I walked over to the balcony window. I could see police cars and ambulances and a gathering crowd on Sixth Street below.
Greta got up and stood next to me. “Hey, I want you to know how sorry I am about Joe. And I’m sorry I gave you the runaround this past week. I needed time to figure out what we were dealing with. I have to protect my husband and his potential future in Washington. If any of this leaked out right now, it would likely turn into a big story that could wreck the election for him. I didn’t want to risk that happening.”
“So why did you come to the service today?”
She let out a deep sigh. “I couldn’t stay away. Joe was one of the best men I’ve ever known. I think a small part of me never really stopped loving him, even after all of these years. What we had way back then, even for a brief moment in time, was really special. I had to be there today to say goodbye.”
“Greta, what if I told you that Joe was still alive?”
She snapped her head to look over at me. “What?”
I walked back over to my chair, sat, ran my fingers through my hair.
“Alex?” Greta said. “What are you talking about?”
“I received an anonymous text message from Mexico City right before the service started today from someone claiming to be Joe.”
Pulling out my phone, I brought up the message, held it out for Greta. She walked over, took the phone, and read it carefully.
“How do you know this is from Joe?”
“He called himself Bear.”
“Bear?”
I explained how Nicole would sometimes call him that.
Greta read the text message again and then handed my phone back to me. “But you said you ID’d him at the scene of the vehicle explosion.”
“I did—sort of. The body was too burned to make an ID. But I had his wedding ring and his belt buckle that had been recovered in the fire. Plus, the body type was the exact same as Joe’s.”
Greta sat on the sofa again. I could see her mind working. “I don’t get it. If there is any truth to this, why would they fake his death?”
“I don’t know.” I knew she was probably just thinking out loud and not really asking me. “Can Del Luca do something to find out if this is real or not?”
She shook her head. “I can’t ask him to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Look out that window again. Al just shot and killed a CNI agent. He needs to go back to DC tonight and get some separation from this whole thing. Or else he’s going to find himself in serious trouble. Like I said, all of this was a favor to me. Nothing was sanctioned by any of his bosses. I can’t ask him to go back to Mexico again and start digging around to see if there is any truth to this. For one, I’m not sure I’m really buying it. If this was really from Joe, why wouldn’t he give you something more? The message is so brief and lacks any real confirmation. No photo, no explanation, nothing.”
“So what the hell am I supposed to do, Greta? Just forget about it?”
She sighed, considered it a moment. “Probably.”
“Are you serious? I thought you cared about him.”
“Listen to me, Alex. Even if this message was legitimate—and I have doubts about it—after what just happened out there on the sidewalk, Joe is surely dead by now. Or he will be shortly when word of this gets back to Mexico City tonight. If you want to protect yourself and your family, you should probably do exactly what Joe told you to do in that message. Let him go.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
I drove home reeling from my meeting with Greta. But I was grateful to finally have the full truth. My father-in-law was not a fraud like I had begun to believe. There was no extramarital affair. There was nothing sinister behind his secrets. Joe had been dealt an extraordinarily cruel set of circumstances early in his life. He’d responded the best way he could think of in what must have been an emotionally charged couple of days after his father had been killed. Unfortunately, the ripple from that response had carried forward for more than three decades before eventually catching up to him.
But I was still left with one daunting question: Where did I go from here? What Greta said made a lot of sense. When word got back to Miguel Cortez that his nephew had been shot and killed, the man would surely execute Joe on the spot if—and it was still a big if—my father-in-law had actually been alive earlier this afternoon and was the one who had sent me the text message.
Should I do what Greta suggested and let Joe go? Should I forget everything I’d just uncovered this past week, hope this all went away now that Antonio Perez was dead, and try to move on with my life? After all, Taylor, Carol, and my girls knew nothing about any of this. Our friends and family had all just said their goodbyes to Joe and were now beginning the process of healing from the loss. Could I do the same? Could I say goodbye to my father-in-law and bury these secrets forever? Joe had somehow managed to pull it off for thirty-five years. Was I capable of doing the same thing? Should I? I wasn’t sure yet.