Twenty Centavos: A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende

by John Scherber

  TWENTY CENTAVOS

  A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende

  JOHN SCHERBER

  Outskirts Press, Inc.

  Denver, Colorado

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

  Twenty Centavos

  A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2010 John Scherber

  v2.0

  Cover Design by Lander Rodriguez

  Author Photo by Gail Yates Tobey

  Web Page Design by Julio Mendez

  This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Outskirts Press, Inc.

  http://www.outskirtspress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4327-5568-3

  Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Any book starts as an idea and by its completion becomes a joint effort.

  Thanks to my readers: Dianne Aigaki, Patti Beaudry, Joan Columbus, Lou DeRonde, Bill Dorn, Bill Hammond, Donna Krueger, Marcia Loy, Lois Scherber, Lynda Schor, and Ivan Schuster.

  Thanks to Susan Page, tireless advocate for good writing, for her help and encouragement.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Twenty Centavos is the first of the Murder in México series of mysteries, set in the old colonial hill town of San Miguel de Allende. Other titles will follow soon.

  Painter Paul Zacher is preparing for a gallery show when he’s asked to look into the murder of an acquaintance because he might see things differently than the police. He is joined by his Méxican girlfriend, Maya Sanchez, and his retired detective friend Cody Williams. What they see in the world of forged antiquities changes their lives, and nearly ends them.

  In The Fifth Codex they investigate the sudden appearance of a fifth Mayan book, in addition to the four that were known to survive. When the chase is joined by a wealthy collector, the Méxican government, and a radical group bent on using the codex’s message to foment revolt in Chiapas, Paul Zacher and friends find themselves caught in the middle of kidnapping and murder.

  Brushwork. When a disgraced former U.S. vice president retires to San Miguel and buys one of the most expensive houses in town, Zacher senses he’s up to no good. But when the man is murdered with an artist’s paint brush, Zacher finds himself suspect number one and it’s a race against time to clear himself before he’s arrested for the crime.

  Daddy’s Girl. A brutal, sexually posed murder of a former madame, once a Zacher painting model, pulls Paul into another plot, this one going back years in its origins. Tired of being shot at and kidnapped, Maya hits the wall and leaves, and Cody comes up with a completely different view of who the killer might be--another painter. Working alone, Paul stumbles across the woman who might be the answer to his dreams, or just another nightmare.

  Strike Zone. The search for a solid gold human skull, cast from the last remaining jewelry of the Aztecs and once in the collection of Hermann Goering, pulls the Zacher Group down to Oaxaca. Here the artifact may or may not be in the possession an old alcoholic GI who was charged with guarding the salt mine in Austria where the collection was hidden at the end of World War II. A teachers’ strike erupts in lethal violence around them as Goering’s illegitimate son and his Panamanian thugs track their movements in hopes of recovering the artifact.

  Vanishing Act brings the Zacher Group north of the border to track the disappearance of Cody’s nephew, whose pregnant wife has been murdered, and their house burned to the ground. Is the nephew a victim or the perpetrator? The search takes them to New Mexico and Colorado as they try to sort out identities that may not be at all what they seem, and in a way they could never imagine.

  Identity Crisis. Paul and his friends are hired to establish the identity of a man who fears he may not exist. He is murdered before they can help, and they are drawn into a race against time to stop a sinister plot to assassinate the governor of the state, so that his successor can approve a mining permit that will lead to environmental disaster.

  The Theft of the Virgin. At an exhibition of memorable forgeries of great paintings, Paul spots one that is unmistakably genuine. When he challenges the director, the painting is stolen from the exhibit and the Zacher Group finds itself on the trail of a conspiracy to steal Mexico’s greatest national treasure.

  See John Scherber’s website, sanmiguelallendebooks.com, for more details on release dates and availability.

  For Kristine

  PROLOGUE

  THE VISITOR

  Tobey Cross opened the door, and with an unconsciously elegant gesture, invited his killer inside.

  What a fraud, the visitor thought, an Ivy League fake. Fingering the .22 caliber Beretta automatic in the pocket of his Burberry trench coat, he stepped through the doorway. Cross always kept the entry to his gallery locked, might as well post a sign that said, “Sophisticated Clients Only.” Suckers Only might be better. The visitor stared at the back of Cross’s gray suede jacket as they walked across the garden, imagining a bullet hole halfway between collar and vent. Maybe two. But it wouldn’t be in the back--he wanted to see the look on the antiques dealer’s face.

  What kind of name was Cross anyway? English? Irish? Or just something that fit his sanctimonious personality?

  The late afternoon sun of a Méxican January teetered at the edge of the high garden wall. With any luck Cross’s wife would be at the market getting things for dinner. If she was home and came into the gallery it would be her problem.

  “I’ve got some new things in,” said Cross, over his shoulder, “however, they’re still at the warehouse. But there is that head from Copan you were considering.” There was a mildly hopeful note in his voice, promising that satisfaction of sole possession that any collector coveted, but without going more than a degree beyond, “Take it or leave it.” The visitor had never been able to read the dealer well, despite his years of business experience.

  “I’m not here for another piece,” he said, suppressing a quaver in his voice. Cross didn’t respond.

  They passed up the steps from the garden, through the loggia and into the great room beyond that housed the gallery. The visitor felt a wave of desire pass over him as he always did upon entering the room. The shelves of Mayan ceramics, the colonial paintings and silver, the gold and silver shipwreck coins and jewelry never failed to stimulate his collector’s instinct, in spite of what he now knew.

  “What can I do for you, then?” said Cross, his custom-made shoes moving over the fringe of an opulent Shiraz carpet onto the tile. As he leaned against the edge of his desk he plucked a speck of dust from his cuff as he waited for the visitor to reply.

  “They’re fakes,” the visitor spat out. “A bunch of damned fakes.”

  Tobey Cross regarded him coolly. “Surely you can’t be serious.”

  “I dropped one of the ceramics on the floor. It shattered.”

  “Regrettable, I’m sure.” Cross folded his arms and looked across the room at something else, something more r
easonable, maybe more interesting than a client working himself into a rage.

  “I want my money back on the whole batch, all of it, even the one I dropped.”

  A look of genuine puzzlement passed Cross’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, I’m sure you’re very knowledgeable about business, but I doubt you know much beyond that. As for coming in here and thinking you’re able to pass judgement on my offerings, the idea is nothing less than laughable. You’re just a businessman, nothing more. I offered you the same arrangement as the rest of my clients. You have a week after you take a piece home to decide whether you want to retain it. After that, all sales are final. Now, if you should wish to sell back a couple of pieces, at wholesale rates of course, I might be interested, although the market is a little soft right now. I can think of two I might be interested in, the others probably not, for quality reasons.”

  “Odd, isn’t it, that they were all top notch items when I bought them?” His index finger found the trigger inside his pocket.

  “As you will recall, the choices were all yours,” Cross said.

  “Write me a refund check for the lot and I’ll have them brought around in the morning. No one else need know about this. You can go on just as before.” Despite himself, the visitor found his voice shaking. He already knew what the answer would be.

  “Don’t be a fool.” Cross turned away, as if the meeting were finished. As he was staring at a display case of seventeenth century silver coins from the Lima mint, he heard the faint click of the hammer being pulled back on a pistol. He whirled and took two steps forward as the visitor raised the gun to Cross’s face and fired once.

  Tobey Cross fell straight backward, his head striking the tile, and didn’t move, the dull thud echoing in the room. His open eyes and mouth held an expression of surprise, but not outrage. The visitor watched him for a few seconds, listening for a response from further inside the house, but there was none. The only other sound had been a slight ping as the ejected shell casing struck the coffee table, then dropped to the floor and spun away out of sight. The visitor sank to his knees, reached into his pocket, and withdrew a small object and dropped it into the dead man’s mouth. Then he pocketed the pistol and sat down at the desk, searching for a ledger or book of sales receipts, but saw none. He picked up the Rolodex, tried to jam it in his coat pocket but found it too wide, so he simply held it in his hand as he searched for the spent shell casing. He was on his knees before the sofa, just about to bend over to look beneath, when he heard the door on the other side of the garden open and then close firmly. He was instantly on his feet.

  From the third set of French doors on the far left of the loggia he watched as Marisol Cross traversed the garden to the kitchen entrance at the right. When she entered and disappeared from view, the visitor slipped out through the garden along the fountain wall and opened the street door. A chorus of mariachis came from the main plaza two blocks away. A sharper note sounded above the music, the sound of a woman screaming within the gallery. A string of firecrackers went off, covering the sound as the visitor closed the door silently behind him and briskly walked away into the deepening shadows.

  Chapter 1

  “Turn just a bit to your left. Give me a clean profile.”

  My Méxican girlfriend, Maya Sanchez, was seated nude with both legs folded beneath her on a low hassock in my studio, facing right. The upper line of her thigh formed the base of the painting I was starting. Her right arm hung at her side and from the elbow her forearm was angled downward toward her knee, palm facing up and open. Her eyes were closed.

  Normally she wore her hair tied back, where it fell just below her shoulders. Today she had drawn it up on the back of her head to frame a single orange hibiscus blossom fastened behind her ear. Her neck was long and graceful.

  Mixing a thin wash of yellow ochre and burnt sienna, I sketched in her profile with a dozen quick strokes. Touching in the shadow between her arm and her side, and below her breast, established the strongest darks. Behind her body would ultimately squat the Maize God of the ancient Mayans facing left, rendered as if in stone relief, and all around the two of them, a vigorous stretch of the Yucatan jungle. I began to work next on her face. If you don’t get the face right, you can forget the rest.

  “You can put your arm down, but hold your head still if you can. Lift your chin half an inch or so. That’s it. Are you getting tired of doing these?”

  “No.” She spoke without moving her head. “Each one is different enough.”

  I was working on a series for a June show in the Yucatan, in the city of Mérida. Each picture used either Maya or a Yucatecan girl posed with a Mayan divinity behind her. It would be my second show there, and because the first had done well, this time the gallery had made a banner to hang from the top of the building. It said, PAUL ZACHER: GODS AND GODDESSES.

  I got up--I always work sitting down--and took a few steps back from the canvas and regarded it critically, then went over to Maya and bent close to her face. I touched her lips with my fingertips.

  “You look great today. I’m looking at the way your hair comes up off your neck and it’s an interesting curve.”

  “Remember about my nose.”

  She moved her head this time and her eyebrows went up.

  “Of course, but I’m doing your eye next.”

  “But you will remember when you come to paint it?”

  “Always.”

  Maya had a thing about her nose. She believed it was too wide and had too much of an Indian look. I couldn’t see it. We were surrounded by Méxicans of mixed blood every day. They made up most of the population and were usually darker, shorter, and thicker than Maya. She was tall for a Méxican woman, almost five foot six, with long legs and a slender build. She did not have the substantial butt that some Méxican men admire. Hers had a sensational curve to it, but it was no wider than her hips. I had come to know it well, since I’d painted it 20 times or more. But her nose? I thought it was fine.

  Later we took a break. She pulled on a short silk robe and we went downstairs for lunch. I mashed some avocados, chopped an onion and a small tomato, mixed in some roasted green chilis with a bit of chopped serrano chile and added a dash of Worcestershire sauce and a spoonful of mayonnaise. Not exactly traditional, but the last two were my secret ingredients.

  “I like the line of this one,” I said, sitting down and passing her the chips. “The inward curve of your back is the exact reverse of the Maize god’s thigh.”

  “Sometimes you get lucky.” She gave me a tolerant smile. Maya had probably heard more talk about painting that she ever expected to in a lifetime.

  “It’s never luck. Maybe you think it’s easy?”

  “I know it isn’t, but it’s what you love.”

  * * *

  We had a productive painting session that afternoon, and her eye and ear were working well. When I had the ear done I brought a lock of her hair across it that mostly obscured it, but nonetheless you knew it was there.

  When she dressed for dinner she left her hair up and the orange hibiscus was still fresh. We walked through the cool evening to the Villa Antigua Santa Monica, where there would be wonderful food and good margaritas. Strings of firecrackers exploded around us, many more than usual. The narrow sidewalks were crowded with people moving in the opposite direction, back toward our main plaza, the Jardin.

  “Do you know what day this is?” she asked. I’d lived in San Miguel de Allende for 12 years but I wasn’t always current on what holiday it was, there was one practically every day.

  “Friday?” It wasn’t the anniversary of our meeting, that was in December, and it wasn’t her birthday, or mine. “It’s January twenty-first,” I said.

  “It’s the birthday of Don Ignacio Allende. There will be a parade soon.” The sun touched the upper edge of the hills and long shadows crept through the streets. The fireworks didn’t distract me, I was holding the hand of my favorite model. January can be a tough mont
h some places, but never here.

  The restaurant of the Santa Monica spreads under the arches along three sides of the interior garden. Behind the walls along the tables there are half a dozen rooms with high ceilings and colonial style furnishings that have their own courtyards behind. By the time we got there darkness had fallen and the only light came from the wrought iron lanterns at each room door and the candles on the tables. This was our favorite place to eat. A seventeenth century fountain, once a well, bubbled softly in the center of the courtyard and, lit by small lamps on the ground, we could see the bougainvillea and jasmine vines along the edges of the roof tiles. In a month or two the jasmine would flower again, crowning the tops of the arches, and the courtyard would fill with the scent. The bougainvillea never stopped blooming.

  The waiter set down chips and guacamole and we ordered margaritas. Having guacamole twice in one day is not considered excessive here. Maya was toying with an earring which I took as a signal that there was something on her mind. She took one of the chips and nibbled the corner. When the drinks came I lifted mine and said, “Here’s to my favorite person in the world.”

  She smiled and took a sip. “What do you think about the series so far?”

  “I like it.” This is strong praise from me. “The mix of you and the Mérida models is good. I’ll have some nude and some clothed.” She gave me a broad smile. I’d been unable to persuade any of the Yucatan girls to pose nude, so I had used folk dancers’ costumes on all of them. It gave potential buyers a choice.

  “You don’t think it’s too much of me?”

  I shook my head as she scanned the menu, although she always ordered the same thing--chicken breasts with a sauce of flor de calabaza. How long had we been coming here? Not long enough was the first answer that came to mind.

  We live in the historic part of the city, what they call here el centro. In the mid 1500s San Miguel de Allende was built in a basin at the edge of a vital cluster of springs. It was originally called San Miguel el Grande, and it rests in a setting somewhat like a cupped hand among the not terribly formidable mountains. Four hundred years later American expatriates began to filter down to México to study art here on the GI bill at the two major art schools, the Instituto Allende and the Bellas Artes. Some stayed and more came and they began to restore houses in the central part of San Miguel and build more up the slopes. So at night, as Maya and I relax on our rooftop garden sharing a bottle of Chilean wine, we can see into some of our neighbors’ walled gardens, but our view to more distant parts of the city is mostly up.