Twenty Centavos: A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende

by John Scherber

  He turned back to me in the entry. “You seem to have much trouble, Señor, I hope it does not continue.”

  “Thank you,” I said, wondering as I closed the door behind him what other trouble I was having that he might know about.

  There was not much blood on the floor, just a dry flakey mark where Ramon’s ear had touched the stone. I cleaned it up and washed my hands. The odor still lingered, and probably would for a while. Welcome home, travelers. My head was throbbing. We went to bed, but it was a long time before either of us fell asleep. When I finally did, I dreamed of snow, arranged in neat rows of mounds, with bodies beneath.

  Chapter 12

  Three sides of the Jardin are graced with elegant seventeenth or early eighteenth century arcaded buildings. On the fourth side stands the Parroquia, a nineteenth century fantasy of what a European cathedral might look like if the builders had put down a little too much grappa at lunch and it blurred their vision. Or perhaps the architect had been looking at picture postcards and couldn’t quite make out the detail. Nonetheless it is a sentimental favorite in San Miguel. At night the detail is lit and can be seen from rooftop gardens all over town, including mine.

  A few years ago I was greatly startled to see Salma Hayek hanging by one hand from a second story window of one of these arcaded buildings, her skirt fluttering enticingly in the breeze and a look of stark panic on her face. Once Upon a Time in México was being shot in San Miguel. I never did see Johnny Depp or Antonio Banderas. It seems like the movies come to this town a couple of times a year, and not only in the theaters. Naturally the cooler residents try to ignore this, but it’s hard to ignore Salma Hayek. In my dreams I had painted her a dozen times. Each version got better. The detail was better than on the Parroquia.

  It was a bright and cool morning as I headed for the police station, which occupies two floors of one of these grand colonial buildings on the square. The flower and balloon vendors were out already working the tourists and the newspaper boy was just arriving. Ten-year-old girls were selling chewing gum by the piece. I bought one and stuck it in my pocket. I could have painted them all. And maybe that’s what I should have been doing. I had no special desire to sit down with Licenciado Delgado, and parts of the investigation were now piling up around me in ways I didn’t like. Our meager progress on the case didn’t justify the risk. I couldn’t help but ask myself if one of us was next. I’m sure this was what I was supposed to be thinking.

  Delgado’s office was on the second floor occupying the entire front of one of the buildings facing the Jardin. The architecture of the interior was all early eighteenth century colonial, but the furniture and fixtures were late twentieth century K-Mart. If the look was meant to be eclectic, it was, but it didn’t work. Fluorescent lights marched across the ceiling in two rows. Several of them buzzed like captive flies. The furniture was mostly particle board covered with wood-grained vinyl. As I sat down at Delgado’s desk a fan was turning slowly on the twenty-foot ceiling. No air reached me from that distance. I didn’t need any; it was cool enough without it.

  Licenciado Delgado came in with a sheaf of papers in his hand and sat across from me. He didn’t rate an office of his own. He reminded me of the kind of Méxican that American film directors like to use in supporting roles. They have the occasional good one-liner. Their teeth are excellent and their mustaches well trimmed; they have flashing eyes, but they never get the girl, even though they grin a lot. She’s reserved for the gringos. I like the way this plot line ends; it reflects my life in San Miguel.

  “I wish to thank you for coming in,” he said. “We are very busy here today. We have had no murder in San Miguel for two years and now we have two within the space of two weeks.”

  I nodded sympathetically.

  “You will understand that, normally, when a murder victim is found in the home of someone we look to that person for the main suspect. That would be you.” He paused and looked at me expectantly. Was I supposed to confess now? Méxican criminal procedure was a mystery to me. I settled for a general statement designed to cast me in a more benevolent light.

  “As you know, I am a painter. Painters are by nature nonviolent. If I wanted revenge on someone I would paint a true picture of him. That would usually be enough.”

  “I see. We are still trying to identify this man who was dead in your house. As you saw last night, his pockets had no wallet. We are checking on his fingerprints but that will take some time. You are certain you did not know him?”

  “I have never seen him before. I can’t think why he was in the entry of my house.”

  “We believe he was brought to your house already dead. There was very little blood at the scene. The bullet which killed him entered through the right eye and exited from the back of his head, but there was no bullet in the room. As nearly as we can determine, he has been dead about three days, perhaps somewhat less.

  “At about that time I was waiting to get on a plane for Minneapolis.”

  “Yes, we know this. And then on your return you were changing planes in Houston, Texas, and you came into Leon at 4:35. We have your record from the Immigration. When you arrived at home at six o’clock you found the body.”

  “Yes, and I called you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Least I could do.”

  “Of course. Do you know why someone would leave a body in your zaguan?” He leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingers together, flexing them like a spider doing push-ups. Was he suggesting he could squeeze the truth out of me?

  “No. But it is possible that I am being a thorn in someone’s side.”

  “Mine, most certainly. But I think you are right. There is no doubt to me that these two recent murders are related, and I know that you and Señor Williams have been, shall I say, interested in the crime of Señor Cross’s murder. And you have seen much of the widow lately, yes?”

  I didn’t think it prudent to ask how he knew this, not that he would have told me. “She is a close friend of my girlfriend Maya. She asked me to help. I meant no disrespect to the police. By that time she had already spoken to you.”

  “Maya...you mean Maria Sanchez, the woman who lives with you, who poses with no clothes for many of your pictures?”

  “Yes. I only call her Maya, because of the series of pictures I am doing. They mostly use backgrounds from the Yucatan.”

  “She does not mind?”

  “No. She likes the name of Maya.”

  “I mean with no clothes. So anyone may see her in that way.”

  I paused for a moment, not certain of where he was going.

  “They do not see her. They see only the painting. When she is nude, I alone see her. She does not take her clothes off in the Jardin, for example.” I felt like we were now going around in circles.

  “That is a good thing.”

  “Yes. But posing nude is an old tradition, going back many hundreds of years. Think of the Renaissance.”

  “I will. But some would object. Most Méxican women are more modest than that.”

  “True, but Maya has a good body and she is proud of it. Besides, only one person needs to like a painting, besides me and Maya.”

  “And that would be?” He leaned forward over the desk expectantly, as if we had now reached some important piece of evidence.

  “The buyer.”

  “Of course. But to return to the dead body. I think someone is trying to warn you off. Perhaps we of the police are being persuaded to think you are the killer, but we are a little too smart for this.”

  “Right. I’m sure you didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”

  “The turnip truck?” Vegetables, particularly broccoli, were the backbone of the rural economy here, and they did raise turnips, but even so...

  “Una camioneta esta llena de los nabos. Just a phrase among the gringos. Una idioma. It means you cannot easily be fooled.” I admit this was a stretch.

  “You are correct, but nonetheless a warning might be a
good thing here, except for the unfortunate victim, of course. Anyway, these are things you have no experience with. They are best left to the police.”

  “I am beginning to think you might be right.”

  “We have made some progress with this crime. We think the killer is a foreigner because having the gun is not very common here for Méxicans. If we had the bullet from this murder we would expect to find it came from the same gun that killed Señor Cross. And we have found the office of Señor Cross in Dolores Hidalgo and it has been broken into. Do you know why?”

  “Perhaps he had other antiques there. I’m only guessing.”

  “No. There was nothing but empty packages and a few pictures, although there was a computer and other records. We now have much information on his business. But what I wonder is why he would have an office in Dolores Hidalgo? So inconvenient, yes? Every day to travel back and forth.”

  Empty packages in Tobey’s office? I thought. Had Ramon returned to clean the ceramics out of the office before his death? If so, where were they now?

  “Maybe the office rents are too high here in San Miguel?” I said.

  “Well, that may be. Certainly real estate here has become very high with all the gringos. Just like the States perhaps. For someone like me it is hard to afford even a small house now.”

  “But surely when you sell you get gringo prices.”

  “True, but that is one time only. Then we have to move out of town. Some of us must live in Atotonilco or Santa Teresita. And all the other prices are higher as well. You see, here in México we work very hard. You may already know this. I don’t mean only long hours and difficult work. We need to use any opportunity we can find. If I drive a tourist bus around the town and the visitors wish to stop for an ice cream, then, for example, I will also know to have my cousin Luis with his ice cream truck just at a certain place and time. Because otherwise it would be the ice cream truck of someone else who would get the business, do you see? Then at the end of the week Luis would not give me my 15% for bringing by the tourists and I would not do as well, nor would his family. This is what I mean by working hard. Here in México we watch for every opportunity.”

  “I see.”

  “I have another question for you, and then I think soon we are finished. Before you went to Minneapolis you went also to Mérida, I believe?”

  “Yes, I have a show coming up in June at the Galeria Mundo Maya there.”

  “And you show your paintings here as well?” From his look I felt he already knew all this.

  “Yes, at Galeria Uno, but it is hard to sell enough from just one gallery. Two is good. Three would be better.”

  “And you are quite certain that no one hit you, leaving that mark on your face? You did not, for example, discover someone leaving a body at your house and have a little disagreement about it?”

  “No. I tripped and fell over the body, as I said. The mark is from hitting the floor.”

  “Then only one more thing. From the shipping boxes at the Dolores Hidalgo office we have obtained the name of Ramon Xoc, with an address in Izamal. It is a small town of no importance. Do you know him?”

  “No.”

  “You did not see him in the Yucatan?”

  “No.” I really didn’t want to help the police and I wondered if Marisol would want me to. Clearly they didn’t want me involved anyway.

  “I am finished then with my questions. Please stay away from this. There is a very bad gringo out there with a gun. Make more pictures.”

  Indeed. Maybe I should call Barbara. Mix a little more azo red and terre verte. I felt relieved. At least I wasn’t a suspect. I went down the worn marble staircase to the main floor and stopped in a little shop under the arcade across the Jardin and bought an overpriced Cuban cigar. Time to celebrate; but then what? I paused under the drum shaped tree tops and watched the crowd. Poor Ramon Xoc. It was getting risky to be an artist here. My usual belief is that most risk is good, but it doesn’t always pay off. I was certainly feeling less out of place investigating this case, but making some progress would have been better.

  Cody came by for dinner that night. I suspected he had worked up something on the Abbott Cross angle. Maya had been chained to her laptop all day, recasting her notes in readable form. I had marinated some pounded chicken breasts in a tequila-orange-chipotle mixture and made mango salsa. No one came by to drop off any more bodies and none of my pictures was slashed to pieces. I had not yet been charged with murder, and I hadn’t done any spying on my friends. I had taken in no money, but still, a successful day. Too bad they weren’t all like that.

  Maya had sprayed on a pair of jeans and had her hair up in a way that made you notice again the great curve of her neck. She wore one of her heavy Mexican silver necklaces and a silver ring with an oval turquoise stone. Her rose-colored top was sleeveless and nicely scooped. I wore an old pair of chinos and a dark blue tee shirt that said, in white block capitals, “STAFF.”

  “Expecting someone special tonight?” I asked.

  Someone pounded on the door. “Open up! Peoria Police!”

  “That’s him,” she said. “It’s my big sweetie.”

  I guess there are a lot of 58 year old guys that would enjoy having Maya wrapped around them. I couldn’t blame Cody, but I do think she liked to torture him. Next he’d be buying one of her nudes for his bedroom.

  I mixed a couple of margaritas for Maya and me, and a planter’s punch for Cody and we settled in the loggia. It had been a warm day for early February and it felt like the temperature was still in the mid-sixties. Perhaps it only seemed as warm as that after Minnesota. The stars were bright and I turned on the ground lights in the garden. The only other light was from the candles Maya had lit as I started the charcoal.

  Cody took a long pull from his planter’s punch, a drink he favored over any other, except possibly cold beer, and said, “And why didn’t we know his name was Abbott?” Cody likes to get right to the point.

  “Never thought to ask,” I said. “A man calls himself something, you tend to accept it. Next you’ll be saying your own name is really Bernard, and why didn’t I know it.” He ignored this.

  “Marisol never said Abbott to me; I think Tobey never used it. Of course she knew it,” said Maya.

  “Well, here’s what they found in Chicago. Abbott Cross graduated from Princeton, no less, double major in economics and art history, magna cum laude. That was in 1983.”

  “He must have had a practical turn of mind,” I said. “Art history can be a tough way to make a living unless you’re teaching. The economics major would certainly help out.”

  “Exactly. He spent a graduate year in New York afterward at the Parsons School of Design. That’s part of the New School now. Records show that in 1985 he received a Series Seven securities license, an insurance license, and an investment advisor’s license while on the staff of Laine & Needleman, St. Paul, Minnesota. In June, 1989, the securities license and the advisor’s license were revoked on the basis of churning and factual misrepresentation.”

  “What is churning?” asked Maya.

  “Too many transactions for one account. Makes good commissions for the broker but results in high costs for the client. The insurance license was not revoked, but lapsed at the end of 1990.”

  “So by then he had been forced to leave the industry?” I asked.

  “Yes, and my guess would be that his employers had to pay out some kind of settlement to a few of his clients. Maybe more than a few. That’s the way they make it go away. Most brokerage houses have a reserve fund just for that. They’re not hesitant to settle if the amount is at all reasonable because they don’t want the publicity. These settlements are always confidential.”

  “What then?” asked Maya.

  “After that, nothing. No other activities to hit the official records.”

  “But he married Marisol in 1994, I think,” she said. “She became an American citizen some time after that. I don’t think he was living in Austin
any more. That’s all I know about that part.”

  I was thinking. “Do we have an ethical problem here with regard to Marisol? I mean, how much of this do we want or need to tell her? For example, the securities business problem might be much more painful than enlightening for her. And it’s clear that Tobey never talked much about business with her.”

  Cody leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. It wasn’t hard to find. “Well, she asked you to help solve Tobey’s murder. It seems like anything that might have led up to it is mainly relevant to us in answering that question. I don’t think she needs all the detail. Maya?”

  “I agree. She would not want to know this. I already feel bad for her. Let’s start the chicken.”

  I spread the flattened pieces on the grill and glanced at my watch. Since they were thin it would be 10 minutes total, flipped once half way through. I freshened Cody’s punch, made two more margaritas, and opened a bottle of Chilean wine. We always drank red, even with chicken. “I had a long talk with Licenciado Delgado this morning,” I said as I worked. “He wasn’t overtly leaning on me, but it was clear he thinks we should keep our distance from this case. And he thinks you should keep your clothes on, Maya.”

  “I don’t believe that. Everyone likes my pictures. Why would he say that?”

  “I told him you don’t undress in the Jardin.”

  “Maybe I will.” It was never difficult to bring up her contrary side.

  “He gave himself a lot of credit for finding Tobey’s office in Dolores Hidalgo. Interestingly, he said the place had been broken into and there was nothing there but a few pictures, some records, a computer, and empty packing boxes. So now he’s looking to find Ramon Xoc.”

  Cody smiled. “So the boxes are empty now. Did you tell him to check in his own morgue for Ramon?”

  “I felt if he’s that smart he can figure it out for himself. It didn’t seem like he was looking for any help, in fact, he told me in so many words to stay out of it. He’s got the fingerprints.”

  “But he doesn’t think you did it?” asked Maya.