The rain had lowered the temperature to the point it seemed almost chilly outside. Even so, Manuel chose to wait at one of the tables on the inn’s exterior terrace, half-sheltered by the porch awning and the shabby parasol they always left open no matter what the weather. He’d come back hoping to see Elisa and Samuel, but the innkeeper told him a young man had called for them and they’d gone away with him. He found the door to the adjoining room open when he entered his room. The sweet smells of soap and baby oil hovered in the air, and for the first time since his arrival in Galicia, he felt welcomed into this space. That sensation was reinforced by the sight of a shopping bag with child’s clothing left on the chair and tiny sneakers neatly set before the window; even more welcoming was the note Elisa had left on his bed saying they’d see him later. She’d signed it simply Kisses from Elisa and Samuel.
Manuel’s phone sat before him on the terrace table—he’d checked the volume for the third time to make sure it was at maximum—along with the inevitable bar snack. Today they’d served a beef-stuffed fritter along with a steaming cup of coffee that was cooling rapidly. Through the thin vapor rising from his coffee he saw Lucas and Nogueira walk up. The priest took a seat next to him and Nogueira went into the bar to order. The lieutenant said nothing until everything had been served. Then he took out a document and handed it to Manuel.
“What’s this?” Manuel asked. He was disconcerted by the sight of álvaro’s handwriting.
“It’s the accident report form for álvaro’s car insurance. The prior tells me, and he’s backed up by half a dozen monks ready to swear to it, that when álvaro backed his car out after the discussion at the seminary, he accidentally hit the pickup parked there. They say he filled out the report and left. It seems to be in order; if you recognize his writing and signature, it explains the paint from the pickup we found on álvaro’s car.”
Manuel nodded, his eyes fixed on the piece of paper. “That’s his writing. But it doesn’t prove the prior didn’t kill his nephew or álvaro. Just as you said, things could have taken some other course, some other sequence of events.”
Nogueira chomped down on his fritter. “The prior took a call when he was standing at the door to his sister’s house. I checked his phone’s call history. One of the monks at the monastery had a minor accident. He’s an old man, and he spent the whole night at the emergency room, and the prior was there with him. It’s a public space with lots of video cameras, so it’ll be easy to confirm his presence. You already know that Laura works at the hospital; I asked her to check, and the nurses remember him. He was there from five in the afternoon until the next morning.”
“And so . . . ?”
“So unless we can find other evidence, that excludes the prior as a suspect in álvaro’s murder.” He sighed and added, “And he couldn’t have killed his own nephew either.”
“I thought they hadn’t been able to establish the exact time of To?ino’s death,” Lucas said.
“Ophelia just called. When they searched the boy’s car the crime techs found one of those paper bags for Burger King carryout. There’s one nearby that’s open twenty-four hours, and the receipt inside the bag shows he bought it at 2:30 a.m.”
“By which time álvaro was already dead!”
“The techs are reviewing the video recordings from the drive-in to make sure that it was To?ino who picked up the food and not someone else. Cameras at places like that are generally of pretty good quality, as a safeguard against robberies. If the boy was captured on video, álvaro can’t be a suspect in his killing.”
Lucas was confused. “Did you say ‘someone else’?”
“I’m no expert on fast food, but my colleagues say it was a meal for two: two drinks, two hamburgers, a double serving of fries.”
“Was he with someone?”
“That seems the most likely possibility. But instead of making up stories, let’s wait for confirmation from the video.”
Lucas nodded and looked at Manuel. “You see? I said we should trust our instinct. álvaro was not a murderer.”
Nogueira didn’t share his elation. “I went back to talk to Rosa María’s neighbor. She now recalls that at one o’clock that night she got up to take a pill and noticed To?ino’s car parked in front of his house, and it drove off not too much later. That further excludes álvaro, but as long as she’s not confused about the time, it would also exonerate To?ino from any involvement in álvaro’s death. He couldn’t have been in two places at the same time, and there’s more than thirty miles between the site of álvaro’s accident and the aunt’s house in Os Marti?os. I think we’ll have to call on se?ora Rosa María again; right now she’s not at home. Her attentive neighbor tells me that she’s at the funeral home sitting with the body of her nephew. The funeral is this afternoon. I think we can pay her a visit afterward to see if she can explain why she hid from us the fact that To?ino came back late at night and went out again, probably for a meeting with whoever killed him.”
“She might not know,” Lucas suggested. “She could have been asleep.”
“After the confrontation with the boy’s uncle and the boy’s sudden departure, I doubt it. She herself said that she couldn’t sleep whenever she was worried about him, and I certainly believe her.”
Manuel appeared to accept that. He turned to the priest. “You went to the hospital this morning, didn’t you? How was Santiago?”
“He was asleep, so I couldn’t speak to him. I felt truly sorry for Catarina. She hasn’t budged from his side since he was admitted yesterday. She’s devastated. She told me Santiago was unconscious when the boy found him. They pumped his stomach as soon as they got him to the emergency room, and some of the pills were only partly dissolved; but the doctor estimates that he must have taken many more earlier. Those had broken down and were being absorbed. The man had to face too much in too little time: his father’s death, Fran’s death, and then, just as things were starting to stabilize, álvaro’s death, Catarina’s pregnancy, and he . . . Well, we’d always had an idea that he was weak and unstable. All this just proves how vulnerable he is.”
“Is there any possibility it wasn’t attempted suicide?” asked Manuel. “Could he somehow have taken the pills by accident?”
“I’m afraid not. There’s something you don’t know. Yesterday afternoon before he took the pills, Santiago called me. I suppose it must have been while we were on the road between Malpica and Corme, where there’s no cell phone coverage, since he got my voice mail and left a message. He wanted me to hear his confession.”
“You think he was trying to reconcile himself before he tried to kill himself?” Manuel asked. “I thought that’s something no devout Catholic would do.”
“I know what I said about Fran’s behavior, and I haven’t changed my mind. That young man didn’t commit suicide. But Santiago is different. What we learned yesterday fills out the picture of someone who was extremely vulnerable.”
Manuel’s phone buzzed and vibrated against the tabletop. It was Gri?án. Manuel quickly picked up, answered, listened, and then ended the call. There was a ding, indicating he’d received a message. He opened it and placed the phone in front of Nogueira and Lucas so they could see the image.
“Do you both remember what I said about there having been a theft from the As Grileiras church about a month ago?”