Maria took the chair next to Carla. She scowled at the proprietress, who started toward them from the doorway, then halted.
“Ah não! Is the Americana again!” A hand went to her temple. Carla followed her gaze out the window and saw Tiffany crossing at the corner to their side of the cobbled street.
“Always she bothering me! Every day,” Senhora Gonzaga said in an aggrieved tone. “Two times she come yesterday. Always to ask so many questions. She is worse than you, senhora. Want to know everything about Braga. ‘If you want to know so much,’ I tell her, ‘why you don’t buy guide book? Go to Turismo office.’ But no. Is for her Portuguese background.” Senhora Gonzaga’s palm shot up and she gave a disgusted blink that involved a quick head tilt as well. Carla had to admire the expressiveness of Portuguese body language. She scrutinized Tiffany, who was nearing the door.
Glitzy. Ditzy. Probably grew up watching reality shows.
“She want to know names,” the proprietress grumbled. “Who live here? Who work here? Because her mother’s grandmother was from here.”
“From Braga?” Carla asked.
“Sim.”
Yeah, that figures. Two generations of fitting into American culture. Then maybe Tiffany’s mother had a revived interest in ancestry, leading to Tiffany’s Braga trip.
Tiffany rapped on the glass, apparently oblivious to the sign, and Senhora Gonzaga marched to the door.
“Fechada,” she said loudly.
“I don’t speak Portuguese,” Tiffany whined. Her huge sunglasses slid forward on her thin nose and she pushed them back.
“Café is not open. I have bad headache,” Senhora Gonzaga said.
Tiffany pointed through the plate glass window. “You let them in.”
“Is my niece and her friend.”
Carla exchanged a wry glance with Maria before returning her attention to Tiffany, who was studying them. It was hard to read her expression behind the garish sunglasses.
“I left my wallet here,” Tiffany called. “I need it.”
“You don’t leave no wallet here,” Senhora Gonzaga said loudly. “Maybe is at your hotel. Call this boyfriend you tell me about!”
“Oh. That’s possible. Okay. Yeah. I’ll check.” Tiffany started punching numbers into a cell phone she took from her handbag, then turned her back for what seemed to be an involved conversation, her free hand gesticulating. When she turned around again, her shoulders slumped.
“It’s not there. It had all my money. All my credit cards.”
Remembering her own sick feeling when her purse was taken yesterday, Carla felt a surge of sympathy.
Wait a minute! Wasn’t Tiffany at the gift shop a few minutes ago, buying souvenirs?
“Is not my problem,” Senhora Gonzaga called. “You should report to police.”
“Good idea. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
“Sorry. You always sorry you bother me,” Senhora Gonzaga muttered, turning her back on Tiffany, who was punching phone buttons again.
“She have no shame, that one,” the proprietress told Carla and Maria, jerking a thumb toward the door. “She travel with her namorado, and they are not marry.”
Her face drew up in a remorseful expression. “And now I am sorry for bad temper. I do have headache. Come, we will go upstairs. I make fresh café for you. We talk and no one to disturb us.” She motioned with her chin toward a door that led, Carla realized, to the entry hall of the entrance she’d seen outside.
So, she does live over the café. Still, the café’s access to the building’s entrance was a surprise.
“Come,” Senhora Gonzaga prodded, “and I tell you what you want to know.” She brushed past them and opened the door, managing to look almost chic despite the fact she still wore her apron.
Carla rose. Maria followed suit. Carla slid another quick look at Tiffany, who was walking back and forth, phone to her ear, nodding while chewing at a fingernail.
She could have lost her wallet yesterday. And only discovered it missing at the gift shop a few minutes ago. Tiffany didn’t look like the organized type. Satisfied on that point, Carla half-nodded to Maria. They followed Senhora Gonzaga into the entry hall where dim light filtered from the window in the front door, their steps echoing across the black-and-white marble floor.
“When my husband buy this building,” Senhora Gonzaga told them, “he have the café door put in. In rain, you don’t have to go out. He think of smart things like that.”
“He sounds like a wonderful man,” Carla murmured, since nothing else came to mind.
“But he die and leave me alone.” Senhora Gonzaga’s voice was heavy with resentment.
Over her shoulder, Carla grimaced at Maria. “What a sourpuss,” she mouthed, and then realized “sourpuss” probably wasn’t a familiar term to Maria.
As they followed the proprietress up the remaining stairs, Carla was reminded of mysteries where the victim had gone either upstairs or downstairs and met a poor fate. A shudder ran through her. She willed it away. Owen was right. She did read too many mysteries. Besides, Maria was with her. They were two against one.
And Maria has her ankle knife. That last thought, reassuring as should have been, gave Carla a new shudder. Don’t be melodramatic, she reprimanded herself. We’re here to find out why Senhora Gonzaga lied about Paulo and what she actually saw.
The proprietress unlocked the door on her left.
“Please to come in,” she said with a smile.
Chapter Twenty-Six –Because of Family
They entered directly into the sala de estar. Senhora Gonzaga closed the door behind them, twisting the lock with a little click that made Carla uneasy again. But then, she and Owen always locked the door to their apartment here, too. Braga had a low crime rate, but it was a city, after all, and city habits died hard. They always locked their doors in Piedmont.
Carla took in the décor: Nubby, beige fabric on sofa and chairs to the right. Orange-and-black print throw pillows that accented salmon walls. A dark, rectangular coffee table with a glass top. Two matching end tables.
But the entertainment center across the room spoils the effect, kiddo. Dark wood shelves flanked a large, flat wall TV and held plaster statues of what she took to be saints, along with a vase of yellow and white plastic daisies, stacks of magazines, and a few newspapers that were clearly tabloids. A bulky black purse sprawled on the tabloids like a gigantic paperweight. Overhead, an inexpensive globe lampshade hugged the ceiling.
The dining table and four chairs by the window looked like they might be of ebony. That could be veneer. Dingy, beige carpeting covered the floor. The designer in Carla wanted to revamp the whole room. Politely, she said, “You have an interesting flat.”
The proprietress only said, for the third time, “Please sit.” She motioned with a hand toward the sofa, but Carla walked over to the dinette set by the window, peering out at the geranium-filled, wrought- iron balcony. Across the street, the blue-and-white tiled facade of Costa’s shop gleamed in the morning sun. She hadn’t bothered to notice the brickwork above it before. The curtained windows suggested an apartment. Now she wondered if Costa, like Senhora Gonzaga, had lived above his place of business, away from his estranged wife.
“Please sit,” Senhora Gonzaga insisted. “I will make café.”
Carla turned from the window and pulled out a chair, hanging her handbag on its back. No danger of someone stealing it here. She tilted her head, appraising the opposite wall. A framed print of white and pink roses in a blue vase hung crookedly next to the door Senhora Gonzaga exited. Resisting an urge to get up and go straighten the print, Carla propped her elbows on the table, hands folded against her chin.
Maria took the end chair facing the hall door, and they waited. A round clock on the wall near the same door ticked loudly. Despite the Roman Numerals on its face, Carla doubted it was an antique. She wound her wristwatch for something to do. Already 9:30. As if to confirm that, church bells chimed the half hour. Maria fidgeted
with her purse strap, but whispered, “It is good she has invited us for café in her home. Here she will be comfortable, and she will listen to us.”
Carla nodded. Hospitality had a way of smoothing the rough edges of the most difficult conversations. That was true in business. Hopefully it was true now.
"I should not have spoken angrily to her," Maria admitted.
“She'll understand,” Carla said. “You've lost your uncle. You're upset about your boyfriend.”
Senhora Gonzaga returned, carrying a tray with three small cups of espresso on saucers, a sugar bowl, and a plate of biscoitos—those twisty butter cookies with a tang of orange that made it almost impossible for Carla to eat only one. Inadvertently, Carla licked her lips.
The proprietress smiled at her. “I see you like these, yes? I make them yesterday, but they are just like fresh.” She gave each of them napkins for the cookies and sat across from Carla. Once they were quietly sipping and munching, a pleasant feeling of warmth filled the room.
Maria shared her mother’s recipe for biscoitos with Senhora Gonzaga, then translated for Carla. “The secret is to knead the dough well,” she said, and rubbed her fingers against her palms for demonstration.
Senhora Gonzaga nodded vigorously, smiling. “Sim.” Then, as if a switch had been flicked, her smile faded. Abruptly, she put everything back on the tray and took things back to the kitchen, returning a moment later.
When she sat again, her face was devoid of cheer. Leaning forward, hands flat on the table, she said, “Now we talk. What you want to know?”
Maria said something in Portuguese and Senhora Gonzaga gave a stiff, “Obrigada,” but some inner thought made her lips bunch together.
“I apologized to her for my anger,” Maria explained to Carla.
Good girl! Although the senhora could be a little more gracious about it.
The proprietress turned to Carla. “What you want to know?” she repeated.
“Please, Senhora Gonzaga, tell us what you saw Monday,” Carla said. “It will help the police find the real culprit, and I want to get on with my life.”
“Your life,” the proprietress murmured after a moment. “What of my life?”
Excuse me?
At that, Maria leaned forward, her face wiped clean of apology, and said something in Portuguese. To Carla, she said, “I told her this is not about her life. It is about Paulo’s.”
Hey! My life, too, kiddo!
“Yes, we must speak English for your friend!” Senhora Gonzaga said. Her voice had turned raspy. “Your friend who is so much curious. You really should not be so curious, Senhora Bass.” The woman’s eyes glittered with dislike, as if the earlier warmth had been carried out on the tray with the cups and cookies. Carla was taken aback.
Senhora Gonzaga glowered at Maria. “Is your fault.”
Maria frowned. “What is my fault?”
“Your uncle saves money so we can go to Brazil, because your aunt will not divorce him. ‘We go to Brazil and start new life,’ he tells me. ‘No one will know we are not marry.’” She closed her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. “For three years, I believe him.”
Carla lifted her brows, remembering Senhora Gonzaga’s earlier comment about Tiffany being shameless because she was traveling with a boyfriend. Different rules, apparently.
“You are . . . his . . . his,” Maria stuttered, “his woman.”
Senhora Gonzaga lifted her head, staring at Maria as a queen might regard a peon. Maria lowered her eyes. When she looked up again, the expression in her eyes was fathomless. “What happened?” she asked. “Why didn’t you go to Brazil?”
“Because of you!” The ferocity in Senhora Gonzaga’s voice raised the hairs on Carla’s neck.
Maria flinched. “I don’t understand.”
“You visit his shop. And then he start worry about your chico.” She looked at Carla. “People tell him they see her with a namorado, and he learns it is the same chico who is asking too many questions of him. Roberto don’t tell me what questions, but he says this chico is bad man and bad for her. He will make her forget her studies. You see, her mother have told Roberto her studies is so important.” Senhora Gonzaga’s lip curled.
Maria's face flushed. “Paulo was never a problem for my studies,” she said heatedly. “Is that why you want to get him in trouble?”
Wondering where all of this was going, Carla made her tone soothing as she asked, “What does this have to do with what you brought us upstairs to talk about?”
Senhora Gonzaga took a small candy with metallic wrapping from her apron pocket. Carla froze, watching her unwrap the toffee and pop it into her mouth, then crinkle the paper in her fingers.
“You see,” Senhora Gonzaga said, and Carla stiffened. She was going to hear a confession. In every mystery she had read, confessions didn’t bode well for listeners.
Senhora Gonzaga let the wrapper fall to the floor. Her face puckered as if she were about to cry. “Segunda . . . Monday, he call me at the café. He tell me to meet him after work, because things have change. ‘What kind of things?’ I ask him. ‘Change how?’ But he don’t say. I tell Rosa to look after the café while I go to the shoe sale. Just a quick look, I say. I go to his wine shop instead.
“From the gate on the other side,” Carla murmured. “Into the corridor.” Still, how did she go so quickly?
“There is patio between shops,” Senhora Gonzaga told Maria. “Your friend here knows this. She ask me about it Monday.” The glance she threw Carla radiated ill will.
“Why didn’t Rosa see you cross the street?” Carla asked.
“I send her to get more plates from storage room and to check refrigerator before I leave, and then I walk to Rua de São Gonçalves instead of Rua dos Chãos and come around on street behind Roberto’s shop.
Carla nodded. The trip she had imagined, minus the detour to Avenida Central. It probably saved the proprietress nearly ten minutes each way. On return, it wouldn’t be hard to see through the glass door where Rosa was standing and then enter when her back was turned.
“I go into his office from patio,” Senhora Gonzaga said. “I hear you in shop, senhora, paying for your Port. I wait in office for you to leave. Then I come into shop. I tell him, ‘What kind of things have change we must talk?’ But I already know.
“‘We cannot talk now,’ he tells me. ‘The Americana will come back. I gave her something she will return when she finds out.’”
Senhora Gonzaga fingered the bib of her apron, her mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “You see, he is like that. He figure people out, how to use them. He use me, but I don’t know that for so long time. He make promises, but he only like having affair.”
“What did he want to talk about?” Carla asked, the dull weight in her stomach telling her she already knew. No more Brazil.
Senhora Gonzaga made a snorting sound, as if disgusted. “He say we cannot go away like we plan. He don’t love his wife, but he cannot do such thing to his children or his niece!” She fairly shouted “niece”. “As if his sons care about him! As if—”
“His sons do care about him,” Maria said. “It is their mother they find . . . difficult.”
“But you!” Senhora Gonzaga snarled. “He say you don’t have no one to look after you in Braga if he is not here. The other uncles have die or move to other countries. ‘Family comes first,’ he tells me. But what about me, e? What about me?”
“I should have visited him more,” Maria said in a low voice. Her eyes were wet.
“He was probably happy you visited him as much as you did,” Carla murmured.
“Yes! Comfort her!” Senhora Gonzaga’s voice was full of spite. “But who is there to comfort me? I don’t have family. My husband and I were not bless with children. When my husband die, Roberto comfort me. He was all I have.” She held a clenched fist to her mouth and closed her eyes.
“What happened?” Carla asked softly.
“He tell me, ‘We still go on as before.’ He try to .
. . to hold me, but I push him away, I am so angry. I push him hard, and he falls.” Senhora Gonzaga burst into tears. “I have killed him,” she sobbed.
“It was an accident,” Carla said, and the relief sweeping over her that she wasn’t dealing with a cold-blooded murderess made her almost giddy. “You have to go to the police and tell them how it happened.” She searched through her handbag for her pack of tissues. Finding it, she handed it to Senhora Gonzaga. “They won’t consider it murder. I’m sure you’ll be treated fairly.”
Senhora Gonzaga ignored her outstretched hand. “My café will fail. My husband and I start it so many years ago, and it will be ruin. No one will come again ever.” She swiped at the tears on her cheek with the back of her hand. “No, senhora, I cannot do that.
“And you, Maria,” she said, “I am sorry you worry about this Paulo. He is not good for you, but I understand how a man make you foolish.” Getting up, Senhora Gonzaga walked over to the huge purse that was sitting on the tabloids and brought it back to the table. She put it on the table, then unsnapped it, peering into it a moment.
A gun! Carla felt her forehead turn suddenly damp with perspiration. Don’t go up those stairs. Don’t go into the spider’s web. Don’t . . . She shot a quick glance at Maria, who looked equally alarmed.
But Senhora Gonzaga only took out a compact, then a tube of lipstick, which she carefully applied to her lips, smoothing the soft color with her little finger. “Is shame,” she said, and gave an odd laugh. “When I eat biscoitos, I eat lipstick, too.” She took out a tissue and dabbed at her wet cheeks, regarding herself in the compact mirror for a long moment before putting it back in her purse.
“Bem,” she said softly, and she hung the oversized purse on the back of her chair. As if just realizing she still wore her apron, she untied the strings behind her neck and took it off, hanging it next to her purse. “I am forgetting,” she told them. “We are not in café downstairs.”
Now that the proprietress seemed calm again, Carla saw her chance. ‘If you explain to the police that it was an accident,” she began.
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