Law of Return (13 page)

Chapter 12

Y
ou can’t just go off to San Sebastián for a holiday by the sea!” Captain Rodríguez exclaimed.

“Tejada, who had expected this reaction, was prepared. “I’ve worked out the patrol schedules for the following week,” he said. “Betances can keep the files organized, and Hernández has agreed to see the parolees in my absence, if I’m gone for the entire week, which isn’t likely. And with respect, sir, I think it may be vital to the Arroyo case.”

“Ahh. You mean you think Arroyo’s murderer is taking a vacation there?” The captain’s voice dripped sarcasm.

Tejada, standing at attention in front of the captain’s desk, gritted his teeth and reflected how much he disliked Rodríguez’s particular brand of jovial mockery. “I spoke to Eduardo Crespo again yesterday, sir,” he said, carefully. “According to Crespo, Arroyo was preoccupied and nervous for some time before his disappearance. He was following the news of the war in France with anxiety.”

“Well, of course he was,” the captain snapped. “He was a Red. He probably didn’t like the German victories.”

“Arroyo had an account at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya,” Tejada continued, ignoring the interruption. “I’ve looked at his bank statement. He had about ten thousand pesetas in the account.”

“So? He was well-to-do.”

“That’s just the point, Captain.” Tejada was unable to suppress a flicker of annoyance at his commanding officer’s naïveté. “Señora de Arroyo has been pressing us for a death certificate because she wants control of his estate. I doubt that she’d be that urgent for just a pittance.”

Rodríguez snorted. “You call ten thousand pesetas a pittance? You move in exalted circles, Lieutenant!”

“
I
call ten thousand pesetas more than my annual salary,” Tejada retorted, finally goaded. “But Arroyo’s investments probably brought him over twice that in interest. And I’m sure he had savings as well, plus a pension, and a salary, although that probably
was
a pittance. The point is, where are the rest of his assets?”

Like many people, Captain Rodríguez was made slightly uncomfortable by the casual discussion of great wealth. He shifted a little in his chair and said truculently, “Lots of people don’t trust banks. Maybe he kept his money at home.”

Peasant!
Tejada thought with disgust, holding on to his temper with some difficulty. What do you think he did, stuff it into a mattress like an old woman? He made sure that his voice was under control before he said, “I’ve spoken to the branch manager, Captain. At the end of the war Arroyo had just under two hundred thousand pesetas in his account.” The captain made a strangled noise, and Tejada watched the clockwork in Rodríguez’s brain attempt to translate the amount into something comprehensible. “He’s been steadily withdrawing significant sums for the last eight months,” the lieutenant continued. “If one puts that together with Crespo’s information about Arroyo’s recent behavior, there’s a strong suggestion that he was planning to flee the country, with as much cash as possible.”

“But he was murdered before he got the chance to flee,” Rodríguez finished, apparently relieved to be back on solid ground.

“We don’t know that,” Tejada replied carefully. He took a deep breath, and prayed that Rodríguez would be able to follow his hypothesis without too much difficulty. “We know that an unidentifiable body with his wallet was found last week. Crespo says he last saw Arroyo on June tenth. His wife last saw him on June twelfth. And he showed up for his last parole date on June thirteenth. That’s a very gradual disappearance for a man who’s been murdered. But for a man who’s planning to slowly fade out of the picture it’s very clever. Crespo didn’t look for Arroyo because he thought that Señora Otero would be sure to know if something was wrong. And she didn’t look for him because she thought the Guardia were following his movements anyway. And we didn’t look for him because he’d made his last parole date. Everyone assumed that someone else knew where he was.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with going to San Sebastián.” Rodríguez’s voice was still aggressive, but there was a note of uncertainty as well.

Tejada took a deep breath. The next part was tricky. It involved a hunch—a hunch based on information that he preferred to withhold from the captain. That morning, as he reviewed the weekly surveillance reports of Arroyo’s fellow petitioners, Guardia Estrada’s report on Guillermo Fernández had caught his eye:

Wednesday 3/7/40:
Subject went to railway station with daughter and wife. Purchased tickets. (Subject has been prohibited from leaving Salamanca. Suspicious behavior???)

Thursday 4/7/40:
House visited by unknown woman at 19:00, by a doctor at 19:30. Subject emerged to walk doctor to his car at 20:15. Subject’s daughter saw off female visitor at 21:00. Both appeared healthy. Possible some accident/illness has affected subject’s wife???

Tejada’s first casual thought had been that he hoped that Elena’s vacation with her mother was not spoiled. She was unlikely to go without Señora de Fernández. Then it had occurred to him that it was a bit odd for her to want to go without the professor. He had offered the permission to travel as a courtesy, because there was nothing else that he could do for her. But now that he thought about the matter, it was strange that a girl who faithfully accompanied her father to his parole appointments every week was willing to leave him to take a vacation just when the Guardia Civil had become more suspicious of his behavior. It did not fit with what he knew of her.

Unless she has some other reason for going to San Sebastián, Tejada thought, and reluctantly recalled his interview with Eduardo Crespo a day earlier. “A terrible business,” the lawyer had said, shaking his head, his voice as loud in grief as it had been in jovial welcome. “You may not believe this, but Professor Arroyo wasn’t a bad man before he got mixed up with the Reds. And now, honestly, I don’t know whether to hope that he’s dead or has fled. At least if that body you’ve found is his, there’s no disgrace. Surely it’s better to remember the professor as he used to be: a fine scholar, teacher, and athlete.”

“Athlete?” Tejada had asked with some interest.

“Oh, not so much lately,” the lawyer had replied. “But he used to be quite a notable swimmer and sailor. He and his wife have, oh God,
had
a house in San Sebastián and a little yacht. My family and I visited them one summer when the kids were small and I remember the professor taking the boys out on the bay for entire days.”

Tejada had not particularly noted the words at the time. But pondering Elena Fernández’s mysterious determination to go north to San Sebastián for the summer, Crespo’s words struck an ominous chord.
“A house in San Sebastián. And a little yacht.”

It was, Tejada thought, ridiculous to imagine that Elena might be mixed up in Arroyo’s disappearance, much less his murder—if it was a murder. She hadn’t even recognized the man’s name. There was absolutely no evidence linking her or her father to the former professor of law. And yet . . . and yet, Guillermo Fernández had asked for permission to travel immediately after the discovery of the body that might or might not be Arroyo’s. To San Sebastián, where Arroyo had owned a house. And a boat that would certainly be capable of making the brief trip up the coast to France.

Elena had nothing to do with any of this, the lieutenant decided. But if another man were in charge of the investigation, he might accidentally misread the evidence and waste valuable time focusing on her. This would allow Arroyo (or, if the corpse proved to be his, Arroyo’s murderers) to slip away, and would also spoil Elena’s vacation. Therefore, Tejada felt, it was in everyone’s best interest for him to go to San Sebastián to search for clues to Arroyo’s disappearance personally. “Dr. Crespo mentioned that Arroyo owned property in San Sebastián,” Tejada said carefully. “Apparently he also owned a boat there. If he were thinking of leaving the country, it would be a logical place for him to go.”

To Tejada’s relief, the captain seemed willing to accept this line of reasoning. Unfortunately, Rodríguez showed an unexpected flash of intelligence. “If he did go there, he has a week’s start,” he pointed out. “Wouldn’t it be faster to call the post in San Sebastián and ask them for any information?”

“Yes, sir,” Tejada admitted. “But they’ve never had any dealings with him and he’d be hard to describe. I thought it would be better if someone who could recognize him went in search of him.”

“It’d make more sense to send Hernández then,” commented Rodríguez, still showing regrettable acuity. “Or one of the guardias who tailed him. You’ve never met the man.”

“Actually, I have, sir.” Tejada spoke in an expressionless monotone. “I was a student of Arroyo’s.”

Rodríguez’s head jerked up to look at his lieutenant with something like disbelief. “A student? When?”

“Spring of 1929, sir.” Tejada stared straight ahead, avoiding Rodríguez’s eyes.

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Did you also meet Judge Otero then, Tejada?”

“No, sir.”

“I see.” Rodríguez spoke slowly, and Tejada had the impression that the captain was attempting to use caution. “Are you aware that His Honor has invited you to a gathering at his home tomorrow evening?”

“Yes, sir,” Tejada said quietly. “He extended an invitation to me when I spoke to him last week. I believe it includes all the officers at the post.”

“The letter was addressed to me.” Captain Rodríguez’s mouth twisted slightly. “And the exact wording, Lieutenant, was ‘
We wish to invite you, Lieutenant Tejada, and your other officers
.’ You seem to have made a good impression on the judge.”

“Captain?”

Rodríguez drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment. Then he said, “You’ll attend the Oteros’ party, Lieutenant. You can leave Sunday morning. I’ll send a wire to San Sebastián, so they’ll expect you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tejada relaxed imperceptibly. Rodríguez, the lieutenant thought, was an idiot, but an idiot who respected the Oteros. As long as Tejada enjoyed the Oteros’ patronage he would be relatively safe from interference.

Which brought Tejada back to the question of the Oteros’ patronage. Was Judge Otero merely being gracious because of an old family connection? Or did the judge have information about Manuel Arroyo that he wished to conceal? Tejada remembered the pause when the judge had spoken of Arroyo’s finances: “It’s only since the war that he . . .” Tejada was now fairly sure of what Otero had originally intended to say. But if the judge knew that his brother-in-law was withdrawing funds, he might well know a good deal about Arroyo’s disappearance as well. Keep an open mind, Tejada reminded himself. Maybe Arroyo really is dead. In that case, if Otero knew that he was withdrawing funds, would that be a motive for murder? To prevent Arroyo from fleeing, and leaving his wife penniless? Would Arroyo have left his wife like that? That might give
her
a motive for murder . . . if she knew about it. But she had money of her own, didn’t she? All in all, Tejada looked forward to his next meeting with the Oteros with interest.

That Saturday evening, when the guardias civiles entered the Otero home, however, he realized that any chance of personal conversation would be remote. No one in Salamanca had entertained on a grand scale since the war, but the Otero family had come closer to full-scale balls than anyone else in the city. The party, given by Jorge Otero in honor of his oldest daughter’s birthday, was lavish by postwar standards, even allowing for the hasty cancellation of the orchestra in consideration of Manuel Arroyo’s presumed demise. There were, in the lieutenant’s quick estimate, already over fifty people in the grand salon when the officers of the Guardia Civil made their entrance.

Their party numbered six in total: Captain Rodríguez and his wife, Sergeant Betances, Corporals Méndez and Jiménez, and the lieutenant. (Sergeant Hernández was nursing a toothache. Rodríguez had refused the sergeant’s mumbled pleas to be excused, but Tejada had compassionately suggested that it would be better to leave one officer at the post in case of emergencies.) The guardias were by no means the only uniformed men in the room. The party was sprinkled with young men in the uniforms of cadets and of the fascist volunteers, and older ones wearing the ceremonial dress of colonels and brigadier generals.

On the whole, Tejada thought, the guardias showed up well compared with the other military men. True, Captain Rodríguez was a bit overweight, but the same could have been said of almost all the senior officers. And Corporal Jiménez’s tendency to clamp his tricorn under his elbow as if he expected it to make a break for freedom at any moment was remedied as soon as they surrendered their hats in the hallway. If Corporal Jiménez’s tricorn was slightly the worse for wear at least the cloakroom gave it decent anonymity. As he handed over his own hat, Tejada caught a glimpse of the outerwear of his fellow guests. War had touched them as well. It was difficult to date the cloaks and gabardines of the men, but the women’s furs followed the fashions of the early thirties. The set of tricorns took their places alongside a profusion of top hats, red berets, and (the lieutenant noted with amusement) at least half a dozen silver-handled walking sticks. Judge Otero had apparently started a fashion trend.