No, none of it felt right, but I knew there was definitely something there, even if I couldn’t figure out what the something was. I could feel it in the way my heart accelerated its beating every time the image of them together assaulted me, which it did, repeatedly and compulsively, every minute of the bus ride back to Calle Ocho.
Just that morning, when my newly exercised instincts wouldn’t leave me alone, I’d followed her. I knew what time she usually left her apartment and I’d waited to hear the sound of her straw wedges coming down Iris’s stoop. I’d followed from a not-too-safe distance, knowing Abril was not the kind to turn around when she heard sounds, her mind always somewhere else, and had taken my steps in time with hers, the raspy scratch of her wedges and my own flip-flops against the sidewalk sounding like two old women who’ve smoked all their lives, their gravelly voices in deep whisper, rasp, rasp, rasping away about others.
I’d made the decision to follow her in the lull of sleepiness from which I’d now been jolted by the cool morning air and the adrenaline of my hunt, though what I was hunting for exactly, I couldn’t have said then.
Meanwhile, Abril turned the corner and stopped to cross Calle Ocho toward the bus stop, trailing a pink scarf tattooed with yellow peonies, posture perfect, suntanned face fixed forward in determination. I stood still, waiting for her to turn around when she got to the bus stop, wondering if she’d notice me looking at her from a distance. But she didn’t stop at the bus stop. She kept right on walking west, weaving purposely through morning street vendors and ladies sweeping the sidewalk. I followed with a racing heart until I saw her stop at the entrance of Hector’s bookstore. What was she doing there?
Then a stocky, blond man wearing dark sunglasses caught up to her, and they shook hands, turned around, and began walking in my direction. They were probably just walking to the café that was a few doors down from Hector’s bookstore, but I couldn’t risk their seeing me. So, heart like a marching band tuba, I turned around, struggling to walk calmly and not call attention to myself. Damn it, I’d really wanted to get a better glimpse of the man. What if he was the motherfucking lawyer Iris and I had been speculating about? Or a hit man for Henry’s father?! (After that last thought, I made a mental note to spend just a little less time with Iris.)
By the time I unlocked my front door a few minutes later, I’d made a decision to channel Hector again if it took me all day and all night. Especially now that I’d heard from Attorney Consuelo what the police thought they knew, that he’d been poisoned, I couldn’t wait to ask him to give remembering another try. Whose face had been the last he saw before blacking out? He said he’d seen Olivia “hate him,” but that didn’t mean she’d poisoned him. Then again, she was the only person I could think of who knew enough about plants to have a clue to what belladonna was, how to get it, and what amount might be needed to kill a grown man weighing some one hundred and eighty pounds.
As I ran through the possibilities in my mind, I didn’t want it to be Olivia. I also didn’t want it to be Abril, because what would happen to Henry if she were accused?
The one positive thing in all of this was that I could feel my sight slowly coming back to me. It wasn’t just being able to hear and see Hector, albeit with a lot of effort. It was also feeling open, a little less afraid of life with every passing day. And just in time too, because in my apartment was the soul of a dead man who’d be spending his “days” moaning and sighing while “soaking” in my bathtub, unless I could help him remember who’d killed him exactly and why.
And it was this quest that now felt more important than anything else. What had before weighed heavily on the problems’ scale: the breakup, the ruined apartment, the drug-addicted tenant, and even the lost letter, felt small and insignificant now. The old troubles seemed to have solved themselves somehow, while the new one—solving the mystery of Hector’s death—called not only for all my faith and focus, but also for the recapturing of my skills. For a change of life and for a change in me.
So far, Hector had not been much help. Piecing together his moans and half words took a lot of energy out of me, and I still didn’t have the faintest image of those minutes before he died. For example, I felt that Abril and the vision I’d gotten of her the other day were a clue or at least a symbol of what had happened to Hector. But if I asked him, would he understand what I was asking? Would he tell the truth, if he did? Would he be able to focus long enough to tell me what we both needed to know? No, I decided. I had to figure out another way to find out if Abril had been involved with him, and if not, what my vision of her meant.
Walking home from Attorney Consuelo’s, I considered coaxing some information out of Iris, but discarded the idea immediately. (You know those people with no filter between brain and mouth? That’s Iris.) Then a dangerous idea sprang into my head: I lived right next door. Iris had the keys to Abril’s apartment, knew all her comings and goings, and would probably share it innocently with very little prodding. Maybe what I couldn’t get via clairvoyance, I could get the good old physical way. I knew where Iris kept her tenants’ keys and could “borrow” Abril’s duplicate without her noticing. Once I had the key, I could just coax info about her schedule from Iris by feigning wanting to talk to Abril about what she’d said to me on the sidewalk, and then later sneak in when she was certain to be away for a few hours. It would take me a bit of time, but I knew I could do it. I no longer cared if Abril had been Hector’s lover, but if she had killed him, that I had to know, even if it made me ache for Henry’s sake.
In the throes of planning the newest escapade by which I’d be sure to get myself into more trouble than I might already be in, I almost walked right past Jorge’s house.
Oh, that’s right. You want to know when I’d decided to go to the house of a man I’d, until recently, avoided. It was during the bus ride home. While half my brain had been plotting the discovery of a possible secret connection between Abril and Hector, the other had been looking at my cell phone. Hadn’t he sent me a gift of food? Hadn’t he said he cared? Hadn’t he kissed me? Why didn’t he call?
Finally, I convinced myself that, having enjoyed his cooking, it was only proper that I thank him. It was just good manners. I didn’t have to wait for Jorge to call me in order to thank him. I’d pass by his house. As a friend. And this way, I would meet his wife once and for all. Get whatever unfaithful plan was covertly hatching in his head and mine out in the open. Maybe even dispose of the evil thing. At least that’s what I told myself as I walked over from the bus stop.
His house was located on the street directly behind Little Havana’s historic Tower Theater, which was separated from Domino Park by a small skateboard area outlined in mosaic cement tile. (The “park” itself is made up of cement instead of grass, benches instead of trees, and flanked by murals made famous by the locals who actually play dominoes there.) Because of the corner position of his house and the open space made necessary by the skateboard walk-through, you could see Jorge’s house from Calle Ocho, even though it actually faced the theater’s “backstage” entrance.
But though the house itself was right where I remembered it, most of its facade was not. The enclosed porch I remembered had been demolished and a modern, open-space portico had been built in its place and painted a rich, creamy white. The cement around the new, huge, black, loftlike windows was still fresh and unpainted, but somehow the final effect was sophisticated-rustic instead of unfinished. There was new landscaping, and the architectural lines of the two palm trees, one on each side of the walkway to the front entrance, gave the house an air of romantic simplicity. I liked it. It reminded me of Jorge’s cooking. Unpretentious. Simple. With just a touch of elegance and just a touch of sexy. Like a vase with a single pink rose and plain white cotton sheets on a four-poster bed.
The wrought iron gate was open, so I walked right up to the door, a glass and black steel affair. I’d been at the house only once or twice before because it had felt weird to be in a house that was alway
s undergoing some preparation for a woman who was being held back in Cuba, but whose arrival was always impending. Maybe because of that, it had never seemed special to me, but now, well, now it looked absolutely stunning.
“Can I help you?”
A brunette in her early thirties answered the door. Behind her I could see boxes, tools, even an electric sander that had very probably sanded and polished the newly laid wooden planks in this house.
“Hi, I’m looking for Jorge.”
“He’s not here,” she answered with a very slight accent.
“Oh, that’s a shame. I’m Mariela,” I said, extending my hand with a smile despite the once-over, so unapologetic and intrusive she could’ve been in charge of pat downs at the airport.
“Mariela?” she asked, tight-lipped and frowning, as if she’d never heard the name before and wanted to spit out the taste it left in her mouth. “Are you a vendor?”
“No, actually, I’m a friend of Jorge’s,” I said, noticing she wasn’t wearing her ring when she finally consented to shaking my outstretched hand.
“Well, he’s not here right now.”
I could’ve said I’d wait for him just to annoy her, but I’d done enough annoying of wives to last me a lifetime.
“You’re remodeling,” I said instead.
“Yes.”
“Looks fabulous.”
“It’s not finished.”
“Well, you can tell it’s going to be fabulous. Would you please tell Jorge I came by?”
“Can I tell him what this is in regards to?”
It wasn’t her words. It was her tone and the way she kept looking me up and down, one hand on her hip.
“Of course,” I said, knowing exactly what I was doing. “Tell him Mariela came to thank him for the other night. Food was delicious,” I said, looking her in the eye and smiling wickedly.
She looked thrown for a minute, then basically slammed the door in my face, but since it was mostly glass, I stood there watching her pick up a box and walk away down the hall, her impossibly rounded butt constrained by light blue jeans, her hair swinging dismissively until she disappeared into a room.
I guessed she wasn’t about to give him my message now. Just as well. I could always call his cell, tell him I’d seen the house, and that I thought it was beautiful.
Turning to look back at it as I walked away was like looking at myself in a mirror and seeing how incredibly judgmental I’d been whenever he’d mentioned his life, his restaurant, or his “guys,” probably his kitchen help team. I’d chosen to hang on to the image of who he’d been when he’d been with me: a party animal with a good-enough-heart, but few responsibilities or long-term plans.
But now, with that last look at the gorgeous house that had his good taste sanded right into its cement walls, I knew what I wanted to do: Next time I saw him, I’d show some gratitude and encouragement for someone who’d done nothing but be supportive when almost everyone else had decided to desert me. I’d even tell him he had a beautiful wife and close the door on all of this. This is why he hadn’t called. He’d needed closure. He had it. It was really over now.
And now, I had a job to do before I lost my nerve. I’d get home, change into something sexy for a supposed date, then drop by Iris’s knowing that she’d pepper me with questions and be more focused on my romantic prospects than on the spare keys she kept underneath the phone. I hoped she still labeled them, knowing I had to move quickly and then keep Abril’s key only long enough to make a spare key so I’d be ready the next time Abril left the house for any length of time.
But the second I stepped inside my apartment . . .
“Don’t scream,” he said, perched on the living room windowsill in his immortal khaki garb. “No screaming right now.”
My mouth had already opened to do just that, but I closed it again, surprised at being able to understand him without strain for the first time since he died.
“Your words are clearer.”
“I must be speaking goddamn English.”
I wondered if it would make him happy to point out that at least his sarcasm seemed to have escaped death intact.
“Again: I’m sorry I was so hard on you about that when we were together.”
“Soh-kay.” He shrugged.
“You were always making me feel like I didn’t know anything and . . .”
“Was trying to teach you.”
“I know, and I appreciated it, but sometimes it made me feel dumb, made me want to point out the things you didn’t know,” I said, realizing as I spoke how much I’d resented him for this and wondering how married people manage to stay together for decades, pulverizing all those little resentments that creep up between folks who share a bed, in order not to let death do them part before it was time.
“Very annoying,” he said.
I wanted to say no more annoying than his bringing it up now, but, again, I let it go. My great-great-grandmother’s journal had warned me against the foul moods of new spirits, especially of those who are stuck and can’t leave, so I took a deep breath and determined to “walk in his shoes” for a few minutes as the books advised.
“I been creamed today,” he said.
Creamed? Cremated! Of course my impatience with him evaporated. I even took a step toward him, wanting to touch him, but when I saw he faded perceptibly as I approached, I stepped back.
“The good thing is you’re here now and we’re talking,” I said instead.
“Yes, there you go. Is great,” he said, looking out the window with a blank expression and a wistful air that confirmed my thoughts.
“Okay, well, good. This is good, right? Progress. And just in time because I have to ask you something important.”
“So ask.”
“The police say . . . you were poisoned.”
He grunted and began to fade again, and I figured being here during the cremation was taking its toll on him. Maybe this was why he couldn’t remember his death. It was too painful for him to watch, to remember. Which was bad news for me. If each time I asked him to remember that day, his energy would fade and make it impossible for him to recall anything, then he was not going to be any help in solving the mystery that would give him his rest, and me my peace, and my apartment, back.
“Okay. Well, they say the poison used is a plant,” I pressed, pausing to let this sink in, knowing that it pointed to Olivia. “And that it’s called belladonna. Is the name familiar to you?”
“Belladonna . . . bella donna . . . beautiful woman . . . how ironic,” he spat.
“I’m sorry, Hector.”
“Is done, no?” he said, a few degrees more transparent.
“Well, yes, but, as you know,” I said, realizing he was unconcerned about the fact that I could be a suspect for what was “done,” “they questioned me in the matter of your . . . possible murder.”
“Is not you,” he said as if he couldn’t believe the level of idiocy of anyone who could believe I killed him.
“Well, of course, I know that and you know that, but it’s not as if you can testify on my behalf, if it ever came to that, can you?”
“I’m dead, Merry Ella. Dead!” he thundered suddenly.
“Okay, point taken. Actually, that was exactly my point—”
“Dead, okay?”
Wait a minute. I was so intent on keeping the connection I’d only just realized that he was “screaming” at me.
“You know, Hector. I want to help you, I do . . . but this is hard on me too. So, this is it. You tell me: Why are you here? If you think Olivia murdered you, then why aren’t you upstairs giving her the hard time?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
“Because. Don’t want to scare her.”
“Well, it’s good to see you care about someone’s well-being.”
“How come . . . you never . . . toll . . . told me you spoke to . . . to others . . . like me.”
“You mean to arrogant ghosts like yourself?” I
said, because it was time to stop pussyfooting around him as if all this were my fault. “Or to dead people who think they’re the only ones with problems?”
“Why you never told me you did this?”
“Because I didn’t. You’re the first one in a long time.”
“Where I heard that before?” he said.
“Hector, you know, this isn’t a joke. It’s serious for a lot of people. Now, tell me. Why are you really here?”
“Told you. I have to be sure is her, Merry Ella. And I . . . have . . . to know why.”
“What about Abril?”
“Who?” he asked, fading again.
“Henry’s mother? Little Henry? From next door? And stop doing that fading thing. You’re like a damn neon sign.”
“Who?”
“Abril. Don’t you remember who she is?”
“I know who.”
“If you know, why do you ask who? Never mind, just tell me about her.”
“I know whoooo . . . Henrieeee . . .”
“You’re talking funny again.”
“Wuuuuuu,” he began, followed by his first mumbling of the day.
“What’re you trying to say, Hector?”
But he just kept moaning and fading with every moan, his expression so comical I considered that he might be faking disconnection to avoid my questions. But why? I hadn’t forced him to seek my help.
“Hector? How well, exactly, did you know Abril?”
“He’s cahl-ming.”
“Who’s coming?” I asked, alarmed, because the last time he’d warned me of someone’s coming, it had not precisely turned out to be the Messiah, and, instead, I’d ended up cooped up for hours somewhere inside a police station, answering questions.
The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho Page 20