Manuel stared at the floor, his expression a mixture of dismay and frustration.
“We’ve taken the liberty of reserving a room for you at a hotel in town. I imagine you’ve not yet had time to make arrangements. I’ve summoned all the family members to my office tomorrow morning for the reading of the document. We’ll send a car to pick you up at the hotel. The funeral and burial will be the day after tomorrow in the family plot on the As Grileiras estate.”
Manuel’s head was about to explode.
“What do you mean—a funeral? Who decided that? Nobody consulted me. I ought to have something to say about it, shouldn’t I?” His voice had risen, and he didn’t care whether the security guard could hear it.
“This is the family tradition—” Doval began to explain.
“I don’t give a goddamn for their traditions. Who do they think they are? I’m his husband!”
“Se?or Ortigosa—” Gri?án interrupted him. “Manuel—” he said in a conciliatory tone. “This is one of his instructions. álvaro wanted to be buried in the family cemetery.”
The swinging doors that had been closed behind Gri?án and his assistant were suddenly flung open. The men turned to look. Two police officers appeared. This time both were men, one hardly out of his teens, the other well into his fifties. The young man was very slim; the older could have been a caricature of the stereotypical backwoods cop. He was scarcely five feet tall, probably a holdover from the days when the height standards hadn’t been rigorously enforced. Manuel thought incongruously that the prominent potbelly stuffed into the perfectly ironed uniform would be a distinct disadvantage to someone presenting himself today for the challenging entrance exam for the úbeda Police Academy. To make things worse, the man’s mustache was mostly gray, matching his temples and the sideburns so meticulously shaped, probably with a straight razor, by a barber who obviously hadn’t updated his tonsorial techniques in an extremely long time.
“Police Lieutenant Nogueira.” The officer looked scornfully at the expensively tailored suits of Doval and Gri?án. “Relatives of álvaro Mu?iz de Dávila?” It sounded more like a declaration than a question.
“We are his legal representatives,” Gri?án stated, extending a hand that the officer ignored. “Manuel Ortigosa,” he said, gesturing with the same hand, “is his husband.”
The officer made no effort to conceal his surprise. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “The husband of . . . ?” He looked at the young trooper, who was diligently pretending to be searching his notebook for a blank page. Nogueira was clearly disgusted to see the younger man offering him no support. This did nothing to alter his own attitude. “As if I didn’t have enough to deal with already,” he said under his breath.
Manuel gave him a defiant look. “You have a problem with it?”
The officer didn’t reply but looked again to the young trooper for support. This time the younger man just shrugged, apparently not understanding why this should be an issue.
“Take it easy,” the lieutenant snapped. “The only one around here with problems is the guy on the slab in the morgue.”
The attorneys responded with disgusted looks. Manuel’s gaze burned into the policeman.
“I have to ask you some questions.”
Manuel waited to hear them.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“The day before yesterday in the late afternoon when he left on a trip. We live in Madrid.”
“In Madrid,” the lieutenant repeated, looking over to make sure the young trooper was taking notes. “When was the last contact you had with him?”
“Last night at about one. He phoned me, and we talked for ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Last night. Did he tell you where he was or where he was going?”
Manuel took his time before answering. “No. I didn’t even know he was here. He was supposed to be in Barcelona for a meeting with a client. He is . . . was in public relations, and he’d developed a campaign for a hotel chain, and—”
“With a client.”
The man’s tiresome tic of repeating some of his words came across as arrogant and downright insulting, although Manuel knew his own reaction was less because of the man’s arrogant tone than because the policeman was forcing him to confirm in so many words that he’d been lied to.
“What did you discuss? Do you remember what he said?”
“Nothing in particular. He told me he was very tired and was looking forward to getting back home.”
“Did he sound particularly tense, irritated, angry?”
“No, just tired.”
“Did he say he’d had an argument with someone?”
“No.”
“Your . . . husband, did he have any enemies? Anybody have it in for him?”
Manuel turned in dismay to the attorneys before he replied. “No. I don’t know. Not that I know of.” He felt fatigue overpowering him. “What’s the point of all these questions?”
“Not that he knows of,” parroted the lieutenant.
“You’re not going to tell me anything? Why are you asking about enemies? Perhaps you think that . . . ?”
“Is there anyone who can confirm you were in Madrid last night at one in the morning?”
“I already told you I lived with álvaro and I understood he was in Barcelona. We lived by ourselves, and I didn’t go out yesterday, I wasn’t with anyone, so no, I can’t prove I was in Madrid, but your colleagues can tell you I was there this morning when they came to deliver the news, but—what’s this all about?”
“Nowadays we can determine the exact location of a telephone when it connects with another, to within a couple hundred feet. Did you know that?”
“That’s all very good to hear, but I don’t see what you’re driving at. Can you tell me what’s going on? Your colleagues told me that álvaro fell asleep at the wheel, he ran off a straight stretch of road, and no other vehicles were involved.” He was starting to sound desperate. The refusal of this man to answer him with anything but more questions was driving him crazy.
“How do you make a living?”
“I’m a writer,” he said dully.
The officer tilted his head to one side and smiled slightly. “A lovely hobby. And how do you make a living?”
“I just told you. I’m a writer,” he insisted, losing his patience. This guy was an idiot.
“Writer,” he repeated. “What color is your car, se?or?”
“It’s a blue BMW. Are you implying there’s something suspicious about the death of my husband?”
The officer waited to answer until the youngster had finished writing the latest note.
“When there’s a traffic fatality, the judge authorizes holding the body in the same locality, and there’s no autopsy unless there’s sufficient reason to suspect foul play. The rear part of the car of your . . . husband,” he said with a sigh, “has a recent minor dent with signs of paint from a second vehicle, and—”
The doors swung open behind him, and another uniformed officer interrupted.
“What do you think you’re doing, Nogueira?”
The others stiffened to attention.
“Captain, Manuel Ortigosa is a relative of the deceased and has just arrived from Madrid. I was taking his statement.”
The new arrival stepped past the others and gave Manuel a firm handshake. “Se?or Ortigosa, I’m the chief of police. I’m sorry for your loss and any annoyance Lieutenant Nogueira may have caused you in his eagerness.” He accompanied the apology with a swift look of reproach. “As our colleagues informed you, there is no doubt whatsoever the death of your husband was an accident. No other vehicle was involved.”
Though the broad-shouldered figure of the senior officer partly blocked his view, Manuel did see a grimace of annoyance behind Nogueira’s mustache.
“But the lieutenant just said they wouldn’t have brought him here if there hadn’t been something suspicious about it, like the rear of the car.”
“The lieutenant leaped to conclusions. Wrong conclusions.” This time the captain didn’t deign even to look at his subordinate. “He was brought here out of deference to his position and to the family, who are very well known and respected throughout the region.”