Summer Snow (38 page)

“That’s kind of you, Carlos.” Amparo met his eyes, openly flattered. “I’ve sometimes thought we could be . . . companionable. Of course, Jaime was the only man I could ever love but Felipe’s not young anymore. He needs someone to take care of him.”

“Was that why you stayed in contact with his mother?” Tejada asked bluntly.

“Partly,” Amparo admitted. “Of course, it was mostly as a favor to Bernarda, but both she and Doña Rosalia . . . well, they spoke of Felipe sometimes. They worried about him.”

Embarrassed, the lieutenant looked for a way to turn the discussion. No graceful way presented itself. “I’m afraid we haven’t made much progress toward finding Doña Rosalia’s killer,” he said apologetically. “But I wondered if perhaps you could help me.”

“Of course. Anything I can do.”

“I imagine you must have known your father’s partners?”

Amparo looked blank. “My father doesn’t have partners.”

“His former partners, I should say,” Tejada corrected himself. “Ramiro del Rioseco and his family.”

“Yes. I met Don Ramiro a few times.” Amparo was composed but guarded.

“And his children?” Tejada asked hopefully.

“Really, we weren’t social acquaintances,” Amparo explained with a hint of apology in her tone. “My father invited Don Ramiro to the house a few times, but I didn’t know his family well. I don’t believe his sons took much interest in the business. And his daughters were all older than I.”

She lied well, gracefully and without self-consciousness. But her words were clearly nonsense. The firm of Villalobos and Rioseco had been venerable in the lieutenant’s childhood. The two families were tied together by generations of shared business transactions and a few intermarriages. Tejada wondered why she bothered to deny what was common knowledge in all of Granada. Unless no one admitted to knowing the Riosecos anymore. He remembered Felipe saying, “I’m not going to lie and pretend I never knew him.” But Felipe had always been unconventional. “I heard Miguel del Rioseco got into trouble a few years back,” he said experimentally.

Amparo pursed her lips. “Yes. Poor Miguel was always foolish. Led around by the nose by all sorts of people.”

Tejada blinked. His own opinion was not substantially different, but it was odd to hear it articulated in such a soft voice by a delicately pretty girl. She was startlingly hard underneath her fragile femininity.
Elena wouldn’t say something like that
, he thought, disapproving. “Did you know any of his friends?” he asked aloud. “Anyone who was upset at his death.”

The girl raised her chin. “
I
didn’t know people like that.”

“I’m sorry,” the lieutenant apologized. “I meant did you know
of
them? You see, we have reason to believe one of them might have resented Doña Rosalia for his death.”

“Oh, I see.” Amparo softened instantly. “You mean one of those murdering cutthroats might have held a grudge against the poor lady and taken revenge on her? How terrible! Just like those Red plots she was always frightened of!”

That was the problem. The idea of a mysterious Red nursing a grudge
was
too much like one of Doña Rosalia’s hysterical fantasies. It didn’t fit reality. “Did she ever mention anyone Miguel del Rioseco would have known when she talked about these plots?” he asked, not quite daring to hope that it could be so simple.

Amparo frowned in thought. “No. No, I don’t think she ever spoke of anyone in particular. It was the Reds in general she was frightened of. But I know that she knew some of the Riosecos’ friends. Miguel was friendly with the Santos Vicentes. His older sister Paloma married Enrique Santos Vicente, and I know Doña Rosalia knew Señora Vicente.”

Tejada took out his notebook and jotted down the name, making a note to direct Rivas’s attention to it. Amparo, flattered by the attention, became voluble. “She probably knew the Rodríguez Martín family, too, but they’re good people. They wouldn’t have anything to do with the Riosecos after that business with Miguel. And I can’t think how Doña Rosalia would know him, but Miguel was always running around with a boy— What was his name? Something foreign—Marco? No, Max! Max something. They met one summer in San Sebastián, and then this Max stayed with them for a while. He was a university student, I think. He was trouble.”

“Can you recall a surname?” Tejada pressed gently, scribbling as he spoke.

Amparo shrugged, helpless. “I never met him. I just know Don Ramiro worried that Miguel was making the wrong sort of friends.”

“And Doña Rosalia never mentioned him?”

“Oh, no. He wasn’t the sort of person she would know.”

“Then what brought him to mind?” the lieutenant asked, genuinely curious.

Amparo took her time answering the question. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful. “I suppose he just seemed to be the sort of person who might do such a terrible thing. And I know he wasn’t in Granada during the war, so I don’t know what might have happened to him.”

“You’re sure there was no one Doña Rosalia herself mentioned?” Tejada asked again.

“I don’t think so. I can’t remember.” Amparo turned large and appealing eyes on the lieutenant. “I never thought I’d be answering questions like
this
. The last time I saw her she seemed so . . . normal. So much herself.” She brought her handkerchief to her eyes. “What kind of animal would do something like that to her?”

Her last words mocked the lieutenant’s suspicions.
What kind
of animal
? He thought.
And I’ve accused my family. My old friends.
The people I’ve trusted since childhood
. He looked down at his notebook, flipping through the pages to avoid her eyes. A starred entry from several days earlier flashed before his eyes. “Nilo says she was angry at her children.” He remembered Nilo giving the information, eager to help, in good faith. He remembered Nilo as he had last seen him. “She didn’t seem upset or worried about anything?” he asked.

“Not especially. I can’t imagine why she would have been.” Amparo’s soft voice changed pitch ever so slightly.

Tejada noticed the change. He remembered how easily Amparo had denied knowing the Riosecos. He suspected she was lying, but it might have been merely the type of polite fic- tion that had made Fernando’s wife claim she was very fond of her mother-in-law. It was likely that Doña Rosalia had thrown a tantrum, and the young woman might now be ironing her last memory into a smoother and kinder shape. “Did she ever mention her will to you?” he asked.

“N-no. No, I don’t remember that.”

Amparo’s eyes flickered. The lieutenant had seen the same flicker in the eyes of a guerrilla when he was confronted with a photograph of a comrade’s body.
Got her
, Tejada thought, with satisfaction. And then, puzzled,
But why would she lie?
She’s
not
an heir
. “I suppose she must have made one,” he said experimentally.

“I wouldn’t know. I was never really interested.”

A faint memory penetrated Tejada’s depression like a sunbeam in a fog. He opened his mouth to frame another question and then paused. He didn’t have much evidence, and he had already accused too many people needlessly. “I couldn’t expect you to be,” he said sympathetically. “I’ll try to pursue this Max, although it will be difficult without a surname.”

“I’m sure you’ll track him down.” Amparo spoke with warmth.

Tejada chatted for a few more minutes, barely paying attention to what he was saying, and then stood up. “I’m afraid I’ve taken up too much of your time.”

“Not at all. It was a pleasure to see you.” Amparo stood as well. “You will give my regards to Felipe, if you see him?”

“Yes, of course.” Tejada hesitated. “Do you have plans for this afternoon?”

“No, none at all. Why?”

The lieutenant paused for an instant and again remembered Nilo.
Better to talk it over with Rivas
. He thought.
Better to let Rivas
handle it entirely, if possible
. “I was just thinking that I might try to bring Elena and Toño over,” he lied smoothly.

He said farewell to Amparo as gracefully as possible and hurried back to the post. Rivas was out, but Guardia Medina was on desk duty. Tejada reminded himself that it was better to take Rivas into his confidence before acting on a hunch. Then he counted to ten. Then he waited for half an hour in the sergeant’s office. Rivas did not return. Tejada began to pace. An hour. An hour and a half.

The sergeant finally arrived a little before two o’clock. “Can I help you, Lieutenant?” he asked, the polite words barely masking his impatience.

Tejada nodded. “I wanted to ask your opinion. And then, if you don’t think I’m crazy, I want four men and a search warrant.”

Chapter 20

R
ivas hoped his expression did not reflect his feelings. Lieutenant Tejada had seemed like a serious and competent officer. The lieutenant’s tendency to ignore the political realities of Granada was only natural for a member of his family and a man who had not visited the city for many years. Tejada had been refreshingly down-to-earth. Rivas had been disappointed but unsurprised by the lieutenant’s refusal to consider his cousin Felipe as a serious suspect despite overwhelming evidence the day before. But he was disgusted by Tejada’s scurrilous charge against Nilo Fuentes. It was one thing to try to exonerate your own flesh and blood. It was another to try to throw the blame onto a member of the corps. A man should have loyalty. “My opinion of what, sir?” he asked.

“I think I know where Doña Rosalia’s will is,” Tejada said and summarized his meeting with Amparo Villalobos. “I can’t prove she took the will,” he finished. “But she was close enough to Doña Rosalia to know where it was kept, and she has an interest in seeing that Felipe Ordoñez isn’t disinherited.”

It was nice that the lieutenant no longer seemed intent on bullying poor Nilo, Rivas thought, but unfortunately he had swung back to the other extreme of offending powerful interests. “Don Fernando gets all the land anyway,” he pointed out, skeptical.

“Yes, but Felipe bought land from the Riosecos in his own name,” Tejada explained. “Amparo’s father must have taken a hit when the Riosecos pulled out of Villalobos and Rioseco. If his firm can regain those lands through Amparo’s husband, they’ll be back where they were before the war.”

“Then she doesn’t need the will,” Rivas argued.

Tejada shook his head. “She doesn’t
need
it,” he agreed. “But Felipe would have inherited a nice amount of cash from his mother. Even he admitted to me that it would have come in handy. She probably just saw the will and grabbed it, trying to do Felipe and herself a favor.”

“Just saw the will?” Rivas repeated. “You don’t think that Doña Rosalia kept her important documents locked up? She was a”—he coughed and rephrased his comment out of respect for the lieutenant’s relationship to the dead woman—“a very careful woman.”

Long experience had taught him that complaining about subordinates to their officers often backfired, so Tejada resisted the urge to tell Rivas that Medina and Soler had made such a mess of Doña Rosalia’s apartment during their initial search that it was impossible to tell whether Doña Rosalia had kept her important documents in any sort of order at all. “It
is
just a theory,” he repeated patiently. “But according to the reports, Doña Rosalia saw Felipe on Friday, changed her will on Saturday, and saw Amparo that Sunday.” The lieutenant took a deep breath and forced himself to speak openly about one of the more painful pieces of the puzzle. “Nilo—Guardia Fuentes—said she was so angry that she was fuming to
him
about Felipe after she changed her will. And Amparo was her confidante, practically the only person she trusted. Don’t you think Doña Rosalia might have mentioned her will—or even shown it—to Amparo when she visited the next day?”

Rivas was unwillingly impressed. The lieutenant’s theory made sense. On the other hand, it was sure to make powerful enemies for the Guardia, and it did not bring them perceptibly closer to Doña Rosalia’s murderer. “It doesn’t tell us who killed her,” he reminded Tejada.

“Maybe not,” the lieutenant agreed. “But it’s one less thing to worry about.” He did not admit to Rivas that he wanted to find the will because he wished to have something concrete to present to his father. He did not even admit to himself that his father would probably care more for the recovery of the will than the capture of his aunt’s killer.

Rivas thought for a moment. He had no desire to offend the Villalobos family. But if the lieutenant was set on his course then Rivas might as well try to make sure they were the only family offended. “Do you think Doña Rosalia could have found out that Señorita Villalobos stole her will?” he asked. “If she confronted the girl, it might be a motive for murder.”

Tejada blinked. “It’s a possibility,” he said. “But I can’t really see Señorita Villalobos committing murder. She’d have to find poison and a way to administer it.”

“She was a frequent visitor,” Rivas pointed out. “She must have known Doña Rosalia’s habits as well as anyone.” He hesitated and then added, “And she might have had an accomplice.”

“I don’t think so.” Rivas took the words as a reproof, which was a mistake. Tejada was genuinely thoughtful. “She doesn’t strike me as the sort of girl who gets along well with the servants.”