored the questions I’d already answered and asked, “Did you know Sergio before you started working at The Taco House?”

She shook her head. “Nope. He had just been promoted to assistant manager when I started working there about eighteen months ago, at the 19th Ave location.”

“And you became friends.”

“Just friends,” she snapped, as if I’d implied something more. I didn’t think I had.

“Okay. Have you met his brother and sister?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“If you’re going to be confrontational throughout this conversation, we’re not going to get anywhere in five minutes.”

“They’re good kids, they don’t deserve to be dragged into this.”

“Then maybe their brother shouldn’t have confessed to murder.”

She opened her mouth, shut it.

“Look,” I said, “I just want to find the truth. There is little physical evidence against Sergio. The only thing that connects him to the crime is a white hoodie with a black front pocket. He was wearing it when the police went to interview him the second time, and it tested positive for GSR. The hoodie appears to be the same as the shooter’s in the video. So it seems like a slam dunk case, especially since he confessed. Either he’s guilty and his conscience got the better of him, or he’s innocent and pled to protect someone he cares about. From those I’ve talked to—” which implied more people than I’d actually spoken with “—he cares most about his family, Sophia and Henry. Why would Sergio, who has been fighting to gain custody of his siblings, kill a man for a hundred bucks?”

“I don’t know,” Faith said quietly.

“Do you believe Sergio killed the clerk?”

She shook her head, said, “I tried to see him in jail on Sunday. Jumped through every hoop, got a visitor’s pass, waited. And he wouldn’t even come to the visiting area. Wouldn’t even talk to me. Sergio is stupid proud. He doesn’t take help from anyone. Except, I was helping him with the paperwork.”

“For?”

“For custody of Sophia and Henry. Sergio did okay in school, but he’s dyslexic, and the legal paperwork can be complicated. He had an attorney helping, but honestly, she was an idiot. I was the one who found out that Sergio could apply for Kinship Caregiver—because he’s actual family. Why didn’t the attorney know that? It’s a streamlined process. So we did it ourselves, and there is still so much paperwork and rules. The big one was Sergio needed a two-bedroom apartment for Sophia. I get it, but honestly? I know families who live in crappier buildings with multiple siblings in one room and no one gives a shit. They would be better with Sergio than in foster care and all the crap they have to deal with there. Especially Henry, who is living in a crap house with crap foster parents.”

I agreed with Faith in principle. Sometimes it was safer for kids to be removed from their homes, and sometimes they had no option—their parents were in prison or dead and they had no one else. But the system was flawed and overwhelmed and so many kids slipped through or barely hung on. The system should make it easier—and cheaper—for a family member to gain custody of kids so they didn’t have to live in foster care. If they had a job, a roof, and no criminal record, what was the holdup?

“Where was Sergio in the process?” I asked.

“Waiting for the home visit. The same woman who rejected his apartment last year. She canceled on him before Christmas, and he was really upset—he wanted them together for Christmas. She rescheduled then canceled again on Thursday. It’s the last hurdle and he was more defeated than angry. He’d promised Henry and Sophia that it was happening and now, more waiting. She rescheduled for end of February! And now this? I don’t know that he’ll ever get them.”

Not by confessing to murder.

And that was the thing—why Greg Rodriguez? Why that Cactus Stop? And if Sergio was one of the three young men caught on tape, who were the other two?

“I asked him about his tattoo,” I said. “He said Maria is his aunt. Do you know her?”

“Never met her, but Aunt Maria was his grandmother’s sister. She raised his mom, then died a couple years before his mom went to prison. He was fourteen, I think. It nearly broke him. Maria had been trying to gain guardianship of them after their mom lost their house because of her drug habit.”

That explained the tattoo. I had wished Maria was still alive to give me someone to talk to, someone Sergio might listen to.

Faith said, “I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll give you my number. I want to help, even if Sergio is too fucking stubborn to accept it.”

I put her phone number in my contacts.

“Did he ever loan his hoodie to anyone?”

A flicker across her face, then it was gone.

“Faith, this is important.”

“He got that hoodie for Christmas, from Sophia. He loved it. He’d never let just anyone borrow it.”

She wasn’t telling me something, but I didn’t push.

When I learned more, I would.