“Costa certainly had lots to be worried about,” Carla remarked, her thoughts running in all directions. Senhora Gonzaga killed Costa! And then returned recently to check for loose ends. Not a smart killer, though, leaving candy wrappers around. Carla rubbed her forehead. Maybe Torres left it and it isn’t connected at all to Costa’s death. But she hadn’t noticed Torres eating candies. His teeth indicated he was a heavy smoker.
It could be just a candy wrapper, left by Costa when he came out to water his flowers. Maybe Costa did have a sweet tooth.
“This woman at the café you say likes him.” Natália said. “He would talk to her. Maybe she knows things about him, and that is why she don’t like you to ask questions. She protects his memory.”
Yeah, right! Although . . . Natália might have a point. Did Senhora Gonzaga know Costa was a card shark and was dealing in possible wine fraud? Did she know he was trying to sell the duke’s bottle back to Pereira? She had acted as if she only knew Maria’s “chico” was interested in the bottle, but that could be an act. Her coolness at Carla’s questioning could, as Natália said, to protect Costa’s memory. Or his crimes. Whether friend or lover, Senhora Gonzaga might be the loyal type. And maybe that’s why she killed him?
But, then, how does Walsh, O Lobo, and O Lobo’s employer figure into this new
scenario? Carla sighed.
“Is complicated case, yes?” Natália said, regarding the wrapper with a mixture of pride and happiness. “Here.” She handed Carla her handkerchief. “For your detetive friend,” she said, using the Portuguese appellation.
Carla had a sudden flash of Fernandes’s disapproving face as she tried to explain why she was giving him a toffee wrapper found in the corridor outside Costa’s office door. How to explain what she was even doing outside Costa’s office door. He’s only told me to butt out of this case how many times?
Natália would want to know what Fernandes said when she gave the wrapper to him. For a moment, Carla contemplated tossing the wrapper and telling Natália she’d somehow lost it. But then, she’d have to lose the handkerchief as well. And the wrapper might really be a clue.
“I’ll return your handkerchief later,” she said glumly. She put it inside her handbag. “I guess we should go.”
“Yes, because I have hair appointment. I must look nice tonight.”
“I’m still trying out hair salons,” said Carla as they rose. “Yours does a nice job.”
“I go to Andréa on Rua Dos Chãos. She is very popular,” Natália said. I get you her card.”
At the garden’s edge, she paused and, in a low, confidential voice that made Carla lean closer, said, “I must tell you something.”
“Yes?”
“I have told Manuel we are shopping. I don’t mention we are looking for how a killer gets into a shop. He should not know this, or he will worry too much.”
“I won’t say a word,” Carla promised. Then, “Owen’s the same way.”
“These men, eh? They think we are so fragile and they must protect us. Although,” a girlish smile flitted across Natália’s face, “sometimes that is nice.”
Chapter Eighteen – Dinner at A Taberna do Félix
Félix Taberna was conveniently located near the house where the auction was to take place. On Largo da Praça Velha, not far from Arco do Porto Novo, it was one of Carla and Owen’s favorite restaurants. Gray lace overlays on white tablecloths gave a touch of romantic elegance. Soft lighting on vintage photographs and an old typewriter on a cabinet, lent a contrasting atmosphere of nostalgia. They decided to eat outside since the evening was mild.
The owner, Guilhermina, brought them each a small glass of white Port while they consulted the menu. After they clinked glasses, Carla studied Owen’s abstracted face. He had seemed lost in thought at the apartment when she told him about meeting Natália. He hadn’t been particularly chatty as they walked to the restaurant.
“Lots of meetings today?” she asked.
He swirled the Port in his glass for a moment before answering. “Just small stuff. The fellow I mentioned who applied for night clerk? The one from Germany who could speak English and Portuguese as well as German? He’s decided to go to a hotel in Lisbon instead.”
“You have several languages covered for daytime,” Carla reminded him. To make the point that World Portal Inns was unique and catered to a world clientele, Owen had planned for two daytime desk clerks, one who could speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and one who could speak French, German, and Portuguese. “You said the brochures will be in five languages,” she added. “Someone who checks in at night can read those and talk to one of the daytime clerks if they have questions.”
A young waitress, new to them, brought them a basket of bread and took their order.
“Gabriela wants to expand the lounge to include a special library,” Owen said after she departed. “A library lounge.” He frowned. “I don’t know.” Gabriela Coelho was the main decorator from Rocha Conceitos Interiores, the interior design company revamping the hotel decor. “She wants to stock it with Spanish and Italian books, as well as German, English, French, and Portuguese,” he said tiredly. “Even more languages, if possible.”
“That’s a great twist,” Carla said, as the waitress brought their wine, a crisp Alvarinho to go with the fish they’d ordered. Usually she didn’t care for Gabriela’s ideas. Her color choices for instance—mauve and ivory walls, gray drapes patterned in black and silver. Elegant, yes, but not as inviting and warm as peach and earth tones might have been.
Now, thinking of how she missed access to print books in English, Carla said, “Guests would appreciate a lounge like that. You should add Asian languages, too. You’re going to get tourists from everywhere, you know.”
“They’re on vacation, Carla. They’re sightseeing. Besides, where do we stop? Russian? Bulgarian? Hungarian? Swahili? Urdu?”
“Why not? It’ll take a lot of books if she wants to call it a library lounge. You could have dictionaries, travel books, some fiction, a famous poet or two. A library like that sends a statement. It is World Portal Inns, after all. And they can’t be sightseeing every single minute.”
“That’s pretty much what Gabriela said.”
“Two women can’t be wrong,” Carla quipped. “She’ll have to start ordering books soon, though, to have it stocked by September. Then again, if you start small, you can have art pieces on the shelves here and there. Clients would love it.”
A young couple wheeled a baby-stroller across the cobbled plaza toward Anjo Verde, the vegetarian restaurant next door. Carla eyed them wistfully, hearing the soft, cooing tone of the mother’s voice as they went into the restaurant. That was something Carla appreciated about the Portuguese: They took their children with them everywhere. Family was everything.
She took a quick sip of her wine. One day.
Owen furrowed his brow, immersed in hotel business. “Plumbing’s still in a state of disarray, to put it mildly. Bathroom fixtures, new connections to the main line . . ..” He ran a hand through his hair.
Their food came, Bacalhau com Broa. For a few moments, they ate and sipped quietly. The sun had drifted to the horizon. The sky was turning to that inky blue that made street lamps and windows seem more golden. A warm breeze stirred the air.
"You look nice," Owen said softly, his eyes resting on the lacy front of her dress.
Carla rested her fingers lightly on the back of his hand. The waitress placed a globe with a candle on their table. As its flickering glow sent patterns of light and shadow across Owen’s face, Carla was reminded of their first date seven years ago.
His employer had hired her to choose art for the rooms of a new branch in San Jose, one with an English Country theme. She’d picked Gainsborough and Constable prints. Owen had come to see the selections, and the spark between them had been there from the first, although they didn’t date until the project was finished. Like tonight, they had eaten at an outside table, soft lamplight gilding
the space around them as the sky faded into night.
She pressed her wine glass to her cheek, remembering. Seven years of twilit dinners with candle flames casting their glow coalesced into a single instant. A wave of contentment washed through her. Despite all that had happened lately, it felt good to be here, half a world away from the cacophony of Bay Area rush hours, enjoying dinner on a breeze-touched evening, under stars, in Portugal. For tonight she could forget dead bodies and a thug who had tried to kill her. And maybe a murderous café owner.
Her contentment wavered. She hadn’t thought to take the candy wrapper—Senhora Gonzaga’s candy wrapper, as she now thought of it—from her handbag when she changed clothes for the auction. The crinkly paper lay in the bottom of her purse coddled in Natália’s handkerchief. Carla could imagine it beaming questions at her: When are you going to tell Fernandes? What, exactly, are you going to say?
“Tiago’s still looking for a bartender,” Owen remarked, as he cut a small chunk of cod.
“Too bad Paulo is in so much trouble,” Carla said. “He wants to be a sommelier. Wanted to be,” she amended.
Owen’s hand paused. “How do you know that he wants to be a sommelier?”
“He told me. He said that’s why he switched the bottles when O Lobo offered him the job. He wanted to go to some school in New York, and he thought he couldn’t save enough money on his waiter’s wages.”
Owen forked the bite of cod along with a piece of potato and chewed slowly. When he swallowed, he said, “I know it sounded to you as if Paulo was pouring his heart out, babe. You have pillow written all over you, which is why people confide in you. They want to put their head on your shoulder.”
Carla rested an elbow on the table and palmed her chin. “But?”
“But he was probably giving you a sob story he worked out for you to pass along to the police. You heard Detective Fernandes say O Lobo and Paulo worked together before. And that Paulo’s dangerous.”
“O Lobo claimed they’ve worked together,” Carla corrected. “But Paulo isn’t the violent type, Owen. Trust me. He’s scared of O Lobo.”
“Uh-huh.”
Carla bristled. “I’m not as gullible as you seem to think!” She brushed a few breadcrumbs that had fallen on the tablecloth into a neat little clump near the corner, then tapped her fingernails against the table edge. “I do have good intuition about people, you know.”
“I’m not saying you don’t, babe. I’m just saying you’re too soft-hearted.”
“Be glad of that,” Carla teased. “That’s why I overlook all your foibles. How’s the landscaping coming along?” she asked, when the worried look on his face didn’t disappear.
“Not bad.” Owen brightened. “Garcia used to work for the city before he started his own company. He has a good idea of what grows when, what looks good with each season. The results should be great, once we get that far.”
Sitting back, he said. “Enough hotel stuff. Tell me more about your new friend, Natália. Maybe you should invite her and her husband to dinner one night. You can wow them with your caldo verde and that pork dish you did Monday night.”
“Monday.” Carla fingered an edge of the gray lace covering the white tablecloth. She drew in a breath and slowly let it out. “Monday feels so long ago.”
Owen reached over and squeezed her hand. “Sorry, babe. I shouldn’t be blathering about petty stuff at work when you’ve had so much to deal with.” He eyed her cheek where, Carla knew, the bruise still showed despite the make-up she’d heavily applied.
“I want you to talk about work,” she said. “It’s a relief to talk about ordinary things. Antiques, auctions, hotel plans.” She squeezed his hand back, then checked her wrist-watch. Eight-forty-five. Part of her wished they could stay here for hours, holding hands, enjoying the candlelight, letting the romance of Portugal seep back into their sensibilities.
Her thoughts veered toward the restaurant next door and the couple with their baby. “Enjoy your life,” her doctor had said.
Reluctantly, she said, “Time to go.”
Chapter Nineteen - Going, Going, Gone
The Moreira home was a three-story, baroque building with white plaster walls, ornate stonework, wrought iron balconies, and French windows that sent a shimmer of golden light into the deep blue twilight. Senhor Moreira, son of the deceased owner, had come from Porto to arrange the auction and was at the door in a pin-stripe suit, gravely welcoming people.
His heavy-lidded eyes under a lined forehead and receding hairline conveyed an air of weariness as he took first Carla’s hand, then Owen’s in his neatly-manicured one. Carla guessed he and his rotund little wife were both in their fifties. In contrast to her husband, Senhora Moreira had bright, inquisitive eyes and a way of cocking her head and moving her shoulders that made Carla think of an elegantly dressed sparrow.
“I wonder what will happen to such a stately old building after this is over,” Carla murmured to Owen. They followed Senhora Moreira down a short hall where pale rectangles on the walls remained from paintings that had been removed for the auction. Her left foot throbbed a little, so they walked slowly, their footsteps echoing on the polished wood floor until they came to a small atrium with a glassed-in ceiling framing the twilit sky above.
French doors were opened wide onto the large garden patio filled with rows of folding chairs, most of them occupied by patiently waiting bidders. Rose bushes bordered the wall. At one end a large magnolia tree spread its branches, the scent of its waxy blossoms wafting into the atrium.
Inside, a table was covered with information forms, and a box of bidding paddles sat next to an ornate cash register. Through a side room’s doorway, Carla glimpsed assorted furniture, lamps, old trunks, paintings, dishes, boxes of smaller mementos. When she had come earlier to view the Da Silva Porto paintings, the articles were scattered throughout the house to show them off. Now two men were doing a final check of lot tags. The burlier of the two lifted a rosewood and leather library chair as if it were a step-stool and set it beside a library table.
“The paintings are lot number twelve,” Carla told Owen. “After that, we can leave.”
The cashier, a young woman with a cloud of reddish hair, gave Carla an information card to fill out, and Carla duly recorded her company’s credit information. Philomena Resendes, the auctioneer from Porto, stood to one side, checking her gold wristwatch. Her dark hair was in an elegant twist. Her dove-gray pencil skirt and delicate jersey were set off with Luis Onofre shoes, which, Carla noticed admiringly, had a gilt stripe above the heel. With a nod to Carla, Senhora Resendes turned her attention to the garden, no doubt gauging expressions on her bidders’ faces and doing mental arithmetic.
The cashier slapped a label with Carla’s information on a bidding paddle marked at the top with a large, red, number fifty-seven. Carla felt the familiar excitement auctions always inspired in her. It wasn’t the first time she thought bidding must be a little like betting on a favorite in a horse race. Small wonder that, back home, Owen and his friends had a betting pool on which horse might be the next Triple Crown winner.
The patio twinkled with swags of lights along each side, giving almost a festive air to the occasion. As she and Owen threaded their way to two empty seats at one end of the third row, Carla spied across the aisle the man she’d seen exit Costa’s shop Monday—the man in the news photo Detective Fernandes had shown her the next day.
Pereira’s friend. The vintner. What was his name? Vitore.
Vitore was fingering his goatee with one hand, brow furrowed, while he checked the smart phone in his other hand. He looked up and caught Carla’s stare. A smile flickered and was gone. Did he recognize her from last week’s viewing of auction items? Or had he noticed her after all, Monday, when she stood across from Costa’s shop, camera poised, waiting for a clear shot of the azulejo tiles?
She quickly looked away and sat down, unsettled. Fernandes had also said everyone with any connection to the case was a suspect.
That meant Vitore was a suspect. He’d been in the shop the day of Costa’s murder. He’d looked pretty angry when he left the shop. How angry?
“Okay, what is it?” Owen’s whisper broke into her thoughts. “I can hear wheels turning.”
Staring straight ahead, restraining her desire to peer around at Senhor Vitore, she murmured, “Without being obvious, have a look at the man at the end of the next side row. The one with the Colonel Sanders beard. He’s wearing a navy blazer.”
“Yeah, I see him; what about him?”
“He’s the guy in the photo Fernandes showed us, remember? Pereira’s friend. Maybe Costa’s enemy.”
“Carla . . ..” Owen draped an arm over her shoulder and tickled her earlobe. “Leave everything to the police, okay? We’re here for the auction.”
“I just pointed him out, that’s all.”
“And you think he’s suspicious,” Owen said. “Your friend Paulo is the one you should wonder about.” He grinned. “On second thought, don’t. Don’t wonder about anyone.”
Senhora Resendes stepped through the door before Carla could reply. Speaking into her handheld microphone in a melodious voice, the auctioneer started the proceedings, first in Portuguese, then in English: “Boa noite, senhoras e senhores, o leilão começará agora. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, the auction will begin now.”
The shorter of the two men Carla had seen arranging lots brought out an elegant eight-day mantelpiece clock—a Waterbury. Carla caught her breath, swept for a moment in a wave of nostalgia, as bidders began vying for the clock.
One of her fondest memories was the Waterbury clock on the mantelpiece in her grandmother’s bungalow in Berkeley. Carla had thought it so beautiful, with its gilt feet and the slender marble column on each side of the face. When she was small, Nana would let her wind it with a clunky key. When Carla came to live with her after her parents’ automobile accident, Nana let her keep it in her room. It had been a strange consolation, but the clock’s sturdiness and beauty, the regularity of its ticking, suggested some order to a world suddenly thrown into chaos. It comforted her. Even now it was on the mantelpiece in Piedmont, waiting for her and Owen's return after the hotel’s grand opening in September. A legacy for their own son or daughter when they came of age.
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