Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_05

by Death on the River Walk

  I turned over page after page, and when I was done I shivered. Man has always been tempted by gold, seduced by gold. This was a blood-drenched treasure.

  If I was right, if these were the objects that had been found by Iris in the wardrobe, there was danger indeed at Tesoros. But I had no proof. I needed to know more, much more. The place to start was with the dead man.

  Yes, this was the dossier I desperately wanted and now I had it, thanks to Emily and Warren’s friend Cal. I read swiftly:

  Edward Friedrich Schmidt, b. July 18, 1950, San Antonio, father clerk in a hardware store, mother homemaker. Only child. Father alcoholic, died when Ed was twelve. Mother worked as a clerk at local grocery store. Graduate Catholic High School. Two years at San Antonio University. Drafted 1970, one year tour Vietnam, honorable discharge 1972. Grew up in a modest neighborhood near the King William district. Area now undergoing gentrification, arts and craft shops and upscale restaurants near by on Alamo. Inherited the house from his widowed mother, lives there alone. Erratic work history. Heavy drinker. Spent several years in Houston working at a petrochemical plant after his discharge from the Army. Ten years in El Paso, clerking in an art store. Returned to San Antonio in 1990, when his mother became ill. A neighbor, Julian Worth, often traveled to Mexico on buying trips for local galleries and Ed sometimes accompanied him. In recent years, Ed made solo buying trips. Another neighbor, Rollo Barrett, complained to the police about Schmidt’s cat, claimed he trespassed on his property and destroyed flowerbeds.

  In re investigation, Cal Jenkins’s report continued, police source says Detective Borroel conferring with DA. Charges expected against Manuel Garza, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Pottery bank in cleaning pail determined to be murder weapon. Polished clean, no fingerprints or bloodstains, but shape consistent with contusions on victim’s head. Motive thought to be attack on intruder in Tesoros, possibly second degree murder or even manslaughter because of suspect’s impaired capability.

  The next sheet contained the data on Manuel:

  Manuel Alphonso Garza, b. March 11, 1955. Attended private classes for handicapped children. Although he has never spoken, Manuel comprehends a great deal about his surroundings. He communicates by creating shadows with hand movements. Manuel focuses on cleanliness, spending most of his days washing the front windows of Tesoros. Despite his handicap, Manuel has a sunny temperament, smiling often. He is affectionate with family members. He has never been known to exhibit anger or hostility. However, he withdraws and will cry when confused or frightened and becomes uneasy if taken away from familiar surroundings.

  I put down the fax sheets and felt a wash of anguish. What would it do to Manuel to be jailed? Even though no one would abuse him, he would be cut off from his family, placed in a cell, made to wear strange clothing. He would be utterly terrified. And to be arraigned in a courtroom…

  Anguish was succeeded by an icy anger—anger at Rick, who was still lying, and anger at the unknown member of that clever family who had unlocked the front door of Tesoros for a drunken Ed Schmidt.

  I glanced at my watch. Almost noon. The tables and booths were filling. Light, cheerful voices surrounded me. I pushed away my half-eaten lunch. I paid my bill and hurried out into another steamy forenoon. I found a pay phone with a tattered phone book still attached to a twisted chain. I looked up three addresses.

  Odd how appearances deceive. The front of Tesoros had presented its customary elegance to the world this morning, untouched by violent death. The modest frame house on the quiet street off Alamo appeared equally unaffected by the bloody end of its owner.

  Ed Schmidt’s house, his childhood residence, his last home, was a one-story bungalow, probably built in the early thirties. I loved that old-fashioned style of house that always reminded me of the Uncle Wiggily stories I long ago read to the children. There was a front porch, of course, another vestige of a different America. A forest-green wooden swing was tucked close to a lattice covered with honeysuckle.

  Someone—Ed?—was a dedicated gardener. Pansies, impatiens, and petunias flourished in the front beds. A Whitmani fern grew lushly in a striking blue-and-white pottery pot near the door.

  A folded newspaper lay near the steps. That was the only hint of disorder.

  As I started up the steps, a gate creaked. “I didn’t know whether to pick up the newspaper.” The voice was thin and wheezy. “I always kept them for Ed when he was out of town.” An old woman, a very old woman, shuffled the few feet from her dandelion-spangled lawn to the weedless, recently mowed grass in Ed’s yard. Gauzy black hair, almost purplish from cheap dye, fluffed over her head, revealing patches of shiny scalp. Her face was as wrinkled as an ancient elephant’s hide, but her rheumy eyes scanned me carefully. “You with the police?” She sounded doubtful.

  “No, ma’am. I was hoping to talk to someone here.” I pointed at Ed’s house. “You know he went on buying trips to Mexico—”

  Her head bobbed like a marionette.

  “—and he was going to look for a silver-and-tortoiseshell necklace for me. He told me he’d have it for me today, but when I called this morning, a policeman answered.”

  Again that fluffy head nodded.

  “Of course, I’m dreadfully sorry about what happened.” There was no delicate way to say one regretted a man’s murder.

  She wore a pink housecoat with a frenzy of lace at the neck and scuffed, once-pink terry-cloth slippers. “I saw the police car.” No doubt little escaped her notice. “I came out on my porch. The policeman came over to see me. He wanted to know if I’d seen Ed last night and if he was with anybody. He said Ed was found dead on the River Walk outside that fancy store, Tesoros.”

  Obviously, Detective Borroel was running true to form. He said little and what he said was true but unrevealing.

  “The detective said someone hit him on the head.” She put her hands on her hips and peered at me. “I always thought Ed would come to a bad end, but I figured it would be in a bar somewhere or a car wreck. Ed drank too much.”

  It was my turn to nod. I gestured toward the house. “Is there anyone I can talk to? I don’t want to intrude, but I’m leaving town soon and I’d like to know if he was able to make that purchase for me. Do you know who’s in charge of the estate?”

  She rubbed her nose with a thin finger. “Probably Ed’s cousin, Greta. Lives in Pampas, I think. But if you know what the necklace looks like—”

  “Oh yes, black tortoiseshell interspersed with oblong silver beads and a clasp shaped like a beetle.” I put on my most earnest expression. “I wouldn’t take it with me,” I said virtuously. “I haven’t paid for it yet. But if it’s there, I’ll get in touch with his cousin. If it isn’t in his house, I won’t take up her time.”

  “Well”—she dropped a hand into the pocket of her housecoat and metal jangled—“I have keys to his house ’cause I kept things right for him when he was gone. He always said, ‘Mrs. Jackson, I never worry about the place when I’m gone.’ And he was good to me, always brought me a present and sometimes he gave me cash. I don’t have much money, you know,” she confided, “just my late husband’s social security and it doesn’t stretch too far. I was glad to help out and when I saw the police car this morning, I went out to look. The detective was very nice to me. After he told me about Ed, I went over and brought Sammie home. That’s Ed’s cat.”

  As we stepped onto the porch, she reached down to stroke a huge orange tom. “Papa’s not coming home, Sammie. But you’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

  She poked a key into the front door. I asked casually, “Now, Ed’s last trip, let’s see, that was in August, wasn’t it?”

  She stepped inside, flipped on the living room light. “Yes. He was gone the last two weeks in August.”

  I kept my expression pleasant, but I felt like shouting. It was like poking the right piece into a complicated puzzle. The robbery at the National Museum occurred August 22. The odds on cocaine in the wardrobe continued to dwindle in my m
ind.

  We stood in the little entryway, the small living room to the right, the dining room to the left. The living room surprised me, cheerful with bright cushions on white wicker furniture, a crimson-and-black sārape on one wall, small oil paintings, mostly of San Miguel de Allende, on another, and brilliantly glazed pottery scattered everywhere. A spectacular big black-glazed pot stood near the fireplace, obviously the finest piece in the room.

  The room smelled fuggily of bourbon and stale cigarette smoke. A bottle, a shot glass, and a half-filled tumbler sat by a stub-filled brass ashtray on a low coffee table. An oversize coffee table book lay open to a glittering green scene of rolling pastoral country. Even from here, I could read the script: The Glory of the Emerald Isle. The open bottle, the murky half-filled tumbler, and the ashtray were the only signs of disorder, clashing with the serenity of the room.

  “Ed kept a nice house. I do give him credit there. And when he was himself, he was the best neighbor in the world.” She glanced at the profusion of greenery in glazed pots. “I suppose I’d better water his ferns, keep them nice for his cousin.” She pattered away toward the kitchen.

  I moved swiftly around the room. Ed Schmidt had been an orderly man. I stepped close to the bookcase and photos of Ed when young—in the Army, on a small boat, walking along a beach, on a tennis court. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. Always men.

  I heard steps behind me. I turned, shaking my head. “I don’t see anything here that could be mine.” I pointed at an unframed snapshot lying in the bookcase. “That’s a very nice picture, the one with Ed standing by that huge sculpture.” The sun splashed on Ed’s face. He looked powerful, determined, and smug. I thought this photograph—had he asked another tourist to take it? I felt certain he’d been alone—was the equivalent of thumbing his nose at the world. Unless I was mightily mistaken, this picture was taken in front of the monument to the god Tlaloc at the entrance to the National Museum of Anthropology. I smiled at Mrs. Jackson. “I’ve been there. The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.”

  For all the reaction in his elderly neighbor’s face, I might equally have named an orbiting space station.

  She squinted at the photo. “Sad to see him having so much fun and not knowing he had so little time left. I think this was made on his last trip. It wasn’t here until this week.” She looked around the room. “If you didn’t see your necklace, let’s take a look in his office. It’s a little cubbyhole by his bedroom.”

  I followed her down the short hall. There is something incredibly intimate about seeing a man’s bedroom. The green cotton spread stretched tight and smooth on the old fashioned maple spool bed. A monogrammed silver-backed hairbrush and matching comb sat atop a lace doily on the dresser. I’d bet doilies had been scattered about the house when he was young. Had he kept this one out of deference to his mother? It appeared freshly washed. A paperback of Barbara Tuchman’s The Zimmerman Telegram and a half-empty pack of Camels lay on the bedside table. The closet door was closed. No clothing was discarded on the bed or straight chair near the dresser.

  “Here’s his little office.” She stood aside for me to look into a pine-paneled room that had obviously been added to the back of the house.

  I would have loved to go through the green filing cabinets, though I doubted there was a folder tabbed “Stolen Gold.” Another fern graced the top of the cabinet. The desk was bare except for the hand tooled leather pad and a fishbowl. Two goldfish darted excitedly.

  “Oh, yes, I’d better feed Spenser and Hawk.” She pulled out the shallow desk drawer and picked out a shaker of fish food.

  Maybe that’s when my distasteful recollection of a whisky-breathed man trembling with anger and a shrunken bloodied corpse was overlaid by another picture, that of a cultivated lonely man who drank too much but loved his cat, sought structure and order and beauty in his surroundings and harbored a hunger for gallantry and romance.

  She slid the cover shut on the fish food, replaced the container in the drawer. “I don’t see anything like that necklace you wanted.”

  I shook my head regretfully and walked toward the hallway. “I guess he didn’t have a chance to get it. Or who knows,” I said brightly, “perhaps he’d already mailed it to me and I’ll find it when I get home.” On the front porch, I waited as she shut the door, locked it.

  When we reached the sidewalk, I opened my purse. “Mrs. Jackson, Ed told me he had a friend who also dealt in jewelry. Now I can’t remember who he said. Do you know any of these faces?”

  She squinted at the newspaper clip of the Garza family. “Can’t say that I do. But I didn’t know Ed’s friends.” Her eyes dropped to the ground. “He went out a lot but when he came home with company it was usually late at night.”

  I put the sheet back in my purse, pulled a twenty-dollar bill from a side pocket. I smiled at her. “I like cats a lot, Mrs. Jackson. Please use this to help take care of Sammie.”

  For an instant, she hesitated. But I wasn’t offering her money. It was for Sammie. Her wrinkled face shone. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  As I walked away, she called out. “I’m sorry about your necklace.”

  I wasn’t. It had turned out to be a damn fine piece of work.

  I checked my second address. Across the street. The distance was short but the contrast dramatic. I climbed the steps to an almost identical bungalow, but there were no ferns here. Instead, broken pieces of shingles littered the porch, the raffia mat in front of the door was scuffed with mud, and a dog barked ferociously when I pushed the doorbell.

  Old venetian blinds, some of the slats missing, masked the windows. A thud against the inside of the door suggested Rover was big, irritable, and would be pleased to imprint his canines on my throat.

  I rang several more times, but apparently Rollo Barrett was not at home. If he held a nine-to-five job, that figured. I glanced at my watch. Shortly after noon. So I couldn’t ask Mr. Barrett about the neighbor he obviously didn’t like and why he didn’t like him. I doubted it had to do with big bad Sammie. These flowerbeds hadn’t been cultivated in years.

  I skirted a broken-down pickup leaning on a bare axle, and stepped into a beautifully kept yard with a magnificent magnolia as its centerpiece. As I neared the steps of a freshly painted white frame house with bright green shutters, the front door opened.

  Perhaps nothing tells you more about a man or woman than how they dress. Dress reveals class, attitude, status, mood, and temperament.

  At a glance, I knew the man on the porch loved fine clothing, resisted change, and took pride in himself. The embroidered soft cotton shirt had been washed many times, but each ruffle was painstaking ironed. His gray worsted-wool trousers, unpleated, were worn but the crease was perfect. The heavy belt buckle, a ram’s head, glistened like a tea-shop pitcher. His moccasin-style loafers had the supple softness of old leather, lovingly polished. Gnarled hands gripped the silver knob of a thick black cane. He wore his silvery hair long, held back with a turquoise-beaded thong. But it was his eyes that held fascination and power, coal-dark eyes in a face made interesting because it was slightly off center, the left eyebrow lifted into the domed forehead, the jutting high-bridged nose with a lumpy middle, the thin mouth so long tilted in a quizzical moue that it never changed.

  I reached the porch steps. “Mr. Worth?” Ed Schmidt had often traveled with his neighbor Julian Worth on art-seeking trips in Mexico.

  “Yes. I’m Julian Worth.” He was frowning. “You went into Ed’s house.” His voice was somber. Abruptly his dark eyes filmed with tears.

  “I’m sorry.” And I was.

  “We were old friends. Very old friends.” He stared at the now deserted house, struggling with the awful finality of death, knowing that Ed Schmidt would never again kneel beside a flowerbed and feel moist dirt on his hands and the hot San Antonio sun on his back. Then he looked at me. “I don’t know you.” Worth’s voice was cold.

  I didn’t dare claim a friendship with Ed Schmidt. This ma
n, this neighbor across the street, this fellow seeker of art treasures, knew that I was a stranger. But Worth’s eyes had filled with tears…I took a chance.

  “I’m trying to find out what happened to Ed Schmidt. I’m Henrie Collins, a friend of Maria Elena Garza’s. You may know that Ed was found in front of Tesoros…” I broke off at his nod. No, I didn’t need to explain Tesoros to a man who knew Mexican art. “There is a terrible possibility that the police may try and blame her handicapped son Manuel for Ed’s murder. I’m trying to help Maria Elena discover what happened last night.”

  I climbed the steps, stood beside him on the porch, smelled the after-aroma of a cigar and a faint touch of spicy cologne. “Will you tell me about Ed?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “Why should I?”

  “It is something you can do in his memory,” I said softly.

  Finally, he nodded. “I haven’t seen much of Ed for a long time now.” His mouth curled down. “He hasn’t had any time for me the last few years.” He turned away, the cane jabbing against the wooden floor. He sat on a white wicker chair and glared across the street.

  I took the chair on the other side of a garden table. “Why not?”

  “Too busy. He just took what he wanted from me, learned enough about buying to do it on his own. As soon as he could manage by himself, he didn’t go to Mexico with me anymore. But until then we had so many grand trips. Ed was always ready to try anything, go anywhere. Once—” he looked at me, eyes shining with memory—“in Acapulco, he dived from the cliffs. Ed did. Oh, it was late at night and no one saw, no one except me.” Remembered awe lifted his voice. “I never knew anyone like Ed. He would do anything, try anything. But he was insatiable, always looking for more excitement, a greater thrill…” His hands gripped the cane, his face ridged. “But finally he was always too busy to see me and then”—he turned his head and his eyes bored into mine—“he lied to me. He deceived me. For money.” His mouth twisted in that wry, weary half-smile, half-grimace.