54
THE APPLE GRAVE
UNAI
November 2019
We had been reunited with one López de Ayala, but we were losing another.
Germán managed to sneak the apples into the hospital. Grandfather was still in the ICU, and there was no sign of improvement. Some people from the funeral insurance company approached us, and I told them where to go in no uncertain terms. But the nurses advised us to make arrangements. This would be our patriarch’s last autumn.
Late on a Friday evening, when everything was calm and the hospital noises were muted, I set to work on my last mission as his grandson.
It took me a while to rub the quartered apples from his garden all over his knobbly skin. We reminisced, or rather I did, about the houses we used to build out of bales of straw after the August harvest in Las Llecas. Or about the time I woke him at four in the morning, coming home from the fiestas in Bernedo, and we ended up putting sprinklers out in the fields because of the drought that year.
I found his silence almost unbearable. Eventually I was finished, and I got in the car and drove to Villaverde.
We had whisked Deba away from the hospital and the city of Vitoria: she’d been through enough that day. I’d never seen her as upset as she was when she saw herself in the mirror with cropped hair. I hated Tasio for that.
Tasio Ortiz de Zárate had spent the night in jail and would remain in custody. I doubted he’d be free anytime soon. I tried not to waste my thoughts on him; Deba and Grandfather had filled my mind since last night. As soon as we had arrived at Grandfather’s house in Villaverde, my daughter found one of his berets and refused to take it off even though it was much too big for her. Exhausted, she had fallen asleep next to her mother still wearing it. I made another red wristband for her, my way of telling Fate that I took care of my own.
All Souls’ Day marked the first of November, the month when my family was responsible for ringing the bell for Mass and for the Angelus. It was village tradition on that day to ring the bell every three hours in remembrance of the dead, so Germán and I made our way to the bell tower with our big iron key before the sun rose.
We opened the church door and mounted the spiral stone staircase. The bell tower itself was just a few old wooden planks. It wasn’t very safe. In the distance we could see the looming black expanse of the sierra, while, near the foot of the church, a feeble yellow streetlight barely illuminated the nearby rooftops.
Other than that, the night was dark.
Germán and I began to ring the bell in silence, the way Grandfather had taught us. The deafening sound of the clapper next to our heads stopped my thoughts. It gave me a few moments of peace, the only peace I can remember from those dark days.
Not thinking.
“Do you remember the way he taught us how to draw the sun years ago?” Germán asked, motioning with his hand as we released the bell rope.
I’d forgotten. I looked where he was pointing and could make out the crude outline of a tiny sun on the north wall of the tower.
“Look, boys, I’m going to show you something in case I’m no longer here one day,” I remember Grandfather telling us. We had been at the top of the tower on a mild August morning. Outside a combine was harvesting the ripe corn beneath a cloudless sky.
“No longer here!” I had exclaimed. “I don’t like it when you talk like that.”
Germán and Grandfather had looked at me tenderly until I calmed down.
“I think Granddad is trying to pass on a family secret, like when he took us to San Tirso and showed us where vervain grows,” said Germán. He had always been the more levelheaded brother.
“It’s family tradition to pass on this secret when a member of the family takes his or her turn ringing the bells,” Grandfather said, scratching his head. “Don’t tell the neighbors about it. There’s a little drawing here in the stone, beside the bell. I think it’s a miniature sun. Granddad Santiago told my father about it; it’s the last thing he remembered Santiago telling him before he left. It must have meant a lot to him.”
“The Santiago who left when your father was ten?”
“The very same. I don’t know why, but I think he wanted us to know that he drew this sun, or this flower. I was a little boy when my father brought me here, and I didn’t pay attention. I can’t remember whether he called it Grandma’s Sun, or Grandma’s Flower. But he said it protected Villaverde. And that protecting Villaverde was something our family had always done.”
Ever since then, whenever it was our turn to ring the bell, Germán and I would take a knife to the tower with us and retrace the lines of Grandfather’s little drawing if it looked as though dust and time were causing it to fade.
I checked the time on my phone. It was late, so I changed the subject.
“Do you know Beltrán Pérez de Apodaca? He’s a young law graduate.”
“Yes, I’ve bumped into him in court a few times. Why do you ask?”
“Tell me about him.”
“He’s ambitious, smart—a young shark. He lacks the wiliness that comes with experience, but I’m sure he’ll learn. We’re on good terms.”
“You’re on good terms with everyone. Would you employ him in your practice?”
He thought for a moment.
“No.”
“Why not? He seems to have a bright future.”
“I’m sure he does,” said Germán. “But I only take on men and women with integrity and principles. That’s always been my rule. Over the years, you learn to judge people’s character pretty well, if you catch my drift.”
“I understand perfectly, Germán. You’ve been helpful. Now let’s head down, I have a couple of things left to do today.”
“Is Beltrán a suspect?”
“He gave us a DNA sample when we canvassed Ugarte. It wasn’t a match. He certainly didn’t kill MatuSalem. No, I’m just trying to pull together a better picture of our main suspect,” I explained.
“You’re going to continue working on the Lords of Time case, aren’t you?”
“Somebody has to do it.”
“And you’re the only one who can?”
I started to explain. “I know it’s taking a heavy toll on our family—”
“If you put yourself at the center of a hurricane, it’ll end up destroying everything and everyone around you,” he interrupted. “Out of everything you could have done with your life, why did you choose to work in homicide, Unai?”
“Somebody has to protect people,” I said, repeating something I had told myself many times. “Maybe it’s in my blood. Grandfather was the mayor of Villaverde for years when nobody else wanted the job; he felt it was his duty. And that’s the way he brought us up. You’re no different. You’re doing the same job as I am, but you do it from behind a desk. Domestic abuse, unjust terminations…You accept cases in order to help others. You and I are the same.”
“I don’t carry a gun or wear a bulletproof vest, that’s the difference. If only my brother were a lawyer.”
It was pointless trying to explain….
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time,” I said, soldiering on. “I don’t like to nose around in your personal life, but everybody knows you haven’t been dating for the last two years. Have you put your life on hold in the hope that I’ll quit my job?”
He didn’t respond.
“Is that why?” I insisted. “Are you afraid your girlfriends might end up dead?”
“I didn’t say that. I’d never blame you for what happened, but—”
“But that’s what you think,” I concluded.
My brother had become celibate because of me. He adored Deba, he’d always loved children, and I know he longed to have kids of his own. But was he waiting for me to quit my job?
We climbed down from the bel
l tower in silence, disinclined to speak to each other. I stopped by Grandfather’s house to pick up the basket with the quartered apples. I was unable to find any old newspapers, so I wrapped them in some pieces of paper Deba had been drawing on the day before. She and Alba were still asleep. I tiptoed into the bedroom, planted a kiss on both their foreheads, and went downstairs.
* * *
—
I entered the garden. The apples were back in the basket, wrapped in Deba’s paper and tied with string, the way Grandfather did before burying them. I grabbed a hoe and set to work beneath our enormous pear tree. The glow from a streetlight shone golden on my back, projecting my shadow onto the grave I was digging.
Grandfather would sometimes mention the Roman coins his father had discovered while plowing. As a child, I had heard countless other stories as well: field hands unearthing treasure troves, small pouches of toughened leather buried two thousand years ago, which were sometimes handed over to the authorities but, more often than not, kept. The local museums were full of these treasures: coins, shards of pottery, and other archaeological artifacts.
When we were boys, Germán and I had spent months searching for sacks of gold. We dug holes everywhere, and we’d even saved up for a metal detector. Then we grew up and forgot about buried treasure. What lay buried didn’t glisten. It was lifeless. We had learned the difference the hard way.
I shook off my dark thoughts.
Kneeling, I began to bury the apple pieces in the earth. I wanted them to decay. Quickly.
And then I noticed what my daughter had drawn on the sheets of paper I’d wrapped the apples in. I brushed off the loose earth and shone my phone light on them, intrigued.
Chimeras and monsters. My brain recalled seeing them somewhere recently.
But where? I struggled to remember.
I investigated, recorded, and classified so much information from crime scenes, suspects, and witnesses that sometimes I had trouble retrieving the data from the part of my brain where everything was stored.
Sometimes these myriad facts were as useless as this one seemed to be.
“What are you doing?” I heard Estíbaliz’s voice behind me.
I jumped, startled, and had to prop myself up with the hoe.
“More to the point, what are you doing in Villaverde at this time of night?” I retorted once I had recovered.
“I wanted to visit my niece, but I just went upstairs and everyone’s fast asleep. Germán told me you were down in the garden. I know I’ve been taken off the case, but I’m here to bring you the list of Quejana Council employees. Milán meant to give it to you yesterday, but with everything going on…”
“Let me see.”
I sat on the low wall and scanned the list of names. None rang a bell, except…Claudia. Claudia Mújica.
“The tour guide?” I said out loud.
“I hadn’t noticed. Is that her last name?”
“It’s written on the plaque at the reception desk in Nograro Tower. Of course, she has keys to the tower, so she could have gotten in and stolen the copy of the diary. She’s very tall and skinny. Could she be the person who attacked you?”
“I couldn’t see anything in the dark, and it all happened so quickly, but the person I tried to fight off was extremely strong and heavily built.”
“She also had access to the Dominican nun’s habit,” I mused, “but the person I chased was definitely a lot shorter. On the other hand, according to this list, she was hired as a museum guide by the Dominican convent a couple of years ago. So she could still have the keys to the Quejana complex. But she doesn’t fit the priest’s description of his assailant, either. Still, we’ll need to contact her to answer some questions. First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll ask her to provide alibis for the days the crimes were committed.”
But Estíbaliz was already on her feet.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked when she realized I wasn’t moving. “Let’s call Peña and get him to go to Ugarte right now to check her alibis. Who cares what time it is? This is urgent.”
“May I remind you that we already have a suspect on the run, and that the person who helped him get away wasn’t a woman,” I said.
“Milán told me you’ve been unable to identify the accomplice, that none of the hospital staff recognized him from behind. What if Claudia is involved? You’re obsessed with the idea of a homicidal alter who murders real people to prevent his fictional character from being killed off, so you can’t see that it doesn’t add up.”
“What doesn’t add up, in your opinion?” I asked.
“The victims. Like all profilers, you’re focusing on the killer and his MO, and you’re forgetting about the victims.”
“Isn’t it your job to remind me of them?”
“Yes, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. But you only seem to listen to me when my life is hanging by a thread. The first victim, Antón Lasaga, fit your theory of similar MOs because of his profession and the location of his death. He could be a stand-in for Count de Maestu, Onneca’s father. MatuSalem, your collaborator, was a Maturana, and he died the same way as the Maturana in the novel. But the Nájera sisters who were trapped in a wall like Onneca’s sisters have nothing to do with Ramiro Alvar’s alter, or with what happens to Bishop García.”
“Bishop García?”
“I noticed that he shares several traits with Alvar. I think the bishop’s character is modeled off Alvar. García’s a young priest who’s attractive and wealthy. He wears only a cassock, even in midwinter; he loves to ride; he adores offal dishes…”
“I have to admit, I didn’t make the connection,” I said.
“That’s probably because you’ve spent more time with Ramiro Alvar than with Alvar. What I’m trying to make you see is that whoever is imitating the murders in the novel knows nothing about Ramiro Alvar’s dissociative identity disorder, or his reasons for writing his own version of the chronicle.”
“Ramiro Alvar has escaped, Estí. What if Alvar is back? What if he never went away, and he drew you in again at the hospital? What if he threw you over the balcony and then staged the chronicle’s theft?”
Estíbaliz drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them.
“You have no idea what kind of person Ramiro Alvar is. None whatsoever. We talked for hours at the hospital. We took things slowly this time. Even though I was no longer on the case, I didn’t forget my training. Ramiro is a good human being, and nobody can fake that.”
“Okay, convince me,” I said.
“He donated his bone marrow.”
“To Alvar? That’s not what he told me.”
“No, not to Alvar,” she said. “To Alvar’s son.”
“Alvar has a son?” I asked.
“Yes, the kid who runs the bar.”
“Gonzalo Martínez?”
“Yes, that’s him. About eighteen months ago, after his mother disappeared, he came to Ugarte. When he discovered that Gemma’s parents were dead, Gonzalo went to Nograro Tower. He had never finished school, but Ramiro Alvar gave him money so that he could take over the bar.”
“Why did Ramiro Alvar donate his bone marrow to Gonzalo?”
“About a year ago, Gonzalo was diagnosed with the deadliest form of thalassemia. As his sole living relative, Ramiro didn’t hesitate to help him. He’s telling the truth; I saw the scar on his back the night that…that night.”
“Gonzalo is Ramiro Alvar’s nephew?” I echoed in a whisper.
“Neither of them wanted anyone to know. Ugarte’s a small place. He told me the Nograro family paid for Gonzalo’s mother to have an abortion. That’s not a story you want to brag about in a bar.”
“Sure,” I replied, pensively.
“What’s wrong? You’re as white as a sheet. Do you think Gonzalo has something to do with the murders?”
“No, he gave a voluntary DNA sample. That rules him out,” I explained. “No, it’s something else.”
That damn village with its secrets and its lies. Ramiro Alvar hadn’t told me that his brother had a son who now lived in town.
How many more lies, Ramiro Alvar? What else haven’t you told me?
“Oh God…” I realized aloud. “The chimera.”
I pulled my daughter’s crumpled drawing from my pocket.
“What is it?”
I gaped at the piece of paper, dumbfounded, as though it were an aleph that held the key to the entire universe.
“Fuck, Estí. What is it we always say? When you rule out the impossible, all that remains is—”
“The improbable,” she concluded.
“What is statistically improbable but possible. It’s been documented.”
“What’s been documented?”
“The chimera, Estíbaliz. The chimera.”
“You need to draw me a diagram, because I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
I stood up, elated.
Neurologists say that when you solve a puzzle, your brain rewards you with a shot of dopamine. It’s addictive. It makes you feel good.
I was definitely addicted to that eureka sensation.
Thank you, Grandfather. I sent up the prayer as I walked past his buried apples.
“Where are you going?” Estíbaliz called after me.
“I have to talk to Doctor Guevara!” I shouted, running up the garden’s stone steps.
She’ll understand everything.
55
THE CIRCLE
UNAI
November 2019
I spent all of the next day in my office. My conversation with Doctor Guevara had cleared up several questions. Now all I had to do was close the circle. Spread out on my desk were the photographs from MatuSalem’s funeral. I was looking for family likenesses, and at last my search bore fruit.
The Lords of Time Page 38