Cherry Two

Part 44

Chapter 42

Sonia felt she had to do one additional thing besides mount a vigil at Robert's bedside. With Keenan still in Seattle, she boarded the shuttle flight back to Port Angeles. Media frenzy had visibly subsided as she gained access to the Police Headquarters/City Hall complex and sought out Captain Hollander.

Despite her own troubles, it seemed like the height of cruelty to shut Joby Benson away in a holding cell after the poor woman had endured a tragedy of staggering proportions. Customs and Immigration were insisting Benson still be held in the US pending the outcome of investigations into her background and nationality. Surrounded by police indifference, she'd not even been granted basic legal representation. Sonia intended to change all that.

Hollander ordered Benson transferred to an interview room, where she sat in silence with the sole female staff member on the Port Angeles force. When Sonia saw the wretched woman through the doorway she immediately asked to be alone. Hollander beckoned to the female officer and they both left. The door was locked from the outside.

At first Joby didn't look up to see who had entered the stark room.

Sonia studied the sad, crestfallen figure for a second or two, trying to equate her with the bouncy eighteen-year-old Latino girl she'd last seen in Monterey a quarter century earlier. The hard decades had turned her into someone barely recognizable.

"Hello, Joby. Do you remember me?"

Benson's head came up slowly. "Sonia. Yes, I remember. Is your father...?"

Sonia sank down into the vacated chair. "Robert is still alive. Not too well, but alive at least." Her hand reached out for Joby's. "I'm not here to cast blame on anyone now. You had your reasons for keeping quiet about Eduardo Ramos. I've seen your son."

Benson's hand gripped Sonia's ever tighter. She looked drawn and dowdy in drab clothes. Her once shiny raven hair, now dull and lifeless from neglect, framed the Mestizo face in unruly strands. "I don't care about myself, only Hay-soos. They can do what they like to me... but they mustn't hurt him. He's a child inside—a good boy. I keep asking to see him. Why won't they let me see him?"

"They will, I'll make sure," Sonia responded, still trying to equate this distressed woman with the girl she once knew in high school. "I called a lawyer in LA; one our family has used. He will be here tomorrow. Is there anyone you want me to contact in Canada?"

Joby pleaded to Sonia with red, watery eyes. "Please, there is the Holy Father. He knows Hay-soos is special. Bad people call him retarded, but Father Simon never did. He said Hay-soos is a child touched by God." Her voice became louder as if she wanted the entire place to hear. "They let you see him. It's not fair. I'm his mother."

Sonia mentioned nothing about her evaluation of Jesus Benson for the Port Angeles police, or anything else about her career, yet shuddered inside as she recalled how close Alain and Calley had come to being killed. No amount of pity for the woman could overcome that. Knowingly Joby had harbored a murderer, all for the sake of a son that understood nothing of right or wrong except the things his sociopathic father fed him. And it had all been going on right under her devout nose. At some point Joby Benson would have to acknowledge the truth. There were worse things than being called retarded.

They talked for a while longer. Sonia spoke of Kent, Alain and Colleen, but never broached her total estrangement from Robert; a fact she now regretted as much as Joby seemed to regret giving a known killer safe haven. The almighty not withstanding, Sonia's world would turn, and whatever happened to Joby, Jesus, Robert or herself was now in the hands of others. She could only return to her father's bedside and hope by virtue of a miracle she'd be allowed some time to make amends for the mindless hatred that had consumed her from the moment her sister died.