Summer Snow (25 page)
“I know,” Elena said. “I was remembering it, too.”
T
he next morning Elena was awake before Tejada. “What are you going to do today?” she asked as she brushed out her hair.
“I don’t know.” The lieutenant sat and watched the hypnotic strokes of the brush, wishing that he did not have to get up and face the day. “If we’re lucky, Alberto Cordero will have confessed last night.”
“To what?” Elena demanded, sardonic.
The lieutenant sighed. “Murder? Contacts with the bandits in the Alpujarra? Both?”
“Aiding and abetting military rebellion?” Elena snorted contemptuously. That was the standard charge brought against the losers of the Civil War.
“I’m sure Mother would be very interested to know all about your friends in Granada, you know,” Tejada said, annoyed.
Elena swung around. “You wouldn’t!”
“Are you going to keep giving me a hard time about Cordero?”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Of course. ‘We’re soulless oppressors who profit from the sweat and blood of the people,’ remember?” Tejada quoted the pamphlet.
Elena laughed reluctantly. “Do you really think he’s guilty of anything?”
“What difference does it make what I think? He admits it or he doesn’t,” Tejada retorted, hiding his own unease.
Elena bent her head to start separating her hair into three strands for braiding. “So do you think you’ll have time to talk to Alejandra today?” she asked.
He could not see her face, but he knew that her question was malicious. She disapproved of the standard methods of interrogation and was deliberately reminding him of a time when they had failed. “I’m sure Rivas hasn’t hurt him,” he said defensively. She made another derisive noise and he added, “Not seriously.”
“And what if he
hasn’t
confessed?”
Tejada shrugged. “I’ll keep interviewing other suspects, I suppose.”
“Your cousins again?”
“I haven’t talked to Tío Felipe, yet. And there’s this girlfriend of Jaime’s, too.”
“Why would she be a suspect?” Elena demanded.
“I haven’t the faintest idea, but she visited Doña Rosalia regularly, and she could have poisoned her.”
“So you’ll probably be out all day today again?”
The lieutenant was torn between a desire to shield his wife from his mother and an instinct to avoid his father. Self-preservation won. “Probably,” he admitted, adding as a sop to his conscience. “But I’ll make sure to find out about your friend and this Beltrán as well.”
“Thank you.” Elena sounded more grateful than her husband had expected and he guessed how worried she had been about asking him for help.
Guilt about her lack of trust in his sympathy combined with guilt about abandoning her. He sought something to make her happy. “I’ll take the day off tomorrow, and we can take Toño up to see the Alhambra,” he suggested. “He’ll enjoy that. And maybe Alejandra can come, too, and we can have a chat.”
“It’s a good idea,” Elena agreed, tacitly giving her husband permission to flee the family mansion for one more day.
As it happened, flight was barely necessary. Andrés Tejada came late to the breakfast table and hid behind a newspaper for the ten minutes he was in his son’s company. When Tejada left for the post he was still feeling a little guilty about abandoning his wife, but tremendously relieved that his father had not made a scene.
Rivas met him at the post, looking excited. “Málaga called half an hour ago. Dulce Cordero is in prison. Her husband is wanted in connection with the law against banditry and terrorism. He’s believed to be a smuggler, with contacts in Granada.”
Tejada drew a long breath. “What has Alberto said so far?”
“Not a word,” the sergeant answered. “He won’t admit to his own name.”
“Guilty as hell,” the lieutenant translated.
The sergeant nodded. “Clearly. I think mostly he’s holding out on us with respect to his brother-in-law. I’d like to keep interrogating him about that.” Rivas was ready to add that guerrilla activity was obviously the most important thing to worry about when he remembered that Lieutenant Tejada had a personal interest in solving Doña Rosalia’s murder. Of course, a real guardia would understand that the banditry and terrorism were the important charges. But the lieutenant was a Tejada. “We can charge him with Doña Rosalia’s murder, too, if you like,” Rivas offered.
For a moment Tejada was tempted to agree. It would be a successful end to the case. Cordero would be garroted for the murder of his employer, and the newspapers would print an article about a dangerous Red who had taken advantage of an elderly lady’s kindness. The lieutenant would be able to go back to his father and present him with Doña Rosalia’s murderer, and Sergeant Rivas would not need to visit the Casa Ordoñez again. Elena could have her vacation in Madrid before they had to return to Potes.
There’s a good chance Cordero
is
guilty,
Tejada thought wistfully.
He had the opportunity, and he could have gotten
hold of poison. So what if he didn’t have a motive? Reds don’t need one.
So what if someone else paid him to kill her? The fact is, he’s still the
guilty party. And if we get him on terrorism charges, he’s a dead man
anyway.
But there were degrees of guilt, and if Alberto Cordero had been hired by someone else, the lieutenant wanted to know who that person was. Even if it was a family member. Especially if that person was a family member.
“Let’s hold off on that until we get the lab results as to the wine and find a motive,” he said. “I have another week here anyway. I can work on the case to make it tighter.”
“Yes, sir.” Rivas was a little surprised that Lieutenant Tejada had rejected the opportunity to close the case quickly and quietly. “Of course, the disposition of Doña Rosalia’s estate isn’t really our business in the normal course of things,” he reminded the lieutenant gently.
Not unless it has to do with her murder
, Tejada thought. “I know,” he said. “Don’t worry about it, Rivas. I was just going to speak to Felipe Ordoñez today and the girl . . . what was her name, Villalobos?”
The sergeant shuffled through the papers on his desk. “Yes. Amparo Villalobos. We don’t have an address for her. But she first came to our attention in Alberto’s statement, and anything he’s said is suspect now, isn’t it?”
“Anything anyone has said is suspect,” Tejada corrected. “But I can’t think why Cordero would have lied about her being a regular visitor to the house. And if she befriended my aunt, she might have an idea about who would want to kill Doña Rosalia and why.”
“We don’t have her father’s name or her second surname,” Rivas said. “Might be hard to find her in a directory.”
“If she’s known to my cousin Fernando, I can ask him,” Tejada replied. “Where’s his file?”
The sergeant blinked. “His file, sir?”
Tejada scowled. “I told you yesterday to pull the files on all of Doña Rosalia’s potential heirs. I need to check his address. And phone number, if possible.”
“Yes, sir.” Rivas gulped back his startled question as to why the lieutenant did not know his own cousin’s address. After all, Lieutenant Tejada had been stationed far from Granada for a long time. “I’ll get it.”
He left the office and returned within a few minutes with the addresses and phone numbers of both of the Ordoñez brothers. Mollified, Tejada thanked the sergeant and then dialed Felipe’s number. There was no answer. He tried Fernando. A servant answered. The lieutenant gave his name, and after a few moments Fernando Ordoñez came on the line. “Hello? Carlos?” Ordoñez spoke a little too loudly, spacing his words carefully as if he was unsure of being understood. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Tío Fernando, it’s me.” Because Rivas was still in the office Tejada did not roll his eyes. He remembered that his cousin had never liked technological innovations. “I was wondering if you could tell me the address of Amparo Villalobos.”
“Amparo? Why do you want to speak to her?”
“Because she was a regular visitor of your mother’s.”
“Yes, she’s a good little soul. Bernarda’s always been grateful to her. She lives over on Tablas. Down toward the hospital.”
Tejada did roll his eyes this time. “You don’t have an exact number?”
“I know where it is. Bernarda might have it.” If Fernando Ordoñez had been twenty years younger he would have asked the lieutenant to hold the line while he found the address. Since he had never mastered the intricacies of a device he disapproved of and did not trust that his caller would remain on the line if he put the receiver down, he added loudly, “But if you want to see Amparo, why don’t you drop by this morning? She’ll likely be visiting Bernarda soon.”
“Thank you. I’ll do that.”
“See you soon, then?”
“Yes, see you soon. Good-bye, Tío.” Tejada broke the connection and turned to Rivas. “I’m going to go over to Fernando Ordoñez’s house to try to interview Señorita Villalobos there. I’d like to try to find Felipe Ordoñez as well. He doesn’t seem to answer his phone.”
Rivas glanced at his watch. “It’s ten-thirty, sir. He might be at work.”
Tejada considered telling the sergeant that if Felipe Ordoñez was out of bed—much less doing any sort of work—at ten-thirty in the morning he had changed greatly. “I suppose anything’s possible,” he said. “I’ll try to report back here this afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.” Rivas’s tone became official. “Would you like to work with a partner, sir? Guardia Medina has no duties for the day.”
Tejada was grateful Rivas had mentioned Guardia Medina as his option for a partner. He suspected that Rivas wanted Medina out of the way. He also suspected that the sergeant did not realize how well Tejada knew Medina. “No, thanks,” he said. “I’m visiting as a family member. I’d like to keep things informal.”
“Very good, sir. What are my orders?”
Tejada considered for a moment. “Keep working on Cordero. If he’s holding out information about the bandits he may have given himself a twenty-four-hour deadline. They do sometimes, you know. See if he says anything about Doña Rosalia when he cracks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And why don’t we try to run checks on
all
of Doña Rosalia’s household. No one suspected Cordero of anything like this. Some of the others might have surprises in their pasts as well.”
Tejada headed for Fernando Ordoñez’s home. It was a cold, cloudy day, and the few pedestrians on the streets walked quickly.
Not the sort of day to tempt anyone to take a stroll
, Tejada thought, and then remembered his cousin Felipe with inexplicable unease. Felipe going to work in the morning was laughable. Felipe out of bed on a cold October morning was unheard of. Of course, Felipe in a bed other than his own was entirely probable, but it occurred to the lieutenant that neither his family nor his friends nor members of the casino appeared to have seen Felipe Ordoñez lately. “Spending all his time in flamenco bars and cabarets” was the general verdict. It was
possible
that Felipe was merely enjoying himself in private, but Tejada could not help thinking it was a little strange that a man who was—the thought came as a shock—nearly fifty should disappear into anonymous bars and brothels so completely and so soon after his mother’s funeral.
Felipe, Tejada recalled, was the one person who had not shown any interest in Doña Rosalia’s will. His father had said that in his Aunt Rosalia’s missing will, Felipe had been disinherited, but he had said the same thing about Daniela, and she was most certainly interested in the contents of her mother’s will. And Fernando Ordoñez had mentioned that his younger brother had dismissed his valet several years ago, as if money were a concern to Felipe. Surely it was odd that he had not inquired about his inheritance. Unless he already knew that he had been disinherited. But he would only know that if he knew the provisions of Doña Rosalia’s most recent will.
Which has disappeared
, Tejada thought.
Like Felipe
. He could not think of any reason Felipe Ordoñez would wish to disappear, but he had to admit that his cousin’s lifestyle would make such a disappearance easy. But perhaps someone else had wanted to make Felipe disappear. Tejada felt a sinking in his stomach. He knew from previous experience that it was easiest to get away with murder if no one was likely to search for the victim.
He’s probably just fine
, Tejada thought.
But I’ve got to find him to make sure. Disappearing
like this is too much of a coincidence. And if he’s disappeared, it damn
well has something to do with his mother’s death
. Then, with a flash of something that he decided was anger because it was too sharp and bitter for sorrow:
And if Alberto Cordero masterminded Tío
Felipe’s disappearance as well as Doña Rosalia’s murder, I’ll join the
Communist Party!
Fernando and Bernarda Ordoñez lived in a spacious townhouse just off the Puerta Real. The lieutenant was evidently expected. A butler showed him into a guest parlor immediately, barely stopping to ask if he was Carlos Tejada. Fernando Ordoñez and his wife both rose to greet their guest. Perhaps because of Fernando’s dislike of the telephone, they had evidently heard nothing of the lieutenant’s dispute with his father, and they were affectionate in their welcome. After urging Tejada to sit, offering him coffee and refreshments, and lamenting that they had not met earlier in his stay, Bernarda de Ordoñez, who had not seen him for many years, asked the usual run of questions and then said, “Fernando tells me you want to meet Amparo.”