Shatter Read online

  He taps his cheekbone. His face is haunted by the dark of a May night when he sweated in a plowed field and dug a shallow grave alongside my sister.

  Cordero continues. “I found the set of keys in Juan’s pocket and kept them. He must have had two sets because the killer used a different set to drive his car. The keys were the only thing he had on him except clothes and shoes. After we finished, we needed to clean ourselves, but Carrie was afraid to go home. She didn’t want to be seen by anyone. I remembered Rick Thornton lived close and kept his doors open.”

  Of course. Rick Thornton and his safe house for gangs.

  Cordero rubs his forehead. “His house wasn’t open the way it used to be. I used a window to get inside. Carrie needed a new shirt. I got her one of Elena’s.”

  “But a body … she … well, she must have called the police,” I say.

  He holds my gaze. “She didn’t.” He sniffs and continues. “We cleaned up, but we thought we heard someone. I hid the keys under the mattress so I wouldn’t be found with them. We left through a window. We went to Mission Plaza, but I needed those keys back. Our fingerprints were on them. I went to get them and the house was locked. I tried again. Elena set up an alarm system. I tried a third time and was almost caught.”

  Three burglary attempts. Everything makes sense. Everything except why Carrie witnessed a murder. Why did she witness a murder?

  AddyDay nods. “I guess asking politely to go inside would be sort of suspicious.”

  “When Carrie saw her friends inside Mission Plaza, she … woke up,” Cordero continues. “She went straight to them. I didn’t want to look like we were together—that we had come together—so I got Tito to meet us there. We made it look like we were messing with some guys Carrie joined with—McCoy and Jeremy. Carrie stayed there and I left.”

  “Carrie left too,” AddyDay adds. “Almost right after you.”

  Cordero nods. “A few days later I heard about Juan’s disappearance on the news … I knew that that’s who we buried. I called Carrie. She wasn’t in shock anymore, but she was very afraid—afraid to talk to me … afraid to go to the police. She wanted Juan’s family to know he was dead. There was a lot of guilt in her. She knew who the killer was but she wouldn’t tell me. She planned to turn him in. She talked about justice and about being smart … about telling the police what happened. She wanted no trouble to come to her family or the union.”

  His words shake me into a response.

  “Wait … that’s what she was doing—talking to someone about the crime,” I cry, remembering her words with me on the phone. “The day she died. She was so worried. She said … she said she was going to talk to someone about righting a terrible wrong. She must have been talking about Juan’s murder. She’d been different and anxious all summer—ever since he died— and then she decided to talk to … well, she said it was someone important. I can’t believe this … the very day she was going to talk to someone, she died? The killer must have found out she was going to tell on him—he probably raced to our house to stop her. She called the police, but before they got there, the killer arrived … he forced her to tag her own car and change her story with the officers.”

  “Carrie’s the one who spray painted her car?” AddyDay asks. “With the same symbols left on Juan’s shoe?”

  I nod. “Her leaving that symbol was a message. Her last. Because the killer broke the gas line … and the house …”

  Gone is all my numbness. I shake with emotion, remembering the horror of the day, the smell of the smoke, the realization Carrie really wasn’t ever coming out of the blackened house.

  “I’m so sorry,” AddyDay whispers, putting a hand on my arm. I can’t look at her.

  Cordero remains silent, giving me a moment.

  Waves of sorrow and relief hit me as I process so many details. Throughout Cordero’s story, Carrie was still Carrie—that means the most to me. She was my same sister who had unimaginably terrible experiences. I wish I could comfort her. Bear her fear with her. At least she had Cordero for part of the time. None of that was easy on him either.

  It’s such a relief not suspecting him, now that I owe him so much. Not just for telling me about Carrie, but for saying nothing about the fact that I accused him unfairly. During the first week of school, I insinuated to the whole mock trial class that he vandalized Carrie’s car, and I didn’t bother to apologize once I knew Carrie may have spray painted her own car.

  I breathe deeply, becoming aware of the flies and the heat. Finally, I look at Cordero.

  “I suspected you at first,” I confess to him as if he didn’t know. “Because of your tattoo.”

  He traces the black V on his skin with his index finger.

  AddyDay looks at him. “Oh, you’re for the union too?”

  “I am not against the union. But it was not for the union that I got myself this tattoo. Before Carrie hired me, already I was thinking of getting the V symbol. It is a symbol of power. It’s very old. It says, ‘I am for the old rules, the old power.’ It stands as a warning to leaders who become corrupt.” He looks at me. “Tito is a leader who needs to be warned.”

  I nod slowly.

  Cordero’s entire persona seems to transform as he talks. The light in his eyes isn’t defiance, it’s passion.

  “The V says, ‘Alone, I am weak, but if you treat me wrong, I will bond with others against you and be strong.’ The union has a similar message, but Carrie is the one who used it the right way. It was brave to write that symbol on her car. She was strong.”

  Just like Carrie’s trust in the union, Cordero’s conviction for these old rules he talks about is almost faith. And apparently, I’m a believer. I’m filled with pride in how right Cordero’s message feels. Carrie was brave and strong. It’s crazy she could talk to me on the phone with a murderer after her. Sure, sometimes her true emotion showed, but then she teased me about kissing a guy. She was pretending to be fine, the whole time keeping me from coming to the house so I wouldn’t be hurt, talking about being brave enough to go the police all by herself.

  Maybe she was grabbing her keys, checking out the curtains because the killer was watching. Or maybe he was in the house with her, breaking the pipes, escaping just in time, all to stop Carrie from talking to her trusted person …

  “But, wait,” I say. “The killer—how did he know she was going to reveal his crime that day? After all that time—practically the whole summer.”

  Cordero nods. “She must have told someone. She trusted someone she shouldn’t have.”

  AddyDay grimaces at the idea of someone betraying Carrie. “Or the person she trusted was betrayed as well.”

  “Somebody’s bad,” I say. “Somebody’s betraying people.”

  Cordero nods, eyes flashing. “I have to find the killer now. No one hires Primeros to fight against each other.”

  I fold my arms, not at all comfortable with what he’s saying. “But you’re not … I mean, I thought you didn’t want to be one of them anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asks. “I’ll always be a Primero.”

  “But …” I stare at him. “Well, you should get out. They’re willing to hurt you. One of them could have killed Carrie.”

  Cordero shakes his head. “The morning she died, everyone in the gang was at a meeting.”

  “A meeting? For, like, gang business?” I ask, genuinely curious. How can I convince him he doesn’t need his gang anymore?

  His face is unresponsive. Yes. The meeting was for, like, gang business, which is none of my business, apparently.

  “When Juan died, Tito was at a party,” he says. “He broke up with another girlfriend. All of the top guys have alibis. El Payaso was in jail.”

  “And …” AddyDay pats her laptop bag. “… I’ve got the grower’s meeting right here. I guess … I mean, we’re going to do this, right? You want to hear what the growers were doing on the night of the murder.”

  Cordero and I look at each other. He told
me what he knew. Terrible as it was, I know more about Carrie than ever. I’d smile or say thank you if the mood allowed it. Instead, we’re both determined, somber, and sweating profusely in sunlight filtered by branches weighed down with half-rotten peaches.

  He motions for AddyDay to play her copy of the recording.

  I steel myself for whatever the recording is going to say about my dad, the mayor, and their alibis for murder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The sun hangs suspended far above the horizon, out past the orchard. We nudge peaches aside with our feet, clearing a spot of shade for us to sit in.

  “I don’t see why we can’t go into my house,” AddyDay says, opening her laptop on her crossed legs.

  I kneel beside her. “You said your stepdad is home.”

  “Ugh, but it’s so hot out here.”

  It’s killer hot, but we can’t be in AddyDay’s house if her stepdad is a murderer. I can’t tell her that because I want to listen to the tape before I make any accusations. I still don’t know when or why AddyDay’s stepdad was threatening Carrie.

  Cordero sits next to me. His white t-shirt brushes the sleeve of my running outfit. We’re partners now, no going back. I’m determined to be on my best, most trusting behavior.

  Cordero shakes a fly off his foot and his folded leg fidgets. It fidgets again.

  I’ve never seen him fidget before.

  “Do you want … I don’t know, a protein bar?” I wonder where he’s getting his food from.

  His gaze finds mine. He’s embarrassed, but not enough to protest. He nods, his shoulders expanding in the kind of deep breath that comes from relief. The sun is spoiling the peaches as we sit here. They smell syrupy and rotten.

  “Oh! I’ve got sodas. What kind do you want?” AddyDay shuts her laptop and brings cans out of her backpack.

  Cordero drinks half of his in one long swig. Heat like this kills people sometimes.

  The protein bar I offered is in the zippered pocket of my shorts, opposite my phone. I always carry one on me. Cordero opens it with the usual bumping of elbows that comes from being in close quarters. He looks down at me twice, probably because I look up at him. I’m not in the habit of eating snacks with boys, gang members or otherwise. He seems as aware of me as I am of him.

  AddyDay hands Cordero the last two sodas and sets up her laptop on her empty backpack.

  “I listened to the recording right after school.” AddyDay moves her cursor over the beginning of a line depicting the recording. A bubble of text tells her she’s at minute four. “The digital copy is way easier to navigate than the tape. I’m going to skip to the important parts. Now, the growers didn’t stay after for dinner, but I found out the meeting went late—until just about eight, so everyone who stayed until the end has an alibi.”

  She hits play.

  “… twenty-one of us here today, May 24,” Mayor Knockwurst’s voice says. “Oops, twenty if you don’t include Rick Thornton here. Welcome, Rick. Unfortunately, he brings news from the union that they’ll strike if we can’t agree on laborer wages …”

  “It is the May meeting, the night Juan was killed,” I say, disbelieving. The mayor’s voice continues, confident and affable, so much so that a chill runs up my spine.

  “I knew you’d want to hear that part.” AddyDay stops the recording and heads to minute one hundred and fifteen, the very end. She leans past me to face Cordero. “So, my stepdad and Mr. White told the police Salem’s dad was at the growers’ meeting while Juan was being killed, but they were wrong and this clip proves it. But that doesn’t make him a murderer. Here’s the clip.”

  Cordero brings his gaze to mine, grape soda paused near his lips. I search his features for any clue of his thoughts. Does he think Dad is a murderer?

  Mr. White’s voice fills the room, getting louder and louder. He must be walking toward the recording device. “… for the wages—oh, I think that tape player’s still recording. Right there … yeah, that’ll eat up the battery.”

  There’s a muffled response.

  “Great, I’ll let you get it,” Mr. White answers. “Brian never came back, did he?”

  “Brian’s my dad,” I whisper. Cordero nods, listening intently.

  “No, he left an hour ago to forge his own negotiation,” a female speaker says. I don’t recognize her gravelly voice. “He’s meeting at his house with a union official—”

  The recording ends.

  “Wait, like, that very night?” I cry. “Dad had already left to meet a union official at his house that very night?”

  “The official is Juan Herrera, isn’t it?” AddyDay asks, biting her lip.

  I knock over my empty soda can onto the dirt as I stand. Dad didn’t have an appointment with Juan the night I got my period during the track meet, the night before the murder, like he told me. Dad had an appointment with Juan the night the man died. At the place he was buried.

  “That’s … impossible.” I pace, unseeing. Carrie buried a body. Dad met with the victim at the time of death.

  Cordero stands as well. He’s dark and somber and unshaven because he’s been on the run from dangerous people—maybe Dad.

  “Your dad would not kill Carrie.” Cordero is asking me, or telling me. I don’t know which.

  “But would he cover for a friend who did?” I put my arms over my head. Dad lied to me. I’m sickened by the image of Juan Herrera at the door of my old house, waiting to meet Dad fifty feet from the orchard where his body would be buried.

  “You two haven’t heard everything. Listen.” AddyDay motions for us to sit back down. “You heard the roll call, right?”

  I take my arms off my head. I wring my hands, one of which collides with a fly. It buzzes away.

  “Salem?” she asks.

  “Yes, I heard the roll call,” I say.

  “There were twenty-one people at the meeting,” Cordero’s dark gaze gauges my emotional state. He warned me about Dad, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about the news.

  “Twenty-one. Exactly.” AddyDay mouses to minute thirty-seven. Cordero and I remain standing. “That’s how many people were there at the beginning of the meeting. This next part is halfway through. We heard some of it back at Elena’s house,” she tells Cordero as she starts the recording.

  “It’s people like you that make your whole organization rotten!” Rick Thornton shouts, starting a flood of angry voices.

  “Let’s take a break,” the gravelly-voiced female suggests.

  “Don’t bother,” Rick answers.

  “Very unfortunate,” she says. “How about an informal poll to calm us down? We’ll go … balding versus a full head of hair. I’m the latter.”

  A few people chuckle.

  “Looks like it’s, let’s see … nine …” a man says. “Nine to ten.”

  AddyDay points to the monitor still on her lap and looks up at us, excited. “Did you hear it?”

  “Nineteen,” I say, meeting her gaze and then Cordero’s.

  “Twenty-one originally,” Cordero agrees. “Two people left early.”

  “Exactly,” she answers. “Two people left with plenty of time to make an eight o’clock murder. Lots of people who were arguing never speak again, like Salem’s dad, Rick, Bill, the guy who said illegals should move to China.”

  “Not Mr. White, though,” I say. “He spoke at the very end.”

  Cordero frowns. “That was Mr. White?”

  “He’s a grower,” AddyDay says. “You didn’t know that?”

  I look at Cordero. “Do you suspect him?”

  “Not if he has an alibi.”

  “Mr. White? Seriously?” AddyDay asks. “Anyway, the person who left the meeting could have been someone who never spoke at all. I bet your Dad forgot he left early.”

  “Or he and the mayor left and killed someone,” I say.

  “Okay, that’s it,” AddyDay dropping her hands beside her lap, disturbing two flies. “Just because someone’s a grower doesn’t mean they’r
e a killer.”

  “Growers have motive, AddyDay, they do. And opportunity. And … and your stepdad threatened Carrie.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Cordero nudges me with a frown. “Her stepfather?”

  “He’s one of the growers who could have left early,” I explain. “The mayor—Bill. Tell her what he did to Carrie.” Tell me what he did.

  Cordero grabs my upper arm, incredulous. “Her stepdad is the mayor? Does he know we’re out here?”

  I look at AddyDay’s house in the distance. “I … well, that’s why I didn’t want to go inside.”

  Cordero drops my arm and kneels in front of AddyDay, gesturing at her laptop. “Erase this.”

  I know the implications and dangers of having a copy of this tape as well as Cordero. I should never have let her make a copy. I should have known it’d be too dangerous.

  I kneel next to him. “AddyDay, erase the recording.”

  “It’s my only copy,” she says.

  “Ya!” Cordero demands, leaning to flick the base of the laptop so that it rocks, a warning of what can happen if he doesn’t get his way.

  AddyDay looks from Cordero to me, fear settling on her features.

  In a few clicks, she makes the recording disappear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  What were you thinking?” Cordero asks me. The three of us are once again standing because the peach guts don’t make a great carpet. We form a circle of tension. AddyDay’s laptop is still set up on top of her backpack on the spongy dirt, covered in flies.

  “I didn’t know about Bill when I gave her the recording,” I say, defensive.

  “Didn’t know what about Bill?” AddyDay asks.

  I look to Cordero.

  “I was supposed to meet Carrie a week before she died,” he explains. “I waited for her at Mission Plaza. She arrived in the backseat of a blue sedan. I hung back. But I heard what the driver said as she got out. He said … what was it? ‘If you don’t back off, young lady, I will make you stop.’” Cordero nods at AddyDay. “Your stepfather was the driver.”