Smaller and Smaller Circles (23 page)

 

I can feel them. Scurrying in circles around me, smaller and smaller circles like rats around a crust of bread or a piece of cheese. Waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment. The moment when I slip up, when I make a mistake, when I get careless.

I can hear their feet. Some of them pass by the gate, on the sidewalk; they think I can't see them. Some of them are brave enough to rattle the gate; they bring my mail, my bills; they ask for donations. Some of them get into the house while I'm sleeping, and I wake up, and I hear their feet on the stairs, yes I do.

I can hear their thoughts.

The priest knows. He's coming for me.

Let him come, then. Let him come soon. And then all this will be over.

37

“I don't understand.
Are you telling me I'm a suspect?” Jeannie asks Saenz incredulously.

She had agreed to meet with Saenz and Jerome at the health center after hours on Monday, along with Councillor Mariano and Dr. Alice Panganiban. Now, her small face is pale with worry.

“We don't have a suspect yet, Jeannie,” Saenz says, as gently as he can, because he can sense her rising panic. “We just want to understand how things work at the mobile clinic. How often it goes to the parish. How often you're there.”

“The clinic is there every Saturday,” she says, looking to Alice for reassurance. “Alice and two nurses, plus a dentist and a dental assistant.”

“How long have you been working there?” It's Mariano asking.

“Five years—isn't that right, Alice?”

“Six here at the district health center, almost five at the mobile clinic,” Alice confirms.

Jeannie turns back to Saenz. “But now you're asking how often I'm here. That must mean you think I'm involved.”

“We're not saying that,” Jerome says. “But perhaps you can tell us—do you remember treating any of the victims?”

“No! I honestly can't. I would have told you already, the day we identified those three, if I did.”

Saenz is quiet, and everyone looks to him for direction.

He turns to Jeannie again. “You said, that day, that you had an alternate. The one who always forgets to file records here.”

Jeannie nods. “Alex. Alex Carlos.”

“Is he regular staff here?”

Alice shakes her head. “No, he's got his own practice, but he comes here Mondays and Fridays.”

“And he goes to the mobile clinic too?”

“Yes. Every first and third Saturday of the month.”

Jerome recognizes at once that familiar light in Saenz's eyes. “Since when?”

“Well
. . .
almost since he started with us. Right, Alice?” When Alice agrees, Jeannie continues. “He's been with us—what? Less than a year?”

“So he's the newest on staff?”

“Relatively new,” Alice says. “He joined us
. . .
let me see. December last year. No, November.”

“Anyone else new?”

“There's Joji, our dental assistant. She's only been with us three months.”

Saenz picks up a pen and begins tapping Alice's desk with the capped end. Then he springs out of his chair. “Jerome. My briefcase. In your car.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“I need the envelope.”

Jerome nods, runs out of the room. Saenz turns to Jeannie and Alice. “The records of the three boys we identified last Sunday: Vicente Bansuy, Noel Solis, Lino Alcaraz. We had them photocopied for the NBI, but we left the originals here. Please get them for me.”

The two women scamper to the records room, and Saenz is left alone in Alice's office, feeling the vaporous threads of an elusive thought becoming more distinct, more concrete.

Jerome gets back first. “Here,” he says, slamming Saenz's briefcase down on Alice's desk. Saenz quickly unlocks it and fishes out the envelope, now encased in a resealable plastic bag. He lays the envelope, address side up on the concrete.

Jeannie bursts through the door, brandishing three sets of records, and Alice comes up right behind her. “Here,” Jeannie says, thrusting the papers into Saenz's hands.

He pushes some of Alice's papers and gewgaws away and then spreads the records out on the space he's just cleared. All four of them stare at the papers for a moment or two. Alice and Jeannie have no idea what they're supposed to be seeing, but Jerome picks up on it almost immediately.

“That's it,” he says. “That's what's been nagging at you since you got the envelope.”

Saenz nods. “Jeannie.” He points to the dental records of the three boys. “Is that your handwriting?”

Jeannie glances at the records again. “No. No it isn't.”

“Whose is it?”

“It's Alex's.”

Alice and Jeannie
tell the priests that Alejandro Benitez-Carlos Jr. is thirty-four, a good worker, single and living alone in an apartment in Quezon City. He has a small private practice, although they don't quite know where it is. On the days he's on duty at either the health center or the mobile clinic, he comes to work early, lunches alone, and is always the last to leave at the end of the day.

They say he's professional, reserved: a quiet man who keeps mostly to himself. He's unremarkable, except perhaps for rare flashes of temper; not loud or explosive, but, as Jeannie describes it, unsettling. “He scares me sometimes, to be honest,” she says.

When Saenz asks what he looks like, Alice produces a small photograph from his personnel file. Saenz recognizes him immediately: the man who was seated at the reception desk when they finished the identification work on Monday.

The priests leave the health center with strict instructions for Alice and Jeannie to act normally around him. “We're not law enforcers, Alice,” Saenz reminds her. “This all has to go through legal channels first.”

In the car on the way back to the university, Jerome asks: “So, what now? Do we advise Valdes and Arcinas to arrest him? Or do we ask them to conduct a background check on Alex Carlos first?”

Saenz doesn't answer at once. His fingers drum a rapid beat on his thigh, and he's restless in his seat. “I'm wondering if there isn't another way. A possibly faster one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our friend the news producer, and her army of contacts.”

38

By Quezon City
Hall, Toyang Bailon, Clerk II at Human Resources, waits at the fried squid ball and fish ball stand of the
tiangge
, an open-air market with various stalls selling clothes, shoes, toys, processed food, rice and produce.

It is four o'clock in the afternoon, and people have started leaving their offices, dropping by the
tiangge
for any last minute cooking needs before making the journey home.

It is sweltering hot even in the shade, and strands of her hair are sticking to the nape of her neck. She buys a plastic cup of
sago't gulaman
with ice and a stick of doughy squid balls at a snack stall. The vendor motions to a jar of sweet-and-hot sauce, and Toyang dips the stick into the jar, careful to tuck the file folder she is carrying under her arm so the sauce doesn't drip on it.

She has just taken her first hot mouthful when someone taps her on the shoulder.

“Eating again, Toyang?” the tall woman says.

“Eh,
Ate
, how are you?” Toyang chews hurriedly, sets down her drink at the stall's tiny counter, then dabs at her lips with some napkins from a plastic cup on one side of the counter.

“I'm okay. How about you? How are the kids?” the other woman asks.

“They're doing well. Pinky is learning how to walk. How about you? When are you going to start having your own?”

“I don't know. Maybe someday, Toyang. Listen, did you find what I need?”

Toyang wants to pursue the subject of kids a little more—she can't help but be curious about this strange woman. But as usual, the other woman wants to push the topic out of the way and get on to business. It wouldn't be the first time; talk of marriage and kids and family always seems to make her nervous.

The government employee takes the folder and hands it over.

“That's his service record and some of the pre-employment requirements he submitted for his application. He hasn't been in any trouble, no administrative cases or disciplinary action. Good boy,” she adds unhelpfully.

The other woman opens the folder and begins leafing through the papers inside, saying nothing. After a few minutes of reading, she looks up. “This is really good, Toyang. I appreciate your help.” The woman reaches deep into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out a five hundred–peso bill. “Hey, this is for Pinky.”

Toyang steps back, waving her hands, squid ball stick in one. “No, no,
Ate
. It was nothing. Really, it was no trouble at all.”

“No, Toyang, I insist. You always pull through for me.”

Toyang blushes a deep red. “
Ate naman
, you don't need to pay me.”

The other woman takes her hand and presses the bill into it. “Buy her a pretty dress. Tell her it's from
Ninang
.”

Toyangs nods, whispers her thanks. Watches the woman walk down the line of stalls and disappear into the crowd.

Ciony is taking
a break from the morning's work, sitting in a quiet corner of the University of the Philippines' registrar's office with a soft drink and two
suman
. A phone rings in another part of the large office, and she hears the slap-slap of someone's slipper-shod feet as they approach her.

“
Manang
Cion, you've got a phone call.”

Ciony is surprised. “Eh? Who could that be?”

“Don't know; she wouldn't say.”

Ciony leaves her snack on the table and ambles over to the phone on her desk. “Hello?”

The voice at the other end of the line is familiar to her. “
Manang
Cion. How are you doing today?”

“Oh, it's you. I haven't seen you in a while. How are you?”

“I'm fine,
Manang
. How is
Manong
Jess? Has he retired already?”

“No, next year. He says he wants to go back to Pangasinan. I keep telling him his friends are all here and he'll be bored silly over there.”

A chuckle at the other end. “Ah, let him try it and see if he likes it. I know him. Pretty soon he'll want to be where the action is.” Ciony's husband, Jess, works for the university police force. He never went to college, but is nevertheless an intelligent man, sensible, decent.

“I hope you're right. Besides, his doctor is here. Anyway. What can I do for you?”

Ciony listens for a minute, takes a pen from the holder on her desk and scribbles some notes on a pad. She says “yes” several times, then “Okay, I'll see what I can do,” before launching into a detailed account of her most recent bout of rheumatism and her granddaughter's recovery from chicken pox.

The following Monday,
the phone rings in Saenz's faculty office. “That should be Ben's boys,” Saenz says.

Jerome nods and answers the call. “Yes?”

“Hey, Father Lucero. Is the joint jumping?”

“Ah.” It occurs to him that the reporter's voice sounds very like a drag queen's. Perhaps she smokes a lot. “Joanna.” He glances up at Saenz, and the other priest immediately comes close. “How are you?”

“I'm okay.”

“You sure? You sound like you have a sore throat. Do you smoke a lot?”

A chuckle at the other end, as though she has heard this question many times before. “Haven't touched the stuff in years, Father. Guess that makes me a drag queen, eh?”

Jerome almost drops the receiver. “Gus is here; hang on a second,” he says hurriedly and hands the instrument over to the older priest as though it carries an electrical charge.

Saenz takes the phone from him with a puzzled smile. “Joanna,
comment vas-tu
?
Ah, vraiment?
” Jerome rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Listen, Joanna. Jerome is here, and his French is very bad. Shall I put you on speakerphone? I would like him to hear this.”

Saenz presses a button on the phone and replaces the handset. Immediately the sound of the woman's deep, gravelly voice fills the room.

“I'm faxing you some information I dug up on Alex Carlos.”

The two priests look at each other.
Already?
Jerome mouths silently to Saenz.

“Relax, Father,” she drawls, as though she has heard him. “You do your job, and I'll do mine. The long and short of it is, you have one fairly smart suspect on your hands. Comes from a poor family, but he's been granted scholarships almost
throughout his entire academic life, culminating in a dentistry degree from the University of the Philippines. He has no immediate family in Manila; his parents moved to Bulacan soon after his graduation from college—apparently they have relatives there. Their address is on the documents I'm faxing you.”

Jerome is shaking his head. “How did you get all this?”

“Contacts, Father Lucero,” the woman says, in a tone of good-natured jest. “Do you realize the civil service is a huge untapped information resource? And it doesn't respond very well to NBI agents throwing their weight around either.”

Saenz takes a deep breath, a tad peeved yet hugely grateful at the same time. “Joanna, you are a gem.”

“That's your diplomatic way of telling me I can scratch the hardest surfaces, eh, Father?” She laughs softly. “You know there's no such thing as a free lunch, right?”

Saenz chuckles. “Of course. When this whole matter is settled.”

The woman hangs up.

In a few minutes, the papers begin coming through: birth and baptismal certificates, school records, newspaper clippings. Saenz takes the documents off the machine, one by one, and hands them over to Jerome.

Jerome shakes his head, half in admiration and half in amazement. “A one-woman NBI,” he says as he pores over the faxes. After a few minutes, he waves a piece of paper at Saenz. “Guess where he finished secondary school.”

Saenz looks above the upper rims of his glasses. “Payatas High?”

Jerome nods. “Favorite son.” He pauses to think. “Bulacan. That's not far. Could be worth a day trip. What do you think?”

“I don't know. Maybe Ben can get the local NBI office to interview them.”

Jerome's nose crinkles, as though there's a foul smell in the room. “I'm not sure how much help that would be, to be honest.”

“I see what you mean.” Saenz knows Jerome doesn't have a very high regard for the interviewing skills of most NBI agents. “Can you spare the time?”

“I think I can move things around and free up most of tomorrow.”

“All right, then. But you'll need a good story. Something that won't alarm them.”

Jerome smiles. “I thought you said I had a gift for this sort of thing.”