Navarro stood up and went to take another look at the body. He shook his head.
“Tell them we have to take the body,” the doctor said, finally.
“Why would they take the body? Aren’t the cops supposed to come?” Daisy asked.
Viridian translated Daisy’s question. Navarro shook his head. “Cops! She thinks there are, plural, ‘cops.’ But he’s an American. They’ll expect a proper examination and I can’t examine him here.”
“What?”
“They should talk to Maximiliano and Homero in the morning,” the doctor said, sounding slightly annoyed as he turned to Cipriano. “Put him in your truck, all right?”
“What’s happening?”
“He’ll examine the body, issue a medical certificate and give it to Maximiliano. That’s the civil registry clerk, and then the civil registry clerk will, if necessary, get the district attorney involved. Only there’s no district attorney here. There is one cop, Homero, so he’ll be called tomorrow,” Viridiana said, trying to explain. At least, this was what she thought would happen. It’s more or less what had happened with the hippies. Now that she recalled, Navarro had called them “beatnicks,” as he complained about that episode while playing dominoes at Viridiana’s house. Navarro was older. To him hippies and beatnicks were the same thing.
“Tomorrow? And they’d call a district attorney?”
“If the civil registry clerk deems it necessary,” Viridiana said. “If he suspects a violent death.”
“He fell.”
“Maximiliano and Homero will talk about that tomorrow. Maximiliano Parra is the clerk, Homero Flores is the cop.”
“Yes, who cares about their names. Then there’s no statements? There’s what, whatever they feel like believing? Whatever he feels like writing down on that certificate?” Daisy asked. She sounded agitated.
“Daisy, why don’t you go upstairs?” Gregory said. “They’re moving the body, anyway.”
Cipriano and his son had grabbed hold of Ambrose, one lifting him by the shoulders, the other taking the legs, and they were walking out. He’d be dumped onto the pick-up truck and tossed in the doctor’s office for him to examine.
Daisy crossed her arms but she didn’t go upstairs.
Navarro bid them goodnight and told Viridiana they should speak to Maximiliano at eleven the next morning. He’d have his certificate done by then. Suddenly they were alone.
“Should we… should we call the consulate?” Viridiana asked.
“You forgot there’s no phone here,” Daisy said.
They could drive into town, use the phone cabins in the hotel.
“Anyway, I don’t care about the consulate. Not now. There’s no need for it, we’ll explain everything, tell them how it was. He was drunk and he fell.”
“Only he wouldn’t have been drunk,” Viridiana said, because she had translated that, but she had not believed it. She couldn’t. Ambrose had been adhering to his vow of sobriety. Besides, the house was dry. Except for Gregory’s stash.
“And you’d know this because you were in the room?”
“I wasn’t, but he was very clear, that it was—”
“That it was what, little girl?” Daisy said, standing up straight, her hands closed into fists. “What exactly are you going to tell these people?”
“Take a sleeping pill and try to rest,” Gregory said brusquely.
Daisy turned her head, giving her brother an outraged look. “Take a pill, huh? And you? Don’t you need your beauty sleep?”
“I’ll sleep soon enough. Go up.”
Daisy glared at Gregory, but she clamped her mouth shut and stood up, excusing herself.
Viridiana looked at the stairs, following Daisy as she walked up. Then her gaze swept from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and she stared at the floor at the foot of them. There was blood there. A dark smear on the white tiles.
“Why did you say he was drunk?” she asked.
Gregory did not reply.
“He didn’t drink anymore,” Viridiana insisted.
“I was nervous. Look, I need a glass of water. Come to the kitchen,” Gregory said, glancing up the stairs and waiting for a couple of minutes, making sure Daisy was out of sight.
They went into the kitchen and Gregory took a pitcher of lemonade out of the refrigerator. He placed it on the counter. Gregory had not bothered turning on the light when they walked into the kitchen. They stood in the semi-darkness, the light filtering through the rectangle of a door providing the only illumination.
“He wasn’t drinking, I was,” Gregory admitted. “He found the booze in my room and he got mad. Really mad. He said it was forbidden, that he was going to pour it down the drain. Daisy heard him and came over. And then he told her he was going to have me tossed out.
“They were yelling at each other. And then he said he’d have her tossed out. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that. He’d done it before, for show, or to humiliate her, God knows. He went after her. I tried to intervene. Bastard hit me in the groin. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down the hallway and he was dragging her down the stairs.”
Viridiana had seen Ambrose being mean to Daisy more than once. There had been that slap on her leg. It was mostly words, though. Cruel words or gestures when Ambrose lost his temper. Back and forth they went on at least two occasions.
She could believe the scene Gregory was describing.
“Daisy was mad. She slapped at him, tried to kick him… and then, I don’t know how it happened. Daisy, she moved or elbowed him or something and he fell down the stairs. He fucking rolled down the stairs.”
Gregory poured himself a full glass of lemonade and drank it in a few gulps. Sweat beaded his hairline and his eyes were unfocused, he was not looking at her, at anything, as he spoke.
“But you didn’t tell that to the doctor,” Viridiana said.
Gregory turned his head.
He tiredly ran a hand through his hair.
“I’ve heard about Mexican jails. I thought if we told them that part they’d cart us off to jail and then we’d have to pay through the nose to get out. If we could. And that damn doctor kept staring at us.”
Gregory pressed the cold glass against his forehead. He closed his eyes.
“There’s a story I heard, once, that William S. Burroughs killed his wife during a game of William Tell. They were in Mexico City at the time. And I remember they called him a ‘pernicious foreigner’ and he had to flee, or they’d had him rotting in jail. I mean, his own lawyer skipped town after he killed a guy. What kind of country is this, where your lawyer murders someone?”
“His lawyer also got Burroughs out on bail in record time,” Viridiana said. “Thirteen days once he paid a bond of more than $2,000.”
“You know the story.”
“I read it in one Reynier’s books.”
“We don’t have thousands of dollars. And he spent those thirteen days in a hellhole called the ‘Black Palace,’ right?”
“That would be Lecumberri.”
Gregory put the glass down on the counter, he moved closer to Viridiana and spoke in a whisper.
“Look, there was something in California… something that happened there. The reason why Ambrose decided to go clean.”
“His doctor said he needed to, didn’t he?”
“No… the doctor said so, but the doctor had said so for years and years. Ambrose didn’t take it seriously.”
“Then?”
“Daisy got pregnant. She was happy. I’ve never cared about kids, and Ambrose didn’t look too thrilled either, but she was glad to have a baby. I thought, I guess it’s time to be an uncle. Then she lost the kid. Told me it happened one night, she’d been sleeping and woke up feeling pain in her abdomen and it was gone.
“Tonight, after you went to get the doctor, Daisy told me something I didn’t know. She told me Ambrose had caused the miscarriage. He’d given her a shove a
nd she’d fallen.”
“So, she shoved him back,” Viridiana whispered.
“Maybe. I didn’t see it. I said he was drunk because it sounded better. Yes, it sounded better that way. Because otherwise they might ask her… and then… she told me she hoped he was dead. God, you can’t tell them what I said, alright? You can’t tell Daisy I told you, either.”
Gregory took hold of Viridiana’s wrists, holding them tight. Then he put his arms around her and embraced her. He was trembling.
Viridiana did not know what to do. She held him too, awkwardly, her left hand reaching up and gently touching his hair.
It made sense, the whole thing.
The yelling,
Ambrose’s scratch on his face,
Daisy’s broken nail.
He was an annoying, horrid man. Daisy could turn cruel. She switched moods like a cat. But then who could blame her? Married to that prickly bastard.
Who could blame her if she had indeed shoved the old man down the stairs.
“Promise you won’t tell them,” Gregory said, raising his head, looking down at her. The light trickling into the kitchen bounced on his hair, it made it golden.
Viridiana held her breath for a moment. “I…they should know.”
“No, no, it will be bad if they think she did it. Daisy can’t be going to jail. God, I have no money. How would I pay for a lawyer?”
“Daisy has money.”
“Daisy doesn’t have anything. It’s all his. Ambrose’s. If Ambrose’s nephew hears she could be responsible for his death, she won’t see a penny of anything, ever. He’ll make sure of that. Daisy in jail. God, me in jail.”
“Why you?”
“I don’t know. Because I didn’t stop her. She had a look on her face when she confronted him. This awful look. I should have slugged him, then, and maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
Gregory muttered something Viridiana did not understand. His voice was thick with distress.
“It’ll be fine,” she said, touching his cheek.
“How can it be fine?”
“They’re lazy. Maximiliano and Homero, they won’t want to bother with any extra paperwork, with any trouble.”
“That sounds crazy.”
“Maybe.”
“You’ll help us, right?” Gregory said. It wasn’t truly a question, and he firmly wrapped an arm around her waist.
Viridiana knew that they shouldn’t be having this conversation at all.
That a man had died, he’d been pushed down the stairs and they had lied, saying he’d been drunk.
That it was best to come clean and tell the doctor, tell someone, the truth. But when did the truth do anyone any good? Her aunt’s husband beat her. No one cared. When the beatings got too bad, she moved in with them until the husband circled around to collect her.
And so it went.
The answer, when a man beat you, was to be nicer to him. Everyone said so. Viridiana did not believe that. At least her father had never done a thing like that to her mother. He might have been a loser, but he kept his hands to himself.
She pictured Daisy shoving Ambrose down the stairs. Pictured her face flushed with anger, her beautiful, manicured hands resting against the man’s back and pushing hard. Pictured Daisy’s blonde hair in her face, her eyes narrow and angry and wild.
She found she didn’t care how it had happened. She liked Daisy, she liked Gregory. She hadn’t liked Ambrose much. She didn’t want to see them in trouble.
She cared about them. That meant there was no sense in caring about Ambrose.
There was too, behind everything, that fuzzy dream of Paris. Of running away with this handsome man. Only there couldn’t be any running if his sister was in a jail cell, or worse, if he was in the cell with her. They wouldn’t even be in the local jail, but transported to a larger city. They could end up as far as Tijuana.
She refused that fate.
“I’ll help you,” she muttered.
He took her face between his hands. He smiled at her, brushed her hair behind her ear, traced the outline of her jaw with his fingertips.
“Good girl,” he whispered.
People die every day, people die everywhere, and that was that.
He fell.
They death certificate would state he fell and a week from now this would all be forgotten. If she willed it, then it would be. Her grandmother had said this.
That was how you summoned winds.
She placed a hand on his chest, over the space where his heart lay and then she recalled that her grandmother also said the devil awaits in the rocks and crevices, in the brush, in the desert.
Chapter 10
When Viridiana came into the living room the next morning, she was surprised to see that the tiles at the bottom of the stairs were sparkling clean. Not that she had expected the blood to remain there eternally, but Daisy or Gregory must have gotten up early and wiped the mess away.
She asked him about that.
“I couldn’t leave it there,” Gregory said. “I grabbed a brush and soap, and washed it. Doesn’t make a difference, does it?”
At this point, Viridiana supposed it didn’t. She couldn’t discuss it with him because Daisy came down the stairs, wearing sunglasses and a black hat, and told them she was ready.
The civil registry office also served as the office of the mayor of Desengaño, but the mayor was never around. He owned the gas station, several plots of land and buildings, and a fat bank account. He was a hypochondriac who was always suffering from a new disease and flying to Mexico City to meet with specialists. When he was in Baja, he tended to spend his days in La Paz, which he considered more hospitable. This pleased Maximiliano because the office was small. The police station, located around the corner, was equally minuscule. It had a jail cell which could contain at most three people and which was scarcely used.
When they walked into the civil registry office Maximiliano was sitting behind his desk, typing, a cigarette between his teeth.
“Doctor Navarro and Homero should be here soon,” Maximiliano said without bothering to look at them, and kept on typing.
Daisy, Gregory and Viridiana sat down on a bench set against the wall and across from Maximiliano. After fifteen minutes Daisy angrily turned toward Viridiana. She had not taken off her sunglasses and Viridiana saw herself reflected in the lenses.
“Will he ever speak to us?”
“It’s not odd to be late for meetings, here,” Viridiana said.
“What do you mean it’s not odd? It’s rude as hell.”
“Navarro might have had an urgent patient. Who knows.”
Daisy did not seem convinced by her explanation. She sat clutching her purse, blue eyes blazing. Gregory was more relaxed than his sister, although by the tapping of his left foot Viridiana could tell he wasn’t calm.
Viridiana tried to think of something, anything, to keep herself in check. If they thought she was nervous they’d pry. They’d ask what was up and it was so hot in there, it would be easy to slip and admit to a dozen crimes.
She thought about her father and the time he’d shown her the bezoar. The little stone cool against her hand and she focused her thoughts on that single stone.
The bezoar, cut from the belly of a beast.
Gregory tapped his foot and it was steaming hot in this office, you’d think they were going to boil lobsters. But no, think of something else.
The bezoar. The serpent stone. Things hidden. Things that are not what they seem.
At half past eleven, in walked in Doctor Navarro and Homero. Homero was only a few years older than Viridiana, and she remembered him as a terrible bully in high school. He’d never bothered with her, but she’d seen him fuck around with others. His father had been the police officer in town and when he retired he passed down the torch to Homero, as though this was a nobility title.
“It seems we’re all here,” Maximiliano said, set
ting down his half-smoked cigarette and shaking everyone’s hands. “Please pull up chairs.”
There weren’t enough, so Viridiana let Daisy and Gregory sit while she remained standing. Homero also remained on his feet.
“You’ve looked at the body?” Maximiliano asked.
“I have. I need to fill some gaps, of course. Age, full name, all the standard details,” Navarro said, taking out a notepad. “You have his passport?”
Viridiana told Daisy to hand over Ambrose’s passport. Navarro looked at it, asked a couple of basic questions and jotted down the answers. Then he scribbled a few more things.
Daisy asked what was happening, and Viridiana told her to wait. There was a rhythm to these things. If they seemed desperate or eager, they would notice something was amiss—surely even Homero could sniff out a criminal if the criminal began to twist like a worm on a hook. They must not notice.
“Wait,” Viridiana whispered.
Maximiliano hummed to himself, pausing to pick up his cigarette again.
“So he smashed his head against the floor, huh?” Maximiliano asked.
“He had a laceration on the back of his head,” Navarro said. “There was quite a bit of blood. There were bruises on the rest of the body.”
“How did that happen?” Homero asked, looking at Daisy. Viridiana translated.
“He’d been drinking,” Viridiana said in Spanish. “He was heading downstairs and lost his footing.”
“Was he a big drinker?”
“He was. He drank too much,” Viridiana said. A bead of sweat was sliding down her temple. She tried to maintain a serene tone of voice.
“How did you find him?”
“They heard a noise and saw he’d fallen. He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t talking.” Just hold still, she thought. Hold perfectly still, play it natural. It’s an old dead guy. Homero asked more questions and Viridiana stuck to the plain answers and even though there was a point at which she could have sworn there was a bezoar in her stomach, she didn’t flinch. Quick, simple.
Untamed Shore Page 10