You Have the Right to Remain Silent Read Free Page B

where she could talk, but she still looked as if she wanted to kill Marian. It turned out Juanita already knew about the arrest of the Queens; news traveled fast in the projects. And it also turned out that that was the reason she’d attacked Marian.
    â€œBut why?” Marian asked in bewilderment. “Those girls killed your mother, Juanita! Didn’t you want them caught?”
    â€œNo! Not the Queens! Not them! Oh, you don’ unnerstan’ nothin’!”
    â€œI most certainly do not. Explain it to me, Juanita. Why should you care what happens to the Queens?” When she was met with only sulky silence, Marian turned to Tito. “Do you know why she wants to protect the Queens?”
    The boy stared at her without blinking. “She ast ’em to kill mama.”
    â€œYou shut your mouth!” his sister screeched.
    Tito’s eyes turned inward.
    Marian was shocked. Juanita had asked the Queens to kill her own mother? And they had obliged? Juanita looked as if she was getting ready to attack again, so Marian made her voice as gentle as she could. “What did she do to you, Juanita? What did your mother do?”
    The girl licked her lips. “She dint do nothin’ to me.”
    To me . “To Tito? Did she do something to Tito?”
    Juanita’s eyes flickered toward her brother and back again. “She dint do nothin’ to him neither.” And then in a voice so low as to be almost inaudible: “Yet.”
    Yet. “What was she going to do to him?” No answer. In a firmer voice: “Juanita, what was your mother going to do to Tito?”
    â€œ She was goin’ to kill him, you dumb pig! ”
    Slowly the ugly story came out. According to Juanita, Mrs. Alvarez had killed her two younger children—first two-year-old Estella and then six-year-old Felipe. Juanita hadn’t been too sure about Estella but she’d actually seen her mother push Felipe out the window … eight floors up. Keeping out of sight, the frightened girl had followed as her mother went down and wrapped Felipe’s body in a filthy army blanket. Mrs. Alvarez had carried him away in the middle of the night; two hours later she’d returned with nothing in her arms.
    The reason? She couldn’t support four kids. The two deaths had gone unreported; and each time a social worker paid a visit, Mrs. Alvarez had borrowed two children from her neighbors so her food stamps and living-expenses assistance wouldn’t be reduced. Even so, the welfare checks didn’t go far enough, and the salary checks when she was working bought less and less. First she’d disposed of one mouth to feed. And then another. And now times were lean again.
    â€œTito was next,” Juanita said in an old woman’s voice.
    Oh dear god; what a thing for a twelve-year-old to have to face. “And then you were next after Tito.”
    â€œNot me!” Juanita said with scorn. “I bring money in!” She glared at Marian defiantly.
    Marian carefully did not ask how. “But why didn’t you go to the police, Juanita?”
    â€œI did,” the girl said. “I tol’ a brownie, but he dint listen.”
    A traffic cop. Marian’s cheekbone was hurting, where one of Juanita’s sharp little fists had landed. She tried asking Tito a few questions but got only grunts in reply; she wasn’t even sure the boy was still with them. Juanita said she’d told a lot of people, but nobody did anything. So she’d gone to the Queens for help.
    â€œWhy the Queens?”
    â€œBecause they the only ones ‘round here who take care , you know, look out for things. I tell ’em what happen and they say don’ worry, we take care of it. And now they all in jail— and it’s my fault! ” The body-wracking sobs started again. “They all gone now—because of me!” Juanita’s attack on Marian had been some last-ditch attempt to