Cappuccino Twist (3 page)

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I have startled you.  I just want to help,” she said, reaching over and patting me on the hand.  “Your hands are freezing!”

“Yes, you’ve caught me at a bad time,” I said sullenly, handing her the note.

“Ah, this is terrible! Who wrote this?” She shrieked, dropping the note on the desk like it was on fire.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I said, turning back to Talisa who had finally picked up the telephone.

Apologetically, she looked up from the phone and informed me, “The manager isn’t on duty right now.  He’ll be in this evening.”

“Isn’t there another manager around? Or a supervisor even?” I huffed in frustration.

She threw her hands up helplessly and shook her head.  “Sorry.  All the managers are in an executive meeting today.”

I groaned.  I knew all about those executive meetings that take place in posh conference rooms with expensive catered luncheons and nothing but baloney passing between employees.  My sales job had required that I attend at least one of those pointless pow-wows on a weekly basis.

“Fine,” I snapped.  “I’ll deal with this later.  For now, I want to track down Marcelo Sanchez.”

“Why don’t we go back to the library and call him?” Señora Marquez suggested.  “It might be safer to call him from there rather than your hotel where someone is already watching you.”

“Call him? I’m not going to call him.  I’m going to show up on his doorstep.  Why should I let him know I’m coming?  He could plan not to be
home.  Or he could start plotting a story to tell me if in fact he did have anything to do with my aunt’s murder,” I pointed out sharply.

“Murder?” Talisa echoed, finally catching some of my jitters.

Walking away from the front desk so the clerk wouldn’t hear the rest of my conversation, I looked Señora Marquez directly in the eyes.  Based on her eyes alone, I felt that the woman had a good soul.  The warmth in her eyes was the polar opposite of the chill I had glimpsed in the glaring stranger’s.  Plus, she knew Barcelona far better than I did.  It would help to have a native guide me to the suspect’s house.

“How do we get to this address?” I asked, pulling out the slip of paper with Marcelo Sanchez’s house number printed on it.

“Very easy.  It’s a 5 minute drive from here.  Come, we’ll take my car.”

***

The first thing that struck me as odd was how the old man’s house wasn’t a house at all.  It was a tiny apartment inside a multi-story building that we call ‘human filing cabinets’ in Manhattan.  The next thing that struck me as unusual was the appearance of the old man as he immediately opened the door to my tentative knock, almost as though he had been waiting all day for company.  His face was long and haggard, and his silver hair was straggly as it fell in knots around his skinny shoulders.

“Marcelo Sanchez?” I presumed as the frail figure nodded eagerly.

“Si, señorita! I am Marcelo Sanchez!” The octogenarian replied with such ferocious eagerness that I thought he would pull me bodily into his apartment.

Moistening my dry lips with the tip of my tongue, I suddenly wondered how I was going to go about this face to face interview.  The man seemed so desperate for company---and so delicate---that I was afraid I might give him a stroke if I told him the reason for my visit.  So, I started out slowly, hoping to ease him into my line of questioning.

“May we come inside?” I asked, thinking how no one in his right mind in New York would let two strangers in even if they
were
harmless looking women.

“Well, yes, I hope you do!” The old man chuckled as he slowly moved out of the way so we could step inside.  His back was slightly hunched, and I wondered how many years it had been since he was able to stand up straight.

I walked into his apartment with the librarian close behind me.  It all felt like a scene from the
Twilight Zone
: waltzing into a stranger’s apartment with another stranger I had only met hours earlier, all in the name of finding justice for a long ago crime covered in cobwebs and an impenetrable film of dust.

“Have a seat, ladies.  This must be my lucky day,” he commented with an endearingly goofy smile as I questioned his state of mind.  Was the man senile and would he be able to answer my questions accurately?  Moreover, wou
ld he even remember Aunt Silvia?

Se
ñora Marquez nudged me gently on the arm as though to say, ‘Well? Get started! Ask him something!’  But instead of waiting for me to speak, the pushy librarian announced, “We’re here to ask you some questions about a murder that took place in Barcelona 52 years ago.” I wanted to smack my hand over her big mouth, but I didn’t have a chance to react to her outburst as the old man started to tremble from across the room.

“Are you talking about my Silvia?” He asked in a tormented voice as I
overflowed with compassion for him. 

“Yes, I’m her great-niece, and I’ve come to Spain to get information from anyone who knew her,” I quickly explained, not wanting him to shut down and think he was a suspect…even though of course he still was, as much as I pitied him.

Marcelo Sanchez hobbled over to me and stared me in the eyes, scanning my face as though trying to find some trace of Silvia in my features.  “You do have her eyes.  And the bridge of her nose.  Ah, why have you come back to haunt me? What have I done?  This is not my lucky day at all!” Tears pooled in his crinkly eyelids as I struggled to remain business-like and extract all the information I could from him. 

“I’m sorry, Se
ñor Sanchez.  I’m definitely not trying to haunt you.  I just want to get some information about Silvia…I promised my grandmother…”

“Margarita?” He cried out as I nodded fervently.

“Yes, my grandmother Margarita passed away two weeks ago, and I promised her I would come to Barcelona and finally get justice for Silvia.”

“Ah, everyone around me is dying! I remember your grandmother when she was a young lady of your age! 
But everyone is leaving me behind! Why?” The man sailed off on a tangent as I glanced nervously at Señora Marquez, then frowned.  Her eyes were alight, and she seemed to be enjoying the dramatic spectacle.

“So you knew my grandmother too?” I coaxed, trying to lead him back to
the subject at hand.

“Of course! I used to see her every night when I picked up Silvia for our dates!  Silvia was my girl for two years, you know!  I wanted to marry her, but she left me for another man.” The old man’s face crumpled in despair as I raised my eyebrows.  Did he realize that he had just incriminated himself by revealing that my aunt had
rejected him for someone else?  But no, he seemed so tangled up in his buried emotions that he was unaware of anything except the memories flooding his mind.

“Who did she leave you for?” I ventured.  “Was his name Jorge or David?” I asked as gently as I could.

“It was Jorge,” he seethed bitterly.  “I’ll never forget that name.  But I refuse to hear it in
mi casa
!  Please, you must be witches both of you, please leave me in peace now.  I will call the police if you don’t get out of here!” An agonizing blend of jealousy and despondence racked his frame as he limped over to the door and gestured for us to leave.

Interrogating the man any further would be futile and possibly fatal, so I ran through the door with the librarian following leisurely.  As soon as she had stepped outside, he slammed the door so hard that it rattled like the bones of a skeleton.

“Well that was a disaster,” I said, still furious with the prying woman for having divulged our intentions so soon.

Reading my mind, she said, “It
’s all my fault! I shouldn’t have said anything.  I just wanted to help.” Her face betrayed an expression of shame as she asked quietly, “So where do you go from here?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.  “The information he gave us certainly doesn’t eliminate him as a suspect.  But even if he
is
the murderer, it’s obvious that he would never confess.” I sighed deeply.  “I guess it’s time to roll the dice and go to the next name on the list.”

Chapter 4

Fifteen minutes later, the librarian curved her car into the local police station.  “Thanks for driving me here,” I
clipped, grabbing the threatening note and preparing to march it into the station.

“Do you want me to come with you?” She asked with hopeful eyes. 

“No, you’ve done enough already,” I replied with no small amount of irony.  “But thank you, Señora Marquez.  I really appreciate the ride.”

“Come back to the library if you need anything!” She urged, tugging on the sleeve of my tee shirt as I reflexively pulled away.

“Okay, I will,” I fibbed, making my way out of her car. 

I didn’t need to look behind me to know that she hadn’t pulled away and was watching me walk into the police station.  Why was she taking the case so perso
nally?  Could my Aunt Silvia have been that memorable of a babysitter?  Or was Señora Marquez just a bored busybody with nothing else to do? 

Forgetting the strange bird for the time being, I stepped up to the dispatch desk and explained my situation in a long-winded monologue that made the attendant so flustered I wondered if her head would start spinning like
in a scene from
The Exorcist
.  “And this is the note.” I finally exhaled as I passed the paper underneath a slit below the bulletproof glass.

“
Uno momento, por favor
,” she said sternly, lifting up the phone and conveying an abridged version of my epic story.

“Is a police officer going to meet with me?” I asked as she hung up the phone.

“Yes.  Have a seat,” she replied curtly, turning her attention to a soap opera magazine and flipping mindlessly through the pages.

Too restless to sit, I paced through the waiting area, longing for a cup of coffee until a police officer finally came out to greet me. 
Long, attractive, and no more than 30 years old, Officer Calderon towered over me and held out his hand.  Confused, I reached out my own hand to shake his as he chuckled.  “Hand me the note, please,” he requested as I felt like a huge fool.

“Oh! Yes, here it is.” I closely examined his rugged tan face as he read the note, but his features bore no reaction whatsoever.

“This isn’t a death threat, señorita.  Seems like more of a prank to me.” He shrugged and handed me the note as I burned like scalding espresso.

“What do you mean it’s not a death threat?” I cried.

“Nothing explicit is written in the note.  It just says ‘Go home.  Or chase ghosts at your own peril.’  Those words could be interpreted in a million ways.  Plus, the note only has your first name printed on it.  We don’t even know for sure that it was intended for you.  You’re not the only Marlena in Spain.” His relaxed demeanor infuriated me even more as I battled to stay in control and not get myself into worse trouble by mouthing off to the arrogant cop.

“Just because the note doesn’t explicitly say ‘I’m going to kill you,’ doesn’t mean it’s not a death threat! Anyone can read between the lines and
understand the implied message,” I argued as he pressed his lips together in an expression of disagreement.

“I’m sorry, s
eñorita.  There’s nothing we can do about this note.  Again, like I said, we can’t even verify whether the note was intended for you.”

“Listen, that note
was
meant for me.  I’m absolutely sure of it.  Because I
am
chasing ghosts here in Spain.  I’m trying to solve the murder of Silvia Falcon.” Searching the officer’s deep-set eyes for a flicker of recognition, I found none.  Of course not.  He had still been a generation away from birth when my aunt was killed.  I needed to speak to a veteran member of the police department, someone who would vividly remember the aftermath of the crime.  “Is there a senior officer here I can speak with?” I demanded impatiently, flaming as the officer smirked at my request.

“Any officer is goi
ng to tell you the same thing, señorita.  I suggest you just relax and enjoy your time in Barcelona.  Forget about prank notes and ghosts and murder mysteries.” Offering this piece of condescending advice, Officer Calderon disappeared down the corridor, leaving me back at square one with a threatening note, a ridiculously complicated case to solve, and no support system whatsoever.  Drawing on an image of my grandmother, I steeled myself against a fresh wave of tears and held my chin high as I left the police station.

***

Bright and too early the next morning, I was back in my apron uniform at Dario’s Cappuccino Boutique.  My sleep had been fitful as I kept checking
the peephole of my hotel room door to make sure no one was lurking in the hall and about to break in.  Even with a deadbolt and double chain lock, I didn’t feel secure.  The only “weapon” I carried with me was a Swiss Army knife earned on a Girl Scout camping trip when I was 12.  The paper-thin scissors and half inch blade certainly wouldn’t offer me much protection against an intruder.

“What are you doing, Marlena?  This customer wants a double cinnamon latte with skim milk and a sugar straw!” Dario barked at me, whipping me out of my thoughts and back to an equally dreary reality.  Unfortunately for me, Dario had decided to rule in person over his dominion
that day, and I needed to put up a convincing façade that I actually knew how to brew a cup of gourmet coffee.