“And it takes two weeks for that sense of guilt to overwhelm him? Fifteen days after killing álvaro and To?ino, and three years after killing Fran?”
Nogueira was indignant. “And what’s so impossible about that? Fran told both álvaro and you of his suspicions. Do you find it so improbable that Fran might have directly asked Santiago? Couldn’t he have said he knew Santiago was sneaking off to get it on with his dealer-hustler in the sacristy? How long do you think it would have taken Fran to work out the truth? Fran was liberal and open by nature. His drug habit was already the cross he had to bear, and most likely he was pressing Santiago to confess. Santiago has been two-faced all his life, with lots of practice in lying. He lied to his own family, married a woman he couldn’t love, had to take drugs to get it up to screw prostitutes to pretend to be a macho. He dragged his brother off to a whorehouse and forced him to go upstairs with a girl so nobody would suspect that he himself was gay. He must have been terrified someone might discover that. After the lengths he’d gone trying to conceal it, don’t you think he’d do anything at all to keep up appearances? I told you from the beginning, these people are made of different stuff. For centuries this family has done whatever they damn well fucking please. And they still do, because for them only one thing counts: keeping their name unblemished, above anything else and at any price.”
Manuel recalled Lucas’s account of the pact with the devil the old marquis had proposed to álvaro. Might he have offered the same deal to his second son? Indulge in your vice with discretion so that nobody learns of it, and marry a girl from a good family.
No, there was something in Santiago that seemed more like natural subjugation. Manuel saw it in that servile attitude the others described. He’d behaved like his father’s lapdog, cowering, forever humiliated by the marquis, always trying to please but never succeeding. Could the trauma of that night in the seminary have been the reason he’d never come to terms with himself? Sexual abuses suffered in childhood disrupt the development of sexual identity and can leave an individual confused. It was clear Santiago had done all he could to make sure no one found out about his relationship with To?ino. But was that due to his own refusal to accept who he was, or had it been because of his ambition to have a role in his family? He’d seen from what happened to álvaro that he’d face rejection if his own true nature came to light.
Nogueira regarded Lucas, who sat with his head hanging in misery. He became suddenly aware that he’d raised his voice. In fact, he’d been shouting. Sometimes he forgot whom he was talking to. He emptied his lungs and sought to calm himself. “Well, in any case, without evidence we still have nothing. Pure hypotheses. And I doubt Santiago will confess.”
“I’m going to see him this afternoon,” Manuel declared firmly. “I’ll ask him.”
Lucas looked up in sudden alarm. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t see any better way to get answers than by asking the person principally concerned.”
Lucas appealed to the lieutenant. “Nogueira, aren’t you going to say anything?”
“First we need to go call on To?ino’s aunt. I hate to say so, but right now she’s vulnerable, and if she knows something she might talk. And as for visiting Santiago, it doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, but don’t for one minute even think about letting him know in advance.”
Nogueira’s telephone erupted in the closed confines of the vehicle.
“Hello, Ophelia,” he said, looking over at his companions with a meaningful expression. “Yes. He’s here with me . . .” He listened intently for several seconds. Then: “Terrific. I’m telling you, girl, you’re a genius!” He ended the call. “Ophelia’s hunch was right. You know we’re checking álvaro’s phone calls, and I already told you about the numbers we found there. But while we were busy analyzing the records of his second phone, we neglected the calls from his regular personal phone. The last GPS position triangulated for álvaro’s telephone was when he called you fifty-seven minutes after midnight. He did it using his car’s hands-free application, and right then he was at kilometer 37 on the highway to Lugo.”
“What’s there?”
“La Rosa. Our favorite roadhouse.”
“He called me from there?” exclaimed Manuel. He didn’t expect an answer.
“What did he tell you?” asked Nogueira.
“He said he was very tired. I remember he did sound tired. And very sad also, I don’t know. It was strange, almost as if he had a premonition he wouldn’t be returning.”
Nogueira nodded, thoughtful. “My wife tells me that everyone facing imminent death is aware of it. It doesn’t matter if it’s cancer, a heart attack, or an earthquake. Or if he’s going to get run over by a train. Laura says that they sense it a little ahead of time, their behavior changes, and they fall into a weird melancholy. A sort of acceptance of what’s coming, as if they were about to begin a trip they can’t postpone. And I guarantee you that nurses see lots of people die.”
“Your wife is right,” Lucas said. “I believe that too.”
Nogueira looked at Manuel again. “Manuel, I’m very sorry, but the really important point is that if álvaro called you from his car in that roadhouse parking lot, it was probably because he was there with Santiago. That would mean Santiago was the last person to see álvaro alive. It directly implicates Santiago as a suspect.”
“But we already asked your friend Nieves, and she said the last time Santiago was there was a week before álvaro came back to Galicia. She wouldn’t have forgotten something like that.”
“Not if they went inside. But suppose they didn’t?”
“Then what were they doing there?”
“Can you think of a better place for meeting a blackmailer than a crowded parking lot at a pickup joint out on the highway?”
“You think that’s the place they picked to hand over the money?”
“It’s a good place for it. Under surveillance but discreet at the same time, with an exit directly onto the highway and anywhere they wanted to go. I’m sure that’s the place Santiago would choose.”
Manuel heard in his mind Baby’s comment about how vigilant the Mammoth was, making sure the girls didn’t go out there for after-hours extra work, and he remembered the scrutiny the man had given him while he was waiting for Nogueira to come out. “If they were there, I have an idea who’d be sure to know.”
“The Mammoth,” Nogueira responded. He turned to Lucas. “Sorry about this, but tonight you’ll have to stay home, priest. We’re gonna go see a hooker.”
“Several hookers,” Manuel corrected him. “Plural. And I think we might go rattle Richie’s cage again. There’s something I want to ask him.”
“I can wait in the car,” Lucas replied in a dead-serious tone.
Manuel and Nogueira glanced at one another and burst out laughing. The tension that had been accumulating in the car suddenly dispersed. After a moment or two Lucas joined in. It occurred to him that the picture of the three of them laughing their heads off would probably be astonishingly similar to that of the three in tears together.
THE CROCODILE’S COLD HEART