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The officer nods as if she understands my incoherency, as if she’s fluent in the absurd language of panic.
“Are you hurt?”
I shake my head as she wraps two arms around me to help me into a standing position. Six inch platforms on weak knees and sore ankle equals a very wobbly me.
Once we’re both upright and balanced, she releases me and speaks to her male partner who studies the scene. The EMTs have Styx on a gurney and are already wheeling him toward the vehicle.
The police woman, or detective, is in her forties. Plain looking, with a serious furrow on the brow and a warm, inviting smile. Her dark black curly hair is messily slopped up into a bun and she speaks English almost as well as me. She’s dressed differently than her partner: loose black business suit, kind of boxy for her slender frame, and a pair of thick-heeled pumps, perhaps adding two or three inches to her height. She’s taller than me and I’m 5’8 with five inch heels on. Compared to the six-foot-plus woman, her partner is short and stubby, like a thumb.
One of the EMTs runs toward the ambulance, catapulting inside and bouncing back out with an oxygen mask. Horrified, I watch as they pump away at Styx’s chest, trying to revive him.
“Do you know him, Miss Cassidy?”
My wide eyes must have given it a way. The two percent hope that I clung to just gained a decimal. Point-two percent chance of survival are awful odds.
“Neve?”
A nod from me suffices as an answer.
“My name is Detective Beyer. I’d like to ask a you a few questions on the victim?”
Victim.I exhale loudly as the men wheel him into the ambulance, still alive.
“What was he doing here?”
A shrug comes before I find my voice again. “H-he...” I clear my throat and sigh before I bend an achy knee and swipe my purse up from the ground. “He’s my boss’s son. I’ve never met him before tonight.”
Officer Beyer nods and peers over her shoulder toward the back doors of the ambulance. “Where is your boss?” She glances toward the door of the Rosa Negra, then down the street. “Can we speak to her or him?”
With a closed throat and teary eyes, I tell the truth: “She had a stroke four months ago and is in a rehab center.”
“Which one?”
I dip my fingers into the outside pocket of my purse and pluck out a business card to give to her. “Even if she could speak, she wouldn’t know much. Styx hasn’t been in the country since before his eighteenth birthday.”
“Where was he?”
“Spain, I think. Maybe in the States. I can’t remember exactly. She didn’t really talk much about his whereabouts.”
“Had you met him before?”
Dejá vu creeps over. Had I not told her this before?
“Neve?”
I shake my head.Just in my imagination.“Pictures only.”
The EMTs say something in Portuguese that I don’t quite catch.
The police officer bobs her head and asks, “He doesn’t have an identification on his person, do you know his full name?”
“I don’t know. His mom’s last name is Morano. Rosalinda dos Santos Xavier Morano. She calls him Styx.” Most people know who Mama Rosa is, so I’m guessing she must be new.
“Was he born here?”
“Yes.”
“Then, that may be a nickname since foreign names aren’t normally permitted here.”
