Page 31 of Counting Backwards

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That Wednesday evening, I pulled to a stop in front of house number 176 on a tightly packed block in Brooklyn. For the majority of our car ride from Manhattan, Dustin had been stuck on a conference call about another case, which was just as well. Listening in on a discussion about another securities case seemed preferable to having to make conversation with him. As it turned out though, Dustin stayed silent nearly the entire time he was on the phone. With the exception of a few words of agreement, he appeared to be observing the call simply to learn. I was surprised by his deferential behavior, as I so rarely saw him hold his tongue.

As I pressed the button to turn off the ignition, Dustin removed the buds from his ears.

“Perfect timing,” he said. “Call just finished.”

We stepped out of the car, and I took in our surroundings. The street was filled with petite two-story houses piled so close to each other that the trash cans could barely fit between any two homes. Most houses had wrought-iron fences surrounding their walkways and square patches of grass in their tiny front yards. For all the years I’d lived in New York, this part of Bensonhurst was somewhere I’d never been. I’d always thought Bensonhurstwas primarily an Italian-American neighborhood, but I’d learned since Jacinta’s text that it also included a thriving Guatemalan community.

I pushed open the gate and began making my way to the front door.

“No,” Dustin said from behind me. “She said they’re in the back apartment.” He pointed toward a short, concrete stairwell on the side of the house, the front door about four steps up.

“Did she tell you how many people she lives with?” I asked, berating myself for only thinking to ask that question now. I’d already hit Dustin with a barrage of questions about his brief call with Jacinta. He’d managed to ascertain that she had been detained at Hydeford, but only for a matter of weeks.

“She just said she lives with her family. I didn’t ask for details,” he said as he followed me up the steps and then reached over me to push the buzzer.

A wrinkled woman, stooped and fragile looking, appeared on the other side of the screened door.

“Come, come,” she said briskly in accented English, pushing open the door and beckoning us in before we even introduced ourselves.

We stepped inside, and I was hit immediately by the alluring scent of savory food—garlic, onions, something fried—and my stomach rumbled. As we made our way into the tight kitchen, the woman called toward the back of the apartment, shouting Spanish words at a rapid-fire pace.

A moment later, another woman appeared, younger than the first. She was about the same height as my five foot four, with a complexion much fairer than the woman who’d shown us inside. She had dark hair pulled back into a tight bun and wore eyeglasses with bright pink frames. She smiled kindly and motioned to the vinyl-covered chairs at the small table in the room’s center.

“Hola,” she said, looking at Dustin. “SoyJacinta.”

Dustin reached out to shake Jacinta’s hand, and I felt an instant jolt of annoyance at how he’d somehow commandeered the meeting from the get-go. But I batted the feeling away just as quickly. Of course Jacinta would speak to Dustin first. He was the one who’d talked to her on the phone, and surely he’d told her about my lack of Spanish skills. I reminded myself that he was only attending this meeting as a favor to me, so I had to be more patient with him.

As we took our seats, a commotion arose from the back hallway, the sounds of young children arguing. Then a man’s voice sounded, emitting an aggravated string of Spanish words, and the bickering stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Jacinta looked at us sheepishly and said something to Dustin.

“Her niece and nephew,” Dustin interpreted.

I smiled warmly at Jacinta as I pulled my laptop from my tote, placing it on the table.

“Dustin, please tell Jacinta,” I started, “that we’re grateful she’s willing to help us with our client at Hydeford and that we’ll try to keep our questioning brief.”

Dustin interpreted and Jacinta nodded. She glanced over at me and smiled. I understood the expression as a tacit apology that we couldn’t communicate directly, and I offered a matching smile in return.

Then, through Dustin, I launched into a series of questions: Did Jacinta know Isobel Pérez at the facility? How close had the two women become to each other? Did Jacinta ever see Isobel being mistreated by any of the guards? And so on. Jacinta answered everything, responding to Dustin in a tone that sounded cooperative and sympathetic throughout. As she talked, Jacinta periodically glanced back to me as if for approval. She was chatty, giving lengthy responses to each of the questions, seemingly glad to be helpful.

Then I asked if she knew Dr. Choudry. Even before Dustin interpreted the question, Jacinta’s smile faded.

“Sí.”

I waited for more, but she just lifted her chin and said nothing.

“Ask her if she knows about what the doctor did to Isobel.”

This time, Jacinta offered a longer response, and it was impossible to miss the outraged tenor of her clipped words.

“Yes,” Dustin said, meeting my eye. “She knows Dr. Choudry and will never forgive that woman for the things she has done.”

“Woman?” I asked, confused. “What woman?”

“Dr. Choudry,” he said.