“It doesn’t matter, sir. It’s over.”
“Indeed,” Armada said, gravely concerned. “I can’t help but feel responsible for this. I shouldn’t have let you go.”
“But sir—”
“No. This is entirely my fault. And I can’t apologise enough,” Armada said. The day was going from bad to worse. The case had fallen apart, and now Lucas had nearly been killed. Perhaps it was time to cut his losses and head back to Granada willingly. It was possible that this case had defeated him after all. He had no suspects, no new leads to follow, and now peoples’ lives were in danger. Armada couldn’t quite make out how he’d gotten to this point, but here he was.
Bresson had grown bored with the exchange and headed toward the door. “Remember, Armada. Two days to make your preparations, then you head out. And I’ll be checking to make sure. I would hate to drag you back to Granada in irons, but I will if I must.”
Armada had few doubts that Bresson would follow through on such a threat.
“What will you do about the case?” Armada asked.
“What you should have done to begin with!” Bresson barked. “I’m going to find Miguel Guillen, and then I’m going to hang him.”
“But he is innocent.”
“Is that what he told you?” Bresson said. “Every criminal I’ve ever met has told me they’re innocent.”
“Bresson, you can’t. This isn’t justice.”
“Good night, Armada,” Bresson said as he slipped from the room.
Armada stood, frustrated with everything that had happened. He went over to his sherry barrel in the corner, only to find it emptied. A sticky spot on the floor just below the spigot suggested it had been allowed to flow freely, and his favourite glass to drink it in was on the floor in the corner of the room, having dropped from Bresson’s fingers and rolled into the corner. The indignity of it all was almost too much for Armada.
“Sir,” Lucas said, coughing.
“Now don’t strain yourself, Lucas. Rest. And we’ll try to get you seen by a better doctor when we get back to Granada. For now, you should try to get some sleep.”
“Yes, sir, it’s just that…well…I found something in Motril. It’s a bit of a long story, but…Cristina Lopez never left Salobreña.”
Lucas’ words were a shock. “What do you mean she never left?”
“I found the man Pablo Ortega hired to take her to Motril, where the ship was waiting. But she never arrived. And Ortega was the one that cancelled the trip.”
“It’s—” Armada forgot what he was going to say. The implications of everything had him putting together the pieces of the puzzle at such a frightening rate that his mind could barely keep up. “She never left,” he whispered. “Of course. It’s been in front of our faces the whole time.”
“Sir?”
“She never left!” Armada shouted, grinning. “Which means this whole affair is about…of course…”
Armada grabbed his coat.
“Where are you going, sir? Bresson said you weren’t supposed to—”
“Yes, I’m aware of what Bresson said. You’ve done fine work today, Lucas. Fine work!” Armada said, patting Lucas’ shoulder. “But if what you say is true, I’m going to need proof. And I think I know where to get it.”
Armada dug through the bags of provisions piled in the corner before producing a small iron spade.
“Try to get some rest, Lucas. And if Bresson asks where I am…”
“I understand, sir,” Lucas said. Without another word, Armada rushed from the room.
It wasn’t hard to avoid Bresson. He was hardly the kind of man who would stand guard at the door all night—not with a tavern only a short walk away. Bresson was an excellent tracker, one of the best, which meant even if he were full of ale, if he found Armada gone, it wouldn’t take him long to track him down. Lucas knew what to do if interrogated. They’d practiced it many times over the years. Lucas would lie with conviction, just enough to throw the pursuer off the scent and send him in the wrong direction for a while, enough to buy Armada the time to do what needed to be done. For Armada would never abandon Lucas, he would always return. And Armada didn’t worry himself about Bresson hurting Lucas. For there would be severe consequences toward such an act at the Brotherhood, something Bresson knew full well.
Armada walked out the front door of the inn and kept his hat low in the fading twilight, keeping his spade tucked up under his sleeveless coat and down by his leg, where it wouldn’t be easily seen.
All the way out of town, Armada tried not to get his hopes up. He would be using the spade in the dark. A half-moon hung in the sky, but was not terribly bright. Armada struggled to see the road in front of him as he walked out of town and down the path to the delta. All around he could see the outlines of various bushes and shrubs and trees, all whooshing as their branches caught the wind that lashed them about. Dust blew in the air as well, which caused Armada to cover his face with his hand, making it harder to see where he was walking. A few times he stumbled over a boulder, or an old branch left on the ground. He fought to stay on his feet. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find anything in such darkness.
Armada wished he could wait until the morning light, but he was out of time. His nine-day timeline had vanished the moment Bresson had arrested him. By tomorrow he would be heaved into the cage on the back of his own cart, or lashed in irons to the front bench, and Bresson would not take his eyes off him until they reached the brick building that housed the Holy Brotherhood, just across the mulberry-lined road from the Alhambra Palace. And while he was dragged in front of the majordomo to explain what had happened, here in Salobreña they would be burying Jose Padilla’s body. It was easy for Armada to imagine the faces of Esmerelda, her children, and all of Jose’s family standing there by the gravesite. Most of them full of frustration, or rage, wondering why such a dear man had to be taken. Much of that rage would be directed toward the Holy Brotherhood, or Armada himself, and perfectly justified. Such rage didn’t dissipate easily, and he had little doubt Jose Padilla’s children would carry it around with them wherever in the world they went.
And all of it was avoidable, if he could just find the proof that he knew was there. Armada pushed on, blazing his way through the darkness of the narrow little tracks that criss-crossed the delta, on his way to what was becoming a very familiar place.
Armada rushed past Jose’s cortijo, staying as far from it as possible. He could see movement inside. A few candles had been lit. Perhaps the children were being put to bed. Was Jose there? It was impossible to tell without getting closer. Armada hoped he was. He hoped Jose had reconciled with Esmerelda and his children at least, even if it not with his entire family yet. Sadly, in such situations, sometimes one’s reputation would be ruined forever. There may have always been those in Jose’s family now that suspected he was guilty of something, and would never fully trust him. It was the risk all constables took when they attempted to untangle a crime such as this. Sometimes men like Armada got it wrong, and the damage done to someone’s honour could be permanent.
It was easy to find his way over Jose’s harvested field. What little moonlight there was, now splashed over the flat landscape and bathed everything in a cold, blue light that was strong enough to highlight the outlines of the many circular cane stumps that now littered the ground. Many of the stumps had been cut at angles, leaving sharp edges poking up that could easily pierce a shoe, or worse. Armada picked his way through this forest of stumps until he’d reached his destination.
He was now standing on the narrow, overgrown trail that separated Jose’s field from the fallow field to the south. It was here where the entire case seemed to rest. And Armada now marched out into the fallow field, brushing past an endless gauntlet of prickly vines and shrubs, attempting to use the feeble moonlight to find something he would struggle to find in the light of day.
It was funny, really. How long had it been since he’d told Lucas that trespassing around
an empty field would lead him nowhere? Perhaps the boy was rubbing off on him. How was it that circumstances had led him to being the one stomping around in the mud in the middle of the night?
Armada felt the ground beneath his right foot suddenly give way. He fell into a small pit, feeling the cool rush of water swirl about his calf, soaking his shoe and his trousers. But it was a grand feeling, for it meant that he’d found it.
Armada pushed the debris away to find that he was now standing in a small canal that led out into the middle of the fallow field somewhere. Following this canal, he made his way toward the source. Or, at least, what had been intended as the source.
Remembering Lucas’ words about how the canals had never been quite finished, Armada followed the canals until he reached the spot where they seemed to just stop. Armada now climbed out of the canal to search the ground.
Lucas had said Jose, Amparo, and Miguel had stopped digging just before reaching the spring itself. Several nights’ work had all been abandoned, work that Jose had already paid for. It had never quite made sense to Armada. Jose had said he’d been overwhelmed by a sudden attack of conscience, but Armada had never believed that. Jose was a man who planned ahead. The moral implications of what he’d been doing would have been worked out long before he’d ever paid money to men to begin the work.
But now it made perfect sense. Armada went right to the very edge of where the work had stopped. He pulled away as much of the debris as he could, feeling various nettles and thorns pricking his hands and arms as he did so. Although it looked quite natural, when Armada pulled the weeds away he could see most of them had been uprooted from somewhere else and placed here deliberately, as cover to hide something.
That was when Armada found it—a large hole, freshly dug, two paces wide, three paces long, and quite deep. No one had bothered to cover it. And it was the hole the canals led to, a hole that stood between the canals and the spring. It was the reason Jose and Amparo and Miguel had stopped digging that night. It was the reason Jose and Amparo had argued about the past so virulently. It was the reason Amparo was murdered.
And whatever it was, it was now gone.
“I would have thought you’d be halfway to Malaga by now,” came the voice of Bresson from the darkness on the edge of the moonlight.
“I would have thought you’d be passed out drunk by now.”
“I can handle my drink better than that, Armada,” Bresson said as he stepped close enough for Armada to see him.
“What are you doing out here, eh?”
Armada surveyed the empty hole. “This was it. The reason Amparo Rodriguez was killed was right here.”
“It’s a hole.”
“Not a hole,” Armada said. “A grave. Of a woman named Cristina Lopez. And it lay undisturbed here for twenty years, until Jose Padilla, Miguel Guillen, and Amparo Rodriguez uncovered it quite by accident one night. It must have been quite a shock.”
“So, where’s the body?” Bresson asked.
“It seems someone is eager to keep it from being found,” Armada said. “And at this point it is pretty obvious who that someone is.”
“Let’s go back, eh?” Bresson said. “No more grave-robbing for tonight.”
“We have to arrest Pablo Ortega,” Armada said.
Bresson laughed. “You aren’t arresting anyone, especially not him. I have been given strict orders to leave him alone. And I already have someone to hang for this crime.”
“But this is what the case has all been about!” Armada shouted.
“Based on what, huh? A hole in the ground?”
Bresson was right. Armada had no proof of anything. No confessions, no body. Just suspicions and insinuation. And that was hardly enough to clasp an alcalde in chains, especially as it was clear Ortega hadn’t been joking about his political connections.
Besides, he still couldn’t be sure it was Ortega who’d plunged the knife into Amparo’s chest anyway. He’d never thought to ask Ortega where he’d been the day of Amparo’s murder. But it was unlikely he was stomping around on the delta somewhere, as he would have been noticed quite easily. Ortega had all the motivation in the world to want Amparo dead. For if Amparo were blackmailing him, and Ortega had refused to pay, he would be ruined. Even if Ortega managed to use his connections to avoid the hangman’s noose, he would be left destitute. And that, Armada reckoned, was a fate worse than death to a man like Ortega. And, certainly, one worth killing someone to avoid.
To prove anything, however, Armada needed more time. And from Bresson’s grin, he was not going to get it tonight. Armada climbed out of the hole and let Bresson escort him back to town, this time, in irons.
Chapter Thirty
Two days later, Lucas stood outside the door to Armada’s room, unsure of what he would find inside. It was early morning, with just enough cold blue sunlight filtering in through a window at the end of the corridor to see by. Lucas hadn’t seen or heard from Armada since that first night after Bresson had taken over. Armada had preferred to be alone with his thoughts, and had paid for Lucas to have his own room until they would set off for Granada. He’d given very specific instructions that he should not be disturbed until it was time to leave.
Thus, Lucas had busied himself going around town gathering supplies, making sure their cart was in good repair and well stocked, feeding the mule, and other mundane tasks, most of which were not entirely necessary. Lucas had no idea what was going on and it was driving him mad. He needed to keep busy, and with little in the way of money, that wasn’t easy to do.
But the time had finally come, after a restless night spent wondering what would happen when they got back to Granada. Armada had never been replaced on a case before. The political strings must have been pulled quite hard. And this left Lucas wondering whether he would still have a job in the end. Would this finally be the case that got the old man sacked? There had been so many times before, more times than Lucas cared to remember, when Armada had ruffled the wrong feathers politically. He’d always known that eventually Armada would take one step too far in his pursuit of absolute justice. It was inevitable. But Lucas hadn’t planned on it happening quite so quickly.
Lucas knocked on the door. “Sir? Are you up?”
“Of course, I am up, Lucas. Come in!”
Lucas hadn’t expected such a bright, cheery response. He pushed the unlocked door open to find the room completely covered in stacks of paper, all ripped from the case files they had brought, and all with random scribblings.
The opening of the door brought in a breeze that caused several of the papers to scatter.
“Close the door, Lucas! For God’s sake. These papers are very carefully ordered.”
Lucas came in and quickly closed the door behind him as Armada rushed over to rearrange some of the papers. The flat was quite small, and with all the scattered papers, Lucas found it difficult to walk without stepping all over them.
Lucas now got a close look at Armada and could tell he hadn’t slept much. Dark rings encircled his wide bloodshot eyes. It was as if he were trying his best to hold his eyes open so as not to fall asleep.
That’s when Lucas noticed the sherry glass Armada seemed to be clutching for dear life. It was half full, and Lucas noticed the sherry barrel in the corner. It was grimy and covered with moss, obviously purchased from the tavern at great expense. Lucas could tell that it hadn’t been stored properly, which meant the contents were nearly undrinkable by Armada’s usual standards. How desperate he must have been.
Armada paced about, rubbing the back of his head and breathing heavily.
“Sir, are you feeling all right?”
“Yes, Lucas. I’m fine.”
“What is all this?” Lucas asked, gesturing to the papers on the floor.
“Oh, just some notes. Been trying to make sense of things.”
“Have you had much luck, sir?”
Armada said nothing and only stared at two sheets of paper next to his right foot.
�
��Sir?”
Lucas gave up. When Armada was focused like this, there was no pulling him out of his trance until he pulled himself out. Instead Lucas focused his attention on the papers and saw some had names written on them, or events or clues they had found, and even passages of conversation written in quotes. Others had abbreviations that Lucas couldn’t understand and scribblings that could only be called indecipherable. It was all very unusual, as Armada had never approached a difficult case like this before. Lucas took it as a sign of desperation. Armada must have been up all this time, trying different processes and approaches, to untangle the mess the case had become.
Armada finally got down on his knees and picked up one of the sheets. It lay in the middle of all the other papers, like a plaza in the middle of a town map. Armada shook it at Lucas.
“It all comes back to Cristina Lopez,” Armada said. “Assuming, of course, those were her bones that Jose Padilla, Amparo Rodriguez, and Miguel Guillen found that night when they were digging the canals. But that is an assumption that I make with confidence at this point.”
Armada put the paper back in the middle of others.
“The way I see it, Lucas, we have three suspects that have credible motivations to kill Amparo Rodriguez. First…” Armada tiptoed gingerly over the papers, trying not to disturb them, as he hopped over toward the bed. He plucked one piece of paper up and held it aloft. “There is Jose Padilla. I thought for so long that he was being blackmailed by Amparo, but I only got it half right. Amparo Rodriguez was blackmailing someone, but not Jose. He was blackmailing Pablo Ortega. Now look at this from Jose’s point of view—if Pablo Ortega knew Jose and his men had found the bones of Cristina Lopez, he would probably pursue some sort of revenge. In this case, a lawsuit brought against Jose Padilla for stealing water from his spring. A lawsuit Jose does not have the money to fight and would undoubtedly lead to his financial ruin.”
Armada pointed to several other pieces of paper in a line that led back to Cristina Lopez. One said, “Amparo blackmail,” the next “lawsuit,” and the next “murder.”
The Domingo Armada Mysteries Box Set Page 19