White Tombs (26 page)

“Did you sleep well?” Montoya asked.

“Like the dead,” Santana said. “Though my memory of what happened after we left the
casa de piedra
is a little fuzzy.”

“Yours is not an unusual experience the first time in the
Temazcal
. But perhaps you learned something that might be helpful.”

Santana thought about the recurring dream of the bridge again. He felt frustrated that he could neither solve the meaning of it nor the case before him. Instinct told him that the solution to both was right in front of him. He just had to keep his eyes wide open and trust his intuition.

“There are seven churches in the eight
barrios
of Valladolid, counting
El Centro
or
Zocalo
,” Montoya said. “Only the
Bacalar Barrio
has no church. The church in the
Sisal Barrio
is called
San Bernardino de Siena
. It is the oldest in the Yucatán. There is a convent, but it is no longer used. Asking questions and getting no answers is what I like least about the job. So I called the priest this morning. I told him what we were looking for and that we were coming early, before most of the tourists. He agreed to meet us. It is a short walk from the main square.”

The sun was like a flame in the brilliant blue sky, the air already thick with humidity and smelling of fried beans and
tortillas
as they passed a restaurant where a young woman sat on the tile floor beside a small fire making
tortillas
out of corn meal for the tourists, compliments of the restaurant. Santana wondered how many
tortillas
she made sitting here all day like a one-person assembly line.

They walked along a narrow street, which Montoya called
Calzada de los Frailes
, or the street of the Franciscans. It had old-fashioned streetlamps and was paved with cobblestones and fronted by restored homes with pastel colors and colonial facades.

The huge arches and thick walls of the
San Bernardino de Sisal
convent were imposing and appeared unchanged since its founding in 1552. The façade was a checkerboard pattern devoid of any religious symbols or art. Above the arches were a choral window and a Franciscan shield.

Montoya explained that the convent and church were built to be self-sufficient and to withstand Indian attacks. The first word that came to Santana’s mind was fortress.

“We are meeting Father Santos in the monastery garden,” Montoya said. “Visitors need special permission from the priest to see that area of the convent, so it will be quiet and we can talk in peace.”

The priest was waiting for them near an ancient mule-powered water wheel and a stone-domed gazebo that covered a
cenote
well. A young woman wearing a
sombrero
and a white cotton blouse and pants was on her knees, tending to the red and white flowers tucked among the large leaves of the elephant ear plants in the garden.

“I understand from what Detective Montoya told me, that you have come a long way for information,
señor
,” the priest said in Spanish. His hair was white, his mouth a dry line, yet Santana saw a light in his eyes that suggested he was more youthful than he appeared.

“Two men are dead,” Santana said. “Two men who grew up in Valladolid in the sixties.”

“How do you think I can help you?”

“I’m looking for a motive for their murders.”

The young woman tending the garden glanced in Santana’s direction, and then looked away quickly when their eyes met.

“And you expect to find it here?” Father Santos said.

“I don’t know. But I believe something ties these two men together. It could be something from their past.”

The priest gave it some thought before responding. “The register shows that Julio Pérez and Rafael Mendoza were baptized in this church.”

Santana’s momentary excitement at hearing the news was tempered by the knowledge that it proved nothing.

“How long have you been a priest here?” he asked.

The light changed suddenly in the priest’s eyes. “Not long enough to have known the families or anything about them.”

“Is there someone else who could help us, Father Santos?” Montoya asked. “Perhaps someone you know who was born about the same time and who still attends the church?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Santana saw the young woman’s eyes flick in his direction again, but she went back to her gardening the moment he looked at her.

The priest turned and walked away, his body slightly stooped, as though he had carried the weight of the world and all its sins on his shoulders for too many years.

“You think he knows more than he is telling us?” Montoya said to Santana.

“Probably.”

“We can ask around the
barrio
. Someone might remember Pérez and Mendoza.”

“We could.”

“What other choice do we have?”

Santana walked over to the young woman working in the garden. Montoya followed.

“You overheard our conversation.”

She looked up at Santana, her brown eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. “No,
señor
.”

“Maybe you can help us.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. Tiny streams of sweat had formed tracks in the dirt smudges on her dark, pretty face.

Santana squatted down beside her. “All I need is a name. Someone who grew up here. No one needs to know who gave it to me.”

“I cannot help you,” she said.

“I’m trying to bring a murderer to justice,
señorita
.”

She put down the digging trowel, pulled a few weeds out of the ground and looked at Santana. “There is a woman who lives in the
barrio
. I work in her garden. She has always been kind and helpful to me. Perhaps she will help you.”

“What’s her name?”

“Daniela de la Vega,” the young woman said.

Montoya sucked in a breath, as if oxygen had suddenly gone out of the air.

“You know her?” Santana said.

“I don’t know her. But I know who she is.”

T
en minutes later they were standing outside the door of a large house a few blocks from the railroad station and the
Cine San Juan
, the only theater in town.

Santana was admiring the wrought iron grilles over the eight-foot high Moorish windows when a maid opened the door.

Montoya showed her his badge. She asked him to wait. Shortly, an elegant looking older woman appeared, her still-shapely figure framed in sunlight.

“
Señora de la Vega. Buenas tardes.
”

Santana could tell by Montoya’s deference that he was in awe of the woman.

“
Señora. Soy Carlos Montoya. John Santana
.” Montoya held out his badge. As he did so, he looked at Santana and said in English, “Daniela de la Vega was a famous Mexican actress.”

“Not was, Mr. Montoya,” she said in perfect English. “I still am.” Her voice had a sultry rasp that suggested confidence rather than anger.

She wore a simple cotton print dress, cut low over her large breasts and a plain beaded necklace around a throat that was just beginning to show a few wrinkles. Her black hair was straight and fell over her shoulders and down her back nearly to her waist.

Santana made her for fifty though she easily could have passed for forty.

Montoya said, “We hate to bother you,
señora,
but we are looking for someone who might have known a man named Julio Pérez. He lived in the
barrio
some forty years ago.”

Her stunning indigo eyes looked Montoya over carefully and then, when they came to rest on Santana, he felt a sudden tingle along his spine, as if she had run her tongue down his back.

“I knew Julio,” she said.

Santana’s pulse quickened. He gave Montoya a glance and said, “I wonder if we could ask you a few questions about him? We won’t take much of your time.”

She paused a moment longer before gesturing gracefully toward the living room.

Santana noticed the few age spots that marred her delicate hand. He remembered his mother had called age spots
flores de cementerio
or cemetery flowers.

Daniela de la Vega led them into the living room, moving with a proud elegance Santana associated with good breeding or royalty.

The room had an eighteen-foot high-beamed ceiling and wrought iron chandeliers. Mosaic tile covered the floor. The double wooden shutters on the Moorish windows were open, and sunlight spilled into the room.

They sat on colonial furniture, two chairs and a couch, arranged in a circle around a large square coffee table.

“I was just about to have some tea,” she said. “Would you gentleman like something?”

“We don’t want to inconvenience you,
señora
,” Montoya said.

“There is no inconvenience, Mr. Montoya. What would you like?”

“Do you have beer?” he asked hesitantly, as if he were asking for monkey urine.

“Of course. And Mr. Santana?”

“Beer is fine.”

She summoned a maid.

Santana had missed the slight tremor in her hand when they were introduced, and the way her head bobbed nearly imperceptibly. But now he saw it and knew at once that she was in the initial stages of Parkinson’s disease.

“I rarely allow visitors,” she said, focusing her attention on the two of them. “But I am wondering why you are looking for someone who knew Julio. I have not seen him since we were children.”

Santana said, “I’m also a police officer, Ms. de la Vega, but in the States. Minnesota to be exact. I’m sorry to have to tell you that I’m investigating Mr. Pérez’s murder.”

She quickly raised a hand to her mouth.
“Es terrible.”

“Yes, it is. I believe that Mr. Pérez’s murder might be connected to something that happened here, in Valladolid, when he was a child. I’m hoping you can tell me what that connection might be.”

“I can’t imagine,” she said. “I left Valladolid and went to Mexico City when I was eighteen. I won a beauty contest.”

“Not just a beauty contest,” Montoya said. “She was Miss Mexico. And eventually, Miss Universe.”

Santana half expected Montoya to ask her for an autograph.

“That was such a long time ago,” she said with a mixture of embarrassment and nostalgia. “Much has happened since.”

On the end table next to the couch were two 8 x 11 framed photos of Daniela de la Vega from the shoulders up. She was wearing a white terrycloth robe with a towel wrapped around her hair in both photos, as if she had recently emerged from a shower. She looked remarkably the same in each photo despite the fact that one had last year’s date written in the frame’s corner and the other frame a date twenty years earlier.

The maid returned with the beers and tea.

Santana poured a bottle of Corona in a clear glass and took a long drink.

Montoya said, “How well did you know Julio Pérez,
señora
?”

“We attended the same church.”

“Did you know his family?”

“Not well. My family and Julio’s … well, let me say that we did not see each other outside of church.”

She was being polite, but Santana understood the underlying message. Social class was just as important here as it was in Manizales where he grew up. The original families who settled the city at the turn of the 20th century came from the cities of Abejorral and Sonson near Medellin in the state of Antioquia. If you were descended from this group, as Santana’s family had been, you had certain advantages. Heritage in Manizales’s society was everything. And no amount of money, legally or illegally gained, could ever change that.

“Did you know Rafael Mendoza?” Santana asked.

“Why, yes.”

Santana looked at her without saying anything.

“Was Rafael murdered, too?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Her right hand shook more now as she held the teacup and saucer close to her mouth. Maybe it was the weight of it that caused her hand to shake more and maybe it was something else.

“Something happened here,
señora
,” Santana said. “What was it?”

He had seen a moment of recognition in her eyes. Mendoza’s name had triggered a long forgotten memory.

Daniela de la Vega set the teacup and saucer on the coffee table in front of her. Her full lips twitched slightly and her face grew pensive. She appeared to be composing herself, as though she was about to audition for the role of a lifetime.

“It was such a long time ago,” she began. “I did not remember what happened until you mentioned Rafael Mendoza. He and Julio were best friends.”

She was looking at Santana now, but her eyes were focused in the past and seemed scarred by some inner turmoil.

“As I recall, their families were very close.”

Santana glanced at Montoya. He wanted to make sure Daniela de la Vega’s recounting of the events would continue without questions. But he could tell by Montoya’s expression that he, too, understood the importance of what she was about to say and had no intention of disrupting the moment.

“Julio looked after him like they were brothers. The boys did everything together.” She hesitated a moment and looked directly at Santana.

“Go on,” he said.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I am very much a woman of the world, Detective. I have seen a great many things in my life. And I have done things I am not especially proud of.”

She paused and forced a smile.

Daniela de la Vega was an actress used to playing different roles. Santana was certain that she could slip in and out of character as easily as she could a pair of shoes. But there was no character to play, no rehearsed dialogue to repeat now. There was only the past. And it was real and obviously painful.

“What you have to tell us could be very important,
señora
,” Santana said.

“Yes. I understand. I am just surprised that even today, it is difficult for me to speak of these things.”

A warm breeze blew in the open windows gently lifting the edges of the napkins and exposing the glass underneath. The breeze brought with it a hint of rain and perhaps a storm to come.