A Corpse for Cuamantla (11 page)

Chapter
25

A
s Miguel's footsteps faded, the scent of his cologne and the overtones of his departure left a dazed and confused Anna Merino leaning against the inside of the cold metal door separating her from the handsome young man striding confidently up the cobblestone hill. Anna pushed herself away from the door and sat down at the desk in the study trying to catch her breath, her heart still thumping.

I need to compose myself, she thought, temper my emotions and lead with my head
. Once David returns with my DVD I can close the curtain on this convoluted day. Where is David anyway? He should be here by now.
No sooner had she begun to worry when she heard David's car bumping down the cobblestone road. Once the car came to a stop, she flew out the door asking about the duplicate disks.

"Here they are
,
Maestra," David said with a note of pride, holding out her original and one copy. "These two are for you and I'll hold this one for safekeeping. My compadre asked a few questions but I told him I knew nothing, only that my friend needed the copies quickly. I'm sorry to take so long, but we had a few drinks together and that led to a long political discussion. You know how it goes."

"I do know, Señor, thank you. Please let me pay you for your trouble."

"No, Maestra. I insist. The disks cost me nothing since my friend owed me a favor. Someday I may need a favor from you and then you can repay. I understand my spouse is cooking tamales, will you join us?"

"As much as I'd love tamales, I'm so tired I can't see straight. I just want to go to bed. Please tell the Señora I'll talk with her in the morning, and thanks again."

Back inside, Anna gathered a roll of masking tape and attached the duplicate DVD to the bottom of her dresser.  She locked the original in the strong box under her bed. At last, she could crawl into bed. Heading out to the bathroom to brush her teeth she remembered the Joe Leaphorn book in the room on the roof. The night's warm wind had increased in strength and the curtains danced wildly forming strange patterns in the nighttime air. She closed the windows, grabbed her book and locked the door. The full moon lit her path down the stairs. One stop in the bathroom and I can settle in for the night, she thought, with a sense of relief.

Curling up in bed with the blankets pulled up to her chin, she wondered if she really felt the light touch of Miguel's lips brushing the bottom of her earlobe in that whispered goodbye. Maybe it was a figment of her overactive imagination. As her mind quickly plummeted into deeper levels of unconsciousness a last wakeful thought registered in her brain. Had the possum, or maybe a cat entered the house when she left the door open to go upstairs? Was it searching for food?

Chapter 26

A
nna wasn't the only person experiencing an uneasy sleep on the night of Pedro's death. María Guadalupe Costanza lay on the slender cot in the house of her parents, staring at the silvery slits of moonlight bobbing among the pile of chile peppers drying in the corner of the barren room, as her mother watched over her.

“My poor dear Wada,” her mother soothed, using María’s childhood nickname, trying to comfort her daughter and control her own regrets over María’s relationship with Pedro.  “Set aside your grief and get on with your life,” she counseled.  “Forget about Pedro.  He’s no good for you.”  

              Pedro would never be good enough for her beautiful daughter, María’s mother felt.  She’d warned María about Pedro’s jealousy and his flirtatiousness, but her headstrong daughter wouldn’t listen.  A day of reckoning would come, her mother worried, and now that day had arrived.  She grieved with her daughter, and while she grieved she prayed.  Prayed for Wada’s children and for some assurance in her heart of Wada’s innocence in the murder of her lover.

§

P
edro's wife Yolanda, slept better than anyone might have expected, but she was accustomed to sleeping without Pedro. Her grief was a thing of the past. The present brought newfound feelings of relief, except when she broke the news of Pedro's death to his mother who threw her arms around Yolanda and wept miserably bringing tears to Yolanda's tearless eyes. Even the tears of Pedro's son were sparse and silent. Like his mother, his tears were lost in the vagaries of time.

The townspeople of Zocatlo reacted with incredulity at the news of Pedro's death. Who would murder Pedro? Disbelief punctuated their conversations until early in the evening when Pedro's body arrived. Even then some hesitated, needing proof. Perhaps the officials in Cuamantla made a mistake. Perhaps this was another Pedro García from a different village, perhaps, perhaps. However, Pedro's family accepted reality, throwing themselves over the body, wailing his name and beating their breasts in grief until friends and relatives pulled them away in order to prepare the body for the nighttime wake.

Pedro was dressed in his best clothes. His body lay in an open casket in the front room of his parent's house, the all night vigil already underway. The funeral would be held late the following day in the village church at the edge of the zócalo since his family was one of status in the community and Pedro was respected as a wealthy educated man despite his marital troubles. Yolanda and the priest agreed on a 4:30 p.m. service to accommodate friends and family traveling from distant communities.

Fortunately, Yolanda had remembered to retrieve a suit and tie from Pedro's closet before she left Cuamantla, saving herself the embarrassment of burying her husband in another man's clothes, even though other men had performed her husband's duties for years. Everything in life is a trade-off, she thought, and the cost of freedom has always been high, but now she could enjoy the best of both worlds, and seen in that light, Yolanda had to admit that Pedro's death was a gift.

Thus blessed with a contented heart, she turned onto her side and fell sound asleep while her in-laws maintained their attentive vigil at Pedro's side, from which Yolanda earlier excused herself on grounds of extreme fatigue and profound grief.

§

H
ome in his own bed, dominoes champion Enrico Salinas tried to shut off his brain, not think about Pedro and Tomás Bello, and get some sleep. Earlier in the day when Enrico left the afternoon fiesta, he drove straight to the house of his friend Jesus Cabeza, fifth grade teacher in Tlaxcala, to deliver the good news in person. Pedro was gone from their lives. No more payouts for their new jobs.

The two men had compared notes on Pedro's vices. "Sooner or later," Enrico pointed out to his friend Jesus, "La Malinche exacts her price."

"The price is a little steep for the level of Pedro's crimes, wouldn't you say?" Jesus replied, feeling some sympathy for the dead man. "He was an opportunist, but not a bad person, not in the sense of evil or wicked, just a con artist always pushing the limits."

"This time the limits pushed back," Enrico said, still reeling from the news.

"Aren't you worried Pedro's death will jeopardize our new jobs?" Jesus asked.

The thought never occurred to Enrico. "No," Enrico said, "the Education officials have promised. Our names appeared on the roster of new appointments. They can't hold back now. Our jobs are safe."

"Don't be so sure," Jesus cautioned. "Tomás Bello is one tough SOB. Don't count him out. Union officials have plenty of pull. Frankly, I think Pedro might have been our protection. I never trusted him, but at least he was reasonable and only extorted what we could afford to pay. This Bello is a viper and a dumb one at that. No, my friend," Jesus had said, "Pedro's death will not benefit us."

§

N
or was Tomás Bello sleeping well that bizarre night, but then, classic insomniacs never do.

§

D
espite having slept on the taxi ride back to his village, Miguel managed to drift into a deep dark dreamless sleep, memories of the sweet smell of a certain Maestra overcoming the worries of the day.

Chapter
27

I
n Cuamantla, the Sánchez family put in a troubled night even though to a person they were exhausted. Arnulfo and Antonia lay side-by-side discussing in quiet tones Arnulfo's evening meeting with the Municipal President and village officials.

"The pipilitzin were very sympathetic," Arnulfo reported to his worried spouse. "They understand how young men can be driven to commit unwise acts, particularly where a scoundrel like García is concerned. They will do what they can," he assured her. "This will cost us something, of course, but the costs will be reasonable considering the alternatives. Furthermore, if Francisco and Diego can extract a confession from Diego's Mexico City friend indicating he acted alone, the pipilitzin will arrange matters so that neither boy will be forced to leave the community."

Antonia wept softly knowing their only hope lay in the mercy of the village officials, a costly mercy, but a mercy nonetheless. 

§

I
n the next room, Francisco lay on his back, wide-awake, angry and frustrated. Why had Diego's friend gone so far? They agreed only to rough up the Director, steal his wallet maybe, teach him a lesson. Murder was not part of the plan. Why hadn't Diego objected when his friend Raúl's deed became clear, rather than hand him the contents of the Director's wallet?

Francisco disliked the Director as much as Diego, but he never wanted him dead, nor was he willing to be part of such a heinous crime. He only agreed to serve as a lookout, help out his brother-in-law while Raúl took advantage of an unexpected opportunity to catch the Director alone with his pants down. No, Francisco hadn't bargained on murder, especially not the murder of a school official.  Diego, Francisco concluded, was even more foolish than his sister Olivia, improbable as the idea might seem. What would happen now? He hated the thought of jail and he didn't want to move to Mexico City, or worse, head for the border. He loved Cuamantla. It was his home. Now he was in danger of losing everything for the sake of his witless sister's honor and that of her equally obtuse lover, neither of whom possessed any honor to preserve in Francisco's opinion.

Besides, Francisco knew the Director was right when he accused the pair of tricking him. No doubt the Director slept with Olivia. She was as beautiful on the outside as she was dimwitted on the inside, that fact he couldn't deny. But knowing Olivia, she extended the invitation, and unknown to Olivia, Francisco had spotted something his parents and others missed. He noticed it the first time he cradled his newborn nephew in his arms. The little finger on the baby's left hand curved inward. Just like the curved little finger on Diego's left hand. Maybe Diego and his sister could blackmail the Director and fool everyone else, but Francisco knew who fathered his little nephew, and he knew why the baby arrived in the world ahead of schedule.

If Diego and Raúl were here right now he'd ring their necks just like he throttled the chickens for his mother's table. But they were in Mexico City, and Francisco faced a tough day tomorrow. After his father returned home from the fields, the two of them would leave for Mexico City to find Diego and Diego's friend Raúl, murderer of Pedro García. Francisco needed to get some sleep, but worries about his future kept his mind awake.

§

S
leep was the farthest thing from the minds of Diego and Raúl, absorbed as they were in touring Mexico City's nightspots celebrating their good fortune, the very large wad of pesos stuffed neatly into several compartments of the dead man Pedro's wallet.

Chapter
28

A
nna woke in a panic and lay terrifyingly still listening to a series of stealthy sounds issuing from the next room. Something or someone moved around in the study. A desk drawer opened and closed, not something the possum could manage, smart as it seemed to be. Stricken with fear, she knew she had to get out of the house before whoever was in the study came back to the bedroom. She glanced at the bedroom doors. They were closed and locked. How did an intruder enter her house?  Did she forget to close the kitchen door? Forget to lock it when she came in from the bathroom? Her panicked brain couldn't remember. It didn't matter. She needed to act quickly. The kitchen provided her only escape route.

She felt under her pillow for the Kali baton. For the first time in her months of living in Mexico, good sense and not paranoia had led her to keep the baton in bed with her. If she couldn't get out of the house, she would have to confront her intruder and she needed to be armed. She wished she had a knife since she was experienced in Kali knife fighting, but she could inflict serious bodily harm with a baton. At least it would give her a fighting chance even if the intruder were armed. Defending against a gun was easy if the person were close. Not so from several feet away. All this ran through her head as she plotted her escape up and over the roof. If she could just beat him to the roof. She prayed he didn't have a gun.

Gripping her baton, she slipped her legs over the edge of the bed tiptoeing the short distance to the kitchen door thankful for the darkness and concrete floors that didn't squeak. She needed to be quick. Opening the metal door couldn't be done quietly. Her life depended on speed. Reaching the kitchen door, she threw back the latch and pushed through the door, racing the six feet to the stairs. As her foot hit the bottom step, she heard the kitchen door bang back against the wall and knew her stalker was right behind her.

She took the steps two at a time reaching the roof just as her pursuer's hand grabbed the back of her left ankle. In one desperate swoop, she smashed the baton against his wrist then moved up to what she thought was his head. Her attacker groaned and eased his grip enough to allow her to lunge free. She sprinted the width of the roof and leaped the six feet down into the soft dirt of the Portillo's hillside courtyard, screaming for help.  Ignoring her throbbing left ankle and the courtyard chickens, she scrambled to the kitchen door praying the nearby popping noises were fiesta fireworks and not bullets aimed at her head. David threw open the kitchen door and for the second time that night she stumbled sobbing into Marianna's arms.

"There's a man in my house," she cried, "a thief. He chased me up the stairs when I tried to escape. I should have listened to Miguel and to you, Señora, and spent the night here." Before she could finish, David grabbed his machete and a kitchen chair and raced into the courtyard. "He might have a gun," Anna yelled. Marianna screamed for her husband to be careful and not get himself killed.

David ignored their warnings and hoisted himself onto the roof of Anna's house intent on intercepting her assailant. Inside the kitchen, Marianna reached up and removed two shawls from a hook on the wall. "Put this rebozo over your shoulders, niña, and hurry," she said, "we have to recruit our neighbors to help my spouse." Anna hobbled after her, only now aware of the searing pain in her left ankle.

A cacophony of barking roof dogs greeted the two women as neighbors emerged from their houses to investigate the commotion. The front door to Anna's house swung open and David emerged to announce the thief had escaped. A group of neighbors circled around wanting to know what happened while David questioned everyone on what they might have seen or heard.

"Someone tried to rob
la Americana
," he explained. "By the time I reached the house, the thief had fled. I don't know what he stole, but the Maestra's backpack seems to be missing." David asked whether anyone noticed a man carrying a backpack like the one the Maestra uses. One after another members of the gathering group nodded their heads and reported they'd seen and heard nothing.

"The thief could have run up the hill to a waiting car at the Tlaxcala road," one person suggested.

"Maybe he ran down to the river," offered another.

Marianna pointed to the roof dog racket coming from behind Anna's house and theorized the thief ran off in that direction.

Anna remembered the earlier noises and told Marianna she agreed with her analysis. "I've never been in that section of Belén," she added. "Where do the roads lead?"

"To Tlaxcala, Maestra. There's a back road through the village of Atlixtla and from there to the Tlaxcala Road, but it is the long way and dangerous."

"A thief who chooses the back roads must be familiar with the village, right, Señora?

"Correct, Anna. Every place has its thieves. Sometimes they're known to us and sometimes not. What are you thinking?"

"Well, I'm trying to figure out whether or not the intruder lives nearby. If not, he might be the person who murdered Pedro. In that case, he was after my DVD's and not after me."

"Anyone who breaks into a house is dangerous," Marianna said. "He may have been a local thief who was looking for money, but who knows? Whoever he is and whatever he was after, Anna, he could have killed you if you hadn't gotten away."

Anna considered Marianna's observations, but she wasn't convinced about the idea of a local thief. "I suppose there's a chance the break-in has nothing to do with the murder in Cuamantla," she said, "but I don't like coincidences."