If we have children. For a moment, she let herself wonder how Owen would feel about adoption. The subject hadn't come up in their discussions. In vitro fertilization, yes. From what she had read, that seemed to be the most effective route to go if she couldn’t get pregnant.
Still, as Doctor Chan had said, it was too early to consider other options. Relax; enjoy your life, Carla reminded herself, then shook away the next thought: Try to avoid people squeezing your carotid arteries.
The auctioneer’s pronouncement, “Vendido!” brought her back to the present, and she watched the helper carry the clock back into the atrium, followed by the bidder from the audience, a thin woman with frizzy gray hair, clutching her bid paddle like a victory torch.
The next two lots, a nineteenth-century cherry wood sideboard and an 1800 mahogany armoire, each elicited furious bidding. If she weren’t here to bid on the paintings for Mrs. Demming, Carla would have been inspired to bid on the sideboard for herself. Owen would go for it. He liked cherry wood as much as she did.
Next was a nineteenth-century, marble-topped game table that was a gem.
Seeing each piece brought out and shown off at its best, was one of Carla’s pleasures in attending auctions. That and the additional information she gained about current auction values and budget adjustments for her clients. The scent of roses and magnolias hung in the air. Garden auctions were the most enjoyable.
By the eleventh lot, a pair of Bergmann bronze monkey candlesticks, Carla’s curiosity once again drifted to Vitore. Like her, he hadn’t yet bid on anything. She wondered if the deceased Moreira had a wine cellar with rare vintages. Port wines, since this was Portugal. Maybe Vitore was shopping for something to rival his friend Pereira’s show-off bottle with the duke’s signature. But that would be in a separate, “invitees only” auction, wouldn’t it? She hadn’t seen any wines or Ports among the lots for tonight.
“Those are weird candlesticks,” Owen observed, as a bid of two thousand euros finalized the sale of the bronze monkeys. A wrinkly old man hurried into the atrium, one monkey in each hand, his bid paddle tucked under his arm. “Why didn’t you bid on them, babe? Won’t they work on Mrs. Demming’s mantelpiece?”
“No, no,” Carla whispered. “They belong on a table at a party for friends who make monkeys of themselves. One at each end of a gold cloth runner.”
“How about at a party for politicians and their monkeyshines?”
Carla giggled. “How about a party for pals that are up to monkey business?”
Senhora Resendes spoke into her microphone again. “Número doze,” she said, in her musical voice. “Number twelve.”
Carla snapped to attention as the helpers brought out the two Da Silva Porto paintings. Murmurs of appreciation ran around the audience. Senhora Resendes reminded bidders first in Portuguese, then in English, that the deceased owner had wished the paintings to be sold as a pair and that his son was respecting his wish.
She started the bid at forty-thousand euros.
To Carla’s surprise, Senhor Vitore lifted his paddle, his expression confident, as if he already owned them.
“Quarenta mil euros,” Senhora Resendes said. “Tenho quarenta e cinco mil? Do I have forty-five thousand?”
Carla waited to see if anyone else was going to bid. Apparently, someone behind her did.
When the price went up again to fifty thousand, she raised her paddle, and immediately felt Vitore’s intent gaze slide toward her, even though his posture didn’t change. When Senhora asked for fifty-five thousand, Vitore’s paddle went up. Carla bid sixty. He went to sixty-five.
Now they were the only bidders. Carla suddenly wondered just how rich Vitore was. Could he go past a hundred thousand? Mrs. Demming was willing to go to one hundred twenty thousand, but no more.
The bidding climbed to seventy, then seventy-five. She could feel Owen’s tense support. He leaned forward, shoulder’s hunched, as if silently cheering a favorite horse at Santa Anita.
Vitore went to eighty.
“Tenho oitenta e cinco mil?”
Eighty-five thousand? Carla raised her paddle.
“Noventa? Ninety?”
Senhora Resendes looked in Vitore’s direction, waiting.
It seemed to Carla that the air grew very still, as if all the other bidders were waiting, too. She let herself sneak a look at Vitore, her fingers tense on her paddle. What she saw jolted her.
Senhor Vitore took a small foil-wrapped candy from his pocket and began unwrapping it. Even from where she sat, Carla could see the gold glitter of the paper—the kind of paper that was in her handbag, wrapped in Natália’s lace-edged handkerchief. He took out the toffee, popped it nervously in his mouth, crumpled the wrapper, then tossed it on the grass at his feet.
It was Vitore! Not Senhora Gonzaga! Carla crossed her legs, jiggling her foot. If only she could get her hands on that wrapper. With both wrappers, she’d have something worth showing to Fernandes.
Vitore lifted his paddle to bid ninety thousand, and Carla heard the intake of several breaths.
“Noventa e cinco mil?” Senhora Resendes cocked her head at Carla.
If ninety thousand made Vitore nervous enough to start popping toffees, he was getting close to his limit. Carla raised her paddle.
“Cem mil euros? One hundred thousand euros?”
Vitore held the auctioneer’s eyes a moment, then gave a slight shake of his head.
“Noventa e cinco mil, vendido. Lot twelve sold to number fifty-seven.” Philomena Resendes smiled at Carla. Vitore turned to give her a baleful stare.
Hoping her face was expressionless, Carla followed Owen to the aisle as the helpers took the paintings back to the cashier. She kept her eyes on her husband’s suit jacket, not letting herself look at the wrapper, not wanting Vitore to know she had noticed it.
Inside, she arranged for shipping, shivering slightly as she remembered the expression on Vitore’s face. Not a man to be crossed, kiddo. Not good.
*
In silence, she and Owen walked through the Arco da Porta Nova, back to Rua do Souto and, beyond, the Praça República. They stopped at Café Vianna for a glass of wine. In the vast fountain that dominated the square, streamers of water shot up and splashed down, colored by changing lights, one of Carla’s favorite sights. Their table was close enough for her to feel a faint mist.
She looked around, momentarily enjoying the soft hubbub of conversations and clinking glasses, waiters and waitresses rushing back and forth with new orders. The moon had risen higher, now a paler lemon wafer in the wine dark sky. She crossed her ankles and leaned back, trying to relax, as Owen ordered wine.
Her thoughts ricocheted back to Vitore and the realization he was the one leaving wrappers everywhere: the wrapper in Costa’s office; the one in her purse. True, Costa could have left the wrapper in his office. But someone else had left the wrapper in the corridor between shops. And now Vitore had tossed a third wrapper on the lawn in Moreira’s garden.
There was no getting around it. She would have to call Detective Fernandes. Tomorrow morning. After Owen leaves for the hotel.
Owen lit a cigarette. “You’re pretty quiet.”
“I’m just a little tired,” Carla said. How could she tell him what she suspected about Vitore? Hadn’t he reminded her all evening—all week, in fact—to leave everything to the police? She reached over and smoothed Owen’s lapel.
He put his arm around her waist and planted a light kiss on the cheek that wasn’t bruised and she got a whiff of what she liked to think of as his personal blend: Brut and eau de nicotine.
“You’re grinning,” he said. “What’s going on in there?”
“Too complicated to explain.”
The waitress brought their wine.
Carla took a sip and closed her eyes, as if that could hold the moment, the gentle mist from the fountain, the murmur of voices, Owen’s hand curled around hers.
She gave a mental shrug. She might as well enjoy the present p
eacefulness before a new scolding from Detective Fernandes.
Chapter Twenty – A Jarring Conversation
“Let me understand this,” Fernandes said on the phone. His voice was chilly enough to cause frostbite. Dreading this conversation, Carla had dawdled the morning away, doing a wash, checking her calendar, checking Facebook and email, outlining her article about Torres’s shop, and finally organizing the tableware in the kitchen drawer.
She braced herself for a tirade and a new reminder that she should leave detecting to the police.
Instead, Fernandes calmly reiterated the points she had shared. “You went to the side door in the patio space between Senhor Costa’s wineshop and the gift shop next door, yes?”
“Yes.”
“You found a candy wrapper, yes?”
“Yes.”
“You removed it, and it is in your purse, yes?”
“Yes.” She decided not to mention Natália found it. No need to get her new friend in trouble.
“And you think it links Senhor Vitore to the death of Senhor Costa, yes?”
“That’s why I’m calling you, yes,” Carla said, hearing an edge in her voice. “I thought you should know. Senhor Vitore eats these candies when he’s nervous.”
The detective was silent.
“It seemed important to let you know,” she repeated, thinking that last comment of hers hadn’t quite conveyed what concerned her about Vitore.
“What is important, senhora, is that you removed evidence from the scene of a crime.”
“The crime scene tapes in front were gone. How can you say—”
“Every part of the premises is part of the crime scene until this case is solved.”
“Oh,” Carla said. Why didn’t they mention that on TV crime shows or in mystery novels?
She closed her eyes, thinking of the wrapper she’d found in Costa’s office and then tossed in his wastebasket. For a terrible moment, she wondered if they had found it with her fingerprints all over it. Well, they hadn’t taken her fingerprints when she filled out her statement.
So that’s no problem.
Or was it? Her fingerprints would be all over the pen she used when she filled out her
statement. And they were all over the wineglass she’d set next to the case in Costa’s shop.
“I’m just telling you what I observed,” she said, deciding to take the offensive. “You should be glad I called. I could have just kept it to myself and avoided this . . . this unpleasantness!” She hoped her voice was as full of reprimand as his had been.
“That would not have been possible. You were seen with your friend going into the corner shop. It is good that you called. If not, I would have called you to ask why you found such a visit necessary.”
“I was seen?” Carla was embarrassed by the squeak in her voice.
“And now I wish to know, who is this woman who was with you, and why is she involved?”
“She’s a friend,” Carla said hotly. “Just a nice, friendly neighbor I unloaded my troubles to, because this has been one hell of a week. And she . . . became interested.”
“Interested in this corridor between shops?”
Carla didn’t reply.
“What was your interest, senhora? What were you doing there?”
“Stop treating me like a criminal,” Carla said angrily. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“But you have,” Fernandes said calmly. “As I have pointed out. You removed evidence from a crime scene. Evidence we would have found. And at present everyone is a suspect.”
“I don’t see how you can even think I’m a suspect.”
“You found the body. You were the last to see Senhor Costa alive. You had an important bottle he was trying to sell back to Pereira. You say O Lobo stole it from you. O Lobo denies it.”
“But yesterday you said he said . . .” Carla shook her head to clear her thoughts. “You said he admitted that he was involved and that he said Paulo was his partner.”
“True, I said that.”
Carla frowned. What did Fernandes mean by that?
“Besides,” she told him, “Maria saw him steal it!”
“True, Senhorita Santos gave you an alibi, but her namorado, her sweetheart was involved. She gave him the alibi, too, at first.”
“Until I persuaded her to come and tell you,” Carla said.
“Which can be seen as a smart move on your part.”
Carla exploded. “So that’s why I had a shadow! It wasn’t for protection at all! You lied to us! You reassured my husband and me, and all the time I was being followed as a suspect. And still am, from what you say!”
“Acalme-se, Senhora Bass. Calm down. I have not said you are being followed. I have only said you were seen. And I am simply pointing out to you that any action can be regarded in many ways until we capture the criminal.”
When Carla didn’t answer, he said, “You will bring this candy wrapper to the station in half an hour, please. I hope you have not touched it.”
In spite of herself, Carla asked, “So if there are fingerprints on the wrapper, can you match them to the killer?”
After a loud sigh that meant, Carla was sure, to convey Fernandes was a patient man, the detective said, “We can match fingerprints on the wrapper if the same fingerprints are already in the system. If not . . ..” She could almost hear his shrug. “But we must try, yes?”
Since that sounded somewhat conciliatory, she said, “Of course.”
“Half an hour,” he said, and hung up.
Chapter Twenty-One – Candy Wrappers and Doldrums
At the station, Carla followed the sidewalk down to the lower level and stopped by the enclosed kiosk where the policeman on duty screened visitors. He spoke little English, but flagged down Agent Rios, a young, clean-shaven man with a wiry build. Rios listened gravely as she explained that Detective Fernandes had asked her to bring in a piece of evidence for a case he was handling.
“Come this way.” He led Carla past the parked cars, motorcycles, orange trees, and weeping willows to the small building where she’d gone Monday to write out her statement.
Estela was at her desk, on the phone as before, her dark hair bunched in curls on top of her head. Her friendly glance suggested she remembered Carla, but there was no sign of Fernandes. Agent Rios handed Carla a paper and pen and said, “Please write your name, and what you are giving us. The receptionist will give this with your evidence to the detective.”
The receptionist. The detective. Between Rios’s formality and Fernandes’s absence (despite his chilly command to bring the candy wrapper) the message was clear: Persona non-grata. She signed the paper and gave the wrapper, still folded in Natália’s handkerchief, to Estela, while Rios looked on, arms crossed, a bemused look on his face.
Estela put them in a small plastic bag and labeled it. “Obrigada,” she told Carla.
Carla made her steps firm and confident as she left the building, swallowing her disappointment that Fernandes hadn’t been in the office. She had hoped that in person she could explain her intentions calmly and reasonably. But now, as she crossed the patio, she could feel the threads of her argument slipping away. What did Fernandes care that she thought Paulo was innocent of murder? To Fernandes, she was just an interfering snoop who read too many mysteries.
The hovering scent of orange blossoms lifted her spirits. Hunger fluttered in her stomach. It wouldn’t hurt to stop by Centésima Página for a bite and then see if her book had come in.
When she reached Avenida Central, violin music, dreamy and sad, floated from a doorway. The young woman Carla often saw on various streets, wore a long black dress and a white jacket. She stood playing, eyes closed, the violin case at her feet open for contributions. Carla went over and dropped in a euro before entering the elegant baroque building that housed Centésima Página’s bookstore and café.
Helena Veloso, one of the owners, nodded from the register where a customer waited.
Carla spo
tted the clerk who had placed her order for Cara Black’s Murder in Pigalle. “Your book is not here,” he said. “But it should not be long.”
Carla sighed. That could mean tomorrow or next week.
She strolled around the shop for a few minutes. She liked bookstores. The various sections labeled by genre suggested worlds of possibilities, with everything still in place. Centésima Página—Hundredth Pagehad books in several languages, and Carla was reminded of last night’s conversation about Gabriela’s vision for the new hotel’s library lounge.
At the cafeteria bar near the door to the garden, she ordered a plate of cheese and a glass of vinho verde. She took her light lunch past small tables lining the hallway to sit at the table where she and Owen had sat Monday.
Taking a small bite of cheese, Carla pondered the fact that someone had spied on her yesterday and reported her to Fernandes. If only she could talk to Bethany. But Bethany was in the San Francisco office—or would be in a few hours. They wouldn’t Skype until this evening. Natália worked on Fridays, she remembered. Maria was at Costa’s funeral with the newly widowed aunt she disliked. I wonder how that's going. But Carla didn’t feel up to a conversation with Maria, anyway. It could only lead to Paulo and the many issues surrounding him. For the first time since coming to Braga, Carla was assailed with a sense of loneliness.
Doldrums, she told herself, then perked up. One cure for doldrums never failed. She eyed her newest shoes. True, she’d bought them only two days ago. But it wouldn’t hurt to pay another visit to RCC Lux and see if the strawberry pink stilettos were still there.
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