“Obviously, I was wrong, wasn’t I?” Fernando snapped. “Why would anyone else kill her?”
“Why would the Reds?”
“For God’s sake, Carlos, you served in the war! They don’t need a reason.”
Tejada felt a flicker of annoyance at his cousin’s naïveté. “Right now, they kill for money or to make a point,” he said. “And usually we catch them. I don’t see what they’d gain from Doña Rosalia’s death.”
“No one else would gain from murdering Mother!” Fernando shot back.
They walked in silence for a few steps. “What are the terms of your late mother’s will?”
Fernando snorted. “You’d know more than I do.”
“What?”
“The Guardia have it, don’t they? That’s what your father told me when I went to see him about it.”
Tejada stopped walking. “When was this?”
“A couple of days ago. I didn’t like to bring it up until after the funeral, of course, but I knew Mother had made him her executor and I thought—” Fernando became aware that his cousin was no longer walking beside him, but standing stock-still, looking sick. He took the younger man’s arm with concern. “Carlos, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Go on.”
“I thought I’d better ask him what he knew,” Fernando finished, puzzled. “He told me that the Guardia were holding the will pending an investigation into her death because of all the silly complaints she’d made about Reds threatening her.” Fernando grimaced. “That’s what he said. ‘Silly complaints.’ And I told him we should explain to the Guardia what nonsense it had been. God! Poor Mother.”
They had reached the Río Genil and were strolling along the park on its banks. It was, Tejada remembered, only a few more steps to the Condesa de Almagro’s home. He would have dearly liked time to think over what he had been told. He wanted to be able to sit facing Fernando, to interview him properly, with a notebook in hand. The wind along the river whirled dead leaves along the sandy paths, in sympathy with the random motion of Tejada’s thoughts. His heel met one of the leaves in its skittering flight and he crushed it violently, glad to make something stand still.
“What do you know about the provisions of your mother’s will?” he asked, trying to pin down some facts.
Unaware of the lieutenant’s inner turmoil, Fernando assumed he was merely following an earlier line of thought. “Not very much. That was why I asked your father. Mother was. . . rather volatile. She changed her will around quite a bit, so none of us ever knew exactly what was in it. Ever since Father died, she’d felt alone and helpless, and she . . . couldn’t always handle the responsibility wisely. Here,” he added, taking his cousin’s elbow. “Dani’s house is just across the street.”
Tejada was grateful for the arm on his elbow. He felt as if the world were spinning too quickly. “So none of her heirs knew exactly what they would inherit?” he managed.
“Father had left the refinery and some of the land in trust for her lifetime, so that she would be provided for. They’ll revert to my sole control now,” Fernando answered easily as they crossed the street. “I don’t know about the rest. Why does it matter?”
Fernando’s blithe ignorance of the obvious was hard to swallow. “Because if no one knew the terms of your mother’s will, no one would have been likely to poison her for the sake of an inheritance.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Fernando was impatient. “Anyway, she would never have left her money away from the family.”
He rapped on a dark wooden door in a whitewashed wall, broken by a tile proclaiming the name Carmen del Río—river garden. Daniela, Tejada recalled, had always been literal minded.
A maid opened the door and curtsied. Recognizing Señor Ordoñez, she gestured them inside, and they found themselves in a courtyard overflowing with lushly flowering bougainvillea. A small fountain tinkled in one corner. “The conde and condesa are not home,” the maid said. “Would you like to wait?”
“Yes, please.” Fernando was obviously at ease. He guided his cousin to a stone bench in the shade of a screen of vines. “We can sit in the garden; it’s still pleasant at this time of year. Would you like a drink, Carlos?”
“Just water, thanks.” The lieutenant sank onto the bench and placed one palm flat against the stone, glad of its coolness and its unforgiving solidity. He waited until Fernando was sitting comfortably beside him and then he dug out his notebook and a pen.
“You said your mother would never have left anything away from the family. Does that mean her children or would it include,” he swallowed, “other family members as well?”
“I don’t know, but I’d guess just her children,” Fernando said. “And perhaps your father, as well. She was always very fond of him, and he was her nearest relative, after us.” He smiled. “I’m afraid there aren’t any mysterious heirs with evil designs, Carlos.”
Tejada was tempted to retort that Fernando seemed eager to narrow the circle of suspects to himself and his siblings, but the unsettling knowledge about his father’s deception kept him silent. His father had clearly lied to Fernando. That suggested that he had lied about Doña Rosalia dying intestate as well. What did the lies have in common? No one’s seen this will, Tejada thought. Except Don Pablo, and he wouldn’t tell me what was in it.Why? Because knowing the beneficiary would point the finger at Rosalia’s murderer? But if the will just divides the property among her children, or even her children and Father, no one would be surprised by it. The maid brought water, and he gulped it gratefully. Elena had reminded him that his father would not have called for a murder investigation if it could harm him in any way. But he’s breaking the law, no matter what, the lieutenant thought miserably. And I’ll have to tell him that I know. Oh, God, I’ll have to let Rivas do it. But even if Rivas tells him, he’ll know I found out.
Desperately, he tried to think of further questions for his cousin. But the will continued to intrude on his thoughts. “You’re sure you have no clearer idea of the provisions of her will?” he asked hopelessly.
“I can tell you about one I saw about a year ago.” Fernando sounded exasperated. “But I can also tell you that she’s seen Pablo many times since then, and that it’s likely to have been completely altered.”
“What did her will provide a year ago then?”
Fernando rolled his eyes. “Aside from the land that reverted to me, I also inherited some property in the Alpujarra that she bought right after my father died.”
“Houses or land?”
“Both. Some houses in Órgiva and the farms that go with them. I wondered if they’d be good for cane, but there are stable tenants in place and the farms are likely to be more profitable as they are, besides the expense of getting cane to a refinery from the mountains. The nearest refineries are Don Estéban’s, on the coast, and I’d be charged for using them.”
“Anything else about the will?” Tejada prompted, before his cousin could get lost in musings about the sugar-cane industry.
“No, that was all my share. I was more than happy with it.”
“What about the rest of her assets?”
Fernando frowned, fishing for memories of facts that had made less of an impression. “Daniela got all of Mother’s jewelry, of course. And some money, with a recommendation that she uses it to buy a little summer place we’d stayed in years ago that she liked. I think there were some small charitable bequests, to the orphanage and to Nuestra Señora de las Angustias, maybe five thousand pesetas altogether. And the rest was divided between your father and Felipe.” Fernando smiled. “She must have been angry at Felipe when she drew it up because I think it said something like ‘my nephew and my youngest son receive equal shares, even though my son Felipe will probably have spent it all in six months.’”
“Do you know why she was angry at Uncle Felipe?” Tejada asked, remembering his conversation with Nilo.
“She wasn’t really angry,” Fernando corrected. “Two years earlier she said
she was going to leave everything to Felipe because he was such a born fool he’d need it, and the rest of us had enough brains to take care of ourselves. It was just her way of talking. She loved him.”
Even allowing for the sentimental gloss that the dead acquire almost instantly, Tejada thought his cousin was speaking the truth. But Nilo had said that Doña Rosalia’s affectionate scolding of Felipe had turned into something more serious just before her death. Tejada could not imagine his easygoing Tío Felipe surreptitiously poisoning anybody. But he still asked, slowly, “When was the last time she spoke to you about Tío Felipe?”
“I don’t know. I tried not to talk to her about him or Dani. She always ended up making comparisons and—” Fernando paused and Tejada easily guessed that Doña Rosalia’s elder son had not come off well in comparison. “And I think it upset her,” Fernando finished piously.
Tejada asked a few more desultory questions and then thanked his cousin. He did not bother to ask where Fernando had been the night of his mother’s death. He was sure that none of his cousins would have been stupid enough to poison their mother themselves. “I’ll need to speak to Tío Felipe, too. Do you know where I can find him?”
“He has an apartment on the Gran Vía, but he’s never there. I’ll give you the address, if you like.”
“Please. And the phone number, if he has one.” Tejada flipped over to a fresh page in his notes and held out the book to Fernando.
Fernando frowned in concentration. “It’s one-two-four-six, I think. Or one-six-four-two? Some combination like that. I don’t use it often. He got rid of his valet a few years back, and since then no one’s ever home to answer the dratted thing. Besides, I feel stupid talking into that contraption. I usually just leave a written message with the doorman if I need him.”
“Why did he get rid of his valet?” Tejada asked, surprised. He remembered Felipe as a dandy.
“How should I know? I’m not his keeper.” Tejada was sure that Fernando Ordoñez’s paraphrase was quite unconscious.
“Was he having money problems?” Tejada persisted.
“He shouldn’t have been. He has a perfectly comfortable income. Or he would, if he didn’t spend it all in cabarets and on every new hobby he took up.”
Tejada had a good idea of what his cousin considered a “comfortable income,” and he privately thought that one would have to live in cabarets every night of the week for years on end to dissipate it. On the other hand, that was probably what Felipe had done. “Women?” he guessed, as Fernando copied out the address.
“You know Felipe,” Ordoñez agreed. “I think lately it’s been a flamenco dancer, but I’m not sure. He’s always been pretty discreet.”
“First rule of a gentleman.” Tejada quoted a lecture of his adolescence.
Fernando, recognizing his brother in the mimicry, laughed and handed back the notebook. “He’s always been a patron of the arts. Do you remember that actress who—” He broke off suddenly as the door to the hidden garden opened and a lady in a wide-brimmed hat and a black dress stepped through it. She was followed by a clean-shaven man with steel gray hair, who offered her his arm. The lady caught sight of them first. “Hello, Nando. What are you doing here?” She came forward with her hands outstretched.
Fernando rose to greet his sister. “‘Morning, Dani.” He turned from her to the gentleman who had followed her and added, “Sorry to intrude like this, Alfonso, but it’s important. Do you remember our cousin Carlos? Andrés Tejada’s son?”
“We met when he was a child.” Daniela’s husband held out his hand as he spoke. “How do you do, Lieutenant, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Señor Conde. Well, thank you.” Tejada assessed the man before him as they shook hands. The conde did not resemble Fernando Ordoñez physically, but they shared an aura of contented and self-assured prosperity. Daniela was speaking now, welcoming both men, asking after the lieutenant’s family with a mixture of courtesy and genuine warmth. Tejada performed the social conventions with a strange sense of unreality. What am I doing here? he thought. These people are my family. My friends. Good, respectable people. Christians. I don’t belong here. I should be up in the mountains with the Reds, doing my job, not bothering them. He was grateful that Fernando had taken responsibility for breaking the news of Doña Rosalia’s murder to her daughter.
Daniela was far quicker than her brother. “Poisoned! Good God, Carlos, you don’t suspect one of us?”
“I don’t suspect anyone.” Tejada was grateful for the conde-sa’s quick comprehension. It made him feel more like he was working. “I’m here to ask if you have any suspicions.”
“No, of course I don’t! It certainly wasn’t one of us. And Mother didn’t go out much anymore, so she didn’t have many friends.”
“The question is who were her enemies?” Tejada pointed out.
“You know what I meant.” Daniela was impatient. “She didn’t see anyone, really, after our father died. She was too afraid to leave the house.”
“Afraid to leave the house?” Tejada echoed, startled. “Why?”
“She was always muttering. Either it was the servants who were in league against her or there was some kind of Red plot to seize the house.” Posthumous respect apparently restrained Daniela less than her brother. “It always seemed totally implausible to me.”
“Perhaps more plausible than any of us thought.” Conde Alfonso spoke pensively.
“A Red plot?” His wife was skeptical.
“Not necessarily, dear. But a disgruntled servant. Someone who felt he’d been cheated of his wages or simply been the butt of her tantrums too often. After all, poison is a cook’s weapon.” The conde turned to Tejada. “Have you spoken to her household?”
“My men are doing that right now.” Tejada had forgotten that he was supposed to be helping the Guardia unofficially. “I wanted to speak to you personally because . . .” Tejada hesitated for a moment. Rivas’s words came back to him and served as an inspiration. “I thought it would be kinder to break the news personally instead of leaving it to a stranger.”
A faint gleam of humor in the conde’s face suggested that he had a good idea of why the lieutenant was breaking the news to Doña Rosalia’s family, but all he said was, “If you have any questions for me or my wife we’ll be happy to answer them, of course. Why don’t we go inside?”
Chapter 10
Sergeant Rivas had passed the casino on his way to the deceased woman’s house at around the time Tejada first encountered his cousin. Rivas, accompanied by Guardias Flores and Girón, ignored the portal of the venerable club, as solidly closed to them as the thick-walled gardens in the neighborhood of the Casa Ordoñez. The three guardias were met at the gates by Guardia Medina, whom the sergeant had sent to search the house an hour earlier, along with his partner.
“Nothing yet, sir,” Medina reported. “I’ve asked the servants a few questions, but they clammed up. If you ask me, there’s something suspicious about that. Might be worth pulling in a few just to put the fear of God in them.”
Rivas was somewhat annoyed at his subordinate’s casual advice. Medina had, the sergeant thought, a habit of acting as if he was a child of the corps who had grown up in barracks, instead of the shoeless farmworker he had been. “Your orders were to search, not question the servants,” Rivas reminded him. “What have you found so far?”
“All foodstuffs are kept in a pantry in the cellar. They look clean but the cook admitted that icemen come in from the mountains every day, so any evidence could have been smuggled out,” Medina reported.
Rivas, who had some responsibility for provisioning at the post, refrained from telling his subordinate that the cook’s “admission” was what he would have expected from any house in the city. “What do you mean ‘they look clean’?” he asked instead.
“No poison we could find,” Medina explained.
It was on the tip of the sergeant’s tongue to say that perhaps Doña Rosalia’s murderer had done something fiendis
hly clever like not putting the murder weapon in a bottle clearly labeled with a skull and bones, but he kept silent, unwilling to take responsibility for what might happen if the eager guardia started tasting everything in Doña Rosalia’s pantry. “What about outside the kitchen?” he asked, without much hope. “Anything out of place? Any unexpected items? Or things missing that you’d expect to be there?”
Medina hesitated. “Well, she had some really nice jewelry. Bit showy, for a woman her age.”
The sergeant suppressed a groan. “Let’s take a look at the room where she died,” he said, with the uncomfortable feeling that Lieutenant Tejada was going to be unhappy with his report when he wrote it.
Rivas’s first thought when he entered Doña Rosalia’s study was that, except for her absence and the presence of Guardia Soler, who was methodically emptying a cabinet along one wall, the room was just as he remembered it from the last time he had been there. The plain cream-colored walls were broken in the same place by a crucifix and a painting of the Virgin. The hole in the plaster that Doña Rosalia had been convinced was a peephole for tiny cameras was still plugged by a piece of putty painted black. (Doña Rosalia had insisted on painting the plugged hole black so that no light could get through to the camera, just in case.) The bookcase sat in the corner as always, although the ranks of books looked somewhat disordered, because the diligent Guardia Soler had removed all of them in his search but then replaced them carelessly. The rolltop desk by the window was still open, as it had been when Doña Rosalia had sat in front of it the afternoon of her death and rambled on at the sergeant about plots. He remembered returning late that night, to find the old woman’s corpse sprawled at the desk. The dinner tray that had presumably contained the cause of her demise had been cleared away, and the spilled wine sopped up, but an attentive observer could still see a faint reddish stain soaked into the blotter on the desk. A ghoulish witness might have romantically attributed the stain to Doña Rosalia’s life’s blood, but Rivas, familiar with the color of dried blood, knew that the pale pinkish blot had almost certainly come from the contents of her wineglass. Still, he looked at it with a somber respect. He suspected that the poor lady had knocked it over in her death throes. (The medical examiner had kindly appended a brief list of the symptoms of cyanide poisoning to the autopsy report Rivas had skimmed that morning, and convulsions were listed as a “possible side effect.”) The window that faced onto the courtyard was open. That was another discordant note. Doña Rosalia had disliked opening the window because it made her feel unsafe. Sergeant Rivas looked out of it and realized simultaneously that the view was an exceptionally good one and that he had never seen it before. He mentally forgave Medina and Soler for opening it. He had always assumed that the room was stuffy. He saw that it could be quite pleasant. Guardia Soler had nodded at the sergeant when he entered, and continued emptying the cabinet. Now he spoke. “We went through her bedroom first, sir. She had a lot of little bottles. Perfumes and smelling salts and suchlike.”
The Summer Snow Page 11