Tejada stared at the words and fought nausea. He closed the book gently, and picked up the ones he had dropped. Very gingerly, he aligned the edges of the books once more in the folio and retied the tapes, meticulously trying to knot them in exactly the spot where the red silk had been chafed thin from an earlier knot. He worked slowly, knowing that if he altered so much as a hair of his cousin’s arrangement he would be overcome by sick fury and would rip the mocking inscription to shreds and most of the apartment with it. Un abrazo, Federico. Felipe had been his friend and guide and mentor. Felipe had demystified sex and soothed the worst torments of adolescence with the sympathetic words, “For God’s sake, Carlito, of course you’re normal. You just need to get laid.” Ever yours, Federico. He had admired Felipe. His dashing cousin who all the girls had been in love with, and who had courted all of them, extravagantly and without intent or preference. Un abrazo. Ever yours.
Tejada shoved the folio back into the bookcase and sat back on his heels, trembling. He was sick to imagine that Felipe would ever . . . He avoided the words. Sick. Probably Felipe was just living a double life because he was a Red. He hoped. The sound of a key in the outside lock surprised him and he scrambled to his feet, vibrating with tension. There was the muffled noise of someone crossing the foyer, and the lieutenant froze, indecisive. Then a round-faced, clean-shaven man of about fifty walked into the room, stopped dead, and said. “Who the—? What the hell are you doing here?”
Tejada stared at his cousin, too anguished to speak. Felipe Ordoñez took a step closer. “Carlos? It’s you, isn’t it? How did you get in? You gave me a scare there for a second.”
“The concierge has a key,” Tejada said tensely. It took all his self-control to keep from backing away.
“He also takes messages,” Felipe retorted. “And he could have told you I wasn’t in.”
“I know. But you’d disappeared. I didn’t know what to think.”
“That’s a fine comment from a man who’s visited his home twice in fifteen years,” Felipe said. “Well, I’m here now. I ran into Nando at the casino and he told me you were looking for me. What can I do for you?”
Tejada took a deep breath. “I’m here to ask you some questions regarding the death of your mother.” He gestured stiffly to a chair. “Would you sit down, please?”
“You’re too kind.” Felipe gave an ironic half bow. “You might offer me a drink while you’re at it. It is my house.”
The lieutenant’s hands balled into fists at his cousin’s mockery. Felipe saw the convulsive gesture and added soothingly, “I’m sorry, Carlito. I’m not used to being”—he paused and smiled—“interrogated by the Guardia. Sit down and I’ll try to answer any questions you have.”
Torn between an absurd desire to berate Felipe and a resolve to behave with icy professionalism, the lieutenant sat on the edge of a chair. “You visited your mother shortly before her death?” he rapped out.
“Yes.”
“Well?” Tejada snapped. “Go on. What for? I thought you were being cooperative.”
“I was her son,” Felipe said gently. “Visiting your aged parent is considered good breeding in some circles.”
“So you just dropped in?” Tejada asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “No special reason?”
Felipe drew a deep breath. When he let it out again, his voice was hard. “No, as a matter of fact, she had asked to see me. To be exact, her man Alberto had left a message for me here, several days earlier. I naturally complied as soon as I could.”
“So you admit you know Alberto?”
“What do you mean admit?” Felipe snapped. “Of course I know him. I know the entire damn household, better than I need to. I don’t know what you’re driving at, Carlos, but you’d better just spit it out. I have a date for lunch and I don’t want to be too late for it.”
Even in his fury, Tejada knew that Felipe’s acquaintance with Alberto Cordero was no great matter. He shifted course. “Why did your mother want to see you?”
Felipe hesitated. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Carlos. But I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“You quarreled, didn’t you?” Tejada accused.
“Are you asking or telling?” Felipe’s mouth was a thin line.
“She was furious with you. She cut you out of her will.”
“You’ve been very busy playing detective, haven’t you?” Felipe’s mocking voice barely masked real anger.
“More than that.” Tejada was too upset to stop, although he knew that he had no proof, only a terrible knot in his stomach and a miserable wish that he had never left Potes. “She threatened to turn you in to the Guardia. To expose you to the world. You had to kill her, didn’t you?”
“What?” Felipe’s jaw dropped. “Carlos, I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“She must have found out you—you!” Tejada swallowed and sank backward into his seat. “Oh, God, Tío, how could you?”
Some of Felipe’s anger had already turned to puzzlement, and now his voice was tinged with concern as he said, “Look, Carlos, I’m sorry if I was short with you just now. But I really don’t understand what it is I’m supposed to have done. Mother was a damn irritating woman sometimes, and I’ll admit we had a bit of a fight the last time I saw her, but I certainly didn’t kill her.”
Tejada stared at the floor, longing to believe that he was mistaken, but afraid to hope. “I found the books,” he said softly. “The ones autographed by Lorca.”
Felipe paused. “You’re thorough,” he said, and the mocking edge was back in his voice. “Look, I know you probably don’t approve. A lot of people don’t, which is why I keep them out of sight. But the fact is, he was a good poet, and—I’m sorry, Carlos— he was a friend of mine.”
“A friend.” Tejada echoed bitterly.
“Yes, a friend.” Felipe was defiant. “I’m not going to lie and pretend we never met just because it isn’t fashionable to admit to knowing him anymore. And what’s more, Lieutenant, if I hadn’t been in San Sebastián that summer, I would have gone to the commandant when he was arrested.”
“Because you were such good friends,” Tejada said.
“Yes. So what?”
“You pervert!”
“I beg your pardon?” Felipe stared. Then he said slowly, “Carlos, are you trying to say that you think I’m a fairy?”
Tejada said nothing, but looked at his cousin with pleading eyes. To his astonishment, Felipe laughed. “I don’t see what’s funny,” the lieutenant said stiffly.
“Your incredibly poor judgment!” Felipe snorted. “Jesus, Carlos, you’ve known me for how long? And on the basis of two inscriptions you suddenly decide I was one of poor Federico’s boyfriends? My God, I should give you a clip on the ear!”
“It wasn’t just the books,” Tejada muttered sullenly, although Felipe’s ringing denial had made him feel a little better. “I knew your mother disinherited you in at least one of her wills and about your fighting with her. I knew about Tío Fernando and his wife still nagging at you to marry. And it’s obvious you’re not living here. This is a cover for something, but I couldn’t think what. I knew you got rid of your valet so I figured you were having money problems, and then, when I found the books, I thought maybe—blackmail.”
Felipe sighed. “Oh, hell. I’m sorry, Carlito. I guess if you look at it like that it doesn’t sound so crazy. I . . . look, you’re here as a guardia, right? Not just my little cousin?”
Tejada smiled briefly. “Yes.”
“All right, then.” Felipe heaved himself to his feet. “I guess I can’t expect you to just believe me out of hand. I can explain everything, but I think it will be simpler if you have lunch with me. Can you come now?”
“I’m supposed to be at home,” Tejada said dubiously.
“With your parents? Call them and tell them you ran into me and I invited you out.” Felipe gestured toward the telephone.
Tejada hesitated. If he
was right, Felipe was a cold-blooded poi-soner. But he did not see how even the most diabolical villain could slip poison into a restaurant meal with no advance preparation. And he could always refuse to eat or drink anything suspicious. Tejada looked at his cousin and realized with something like sadness that there was no way Felipe could physically overpower him. With a faint sense of shock, the lieutenant remembered that he had stopped his own father’s hand, forestalling a blow. And Felipe was a small man and no longer young. With an effort, the lieutenant recalled past kindnesses and reminded himself that Felipe deserved the chance to prove that he was not . . . not like Lorca, Tejada thought, shying away from the word in disgust. “All right,” he said.
He called his parents and then, before Felipe could comment, picked up the phone again and called Sergeant Rivas. He left a message at the post, saying that he was going to interview his cousin over lunch and expected to be back at the post by five o’clock. His cousin raised his eyebrows at the second message. “Insurance?” he inquired sardonically.
“Just scheduling,” Tejada said with embarrassment.
“After you.” Felipe bowed and gestured, making no attempt to move close enough to Tejada to touch him.
They passed out of the building under the curious gaze of the concierge and crossed the Gran Vía in silence. Tejada thought at first that his cousin was heading for a small restaurant on the Calle Elvira that he had patronized in other times, but Felipe crossed the Calle Elvira as well and began to climb a steep cobblestone-covered alleyway, narrow enough that the lieutenant could lay his palms flat along the windowless walls on either side. The buildings pressing in on them were crumbling and decrepit, with no visible house numbers. Number plates would have been useless anyway. The alley was too narrow to have a name.
“Where are we going?” Tejada demanded, suspicious.
“Into the Albaicín.” The path was curving upward, and the steps had been set into the pavement at irregular intervals. Felipe was moving quickly, and the brevity of his reply might merely have been due to a lack of breath.
“You don’t say!” Tejada retorted, and Felipe gave a breathless grunt that might have been a laugh.
“I’ll explain when we get there.”
Tejada did not press him further, but he was glad that he had called Sergeant Rivas. The Albaicín was the oldest quarter of the city. The dark twisting maze of streets crouching on the hill beneath the ruins of the old Moorish walls was avoided by respectable people. The Reds had built barricades here in ’36 and resisted the Movement in bloody street battles, assisted by the hordes of Gypsies and the lowlifes that inhabited the overcrowded slum.
They reached a slightly wider street, perhaps wide enough for a car to enter, if any ever tried to in this neighborhood. Barefoot children with ragged clothes that were too small even for their skinny bodies were playing in the gutters, the smallest of them cheerfully shouting obscenities that the lieutenant had not spoken above a whisper until his university days. Young men who should have been at work lounged in doorways, smoking and observing the street with tired eyes. The children quieted at the sight of Tejada and Felipe and ducked into doorways or behind piles of garbage. The lieutenant heard a few mutters as they passed. “Fascist pig.” “Fucking tricorn.” He stiffened.
“Keep walking,” Felipe said quietly. “No sense starting something.” Oddly, the muttered warning made Tejada feel better. Felipe had not spoken with fear or glee, but rather with a sort of embarrassment, as if he felt responsible for the jeers but was disapproving. The lieutenant did not think his cousin would speak that way if he was leading a victim into a trap.
The upper part of the Albaicín boasted impressive views of the Alhambra on the opposite hill. Perhaps because of the prospect, this neighborhood was not as poor or as dilapidated as the area leading up to it. The streets were still narrow and the houses shabby, but they were clean and the few people out of doors appeared to be hurrying about their business in what struck the lieutenant as an orderly fashion. A woman leaning out an upper window to hang her laundry saw them, and gasped. “Don Felipe! Blessed Virgin, are you all right?”
“Fine, thanks.” Felipe looked up, shading his eyes with his hand, and added a phrase in a language incomprehensible to the lieutenant. She laughed, responded in the same tongue, and drew her head in.
Tejada stopped walking and stared at his cousin. “What was that?”
“Nothing. I just told her you were family.”
“What language was that?”
“Calé. Gypsy. I’ve picked up a few words from Lili.”
Tejada fell into step beside his cousin. “You speak the Gypsies’ language?”
“Not well,” Felipe said modestly. “But when I got interested in flamenco I started spending a lot of time in the Gypsy caves, and I got tired of not understanding what everyone was saying behind my back.”
“Who’s Lili?” Tejada asked, remembering that Fernando had said something about his younger brother being involved with a flamenco dancer. Please, dear God, let him say she’s the woman he’s been staying with, he thought, but the prayer lacked the urgency it would have had half an hour ago.
“The person we’re going to meet.” The road forked, and Felipe unhesitatingly dived down the narrower of the two paths, adding over his shoulder, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this place to the rest of the family, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Tejada nodded and followed his cousin with some curiosity. They were not quite in the neighborhood of the Gypsy flamenco bars yet. And the neighborhood was too inconvenient to house the exclusive brothels that Felipe had patronized in his youth. All in all, Felipe seemed out of place in these surroundings. The roof of the house on one side had been seriously damaged by what looked like cannon fire and ill repaired, but the walls were scrupulously whitewashed. The sheets hanging out of the windows to dry were threadbare but there was no garbage in the little alley. The whole place had an air of shabby respectability, and Tejada did not associate either adjective with his cousin.
“Here we are.” Felipe stopped in front of a heavy door with the number twelve painted on it in black. Tejada expected his cousin to knock, but instead Felipe dug in his pocket and produced a ring of keys. He fitted one into the outer lock and shoved open the door.
They were in a carmen, but a far humbler one than the elaborate ornamental gardens belonging to Felipe’s mother or sister. This was simply a cobblestone-covered courtyard with some raggedy bougainvillea clinging to one wall and a well in the center, around which someone had placed a few clay pots of begonias. A whisk broom was lying against one wall and a dented washtub sat beside it, tangible reminders that the courtyard required constant upkeep. Felipe turned unhesitatingly and unlocked an interior door. “It’s the second floor,” he explained, beginning to climb a narrow staircase, lit only by the light that filtered through tiny windows.
Tejada followed, wondering with one half of his mind about their final goal and with the other about whether the alarming creaks emitted by the wooden steps signaled some structural instability in the building. They passed the door to the first landing. It was closed. As they reached the second landing, the smell of tortilla began to seep into the darkened stairwell. Felipe opened the door to an apartment, calling as he did so, “Hi, Lili! I’ve brought a guest.”
Tejada’s first impression was of a darkened foyer. He heard the clatter of pots in a nearby kitchen, and then a shrill voice saying, “Marianita, no!” Then he was standing beside Felipe in a long, low room cluttered with books and toys. A dark-eyed girl of perhaps ten with a toddler on her hip was about to deposit the child into a playpen. She looked up and smiled at Felipe, and then froze as she saw the lieutenant in his cape and tricorn and regarded him with suspicious eyes.
Felipe smiled ruefully at the child. “Hi, sweetie. Don’t be scared. This is your cousin, Carlos. Carlos, this is my daughter Maya, and the baby is Mariana.”
For a moment the lieutenant and the litt
le girl regarded each other with mutual shock. “Aren’t you going to say hello to your cousin?” Felipe prompted.
“Hi,” Maya murmured at the same instant Tejada responded, “Hello, Maya.”
Awkwardly, Tejada leaned forward and kissed the little girl’s cheek. The baby, who had taken advantage of Maya’s distraction to lever herself up onto the rail of the playpen, now wriggled over the edge and took a few toddling steps toward the two men. “Hi!” she said distinctly, smiling happily in anticipation of praise for her cleverness and stumbled into the lieutenant.
“Marianita!” Maya snatched her sister back, cheeks flaming. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Officer!”
Tejada laughed, still unsure of himself but relieved by the ordinariness of the scene. “It’s all right. Why don’t you call me Tío?” he suggested and heard the echoes of Felipe’s words in his own.
She nodded, but said nothing, still shy. Tejada put Mariana back into her playpen. “And this is Lili and Pepín,” Felipe said, sounding both relieved and approving, as the lieutenant straightened. “Lili, my little cousin, Carlos.”
Tejada turned to see a woman coming out of the kitchen with a boy of about Toño’s age clinging to her skirts, who was observing him carefully. It was difficult to estimate her age. Childbearing had probably broadened her figure, and there were lines carved in her dark face and threads of silver as well as hennaed red showing in her hair, but the lieutenant guessed that she was near his age. She checked for a moment at the sight of his uniform, and then came forward, wiping her hands on her apron and holding one out. “A pleasure to meet you. It’s Lieutenant Tejada, isn’t it? Andrés’s son?”
“Yes. Likewise.” Tejada glanced sideways at Felipe, looking for cues as he shook hands.
Felipe ignored him and squatted to be at eye level with the little boy. “How is the king of the household this afternoon?”
“Good.” Pepín emerged from behind his mother and was rewarded by being picked up and thrown into the air. “I set the table all by myself, because Marianita was fussy,” he added with pride, when he was once more safely in his father’s arms.
The Summer Snow Page 21