by Hy Conrad
“Not if you’re a grieving widow. For a grieving widow, there’s plenty of blame to go around.” Amy’s eyes shifted, and Marcus could tell she was checking out the clock in the corner of her camera. “I need to talk to Gabriela before she leaves in the morning, not that she’ll tell me much.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Marcus reshuffled the pages. “I found out what I could on Nicolas Blanco. There was no such student at the art conservatory in Santiago, according to their online records, which go back ten years. I also checked the art schools in Buenos Aires.”
“His name is Nicolas Bruno. Brown, not White. I got it all straightened out. He’s not a suspect.”
Marcus made a sound, a tight-lipped growl. “I spent hours on this, you know.”
“I realize that, and I’m sorry. Things just started happening with Nicolas, and he came clean.” Amy made her most girlish, helpless face, an expression Marcus knew well. “I still need you plenty.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” He set the printouts aside for the final time. “Did you ever open the photos I sent? Or did you find us an apartment all on your own?”
“I opened them, yes,” said Amy. “One good thing about business hotels. They have decent Wi-Fi.”
“And?” Marcus looked hopeful. “What do you think?”
Amy sighed. “I think New York rentals are crappy and overpriced. No offense. I’m sure you did your best.”
“What about the place in the East Village?”
“Oh, my God. That was the worst. A fire escape for a balcony? And so much garbage. We’d have to fumigate.”
“I told you it would be hard.”
“Well, don’t give up. As soon as I get back, we’ll seriously look, both of us.”
“Good,” Marcus said. “I can’t wait.”
“Me too.” She checked the time again. “Right now I have to grill Gabriela. She’s the only lead we have. Love you,” she added.
Marcus loved her back and wished her good luck. They hung up simultaneously.
Amy would have liked to obsess about her last two words to Marcus and what had made her say them. And what he’d meant by his reply. Had it been a simple “Ditto”? Or something more heartfelt? But obsessing seemed like a luxury right now. The twin mysteries of Fanny’s vision and the corpse by the river were rushing away from her, any possible clues dispersing to the four winds. By tomorrow the suspects and everything else would be gone.
The last day on the train had been perfectly, maddeningly uneventful, a tourist’s delight, with the Andes spilling scenically down toward the Pacific. The large town/small city of Puerto Natales marked the end of the rail line. It was where the first O’Bannion immigrant had sent his mutton and wool off on their journeys around the world. The sheep industry had almost abandoned the town now, replaced by ecotourism. It was a jumping-off point to the wild glories of Patagonia, a place to book tours and purchase gear. One of its busiest shops was the outlet for the popular U.S. brand that just happened to share the region’s name.
The tour’s closing ceremony had been much less extravagant than its opening one. The small old station was a wooden structure, its dilapidated state half hidden beneath festive coats of red and blue paint. The borrowed silver engine had done its job. The last plumes of steam drifted up from its boiler as an older-looking Jorge O’Bannion bravely feigned his satisfaction on the station platform, facing his eight guests and speaking of his company’s bright future. After a few weeks spent making improvements and repairs, the service would begin in earnest. Reservations, he said, were already pouring in. And with the goodwill of these lovely, influential travel experts, the New Patagonian Express would quickly become one of the world’s premier tours. He didn’t mention the destruction of his beloved sleeping car.
Amy had observed the others out of the corners of her eyes. Alicia Lindborn was as pulled together and amiable as ever, the perfect guest. The Furies were their usual, inscrutable selves, Gabriela included. Edgar Wolowitz was nearly as congenial and polite as Alicia. And Todd Drucker was practicing his smirk, which could mean anything. Amy couldn’t help feeling sorry for Jorge. The tour had not been a disaster, not compared to the other disasters she’d been part of. But it had not been the rousing success that he needed.
When Amy went from her room down to the hotel bar, she saw that everyone had shown up for a final drink. The two non-English-speaking Furies were in a corner by the entrance with more than half of the bar patrons, intently watching a televised soccer game. Amy edged her way around the crowded chairs and nearly stumbled into Edgar and Todd, standing at the bar—Todd with a martini, Edgar with a Guinness Stout.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“Amy,” Todd said, a welcoming note in his voice. It was the first time the stubby little man had ever called her Amy. “Just read the new Trippy. Quite entertaining, although I don’t remember the thunderstorm. Or anyone spending a night in the bell tower.”
For once she wasn’t unnerved by his snarky grin. “Did you notice the disclaimer, ‘Based loosely . . .’?”
“A welcome addition, and one that just increases the fascination. You know, I’m going to piece together what happened.”
“That’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?”
“I’ve begun reading, as well,” said Edgar. “I hope you don’t mind, but the piece I just filed for the Sunday Times mentions your blog quite glowingly.”
“I don’t mind in the least.” Amy kept her smile to a sophisticated minimum and looked past them to the bartender. “Senor, buenas noches. Un Campari y soda, por favor, con un poco de hielo.” With a little ice. Let the Spanish lessons begin. Todd offered to pay for the drink, and Amy accepted.
They chatted amiably about nothing until the pale red liquor arrived. She thanked Todd again, wished them both a good evening, then crossed over to the woman with the henna dye job, seated at a small round table on the far side of the bar with Gabriela. Fanny had managed to separate the owner of Hemispherio Travel from her companions. Amy could see in her mother’s body language that she was already engaged in an intimate, friendly, disarming interrogation. It was the same attitude Amy recalled from the very first time she’d come home from a date.
“Amy, come sit with us.” Fanny scooted around, leaving a space at the table but no extra chair. Both women were drinking wine, Gabriela a red, Fanny a white. Amy was glad not to see a maté gourd anywhere on the table. “I was just telling Gabriela that you saw her driving one of the cars on the day Lola disappeared.”
“What?” Amy was flabbergasted. “Mother!”
“Weren’t you telling me that?” Fanny asked, all innocence. “I thought it strange, because that was the same day Gabriela was bedridden with that terrible headache.” Fanny shrugged. “My little girl gets confused about dates. You wouldn’t believe how many appointments she’s missed in her life.”
“Don’t blame your daughter.” Gabriela wasn’t stupid. She could tell that this was all a ploy. “I did borrow an auto, as a matter of fact. To go look for Lola. No one was searching that side of the estancia.”
“I remember,” Fanny said.
“It seemed neglectful. So I took it upon myself to search. Amy was right. She did see me.”
“And the pilots found her body not far away. Did you run into Lola? Oops.” Fanny covered her mouth and giggled. “I don’t mean run over her. Did you find her?”
“No, no. I didn’t get so far. The ground there is rough. I got lost. Then the auto wheels got stuck in a hole. I had to rock back and forth many times.” She lowered her voice to a confessional whisper. “I think maybe I scraped something underneath. That is why I lied about the headache. If the auto was damaged, I didn’t want people to know. That was irresponsible. I feel bad. And after Jorge has been so nice to us.”
“I didn’t mean to be spying,” said Amy defensively. “I just happened to be around when you came back.”
“Understood. It’s my fault, not yours.”
True or no
t, this was a reasonable explanation. It explained why Gabriela had been so secretive, tiptoeing back out of the garage and then lying about her headache. But it didn’t change the fact that she’d been the only searcher out on her own, in the very quadrant where Lola would later be found dead.
Amy stayed at the little table with Fanny and Gabriela until she’d transformed her Campari into pink ice, then excused herself. Tomorrow would be an early day, with their flight to the Santiago airport and an overnight stay in the nearby port city of Valparaiso. Then back home to New York. Back home without any hope of finding an answer. Oh, what the hell! One more Campari y soda. She returned to the bar, held up her glass, and twirled her finger, the international sign for “one more round.” The bartender nodded and got to work.
“Miss Abel?” She turned to see Nicolas Blanco/Bruno. The soft-looking young man stood there timidly in his jeans and wool jacket, looking out of place in a tourist bar in a business hotel. She hadn’t expected to see him again. The moment felt quite awkward.
“How are you doing?” she asked. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“No,” he said, then swallowed hard. “I’m at a backpacking hostel not far off. I came to see you.” And with that, he held up a plastic supermarket bag with JUMBO written in large yellow letters. “I couldn’t find any place to buy wrapping paper.”
Amy accepted the bag without comment. Inside was a rolled-up piece of good-quality art paper, held in place with two rubber bands. She had no idea what to expect, but she found a dry section of the bar, undid the rubber bands, and unrolled. She examined the curled portrait, a classic head and shoulders, similar to the one he’d done of the general, but in charcoal instead of ballpoint. In this one, the head was at an angle and the eyes were focused straight at the viewer.
“It’s you,” she said with some amusement. “Thank you. It’s beautiful. Looks just like you.” That part wasn’t quite true. In the self-portrait, Nicolas’s face seemed calmer. Not necessary a younger face, but more at peace. Or was she just reading this into it?
“It’s an odd present, no?” Nicolas admitted. “A likeness of me? I did have a photo of you I could have worked from, but then you would have just had a drawing of yourself. And you know already what you look like, so why do that? No. This way, you have a Nicolas Bruno original.” He swallowed again. “A portrait of the man whose life you saved.”
Amy pretended not to know what he meant. “The general wouldn’t have killed you, even if I hadn’t come.”
“No. You still saved my life.”
CHAPTER 24
The overnight stay in Valparaiso was on their own dime, as Fanny liked to put it. During their one New York meeting, when O’Bannion was trying to entice the Abels with the charms of Chile, he had mentioned the city. He had told them he kept an apartment there, and he had praised the gritty beauty of the old port, with its hills and its crescent harbor, a site that sailors had once dubbed “Little San Francisco.” Amy loved the name, Valparaiso, so evocative of Spanish explorers and trade routes. As long as they’d traveled all this distance, she’d thought it would be a good idea to spend two days walking around, decompressing, visiting churches and taking the old wooden funiculars, the hillside cable cars, up and down the picturesque landscape. Those two days had been reduced to one, thanks to Nicolas and the chimney. But it was still enough, she hoped, to get a feel for the town.
Amy had researched the hotels and settled on a boutique establishment on one of the trendy hills, Cerro Concepción, partly because Jorge had mentioned it as his own beloved neighborhood, with good restaurants and incredible views.
“So, what’s happening with Trippy in the monastery?” Amy asked as she split the last of the bottle of chardonnay between them and signaled the waiter for a check. She’d been waiting for a moment like this, when they were alone and her mother had relaxed with a few glasses of wine. “Nothing too close to the truth, I hope.”
“I thought you liked when I told the truth.”
“Not when it hurts people. And you can’t just change the names,” she added, anticipating her mother’s response. “That’s the only monastery in Patagonia. And there can’t be many Argentine generals who turned into monks. People are going to guess, especially journalists like Todd and Edgar, who happened to be there.”
“So you’re encouraging me to lie.” Fanny laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ve already come up with a better story. It involves an intruder, not unlike Nicolas but cuter, and TrippyGirl, of course—and a novice monk who hasn’t yet taken his vow of chastity. I’m still working the details. Which is better? A jealous fight over you? Or a sexual threesome gone wrong? I think Todd will find the threesome more believable.”
“I think we need to increase the size of the disclaimer and make it flashing red.”
“I will not embarrass you.”
Amy shook her head. “In what alternate universe do you not embarrass me?” It wasn’t really something to laugh about, but they both laughed.
It had been spitting rain on and off all evening. They had walked down the hill from their hotel to have dinner. Amy hadn’t expected Valparaiso to be such a working harbor, full of container ships and concrete piers. But they had managed to find a seafood market/restaurant, one that was nearly empty. It wasn’t a white tablecloth establishment, but the fish was fresh and the service friendly. Amy paid the check in cash, eager to use up the rest of her pesos, then asked the waiter to point them in the direction of the Concepción funicular to take them back up the hill.
In the train shed, they paid the one-way fee, stood by the open bay, and watched the two funicular cars—one coming down, the other going up—as they passed each other in the middle of the slope.
“What do you plan to do with the Lola story?” Amy asked. She lowered her voice, just in case there were other Americans in the small crowd that was gathering behind them.
“I was hoping we’d come up with the truth on that one.”
“I’m not sure we ever will,” Amy said with some resignation. “Our suspects are all gone.”
“Then I suppose Trippy will get high in some fun, wild way and have a vision. She’ll try to warn the poor woman, but to no avail. The victim will ride off, and they’ll find her body with the condors.” Fanny adjusted her rain bonnet, keeping it on even though their heads were protected by the shed. “It’s close to the truth and fairly exciting in a ghost story way. But of course, it’s not the whole story.”
The wooden carriage, brightly painted with a sunrise on the front, had clacked its way into the shed. The passengers got out on one side, and Amy and Fanny were among the first to get in on the other, finding places to sit near the rear, which would become the front at the other end of the ascent. As the carriage filled up, Amy ran her fingers through her hair, then used her pashmina to wipe the raindrops from her glasses. The glasses nearly flew out of her hand when her mother violently tapped her shoulder.
“Tell me that’s not a vision,” Fanny hissed. She was pointing at a couple who had just entered the carriage, the last two on before the attendant slid the door shut. “Do you see her, too?”
The man was clearly Jorge O’Bannion, which was hardly worthy of a vision. They had sat behind him on the plane here, and they both knew he lived in the neighborhood near the top of the tracks. But the woman at his side . . . He was treating her with the same deference as before. She was the same height and build and carried herself the same way. And although she was wearing a head scarf, the ash-blond curls were also the same.
Amy leaned down to her mother’s ear. “It can’t be her. She’s dead.”
“Hence my question about the vision.”
“Well, it can’t be. Does she have a mole?”
Jorge and the woman were at the other end, facing out through the rear window as the carriage started climbing. By the time they’d arrived at the top shed, they still hadn’t turned. Amy was counting on a view of them when they exited, but by then everyone who’d been seated was standing.
Mother and daughter were standing now, too, pushing their way to the exit door on the right.
“Do we say hello?” Fanny asked.
“I think that’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know exactly.” There was something about this whole situation that felt dangerous. To her. Perhaps not dangerous, but definitely worthy of a slower approach. “What if it is her?” Amy asked. “What do we say?”
“Well, I think that’s their problem, not ours. Are you just being a baby about this? Amy Josephine Abel . . .”
“I am not being a baby. . . . Oh, shoot.” In the few seconds it had taken them to argue, Jorge and the mystery woman had left the carriage and were walking out through the turnstile. “Come on.”
Amy jostled through the crowd, which was still funneling through the door and the single turnstile beyond. Fanny rushed to stay in her wake. By the time Amy saw the couple again, they were heading uphill, scuttling between the raindrops, hurrying from one pool of streetlamp light to the next. The Abels broke from the pack of pedestrians and were just beginning to catch up. And that was when the downpour started.
The sudden onslaught caught everyone by surprise. People scurried for shelter under the nearest awning or in the nearest doorway. Children and tourists and well-dressed locals leaving the cafés all zigzagged in a frenzy. When Amy got her bearings again, she and Fanny were the only ones exposed to the elements. She spun in a slow circle, already totally soaked, and checked the few crowded dry spots. Jorge and the mystery woman were nowhere in sight.
“It’s hopeless,” Fanny shouted above the wet cacophony. “Let’s just find someplace.”
Fanny led the way down a shadowy alley. The rain here was a little less intense due to the narrowness of the street. Twice they nearly fell on the slippery cobblestones. Then miraculously, just before the next corner, they dove into an empty spot under a storefront canopy. Fanny removed her useless rain bonnet. Amy took the pashmina off her head and sighed. Why had she even brought it with her when there had been that threat of rain in the forecast?