by Hy Conrad
Kevin mouthed back, “I have no idea.”
CHAPTER 27
“When we landed, they were still talking. They totally ignored Kevin and me and went straight up to Jorge’s cabin. Poor Kevin didn’t know what to do.”
Amy and her mother were on the porch, in side-by-side rockers, primitive but well-polished creations with curving branches cut and pieced together to form the arms and the backs. The women leaned inward, keeping their rocking synchronized and their voices low.
“Jorge and Oscar must have had something to talk about,” Fanny said.
“Something to do with the site of your vision.”
“Did you mentally just put the word vision in quotes?”
“We both know it wasn’t,” Amy said. “We just don’t know what it was.”
Fanny had stopped rocking. “Who is that girl with Oscar?” She pointed with her head toward the small corral just to the left of the meadow where the King Fisher was still parked. A compact but attractive teenager stood holding the reins of a brown- and white-spotted horse, a little larger than a pony. Oscar was in the cab of a weathered pickup, talking to her through the driver-side window.
“That’s his daughter, Juanita,” said Amy. “I told you.”
“Ah, yes. The girl practicing her English. She looks happy.”
She did indeed look happy, Amy thought. They both did, with closed-mouth smiles they didn’t try to hide. The weathered gaucho leaned his head out of the window and kissed her on the cheek. Then the truck chugged reluctantly to life, was thrown into gear, and traveled around the meadow and toward the road.
“Yoo-hoo,” Fanny called out, waving at young Juanita. “How are you, dear?”
Juanita turned and looked perplexed, until she noticed Amy in the other rocker. Her smile returned. She tied her spotted horse to the railing and came up to the porch to greet her onetime tutor. “Hello, Miss Amy Abel. To see you is a lovely shock. How are you feeling?”
Amy stated that she was just fine and got up to find Juanita a chair. “This is my mother. Mom, this is Juanita Jones.”
“Oh, please,” said Juanita, hands raised in gentle protest. “I cannot stay. I was practicing with the waiter, my friend Alejandro. He tells me of that unlucky woman who died by the river at the other estancia.”
Amy was surprised. “News travels fast.”
“I think it does,” Juanita agreed. “People say she was the owner of the company, with Senor O’Bannion.”
“That’s right,” said Amy. “She was his friend.”
“So sad.” Juanita gave it a moment, a young person’s innocent mourning for the world. Then her smile returned. “My father says I must ride home now. Very important.”
“It looks like your father had good news,” said Fanny. “He was smiling.”
“It is good.” Her natural modesty seemed at battle with her desire to divulge. “I will be going to school in Puerto Montt,” she said in a breathless whisper. “A thing I always wanted. My family never had the money to send me to the Sisters of Grace and to pay for my stay.”
“But your father has found the money,” Amy said, guessing. “That’s wonderful.”
“He says God will provide. And I must thank you, Miss Abel, for helping.”
“I’m not sure . . . How did I help?”
Juanita lowered her gaze and stared at her own folded hands. “When you and the ladies came to our house. He saw how you took time and talked to me like an equal person.”
Amy felt guilty. Her interrogation, disguised as an English lesson, had obviously touched the gaucho family in an unexpected way. “I liked talking to you.”
“My father likes you.”
“Really?” This was news. She didn’t think Oscar even noticed. The two of them had barely spoken.
“My father is a quiet man who does not like many. After that day, he understood. He will pay for my uniform and my clothing and books. And soon, in the autumn . . . Is that the right word? Is it autumn or the other word? Fall?”
“Both words are right,” Fanny said.
“Actually . . .” Amy wagged a hand back and forth. “Fall is an American word—fall or autumn. In England they don’t say fall, just autumn.”
“Is that true?” Fanny asked her daughter, then shrugged. “Well, what do the English know?”
“Then I will say autumn,” Juanita decided. “That way I can speak to everyone.”
Fanny wanted to ask more about Oscar Jones’s sudden good fortune. But she could see that Juanita was eager to hop on her spotted steed, gallop home, and plan out her future. They wished her the best of luck, then watched and waved as the gaucho’s daughter leaped into her saddle and pulled her horse’s head toward the empty road. The sound of hoof beats died off in the breeze.
Fanny started to rock. “That’s probably the best use of blackmail money I’ve ever heard.”
“What?” Amy mulled over the possibility, then joined her mother, rocking once again in the same cadence. “It does sound like blackmail, doesn’t it?”
“It must be what they were discussing in the helicopter. If you spoke Spanish, this mystery would be solved.”
“If I spoke Spanish, they wouldn’t have been discussing it over the headsets.”
Fanny begrudgingly allowed this. “If we do our part and Jorge gets arrested for . . . whatever . . . does Oscar have to give back the money? I hope not.”
“I hope not, too. But I don’t think that can be our priority.”
“Agreed.” Fanny grunted as she pushed herself up from the rocker. “I’m thinking Oscar’s blackmail has to be something he saw from the helicopter.”
“That makes the most sense.”
“Do we have a map? I think I saw a framed map in the hallway.”
There were in fact two framed maps in the hallway off the great room, facing each other on opposite walls. One was similar to the topographical map they’d disfigured in Torre Vista in their attempt to find Lola, only this one had the Glendaval estancia at the epicenter instead of Torre Vista. The other was a larger, less detailed map of this entire section of Patagonia. Together, Amy and Fanny lifted it from the wall, carried it into the great room, and laid it out on the huge coffee table in front of the two-story walk-in fireplace.
“Okay,” said Fanny, slapping the dust from her hands. “Where are we?”
Amy leaned over the coffee table and looked for anything familiar. There were names, mostly of lakes and rivers, mountain peaks and glaciers. A green dotted line showed the boundaries of the national park. A red dotted line showed the border with Argentina. Smaller symbols denoted campsites and the rare hotel in the park interior. “There’s Lago Grey.” She pointed to an armlike length of blue. “I think the river we saw today was the Rio Grey.”
“You having a geography lesson?” It was Kevin Vanderhof, just walking in, nursing a fresh cup of coffee, looking young and adorable in his standard-issue bomber jacket with the fleece collar.
“Kevin.” Amy couldn’t hide her pleasure at seeing him, then immediately hoped he wouldn’t take it the wrong way. “Hi.” She straightened her smile. “You’re just the man we need. Where exactly are we?”
Kevin crossed to the far side of the coffee table and peered down. They were almost head-to-head, and he took his time. “Right here,” he said, his right index finger showing off the tiny print. “Glendaval,” about two inches below the blue of Lago Grey.
“And where is Rio Grey?” Amy asked. “The river we saw today?”
Kevin’s finger moved an inch or two to the right. “The Grey Glacier melts into Lago Grey, and the lake drains into the river.” His finger went south on the map. “Rio Grey bends around here. It joins up with Rio Serrano and keeps going until it empties into Ultima Esperanza Sound. Last Hope Sound. Great name, huh? Some explorer thought it would be his last hope to find a passage into the Strait of Magellan. It didn’t work out for him.”
“The Rio Serrano?” Amy moved her own finger away from Kevin’s. “Tha
t’s where you found Lola Pisano’s body.”
“Right.” Kevin moved to the other side of the table, giving Amy’s finger a little breathing room. “Here’s Torre Vista,” he said. The print was the same size as that of “Glendaval,” nearly invisible to the eye. “And here’s the spot where we found her, give or take a kilometer.”
“Really?” Amy’s eyes went from one microscopic piece of typeface to the other. “I didn’t realize how close the two estancias are.”
“They’re not really close,” Kevin said. “As the crow flies, maybe fifty miles. But the ranches were built in the old days.”
“It took us a full overnight trip on the train,” said Fanny. “Not that I’m complaining. It was lovely.”
Amy continued to stare, her focus traveling from the source of the Rio Grey to its merger with the Rio Serrano and beyond. Impossible terrain, but connected by rivers.
My God, could it be that simple? she wondered. All the wild complexities answered by the flow of a river? Simple and lucky. And clever, requiring a killer who could stay cool and solve problems on the fly—solve one little problem after another, until there were no problems left and he was in the clear.
“Amy, dear, what’s wrong?” Fanny waved a hand in front of her daughter’s eyes, still focused on the map. “Blink if you can hear my voice.”
“Is she all right?” asked Kevin.
When Amy came back to life, she didn’t speak. Instead, she took out her phone, pressed the camera button, and began to take close-up shots of the map—of Glendaval, of Torre Vista, of the rambling rivers nearly connecting the two.
“Mr. Vanderhof?” It was Jorge O’Bannion, striding down the curved staircase, his voice echoing off the rafters.
Amy blinked, feeling as if she’d been punched back into reality. “I’m okay,” she reassured Kevin and Fanny, even though she didn’t mean it. “Really.”
O’Bannion was still talking as he approached. “Don’t you need to fly before sunset? For safety, yes?”
“I should get back,” agreed the young pilot. “Bright and early tomorrow we have a full flight to Dickson Lake area. Two days of trout.” He straightened up, and O’Bannion could finally see what they’d been leaning over.
“Another map taken from the wall?” There was a disapproving note in his query. “Is the light not good enough in the hallway?”
Fanny tittered girlishly. “Oh, poor Jorge. We promise not to draw on this one. We just wanted to see where we are.”
“That’s why we have maps on the walls,” said the resort owner. “So that everyone can see.”
“I’m the one who took it down,” said Kevin. “My fault.” His wink to Amy could best be described as chivalrous. “I wanted to show them. The geography can be confusing.”
“The other map is a closer view. Also the brochure.”
“We wanted to see the big picture,” said Amy, her mouth suddenly dry. “The helicopter ride piqued my curiosity.”
“I was telling them about Last Hope Sound,” said Kevin. “That would make a great title for a book, wouldn’t it? Last Hope Sound. The Sound of Last Hope. Kind of a double meaning.”
“Last hope,” echoed O’Bannion. Then he stepped between Amy and Kevin and grabbed both sides of the picture frame. Kevin tried to help, but the older man refused. He stumbled away with the large, awkward rectangle between his outstretched arms, grunting with each step.
Kevin followed him toward the hall, apologizing again. Fanny was going to follow, but Amy touched her arm, and the Abels stayed behind.
“He’s upset with us,” Fanny said softly. “The poor man has a right to be.”
“He’s suspicious,” Amy whispered back. “He suspects we know the truth.”
Fanny drew her chin back. “And do we, dear? Know the truth?”
Amy nodded.
“From the map? Is that what your disturbing little trance was about?” Amy nodded again, and Fanny gasped. “Well, no wonder the man’s upset. Tell me, tell me.”
“Not now. Not here.”
Fanny could barely stand it. “Is Jorge a killer? Tell me that much.”
“Yes,” Amy confirmed.
“Was it some lost backpacker they made up to look like Lola?”
Amy wanted to say more. But saying more would have meant saying everything. As simple as it was, there wasn’t one answer that didn’t lead to another question, and she couldn’t risk explaining any of it in public. “We have to behave like nothing’s wrong.”
Fanny said she understood. Fighting every instinct, she managed to take her time. She visited the kitchen, heated up water for her thermos, opened a fresh packet of maté herbs, and washed out her gourd. When no one else was left in sight, she raced up the back stairs to the privacy of their room.
Meanwhile, Amy returned to the front porch. She leaned back against a post, arms folded, and watched as the engine roared, the rotors spun, and the helicopter wobbled into the air, carrying away the one friendly face, their one possible ally—the man who had, just before leaving, written down his e-mail address and shyly handed it to her—to another sector of the Patagonian wilderness.
CHAPTER 28
For Fanny, it was second nature now—mashing and stirring with her shiny bombilla. She curled herself up in the window seat overlooking the orchard and the cabin beyond, while Amy paced their room and tried to explain.
“I don’t have all the pieces,” Amy said haltingly. “But what I have makes sense. It’s the only possibility that makes sense, even though it’s wild.”
“You apologize too much,” said Fanny between long sips. “Just speak.”
“Okay.” Amy took a deep breath. “We start with the fact that Lola visited this estancia. I don’t know if this was a surprise or if Jorge had been expecting her. But she was a private person and could easily have arrived at his cabin without anyone at the ranch seeing her.”
“And you know this because of the pendant?”
“Right. Lola left behind her pendant. Also, Juanita saw a strange car on the road that day.” Amy turned the corner and paced back. “My guess is she wasn’t happy with the way business was going. The delays, the explosion, the expenses. I don’t know how it happened, but Jorge killed her.”
Fanny raised a hand. “You mean at the second estancia, not this one.”
“No, I mean this one. Just hear me out.”
“Oh, excuse me!” said Fanny and returned to her gourd.
Amy ignored the sarcasm. “Perhaps Jorge and Lola argued, and he lost his temper. Whatever happened, she was dead and he needed to hide the body. My guess is he used his motorcycle with the sidecar to drive it to some inaccessible spot.”
“Out where the animals would eat it?”
Amy shrugged in the affirmative. “I don’t know what he did with the car or her clothes. He didn’t go on any of our excursions, so I assume he used that time to get rid of them. When Lola’s family finally missed her and made inquiries, he could plead ignorance. She never arrived. He never saw her.”
“But then I found the body. Yes!” Fanny pumped a fist in the air. “I’m so good.”
“You found the body,” Amy confirmed. “Nicolas and Oscar called Jorge on the two-way radio. They thought he was back here. Wherever Jorge really was, he returned to the scene and disposed of her body.”
Fanny stopped slurping, quickly enough to make her choke. “How could he dispose of it? The police searched the whole area.”
“Patagonia’s best transportation system. He took the body fifty yards or so to the Rio Grey, slipped it in, and watched it float downstream.”
“Okay . . .” Fanny drew out the word, then paused and cleared her throat. “I have about fifty questions.”
“Just let me go on.” Amy stopped pacing and settled onto the other half of the window seat, knee to knee with her mother, staring into her eyes. “Jorge had gotten away with murder. But he had a problem. He needed more of Lola’s money. So he called someone. An actress friend from Valparai
so. Or just some woman who bore a resemblance. The fact that Lola was a bit of a recluse probably gave him the idea. With a fake mole and dyed hair, she could pass, especially since no one here knew the real Lola. When she arrived at Torre Vista, Jorge gave her Lola’s pendant, just to make it more authentic.”
“You’re saying the Lola I met—”
“She was the fake, yes. The plan was for fake Lola to sign some documents, write a few checks, and disappear, never to be seen again.”
Fanny thought it over, warming to the idea. “You know, when I ran into her and I started ranting on about death, she seemed definitely rattled.”
“Everyone rattled her. That’s why she stayed out of sight. Gabriela Garcia in particular was a threat, even though the two women had never met. When fake Lola rode off on her horse, it was partly to avoid Gabriela.”
“And where did fake Lola go?”
“I don’t know,” Amy admitted. “But I remember in the Torre Vista garage . . . Jorge’s sidecar was there, but not his motorcycle. If the motorcycle was waiting somewhere with a full tank of gas, fake Lola could have escaped to any little town and caught a bus.”
“And so the Lola we saw in Valparaiso? That was the friend?”
“It had to be. She had removed the fake mole. But she hadn’t changed the hair color or the curls. And the words I overheard—hair dye, motorcycle, police, lucky—they all fit in with my theory.”
“Lucky,” Fanny repeated. “I’ll say the bastard was lucky.”
“Remember how shocked he was when the pilots told him they’d found a body? He was a wreck. Kept saying it was impossible—until he saw for himself. Lola had floated into the Rio Serrano. If the helicopter hadn’t accidentally flown over and spotted her, she would have just disappeared into the wilderness, eaten by condors and washed away.”
“But he didn’t count on the body getting found. How could he count on that?”
“He couldn’t. He would have been happy just to have her disappear.”
Fanny placed her gourd on the windowsill and got up to stretch. She hated saying anything negative to her daughter, about solving mysteries at least. “It’s a little far-fetched, don’t you think?”