Stork Raving Mad (18 page)

“I know she had a briefcase,” I said. “They both did.”

“We found that,” he said.

I thought some more.

“Yes, a very small leather handbag,” I said. “Probably something designer.”

“Would you recognize it if you saw it?”

I pondered.

“Maybe,” I said. “Why?”

“We didn’t find a purse near her body,” he said. “Her wallet was in the briefcase, but everything else in it was neatly arranged and the wallet was just wedged in. Seemed odd.”

I nodded.

“And there wasn’t any other feminine stuff in the briefcase,” the chief said. “She had on makeup and her hair was nicely done, but there wasn’t a lipstick or a compact or a comb or anything like that in the briefcase. It seemed to suggest that there might have been a purse, though we didn’t find one near her body.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open for it,” I said.

“You can’t remember anything else about it?”

I shook my head.

“Well,” he said. “Perhaps you could—”

“Aha! There you are!”

We all started and turned to see Señor Mendoza standing in the office doorway.

“Can I help you, Señor?” the chief asked.

“Just the people I wanted to see,” Mendoza said. “
El jefe de polícia
, and my poor hostess.”

The chief sighed, got up from the desk chair, and courteously offered one of the evil guest chairs to Mendoza. Mendoza seated himself with a flourish, planted his cane in front of him with a brisk tap, and leaned both hands on it. The chief reseated himself and pulled out his notebook.

“First, Señora, I must apologize for having so terribly abused your hospitality,” Mendoza said to me. “How can I possibly make amends?”

“That depends on what you’ve done,” I said. “If it’s about the fish, you had no way of knowing.”

“Fish?” Mendoza seemed puzzled. “No, this is not about fish, but murder!”

“You have more evidence for me, Señor?” the chief asked.

“I have a confession!” Mendoza exclaimed. “I did it!”

“Did what?” the chief asked, peering over his glasses.

“It!” Mendoza repeated. “The assassination of Señora Wright.”

The chief sighed, took his glasses off, and rubbed his eyes. I found myself thinking, not for the first time, how good Mendoza’s English was. He probably understood a lot more of what was going on around him than some of the students gave him credit for.

“Aren’t you going to arrest me?” Mendoza asked.

“We like to take our time about things like that,” the chief said.

“Since we don’t get that many murders in a small town like Caerphilly,” Dad added. “When we do get one, we like to savor it.”

The chief winced and cast a sharp glance at Dad, who didn’t
notice. Life was finally providing the kind of drama Dad loved in his beloved mystery books, and he sat there beaming happily at Señor Mendoza from his ringside seat.

“Let’s take things one step at a time,” the chief said, settling the glasses back on his temples. “Just tell me, in your own words, what happened.”

“Well, if you like,” Señor Mendoza said. His shrug and the expression on his face seemed to suggest that he was puzzled at the chief’s lack of enthusiasm for his confession. “I became enraged at her villainous treatment of young Ramon—her and her friend, the one who has a Spanish name but not, in my opinion, a Spanish soul! To reward his years of patient labor and his courteous treatment of me in this way! The villains! The ingrates! I cannot say how angry I was to hear it. To think that these . . . these . . .”

“You became enraged,” the chief said. “Got it. Go on.”

“And I entered the room in which she had hidden herself and confronted her. I rebuked her for her treatment of Ramon and implored her to keep her word to him. But she would not relent. I was enraged. Somehow I found that hideous statue in my hands and before I realized, I had struck her with it.”

“Hmm,” the chief said. He looked up from his notebook. “You were confronting her, you say? So you struck her . . . where?”

“On the head,” Señor Mendoza said.

“Yes, but where on the head? The front? The side? The back?”

Mendoza frowned. I was already suspicious of his confession. Now I was sure he was lying. I’d bet the chief thought so,
too, and had just posed what Mendoza clearly recognized as a trick question.

“To be truthful, I do not know,” Mendoza said finally. “I was facing her, so it could have been the front. But equally she might have turned away at seeing my rage, or tried to. I really don’t remember. It was all a red blur.”

“A red blur,” the chief repeated. “Do you mean there was a lot of blood?”

Clearly Señor Mendoza was on his guard.

“I have the impression of a great deal of red,” he said. “But I have no idea if I am recalling blood or whether it was merely the force of my rage that made me think so.”

The chief rubbed one temple absently. I wondered if he was getting a headache. Should I offer him some aspirin? Probably better to wait until he was finished with Señor Mendoza. And considering how many people had been slipping unidentified pills to each other, maybe I should find a brand-new, sealed bottle.

“And what did you do next?” the chief asked.

“Next? There is no next! She is dead! I can see that very clearly.”

“After you saw that she was dead,” the chief said.

“I go back to the kitchen to continue preparing the paella,” he said. “And the fish stew.”

“No one noticed your absence?” the chief said.

“Who notices when an old man leaves the room?” Mendoza said, with a shrug. “No doubt they assume I go to the lavatory.”

The chief nodded.

“You didn’t do anything else?” he asked.

“What else is there to do?” Mendoza said.

“You didn’t, for example, move the body?”

“No!”

“Or take any of her belongings? Her briefcase? Her purse?”

“I am a murderer, not a common thief!” Mendoza drew himself up as tall as he could and pounded his cane on the floor, sending the chair skittering back an inch or so on the polished floor.

“I wasn’t implying—” the chief said.

“This is an outrage! I have never been so insulted!”

“Señor Mendoza—”

“I will not stay here to be abused by the
polícia!
” Mendoza said, followed by several exclamations in Spanish that had the singsong sound of oft-used slogans. He seemed to be making an effort to rise, but the inescapable guest chair had him firmly in its clutches.

“No one thinks you are a thief,” I said, in my most soothing voice. “But of course, even an enraged killer might have the wit and clearheadedness to hide something if he realized it could be used as evidence against him.”

“
Si
,” he said, more calmly. “But her purse, her belongings—how could they be evidence?”

“The chief is only asking,” I said. Actually, I was doing the asking, and the chief, seeing that Mendoza responded to my questioning more calmly, was nodding and scribbling in his notebook. “In case you noticed whether any of her belongings were missing.”

“I care not for belongings!” Mendoza said. “So I would not notice them.”

“Just one more thing,” I asked. “Why are you telling us now? Since you seem to have gotten away without anyone catching you—why not keep silent and hope to get away with it?”

“Ah, that was my plan,” he said. “Until I realized that suspicion would fall upon young Ramon.”

“So you confessed to save Ramon,” the chief said.

“To save him from being blamed for my crime,” Mendoza said. “I cannot allow his young life to be ruined because of me. So take me away!”

He held out his hands as if for handcuffs. The chief sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Thank you, Señor Mendoza,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

“You do not want to arrest me?” Mendoza looked quite disappointed.

“We have to wait for the results of the autopsy before we arrest anyone,” the chief said. “And I need to check on the protocol. I don’t know if I have the authority to arrest a foreign citizen. For now, just give me your word that you won’t leave the premises without my permission.”

“On my honor,” Mendoza said, holding his hand over his heart. “And now, if you do not wish to arrest me, I will return to my lodgings!”

He made another effort to extricate himself from the chair, and both Dad and the chief leaped to his assistance.

“Not leaving the premises means I’d like you to stay here in
the house for the time being,” the chief said, as they steadied Mendoza on his feet.

“It’s okay,” I said. “His lodgings are our dining room.”

“That’s fine, then,” the chief said. “Just one little thing.”

Mendoza turned and held his head up, as if he expected the one more thing would lead to a battle of wits.

“Just what are those pills of yours?” the chief said. “The ones you spilled earlier today.”

Mendoza blinked and frowned slightly.

“My heart pills,” he said.

“Do you know the name of the medication?” the chief asked.

“No.” Mendoza shrugged slightly. “My doctor prescribes them, I take them. For the heart. Why?”

“We’re still trying to figure out whether to worry if there are any more of them lying around,” the chief said. “I’ve got my dog with me,” he added, indicating Scout, who, realizing he was the topic of conversation, lifted his head and thumped his tail on the carpet a few times.

“A noble animal!” Señor Mendoza said.

“And you know dogs. Eat anything in sight, whether it looks like food or not.”

“Shall I have the students scour the hall for the pills?” Mendoza asked.

“No,” the chief said. “We’re already doing that as part of our forensic work. But it would help if we knew what the blamed pills were.”

“Ah.” Mendoza shrugged again, more eloquently. “I cannot help you. I leave that to my doctor.”

“Not wise,” I said. “Anyone who’s taking any kind of medicine—even over-the-counter medicine—should be an informed consumer. Look up what the effects and side effects are, and whether it has interactions with other drugs you might be taking or—”

“I cannot be bothered with that!” Mendoza exclaimed. “If my doctor decides to poison me, so be it!”

With that, he strode out of the room. We could hear the brisk tap of his cane disappearing down the hallway.

“So, do you believe a word of Señor Mendoza’s confession?” I asked.

“No,” the chief said, with a sigh. “But I suppose it’s rude to tell a distinguished foreign visitor point-blank that he’s a bald-faced liar.”

“Of course, it’s always possible that he poisoned her and decided to confess to the bludgeoning to throw you off the track,” I suggested.

“Always possible,” the chief agreed. “But I think if he did poison her, he’d react a little more when asked about the pills. Let’s hope he’s content with having made his confession and doesn’t keeping popping back in here every five minutes demanding to be arrested.”

“Placate him,” I said. “Send Horace to confiscate his clothes for testing or something dramatic like that.”

“It’s an idea,” the chief said. “I just wish I knew what those blasted pills are.”

“You could call his doctor,” I said.

“I did,” he said. “Actually, I had Debbie Anne do the actual calling, since her Spanish is better than mine. But Barcelona’s six hours ahead of us, so the doctor’s office hours were over by
the time we got his contact information. It’s unlikely we’ll hear before tomorrow.”

He picked up his notebook and began flipping through it. Was that intended as a dismissal? Probably. But since he hadn’t actually ordered me out, I could take my time and decide what I wanted to do. Nap? Or eat? Both ideas had merit. But both required getting up and moving. And I was strangely comfortable. My back hurt less than usual. And—

“Ms. Langslow?”

I started and opened my eyes.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just trying to decide where to go when I left here.”

“You were asleep,” he said.

“Just resting my eyes and thinking,” I said. “When you’re as big as I am, you like to plan your movements.”

“You always snore when you’re thinking?”

I winced.

“I was trying to decide between taking a nap and getting something to eat.” I braced and heaved myself up. “I guess my body decided for me.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said as I waddled out.

Of course, halfway down the long hallway to the rest of the house, I realized I was more hungry than sleepy. And I had no idea whether the kitchen was still off-limits. Or whether I really wanted to eat anything in it, since we still had a poisoner on the loose.

I’d figure that out when I got there.

I made another pit stop in the front hall bathroom and when
I came out, I ran into my grandfather searching the coatracks and muttering under his breath. He was, of course, looking on the wrong rack. I walked over to the right one and plucked out his overcoat.

“Here,” I said. “And where are you going, anyway?”

“Just out for a long walk to cool off,” he said.

“Cool off?” I repeated. “The house doesn’t feel overheated to me, so I assume you mean your temper.”

He scowled instead of answering, but he didn’t storm out, so I waited. Having someone to vent to would probably improve his temper even faster than a brisk walk, and I wasn’t at all sure anyone his age should be gallivanting about in twenty-degree temperatures.

I found myself wondering, once again, why he had turned up to visit us at this inconvenient moment. Was it just to see his great-grandchildren as soon as they were born? That seemed unlikely—he was fond enough of my older sister’s six kids, but he certainly wasn’t gaga over them. More likely he was in the planning stages for another installment of his “Animals in Peril” TV series. Were there any endangered species in Caerphilly, Virginia? Or was this going to be an exposé of animal abuse, like last year’s dogfighting documentary?

“When the hell is the chief going to solve this thing?” he asked finally. Even more suspicious—he normally didn’t share Dad’s interest in murder mysteries.

“As soon as he can, I’m sure,” I said. “It’s only been a few hours.”