“Santiago and To?ino,” whispered Lucas, bewildered. “I’d never have imagined such a thing.”
“It seems to me, my friend the priest, that you’re forgetting the most important point. I don’t give a shit if Santiago was getting it on with To?ino; what I want to know is how the boy got the key. Maybe he stole it from Fran or maybe Santiago gave it to him, but one thing’s for sure: the two were mixed up in this together. Elisa saw Santiago by the church the night Fran died, and she persuaded him not to go in. The fact that To?ino lifted things from the church wasn’t a reason for him to walk around with the key. Even less so if it implicated him in Fran’s murder. But now I understand why he had it—it was the key to his love nest.”
“But Elisa saw Fran lock the church from the inside,” Lucas objected.
“She saw someone, but the light was dim, so it could have been To?ino. Maybe they heard her coming, and Santiago went out to talk to her while his lover administered the dose that finished Fran off.”
Lucas refused that interpretation. “I find that hard to believe. You have no idea how much Santiago was affected by the death of his brother. He fell into a terrible depression.”
“Yeah, it must be fucking awful to do away with your own brother; regretting it afterward is the least you can do,” the cop commented. “And besides, álvaro asked me that day if Fran’s death seemed normal to me; it occurred to me he might be asking because maybe he had something to do with it. Now I believe álvaro suspected Fran’s death might have been very convenient for someone. Let’s not forget there were family members who found him hard to bear.”
Both Manuel and Lucas nodded, considering that thought.
Nogueira waved a hand at the table. “I already paid inside. Send me a copy of that photo of the silversmith mark and let’s go call on that antique dealer.” He looked down at the fritters that had been served to Lucas and Manuel. They were untouched. “You’re not going to eat those?”
Lucas, who’d already stepped away toward the parking lot, turned, took Nogueira by the arm, and escorted him away from the table. “Let’s go! It’d be better for you to have a heart-to-heart talk with your wife, unless you’re looking for a heart attack to make her a widow.”
Manuel looked back in alarm at Nogueira. Did Lucas know something about his marital difficulties?
The lieutenant shrugged. “There you go. Six years of keeping it a secret, and in a single week I spill it twice.”
Manuel nodded. “I agree with Lucas. Laura’s the one you should be talking to.”
“Oh, yeah, right! Right! Carallo, I will, but you have to admit it’s a shame to leave those behind on the table.” He took one last regretful look at the snacks but then stepped out into the rain.
Rúa do Pan was close to the cathedral. The shop interior was well lit and the business appeared prosperous. Two very young women were attending to the tourists in the front of the shop with displays of postcards, rosaries, and vials of holy water. The pilgrims’ cheap rain ponchos resembled colorful garbage bags and made them look ridiculous.
Any visitor who happened to get past the storefront piles of cheap tourist knickknacks would encounter a more serious collection of antiquities. While the clerks fetched the proprietor from the back, Manuel looked over the articles on display. Nothing really appealed to him.
The owner, a thin man in his seventies, went directly to Lucas. “Good day, Father, how can I help you? Are you looking for any particular liturgical object? We’re specialists here, and if you don’t see it on display, we may have it in the storeroom. If I don’t have it, I can get it the same day.”
Lucas, who wasn’t wearing his clerical collar, shook his head, surprised and discomfited.
Nogueira held up his cell phone with the photo. “How about you get us a pair of stolen silver candelabras?”
Manuel was amused to find Lucas immediately recognizable as a priest even without his collar, while the way Nogueira had thrust the phone into the face of the owner made it perfectly clear that he was a policeman.
The man heaved a sigh and put a finger to his lips in a plea for discretion. “Come with me.” He indicated a door in the rear. He waited until he’d closed it behind them before he spoke. “I curse the day I trusted that fellow and bought the candelabra. They’ve been nothing but trouble.”
Nogueira wasn’t having it. “That’s to be expected when you fence stolen goods.”
“I hope that’s not how you see me. Look, the boy swore they belonged to his family, and I had no reason to doubt him. He’d sold me something before, and there’d been no problem.”
“A gold watch,” Manuel interjected, much to the surprise of his companions. “Several months ago Santiago thought he’d lost his watch. He made an insurance claim, but he might have suspected something. And later when the candelabra disappeared, he was sure. To?ino finally told him where they’d gone. Santiago came here and recovered them. That’s why they didn’t file an insurance claim. He didn’t want to get To?ino into trouble. Or maybe he was worried that the boy might tell them more than he should.”
The owner accepted that version. “I don’t usually deal in such articles, but I accepted it because it came from a client. I had no reason to doubt him, and that time there were no problems.”
“I assume that he gave you proof of ownership?” Nogueira inquired.
“He gave me his word. Or perhaps you have the receipt for his watch?”
Nogueira gave the man an icy look that made him regret his impertinence.
“And who was the client who recommended him?”
“At the moment I don’t recall. That was a long time ago. However, my custom is to hold a particularly valuable object back for a reasonable time before I put it out for sale. Just in case.”
“Just in case it’s hot,” Nogueira said.
Lucas and Manuel gave him an uncomprehending look.
“He waits for a while just in case the police come asking about it or something in the papers suggests it might have been stolen. Standard practice among these appraiser guys.”
The man clearly didn’t appreciate Nogueira’s explanation. “Well, there was no time for that with the candelabra. A man turned up two days later and claimed to be the owner. At first I pretended ignorance, to see if he was lying, but there was no doubt about it. He gave me a detailed description both of the articles and also of the boy who’d brought them in. He said he knew I had them. He wasn’t looking to make trouble; he said he’d pay me whatever I’d given the boy, plus a premium for my trouble. All legal and aboveboard. He even insisted I make out an invoice.”
Nogueira held up his cell phone with a picture of Santiago. “This him?”
The proprietor nodded. “He was a real gentleman, one of those with whom it’s a pleasure to do business. And later, when I thought that at last I’d escaped the pernicious influence of those damned candelabra, along came another man asking about them.”
“Another man?” Nogueira echoed him.
“Yes. When I saw him enter the shop, at first I thought it was the same gentleman. I don’t see very well without my spectacles, you understand? I should wear them all the time, but I actually use them only for reading. When he got closer, I realized that though there was a certain resemblance, it wasn’t the same man at all.”
This time Manuel was the one to hold up a cell phone. With a picture of álvaro.
“Yes, that’s him. He was asking the same questions as you gentlemen: Who sold them to me? Who bought them back? And he showed me a photo too; and he was just as generous as the first gentleman. All he wanted was information. I gave it to him.”
“What day was that?”
“A Saturday. Two weeks ago, I believe.”
They forgot the antique dealer and exchanged glances. He peered from one to another of them.
“You knew that?” Nogueira asked Manuel.
“I suspected it last night. When I asked Elisa for the key, she told me álvaro requested it the morning he arrived at the manor.”