Page 89 of The Deepest Lake
Mauricio doesn’t show up that night. The next morning, while the others are eating breakfast, Rose takes a tuk-tuk to the orphanage, a mile down the road, opposite the direction of Casa Eva. She needs confirmation that something is amiss with the orphanage fundraising. Only then will she know how it connects with her murky feelings about Casa Eva.
When Rose arrives, she’s shown into a dining hall where thirty children, ages six to fifteen, are eating breakfast. The director, a Guatemalan man named Pedro, recognizes her as a well-heeled American eager to give money. He shows her the dormitories, the kitchens with their enormous tin pots where several cooks are already heating up the next meal of beans, rice and shredded chicken. He points out the newest wing being added, which currently has window frames without installed glass.
“And how much would it take to finish all this?”
“Oh goodness. A lot.”
A girl who looks about two years old raises her hands up to Pedro, wanting to be lifted.
“If someone were to give you all the money you needed for the whole year, how much would it be?”
Pedro hoists the girl up to his hip, where she begins to tug at his glasses, her not-entirely-clean fingers covering the lenses so he has to gently move her hand in order to reply to Rose. “To finish the construction? Maybe twenty-five thousand quetzales.”
“So, in US funds, maybe three thousand dollars?”
“With that, we’d be all finished and we could house ten more children. It would be a miracle.”
Milagro. Or peligro. Which word was Mauricio trying to say?
“Surely, you get close to that every month.”
“Oh, no.” He laughs. “The monthly donations are usually only hundreds of dollars in total, you understand.” He catches himself, and Rose is almost certain he is blushing. “We are grateful, of course. Gracias a Dios.”
“Do you thank donors publicly?” she asks.
“Of course!”
He brings her to a painted mural that’s been designed to look like a lake, covered in fish of various sizes. She notices a cluster of tiny, silver fish covered with American names: Wendy, Beatrice, Jennifer.
“We appreciate all the fish,” he says.
“These are the small donors,” she says, pointing to the distinctly Anglo corner of the mural.
“There are no small donors,” he says, smiling.
She has to trust her intuitions. He doesn’t have a clue—and she has more clues than she requires.
One cup of coffee later, Rose is shaking hands goodbye when she thinks to ask Pedro, “Do you know Mauricio, the local boy who was adopted by the writer, Eva Marshall?”
Behind still-smudged glasses, Pedro’s eyes widen. “Adopted? A Guatemalan child can’t be adopted by a foreigner. It became illegal over ten years ago.”
“Maybe I misunderstood,” Rose says, remembering how giddy Eva was to introduce her “son.”
“But I do know Mauricio. He delivers clothing donations from Casa Eva. Are you trying to reach him? I could give you his phone number.”
“Oh! That would be perfect. I have . . . sort of an emergency question.”
“I can call him for you from here,” Pedro says, pointing toward his office.
They get no answer, only voicemail. Rose fumbles to leave a message in Spanish, with Pedro watching. “Soy Rose. ¿Necesitas hablar conmigo? Espero verte en San Felipe.”
After she disconnects, Pedro says, “He’ll get right back to you. This place has always meant a lot to him. Especially with your interest in donating, Mauricio will be grateful.”
Rose pays the waiting tuk-tuk driver to take her back toward San Felipe. This has all gotten too big. There are still details she could uncover as long as Eva doesn’t know her real name. Follow the story, Lindsay told her last night. But it wouldn’t hurt to let the authorities know she’s onto something.
The tuk-tuk stand runs along a small plaza, at the back of which sit two offices: the Tourism Bureau, with a bold blue sign written in English, and the Subestación de la PNC, or the Substation of the National Civil Police. Foreign police stations always make Rose nervous, more so in Latin America where there always seem to be three or four different types of police, not always on friendly terms with each other.
Rose stops under a shady tree, flipping through her notebook, trying to remember if the police station so helpful to Matt was here, in San Felipe, or in a bigger town just up the shore. Are they all called substations? Is there a main station nearby? She already knows that the moment she presents herself, ready to make a report, she may have to register, using her real name, and she doesn’t want to start showing identification or mention Molina’s name in the wrong place.