The Sisters of Alameda Street

by Lorena Hughes

  She read the headline in big bold letters. “Jeweler’s nephew murdered. Suspect on the run.”

  “You said your father was Enrique Hidalgo, right?”

  Malena glanced through the article. There was a picture of her father, when he was much younger, under the title. “Yes.”

  “Number one suspect,” Javier said.

  “This was the article in Alejandra’s desk?”

  “Yes.”

  “There has to be a mistake.” She paced the room, a little frantic. “My father was not a murderer.”

  Javier sat on a chair. “Seems to me like you don’t know much about your father.”

  She stopped in front of him. “True, but I know his essence. He would never kill anybody.”

  “It says here he was trying to rob the store. Maybe he killed Fausto so he wouldn’t tell on him.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense. He was an accountant. There would have been easier ways for him to steal other than opening the vault in the middle of the night.”

  “Good point.”

  “There’s something else,” she said. “This article was written by Cesar Villamizar.”

  “The reporter,” Javier repeated, standing. “The same man your father was paying off.”

  “For his silence.” She nibbled at her lower lip. “Cesar found my father. He must have been blackmailing him.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “I met him this morning.”

  “And?”

  “He acted nervous. He denied knowing Hugo Sevilla.”

  “We must talk to Sebastian.”

  She could taste the blood on her lip now. “Impossible. I’m not telling him who I am.”

  Javier ran one of his hands on the now-organized bookshelf. “I wish we still had those accounting books. If Enrique was robbing my grandfather, he would have surely altered the numbers.”

  “We do. I recovered them from the trash.”

  “Are you good with numbers?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Neither am I.” Javier rubbed his chin. “But Sebastian is. He was the best in my class.”

  “I don’t want to involve him.”

  “Sebastian is discreet. We won’t tell him who you are. Just that I want him to find out if anybody altered those accounting books, an old family mystery of sorts.” He took the article from her hands. “It’s perfect. I’ll check the books with him. Meanwhile, you go to Cesar’s desk and see if you can find anything linking him to your father.”

  “When?”

  “I’ll ask him if we can meet tonight.”

  Malena nodded, too shocked to make any decisions.

  “Now I’d better return this article to Alejandra’s desk before she gets back.” Javier walked out of the storage room, leaving Malena lonelier than ever.

  The hall to Sebastian’s office seemed gloomier at nighttime. Malena’s heels tapping against the marble were the only sounds in the building.

  “We can’t stay long.” Javier held the trash bag in his hands as if it were a pot of gold. “I have to sing with the band tonight at ten.”

  “What did Sebastian say about me coming?”

  “He doesn’t know you’re coming.”

  Great. How was she going to explain her presence? Sebastian was not dumb; he would think this whole situation was strange.

  Javier knocked on the Presidencia door. Sebastian opened it, a cigarette resting between his lips. He raised his eyebrows when he saw her.

  “She’s helping me,” Javier explained.

  They walked past the secretary’s empty desk into a spacious office. His office. Mahogany desk, austere leather seats, no family pictures, merely generic landscapes of Swiss mountains and streams. The place was clean except for the cigarette butts in the ashtray.

  Sebastian offered them a couple of chairs in front of his desk and opened the first notebook. They sat there for a long time as Sebastian examined the numbers.

  Sebastian flipped page after page, his index finger on his right temple, his stare locked on the numbers, his jaw tightened in concentration. He reminded Malena of her own father when he corrected exams. The two of them had so much in common. They were both bright, owners of inscrutable minds and inexplicable behaviors. Was this some sort of Freudian obsession of hers? Seeing Sebastian like this, so professional and concentrated on the numbers in front of him, she would have never imagined he could dance the way he did. His love for tango was yet another trait he shared with her father.

  As he picked up another notebook, Javier turned to her and nodded his chin toward the door. She stood up.

  “Where is the lavatory?” she asked.

  Sebastian raised his head. “Down the hall. Left door.”

  She walked out of his office. She wasn’t looking forward to searching for Cesar’s desk in this enormous building, as dark as it was. She wished now she had accepted the tour with Sebastian’s secretary earlier.

  Malena walked down the hall, avoiding the glances of the newspaper founders, yet feeling their eyes on her, probably demanding an explanation from her irregular presence in their halls. She’d never believed in ghosts, but the long faces of Sebastian’s ancestors under the dim light made her wonder if they might visit this place from time to time. Her own steps seemed louder now, but there was no one behind her. She concentrated on her task: find the newsroom. Good thing the doors were labeled.

  The newsroom was the last room at the end of the hall. The door’s creak made her cringe. She turned on the light. A dozen desks were scattered throughout the room with no apparent order or pattern. Every desk had a typewriter and a sea of papers on it. Random sheets littered the floor, broken by a rugged path that wound toward a small office surrounded by glass windows in the back of the room.

  Malena zigzagged through the maze and entered the office.

  Inside, she turned on another light. The name plaque on the desk confirmed it was Cesar’s. She searched through the drawers. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Anything that would link him to her father. A bank statement, a letter, a photograph. She spotted his black leather address book and searched for Hugo Sevilla or Enrique Hidalgo. Neither name was in there.

  In the corner of the room was a metal filing cabinet with six drawers. She opened the top one, her fingers flying through folders of articles and tear sheets. This was useless. There was too much information here. With so many papers it would be nearly impossible to find whatever she was looking for. The second, third, and fourth drawers had a similar setup and were equally crammed. From what she could see, the articles were filed by date, from the most recent to the oldest. She skipped drawers and opened the bottom one. This one was different. There were folders and envelopes piled on top of each other. She scanned through them until a name stopped her. Enrique was written in cursive on the front of a manila envelope.

  She pulled it out of the drawer and opened the flap. There was only one newspaper clipping inside. An article from El Universo, Ecuador’s leading newspaper, based in Guayaquil. She recognized the event in the picture immediately. It was the launching of her father’s book, and there was a picture of him standing with Pedro. She read the caption: Author Hugo Sevilla, left, and his coauthor, Pedro Córdova, right, at the book launch on Friday, September 1, 1961.

  Her father’s face was circled with a black marker. There was another paper inside the envelope: her address in Guayaquil.

  She returned the papers to the envelope. She didn’t need to see anymore. She was certain now. This Cesar, this vile creature working for Sebastian, had been blackmailing her father for over a year.

  Somehow, Malena composed herself before returning to Sebastian’s office. She’d been tempted to take the envelope with her, but it would have been one more thing to guard from Claudia in the bedroom.

  Javier stood as soon as he saw her by the door. “Everything okay?”

  Sebastian raised his head and glanced at both of them. “I think I found something.”

&
nbsp; He turned two notebooks so Javier and Malena could see them. Paired side by side, the only thing obvious was that the handwriting was different.

  “Was there another accountant at the time?” he asked.

  “No,” Javier said.

  “The handwriting is different here.” Sebastian lifted one of the notebooks. “And the numbers are a little bit off from the previous day.”

  “What are you implying?” Malena asked.

  “That someone may in fact have been robbing the store.” He removed his jacket. His shoulder muscles filled his cotton shirt. “We have to look for any notebooks with this same handwriting.”

  Javier glanced at his wristwatch. “I have to leave. The band starts playing in fifteen minutes.”

  “You go,” Malena said. “I’ll stay here and help Sebastian.”

  “Or we could just continue another day,” Sebastian said.

  “No,” she said.

  Both men looked at her, astounded by her tone. But she couldn’t stop now, not when she was so close to finding out if her father had been a thief and a murderer. Malena leaned over the desk and grabbed a pile of notebooks.

  “I’ll take her home after we’re done,” Sebastian said.

  “Excuse us for a moment.” Javier gently pulled her outside Sebastian’s office.

  They stood behind the wall, by Pamela’s desk. “You can’t stay here,” he whispered. “I told my mother I would only keep you out for a couple of hours.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Javi. I have to stay. I found my father’s picture in Cesar’s office. We were right. He was blackmailing him. Maybe Sebastian knew about it, too.”

  “No. Not Sebastian.”

  “I’m not leaving this office until I get to the bottom of this.”

  After Javier left, Sebastian and Malena worked in silence, looking through the account books, comparing the handwriting. Soon, all the numbers mingled inside Malena’s mind and her head felt like it would disintegrate. She sat back.

  “Have you had enough yet?” he asked.

  “I suppose.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  She wasn’t sure about what he meant.

  He stood up and circled his desk. “That sure was a long trip to the bathroom.” Had he been in on this too, with Cesar? Maybe he’d known who she was all along. Maybe they’d seen her in Guayaquil with her father. Her chest ached just thinking that he might have had something to do with her father’s death.

  She grabbed her purse. “Can you take me home now?”

  He took a step toward her.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what this is all about?” he said. “I can probably help you better if I know.”

  There was a certain menace in his tone.

  “Nothing is going on. I’m just trying to help Javier.”

  “Why the urgency of doing it tonight?”

  “Because you’re getting married tomorrow.” Her voice faltered. “Who knows when you’ll be available after that.”

  He wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Why this sudden interest in something that happened over twenty years ago?”

  “That’s Javier’s business.”

  “And what’s your business? Why are you so invested in this?”

  She shrugged. “Just trying to be helpful.”

  “Of course. You have to help your boyfriend.”

  “I already told you. He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “And the married man is?”

  God, Lili’s bad reputation loomed over her like a dark cloud.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.” She put on her coat. “Can we go now?”

  “Who are you?” he said.

  She froze for a minute. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not Liliana Paz.”

  That was it. He knew who she was. He’d been part of the blackmail.

  She patted his arm. “You have an overactive imagination. Now can we please leave?”

  She squeezed past him out the office door, leaving the accounting books behind. She circled the secretary’s desk and the seating area, nearly running, his steps following her through the hallway. She reached the elevator and entered as soon as the doors opened. He placed his hands on the doorsill to prevent the doors from closing.

  “What are you doing in San Isidro?” he said.

  “What makes you think I’m not Liliana?”

  “Well, for one, you said you were going to tell your father about Cesar, but according to my mother, Lili’s father has been dead for five years.”

  What an idiot she was! She’d assumed all along that Lili’s father was alive and she’d talked about him as though he were. She pressed the first-floor button repeatedly as if the doors could somehow break through Sebastian’s palms.

  She could see him debating whether to walk into the elevator or not. He examined the inside of the elevator, as if he were seeing it for the first time. His eyes focused on its ceiling, a drop of perspiration trickling down his temple.

  After a moment, which seemed like an hour, he took a step inside. The color drained from his cheeks as the doors shut behind him. He looked about the tight space.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He undid the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie.

  “What’s wrong, Sebastian?”

  “I don’t like elevators.” He ran his palm over his forehead. “I got trapped here when I was small.”

  She advanced toward him. Never before had she seen him this vulnerable. She held his cold hand in hers and squeezed it. He remained still for a moment, looking at the floor while the elevator started its slow descent.

  After a moment, he raised his head. She caressed his cool cheek.

  “It’s going to be fine,” she said.

  He glanced down at her, and she became conscious of what she was doing, of his proximity. She had broken an unspoken rule. She had touched Sebastian. The only time she was allowed to touch him was when they were dancing.

  His arm circled her waist, pulling her close to him. His other hand lifted her chin and he lowered his face. His lips were soft and warm. With his free hand he caressed her cheek, as if it were a precious object. The heat of his body transferred to hers and soon enough, she was responding. She dug her fingers in his hair, then slid her hands down his neck and the curve of his shoulders, barely believing this was real. Holding her face with both hands, Sebastian pushed her against the elevator wall and kissed her possessively, as if he’d been wanting this as much as she had, as if no one else mattered in the world. And at the moment no one else did. She’d never felt this wanted before, this fulfilled. Her knees weakened and she didn’t know if they would be able to hold her weight much longer. The more he kissed her, the less control she had over her body.

  “I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he said, his mouth traveling to her chin and neck and then back to her lips.

  She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, beg him not to marry Claudia. It felt like the right time, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  The minute the elevator doors opened, he pulled away from her. He ran his fingers through his hair, the way he’d done that morning, back when she could only imagine what his lips tasted like. The two of them stared at each other, gasping for air, as if they’d just finished a race.

  “I apologize.” He dodged her eyes. “This can never happen again.”

  She picked her purse from the floor. Of course it couldn’t happen again. Tomorrow he would be Claudia’s husband.

  They walked out of the building, side by side, toward a blue Ford parked on the back street. The cool air caressed her burning face, offering a minor relief. She was conscious of Sebastian’s closeness, more so than before, and strayed away from him as they reached the car. What had just happened there? It had been surreal.

  He unlocked the door for her, his hands slightly trembling. Inside, he lowered his window and started the car.

  “So you’re not going to tell m
e,” he said.

  She looked at a light post in the street. “What?”

  “Who you are.”

  Malena resented the businesslike tone he was using. He couldn’t just pretend that the moment in the elevator had never happened, could he? She spoke without removing her eyes from the light. “I would tell you, if I knew who I was, but I don’t.”

  He turned off the ignition and faced her, puzzled.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I’m not Liliana. My name is Malena Sevilla.”

  He didn’t seem surprised when she said her real name, at least not like Javier had been. He simply nodded, as if he’d been expecting this for a long time, as if he’d known her name all along and was simply acknowledging it.

  “I came to San Isidro to find my mother,” she said.

  The growing shadows of the night made it impossible for Malena to read the expression on his face. Was it anger, curiosity, disdain? She continued speaking anyway. As she told him her story, he lit a cigarette and gazed at the empty street through the windshield. She talked for a long time, so long she was out of breath by the time she was done. Nothing seemed to faze Sebastian until she mentioned Cesar Villamizar’s apparent connection to her father. His jaw tensed.

  “You don’t believe it?” Malena asked.

  “What?”

  “That Cesar was blackmailing my father? It’s the only thing I can come up with.”

  “No. I believe it.” He was pensive for a moment.

  “I’m sorry I lied.” She studied the slightest movement of his eyes to make sure he didn’t hate her.

  “You did what you had to do,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ll be able to keep it up much longer.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “Confess.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “You will.” He started the car. “When the right time comes.”

  As he drove away from El Heraldo, she glanced back at the strange building, knowing she would never see it the same way after tonight. They were quiet during the five-minute ride to the Platas home. Malena remembered the way he’d kissed her in the elevator, the feel of his body against hers. It had only been fifteen minutes ago, yet it seemed like a wall had grown between them since. She glanced at his right hand as he changed gears and his left one as he rested it over the steering wheel. She wanted to memorize everything about him, now that she had him near, perhaps for the last time in her life. If she were a different kind of woman, she might tell him how she felt, or ask him to kiss her again, but a relationship between them was impossible. Especially now that she was growing fond of Claudia.