Twenty Centavos: A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende

by John Scherber

  Chapter 15

  Barbara Watt called me for a second sitting and Maya had almost graciously packed up her laptop and gone to Dolores Hidalgo so as not to be tortured by the thought of the güera lying nude before me. Or perhaps she still was. But she seemed especially affectionate when she left. Maybe just to remind me of what I already had. There were times when the politics of painting nudes made me want to go back to still lifes.

  Barbara had brought her own robe this time, knowing the routine, and she emerged from behind the screen in a deep blue brocaded silk number, slit to the hip, with white piping and a mandarin collar.

  “That’s great,” I said, and it was. It caught my eye immediately. “Some other time I’ll paint you in that.” She tossed it over a chair and rubbed the skin beneath her breasts where scooped lines remained from her bra.

  “Let me see, how was I again?”

  “On your back, face toward me, left knee up higher than the right. Welcoming look, but not too welcoming. Hands one on top of the other over your navel. There it is. Your knee could be just a bit higher. Good. Wait, we need the choker.” I went to the prop cabinet and pulled out the drawer I use for small items, but the choker was not there. There were not many places where it might be. Maybe Maya had washed it when she washed her own robe after Barbara’s first visit. I scanned the tops of the cabinets, the bar and looked on the floor behind the screen. There was no choker.

  “OK,” I said, “we’ll go ahead without it. I know what it looks like and in the picture I have the edges of it marked on your neck.” The light was even and unchanging since it was early February and the sun was well to the south; I was able to get her skin tones just right. They matched what I had done on her left leg during the first session. This was not a difficult pose for her to maintain so we took breaks only every 40 minutes instead of every 20.

  On the second break she put the robe back on and I made coffee for us.

  “You look great today,” I said. “Your color is right and you’re relaxed. I like your expression. Can we go on a bit more? I’d like to do your ear. They usually take a while.”

  “Sure. It feels good just lying there. I really don’t have to do much. Can I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How are you doing with the Tobey Cross murder? And with the other one too, I guess. They’re related, aren’t they?”

  “They do seem to be related. We have Tobey’s customer list and the next thing will be to contact everyone and have a quiet conversation.”

  “There must have been lots of customers.”

  “Just 13 here in San Miguel for the ceramics, because they were pricey. Quite a few more for pictures and silver. It won’t be hard, assuming they’ll talk to us. I don’t know what we’re going to do about the others. There are some in Acapulco, three or four in Manzanillo. And there’s a bunch in Guadalajara. It could take a while, but it makes the most sense to start here.”

  “Perry always likes to talk about his collections, but mostly about the things themselves. He’s not always so open about how he got them. I mean, the public auction things he’ll talk about. But you saw those Navajo rugs in his study. I know he got them from a man who owed him money in Dallas, but he’ll never talk about the circumstances because I think he forced the man to give them up. It’s really owning things that is very intense for him. He buys a whole aura with each thing he gets. If it’s a religious painting, it becomes sort of surrounded by the church and congregation. You can smell the incense and hear the chant.”

  Later she slipped off the robe after one of our breaks and handed it to me. Then she walked back to the day bed, glancing back over her shoulder. “Do you like my butt?”

  “Very much. Don’t ever change it. It’s among the finest I’ve seen.” Might as well tell the truth.

  “But not the finest?”

  I didn’t answer this immediately. She apparently had the same view that Perry did about her place in the hierarchy of things. Barbara resumed the pose and I worked on her ear for a while.

  “It could be. I guess I’d have to see all of them in the same room to be sure. Like a line-up, you know?”

  “You’re so sweet. That would be a big room, wouldn’t it? But do you really think the killer is one of Tobey’s customers?”

  “Can’t be certain yet, but most likely it’s a gringo. Delgado says that guns are not impossible to get, but usually uncommon among the local people, and it’s hard to think what else the motive would be. There was no robbery that we can see. I think this looks most like some kind of business dispute. We’ll know more after we talk to the customers.”

  I began working up her hair around the ear. Blond hair is not difficult if you avoid yellow. For the most part it has to be a dynamic blend of different light tones, with deeper shadows glimpsed below the surfaces. A bit of ginger here and there. Some burnt umber further down near the scalp.

  I didn’t have any reason to distrust Barbara, but I didn’t feel like letting her know about Ramon’s role in this, or about the virtual certainty that most of the Mayan ceramics gracing the shelves of collectors in this town were well-crafted fakes. I suspected that this included her husband’s group.

  “You don’t think Perry did it?”

  “That’s a startling thing to say, coming from you.” I thought this was a nervy thing to say, but it also expressed her confidence in her husband.

  “But really, I want to know what you think,” she continued. “I mean, if it’s one of Tobey’s customers.”

  “Frankly, I think Perry’s got too much to lose. He has a lot of standing in San Miguel. He’s a big contributor to all kinds of causes. I’m not even sure he’d be capable of it.”

  She didn’t address this.

  “Here’s something odd. Licenciado Delgado called him the other day. He offered Perry some more Mayan ceramics.”

  My brush stopped in mid stroke. My heart nearly stopped in mid-beat.

  “This is confidential,” she went on. “Perry didn’t know what to make of it. He’s usually so decisive. I said, ‘But darlin’, you always know what to do.’ I’ve never seen him like that. Certainly not in his business affairs.”

  I came over to the day bed. “I just want to look at your hair more closely.” The left side of it was behind her face as she looked toward the easel, but the right was swept back with the leading curve in full light. My eyes were searching the detail of it for the range of shadows under the surface, but my brain was still on Diego Delgado, now dealing Ramon’s ceramics. He had to have been the one who cleaned out the office.

  So, what was Delgado’s game? Was it possible he had killed Tobey? But then why Ramon Xoc? He had said it was unusual for the local people to have guns, but surely Delgado himself had access to a variety of weapons in the evidence room. And when he seemed not to know the identity of the corpse in my entry hall he must have just been being disingenuous. Of course he would warn me off; it was only by tightly controlling the investigation that he could direct suspicion away from himself. He had as much as told me that I was being a pain in the ass by getting involved. Of course Delgado must have slashed my picture too; that was the first warning! Cops would have ways of getting through entry locks. And when Marisol tipped him off about the office in Dolores Hidalgo, the final chip fell into place.

  The more I thought about it, the more it fit. Ramon Xoc must have been a surprise for him. Marisol had told Ramon about Tobey’s death, not knowing who she was speaking with, and then Ramon hopped the next bus for Dolores Hidalgo, using the address he had shipped his ceramics to. Of course no one was there to let him in, and he would have known that, so he had tools along to let himself in through the back. And he left the inventory in place because who else would disturb it, with Tobey dead? Galeria Cruz was a one man operation. Ramon took the Rolodex and began to approach the customers; somehow Delgado found out and killed him too. He would have wanted to control Tobey’s business himself. It was just another business opportunity,
and as he had said, his antenna was always up.

  In the 12 years I had lived in San Miguel I had never had a bad experience with the police. The relations with the ex-pat community were not always warm and fuzzy, but both sides sort of kept their distance and got along. I had heard stories of minor shakedowns from time to time, but basically, I thought of the police as no better or worse than most. The idea that Delgado could be a murderer and a thief was shocking, but most of the facts seemed to fit.

  “Paul darlin’, what are you doing?” There was a softness in her voice that immediately alarmed me. I realized I was still kneeling motionless beside the day bed, my face inches away from hers, but only seeing the sudden rush of evidence that pointed directly at Delgado.

  “Are you thinking about how to paint my nipples, Paul dear? Perhaps you could come a little closer. I know this isn’t sculpture, but maybe touch could play a role in getting them right. Is it a thing where you might need all of your senses? Taste might even be important in this.”

  “Of course, you’re right, Barbara. Pink can be very tricky. You can’t just plunge into it.” But instead of moving closer, I moved away.

  So, that bastard Delgado had Ramon’s corpse lying on a slab somewhere and no one had notified his mother, who was by now wondering what had happened. I needed to run this by Cody and Maya and see if they could find any holes in it. It certainly looked damning to me.

  “I think we’ve gone as far as we can, today.” I said. “I’m starting to get a little vague, and when I’m like that I don’t do my best work.”

  “I can see that. It’s OK, darlin’, I’ll come another day. I always want your best work.” I expected her to add that she was worth it, but she left that part out.

  I held the robe for her. The deep blue was perfect with her coloring and I almost put my arms around her, but I didn’t. There was something about her that made it hard to keep my hands to myself, but I’d had an unfortunate episode a few years earlier that had hardened my studio discipline, and it always came to mind when I had a subject like Barbara. Besides, I had Maya now.

  * * *

  After Barbara left I called Cody and set up lunch at the Villa Antigua Santa Monica. I didn’t expect Maya for a while. Cody lived just up the hill from the restaurant in a condo with a lovely view of the Parroquia from his small balcony on the third floor. The Santa Monica is on Baeza on the west side of Juarez Park. It began life as a hacienda in the eighteenth century and in the thirties it was the home of Jose Mojica, a Méxican movie star and opera singer. There’s a marker in the garden where Dolores del Rio was married there about 70 years ago. I don’t know whether it lasted, but the appeal of the place certainly had.

  Coming in from the street you enter a large reception area and lounge, and across the courtyard is the kitchen entrance and bar leading beyond to a great room with a cathedral ceiling. To the right of the fountain at the center of the courtyard is a tall birdcage, with two goofy parrots. When it rains the waiters move the cage back under the arches, which usually causes a mad scrambling among the birds. This is my favorite spot for lunch in San Miguel. Maya and I come here often when our schedules intersect. Over the arches bougainvillea and jasmine climb to the roof tiles, but only the bougainvillea was blooming in early February.

  The parrots bickered constantly, like characters in a 1950s situation comedy. I wondered if one of them was named Ralph. Cody slipped into the seat opposite. “Back in the sweet spot,” he said. “Dos Negras,” this to the waiter.

  “I had an interesting talk with Barbara Watt this morning.”

  “Do you talk to her much?”

  “No, but I’m painting her now.”

  “Let me guess what she’s wearing.”

  “Not much. A midnight blue velvet choker when we can find it.”

  “I see.”

  “As much fun as that might be to contemplate, something else came up in the conversation this morning. She said that Delgado had approached Perry Watt with some Mayan ceramics he wanted to sell. He’s got 11 pieces. She wants this to stay confidential information.”

  “Just as we thought. He’s going for a mid-life career change. Did Perry bite?”

  “He’s quite wary, she said, but she thinks he probably won’t be able to let it go. He told her he didn’t know what to do about it. Delgado hinted they could be had for a favorable price. Cody, I had a thought earlier while I was talking to her. What if the killer is Delgado? Just hear me out before you say anything, OK? I know you’re going to resist the idea because he’s a cop.”

  I laid out my thinking from the painting session this morning. “I hope you can poke a hole in this, because if it’s true I’m not sure how we can bring him down. His judicial supervisors would most likely decide to protect him from the gringos. Maybe I’m not being fair. I hate it that I may be thinking in stereotypes here.”

  He studied his fingernails for a while. “It’s possible, but it seems like an extreme way for Delgado to enter the antiques business. What about the 20 centavo coin if it’s him? How does that fit?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t make that part work. Can you?”

  “I don’t want to sell Delgado short, but I don’t think he knows about Charon and the coin for the ferry operator’s fee.”

  “What if the coin part has nothing to do with mythology and is a total red herring? Just designed to put us and the other police through hoops trying to figure it out?”

  “I can’t make that out either.”

  “So what do you think of the Delagdo idea, aside from that?”

  “I give it about a five for plausibility and a seven for originality, but beyond that my gut doesn’t like it much. I think he’s just a guy who came across an opportunity at work and decided to go along with it. I could be wrong.”

  The waiter returned with the beer and we both ordered the chiles en nogada.

  “But I do think,” he went on, “that the next step is to split up the local customer list. Let’s leave Perry Watt for later and you take the first six and I’ll take the last seven. Let’s use the position that we’ve been asked to help out Marisol and we’re starting by trying to get a sense of Tobey’s business. Get them to talk about their purchases, why they bought what they bought. Probe a little for any disagreements they may have had with Tobey. See if they know anything about his past. Are they proud of their things? Look for the tells, the minor gestures or facial expressions that suggest they’re hiding something. I want to ask you a question, though. Can you tell when someone is lying to you?”

  “Cindy, my old Cleveland girl friend used to try a few on me. I was able to read her most of the time, but I knew her pretty well by then, too. And I’ve been lied to by clients, I’m sure. People who say they’re going to buy a picture but then they don’t.”

  “How do they act?”

  “Often they don’t look at you when they say they’re interested. They fumble around with their shirt buttons or something like that. Polish their glasses, maybe. Run a napkin over their teeth, you know. Scratch their ear as if something just landed in it.”

  “Grooming behavior. It’s common when people lie.”

  “Were you lied to much?”

  “It was a given. The trick was to figure out when people were telling the truth. It was much less common.”

  * * *

  After we left the Santa Monica I called Bill Frost and set up a meeting for that afternoon at his home in the Ojo de Agua neighborhood, a walled enclave up the hill from Juarez Park. It was adjacent to, but much classier than, the development where Cody had his condo, just off Prolongacion Aldama. Casa Frost was a big house of recent vintage stuccoed in olive green with a triple garage designed to look like a carriage entrance, and the usual cantera stone trim to the doors and windows. The requisite ornate wrought iron lanterns flanked the entry. It was the home of someone who could afford more than one Mayan ceramic piece. Perhaps a couple of pictures as well, but I hadn’t seen him on my own customer list, and unlike
Tobey’s, my records were always accessible.

  Frost met me at the door and led me out to a loggia overlooking a large antique fountain in the midst of lush and ordered plantings. Sculptured boxwood bordered the paths. Several tall stands of bamboo climbed above the far wall. My place could look like this with a full time gardener, too.

  “How about a gin and tonic?” he asked. “As the song says, it’s cocktail hour somewhere, and I’ve got Bombay Sapphire.”

  It wasn’t always easy to get here, and I would have saved it for martinis, but I didn’t want to argue. I agreed and looked over the garden, trying to identify all the plants.

  “What brings you up the hill?” he asked when he returned to set down the drinks.

  “I’ve gotten involved in the Tobey Cross murder investigation,” I began, implying that I was practically hand in hand with the police, “just to help out Marisol, his widow. Your name came up on the customer list.” I gave him a cheerful look, as if it was no great matter.

  There was no reaction. Bill Frost sat down and pulled his chair closer to the table. He wore a pearl gray, short sleeve, silk-printed shirt and black slacks. His hair was a startling white and it appeared to be all there except for a single strand on his collar. The fact that he could be considered a suspect did not ruffle him at all. He rolled his gin and tonic glass between his hands and pursed his lips. His attitude said he was confident, unworried, and willing to help.

  “Well, you’re running ahead of the police on this; they haven’t contacted me yet. You may not know this, but Tobey and I actually went back a long way.” He took a sip of his drink and stared off toward the fountain. “He used to be with a regional securities firm up in St. Paul called Laine and Needleman. They had just five or six offices in the Midwest. I was in the same business in Toronto, but on the underwriting side, and we used to do some placements with them for the American market.” He leaned forward at this point with one elbow on the table, as if this were more confidential than what had come before. “Bert Laine had been kind of a stock selection guru when they started the firm, but he was already dead by the time Tobey came in, and Carl Needleman was the senior partner. He was mainly a PR guy and really didn’t know shit from cinderblock about investments. He just brought clients in the door, and he did that well. The firm went on partly based on the strength of Laine’s insights, like they were continuing his method of stock picking. I don’t know if it was really that good a system, but they did a lot of business.”