Chapter 21
The last night of the novenario, Bartolo approached her again.
He’d been keeping his distance, but his mother wasn’t accompanying him that evening, and he ventured toward Inés, smiling.
On the other side of the room stood Ulises, who pretended to ignore her, but she felt his eyes like daggers as soon as Bartolo spoke to her.
She gently steered the young man outside.
“I do not believe Cándido had an accident,” he told her, leaning down close to her ear, as if someone might overhear them, though they were the only ones standing in the courtyard.
She looked not at him but at the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe resting in its niche. Panic bubbled up her throat, but she forced herself to keep silent and maintain a neutral face.
“I’m thinking…and here is where I need your help, Inés, to understand what happened,” he said, and he licked his lips.
“I spoke to Lulú, and she said something that I can’t get out of my head.
Apparently Cándido told Lulú that your aunt Perla needed to know a few important things about Ulises; he said her husband was a phony.
He said it right before he passed away.”
“Did he?” she muttered, and rubbed her hands together, willing herself to remain in place, to keep looking at his face.
“Yes. And now I must ask you something delicate. Something that may offend your sensibilities. Did you ever think there was something between your aunt Perla and Cándido?”
She blinked, confused. “Perla and Cándido?”
“I know I shouldn’t ask, it’s terribly rude of me to do so, but he courted her, we all know that.
But was there anything more? Because I suspect he died of a broken heart, so to speak.
I don’t want to bring this up needlessly, seeing it might cause Lulú distress, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Why go up there at night, otherwise? Except if he meant to kill himself. ”
She stifled the nervous laugh that threatened to escape her lips.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Bartolo said quickly.
He looked at her with wide, concerned eyes. She nodded and wondered what her response should be. She fretted, couldn’t figure out a quick answer.
“Now that you mention it, he did seem upset before he died,” she said, almost stammering as she tried to pick the right words. “And him calling Ulises a phony makes sense; he never liked him. You must have noticed how strained their conversations sounded when we had a tertulia.”
“Of course. That’s why I asked about your aunt. Here’s this man, thinking he’ll marry the woman he’s been courting for months, and out of the blue she weds someone else. Cándido wasn’t much of a romantic, but that’s a fierce blow. Do you want to sit down?”
The fierce blow had been to the head, but it seemed Bartolo’s knowledge of forensics was meager.
“No, no,” she said, yet she grabbed his arm, as if needing support, but mostly to gain time. “His death, it’s been shocking.”
Bartolo nodded understandingly and patted her hand. The gesture reassured her because his fingers trembled.
He might faint before I do, she thought, and gave him a quick look from under her long lashes, which sent his fingers trembling more.
The dread was cooling down quickly, turning into a low simmer of nervousness as she understood the cards she could play.
“I wouldn’t know if Cándido was a romantic, but he was terribly fond of Aunt Perla.” Inés squeezed Bartolo’s arm and pulled him toward a shadowy corner. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. My aunt will be upset if she finds out I did, but…” She trailed off and looked down.
“Anything you say is confidential. It’s a police matter, but I won’t be indelicate,” he said, sounding both self-important and silly.
His response made her more certain of how she should speak, quickly emboldening her. He was heading in entirely the wrong direction, and she meant to steer him even further afield.
“Can you be discreet?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“In that case, I can speak frankly with you. I long suspected Cándido and my aunt had a romantic relationship. Mind you, it became strained after he refused to propose. The problem was Lulú. Cándido was a caring brother. Perhaps too caring, always putting his sister’s well-being ahead of his own, and my aunt was tired of waiting for him.
The wedding must have been quite the shock. ”
“Understandably.”
“I can’t condone suicide, Bartolo, but I can understand his pain. You must not repeat what I told you. What would people in town say if they knew Cándido had killed himself over my aunt? Dear God, she’d never be able to leave the house again.”
“I wouldn’t repeat it,” he replied hurriedly.
“And think about Lulú. It would be a scandal for her too. She would probably have a nervous collapse. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“God, no! But when you’re performing an inquest…I don’t want to hide anything. And there are oddities—”
She took his hands between her own and looked up at him. “If you write ‘suicide’ on a death certificate, it won’t benefit anyone. It would be a kindness to everyone if this remained an accident. Bartolo, it would be a shameful story.”
“I wouldn’t want to shame anyone,” he said, the words strained as he shivered at her touch.
It was exactly what she was hoping he would say.
The more Bartolo thought suicide was the cause of death, the better for them.
Yet she did not want to proclaim this openly.
For if it was left implied, unsaid, there were more reasons for the townspeople to look away, to ask little about the situation, aware that there was an uncomfortable family secret in the mix.
It would be simply impolite for Bartolo to dig much deeper if suicide was suspected.
“You’re terribly understanding,” she said, and she gave his arm another squeeze. “Should we get something to drink?”
They went back inside, where the women were beginning to pass out the canapés. She asked him to fetch her a cup of coffee, for she had noticed Ulises’s eyes on her the moment they stepped into the dining room. When Bartolo exited the room, Ulises walked over to her.
He took a sip from a glass and looked around as he spoke to her. “Distracted him yet?”
“For your information, yes,” she replied irritably.
“Oh?”
“He thinks Cándido killed himself. Should he speak to you about it, you’d better say you agree with his assessment, although I doubt he’ll breathe a word to anyone. He doesn’t want to bring shame to Perla or Lulú.”
“You’re magnificently manipulative.”
This made her proud, as if he’d bestowed upon her a badge of honor, even if there was a sting to his words and for a moment she felt as if she were unrecognizable and monstrous.
“I wish this was the end of it,” he said.
“What do you mean? It is the end of it, he’ll leave the matter alone.”
“It’s not the end if we’re still in the same position we were before. Two broke idiots without a smidgen of morals, waiting for a score that doesn’t come,” he said, and handed her his glass. She took a sip.
—
The conclusion of the novenario was like the end of a long-drawn-out hangover, the kind of event that makes a person rub their eyes and blink at the rising sun. The townspeople had been lulled into a trance by the food and drink, and now shuffled their feet and began to drift back toward normality.
It was generally agreed by the inhabitants of Puerco Ahogado that the novenario had taken place with the necessary pomp and circumstance, even if, as Father Anselmo had remarked, the atole was too watery, the tamales a bit dry, and the canapés somewhat meager.
Then again, in these days of sky-high prices one could not demand a feast, and even those people who had disliked Cándido paid their respects, eager to sip a glass of free booze and nibble at pastries.
Quickly thereafter the town returned to its usual rhythm.
The baker chided Marisol because she read stories about movie stars when she should be paying attention to the clientele, Dr. Carrel criticized the pharmacist and the pharmacist called Dr. Carrel a quack, the owner of the café still suspected the waiters stole from the till.
Inside the house, some things changed. Inés didn’t chuckle now when she changed her aunt’s linens and they smelled faintly of Ulises’s cologne and sweat, the ghostly imprint of a man left upon the sheets to haunt her as she bundled them and carried them down the stairs.
Neither did he smile with bawdy zest when he saw her making Perla’s bed, both of them sharing a dirty joke in silence. In the aftermath of the novenario, he looked somber, as if he were a man weighed down by onerous debts.
The stain of the crime did not linger upon their hands, they saw no phantoms demanding retribution. It was not guilt that plagued them, but a sinister, never-yielding dissatisfaction. She saw it in his eyes and he in turn must have read the same emotion in her own.
Rather than despairing or reveling in the commission of a hideous deed, they both felt oppressed, not by the memory of the murder but by the banality of their days: nothing had truly been altered. The world around them was the same, and so were they.
One morning soon after, Fito walked into the house balancing three boxes in his arms.
“What have you got there?” Ulises asked him.
“Papers from Miss Lulú for Mrs. Perla.”
“Let me help you,” he said, and they walked together to the office. Inés, who had been sweeping the floor, quietly followed them, poking her head inside.
“Finally. Lulú took her time,” Perla said. She was sitting behind her desk and pointed to a chair. “Leave those there.”
“Yes, Mrs. Perla,” Fito said obediently.
Fito quickly departed, but after Ulises put down the box he was carrying he turned to his wife. “What sort of papers are these?” he asked.
“Cándido’s notes and information about my business interests. Now that he’s dead, I’ll have to find a new lawyer and someone to assist me with the collection of money,” Perla said.
“I can help you.”
“You’re not a lawyer.”