Summer Snow (30 page)

“Was that what your mother called you about?” Tejada guessed. “Getting married?”

“Got it in one,” Felipe nodded. “She and Nando had hatched this ridiculous scheme for me to marry that little girl Jaime was engaged to.”

“Amparo Villalobos,” Tejada said. “Tía Bernarda mentioned it to me.”

“Then I imagine you’ve heard all the arguments,” Felipe said dryly. “She’s beautiful, virtuous, and not so young that she wouldn’t look at me. And since Rioseco flitted, her father’s rich as Croesus.”

“Flitted?” Tejada repeated, momentarily distracted. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t ferreted that out yet?” Felipe laughed. “You should listen more to old gossip. One of the Rioseco boys— Miguel, I think—was arrested at the beginning of the war. One of the ones who disappeared ‘without official news,’ as you people say. Don Ramiro sold out the business at a loss, and the rest of the family moved to Cuba.”

Nilo’s voice echoed in the lieutenant’s memory. “
Folk guilty of
nothing more than belonging to the wrong party. . . . He was like his
father. A real gentleman.
” For a moment he had the obscure feeling that the Rioseco family’s misfortune was tied to something in Alberto Cordero’s statement, but he could not think what. He regretfully dismissed the possible connection. It would be too easy to pin everything on Cordero. He wondered when Amparo and Jaime had announced their engagement. “So now Amparo’s father is looking to become Villalobos and Ordoñez?” he asked.

“And Nando wouldn’t mind being Ordoñez and Villalobos.” Felipe nodded. He became more serious as he added, “I don’t mean that Amparo’s part of all that. She’s a nice kid, and she was damn near crazy when Jaime died. But I can’t marry her.”

Tejada remembered Amparo gravely crossing herself and wondered what she would think of a husband who lived with a mistress and three bastard children. “No, I don’t think you could. Is that what you told your mother?”

Felipe shrugged. “More or less. I tried to put it down to the age difference, and then to my liking my freedom, but she was more persistent than usual and—” He broke off, looking uncomfortable. “I mean, God rest her soul, Carlos, she was my mother and I shouldn’t speak ill of her, but she got me so
irritated
. Talking to me as if I were five years old and telling me that she wanted grandchildren before she died! I tried to tell her that my sister and brother had already provided her with enough grandchildren to field a soccer team, but she wanted grandchildren from
me!
And then—well, she was my mother, and I shouldn’t have done it. But I’d just come from registering Pepín for school next year, and when she started going on about it I just—” He stood abruptly and crossed the room. “I had a copy of this in my wallet,” he said, his back to Tejada, and his voice muffled as he opened a writing desk and rummaged in one of the drawers. “I finally took it out and told her to stop worrying about grandchildren.”

He held out a creased paper to the lieutenant. Tejada unfolded it and read a declaration by the parish priest of San Nicolás certifying that the firstborn son of Felipe Ordoñez Tejada and Liliana Soto had been baptized into the Christian faith with the name José Felipe on December 4, 1939. Tejada considered how Doña Rosalia was likely to have reacted to such an announcement. “She was upset?” he guessed.

Felipe, who had been pacing nervously in front of the lieutenant, stopped walking and snorted. “There’s an understatement! She told me I was crazy to give my name to another man’s bastard. I told her that Pepín was neither a bastard nor another man’s. She wanted to know how I knew, and I ended up explaining about Maya and Mariana.”

“Explaining?” Tejada raised his eyebrows.

Felipe gave a reluctant smile. “Well, throwing them in her face maybe. But I was pretty angry by then.”

“She threatened to disinherit you?”

Felipe nodded and resumed his pacing. “And said some things about Lili that I’d rather not repeat. I . . .” He trailed off. The lieutenant waited. “I was pretty angry.”

Tejada looked at his cousin’s face and wanted to let the matter rest. But one thing was still unexplained. “I don’t see what she could have threatened to go to the Guardia with,” he said honestly. “You’re not the first man to have a—a friend like Lili. Or the last.”

Felipe took a deep breath. “There was more to it than that. She said that until I told her I was ready to marry Amparo, Nando was her only son, and that I could forget about any inheritance of hers ever going to . . . to the illegitimate children of a woman like Lili.” He winced, and Tejada guessed that Doña Rosalia’s original phrasing had been something along the lines of “to a Gypsy whore’s bastards.” Felipe kept speaking in a low rapid monotone, as if anxious to finish his confession. “I yelled at her that I didn’t want a penny of her money, and that I’d marry Lili before I let anyone speak about her or my children like that. She said I wasn’t serious, and when I told her I was, she—” Felipe glanced toward the bedroom and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “She said she would lodge a denunciation against Lili for lewd public behavior and have her arrested as a streetwalker.”

“Did you think she would actually do it?” Tejada asked, privately thinking that Rivas would have been unlikely to waste time and money tracking down anyone accused by Doña Rosalia.

Felipe dropped into the chair opposite him and leaned forward. “Yes. Oh, I know, she pestered the life out of the Guardia about all sorts of things, and they might not have done anything, but this wasn’t like one of her Red plots. She had Lili’s name and surname thanks to my stupidity, and—” He choked slightly. “Do you know what they do to the women accused of being prostitutes outside of the licensed brothels? They lock them up in the convent of San Antón and shave their heads and take away their children!”

“Well, in some cases that might be for the best,” Tejada pointed out.

Felipe glared at him. “Oh, really? We had a neighbor who used to help Lili with Pepín when he was small. Her husband was killed at the barricades in ’36, damn fool, and left her with two babies. She was mostly a seamstress, but when money wasn’t coming in she worked the streets a little on the side. She was arrested in a sweep one night, and the next day they came and took away her boys and put them in an orphanage because they were ‘of an unknown father and unfit mother.’ She got out six months later, all skin and bone and bald as a baby, and when she found out that her kids were gone—my God, I never want to hear a woman make noises like that again. I swear to you, Carlos, I spent a month carrying all my kids’ birth certificates in my wallet so I could go and get them out of an orphanage if I had to. I was scared every time Lili went out to do the shopping until —” He stopped abruptly, his fists clenched. “I could have
killed
Mother!”

“Did you?” Tejada asked softly.

Felipe looked up at his cousin, startled. “No. No, I didn’t. But, God forgive me, I was glad when I learned she was dead.” He smiled a little crookedly. “I don’t suppose you’d know if she actually changed her will, would you?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Tejada asked.

“I was damned if I was going to go to Nando and beg for information,” Felipe retorted. “I didn’t hear anything, so I assume that I’m not one of her heirs. Which is another example of my stupidity, because we could have used the money.”

“I haven’t actually seen the will,” Tejada said carefully. “But it looks that way.”

Felipe sighed. “Well, if Nando gets my share maybe he’ll be resigned to my not marrying Amparo.”

“Maybe.” Tejada glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to four. He would have been happy to drop the subject, but Felipe’s own words—“
You’re here as guardia, right? Not just my little cousin
”— made him ask, “The last time you saw your mother, did you have anything to eat or drink with her?”

Felipe stared at his cousin, disconcerted by the change of subject. “I don’t remember. She probably offered me a glass of wine. She used to drink this god-awful stuff that had been open so long it was nearly vinegar—” He broke off. “Wait a minute, Nando told me she was poisoned. You think I put something in her wine!”

“We don’t have a source for the poison yet,” Tejada said.

Felipe looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What was she poisoned with then?”

“Cyanide.”

Felipe put one hand to his face. “Oh, shit. Cyanide’s what they use in gold plating and all that jewelry stuff, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Tejada said, remembering his afternoon in the library, but surprised that Felipe was so well informed.

“Well, I’m screwed,” Felipe said. “Lili’s brother-in-law is a jeweler. We’ve visited his workshop a couple of times and had to hold onto the kids the whole time for fear they’d go sticking their noses into something poisonous. So I guess that gives me—what do they call it in detective stories?—means, motive, and opportunity.”

Tejada nodded. “On the other hand, if you were arrested, you’d leave Lili and the children more vulnerable than ever, and I don’t think you’d want that.”

Felipe smiled. “For a guardia, Carlos, you’re pretty intelligent.”

“I hear that a lot,” the lieutenant said. He stood up. “Thanks for lunch, Tío. And for answering the questions.”

“You’re welcome.” Felipe stood also. “I’ll see you out.”

“Please thank Lili for me as well,” Tejada moved toward the door of the apartment, accompanied by his cousin.

“I will. I’m sure she’d want to say good-bye, but it’s hard to get Marianita to sleep, and I don’t want to disturb her. Here, the bolt’s tricky.” Felipe stepped in front of the lieutenant and twisted the lock before shoving the door open and ushering him down the stairs.

In the courtyard, Tejada turned to face his cousin. “Thanks again. And sorry about searching the apartment and, well, everything really. Sorry about everything.”

“It’s all right.” Tejada watched his cousin nod gravely and wondered if Felipe guessed that the apology extended to their last conversation fifteen years ago as well. He hoped so. Felipe held out his hand. “Come again, if you have time.”

Tejada grinned, pleased his apology had been accepted. He was about to agree enthusiastically when Felipe added, “And bring your family. I’m sure Pepín would like to meet his cousin. And I’d like a look at this girl you’ve been hiding up north.”

Tejada was already nodding, and he felt a certain embarrassment as he said, “I’d love to come, of course. But . . . well, Elena and Toño may be busy. That is, I don’t know if they’ll be able to.”

Felipe laughed softly, but his voice was sad as he said, “Still true-blue, aren’t you, Carlos? I had the idea from your parents that maybe your wife wasn’t the sort of convent-bred señorita who’d mind visiting Lili. But if you feel that way—”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Tejada interrupted, flushing because he
did
feel that way, but he was old enough now to know that he was hurting his cousin’s feelings.

Felipe sighed. “Would it make you feel better to know that Lili and I are getting married next weekend?”

Tejada’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking!”

Felipe frowned. “No. I thought it over after that yelling match with Mother, and I decided it was the best way to protect Lili and the kids in case someone threatened them. And then, after Mother died and I was thinking about her will, I realized that if something happened to me, Nando and Dani would fight tooth and nail to prevent Lili getting anything more than a pittance. So Lili and I talked it over and we agreed. It’s at San Nicolás next Friday, if you’d like to come.”

“You don’t think that’s a little . . . extreme?” Tejada said. “I mean, your family will have a fit, you know.”

“I can imagine.” Felipe grinned suddenly. “I was there for some of your mother’s palpitations after your honeymoon. I’m can’t remember whether her favorite adjective for your wife was ‘red’ or ‘scarlet.’”

“But at least Elena was never a—” Tejada remembered, barely in time, that he intensely disliked it when anyone made comments about his wife, and that Felipe might feel the same way. “—a dancer,” he finished.

Felipe went still. “I told you before,” he said, “Lili really could dance. She was a dancer and that’s all she was.” Tejada said nothing, but his skepticism showed in his face, and Felipe added, “I’m not saying she was a virgin when we met. She had a past, but so did I. And it’s in the past.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Tejada said, more astonished than censorious.

“Look.” Felipe’s voice was half rueful and half amused. “When Maya was seven months old I went to San Sebastián for two weeks, for a vacation. I’d been there a week when the war broke out, and I couldn’t get back to Granada until the air base was secured. Even then I had to pull a lot of strings to get on a flight as a civilian. Lili didn’t have a phone, and I couldn’t write because the siege had cut off the mail. There were stories about the Reds taking over the Albaicín and bombing the city, and casualties, and God knows what all. I damn near went crazy with worry. I spent Maya’s first birthday in a hotel room by myself, not even knowing if Lili or my baby were still alive, getting drunk. I finally got home in the middle of January, and when Lili opened the door to the apartment and saw me we just walked into each other’s arms and cried. I haven’t spent more than a couple of nights away from her since then. I haven’t been with another woman. I spend a night on the Gran Vía sometimes, and I have trouble falling asleep because she’s not there. Being without her bothers me.”