Summer Snow (28 page)

He opened the
Romancero Gitano
, searching for a date to confirm his hypothesis. It was a first edition, but scrawled across the title page was an inscription:

31 October 1928
To Felipe, friend and fellow poet,
Ever yours,
Federico

A suspicion brushed against the lieutenant’s mind with the delicacy of a mosquito alighting. He opened the
Poema del Cante
Jondo
. The inscription here was simpler: “
Mi querido Felipe, un
abrazo, Federico
.” My dear Felipe, an embrace, Federico. The suspicion bit and drew blood.

Tejada stared at the words and fought nausea. He closed the book gently, and picked up the ones he had dropped. Very gingerly, he aligned the edges of the books once more in the folio and retied the tapes, meticulously trying to knot them in exactly the spot where the red silk had been chafed thin from an earlier knot. He worked slowly, knowing that if he altered so much as a hair of his cousin’s arrangement he would be overcome by sick fury and would rip the mocking inscription to shreds and most of the apartment with it.
Un abrazo, Federico
. Felipe had been his friend and guide and mentor. Felipe had demystified sex and soothed the worst torments of adolescence with the sympathetic words, “For God’s sake, Carlito, of course you’re normal. You just need to get laid.”
Ever yours,
Federico
. He had admired Felipe. His dashing cousin who all the girls had been in love with, and who had courted all of them, extravagantly and without intent or preference.
Un abrazo
.
Ever yours
.

Tejada shoved the folio back into the bookcase and sat back on his heels, trembling. He was sick to imagine that Felipe would ever . . . He avoided the words.
Sick
. Probably Felipe was just living a double life because he was a Red. He hoped. The sound of a key in the outside lock surprised him and he scrambled to his feet, vibrating with tension. There was the muffled noise of someone crossing the foyer, and the lieutenant froze, indecisive. Then a round-faced, clean-shaven man of about fifty walked into the room, stopped dead, and said. “Who the—? What the hell are you doing here?”

Tejada stared at his cousin, too anguished to speak. Felipe Ordoñez took a step closer. “Carlos? It’s you, isn’t it? How did you get in? You gave me a scare there for a second.”

“The concierge has a key,” Tejada said tensely. It took all his self-control to keep from backing away.

“He also takes messages,” Felipe retorted. “And he could have told you I wasn’t in.”

“I know. But you’d disappeared. I didn’t know what to think.”

“That’s a fine comment from a man who’s visited his home twice in fifteen years,” Felipe said. “Well, I’m here now. I ran into Nando at the casino and he told me you were looking for me. What can I do for you?”

Tejada took a deep breath. “I’m here to ask you some questions regarding the death of your mother.” He gestured stiffly to a chair. “Would you sit down, please?”

“You’re too kind.” Felipe gave an ironic half bow. “You might offer me a drink while you’re at it. It is my house.”

The lieutenant’s hands balled into fists at his cousin’s mockery. Felipe saw the convulsive gesture and added soothingly, “I’m sorry, Carlito. I’m not used to being”—he paused and smiled—“interrogated by the Guardia. Sit down and I’ll try to answer any questions you have.”

Torn between an absurd desire to berate Felipe and a resolve to behave with icy professionalism, the lieutenant sat on the edge of a chair. “You visited your mother shortly before her death?” he rapped out.

“Yes.”

“Well?” Tejada snapped. “Go on. What for? I thought you were being cooperative.”

“I was her son,” Felipe said gently. “Visiting your aged parent is considered good breeding in some circles.”

“So you just dropped in?” Tejada asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “No special reason?”

Felipe drew a deep breath. When he let it out again, his voice was hard. “No, as a matter of fact, she had asked to see me. To be exact, her man Alberto had left a message for me here, several days earlier. I naturally complied as soon as I could.”

“So you admit you know Alberto?”

“What do you mean admit?” Felipe snapped. “Of course I know him. I know the entire damn household, better than I need to. I don’t know what you’re driving at, Carlos, but you’d better just spit it out. I have a date for lunch and I don’t want to be too late for it.”

Even in his fury, Tejada knew that Felipe’s acquaintance with Alberto Cordero was no great matter. He shifted course. “Why did your mother want to see you?”

Felipe hesitated. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Carlos. But I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“You quarreled, didn’t you?” Tejada accused.

“Are you asking or telling?” Felipe’s mouth was a thin line.

“She was furious with you. She cut you out of her will.”

“You’ve been very busy playing detective, haven’t you?” Felipe’s mocking voice barely masked real anger.

“More than that.” Tejada was too upset to stop, although he knew that he had no proof, only a terrible knot in his stomach and a miserable wish that he had never left Potes. “She threatened to turn you in to the Guardia. To expose you to the world. You had to kill her, didn’t you?”

“
What?
” Felipe’s jaw dropped. “Carlos, I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“She must have found out you—
you!
” Tejada swallowed and sank backward into his seat. “Oh, God, Tío, how
could
you?”

Some of Felipe’s anger had already turned to puzzlement, and now his voice was tinged with concern as he said, “Look, Carlos, I’m sorry if I was short with you just now. But I really don’t understand what it is I’m supposed to have done. Mother was a damn irritating woman sometimes, and I’ll admit we had a bit of a fight the last time I saw her, but I certainly didn’t kill her.”

Tejada stared at the floor, longing to believe that he was mistaken, but afraid to hope. “I found the books,” he said softly. “The ones autographed by Lorca.”

Felipe paused. “You’re thorough,” he said, and the mocking edge was back in his voice. “Look, I know you probably don’t approve. A lot of people don’t, which is why I keep them out of sight. But the fact is, he was a good poet, and—I’m sorry, Carlos— he was a friend of mine.”

“A friend.” Tejada echoed bitterly.

“Yes, a friend.” Felipe was defiant. “I’m not going to lie and pretend we never met just because it isn’t fashionable to admit to knowing him anymore. And what’s more,
Lieutenant
, if I hadn’t been in San Sebastián that summer, I would have gone to the commandant when he was arrested.”

“Because you were such good
friends
,” Tejada said.

“Yes. So what?”

“You pervert!”

“I beg your pardon?” Felipe stared. Then he said slowly, “Carlos, are you trying to say that you think I’m a fairy?”

Tejada said nothing, but looked at his cousin with pleading eyes. To his astonishment, Felipe laughed. “I don’t see what’s funny,” the lieutenant said stiffly.

“Your incredibly poor judgment!” Felipe snorted. “Jesus, Carlos, you’ve known me for how long? And on the basis of two inscriptions you suddenly decide I was one of poor Federico’s boyfriends? My God, I should give you a clip on the ear!”

“It wasn’t just the books,” Tejada muttered sullenly, although Felipe’s ringing denial had made him feel a little better. “I knew your mother disinherited you in at least one of her wills and about your fighting with her. I knew about Tío Fernando and his wife still nagging at you to marry. And it’s obvious you’re not living here. This is a cover for something, but I couldn’t think what. I knew you got rid of your valet so I figured you were having money problems, and then, when I found the books, I thought maybe—blackmail.”

Felipe sighed. “Oh, hell. I’m sorry, Carlito. I guess if you look at it like that it doesn’t sound so crazy. I . . . look, you’re here as a guardia, right? Not just my little cousin?”

Tejada smiled briefly. “Yes.”

“All right, then.” Felipe heaved himself to his feet. “I guess I can’t expect you to just believe me out of hand. I can explain everything, but I think it will be simpler if you have lunch with me. Can you come now?”

“I’m supposed to be at home,” Tejada said dubiously.

“With your parents? Call them and tell them you ran into me and I invited you out.” Felipe gestured toward the telephone.

Tejada hesitated. If he was right, Felipe was a cold-blooded poi-soner. But he did not see how even the most diabolical villain could slip poison into a restaurant meal with no advance preparation. And he could always refuse to eat or drink anything suspicious. Tejada looked at his cousin and realized with something like sadness that there was no way Felipe could physically overpower him. With a faint sense of shock, the lieutenant remembered that he had stopped his own father’s hand, forestalling a blow. And Felipe was a small man and no longer young. With an effort, the lieutenant recalled past kindnesses and reminded himself that Felipe deserved the chance to prove that he was not . . .
not
like Lorca
, Tejada thought, shying away from the word in disgust. “All right,” he said.

He called his parents and then, before Felipe could comment, picked up the phone again and called Sergeant Rivas. He left a message at the post, saying that he was going to interview his cousin over lunch and expected to be back at the post by five o’clock. His cousin raised his eyebrows at the second message. “Insurance?” he inquired sardonically.

“Just scheduling,” Tejada said with embarrassment.

“After you.” Felipe bowed and gestured, making no attempt to move close enough to Tejada to touch him.

They passed out of the building under the curious gaze of the concierge and crossed the Gran Vía in silence. Tejada thought at first that his cousin was heading for a small restaurant on the Calle Elvira that he had patronized in other times, but Felipe crossed the Calle Elvira as well and began to climb a steep cobblestone-covered alleyway, narrow enough that the lieutenant could lay his palms flat along the windowless walls on either side. The buildings pressing in on them were crumbling and decrepit, with no visible house numbers. Number plates would have been useless anyway. The alley was too narrow to have a name.

“Where are we going?” Tejada demanded, suspicious.

“Into the Albaicín.” The path was curving upward, and the steps had been set into the pavement at irregular intervals. Felipe was moving quickly, and the brevity of his reply might merely have been due to a lack of breath.

“You don’t say!” Tejada retorted, and Felipe gave a breathless grunt that might have been a laugh.

“I’ll explain when we get there.”

Tejada did not press him further, but he was glad that he had called Sergeant Rivas. The Albaicín was the oldest quarter of the city. The dark twisting maze of streets crouching on the hill beneath the ruins of the old Moorish walls was avoided by respectable people. The Reds had built barricades here in ’36 and resisted the Movement in bloody street battles, assisted by the hordes of Gypsies and the lowlifes that inhabited the overcrowded slum.

They reached a slightly wider street, perhaps wide enough for a car to enter, if any ever tried to in this neighborhood. Barefoot children with ragged clothes that were too small even for their skinny bodies were playing in the gutters, the smallest of them cheerfully shouting obscenities that the lieutenant had not spoken above a whisper until his university days. Young men who should have been at work lounged in doorways, smoking and observing the street with tired eyes. The children quieted at the sight of Tejada and Felipe and ducked into doorways or behind piles of garbage. The lieutenant heard a few mutters as they passed. “Fascist pig.” “Fucking tricorn.” He stiffened.

“Keep walking,” Felipe said quietly. “No sense starting something.” Oddly, the muttered warning made Tejada feel better. Felipe had not spoken with fear or glee, but rather with a sort of embarrassment, as if he felt responsible for the jeers but was disapproving. The lieutenant did not think his cousin would speak that way if he was leading a victim into a trap.

The upper part of the Albaicín boasted impressive views of the Alhambra on the opposite hill. Perhaps because of the prospect, this neighborhood was not as poor or as dilapidated as the area leading up to it. The streets were still narrow and the houses shabby, but they were clean and the few people out of doors appeared to be hurrying about their business in what struck the lieutenant as an orderly fashion. A woman leaning out an upper window to hang her laundry saw them, and gasped. “Don Felipe! Blessed Virgin, are you all right?”

“Fine, thanks.” Felipe looked up, shading his eyes with his hand, and added a phrase in a language incomprehensible to the lieutenant. She laughed, responded in the same tongue, and drew her head in.

Tejada stopped walking and stared at his cousin. “What was that?”

“Nothing. I just told her you were family.”

“What
language
was that?”

“Calé. Gypsy. I’ve picked up a few words from Lili.”

Tejada fell into step beside his cousin. “You speak the Gypsies’ language?”