Murder Makes a Pilgrimage (24 page)

“My nephew is basically a good boy,” Fraga assured him. “He would never harm anyone.”

“I am not accusing him of murder,” Ángel told him. “I just want some background information on him.”

“Pepe is my wife’s sister’s boy,” Fraga whispered into the receiver.

“And you cannot talk right now?”

”Sí, señor,”
Fraga answered quickly.

“Your wife is listening?”

”Sí, sí, señor!”

“Is there another number where I can reach you?”

Happily Carlos Fraga gave him the number of the Patio Español. “I will be there in less than ten minutes,” he said.

Fifteen minutes later, when Ángel was finally reconnected, he could hardly stop Fraga from talking.

“Ay, that Pepe,” Fraga said angrily. “He is my wife’s sister’s only child, spoiled, shiftless, and, I regret to say, señor, he is”—Fraga switched to English—“a bum.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?” Ángel asked, wondering if he had translated correctly.

“A bum is a bum is a bum!” Fraga shouted. “The boy—no! He is no longer a boy. He is a man of thirty. He has no steady work, no real job, no responsibility, but, always, always, a scheme. A deal,’ he says. And his deals always lead nowhere but to trouble!”

“If he has no job, what is he doing leading a tour group in Santiago?” Ángel asked.

”Dios mío!”
Ángel envisioned Carlos Fraga holding his head. “That is the latest and, señor, the most expensive of his deals, at least for me. He promises Pulmantur that he will organize a Holy Year pilgrimage for ten to Santiago. They
advance him some money. It is September, and he still has no pilgrims. Pulmantur wants him to produce or give the money back. He can do neither.

“Suddenly, señor, it is my problem. I tell my wife’s sister, ‘Let them put him in jail! Good riddance!’ My wife gets into it. She calls me ‘heartless,’ then stops speaking to me at all. In the end, señor”—Fraga’s tone was martyred—“what can a man do?

“I run a contest at my restaurant. Fortunately two nuns have entered, so I can pull their names for a tax write-off, at least. The rest I just choose, fair and square. There are two young girls on the trip. Maybe, I hope, when I see them, maybe my nephew will get to know one of them and settle down. Better yet, maybe he will find some nice rich Spanish girl and settle down in Spain. But no! He can’t do anything right! Now he is involved in murder.” He gave a pitiful sigh.

“You say that this is your nephew’s latest scheme. There were other schemes?”

“Ah, señor. Once the dumb ox sold advertising for a throwaway paper. Of course, I had to take a full page, but I was his only customer. To get more, he offered so many specials that not only did the paper lose money, but he lost his job and his paycheck to make up the difference.”

Ángel chuckled, and Fraga picked up steam. “Another time he and a friend invented a can crusher. They were going to make a million. Of course, I had to buy one for the Patio Español. The crusher not only crushed the can but held on to it so tightly that it took three of my busboys and the cook to pull the can loose! My sister-in-law has two thousand of these crushers in her basement next to boxes of see-through drainpipes. Who in his right mind, I ask you, would pay good money to see dirty water go through a drainpipe?”

Ángel had heard enough of Pepe’s escapades. They were
foolish, granted, but not criminal. This call must be costing his department a fortune.

“Do you think, Señor Fraga, that your nephew Pepe would be capable of murder?” he asked bluntly.

There was a long silence. “I am sorely tempted to answer yes, Comisario. That is one way to be rid of the bum for good, but in all honesty, I must say no.”

“Why is that, señor?”

“Because poor Pepe could not be a murderer. He has neither the brains nor the gumption!”

By the time Ángel hung up he had begun to feel that his niece, María José, was not so bad after all. Since you can choose only your friends and not your relatives, he was grateful that Divine Providence had not saddled him with a Pepe.

Long shadows began to fill his small office. Before he left for home and supper, he decided to try Kate Murphy once more. When he had the information from her, he would be able to relax and enjoy his meal.

He listened to the ringing and was about to hang up when someone grabbed the receiver.

“Hello,” a woman answered breathlessly. He recognized Kate Murphy’s voice.

“Did I catch you at a bad moment?” he asked.

“Not at all.” Kate sounded happy to hear from him. “I just came through the door and the phone was ringing. I’m glad it’s you. How are the Sisters doing?”

“Sister Eileen is fine,” he said, “but Sister Mary Helen has had a rather unfortunate incident.” He told her about the nun’s near fall in the Tower of Hercules.

“Is she hurt?” Kate asked.

“Shaken, of course, but not really hurt.”

“Oh, good!” He heard the relief in Kate’s voice.

“Has your friend been able to find any information on the other tourists?” Ángel asked hopefully. “As you can see, it
is becoming even more imperative that I find something, anything at all, that will help me discover who has a reason to kill Lisa Springer and who, now, has a reason to want to harm the good Sister.”

“Inspector Gallagher is working on it today. It’s still too early here in San Francisco for him to have found any real leads.” Kate paused, and Ángel wondered why she was hedging. “There is something that perhaps I should have told you before,” she said finally.

“Anything would be helpful.”

Quickly Kate Murphy told him about Sister Mary Helen’s role in helping the police department solve several murders. “To anyone who reads the Bay Area papers, and I assume all your suspects are from the Bay Area,” she said, “the old nun is notorious. And I might add, she may present a real threat.”

The back of Ángel’s neck prickled. He had sent the nuns off on a tour to La Toja with María José in command. Officer Zaldo was trailing, but if they were, as this Kate suggested, in real danger, would Zaldo be aware of it? Had he, unwittingly, facilitated a second murder?

He must call Julietta, tell her not to wait supper—his stomach rumbled in protest—then go right to the
hostal
to await the bus’s return.

“Comisario? Are you still on the line?”

”
Sí
, Inspector Murphy. What you have just told me has taken me by surprise.” He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. If this case was to be solved quickly, he needed her cooperation. “I wish I had known this sooner,” he said.

“Why is that?” Kate sounded anxious.

“Because I have allowed the Sisters to go on another tour today.”

Kate sucked in her breath. “I am sorry!”

Ángel’s temper waned now that he was not alone in
feeling guilty. “Those things happen,” he said with more largesse than he felt. “Would you advise me to put the Sister, maybe both Sisters, into protective custody?” He heard her laugh echo down the phone lines.

“That would be like trying to hold two tigers by their tails,” Kate said. “More trouble, Comisario, than it’s worth.”

“What, then, would you suggest?” Ángel used his most formal tone. He liked being taken seriously, especially when he was hungry.

“I’d encourage you to collaborate with her. Rather, with the pair of them,” Kate said. “They are uncanny when it comes to ferreting out the guilty party. And I, Comisario, have learned from experience that they make much better friends than enemies.”

“Collaborate with nuns on police work?”

“I know it sounds bizarre,” Kate said gently, “but I promise you, you won’t be sorry.”

Sorry? Ángel thought, replacing the receiver and quickly picking it up again to call his wife. What is sorry is my police force. I have few enough officers to cover the students, the usual tourists, and the residents; none,
por Dios
, to spare. Of necessity, my team must be made up of Esteban Zaldo, María José, two old nuns, and me.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ángel had to laugh. It was like those old-time American comedians. What were they called? The Keystone Kops. All his bunch lacked were nightsticks, the Black Maria, and, of course, the high-crowned hats.

By the time the Pulmantur bus pulled up in front of the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos, the rain had stopped. Banks of lights flooded the cathedral. They shimmered across the slick flagstone Plaza del Obradoiro, illuminating the entire area.

Sister Mary Helen was surprised to see Ángel Serrano huddled in the arched doorway of the hotel. With his hands in his pockets and his tan raincoat wound around him for warmth, the
comisario
might easily have been mistaken for a plump relief carving, set in the stone facade.

She wasn’t the only one who’d spotted him. Before the door of the bus opened, María José was waving frantically. Officer Zaldo, who had tailgated the bus all the way back from La Toja, jumped from the patrol car, leaving his door swinging open.

At first glance Mary Helen thought Ángel looked strained. Now with both María José and Zaldo surging toward him, she was sure of it. His color drained. His shoulders tensed. Beneath a worried frown, his sharp eyes roamed the bus windows. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was relieved to see her. Could the news of the Gypsies and the purse snatching have traveled so quickly? If not, what was wrong?

Before the bus door snapped shut behind its last passenger, Comisario Ángel Serrano had herded the two nuns, his niece, and Officer Esteban Zaldo into the hotel manager’s office. They stood in a silent knot in front of the large hand-carved desk.

“The manager kindly offered his accommodations for privacy,” Ángel said. He pointed at chairs for Zaldo to move from the wall and set around the desk.

Mary Helen felt a twinge of sympathy for the manager. From the telltale bits of paper still strewn across the desktop, his offer might have been more forced than free. What is so urgent? she wondered.

With cold courtesy, Ángel invited them all to be seated.

“Is something wrong, Comisario?” Mary Helen could restrain herself no longer.

He raised his hand. “One moment, please, Sister.” He turned his head.

Oh-oh! Mary Helen thought, doing a quick examination of conscience. Something is stuck in his craw. Unable to surface any recent guilt, she focused her attention where his was, on his niece.

“What is it you are trying so frantically to tell me, María José?”

As if a sluice gate opened, a swift and mixed channel of Spanish and English poured over the room. María José deluged her uncle with every detail of Mary Helen’s “accident” in La Toja.

“And while this happened”—she glared at a red-faced Zaldo—“your officer was having his dinner!”

Ángel’s dark eyes moved toward Esteban Zaldo, whose whole body stiffened to attention in his chair. “Even policemen have to eat,” Ángel said with unexpected sympathy.

Flipping her magenta hair, María José turned to face Ángel, but his attention was still on Zaldo.

“Did you notify the La Toja police, Esteban?” he asked in Spanish.

María José switched to the role of an interpretor.

“
Sí
, Comisario.” Zaldo’s trim mustache scarely moved when he spoke.

“And what did they say?”

“That the snatching of purses from tourists is becoming common among Gypsies. And that they will be on the lookout for two women on a motorscooter, although this is common, too.”

“Then that is perhaps all it was,” Mary Helen said when María José finished the translation. “A common occurrence.” Common or no, the ordeal had worn her out. She wanted nothing more than to forget all about it and go to bed. She pushed herself up from the chair.

“Please, Sister, one more moment. There is something I need to talk to you about.”

Here it comes! Mary Helen readied herself for combat. Whatever is bothering him has something to do with me, and it’s on its way!

“Today I had a conversation with Inspector Kate Murphy.”

Mary Helen felt her face flush. Beside her Eileen shifted in her chair. Zaldo stared in baffled silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you—and your work with the San Francisco police—are notorious?”

“Even if it were true, Comisario, that is hardly the first thing one says about oneself.”

“Sister”—anger clipped his words short—“I never would have allowed today’s trip to La Toja if I had realized.”

Mary Helen’s back went up. Baloney! she thought. You wanted us all in one place. Maybe you even hoped something would happen to give you more to go on. Their eyes locked.

“You see how you reacted to the news?” Her words every bit as clipped as his. “Would you have told you if you were I?”

She watched a small storm fight its way across Ángel’s round face. Fortunately for both of them he began to grin. “Your point is well taken, Sister,” he said.

Happily Mary Helen felt the tension fall away. Fair is fair, she thought. “To be completely candid,” she began with a stab of compunction, “Sister Eileen and I are doing a little inquiring on our own.” Still somewhat unsure of her ground, she emphasized the word
little
.

Taking her cue from Mary Helen, Eileen moved forward in her chair. “We divided the group in half,” she said, “to see if we could discover a motive.”

Ángel blinked with surprise but recovered quickly. “Good.” He sounded almost enthusiastic. “The quicker we solve this thing, the better for us all. Motive, as you say, is indeed the key.”

With a few words he dismissed Officer Zaldo, who looked
relieved to be on his way at last. “María José”—Ángel pulled a blank sheet of hotel stationery from the desk drawer—“write everything down for us.”

With the skill of two old schoolmarms the nuns quickly outlined the information they had gleaned.

“The Fongs,” Mary Helen began, and waited until María José scribbled down the name. “Neil is a dentist. Rita teaches aerobics. Four children. They live outside San Francisco in Burlingame. Claim never to have met Lisa before this trip. No apparent motive. She is talkative. He is the quiet, unassuming sort who doesn’t miss much.”

Ángel brightened. “ ‘He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.’ Oxford!” he said, and gave a triumphant laugh at his ability to remember Shakespeare.