Chapter 75

"A place in Sand Village twenty years ago where children often played?"

Cindy repeated the question, thought about it for a moment, and shook her head. "I don't remember anyone mentioning it, but I used to visit my grandparents there a lot when I was little."

Wait, did Cindy live in Sand Village as a kid too?

"Oh, right!" Cindy suddenly clapped her hands, looking excited.

"What is it?" I asked.

"My mom used to live in Sand Village. Actually, she's from there! Mom, come here for a second!" Cindy got up, opened the door, and called out.

"What's going on?" Jody came rushing over, wearing gardening gloves and holding some vegetables.

Seeing Cindy was fine, she sighed in relief and said, "You only call me, your dad, or Benjamin with such energy. Outside, you take forever to say a word!"

Cindy was like that. She seemed quiet and didn't talk much, but once you got to know her, you'd see she was really warm-hearted. She was also pretty careless and liked to be alone, reading a book, which made her seem a bit aloof to others.

"Mom, I remember you said you used to live in Sand Village?" Cindy asked.

"Yeah, what's up?" Jody replied.

Could it really be such a coincidence?

"Ms. Rivera, I'm looking into a case related to Sand Village. Could you tell me more about it? When did you live there, and for how long?" I asked.

Hearing I was investigating a case, Jody quickly invited me to sit at the dining table, poured me a glass of water, took off her gloves, put down the vegetables, and sat up straight.

"No need to be so formal," I reassured her. "Ms. Rivera, I'm not with the prosecutor's office anymore, I'm just a journalist now. Let's just chat casually."

"No way, Nancy, I've read your reports. Even though you're not at the prosecutor's office anymore, your work is still top-notch. Unlike those small-time reporters chasing sensational news, you really speak up for ordinary people, for fairness and justice."

Jody gave a thumbs up and said sincerely, "Ask away, what do you want to know? Oh, you asked when I lived in Sand Village and for how long, right? Let me think, my memory isn't what it used to be."

Jody looked at her phone calendar and counted on her fingers. After a while, she nodded, "I remember now."

"Please go ahead," I said.

Jody continued, "I lived in Sand Village until I got married, probably moved out around 1983. I got married and had Cindy then. Back then, our city wasn't called Silverlight City, it was called Sand Town. There was a steel mill in the area, and my parents were temporarily assigned to work there. The company-provided housing was in Sand Village. I would take Cindy to Sand Village to visit my parents on weekends. Cindy was only a few years old then."

"Later, my parents were transferred to work for the government, so they didn't live there anymore. The house was rented out, and when the steel mill's performance declined, the house was taken back. So, we lived there for about five and a half years, but we didn't go often and weren't very familiar with the area."

Jody answered seriously, carefully recounting the past. No wonder she had to think so hard; even though she lived in Sand Village, it was just a temporary place, and she didn't go there often.

"Do you remember if there was a place nearby, maybe about a half-hour bike ride away, no more than 6.2 miles, where there were a lot of kids, like a bunch of kids living together, and sometimes a few kids would come to Sand Village to play, but they weren't from there?" I asked, deliberately leaving out other details. The fewer people who knew about this, the better.

"I don't recall any place nearby with a lot of kids, and I don't think anyone mentioned it." Jody tilted her head, thinking and hesitating. "But... I do remember seeing some kids occasionally, not coming to play though."

My heart tightened, and I quickly asked, "What did they come for?"

"To beg." Jody sighed, her voice filled with emotion. "They were poor homeless kids, some as young as four or five, others seven or eight, wearing tattered clothes in the dead of winter, with bruises all over. When asked where they came from, they wouldn't say, just stared longingly at the kitchen, sniffing hard."

"The people in Sand Village were kind-hearted, and whatever food they had, they gave to the kids. Those kids didn't steal or rob, just came every ten days or so to ask for food and then left."

"How could there be so many homeless kids in that era?" Cindy touched her belly, feeling more compassion and pity for children as an expectant mother.

Jody added, "They had such a hard life. I remember two kids clearly. One looked quiet and thin, always carrying a book. He would lead the other kids to ask for food, and whatever they got, he would distribute to the others first, then sit in a corner reading. My parents felt sorry for him and offered him food, but he refused, asking if he could borrow books to read and return. My dad, with a big heart, said he could come anytime and pick any book from the study."

I shivered. It was Alan.

"What happened to that kid later?" I asked softly.

"That kid did well. My neighbor wanted to adopt him, but he refused, instead bringing a younger child over, kneeling and begging my neighbor to adopt that child."

Jody was deeply moved, her eyes reddening as she spoke. "He came at a bad time. The next year, we moved away. Before we left, my dad left all the books for my neighbor to give to that book-loving kid."

It was incredible how fate worked.

"Ms. Rivera, what happened next? Did your neighbor agree? Did that child have any distinctive features?" I asked.

I could vaguely guess what happened next.

Lally had mentioned that Tom (Zack) was introduced to the Thompson family by Alan, and for Alan to beg like that, their relationship must have been very close.

Jody replied, "The neighbor named him Zack Garcia. Interestingly, although his last name was Thompson, they insisted on calling him Garcia. My dad said it was because the neighbor, George, wanted to honor a friend who died unmarried, essentially giving his friend a posthumous son. George was a good man."

"But that child was also very pitiful. He was blind in one eye and very afraid of the dark, always sleeping with the light on."