Lucas took a look. “Ophelia.”
Nogueira looked for a place to pull off and eventually found a tourist overlook at the edge of a deep ravine, lined by the tallest eucalyptus trees Manuel had ever seen. “Sorry. I have to return this call.”
He got out and stepped away from the vehicle. From the car Lucas saw the lieutenant was surprised by what he was hearing. Nogueira was coming back to them when his phone buzzed again. He took the call. Lucas saw him stiffen visibly.
Nogueira opened the driver’s door, leaned in, and called into the backseat. “That was Ophelia, the medical examiner. Early this afternoon they found To?ino’s car along a rural road, half-hidden in the bushes. A hundred yards from there they found the boy dead and hanging from a tree. The duty officer called me as well; two days ago when I gave them a description of the car, they practically told me to get lost. Now the captain wants to talk to me.”
Manuel leaned forward between the front seats. “Shit, Nogueira! I hope this doesn’t make trouble for you. If it helps, I’ll say I asked you to accompany me to To?ino’s house. We never claimed to be policemen, and I’ll swear to that if they want.”
Nogueira attempted a smile without much success. He was clearly worried. “Doesn’t mean a thing. Pure routine, you’ll see. They have to ask.”
Lucas spoke up. “Did he commit suicide?”
Nogueira just looked at him. He started the engine and pulled back onto the road.
Lucas wouldn’t let it go. “You said he was hanging from a tree. Was it suicide?”
Nogueira stroked his mustache and mouth, as if holding back a reply. Instead of looking at Lucas, he kept an eye on Manuel through the rearview mirror. “Ophelia says the body’s black as pitch, but she can see he was badly beaten. His face is battered, and his clothing is the same as in the missing persons report. It looks like they beat him unconscious and then hanged him. The autopsy will provide more definitive results. She says that given the state of decomposition, he might have died the same day he disappeared.”
Manuel steadily met Nogueira’s gaze in the mirror and tried to work out the implications. “The same day álvaro was murdered. So the two have to be related.”
“Not so sure about that,” replied Nogueira. “It seems likely To?ino was painting his uncle’s office and came across Brother Ortu?o’s letter of resignation. A quick read tells him the information’s worth a nice fat payment from somebody. He figures álvaro and Santiago are probably good for three hundred thousand or more. So he calls Santiago and asks for it. He isn’t counting on the older brother’s reaction. álvaro storms into the monastery demanding an explanation from the prior. When álvaro leaves, the prior goes looking for his nephew, maybe to make him return the document but also to warn him things won’t stop there. What caught my attention was the prior’s reaction when I asked about the boy. He didn’t seem to care where the nephew was, maybe because he already knew. Don’t forget that at first he denied álvaro came to see him. And then when he was forced to admit he got the phone call, he made up that crap about a request for confession.”
“I guarantee you that was pure fiction,” Lucas interjected. “That much I know.”
“Other than that he didn’t seem too worried. Maybe because he’d already taken care of the problem. álvaro was dead. Now we know his nephew was dead as well. They probably died the same day.”
“You really think he’d go that far to keep secret something that happened thirty-two years ago?”
“You’d be surprised what people are capable of. Even to hide things far less serious. Given what Ortu?o told us, we know the prior’s a man who won’t hesitate to do anything it takes, no matter how drastic, to solve a problem. He had no scruples about disguising Verdaguer’s death as a suicide and covering up sexual abuse at the school. And we have a witness who says he threatened his nephew. Ortu?o just said the man was there yesterday trying to persuade him to keep quiet; how much farther do you think he’d go to protect the institution and his own reputation? Would he beat his nephew to death and string him up on a tree? Or ram álvaro’s car off the road? For all we know, he might be capable of anything. We already know that on at least one occasion he disguised a homicide by pretending it was suicide by hanging . . . but . . .”
“But he’s seventy years old, maybe a bit more,” offered Lucas. “He has some sort of bone disease, arthritis or arthrosis, he’s relatively short, and he doesn’t weigh much more than 150 pounds.”
“You’re right about that, I agree,” Nogueira said. “It’s hard for me to imagine him stabbing álvaro in a struggle. And though his nephew wasn’t much more robust and was fairly wasted by drugs, I can’t imagine the prior beating the boy senseless and still having enough strength to haul him up a tree. That would require determination and the physical strength to lift a grown man completely off the ground.”
Manuel watched Nogueira through the rearview mirror. He knew the lieutenant was avoiding his eyes.
“In any case we’re just guessing. Without proof we’re just making up stories,” Nogueira concluded. “We’ll have to wait for the results of To?ino’s autopsy. And see if the lab can confirm that the paint scrapes on álvaro’s car came from the seminary vehicle.”
“You left out one possibility,” Manuel challenged him. “Maybe the prior had nothing to do with it. Maybe álvaro managed to catch up with To?ino.”
Mei Liu’s report of those words was beginning to weigh heavily on his mind: He knows you killed him.
“Stop it, Manuel!” The desperation in Lucas’s voice kept Manuel from spilling the rest, but didn’t keep him from imagining the possible sequence of events. The unspoken possibility was becoming more and more real to him.
Manuel glanced up, and this time found Nogueira studying him. He knew the lieutenant was thinking the same thing. So he continued. “Suppose the two of them fought. álvaro was a good deal stronger than the boy and could have beaten him and hanged him from the tree. Ophelia said that the wound in álvaro’s side resulted in slow internal hemorrhaging, and he would’ve had time to get back to his car and drive away.” He heard again the Raven’s ominous words.
“I’m astonished you can entertain such a thought,” Lucas said hotly, turning to look at him.
“So am I, if we’re talking about the man I knew. But it turns out that wasn’t the real álvaro, and I tell you frankly I don’t know what his double would have been capable of.”
“I refuse to believe it!” Lucas exclaimed fiercely.
“Remember what his mother told me,” Manuel responded. “I for one haven’t been able to forget it.”
Lucas dismissed it. “I already told you she said it only to hurt you. She was deliberately planting doubts in your mind. Obviously you’ve allowed them to flourish.”
Nogueira spoke up. “What did she say?”
“That his capacity for cruelty made him the perfect successor to his father. They were sure he’d do a good job; he’d delivered magnificently for them before. They’d always counted on him, because he’d done it before.”
“And you think she was referring to what happened at the seminary?”