Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_05 (20 page)

“You can't prove it.” He was a dog at bay, ready to jump for my throat.

Iris wriggled uncomfortably

“Yes, I can. And I will.” It was hard to say it, hard to put this kind of pressure on Iris. I ached for her.

Iris began to cry, little sobs that made her shoulders shake.

I wanted so much to move forward, comfort her. I wanted to put my arms around her and tell her everything was all right.

But it wasn't all right.

Rick reached out, pulled Iris to her feet, held her tight. He glared at me over the dark head pressed against his chest. “The stuff's gone. It doesn't matter what you say. It's your word against ours.”

“Not if I find the gold.” I took a deep breath. From here on out, I was pitting myself against this frightened young man, against a wily murderer, against a rabid collector who didn't care how much blood had been shed in pursuit of golden artifacts. “You see, I know the gold is in La Mariposa.” If it wasn't, Maria Elena's heart would be broken and Manuel would go to jail.
Dammit, I was sure of it. Almost sure of it.

If Rick had looked like old putty in Maria Elena's living room, now his face was the color of custard. “Uncle Frank?” he whispered.

“One of them; maybe Frank, maybe not. But you're going to help me find the gold, Rick, or I am going to call Detective Borroel.” I reached for my purse, pulled out my cell phone. I fished out my small notebook, flipped it open, read the number. My hand was poised above the phone. Yes, it was a colossal bluff. But Rick could have no way of knowing Borroel had dismissed the gold as absurd, an old woman's flight of fancy. “The police didn't find anything when they searched Tesoros. But what will happen if they search La Mariposa? Do you want the police to search La Mariposa, find the gold? Can't you see the headlines now?” My voice capitalized the words, “
STOLEN TREASURE FOUND IN RIVER WALK HOTEL
or
TESOROS MURDER LINKED TO ANCIENT TREASURE
.” I punched the cell phone on. “How will Maria Elena like those headlines? And how do you think you and Iris will find the city jail?” I punched in the first digit of the number.

Rick flung up a hand. “Wait, wait a minute. Please, Mrs. Collins.” He pressed his chin against the top of Iris's head.

I depressed the end button.

Iris pulled back from his chest, looked up at him, her face tear-streaked. “Rick, it's okay. It doesn't matter. I'll go to jail.”

At that moment, I wasn't nearly as enchanted with youthful love. This was no time for Iris to offer herself as a sacrifice to the Garza family's reputation. But I didn't speak to her. “Rick, do you want Iris in a holding cell? Ever visit one on a sociology-class tour? Do you know what might happen—”

“Oh, God,” he said violently, “I wish we'd never found the damn stuff. I wish—”

Iris flung herself toward the bed. “It's my fault. Everything's my fault. That man and Manuel—” She huddled on the bed, sobbing.

Now I did move, reached out, grasped a trembling hand. “Iris, listen to me.” She was too fragile to bear this. Even to save Manuel, I couldn't permit her to suffer like this. “You didn't steal the gold.” I felt like shouting it, but no one must hear these words. I kept my voice down, but she must have heard the steel in my words. She lifted a blotchy face to stare at me. “Iris, you didn't hide the gold. You didn't club down Ed Schmidt. Yes, you found it, but you did the right thing. You took it to Rick.”

I looked at him, slumped against the old-fashioned wardrobe, misery in every line of his body. I ached for him, too, and that made my voice gentle. “Rick, stop beating up on yourself. You did your best. But now it's time to do your best again. There's a murderer in Tesoros and it isn't Manuel. You can save Manuel. It's up to you.”

“Manuel could have heard Schmidt.” The words were tortured. “That's what the police think. God, maybe they're right. Schmidt was there because he thought the gold might be hidden somewhere. Maybe Manuel heard him and came downstairs.” Tears glistened in Rick's eyes. He was thinking that if he and Iris hadn't hidden the gold, Schmidt would never have forced his way into the showroom and Manuel would not have killed him.

I said gently, “Rick, tell me about Manuel.”

His lips trembled. He was trying not to cry. “He's so helpless.” Rick tried to control his breathing, but the words were still choked. “He gets really nervous
anywhere but home. If they put him in jail—”

“We aren't going to let that happen.” I held his gaze. “Rick, can you understand when Manuel uses his hands to make shadows?”

He nodded, his lips pressed hard together.

“He tells simple stories, isn't that right?” I remembered the quick flicker of his hands, the stick figure running away. “Someone's at the door, a dog ran by, he's drinking a cup of cocoa?”

“Yes.” Rick used the back of his hand to swipe at his reddened eyes. “Just what he sees.”

“Then how could Manuel lie, Rick?” It was this truth that Borroel didn't understand or wouldn't accept. Manuel Garza was incapable of deception. “Don't you see? Manuel couldn't have committed the murder because he found the body on the River Walk. But Schmidt was killed by the pottery-bank display. If he wasn't clubbed down there, his body would not have been there and wouldn't have to be moved, leaving a bloody trail that Manuel tried to clean.”

Rick's face lightened. It was like watching the sun spill into a dungeon, dispersing the phantasms of the night. “No,” his voice lifted, “no, Manuel can't lie. He could never lie. Look,” he was eager, his eyes bright, “we'll explain to the police. Then they'll leave Manuel alone.”

“Detective Borroel's nobody's fool.” Even if he'd ignored my theories, the man was good and smart and clever. But he was a cop with a cop's mind for evidence. I ticked off the facts for Rick: “Manuel was there. Manuel got his pail and water and cleaned up the blood trail. Manuel's fingerprints are on the pottery pig that killed Schmidt—”

Rick's eyes widened. He didn't know about the fingerprints.

“—Manuel's clothes and shoes were bloodstained. That's what Borroel sees. What we tell him about Manuel is irrelevant. Borroel's got the evidence. So, yes, you're right about one thing, Rick. If you and Iris hadn't taken the gold, Schmidt wouldn't have died. But Schmidt's the one who showed up drunk at Tesoros, ready to brawl. And you and Iris didn't steal the gold and you didn't batter Schmidt. But if you continue to lie about the gold, Manuel will go to jail.”

“I don't want Manuel to go to jail.” Iris's soft voice shook.

“I don't either.” Rick sat down beside her on the bed, gripped her hand. He looked up at me. “What can we do?”

“Find the gold.” Now was time to offer a carrot or the closest equivalent I had. “I think there's a way I can find the gold and no one will ever know.” I didn't owe Detective Borroel a damn thing. Saving Manuel came first. I'd worry about the gold later. And there might possibly be a way to achieve it all, though I didn't intend to spell it out for Rick. The scramble had begun.

W
EDNESDAY morning I drove south on Alamo to St. Mary's, turned left and found a Pig Stand restaurant, so old-fashioned I could have been on a road journey across America in the 1950s. I wanted breakfast and privacy. The restaurant was almost full, but I could be certain no one from La Mariposa or Tesoros was there. Most of the customers were working people en route to jobs. The conversation level was loud, a jukebox played Mexicali Rose, the coffee was hot and fresh, the pig in a blanket tasty. I had a booth near the jukebox, but that was fine. I didn't want to talk. I wanted to study the slim folder that had been pushed beneath the door of my room at shortly after six that morning.

The pale blue folder had no identifying tabs. I knew the source. I riffled through the pages. Rick may not have wanted to cooperate, but my quick scan told me he'd done everything I asked. And even more. Way to go, son. Maybe, just maybe we could pull off a scam right on the level of the original theft.

I unfolded a double sheet and spread it out, taking care to stay free of the sticky maple syrup container. I supposed the drawing had been made by Rick, a precise floor-by-floor rendering of both Tesoros and La
Mariposa. The showroom and back offices of Tesoros were on the River Walk level. Also on the River Walk level was a closed portion of the building that ran beneath La Mariposa. This area served as a basement, containing heating and cooling units, a laundry, and supply closets. The lobby of La Mariposa, the meeting rooms, and the wing with rooms one through six were on the ground floor that opened to the street. Maria Elena's apartment was also on the ground floor. Her apartment was above Tesoros. The second floor was devoted entirely to La Mariposa. Tony and Susana's apartment was on the third floor.

I looked especially closely at the access to the circular staircase. There were three doors on that landing: one led to the stairs up to the second floor of La Mariposa and to Tony and Susana's third-floor apartment, the second opened into the serene room where I first spoke with Maria Elena, the third provided access to the ground-floor hallway of La Mariposa. Maria Elena could also leave her apartment from that first room by stepping into the main lobby.

As I had asked, Rick had marked the location of the bedrooms—Maria Elena's on the street side of that apartment, Manuel's on the River Walk side. I tried to picture Manuel's descent on Monday night. His room was indeed over part of the main showroom of Tesoros. Yet the building which housed Tesoros and La Mariposa was very old, with foot-thick walls to keep out heat and cool. I suspected it would take a great deal of noise to rouse Manuel. Yet, the quarrel between Schmidt and his murderer, no matter how intense and violent, surely was not loud enough to permeate those walls. But there could be a heating register, some alteration in the original structure where sound might pass through. If only Manuel could speak.

I sipped coffee, studied the drawings. Manuel found Schmidt's body on the River Walk…I sipped my coffee. What if Manuel had been awake late Monday night? Maria Elena said he often wandered about the apartment at night. Certainly it was possible that he might sometimes stand on his balcony, looking out into the magic of the night, watching the play of moonlight on the still water, taking pleasure in the passage of the occasional solitary pedestrian, smiling as the nocturnal creatures—cats, raccoons, possums—took possession of the River Walk. If he was on his balcony on Monday night, then at the very least he saw Schmidt enter Tesoros. Manuel lived in a restricted world, a world of definite order. He would know the pulse of the night. He would know the door opening into Tesoros at night was wrong. Yes, that's how it must have happened. He either saw Schmidt enter or he saw the murderer dragging out the body.

If he saw Schmidt enter, he might dress and go downstairs. But if that was so, the timing would likely be that Manuel would have arrived soon after the murder and while the murderer was moving the body. It was equally possible that Manuel looked down from his balcony and saw the body. In fact, Manuel “said” that he saw the body on the River Walk. But he had not been asked if he had seen anyone. Would his swift-moving hands then picture an opening door, a moving figure?

I tried to recreate the night. Schmidt entered Tesoros, there was a quarrel, the attack. The murderer turned off the lights and pulled the body out onto the River Walk, intending to push Schmidt into the river, then clean up the store.

And here came Manuel.

Yes, that was my guess. Manuel saw someone pull
ing a body from the store. This would have been a scene played out in darkness, the figures dimly seen, unrecognizable. But Manuel was disturbed enough to go downstairs. Moving slowly as he always did, Manuel dressed and went down the circular staircase. But, and this was the critical point, it was Manuel who turned on the lights, the golden swath that spilled out of the open front door, revealing blood and death.

Where was the murderer then? Likely, on the River Walk. The sudden harsh brightness must have been an ugly, heart-stopping shock. The murderer darted away from that merciless revealing stream, probably hiding in the shadows beneath the stairway to La Mariposa. When Manuel turned back into Tesoros, going for the mop and pail, the murderer escaped, either slipping back through the store, carefully avoiding Manuel, then up the circular stairway if the murderer was Tony or Susana, or, in the case of Frank or Isabel or Celestina, melting into the night and returning home.

But when did the murderer go to the apartment house and set the fire? The murder must have occurred before the fire. There simply wasn't time enough for the quarrel, the murder, and the removal of the body to have occurred after the fire. It didn't take Rick and Iris and me that long to reach Tesoros, and when we found Manuel he'd already mopped his way out to the River Walk.

That had to mean that Schmidt's body had remained inside Tesoros when the murderer hurried across the river to set the fake fire. Once the gold was retrieved from Iris, the murderer returned to Tesoros to move the body out onto the River Walk. It was then that Manuel looked down from his balcony.

I shook my head, uncertain. Manuel worked at a slow pace. He had mopped from the pottery-bank dis
play island to the front door by the time Rick and Iris and I arrived at Tesoros.

I wished I could better estimate how long we took after we first found Iris. First, we consoled Iris, then we talked. It was I who finally urged the return to Tesoros.

Manuel would be no help in determining how long he had mopped. I was sure of that.

But if Manuel was attracted downstairs by what he had seen from his balcony, could he tell us who the murderer was? No. The body was moved in darkness. All Manuel would have seen was a figure.

I finished my coffee, refilled the cup from the plastic carafe. It was helpful to have a clearer view of what happened Monday night. I wondered if Borroel would listen to me, then pushed the thought aside. I wasn't counting on Borroel. I had my own agenda, one he would never approve.

I hunched over the floor plan of La Mariposa. I knew the layout, of course: the stairs from the River Walk to the lobby, the door into the lobby from street level, the big archway leading from the lobby to the meeting rooms now set up for Thursday morning's auction, the hallway behind the chili-cart desk leading to the rooms on my floor, the stairs just past the chili cart leading up to the second floor.

I smiled at the neat precision of the drawing. On the street level floor, there were rooms on either side of my corridor. There were twice as many rooms on the second floor because the space included the area devoted to the lobby and the meeting rooms on the street floor.

I counted the rooms, six on my floor, twelve on the second floor, making La Mariposa more of a small hotel than an actual bed and breakfast. Three rooms
were occupied on my floor, four on the second. An asterisk marked one room. I glanced at the legend below. The asterisk was followed in neat printing by: “Not Attending Auction.”

Rick had listened well. I had no interest in the Wallaces from Canton, Ohio, in room 9. But I had a great deal of interest in the other guests, the Harrisons in room 2, Cara Kendall in room 4, Bud Morgan in room 8, Joshua Chandler in room 12, and Kenny King in room 14, all invited guests to the annual Tesoros auction.

If Borroel had given me a chance, I would have laid it out for him. The grand exhibition of ancient gold at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City was a stellar event in the world of antiquities, running throughout the summer. The robbery could have occurred at any time during that period. I was sure Ed Schmidt had been in the district several times since summer began. So why did the theft occur when it did? Because the quicker the thief disposed of the gold, the shorter the period he would have it in his possession and the less danger of exposure he faced. Therefore, the sale of the gold had already been arranged. That was the only smart way to set it up. Who has the money or the lust for possession to buy that kind of treasure? Very, very rich collectors. Where did a handful of such collectors turn up every year? At the annual auction at Tesoros. Yes, I felt certain that the entire transaction had been planned long in advance, the date selected for the theft, the gold brought to Tesoros and hidden in the wardrobe to await the arrival of its purchaser.

All would have gone according to plan if it weren't for a young woman's curiosity. For want of a nail…

But I was confident that once the murderer had re
trieved the gold from Iris, the rest of the plan went into effect. I knew that because Maria Elena had permitted a police search of Tesoros and the searchers found nothing. To me, that meant the transfer had been made, gold for money. I tapped the rooms of the auction guests. Yes, I was certain the antique gold was still close at hand, hidden in the room of one of the guests, guests who would be at La Mariposa until noon tomorrow, when the auction ended.

I had to figure out which one had the gold. I had to do that today. I had to narrow down my search this morning because the only chance I would ever have to find the gold was this afternoon. The guests would be engaged from one to three at a preview of the auction items. By tonight, if the pieces all clicked into place, I would be equipped to trap a killer. No, I had no idea how that could be accomplished. That was definitely the next challenge on a slippery slope that could end in disaster at any moment. But first, I had to find the gold.

I slipped the drawings to the bottom of the folder, lifted up six sheets of paper.

The guests, rich, powerful, sophisticated, imbued with the status that wealth creates, they were now my quarries.

The first sheet was handwritten in obvious haste, the writing deeply impressed on the page:

The scrawled letter was unsigned. Its stiff tenor revealed, as perhaps nothing else could, the despair I'd
engendered in Rick. But he'd seen himself with no option. If he didn't produce what I demanded, I would destroy the efforts he had made to protect Tesoros and Maria Elena from a scandal that would explode in the world of art.

I put his note aside, picked up the typewritten sheets:

WILEY AND JOLENE HARRISON, ABILENE, TEXAS