Courting Death - Carol Stephenson [61]
Many migrant workers, who followed the seasonal crops, lived in Belle Glade. Other than the lake, the community’s other claim to fame was killer high school football teams. Something to take pride in and ease the bite of poverty.
Along this poor excuse of a road the houses were little more than shacks. However, here and there several were already decorated for the holidays. Sam opened the door and held a hand out for me. “Okay, Gabe,” I said. “Why are we here? I thought you had a lead on the clinic.”
“Patience. You’re about to find out.”
Sam snorted. “You try to get her to wait for anything. Mission impossible.”
I bumped my hip against his. “Not true.”
Amusement glinted in Gabe’s eyes but his expression grew somber once he led us up a thin, worn path through the tall weeds in the front yard. He rapped on the door. “Señora Cabrera? I brought the people I told you about.”
A woman of indeterminate age answered, and he spoke rapidly in Spanish. She nodded and motioned us inside. At Gabe’s gesture, Sam and I moved past him to enter the house.
In the cramped living room three young children popped up over the edge of the battered sofa and regarded us with dark, serious eyes. Mrs. Cabrera led us to a wood table scoured clean and we sat down.
She said something to Gabe and he interpreted. “Would anyone like coffee?”
Sam and I glanced at each other and shook our heads. “No, pero graciás,” I said to her. She smiled shyly, folding her chapped and callused hands on top of the table. Up close I could see the woman was in her early thirties, but a life spent working in the sun hadn’t been kind to her. Despite being obviously poor, she wore a clean T-shirt and jeans. Her kids, two girls and a boy, who had ventured from the sofa, were also in mended but tidy clothes.
Gabe leaned toward her and braced his elbows on his knees. “I’m going to ask Lucia to repeat her story and I’ll interpret for you.” He spoke softly to her.
She took a deep breath and began to talk, haltingly at first. I kept my gaze on her, and with his smooth translation Gabe faded into the background.
“My husband Guadalupe and I worked the fields. We saved what we could, but there never seemed to be enough. Then I had Margarita, our third child.” She paused as the toddler, hearing her name, scrambled off the floor and came to her mother holding out her arms. Lucia scooped her up and settled the girl on her lap. As only a child can, Margarita immediately zeroed in on me as the source of her mother’s upset and frowned.
Lucia continued. “The bills were large. We had no insurance and public health care covered only a portion of them. The creditors began to call day and night. Guadalupe found a night job but it still wasn’t enough.”
She dropped a kiss on the toddler’s curls. “Then one day my husband came home all excited. Several men he met in the field told him how he could make a lot of money. I was afraid he would get into drugs like his older brother, and I told him that was not the answer.”
Lucia drew in a breath. “He said it wasn’t drugs. He said rich people who were sick would pay to get a healthy kidney. Someone at the clinic knew the right people and would pay Guadalupe a thousand dollars for a kidney. I didn’t want him to do it, and finally he promised he wouldn’t.
“But the bill collectors got worse, and one frightened my oldest. One Sunday Guadalupe went out without telling me where he was going. I waited all day. No one knew where he was. That night a truck pulled up, and some man dumped my Guadalupe’s body in front of the house like he was no better than a dog.”
Tears began to stream down her face. “He was bleeding, all cut up and the stitches…” She put her lips together and made a spitting sound. “I could sew better than that. A neighbor drove us to the hospital but it was too late. My husband