Someone Always Knows (13 page)

9:10 a.m.

I
n the morning I did the sensible thing in this age of advance appointments: I called Bernardo Ordway's office and asked for one.

“Why do you wish to see Señor Ordway?” The woman's voice was brusque.

“I'm thinking about buying a home near Bahia Tortuga”—a pricey community that spans the dividing line between Baja California Norte and Sur—“and given Señor Ordway's prominence in the community, I'd hoped he might advise me.”

“Has someone referred you to him?”

“Yes, Pedro Santos.” Surely the chief of police's name would have some influence, at least with Ordway's staff, if not with the man himself.

“Your name, please?”

“Judy Bolton.” It was that of a heroine in a series of girls' mysteries I'd enjoyed during childhood. “You may have heard of me, or at least my family. We have large holdings in Central and South America.”

Pause. “I will have to look at Señor Ordway's calendar and then speak with him. If you call back in half an hour, perhaps forty-five minutes, I may have an answer.”

She'd probably check on the Bolton family, who, so far as I knew, lived on only in books and had no holdings anywhere.

The delay gave me time for a light breakfast—coffee and toast at my posada—and also an opportunity for a stroll around the plaza, which corrected my negative first impression of Santa Iva.

It was a typical small Mexican town: bodegas and fresh vegetable stands and small dwellings surrounding a central square; church spire dominating the skyline; children playing, mothers running after them; dogs pretending to be fierce. Old women in black dresses and shawls; young women in bright colors and jeans; old men smoking and gossiping on benches; young men smoking and ogling the girls. I caught no hint of the drug gangs that have made so much of Mexico a dangerous place for American visitors. Most of the faces I encountered were friendly, some openly welcoming. I exchanged greetings a number of times. Maybe I hadn't brought the plague to Santa Iva after all.

So why did the place still make me feel uneasy?

I still had some free time before I'd been asked to call Ordway's office again, so I checked out the church: it was of a simple style, with whitewashed walls and wrought-iron chandeliers with electric candlewick bulbs suspended on chains. The unpadded wooden pews, as I remembered from my Catholic childhood, were hard enough to keep parishioners awake during the most uninspired of sermons. There were no elaborate stained glass windows, paintings, or statues; this was designed to be a place where opulence would not interfere between God and his faithful.

Out of deference to the few old women praying there, I covered my head with a silk scarf I found scrunched up in the depths of my bag and sat quietly, trying to clear my mind. The peaceful feeling that stole over me, I knew, was only momentary, but I valued this calm before the probable storm.

After I left the church, I noticed that Friday seemed to be a farm-to-market day: vendors were setting up stands stocked with fresh fruit, vegetables, preserves, and various crafts. People were beginning to arrive, many with drawstring bags, to do their shopping. I took another walk around the plaza, browsing at the stalls and buying a small framed woven cloth that I thought might make a good Christmas present for my sister Patsy. I also bought a wickedly grinning miniature of
el Diablo
for Mick, and a handsome woodcut of desert cacti for Alison. For Hy and me, I didn't have the heart to buy anything.

When forty-five minutes had passed, I phoned Ordway's office.

Got a busy signal. During my walk I'd noticed Via Chiflada—loose translation Crazy Street—where Ordway's office building was located, so I decided to go over there. The building took up most of a block and was three stories high, about average for this part of town, its stucco painted a disagreeable mint-green. Inside was a stark, empty lobby floored in faux marble squares. A flight of uncarpeted stairs led upward. I'd decided to act upon my principle of just showing up and taking the person by surprise, but the sounds of an altercation filtered downward.

Two voices, a man's and a woman's. My Spanish was good, but not enough to make out all the words.

“…should not have told her to call back…no, not…”

“How could I…who she…no, I didn't…she…name was Judy…something.”

“…your brains, you…fool! I warned you…gringa asking questions in town…very dangerous.”

The gringa obviously was me. This was not a good time to make a phone call to Mr. Ordway, much less pay him a visit. He'd been told about me, perhaps been given a description. If I was going to see him, I'd have to find another way.

I went back outside, took a table at a small café a few doors down the street, and ordered a Jarritos lime soda. The day had turned warm, but a breeze wafted from the plaza and stirred the hair at the nape of my neck. The breeze was refreshing and so was the soda, but they did nothing for my powers of logic. I began to question why I'd come down here, what I'd hoped to find.

For all I knew, I'd gone off on a tangent. The Smithson family might never have come here, might have nothing to do with my case. On the other hand, there were those three and a half million dollars' worth of missing bearer bonds, and Nemo, who had died in an arson fire.

A man was coming down the street: he was dressed in a garish serape—gray with alternating stripes of red, yellow, and green—a tattered straw hat with a faded red band pulled low on his forehead, and incongruously shiny black loafers. Before he got to where I sat he turned into Ordway's building.

I felt a prickle of familiarity, so I stayed put while signaling to the waiter and settling my bill.

Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty. Then the man came back outside in the company of an older, distinguished-looking gentleman whom I recognized as Bernardo Ordway. The two walked to the plaza, talking and gesturing as if they were arguing. I followed at a distance. Soon they turned into a cantina.

I walked slowly past it, caught a glimpse of the interior through the open door: darkly lit with blue and red neon; a bar, several tables, a platform for a band, and a small dance floor. Quiet now in the somnolent afternoon. The men sat with their backs to me at a central table, beers and shot glasses of tequila in front of them. They were still talking, but less intensely. I couldn't see the face of the man in the serape clearly because the straw hat still obscured it. Ordway was clad in a pale-blue guayabera shirt. A few other men hunched at the bar, but I didn't see any women, not even those who might be prostitutes. Too early for them, I supposed.

That is a big drawback for women investigating in places like Mexico: you can't follow men into places like cantinas without being instantly noticed and observed more than casually. I would've given anything to get close enough to hear what Ordway and the other man were saying, but I was forced to loiter across the street, waiting for one or the other to come out.

Finally they did, and I followed Ordway's companion back to the town square. At first the straw hat and serape made him easy to spot.

The plaza had filled with people. Adults milled about, filling their shopping bags; children ran unchecked or begged their parents for ice cream and candy. A band was setting up on a small platform, testing its audio equipment; screeches and voices cut through the air. From every side merchants hawked their wares:
Maiz tortillas? Nopales enlatadas? Frijoles secos?

A little girl in a fancy pink dress ran in front of me; I had to grab her to keep her from falling. When I looked up, I couldn't spot the man I'd been following. I climbed up to the third step of the church, scanned the crowd. Not a sign of him.

Five streets branched off the plaza like spokes in a wheel. The man must have gone down one of them. Fighting through the crowd, I peered into the first to my right. It was more of an alley, really, containing nothing but overflowing garbage cans. In the second a young couple were caught up in an amorous embrace against a building's wall. I withdrew, started down the third.

A few yards away a pair of children—two boys, probably around eight or nine—were fighting over something.

“¡El mio!”

“¡No, mio!”

The object causing the dispute was the man's garish serape. The straw hat lay at the kids' feet.

I went to them and asked, “
¿De dónde has sacado esto?
”

They stopped tugging at it. One boy let go and put his hands behind his back.

“Is okay,” I added. “
Puedes tenerlo.
” You can have it.

The boy holding the serape turned and pointed at a trash can. “
Esta.
”

“Who put it there?”

They looked at me blankly.

I translated my question into awkward Spanish.

“
Esta
,” the boy said again, pointing toward the far end of the street.

Looked and spotted a tall man with a distinctive white shock of hair and shambling gait turning a corner.

Gage Renshaw.

“
Gracias
,” I said, and ran after him.

There was no one in the side street, but I was certain the person had been Renshaw. And I felt certain Renshaw was here for the same reason as I: he'd read Kessell's notes in the file and was following up on them. His eccentric dress was obviously intended as a disguise, but from whom? No one in Santa Iva could possibly care that Renshaw was walking around the town—no one but me.

Damn!

I made my way back through the crowd to the church steps, sat down, and called Chief Santos's office. He himself answered.

“The man I mentioned to you earlier—Gage Renshaw—is here in Santa Iva. Is it possible for you to find out where he's staying?”

Santos didn't sound particularly interested, but he replied, “I can ask one of my officers to look into it, yes. If he learns anything, is there a number where I can reach you?”

I gave it to him, and we ended the call.

After some consideration, I consulted my notes on the old Kessell file and asked a passerby for directions to 10 Via Enero. There were no names that I recognized on the mailboxes, but an archway opened into a small courtyard where a woman sat in a chair, alone. She was heavy, with what we used to call—before we were in danger of developing them ourselves—“batwing arms” protruding from her loose, garishly flowered red muumuu. Grayish blond hair was gathered on top of her head and secured with what looked like a pair of chopsticks. Even so, it straggled down on her forehead and the nape of her neck, clinging to her sweaty skin.

I edged closer. And accidentally stepped on a sprinkler head that clicked as it went down.

“Who's there?”

Busted. I stepped out onto the patio. “Sorry, ma'am. I took a wrong turn.”

“Well, take a right turn and get out of here.”

She didn't look at me. Her arms were blistered and peeling. Not the result of a bad sunburn, though; this looked like a serious skin condition. In spite of her south-of-the-border accent, she was an American. An American who apparently had lived here many years…

I took a chance and said, “Chrysanthus…you
are
Chrysanthus Smithson?”

“…Yeah, I am. And who the hell're you?”

I handed her one of my cards.

She studied it, then set it down on the arm of the chair. “You're here about the bonds, I suppose.”

That surprised me. If I had participated in a major theft, even many years ago, I wouldn't have been so forthcoming. But then, the statute of limitations had run out on the crime, so she probably felt she had nothing to fear.

She motioned to a bench across from her. “You may as well sit down.”

I perched gingerly on its edge; it was old, with many protruding splinters.

“Who hired you?” she asked.

“I'm sorry—that's confidential.”

She snorted. “Confidential!”

“Your old house on Webster Street in San Francisco—”

“What about it?”

“It burned down last week.”

“Doesn't surprise me. It was a fuckin' firetrap to begin with.”

“Don't you want to know if the bearer bonds your husband stole burned with it?”

“Those bonds—they ruined all our lives.”

I took out my mini cassette recorder. “Do you mind if I make a tape of this conversation? I won't use it for anything but to help me recall the details.”

She glowered at the machine. “You haven't told me who hired you.”

“As I said before, that's confidential.”

“Confidential, my ass!”

I decided to relent somewhat. “All right—a good man who's moved around a lot and bought the house because he wanted to settle down there.” I pictured Chad Kenyon's sad face the last time I'd seen him. “He's heartbroken over losing it.”

My choice of words was exactly right for Chrys Smithson; I'd sensed that beneath her hardened exterior she was sentimental. “Okay,” she said, “turn the thing on.”

I activated the machine. “Now,” I said, “tell me about the theft and how it happened.”

“Well, none of that's any secret. Nate took the bonds. He handled huge amounts of money, but it was all other people's. We never could put any by for ourselves. He gambled—you know how that goes.”

“Yes. So Nate took the bonds…?”

“In the early morning. And all of a sudden, it was get in our VW bus and take off. I didn't know a thing. We were living in an apartment on Clay Street in the city, but we'd decided to move into the Webster Street place as soon as our lease ran out. Our new stuff had been delivered and was waiting there. We'd unpacked a lot of it, even had one of our new neighbors take a picture of us on the front steps. But then Nate said we were going to dump everything and move to Mexico. After we were down here, Nate told me he'd stolen the bonds and hidden them in the old house. Later, when things quieted down, he'd go back for them.”