I park in front of a strip mall just south of MacArthur Park on Alvarado. It’s pretty much what you’d expect from a strip mall on Alvarado. Parking signs in English and Spanish, a Chinese fast food place, nail salon, coin-op laundry with a hand-painted LAVANDERIA sign above it.

Wedged between the nail salon and the laundromat sits a church to one of the fastest growing religions in the Western Hemisphere.

The storefront could just as easily be a donut shop or a taqueria except for the hand-painted sign above it: Sanctuario De La Santa Muerte. A drawing of La Dama Poderosa herself looks down upon the parking lot and the cars speeding down the street. I get out of the car and look up at the sign above the Mylar-covered window. Never thought I’d be here again.

Well, I’ve put this off long enough. Time to go to church.

An electronic chime sounds as I push the door open. Tepid air blows through a vent from an air conditioning unit grinding against the sweltering heat. For all the grime of the parking lot outside, the inside is a rainbow explosion of color. Bright yellow walls, shelves in blue, green, red, and on every surface prayer candles to Santa Muerte. Candles for protection, love, revenge, each in its own distinct shade.

Santa Muerte shrines and statues break up the rows of candles. Everything from four-foot-tall resin-cast skeletons down to dashboard models with black plastic gems for eyes. Keychains, jackets, t-shirts, scapulars. It’s Santa Muerte tchotchke heaven in here.

A Latino man stands behind the counter and nods as I enter. I recognize him as the man who was here when I first came in a couple years ago. I’ve always wondered about him. When Santa Muerte killed my sister, she either had someone do it or possessed someone. She couldn’t completely manifest physically in the living world.

Did he do it? If he did, should I kill him? Does it matter anymore? Did it ever? She’s still dead, and I’ve exorcised her Echo, and I think I kept Santa Muerte from being able to walk the Earth.

“Eduardo, right?” I say. “Shrine open?”

“For you? Always. Go on in. I’ll keep the riffraff out.”

“I thought I was the riffraff.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“Fair enough.” I stop as I pass by the counter toward a curtained-off area near the back. “Hey, I just gotta know. Did you kill my sister?”

“What if I said yes?”

“I’d kill you slow, cut off your head and wear it as a party hat.”