Show Me Chapter 11

Hey guys, just a heads up that this chapter might have sentences that are bolded—the speaker is going to be speaking English when this happens.

Date: February 4, 2019

Miguel walked quietly up and down the library hallway, his hands in his pockets. It had been two days since he, Elena, Enrique and Gloria had arrived in Texas and so far, things had been going fine. Martinez had let the family settle in for the first two days so he could work on getting permission to access the library's science lab to look over physical evidence.

Unfortunately for Miguel, he was considered to be too young to be in the lab itself, so Martinez secured access for both Elena and Enrique to work in the lab instead. In the meantime, Gloria and Miguel had another important job: looking up information on de la Cruz's life from 1935-1942 on the library's main floor.

"Unfortunately, you have to be at least 18 to work in the research lab," Martinez said. "But there is something that I could use some help on. You and your Tía Gloria can look up more information about de la Cruz's 1942 Wartime Tour in the computer lab. See if you can find out more about the bandmates that accompanied him or even about de la Cruz's family."

With Gloria accompanying him to the main level of the library, Miguel pulled out his big red notebook, filled to the brim with information that he had written in about de la Cruz, the connection to Lopez, and more. This was a notebook that Miguel had started ever since Día de los Muertos 2017. Every note, every clue, even drawings that he had done of Héctor from memory were in there, tightly bound together by a long piece of string.

Opening up a laptop borrowed from the computer area, Gloria quickly accessed the library's main archive page. With a few quick clicks, the news appeared flashing FEBRUARY 4, 2019 along with the highlights of the day. Gloria stiffened slightly when she saw one of the headlines spoke about the conflict in Venezuela. There was also an article about science, but she had skimmed through it so quickly that Miguel didn't have a chance to read it, but he could tell that article had upset her more than the previous one.

"Tía Gloria," Miguel began slowly. "Esta bien? Was it the article? Fui yo?"

Shaking her head, Gloria ruffled her nephew's hair. "No, mijo, you didn't do anything. It's just that—ah, no importa. I'll explain it to you later."

Miguel had wanted to ask more questions, but one look from his tía and he relented. Whatever this was, it had deeply upset her, and Miguel knew that it was something that he shouldn't ask about until she felt ready. While he hadn't exactly had a completely sheltered life (apart from the ban of course), the adults in the family were always careful about talking about world news in front of the kids.

"No business at the dinner table!" was Elena's firm rule. It had been there since Imelda had run the shop and it had stuck around.

Scrolling through more websites, Miguel finally found one that was of interest: ERNESTO DE LA CRUZ: WARTIME

"Does that mean he fought in a big war, Tía?" Miguel asked as Gloria looked at the website. After scrolling through it she shook her head, but immediately closed the website as she realized that there was just some stuff that she couldn't share with Miguel, no matter how curious he was.

"No, but according to this, he performed for soldiers during Segunda Guerra Mundial. Traveled all over Mexico and made dozens of movies for the war effort." Gloria said. Most of them, Miguel noted, were cheesy romance movies.

Rolling his eyes, Miguel kept scrolling through the website until he reached the sources page. Printing out the list, he turned to Gloria and said, "Can we show this to Papá and Abuelita?"

Nodding, Gloria went to go check out the two books that they had looked at earlier, one discussing de la Cruz's life and one discussing conspiracy theories on de la Cruz's death.

With little to go on in terms of facts, they decided to go get food at the hotel's restaurant with the others. If Miguel had thought his tía was acting odd, he didn't comment on it.

Gloria stirred a bowl of chili, her thoughts racing as Elena watched her with concern. It was very clear that something had upset Gloria during her research session at the library.

"Ay mija, you should try and eat," Elena said gently. "It's going to get cold."

Inclining her head, Gloria ate as much as she could under Elena's watchful eye. Enrique had left earlier to go call Luisa and let her know of what progress had been made while Miguel headed back to the hotel room for a nap.

"How did your day go, Mamá?" Gloria said, determined to change the subject. "Did you find out anything?"

Shaking her head, Elena went on, "We couldn't find out much apart from things we already knew. Who knew doing research like this could be so difícil?"

Shrugging her shoulders, Gloria said, "Mamá, we all knew that it was going to be difficult. Not everyone in the world will be convinced that de la Cruz did anything wrong."

Elena looked like she was about to start shouting but she quickly quieted down at her daughter's request. "And if we can't get the Rodriguez family to cooperate, estamos atornillados. But let's worry about that when the time comes. What did you find out with Miguelito?"

Pulling out three sheets of paper, Gloria translated most of it out loud, Elena looking over her shoulder. Even though she couldn't read it due to the language barrier, Elena looked absolutely disgusted as she stared at a picture of de la Cruz with two women swooning at his side.

"He fought in the Mexican Revolution when he was 17 and performed for troops during his Wartime Tour in the 1940s." Gloria read out aloud and paused, this time reading about de la Cruz's love life, something that she did not want Miguel to hear while they were at the library as she wasn't sure that it was appropriate for him. Elena had yelled at her once for accidentally leaving a telenovela on with a questionable love scene when Miguel was four.

"He was never married but had affairs with a number of women over the years and rumors of illegitimate children nearly killed his career in the late 1930s. The last tour de la Cruz did before his death was an attempt to try and salvage his reputation with his American fans," Gloria read out loud. "The most notable romance was with renowned actress Araceli Torres which ended in November 1941, just months before he died. She died 8 months after de la Cruz from kidney failure but, according to this, some rumored that she died due to complications in childbirth."

Elena looked a bit taken aback, her thoughts racing. "How old was Araceli Torres when she died?"

Gloria murmured the age so softly that Elena and Enrique (who had rejoined them), had to ask her to speak up.

"Ella solo tenía 20 años." Gloria said much to the shock of everyone else. "She was 17 when she started going out with de la Cruz."

Enrique looked shocked as he took in this information. What really made him upset was that this young girl was 17 and de la Cruz was in his mid-forties. Old enough to be her father, but such were the times. Definitely something to bring up with Martinez tomorrow, Enrique thought as everyone made their way back to the hotel the next day.

When they woke up the next morning, Enrique explained the information to Miguel as carefully as possible. Miguel's eyes grew bigger as his papá explained de la Cruz's affair with Araceli Torres but Enrique was careful not to mention Araceli's age or what could have happened to her.

"Miguel, are you ok?" Enrique asked as Miguel went quiet, taking in all the information. But Miguel didn't say a word, too shocked to even reply. No wonder his tía was so upset yesterday!

When breakfast was over, Enrique suggested that Gloria and Miguel went to go take a break from the research to do a bit of sight-seeing; Miguel had expressed an interest in going to the Space Center and Gloria wanted to go see a bit of the Museum District (as well as do a bit of shopping). Both places would take all day to tour, so it would be a good distraction for the depressed Gloria. Meanwhile, Elena and Enrique decided to stay behind, wanting to talk to Martinez about the developments in the research.

"This certainly explains a lot." Martinez said as Enrique and Elena presented the information the next day. "We need to find out whether or not there were any children, if those children are still around and whether or not there are any discrepancies with de la Cruz's autobiography."

Enrique closed his eyes in deep thought; that could only mean that the research would take even longer and the Riveras would only be there for 10 days and-

"Did you find anything from the lab, Julio?" Enrique asked softly. "Related to Rodriguez?"

"No, not yet, Enrique," Martinez answered, carefully wording his answer. "But we did hear back from their lawyer."

"What did they say?"

"They want to meet with us. Tomorrow."

The article Gloria was reading is posted on my profile; feel free to check it out!