Half an hour passed. Padrino thought of going to Magdala’s apartment and showing her the picture. While he doubted that Elsa was the unidentified visitor, it wouldn’t hurt to ask. But he didn’t want to leave before the man did. He remembered what the woman at the office had said about Elsa’s husband. Could she have a lover?
Quietly, Padrino sneaked onto the property and went around the house. There was an oval window that opened to the kitchen. Careful not to be spotted, he looked inside and saw Elsa and the man sitting at a table. They weren’t too close, and there was no indication of intimacy. They were simply chatting.
Padrino retreated and waited a few minutes before peeking through two other windows. The blinds were half-shut on what looked like a kid’s room with posters of baseball players on the wall. In the master bedroom, he made out a king-sized bed covered in a blue bedspread. He went back across the street.
Three hours later, Padrino was hungry and impatient. Was the guy going to spend all day there? What were he and Elsa doing? Padrino went around the house once more, but the kitchen curtains were closed.
By eight o’clock, he was almost ready to give up. His stomach was growling, he was thirsty, and the man still hadn’t left. The bedroom blinds were closed too by then. He couldn’t hear a peep. He called his wife and told her he would be late. “How late?” she asked. He wasn’t sure. The lights in the house remained on the entire night. It had started to sprinkle, which only made the wait worse.
At 4 a.m., his efforts paid off. The main door was opened slowly and he saw somebody, silhouetted against the darkness of the sky, coming out of the house and dragging—a suitcase? No, it looked like a big zippered bag. Was it the man? Padrino didn’t move, afraid of the noise his footsteps might make in the quiet El Vedado night. He strained his eyes. It was Elsa.
The garage door went up and Elsa went in, dragging the bag. Padrino heard a heavy thump. He approached the garage but had to step back immediately as the Lexus sped out, drove down the driveway and got lost in the distance under the light rain. Watching as the taillights disappeared toward L street, Padrino cursed himself for having parked so far away. He had no chance of catching up with Elsa’s car.
Was the man still in the house? Padrino returned to the kitchen window; its curtains remained closed, along with all the blinds. He rang the bell. If the man was there, he would question him. Padrino always carried his old National Revolutionary Police ID with him. Sometimes it got people to talk.
No one answered. Padrino tried to open the door. The house had an alarm installed, he realized, noticing the flashing red light, but it was what he called a chapucería, a “botched job.” It took him less than ten minutes to disable it and open the door quietly. As he stepped in, the pungent smell of creolina hit him.
He walked through an elegant living room to a formal dining area and from there to the kitchen. There were crumbs on the white table.
“Hello?” he called out.
No one answered.
The lights were already on, so he began to explore the house. The room closest to the kitchen, the one with baseball pictures on the wall, looked the same as it had when he saw it for the first time through the window. The master bedroom, though, was a mess. The bed had been stripped of bedspread, sheets and pillows. There were small items scattered on the floor—soap, toothpaste, batteries, cheap sandals. Here, the creolina smell was stronger. The tiled floor, still wet, seemed to have been scrubbed recently.
Padrino snapped a few pictures. This was suspicious enough to warrant a formal investigation. He went on to an office and turned on the laptop there. He moved the mouse to the right side and looked at the “Recent” files. He saw only Excel spreadsheets and Savarria and Co. memos.
He returned to the living room. By the door was a piece of furniture he hadn’t noticed before, a standing metal coatrack. There was a light gray coat on it, next to a red umbrella hung from one of the hooks.
He fought to contain his excitement. But this didn’t necessarily prove a thing, did it? Surely there were more than a thousand red umbrellas in Havana. And yet, if Elsa happened to be the same woman who had entered Víctor’s apartment the morning of his death, he would have something to tell Marlene Martínez. Something that could potentially help to exonerate Pepito.
A light went on in the house next door. It was almost five. Time to go. Padrino used his handkerchief to pick up the umbrella. Then he saw something that had escaped him when he’d come in—a photo with Elsa next to Raúl Castro. Padrino whistled softly. This wouldn’t be easy.
It was still raining when he walked back to his car.
When Padrino got home, his wife, Gabriela, ran to the door to meet him.
“Where were you? I couldn’t sleep all night; I was so worried about you!”
Padrino kissed her. “Sorry, amor. I’ll tell you in a minute. But I’m starving. What’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner combined?”
“I’ll make you something right now. Ah, what a pretty umbrella!”
He placed it in the corner. “Please, don’t touch it. It’s the only clue I have for a case I’m working on.”
“Does it have to do with that poor Pepito?” she asked, glancing at the umbrella.
“Not quite,” he replied. “Or rather, yes, but I can’t figure out how to put all the pieces together.”
He devoured everything that Gabriela put in front of him: two fried eggs, a pork chop and half a loaf of bread.
“So, what’s going on?” she asked.
He told her what had happened the previous night. She listened attentively across from him at the table, concern wrinkling her forehead.
“The guy just vanished,” Padrino said. “And I may be a man of faith, but I don’t believe in people disappearing into thin air.”
“You think she killed him?”
“I do.”
Gabriela cocked her head.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t tangle with that woman,” she said. “A photo with Raúl Castro, a house in El Vedado, owner of a foreign company—she’s connected, eh!”
“I’ll tell Marlene Martínez what I’ve found. We can work together on this.”
“Please, let her handle it.”
Padrino’s cell phone rang. He recognized Rosita’s number and answered. “What’s up, mija?”
“Something horrible!” Rosita sobbed. “I need you to come to Calixto García Hospital right now.”
“Why? Are you hurt?”
“No, not me. Juan’s here, as Oyá promised. But—”
She paused.
“He’s dead. I want to do a ceremony to . . . to get over this once and for all. It’s too much for me, Padrino! You have to come and help me!”
Padrino closed the phone and sighed heavily.
“I’ll be back by noon; I promise,” he said to Gabriela.
“What? You’re going out again? You look so beat!”
“I know, but Rosita’s my goddaughter—you know how she is.”
“She always has a fart trapped up her ass,” Gabriela replied, annoyed.
“I know what you mean. But she said someone was dead.”
“So? All she does is work with dead people!”
“I’ll just stop by to see her for a bit.”
Gabriela accompanied Padrino to the VW Beetle and, before he got in, said:
“Don’t go back to El Vedado, papi. Above all, don’t go alone. You don’t want to bite off more than you can chew.”
Padrino was transported back to his days in that Angolan hospital, when Balbina had taken care of him. He heard his nurse’s melodic, deep voice again. “Usted no sabe en lo que se está metiendo.” Not wanting to admit that he might be getting into deep trouble here, he pushed the thought away.
3
Don’t Let Anyone Mess with You
The kitchen phone had rung at 7
p.m. Elsa hadn’t felt like talking, but she’d seen the 034 area code of her husband’s number. It was 1 a.m. for him, Seville being six hours ahead of Havana. Why was he still awake? To check on her; that was why. He had called the house, not her cell phone, to make sure she was there.
“Hello, Savarria. How are you doing, amor?” She always softened the use of his last name with a term of endearment.
“Not well. You know I’m not doing well.”
She didn’t argue. The day had drained all her energy. “What’s up?”
“The doctors”—he coughed—“are a bunch of gilipollas. They can’t find anything wrong, they say. I don’t buy that. They just don’t care.”
The doctors had found many things wrong with him, like sky-high blood pressure and cholesterol. Obesity. Risk of another heart attack unless he lost weight. But he wouldn’t give up his heavy potages, his fried pork chops or his expensive rioja wine.
“What about you?” he asked. “Not screwing around with a Cuban stud, I hope.”
It was supposed to be a joke. An old, trite joke. How many times had she bitten her tongue so as not to tell him that, had she wanted to cheat on him, he would be the last cabrón to find out? But truth be told, she hadn’t felt even remote interest in any other man until she’d seen Juan again. And then that idiot had ruined everything.
“No Cuban stud for me, Savarria,” she answered with a forced laugh. “Why would I need one when I have the most wonderful husband in the world? Or at least on the Guadalquivir River shore.”
“Ah, the Guadalquivir misses you, my dear, and so do I.”
No, he wasn’t a total asshole, just an insecure old man. One who was conscious of his age. But she wasn’t in the mood to humor him right then.
“Sorry, Savarria, I’ve got to go. I’m getting a call from the office.”
“See if there’s a way you can come back to Seville soon.”
“I’ll try.”
“Ah, wait. Emilito sent me a . . . What do you call these messages that come through the phone?”
“A text?”
“Text, whatever. It had a picture of him in a bar with a girl. Drinking. That pissed me off. Aren’t we paying too much money for him to hang out in American bars? Shouldn’t he be studying?”
“He’s getting good grades. Don’t worry.”
“I do worry. Nena, that fancy-schmancy college costs three times as much as Universidad Complutense de Madrid, which I bet is every bit as good. And here, we could at least keep an eye on him.”
“I am keeping an eye on him.”
“A mother’s love is blind.”
Elsa pretended to take the office call she’d invented and hung up.
If Savarria ever knew. . . She had lived in fear for the first two or three years. Emilito’s features had always aroused suspicions among Emilio’s uppity relatives, the ones who didn’t approve of his marriage to a much-younger Cuban woman. Ah, the mean aunts and uncles who whispered among themselves how “oriental” the child had turned out! Thankfully, Emilio loved Emilito and didn’t pay heed to the gossip. (A father’s love must be blind too, then.) The boy was the light of his life. He had raised him from birth, and Emilito was, for all practical and emotional purposes, his son.
But how furious Savarria would be if he ever found out the truth. If Juan had contacted Emilito and Emilito, in turn, had told his father . . . Savarria was an old-fashioned Castilian man. People talked about Latinos being machistas, but that was because they hadn’t dealt with the descendants of the conquistadores, Elsa used to tell her friends. The medieval concept of honor that had inspired plays like La perfecta casada and El médico de su honra—a golden-age drama by Calderón de la Barca about the honor killing of an innocent wife—remained very much alive in Emilio’s generation. If he were to find out the truth, he would certainly demand a divorce, withdraw all financial support for Emilito, kick her out of the company she’d built. And her relationship with her son might be permanently damaged, even if he did forgive her for keeping such a secret from him his entire life. No, she couldn’t have that.
She tiptoed to her bedroom, where Juan’s body lay on the bed. A small puddle of blood had started to form around it. She imagined Savarria’s reaction to the scene. What would anger him more, that she had killed a man or that she had almost slept with him?
She retreated to the kitchen, sobbing. It all had happened so fast. When Juan had shown up at her house, she’d foolishly let him in because, even after all these years, she still loved him, and part of her had wanted to know if those feelings existed on his end too. But, of course, he had seen what Victoria had in those pictures, what anyone who knew their history could plainly see. How stupid of her to have left them out in the open.
Then she thought she had regained control. Juan seemed to accept her reasons for keeping quiet. Said he still loved her too. It seemed as if their relationship might actually have a chance—Savarria was nearing the end, wasn’t he? She had given in to impulse and hurried to change into her most alluring lingerie, those pretty undies she hadn’t worn in years, when she caught Juan copying her son’s address. Sneaky hijo de puta. She lost it. Too bad the gun was right there in front of her, begging to be shot. Had she thought about it, she wouldn’t have—
But it wasn’t her fault! What had her father said? “Don’t let anyone mess with you . . . Make them respect you.” Well, Juan had been messing with her. Worse, messing with her son’s life. No, it didn’t matter that he was Juan’s son too. Juan hadn’t done a thing for the kid, hadn’t even known he’d existed until that day. She had the right to protect Emilito. Her father, the pincho, would have approved. Juan had been betraying her. Again. Getting ready to ruin her life again, just as he had done twenty years before. She had been justified, had she not?
She closed her eyes, her memory, her heart. This wasn’t about her. Her life, or at least the best part of it, had long been over. She had to think of Emilito. She would die for him, and she would kill for him. She had done it twice and would as many more times as she needed to.
Elsa lifted Juan’s body and placed it, wrapped in the sheets and bedspread, inside the huge duffel bag that she had brought from Cambridge. Coño, he was heavy! Had she not been in such good shape, she would have never been able to carry it all by herself. Eduardo, her security guard, might have come to her rescue—for a price. But having an accomplice would have made the whole thing much more difficult and dangerous. It was safer to act alone.
She began to drag the bag outside. El Camino de Santiago had taught her the importance of keeping her strength up and using her body wisely. She thought it blasphemous to flashback to that supposedly sacred experience in such an unholy moment, but shrugged. If needed, she would walk El Camino once more as penance for her crime. But now she needed to focus on the task at hand.
She left the house at 4 a.m. with Juan’s body in the trunk of her car, still inside the large duffel bag to avoid getting blood all over the car. She had changed into a brown sweat suit and comfortable shoes. She was shaking. As she sped out of her driveway, she thought she saw a shadow near the front entrance, but dismissed the idea. Someone out at that hour? It had to be nerves.
Her original plan had been to drop the body in Playas del Este, as far as possible from Havana. She had written a vague note suggesting it was suicide. But then she had turned onto Twenty-Third Street, seen the icy-blue light of a cruiser driving toward the Malecón and panicked. What if she was stopped for something or for no reason at all? We need to look inside your trunk, compañera.
A light rain was falling, and the streets were empty. She was passing by El Quijote Park, and the idea of leaving Juan’s body there came as a sudden inspiration. It would look like a copycat of the suicide that had made people start calling the place El Parque del Suicida—including the note and the absence of the weapon. She stopped the car, took Juan’s body out and left i
t there under the soft, cleansing rain. She got rid of the bloodstained duffel bag, sheets and bedspread in a dumpster in Marianao.
Before leaving the house, she had made sure to remove Juan’s wallet from his pocket. She threw it into a different dumpster. In the same pocket, she had found a gold wedding ring, which she disposed of as well, wondering why he hadn’t been wearing it. Then she spent a couple hours driving around the city in a haze, trying to soothe her frayed nerves.
At a quarter to eight, she proceeded to her office and took care of the most urgent affairs of Savarria and Co., trying to ignore Juan’s and Victoria’s faces, which seemed to peek gloomily at her from behind the assorted documents and from her computer screen.
Ay, Victoria! But that had been different. An accident. Besides, Elsa didn’t even remember exactly what had happened. She had done her best to rid herself of the memory. Could she erase this one too?
Her thoughts were cut short by a call from her Villa Clara manager. Had she authorized a new shipment of computers to the Universidad de Ciencias Médicas? No, not yet. She couldn’t concentrate that day, though, and didn’t want to make any rushed decisions.
“Let’s hold off for now and discuss it tomorrow,” she told him.
At least she was still a good businesswoman.
4
The Medal of San Lázaro
When Padrino arrived at Calixto García Hospital, he saw a body lying on a stretcher. It was the very same man he’d seen going into Elsa’s house the day before. But he didn’t have time to ask questions. He had barely begun to comfort Rosita when a hospital employee came in followed by a man and two women. One was tall and clearly not a Cuban national.
“Yes, that’s my husband,” the foreign woman said in accented Spanish.
A nurse tapped Rosita on the shoulder. “Compañera, you have to go.”
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