Cat’s-paw. One person used as a tool by another, a decoy. Suddenly it didn’t seem funny at all.
“Do you have your tourist card with you?”
I looked at him blankly. He must have thought I was dim-witted, but his grasshopper leaps from one topic to another always left me floundering. “My tourist card?”
“Your tourist card, is it with you?” he repeated impatiently.
I nodded. Yes, my tourist card and traveler’s checks were in my purse.
“Good. The thing to do, right now, is get you on a plane to New York. Out of Mexico. There’s no need for you to stay here and be in danger.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute. Go home now? A part of me welcomed that thought, hungered for the comforting anonymity of New York. But, almost to my own surprise, I was shaking my head.
“No,” I said sharply.
“Look, Sheila, you’re lucky those shots on the Avenue of the Dead missed you.”
I shook my head stubbornly.
“He might be luckier next time.”
“I want to know. I have to know.” For the first time I knew I was angry.
“Know what?” He was lost now.
“A cat’s-paw, you said. Someone at my museum moved me like a chess piece, set me up to draw fire. I can’t walk away, pretend nothing happened.”
“Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly. “We’ll catch whoever it is.”
Would they? Right now, right this minute, one of the Ortegas could be meeting someone from my museum. Who was it? What familiar face would I see if I were at the cautious meeting?
“We’re keeping watch on the family. The most likely person is Antonio Ortega.”
“Not Tony. I can’t believe that.”
“Why not?” Jerry asked, surprised and a little wary.
Why not, indeed? Hadn’t I been wrong about him once? But he was kind and respectful to his father (what about Gerda, though?) and gentle with his sisters and there was no taint of cruelty in his darkly handsome face.
Cruelty. I saw again Juan’s narrow face and the wild light in his eyes.
“Gossip has it that the Ortega trading company is in trouble. An extra million or so might make the difference,” Jerry said.
Gossip is more often wrong than right, I thought defensively. And wasn’t all business a gamble? Down one minute, up the next?
But I was slowly nodding my head. “I see.” Yes, reluctantly, I could believe that Tony would go to great lengths to save the family firm. Not for personal gain, but for family salvation. But murder? I recoiled at that. No, not Tony. If the boy, Raúl, had been murdered to protect the treasure, Tony could not be involved.
I held on to that certainty as Jerry continued to talk. “. . . a bad time for some of the smaller trading companies. There are shortages everywhere, breakdowns in manufacturing, lack of raw materials—”
“You can’t be sure it’s Tony.” I had to interrupt finally.
Jerry shrugged. “No, but who else is there? Who especially that Señor Herrera would wish to protect?”
Juan, I thought quickly. Tony’s father. Even Gerda.
“We’ll watch all of them,” Jerry said soothingly. “That’s our job. You don’t need to worry any more. Now, I’ll get you out to the airport. We won’t go by the house for your suitcase. You can call from the airport and ask them to ship your things, explaining an emergency made it necessary for you to return to New York.”
“The exchange could be taking place right now,” I said abruptly.
Jerry’s bony face tightened. “Right. So I need to hurry.” And he began to row swiftly toward shore.
“But if it hasn’t happened,” I said smoothly, “and I’m there in the house, watching all of them, there’s a better chance we might be able to stop it.”
He paused in midstroke. The boat swerved a little to the left. He straightened it, but his eyes never left my face.
“It could be very dangerous,” he said slowly.
I’m not sure even now what my true reasons were. Anger at being used? Stiff Scot pride that forbade running? Determination to root out banditry from my museum?
Or was it a muddled attempt to help Tony even though I had no real reason to believe him innocent? I had nothing more than an instinctive, stubborn faith that he could not be the one.
Chapter 12
The gate to the Ortega drive was a work of art. In the soft light of afternoon, the bars gleamed a rich bronze. As my cab pulled away, I touched the button to activate the intercom system and spoke my name firmly. As the gates slid open and I stepped inside, I still felt confident of my course. It was only as I heard the sharp click behind me as the gate inexorably closed that I felt once again the breathlessness of that first night when I had looked back over my shoulder and watched them shut.
Trapped.
Nonsense. If I wanted to, I could turn around and call on the intercom and walk free into the street. I looked up the drive as it began to curve, at lush greenery crowding close to each side of the pink stone drive, and battled my fear.
I forced myself to move forward. I was committed. I might well be able to discover the truth and save a national treasure. It didn’t appear we were going to be able to find out much in New York, though Jerry made every effort. After returning to the pier, Jerry led me out of the park in a circuitous fashion and then by cab and subway we reached his apartment. It was my idea that we call Dr. Rodriguez and ask him directly about the letter from El Viejito.
The call was a disappointment. The connection was poor, but finally we understood: Dr. Rodriguez wasn’t in and would not be back for two weeks.
I had to decide quickly whether to try to talk to anyone else on the staff. Reluctantly, I decided not to chance it. I might talk to the very person who had used me as a decoy.
There would be no help from New York. It was up to me.
I continued up the drive toward the house, deep in thought. I took one steady step after another. Pick ’em up and put ’em down—that’s all I had to do. And come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly, come right ahead, walk up this way and I’ll be waiting. One step, another. The sudden thud of running steps startled me and then the twins erupted around the curve.
“. . . said you were here and . . .”
“. . . been waiting all day. Will you swim with us?”
“Please, please?”
I wondered at their urgency, and then with the artlessness of children, Rita said, “No one’s here at all. We can’t swim alone and grouchy old Manuel said he’s too busy to watch us.”
“The water’s heated,” Francesca added. “You’ll like it. Please, Miss Ramsay?”
I said yes, and not with any ulterior motive. I liked the twins, liked them a lot, and whatever strange shadow hung over the Ortegas, it couldn’t be a good thing for them. It would be better, surely, if the person who had killed Raúl was discovered. If someone kills once, they are forever a danger to any near them.
The pool was heated and it was fun. We played keep-away with a soccer ball until I was panting and clinging to the side, crying, “Too much, too much.”
We each tipped ourselves up onto huge inflatable floating chairs and I took the first step on a road that would lead to terror on a star-spangled night.
“Is your grandfather well enough for me to visit with him for a few minutes?”
Their silence was absolute and revealing. Before my question, their laughter and the splash of water as they kicked and paddled in their floating chairs had muted all other sounds. In the sudden quiet, the water from the fountain fell into the pool and each drop sounded as it struck.
Rita said not a word. One twin is always the strongest. It was Francesca who asked, her face guarded, “I did not know you were the friend of my grandfather?” Her formality reflected her fear.
I looked at her gravely. “I would like to be his friend, Francesca, but you are right, I have not met him yet. He is the good friend, though, of a man who works at my muse
um in New York, Dr. Rodriguez.”
Her small brown face, so like Tony’s, relaxed a little, but she was still puzzled and suspicious. “But grandfather cried when—”
Rita interrupted then, speaking in Spanish.
Francesca listened, but before she answered, I took a chance.
“Girls.” I spoke in a low, soft voice that caught their attention immediately. “Please, I know you don’t understand, but tell your grandfather that I am on his side. Tell him that. Then, if he wishes, I would be very happy to talk with him.”
They stared at me solemnly, wanting to trust me, afraid to.
My heart ached for them. “That’s all we’ll say about it. Don’t worry. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, that’s all right, too.”
We had a race then, but their hearts weren’t in it. The fun was gone. I wished I could bring the happiness back to their faces.
I worried later, as I bathed and dressed for dinner, that I had put too heavy a burden on them. But surely I had not put them in danger. After all, Señor Herrera had not been harmed, so the twins should be safe enough.
The twins were not at dinner that evening. I almost asked after them, but decided against it. There was one other empty chair. Señor Ortega had flown to Veracruz to bid on some coffee. So Tony, Juan, Gerda, and I sat down to dinner.
Midway through the meal, I took my second step on the doom-fated road.
Gerda asked how I like the pyramids.
I didn’t answer at once. It happened that every face turned toward me and there was a lull in the conversation. Everyone waited for me to answer.
If I had thought about it, estimated what effect my words might have, I might have answered differently. Instead, I felt a flicker of anger. I looked around the table. “Someone shot at me.”
Each face reflected shock in a different way.
Tony stared at me. “What do you mean?”
“I was walking up the Avenue of the Dead. I was alone. No one was near me. Someone shot at me. Three times.”
He didn’t accuse me of lying, but his disbelief was obvious. “Did you call the guards, ask for help?”
I described my frantic scramble for safety, how I stumbled into the lot where Manuel waited, and my decision not to tell anyone.
“Why not?” Tony demanded, darkly frowning, his hand tight on the stem of his crystal wine glass.
It was utterly quiet as they waited for my answer. Gerda scarcely breathed. Her lovely face, always pale, seemed paler yet. Juan leaned across the table. His dark eyes glistened. Was it excitement, pleasure, or something darker, harder to define?
“I should have told someone,” I admitted. “I wanted to tell someone. But I knew what would happen.”
“What?” Tony again, his voice hard, cold.
My lips trembled, but I managed to speak steadily. “No one would believe me. But it happened.”
Tony put everyone’s question into words. “Why would anyone shoot at you?”
Now it was I who sat silent. What could I say? Someone here in your house, your father, your brother, your stepmother, one of them has connived to put me in danger, has used me as a decoy to flush out treasure seekers.
I looked down the table at Tony’s face, heavier, older in the flickering light of the candle, and wondered with a sad painful catch, One of them or . . . oh Tony, was it you?
Finally, tiredly, my voice drained, I answered. “I don’t know.”
No one, of course, believed that.
Certainly not Tony. His face was as closed as it was that night after he picked up the obsidian knife near the mutilated doll.
I excused myself immediately after dinner. I could not gather with them in the luxurious living room and hold a cup of coffee in my hand and idly chat. I said good night. As I reached the hall, I heard a swift murmur of Spanish from Juan. Tony made an angry reply. I was sure the exchange concerned me.
I walked so quickly I almost ran. Footsteps came after me, but I didn’t slow. I was almost to my door when Tony’s voice stopped me.
“Sheila.”
I turned to face him.
The hall was dimly lit. What little light there was came from behind him. His face was in shadow. He was only a few feet from me but he seemed far away. “Sheila, I went to Tlaxcala today.” He spoke very tiredly.
I wished that he had not followed me up the hall, that he had not told me. I hadn’t wanted to know. I looked at him, but I could scarcely see through a mist of tears.
He lifted his hand, stretched it out toward me, then shook his head and let it fall.
“Please go back to New York. Go back.” He turned and was gone.
Once in my room, I closed the door behind me and leaned against the hard panel. I had my answer now. There could no longer be any doubt.
Feeling numb and empty, I slipped on my gown, brushed my teeth, and made ready for bed. Tomorrow, I would leave the Casa Ortega. I lay in that high strange bed and ticked off in my mind the things I must do: make my excuses to the Ortegas, exchange my plane tickets, pack. I would go home to New York and be free of fear and safe.
Safe? In New York? If I went back, reported to my boss all that had happened here, I would not be safe. It wasn’t going to be that easy. I couldn’t just walk away.
But I could not, would not bring trouble to Tony.
No matter what he had done?
A small, still voice answered, No matter what.
Still, I didn’t dare go home unless I knew from whom to expect danger.
The danger lay in the Mesoamerican Department; that seemed almost certain. The first week in January, Dr. Herrera had alerted Mexican authorities to expect a smuggling attempt. Just before that, he wrote to Dr. Rodriguez but received no answer. In January there were six members of the Mesoamerican section: Dr. Rodriguez, Cecilia Edwards, J. Thomas Wood, Michael Taylor, Karl Freidheim, and Timothy Simmons.
Cecilia Edwards and J. Thomas Wood were in Peru in January, directing an expedition.
That left four.
I was sitting up in bed now. I reached out and pulled on the light. In only a moment, I had retrieved a notebook and was propped up in bed and writing.
Dr. Rodriguez. Michael Taylor, Karl Freidheim. Timothy Simmons.
I stared at those four names. One of them. It had to be.
Michael Taylor. A small, dark, spare man. Black hair streaked with gray, horn-rim glasses, head usually bent in thought.
Freidheim. That bastard Freidheim, Timothy had called him. He was vice chairman of the department. He had been furious that the Ortegas had requested the return of the Sanchez manuscript. Had Dr. Freidheim’s anger been clever camouflage? Who could have been in a better position to suggest to one of the Ortegas (say it, Sheila, say Tony) that the manuscript be recalled, providing a reason to send an innocent museum employee to Mexico City, thereby attracting any official attention plus, as it turned out, decoying another treasure seeker?
Last of all, Timothy Simmons. My friend Timothy. I remembered Timothy without any false shadings. I didn’t trust Timothy. There was little I’d put past him. But could he possibly have the stroke for this kind of caper? Timothy, after all, was as new to the museum as I was. It was his first job and he, like I, was at the bottom of the heap.
I shook my head. I didn’t see how it could be Timothy. Whoever was coming to Mexico (or perhaps was already here) had to be someone with a measure of importance at the museum, someone who had wangled the necessary money (and a million or so takes a little talent to find) either from a museum patron or from the board.
Of course, it was always possible that the seller was going to be cheated by the buyer, somehow, someway. Perhaps the crime was a venture independent of the museum.
I looked up from my notepad, drew in a quick breath. I hadn’t locked my door. The handle was moving, slowly, so slowly. The door began to open. . .
Chapter 13
The twins slipped into my room, fingers to their lips, brown eyes huge in their pretty rounded face
s, their cotton gowns a cheerful pink.
“Shh, don’t make any noise,” Rita instructed in a feather-soft whisper.
“Grandfather will see you now,” Francesca explained. “But we must be very quiet.”
Rita nodded. “Juan isn’t home yet, so it should be safe enough.”
The reality of life at the Casa Ortega slipped into sharper, harder focus. They were afraid of Juan. Juan. I was afraid of Juan myself.
I put on my dressing gown, doused my light, and followed them into the hall. They led me down the main hall toward the living room but stopped short of it to take me down a narrow, twisting staircase that opened out into an equally narrow hall to the kitchen. We slipped through an immaculate kitchen to a door that opened onto the patio near the breakfast table.
The patio lights were on, glowing softly, making pools of pastel color on the terrace and down into the garden. Francesca led me into the shadows along a wall that ran along this side of the patio. Midway the length of the wall, she guided me out into the garden and we paused in the shadow of a hibiscus. I saw that she intended to lead us the long way around the garden, from one dark shadow to another, to the colonnaded wing.
We were almost at the end of the garden, still avoiding pools of soft light, when Francesca clutched my arm, jerking me to a stop. I heard voices the same instant. Rita stumbled into us. The three of us stood rigid.
We were near wooden steps that led down a sharp incline to a hidden level of the property and the garages. The figures came up the steps, quarreling in low angry voices. Gerda was pleading. They stopped at the top of the stairs. They were well hidden from the house by the hump of the vine-covered trellis. They felt safe from view. They could not be seen or heard from the house. They would scarcely expect anyone to be out in the lower garden at this late hour.
Cry in the Night Page 12