Summer Snow (18 page)
It has to be the wine!
Rivas thought, triumphant. At least he would have one definite thing to report to the lieutenant that evening. His voice was once more gentle as he asked, “What will you do, now that Doña Rosalia is dead?”
Luisa looked startled, and the sergeant guessed that she had not considered this question. “I don’t know,” she said, sounding rather forlorn. “Look for work, I guess. I haven’t thought.”
“How long have you worked for Doña Rosalia?” the sergeant asked, aware that she had been there as long as he had visited the Casa Ordoñez, but unable to guess how many years she had previously spent in sevice there.
“Five years now. Since I was fourteen.”
It was more disinterested pity for a young girl cast adrift in the world than a professional interest in the answer that made Rivas ask. “Was this your first job?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your family? Could they take you in now?”
Luisa blushed. Then she said quietly, “I have no family. I was placed here by an orphanage.”
“I’m sorry,” Rivas said honestly. “But I’m sure Don Fernando will give you a reference.”
“Thank you, sir,” the girl whispered.
Rivas asked a few more questions and then closed the interview with a friendly smile and an assurance that all would be well. Girón apparently felt sorry for the girl also. He put a comforting arm around her shoulders as he held the door for her. Rivas suppressed a flicker of envy.
T
ejada’s interview with Daniela Ordoñez and her husband was not very productive. Daniela confirmed that her mother had been in the habit of making and changing wills and added that she was unsure of the provisions or even the date of the latest one. Since, unlike her brother, the bulk of her inheritance depended on her mother’s whim, she was considerably more interested in the topic than he had been. She recounted the fluctuations of her inheritance with some bitterness of spirit and ended up by saying that she thought her mother’s mental state was close enough to unbalanced to provide grounds for a legal challenge to any will. Tejada, who was starting to wonder why anyone would bother to poison a woman who was apparently both elderly and insane, was depressed by Daniela’s stance. Then she went on, “And what is this nonsense about the Guardia keeping the will during the investigation? I could understand it if the property couldn’t be disbursed until the case was closed, but her heirs have a right to at least know what her last wishes were!”
“I’ll speak to Sergeant Rivas about that this evening,” Tejada promised truthfully, thinking with a twinge of discomfort that he would probably have to speak to his own father about it first.
He thanked his hosts for their time and cooperation and left the Carmen del Río. It was nearly lunchtime, and the day had warmed. He dawdled along the Paseo del Salón and heard the clock strike the half hour in the bell tower of San Basilio de Escolapios across the river. The bells were followed by an explosion of shouting boys from Escolapios. A few solitary ones, who were either hungry or eager to escape, ran across the bridge, book bags flying behind them, hurrying toward home and lunch. But most milled around outside the school, blocking the Paseo de los Escolapios, the older ones roughhousing or searching for friends and the younger ones being collected by mothers or nannies. Tejada was about to turn away from the paseo when he heard a shrill cry. “Carlos!”
He turned toward the call instinctively and saw that one of the boys on the bridge had made a megaphone of his cupped hands and was yelling. “Carlos! I need that book back today!”
A sandy-haired boy of about fourteen, who had just passed him, came to an abrupt stop. “I’ll bring it to Religion!” he yelled back.
Tejada had the odd sensation of being caught in a landscape where the passage of time was a myth. The bells had always rung that way for dismissal of the morning session and always would. The first class of the afternoon session for the upper school had always been Religion, and at four o’clock, when the bells rang again, Father Diego, who taught the class, would forever look over his spectacles and make sure that Carlos and his classmates were in their seats and orderly. The lieutenant’s uniform and thirty-five years and the memory of his wife and child were a dream, and the only true thing was the automatic lift of his heart at being liberated from Escolapios and the knowledge that he was free for the brief walk between the school and his home. He watched the boys who ran across the bridge and disappeared into the streets, looking into their faces and half expecting to recognize them as his classmates.
A soccer ball bounced in front of him, and its owner, racing to retrieve it, cut across Tejada’s path and nearly bumped into him. “Oh! Excuse me, sir! I’m so sorry!”
The child’s timid politeness broke the spell. Tejada looked at the youngster and saw a boy nearer Toño’s age than his own, not a hauntingly almost familiar contemporary. “That’s all right. But be careful of cars on the way home.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tejada turned away from the school and walked along the Acera del Darro, noting absently that it seemed to be a street like any other, with no hint of the river that had flowed there in his childhood or the massive construction site he remembered from his last visit to Granada. It was now a broad, straight avenue, as wide as the Gran Vía. The houses along it were modern apartments, with glass windows facing the streets, rather than elaborate villas hidden behind blank walls. It was the sort of street that looked right in a modern, forward-looking city. Tejada found it relaxing. It was comforting to know that he and his city had both definitively changed with the times.
It was a few minutes before two o’clock when he reached his parents’ house, and his precarious sense of contentment evaporated as he glanced at the clock in the hallway and confirmed that he was in time for lunch. Checking the clock was a familiar action (although he could have sworn that it was necessary to glance
up
at it), and its very familiarity brought back his nagging sense of dislocation.
Lunch first
, he thought.
Then I’ll find out
about the will. But there’s no need to spoil a family meal.
Tejada went directly to the dining room. Elena met him on the threshold, looking relieved to see him. “Good, you’re back early. There’s a problem I wanted to ask you about.”
“Can I at least get a welcome before someone dumps another problem in my lap?” Tejada snapped.
“I’m sorry, darling. Welcome home.” Elena kissed him on the cheek.
“Home,” the lieutenant said dryly, “is in Potes.”
Elena kept one arm around him and lightly stroked his forehead. “What’s the matter?”
“Everything.” Tejada leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, careless of who might come into the hall. “Everything is a royal mess, and thank God you’re here.”
He was about to kiss her again when there were footsteps behind him and his father’s voice said cheerfully, “Carlos! I’m glad you’re back in good time today. Are you making any progress with the investigation?”
Elena, who had one arm around her husband, felt him go still. She was frightened by his tone as he said quietly, “Yes. I’ve learned quite a lot today. I’ll tell you about it after lunch, if you like. But I’d like to eat first.”
“Fair enough,” Andrés Tejada agreed.
When they discussed it later, Elena claimed that the lunch that afternoon had been quite good. At the time, Tejada felt as if Doña Rosalia’s killer had laced the food with some slower-acting poison. Everything he ate tasted like sand, and there was a knot in the pit of his stomach that tightened into an outright cramp by the end of the meal. Neither the lieutenant nor his wife could ever recall anything about the conversation, although they were divided as to whether that was because everyone had been so quiet or because it had been such a supremely awful experience that they had suppressed all memories of it.
It was with ambivalent relief that Tejada stood up at the end of the meal, pushed back his chair, and said to his father, “I wanted to tell you what I’ve found out about the case. And I actually hoped to ask you a few things as well. Do you think perhaps we might go into your study?”
“That sounds like a good idea.” Andrés Tejada rose also, and the two men excused themselves.
Tejada regretted his choice of venue as soon as they entered the study. His father naturally took the wing chair behind the broad desk, and the lieutenant was forced to pull up an armless gilt affair from between two of the bookcases that was clearly meant more for ornamental purposes than for sitting. Andrés Tejada opened a desk drawer and drew out a cigarette case and lighter as his son wriggled on the little chair’s hard cushion, vainly attempting to find a comfortable position. “Smoke?”
“Thanks.” The lieutenant took the cigarette with infinite relief, and then regretted allowing his father to offer it to him, too late.
Andrés Tejada smiled reminiscently. “It’s funny to offer you a cigarette. It seems like only yesterday you and Juanito were sneaking them out of the drawer and hoping I wouldn’t notice.” He leaned back and exhaled. “What did you want to tell me?”
The lieutenant took a deep breath and decided to go through the day’s revelations in chronological order. “We received the autopsy report today. It appears that you were correct.”
“Correct about what?” Andrés Tejada looked puzzled.
“The cause of Rosalia Tejada’s death was cyanide poisoning.”
“
What
?” Fortunately, Señor Tejada had been holding his cigarette in his hand, so his jaw was free to drop open. “Are you joking?”
The lieutenant raised his eyebrows. “What’s startling about the use of cyanide? It’s quick, it’s effective, and it’s relatively easy to obtain.”
“Well, I didn’t mean the cyanide! That is, I meant—” Andrés Tejada got a grip on himself. “I meant it’s a shock to hear that she was murdered.”
His son frowned, confused and unsettled. “You were the first to suspect she had been murdered,” he said, and was unable to prevent himself from thinking,
A clever killer might try to disguise
his guilt by demanding an investigation that he was sure would take
place anyway. And if he was a little too clever—or troubled by his conscience—
he might not realize that he would have been able to get away
with murder, that there would have been no investigation otherwise
. He clamped down on this thought, horrified. His father could have had no reasons to kill his aunt, he assured himself.
“Suspicion is different from proof,” Señor Tejada pointed out. “I thought something didn’t feel right. But, still, it’s horrible to have it confirmed.”
“In any case, it brings us to the question of motives for murder.” Fear and embarrassment made the lieutenant’s voice brusque.
“My God, yes,” his father agreed. “You don’t suppose there was anything in all those conspiracies she was terrified of? I would have said all her servants were trustworthy, but I suppose now you’ll have to look at their political sympathies.”
“Yes. There are, also,” the younger man swallowed, “more personal reasons for murder.”
Andrés laughed. “In this case, I can’t see a jealous lover!”
“I meant her will.”
Señor Tejada stopped leaning back in his chair. “You asked me about that earlier.” His voice was guarded now.
“Yes. I’d like the truth this time.”
“Carlos!”
The lieutenant stubbed out his cigarette and spoke in a flat monotone, staring at the ashtray. “Two witnesses have independently confirmed that you were her executor, and two others have speculated that you were also a beneficiary. You lied to interested parties and claimed that the Guardia had taken possession of your aunt’s will.”
“Damn Fernando!” Andrés interjected.
The lieutenant continued without drawing a breath. “One witness told me in so many words that you knew the terms of her will, which is more than anybody else seems to. What do you know about the will, and why have you been lying about it?”
Andrés Tejada took a deep breath and then said slowly, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have misled you. I know Aunt Rosalia made a will, but I don’t know where it is.”
The lieutenant made a disbelieving noise. “You don’t know where it is? That’s the best you can do?”
“I’m sorry, Carlos, but it’s the truth. Pablo Almeida told me it was missing, and I told Fernando and Daniela the Guardia had it to buy a little time in which to look for it. I was hoping that no one would ever need to know it had been mislaid.”
“You searched for it?” Tejada demanded, with the vague feeling that he should be very angry.
His father sighed. “I went over Aunt Rosalia’s rooms with a fine-tooth comb. There was nothing. If your men find it I’d be more than grateful if you’d pass it along, Carlos.”
“Did you see this will before it disappeared?”
Andrés looked embarrassed. “No, but Pablo told me the provisions. I can tell you what’s in it, if you like.”
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
The older man frowned at his son’s tone and said a little sharply, “Daniela and Felipe have been disinherited, but I’ll thank you not to tell them that before we have paper in hand to prove it. Fernando and I are the heirs.”