Caray, Caray!

Wow, that was quite a break in between episodes!

Two women are being arrested by the DIEM crew. Someone escorts a younger girl behind them. Aranda calls Capellan to tell her they're on the way with three suspects and one of them is a minor.

Yolanda Andrade and Aleida Nuñez are Elvira y Mercedes, justicieras (agengers).

Lupita and Elvira are cutting up potatoes on an outdoor patio. Elvira is Lupita's aunt. She asks about the building custodian getting the light back on and as Lupita leans over the table, Elvira notices Domingo, who Lupita calls "dad" checking out her ass. Yeah, it's gonna be that kind of night. He complains about the custodian never doing his job and Elvira tells him to bite his tongue, considering the source. He tells her he really is looking for work…and checks out Lupita again. He complains there just aren't any jobs out there. Just office work. And he's more of a fresh-air-lover. He doesn’t look like he smells all that fresh. He gives Lupita a kiss on the side of the head and leaves.

Elvira hisses to Lupita that that loser isn't her dad and she knows it. She says he can't find a job in the open air or under a roof because all he does is sit around with the paper all day. "Haven't you seen the way he looks at you?" Lupita brushes it off, but she won't look at her aunt when Elvira asks her if all he's done is look. Elvira complains about Mercedes ending up with that good-for-nothing. Mercedes walks up with a basket of laundry and gives it to Lupita, telling her to hurry up and take it to her room.

Mercedes asks why Elvira is saying those things to Lupita. She claims that she's not "putting up" with Domingo, that he's doing his "manly duty." Elvira says just be cause he got her pregnant doesn't mean he's a man. Elvira asks her what she's planning to do with four kids and another on the way, with a husband who "no ata ni desata" (he won't tie or untie; he's useless, etc.) . Mercedes says she stays with him because he'll change all their lives and make them better. Elvira reminds her that having a better chance is for those who work, but look at how they're living. "You said it, Lupita's of age. It's time she started sleeping in my room." Mercedes says no way, she doesn't want to cause trouble for Elvira, they'll make room. Elvira asks if Mercedes hasn't noticed Domingo looking at her daughter. "What barbarities are you saying?! What do you have against Domingo?" "Lupita isn't a girl anymore." Mercedes calls Lupita over and asks her what she has against her dad. Elvira says it's ok, she can tell them. Lupita begs her mom not to get upset. Elvira snaps at her to tell them and Lupita asks her not to keep pushing.

They're all escorted into DIEM headquarters and Lupita is placed in Capellan's office. Aranda says she needs to be calm and tell them what happened. Lupita cries that she didn't do anything.

Lupita leaves the kitchen and Mercedes looks up at Elvira and says Domingo isn't capable of doing "something like that." After all, he's her dad. Elvira reminds her that he isn't. "As good as, Elvira. You know what, that kid's gonna hear it from me right now! How dare she make things up." Elvira says this is coming from her too and she doesn't need to be sleeping in the same room with Lupita. "You'd have to be a real idiot not to realize the danger that girl is in!" Mercedes takes offense at Domingo being called a danger and calls her sister bitter and sick. Elvira says it's hard enough having the whole family there and she doesn't want any more problems.

Mercedes can't sleep. She tells Domingo it's not the baby--she's only a month pregnant. He decides a little sex will knock her out, but Mercedes wants to talk. "Domingo, do you love the kids? Even though they're not yours?" He says if he didn't love them, then why would he be supporting them all? Um, except he doesn't actually. "Are you going to throw the work thing in my face again? I swear tomorrow I'll find something!" He claims again to love all the kids as much as he loves little Domingo, who's on the way. "And Lupita?" "Lupita more than all of them. When I see her, I see you. Of course I love her." Ewwwwwww!

The next morning Mercedes tells Elvira what Domingo said. "Hey, not to make you feel bad, but what did you think he was going to say? That he didn't love the kids? That he doesn't love Lupita?" Mercedes accuses Elvira of wanting to say bad things about Domingo so he ends up alone like she is. Riiight, cause he's such a catch! "And what about Lupita?" Mercedes says that Lupita didn't say anything, but Elvira tells her that's because Lupita was too scared. She spouts some nonsense about Lupita making things up because it gets her aunt's attention and it's Elvira's fault for paying attention to it. "That girl is scared and if that sonofabitch puts a hand on her I'll kill him." "Threatening my Domingo is like threatening me!" "So you and Domingo are the same person now? In that case, when he wants to sleep with your daughter, then you hold her down so she keeps quiet. Or maybe you should join in and all three of you can sleep together." Mercedes calls her sister a pig. "I'd rather be a pig then be blind!"

Elvira runs into Lupita inside. Lupita knows they're fighting about her. Mercedes comes inside and asks what Lupita was doing there. Apparently this patio is attached to Elvira's apartment. Lupita says she was just helping her aunt. "Oh yeah? And who's gonna help me with your brothers? Go home." Elvira tries to intervene, but Mercedes tells her to shut up and tells Lupita to get home. Elvira asks if she's given any further thought to having Lupita sleep in her room. "No. Lupita will sleep in her house." Lupita tries to beg to be allowed to stay with her aunt, but Mercedes shuts her up. "Look, Elvira, you're good at threatening, but don't mess with my husband. You're an old maid and that's not my problem. Find a man--that's what you need." "What for? So my life can go the way yours has? No thanks." "Well, better to have had lots of men than to be left alone!"

Capellan comes into her office to talk to Lupita. She says everything is fine and she doesn't think Lupita is guilty of anything. Besides, this isn't a jail cell, it's an office. "But you have to trust me. You have to tell me everything that happened to you. Calmly."

Domingo gets up out of bed in the middle of the night at tells Mercedes he's hungry and going to go get something to eat. While he creepily stands by Lupita's bed with his underwear half hanging off him and picks up the covers to get a better look at her, Mercedes wakes up completely and goes to see what he's doing. He hastily puts the covers back on Lupita and says he was just covering the kids up. He says he was looking for something to eat, but all he found were beans. Mercedes tells him he took a long time. Meanwhile, Lupita is stuffing the sheets in her mouth and covering her head with her pillow.

Elvira brings candy home for the kids. "Yeah, I know, you don't like me to bring them sweets, but that's why I'm their aunt! I spoil them and you bring them up right." Mercedes asks Elvira to forgive her for what she said the other day. Elvira says it is true, she's alone…but it's Mercedes' fault because of Hugo. "Well, Hugo was MY boyfriend." Well, Elvira liked him, that's all. He only stuck around long enough to get Mercedes pregnant with Lupita. Elvira says, just to clarify, she doesn't like the one Mercedes is like now, not even a little. "What do you have against Domingo?" "I talked to Ceci, the doctor from 22, and she told me…." Mercedes complains about her talking to other people about what does or doesn't happen to her. "That's the thing! She says Lupita's an adolescent and we should take care of her." Mercedes says Ceci saw "her" Domingo and wanted him…and she's a nurse, not a doctor. Mercedes tells her to stay out of things. "Domingo's a good man and he loves the kids as if they were his. If you keep saying that stuff, you and Lupita, I'll smack you both across the mouth. That'll be a good remedy!" Elvira goes into the kitchen and says maybe she'll be the one to apply a remedy first.

Capellan asks Elvira if she really thinks she remedied the situation. "At least I did something. Whether it was a good thing or not. It was too late, though."

Some young guys hanging out on the bottom floor of the apartment building say hello to Lupita while she sweeps up leaves. Domingo chases them off and insists they were bothering her. He also insists she call him "dad" and not "Domingo." "If anyone bothers you, that's what I'm here for, ok? You tell me." He kisses her on the cheek and she takes off.

Mercedes is making the beds. Elvira offers to help, since Lupita is downstairs sweeping. "Oh, so now she works for you, or what?" No, she offered, and it's better for her to get out. "I think there's something going on with that girl. I think she's sick."

Lupita is outside crying and eating the sleeve of her sweater. Her mom catches her and she washes the tears off her face. Mercedes starts to ask, "Hey, what your aunt Elvira is saying about…." "I didn't do anything!"

Lupita is in an interrogation room now. Aranda walks in and starts setting things on the table. Her gin, her badge, and her cell phone. "I know right now it's difficult to distinguish good from bad, but it's very important for you to get your thoughts in order and tell me in your own words what happened. Do you know why you're here? You have to know you're safe here, first of all." She reaches her hands across the table and Lupita stops chewing on her sleeve and takes Aranda's hands. "I need you to get your thoughts in order. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"But if something was happening, you'd tell me, right? Because Domingo's a good guy. You see how loving he is. Don't go mistaking one thing for another." She tells Lupita to come help her, but Lupita stays outside.

Lupita gets escorted out of the interrogation room and Aranda meets up with Forense Gerardo behind the glass. He says she got Lupita's confidence. Gerardo says looking only at the medical facts, it's a fine line. Aranda asks him to give her the results and she'll write up the report.

Domingo shows Elvira an ad in the paper for a seamstress. Mercedes comes in and says all the kids are finally asleep. Elvira says again that something's wrong. Domingo hurriedly takes a swig of beer. Mercedes says she's tired and Domingo tells her she's been up and about all day. He says something about the baby being a boy and claims to know everything. He makes a snide remark about Elvira needing "alineación y balanceo" (a wheel alignment and balancing). "Are you offering, or what?" "Are you flirting with me? She's flirting with me." "Looks like that's the last thing you need." More snideness about Elvira needing sex and Domingo needing to get a frickin' job. Elvira calls him a "rabo verde" (pervert) and he shuts right up. He nervously guzzles his beer and leaves.

Elvira gets out of bed when she hears Lupita throwing up outside. She's clutching a pair of underwear. Elvira holds her and they both cry. It sounds like Lupita is saying "ya no mas" (please, no more).

Mercedes asks Domingo if he's going to go see about the plumbing job. "No. Why?" She asks him what's wrong with him. "What do you care?" "I'm just asking." He growls at her and grabs her ass. He tells her the beans just didn't go down well. "That's why your sister's still single. She can't cook." Mercedes begs him to stop fighting with her. "Well, it's that time of the month…assuming she still has one!" He laughs, but his head hurts. He takes his beer, or whatever it is, outside to drink it. Two cops come looking for Domingo. They have an order of arrest. "This is your sister's doing! What has she made up now?" They cops lead him away and Mercedes yells for Elvira.

As they take him out of the building he whines that they're probably looking for someone else. Mercedes follows them down and when she sees Lupita she smacks her across the face and yells at Elvira that it's all Lupita's fault. She calls Elvira a "desgraciada"(wretch) for filing the report." Elvira and Mercedes struggle and Elvira ends up holding Mercedes back from attacking Lupita again. Mercedes screams at her daughter to tell her aunt that Domingo didn't do anything to her. Lupita just keeps chewing on the sleeve of her sweater. "Domingo didn't do anything to me," she says, crying and looking down. Mercedes throws it in her sister's face and tells her to go take back the report. Elvira starts walking out and Lupita goes after her asking where she's going. "Where else? To get your father out of jail. And let's see if they don't lock me up for making things up. But I'll tell you this, once he gets out, you're all going to live somewhere else." Lupita asks for forgiveness. "Don't ask me for forgiveness. Don't speak to me anymore." "But, he didn't do anything to me." Elvira calls her a liar and an idiot. "And quit crying, because now he's in jail and they're going to lock me up, and it's your fault!" Lupita can't stop crying and Elvira goes back to her and holds out her hand. Elvira hugs her and they walk out together.

"That guy deserved what happened." She makes some joke about how he was nothing, but now he's everything.

A doctor asks Lupita to lie back and take off her underwear. Elvira explains that Domingo isn't her dad, he's her stepdad. They let the doctor know that Elvira is her aunt. "Look, Lupita, I know this isn't pretty, but we've got to do it. And for how long did you say your dad has been raping you?" Lupita chews on her sleeve. "Answer, honey!" Lupita says it's been three years. Elvira is surprised. A nurse comes in with some test results for the doctor and he rather abruptly says "You know she's pregnant, right?" Elvira and Lupita cry.

Capellan says to Elvira, "Look, what I have here is a murder. Three women are implicated. One is a minor. And she's your niece. Your niece, who at sixteen years old, has to make the decision whether or not to have an abortion. Do you really think we can keep talking around the situation?" She used a new vocabulary word, "legado" meaning "curettage," a scraping of cells from within a body cavity.

Mercedes visits Domingo in jail and brings him food. He complains about the horrible food in there. "It's been a day and a half and they haven't told me anything. Your stupid sister hasn't taken back the report, has she?" "She brought Lupita here so they could do some tests. She's pregnant. She's just a girl, like I was when I had her." He tries to act like someone else did it and he's outraged. "Since she's a minor, while they do the tests…." He tells her she's got to fix things, then slips up and says "oh yeah, she's just a girl, going around showing her…" he holds his hands out in front of him, indicating breasts. "I know who it was! Those loser neighborhood boys!" Mercedes asks if he's not noticing Lupita. She asks him to kiss her medal of the Virgen if he's telling the truth. He does, then kisses her.

In the interrogation room, Mercedes tells Capellan, "I believed him." "What were you afraid of? Being alone? Being abandoned? I don't want to offend you, but there are a lot of cases like yours." "She's just a girl." "She stopped being one violently and under threats. Victims at that age never understand why they're abused. Never."

Lupita serves her brothers food on the patio. Mercedes comes up and says she must be happy that while they're waiting for the test results her "dad" is in jail. "Who was it?" "Domingo said you'd never believe me. But my aunt says…." Mercedes hits her across the face, knocking her to the ground and tells the boys to get inside the house. She goes into the kitchen and tells Elvira that just because Lupita got away with her little "joke" doesn't mean Domingo did it. "You've never doubted Domingo, have you?" "Of course not, that's why he's my husband." Elvira says Lupita is her daughter. "But you're right. You can't go around all the time doubting the people you love. Thank God now with those exams, you'll be out of doubt, and then there's no turning back the page."

Mercedes screams and cries that she can't believe it. Elvira and Lupita huddle outside on the patio. Mercedes comes out, holding a letter and crying. FINALLY she comforts her daugher. "What am I going to do, Elvira?" Elvira doesn't know. Mercedes and Lupita fall to the floor and Mercedes cries over her poor daughter. About time.

Mercedes goes to the jail with food for Domingo. She smiles blandly at him as he digs in. It's those beans he loves so much. He complains the tortillas are cold and asks why she hasn't shown up for 10 days. "I've been feeling bad." He complains about her needing to get him out of there while she puts some beans in a tortilla and hands it to him. "Eat."

Mercedes stirs the pot of beans. Elvira comes up. "If you're cooking it's because you're feeling better. Let's see, let me taste." Mercedes slaps her hand away and tells her not to be stupid.

"You don't eat well here?" Mercedes tells him she talked to Lupita. She asks him how he likes the mole (so not beans after all). "Don't you want to know what I talked to Lupita about?"

Domingo goes chasing after Lupita the day he chased the boys out of the downstairs courtyard. He catches up to her in a hallway, grabs her from behind and asks where she's going.

"What do I care?" He keeps stuffing his face. "You're a dog. An animal. For have done that to a girl for so long, since she was fourteen." "Hey, babe, I don't know why you're upset, but I didn't do anything! I swore it on the Virgen." "Do you know what they do to rapists in jail? Don't you know?"

Lupita sits on the floor, crying.

"Eat. Swallow it." "It's lies, lies started by Elvira. You want the truth? Your daughter, the whore, offered herself to me. Just like you did. Just like her mother. And you know why? Blood calls out. Or have you already forgotten what you were like with me?" Mercedes gets up to leave and he gets nervous and whines to her that he was just joking. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in jail. You're not going to let me stay here, are you?" Mercedes hugs him and says he won't rot.

Elvira holds the box of rat poison while Mercedes takes a spoonful and starts stirring it into the mole. Then she dumps the entire box in as Mercedes keeps stirring.

Domingo starts experiencing some gastrointestinal distress and coughs blood on Mercedes. She sits him down and holds him.

"How could he rot? I wouldn't let him," says Mercedes.

"He died like a rat," says Elvira,

Domingo finishes dying and the bloody butterfly flies away.

"That asshole didn't deserve to die any other way," says Elvira.

Elvira and Mercedes walk out of the jailhouse together.

"Domingo Martinez murió por envenenamiento."

Domingo Martinez died of poisoning.

"Mercedes y Elvira Gonzalez fueron encontradas culpables en primer y segundo grado de responsabilidad, respectivamente."

Mercedes and Elvira Gonzalez were found guilty in the first and second degree of responsibility, respectively.

"El embarazo de Mercedes, así como su situación emocional, se consideraron atenuantes para su condena."

Mercedes' pregnancy and her emotional state were considered extenuating circumstances for her punishment.

"Fueron sentenciadas a 24 años de prision."

They were sentenced to 24 years in prison.

"Lupita fue declarada inocente y se le permitió abortar, segun las leyes vigentes."

Lupita was declared innocent and allowed an abortion, according to the laws in place.

"Actualmente trabaja en un almacen y se ocupa de sus hermanos."

She is working in a warehouse and taking care of her brothers.

Labels: asesinas

Tonight, we step back in time to 1966, where a tragic murder has occurred. The Count of Beltran Peña, Don Alfonso de Jesus Ruiz Machado y Ortigoza…known as Fonsi (and I was totally going to make that joke, but they did it for me) is dead. He is played by the one, the only, His Royal Hotness William Levy, The Count of Come-Hither, the Baron of Biceps, the Sultan of Sultry Smiles, the Duke of Debonair himself. His death has shocked high society around the world. We get some black and white footage including a stained sheet over a body. We get pictures of his poor widow, Anette (played by Belinda) daughter of Mexican designer Ana Van Diryk (who attacks the camera). The reporters don't believe it was an accident, as Mrs. Van Diryk claims.

Credits.

Belinda and Issabela Camil are Anette y Ana, nobles (nobles).

Det. Capellan says to someone over the phone that for her, it's an unsolved case. She goes out into the new computer area and meets up with Aranda and Gerardo. She tells Gerardo the "procurador" (lawyer…in the US, the Attorney General) wants to close the case, but she hasn't changed her mind. Gerardo says in the case of "Yvonne" that's how things went. "But why close the case?" Gerardo says the girl fell in the "pozo" (well) and the body was down there with no evidence of violence or evidence she had been pushed. Capellan says it's an unsolved case just as much as many other unsolved cases in the archives. She reminds him about the Van Diryk case. She puts up a photo of Ana Gallardo de Van Diryk in all her sixties glory. "She paid the price for a crime we all know she didn't commit. It all happened in a mansion on Pedregal in DF on the last night of '65 and the morning of the first day of '66."

And we're kickin' it '60's style! Ana works with a model and a tailor to put the finishing touches on one of her designs. Anette calls down, asking what time "they" are getting here. At 5, says Ana. Anette comes down a spiral staircase and smiles at her mom. Ana turns around and gasps at Anette's dress in appreciation.

In the present, Aranda comments that Anette didn't smile much and her husband looks older than her. "15 years" says Gerardo. "They called them 'Salt and Sugar.'" He left Spain early for Cuba to run the family business. "They say he left to avoid his father's mistreatment."

Back in '65, "Fonsi" is asked by a kid on a pool raft if that's all they're going to hunt, "patos" (ducks)? Fonsi says you've gotta start somewhere. A butler appears to refill his glass with more champagne and switch out the champagne bottle in his ice bucket. Fonsi tells the kid that if his mom agrees, he'll take him to hunt (something something) in May.

More mumbling from Ana and Anette. This shindig is a charity party to raise money for poor kids for gifts on Dia de los Reyes (3 kings day, when kids in Latin America get gifts instead of Christmas). Ana has trotted Anette out so that her guests can say they were in the room with a real live Countess.

Two rich bitches on the couch say that Ana's taste is becoming more refined, but what they've been really excited to see is that hottie the Count. Anette must be in heaven to be married to that hunka hunka burning love! Rich bitch #1 says "it's La Señora Condessa to you..and you need to take lots of pictures with her. Don't think I came here just to buy these ugly dresses!" Another rich bitch, this one named Janine, who is Anette's aunt, comes over to sit by them. Bitch #1 (who is Bitch #2's mother) asks Janine if the Count doesn't happen to have a friend with a title for her daughter. Anette buzzes by and clasps her aunt's arm briefly before moving on. Bitch #2 says again that it must be heaven being married to THAT!

Fonsi is still by the pool, drinking champagne and reading. Anette goes over to join him and hassle him about how much he's drinking. She smiles as she tells him everyone's watching him booze it up. Fonsi says he's hanging out with her brother, but he doesn't know exactly where the kid is. He's kind of a lonely kid, doesn't she think? Anette agrees that he needs his dad. He asks if Ana's thinking of getting married again. Anette gets upset and Fonsi says being in mourning doesn't exactly suit her mother and there's a lot of interested men. The little brother, Aldito, finally comes back from wherever and Anette takes him into the room where the party's going on. Fonsi laughs.

A woman in a mint green dress comes over to the mother-daughter duo and asks if mom's going to hand a check over now or if she's going to send it tomorrow. "Sorry to be so much trouble, but Ana's having me act as secretary tonight!" Mom says hold on, the daughter's going to buy more dresses. Poor girl. Alma starts to leave, but the Mom wants her to stay and gossip about how long the Count and Countess are going to be in town. She wants to invite them to dinner. Alma whispers that she can't promise anything because the Count is a little…strange.

Ana, Anette, and Janine notice the Count making eyes at the daughter (what the hell are these people's names and why can't I ever find out up front?). Ana gets the tailor to signal to the models to quit walking around.

As the models are getting undressed, the Count surprises them with his Levyness. He toasts the half-naked girls and sits down. "Girls. I came to congratulate you for all your hard work. The poor kids will be very grateful. My wife and my mother in law will be even more grateful. And I, well, I'm very pleased. But go on." He leaves the room and the girls all gather and giggle.

Mom and daughter are leaving and they question Alma again about saying the Count is "strange." They think it's just jealous gossip and Anette is living a dream. Alma says from what she understands, Anette is living a nightmare. Wow. That was pretty direct.

Capellan continues her narration. "It was THE New Year's Eve party at Ana Van Diryk's. She spread her wings like a peacock to receive the crème de la crème, proudly showing off her daughter and son-in-law the Count and Countess Beltran Peña." (pavo real = peacock, literally "royal turkey")

Ana goes over to Fonsi and asks him to help her make it a memorable party. She begs him to behave himself and tells him he's a star. He notices his hot young wife, in a gorgeous silver and seafoam gown that leaves a good part of her torso and one leg bare, coming down the stairs. He appreciatively says she's the star. The guests gawk as he takes Anette's arm and leads her to the middle of the floor so they can dance. "You never stop surprising me, my love. Did you know you take my breath away?" She thanks him for his pretty words that sound so false. "It's the truth. Every day you're more beautiful. You're a wonderful countess." She says she was trained to be. He asks why he says such nice things to her while she makes him feel like she's just meeting an obligation. The young girl from earlier goes over to Alma and says "Hey, I thought you said earlier that Anette is living a nightmare?" Alma tells her to shut up. Now it starts to get ugly. Anette asks if she's failed him in any way, which he admits she hasn't. She wants to stop dancing before she leaves him on the floor alone, but he tightens his grip and tells her not to dare. "Alfonso, please, people are watching." Alma tells the girl that if Anette is living a nightmare, it's worth the trouble. The dance ends and Fonsi applauds his wife. Ana walks off with her and other couples start dancing to the next tune. Fonsi flirts with some other girls at the party. He gathers a little crowd of them around him.

Ana asks Anette what that was about. "The guests may not have noticed, but I did." Anette says if the guests didn't notice then it's fine. "Isn't that the important thing? To stay away from talk and scandal?" Ana says Alfonso was upset and it showed. Anette asks what more she's supposed to do besides what she's doing. "We'll have to talk sometime." Ana says they are talking. "No, you're giving me instructions. I need my mom. I need to tell her how I feel." Janine comes over and congratulates them on the party then quietly says that people are looking at them and they can tell things are not ok. Ana gives Anette a kiss on the cheek, presumably to keep up appearances, then walks away.

Fonsi is watching two girls from the party make out. He smokes a cigar and they strip for him (blurred, of course).

Anette is looking at pictures of him in his hunting gear, of the two of them on their wedding day… Janine comes into whatever room she's in and asks if she's ok. "No. I'm not. It's been a long time since I've been well and the truth is that I don't know if I ever have been. But it's nothing." Janine says she'll always be there for her. "I love you. I really do." Anette tells her not to cry. Janine says she's got to get back out there because her mom's getting upset that the Count and Countess aren't at the party. Anette asks if Alfonso's not out there. Janine thought he was upstairs or off smoking a cigar.

Capellan tells the crew that the Count was partying like it was 1999…or rather, like he knew they were the last few hours of his life. She says they were the last few hours of Anette's life as an exquisite flower.

Anette walks in on the party and looks upset and disgusted, but not surprised. The girls gather their clothes, but walk out of the room mostly undressed. "In my house, Fonsi? In my bedroom?" "Let's see, Countess…who am I?" "You're an animal." "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." She screams at him that he's an animal. "Did you hear me that time?" "Tomorrow you're going to the estate." "Why there? Why don't you send me somewhere farther away?" He says he doesn't feel like it. Maybe on the estate she'll run into the ghost of his father who will fuck up her life (there was muting, so I assume the f-bomb was dropped in some capacity). "The same way I fuck up yours?" (again, guessing). He snaps his fingers and tells her to go away. When she doesn't listen he snarls at her to get out, then grabs her face and asks who she is. He mumbles a bunch of other stuff in a threatening tone that I can't quite make out, grabs her either around the waist or by the ass as hard as he can, then backs away. She tells him to enjoy his cigar. "Janine sure knows you well," Anette says, before leaving the room. "She's the one who told me." He tells her what she saw was just a diversion. "What happened with your aunt, that parasite, was craziness. Didn't she explain how things were? Let me explain it to you. Your aunt begged me. She seduced me. She practically took me to bed. Seducing me, because let me tell you something, your aunt is a wild animal. But, of course, she didn't tell you that." Anette says "No. She didn't tell me that. She just said she was sure you'd gone off to smoke a cigar. That was all." She leaves. He kicks a pillow off the ottoman.

Anette goes back to the party, trying to keep her tears from falling. Janine comes over and excitedly says "Guess who came?!" Anette tells her she knows about the affair. "I adore you. And I wish I didn't, because I'd like to kill you. I'd like to kill you both."

Capellan: "They were waiting for the clock to strike twelve. A year full of good things for all of them"

Everyone toasts the new year and balloons drop from the ceiling. Ana tells Anette she's proud of her and the year will be full of nothing but good things for her. Fonsi hugs Ana and wishes her a new year. "Don't let your daughter throw away such good fortune." He goes over to Anette and says she should at least try to look happy. When she tries to walk away, he grabs her back and takes the mic. He wishes everyone a happy new year. "My wife, the Countess, and I would like to give you a really big present. My love, why don't you sing our song?" The crowd starts to ask for the Countess to sing. She takes the mic and starts singing. "There's not a moment of the day that I can get you away from me. The world looks different when you're not with me. There's no beautiful melody that you're not part of. And I don't want to hear it, if you don't hear it. It's that you've become a part of my soul. Nothing consoles me anymore if you're not there too. Beyond your lips, the sun, and the stars, I'm with you in the distance, my love. I'm…" she breaks off, tearfully, but the audience applauds. As she's been singing, Fonsi has snuck out of the room, gone upstairs and forcefully shagged her aunt in the office. Janine is left huddled on the desk, crying.

"I know, mom. I know I haven't greeted a lot of people and now I'm going to go do my duty." Ana pulls her back. "I wanted to tell you you sang very well. Talk to me. What's happening." Anette says just two hours ago she said she wanted to talk to her mom and it was made pretty clear that she was to repress her feelings and not cry. "I'm just trying to help you, protect you, keep you from making mistakes, keep you from risking your position." Anette says she knows her mom has done it all for her own good, that she owes her everything, that her mom has given up her life for her. "I know I owe you more than I can ever repay. So that asshole Alfonso can pay you." Ana tells her to behave. "You're not thinking of separating?" Anette says she has thought about leaving him. Ana starts to give her the party line about not risking her position, etc, but it's clear Anette, as upset as she is, knows her mom will give her hell if she actually does try to leave him. The asshole in question comes dancing up spastically (have we ever seen William Levy do anything but a slow shuffle? Is he faking us out with the bad dancing?). Anette asks him if he realizes how he looks. He smacks the side of his head and says he looks like a Count, hello! "You know what? Little Miss Bitter Countess? I don't have to share your bitterness. You can leave if you want to." Anette says she's only bitter about one thing, Mr. Count. She avoids a kiss from him. He keeps bopping around as her mother looks like she's having a headache.

Anette runs into Janine, who asks if they can talk. "Of course. We've always been able to talk. I don't see why today should be any different." Janine says "Don't be cruel. I know you." "Well, apparently I don't know you." Janine keeps calling her "nena" (baby girl) and Anette asks her to stop. "I'm the Countess Beltran Peña, got it?" She walks away as Janine asks "Then what should I call you?" "Your highness, Countess, or worst case, Ma'am." Janine thinks she's playing around. "I'm not. I know about Alfonso's affairs with all kinds of women. From the beginning, I've had to shut my eyes, my ears, and my soul. But you, Janine? You?" Janine doesn't know what to say. She asks for forgiveness. Alfonso dances by with two girls propping him up and calls over "Hi, Tía!" Anette grins falsely at her aunt and says "My husband. See why I'm a Countess? And you're just a fruit." I don't entirely know what she meant by that, but she acts like she's handing her aunt a glass of grapes and then drops it at her feet and walks off.

Anette goes upstairs and seethes. She grabs a bottle of pills and pours out at least a handful.

Young Bitch from earlier finally introduces herself to Fonsi as Inna (took her long enough). She flirts with him, saying he's got something right there, touching his lips. He licks the side of her face. Ha! She's grossed out.

Gerardo says the autopsy was never made public, but it showed high blood alcohol levels. Also an excess of cocaine. And he'd probably smoked some pot that morning. And some type of opiate, possibly morphine. In those conditions, he'd be capable of anything. Well, doc, possibly not walking upright, I'd say.

Alfonso grabs some woman at the party and kisses her, then goes over to join the band. Hoo boy. He offers to show the pianist how it's done. He sits down and has himself a snort of coke while the guests look uncomfortable. Predictable, he bangs randomly on the piano. Ana drags Alma off while he keeps being an ass and demanding that the guests enjoy themselves.

There are a lot of pills on the carpet by the bed, but I'm guessing Anette took the rest.

Fonsi wakes up at the piano bench. He calls the guests empty headed and tells them to get out. Janine asks him to calm down. He grabs her like he's going to kiss her with the cigar in his mouth.

Anette is in bed when he stumbles in, telling her to get up because the party's still on and she's the entertainment. She tells him to go to shit. "Sure, I'll go wherever, after I've used you." She tells him to go party somewhere else. He backhands her, calling her stupid, and says some more nasty shit. She shoves him off her and off the bed, but then realizes she's made him too angry. He shoves her off the other side of the bed and leaves it at that for now.

Ana bids her guests goodbye. Fonsi says she and her filthy family belong to him and this is all her fault. She's standing on the far side of the bed with a lamp, minus lampshade, as a weapon. He says her mother offered her up as a prize jewel, so she'd better just learn to live with it. She cowers in the corner, still holding her lampshade.

Fonsi wakes up in a chair by the pool. The butler brings him a drink, but he pushes it away and breaks the glass. The butler runs off. Fonsi struggles to get out of the chair. He finds the coke in his pocket and has a little taste. Aldito comes in asking if they can see which one of them can stay underwater longer, but Fonsi's not in the mood. Aldito tries to get the coke container away from him and it spills. Fonsi freaks and smacks him, sending him into the glass on the floor. His face is bleeding and he starts screaming for his mom. The butler carries him over to Ana and Anette. Ana takes him to care for him and Anette goes running down the stairs.

Capellan, bizarrely in the midst of this bizarre episode, has the crew assembled in the observation room to the interrogation room. "Let's imagine we had the two of them in here."

Capellan interrogates Ana. Yeah, seriously. "What happened?" "It was an accident. The party was over. I like to swim in the mornings, especially on the first day of the year. Fonsi and I were talking about the party."

Flashback: Ana gives Fonsi a hard time and says he may have had fun, but the rest of them didn't. He smarmily asks what he can do to make up for it. Ana says she's sending some little gifts to some of the guests, with his card. He laughs and reminds her that he invited her to go shooting with him. Ana says she doesn't like guns. "Do you know why? Because you won't let me show you how to shoot. We'll do it today." Ana says it's a deal. She'll let him teach her how to shoot and he'll write something pretty on the cards that are going with the gifts. He scoffs. She says if he tells her where the gun is she'll go get it right now. He grins and says it's in "the wood box."

Fantasy interrogation: "Why do I think you acted to protect your daughter?" "Bella is innocent."

Ana goes into the office, gets the gun out of the box on the desk and holds it by two fingers. She goes back to the pool, where Fonsi is sipping flat champagne, I presume. He tells her that's not how you hold a gun. "Give it to me."

Fantasy interrogation: "It was all an unfortunate accident?" Ana agrees. "When I handed him the gun, it went off accidentally. I killed Fonsi."

Ana clumsily shoots Fonsi three times, the bloody butterfly flies away, and his corpse falls into the pool.

Fantasy interrogation: Capellan now has Anette on the other side of the table and asks her what happened. "My husband just died and I honestly don't have the head for this right now." Capellan says she was harboring a lot of resentment toward her husband.

Flashback to the four nastiest incidents: Fonsi screwing two chicks from the party; Fonsi screwing her aunt; Fonsi smacking her around; the butler carrying her brother with his bloody face.

Fantasy interrogation: Anette says no, it was just an accident. "Your mother put an end to that suffering." "My mother is incapable of hurting anyone, much less Fonsi. She's not a murderer. We just had a bad moment."

Flashback: Anette takes the gun out of the box and heads for the pool room. She marches right in, hesitates as he asks what she's doing with the gun and if she's going to kill him.

F.I.: "If I don't have Alfonso around to humiliate me anymore, then why do I feel like this? When am I going to forget, ma'am? When?"

Flashback: Anette shoots Fonsi, the bloody butterfly flies away, and he drops into the pool. Ana takes the gun out of her hand and they stare at each other. Ana says "It was an accident."

"Ana Gallardo viuda de Van Diryk fue sentenciada a 8 años de prisión por homicidio culposo agravado. Murió tan solo un año después de haber abandonado la prisión victima de un cáncer que se le diagnosticó durante su reclusión y del cual rehusó atenderse. Annete Van Diryk viuda de Ruiz Machado y Ortigoza, Condesa de Beltrán Peña, se retiró a la finca de Montecorto en Andalucía España, de donde jamás volvió a salir y en la que murió la noche de Navidad de 1995 a la edad de 50 años. Se dice que vivió y murió presa de sus muchos fantasmas."

Ana Gallardo, widow of Van Diryk, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for aggravated manslaughter (which we have decided means "you were pissed at him and you didn't mean to kill him, but you did"). She died only a year after leaving the prison, the victim of a cancer that was diagnosed during her incarceration and which she refused to treat. Anette Van Diryk, widow of Ruiz Machado y Ortigoza, Countess Beltran Peña, retired to the estate of Montecorto in Andalusia, Spain, from where she never left and in which she died Christmas night 1995 at the age of 50. They say she lived and died a prisoner of her many ghosts.

Next week: who knows. My DVR crapped out halfway and we had to watch it online.

Labels: asesinas

Tonight, Yolanda Andrade and Aleida Núñez are "Elvira y Mercedes, Justicieras" (Elvira and Mercedes, Avengers). Adal Ramones is the unkempt stepfather, Domingo. Geraldine Correa is Lupita, the frightened stepdaughter.

Apologies in advance for missing/incorrect material. The captions were virtually useless as usual and a lot of these characters mumbled.

Mercedes ("Meche") and her sister Elvira are led from their home in handcuffs. Lupita, daughter of Mercedes, is escorted separately. She's not in handcuffs, but her left hand is pulled back into the sleeve of her sweater, and she's holding the cuff in her mouth. She is a thin girl and doesn't look to be much past puberty. She looks curiously at the female DIEM agent who's holding a radio. (I'm sorry, I shold know her name but I don't. Aranda?)

The cop who's leading Lupita pauses to put a jacket over her head to hide her face before bringing her into the street to load her into the van. Maybe-Aranda radios Capellan that they've got the suspects, and one of them is a minor.

Elvira and Lupita are out on the patio, preparing some vegetables for dinner while Dirty Domingo lazes beside the table with a newspaper. (Backstory: Domingo lost his comb in 1987. It was the best comb in the entire world and he can't bear to put any lesser grooming implement to his head. He also has a very special razor that's way too good to use more than twice a month. He's apparently very thrifty about using soap, too.)

He keeps stealing glances at the backs of Lupita's thighs under a ratty old skirt that's too short for her. Elvira notices.

It seems that there's a baby on the way and Domingo's been out of work for a while. He insists to his Elvira, his sister-in-law, that he's been looking, but there just isn't any work - only little office jobs for errand-boys. (With combed hair.) He's gotta work out in the fresh air, baby!

He kisses Lupita on the top of her head and takes his drink (oh yeah, he's got a bottle) into the house. There is a look of intense loathing on Lupita's face as she watches him exit. Elvira expresses doubt that he'll find any job, either indoors or outdoors. Lupita says he's looking.

Elvira changes the subject. Hasn't Lupita noticed how Domingo looks at her? Is it only looking, or is it something more? Lupita weakly denies anything. Elvira angrily wonders why Lupita's mother is with him - he's good for nothing.

Meche shows up with some laundry and sends Lupita to put it away. Apparently this isn't the first time she's caught Elvira complain about her dear Domingo. She scolds Elvira for bad-mouthing him to Lupita. She's not supporting him; on the contrary, he's showing what a good man he is. Elvira replies, "just for impregnating you?"

Elvira asks what Meche is going to do with four kids and one more. More conversation about working and changing the way they live... sorry... help...

Elvira also suggests that Lupita should start sleeping in her (Elvira's) room. Meche rejects the idea. Elvira shares her thoughts on the way Domingo looks at Lupita. Meche says she's making things up and I think she says she's bitter. Elvira persists - Lupita is not a little girl any more.

Lupita enters the room. Meche angrily demands that Lupita tell them what's going on with her "papa." Elvira asks more gently for an answer. But they are both impatient for her reply, and Lupita just seems overwhelmed.

Meche and Lupita are taken to separate offices. Lupita still has her sleeve in her mouth. Aranda tells her to be calm and and tell them what happened to her and what she did. "I didn't do anything," Lupita sobs.

Lupita is no longer in the room. Meche tells Elvira that Domingo could never do something like that. He's her father! "No he isn't," Elvira replies. Well, he's like a father, Meche insists. And now that little brat is going to hear from her for saying things about him. Elvira says Lupita didn't say anything - Elvira did. She doesn't have to be sleeping in the same room; one would have to be an idiot not to realize that the girl is in real danger.

"Well, now it turns out that DOMINGO is in danger," Meche replies angrily. "Your bitterness [captions say "embarazada," I'm pretty sure that's wrong] is making you sick in the head." Elvira says she's got enough problems and doesn't want any more.

Night. Meche can't sleep. Some discussion with Domingo as to whether the baby is moving or not. She asks if he loves the kids even though they're not his. He says of course - he's supporting them, right? Er, not exactly, but he promises he'll find a job. He loves them as much as he'll love his own little Dominguita when she arrives. As for Lupita, he loves her most of all.

Next day, Elvira and Meche resume their argument whilst cleaning beans on the patio.

Elvira: Domingo doesn't love Meche or the kids.
Meche: You love to talk bad about Domingo. Lupita didn't accuse him of anything.
Elvira: That's because she was afraid.
Meche: He was probably just being affectionate with Lupita and she took it the wrong way.
Elvira: She's scared. If he lays a hand on her, I'll kill him.
Meche: If you threaten him, you threaten me.
Elvira: When your husband gets the urge to go to bed with your daughter, he's messing with you too.
Meche: You're a pig.
Elvira: I'd rather than be a pig than blind.

Elvira goes into the apartment. Lupita asks if they were fighting about her. Meche comes in and Lupita says she was just helping her aunt. "And who is going to help me with your brothers?" Meche replies. An increasingly flinchy Lupita pulls her hand back into her sleeve and her sleeve in her mouth.

Elvira asks if Meche hasn't reconsidered the sleeping arrangements. No, Meche says, Lupita will continue to sleep in her own place. And it's well and good if Elvira threatens Meche, but Elvira is going to have to stop threatening her husband. It's not her problem if Elvira's single - she should go find a man to give her what she needs.

Elvira: What for, so I can end up like you? No thanks, sis.
Meche: Better to have multiple men than be an old maid [una quedada is harsher and more colloquial than solterona].

Lupita is chewing her sleeve in Capellan's office. Capellan asks her to be calm; she doesn't believe Lupita's guilty of anything. But Lupita thinks she's in jail. Capellan assures her that it's only an office. She asks Lupita to trust her and tell her everything that happened.

Nighttime again. Domingo gets out of bed, picking a wedgie. (Gross.) Meche asks her Prince Charming what's going on. He can't sleep because his stomach is growling. Meche goes back to sleep. Domingo approaches Lupita's bed and lifts the covers.

Meche wakes some time later and notices that he's still out of bed. She hears creaking bedsprings. She finds him standing next to Lupita's bed looking guilty. He says she startled him. (He's fiddling with his underwear again.) He claims that he was just covering up the kids and before that he had some beans. Meanwhile, Lupita is sucking her thumb and clamping the pillow tightly over her head.

Next morning, there is more conversation between M and E, including mention of a man named Hugo who liked one sister more than the other and then Meche had Lupita. Then Elvira says she spoke to "Dr. Ceci." Meche angrily assumes they were gossiping about her, but the doctor merely said Lupita is an adolescent. Elvira feels they should be "taking care of her."

Meche says Ceci is only a nurse, not a doctor, and Elvira should mind her own business because Domingo loves the kids. The best way to take care of Lupita is to leave her alone (I think that's what Meche says.) Elvira mumbles something to herself about fixing it on her own.

Capellan asks Elvira if she thinks that she had fixed things. Elvira says, "At least I did something." Capellan: "Unfortunately, your decision was not the best." Elvira: "Well, whether it was good or not, it was certainly too late."

Lupita is sweeping in a courtyard or something. Two boys about her age are there, and she seems to be glad for their company. Domingo shows up and asks if the boys are bothering her. Without waiting for an answer, he sends the boys away. She gazes wistfully after them.

The wicked stepfather asks again if they were bothering her. Petrified, she answers "no, Domingo." Offended, he insists that she call him Papa. And, lifting her chin to look her in the eyes, he says that if anyone's going to bother (molestar) her, it'll be him. With a mouthful of cigarette smoke, he kisses her forehead. She scurries away.

Some time later, Meche is looking for Lupita. Elvira says she's been behaving strangely lately and might be sick.

Lupita is crying over the washtub on the patio with her sleeve in her mouth. Meche finds her and starts to talk about "what your aunt has been saying." Lupita hurriedly washes her face and tells Meche that she didn't tell Elvira anything.

Aranda lays her gun aside and sets up the voice recorder. She tells Lupita that although it's difficult, she'll have to explain in her own words what happened. She's safe here.

"If something were going on, you'd tell me, right?" Meche asks Lupita in a non-threatening way. Lupita nods and continues splashing her face in the washtub. Meche reminds Lupita that Domingo is such a wonderful, affectionate guy. Domingo spies around the corner as Meche goes into the house

A medical guy and Aranda(?) talk about gaining someone's confidence, taking evidence, an obstetrician, and a report.

In the kitchen, jobless Domingo waves the newspaper around and tells Elvira that someone's looking for a seamstress. Meche comes in and complains that Lupita's been in bed all day and isn't feeling well. Elvira says "I'm telling you, she's been acting strange" (or "she's not well"). Domingo smirks, unnoticed, and takes another drink from his big bottle.

Meche is tired. Domingo says something about the baby. Elvira asks how he's so sure it's a boy. "I know everything," he replies.

Not true. He obviously doesn't know he's going to be a red butterfly soon. He continues to drink out of that giant bottle while they enjoy their candlelit dinner.

I think there's some banter between Elvira and Domingo where he says she needs to get laid (actually that she needs an alignment and balance) and she asks if he's volunteering and throwing someone to the dogs. Whatever, we can tell that it's not the best relationship. She calls him a "mantenido" (dependent; kept man) and he protests that a kept man shouldn't have to eat beans.

Elvira also calls him a "rabo verde" (green tail, i.e. horndog, pervert). Now he isn't amused at all. He takes another big drink from his bottle and walks out. Meche is offended by "rabo verde."

Later, Elvira finds Lupita barfing in the washtub with her underwear clutched in her hand. Lupita cries in Elvira's arms as Elvira stares into space with steely resolve.

Next day. Domingo's got his big bottle with him again. Meche asks him about some plumbing job and he grumpily says no. He obviously has a hangover but claims it's indigestion caused by her sister's cooking. He goes out on the patio and pours his bottle into a glass - classy!

That's when two cops arrive to take him away. Domingo realizes that it's because of Elvira, but he also says they must have mistaken him for someone else. Meche slaps Lupita, knocking her to the floor. Meche blames Lupita and Elvira for everything. The two women struggle, and Meche demands that Lupita say that Domigo didn't do anything to her. Lupita mumbles in agreement through her sleeved hand. Meche marches off, satisfied. Elvira leaves too.

Lupita follows Elvira, wanting to know where she's going. "To get your papa out of jail, and see if they don't arrest me for making up things that aren't so. Lupita asks Elvira's forgiveness. He didn't do anything to her. Elvira loses it and screams "idiot, liar! It's your fault he's in jail!" But then she comes back and takes Lupita's hand. Well, sleeve.

"That guy deserved everything that happened to him," Elvira tells Capellan. "He was nothing, nobody." Capellan asks what Elvira is laughing at. "Right now, everything."

Elvira takes Lupita to the clinic for an exam. Lupita reveals that the abuse has been going on for three years. More crying and sleeve-biting. Someone comes in with some paperwork - test results. Lupita is pregnant! .

"What I have here is a murder with three suspects, one of them a minor - your niece, no less." Elvira is still smirking at "everything," but her smile fades as Capellan continues: "Your niece, at 16 years old, has to make the decision to become un degrado [I don't think this is correct but can't tell what it should be]. Does it seem to you that we can continue beating around the bush?"

Meche visits Prince Charming in jail. He's grateful for the lunch she brought. She tells him Lupita's pregnant - and at the same age when Meche had Lupita. It's being investigated because she's a minor. Domingo blames Elvira for starting all of this, and blames the neighborhood boys for the pregnancy.

"You haven't been fooling around with Lupita, have you?" she asks. She makes him swear to la Virgencita.

"I believed him," Meche tells Capellan. Capellan asks, "What were you afraid of? Being alone? Being abandoned? I don't want to offend you, but there are many cases like yours." Meche answers, "she was a little girl." "Living under violent threat," Capellan says. "Victims that age never completely understand the reason for the abuses that were commited against them. Never."

Lupita is feeding her brothers on the patio. Meche comes out and says that until the lab test results are all in, Domingo has to stay in jail. So, who's really the father? Lupita says it's Domingo. She didn't think her mother would believe her.

Meche still doesn't believe her. She knocks Lupita to the ground and sends the boys into the house. Elvira asks Meche, didn't she ever have any doubts? Meche says no, he's my husband! Elvira says thank God the authorities are looking into it now.

Evening. Meche is in hysterics. Lupita is crying in Elvira's arms again. There's a piece of paper in Meche's hand: apparently, the test results have arrived and the evidence suggests that they're going to need a bigger bottle because the unkempt drunken horndog slob has produced another heir. Meche begs her daughter's pardon for not believing her.

Meche goes back to the jail with another lunch. Domingo complains that it's too cold, and where's she been for the last three days? She assembles his lunch patiently and tells him she hasn't been feeling well. But the baby's okay. Domingo says that's good, because he's not okay. Boo hoo, jail is icky.

Meche calmly tells him to eat, and watches with a grim smile. She flashes back to earlier that day (same dress). She's stirring some mole. Elvira wants a taste. Meche won't let her try it.

Domingo tells Meche that the food here is filthy. She asks if she likes the mole, and doesn't he want to know what she discussed with Lupita?

He flashes back to the day he interrupted Lupita's sweeping, then chased her into the hallway and raped her. "What do I care?" he asks Meche. Meche calls him a dog, an animal, for doing that to Lupita all that time, since she was 14.

He swears to Virgencita that he didn't do it. "Don't you know what they do to rapists in prison?" Meche asks him. (He flashes back to Lupita sobbing in the hallway, begging, "ya.")

He's still stuffing his face. "Eat," she says, shoving it at him. He doesn't notice her smirk. He insists that it's all lies from Elvira.

Then he changes tactics. "You want to know the truth? Your daughter offered herself to me. Just like you! Know why? It was the call of blood."

Meche stands. He puts down his tortilla and jumps up, saying he was just joking. "You're making me nervous. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison. You won't let me rot here, will you? Not really?" She comforts him and says no, he won't rot here.

I think he should, but another plan is already in motion.

Meche flashes back to the kitchen and the mole. Elvira is holding a box. Meche takes out a dainty spoonful of powder. As she stirs this into the mole, Elvira pours in the rest of the powder from the box, and we see that it's a box of rat poison. (Is anyone surprised by this? Did anyone not see this coming?) Elvira taps the bottom of the box for good measure.

Domingo is starting to feel it. (Then again, he never did like Elvira's cooking.) He's gagging and choking and retching as Meche stands by with a cold smile. "I told you," she says...

"...that I wouldn't let him rot," she explains to Capellan.

In a separate inteview, Elvira says that he died like a rat.

Meche holds him down to keep him quiet as he convulses with blood trickling from his ears and nose and mouth. The red butterfly takes off, and Meche leaves, wiping flecks of blood from her face.

"The wretch deserved to die that way," Elvira tells Capellan.

"Domingo Martinez murió por envenenamiento. Mercedes y Elvira Gonzalez fueron encontradas culpables en primer y segundo grado de responsabilidad, respectivamente. El embarazo de Mercedes, así como su situación emocional, se consideraron atenuantes para su condena. Fueron sentenciadas a 24 años de prisión. Lupita fue declarada inocente y se le permitió abortar, segun las leyes vigentes. Actualmente trabaja en un almacén y se ocupa de sus hermanos."

Domingo Martinez died of poisoning. Mercedes and Elvira Gonzalez found guilty of first and second degree murder, respectively. The pregnancy of Mercedes, as well as her emotional state, were taken as mitigating factors in her sentencing. They were sentenced to 24 years in prison. Lupita was decared innocent and was allowed to have an abortion as permitted by law. Currently, she works in a store and cares for her brothers.

Next week on "Parade of Assholes": Tune in for another inspirational tale starring Belinda, Isabela Camil (spelled "Issabela" on the MA website, I don't know why), and William Levy in "Annette y Ana, Nobles."

Labels: asesinas

Tonight Aislinn Derbez is Martha, Manipuladora (Martha, the manipulator).

Martha watches her mother, Teresa, go into her nightstand for a pair of scissors, then start begging her stepfather, Alberto, not to leave. Teresa threatens not to kill him, but to kill herself, and her wrist looks like it has old scars. Alberto smacks Teresa around some, and when Martha takes the scissors, he dares her to kill him.

Teresa sits in the interrogation room and says "I killed him, I killed Alberto." Moran gives Capellan the 411: "Divorced, 44 year old, born in Argentina, but living in Mexico since 1994, married the second time to Alberto Alarcon--the victim, history of psychiatric problems." The whole time, she's sitting on the other side of the glass, rubbing her hands and saying she killed him.

Teresa wakes up, griping at her husband for being up so early and being dressed so well for a Saturday. He laughs and says it's Friday and he's already late. Somehow, this leads her to believe that he's cheating on her. He says he doesn't have the time or desire to argue with her today . She asks him again why he looks so handsome and where he's taking the "piruja" (whore) he's going out with. He ignores the question and says it's late and he has to go. She complains that he never has time for her and doesn't love her. He's still finishing getting dressed as he says he does love her, and she says he doesn't, etc. Finally, he pulls his shirt aside to reveal a scar and says "If this isn't love…."

Three years before…Alberto sits out on the patio with Martha and Hernán. Hernán asks where his suegra (mother-in-law) is. Alberto says she wasn't feeling well and she went to lie down.

Actually, she's inside, in the kitchen yelling at a "mocosa altanera" (high and mighty brat) that she's "harta" (tired) of something I can't make out because she's screaming so loud. The young girl she's yelling at backs away and the maid comes to her defense. Teresa accuses them both of lying to her, "just like everyone else does!" Oh, "mentiras" (lies), that must be what she's tired of.

Hernán asks Martha if she doesn't want to check and see why Lorena hasn't come out yet. She agrees, but doesn't look very enthusiastic. The guys start talking business.

Teresa is angrily explaining to Lorena (aka, the mocosa altanera) that her father is cheating on her with any woman who crosses his path. "Haven't you seen the way he looks at your sister?" The maid says she's his daughter. "No she's not!" Lorena says she might as well be--he raised her. Teresa is convinced he's liked her since she was little. Lorena calls her crazy. I don't disagree with that, but you're in a kitchen and there are a lot of potential weapons around, so please don't bait her! Martha comes in to see what's going on and Teresa grabs a knife out of a drawer, holds it up to her wrist and says "Confess or I'll kill myself!" Martha says she doesn't know what Teresa is talking about. Lorena helpfully chimes in "She says dad likes you!" When Martha starts "Dad…" Teresa insists again that he's not her father. Hernán comes in and Teresa tells him that his wife is trying to steal her man! Alberto comes in as Martha is saying that Teresa is having a "crisis" (just what it looks like, except you say it "creesees") and Hernán says he'll go call the doctor. That leaves Martha standing next to Alberto. "Look at them, see how good they look together! You're not gonna steal my man!" She starts to go after Martha with the knife, but Alberto gets in the way and gets stabbed for his trouble.

Back to Alberto looking at his scar. "If this isn't love, I don't know…" he gets muted out, but I think his lips were saying "que carajo es" which would mean "what the fuck it is."

Capellan walks through DIEM's shiny new computer area (does anyone else get the impression that the crew is so excited about their new sets that they're having people walk around and have conversations in random places just so they can show it off?) and runs into Gerardo. Gerardo smugly hands her a folder and says he doesn't think there's a lot to investigate. "Teresa stabbed her husband 3 years ago. We have her confession, her mental state, her daughter's statement, the presence of gunpowder on her hands. And besides, she'd tried to kill him before, Sofia." Sofia says that doesn't mean she did it. "With all due respect…" "With all due respect, I'm going to keep investigating." She sashays back out of there in her swishy little printed skirt with her "I'm a hot, powerful woman who can throw your ass in jail" leather jacket. She and Gerardo totally need to hook up, but I'm afraid he's not man enough for her.

Back in her office, she shows Martha and Hernán a picture of Alberto's scar. Marta says her mother did it. "She stabbed him with a knife. She didn't kill him this time." It wasn't a very deep wound and they did what they'd done several times before--had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She'd been admitted 4 or 5 times before for one or two months at a time, depending on how she was when she got there. Martha looks at the picture again and says "We should have done something. Poor Alberto. Now I'll never see him again." This sets Capellan's Spidey senses a'tingling.

And now for an episode of "Bizarre and Somewhat Inappropriate Workplace Conversations":

Gerardo: Camila, puedes venir un momento? (Camila, can you come over here for a minute?)
Aranda: Dígame, doctor. (What's up, doc?)
G: Cuantos años tiene usted, teniente? (How old are you, lieutenant?)
A: Usted debería de saberlo, doctor. Tiene acceso a todos los expedientes. (You oughta know, doc. You've got access to all the records.)
G: Y vio bien a la victima? (And did you get a good look at the victim?)
A: Digo, la vi…lo que se dice bien? Dentro de lo que cabe, lo vi…muerto a balazos. (I'd say, I saw him…what you'd call well? Within limits, I saw him…dead from a gunshot.)
G: Y le pareció interesante? Un hombre guapo? (And did he seem interesting to you? A handsome man?)
A: Era un cadáver, doctor Trejo. Que, no tiene limite? (It was a dead body, doctor Trejo. What, don't you have any boundaries?)
G: Estoy haciendo un trabajo estrictamente y puramente policiaco. Digo, ya se que era un cadáver, pero…imagínalo con vida. Usted vio fotos de el, muchas. Te pareció, le parece, un hombre guapo, atractivo? Hasta para una mujercita de su edad? Que si se cual es, eh, aunque no lo crea. (I'm strictly and purely doing police business. I say, I already know that it was a dead body, but…imagine him living. You saw pictures of him, lots of them. Did he seem, does he seem like, a handsome, attractive man? Maybe even for a young woman of your age? And I do know what it is, eh, even if I don't believe it.)
A: Bueno, si, me parece que en vida el Señor Alarcón fue guapo, es bastante guapo, con un cuerpo moldeado… (Ok, yes, I think that in life, Mr. Alarcon was handsome, is very handsome, with a chiseled body…)
G: Bueno, ya, ya, ya, no es para tanto. (OK, enough, enough, enough, I don't need that much information.)
A: A donde quiere llegar, doctor? (Where are you trying to get to, doctor?)
G: Teniente, usted tendría un romance conmigo? (Lieutenant, would you have an affair with me?)
A: Usted sí no tiene limites! (You really have no boundaries!)
G: No se ilusiones, es puramente policiaco. (Don't get your hopes up, this is strictly police business.)
A: Muy bien, bueno, pos no. Jamás tendría una romance con usted. (Very well, ok, well no. I would never have an affair with you.)
G: Por mi edad? Hasta cuantos anos tiene que sacarle un hombre a una mujer para que lo considere…un rabo verde, o un viejito? (Because of my age? How many years does a man have to have on a woman before you consider him…a pervert or a dirty old man?)
A: A donde quiere llegar? Porque, sabe que, estoy un poco ocupada. (Where are you trying to get to? Because, you know what, I'm just a little bit busy.)
G: Es que, para un hombre tan guapo, exitoso, con dinero, termina con una loca así? Por que mejor no se va con una… (It's just that, for a man so handsome, successful, with money, to end up with a crazy woman like that? Why didn't he just go with a …)
A: Por amor, doctor! (For love, doctor!)
G: Eso carece completamente de fundamentos científicos. (That's completely lacking in scientific foundations.)
A: Entonces? (Well then?)
G: No se. No se. (I don't know. I don't know.)
A: Con permiso. (With your permission; excuse me)

That's the kind of conversation that gets the whole office sent to sexual harassment prevention training.

Martha comes to Alberto's office and gets introduced to his secretary as his eldest daughter. Alberto also corrects his secretary that she's "señora" (Mrs.) and not "señorita" (Miss) because "ya se me casó" (she already got married on him--it's that taking it personally construction again, the same way cars break down "on you" or people die "on you"). Martha came to invite him to Hernán's birthday dinner tomorrow. He pretends not to know who Hernan is, ja ja ja. He suggests, since she said she wanted Hernán's birthday to be a good time, that they send Hernán and Teresa out to dinner together alone and the two of them go have fun. Cause between Teresa and the boring Hernán, he's already dreading it. He does agree to go, though. He offers her a drink, but she was just stopping by long enough to invite him to dinner. He walks her out of the office and innocently kisses her on the cheek before she leaves. A smarmy guy in a turtleneck comes over and tells him he's liking them younger every day. Alberto just laughs. Okay, if not for the fact that Teresa keeps accusing them of being together, I don't think I'd be reading anything into that. It's all very vague.

Aranda is hanging out with Lorena, the younger sister. She asks who Lorena is texting. "Daniela, a friend. I'm telling her what happened." And she does know what happened, she says. Aranda says she doesn't seem too bothered. "Do you understand that you father is dead?" "Aja." "Your mother could go to jail." "Aja." Lorena refuses to go around crying and screaming like her sister Martha. She gets teary, but struggles to hold it in. "Do you know when I've been the calmest in my life? When my mother was in the psychiatric hospital. So if she goes to jail, that will be even better, right?" "Did your mother ever attack you?"

Teresa digs into her wrist with the point of a knife, then starts kicking at the dining table yelling "Come out from there!" Lorena is hiding underneath. The two of them start screaming at each other, Teresa saying that Lorena's dad is cheating on her with Martha, and Lorena saying that she's crazy. "I'm not crazy! I'm the only one in this house that knows how things really are!" Teresa grabs a box of matches and some alcohol from the sideboard and starts splashing alcohol on the rug and on Lorena, yelling, "You want to do the same thing she does! You want to take him away from me! I won't let you steal him from me! I didn't raise two daughters to be a pair of whores! I'm going to kill you, you hear me?! Whore! Whore!" Holy. Crap.

Gerardo shows Aranda the two bullets that were extracted from the body. She says there's one problem. Ballistics checked out the gun and it wasn't fired twice, it was fired five times.

"Five shots?" Capellan repeats. Gerardo confirms that he only took 2 bullets out of the corpse. Aranda requests permission to have the trajectory of the shots figured out so she can look for the other 3 bullets. Capellan smiles at her, "Shouldn't you have done that already?" Aranda leaves to go get it done. But before she goes, Capellan asks how Mrs. Alarcón is doing. Since Aranda reports that she's calmer, so Capellan asks to have her moved into interrogation. Gerardo says he's got a previous stab wound and she's got 3 missing bullets. I guess he thinks the score is in his favor. Capellan just grins at him and nods.

Capellan starts interrogating Teresa. Teresa says that Alberto is dead. She says she killed him, but it almost sounds like a question. Capellan says she's trying to figure that out and asks if Teresa really can't remember anything about what happened. "We argued. He made me mad. He always made me mad. But it was Martha…she's the one who…It was Martha's fault. Martha and Alberto had an understanding." Capellan reminds her that they're talking about her husband and her daughter, Martha. "Yes. Alberto isn't Martha's father. Martha is the daughter of my first husband. Alberto isn't her father. That's why she took him away from me." Capellan says her daughters have said she's obsessed with this topic. "I'm not obsessed. I'm sure. As sure as I am that the baby she's carrying is Alberto's and not her husband's." "Why are you so sure? Do you have proof?" Teresa says she does. The person who told her is never wrong. "Madame Marion. She's never wrong." Oh, this just keeps getting worse and worse!

Madame Marion reads Teresa's Tarot cards. The Queen of Coins is Teresa (a mature, wealthy woman who shares her wealth). The Devil is the next card out, but Madame Marion says it could mean a lot of things in that position, so she reads on. "Here's your husband" the King of Coins (a powerful man). "And, oh, you've got a matrimonial crisis!" She lays Temperance (a need for moderation) over the King of Coins. "I can't tell you who it is, but the Tarot doesn't lie, and the Tarot says that you know who it is," she says, pointing to the Hanged Man (divinity, knowledge). Judgment (does exactly what it says on the tin) is laid out to the right of the Queen. Madame Marion says she can't tell her if the other woman is going to take him away and that there's some confusion (sitting to your left, there, Madame). She can't interpret it well, because there's some bad, negative energy (again…to your left!)…. Teresa yells at Lorena, sitting in the other room, to get out of there, please. Madame tells her to calm down. "Does her name start with an M?" Madame pulls another card, Death (the end of something, but not necessarily a death), and nods. Just for the sake of reference, The Devil can signify being chained to an old idea that keeps you from being healthy.

Outside the interrogation room, Gerardo says to Sofia, "Madame Marion? Sofia, por favor!" She shrugs and walks off.

Alberto, Lorena, Marta, and Hernán are having dinner together. Hernán is holding a baby. Marta asks him to put the baby to bed already, since he looks tired. She gets Lorena to agree to go with Hernán and help him change the baby's stinky diaper. When they're gone, Alberto asks her what's wrong. She says she's worried about her mother. "Because she didn't show up? She's at an appointment with Madame Marion." "Again?" Alberto says she's been making appointments with her behind his back. They both know that seeing Madame Marion messes with Teresa's head. "All she does is get money out of her and fill her head with nonsense." "Well, with the new pills they're giving her, she goes to bed earlier and gets up later."

Teresa gets up out of bed.

"We've never been so happy, right? Something else is going on with you and it's not necessarily about your mom. What is it?" Marta says Hernán got offered a better job, but they'd have to go to Monterey. She won't go. "Why not?"

Teresa is sitting in a corner of the kitchen crying that he's cheating on her with her own daughter and she knows they're together right now! The maid finds her and tries to calm her down, but Teresa insists that the maid is being deceived the same as she is. Teresa demands that the maid call Alberto and demand that he come home or she'll kill herself.

"You don't care if I go to Monterey?" Alberto says it's not that he doesn't care, but if it's about her well-being. She rushes around the table and grabs his hand, saying "I would never abandon you!" Their faces are pretty close together. Lorena comes in and Alberto and Martha turn to look at her, but they don't let go. "I would never leave you and Lorena alone with my mom. I wouldn't leave the two of you for all the gold in the world!" She hugs Lorena.

Teresa is making shallow scratches on her arm and shouting "I'm going to kill myself!" while the maid tells whoever answered the phone at Marta's place what's going on.

Alberto gets his jacket on to leave and turns down Hernán's offer to call an ambulance. Alberto and Lorena leave and Hernán rubs Marta's arms briefly, before she walks away.

Lorena comes running into the kitchen and calls to her dad. Alberto comes in and tells her it'll be ok. Toña, the maid, reports that she scratched her arm. Alberto asks if she cleaned it with alcohol and what the pretext was this time. "The same as always." He thought she was sleeping, but it's the same stupid shit as always. He roughly tells her to get up and starts dragging her to her room. He tells Lorena to call Daniela and ask for a ride to school. "I'm not going to be able to drop you off or pick you up tomorrow, and your mother will be asleep all day." Lorena says she will and watches him dragging her mother out as her mother keeps smooching on him, half-drugged out of her mind. "How long are you going to keep doing this?" he asks.

Lorena tells Capellan that her mother would do that every so often. "Aren't you worried about who you're going to live with now? That is, if your mother ends up in jail?" She figures she'll live with Marta, Hernán and the baby. Sounds like she maybe has a little crush on Hernán.

Alberto gives Teresa some pills, but she accuses him of wanting her drugged out so he can shag her daughter. Alberto says he wants her to feel better and well-rested. He reminds her that the company party is tomorrow night and she was supposed to go with him. She sounds pathetically grateful about going out with him, but he says that Martha and Hernán will be there too. He's getting an award and he wants the whole family to be there. Lorena will stay home with the baby. "Oh, so you're inviting Martha, but not your own daughter?" He says it's a grown up party and Lorena will be bored. Besides she's too young. "Young. Pretty. Both my daughters? I can't believe you're doing it with both my daughters?!" He tells her to calm down, she's his daughter. Teresa cries. Alberto says she's really going to kill herself the next time. "If you let Madame Marlene in the house again, I'll kick her out." "I'll kill you first. I'll kill Martha, and then I'll kill Lorena and your bastard too."

Capellan tells Martha and Hernán that she's trying to find out what set things off. "My mother is a sick woman. What more do you want to know? She's been that way for years and nothing out of the ordinary happened." Hernán said a lot of things happened at the party.

Martha and Hernán hand the baby off to Lorena. Alberto comes in and Martha says he's looking good. "I suppose my mom's not coming?" Teresa comes down the stairs, laughing, and says she supposes wrong. Hernán tells his mother-in-law that she looks beautiful. "See? Some men still want me!" She flirts with Hernán. Martha says maybe they shouldn't go. Alberto says no way, they're all going. "No, let her. If you don't want to you, I'll go with my husband and yours. You take my husband away from me and I'll take yours away from you." Alberto asks Marta not to pay any attention to her and let's go. Teresa tells Alberto he's looking very handsome. "Isn't your father handsome?" she asks Lorena. Lorena grins and says he is. "Well, you're too young for him." OMG, every time this woman opens her mouth it just keeps getting worse! This is psychological torture, constantly accusing your 13-year-old of wanting to sleep with her own father! And I have yet to see any of Martha's "manipulations," even though Capellan seems to suspect something. Martha takes the baby to say good night, then carries him over to Hernán so he can say good night to his daddy. Teresa pulls her over and says, "no, no, to his daddy" and pulls the baby over to Alberto. Argh! This woman! Alberto tells Teresa that she's a "pesadilla" (a nightmare).

"My mother-in-law had this obsession" Hernán tells Capellan, while Martha looks at him, horrified.

People mix and mingle at the company party. Smarmy guy greets Alberto and Teresa, then stupidly says he didn't realize that Martha was Alberto's daughter. Teresa has been allowed to drink (Why? For the love of my sanity WHY?!!!) and says, "Well, daughter, stepdaughter…I'm sure they're something more, though I don't know what." Alberto asks her if she'd like some fresh air, but she'd rather dance with Jaime, AKA, smarmy guy. Alberto (WHY?) lets him take her. Hernán offers to get drinks for Martha and Alberto.

"Do you know how long it's been since Alberto even took me down to the corner?" Jaime asks if he can tell her something, with all due respect. "Your daughter is so beautiful." YOU'RE. NOT. HELPING! She gulps more champagne and says the younger daughter is beautiful too.

Alberto accepts congratulations from another coworker, who also wishes him luck. Martha wonders what that was about, but Alberto says he'll tell her later. "I'm worried about your mother. She won't stop threatening."

Teresa has finished her glass of champagne and tells Jaime that she's feeling sick and can he get her another glass of champagne. Insert silence and a blank stare on my part. In what universe do those two concepts connect logically in that order?

Alberto and Martha are standing really close together and he's very quietly telling her that Teresa has threatened to kill her and the baby. Teresa comes over and shoves Martha away, asking what she thinks she's doing. A predictable scene ensues. The guests get a free show. Martha and Hernán leave so they can check on the baby. Jaime takes the floor and calls for a toast to Alberto. He announces that next week, he's going to open a new office in Bogota. Teresa gets faint and Alberto calls for a doctor. Martha, who apparently hadn't left yet, tells Alberto he's going to be sorry.

In the car, on the drive home, Teresa is falling asleep and Martha is half curled up in her seat, teary eyed. Alberto is sneaking glances at Martha in the rearview and Hernán is just looking sad and confused.

"I think your mother wasn't the only one surprised and angered by the news." Martha angrily demands to know what it was supposed to matter to her if Alberto left or didn't leave. Capellan says she's out of line. "You have no idea what my mother has done to all of us." She leaves and Hernán starts to follow her, but Capellan asks for a word with him. Martha wonders what more she could want to know. Hernán stays behind.

Capellan takes her fancy schmancy DIEM folder in to see Gerardo. He jokes that she's bringing him Madame Marion's testimony. He looks in the folder and says "This is illegal! You can't ask for a paternity test without the permission of at least one of the supposed fathers." Well, Hernán signed the authorization.

"Why not put your doubts to rest?" Hernán says she's got a point, and signs the paperwork.

"The baby is Alberto's son. After all, his wife wasn't so wrong." Gerardo says that's only more of a reason for her to have killed him. Capellan admits it was a low blow not to have Gerardo run the test, but she was right. Capellan calls to Aranda to get "Mrs. Alarcón's" daughter in there (though she didn't say which one) and an order from the judge to test for gunpowder residue. Gerardo reminds Capellan that the results have nothing to do with the murder. She wiggles the folder at him and walks out.

Capellan hands Hernán the test results and he cries. She walks out of her office and takes the gunpowder tests from Moran. She smiles and thanks him, saying this was the missing piece.

Teresa and Martha are both sitting in the interrogation room when Capellan walks in. She asks Teresa if she's sure she killed her husband. She is…no, wait, she's not. "I didn't have a gun. I had scissors. I don't know where I got the gun from." Martha says it was in the chest of drawers where Alberto kept it. "But how do you know that?" Teresa says Martha was there. "What were you doing in your parents' bedroom?" Martha said she helped Alberto get her mother upstairs because she was drunk.

Alberto and Martha help Teresa up the stairs. Martha shouts down to Hernán to go to Lorena's room and get the baby ready. "Ready for what?" "Ready to go home, what do you mean for what?" He complains that it's really cold, but she tells him to just do what she says.

Capellan asks if Martha and Alberto talked about anything specific. "Yes, I complained about him leaving. He'd be leaving my mother alone." "No, you were demanding he not abandon you." Martha calls her crazy. "No, I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. If you want, I can tell you everything that happened."

Teresa is sacked out on the bed. Marta is telling Alberto "Everything I've done for you? And now you're going to abandon me?" Alberto says what they've been doing is wrong and someone has to pay for it. Martha asks if their love and their son are wrong. She starts desperately kissing him and saying she loves him and begging him not to leave. Teresa wakes up and says she knew it. Martha shoves Alberto away and tells Teresa, "You don't know what your husband did to me!" Teresa says she knows he got her pregnant. "And do you know how? He raped me! He threw himself on me and attacked me!" Alberto gets pissed off and demands she tell her mother the truth. "Tell her you've been after me since you were a girl! Do you want to know the truth? You've demanded the truth from me many times, so no, I didn't rape your daughter, she's been my lover for a long time." Martha says the baby was Alberto's and they had the baby because Alberto said he didn't like Teresa anymore, because she's old and crazy and sick and made him sick. Alberto says they're both nuts and yeah, he's a piece of crap, but the two of them have been good company. Alberto starts to go and Martha demands that Teresa do something. She grabs the scissors and we get a repeat of the scene from the beginning. This time, we see what happens after. Martha gets the gun out of the drawer, puts in in her mother's hands and screams at her to kill him. The first three shots miss.

Aranda laughs at Gerardo and says she thought he was flirting. "I was trying to convince myself that things weren't as they seemed, and I didn't want to think Capellan was right." He says it's being confirmed right now in interrogation. "I made a mistake with you, Lieutenant. Because the question wasn't why a man like Alarcon would put up with a crazy woman like that." "For love. I wasn't wrong." "The question was 'for what'…to stay close to the woman he loved, and his son."

Capellan asks, "Then what did you do?" Martha says she didn't do anything. "My mother had a gun in her hands. What did you want me to do?" Capellan points out that Teresa was in no condition to fire the gun and she didn't even know what it was. "You're the one who opened the drawer and put the gun in her hands." "That's not true." "What did you do when you realized your mother had botched her shots? You wanted to keep the father of your child from leaving you." "I don't know what you're talking about." "I have a paternity test. Your husband authorized it." "Hernán?" "You fired the gun. There were five shots: the last two, the precise ones, you made. You have gunshot residue on your hands. Do you want to tell us what happened?" "I killed him because I loved him. I'd loved him since I was a girl. He was the father of my child. I sacrificed myself for him and to be by his side and to protect him from this crazy woman. And what did he do? How did he repay me? He wanted to go to Columbia and abandon me. He broke my heart. Well, I destroyed his heart, too."

Martha takes the gun away and shoots Alberto twice in the heart. The bloody butterfly flies away. Martha turns to the camera.

"Martha fue condenada a 25 anos de prisión, acusada por homicidio en primer grado, con todas las agravantes. Su madre permanece internada en un institución psiquiátrica. Hernán Carrasco se divorcio de Marta y obtuvo la patria potestad del pequeño Alberto. Solicito también la tutoría de Lorena. Ambos menores llevan sus apellidos y los educa como a sus propios hijos."

Martha was sentenced to 25 years in prison, convicted of first-degree homicide, with all the aggravating factors. Her mother remains interned in a psychiatric institution. Hernán Carrasco divorced Martha and won custody of little Alberto. He also requested guardianship of Lorena. Both minors carry his name and are raised as his own children.

Next week: Premios Juventud. Mujeres Asesinas will be back on the 24th.

Labels: asesinas

Tonight, Jacqueline Bracamontes is Irma de los Peces (Irma of the fish [think "Pisces" is the sign of the fish]).

Bloody footprints on tile. Gravel and water. More footprints, leading to a woman sitting on a piano bench, covered in spatters of blood.

Still not loving the new theme song…but I do love Jacqui's black sequin dress. I want one.

Irma is led out in handcuffs while the DIEM crew collect evidence. Moran tells Capellan, over the phone, that all they know is it was done with a lot of violence.

Flashback: A cheerful Irma bids her fish a good morning. "Mommy's going to feed you all, babies!" A pissed off dude comes in and gives her a hard time for being so cutesy with the fish. "You treat them better than you treat me! I'm hungry." She hightails it out of the room and gets his breakfast out of the microwave. He's looking at her notebooks and he asks her if she plans to continue with "this." "The University?" He says it seems less like a University and more like a place where they teach her useless things. She starts to remind him that he studied at a Conservatory, but he interrupts her and says she stopped studying "for love"…or so she made him believe. Irma reminds him that he consented to her going back to school. "What for? So you can learn how the oviparous animals reproduce, and the oviviparous, and the viviparous?" Jackass rips the pages out of her notebook and rips them up. She tries to walk out, but he grabs her by the arm and says he lost his appetite. The cameras focus on the fish.

Those are the "ovíparos" oviparous animals lay eggs with no embryonic development inside the mother, "ovivíparos" oviviparous animals lay eggs after the embryo has developed inside the mother, "vivíparos" viviparous animals give birth to live young…go forth and use those terms in everyday speech. Also, since I'm thinking about accents and grammar, and why those words needed accents, the stress in Spanish is typically on the second-to-last syllable, so you need an accent whenever you're trying to indicate that you're putting the stress anywhere else. And the accents are important because an unaccented and accented word might be spelled the same way, but have different meanings. For example "esta" (ES-ta) would mean "this one", but "está" (es-TA) would mean "it is."

Jackass, AKA Alfonso, goes over to the piano and takes a pill. He sits down and starts to play while Irma starts taping her notes back up. The phone rings and he yells at her to answer it without missing a beat. It keeps ringing and he tells her to either answer it or take it off the hook. By the time she picks it up, he's stopped playing. It's Raul, a classmate of Irma's. Alfonso picks up the extension to hear the conversation. Raul is offering to swing by her work and give her a ride to school today. She says she's not going because she hasn't finished the anatomy homework. He says it's not a big deal and he always turns his in late, but she doesn't like to. Raul says he'll call her tomorrow, then. When she gets off the phone, Alfonso is standing in the hallway behind her. He asks who it is and she tells him it was a classmate, calling to see if she'd finished some homework. "You know I can't practice with interruptions. Tell your friends to call at other hours." He grabs her by the face, gives her one of those semi-threatening little too-hard pats on one cheek, then kisses her. He says he's going to the conservatory. Irma asks him if he'll be home early, just because. He doesn't answer her, just looks pissed off and leaves.

OK, rant #1…if you have to lie to your SO all the time because the truth would upset them, hello, maybe it's not such a good relationship for you! And rant #2…yeah, dude, I get it, I need to keep my mind on my work when I'm practicing too, but that's why I turn the damn ringer off the phone! And if I don't and it rings, well, that's my own damn fault, isn't it? Jerk. And rant #3…you played for less than a minute and just because the phone rang, now you're going to stop and go practice at the conservatory instead? Why didn't you just go there in the first place for your precious peace and quiet! And I think I'm done now.

Aranda comes into Capellan's office and reports that they found a lot of "anti-ansiolíticos" (anti-anxiolytics), "sedantes" (sedatives), and "antidepresivos" (antidepressants). Capellan asks if they've already done a toxicology screen on the body and on Irma. She wants to know as soon as the tox screen is done and she wants a psych evaluation on Irma. She tells her to concentrate on the family history. "Irma Puente is the daughter of one of the best performers Mexico has ever produced." (concertista=performer). Capellan is looking at a news article on her computer about the suicide of Alejandro Puente.

Flashback: Irma is cleaning the glass on the front of one of several aquariums. Her boss, Don Victorio, comes to hustle her out of the shop before she's late for school. When she says she's not going, he says she can't skip…it's only the first semester! Irma lies and says there aren't any classes today. He buys it, but marvels at how nowadays they'll cancel class for anything. He's quiet for a while, but then says he's been wanting to talk to her about something important for the last few days (hace unos días=since a few days ago). He says, "Soy cansado, yo quisiera jubilarme" (I'm tired and I'd like to retire). Irma is afraid he's thinking of closing the "acuario" (aquarium…but I think it's more of a fish store). What he actually wants is to sell it to her and have her pay in installments. That will be his "jubilación" (pension). One guess what her loving husband is going to think of that. Irma says she can't buy anything right now. He tells her to think about it and talk it over with Alfonso. "Music is beautiful, but it's not always enough. This store could be your future." He says they should get together and talk about the "forma" (the form; how they're going to do this; the terms), but to be honest, if the business has grown, it's been because of her dedication and hard work. "Te pertenece mas a ti que a mi." (It belongs more to you than to me.)

Alfonso is playing at home, while Irma is trying to talk to him about the shop. His argument to "Princesa" (princess…and I do not think he means this in a flattering way…and also, FYI to Mr. 5ft, I would prefer "Reina" [queen]) is that they don't have the money. When she mentions doing it "a plazos" (in installments), he scoffs, "What? With your salary?" Irma says the shop makes enough that she can pay herself a salary and have enough for the payments. He asks, quite reasonably how much the payments would be and what the interest rates are. She doesn't know yet. Then he turns it around on her and says she doesn't know anything and what she needs to do is save her salary because what he makes isn't enough. Irma points out that if she doesn't buy it then he'll sell it to someone else and she may be out of a job. "So? You'll get another one. I don't see what the problem is."

At this point, I screamed at the TV. This guy is a jackass AND he's stupid on top of it. I know she doesn't have figures yet, but duh, of course she'd be making more as the owner than as an employee, which would keep him in booze, pills, and sheet music even better than her salary does now. And if he's so concerned about a steady income, then maybe he's the one that ought to get a regular job that pays more! He acts like he's the one maintaining her, when really it's the other way around. Show a little gratitude, damnit!

She leaves the room and he reaches for the pill bottle again, and don't tell me it's water in that glass. He goes back to playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Irma talks to a woman, by a van with "Neptuno" (Neptune) on the side. This appears to be the shop's supplier. The woman, who is rocking a lovely curly bob, tells Irma that her husband is wrong. She thinks this is a great opportunity and the old guy loves Irma and she really knows the business well. She tells Irma that she didn't have "en que caerme muerta" (anyplace to drop dead; so broke she couldn't even afford to die, in other words) when she bought her first van and now she's zooming all over the place making deliveries. "Well, Alfonso says…" She interrupts and says it's impossible that Alfonso doesn't let her do ANYTHING. "Sure he does." Before the other woman can respond, she's kicked by the bun in her oven and sits down in the front seat of the van. "The kid doesn't like for me to work!" Irma says if she was in her shoes, she'd rest all the time. "Well, sure, but then you'd go crazy. Have you thought about it?" "About going crazy?" "No, of going to see my doctor." Irma says Alfonso is over 50 and she's not going to have kids, but she's got fish. The other woman gets all excited and tells her to come look at the black-tailed fish she brought.

Alfonso is practicing when Irma comes home. Sorry, I don't recognize this piece, but damn do I wish my hands could still move like that…damn arthritis! And possibly also lack of a full-size keyboard on which to practice. Irma has brought home a new baby and she puts the plastic bag in the aquarium so the water will be the same temperature before she lets the new guy or gal out with the others. Alfonso interrupts her fish bonding to ask her if they should eat. He upsets her by calling it a new "pescadito" and she corrects him that it's a "pez" (I think the difference is that pescado is usually dead, cooked, and on your plate, but a pez is alive and swimming…someone correct me if I'm wrong). He starts in with the bitching…"How many damn critters do you need before you're satisfied?" (bichos=critters, little creatures). The light and electric bills have arrived and he left money out for her to pay them. Irma asks what he'd like to eat. She's not eating because she had something earlier and she needs to finish her anatomy review. "If it's anatomy, I think I can help you," he says, grabbing her from behind and kissing the side of her neck. If he wasn't a stupid, menacing, jackass, that might have been romantic or at least funny. Instead it was possessive, threatening, and bordering on violent. She breaks away and says she's really got to finish her studying. He says "Fine! I'm in my house and I can't eat. I want to be with my wife and I can't! What I do doesn't matter. All day, working for nothing! Better I should get into a trash can and rot there!" Irma weakly says "Alfonso," but he rounds the corner.

The tox results arrive and Moran gives them to Gerardo. He slips the disc into his computer and says "As I supposed! It was the husband taking all those pills, not her." Moran is confused, but Gerardo smiles.

Flashback: Raul gives Irma a ride home from class and tells her about her nickname among her classmates: "Irma, la de los peces" (Irma, the one of the fish; Irma the fish girl). Irma laughs. Raul gives her a present--an embroidered fish with a tassel that looks like it's meant to hang off something, like a rearview mirror. He goes around to open her car door and Alfonso looks down from an upstairs window. Raul asks her not to leave school and she doesn't answer. She stops to pick up the fish she dropped and Raul watches her go inside before he leaves. Alfonso watches him.

Irma starts to get into bed, but Alfonso barks at her, "Where were you?" She says she was at class and he accuses her of lying. "I don't tell lies. I'm not like you. I called you the other day at the conservatory to ask you something and you weren't there." He asks her who she was with and when she insists she was at class, he turns on the light to demand to know if she needs to be with someone younger. "I'm not enough for you anymore? You need someone to do things to you that I don't do? To touch you like this?" She struggles to get away from him and he backhands her and screams "You don't like me anymore!" What happens next is left to the imagination, but there's more hitting and her screaming "no!"

Capellan, Aranda, and Moran meet in Capellan's office to discuss the case. Aranda says that Alejandro Puente, the father, was a performer and the "maestro" (maestro; conductor) of the National Conservatory of Music…Capellan doesn't need to hear this bit. Moran says he was diagnosed with "artrosis"(degenerative osteoarthritis), "artritis degenerativa" (degenerative arthritis). Capellan opines that he probably couldn't live with the idea that he was going to have to stop playing. His wife died of cancer in '95. Irma was the only daughter and she found her father with a bullet in the "sien" (temple) in 2004. She got psychiatric help, but 3 months later, she married Alfonso, a pianist and former student of her father's, who was 20 years older than her and addicted to antidepressants. That makes it sound like if the psychiatric help had worked, she wouldn't have married him. Capellan says it's a history of constant losses and rapid substitutions. Moran gets a call announcing the arrival of Don Victor. Capellan asks to have him sent in.

Flashback: Irma is at work, wearing large dark glasses. She tells a couple to remember to leave the fish in the aquarium in the plastic bag for 2 hours until the fish gets used to its new home (we always used to do it for half an hour…I guess times have changed). The happy couple leaves with their new aquatic child. Don Victor comes into the shop and asks if Irma has thought about it. She just keeps dusting things on the shelf. "Did you talk to your husband?" Irma starts sniffling. "I suppose he didn't agree?" She just keeps dusting. "Irma? Come here, please." He's looking at some fish. "Have you ever asked yourself why fish have that special fascination for you?" She says they make her feel "acompañada" (accompanied). Don Victor says they're hypnotic. "They move without ever stopping. Like they're always looking for the way back to the sea." He looks at her sadly and takes of her sunglasses. "I got up half asleep to go to the bathroom and I hit myself on the door." This is such the typical story that "hit myself on the door" might as well be code for "my husband beat the crap out of me" and therefore no longer useful as a lie. Even Mr. 5ft knew she was saying "I hit myself on the door" even though he didn't understand the words. Don Victor says he's got too many years on him not to know that those aren't the marks of love. "Irma, the difference between us and our captive fish is that for us there is ALWAYS a way out. ALWAYS." Irma starts crying and he hugs her. It sounds like he cries with her.

Alfonso comes home with flowers. They always come home with flowers after their wives accidentally hit themselves on doors. Bastard. He asks if she didn't go to school. Oh, look, he's got a box of chocolates too. That ought to make everything ok. She says she couldn't go to school. On account of having run into a door. He asks her to forgive him and says he doesn't know what happened to him. He offers her the flowers. "Look. I brought you those tights you like so much." Oh, so not chocolates, then. He gets whiny. "Forgive me, Irma." To paraphrase Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "I can't help feeling like the reason you want me to forgive you is so you can feel better about yourself. That's not my problem." So suck it, jackass. Irma says she doesn't understand why she can't buy the aquarium and why she can't study and why everything bothers him. "I can't do this anymore, Alfonso. I feel like I'm going to go crazy." "Please forgive me!" he whines. He says he doesn't feel like he knows his wife and like she's always thinking of anything buy him. "So how's it going with your little friend? That imbecile. You know, with the car?" Careful, your jackass is showing. She says his name is Raul. "You like him don't you?" he asks all tearful--like I'm supposed to care. When she asks how he can talk to her like that, he starts with "Irma" a touch too loud and coming towards her. She covers her head with her arms and screams. He gets hold of himself and says he doesn't want to keep fighting and everything will be fine. "Forgive me, please, I swear it will all be fine, forgive me."

Don Victor chats with Capellan in not an interrogation room, or her office, but some room with a couch. "She worked with me for five years. I offered to let her buy the shop, but her husband opposed it. In the last year, she was living in a profound fear and great sadness. She couldn't find a way to get out of there."

Flashback: Raul thanks Irma for loaning him some notes, which he has come by her place to pick up. Oh, this is going to suck. He asks if she's going back to class tomorrow and tells her she'll flunk out if she keeps missing class. He asks her to go for coffee or ice cream, but she refuses. He says he'll be in touch and as she walks him toward the front gate, Alfonso comes in. He introduces himself as Irma's husband and Raul introduces himself as her classmate and offers his hand. The guys shake and Irma rushes to explain that Raul needed to borrow her Chem notes. "Is dinner ready?" Irma says it's not. "Well, I like to have something to eat after I make love…don’t you two?" Raul looks shocked and says he'll call Irma later, then he runs out of there as Irma runs up the stairs. Yes, Raul, you caught the vibe, and what did you do? Run for the hills. Thanks, dude. Sorry, not his fault. And that's going to be no consolation to him after it all goes down. Irma, for some unknown reason, didn't lock the door behind her when she went inside. Alfonso comes in after her and tells her to wait…"You didn't even greet me!" He sits down in the hallway and starts pulling papers out of his briefcase. "Why do you do this to me?" He says it's because he's a man (on behalf of the DECENT men I know, I call BS on that) and he knows when "me quieren ver la cara" (they want to see my face; someone's trying to put on over on me). Irma says Raul just came by to pick up some notes. "He wants to sleep with you. That's if he hasn't already." "Why do you say that, as if you didn't know me?" "It seems like I don't know you." Irma says he's changing and he's not like he was before. He's more…He interrupts her, "More what? More crazy?" He goes over to the aquarium and uses a net to take out one of the fish. Irma panics. "In this moment, you're going to forget that damn university…do you understand?" She agrees, to save her baby, and he lets it back down in the water while she cries.

At the shop, Don Victor talks on the phone, while Irma skims a tank. He gets off the phone and comes over to tell her that someone wants to sign a contract with him within the hour. "But if you say you want it, I'll go back on the deal, I'll go back on it right now!" She says no, they've already talked about it. "But you'll be out of a job!" "I'll find something, don't worry. Hurry up or you won't make it in time."

Raul talks to Aranda. He can't believe it. "Did you and Mrs. Puente have a romantic relationship?" Raul says she always kept her distance and her respect for "that guy" above all. "She was always there for him. Leaving everything. She didn't leave in peace. He spent all his time tormenting her with his obsessive jealousy of everything and everyone." He says he knew her for five or six months.

Flashback: Irma mops the floors at night, and Alfonso comes over, drink in hand, to ask if she didn't go to the university today. I could kick him. I could do worse, but that's a start. "You told me not to go anymore." He laughs and says he's surprised she does what he says. "You're going to forbid me from more things." He plays innocent and says he's not going to forbid her anything and if she didn't go to class it's because she didn't want to. "Don't blame me for it." He asks her what's wrong. "The 31st is my last day of work." She says after that she'll "aflojar" (slack off). He ignores the sarcasm and says she'll find something, and besides with the orchestra and his classes, they've got enough to get by. She stops mopping. "You told me that we couldn't buy the shop because we needed my salary to live on. That we couldn't make the monthly payments…and now you say the contrary?" "You made a proposal, if I can even call it that, and a childish one at that! You didn't even know what the payments would be, or the interest!" he shouts after her.

The supplier, Toni, comes by the shop again, as Irma is finishing packing up the whole shop. Toni asks if "he" hit Irma. "How can you be with a guy who does that do you? Please!" She asks if Toni wants her to leave him "a estas alturas?" (at this point; now; this late in the game). Toni says that's an option. "You don't have a husband, you have an excuse not to do anything with your life. You're going to go crazy if you stay with him."

Toni talks to Aranda. She doesn't know if he ever abused her sexually, but she says he did hit her. "La acosaba, la presionaba, la tenia encarcelada, pero a Irma lo que mas le pesaba era que no podían tener hijos." (He harassed her, he pressured her, he had her imprisoned, but what weighed most on Irma is that they couldn't have children.)

Flashback: Irma gets ready for bed and Alfonso watches her. He tells her to leave her stockings on. Irma says she saw Antonia today and she's pretty far along in her pregnancy. They couldn't have kids either, because her husband also had "paperas" (mumps) when he was young. Alfonso reminds her that the doctor said "maybe" it was because of the mumps. "Why do you keep repeating this to me?" Irma wants to go see Toni's doctor and that she said it wasn't that expensive. He says they don't have money for it and besides, she's over 30. "What does that have to do with it? Antonia's about my age." He laughs and says it's different. "Antonia's a businesswoman. She has her own business." I'm seething. Seething. Seething. Seething. Boiling. Seething…. "And?" "She's well kept, she's whole, but you, my love? You've had to work and you're a little worn out." He says they'll just have to make the most of it and starts kissing her. Nasty ass jerkface.

Alfonso practices and Irma comes over to sit near him. He stops and asks what's wrong with her. "Are you worried about your job? Don't worry it will all be fine." "I wanted to buy the shop from Don Victor." He says it's done and gone, let it go. "Alfonso!" She gives him a hard look and says she wants a separation. This is the dangerous time. Right here. Not before she leaves him, not after, but while it's in process. I wish she wasn't doing this alone. She has to repeat herself. "Last night you wanted to have a child and now you want a separation? Don't be childish!" She's furious at him calling her childish. He tells her to just buy another fish. "Don't you make fun of me! I don't want to keep living like this!" She says she wants to have her own life. "What have you been watching on TV?" "Don't make fun of me!" He asks how she'll live, she has nothing, she's no one, she doesn't have a career or a job…she's nothing! Irma mumbles "eres un tarado" (you're an idiot). He tells her to say it looking in his eyes. She tries to get away from him, but he grabs her from behind. She goes running down the hallway and he stalks over to the fish tank and knocks it over. Oh, it's on now, jackass.

Capellan talks to Irma in an interrogation room. "There are those who say that fish don't have souls. Did you know that, Irma? I don't believe it. It's that in the tank [pecera] they're not in their natural habitat. They're not free. There, enclosed in the tank, decorated with corals and plants, they're there to give pleasure to those who look at them. But they're not free. Is that how you felt, Irma? Like a fish, a prisoner in the tank?" Irma tries to talk, but it takes her a while. "I, before, I wasn't a fish. But he suffocated me…every time, less air…I couldn't breathe…he wouldn't let me breathe. And I couldn't take it anymore. I had to become a fish." "How? How did you become a fish, Irma?" "Swimming with them. In silence. Hasta que nos mató." (Until he killed us.)

Flashback to the tank falling over again. The fish flop around on the floor and Irma comes over, in shock. Alfonso tells her to clean it up. Irma cries and reaches toward the fish. My instinct is to yell at her to grab them and get them into some water, but I know that most tap water is chlorinated and that kills them, so unless she had some non-chlorinated, and non-chemical-infested water lying around, there's nothing to put them into so they survive.

Irma takes the fish and wraps each one up in a piece of newspaper. She picks up the box of tights he'd brought home and takes the tights out of the box.

Alfonso practices Moonlight Sonata again, if a bit violently. Irma walks out, on her bloody feet, toward the remains of the tank, while Alfonso screws it up and starts over. She starts putting the larger rocks from the tank into the stocking. Alfonso screws up again, bangs on the keys, and makes another bad, angry start. Irma comes up behind him, calls his name, and whacks him with the rock-filled stocking. As the butterfly flies away, she continues bashing his head in.

Alfonso's body is lying on the floor, as is the stocking. The camera pans up from Irma's bloody feet and she's sitting on the piano bench. She looks up at the camera.

"Irma Puente Berrueto se entregó a la policía y confesó el asesinato de su marido. El diagnóstico psicológico determinó que Irma padecía de una depresión maniaco-compulsiva profunda. Por lo que fue internada en un hospital psiquiátrico. No volvió a hablar jamás."

Irma Puente Berrueto turned herself over to the police and confessed to the murder of her husband. The psychological diagnostician determined that Irma suffered from a deep manic-compulsive depression. For which she was interned in a psychiatric hospital. She never spoke again."

I will agree that there are delusional symptoms and depressive symptoms, but I have no idea what that diagnosis is supposed to mean, since it doesn't exist in the DSM IV TR and I can't find an analogue for it. I also don't see any mania in her behavior, and I'm not sure I would call any of her behavior "compulsive". Thoughts?

Next week: Aislinn Derbez

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